Army should listen to TY Danjuma

What Gen. TY Danjuma (rtd) said about the Army is 100 per cent correct, because that is exactly what happened with late Gen. Muhammadu Shuwa, who was killed as a result of collaboration between the Army who were guarding him and his assassins. Fifteen well-armed officers were guarding him when the killers came in around 11.00 am and shot him without any resistance. After killing him the killers saluted the soldiers and were laughing with the corpse lying under a tree.

Gen. Shuwa was sitting outside his home and sent someone to buy him a razor blade to use in shaving in preparation for Friday prayer, so the soldiers guarding him knew he was not armed and may have communicated same with the killers.

So the Army of yesteryears is not the same with the Army of today and this Gen. Shuwa also attested to. There was a quarrel in Maiduguri whereby the Army were molesting civilians, like asking them to carry motorcycles on their head, Gen. Shuwa was bitterly against that saying they don’t do that during their era. He told me he went to the then Army Commander and complained during a security meeting. He rebuked the Commander who apologized and later replaced the soldiers including those guarding him.

So there is every reason to believe Gen. TY Danjuma; there may be a few disenchanted elements within the Army, you can’t blame all of them, these few elements should be isolated and dealt with.

TY Danjuma some years back said Borno had been deserted security-wise, and it came to pass with Gen. Shuwa’s killings. So the federal government should critically evaluate what Danjuma said and take immediate action. It should fish out the soldiers who are good and bad, isolate the bad ones and continue to train the good ones for the sake of salvaging the unity of Nigeria.

Dr. Hassan B. Jibril, President, American-Nigerian Health Consultants, Florida, USA doctorjibril1@yahoo.com