EDITORIAL: Retooling against a failing counter-insurgency strategy

Armed herders killed 11 police officers on 9 September in Benue State. The fallen officers were members of a tactical team in an operation in the troubled Agu district, in Katsina Alu/Ukum Local Government Area. The tragedy came three days after three police officers were killed at a police checkpoint on the Abugi-Gurugi road in the state.

Many security operatives, as a matter of fact, have egregiously been put to the sword this month by non-state actors, such as the five soldiers killed by the insurgents that besieged Darul Jamal, a village near a military base in Borno State. There are pockets of isolated or single police officer killings across the country. Horrible narratives like these are worrying as they have become routine. As expected, they strike fear into the hearts of the civilian populace. When the military and police personnel are not safe, who then is?

These actions are subtle but cruel reminiscences of far more devastating assaults on the military and their assets, which have left Nigerians befuddled about the effectiveness of security operations against these non-state actors, whose heinous acts have brought grief and untold hardships to many bereaved families. The situation questions the capacity of the Nigerian State to put this unfortunate climate of insecurity to an end.

An army base attack by Boko Haram and ISWAP elements in January resulted in at least 22 soldiers being killed, Reuters reported, quoting military spokesman Edward Buba. Among the dead was the commanding officer of the military base. Arms and ammunition were stolen, which is a ridiculous irony associated with the country’s counter-insurgency efforts since the jihadists launched their attack in Maiduguri over the last two decades.

The chapter has not been closed in the case of the 17 soldiers murdered in an ambush in Okuama village in Delta State in March 2024. Some of the officers were decapitated and their bodies dismembered. The victims were Lieutenant Colonel AH Ali, the commander of 181 Amphibious Battalion, Nigerian Army; two majors and a captain, among others. In 2023, too, 22 soldiers were waylaid by bandits and killed while conducting operations.

As these dastardly acts continue, President Bola Tinubu was right in his reaction to the killing of the Okuama soldiers: “Members of the armed forces are at the heart of our nationhood. Any attack on them is a direct attack on our nation. We will not accept this wicked act.” To stop these attacks, our counterinsurgency operations need to be reset.

There is no way the war against terrorism, banditry, and the general breakdown of law and order can be won without new strategic thinking and a radical policy shift. It is time we begin to call a spade by its name. Quite often, mass massacres by herders in the North-Central states of Plateau and Benue are misconstrued as “farmers-herders” clashes. This is pure political correctness and being disingenuous. Their massacre of 11 members of the police tactical team in Benue, barely a week ago, when they also made away with the operational vehicle trucks and service guns of the police, was one act of impunity that puts a lie to such a claim. Hiding the truth does not help in finding a lasting solution to the crisis. What we are confronted with is the spread and intensification of terrorism.

Whether the killings happened recently or way back, the failure of intelligence and lack of synergy among the armed services stand out. The president should not condone these lapses any longer. Each killing of a security operative or a successful assault on a military base is a morale booster to these enemies of the Nigerian State. From official sources, the war with these non-state actors could not have lasted this long without the enemies within, or the notorious fifth columnists.

They exist in all the armed services. A Special Court Martial, for instance, last week in Maiduguri, sentenced three soldiers to life in jail for stealing arms from the armoury, which they sold to terrorists and bandits. The felons are Raphael Ameh, a Sergeant, Ejiga Musa, another Sergeant, and Patrick Ocheje. From the 7 Division of the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri, they connived with police officers to carry out the nefarious act of selling the weapons to criminals in Enugu and Ebonyi states.

Between 2022 and 2024, Mr Ameh is reported to have carried out 100 such suspicious transactions, as revealed by a bank account linked to him. Messrs Musa and Ocheje specialised in selling AK-47 rifles and ammunition, which were concealed in luggage. Brigadier-General Mohammed Abdullahi, the Court Martial officer, said their “action endangered military operations and national security.” These bad eggs, when discovered, deserve no mercy at all.

After a former Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, admitted in 2015 that such wolves were in the military and other services, and their activities combined to “weaken the fight against the insurgents,” if a special operation had been carried out to flush out these elements from the system, the Amehs in the country’s security networks would have long been done away with.

Insurgency cannot thrive without arms and ammunition. Unfortunately, opaque official handling of illegally imported weapons puts the lives of security personnel and the rest of us at risk. The Nigerian Army had in June 2018 seized three trucks laden with 300,000 cartridges of pump-action rifles. A similar haul of 150,000 rounds of ammunition was made by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) at the Tin-Can Island port. The NCS then said the contraband was found in a 40-foot container that also harboured 28 pieces of jack knives. They were not imported by ghosts!

Openness and transparency are required in handling cases like these. Where no investigations are carried out, as in the two cases above, and rogue importers are not prosecuted, an open licence is therefore given to them to continue their underworld activities. The security high command should halt this most dangerous drift of security personnel being easily killed in operations by non-state actors, or their having to take to their heels during shootouts, due to the inadequacy of their firepower in relation to that of their assailants.

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The Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, can help in this regard by ensuring that his directives on “no road blocks” are enforced. For now, that order rings hollow in a place like Imo State, where brazen bribe collection from motorists is the order of the day. Is the Imo State Commissioner of Police, Aboki Danjuma, pretending to be oblivious of this daily show of shame?

For evidence, the IG taskforce team should monitor the daily abuse of policing between Ulakwo–Naze along the busy Owerri to Aba highway, leading to Imo airport junction. At Okpala to Owerrinta Head Bridge, on the same highway, there is a bigger bazaar, which involves other services, including the army.

Any gunmen attack on any of these locations could easily wipe them out since their focus is on toll collection, and not security. The five police officers, from Aboh Mbaise Police Division, killed in April 2023 at Okpala junction and their weapons carted away, were a result of such unethical behaviour. Security agencies should learn from the lessons they see daily!

Very importantly, there is an urgent need for a new counter-insurgency strategy in the country, and stronger retooling towards stemming the tide of these embarrassing losses of our state security actors and materiel. It is only the State that can restore the dignity of its security forces by tooling them to ward off all sorts of threats, while protecting the sanctity of life and property, that is the sovereignty and the essence of governance.