General Martin Luther Agwai (rtd) was the best graduating student in the Nigerian Defence Academy in 1972, from where he rose to become the Chief of Army Staff in 2003 and Chief of Defense Staff in 2006. He also led one of the largest peacekeeping missions in Darfur, Sudan, in 2009, from where he returned home and retired from the Armed Forces.
How would you describe your early life?
My early life was quite interesting. In 1948, my father was in the then Sudan Interior Mission Training College, Kagoro. My immediate elder sister was also born in Kagoro. Incidentally, what really bothered me when I was growing up was my name; I really didn’t like it.
Luther?
Martin Luther was the name I was given by my father.
The famous reformist cleric from Germany?
Yes. When I was growing up, I found that most of my peers had traditional Jaba names, but I didn’t have. Because we were predominantly Christians in that area, some traced their names to the Bible , yet I didn’t have; and I didn’t understand what the name, Martin Luther, stood for. And because I could not define the name, I honestly didn’t like it.
Did you ask why you were given that name?
In school, I told them that my name was Martin Agwai, but when I got home, my father said my full name was Martin Luther, so I asked why I was given the name. It was then that he explained that I was born in the week he was reading the history of Martin Luther, the reformer or protestant, whichever one.
Was he still in school?
He was in school in Kagoro and that inspired him, so he decided to give the name to his son. Despite his explanation, I was not very satisfied until when I grew older. It was only after I went to secondary school that I included Luther to Martin, otherwise I kept saying Martin Agwai.
It was only when I went to secondary school in 1963, in Zaria, that we started hearing about Martin Luther King, the American. That was when I accepted the complete name.
I later found out that even if it was coincidental or anything, at the end, the name influenced me in my thinking about living with people.
What led you into the Army after secondary school in Zaria?
It started even before I went to secondary school. Well, my father joined the police when I was three-years-old, so I virtually grew up in a police barracks.
And in sports, the police were always doing better than other law enforcement agencies, especially the Prison Service, so we all wanted to go to the police as we were growing up.
I grew up as a sportsman. I participated in so many games when I was in primary and secondary schools, up to my middle rank in the Army, before I stopped active sports. For example, I got to know Brig-Gen ( Shehu) Yar’adua when he was a major, at the hockey pitch. We played together and ended up playing for the Nigerian team.
We started nursing the interest to go into the army when they played football against the police and won. Towards the end of my primary education, the Army used to come to Bukuru, near Jos, for camping, during which they would engage in sports.
I was in the Provincial Secondary School, Zaria, when the name was changed to Government Secondary School. It was called Huda Huda College.
I joined the Boys Scout in my first year when I got to Zaria. In our second year, they brought the cadet training. We had officers coming from the Nigerian Military School (NMS) to teach us minor tactics of the military. And we had rifles, we would even go to range to fire. We used to go to camp. I enjoyed it, so I joined.
When we were in Form 3, there was a policy in the school that you could not be a member of the Boys Scout and a cadet; you had to take one as an extracurricular activity.
I was doing fine in the Boys Scout and also loved the Army, but at the end, I made up my mind to go for the Boys Scout.
Incidentally, in 1966, I was selected to represent Northern Nigeria in a Boys Scout jamboree in Scotland.
My going to Scotland was a wonderful thing. We sailed by sea from Apapa and stopped over in Abidjan for four days. It was then that I knew, as far back as 1966, the number of Nigerians in Cote d’Ivoire.
I remember having a haircut in Abidjan from a Nigerian with Yoruba tribal marks on his face. We spent four days, and on the fifth day, we left Abidjan and sailed to the then Bathurst, now Banjul, the capital of The Gambia. From there, we went to Dakar, Senegal, from where we sailed to Belfast.
I remember another incident that year, when the Queen visited Belfast in 1966 and she was stoned. That was two days after we arrived in Belfast. From Belfast, we ended our journey in Glasgow.
We made those stops because it was a cargo ship. We were taken as part of the crew because that was their assistance. The Palm Line was to take us free of charge and feed us.
The good aspect of the journey was that when they stopped at those harbours for days, they had football matches with other ships. And because we were registered as part of the ship, we played for them.
And throughout all the competitions, up to when we went to Belfast, we never lost a match. We drew one and won the rest. They were happy that we helped them to win their matches. It took us over a month to reach Glasgow from Lagos.
I lost the whole of third term and part of second term in Form 4 and that really had a big effect on my academic life.
How many months did you spend in Scotland all together?
