Nigerians were last week jolted by the news that a Nigerian soldier arrested for colluding with the Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists in Geidam in Yobe State, has committed suicide.
According to the report, the soldier, identified as Lance Corporal Abdullahi Jibrin, was arrested in Gashua, following intelligence that he was collaborating with Boko Haram and ISWAP in Geidam.
However, the Assistant Director, Army Public Relations, Sector 2 Operation Hadin Kai in Damaturu, Lt. Anyawu Kennedy, who confirmed the incident added that Corporal Jibrin was allegedly suspected during the last attack in Geidam and was later arrested by his commanding officer for failing in his duty. Strangely, while still in custody, Jibrin, who was reportedly in handcuffs, committed suicide after snatching an AK47 rifle and using it to shoot himself to death while being escorted to the barracks last Tuesday.
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Jibrin’s link with the terror groups came to light after military intelligence exposed his involvement in attacks on Geidam and Gashua towns during which more than 12 persons were killed.
Initially, Jibrin, an instructor with his Army Battalion in Geidam, was allegedly not seen for days but later sighted among the Boko Haram/ISWAP fighters that invaded the Yobe communities.
Consequently, a team, including the Battalion Commanding Officer, tracked his phone and found that Jibrin was in Gashua, which was far away from his duty post. Jibrin who allegedly disguised was intercepted at a checkpoint in Gashua aboard a bus en route to Gombe State.
Although Jibrin allegedly committed suicide in controversial circumstances, he had reportedly implicated some of his co-saboteurs and made revelations about the insurgents and his involvement.
The good news is that the Nigerian military has arrested some civilian collaborators, working as spies for Boko Haram and Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP), following a confession by the now late Jibrin. However, no mention has been made of military suspects.
The Boko Haram insurgency, which began about 2009 has gradually assumed a heinous and frightening dimension, with the country reeling from relentless serious attacks perpetrated by the Boko Haram sect, whose activities were later compounded by the arrival of the ISWAP terrorists, and now bandits.
Nigerians have every reason to worry, especially with the infiltration of these hoodlums into military formations.
It is not the first time the Nigerian Army personnel are colluding with the insurgents. Only in August, last year, the Nigerian Air Force arrested one of its personnel, Torsabo Solomon, a sergeant, in connection with the earlier attack on the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in Kaduna during which two officers were killed and one other officer abducted by suspected invading bandits.
Solomon, who served at the Air Force Comprehensive School in the Adamawa State capital, was arrested at the NAF’s 153 BSG in Yola. He was also suspected of selling arms and ammunition to bandits and criminals.
Not much has been heard of the development since then.
The Presidency had described the NDA attack as a deliberate attempt to make the government look bad and discourage the military in its fight against insecurity.
It is a good thing that the military has arrested the civilian collaborators but that is just scratching the problem on the surface. There have been persistent suspicions of collaboration between some unpatriotic soldiers and the insurgents, a development that has made the war intractable.
As far back as October 2014, the military authorities had arrested several soldiers, who were discovered to have leaked vital security information on the troops’ strategies and tactics to Boko Haram. This had led to a series of ambushes and killings of many Nigerian soldiers in the North-east states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.
The moles leaked the information on soldiers’ deployment to the insurgents, resulting in an ambush and killing of so many soldiers of the 101 Battalion. Consequently, the frustrated soldiers once mutinied and even shot at the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 7 Division, Major General Ahmed Mohammed, who could have been killed but for his armoured official car.
So many resources, running into trillions of naira, have been deployed to the war against terrorism. For some unpatriotic citizens, the war has become a business enterprise and the longer it lasts, the richer they become. It is either essential military hardware is not procured or sabotaged due to endemic corruption.
The war is not going according to plans because of sabotage. In one of the tragic losses, a detachment of soldiers of the 134 Battalion of the 12 Brigade under the Multi-National Joint Task Force, MNJTF, stationed in Kangarwa village in Kukawa Local Government, had conducted a reconnaissance to gather intelligence around the area. During the exercise, they were able to identify hitherto unnoticed Boko Haram camps. The soldiers returned to their base and filed a report and recommended aerial bombardment of the area ahead of a ground operation by troops. Unfortunately, the plan was cancelled at the last minute by a senior officer without formal communication to the more than 100 troops that had already advanced in the area. Consequently, the troop ran into the terrorists without knowing that the aerial bombardment had been cancelled and they were caught unawares.
The soldiers were trapped in the ambush and came under heavy fire from the terrorists who had surrounded the area. This resulted in the death of about 40 soldiers; several others went missing. The terrorists also captured a huge cache of weapons from the soldiers. The authorities did nothing about the avoidable tragedy but only removed the commanding officer of the unit from his post.
There have been fruitless efforts by the Defence Headquarters to put in check these atrocious acts of sabotage among its personnel. Once, it was recommended that 500 suspects be put on trial while 167 others are released from detention and 614 inconclusive cases are reviewed.
It is an open secret that insiders’ involvement is one of the reasons the war has not been won.
Military authorities should do whatever is necessary to identify and stop moles in their midst, selling vital details to compromise the onslaught against the hoodlums.
It is instructive to note that no less a personality than the Borno State Governor, Prof Babagana Zulum, recently lamented that soldiers were giving out vital information to the enemy and by so doing compromising the war and endangering the lives of fellow soldiers and Nigerians.
It is no more in doubt that people are making capital of the crisis, even as some have sold their souls to the devil and destroyed their fatherland because of filthy lucre. Therefore, we believe that the Lance Corporal Jibrin incident should be the last of the network of evil ravaging our land.
His alleged suicide must be thoroughly investigated because it does not look plausible that the captive could disarm a professional soldier while still in handcuffs and then shoot himself dead. Did Jibrin commit suicide or he was killed to cover the tracks of other collaborators? And where are the military personnel he named in his confession?
Unless the government and the military authorities show enough political will and character, Nigeria shall continue to lose scarce resources and precious lives. Tens of thousands of Nigerians including women and children have been lost to the senseless war. Hundreds of thousands more have been displaced from their homes. Property wantonly destroyed cannot be quantified. There is time to say enough is enough.
No religion encourages bloodshed like Boko Haram and ISWAP are professing. So, Nigerians should unite against criminality and avoid the sect’s calculated attempt to divide the people, using religion. They should know that these terrorists serve no god but themselves. So, those reluctant to engage the terrorists and help to wipe them out because of ethnic and religious sentiments should know that this war knows no borders and they too may become victims like many others. These insurgents, we believe, deserve to be spoken to in the language they understand because there is neither basis nor direction for their bloody crusade except to kill and maim.
Finally, the government must sit up and show the capacity to fight the terrorists without pandering to suspicious policies and nepotistic tendencies that do nothing but dampen the morale of the soldiers on the battlefield.
