By Henry Uche
Retired military personnel have posited that the deployment of modern technology, professionalism and increased welfare of military personnel are essential conditions to win the war against insurgency and other security threats staring at the country.
Speaking on ‘The New Service Chiefs And National Security,’ in AIT, a former DSS Director, Mike Ejiofor, called for a change in dynamics and tactics with the use of modern technology to combat insurgency and other agents working against the country.
Ejiofor called for intelligent management of publicity and information regarding activities of the military personnel fighting insurgents noting that not all incidents regarding the fight against terrorists and other nefarious groups should be devolved to the public especially the foot soldiers.
“Some news can be de- motivating and demoralizing to soldiers especially news about how insurgents ambushes and Kill military personnel. Some personnel may desert in the line of duty because of fear. So information management is Paramount to succeed in the war against other unwanted forces.
The security expert noted, “We need to do away with propaganda, telling Nigerians that troops have Killed a number of insurgents or they are winning the war only in the newspaper without any arrest and prosecution does not help us, there should be arrest and prosecution. We need to be sincere.
He decried the deliberate act stretching the tenure of Service Chiefs and other heads of paramilitaries when they are due to leave the service either by age or service year as counter -productive in security management. “When Military or paramilitary officers are due to leave, they should leave so that fresh ideas can take over the ship and steer, mind you whenever a junior officer is appointed to lead the military or paramilitary, all his seniors will automatically resign as it’s customary or us. By this singular action, we loose more resourceful and experienced personnel who resigns following the appointment of their junior,” he maintained.
He further advise that competence should be the basis for selection of military personnel who would head some strategic departments and divisions as a shake- up and redeployment is expected soon following the new order. “The Territorial integrity of the country is at stake, thus, competency should be the basis for any deployment of officers and men, not sentiment, if we must triumph over insecurity in the country.
On his part, a security analyst, Navy Commodore, Christopher Goon (Rtd) charges all the heads of military and paramilitary agencies to take officers welfare as a top priority saying that nothing brings down the moral of officers than negligence towards their welfare among other necessities.
Goon dded that the engagement of local Security and dwellers is key to fishing out agents working against the state since intelligence gathering is indispensable. “The welfare of every military personnel should be taken serious. They should not be taken for granted. Meanwhile, we must involve the locals, in fact they should be in the front to lead the military personnel because they (locals) know how where to locate the insurgents,” he stressed.
He salute the new Service Chiefs and implore them to write their names in gold ink by solving the security challenge of Nigeria to a stand still in other to restore peace and harmony which would guaranty economic growth and development.