Putting The War On Terror Back On Track
By
Nosa James-Igbinadolor
nosa.igbinadolor@gmail.com
The last one month has shown what happens when the
military and security services take their eyes off the ball in the
war against terror. What with the massacre of scores of college boys
at Buni Yadi, the cowardly seizure of our girls at Chibok and the
two consecutive bombings in Nyanya along with other under-reported
and un-reported massacres, kidnappings and bombings, the malfunction
of the counterterrorism strategy is screamingly obvious. It is time
to re-tool and re-calibrate this strategy.
At the heart of this malfunction is the failure of
intelligence. The failure of the military as well as the
intelligence community to successfully end if not manage this
conflict can be traced to their incapacity to procure and properly
manage intelligence whether strategic and tactical.
The failure of intelligence can be seen in the fact
that five years after Boko Haram began its ultra-violent revolt
against the authority and integrity of the Nigerian state, not one
Operations Commander or even field officer of the group has been
captured or killed outside the country whether by the National
Intelligence Agency (NIA) or by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA),
the two agencies responsible for foreign covert action operations.
This is despite the fact we have been constantly told that these
murderous nihilists traverse between borders and receive trainings
as far afield as Somalia and raison d’être of having Intelligence
stations in Nigerian Embassies abroad is to gather information about
the intentions of both friends as well as hostile elements and to
neutralise these threats before they become active. Clearly, in
failing to detect the clear and present threat to the integrity of
the state by Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and its North African affiliate,
AQIM, both the National Intelligence Agency and the Defence
Intelligence Agency have proved themselves not fit for purpose. Of
course, as always happens in Nigeria, no one will take
responsibility for this failure and no one will pay a price for it.
The
history of the N.I.A, an offshoot of the then Research Department of
the Ministry of External Affairs makes it incredibly incapable of
effectively undertaking critical intelligence operations overseas.
Apart from keepings tabs on diplomatic soirees chit-chats, open
source information analysis and monitoring Nigeria émigré groups
overseas, this glorified detective agency has been of little or no
use to the Nigerian tax payers.
The
failure of intelligence in the war against terror can be linked to
the failure of ANALYSIS. Neither the office of the National security
Adviser nor the Intelligence Service (N.I.A) nor the Security
Service (SSS) nor the Defence Intelligence Agency (D.I.A) possess a
meaningful Analysis Directorate that analyses the quality of
intelligence procured by these organisations and make projections as
to the strategic and tactical implications for the country. Without
credible analysis by experts, the President is unable to make
critical decisions. One is therefore not only suspicious of the
quality of intelligence presented to the President by the security
services, I am inclined to posit that the absence of credible
intelligence both raw and analysed, leaves the President unable to
make rational and credible decisions not only about the war on
terror but also about the general welfare of the country.
I will be the first to admit that terrorism is
difficult to eliminate as experiences from Israel, India, Northern
Ireland and Sri Lanka have proved. However terror campaigns can be
contained if not eliminated. This however can only be done with a
military that is fit for purpose. The war against Boko Haram is a
war that must be won with the enemy raising the while flag in
surrender. It can be done. It was done in Sri Lanka with the Tamil
Tigers defeated and destroyed in spite of their decades of murderous
rage of terror. To effectively win the war against terror and to
make the military fit for purpose, I posit the following:
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In the war against Boko Haram, the decision by
the Military Apparatchik to hand over the supervision of the
counter-insurgency campaign from Defence Headquarters (JTF) to
the Nigerian Army (newly created 7th Division) was a
strategic miscalculation that has led to problems of
coordination, planning and response. The outcome of this
miscalculation has been increased and emboldened attacks by Boko
Haram on hard targets that the JTF had hitherto successfully
denied them including Army barracks and Air Force Bases in
Maiduguri. I posit that THE COMMAND AND CONTROL OF THE
COUNTERINSURGENCY OPERATIONS IN THE NORTH EAST SHOULD BE UNDER
THE DEFENCE HEADQUARTERS AND NOT THE ARMY
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Counter-terror operations are special warfare
operations and it therefore follows that at the heart of the
military’s counter-terror campaigns should be the use of well
trained Special Forces. In the fight against Umkhonto we
sizwe in South Africa, the South African Security Services
employed the strategy of specialist but overwhelming force
through the use of special counter-insurgency/terror units made
up of operatives of military intelligence, the Bureau of state
security (BOSS), and Army/Naval special Forces to engage and
overwhelm the armed cells of the ANC’s Umkhonto we Sizwe.
