Re: The Chief of Defence as Chief of Complaints, Lamentations
By MUKHTAR Ya’u Madobi
I read, with interest, a piece written by a respected columnist and activist, Owei Lakemfa dated November 27, 2023 in the Vanguard (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/11/the-chief-of-defence-as-chief-of-complaints-lamentations-by-owei-lakemfa/amp/) in which he directly or indirectly castigated the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa, for raising fundamental issues about obvious challenges confronting the military in the fight against troublemakers.
Mr Lakemfa claimed that while Nigeria is at war, General Musa, who is expected to lead the armed forces to war and win, has become the Chief of Complaints and Lamentations of the Federal Republic.
The grouse of Lakemfa was over comments made by the CDS when he led other service chiefs to brief the House of Representatives on the country’s security situation.
The writer quoted copiously the remarks of the military chief who had told the parliament that when he was the Theatre Commander in the North-East, troops captured scores of Boko Haram elements who were kept for years because the military had no power to prosecute.
With this sincere outburst of the CDS, the writer stated that “the Constitution frowns at indefinite detention without trial. So, how can the military keep suspects for five-six years without trial? What happens if they are innocent? What did the military as an institution do to ensure justice?”
With this pretence from someone who should know better, one wonders if Mr Lakemfa still lives in Nigeria and/or follows events and developments in the country. This is because all sincere Nigerians know and understand the institutional challenge in the judiciary and the slow pace of the justice system in the country. This stark reality which has caused distrust in the system has forced some Nigerians to learn to take laws into their hands, yet a member of the country’s intelligentsia is feigning ignorance about the situation.
The CDS was not the first Nigerian to draw attention to this issue. Even former Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a learned silk, who should know, had complained about the slow pace of justice in the country.
The writer quoted General Musa’s lamentation against the judiciary. According to him, General had told legislators that: “Another aspect of the judiciary is that you use all your effort to make an arrest, you hand them over, and before you enter your vehicle, the man has been released on bail. Now you have risked yourself in doing that, by the time he is released, he goes to tell the people about the person who arrested him. Now your family members or you are at risk.”
Responding to the above quote, Lakemfa observed that the lamentation was hyperbolic. He wrote that, “if in truth suspects are granted bail, then they must have been charged with bailable offences. Suspects cannot be denied bail because the army thinks otherwise. I am not sure the families of soldiers or those who arrest suspects are put at risk. If they are, what that calls for is a victim protection programme, not blaming the judiciary for admitting suspects on bail.”
Lakemfa then turned to where the Military Chief narrated how through investigation they were able to find out how prison officials are conniving with inmates to finance terrorism operations outside the prison walls. He quoted the CDS as saying: “In the North-East, when we were debriefing some of the arrested Boko Haram members, they were telling us how, from the prison, they could plan operations out in the field.
“They pass funds across. They use some of the warders there. We are not saying all of them are corrupt. They use their accounts and the deal is that anyone whose account is used shares it 50/50. Those are the challenges.”
According to Lakemfa, if these allegations by the CDS were true, then the public should have witnessed the prosecution of these accomplices. He went a mile to even accuse the General for not presenting any evidence to back up his claims against the prison officials.
Before picking up his pen to cast aspersions on the presentation of the CDS, Mr Lakemfa should have waited to see the reaction of authorities to the revelation. The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has in reaction to the disclosure ordered an investigation of intelligence reports on misconduct by some of the Correctional Service officials in order to fish out the culprits. This means that very soon, the public will witness their trial and justice will be done.
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On the evidence that Mr Lakemfa was asking the CDS to provide, the floor of the House of Representatives where that conversation took place is not a court of law where evidences are produced to convince the judges to do the needful. Secondly, Mr Lakemfa of all people ought to know that not all pieces of information are meant for public consumption. Sensitive information and actionable intelligence are meant to be discussed discreetly among the security stakeholders as divulging them to the public may be injurious to the war against terrorism.
Also, Mr Lakemfa quoted the CDS on procurement of military hardware where he lamented that Nigeria is not able to produce the kind of weapons and equipment needed by the military to confront the security challenges troubling the nation. Lakemfa wondered why the Nigerian Military could not produce the desired weapons despite the fact that it has been running the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria, DICON, for 59 years , i.e., since 1964. However, by not acknowledging the fact that his observation is a historic, institutional problem, he was, in my opinion, unfair to the CDS.
For the records, General Musa has never been the Head of State or the President of Nigeria and he is yet to mark one year in office as CDS. So, certain deep-rooted problems are beyond him and it will take him to rally the cooperation of other stakeholders in the Nigerian project to fix the issues.
Mr Lakemfa concurred with the CDS’ submission when he mentioned that security is more than just security in terms of safety of lives and property. There are also food security, health security, social security, energy security, education security, transport security which are very important for us to achieve the peace we cherish. As brilliantly espoused by General Musa, there is no alternative to good governance.
He however argued that the Defence Chief was not quite clear when he said: “The security forces can only produce 30 per cent. We can only provide an enabling environment. If other aspects are not addressed, it is a problem.”
There is no doubting the fact that security is not a military issue alone. The matter of security should be considered as everybody’s business. The government, military and civilians should be responsible for everybody’s safety. This tradition is being practiced globally even among the developed nations of the world.
Regarding the issue of inter-agency rivalry among Nigeria’s security institutions as raised by Lakemfa, ever since Gen Musa assumed office as CDS, he has been working tirelessly towards building and enhancing healthy and robust collaboration between military and sister security agencies in Nigeria.
Gen Musa recently paid a courtesy visit to the Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, Dr. Abubakar Ahmed Audi, at his office in Abuja. He solicited healthy inter-agency relationship and synergy between military and paramilitary institutions in order to defeat the hydra-headed problem of insecurity confronting our country.
While talking about the invasion of Adamawa State Police Command headquarters and killing of an inspector by Army personnel, CDS Musa announced that the soldiers who were involved would be facing a standing court-martial.
However, one major aspect of Gen Musa’s revelations that Lakemfa’s article failed to spotlight was the issue of insecurity in Southeast that is being fuelled by a Finland-based Biafran agitator, Simon Ekpa. We can assume that Lakemfa chose to ignore this issue based on reasons best known to him.
Gen Musa reiterated that Simon Ekpa remained a key issue that must be looked into by the federal government, adding that he has become a menace to the country.
It is against this background that the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, threw its weight behind Gen Musa and urged the Federal Government to take advantage of Nigeria’s diplomatic ties with Finland to get Ekpa arrested so that he can face justice for the crimes he has been orchestrating in the southeast region.
Recently, Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State, revealed how the ongoing sustained onslaught by the military on terrorists has led to the voluntary surrender of over 160,000 Boko Haram terrorists in the North-East.
For the records, majority of these repentant Boko Haram fighters laid down their weapons and surrendered to the government during the time of Gen Musa as the Theatre Commander in the North-East.
His giant strides across Nigeria’s security landscape have been more obvious since he assumed the position of CDS as he has continued to reposition and empower the military to defeat all adversaries through his visionary and strategic leadership style.
MUKHTAR is the author of “National Security Strategies: A Young Writer’s Perspectives,” and is a staff writer with the Emergency Digest.
