The gains of the Nigerian Army reportedly relied on the support of Private Military Contractors, led by a former South African Lieutenant-Colonel called Eeben Barlow.
Boko Haram’s beheading of victims, including suicide attacks on government infrastructures and worship places appeared to have overwhelmed the nation’s security agencies. The insurgents pursued their agenda to carve out an Islamic state where they might practice their own brand of Islamic law.
The group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, had stated their resolve to fight all forms of westernization and democracy in Nigeria. He boasted that it was a divine duty to kill and kidnap those who would not adhere to their beliefs.
Efforts by Nigeria’s armed forces to curb the activities of the group were unsuccessful, mostly in towns and communities of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, among other places. Security agencies deployed to fight the insurgents were often attacked and killed by terrorists, often attacking audaciously in large numbers with high-grade weapons.
The establishment of the 7 Division of the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri did little to stop the terrorists. Troops were often running away from battle, as the insurgents attacked towns and communities, annexing them in an attempt to overrun the entire North-East.
According to a security source, four major factors brought about the reversal and recent successes achieved by the military in the fight against Boko Haram. He listed them: The successful procurement of sophisticated equipment, cooperation plus partnership with the eastern bloc countries and Pakistan and late collaboration with armies of neighbouring countries.
Explaining that all these factors synchronized to give the fighting troops advantage over the terrorist, the source noted that most important is the training on guerrilla warfare and tactics by South African Private Military Contractors.
The introduction of Private Military Contractors in the fight against Boko Haram evoked a lot of reactions. While some reports describe them as mercenaries, the armed forces have maintained that they are technical experts contracted to train Nigerian troops in the art of asymmetrical war-fare.
The chairman of the Private Military Company (PMC) Specialized Task Training, Equipment and Protection (STTEP) that operated in Nigeria, Eeben Barlow, describes their success in Nigeria as Africans solving an African problem.
When asked about the tactics that STTEP mentors Nigerian troops to use, Barlow told a website called Sofrep.com that: “The strike force was never intended to hold ground. Instead, it operated on the principle of relentless offensive action.”
He continued: “Troops need to develop their aggression level to such a point that the enemy fears them. Aggressive pursuit is aimed at initiating contact as heavily with the enemy as possible.”
Barlow also wrote on his website: “We did not develop the strategy to destroy the enemy. This was done by the Nigerian army division commander in the area of operations who gave us his intent, guidelines, and restrictions.”
STTEP then developed the tactical application for the strike force in order to support that strategy. It became the Nigerian military’s responsibility to consolidate the terrain taken by the strike force, he said. He added that: “Holding ground was the responsibility of the division where we operated, as was the exploitation of operational and tactical gains.”
STTEP also brought an air wing to the table with its package of trainers, advisors, and mentors. The air wing is an organic asset of the strike force and takes its orders from the strike force commander. He explained that the air wing was “given ‘kill blocks’ to the front and flanks of the strike force and could conduct missions in those areas.”
Barlow explained that the air wing dropped ordnance to create blocking positions, which would prevent the enemy from escaping the operational area that the strike force was patrolling in, essentially isolating the objective area.
“We have our own small intelligence component that liaises with the Nigerian Army, but that has also extended its tentacles to focus on target-relevant intelligence,” he stated. He continued that: “This ‘section’ coordinates all incoming information and intelligence and gives its intelligence product to the Nigerian Army for action.”
Barlow also enumerated eight strategies which guarantee victory when fighting insurgents. On his blog post, he postulates that: Timing, Synchronicity, Surprise, Tempo, Manoeuvre, Firepower, Speed and logistics were the potent ingredients in fighting insurgents. He said timing attacks or strike is crucial to throwing the enemy off balance and seizing the initiative, especially if the enemy’s intentions and routine are known and the forces are able to conduct both day and night operations.
Barlow added that the enemy was forced to defend over multiple fronts against both conventional and unconventional direct and indirect approaches. He said focused firepower is required to overwhelm and annihilate the enemy.
Barlow said most importantly, an efficient and functional logistical system is required to sustain operations. A failure in logistics will reduce momentum, tempo, manoeuvre, firepower and speed and thereby cede initiative to the enemy.
Also commenting on the achievement of the new tactics, the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Kenneth Minimah recently said: “There are also those who had fears that the army or the Nigerian military did not have visible capacity, to doing much between the time frame (from 14 February) of reducing the menace and invincibility of the terrorists.”
“Anyone could have as well believed that it was not going to be possible. Today the reality on ground has vindicated the armed forces of Nigeria,” he said, expressing hope that soon military action will be rested in the North-East. He added that Niger Republic also saw reason to joining the war because they knew their country was like a conduit for both Boko Haram’s arms and ammunition, and sometimes for recruitment of individuals who they used as war machines.
National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki had also in a lecture at Chatham House in London pointed out the historical deficits in Nigeria’s military institutions, including the fact that the last significant procurement of equipment was done over two decades ago. He noted the inability of the government to buy the weapons needed in a timely manner, the need for a philosophical as well as operation shift from conventional warfare to asymmetric warfare.
Dasuki said multiple changes have been made in the prosecution of the war against insurgency: “This includes greater training for the military in the handling of sophisticated arms and the use of technology, greater capacity building in counter insurgency.”
The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) in an online publication: “Privatization of Violence: New Mercenaries and the State,” chronicled the emergence of Private Military Contractors from the late 19th century. The publication noted that STTEP metamorphosed from Executive Outcome (EO) established in 1989 in South Africa as one of the first modern private military companies.
CAAT claimed that as the apartheid regime in South African came to an end the wars it had waged in Angola and Namibia also came to an end. Consequently, because of drastic cuts in the South African Defence Force, many of whose white officers and black other ranks were seeking alternative uses for their redundant skills.
CAAT added that the first leader of EO, Eeben Barlow, was a Special Forces officer, reputedly a member of the Civilian Co-operation Bureau, an organization which among other duties, carried out the assassination of the regime’s more dangerous opponents.
Barlow is said to have spent most of his time in Western Europe, where “he undoubtedly developed many of his corporate connections.”
CAAT’s research on military contractors noted that: “Whatever may be true of other “military companies,” there is no doubt that Executive Outcomes was a fighting force. “It did provide training, logistic support and static security, but if necessary it also went into battle. Its casualties have been few,” the group said.
CAAT noted that tentacles of EO spread widely through Africa. It has provided military training in Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana, Madagascar and Algeria.
But Eeben Barlow chided the United Nation and other western military intervention in internal security crisis in Africa as only window dressing. He told Sofrep.com that he was approached in 2009 to become the chairman of STTEP and help guide the company.
Barlow said: “The foreigners failed in their foreign internal defense missions due to “poor training, bad advice, a lack of strategy, vastly different tribal affiliations, ethnicity, religion, languages, cultures, not understanding the conflict and enemy.”
“Much of this training is focused on window-dressing, but when you look through the window, the room is empty,” Barlow stated.
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