Does the government understand the present security threat?

The 10^th House of Representatives resumed last week after its over one-month recess, and of course, the major issue that came for discussion was the worsening security situation in Nigeria. Borno State governor, Prof Babagana Zulum, had raised the alarm that Boko Haram was gaining ground. The Minister of Defence and the Chief of Defence had both also visited Borno State. While the National Assembly was on recess, violence broke out in Plateau State and a Boko Haram franchise called Mahmuda, emerged in Niger and Kwara States.

As it happened in previous sessions of the National Assembly, Honourable members raised issues that affected their communities. Stories of foreigners being among the terrorists, and the fact that several military establishments were attacked by the insurgents, have since emerged. As expected, the House passed some resolutions, which include convoking a security summit.

 Of course, the Minister of Defence at his press briefing responded to the strident criticism made by National Assembly members against the government and the military over their approach to the prosecution of the anti-terrorism campaign. According to the Minister of Defence, Alhaji Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, the former governor of Jigawa State, the reported use of drones by the terrorists is just a guerilla warfare aided by informants. He dismissed allegations raised by some members of the House during the debate that the terrorists were better armed than the Nigerian military.

This allegation is notnew. The criticisms levelled against the government at a time that Boko Haram was wreaking havoc centred on shortages of weapons and ammunitions. At a stage, it was even alleged that soldiers at the war front were rationing ammunitions. Of a truth, the Nigeria military has had ups and down on the challenges of equipment and ammunition. As it is generally known, the shortages were so acute that one of the former Chiefs of Army Staff literally had to go to Eastern Europe to purchase decommissioned equipment. All efforts to get ammunition and equipment for the military were frustrated by Obama’s government, egged on Nigerian Islamists who did not want President Jonathan in Power.

Political groups within Nigeria campaigned against the government effort to procure arms. Nigeria was blocked by the USA and European countries. The allegation made against the Nigeria military was that military men were abusing the rights of the people, killing innocent people and civilians. Petitioners were writing to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Even the efforts of government to procure arms from the black market were thwarted by politicians using their international connections. Those were the circumstances which surrounded the impounding of the private jet of the CAN President who had gone to South Africa to bring the arms procured from the black market to Nigeria.

But the situation changed. After the 2015 elections, President Donald J. Trump permitted the purchase of Arms from the USA. The Nigerian Air Force received 12 A-29 Super Tucano aircrafts from the United States in 2021 to aid in its fight against terrorism. The equipment and ammunition available to the Nigerian Army in 2025 are not the same as what it obtained in 2011-2015.

The oft-repeated allegation that the military is not well equipped or lacking in ammunition is not just blatantly false but now serves to discourage the military and may be a propaganda tool being used by terrorists and friends.

I do agree with the minister that “We have much more sophisticated weapons and we have much more sophisticate drones.”

The minister is also right to argue that the war and the ongoing campaign is not a conventional war. The fact is that, what is happening is what political scientists call the new war. It is an entirely new frontier of conflicts- that happens between states and individuals or groups. Information technology and globalisation have changed the conflict situation in the world. The insurgents do not wear uniform and more dangerously, the insurgents live among members of the public and recruit young and impressionable kids from communities. And perhaps, more dangerous is the fact that these groups espouse the prevailing religious and ethnic sentiments of their environments. This is why, in almost all the areas that these types of conflicts have taken roots, it becomes very difficult to distinguish fighters from members of the public. This, admittedly, is the strength of guerrilla groups.

However, it is also factual that Nigeria’s security expenditure lags far behind its security challenges. There is obviously great improvement in the provision of equipment and ammunition to the Nigerian military over the last few years, starting from the time President Goodluck Jonathan who had to look towards Eastern Europe. It is important to note that with the security challenges that Nigeria, faces, nothing less than one million military personnel would do; the current personnel size is too small for the land mass and population of Nigeria as well as the several fronts and states that Nigerian military personnel are deployed to.

