A former Chief of Army Staff and Chief of
Defence Staff, General Alani Akinrinade (retd.),
tells GBENGA ADENIJI and BAYO AKINLOYE that
Nigeria may be headed for crisis if the elections
are not well managed
You are one of the finest soldiers Nigeria has
ever produced. You also fought in the civil war
to keep the country as one. Do you have any
regrets?
When you have a duty, especially if it is a
professional duty, you should be happy each
time you are able to discharge your
responsibilities creditably. Therefore, to that
extent, yes (I feel fulfilled.) We fought a civil war.
I will say to the best of my ability, I discharged
my duties. But if you look at the reasons why we
fought the war, I will say it was an unnecessary
war. If I knew at that time what I now know
after many years of going around the world,
studying history and reading biographies, I just
feel it was an unnecessary war. But,
unfortunately today, we’re faced with fighting
terrorism. That phenomenon is going to
dominate the world for the next 50 years, like I
said in 2001 in one of my lectures. We are going
to be chasing terrorists for the next 50 years if
we are not careful. The reason is simply because
we ignore why people do the things they do. We
dismiss them instead of examining the message
carefully and finding answers to it. I think it is
rooted in injustice — injustice that breeds poverty
in such a big way; that is overwhelming that
people become desperate to use any means to
vent their frustration and religion is an
instrument they use.
Going back to the civil war, we have not attained
the peace we were looking for; we have not
achieved that unity we sought. We wanted to
keep Nigeria united for a purpose. We have not
achieved the purpose from what we see now
many years after the war — and that is the
source of my regret. There is too much of a
class struggle in Nigeria. The centre of power in
Nigeria is so narrow and they make all the
decisions.
How will you assess the state of insecurity in
the country and do you think the Multinational
Joint Task Force is the solution to the
insurgency in the North-East?
The insurgency we are facing in this country is
getting more sophisticated and aggravated by
the day. The insurgents are beginning to have
high morale as if they are achieving something.
The state of insecurity in Nigeria is very bad; it
is frightening. When Nigeria on the northern
border has such countries like Cameroon, Niger
and Chad, I don’t think the insurgency we have
on our hand now is going to recognise any
boundary at all. Boko Haram is looking for
territories they can capture; it doesn’t matter
whether it is in Nigeria or Cameroon. That’s
certainly a reason for everyone to be sitting up
and lend a hand to the Nigerian troops. If you
remember, the September 11 plot was hatched
not in the United States but in a foreign land.
Therefore, there is a possibility that if
neighbouring countries allow the insurgents to
establish an Islamic caliphate, the whole world
has a problem to deal with. Evidently, there is a
reason for the international community to get
really worried. Unfortunately, despite having
some combined international forces fighting in
Iraq many years ago, that country still remains
an unsafe place for people to live. A similar thing
is being experienced in Afghanistan; America is
still battling with the Taliban. Multinational Joint
Task Force is okay but I am not really sure that
is the sole solution to the insurgency. I am not
sure the MNJTF alone will solve the problem but
we need to have all the neighbouring countries in
the northern border to wake up and start doing
something. I think it’s a very good idea but
there are still limitations to such endeavours.
Nigeria boasts of probably the best troops in
sub-Saharan Africa but the troops seem
incapable of dislodging Boko Haram insurgents.
Where does the problem lie?
Perhaps, it is rooted in the trend of development
in the Army itself when they went into
governance and coups started happening. Even
within the coups, there were coups and there
were people shot and murdered trying to attempt
a coup. With a situation like that, the esprit de
corps of the military has been eroded. I think we
lost that esprit de corps gradually since the day
the military started engaging in coups. That’s
one aspect. Second, our governments didn’t have
proper ministers of defence, who represent the
political class, the political system and the
professional soldiers. They are removed in quick
successions, thereby destroying the military
institution. There were periods when no
development really took place.
In the case of arms, ammunitions and equipment
to match what is happening in the world, we
didn’t pay enough attention to that. I also think
that soldiers are humans; they live with us and
they have the same kind of connections that all
of us have within the society. They need to be
encouraged. I heard an officer say that all over
the world soldiers buy uniforms for themselves.
That is not true. There is no country in the world
that will send its soldiers to war and be
expecting them to buy uniforms with their own
money. If it gets to that point, then we are
beginning to lose the grip on our soldiers.
Do you see anything wrong in the use of the
Civilian Joint Task Force in military operations
against Boko Haram?
Even during the civil war, we needed the help of
the civilians because they knew the terrains
better than what the map was telling us. They
also knew some of idiosyncrasies of the
population there, helping us to know how to
handle them. But we didn’t organise them into a
force. If you arm a man and afterwards he is
hungry, he will use the weapon to find
something to eat. Boko Haram also was
supposed to have started that way except that
