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| Chief of Nigerian army staff Lt.General Kenneth Minimah. AFP |
The Chief of Army Staff, General Kenneth Tobias Minimah in an interview with Vanguard responds to issues concerning the army’s preparations for the 2015 general elections, the recent pounding of the Islamist Boko Haram terrorist group, the court martial of some officers and men among others.
The COAS spoke following a visit by a delegation of statesmen led by former head of state, General Abdusalami Abubakar who came on the aegis of the National Peace Committee.
HOW would you describe this unprecedented visit of such revered Nigerians?
We are filled with humility that the committee has been watching and observing what we have been doing. I think it is a highly pleasant commendation just as it is a surprise to us, that they want to come and thank us and commend us for what we have done. . We are humbled that we are commended by a committee of this level; I think it is also a reflection of the feeling of the senior citizens and a good percentage of the elites in the country, that we did our best in the election.
People went to court saying military should not be used to do this and that, but at the end of the day, a winner emerged and the army was not in any way blacklisted for any acts of impropriety. Troops had to be deployed to ensure that there is security and there is no violence; that a good atmosphere is provided for the ordinary citizen to come out and vote without fear for his life without fear for intimidation, without fear of his environment and family which we did and I’m sure everybody came out and voted well.
Democratic process
Most of us here today are products of this same democracy, I have always believed and with my colleagues too, that the Nigerian military is better off, under a democratic government because our needs are more and enormously addressed than in a military government. In that direction we believe strongly that our military would be able to sustain more in observance of its constitutional roles in a democratic process.
Would you say your soldiers did well or were there any hitches? I think if you ask me to score myself, I will score myself 100 percent because for our state of political development, we cannot expect to see our elections hold as it is done in the most advanced nations. We are still bogged down by little prejudices of inter party wrangling where we always have issues about thuggery, violence, ballot box snatching and confusion around the arena of polling units and so forth which has to do with our level of political development. For now I don’t think we can say that this will stop easily. I believe the more the democratic process and electioneering process strengthens and develops, then people will learn over time that thuggery cannot change results; and if you go hire a thug he will tell you why he would not be available. But for now there are several reasons why he would be available.
So what did the soldiers do right on election deployment?
Honestly I will speak from my own perspective which is that we have a responsibility to ensure peace, no violence. We have the responsibility to ensure that the country is stable though others have their interpretations. From our own perspective, what we went out for, we achieved. Because we deployed in the possible flash points, flash areas where violence always erupt, where violence starts, where people converge to hatch ideas order than positive feelings. We were deployed all over those places, drawing from the experience of the post election violence of 2011 where those unfortunate skirmishes emerged from.
We deployed in all those areas, and hooligans, vandals and thugs did not have freedom of action, so everybody is in retrospect believing that it worked. Of course there will be people who for whatever reason will never accept defeat and would never agree they lost, they would keep shouting either wolf or foul or whatever, that they have lost. But majority of law abiding citizen believe that the deployment of soldiers calmed everywhere, and enabled them to come out and they voted and there was no violence.
The North East was the excuse or reason for shifting of the election from February to March. What miracle did the army use to secure it for election in six weeks?
I’m sure you know that before the postponement, the atmosphere in the Northeast was still charged with the activities and violence of the Boko Haram sect. They still had a handful of local governments across the three states, and inclusive of the fourth state, Gombe State. They had also threatened that they would disrupt elections and the elections will not hold. There are also those who had fears that the army or the Nigerian military did not have visible capacity, to doing much between the time frame of reducing the menace and invincibility of the terrorists.
Anyone could have as well believed it that it was not going to be possible. Alas today the reality on ground has vindicated the armed forces of Nigeria because so much has been done that as at today we are moving already into Sambisa forest and hopefully very, very soon the military action will be rested in the Northeast.
At the last Council of State meeting before the shift, most of the speakers disagreed and wondered what could be done by the military if in the last five years they couldn’t do anything. Is it a miracle or how is it that they would achieve this? Of course I convinced them that it was very much achievable, more so that our neighbours, who had been lukewarm, all of a sudden decided to join the battle.
They realized in their own right that if Nigeria eventually defeats this terrorism, they (terrorists) will empty into their own territories if they do not join the war. Of course Chad was suffering economic blockade and had to join the war for economic reasons to reopen the routes vis a vis Maiduguri, Malam Fatori, Pulka, from Cameroon side to Chad was blocked by these elements.
The Nigerian side was blocked by them and as far as much of their goods and services were coming from Cameron and Nigeria, they had no choice but to join the war. Niger also saw the genuine reason to join in the war because they knew their country was like a traffic for both Boko Haram the arms and ammunition, and sometimes for recruitment of individuals who they used as war machines and so forth and indoctrinate them.
Boko Haram in Cameroon
They too decided to join the war, because they saw it lately that we were going to turn this thing and if we turned it, that these elements would run into their countries. Prior to this time, these countries had always been sanctuaries to Boko Haram terrorists; they moved in freely and came out freely. Cameroon did not show much enthusiasm, not until they moved in en-mass into Cameroon and started causing destruction, killing, kidnapping and so forth; they now realized they also had to fight the Boko Haram terrorists.
