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Binoculars: Of security, military, intelligence and non-kinetic Comradeship against a common enemy in the north east war theatre

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3 years ago

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Binoculars: Of security, military, intelligence and non-kinetic Comradeship against a common enemy in the north east war theatre

Binoculars: Of security, military, intelligence and non-kinetic Comradeship against a common enemy in the north east war theatre

By: Bodurin Kayode

One thing I have learnt in the North Eastern Nigeria war theatre is the fact that both the kinetic and the non-kinetic players are one as a team. We do not have a superior partner against an inferior partner. Just leaders. This is because we have accepted the grim reality of the fact that the bullet that kills the General is the same bullet that can send the private worrier in any organization to his early grave.

You could see it clearly in the way the military, which is the toughest kinetic organization managing the insurgency, has been embracing others in the non-kinetic realm into the theatre. 

I was in a police forum recently where the command bomb controller was explaining how they detonate bombs and IEDs and it was not different from the way the military did it in the same Mallam Fatori council area of northern Borno. 

What I am saying is that both the military and the non-kinetic sector including the intelligence services and the media have been drafted into the war to fight a common enemy. So if one partner feels offended in any way about the way the other does his thing then the onus is on him to call the person and use civil language to make his complaint and the solution will be reached for the common good. Not to use crude language regardless of how angry one partner is.

DO WE HAVE ANY SUPERIOR PARTNER TO THE REST OF US?

The answer to this is a capital no.What we have is a common enemy that must be crushed. And that is Boko Haram and their cousins.

So if we have a common enemy it means we are all agents of the state having the right to do the right thing at all times. The Directorate of State Security partners can claim that it is only them that have the right to protect the state but that would apply to states where we don’t have known enemies looking down on us. They surely can’t do it alone in the Maiduguri war where everyone is a target. They need all of us.

I had a sordid encounter with one overzealous Rabiu of the DSS working with the north east Development Commission (NEDC) after he had intimidated some of my colleagues to warn me simply because he didn’t know me personally. 

What happened? I was trying to join the convoy of the NEDC on a commissioning mission from Borno  Mass literacy like other people but their white J5 bus nearly knocked my car in the process. I think the driver himself was obviously an operative, then slowed down to ask me to move. By the time we got to the neighboring military secondary school, Rabiu marched rudely to me with an armed police man to intimidate me. I wondered why a decent operative with his senses will want to talk to a journalist and will now ask a police man to escort him to display a show of force. That was wrong. I was standing chatting with some informants trying to get some information and there was Rabiu with an officer Sunday of the Nigerian Police possibly to intimidate me. Sunday obviously reluctantly was drafted to create a scene on an unarmed reporter.

RABIU’S RUDE BODY LANGUAGE

No matter what I may have done wrong by my decision to burn my petrol for my friends in the NEDC, instead of following anyone, there was no justification for the rude language he used on me. I could even feel the realm of the dangerous “inferiority complex” he had in him for journalists when talking to me. He is obviously one of those who joined that service for the use of the weapon and not for intelligence purposes which they are supposed to be wired for. He was virtually talking down on me as if I would have been his mate if I was in that service. Insultingly.

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And then I humiliated him further by just smiling and I responded by saying, don’t bother yourself. I will not join the convoy again since I am so small or less important to the people who are not VIPs who he is guarding and who are also in the convoy. I could see the surprise in the eyes of officer Sunday of the Nigerian Police who escorted him possibly to show his force but saw me armless. Since he was too timid to come and see me himself  and used a much more civil language to talk to me instead of whining like a hyena at the top of his voice. Immediately he walked off back to where the VIPs were and left me and another colleague watching the assignment. 

Dogara, a young reporter of the channel’s TV who witnessed the entire wrong the guy meted out to my persona, went livid with rage. I just smiled and told him that as long as someone I respect is the boss of Rabiu, I will not return the rudeness he gave me back to him. Dogara looked at me and wondered if a known non-conformist like myself had gone soft and vowed that if he was the one he would have responded. I begged him to forget the antagonism of Rabiu because he was obviously sent. Ask Dogara when you see him. He saw the other side of me yesterday.

