20—SATURDAY Vanguard, FEBRUARY 20, 2021 They won’t face reality. They won’t accept facts. In the North, the chickens are coming home to roost. The northern elite are the most shortsighted and selfish in Africa. The breed of the Aminu Kanos and the Sarduanas have gone extinct. The preoccupation of the bulk of North’s political leadership, a rapacio<strong>us</strong>, self-conceited bunch masquerading as politicians, political mercenaries is political conquests rather than development. How could anyone run a parched ground like Yobe and sleep well, let alone have time for national politics? I k<strong>now</strong> politicians in the south and elsewhere in the country are not better, but the south’s situation is not as stark as the North’s. In not resisting westernization, the south’s culture has masked the equally gaping southern political leadership deficiencies. The south has fairly good literacy levels. The south has no good healthcare and public schools but the south has teachers and exports doctors to the West. The south could yet crumble, but the North is already in tatters. That’s why the continuing somnolence of the North’s public has become tragic. For so long northern governors competed for farcical righteo<strong>us</strong>ness. They competed to institute the sharia. Sharia is good. But the adoption of religio<strong>us</strong> fanaticism as <strong>state</strong> policy by politicians to hoodwink the people and win elections was costly charlatanism. They got the votes but didn’t give them education and jobs. All they did was legitimize extremism, encourage more children to embrace the Almajiri system, and indirectly bolster the idea that western education is corruption. The governors watched and frolicked in Abuja as school enrollment figures plummeted. Zamafara, the erstwhile throne of righteo<strong>us</strong>ness, is <strong>now</strong> tired of sharia. Where is the wealth of millions of children born in the wild to herdsmen, born into the servitude and perpetually slavery of roaming tho<strong>us</strong>ands of miles with cattle to earn crumbs? Zamfara directly negotiates with outlaws. Some days ago, Mr Matawalle, the Governor of Zamfara, in a blatant display of empathy for bandits, literally j<strong>us</strong>tified banditry. He said some of the bandits were not criminals. They were wronged people who took to assault rifles and RPGs to fight for j<strong>us</strong>tice the way they knew best. This is the same Zamfara where people lost their limbs for petty theft. The same Zamfara where a former deputy governor placed a The North and its political ostriches fatwa—kill on sight order— on a Nigerian journalist for alleged defamation. In today’s Zamfara, the governor <strong>now</strong> sympathies with insurgents, terrorists. That is the story of the North. Quota system, federal character, and differential cut-off marks can only do so much. They can fetch a few unmerited positions which the occupants would <strong>us</strong>e to fatten their egos and pockets. They can’t create jobs and healthcare for impoverished millions who live miserably, threatened by a burgeoning desert. The North’s elite is culpable. The North has experienced a frightening population explosion. Everybody k<strong>now</strong>s that the pace of population growth in the North has far outstripped the country’s economic growth. But desperate to retain a hold on power, the northern elite love the skyrocketing population numbers. So they have failed to initiate any population control measures. They have no hospitals. They have no schools. They have no teachers, yet they will do nothing to check the burst. Children who are unschooled and unsheltered will invariably end up streets urchins and intensify societal decay. They k<strong>now</strong>. Yet, in the face of that ticking bomb, we are often reminded that every child comes with his own wealth. Where is the wealth of millions of children born in the wild to herdsmen, born into the servitude and perpetually slavery of roaming tho<strong>us</strong>ands of miles with cattle to earn crumbs? The chickens are back to roost. We will reap what we have sown. Before our eyes, banditry has seized the North. Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, and Niger. Taraba, Benue, Plateau have had their stories. The Northeast is already desolate; the northwest is falling apart. Rather than hold village meetings every day, weep together to find lasting solutions to these problems, the northern elite have their eyes on 2023 and A b u j a calculations. Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t j<strong>us</strong>t surrender sovereignty to the European Union so that our local politicians can concentrate on being local government chairmen. The minister of defense, in a veiled jab, called <strong>us</strong> cowards. In their days, he said, they <strong>us</strong>ed to stand up to violent criminals. Their days were the Maitasine days, I guess. But <strong>now</strong>, he has suggested, we m<strong>us</strong>t not sheepishly surrender to bandits. He urged <strong>us</strong> to confront insurgents with RPGs with bare hands. Please forgive the minister. He is out of touch. When he tried to recant, he said he wanted <strong>us</strong> to be courageo<strong>us</strong>. He moves around courageo<strong>us</strong>ly with armed security guards. It’s not his fault. Honestly, the courage missing in the North is not that which can lead to a bloodbath when bandits who seek to dine with governors and collect bags of ransoms come to abduct school children. The courage missing is that needed to confront the governors and hold them accountable. The ordinary people in the North are easily seduced by the political conquests of their leaders rather than developmental projects. They are delirio<strong>us</strong> when their leaders win federal appointments and become big men. The courage they need is the courage to force accountability. The courage to prioritize their reality—poverty, illiteracy, and misery—above the vanity of their selfish leaders’ ego diameter. But that courage will come. I k<strong>now</strong> the North’s masses have the innate capacity, the effervescent temperament to turn around quickly and chase away political ineptitude overnight. But they are still slumbero<strong>us</strong>. The spark they need will come quicker if regional autonomy is granted. The stark pictures of the regions, juxtaposed side by side, in a restructured federation, will ro<strong>us</strong>e fury. When powers are devolved and resource control ceded to the regions, a healthy rivalry will ensue. The people of the North will see their potentials and see their nightmarish decline in 3D. Today, any governor can hide under the federal government. After restructuring, the federal government will be so thin and so naked it can not conceal anybody’s ineptitude. Some healthy regional rivalry had begun in the first republic. When regional governments return, Rather than hold village meetings every day, weep together to find lasting solutions to these problems, the northern elite have their eyes on 2023 and calculations. Abuja Northeast youths’ migration to Lagos to become okada riders alongside literal refugees from Niger Republic will become visible. While we have an obese Abuja, the northern political elite can live in abject self-deceit. Aminu Kano was worried about the poor. He mingled with them and made them his preoccupation. Today besides a man like Gov Zulum and El Rufai, perhaps, many other governors do not understand the depth of the problem. They do good talks, pay lip service to development, and sleep well. They are not shocked by the data that has the core north in the neighborhood of a wretched Afghanistan. When regional restructuring and resource control forces the truth on the North, it will see the lies and rise. It will find the Aminu Kanos and it will recover lost grounds. The North thirsts for the naked truth, but its leaders are soothing it with clothed lies. Surprisingly, the Nigerian Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) is often seen as an officer who has been merely kicked upstairs to make way for, sayan Army, Air or Naval Chief of Staff. In fact, there were murmurs of disaffection when former President Shehu Shagari appointed Nigeria’s first Chief of Defence Staff, Lt. General Alani Akinrinade, in 1981, during the Second Republic, from Army Chief, to be the apex military coordinator, and appointed Gen. Inua W<strong>us</strong>hishi as his successor. The recently dropped Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Y<strong>us</strong>uf Buratai, for all his failures, was decidedly more than a decorative flower vase, while he occupied that office. He forgot one important thing; that he was not the Chief of Defence Staff; General Abayomi Gabriel Olonisakin was. Please, dear Gen. Leo Eluonye Onyenuchea Irabor, as CDS, there is a terrible sore that your predecessors have allowed to fester; reforming the character of the average military man or woman for the concept of honour; a keen sense of ethical conduct: INTEGRITY, to take root. In the US, it is easy to guess who is a soldier; beca<strong>us</strong>e of their behaviour, punctuality, sense of duty towards others, their readiness to defend the underdog, respect for the rule of law and those in authority over them, esprit de corps (a feeling of pride and mutual loyalty shared by the members of a group) and elevated sense of integrity. Here esprit de corps is exhibited only in a mob attack against a civilian. Dear General, the military and paramilitary academies destroy the morale of youths beca<strong>us</strong>e the average soldier