Fighting Insurgency: When Journalists Compare Notes over Opinion and Interest in Military Strategy

By: James Bwala

At least in the last 15 years, Nigerians have seen efforts put forth by successive governments to put out the spirit that guides certain individuals, who are bent on crushing the oneness of the larger society we live in by their ideology of sectism. We have seen the rise of Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria and its devastating effects. We were moved to tears by the rise of banditry in the northwest and central Nigeria and continued to count the number of deaths. 

The kidnapping cases in southern Nigeria and the continued agitations by the indigenous people of Biafra and IPOB, particularly in southeast Nigeria, have attempted to change the way we live. The government has continued to reassure Nigerians of its efforts in fighting many crises, and it has continued to do so. But Nigerians seemed to be getting impatient with certain attitudes displayed by key actors in the fight against insurgency in Nigeria, especially strategies adopted by the military and police in dealing with these phases of internal wranglings.

I was moved to look into the issue of compelling results from many reports and read the minds of many reporters on many platforms to which I belong. Speaking on the current trend of security activities in the country, many believed that nothing much has been done to ensure that the strategy being put in place by security agencies in the country is working as expected by Nigerians. 

I read about many suggestions, which include a high time for the handlers of security issues in the country to look inward to these suggestions if we are truly reasoning along the lines of fighting to end the insecurity situation in the country. One of the contributors to the debate suggested that a swap of military commanders as well as intelligence personnel be carried out. In practicality, it is suggested that field commanders of northern extraction be moved to the operational bases in the south, while the same be taken from the south to the north, as well as intelligence officers.

His opinion is that many of these commanders and intelligence officers are at home with many of these terrorists and bandits in the north, as well as those in the operations in southern Nigeria, who continue to leak information to these criminals, making every effort by the government to look more like a political interest than the opinions of the people.

Speaking on a video in circulation about the operations of the bandits in northwest Nigeria, a discussant on one of the platforms and a reporter with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, state that facts still remain that bandits are still around and conduct such acts as they do almost on a daily basis with impunity.

According to the reporter, “If you listen or read media reports, many villages in Niger, Zamfara, Sokoto, and Katsina states are still under siege, paying taxes to bandit groups that occupied primary schools as residence while subjecting the villagers to slavery.”

One of the participants, also a journalist, said, “I think it matters if we want to rule out the possibility of peddling fake news. I agree that there are activities by bandits in the NW and NC regions, but that doesn’t mean there are no counterterrorism activities by the Nigerian military. These kinds of conflicts are ubiquitous and pre-existential; they only keep evolving. So yes, they are happening, and efforts are being made to checkmate them; maybe they are happening at a pace that can be done better.”

While his opinion was worth looking at, another counter to the argument revealed that, “Of course there is counterterrorism, but the outcome is not encouraging, as bandits will kidnap victims, keep them for months while communicating with their relatives and collecting ransom until the last victim, then go for another round while security agencies are like watching helplessly or overwhelmed. Such victims even include security agents!”

More sad is seeing overwhelmed state governments trying to negotiate with bandits out of fear! The bandits hideouts are well known to the government, which has jet fighters, artillery, APCs, and other heavy arms, yet the bad elements are getting bolder on a daily basis.

A reporter confirmed that the Islamic cleric Sheikh Gumi even took some security personnel along to meet with the bandits in their hideouts, and the bandits talked boldly, looking down on the Nigerian authorities as weak.

One of the reporters agreed that the government needs to change tactics in its approach to handling the threat that keeps growing because it keeps using the normal tactics that make the whole thing look like treating leprosy with panadol. “Chinua Achebe said a strange disease (like bandits) cannot be cured with everyday herbs.” He added.

Another observation was that the government should think of something like mobilizing 50,000 to 100,000 youths in each of the affected states to be led by security agencies to sack all identified hideouts, just like youths in Maiduguri did to sack boko haram. There is no dangerous security threat like that of food insecurity, and that is where Nigeria is heading as bandits and other terrorists continue to threaten agriculture in the North.” He added.

On the reeling facts, one of the discussants said, “I agree your points are valid; the nemesis that is happening isn’t being treated the way it should. But do you think this combat approach is resolute enough to totally eliminate banditry and kidnapping? Do you think the way ‘youths in Maiduguri sacked Boko Haram’ is finite and brought an end to the insurgency? Imagine if bandits or BH say they want to have a faceoff with the military, let them meet at a point and fight off to the last blood, and assume the Nigerian military won them over and killed every last one of them. Do you say this is a victory that we will not see anything again like BH/Bandits?” He asked.

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“While everyone who knows history of conflict will attest Nigeria’s is novel and multifaceted, hence needs a tactical approach; instead of killing people who are hungry, why not find them what to eat, a job to do, or the healthcare they need? Instead of policies drawn and argued by politicians who take humongous salaries for nothing, why not make the lives of the poor easy? The problem as I see it, not wholly but majorly, lies in 1) democratic governance, which, for instance, values a more constitutional approach to solving problems than traditional leadership. 2) policies that are good on paper but not in the daily life of a common Nigerian. 3) the puppeting of the military by greedy politicians who don’t give absolute autonomy to security with a non-kinetic approach.” He stressed.

“It is a common understanding that when you can’t feed yourself, the one you rely on will feed you what he wishes. Farming for cash or food is not easy. 1) Farmers rely on loans, which they oftentimes suffer from not repaying. 2) They cannot do large-scale farming, for example, in the NE, due to insecurity. 3) Fertilizers and other farming logistics that the government can actively support are not provided in the case scenario: the tractors in Maiduguri’s Farm House some years ago and the Industrial Park beside BOSU.

“So, why won’t the government, for instance, take all of these to fruition? For example, it provides a large-scale farm with mechanization (since the government can), hires farmers for farming (job creation), makes industrial processing of the harvests, and sells them back at a subsidized amount to locals. But the government won’t do it and will say it’s not feasible. I’ve seen this done here in Nigeria. WFP has implemented the same in Kano, and rice was farmed. Truckloads of food from Nigeria were shipped to Burkina Faso. This happened just last year.” He said.

Another replied that “if people are busy doing what they can to feed themselves, nobody will have time to fight or kill each other just to survive. If you think fighting or killing bandits or BH by airstrikes or sustained gunfights will kill the elements, what will you say of the ideologies in the minds of their wives and children who have survived the fight, saw the military kill their fathers, and vowed to take vengeance?

“In years to come, they will fight harder and with more sophistication than their parents. So the bottom line for me is that Nigeria is trying—not enough, for sure—but approaches for such need to be all-encompassing. We can see propaganda videos of bandits testing their armor. How much of the strength of the military do we know? They don’t even show it; their successes aren’t as loud as the day-to-day abductions of bandits. Soldiers die on the frontlines. And also, it is easy to commit a crime, like kidnapping and demanding a ransom; it is the prevention of such kinds of intentions that is difficult. Still, I am not detesting your facts; I am attributing a wider picture for a more balanced understanding.

“The issue is that the military should dominate the fight. We record military formations being sacked by terrorists who are bold enough to attack convoys of troops! That’s not an encouraging signal. They need to receive successive bloody noses and many surprises from the military to keep them busy looking for where to hide instead of waiting to repel them. They need to be kept on the defensive. It’s a pity, and that is why the issues keep growing rather than dwindling. The entire approach to banditry, as well as other criminal networks, is not as pragmatic and holistic as it should be. Some of us have started suffering from the terror activities that discourage massive farming due to death threats posed to them by criminal elements across the states.”

Fighting Insurgency: When Journalists Compare Notes over Opinion and Interest in Military Strategy