Letters
A letter from the war front -By Olusegun Adeniyi
In the best of military traditions, troop rotation time frame is part of regimental order. It is not subject to the whims and caprices of individual commanders.
Never in the history of our country have we witnessed the current situation where not only the contents of classified documents are splashed in the media but the bromides of such correspondences as well. In some cases, even before they reach the officials to whom they were directed. Unauthorized leaks pose a serious threat to the security of any nation and given what is coming out from the $9.6 billion judgement fiasco, an issue I am still digging into, I can hazard a guess that the obscure London firm knows everything that was happening on the Nigerian side. That our officials might have been leaking to them all government memos on the case, given the lack of discipline within the system, could only have helped their cause. I will also not be surprised if the beneficiaries waiting in the wings to ‘obtain’ from this humongous loot at the expense of our country are themselves Nigerians!
While that is an issue for another day, I am more interested in a letter that is going the rounds on WhatsApp because of its implications for our national security. Addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari, the United Nations and other institutions, including the military, the ‘Letter of warning about overstayed troops here in Northeast’ claims to be from soldiers of 202 Tank Battalion Bama, Borno State. “It is with pain we are writing to you. We wish to bring to your notice that we have overstayed here in the Northeast. We were inducted in this operation on 10th March 2014 to fight Boko Haram insurgents”, they wrote, sharing their sordid experiences in the past five and a half years at the same location. “We are the only oldest Armoured Battalion in the Northeast and they don’t want to change us”, alluding that their plight can be located in the fact that they have no godfather.
Aside levelling the usual accusations of mismanagement of resources against the commanding officers, they claimed to have only been out of base (on pass) only four times within the past five and a half years. “We are begging the president, the FG, CDS and COAS to look into our case because our homes have scattered, some of our children don’t know us … some of our parents died of BP because of the situation on ground and the news they listen to everyday, the ladies we want to marry have left us because they are tired of waiting on empty promises… We have lost a lot, please we want the Army to come and change us before it will be too late,” their open letter stated.
Having spoken to knowledgeable people in the military, I will break their issues down before offering my own conclusion. The standard operating procedure (SOP) designed by the United Nations is that a tour of duty is six months. The whole essence is to ensure that troops don’t stay too long away from their family for fear of Sexual Exploration and Abuse (SEA) and most importantly, battle fatigue. This is however applicable only to troops deployed outside their country of origin. When troops are deployed within the country in peace time, there is no limit to how long they can stay. For counter insurgence operations like Boko Haram, however, the tour of duty is clearly defined and what is happening to the soldiers of 202 Tank Battalion is abnormal.
In 2017, according to military sources, a plan was designed for rotation of troops after one year tour of duty by the current Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai. The plan was based on ‘First to Arrive Theatre of Operation; First to depart’. It was the injustice in the execution of the plan that led to the current agitation. Those that have over stayed are not given priority; you must know somebody who can pull strings for you before you are posted out. The letter also responded to the recent allegation by Buratai that soldiers are not willing to fight, by questioning his integrity before highlighting some of the plights of the troops. Incidentally, the six-month tenure extension granted Buratai and other service chiefs last December by President Buhari lapsed in June and they are still in the saddle, two months after!
Perhaps, the greatest challenge in the letter is the communication gap which raises anxieties and rumours. I understand that periodic durbar session (town hall meetings) with unit commanders, during which troops air their challenges, is the standard practice. The approach adopted by these soldiers shows that either the medium has not been granted or the outcomes are ignored. Without holding brief for the commanding officers, however, inadequate logistics in operations and the enormity of internal security challenges may have undermined the attention they give to these complaints. Often, even commanders are paid late and meagre sums. Yet as leaders, they don’t disclose their challenges to troops.
The fact that personnel emoluments are inadequate without other streams of income to meet sundry responsibilities to family and the society usually causes traumatic stress for soldiers on the warfront. Prolonged stay in missions compound the problem because the men are not there to see their children through schools or support their aged parents. Our society is fluid and the pains these soldiers feel when they meet seemingly more successful school mates and peers add to the pressure. In the midst of that, seeing colleagues being unduly favoured with choice postings and appointments can only damage morale. The letter gives cause for a holistic review of the way soldiers are managed. Duration for soldiers on internal security should be fixed and enforced without bias.
My personal take is that the current agitation is more about the way the fighting is being coordinated with regard to logistics support, rate of casualties, bad burial procedure for fallen colleagues, weapons availability, corruption and poor rotation plan. In addition, the false claims about the ‘technical defeat’ of Boko Haram, and politicization of the military are among other reasons for the current agitation. I strongly recommend that these threats be taken seriously. If there is a mutiny, a resurgent Boko Haram will be difficult to contain. It will take time, reorganization and enormous resources to get the troops back to focus.
But whatever we do, it is now clear that Nigeria’s national security architecture is in dire need of rejigging. The open distrust, indeed hostility, between the army and the police highlights the problem. Following the re-arrest on Monday of the kidnap suspect, Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume, the statement released by the police was loaded: “…The suspect, who was appropriately restrained at the time of the incident, was subsequently released by his ’rescuers’ after they had destroyed the restraining handcuffs.” The video clip of the confessional statement made by Wadume which indicts the army was also released to the public by the police.
While President Buhari must deal with the growing hostility between the army and the police which bodes ill for our national security, the petition of the soldiers is proof that all is not well with the anti-insurgency war. Duration of tour of duty is a critical factor in managing deployment of troops and maintaining their morale before battle fatigue sets in and the more human needs for family and fellowship begins to override the zeal to fight. Worse still, if the confidence of the rank and file in their superintending authorities decline, the effectiveness of command and control will lag.
In the best of military traditions, troop rotation time frame is part of regimental order. It is not
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