religion was part of it — where a governor was
alleged to have used some people as thugs,
though organised, and he abandoned them. They
also abandoned him and turned on the people,
the police and the nation. Though that danger is
there for the civilian JTF to become a menace, it
is not unusual to use civilians to help the
military in terms of intelligence gathering. It is
easier to send someone who is not a soldier
around the enemy line, who is part of the
population whom they know.
Nobody knew the depth to which they could go
simply because we don’t have a police force
within the people. That’s one problem and that’s
why the military now need an organised civilian
JTF. But if the soldiers cannot face the guns of
the insurgents, how do you expect people
carrying bows, arrows and some dane guns to be
effective? Beyond using them for gathering
information, and assisting the military in carrying
out some logistic duties, they can’t be any more
effective. We are on dangerous grounds, more so
when we now have elections around the corner;
they may be available to unscrupulous
politicians.
The court marshalling of soldiers accused of
mutiny in the current fight against Boko Haram
has been described by some people as ill-timed.
Some say it should have been done secretly not
to demoralise other soldiers on the war front.
What do you think?
We have to be very careful. We are in a
democracy and there is freedom of information.
Democracy thrives on information being freely
available; it will be difficult to defend in the
future if the military went into the barracks and
secretly court marshal people on matters of life
and death — in which case they can be
sentenced to death. That can be very dangerous.
Maybe in military era, you can do that. But in
this democracy, all of us have the responsibility
to demand for an open book so that we know
exactly what is going on. It’s a lesson for all of
us. Be that as it may, there is no good time or
bad time of disciplining soldiers. I think what we
should worry about is the frequency and the
magnitude of it. When the country has a hundred
soldiers, including officers, being court -
marshalled at the same time, we should start
asking ourselves questions. Are we really going
down slope to the extent that we will not able to
retrieve these things if we just apply the simple
law? It’s unlawful to demonstrate in the army.
Yet, I don’t think it is enough to rely on the law
to discipline erring soldiers in this case. We need
to ask why. I tell myself that if these (mutinies
by soldiers) happened under my watch, I will
court marshal all the officers. I will disband the
units because soldiers cannot under these
circumstances do anything on their own.
Therefore, the senior officers must have done
something wrong. We should find out exactly
what it is. The soldiers gave all sorts of reasons
— that they were badly equipped and that they
didn’t have food. We suggest to the armed
forces to look deeper into the reasons these
things are happening. Using ordinary complaints
about equipment not being good enough to fight
the war does not entail discipline. The military
authorities, particularly the civilian authorities,
have a primary responsibility to critically
consider this issue and find out exactly why the
soldiers acted the way they did.
Some people are agitating for the postponement
of the general elections. How do you see the call
for poll shift or otherwise?
Those using the security situation as a reason
for poll shift owe us answers on when it will be
conducive to conduct the general elections.
When is the situation going to be better than
now? Before we can debate this, they must
advance what will happen if the elections are
held at the scheduled time. I haven’t seen or
heard anyone oblige us with those arguments. I
have a feeling that this situation that we are in
is not going to change for a very long time. If
elections could be held in Afghanistan, Pakistan
and Iraq, we will have to think again; if really we
want democracy or we want something else. I
know there are cases in court concerning the
election. I think the most annoying one is the
case about (Muhammadu) Buhari not having a
certificate.
Why is it annoying?
It is an insult to the armed forces — a terrible
insult to the armed forces. If they are so
embedded in the system and they have lost their
souls, then they can go ahead and join everybody
else in castigating a General of Buhari’s calibre.
They are now talking about a school certificate.
What is that? By the time he joined the army, in
those days, there were no cutting corners. It is
later when these same civilians took over from
the army that admission into it became less
transparent. I can give you an instance. There
was Course Five around 1964: if one did not
have a school certificate one couldn’t apply to
join the army. And I know up to 1963 when the
last General Officer Commanding left Nigeria,
there were no corners to be cut. There was no
such thing. Everything was on merit. And, that
was how it was till Buhari’s time. Buhari
attended the Mons (Officer Cadet School in
Aldershot in England) and the Staff College; I
don’t want to think they have an idea what they
teach in those places. And the rest of us pretend
as if we don’t know what they do there. You
send a man to America for one and a half years
in a military school. Do they think he just went
there to learn how to fire a rifle? No.
But why is it difficult for Buhari to produce the
original copy of the certificate?
He did. As I speak to you, I don’t know where
my original certificate is because we gave the
original to the Military Board. They took it from
us when we applied to join the Army. You give
the original copy of credential to the board. They
take it and keep it in your file, that’s what