In times of war and peril to the life of the state,
unconventional warfare becomes necessary. This strategy has
worked in South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Algeria, Israel,
Argentina, Brazil, Chile and North Ireland. THERE IS THEREFORE
AN URGENT NEED TO CREATE SPECIAL ARMY RANGER UNITS TRAINED
SPECIFICALLY IN DESERT WARFARE to be part of the 7th
Division. These units will effectively patrol and guard the
large stretch of the Nigeria-Niger, Chad and Cameroun borders as
well as undertake infiltration and counterinsurgency operations
in that operational area
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There is need to beef up the capability of the
Nigerian Army to respond rapidly and effectively to active
threats against the integrity of the state. The ability of the
Army to do this will depend on its mobility and capability. An
airborne unit is perhaps the most effective means of do this. It
is incumbent that each Division of the Nigerian Army (7 of them)
has embedded in them Airborne/ Special Forces Battalion that
would serve as the first line of response to active threats in
their operational areas of responsibility
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The Niger-Delta region is in my view, a region
simmering with latent tensions that have the capacity to become
active overtime. The military needs to be prepared to engage
forcefully and effectively in the region. This is more so
because the AMNESTY programme has been ill-managed in a manner
that has excluded many of the ex-combatants and citizens of the
region while a few of the militant leaders were compensated with
official patronage that included securing national assets. I
posit that contracts offered to former militant leaders to
secure national assets have the potential of being sources of
violent conflicts in the future. Note that in Libya, Ibrahim
Jadran a militia leader who was part of the armed groups that
overthrew Colonel Muammer Gaddafi was entrusted in late 2012 by
the post-Gaddafi government with guarding the Eastern Port as
well as oil installations in the East. A year later, he took
over these assets including hundreds of oil wells and
refineries, declared a republic of Cyrenaica and is now in a
violent conflict with the state whose army has proved incapable
of dislodging his militia from the region they control.
Handing over the security of the nation’s prime assets to an
armed non-state institution can only turn around to boomerang in
the future. The military must be prepared to act when this
happens
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To ensure that the military is prepared to engage
in a future conflict in the Niger-Delta region, there is an
urgent need to put the Nigerian Navy at the forefront of
offensive capabilities in the region. To do this, there is need
to create a Naval Infantry Force of Division level
(15,000-20,000). The Naval Infantry should be part of the Navy
under the command of the Chief of Naval Staff and headed by an
officer of the rank of Major-General/Rear Admiral. The Naval
Infantry should complement an Amphibious Division to be based in
the region. This will give the military an effective and
efficient capacity to manage conflicts in the region.
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Whether in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka,
etc the most veritable instrument for engaging the enemy in any
theatre of operation has been the HELICOPTER. The use of
helicopters by armies in small scale conflicts, insurgencies and
counterinsurgencies has largely helped in rapid response, aerial
surveillance, effective assault, search and rescue, etc. For the
conflict in the North-East, Kaduna and Jos to be effectively
contained, there is need for the Air Force to deploy and
saturate these areas with combat helicopters. Therefore, it is
incumbent that future acquisitions of weaponry for the Air Force
and to a lesser extent the Navy emphasise more of helicopters
and less of fighter jets that are only effective in large
operational theatres with strategic assets to degrade
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The CONTEMPORARY Operational Environment (COE);
force design; political and military complexity on the
battlefield; joint and combined operations; and mission
execution have caused changes that require leaders who can
understand strategic implications earlier in their careers than
has been required in the past. Therefore, the Nigerian Armed
Forces must begin educating officers for strategic leadership
positions earlier in the leader development process. The
increase in the number, variety, and complexity of missions
places a greater demand on the Armed Forces than ever before and
creates great ambiguity in the methodology for successful
mission accomplishment. Therefore, the Armed Forces must
redefine its traditional paradigms of leader development
associated with traditional echelons of execution. The need to
develop tactical leaders into strategic leaders and to empower
them to lead in such a challenging environment has never been
more apparent. Strategic leaders responsible for large
organizations, thousands of people, and vast resources cannot
rely on lower level leadership skills for future success.
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Finally, I posit that for any counter-insurgency
policy to be effective, the policy must encompass several
strategic components especially the economic component. No
counterinsurgency strategy will be effective unless the citizens
are well fed and economically empowered. There is an urgent need
therefore to put in place a grand economic reconstruction and
development plan that emphasises AGRICULTURE not only in the
conflict regions but throughout the country. AGRICULTURE
represents the most effective means to provide fast,
well-remunerated jobs to millions of Nigerians within a very
short period of time. It is a sector that requires skilled,
semi-skilled and unskilled human capital. Developing AGRICULTURE
and its value chain has the capacity to provide additional
million of jobs to Nigerians in the short, medium and long term.
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