I tried to explain it to that august body that with our contiguous neighbours showing greater enthusiasm to participating in the war, that the end is near, because all we needed now is to push them up. They cannot run into any of those countries; once they all block their borders, we are good to go and of course it was reluctantly agreed but today we are witnesses to what has become of it. So it’s a feat that was never thought of but we have achieved it.
How do you react to the allegation that the six weeks emergency operation in the Northeast was politically motivated and that Nigerian troops were reluctant to take over territories captured by foreign troops?
Who will say his or her mother’s soup, is not sweet; everybody eulogizes his own bearing, his own person or his community. I am sorry to say, it is the Nigerian media that fail to eulogize the Nigerian armed forces but I will not speak on that. Let me rather address the one I know. You see it is plebeian, it is plebeian fury.
It is common knowledge that the Nigerian army had been demanding equipment from the government; it is common knowledge too that part of the teething problems of the war against the insurgency has been requisite modern equipment for the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian armed forces.
Common knowledge
It is common knowledge too, the equipment the Nigerian army had, were old, aging, obsolete equipment and that we were doing local repairs to maintaining them. It is common knowledge too that Nigerian troops were running from battle. It is also common knowledge that the government was doing everything it could to buy equipment for the army.
At one point this equipment came in, and with my personal effort of ensuring that officers and soldiers were court-martialed and dismissed for running in the face of adversaries; for abandoning the equipment we had and running away and so forth, the psyche of the Nigerian soldier changed. The equipment that arrived changed the battle dynamics; changed the battle platform, everything reversed.
The terrorists started running, and we changed the battle, that is what happened. So I will say the personality of the Chief of Army staff; utility of the equipment that arrived; changing the dynamics; and changing the commitment of the individual soldiers, that is what did. So for the man who does not understand, let him have his rights to free speech, he can interpret it any way he wishes, but for you who knows, you know that certainly no body was keeping war, to see his soldiers dying and losing colleagues everyday because he hopes he was going to win at the end. What if victory does not come at the end?
Any regrets convening the court martial?
One million times, I will do it again. Mind you, the courts are still on.
In spite of the public outcry?
Is it the public that is fighting the battle? Is it not the public now that is saying that why did they not do this thing earlier; why are they doing it now? The public has its say, but war has to be fought and in fighting war, there must be sanctions for people who breach the process of war or for people who ran away from battle.
Now, where do you draw the balance between what you just said that soldiers ran away from battle because there were no equipment?
Okay, what you did not know, is that the battle had been turned before the equipment arrived; because the average officer realized that now, if he runs, he would be court martialed.
File photo strategizing: The Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Kenneth Minima (left); his Air Force counterpart, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu (middle) and General Officer Commanding 3rd Division, Nigerian Army, Maj. Gen John Zaruwa, aboard a Nigerian Air Force plane strategising with the aid of maps in the ongoing counter-terrorist operations in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, during a visit to the area.
The soldier knew that if he runs away he will be dismissed, so everybody was prepared to stand and fight and die. Because if you run back there is nothing to gain. And because they stopped running, stood and fought, the Boko Haram was surprised, he turned and ran and started saying, these people (soldiers) are not Nigerians; because before when they come and we fired….everybody runs away.
Now people were standing to fight back, and in the sustained fire fight of two hours or three hours they said no, we don’t understand these people and they (Boko Haram) now ran away; that’s how it started. In Konduga I, Konduga II, Konduga III attacks, we held our ground.
When that fellow, the other Mr Shekau; I don’t know the number he is now, was killed, it was the old equipment we used and it was the soldiers themselves that said no way we are not running anywhere because when you run back, that ‘madman’ (Minimah) is waiting for you.
He will court martial you, he will dismiss you, he will jail you; so they remain there and fought; and that was when the ‘ice’ broke that this people (Boko Haram) are not invincible. Since then the thing picked up before the equipment arrived just six weeks ago.
Captured territories
It is the soldier that fights not the equipment. If I had set up the court martial as soon as I came on board, we wouldn’t have lost all those territories; because at one point they would have realized it that they had to stand and fight.
How can it become fashionable that soldiers are running, and while they are running, soldiers are telling civilians in Mubi, Boko Haram are coming; Boko Haram are coming; they are running, and now you want me to listen to some persons who ask why didn’t we do it earlier.
With all this successes in routing the terrorists, is there any lead to the rescue of the captured Chibok girls?
By the time we capture Sambisa forest completely, we will be able to find out where the Chibok girls are, because as it is now, anybody you ask in the captured territories so far, they say they did not see them. That they are not there.
When we capture Sambisa forest we will be able to know where they are and government will take it up from there and in the next six months I’m sure that Nigerians would have forgotten that Boko Haram existed and terrorized a region, I believe so.
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