Cohabiting with the devil for two more decades

Out of the tumult and bombardment of Ukraine by Russian forces in the horrific David and Goliath war in Eastern Europe, trained ears could hear a still small voice, pointing the way for Nigeria in its perennial face-off with bandits and terrorists. Though Russian military forces, put at 1,014,000, with reserve forces of 2,000,000, are five times the size of Ukrainian military forces of 200,000 and reservists of 500,000, Ukraine has withstood Russian forces for seven days running. Experts have predicted that it would take the hand of God for Ukraine to survive the Russian aggression, but the singular strategy that has sustained Ukrainian cities from being over-run by Russian ground troops is simply this: most Ukrainians have undergone military training, so many have fearlessly exchanged their laptops and executive chairs for AK-47 and other assault weapons to face the devil.

Perhaps, the Ukrainian defence strategy is a shinning light for Nigeria’s route to victory against bandits and terrorists, who have humiliated us for over a decade now. A former Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Yusuf Buratai, in 2021, predicted a two-decade doom for the country at his confirmation interaction as ambassador at the National Assembly. He had said, “Our troops are also collaborating with Chadian and Cameroonian troops. We recorded success, but the terrorists have permeated into the society. My state (Borno) is an epicentre, where this indoctrination has penetrated so deeply. They (insurgents) have won the communities to their side. That is why they (communities) keep Boko Haram. So it is complex, it requires a whole of government approach to solve this. Military action or activity is just one aspect. One mistake that we have been making is that only the military can solve this. It is not.” This tastes bitter like droplets from crushed dongon yaro leaves, but it is the reality that we have been attempting to ignore by playing the ostrich. The military alone can’t crush terrorists.

Unlike Nigerian civilian population who are mortified daily by gun and dagger-wielding bandits and terrorists, Ukrainian youths and middle-aged men are withstanding the terror from Russian trained forces. Our Minister of Defence, Major-General Bashir Magashi (rtd), decried Nigerians’ cowardice when confronted by bandits in an outburst last year. Reacting to bandit attacks on communities, Magashi lamented thus: “Well, is it the responsibility of the military alone (to fight bandits)? It is the responsibility of everybody to be alert and ensure safety when necessary. We shouldn’t be cowards. Sometimes the bandits come with about three rounds of ammunition and when they fire shots everybody will run. In our younger days, we stand to fight any form of aggression. Why should people run away from minor, minor aggression? We should stand and face them. If these people know that the people have the competence and capability to defend themselves, they will run away.”

Both Buratai and Magashi, operating in the domain of ideas, are exact about how the battle against terrorists and bandits should be fought, but the country’s defence policy and strategies ostensibly, do not envisage civilians’ involvement in defending the State. Countries that have overcome terrorist onslaughts, did not surrender the fight to the police and military: civilians were trained to tackle criminal terrorists from city to city and village to village. For instance, Algeria, in the 1990s was meat for terrorists, who bombed government institutions and slaughtered innocent persons from the country-side to urban areas.

To deal with the enemies who wore the garb of Islam, Algeria devised two approaches. First, it got the buy-in of the people on the fact that extremists had a project of destroying the country with fire and blood. With a lot of enlightenment campaign from province to province, Algeria won the hearts of the people to the consensus that the killers did not represent the letter and spirit of Islam. Building on this strategies, civilian forces, made up of youths were recruited and trained to defend each of the provinces against terrorists. Under this arrangement, the forces did not totally wait for the Algerian Peoples National Army to attack or defend communities when terrorists attacked; the civilian forces challenged and repelled terrorists. This way, the evil men lost ground in Algeria.

It is not only Algeria and Ukraine that have used this approach to tackle enemies. The survival of the State of Israel today is largely because young Jews are trained in the military after their secondary education. Many of them pursue careers in other fields, but they no longer fear enemy fire if challenged or called upon to defend the State. In Lithuania, another country in Eastern Europe, this approach has been adopted, obviously to prepare for their own bad day with overbearing Russian forces whose government today wants the hand of the clock turned back to the days of the humongous USSR. Most adolescents in Lithuania are trained fighters. Even in Nigeria, there are historical pointers to the fact that building the mental and physical capacity of civilians to tackle violent enemies could determine the survival of the country. First, during the Nigerian Civil War, it was the gallantry of civilian forces, not the Biafran army, that delayed the invasion of the defunct Biafran territory. Trained in military tactics and intelligence gathering, they effectively sabotaged the efforts by the Nigerian Army to overrun their territory. Also, the colonialists established the Hausa Constabulary, made up of young men in the Hausa North, because they were found to be efficient fighters; they were courageous to face any enemy. The history of the Nigeria Police is traced to the Hausa Constabulary.

Even in the current fight against Boko Haram, successes have been anchored on the bravery of Civilian Joint Task Force in Borno State, made up of courageous young men who are not afraid of terrorists. Working hand-in-hand with trained forces, CJTF has helped in dislodging terrorists, to the point that Boko Haram had once called for the disbandment of the civilian forces as a precondition for peace deal with government. No doubt, government could build on the experiment with the CJTF, and come up with a defence policy that would incorporate civilian forces.

It may not be a bad idea if a one-year military training is given to students after completing Senior Secondary School education, before they proceed to the tertiary institutions. If every year, 200,000 young men and women are trained after the School Certificate Examinations, in five years, we should have one million young men, with the courage to confront terrorists. This approach could do the magic of turning the tide against terrorists. Lt General Buratai has predicted that we shall cohabit with these devils for another two decades; Nigerians, not only the military, should be trained to confront this ugly fate.

Dr Abbah wrote from Abuja