Four. On our way back after we finished from Glasgow, we went to Berthshire, we came by train. It was another unique trip. The day we landed in London was the morning they said the head of state of Nigeria, Aguiyi Ironsi, had disappeared, because there was a counter coup that July.
In 1967?
It was 1966; and the civil war started. We were on the train at night and arrived London in the morning and went to the Nigerian High Commission and there was nobody there.
We stayed in London for a week and started sailing back home. From London, we went to Freetown, and from there to Monrovia and back to Lagos before I got back to Zaria.
Apart from missing school, would you say the trip impacted your life positively?
There was a positive side of the journey. We had international sports in the camp in Scotland, and in 200 metres, I won. We were divided into contingents and each contingent was grouped to form a camp. I represented our camp in 200 metres. But I was third in 100 metres. It was quite an interesting experience, and it started exposing me.
When we were going, I kept wondering who did menial jobs in Europe or the United Kingdom, because we could see that all the white people there stayed in big houses. So who would be cooking for them, washing their cars and everything? I was wondering who did that. Did they carry black people to do that?
My first shock was when I saw a white man washing a train in London. When the train arrived, they washed and cleaned it. It was surprising to me.
We stayed with families, and before we left, we were taught etiquette – what to do, how to eat, how to hold cutleries, and everything. I stayed with a Scottish family in a farm.
Another surprise was when we went out for grocery shopping with them and when we finished, the man would walk round to come and open the door for his wife. When we got back to the house, he went round, opened the door and the wife carried her bag and walked into the house. He went to the boot and started carrying all the things and I helped him. It was surprising because if it were in Nigeria, my mother would be the one doing that, not my father. I started seeing a difference in cultures.
It was the same year we enjoyed watching television, because England won the World Cup. We were in Scotland watching the match live on television.
Have you watched television before that time?
I only heard about television, but never watched one until we got to Belfast. It was there that I first saw a television set in my life.
But when I came back home in 1966, we had a television set in the school, so all of us would gather to watch the Western Nigerian Broadcasting Service. We later had a Radio Television in Kaduna, in our final year in secondary school. It was a wonderful experience.
How did the time you lost in school affect your career?
When we got to secondary school, in Form 3, we had exams by merit and they separated those they felt would be science students and those that would go into arts; some were in-between.
In the exam, we were divided into two streams. We were 62 in our class. The best 31 were taken to A and 32 downward were taken to B. I was lucky to be in Class A.
We were doing Biology and less than three weeks after, I left for Scotland. By the time I came back, I found out that they had gone too far in Physics. I lost completely in Biology, because I had only an introduction to the subject when I left.
There was no career guidance or counseling; nothing. And I had only few weeks. I got back in late October and we finished the year in December. I didn’t know where to start from, there was nobody to advise me; on my own, I decided to do what I thought was the best. I dropped Biology and went for Government. I did not do English Literature, but I did English Language. I also dropped Physics but did Chemistry and Mathematics. I also took woodwork.
I was of the view that if you could just make a good grade, you would go for a Higher School Certificate (HSC) and go to a university.
I ended up with a Division Two in the mock, with aggregate 24, almost getting Grade One, but I didn’t go for HSC.
What about the combination?
I didn’t realise that there was something called combination; and it became a big challenge for me for the rest of my life because I was not going for the HSC, so the chances of going to the university was virtually closed.
The civil war came in 1967 and jobs were abundant for us, such that you had to select which job you wanted. The exodus of people from the South-east created so many openings.
I was asked to go to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) in Lagos, but my parents disagreed. That was how I ended up in the Ministry of Land and Country Planning, Survey Division, in the North-Central State. From there, I went to the School of Survey in Oyo. But before then, I had applied to go to the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in 1967. In 1968, I wrote the exam and passed, so I was to go for an interview.
I was already in Oyo when the letter of invitation for interview came. Because I didn’t have a fixed address, I gave my parents’ address in Jos.
Incidentally, at that time, with the civil war, when the military liberated towns, they brought the police to maintain law and order. So my father was taken to Nsukka after the liberation of the town.
So my father was not at home, but my mother saw the letter and hid it, saying her son would not join the Army during the civil war. So I didn’t receive the letter and didn’t go for the interview.
I did the basic course in survey in Oyo. We were three from the North-central and another three or four from the North-west. We had seniors, and incidentally, two of them were from Benue-Plateau. They had actually done the basic course and had gone to work in Benue-Plateau, so they were of great help to us.
They showed us how to live in the school, understand the culture of the people there and everything.
After we finished the course in the school, I don’t know whether they have broken my record in 200 metres, but so many years after I went to that school, my record was still unbroken.
How long was the programme?
