The fortunes of the Nigerian Army have of late been going down precipitously. A military force that was for a long time the pride of the country, and was deservedly celebrated for its peace keeping skills across the continent and beyond, has suddenly descended into disgrace. To be sure, the responsibility for the illfortune of the Nigerian military as a whole and the Army in particularly lies with the military.
It is the outcome of the aggravation of the unhealthy introduction of politics into what ought to be an essentially professional calling. If the military’s entry into politics was at some point justified, if not inevitable, its continued stay in politics, in fact the determination of some within its hierarchy to engage in politics even while in uniform and at the expense of the demands of their profession, downgraded the status of the Nigerian military as a fighting force.
Having tasted the forbidden fruit of power, the military resisted the urgency to return to the barracks. It became a game of musical chairs as one group of armed adventurers misnamed soldiers plotted the ouster of another via coups that were often bloody and retrogressive in outcome.
At least two of the last three regimes that Nigeria had and that were able to stay the course before the return to civilian rule in 1999 have been credited (or is it discredited?) for the destruction of the military, by their deliberate policy of keeping it under-resourced and ill equipped. Those individuals that functioned either as Chief of Army Staff and/or head of state in the series of regimes that were in power between 1985 and 1999 have a lot to answer for the state of our military today.
The damning admission by the last Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Goodluck Jonathan, the man whose hometown was sacked by Boko Haram- Alex Badeh’s admission that the military found it hard fighting the insurgency forces in the North East because it had not been equipped for long is a strong confirmation of the responsibility the military bears for its fall into something of a ragtag outfit. The President would also repeat Badeh’s comment on the neglect of the military on different occasions during the campaigns for the March 28 polls.
Following the rot that had taken over the military at the top, it was no surprise that it became anything but a fighting force. The increase in the activities of the Boko Haram insurgents that peaked with their declaration of a caliphate only served to further humiliate the military, especially the Nigerian Army that had no answer to the wanton attacks of the insurgents.
Reports of soldiers sent to the war front virtually barehanded deserting their posts were to further throw cold water on any hope of the military routing Boko Haram. With very little by way of weaponry to prosecute its operations in the North East, our military personnel were reportedly forced into the cowardly position of destroying their own equipment.
They would rather feign injury or actually took themselves out of action by inflicting injuries on themselves than take on Boko Haram. From this time on the systemic rot in the military had begun to manifest its long ignored effects on individual members of the military. Many would be court-martialled while others would be dismissed as a consequence even if they could hardly be blamed for the situation in which they had found themselves.
With its new found vigour under a new set of commanders, the military has in the last few months been able to turn back the hand of the clock in its North East operations. Of this there is no doubt. It is therefore not surprising that the Nigerian Army is beginning to take a close look at its personnel as it has announced a plan to clamp down on unfit soldiers.
By unfit the military refers to that segment of its personnel that has lost the bearing of a soldier either because it has grown too fat or generally lacks the mental fitness required in the profession. The effect of the long years of neglect of the military was not just limited to a palpable lack of hardware. No less affected was the training of military personnel for fitness. But for their uniforms, many of our soldiers don’t look the part of soldiers. Their fierceness is only a put-on to harass civilian members of the public. Some are either too fat to look smart or too anorexic they appear underfed.
Soldiery is not just a matter of name. Nor is it a matter just of uniforms alone. There is a lot more by which to identify a soldier. The physical and mental fitness of a soldier is far more important, arguably, than simply providing them with weapons and pushing them into battle. Fitness is required to properly and maximally use available weaponry.
The military cannot overlook this aspect. A lot of the human rights abuses for which our military has been culpable are not unconnected to the poor mental and physical state of our soldiers. A trigger-happy soldier or police officer cannot be said to be mentally or physically fit. Soldiers who engage police officers or, worse yet, civilians in public brawls and set fire to police stations cannot be considered mentally fit. Such need to be retrained for mental fitness. As should be legislators, like those Peoples Democratic Party senators, that staged a walkout in the Senate following the confirmation of Rotimi Amaechi as minister-designate.
As Nigerians we need to be concerned about the appearance of those who speak in our name even if many of them got into office by fraudulent means. The concern is not that our legislators dress poorly or in the wrong clothing. On that score many would do better than models paid to catwalk. Most are expensively overdressed in fact.
But they very often appear drowsy where they don’t look distracted or lost in thought. Their minds could be on anything and anywhere but the issues at stake in the National Assembly. Many of these legislators as those who staged the walkout look physically –and to the extent of that- mentally unfit.
Those who don’t look obese appear lethargic in their long robes. Many of them could have been taken for sumo wrestlers. This bad physical state may be responsible for the frequency with which many of them can be observed either snoozing or sleeping in their seats. Their situation is compounded by their eagerness to go on recess ever so often. But like other Nigerians our legislators in Abuja and elsewhere need to be mentally and physically alert, even if only for them to be able to do a little of the job for which they are overcompensated.
VANGUARD
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