I never had the opportunity to meet Sadiq who is Rabiu’s direct boss before I left the NEDC but I will surely meet him one day to teach Rabiu how we behave in the theatre. He has no right to talk to me disrespectfully as if I was the enemy regardless of what wrong he thought I may have done based on their training and understanding which I am yet to be educated about. Rabiu is a very rude operative who needs training on the role of a journalist. He is not different from another who threatened to shoot myself and Franco sometime this year while driving into the government house. Our offense was because of a similar thing. When you come to a place and you don’t know certain people, you ask guys on the ground who they are and not to bully them unnecessarily. We got out of my car and marched to him and an argument started between the police who knew us and the new man who came from the Presidency. It was so funny. At the end of the day, the police officer who understood civil uniformed relationship asked us to go when the DSS guard started ranting about shooting at us. Franco and I walked back to my car and drove to our assignment. I actually reported the matter to the Governor’s chief detail who promised to look into the matter.

JOURNALISTS AND SECURITY MANAGEMENT

There is nothing contemporary that serious journalists do not know about security management and how to report with the advantage of the state at heart. The only difference in our job descriptions is the weapons they carry and high class equipment they use to get their own information. If we had a National Guard by now, most of the aspects of the state the DSS dabble into will not be necessary. But we missed that because some Generals sources convinced IBB that the guards will rival the Army. I don’t see the fear of rivalry at all. If the CIA and the FBI are not rivals all these years, why would a Nigerian national guard rival the Army? Well that is for another day’s Binoculars.

Sadly I always drum this into the ears of my colleagues who had one brush or the other with these people in the course of their duties. 

The State Director in Borno here Oga Muritala as I call him is a fine gentleman. Always calm and gentle but you can’t take him for granted. I don’t have much interaction with his deputies other than hello when we cross paths or when I visit. But I have friends among them even in the lower ranks. They help me with my job. The reason why I couldn’t respond to Rabiu right down there on the ladder is that if we had a squabble and I placed him where he belongs, my friend Oga Muri may begin to have a second thought about the young reporter he knew 25 years ago while he was the Chief detail of the Governor of Zamfara state Ahmed Sani. Each time Yerima Bakura wanted to see me then as the reporter of the vanguard, this man was already waiting to usher me in. I remember his smiles with his walkie talkie in his hand. Always smiling and welcoming till this day when I meet him. Asking about my health and family. 

When Yerima Bakura ushered me into his home with his kids milling around while we ate “twoo shinkafa and mia kuka” traditional Hausa food together.  Oga Muri was there though distantly and never saw me as a threat. I left Gusau as a happy man. If I wasn’t a threat to Oga Muri then, when we were both very young, why would Rabiu be ranting all over the place as if I have suddenly become his personal threat? Someone should teach him civility with journalists or else something will happen to him that will puncture his arrogance.

I think the onus is on his direct boss in the NEDC Sadiq and my friend Oga Muri to instill our way of doing things to Rabiu and his likes who still behave like we are in the days of the NSO to calm down and respect the fact that the bullet that will kill a private operative is the same bullet that will kill an agent of a sergeant equivalent and it is the same that can send even the DG of their organization to the great beyond. No mortal has power over death so let’s be each other’s keeper.

Let’s learn to be civil in what we do in the war theatre. That will surely keep the kinetic and the non-kinetic together to fight the common enemy. And that is Boko Haram, ISWAP and even the Bandits. The Journalist has never been the enemy and will never be.

Binoculars: Of security, military, intelligence and non-kinetic Comradeship against a common enemy in the north east war theatre

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Columns

Medical and Health Developments Amidst Insecurity: The Case of University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH)

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5 days ago

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January 4, 2026

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Medical and Health Developments Amidst Insecurity: The Case of University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH)

By: Balami Lazarus

Insecurity challenges have pervaded and taken over every inch of the Nigerian estate, spreading their wings, casting dark shadows stealthily in silence of ambush. The predator has created excuses against growth, progress, and development among ministries, departments, and agencies (MIDA’s), including health institutions where medical and healthcare services are needed.

