FROM: ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, DESMOND MGBOH, KANO AND NOAH EBIJE, KADUNA
President Muhammadu Buhari has been warned to be wary of Nigerians, including their foreign collaborators, who appear to have turned Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram, into a cesspool, from where they lined their pockets, in the guise of dialogue.
The warning was given by two soldiers currently on the battle field in one of the states in the North-East against the background of the latest move by the Federal Government to go into another round of dialogue with the Boko Haram sect.
This is even as other Nigerians want President Muhammadu Buhari to be a lot cautious in going into dialogue with the sect, saying that only genuine leaders of the group should be contacted.
Between 2011 and May 2015, former President Goodluck Jonathan made series of attempts to achieve a peace deal with the sect, including the one purportedly brokered by a neighboring country’s head of government. They were futile.
Sunday Sun gathered authoritatively that most of the peace deals were mere scams, perpetrated most times by some Nigerians who claim to have links with the sect.
It was further gathered that virtually all those who served in all Jonathan’s peace deal committees and who claim to have links with Boko Haram had at one point or the other also swindled one of the governors from the North- East region over the same issue. “In fact, one of them promised the governor that they were going to bring Shekau to him. They requested the governor to pay for accommodation at Transcorp Hilton. The man obliged them but only for them to keep dribbling him (governor.)
“After three days, when they asked the governor to come to the hotel, ostensibly to meet Abubakar Shekau, leader of the sect, the governor went as directed. “But to the governor’s disappointment, he met a lady who claimed to have links with Boko Haram and from there, another round of tales began. It was at that point that the governor called the meeting off,” one of those close to the governor said.
The source further said “this is why when you called me over the fresh move to dialogue, I was reluctant to speak, except when you promised that my identity would be concealed.
“I hope President Buhari would not allow himself to be swindled the way the former president was swindled over this whole matter, because we have just succeeded in making billionaires in this country, in the name of fighting Boko Haram.
“By my own estimation, under Jonathan alone, that is from 2011 to May 2015, we have spent over $25 billion US dollars on security. Yet, you heard what our service chiefs said. The former Chief of Defense Staff, Badeh, particularly said the last time any equipment was bought for the army was in 2006. So, that means the whole money, running into several trillions of Naira, was spent on dialogue? This, to me is ridiculous,” the source added. The soldiers on their own part are of the view that a holistic probe into the activities of some of their superior officers, especially the Commanders, who served in Maiduguri, before May 2015, would help resolve the reason some soldiers were reluctant in rendering their best in the campaign against Boko Haram. They further claimed in an interview with Sunday Sun that only their current General Officer Commanding, GOC, is worthy of being called a Commander, adding that unlike what they were used to in the past, when they would send them on operation without the right weapons and any moral support, the current GOC, Major General Lamidi Adeosun, leads most of the operations.
“If he tells us, proceed, I will join you, sometimes, he will even arrive there before us,” the soldiers, further added.
Specifically, the soldiers want the Presidency to probe the tenure of one their commanders, nicknamed after a dreaded Ebola disease. He was said to have been so named because of his murderous exploits while in Maiduguri.
This is even as they advocated a complete reshuffling of the middle level officers in Maiduguri with a view to sustaining the tempo of the ongoing onslaught against the terrorists.
To the soldiers, it would amount to cowardice for the Federal Government “at this critical stage of the fight,” to go into negation with Boko Haram. Instead, the soldiers are calling on the insurgents to come forward and surrender, if indeed they were interested in peace. Speaking on the issue of dialogue with the group, Anthony Sani, immediate past National Publicity Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, told Sunday Sun that dialogue was necessary. He was however quick to warn too, that dialogue should only go on, if only the genuine leadership of the group was contacted.
“The strategy of ‘stick and carrot’ in dealing with Boko Haram presupposes that there could be dialogue when the need arises. People need to know that as long as the hard stance of military might cannot completely rein in activities of the insurgents, dialogue becomes very necessary, especially if it can put an end to further killings by the insurgents.
“And so if dialogue with authentic Boko Haram leadership can put an end to further killings by the sect, so be it”, he said adding “those opposed to dialogue on account that it amounts to tacit endorsement of terrorism need to be reminded of the fact that when the international community invites warring parties to Geneva for peace talks, it’s not to endorse killings in the war but to stop further killings”.to further killings by the insurgents.