happened. How many years ago? 50 years. And
Nigeria with our (poor) record-keeping and filing
things into an archive -if we have an archive at
all; an archive inhabited by rats and
cockroaches. I think it’s an insult. I take it as a
personal insult.
You feel the general elections should go ahead?
Yes. That is what the constitution says. Let the
election hold and let’s see in how many places
people cannot vote before we start this hue and
cry. We’re back to 1993. They took us back all
the way to 1993. We have seen this before. I am
unhappy that (Pastor Tunde) Bakare was ever
part of it (call for poll shift) because he is a
great fellow of mine. They see a difficult situation
instead of going head on to confront it, Nigeria
wants to take a path that leads to nowhere to
only perdition. We have been on this route before
and we know the result. Why do we think this
current situation is going to end up differently?
The danger in this one is that we have been
hearing of a possible disintegration in Nigeria;
not from outside the country but within. It was a
subject (disintegration) at the National
Conference. I was there. We are driving ourselves
towards that route. The result may not be very
palatable. What is more, we have created so
many warlords all over Nigeria. There are private
armies around the whole place.
Will you encourage the call for the international
community like the European Union, African
Union, and the United Kingdom to prevail on the
Federal Government not to postpone the
February 14 elections just as the United States
recently did?
For people who are democrats, exactly what
America said is what they are going to say. We
did this (presidential election) four years ago
where they swore in President Jonathan and four
years after we are going to have another
election. This is not the time to start swaying
about like lilies in the wind. They can’t do much
more than they have done; to warn us and also
to send election observers. I hear a lot of them
already have observers in the country, which
should be at a great cost to them. Therefore,
what else do we want from these people? We
must think of ourselves as being very much
devalued and we earned it — we deserve it. The
international community has done its bit. It is
also disturbing that up till now we still need
policemen to be standing by polling booths
before we can even be sure we can vote. If we
are expecting much more from the developed
world, we are wasting our time. A few things
have changed since 1993 that can make the
situation worse now, if we are stupid enough not
to have an election. We might realise that the
world is not so enamoured with us. Perhaps,
they are angry with us because we have made a
very bad specimen of a country in a developing
world. We’re not even developing because we’re
still very backward.
Buhari has been portrayed as being an honest
man. Do you think being an honest man is
enough for someone to rule Nigeria?
It is not enough but it is the first thing in the
order in which I would put the qualities of a
Nigerian leader. Considering where we find
ourselves today, honesty is the first quality a
man should have. The people should trust a
leader to the point that his words are taken as a
bond. If it is your worry that is honesty enough, I
will say yes it is enough. The next one is wisdom
so that the leader is able to get people who will
do the work for him.
Jonathan seems to be the most criticised
President the country has ever produced. Do you
think he deserves the criticisms?
I will just say he earned the criticisms. There is
no smoke without fire. If fish wants to rot, it
starts from the head. The market, women know
that when they go to the market they open the
gill. If it is green inside, the fish is rotten. Even if
he didn’t personally commit all the offences
levelled against him, he’s still responsible. He is
the President. He can ensure that justice is done
where there are infractions committed by people
under his watch. He shouldn’t allow impunity to
thrive.
Recently, Niger Delta militants threatened to go
to war if Jonathan loses his re-election bid.
What do you make of that?
I know only one of the militants but I don’t think
he was old enough to really talk about what
happened during the civil war. They must also
remember, especially the ethnic militias in the
Niger Delta area, that the war went through their
places too. They got away very lightly then
simply because it was the area we wanted to
carve out of the jurisdiction of (Emeka) Ojukwu.
First, they were the minorities and they didn’t
sign an agreement that said they wanted to form
part of Biafra. As a result, the rest of us were
under obligation to protect the minorities. The
war was also fought in their territories. If they
were old enough they would see the misery even
though they didn’t suffer ten per cent of what
the East-Central, the present South-East went
through. They are giving wrong reasons to keep
their son in the Presidency. It’s a filthy reason. It
doesn’t show they understand what democracy
is all about. Nigerians are not going to vote
under duress. Politics is a game of numbers. The
one we refused to do in 1993, we have not come
out of it. We’re going through the same cycle. I
don’t think they lived at that time. I don’t think
even the politicians today were old enough at
that time to see exactly the drama that unfolded.
It seems to me: we learn very little from our
past. What we are risking is a complete
disintegration of our country. Thereafter, we will
blame America for predicting the doom staring us
in the face. In 2010, John Campbell wrote in his
book what could lead Nigeria into a bigger
trouble. Is that not what is happening now? www.punchng.com/news/its-an-insult-on-the-military-to-question-buharis-certificate-gen-akinrinade/