One of the several topics often brought up at National Assembly debates and the media is the question of corruption: that most of the resources voted for the military gets stolen or misappropriated. No one can reasonably argue that there is no corruption, fraud, or abuse of resources within the military. Evidence for that abound. Former NSA Sambo Dasuki and several other military personnel have undergone trials for corruption.

However, even if there were no corrupt practices, the resources voted for the military and security are too little. The expenditure of Nigeria on security is on the low side.

According to the minister, the military have taken down so many ‘terrorists’ commanders and leaders and disrupting their networks’. No doubt so many terrorists’ leaders have been killed. Shekau is no more. Several others have also gone.

Very excellent indeed! But the factories producing these terrorists are working at full capacity. For everyone terrorist killed, 100 more are recruited. This is why these groups have expanded, created new franchises, and have taken more territories.

• Look at the video that went viral recently; kids less than 10 years trying to compel another kid to convert.

• Or, consider the arrest, prosecution, and acquittal of Professor Solomon Tarfa of Du Merci Orphanage in Kano and Kaduna. Orphans under his care were seized and he was charged to court and got acquitted. Yet the Kano state government has refused to release the orphans to him because according to the Kano state government, these kids, who are below the age of consent, converted to Islam while in the illegal custody of the Kano State government.

• The narration of top government officials from the period of President Muhammad Buhari  tends to encourage bandits and terrorists because they are presented very falsely as herdsmen in the Middle Belt states, but in the North West government refers to them as kidnapper, bandits, and terrorists.  Bayo Onanuga and the Chief of Army staff doubled down on this false narrative after the killings in Jos. As the government plays the “politically correct and convenient” narrative, several communities in Plateau State, Kaduna and Benue state have been taken over by these terrorists who have allegiance to the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) and made public their intentions to establish a caliphate in Nigeria
• The government, not just recently, but for a long time, while behaving like the Ostrich refuses to see the connection between the struggles of the governments in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Chad against the Jihadists, the ISWAP, Boko Haram, and other terror groups operating in Nigeria.

• Yes, defeating Boko Haram and other insurgent groups is not just about the military; the military works with civil authorities. The military usually dislodges these terrorists and civil authorities take over.

But where are the civilian security agencies- the police, civil defence, the state security department personnel who should be available to take over and dominate.

• Without dominating a pacified area bandits would regroup and go back to retake it, which appears to be the situation that we are facing now.
• This is why the increasing sacking of settlements, villages and towns, is extremely dangerous: these ungoverned territories would be used for regrouping of terrorists, training, and as staging platforms to launch attacks. This may be what we are witnessing now.

Use of Technology

The Minister in his Press conference said very correctly that the military has better equipment than the insurgents: that should be ideal.

• That would be case if the terrorists do not have foreign partners-who have access to sophisticated weaponry. A member of the House said in the debate that the minister was responding to, that some foreign fighters were sighted among Boko Haram or ISWAP. The reference to foreign fighters is not new. It regularly comes. Even the former government made the same allegation. And the military is now making the same allegation!

These foreign fighters usually come with military expertise and experience. Arguably, some of them could be from the ranks of ISIS dislodged by the USA, Israel;

The minister may need to check the technology of Aerial unmanned vehicles- popularly called drones: Any drone that can that can be flown is a verifiable deadly weapon capable of carrying payloads.

• Ukraine and Russia used such toy like drones at the start of the conflict.

What is the solution or way out?

• Narratives of communal clash, farmers/herders’ conflicts, and poor youths without jobsare misleading.
• These insurgent groups have their eyes on Abuja. Abubakar Shekau, when he started said the aim of the group was to establish a Muslim Caliphate over Nigeria. He announced then that he would attack Christians and non-believers to achieve that and he did carry out the threat; he also promised to attack Muslims who did not agree or cooperate with him. He carried out the same threat.
• Recently, the re-energized ISWAP has also announced its intention to create a Caliphate over Nigeria. Refusing to believe that these groups mean what they say is the biggest security threat to Nigeria.