General Adeniyi And Medallions Of Treachery -By Festus Adedayo

Nigeria literally quaked, again last week. Coinciding with the time Boko Haram insurgents reportedly ambushed and snuffed lives off about 70 Nigerian soldiers, the sobriety of the ravaging COVID-19 literally muffled the people’s voices. So when a trending video of General Olusegun Adeniyi, Major-General and Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, appeared on the social media, with his logical and water-tight complaints of poor equipment of troops, he became an instant hero.

General Adeniyi’s bravery was indeed fascinating. He said he didn’t mind to be videoed and publicly gave remedies to the embarrassing Boko Haram rampage, one of which was to situate a military helicopter right among the troops, so that they wouldn’t have to go caps in hand to the Airforce whenever there was the need to shell the ranks of the bloodsucking vermin. Sandwiched between his troops on the battlefield, Adeniyi lamented that the insurgents were gaining upper hands in the battle as they shelled his men with sophisticated mortar bombs and artillery, ambushed his men at will, resulting in heavy casualty of soldiers. He also attributed these casualties to wrong intelligence given the troops by military authorities. For an army that harvests the lives of its troops as toads of war, a la Eddy Iroh’s Toads of War, this disclosure was akin to a death sentence.

Commendations for Adeniyi’s gallant courage and patriotism had hardly died down by the time Army authorities, smart by half, infuse his name in a list of deployment of high-ranking officers. In doing this, the Army sought to routinize the order for Adeniyi to swap position from April 1, 2020. but no one was fooled that the General, who hit the knife’s blade on its head, was the exclusive target. Adeniyi was deployed to the Nigerian Army Resource Centre, Abuja, as “a Research fellow” and replaced at Lafiya Dole with Yahaya F., a Major General, who was deployed from 1 Division Army Headquarters in Kaduna.

So many Nigerian soldiers have been offered as propitiations to the weird decision of the Buhari government to keep security chiefs, years after their deemed retirement and obvious ideas-rustiness. This came in the thick of globally-trending allegation of absence of adequate equipment to fight the dreaded insurgents. More importantly is the allegation that insurgents’ moles are right within the Army top echelon, leaking information for cash against the troops. When Adeniyi reportedly held his orderly as one who leaked the video, the allegation against the military seemed to have acquired a life of its own. These allegations are held to be why military authorities cannot stand the presence of globally acclaimed NGOs operating in the North-East who access such information at the flip of their fingers.

Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai and the Army may have succeeded in silencing Adeniyi but the General has harvested medals in the hearts of Nigerians for speaking out. When the story of the Boko Haram war is written, Adeniyi will surely harvest his deserved medals and his adversaries, medallions of treachery against their country.