It was just an academic year.
How did the transition from the Ministry (of Land) to the Army happen?
That is the most interesting thing. My daughter wrote a book titled: How a Congress of Baboons Made a General. She got the title from the story I told them as they were growing up.
I came back to Kaduna and started mining survey at Godogodo site. Then, the North-central had a border with old Kano around Ririwai and there were some mining activities in that area. The trick point had fallen, so we had to climb there to insert it for us to have an accurate job on the map. On our way back we went into a Congress of Baboons.
Was it on a mountain?
It was a hill but really one of the high grounds. In that area there is a chain of hills and the trick point is always one of the highest. It was one of the highest hills around there.
There were over 100 baboons, with the mothers carrying babies. I was scared, and I was the leader of the team. We had one elderly man called Mallam Sani; I will never forget his name. His picture is even in that book my daughter wrote. When he saw us frightened, he said that if we did not panic, nothing would happen.
So, we braced up and kept walking along the bush path and they were on both sides. As we moved, they also moved. We kept going for over one kilometer and there were baboons on both sides. At one point they were not following us any longer, but we kept going.
When I got back to Kaduna, I applied to join the Army so that they would train me and I would at least have a gun and know how to use it and defend myself.
You did very well in the NDA. You were the best graduating student; how did you become such an outstanding officer?
I was scared during the first exam we had in the NDA. We had military and civil subjects – 18 in all. After the exam you would go and see your company commander, who would give you a feedback.
Our company commander, one Major Jain, was an Indian. At that time, Indians were still in the NDA. He called people, and when it was my turn, I was scared, wondering how I featured in that exam?
As I sat down, he said, “Congratulations candidate Agwai.” I said, “Thank you sir” and he said I was the only cadet in his company that passed all his military and academic subjects.
Overall, in my company I was the third in class; we were 64. That gave me the confidence that I could make it. That was when I devoted my time and energy to the training.
I did not have any job when I went to the NDA. I also applied to the police college in Kaduna. Less than a month, the result of the NDA came and they invited me for an interview. I applied to be exempted from the police college to attend the interview, but they replied that I should either leave or remain in the college.
I chose to go for the interview; that was on a Friday. On Sunday, the New Nigeria newspaper came up with names on the list. There were almost 700 names but they said they were only taking 60.
I wondered if I was not being penny wise but pound foolish by leaving a bird at hand and chasing another in the bush. Having left everything for the NDA, I told myself that I would be the last to leave. So I gave it my best. In the second term exam, I found out that I was first in the order of merit, both in my company and the class. And you know there is one thing about success, another challenge: How do you live to the reputation?
Academically, you became the best graduating student; how was the physical side; were you able to cope with ‘bigger boys’ and all that?
No. But frankly speaking, my childhood helped me. What I didn’t tell you is that I never finished primary one.
When I started primary one in 1955 at the Native Authority (NA) School, Jos, in April, my father was transferred to Kafanchan and I followed him, so I didn’t continue. I stayed at home. In 1956 when the Queen came to Nigeria, I went back to primary one in Kafanchan, and by the end of July, my father was transferred back to Jos and I left again.
In December 1956, my father went home on leave and decided to leave me with his mother in the village. I hated my parents because I thought they hated me a lot.
You went through the ranks to occupy top positions. Some of the most unique things I saw from your curriculum vitae were foreign engagements, including the one in Harare as a Defense advisor. Did you enjoy those postings?
Those postings were unique, in the sense that it exposed one to the other side of the military. That is why I think I would digress a bit to say that in this country, we need to start studying military diplomacy as a subject or discipline. Just as we have commercial diplomacy, we should also have military diplomacy. It helps us to understand the full picture, especially in the world we are in today, that security is not what we were defining 20 to 30 years ago. If you do not govern well, security will become an issue as food insecurity can create a serious challenge. It is very important.
I was very lucky that one of my instructors in the NDA who liked me and became my mentor till today was General Ibrahim Babangida. After I left the NDA, he encouraged me to join the Armoured Corps in. He was a major while we were cadets. Under his mentoring and encouragement, I found out that I was able to get exposed to so many things. One of them is that I worked briefly as his military assistant and a staff officer under him and other people.
I worked with him when he was the commander of the Armoured Corps; and that gave me the opportunity to work with the former Chief of Army Staff, the late General Salihu Ibrahim.
I was able to work with the late General Wushishi and I started to see what military policies and intrigues were all about at higher operational and strategic levels. And that helped me.
When I had the opportunity of going to Harare, I was covering the whole of southern region. I had a concurrent accreditation to Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, Lesotho, Namibia, Tanzania and Swaziland.
