by Eze Eluchie
Corruption
is a debilitating disease which when it manifests in any entity serves to
demoralize, de-motivate and deviate from purpose. When this societal scourge
overwhelms sacred institutions of State, it ultimately serves to destroy.
For decades,
the Nigerian state has ostensibly devoted a substantial part of its national
budgets on the Defense sector. Despite the fact that the country has not been
involved in any wars for over 40 years, series of military dictators, and some
‘democratically elected’ ones, who ruled the country, lavishly helped
themselves to the national purse under the guise of expending incredulous sums
to equip and procure ‘state-of-the-art’ military hardware for the armed forces
and keep our soldiers ready to defend the country’s ‘territorial integrity’. In
some years, an astonishing one quarter of the nation’s budget was devoted to
the Defense sector!
Nigerians
were led to believe, by their (mostly Military) rulers, that the country, on
account of its ‘military might’ and ‘concocted population figures’ was the
‘giant of Africa’. This phrase was often, embarrassingly, repeated even when
reality was pointing in the other direction.
The robust engagement of our soldiers in several multi-national
peacekeeping missions served to create the illusion amongst some Nigerians that
in deed their military was as purported. Most had not realized that the core
equipment requirements, save for personnel, were usually provided for such
peacekeeping operations by multinational institutions such as the United
Nations Organizations and some countries who benevolently offered to provide
such equipments.
Present
efforts at confronting and curtailing the extremist Islamist terror elements in
our northeast region, primarily a domestic concern, has thus proved to be the first
real opportunity Nigerians, and indeed the international community, have had to
assess the capabilities of our armed forces. Thus far, the outcome has been
disgracefully shocking. Rather than having the best equipped fighting force in
the sub-region, we have situations where our soldiers have to repeatedly make
‘tactical withdrawals’ into neighboring Cameroun, in their efforts to flee from
rag-tag band of terrorists; Rather than use air power to decimate terrorists at
their camps, our compatriots in the northeast regions are forced to scammer
into forests to avoid long convoys of marauding terrorists who operate for
endless hours, raping, killing and looting at will; Rather than pursue
terrorists out of Nigeria, we have the pathetic scenario in which the armies of
our neighboring countries pursue terrorists back into Nigeria with no one to available
or willing to do the needful.
As a result
of our gigantean military and defense budgets and the high level of corruption
in our defense sector (a scourge which permeates our polity), Nigeria has ended
up having some of the richest retired soldiers in the world! Some of our
ex-Generals are Billionaires whose spuriously sourced wealth can only be
compared to that of drug barons. Upon retirement, several of these ex-soldiers,
buoyed by the wealth they amassed in office, quickly buy their way into
elective public offices.
Military
Dictators and their soldier-cronies who reaped bountifully from their misrule
of the Nigerian contraption have consistently regaled us with their willingness
to get back into uniform to fight for the preservation and continued existence
of the Nigerian contraption. Some of these characters include, but is by no
means restricted to the following - Ex-Heads of State: Olusegun Obasanjo, Mohammadu
Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalam Abubakar, former Minister of Defense, Theophilus
Danjuma and the current President of the Senate of the Federal Republic, David
Mark and several others in their mold. With reports of territorial gains by
Islamist militants who have declared the carving out of an Islamist Caliphate
out of Northeastern Nigeria, these ‘gentlemen’ should be encouraged to, as a
matter of urgency, get back into uniform and proceed to our northeastern flank
to defend the proverbial ‘territorial integrity of Nigeria’?
The President
and Commander in Chief of the Nigeria Armed Forces should immediately set in
motion protocols to compel the recall of all living past Dictators and Military
personnel who had held political offices during the reign of military juntas in
Nigeria. When such retirees are assembled, they must be deployed to the battle
front to confront the Islamist militants – at the very least they should be
stationed in Maidugri, the besieged capital city of Bornu State. To avoid
‘family issues’ serving to distract these ‘worthy heroes’ from their lofty
tasks, the immediate families of the so identified and recalled military
officers should be compelled to relocate to the same cities as where their
spouses are ‘serving’. It was the
mismanagement of resources, particularly Defense Ministry budgets, presided
over by these characters that has placed our fighting forces in the pitiable
situation where they are constantly been routed by bands of ill-trained
religious zealots.
Resulting
from the corrupt antics and malfeasance of some of these past top-brass,
hundreds of our youths who willingly volunteered to serve their country's armed forces, have
been unnecessary dispatched to their early graves in the hands of demented
terrorists – There should be some accountability for the losses and deaths
suffered so far in Nigeria’s war against terror! I am very sure that these
militants will, upon sighting the likes of the ‘gentlemen’ I listed above,
retreat in full speed to the sands of the Sahara from where they emanated from.
Well, if the Islamists don’t retreat, we would have at least afforded our
‘gallant ex-Generals' an opportunity to put their carcasses where their collective
greed has placed Nigeria.
We declined
to heed the persistent call for a holistic restructuring and renegotiation of
our contraption and now we have to live the consequences thereof.
NB: In writing, I am
not unaware of the reach and vice of those who have profited from corruption;
the evident harm they have occasioned and continue to inflict on not only
Nigeria, but the entire African continent, overrides considerations for what the
corrupt will do.
Picture: three of
Nigeria’s multimillionaire ex- military dictators: Ibrahim Babangida, Olusegun
Obasanjo and Mohammadu Buhari
