Nigeria’s military and internal security

Last week, I gave a background of the virtual takeover of internal or domestic security matters by the military and the castration of the Nigerian police in the process. While the police was underfunded, understaffed and stripped of its intelligence capabilities and apparatuses, the military and other agencies created to handle the intelligence function of the police –(DSS), National Intelligence Agency (NIA), and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) – were primarily tasked and concerned with regime protection rather than protection of citizens. So, they’ll rather focus on political opponents and government critics than on solving the myriad security challenges facing the country.

Worse, the military’s style of policing the country is “not to detect or investigate crimes” but to shock, terrorise, brutalise, use mass murder and rape as an instrument of subjugation and control. So when there is a skirmish anywhere or a crime is committed, rather than investigate and apprehend the offenders, the military just carry out what they call ‘a reprisal’ against the community involved, brutalising and killing enough people and destroying as much of the community as they could afford to. The rationale is to instil the fear of God in them and deter further crime.

But that tactic has not always worked or has never worked. During the reprisals, only the innocent are killed or brutalised. The criminals or offenders will not be there waiting for the military. What the military end up achieving by their reprisals is radicalisation of the community.

We may not like to hear or countenance it: we do not have an army that can defend the country from internal, not to talk of, external aggression

The most egregious aspect of the military’s model of internal security arrangement is how they deal with social change advocates and peaceful protesters. Their idea of quelling protests is to shoot and massacre the protesters. All the talk about the constitutional rights to peaceful protests and assembly and the Geneva conventions and protocols on humanitarian law of armed conflict means nothing to the Nigerian military. It remains essentially, as David Hundeyin recently quipped, “a foul, despicably power-drunk, violent and thoroughly undisciplined militia group with political legitimacy”. Its modus operandi remains that of the typical African bush militia – mass murder, rape, and destruction of communities. Non-violent protests or movements never work in Nigeria. The protesters – as the Ogoni people, the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN – the Shiite group), IPOB and even #EndSARS protesters have realised – are just sitting ducks for a genocidal army.

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But as is common with all African bush militias and all bullies for that matter, they are essentially lily-livered cowards whose specialty is attacking the weak and defenceless who cannot fight back. The moment they encounter someone or group willing and able to fight back, their weakness and cowardice is easily exposed.

The Niger Delta militants were the first to realise this. Within a very short time, they successfully cut by more than half Nigeria’s oil production and the state had to negotiate a multibillion-dollar settlement with them. The little we say about the war against Boko Haram, the better. This is the twelfth year the entire Nigerian army has been fighting a ragtag militia of a few thousand Boko Haram insurgents, yet there is no sign that they can defeat the group. Instead, the army has continued to sustain huge casualties with many reportedly abandoning their weapons and fleeing the battlefield. I completely agree with the former Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Burutai, that the war against the insurgents could last another 20 years. Yet, this was a group of fighters the mercenaries hired by Goodluck Jonathan almost completely obliterated in just a few months were it not for the termination of their contract by the Buhari government.

What about the armed bandits terrorising the entire northwest region of the country? The president went to Zamfara in 2017 to launch a military operation called “Operation Sharan Daji (OPSD)” against continued banditry in the area. An entire military division and several brigades have been devoted to this operation for years. But today, not only is more than half of Zamfara under the control of the bandits, but they have also made life very uncomfortable for residents of Katsina, Sokoto, Jigawa, Kaduna and Niger states. Of course, the military is helpless and the government is now chasing the bandits with offers of amnesty and huge payments to appease them.

The evidence before us is quite clear even though we may not like to hear or countenance it: we do not have an army that can defend the country from internal, not to talk of, external aggression. The Nigerian military was formed and has continued to function only as a force to defend the state against its citizen. With the advent of military rule, regime survival took on even more significance and the military was quickly turned into the classic bully to subjugate the people and quickly crush any threat or dissent against the regime.

The only way to rescue the country and prevent the impending anarchy and chaos is to thoroughly reform and empower the police to perform its constitutional functions. While restricting the military to the barracks and also overhauling its recruitment and training manual to one that is meant to build an army to defend and protect citizens and the country rather than the government.