When the Liberian war was ebbing towards peaceful resolution, many stories filtered in about the gallant efforts of Nigerian soldiers on peacekeeping mision there, and some of them now hold command positions in military formations around the Nigeria today.
The bloody war that enveloped Liberia and Sierra Leone, claimed some of our gallant soldiers, as well as two Nigerian journalists, Kris lmodibe of The Guardian newspaper and Tayo Awotunsin of The Champion newspaper. Reported human squalor, death and ruin that were unleashed on the country were clear evidence of the devastating power of war. Despite all these, the United Nations scored Nigerian security personnel very high.
ln 2008, as a senior civilian staff of the Inspector-General of Police, this writer was opportune to travel to Haiti, where two foremost Nigerian security agencies, the army and police, were drafted to assist the United Nations in maintaining peace and orderliness around the country. Many other troops from other countries were also deployed to Haiti, which is a Caribbean country.
The testimonial extracted from the High Commissioner representing the United Nations in Haiti spoke volumes about the two Nigerian security agencies.
I was there in company with the current Commissioner of Police in Edo State, Mr. Lawan Jimeta, and a freelance television security presenter, Mr. Patrick Agbambu. The UN head of mission (forgotten his name now) was a look-alike of our own ex-IGP Tafa Balogun. I think the man was from Uganda. He fell in love with the Nigerian Army and Police. He repeatedly drummed it into my ears that they were the best on that particular mission.
Other countries such as India, Cuba, Ghana were also deployed to Haiti at the time, yet he so much relied on the capability of Nigerian Army and Police to quell any insurrection in the country. Furthermore, when the war against Boko Haram started, this writer was still working in the Force Headquarters, Abuja, as news filtered in that the leader of the Boko Haram sect, Muhammed Yusuf, had been arrested and physically handed over to Mr. Chris Dega, the police commissioner in Borno State, but was extra-judicially killed while in police custody; then the Inspector-General of Police was Mr. Ogbonnaya Onovo.
Unfortunately, till date, no government enquiry has been set up to establish why Yusuf was killed. An illegal operation that has snowballed into a decade-long insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives, engulfed a whole region and opened it to destruction and mayhem has been swept under the carpet.
No responsible government would close such a heinous chapter of its history.
When President Goodluck Jonathan was still on the seat, the evil cyclone of Boko Haram had overrun 18 local governments areas in the North-East and spreading to more states. In fact, Abuja was under threat, as the United Nations building, army barracks, Nyanya Motor Park and the Police Headquarters were bombed, with casualties. Even some neighbourhoods of Suileja and Niger State were not spared.
The nation was still recovering from all these calamities when 272 female students of a secondary school in Chibok were violently abducted from their hostel in April 2014, under the Jonathan administration. The government of Jonathan seemed helpless as Boko Haram terrorists held sway and hoisted their flag in almost every local government, including Sambisa, which was their headquarters. The evil group even extended their tentacles to Chad, Cameroun and Niger Republic.
Nigerians could not stand government’s failure, and when it was election time, they massively voted out the Jonathan administration for a retired army general, Muhammadu Buhari. He promised to check the excesses of the Boko Haram terrorists.
The then Chief of Army Staff, Leitenant General Kenneth Minimah, was relieved of his office, and Buhari searched out Tukur Buratai in Chad Republic where he was exhibiting outstanding leadership qualities.
Buratai immediately assembled his team, codenamed “Operation Lafia Dole,” under Major General Lucky Irabor, and each of the occupied local government areas under the terrorist group was recaptured by Nigerian armed forces. Also recaptured was Camp Zero, headquarters of the terrorists in Sambisa Forest. (To be continued)
Let’s appraise igp adamu (2)
Given the avalanche of mails and comments received sequel to the first part of this series, it became evident that Nigerians want a police that is fully in charge of the internal security of the country. They want to see their police officers as friends, not foes, at the station or on the highway. Nigerians want the IGP to completely eradicate bribe-for-bail.
Nigerians trust the IGPs operational ability but are not comfortable with some of his foot soldiers. However, observers believe in the intelligent strategic acumen of IGP Adamu.
The security ideas he articulated for implementation have further enhanced the operational abilities of the police. Evident is the acquisition of 217 tactical vehicles with advanced capabilities for surveillance, crime-fighting and detection, and crowd management.
It was gathered that the new patrol vehicles are laden with on-the-move CCTV cameras. All these have further enhanced the capacity of the police. Even at this, many are surprised at the recent escalation of kidnapping activities. They wonder why hair-raising results are achieved by the police only after there are cries against rise in insecurity sequel to police ineptitude.
They want such outstanding police feats in Zamfara and along the Kaduna-Abuja highway to be replicated in other states.
The police did not end there, but helped to drop the crime rate across the country with the support of other stakeholders and security agencies through the nationwide mop-up and recovery of a total of 2,037 sophisticated firearms and two rocket launchers from criminal elements; with 21,870 rounds of live ammunition.
Despite all these successes, should Nigerians not go to sleep with both eyes closed? Unfortunately, it is not yet uhuru. Clamping down on criminals is sweet to hear, but the after effect matters. The question is, what is the government doing to either absorb the large number of jobless people roaming the streets? What strategic measures are in place to avoid expansion of unemployed youths around the country? Today, the growing youth population is dangerously alarming. It is believed that the firearms in the hands of kidnappers are the non-retrieveable guns given to political thugs in the last January’s elections. The time has come when arrested political thugs must be made to confess the source the firearms they deployed during elections.
(Concluded)