Magnus Eze, Enugu
Former Delta State Military Administrator, Air Commodore Luke Ochulor (rtd) is not given to frivolous talks. The elder statesman from Imo State in this interview spoke on insecurity, border closure, presidency and happenings in his home state; Imo, among other issues.
Nigeria’s biggest challenge today is insecurity. How do you think the Federal Government can end Boko Haram?
In 1981, we fought and defeated Maitesine riot in Kano; during the time of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. He gave us an executive order to protect the territory of Nigeria. We went to Kano and defeated Maitesine rioters. That time, we were just fresh from the civil war. Therefore, we were still thinking of the integrity, territorial space of Nigeria. The Air Force had the responsibility to provide interdictions and close air support to help the Nigerian Army to win all land battles. Now, look at Boko Haram, it started like child’s play. It has more or less devastated the whole Northeast. Look at the economic implications. Look at the way they have been operating over the years. It now looks normal for people to go killing innocent citizens. There is no way Boko Haram would have succeeded in Nigeria without Nigerians being involved in it. I can defend this statement anywhere because Boko Haram members are not fighting from the atmosphere or from the space. They are fighting from within Nigeria. So, how do they get into Nigeria? How do they sleep? How do they get their weapons? How do they get food supply, which has sustained them over 10 years? Who provides them information? These are questions we should have been asking right from the time of former President Goodluck Jonathan. Now, Boko Haram has become a hydra-headed situation.
Don’t you think that the Boko Haram’s resilience questions the strength or strategy of the Nigerian military?
Actually, it doesn’t have to do with the military, although I’m not trying to hold brief for the military. The Nigerian military over the years have metamorphosed into a modern military. The Nigerian military is trained to fight what we call conventional wars. We have our principles of operation. The issue is this – there’s a difference between fighting a conventional war and a gorilla war. Since the advent of Boko Haram, our system of operation has to evolve. Again, it also depends on how you access the cooperation of the international community because most of these countries have their own plans. Most of the time, they will tell you that you’re using a sledge hammer to kill a fly even when they have not been able to assess the strength of Boko Haram. The second reason is that there must be something definitely wrong with the areas, which Boko Haram is controlling. For example, how much cooperation do we get from Niger, Chad and Cameroon? These countries have their internal problems; they even have political problems. They cannot afford to commit their resources in even defending the territorial borders of Nigeria. All they do is that sometimes, they sympathise with us, that they will try to create a way to assist us fight Boko Haram. At the moment, we’ve been told that ISIS is already supporting Boko Haram; ISWAP is also supporting them. And there are so many other insecurity elements there that are ready to cash in on the situation. Libya is already a jungle since nobody is in charge there. You can gather your own forces, travel across the desert and attack anybody you like. And when such elements enter Nigeria, who they kill is none of their business because they don’t have relatives here. That is the problem; but the question is: How can the Nigerian Army as you asked, overcome Boko Haram? Nigerian military can overcome Boko Haram, but for that to happen, something must be done about their main base, which is Sambisa Forest or bush. If I were to handle the situation, I tell you something, first of all, I will declare the place a war zone and wipe out the whole area, which is regarded as their base. At the moment Nigeria has not been able to declare that area as a war zone. When Nigeria declares it a war zone, the people there who are innocent or law abiding Nigerian citizens will be asked to leave the place completely. Then when you are sure the innocent citizens have evacuated, you then come down heavily on the whole area. Make sure that even the trees and grasses in every nook and cranny of Sambisa Forest will feel the impact of the consistent bombing until you are sure that nothing again is seen standing in Sambisa Forest; meaning that there will be no hiding place for the insurgents. Then even if it means decimating the place, then later we can go back and stay there and reconstruct. But the problem we have is that we are fighting there with our people inside there. How can you fight like that? When you sight a pocket of the Boko Haram elements, you send the Air Force jet fighter to go and deal with them, but by the time you finish in a particular area, you notice they have regrouped and relocated to another axis. However, I must mention that in fighting Biafra, the Nigerian Army knew the location of Biafra and the Biafra Army knew the location of Nigeria because they were into conventional warfare. But in the case of Boko Haram, you may not easily locate them as they are not into conventional war.
So, do you support the recent closure of the nation’s borders?
I support it because it will reduce influx of criminal elements through such borders. All those bandits need to come into Nigeria is just to learn few Hausa language, then mention the name of one small local government in the North as your local government of origin and you are already a Nigerian. Some of the movements are made at night.
What about getting the country back; what do you think should be done?
