A former captain in the Nigerian army remembers the day he faced Boko Haram - and found that his weapons were defective.

Jefferson (not his real name) jumped off the truck and flung his bulky frame onto the sand and shrubs beneath him. He raised his head and scoured the terrain. The 30 soldiers who had just arrived alongside him were taking fighting positions - some diving, others crouching.

They were in Mongonu, a town in northeast Nigeria's Borno State, to provide reinforcements for a military convoy that had, earlier that morning, been ambushed by Boko Haram.

Many of the town's 20,000 inhabitants had fled; others had been incorporated into the Boko Haram frontline - terrified human shields protecting the 200 or so members of the group who were now attacking, determination etched onto their faces, sophisticated weaponry in their hands.

But as Jefferson caught his first glimpse of the fighters, it was surprise, not fear that he felt.

"They were not what I expected," he recalls now, describing how many of the men had the kind of light skin, curly hair and fine facial features normally associated with indigenes of Chad or Niger or other countries along Nigeria's northern border.

And the ease with which they fired their Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs) made it immediately clear that, far from being the mob of ragamuffins he had envisioned, these fighters were well-trained and highly efficient.

Just a few weeks earlier, in June 2013, Jefferson, a captain in the Nigerian army, had assumed duty as the commander of a 'garrison quick response force' in Borno. It was his first posting to the troubled northeastern region, which, at that point, had already endured more than four years of Boko Haram attacks.

And this was to be his first encounter with the infamous fighters.

The captain quickly overcame his surprise and prepared to attack.

But things did not go according to plan.

"The first shock I got was finding out that the firing pin of my rocket propelled grenade was damaged," he says.

Then, when he and his soldiers discharged their mortars, all they got for their efforts was a hollow kpoi sound. Their weapons had expired and were, effectively, useless.

They quickly discovered that some of their raw ammunition had no links and the charges for their equipment were broken. Wrapping them in the masking tape he always carried around in his kit proved ineffective.

A training session had been taking place in their barracks when the news of the Boko Haram ambush had reached them. They had grabbed as much ammunition from their stores as they could before heading out to battle - never imagining that it would be defective.

But now, here they were, being attacked with weapons intended for use against aircraft with nothing but small arms with which to defend themselves.

Jefferson recalls how one veteran soldier, a grey-haired, wrinkled man under his command, threw away his gun and broke down in tears, declaring: "Oh God! Oga, what is this?"


Analysts say Nigeria's military is underfunded and poorly equipped in its battle against Boko Haram.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/my-nigeria/2015/09/remember-day-confronted-boko-haram-150914121936847.html

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