It kept me moving and gave me the opportunity to meet with people, as well as some of my old friends during training. I met my Zambian, Botswana, Kenyan and Malawian course mates in Army Staff College, Kambale. So it gave me an opportunity to reunite with my old friends; and that helped me in my job. That also helped us to create some exchange programmes between Nigeria and their countries, particularly Botswana, which started sending some officers to the NDA. It was an interesting thing. I also enjoyed Zimbabwe.
Tell us about your assignment in Darfur. It is on record that it was one of the largest. It was an African United Nations Peacekeeping Mission. How challenging was that?
Well, I would say that virtually every military peacekeeping mission is challenging. What most people don’t realise is that there is a world of difference between peace enforcement, or war, and peacekeeping.
Every young man that has gone to military training is taught to shoot to kill, but when you get to peacekeeping, you are taught to use minimum force, so even when the people spit on your face, you should take it.
So, the challenge is what happens after training a young man of 18 years to shoot to kill, then you are now telling him to go to Darfur, Sierra Leone, Liberia or somewhere else as a peacekeeper and use minimum force instead of firing to kill. You have to retrain him in the new things you want him to do. That is the challenge we have.
I was looking forward to going to Lebanon; and even when Namibia was to become independent, Nigeria was planning a contingent to go and I was made to be in charge of the manuals and the training programme, everything for Nigerians to go to Namibia. But it did not happen.
What is the attraction for military peacekeeping?
It opens you to meet people from different parts of the world. When I was in Darfur, at the height of my stay, we had soldiers, officers and people from 48 countries in this world.
You can imagine that gathering. You will acquire a lot of experience as you exchange views. You will understand what they do in their own type of training and what makes them unique. You can even gauge your own standard of training with what you see from other countries. So it exposes you to real military training.
But although it is peacekeeping, you have to operate as if you were in a war zone, because you don’t know where the problem is coming from. What we have during peace at home is what we call tactical exercise without troops. Sometimes you train with blank ammunition. But this one is a real thing, so it actually helps you to have a real battle experience.
I think the pay was good, as well as the working condition; is that correct?
Most people are not paid, but you have allowances, which enhanced you. Apart from the professional aspect of it, there is also the economic aspect.
Even for a nation, if you know how to handle your peacekeeping operation, you will make a lot of money because the United Nations (UN) is hiring your equipment at a rate. But your equipment has to be operational and serviceable 24 hours for you to be able to get the money.
Most soldiers and officers have the dream of rising to become Chief of Army Staff, because that is the epitome of the career. How did that happen for you?
Well, when we got into the NDA, we were told that everyone of us – soldiers and officers – had a cane, and that everyone must have a Chief of Army Staff cane in his kit bag. If you knew how to go around and look for it properly and maintain it in your kit bag, at the end of the day, you would have it, but if you don’t, you would never get it. Maybe I was lucky to have looked for it properly.
But it is a political appointment at the end of the day; how did you navigate the politics to get that position?
I would also say that at that time, it was not only political, it was also professional; you had to measure up. Yes, there are those who couldn’t balance the two—they are professionally super but diplomatically and politically out of it.
However, remember that geopolitics is part of our training, so you could make it if you were lucky to balance the two. I think I have been one of the luckiest. God, in his infinite mercy, has helped me and I have been able to measure up professionally. But it is still luck because maybe I had always been at the right place at the right time.
When the whole world was looking for a hybrid force commander, they remembered what I did in Sierra Leone. It was not Nigeria that wanted me to go to Darfur, it was the UN that requested and pressurised Nigeria to release me. That’s why I was the first four-star officer to command a UN mission; I was told the highest had been three-star. You would not want me to drop one of my stars because I wanted to serve the UN. That was how I got in there.
And frankly, what happened in Sierra Leone was not out of it. When I was a deputy force commander, there were things that happened which people thought were not possible. For example, a Nigerian battalion was co-located with the headquarters of the Revolution United Front (RUF), the rebel movement, in Makeni.
I had meetings with the RUF and they started looking for me, sending me notes and everything. And we played the game.
I learned a lot from our special representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Olu Adeniji, may his soul rest in peace. The rebels told me in writing that the only contingent they feared were Nigerian soldiers. So, if Nigerian soldiers were not in Makeni, any other contingent would not stay.
When we finished the concept of operation, I passed it to my boss and left. They changed it and asked Bangladesh to move to Makeni. The Bangladeshis that went to Makeni from Mabruka, which is less than 30 kilometres, had to go for over 100 kilometres back to their location, because they were blocked by the rebels.
