Frustration and desperation have led a commanding officer leading
troops in Nigeria’s volatile region to write a letter to President
Goodluck Jonathan and Senate President, David Mark, outlining several
troubles confronted by soldiers combating Boko Haram insurgents in that
troubled portion of the nation. The letter which was leaked to
SaharaReporters, is dated November 13th.
According to the
high-ranking officer, whose name was understandably left out of the
piece, corruption, maladministration, lack of resources and troops’
motivation have militated against a successful campaign to end Boko
Haram’s deadly reign of terror in the northeast. In the lengthy
complaint titled: “Please Mr President save the Military and Nigeria
from collapsing,” the officer feared that his intervention would
endanger his life, but warned that both the ArmyNigerian and the entire
country will crumble under the insurgency if the nation’s leadership
failed to act on the issues raised in his letter.
While reminding
the powers-that-be that “no country without a strong army will survive,”
the officer was gravely categorical that “If all issues raised in this
letter are not urgently addressed, the Nigerian Army will soon be
history and by implication there will be no country called Nigeria.” You can now read the full text of the officer’s letter addressed to President Goodluck Jonathan below:
PLEASE MR PRESIDENT SAVE THE MILITARY AND NIGERIA FROM COLLAPSING
1.
Sir, I am constrain to write you this letter which I consider it a
matter of more than great importance for me to inform you and put to
record issues that are happening in the North East (Operation Zaman
Lafiya). I choose this medium to write you this open letter because I
have written similar letter but no action was taking which I believe
some forces have blocked it are now after my life. Sir I have served in 7
Division as staff officer and presently I am the commanding officer of
103Bn in the field. My combined wealth of experience as a staff officer
and now commanding officer are the disturbing fact that necessitated me
to write you this letter. While as a staff officer, I was among those
who believed that the commanders in the field are not doing well. But
presently, as a commander in the field, I found out that it is not the
fault of any commander that the defeat of the so called BOKO HARAM (BH)
has not been achieved.
2. First and foremost sir, the Nigerian Army is poorly equipped in
the North East, if all the battalions are well-equipped as required; it
will not take the Army more than two weeks to flush out the BH.
Presently there are four units in my location here in KONDUGA including
21 Armoured Brigade HQ. If all the units are provided with all their
requirements, we can advance and flush out BH out of North East. Mr.
President sir, the Nigerian Army is well-trained and capable of
defending our nation. It has demonstrated the capacity to even
successfully enforce peace in other nations. Why not in our own country
Nigeria?
3. The fact about NE operation is that we are poorly
equipped, understaffed, high corruption from Army Headquarters down to
battalion level. Commanders see it as opportunity to make money. My
predecessor has complained of the same problem. Instead of ASA
addressing the issue raised by him, the army authorities decided to
Court Martialled him. All the units in NE are understaffed, but on
payroll their strength are complete just to collect more allowances than
what each unit is supposed to. The commanders see it as a personal
money making venture rather than taking care of men and equipment. This
ugly trend led to loss of many officers and soldiers and thereby having
adverse effect on the moral (sic) of troops. Majority of soldiers in the
operation area wear mufti (civil cloths) under their military uniforms
in case there is an attack and the troops cannot withstand the BH, they
found it easy to disguise as civilians to enable them escape. This is
not the traditional practice in the NA. Though it is lack of adequate
equipment and poor administration from the higher authority that
resulted to this ugly trend by our troops
4. Sir, another bad and
unprofessional act is that soldiers don’t take to orders from their
superior officers because they have lost confidence/trust from them. The
case of former General Officer Commanding 7 Division Major General A.
Mohammed is enough evidence to show that all is not well in the Nigerian
Army. It will interest you to note that worse cases has been recorded
before that of the former GOC and more are still happening, but nobody
is ready to investigate the root cause of problems facing the troops in
the field.
5.
This brings me to a recent occurrence which is my main purpose of
writing this letter. As I mentioned earlier, due to the failure of the
authority to address issues that I made mentioned, when a unit is
attacked and overran by the BH not because the soldiers are unable to
fight, but lack of weapons, ammunitions and communications equipment,
the soldiers on many occasions will ran away, and a commander cannot
stand and fight alone as a result of this. Presently seventy percent of
commanders in the NE are facing Court Martial due to the reasons
mentioned. We the commanding officers are very worried over this
development. This is because we many soon find our self as victims of
this maladministration from our higher authorities.
6. There is no
sincerity in this operation; this is because the present acting GOC has
never visited any location outside Maiduguri town not to talk of
principal staff officers in Army Headquarters or even the COAS. But we
keep on hearing all sorts of lies that Generals are leading the fight
against BH. These are facts that can be confirmed from officers and
soldiers in this operation including those in the 7 Division
Headquarters. The GOC is so afraid that even with the Divisional
Headquarters; he doesn’t go out and always locked himself inside his
office. Infact it is a common knowledge among officers and soldiers in
this operation that the acting GOC is here to make his money and earn
his promotion to the detriment of the operation. The completion of his
mansion at No 8 Gwamna Road in Kaduna which the GOC ignorantly disclosed
that when he completed it, will be among the best houses in Kaduna, has
turned to be a subject of discussion among troops.
7. The former
21 Armored Brigade commander is facing Court Martial today because the
acting GOC does not want to see him and his garrision in Maiduguri town
simply because of the huge monthly allocations from the Borno State
government to the brigade garrision. He wanted to be collecting his
money by using 7 Div Garrison, but in reality 7 Div Garrision does not
have troops to claim such money. It is worthy to note that the GOC
received 33,000litres of AGO and PMS each, 600 bags of rice monthly from
Borno State government. All these items are diverted for his personal
use.
8. Recently the newly appointed 21 Brigade commander lead 3
units to flush out the BH, that operation was successful, almost 300 BH
were killed, weapons and vehicles were recovered from them, in the
process the troops exhausted their ammunitions from the Div, the GOC
simply replied that there was no ammunition this made all the troops to
withdraw back to KONDUGA.
9. Presently more than 3000 officers and
soldiers are either killed in action, deserted, captured as POW or on
AWOL. But due to lack of proper administration the army directed that
their salary should be stopped. This affect the families of those that
are either genuinely killed in action or captured as Prisoners of War.
It has also affected some of the troops that are still participating in
this operation.
10. Mr. President sir, if all issues raised in this
letter are not urgently address, the Nigerian Army will soon be history
and by implication there will be no country called Nigeria. No country
without strong army will survive. I decided to write you this letter
because the life of officers and soldiers trusted in my care are no
longer save. My life is also at the stake because the NA authority as
usual will say I have communicated directly to you as the Commander in
Chief of the Armed Forces and may sanction me. As a citizen of this
country and a commander in the operational area, with all the points I
have mentioned in this letter, it is clearly that the Military
authorities have failed the country, as such they should be held liable
for their misdeeds. I have consulted seasonal constitutional lawyers if
writing you this letter will be an offence, but they said it is my
constitutional right to inform the C in C about what is happening in the
NE and within the military which if not address will affect the
survival of Nigeria.
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