Development means a different thing to many people. “An improvement in people’s living conditions inevitably contributes to higher productivity and to economic growth, subsequently development.” Therefore the needs of people in a particular area are their development. For example, health.

Moreover, development is essentially concerned with continuous improvements of the human life and condition right from time, in its capacity for qualitative and quantitative reproduction and capabilities to control and manipulate the environment for the betterment of mankind as a whole. Therefore, the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy, and creative lives at all levels of their growth and progress.

But for UMTH under Prof. Ahmed Ahidjo, the CMD, medical and health development in infrastructure, human capital, and healthcare services is a continuous process amidst insecurity in Borno State and Maiduguri, the state capital.

At UMTH, the story of growth and development has brought progress in health and medical services that are expected from institutional hospitals. The rate and level of medical and healthcare services through specialized medical centers equipped with modern state-of-the-art equipment second to none in Nigeria is a testament to health/medical development in the aforesaid hospital.

People have always examined the concept of growth and development from economic perspectives, refusing to align them to the objectives of human needs that will increase productivity to provide and satisfy these human needs to ensure good medical and healthcare service delivery that is available at all times in UMTH “Centre of Excellence.”

Prof. Ahidjo has no doubt facilitated the concept of health development through changes in the health and medical services provided by UMTH in spite of the ten security challenges staring us hard in the face.

Growth, progress, and development initiated by Prof. Ahmed Ahidjo is itself a concept of development in the health sector. The CMD has blended the concepts of development together through their aims and objectives, which are charted towards the improvements of the human standard of living in healthcare and medical services.

Prof. Ahmed’s efforts have therefore brought developments in the life of the hospital that have never been witnessed since the inception of UMTH, until the man with the Midas touch came on board with improvements and transformations of infrastructures and facilities.

Prof. Ahidjo had directed his development towards the satisfaction of the hospital’s needs, the primary objectives of UMTH, which translates to human capital development through teaching, practicals, medical research, and provisions of healthcare services to her immediate host community.

Therefore, development cannot be seen purely as economic, social, and political affairs but rather as an outcome of man’s effort to transform societal structures and institutions in the case of UMTH.

Balami, a Publisher/Columnist 08036779290

Medical and Health Developments Amidst Insecurity: The Case of University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH)

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In Search of Our History Through Reconstruction and Restructuring of the Nigerian State for Peaceful Coexistence and Good Governance

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2 weeks ago

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December 29, 2025

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In Search of Our History Through Reconstruction and Restructuring of the Nigerian State for Peaceful Coexistence and Good Governance

By: Balami Lazarus

This piece is an extraction from a paper I wrote years back intended to be presented to my society—the Borno Museum Society (BSM)—but it never saw the light of day. However, this is not the original title; I did some changes, putting in some terms to reflect the contemporary issues facing us currently as Nigerians.

Looking at the paper today, which had lain fallow since 1991, I laughed. Dr. Musa Hambolu and Mr. Kyari Bukar, as members, encouraged and urged me to make an effort and present the paper for onward publication in our newsletter, but it never happened. I believe this version will make sense to many more who believe in the Nigerian project as a sovereign nation.

And back to the main menu of the discourse.

One of the major historical developments in Africa south of the Sahara was the great Bantu migration that took place thousands of years ago. It was a mass exodus of the Bantu people, culture, and traditions; its droplets along the line of their migration gave birth to settlements, which had affected many ethnic nations’ language, culture, and traditions. What happened later is part of African history. We are now nestled between who are we? And what are we?

It is very clear that the reconstruction of our history through the restructuring of Nigeria and its state and conditions has long been toyed with, knowing fully well that it is the heart of our peaceful coexistence and good governance. It’s also the main bowl of our socio-political and economic growth and developments.

