Nation
Army General raises alarm over fight against insecurity
“We must treat all violent groups as terrorists” – Gen. Nicholas
The resurgence of insecurity in the country, particularly in Borno and Plateau states, seems to be attracting more attention, especially from the armed forces. Recently, Gov. Babagana Zulum of Borno state alerted the nation on the growing threat from Boko Haram, which is eroding all the previous gains made by the army. The situation in Borno state was compounded by the massacres in Plateau State, which have consumed over 100 lives in the past weeks.
However, this situation of insecurity across the country has been attributed to government handling of those responsible for the violence. Also, the government must address the confusion, and even contradiction, in the constitution, which makes governors as chief security office of the state but has no power and control of the security agencies in their domains.
Speaking on Arise television programme, Prime Time, Maj. Gen. Rogers Nicholas, (retd), former Operations Commander of both Operation Safe Heaven in Jos, Plateau State, and Operation Lafya Dole in the North East, in an explosive interview, said that the success recorded under his command in Jos derived from the strategy deployed to ensure regular dialogue among the different groups, as well as access to local intelligence to fret out information that enabled them to act proactively to stem violent attacks.
He said that the basic factor sustaining the reign of terror across the country is the way these are treated. “We must tell ourselves the stark truth; government is not looking at this issue the way it is. The classification of herdsmen, bandits, kidnappers is wrong, these people are terrorists, and we must see them as such. How can we call a person carrying AK-47 riffle and slaughtering people without provocation herdsmen? That’s a major source of problem, because it constrains security agencies from applying the required force in dealing with them.”
According to him, it is demoralizing for the armed forces to put their lives on the line to arrest some of these people and hand them over to the intelligence agencies, only to discover that such people are allowed to go free for whatever reasons. “When we call some people herdsmen, they cannot be treated as terrorists, when they involved in terrorists activities. What’s that? They go back to continue their violent occupation. This is not right and we must change it or the problem will never go away.”
Gen. Nicholas stressed the fact that insurgency is returning to North East because of change in strategy and tactics. He said that during his time in command, he adopted an offensive approach. “We can’t fight terrorists defensively as a normal military would do; don’t give them room and time to regroup and plan attacks, take it to them, which will keep them busy running around to avoid attack rather than attacking.”
He also noted that the military is overwhelmed, because they’re involved in operations in 36 states and the FCT, and therefore, cannot muster enough boots on ground to match the terrorists. “What is the number of the armed forces to be engaged in every part of Nigeria? This country is huge and it is impossible to meet the present security challenge in the country with the size of the armed forces. There’s need to adopt technology to complement the manpower. They need proper equipment. Even the remuneration is nothing to talk about. A
soldiers receives N50000 and you expect him to die to protect the nation, when senators are getting N30m; that’s not realistic.”
General Nicholas noted that insurgency in the North East has lasted so long that we would be lying to ourselves to believe that the sponsors are not known. “It is not possible that those in government don’t know the people sponsoring these terrorists; we arrest them and hand them over for debriefing. What is the result of such interrogations? There’s so much in the problem that we are not getting right; people must be prosecuted and made to face the consequences of their actions. We can’t be treating those destroying our country and killing people as normal people,” he said.