Retired Colonel MIKE OKWECHIME, who trained as an engineer at Sandhurst, has been at the centre of some interesting national events. The first Nigerian officer to Command the Nigerian Army Engineering Corps, he had the rare honour of being involved in the lowering of the British Union Jack at Independence and hoisting the Nigerian green and white flag. He was the first Head of Biafra’s National Planning Committee that was saddled with ensuring the success of the self-determination endeavour of the area, where he was involved in the invention of many military hardware that helped the Biafran Republic to stay competitive in a war it had earlier been programmed to lose in 90 days. He relives his experience in the army in this interview with Special Correspondent, CHIBUZOR NWACHUKWU, at his country home in Ibusa, Delta State.
By November this year, you will be 80. Retiring from the army at the age of 37 till now is a long time in the sidelines. How active have you been?
Mike OkwuechimeI hope you realise that I was a professional in the army, and that must have influenced my early retirement. Perhaps I was needed more outside the army formation at that time. I am not talking of today. Then, I was needed outside it. I still served in many capacities in support of the country. You are aware that I have had two merit awards for contributions to national development. So I have been influential. I went into sports administration at some point. I also went into Rotary. Thank God, today, I am one of the most senior Rotarians in Nigeria. I am still being contacted generally. I found out that I was more of service to the army outside than when I was in it. You know I came out as the first Nigerian army engineer to command the regiment which has now grown into a considerable size. It was not all that big then; just one regiment. But today, you are talking about a division. Not many people know that I came from England, from the British Royal Engineers, to form Nigerian Military Engineers – taking over from the British. It was then known as the British Field Squadron. I remember it was only a technical team and I came in to take it over and converted it to the Nigerian Army Engineers.
It may interest you to know that some of the serving personnel, when invited, had backed down, and when we were of the British colony, we were set up as the Royal West African Frontier Force – the British Army Group for West Africa. Little did people know that it is not a technical arm. So if you were a Nigerian and you wanted to work in the armed forces, you would stop at the infantry. It was when I came in that I told them: no, my people will not work only in the infantry. The new army needed people also in the Medical or Engineering. And as God would have it, they asked me to continue until it was time to train Nigerians in other technical areas. That was how I became the first Nigerian trained as a military engineer from the Royal Sandhurst Academy.
My colleague, Alexander Madiebo, became the first artillery officer trained from Sandhurst from Nigeria. We were coursemates, and after us, you have someone like Eze of the Royal Signal too. He was the first Nigerian to be trained as the officer of the Royal Signal. The others like Supply and Transport were established and we had Col. Nwajei of the blessed memory. I formed that group (Army Engineers). I was just reaching out to them to expand the technical units of the Nigerian Army. When I got to the end of that level, I needed to go out and reach out further.
You said you were more useful to the Nigerian Army outside the service. What were those contributions outside the military?
First of all, all these were done under the command of the British Army. When I left, I was in regular contact with the Nigerian Army that I set up. It may interest you to know that it was about the time I left that we had the civil war. When civil war started, all the engineers in the Nigerian Army crossed to the other side. You may have read that it was at this time that someone like Olusegun Obasanjo became Inspector of the Engineering. Obasanjo had started training as a military engineer. So, when the whole place was vacant, he came into the picture.
In the meantime, those that went off from the new Engineering Corps at the inception were regrouping, but they did not know where to take off. I remember that for many years, we held many meetings and I had to put them through on how to organise themselves. I must say that I still enjoy the respect of military engineers, even the few that were in contact or in Lagos. You will know that the Nigerian Army Engineers commissioned the new headquarters at Bonny Camp and I was there as the chief guest of honour with General Azubuike Ihejirika, the then Chief of Army Staff (COAS). Though I was not commanding them, there was nothing they did that I was not involved in. The latest one was the first meeting in Asaba.
Boko Harm menace has been lingering for too long and it appears that the Nigerian Army that we knew in the past would have been able to deal with this insurrection. Why has that not been done?
