Editor's Note: This article was written by Mukhtar Usman-Janguza: A London based Africa and Middle East public affairs commentator. He blogs at janguzaarewa.blogspot.com
For the referenced version of this article, click here
It
is time we stop using the ECOMOG operations as the paradigm case of the
military’s combat effectiveness – because they were not!
Soldiers in a military ceremony to honour war heroes (Reuters)
In
an earlier article I assessed the claim, often made by our military and
political elite, that the Nigerian military “brought peace to Liberia and
Sierra-Leone”. In this post, I will outline what I believe to be five
compelling similarities between the military’s ECOMOG operations in Liberia and
Sierra-Leone, and its prosecution of the current war against Boko Haram.
1.
Supply
Shortages and Obsolete Weaponry
Footage from Boko Haram’s assault on Giwa barracks, which they filmed. The terrorist sect almost overran the barracks because a
crucial but aging weapon system guarding the entrance to the sprawling military
installation malfunctioned.
In February this year, the Borno state
governor alleged
that Boko Haram fighters were “better armed … than our troops”. At the time, the
comment was strongly rebuked by government spokesmen – Nigerian officials are
legendary for their Ostrich mentality. Events have since proven him right. Reports
that have made it to the public domain paint the picture of a military beset by
logistic deficiencies. Stories abound of operations imperilled by ammunition
shortages and inadequate weaponry.
The March 2014 assault
on Giwa barracks, and the Chibok
abductions a month later – both in Borno State – perfectly illustrate the incapacitating
effects of supply shortages and obsolete weaponry. In the attack on Chibok, a
shortage of ammunitions reportedly caused guarding soldiers to flee to the bush
– allowing Boko Haram to cart off close to 300 girls, after laying waste to the
community. In the assault on Giwa barracks – the largest military installation
in the northeast – a large part of why Boko Haram nearly
succeeded in overrunning the sprawling installation was due to the
breakdown of an aging weapon that had been positioned to defend the entrance to
the base. The defective weapon – the ZSU-23-4, also known as the “shilka”
– is a 1960s anti-aircraft weapon (it is also effective as an anti-personnel
weapon hence its use against Boko Haram operatives) which Nigeria acquired
in 1980!
Nigeria’s ECOMOG operations in
Liberia and Sierra-Leone were beset by similar problems. The soldiers were
totally ill-equipped for the missions. In Liberia for example, there was such a
dearth of helicopters that by 1995 there was only a single operable helicopter in
the field. “Most of the equipment and guns deployed were unserviceable thereby
rendering them useless”, commented one of the commanding officers on his
experience in Sierra-Leone. Critical pieces of equipment frequently malfunctioned
due to poor service condition. The Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFV) and
Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) were in particularly pathetic shape and prone
to breakdown.
This comes from the intelligence
report of Brigadier Rafiu Adeshina (rtd), Brigade commander of the 24th
Infantry Brigade in Sierra-Leone, written to the ECOMOG commander informing him
of the poor state of his brigade as they awaited an expected rebel attack:
“[O]ur … locations have only rifles – no machine guns or AFVs. Out of 4 [AFVs]
in the entire brigade, no one is presently functioning”.
2.
Intelligence
Failures and Communications Breakdown
Nigerian troops patrol Freetown during the RUF’s brutal operation
“No Living Thing” in January 1999 (BBC). Listen to a BBC report which covered
the RUF attack here.
There is no doubt that the military
has foiled many Boko Haram attacks. And for this they must be commended. However,
the multiple attacks that Boko Haram has successfully executed point to serious
gaps in the military’s intelligence and communications assets. The multiple
bombings that have rocked Abuja this year alone illustrate these shortcomings.
By most accounts, the attack on
Giwa barracks caught the military by surprise. That Boko Haram could nearly
overrun a supposedly well-defended strategic military installation is bad
enough. But the fact that Boko Haram could traverse hundreds of kilometres of
open terrain in heavily armed convoys on their way to attacking the base without
being detected and interdicted point to serious gaps in the military’s battlefield
intelligence capabilities. The Chibok abductions raise similar concerns. With
information now emerging that military high command was informed as much as four hours beforehand of
an impending attack on Chibok; the fact
that no reinforcements were sent to the area, or the unit on the ground
forewarned, highlights the communication problems which has bedevilled the
military’s response to Boko Haram attack.