We were able to disarm them in Kono, the diamond-producing area, where everybody believed the rebels would not give up without a fight. In 30 days, I was able to disarm over 5,000 of RUF and government militias. At that time, the armed forces in Sierra Leone had been dissolved, so they had militias. And the disarmament was thorough. Everybody in the world knew that it was thorough because after the civil war, when they signed the peace agreement, there was election. The late Tidjan Kabbal came back as president, and in- between three months down the line, there was a fight in the diamond area and the RUF and Kamajos went back to their old camp.
But none of them fired even a locally made gun because both sides had already been disarmed.
Were these missions dangerous for you?
I never wore a flack jacket because for some lucky reasons, I got on with both sides. This was so because I never became partial, whether in meetings with the UN or my superiors.
My principle has always been to listen to people who have grievances and understand where they are coming from. This is why we have problems in peacekeeping all over the world. It backfires when you want to impose your will on people. You need to ask people why they are fighting so that you would be able to solve the problem.
After the mission in Darfur you retired in 2009, what have you been doing since then?
I have a farm.
Do you think we are capable of dealing with the prevailing security situation in the country, which seems to be getting out of hand? As a retired General, are you consulted for help?
There are so many Generals in Nigeria.
Are you still waiting to be called to help?
Well, if you want to put it that way, yes. I wouldn’t mind, but with all sense of humility, there is no government in Nigeria since I retired in 2009, that has ever approached me to ask of my vie.
Do you think we should dialogue with bandits?
Some are negotiating, but I am saying no. I am very selective with my words. I have always said that if you negotiate you would be in problem.
Are you worried about the survival of the country?
If I say I am not worried, I would be deceiving you and myself. The fact that you and I cannot beat our chests and say we can go to any part of Nigeria at any time is enough to be worried.
The fact that people can walk into individual homes and pick people and go with them and negotiate for ransom and nothing happens is very worrisome.
It is also worrisome that our schoolchildren, who we believe are leaders of tomorrow, are being subjected to kidnapping, with its attendant trauma.
Your society has lived in brutalisation and it is unfortunate that it is becoming a norm. My concern is that we are gradually moving to the level where bandits will take over.
During my research as a student of the Nigerian Defence College, I wrote on the topic: “How Irregular Forces are taking over from Regular Forces: A Lesson for Nigeria.”
What is the answer?
We need to know why the situation escalated. We need to stop the politics of winner-takes-all. It is the same thing that happened in Rwanda, which brought genocide. That was how Mengistu lost power in Ethiopia, as well as what happened to( Samuel) Doe in Liberia.
Have you ever thought of going into politics to deal with these issues?
I wish I were 20 years younger.
But many Generals have tried politics after retirement; are you not interested?
I have been a professional soldier all my life.
Do you think military takeover is an option?
No. This is because the military is only good at temporary things. Prolonged planning is not the training of the military.
Tell us about Gen Agwai as a family man.
I am very lucky that I got married to a young woman who understood me and was willing to help me. She took charge of the home front and gave me the freewill to do my military training and go on assignments without really thinking too much about home. She was solid enough to bring up the children. We remained in constant communication. Actually, two women have been very special to me – my mother and my wife; they are really my rock. My mother gave me all the encouragement.
What about the children?
God is wonderful; he gave us three beautiful daughters. I don’t have a son. The only time we were going to have a son, something happened and my wife had a miscarriage and became so sick that she almost died. So I said if having a son meant my wife dying, I would rather not have one. I have closed that chapter.
My wife has been so good in bringing my daughters up to my standard. They are wonderful.
What do you do in your spare time since you are not farming?
I lost my farm and my cows were taken away. However, I am the chairman of Lead Way Insurance Company.
So, you are in business?
Yes. I am so proud that I am on that team. It is one of the best insurance companies in Nigeria, and maybe in some parts of Africa. I am also a visiting professor in Kings College, London.
Do you go there often?
I went to Kenya with Kings College during the beginning of the crisis in Kenya.
The recent crisis?
Yes.
Do you have a lesson or two for us from Kenya?
There are lots of little things.
What of personal hobbies? Do you still run?
In my 70s it is difficult, but I do a lot of exercises to keep fit. On average, everyday I walk for about 10 kilometers. I also do some aerobics and some activities with the young people in church.
Let me also say that ethnicity is not my problem at all, as well as the issue of religion. This is because I did not decide to be born where I was born. Also, religion is between me and my God. I have read about several religions in the world and most of them say you are going to be accountable: you, not us.
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