Wives’ revolt

Initially expectation was that the misguided uprising would be nipped in the bud as quickly as it reared its head. Sadly that was not to be, the insurrection that began as a mere skirmish  of a few religious zealots has grown into a full blown guerrilla war with the insurgents freely picking and choosing where […]

Initially expectation was that the misguided uprising would be nipped in the bud as quickly as it reared its head. Sadly that was not to be, the insurrection that began as a mere skirmish  of a few religious zealots has grown into a full blown guerrilla war with the insurgents freely picking and choosing where to bomb and doing so with brutal and reckless abandon.  
True, the military had gained an upper hand at the initial stage, so much that it was even accused of using excessive force to quell the disquiet on both suspected insurgents and civilians.  But this momentum has given way to something not altogether salutary, because while the insurgents have continued to wreak havoc across a large swathe of the Northeast—sacking towns and villages at will and sometimes making violent forays into other major cities far away from the North-East, the military, on the other hand has had to play catch up, as it were, doing its best to match the fire power of the insurgents in order to contain them as best it can. It has been hard going for it.
Before now, all the insurgents were doing was to attack and retreat with no intent at setting up base at a specific place.  At present however, reports are that the insurgents are gaining a foothold, they have seized two major towns of Gwoza and Damboa in Borno State and have continued to abduct and kill people with ghoulish barbarism and daring the government to do its damndest. The abduction of the Chibok girls which entered the 132nd day today and has remained unresolved is a case in point.
 These successes of insurgents should bother every patriot, which probably must have made the Council of State, at one of its recent meetings to urge President Goodluck Jonathan to force a resolution of the intractable internecine war going on in the name of insurgency.  Similar sentiments have also come from no less a personality than General (RTD) T.Y. Danjuma while visiting the president at Aso Rock recently. Surely, considering their vantage positions as former leaders these gentlemen must have been privy to information not generally available to the general public, still one unmistakable notion they seek to convey to the president is that the insurgency has gone on for far too long.
In a sense, what they were saying is that the insurgency phenomenon is no longer an irritation of an ephemeral nature, but one growing into a dominant national preoccupation sapping the energy and vigour that should have been channelled toward positive aspirations. And any indication that the whole sad episode would soon be brought to an end has continued to be a mirage. The major reason for this is the frightening unprecedented development in the military itself threatening to undermine not only the age -old ethos of order, and obedience to command, upon which the essence of the institution is based but also its resolve and capability to decisively bring any matter to a close. These developments include the incident of wives of soldiers taking it upon themselves to protest the deployment of their husbands to a fighting campaign. As if that was not bad enough, on 18th August 2014 troops from the Maimalari Barracks flatly defied orders to go and fight in Gwoza and Damboa, citing poor and inadequate weapons as their reasons for refusal to fight. Earlier, on May 14th soldiers stationed at Giwa barracks had put up similar behaviour.
The revolts of soldiers’ wives could be explained away as the natural emotional demonstration of those whose husbands are about to go to war and wish to have a say on the matter, particularly as it concerns the appropriateness of the weapons available for the campaign.  They do not want their husbands to become cannon fodders to be wasted in the face of “superior” fire power of the insurgents. It should be assumed that the wives must have learnt their lessons by the warning of Lieutenant-General Kenneth Minimah to dislodge them from the barracks if they continued with their protests.  True, life and death matter is not to be toyed with at all. Still they should not have let the fact escaped them that by choosing to join the military their husbands signed to pledge their lives to safeguarding the Nigerian entity therefore should not have refused to fight. The women should have looked for a better avenue to ventilate their fears to the military authorities and hope for the best. The women’s legitimate and genuine fears of the future without husbands with the implication of a bleak future for their children lend their cause genuineness and support. The issue however is that they chose a wrong approach to address their concern.
It is entirely a different matter when it comes to refusal of soldiers to obey orders.
The soldiers should have known that having enlisted in the military a day would come when duty would call. Nigeria has been lucky in not having to bother about external aggression, this is so because it is about the most dominant entity in West Africa and Africa. People of other countries, particularly those surrounding it harbour anti Nigerian attitude, sometimes loathing our presence in their countries but there is nothing they can do about it, because they know they do not have the resources to mount a credible attack on Nigeria. It would be suicidal if they do.  So apart from the civil war and deployment of soldiers to peace-keeping duties in near and distant lands, for which it has become renown, for our soldiers it has been mostly peacetime, except when sporadic outbreak of violence such as the current insurrection and the now pacified militancy in the Niger Delta break out when they have to be called upon to do their duty.
It is therefore improper to now refuse the call of duty after one has duly signed up for it. It smacks not only of cowardice but also of the soldiers being besotted by the good life, as opposed to the hard one demanded by their profession and the consequence is well known–the court martial and the death sentence.
However, the military authorities should urgently look into the grave matter of inadequate weapons for those sent to do battle. Paucity of fighting equipment and other weaponry have become the Achilles Heels of the campaign against insurgency, a surprising outcome considering that defence and security take the lion share of the yearly budget. Disobeying command no doubt amounts to flouting a strict injunction of the military, but what is the point in sending men and women lacking in adequate weapons to confront an enemy armed to the teeth.
If the goal is to defeat extremism and intolerance then it would demand both the optimum motivation of officers and men of the fighting forces and the provision of appropriate and adequate arms and ammunition to discharge their duty of dislodging the insurgents.