Speaking in the same vein, Captain Sagir Mohammed, a retired Military Intelligence Officer, also pressed for dialogue with the dreaded sect. But like Anthony Sani, he also cautioned that government must endeavor to deal with genuine leaders of the sect to avoid dealing with fakes again. This is even as he also gave insights as to how dialogue, alongside the continuation of military campaigns could hasten the resolution of the crisis.
He also advised against giving a timeline to end insurgency in the country. “I think I will encourage the Federal Government to note certain things. Allowing people, especially people in high offices, to be talking loosely on time and things like that is not in the best interest of the whole effort. You cannot put a time frame on fighting insurgency.
No way! Look at Cambodia, Columbia, Vietnam and all those places, it took more than 20 years – some even more than 30 years fighting insurgency before they could arrest the situation. Nobody can tell you categorically the date the war will be over”.
On the issue of dialogue, he said “I have no problem with that. My best advice is to synchronize the military advances and onslaught and dialogue. If we do that, maybe, probably within the shortest possible time, it may come to an end. And mark you, the shortest possible time in military terms can be one year or more. “Dialogue has been explored in the past and it failed. There is the problem of identifying genuine leaders of the sect.
That I think is the challenge here. Unless you get the hard core leaders to agree to dialogue, you will only be busy with splinter groups while the main insurgents and insurgency remain unresolved. That was what happened in the past when they duped the Federal Government,” the former military officer, added.
In attempting to verify the defense budget in the last four years vis-à-vis the claim by Badeh, that the last time any equipment was procured for the army was in 2006, Sunday Sun came across the view expressed by a US-based Nigerian Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media, Farooq Kperogi, where he called on Nigerians to continue to ask questions on how the defense budget was executed during Jonathan’s administration.
“I had become inured to the scandal of brazen corruption in Nigeria until I watched the interview former Chief of Defense Staff, Alex Badeh granted to Channels TV on August 1. It’s the worst form of self-indictment I’ve ever seen in my life. Badeh told Channels TV that the last time the Nigerian military bought equipment was nine years ago. That is, in the twilight of Obasanjo’s second term. If I go down memory lane, I think the last time equipment was bought for the Nigerian Army was when some APCs were bought in 2006 and how many were they? They were few”, he said, pointing out that the Nigerian military use ‘the oldest fighter jets in the whole world.’
The Alpha jets that form the backbone of the military onslaught on Boko Haram, Badeh told Channels TV, were bought in 1981. “If Badeh is right (and I have no reason to think he is wrong since he was Nigeria’s most senior military officer until his sack) that basically means that, from Musa Yar’Adua’s administration when the Boko Haram menace started to the end of the Jonathan presidency when it reached a crescendo, not a single piece of equipment was purchased for the Nigerian military.
“The military depended on obsolete equipment at best and no equipment at all at worst to fight a determined and sophisticated Boko Haram. If I didn’t hear this directly from Badeh himself, I would have dismissed it as some wacky conspiracy theory. But it isn’t the revelation by itself that is scandalous, it’s the fact that the neglect of the military is coterminous with the extravagant ballooning of the Nigeria’s military budget.
“In 2010, for instance, government budgeted N836, 016,773,836 (which translates to $5.07 billion at N165 to a dollar) for the military. In 2011 the amount ballooned to N1, 080,894,801,178 ($6.55 billion). In 2012 it increased to N1, 154,857,159,110.00 ($6.99 billion). It increased even more in 2013 to N1, 178,832,576,309 ($7.14 billion). “Last year, it was scaled down a bit to N1, 174,897,477,334.00 ($7.12 billion). That’s trillions of Naira gone down the begrimed pockets of corrupt government officials in the guise of fighting Boko Haram! My head spun as I looked at the figures. Now, Badeh says in spite of these trillions that the Jonathan government budgeted for the military, ‘the last time any piece of equipment was bought for the Nigerian army was in 2006!’
“So what happened to the trillions of Naira? Every Nigerian should be asking this question until we get answers.
After a whopping $32.88 billion military budget to fight Boko Haram in the last five years, we don’t have a single piece of military equipment to show for it. This simply boggles the mind. It’s beyond scandalous; it’s unacceptably and insanely criminal,” Professor, Kperogi, added.