Similar intelligence and
communication breakdowns were prevalent in the military’s operations in Liberia
and Sierra-Leone. Battlefield intelligence was often non-existent or patchy at
best. Two examples best illustrate this wretched state of affairs: Operations
“Octopus” and “No Living Thing”.
Operation “Octopus” was the
codename for Charles Taylor’s attack on Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, on the 15th
of October 1992. While the operation failed in its objective of capturing the
capital – the Nigerian-led counterattack repelled Taylor’s advance and
devastated his rebel group – the complete surprise that Taylor was able to
achieve in his initial assault was due to the total absence of battlefield
intelligence on Taylor’s forces. So complete was the failure of intelligence
that it would take ECOMOG forces a week to counterattack while they figured out
what was happening. This was a tragic failure that was paid for in 3000, mostly
civilian lives – lives that ECOMOG were supposedly deployed to Liberia to
protect in the first place.
Operation “No Living Thing” was the
codename for the Revolutionary United Front’s (RUF) brutal assault on Freetown,
Sierra-Leone’s capital, on the 6th of January 1999. Though the RUF
similarly failed in their objective of capturing the capital – Nigerian troops reasserted
control after bitter fighting – the very fact that the rebels were able to
stage such a massive assault, and by some accounts almost succeed in capturing
the capital, was the result of a colossal failure in intelligence and
communication.
One month prior to the assault on
Freetown, Nigerian positions in the north and east of Sierra-Leone had been
overrun in a lightning rebel advance. Given such dramatic developments, the
information reaching Nigerian commanders in Freetown about the resurgence in
rebel activity should have spurred them into bolstering security around the
approaches to Freetown. Unfortunately no significant additional measures were
taken. A false sense of security pervaded the capital throughout this period.
Nigerian commanders, in a tactic that has become all too familiar in the
current fight against Boko Haram, set about falsely reassuring the worried
population of Freetown that “all was under control”. Due to this lackadaisical
attitude to intelligence, when Freetown was attacked, Nigerian commanders were caught
napping, resulting in the near-loss of the capital. To quote Brigadier Adeshina
(rtd): The attack “caused pandemonium and almost resulted in the capture of
Freetown”.
Further quoting the Brigadier at
length on the general lack of intelligence which characterised Nigerian
operations in Sierra-Leone: “Most of the operations I conducted in Sierra-Leone
had no intelligence input at all… Not much information about the enemy was
available throughout except for those we got from captured rebels which often
proved misleading or unreliable… Often times, intelligence information was not
taken seriously by higher headquarters in Freetown. For example when it became
evident that the rebels were going to invade Freetown ... no action was taken
to prevent this invasion”.
3.
Close
Operational collaboration with Militias
At a CJTF checkpoint in Maiduguri, Borno State (Sunday Alamba/AP)
The rise of the Civilian
Joint Task Force (CJTF) – a loose band of primitively equipped vigilantes –
has so far been one of the defining features of the war against Boko Haram. By
many accounts, CJTF has brought some measure of stability to areas where they
have an operational presence. The CJTF are frequently used by the military in
combat support roles (such as providing intelligence and manning checkpoints
etc.), and often times their operatives join soldiers in conducting raids on,
or defending against, Boko Haram – thereby taking on direct combat roles.
Nigeria’s operations in Liberia and
Sierra-Leone were similarly characterised by a heavy reliance on militias to
perform crucial combat support roles. In many cases, they also fought as allies
in direct combat. In Liberia the militia which Nigerian forces mostly
collaborated closely with was the Armed Forces of Liberia (despite the formal
sounding name, the AFL had long before the war ceased to function as a formal
institution and had mutated into an ethnically based militia). Often times,
though not as consistently as with the AFL, Nigerian forces also closely worked
with two other rebel militias: the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia
(INPFL,
a breakaway faction from Taylor’s rebel group, the NPFL) and United Liberation Movement
of Liberia (ULIMO,
formed in 1991; the group split along ethnic lines in 1994). Despite periods of
tension with ECOMOG forces, the AFL, INPFL, and ULIMO often provided critical aid,
both in combat support and in direct combat, to Nigerian forces in the fight
against Taylor – an enemy they all shared.
In Sierra-Leone, the Civil Defence
Forces (CDF) played a central role in the Nigerian military’s operations. The CDF was a loose coalition
of ethnic militias; the most powerful of which were the Kamajors. Much like the CJTF against Boko Haram, and the AFL, INPFL,
and ULIMO against Taylor; the CDF – especially the Kamajors – often fought alongside Nigerian troops in both offensive
and defensive operations. Given the weakness of its combat intelligence
capability on the ground, as indicated by Brigadier Adeshina in the previous
section, the CDF to a large extent functioned as the primary combat
intelligence arm of the Nigerian army in Sierra-Leone.