Insult my foot!...Who's he that we won't ask of his certificate

too long, ,i didn't read

but I'm optimistic that this man is saying the truth


#march4BUHARI

I expect retired army officers to sound this in the ears of Jonathan, not to politicize the army.

"I think the most annoying one is the
case about (Muhammadu) Buhari not having a
certificate.
Why is it annoying?
It is an insult to the armed forces — a terrible
insult to the armed forces. If they are so
embedded in the system and they have lost their
souls, then they can go ahead and join everybody
else in castigating a General of Buhari’s calibre.
They are now talking about a school certificate.
What is that? By the time he joined the army, in
those days, there were no cutting corners. It is
later when these same civilians took over from
the army that admission into it became less
transparent. I can give you an instance. There
was Course Five around 1964: if one did not
have a school certificate one couldn’t apply to
join the army. And I know up to 1963 when the
last General Officer Commanding left Nigeria,
there were no corners to be cut. There was no
such thing. Everything was on merit. And, that
was how it was till Buhari’s time. Buhari
attended the Mons (Officer Cadet School in
Aldershot in England) and the Staff College; I
don’t want to think they have an idea what they
teach in those places. And the rest of us pretend
as if we don’t know what they do there. You
send a man to America for one and a half years
in a military school. Do they think he just went
there to learn how to fire a rifle? No.
But why is it difficult for Buhari to produce the
original copy of the certificate?
He did. As I speak to you, I don’t know where
my original certificate is because we gave the
original to the Military Board. They took it from
us when we applied to join the Army. You give
the original copy of credential to the board. They
take it and keep it in your file, that’s what
happened. How many years ago? 50 years. And
Nigeria with our (poor) record-keeping and filing
things into an archive -if we have an archive at
all; an archive inhabited by rats and
cockroaches. I think it’s an insult. I take it as a
personal insult."

Hmm

Like I've always said when the war breaks out. There would be no GEJ vs GMB. It would just be me and you.

Lots of arrogance from these military guys. Too much arrogance.

Insult ko , in salt no.