TheCable

There must be something wrong with public service in Nigeria that makes people sing like canaries immediately they leave office. Remember how former President Goodluck Jonathan said he felt liberated after conceding the presidential election to President Muhammadu Buhari? But this is not about the former president; it is about our two former service chiefs who recently retired – Alex Sabundu Badeh and Kenneth Tobiah Jacob Minimah.

Badeh served as Chief of Defence Staff from January 16, 2014 till July 13 this year and retired as air chief marshal, a four-star rank. He holds a masters degree in Strategic Studies from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan. While in service, he was decorated with many honours, including Forces Service Star (FSS), Meritorious Service Star (MSS), and Distinguished Service Star (DSS) and his records show that he was born on January 10, 1957, confirming to be a 58-year old retired officer, no longer a young person.

Minimah retired as Chief of Army Staff after former President Jonathan named him the Army chief the same day Badeh became the CDS, even though 31 generals were forced to give way for him as the convention in the military is that senior officers don’t serve under their junior. A member of the Regular Course 25 at the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), members of Courses 24, 23, and 22 left the army so that Minimah could take charge of our soldiers. Further, he also holds a masters degree in Strategic Studies from University of Ibadan, definitely there must be something in the school that attracts our soldiers like bees to honey.

Just like Badeh, he, too, has MSS, DSS, and FSS medals. I discovered two different dates of birth for him as I researched this piece, February 7, 1959 and July 27, 1959, but that is not important at this time as both dates show that he is also an adult who understands the weight of his words very well.

My concern is the words of these two officers during their pulling-out-parade, a traditional military ceremony to mark officers’ retirement from service. On Thursday, July 30, Badeh claimed that the military he led as chief of defence staff lacked equipment to prosecute the war on terror. I’m sure most of us nearly did a double somersault on hearing the air chief marshal. “For the first time, I was head of a military that lacked the relevant equipment and motivation to fight an enemy that was invisible and embedded with the local populace,” were Badeh’s words as reported by the media. He went further to lament that there were ‘fifth columnists’ in the military that militated against the war on terror. “Furthermore, the activities of fifth columnists in the military and other security agencies who leaked operational plans and other sensitive military information to the terrorists, combined to make the fight against the insurgents particularly difficult,” he said.

Juxtapose this with Badeh’s words in January this year when he told Defence Magazine that soldiers should not complain of lack of equipment or inadequate welfare as they were all provided accommodation and the necessary welfare needed to perform their duties. The International Centre for Investigative Reports (ICIR) in many stories about soldiers at the forefront of the battle against Boko Haram, gave grim detail of how our soldiers were accommodated in makeshift tents while being fed with ration not fit for animals under Badeh and Minimah. Yet, the man from Vintim, Adamawa State kept quiet even when Boko Haram forces overran his own village and set up camp there. He equally did not ask to be discharged from the air force or tell his commander-in-chief that he was tired or could not bear what was going on at that time.

For Minimah who retired as a lieutenant general, a three-star rank, lack of cooperation among Nigerians, whatever that means, is the main reason while the army under him could not tame Boko Haram. As reported by this newspaper, https://www.thecable.ng/minimah-bharam-drew-strength-disunity-nigerians

Minimah asked the government to provide more funds for the military not forgetting to add that our soldiers are capable of taming the Boko Haram monster. We need not go into the budgetary allocation for defence in the past four years neither do we need to even bother about the words of the immediate past national security adviser, SamboDasuki, who last week claimed that the Jonathan government actually ordered for ‘sophisticated weapons’ to fight the insurgents. The claims of these two generals should be deemed offensive to the souls of those innocent soldiers who died in the battle against Boko Haram. It should also be repugnant to those officers and men who were court-martialled for deserting the war front when confronted by superior fire of insurgents.

It was one of Minimah’s predecessors as army chief who described our army as the ‘army of anything goes’ and sadly, this tag seemed to have stuck with it as the words of these men showed.

What happened to that phrase, ‘an officer and a gentleman?”