Our history, geography, and ethnology have drawn our attention to the state of sovereignty known, called, and addressed as Nigeria, a colonial creation, forgetting that we were here before.

the white man’s creation.

To trace the origin of the people that made up Nigeria, one cannot dismiss the substance of other disciplines like history, archeology, anthropology, geography, sociology, and linguistics, and other related subjects. These fields of scholarships have tremendously improved in the explanations of our history, artifacts, and cultural source materials of the people that were wrongfully and forcefully brought together to live and form Nigeria. Therefore,

There is the need for the restructuring of the Nigerian state for peace and good governance for the benefit of all citizens.

To achieve this, we must collectively agree with one voice to restructure our systems to find a lasting solution to our torn political garment, unity shredded with suspicion generated by us over the years. Because modernization is the process of change towards social, economic, and political systems.

Historically, Nigeria is a conglomerate of large ethnic diversities, and each represents a distinct nation with different cultures, traditions, and civilizations living independently before the forceful amalgamation of 1st January, 1914, carried out and executed by the British colonial masters. Sources available to political historians on our past underscored the necessity to shift from the present state of nationhood to a common ground that will provide us with equal opportunities to maintain and sustain our togetherness as one indivisible and indissoluble nation through reconstruction and restructuring.

The reconstruction and restructuring of our historical and political past is paramount; it will aid in checking the high rate of insecurity and criminal activities of bandits and kidnappers. And shall also clamp down on terrorists and the rise of insurgents. Restructuring will reduce sentiments and segregation in the activities of our national life.

History does not repeat itself. But people repeat history and then falsely accuse history of repeating itself.

We have consciously decided to polarize our country with Black Strike sentiments. And here we are, with agitations in different forms: Oduduwa, Biafra, Middle Belt, and Niger Delta.

Balami, Publisher/Columnist 08036779290

In Search of Our History Through Reconstruction and Restructuring of the Nigerian State for Peaceful Coexistence and Good Governance

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Aspirations: A Compass for a Purposeful Journey of Life

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3 weeks ago

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December 22, 2025

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Aspirations: A Compass for a Purposeful Journey of Life

By: Harmony Shimbura

A blueprint for a purposeful journey, the human experience is often defined not by where we are looking, but by having aspirations, a compass of purposeful life, and an act of claiming agency over one’s future.

My life’s aspirations are not merely a list of goals or a collection of ‘bucket list’ items. It is a living philosophy, a commitment to growth, connection, and the relentless pursuit of a life lived with intention. They are threads woven together for personal values and to give back to your community.

I believed the core of aspirations should be a desire for perpetual evolution. And I also believe that the moment we stop learning is the moment we stop breathing. Therefore, one of my primary goals is to remain a lifelong student where learning is a continuous process.

I aspire to deepen my understanding of the world through diverse perspectives, whether it is through traveling to places where knowledge is obtained by listening or observations, as is the case with the traditional Cherokee ways of learning.

I constantly challenge my own biases, spiritually and mentally. I aspire to reach the state of equilibrium where my peace is not dependent on external circumstances.

Do you know that aspirations transcend titles and salary brackets? Moreover, my true ambition is practical impact. I want to be engaged in work that I feel is the extension of my soul in it at whichever level. I also

I believe that work should be a contribution to the collective good of humanity.

As a young lady, I am on the self-push to achieve a level of mastery in my chosen field where my intuition is as sharp as my skills. I want to be known not just for what I did, but for how I did it with integrity, excellence, and a collaborative spirit.

Most of us neglect the vessel that carries us through life, but I aspire to treat my body with the respect it deserves. My aspirations for health are not about vanity but for sanity in purity.

These aspirations are not a destination I will one day reach; they are the fuel for a lifelong journey.

Harmony Shimbura writes from Zaria. 07033886918

Aspirations: A Compass for a Purposeful Journey of Life

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