Until such a time when we treat a Nigerian not because of where he comes from, not because of ethnicity or religion, but we treat him as a Nigerian citizen; until such a time, Nigeria will never get it right. And from what I see, not much is being done to achieve this. Let me tell you something; after the civil war, when we met with our colleagues in Lagos, we regretted ever allowing the civil war; we regretted it so much. How could we come out after the military training together and singing the national anthem, then we came out and started shooting at each other? This was the question we asked ourselves on both sides of the war. Now, when you look at the rate Nigeria is losing her citizens in the hands of lawless people – herdsmen, insurgents, rioters, protesters, armed bandits, and things like that, in fact, it’s a pity. But the word pity is not strong enough – I think the proper word to use in describing the insecurity in Nigeria is unbelievable! So, when I look at the situation, I ask myself, what has happened to prevent Nigeria from protecting itself? What has happened? When you look at it from the North, South, Middle Belt, West, East, everywhere seems very unsafe and insecure. I begin to wonder what really has gone wrong in this country such that citizens are being kidnapped for ransom, killed, raped, and all that. In an interview I granted the press after the death of the then Libyan leader, Col Muammar Ghaddafi; I had said that with the death of Ghaddafi, there was going to be security problems across the Sahara. Ghaddafi acted as a buffer between the North Africa and those of us South of the equator; that the lions and the tigers he was caging would be let loose. Is it not what happened? You come to Nigeria; for some time, the land borders were closed by the Federal Government; some Nigerians started shouting about food and high cost of food as if they have never eaten food before. Why are we always worried about food? We can grow our food, if we are disciplined. Now, goods are smuggled into Nigeria and in the same way people are flooding into the country from Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Chad, Niger and all those places when there is desertification. They all find a way of trooping into Nigeria and these movements are done in the night. All they need is just a stammering of Hausa language and then they bribe our security men with N1000. The immigrant is already in the country. We have to find a way of protecting Nigeria – land, sea and air. We have to find a way of protecting Nigerians from being humiliated either here in our country or outside its shores. If we don’t protect our citizens, the outside world will not respect and treat them like human beings. Therefore, our borders must be protected either from the activities of smugglers or terrorists.
Are you satisfied with the current democracy in Nigeria?
When you look at the present structure of government in the country – especially at the state level – you notice that some governors in the last dispensation had done well, but there are some that didn’t do well, but the majority of them became emperors in their states and that’s not good for our democracy. Many of them felt that they could do things as they like. It may not be necessary to start giving examples or mentioning their names because the newspapers are awash with the information already. Even those governors that were busy doing all manners of undemocratic things were, however, surprised that nobody called them to order. A situation where a governor operates like an emperor and nobody calls him to order; they said wait there’s immunity; wait until the regime is over; may be, you wait four or eight years. However, within this period, a man’s destiny has been changed because one mistake a governor makes somewhere will affect somebody somewhere. So, I’m not satisfied with the present Nigeria democracy. Those who think they are satisfied, I wish them well, but we should wait until we shut down because there’s a way you talk and they say ah, you don’t like my government. But that’s not the case. Take, for instance, the president may have very good plans for the country and he may say this is the way I want everything to run. But the question is at the implementation stage, what do people do? And that is where the problem lies. I know for sure that no president or Head of State would like to see that a governor working under his watch has turned the state he is governing into a private enterprise, like a market where he buys and sells. A situation in which, a governor cancels what we have in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and does what he likes, won’t augur well for the nation’s democracy. He doesn’t want to have the local government system. He doesn’t want to have the civil service functioning; the civil service which is the strength of any government all over the world. The basic necessity or basic standard in the civil service must be there because it’s the civil service that knows how a government runs. The civil service interprets the policies made by the government. A situation where the governor drives away all the civil servants into the village and turns the village into what is known as Community Government Centre (CGC), sends people to go there and start rubbing shoulders with the traditional rulers; meanwhile the traditional rulers are reduced to what I may call errand boys, then he sends people who are well educated to go and act as secretaries in the villages, while local governments are completely destroyed because there’s nothing like local government system again in Imo State, yet such people (governors) were allowed to go on; nobody was bold enough to call them to order because of immunity in the constitution, is so depressing and disappointing. Another perspective to the issue is this: I wish Nigeria could have a government where the Head of State or President, does not belong to any of the political parties. If Nigeria is able to achieve that, then our government would have survived and would have been doing well. If the Head of State’s survival is not based on the power of a political party, then he (the president) will be able to say his mind and do what he wants to do. In such situation, there will be no question of giving appointment to Mr. X simply because he belongs to a political party. And then there’ll be no sense in saying I’m going to run an inclusive government and yet you find out that all those who are holding appointments in the government are those who voted for him or those who were singing his praise or those who belong to his political party. Unless Nigeria will change then whoever is going to be their president should not come from any political party, our democracy will die a natural death.
You seem to be so bothered about Nigeria’s image abroad?
Things have changed a great deal. I’m really afraid of the situation in Nigeria now because things have changed. Those years when there was value system, Nigeria was a well-respected country. We had our global recognition. Our foreign policy was very strong. Sometimes if you travelled outside the shores of the country, you felt proud to introduce yourself as a Nigerian. But today, often when you now travel outside, you find it difficult to introduce yourself as a Nigerian. The recent actions of certain people, which have made Nigerians object of suspicion in the eyes of the rest of the world, do not help matters. It doesn’t encourage some of us who value our reputation to travel to countries where we would be treated disrespectfully because we are Nigerians. Not long ago, I was invited to America but I refused to honour the invitation. Certain people said others are rushing to America why don’t you want to go? I said that I used to go to America at my beck and call when Nigeria had respect, when I was respected any time I showed my passport for security screening, but now I don’t want to be treated like a scorn bag. Until we recover from this present status of being seen as or suspected to be criminals, then I will remain here in Nigeria.