The statistics on paper is startling. With 56 million people in 1970, Nigeria had a military strength of 250,000 and presumably the appropriate arsenal. In 2014, with 170 million people, the country has 100,000 troops and a depleted armoury.
On the surface, the figures are disturbing. However, the interpretation of the figures must be handled with circumspection. For, in view of yet another series of bombings and ethnic cleansing going on across the country and with herdsmen brandishing AK47 rifles, we have to accept that terrorism and the combat with unconventional warfare has come to stay.
With this in view, there is an urgent need for a strategic review. With the country in dire straits, such a review has to be far-sighted. At the moment, the insurgents who have played their cards very well are getting all the attention. The state and its security forces must therefore counteract.
From this perspective, we must accept vis-a-vis the seemingly alarming statistics that in 1970, Nigeria was just coming out of a civil war. Not surprisingly the army had to be large. Today’s new realities places brains ahead of brawn and numerical strength. This reflects a worldwide trend. For almost everywhere else, the Armed Forces are facing drastic reduction in numbers as a result of cost savings in the framework of a strategic revamp.
The asymmetrical warfare we are now fighting is predicated on solid proactive intelligence gathering, the development of Special Forces and motivation rather than just an obsession with how many boots are on the ground. Our homeland security now requires combat ready, re-oriented and well-motivated armed forces.
For operational efficiency the forces now have to be managerially well run to international best standards. This must include of course the policing system, immigration as well as the customs. No amount of budget heaped on a service can have the desired effect unless it is accompanied with the requisite managerial capacity.
When for example, Madiba the late Nelson Mandela chose N.M. Meyer as chairman of the South African Defense Force (roughly the equivalent of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) he was looking for the managerial expertise needed to reorient the force and make it more cost effective. We should learn from this.
For it is now very clear that the operational capacity is deficient at all levels. Take for example procurement. If the security services cannot face the nimble-footedness of the insurgents it shows that the procurement strategy is defective. Solid managerial capacity would have seen through a combat strategy in which the forces are better equipped and more mobile than the insurgents. That this has not been so raises a question mark. It is clearly not about money allocated, but how operationally effective the funds have been put to use. We should therefore stop mixing up procurement with “contracts.”
What is needed now is the integration of all the security agencies–the armed forces, the police force, customs, immigration and civil defense–into a superbly coordinated and proactive homeland security framework. The retooling across all those agencies is vital.
The method of recruitment and selection therefore becomes vital. For example, there is an urgent need to revamp the source of gathering financial intelligence data in order to monitor the source of funding for the insurgents. The input of the police force is crucial here.
This means that it is actually the Police Force that needs a beef-up in numerical strength. In the face of today’s realities, the police must be revamped for greater operational efficiency in the areas of intelligence gathering, and development of specialised mobile units. This is vital, for there should be a limit to what the Armed Forces can and should do in a democracy.
The country must develop a new holistic strategic imperative to cope with new realities. New methods and strategies have to be developed to contain and defeat the terrorists. We must be absolutely clear that we are in dire straits. And that the situation as President Goodluck Jonathan and others have sensibly pointed out is faring worse than during the war. To defeat the insurgents, however, there must be a reappraisal of strategy and tactics. Let us never forget the admonition of Albert Einstein. The genius was absolutely right in pointing out that you cannot continue to do something in the same way and expect to achieve a different result.