Nigerian armed forces should be worried

The Nigerian armed forces should be worried, deeply so. A lot is happening around the armed forces at the moment that are quite disconcerting, more so for a professional sector in which cohesion and discipline are non-negotiable requirements for meaningful existence.

Of course, worrying is not coterminous with the nature and calling of men of steel. Even at that, there has risen ample ground for the Nigerian armed forces to worry about themselves and for the larger society to worry about its prime servicemen.

Remarkably, the primary reasons the leadership of the armed forces should be worried at the moment are not exactly the same reason for the worries of the larger society about its servicemen. The problems are many.

The report last week that over 200 soldiers applied to the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Faruk Yahaya, to voluntarily retire from service should, on its own, be a major source of concern. Over 200 men quitting at a point when the armed forces are unarguably stretched over the challenges of combating insurgency, cannot but be a source of concern. With a total personnel figure of 215,000, according to Global Firepower, of which 135,000 are active servicemen and 80,000 are from the paramilitary end, the exit of 200 soldiers in one fell swoop is unarguably substantial.

The military high command has said, however, that there is nothing extraordinary about the retirement and the number of personnel involved. As is commonly said in official Nigerian parlance, the leadership of the armed forces assures that they are on top of the situation. Let it be.

Reports last week quoted the spokesman of the armed forces, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu, as confirming that indeed there was request by over 200 soldiers to quit service. Most of the soldiers involved are said to be junior personnel mostly from the line of action in the North East theatre of the war against insurgency. The army insists there is nothing strange about the request for retirement and that the development has got nothing to do with drop in the morale of the soldiers or corruption in the management of the campaign or poor welfare of the soldiers, as was reported

Nwachukwu was remarkably vehement in his statement, which repudiated any suggestion that the men of the Nigerian armed forces are not doing fine. In a very strongly worded statement, the spokesman contended that  the “allegation that soldiers of the Nigerian Army (NA) are proceeding on voluntary retirement due to alleged corruption, poor service condition and low morale as recently reported by some media outfits in the social media is nothing but a concoction of the imagination of the unrepentant enemies of the nation and mischief-makers and should be outrightly discountenanced by the public.”

He continued, “Perhaps these impenitent mischief-makers need to be schooled to understand that the Nigerian Army is not a conscript army and that recruitment into the Nigerian Army is voluntary with extant policy on discharge and retirement of soldiers and officers, respectively, like other organizations.”

Of course, the military high command knows better. We believe them. In any case, you don’t argue with a man with a gun, legitimate or otherwise.

What is not routine or indeed welcome, however, is the high number of losses suffered intermittently these days by Nigerian servicemen in the various attacks and ambushes mounted by insurgents and terrorists, especially in the northern zones of the country. These attacks obviously aim to diminish Nigeria’s fighting capability. The daring expedition by the terrorists, including the audacious storming of the Nigerian Defence Academy in Kaduna and the recent ambush and killing of elite soldiers of the Brigade of Guards in Abuja, no doubt, render the Nigerian armed forces an extremely dangerous place to serve in.

Yet, for all this rather perilous situation, a different source of worry about the Nigerian armed forces, distinct from the mortal danger of attacks by terrorists, has been on the increase. The escalation of acts of criminality and gross indiscipline associated with soldiers on duty present a new face of danger, which must be contained before it destroys the military from within. The military high command may have a duty to defend the integrity of its men, but it should be mindful of the danger inherent in a situation where the society develops a high level of distrust of soldiers. That will be dangerous for all sides.

A few recent incidents should be instructive here. In early June 2022, the prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Bishop Samuel Kanu Uche was kidnapped alongside two of his priests on the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway, around Umunneochi, in Abia State. The prelate was released eventually after a handsome ransom of N100 million was paid. He alleged subsequently that soldiers whose checkpoints were close to the scene of the kidnap were complicit in the criminality. He did not mince words. Expectedly, the Nigerian Army denied the involvement of its men in such criminality. The fact that such an act as kidnapping of innocent citizens by heavily armed criminals happens frequently within environments manned by soldiers with their checkpoints stationed there makes efforts to exculpate them difficult to accept.

Barely last week, in Kaduna again, a family of 10 was kidnapped. A ransom of N6 million was negotiated and paid. In the course of delivering the ransom, two of the kidnappers were apprehended. Lo and behold, they confessed that they were soldiers. The criminals, whose pathetic photographs in military uniform were published by the media, offered the unfortunate unsolicited information that many soldiers are now involved in the business of kidnapping for the primary purpose of making money.

Late last week, too, the police arrested two soldiers for the murder of Sheik Goni Gashua in Yobe State. The circumstances of the incident remain hazy, even as the army leadership has commenced investigation into the incident, with a promise to bring perpetrators of the act to account for their crime.

From Plateau State, an account by one Jerry Datu of a massive cold-blooded ethnic-cleansing attack on five villages in the state recently went viral. The man at the centre of the narrative named names and made serious allegations of complicity of soldiers in the chilly acts of coordinated murder.

Nigerian armed forces have established a reasonably good profile in professionalism, on international assignments and at home. It used to be that citizens had a high level of confidence when soldiers appeared at a scene of dispute. That cannot be said of the men of all security agencies. Sadly now, soldiers are getting involved in acts that undermine the standing of the Nigerian armed forces, especially the Nigerian Army.

It has become important and urgent for the military high command to take conscious and drastic steps to enforce discipline and rein in their men, before the line between illegitimate armed gangs and legitimate armed servicemen gets blurred. Nigeria does not have to lose everything at the same time.