4.
Mutiny
A Guard of Honour of the 7th Division being inspected
by a former Chief of Army Staff (Nigeria Army)
On the 14th of May 2014,
soldiers within the 7th Division based in Maiduguri, a hotbed of
insurgent activity, raised their rifles against the passing convoy of their
divisional commander and sprayed
it with bullets – allegedly with the intent to kill him. According to press
reports the rebellious soldiers were pushed to such an extreme by the death of
12 of their comrades who had been ambushed by Boko Haram the previous night; deaths
they believed were avoidable, and blamed on the divisional commander. It is
also alleged that some of the underlying reasons for the mutiny were poor service
conditions, irregular payment of salaries, and the strains of going into battle
inadequately armed against a determined and bloodthirsty foe.
In Sierra-Leone the same combination
of fury at the death of comrades and plummeting morale would produce one of the
more dramatic acts of rebellion that I have come across in Nigeria’s ECOMOG
operations.
In April 1998 after a particularly
fierce battle for a village called Yigbeda in the east of Sierra-Leone, the
battalion that had borne the brunt of the casualties rebelled and nearly
mutinied when they heard their battalion commander was to be replaced for command
failure. To quote Brigadier Adeshina (rtd) at length: “[B]ecause of the clear
evidence that the CO (Commanding Officer) [of the] 5th battalion had
lost control of his men, I relieved him of command of the unit… The soldiers of
the battalion instantly protested and told me to my face that nobody would
remove their CO and that the casualties they sustained were my fault not that
of the CO. They shouted at me that we had no business in … Sierra-Leone – while
pointing at the pick-up truck loaded with the corpses of their colleagues who
were killed during the encounter. As I sensed that a mutiny was about to take
place on a battlefront and far away from Nigeria, I rescinded my order and
asked the CO to continue with his unit”.
The same 5th battalion rebelled
again on the same day not long after the first incident. The battalion had been
ordered to stay behind to guard a just captured village and provide rear-defence
to its parent unit, the 24th Infantry Brigade, as it moved forward
to capture a major town. Soldiers of the 5th flatly refused, unwilling
to have to confront the RUF alone in case of a rear attack. Again, quoting
Brigadier Adeshina (rtd): “I directed them to hold a defensive position in the
[village] and remain there until we captured Koidu… [M]y directive was rejected
by soldiers of this battalion… I furiously directed the removal of the CO there
and then for the second time… The soldiers again refused the order. All the
pleadings I made with them … that the location was too dangerous to be left
unoccupied was rejected by the soldiers. When I realised that … the boys could
simply kill me with nothing happening to them back home in Nigeria … I [again]
rescinded my order”.
5.
Fluid
Stalemate
Nigerian troops on their way to recapture Damboa town in Maiduguri
(PR Nigeria)
The most striking and worrying
similarity between the current conflict and the operations in Liberia and
Sierra-Leone is the fluid stalemate
that has now developed between the military and Boko Haram. By this I mean that
while on the one hand the insurgency now seems to be in strategic stalemate – Boko Haram’s aspiration of
an Islamic State in Nigeria remains a pipe dream; similarly, a comprehensive military
victory against the sect seems unlikely for now. On the other hand however, battlefield
conditions on the ground is characterised by tactical fluidity. The frequent loss
and recapture
of towns and villages by the military, and Boko Haram’s ability to move heavily
armed operatives in large convoys with impunity in significant sections of the
northeast illustrate this fluid and rapidly changing situation on the ground.
The
outcome of Nigeria’s armed interventions in Liberia and Sierra-Leone can also
be described as fluid stalemates. In neither
country was the military able to achieve its strategic objective of breaking
the rebels’ war-fighting resolve. In both countries, while the Nigerian army
controlled the capitals, in Liberia the rebels controlled the rest of the
country, whilst in Sierra-Leone it was the northern half by December 1998. And in
both missions, despite the strategic stalemate – i.e. neither the rebels nor
the Nigerian military completely vanquished the other – the tactical situation
on the ground was highly fluid as battlefield fortunes ebbed and flowed.
Reasons
for Optimism and Concern
Optimism
Perhaps the title for this
subsection should have been “Reasons for Tentative
Optimism and Serious Concern”. This
is because my optimism is much less sanguine and concern much more worrying
than the title conveys.
