JONATHAN’S FINEST HOUR Godwin Etakibuebu

Applauds the recent gains of the military against the Boko Haram insurgents

Boko Haram, interpreted to mean “Western education is evil”, did not begin with the President Goodluck Jonathan administration. It preceded late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration. It was the creation of Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration – 1999 to 2007 - when one of the governors of that time, Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno State, rode to power through the formation and financial sustenance of this religious sect. Lieutenant General Jeremiah Useni, a one-time chairman of the defunct All Nigerian Peoples Party [the political party that produced Modu Sheriff as governor] attested to the fact that “Modu Sheriff created Boko Haram”.

It is however a statement of fact that Boko Haram was to grow beyond control during the time of President Jonathan for many reasons. Some of the reasons, if properly evaluated, are internal while some are external. It may be prudent, if only for purposes of historical documentation, to put the reasons in perspective, as doing so will help in identifying areas of blame whenever the need would arise in the future.

First and major was the incident that preceded Jonathan’s coming to office as President during the “eve”, so to call it, of Yar’Adua’s tenure, when the leader of the sect, Mohammed Yusuf, was arrested by the military in Maiduguri and properly handed over to the Police for diligent investigation and prosecution. But the Police turned around to do one of the things they know how to do best – extrajudicial killing, as the man was summarily executed without approaching the judiciary. It came to pass, for that reason, that even before the death of President Yar’Adua, and before the ascendancy of Goodluck Jonathan to power, through the “doctrine of necessity”, the Boko Haram sect had declared war against the Nigerian State.

This was followed by religious factor as the sect quickly found a more dangerous ally in the most dreaded Al’ Qaeda movement, strongly rooted in the Middle East with its stupendous financial empire. The Nigerian government under President Jonathan, was either ignorant or entirely naïve, to acknowledge and understand the enormity of the enemy. This was to become the great undoing for the government and people of Nigeria.

The events of 2011 general election did not help matters as far as Boko Haram was concerned. Some people believed, with measure of religious and tribal emotion though, that the presidency must “come back to the North, at least to complete Yar’Adua’s tenure”. For this group of people, Goodluck Jonathan “dares not compete” and “if he does and wins”, they warned, “We shall make Nigeria ungovernable for him”. Of course, Boko Haram “operational base” was strengthened by this declaration of “making Nigerian ungovernable”, more so when Boko Haram is viewed from its Islamic religious background. Jonathan made it to the presidency of course, but not without paying the price of the threat quoted above, which partly helped the escalation of Boko Haram insurgency with its total siege to three states of North/East Nigeria: vide Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. The rest is now history.

The war proper began when Boko Haram hoisted its flag and set up administrative headquarters around that part of the country and re-named it a Caliphate of sort. It was glaring at the beginning that the Nigerian military was not ready for the “rule of operational engagement” as our Armed Forces were losing ground, men and equipment to the insurgents on daily basis. People could not comprehend why the Nigerian Armed Forces they expected much from were becoming such a colossal waste before Boko Haram until some appalling facts later emerged.

One, the Nigerian military, unknown to many, has outlived its operational efficiency in material equipment of modern warfare. It was to be proved later that more than 35 years before Goodluck Jonathan’s arrival to the Presidency, successive Nigerian leaders [either military heads of state or democratically elected presidents] just refused to equip the military with modern weapons of war. So, the Armed Forces President Jonathan inherited from his predecessors, namely: Obasanjo [Military], Shagari [Civilian], Buhari [Military], Babaginda [Military], Shonekan [Civilian], Abacha [|Military], Abdusalami [Military], Obasanjo [Civilian – second coming] and Yar’Adua [Civilian], was a bunch of professionals without professional equipment. And President Jonathan himself did not understand this dangerously intricate situation on time until, as Commander-in-Chief, he presided over deployment of his troops for slaughter by the more equipped Boko Haram insurgents.

This lack of modern fighting equipment was again compounded by lack of professionalism in means and ways of deploying field commanders to the battle fields. How on earth the president’s service chiefs would deploy, sometimes “relation of the enemy” [as reflected in deploying chore Northerners and die-hard Muslims as General officers Commanding - GOC] to the warfronts shall remain a big puzzle for students of combat warfare. Yet this is just one of so many blunders that bordered on deployment of troops. What about the great sabotage of some key service personnel which of course resulted in the multitude of deserters and those for military court marshals, where conviction for death and imprisonment became easily secured?

And of course, both the social media, online media, the print and electronic media were agog with stories of how pot-bellied officers [and most of the Nigerian Armed Forces officers at the High Command are pot-bellied, which is why people would always doubt their fitness in battles] overloaded their personal bank accounts with monies meant for prosecution of the war at the expense of both the war itself and [troops] men. This was why soldiers of the 7th Mechanised Division in Maiduguri turned their guns on their own General Officer Commanding at the peak of hostility, as we all may want to recall.

With all these calamities the conclusion drawn by majority around the globe was that “a clueless President Jonathan” could not defeat Boko Haram as he could not penetrate Sambisa Forest, the fortress and symbol of hostility. When the President even announced to the whole world that Boko Haram would be “dismantled within six weeks” immediately before the postponement of the general election from March to April 2015, people took it as a “political gimmick”. But today, as we read this piece, the whole Northeast of Nigeria has been liberated from the grip of Boko Haram. The hunter [Boko Haram] is now being hunted by the same Nigerian military gallant troops just because the President, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, did one right thing differently from what his predecessors in office failed to do – equipping the military with weaponry of modern warfare. Let us applaud this achievement of doing it right where others failed – it is another first for Goodluck Jonathan as history and posterity shall record it. Etakibuebu, a commentator on current affairs, wrote from Lagos