Oct. 7, 2013
NewsRescue– In a DailyTrust article, “War on insurgency: Operational blunders, poor supplies causing military losses“, published today, Defense sources confirmed the information on the reckless sabotage of the Nigerian army NewsRescue gave its readers on May 13th, 2013 precluding the declaration of a state of emergency in Nigerian northern states.
NewsRescue first released an article on May 8th, “Nigeria At War” that detailed the strategy needed to combat Boko Haram and pushed the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan to declare a state of emergency and war against Boko Haram. Despite opposition from most Nigerian leaders across both parties, the president abided by NewsRescue intel. advice, cut short his trip to South Africa and went ahead to declare the state of emergency on May 15. Much success has been recorded, however as we had detailed in our third article leading up to and pressuring the government to declare a state of emergency, the state of equipment in the Nigerian army is pathetic and reckless.
From our May 13th article:
Relating to the recent deadly incident in Bama, Tuesday, 7th of May, the two soldiers who died in the attacks were killed because they ran out of ammunition to fight back. They were basically “sitting ducks.” The “reinforcements” who came to help discharge the terrorists mounting an attack on the military barracks, were sent to simply bring in more ammunition.
“Our comrades died because they did not have any bullets. We took bullets to them!”
Earlier sources had described to NewsRescue that soldiers had to “bribe” the armory to get working guns and adequate bullets. The troops who died had a ration of only 30 rounds, as against the minimum 120 rounds for such duty.
On how the military effort to win the war against Boko Haram is being sabotaged from the top, our sources described what could be seen as a highest level military and governing resolve to allow the mission progress intractably towards eventual failure.
Missions against Boko Haram have been delayed without end, due to a lack of commitment to provide the necessary combat and personnel reinforcement. This is why the war with Boko Haram is one-sided, Boko’s side. For security reasons, we will not describe the exact missions, however we confidently assure our readers that the Military forces in Borno are in the defensive and have been unable to go in the offensive, to crush the insurgency.
Boko Haram has waged a full scale insurgent war against Nigeria. Their commandos are armed with sophisticated weapons and superior morale, launching determined campaigns to cause massive causalities and even brazen enough to launch attacks on military commands that they know are being purposefully depleted of weapons to fight back.
The equipment still used by the Nigerian military, it’s APC’s, Communication vehicles, etc. shockingly to note, were bought by the Shagari administration.
……
The Nigerian military are currently being under-financed and as we can see, Niger Delta militant – terrorists have been granted several billions of naira to become the nations “security forces” in the Niger-delta region, the region the president hails from. Tompolo is paid N8.5 billion and Asari Dokubo has been reportedly awarded N1.6 billion. Arming militants-terrorists and recruiting them as “national security forces,” is a novel process in the modern world. And this happening when the military budget and army supplies is undermined makes it most serious.
These MEND terrorists recently killed 16 police officers on “their terrain,” with total impunity, and one of the group leaders, Mujahid Dokubo Asari, has of recent, openly in the nations capital, threatened chaos to the nation if the current president is not re-elected in 2015. This ethnic militia force can potentially threaten and challenge Nigeria’s sitting, broken military.
DailyTrust military sources in their today article confirmed the issues we raised since May 13th on the deplorable state of equipment in the Nigerian army. The army is being sabotaged despite military budgets and while armies are being created in the creeks of Nigeria.
DailyTrust says today:
Operational blunders, obsolete weapons and under-stocked armouries are some of the major reasons behind the military’s apparent inability to end the Boko Haram insurgency, Defence sources told Daily Trust.
The military had recorded huge losses of personnel last month in its battle against insurgents in Borno and Yobe states.Authorities denied some of the reported losses, but sources said the armed forces routinely downplay their own casualties and overstate their gains in the insurgency war.
A Defence source told Daily Trust: “Almost all the units in the eye of the storm (Borno, Yobe, among others) have under-stocked armouries.”
Other sources said the lasttime the military authorities embarked on large-scale weapons acquisition was many years ago, in spite of the more than 1 trillion budgeted for security operations since 2012.
The killing of an officer and dozens of soldiers under his command around Gubio, Borno State, on September 13 by Boko Haram insurgents was attributed to these factors.
Military sources attributed the mass casualty to an “operational blunder.”
Daily Trust gathered that soldiers involved in that operation were issued inadequate ammunition.
“When they were ambushed and came under heavy fire from the insurgents, the soldiers ran out of ammo and so many of them were either killed or seriously injured,” one of our sources said.Another cause of the massive losses, according to sources, was the sudden cancelation of an aerial campaign without prompt communication to the troops that had already advanced.
“This single act led to the massacre of our troops,” a source said, attributing the outcome to faulty communication between the Air Force and Army.The Nigerian Army, however, denied allegations that Boko Haram insurgents operating mostly in the Northeast have superior weaponry.
Spokesman Brigadier-General Ibrahim Attahiru told Daily Trust that the insurgents are not in any way better armed than the Nigerian Army.
“The Nigerian Army is continually re-strategising to overcome the challenges and there has been massive government support in this regard,” he added.Brigadier-General Attahiru also nixed the alleged lack of coordination between the Army and Air Force: “The training of the armed forces has been on joint-service basis, aimed at achieving inter-operability when duty calls.”
Speaking to Daily Trust by telephone, former Kano State Military Administrator, retired Colonel Aminu Isa Kontagora, said fighting insurgency is demanding and “difficult because no clear-cut battle is drawn.”
He added that it is extremely demanding on logistics and personnel.“If the nation and the people don’t give full support to the operation, there are bound to be problems,” Kontagora said, adding that assessing military operations from the outside is also not easy.
When asked to comment on information that military armouries are under-stocked, Kontagora said: “I don’t think it is an issue that needs to be publicised,” adding that aside military action, political will is needed to end the insurgency.
“Youth employment, the dialogue committee, et cetera, are all in place to achieve that. There is need to dismantle the reservoir of youth where the insurgents use for their recruitment,” he said. Read full