Despite the grim picture of a terrorist
group rampaging through a sizeable section of the country, the biggest cause
for tentative optimism is the fact that the Nigerian state, and consequently
the military, still holds at least two significant advantages over Boko Haram.
The first is territorial. The central government still controls the strategic
territorial core and economic heartland of the country. Absent some political
calamity – such as a coup or some other destabilizing event – this is unlikely
to change anytime soon. Unlike in Liberia and Sierra-Leone where the
government’s writ didn’t extend beyond the capital, or even in Iraq and Syria
(to take two contemporary examples) where insurgent forces now control up to 40
percent of those countries; the Nigerian state, though beleaguered, is unlikely
to collapse from Boko Haram’s pressure alone. At least for now anyway.
The second cause for cautious
optimism is the legitimacy deficit of Boko Haram. The Nigerian state, despite
its dysfunctional mode of governance, enjoys far more legitimacy amongst the
general population than any alternative Boko Haram is proposing. Boko Haram’s
dogmatic (and heterodox) beliefs, and the freewheeling way with which its
operatives have butchered anyone who crosses their path has repelled the very
same constituency they profess to be fighting for, Nigerian Muslims. This point
is very important as without popular support it will be very difficult for Boko
Haram to entrench itself within society, hence theoretically easier to uproot.
Concern
The reasons for optimism I outlined
above are tentative for a reason. This is because the advantages could very
easily be eroded.
The advantage associated with
territorial control could rapidly evaporate should Boko Haram extend its
terrorist attacks to the south of the country. By this I mean, even if Boko
Haram’s territory doesn’t increase, should the group develop the capability to
perpetrate terrorist attacks – suicide bombings, car bombings etc. – in the
south with the same level of impunity and frequency as they have done in the
north, this will in all probability lead to the raising of armed militias in
the south. A development that will only result in the further fragmentation of
the country.
As for the legitimacy advantage,
the Liberian and Sierra-Leonean conflict has shown that even insurgents with
little to no popular support can collapse a state once state structures are
enfeebled enough. And of course, there is always the danger that Boko Haram may
“wise up” and begin to place greater emphasis on “hearts and minds” and governance
in areas they control. Such a development will dramatically erode Nigeria’s
legitimacy advantage and allow Boko Haram to embed itself more effectively in
northeastern communities given the savagery and unbridled violence with which
Nigerian security forces have fought this war, as shown in a recent Channel
4 documentary.
My other reasons for serious
concern relate to the implications of the CJTF and the mutiny which occurred on
the 14th of May.
While government officials have
interpreted the CJTF phenomenon as a sign that the indigenes of the war-ravaged
northeast are at last “taking ownership” of the insurgency in their region. I
view it as the disgraceful failure of the Nigerian state to adequately provide
for the security of its civilian population. The true meaning of the CJTF
phenomenon is that the state has effectively subcontracted its fundamental duty
to a group of mostly semi-literate locals armed with nothing more than
cutlasses, machetes, and primitive homemade guns. This ill-disciplined and
grossly ill-equipped force is now co-responsible with the armed forces for
securing the territorial integrity of the Nigerian State. What a shame! As
we’ve seen from other conflicts, militias formed and primitively armed at the
beginning of a conflict, inevitably acquire more sophisticated weapons as the
conflict drags on, and eventually become security problems in themselves when
the conflict phase subsides.
The widely reported mutiny within
the 7th Division, and the fact that mutinies are recurrent features
in Nigeria’s military operations, indicate weak command and control
capabilities. No military force can long survive the erosion of its command and
control capabilities – i.e. the ability of officers to exercise authority over
their troops. The mutiny also suggests problems of poor morale and mission
weariness. These two are problems that must
be viewed with utmost seriousness as soldiers who, even if adequately equipped,
lack belief in a mission and are debilitated by poor morale will likely buckle
in the face of a determined enemy. The tale of the Iraqi army’s ignoble
collapse earlier this year as Jihadi warriors surged into the north and west of
the country underscore this point.
“Shine your eyes”. This is the phrase a
Nigerian often uses when he wants his interlocutor to open his eyes and see the
truth for what it is. The same sentiment undergirds this article. It is time we
recognise the Nigerian military for what it is: A hollowed out and enfeebled
force. Only by acknowledging this fact can we recognise that a comprehensive
reform of the military is a necessary part of any long term strategy for
defeating Boko Haram and restoring peace to the northeast.
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