What did you say the army would have done? The army that is not in direct control. Was it not Ihejirika that they wanted his neck for handling Boko Haram? Are they not asking for him to be arrested and sent to The Hague for fighting the same Boko Haram with genocidal tendencies?
Is this the army you are asking what they did? The army is still under the politicians. You have not had a government that had the political will to support the military. I do not want to expand that, but I will share something with you. I was in my room watching television and I saw the breaking news of Police Headquarters bombed. Did you see any military person there? The police were all around there trying to clear rubbish and I contacted my friend, Obasanjo, and said: Ah..Ah, what am I seeing? A country where the Police Headquarters would be bombed! These are areas that I have worries about and that incident never raised issues that there was a meeting in Makurdi in November 2011. That was why I said, outside the army, I have continued to play roles to the army.
People are talking about the way forward to stem the insurgence. How do you see that?
I am a Nigerian, but not of Nigeria. You had a national conference. How many have we had as a nation? And each one had been thrown into the dustbin because it was initiated by the military. The political will is not there. We seem to be talking a lot about security and insecurity.
I am sorry to say that many that I have listened to either do not know what insecurity is all about or are hiding it. We had the United Nations office bombed. That was the second major signal. People said it was an insider job. And we cannot find somebody patriotic enough to point a finger to where it is coming from.
Permit me to give my opinion. You know that before the last election, it was common knowledge that we had registered voters from outside Nigeria. Somehow, something good happened. President Goodluck Jonathan closed the borders 48 hours to the election, so they couldn’t enter. So where did you get the hullabaloo about election? We haven’t recovered from it till date.
And those who couldn’t come to vote were not the initiators. They must have been hired and recruited from within. But I ask you: whose interest was hurt that they couldn’t come to vote? They had to use them within. Are we saying we do not know them? What we are talking about is that we must have the political will. Though in the politics of this country, we are trying and we are moving forward. We have good people. We also have bad advisers that do not know where to go. I think I have given you sufficient clue as to where your problems are coming from.
Some time ago, some soldiers attacked a General Officer Commanding (GOC) over the death of some of their colleagues, alleging sabotage from their superior. Don’t you think that the army has been infiltrated?
I do not know when you started interrogating people. You should know that we are so divided in this country. The commander came to look at the corpses of his men that were killed, and colleagues of the dead attacked him. You have come back to where I said that the commander is not in charge of the army. The politicians and the government are in charge. There was a deliberate military stamp on the militancy.
I was shocked in 2011 when I went for the military meeting in Makurdi. They had engineers, but there were no equipment. If they have anything now, it is as a result of the Boko Haram insurgence because people did not want the military to perform. The president is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The Commander-in-Chief is the chief commander. When he speaks, nobody else speaks. The politicians are in charge of the army. The military is a professional organisation and they have always realised that at any stage, they are duty-bound to defend their country.
Another issue is what I think my colleague, Obasanjo, recently mentioned. Have you looked back at Sharia? Some of the Northern states created Sharia law which was already in the Nigerian constitution; so why did you need new Sharia laws? So the simple thing I advise people is to appeal. If you are charged under Sharia, appeal. Once it gets out of the Sharia court and comes to the constitutional court, it is struck out.
The thing about this country is that we keep hiding from the truth. All these problems point to the fact that the war, which you claimed ended in 1970, has not ended. What you had was the end of one battle in 1970. Since 1970, Nigeria has fought other battles dressed in different garbs and the one going on in the North East now is one of them. Let me tell you, unless Nigeria addresses the fundamental issues, you will keep fighting the same war.
Talking about the military being ill-equipped, during the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) period some of the engineering jobs were contracted to civilian engineers as against what you said before. Where do we go from here?
I am not in a position to answer that question. But today, we are enlisting more people into the armed forces for us to have enough manpower. I do hope that this would also translate into improving and developing the army. But I want to make it clear here that a well-equipped and trained army will stop Boko Haram.