A Brigadier, A Colonel? Two Losses Too Many

The country may be losing the war on terror. Or, at least, the security apparatus is going soft as the terrorists get emboldened by the day. Ordinarily, this ought to give the nation a genuine cause for concern. But that is not happening because those in command and control perceive what is going on as a chess game.

Consider this, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu claims that the terrorists are our brothers so we cannot just be killing them. The Chief of Defence, Lieutenant General Olufemi Oluyede on his part, sees them as prodigal children that must be tolerated and given a second chance.

In circumstances,where there is no death recorded, there might have been an inclination to be sympathetic with the nefarious activities of those non-state actors terrorising the entire nation. But these merchants of death are willfully killing and maiming with impunity as if to dare the will of the security agencies.

We pursue this line of argument because in less than one week, two senior military officers, Brigadier General Oseini Braimoh and Colonel Isya Mohammed were killed by the terrorists’ improvised explosive devices (IEDs).In the case of Col Mohammed six soldiers died with him.

We are by no means trying to devalue the life of any soldier, no matter his or her rank. Our point is that first, their death and the circumstance that led to it is needless, and second, the military high command owes the dead and, indeed the living a duty to be concerned when a soldier falls in battle. It may be convenient to suggest that death is part of the risk element embedded in the document of enlistment signed by any soldier. That does not mean they should be exposed to it as a consequence of the system’s inefficiencies.

In the past, these terrorists who killed soldiers had been ‘deradicalised’ and allegedly integrated into the military, a tendency that leaves the dead soldiers, especially their loved ones, with the impression that their relations might have died in vain.

Ribadu argued that the terrorists are ‘our brothers’, so they should be wooed even when they prove by their actions that they do not deserve mercy.

In standard military protocol, soldiers do not take kindly to their members being killed, in this instance, by criminals. They make it a duty to discourage those murderers from carrying out such dastardly acts again.

It is in this light that informed opinion alludes to a probable sabotage from within that led to the killing of commanders who are expected to be protected in a special way because they are targets.

The challenge now is that the war against terrorism has not only been commercialised, but it has also been politicised. It is not unlikely that pecuniary interest enmeshed in politics could have influenced the death of any commander who is principled and unyielding.

For political reasons, in particular, as 2027 approaches, politicians in positions of authority who are eyeing the votes from a particular geopolitical area are playing ostrich in the face of stomach-churning activities of criminals who are holding the nation to ransom and dare anyone to do anything about it.

As a newspaper, we are persuaded to suggest that the death of two senior officers in quick succession should anger the high command enough to do the needful to avoid a recurrence of such.

We regret that what is going on is already part of the perceived policy of mild containment, if not appeasement, no matter the extent of the provocation.

The explanations that these deaths were in ambush runs hollow in situations where the intelligence available to the soldiers is scanty, if not absent altogether. The explosives, essentially homemade devices, make the authorities’ explanation of an ambush appear amateurish, as they should have made the necessary information available to the units, stressing that they look out for such devices before the commencement of any operation. If that was provided, then it was insufficient and therefore, ineffective.

We have consistently argued on this page about the urgency of deploying technology in intelligence gathering and the desirability of bringing the locals into the loop. So far, not much seems to be going on efficiently in that direction, thereby exposing the soldiers to an avoidable risk of death.

We are compelled to cite instances where the use of ground troops in military operations is becoming anachronistic with the emergence of drones that are proving deadly and immensely effective.

We are not referring to advanced warfare in Iran and Ukraine. Our reference is to our less endowed neighbours like Mali, Burkina Faso, and others who are applying technology efficiently with optimally impressive results.

It is the opinion of this newspaper that the lives of Nigerian soldiers are not expendable while there is a deliberate effort to protect the killers in our midst by describing and treating them as our brothers and prodigal sons that need to be appeased.

It is an inexorable fact that national security comes before any other consideration. And that is why any threat to the security of any nation is coldly and dispassionately extirpated. Ribadu and General Oluyede are senior and disciplined enough to appreciate that they are not to be misunderstood as being unduly influenced or serving other interests.