or <strong>police</strong>man is worse than the worst civilian in cutting corners, in making the quick buck, in telling lies, in smoking ganja, in disobeying traffic lights, in lawlessness, what lesson has the military learnt from the losses suffered in the hands of Boko Haram? When USA, after fighting brilliantly against Britain in the American War of Independence, suffered disgraceful losses in the War of 2012, it was time to rejig Gen Leo Irabor: Ref eform the Militar ary; coordinate operations its military. So, Captain Sylvan<strong>us</strong> Thayer approached the Secretary of War, James Monroe, in 1815, with his plan. After touring Europe for two years, Thayer took charge at West Point. The late American journalism legend, Jenkin Lloyd Jones in an article titled a MAN OF HONOUR, said that Thayer “had been thinking about those intangibles that separate merely clever fighters from great leaders. He had been wondering why military history was full of fools for whom men would gladly die while abler men couldn’t get a following. And he concluded that perhaps the difference was honour and truth and devotion to duty”. From that day, the training at West Point changed to bring about “Honour without Supervision,” Thayer’s motto. Soon, all other military academies copied the change at West Point. Yet, we have soldiers who s<strong>us</strong>pect that their own commanders, at all levels, have short-changed them. So, their loyalty and devotion are shallow. Today in American military academies, barracks and parade grounds “honesty is raised almost to a fetish” wrote Jenkins. And Thayer <strong>us</strong>ed to say: “A cadet does not lie, cheat or steal”. Not in Nigeria; here, even Service Chiefs have been found guilty of embezzlement. Soldiers sell arms to terrorists and betray fellow soldiers. Troops s<strong>us</strong>pect officers of creaming off their rations or ammo. The second reform is that you m<strong>us</strong>t provide command. You m<strong>us</strong>t be a conductor of the Nigerian military orchestra. The bombing runs of the Air Force m<strong>us</strong>t be coordinated with the actions of the ground forces to cut off and decimate escaping terrorists. The intelligence units m<strong>us</strong>t become fruitful. In a symphony, the rising volume of the brass, the increased speed of the guitars and violins, the heightening kpam kpam dim dim of the drums, the crashing of the cymbals, the wailing of the trumpets, and the baritone or soprano voice or voices are all coordinated to give a predetermined effect. So you m<strong>us</strong>t coordinate, yes, provide command. Esprit de corps is one of Henri Fayol’s 14 administrative principles. The principle <strong>state</strong>s that an organisation m<strong>us</strong>t make every effort to maintain group cohesion in the organisation. It notes that dividing your competition is a clever tactic, but dividing your own team is a serio<strong>us</strong> error. But dear Gen Irabor, there appears to be a terrible competition and mutual s<strong>us</strong>picion between the different military arms. You may have often read about what the Air Force has done to nuetralise bandits or Boko Haram insurgents, or what the Army itself has done, but have seen relating to a heightened collaboration among the vario<strong>us</strong> services? Also, there appears to be little input from the intelligence arms of the military, so insurgents abduct school children and receive ransom before they release them. This is a ca<strong>us</strong>e for shame for often, we read or hear about instances or acc<strong>us</strong>ations of collaborations between soldiers and insurgents. Even military and political leaders complain about villagers giving real time intelligence to vandals to successfully amb<strong>us</strong>h troops. But those heartless criminals move from their bases, carry out a campaign without the <strong>police</strong> or the military getting any hint. If the criminals could recruit and maintain informants, why can’t the military? In the 1991 Operation Desert Shield, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, was the actual Commander-in-Chief, United States Central Command, in the Middle East war theater. But everyone knew who coordinated all operations; sea, air and land; General Colin L. Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - though his job was really to advise the US President. Today the world still talks about the Powel Doctrine of war. <strong>Give</strong> <strong>us</strong> the Irabor Doctrine, and may it consign Boko Haram and banditry into history! You were Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya four years ago. So, you k<strong>now</strong> you have an urgent job to conclude. God’s speed!
SATURDAY VANGUARD, FEBRUARY 20, 2021—21
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