This is the concluding part of the Article: ‘Security in Nigeria and How to Defeat Boko Haram’ which has been published in the last two weeks. This, third in the series is the concluding part where I made suggestions and realistic solution to achieve a peaceful community in the trouble prone areas in Nigeria and others.
The Military Solution has to be decisive and ruthless.
However, before we launch the offensive to eradicate the terrorists, we must ensure that some certain measures are put in place.
- Lack of synergy between the Armed Forces, particularly between the army and the Air Force. From the information I gathered, there is lack of co- operation between the army and the Air Force. So, at critical times when the army on ground radioed for air support, the air officers failed to turn up. Apparently without air support before ground troops move in will be catastrophic for the Army because air assault on the enemy is one of the most important strategies of winning battles. Without air support, the casualties on the federal troops will be very high particularly as they will have to move in to unknown territories. Even a layman knows that close quarters fight and house to house fight with the terrorists could prove too much fatal to our troops. During the Gulf war, General Norman Shwarzkopf started his campaign against the Iraqi Army with heavy air bombardment to decapitate the enemy and neutralize their power including their radar before moving the ground troops. Within days, the Iraqi troops surrendered en masse. It was a powerful strategy.
Nigeria powerfully controls the Air, Boko Haram has not yet acquired aircraft to challenge us in the air. We must take this advantage and use it well to destroy them before the enemy acquires aircraft (s).
- Adequate weapons. I have been advised by some officers in the Army that some of our weapons are old and obsolete! According to my sources, some of the weapons acquired by the last regime were the one that was used in the World War II when the enemies are using sophisticated weapons supplied by ISIS. The soldiers on ground have complained of inadequate weapons to fight, I maintain that our T 55 tank is old, the Iraqi used the tanks against the British in Basra during the Gulf war, whereas the British used modern tanks and in a swift victory all the Russian made T55 were destroyed. Colonel Tim Collins of the British Army did not hesitate to drop the British Assault Rifle AS 80 in the Gulf war when he noted that it was not functioning properly and jamming in the desert. Boko Haram has even acquired similar tanks and captured some of our T55 and so it is even but for us to win the war we must fight them with superior weapons. We need to acquire modern tanks and weapons to prosecute the war. There are modern tanks like K2 Black Panther Battle Tank, Challenger 2 Battle Tank Merkava Battle Tank etc. We must not deceive ourselves to think the war with Boko Haram is internal as they are being supported by ISIS.
Intelligence gathering and logistics are vital to a successful prosecution of war. It appeared that our Army current intelligence gathering is very poor and ineffective, else the kind of surprise attack to our army post in Temele should not have happened. We are to surprise the enemy and not the other way round.
- Morale of the soldiers is very important to a successful campaign. The morale is a bit low at the time. They complained of not receiving their allowance on time. Not only that, the life insurance package must be increased in order to give their best with the hope that even if they die in action, their family will be taken care of.
The real plan to rout the enemies. Enveloping the enemy as in the Battle of Cannae is what Nigeria need at this time. This was a battle of the 2nd Punic war that took place on 2nd August 226 BC when the Army of Carthage under Hannibal used his small army to defeat the largest army of Roman Republic by surrounding them and decisively routed them with swift victory. Late Col. Benjamin Adekunle applied the same method with his 3rd Marine Commando to capture Port Harcourt within 30 days and 480 km journey in one of the best tactical moves of the whole Nigerian/Biafran war. The battle of Zama fought in 202 BC is another strategic example where smaller forces defeated bigger forces by trapping the enemy inside and attacked them from the rear. Boko Haram are concentrated in Zambisa forest where they have been embedded for sometimes, with the support of the Air force, heavy bombardment will largely reduce their fighting power and we can move the queens of the battle to finish the attack.
We can still apply the same method of enveloping to destroy Boko Haram completely and it has to be ruthless. This is war.
In year 2000, the British Army with even smaller force attacked and rescued hostages from the West Side Boys of Sierra Leone in a decisive victory that completely neutralized and destroyed the rebels known as West Side Boys. Why is Boko Haram defying the great Nigerian Army other than lack of willingness and desire in the path of the Federal Government and Boko Haram sympathizers in politics and in the Army? The Army should launch a covert operations to identify the insiders and the traitors and promptly have them arrested. In my submission, three months is enough to decapitate Boko Haram and secure Zambisa forest. The Army should envelope the Zambisa forest.
The greatest solution is to rid the Nigerian Armed Forces of political influence. Since the military incursion into politics, professional decisions and operations of the Armed Forces have been saturated with unhealthy and unnecessary political mafiarism. We must be blunt to acknowledge this and determined to rid the Forces of political influence. Though, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, himself a retired General and a former Head of State, who benefited from the politics of the Forces attempted this by sacking all high ranking officers who had had political appointments after he was sworn in as civilian president in 1999. However, this option seems not the best, as I suggest total professionalism of the Armed Forces. Let us remove God-fatherism from the Armed Forces, more training, let merit counts be focus more on strategies which wins war better these days than just swooping on wars. If we can do this objectively through a number of years, when full professionalism returns, it will help other valid suggestions listed above.
- Niyi Aborisade is the Worldwide President, National Movement For Positive Change (NMPC) and writes from the United Kingdom.
