Our 'cowardly' soldiers avoid fighting Boko Haram, says Nigeria's security chief

Left: Nigeria's National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki. Right: the Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau


Left: Nigeria's National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki. Right: the Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau

Picture: REUTERS/AFP


By David Blair
2:54PM GMT 22 Jan 2015


The national security adviser describes claims about a shortage of weapons as "excuses" of soldiers unwilling to fight


Nigeria's struggle against Boko Haram is being undermined by “cowardly” soldiers who use “every excuse in this world” to avoid combat, the country’s national security adviser said on Thursday.

Sambo Dasuki, who has prime responsibility for suppressing a raging Islamist insurgency, described complaints about a shortage of weapons and equipment as the “disingenuous” pleas of soldiers unwilling to fight.

Boko Haram has captured about 20,000 square miles of northern Nigeria, killing hundreds of people this month alone. On Jan 7, the gunmen seized Baga on the shores of Lake Chad, burning most of the town to the ground.

Speaking at Chatham House in London, Mr Dasuki said this episode was “not something that anybody will be proud of". He disclosed that the soldiers defending Baga were armed with four light artillery pieces and six armoured personnel carriers with 4,000 rounds of ammunition each. All of this equipment had fallen into Boko Haram’s hands.


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Mr Dasuki, a former colonel, said this proved the army had all the weaponry it needed. “For anybody who has that much in store to say he is poorly armed or poorly equipped is being disingenuous to say the least,” he said. “Anybody who believes that he is not well armed, he is not telling the truth.”

Mr Dasuki added: “Unfortunately, we have a lot of cowards. There was a problem in the recruitment process – we all admit, that is all admitted. We have people who are using every excuse in this world not to fight. If you don’t want to fight, it’s not your fault: get out of the army. If you are there, there are certain things you are expected to do. For now, fighting is one of those things. If you don’t want to fight, don’t make excuses and say you are not armed, you are not equipped.”

However, Western diplomats in Nigeria say that concerns about the state of the army’s equipment are genuine. The 7th Division, which was specially formed to fight the insurgency, lost its helicopters during a Boko Haram raid in 2013. This unit has since been reduced to mounting a static defence of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, leaving Boko Haram free to roam almost at will.

In total, the army has only 62,000 soldiers to defend a country four times bigger than Britain with a population of almost 180 million.

But Mr Dasuki insisted that the cowardice of individual soldiers was the problem. “We have a lot of people who joined [the army] because they wanted a job, not because they wanted a career in the military. Most of them are the ones who are running away and who are telling stories of poor equipment and stuff like that,” he said.

Mr Dasuki said the army had made the innovation of recruiting soldiers on merit, adding: “Over time, I am sure we will come up with a more professional fighting force.”

Last April, Boko Haram carried out one of its most notorious atrocities by abducting over 200 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok. Mr Dasuki said the hunt for the missing girls had produced “nothing”. There was no hard information about the fate of children, except that they had probably been “dispersed and sold”.

As for the suggestion that some soldiers were going without pay because senior officers were stealing their wages, Mr Dasuki said this could not be true. “It’s not the individual who is being paid, it’s the unit,” he said. “Now if the unit is not paid, it’s not two people who will complain – it’s the whole unit that will complain. Where you don’t have a complaint from the whole unit, then it is not true.”

Goodluck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria, faces re-election next month. The failure to contain Boko Haram and the constant drumbeat of raids and atrocities has become a severe embarrassment to his government

The truth is gradually coming out. Haba Dasuki! Op., pls rephrase the title of this your post, so that it will draw the attention that it deserves. Kudos for the research, man.

no wonder he no pass colonel for army
him wen na emir slot him take enter army De talk merit

Op nice work here. I'm sure in due cause we'll know the rest truth