By Brian J. Dennis
“We have technically defeated Boko Haram.”
This was the line that made headlines in December 2015 by the infamous Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed. It was the best news by miles in the 6 years the Nigerian government had been combating insurgency in the Northeastern part of the country.
But war is not a respecter of propaganda and the Boko Haram insurgents have continued to take the Nigerian military head on to further reclaim territories and control the desired caliphate. The insurgents continued to attack civilians and the government that claimed they were defeated called these attacks “soft targets” and insisted that the insurgents had been defeated.
Fast forward to late 2016, the presidency unveiled Shekau’s flag live on National television and declared total annihilation of the Boko Haram insurgents, it was not a smart move as Shekau, the Boko Haram leader was still at large but being smart has never been a character trait of the Nigerian government.
The incompetence of the Nigerian government wore a new uniform yesterday in the military colours of the Nigerian Airforce as they “accidentally” bombed an IDP camp killing over 100 people. As outraged and angry the masses were, they were still patient enough to wait for an explanation and waited naively. General Irabor was the scapegoat.
“We got information that Boko Haram terrorists were gathering somewhere in Kala Balge Local Government. We coordinated our air component and strike the location but somehow, civilians were killed” he said.
I have read this particular statement 99 times and I am marvelled by the level of incompetence of the Nigerian military. I have no experience in warfare but the flaws in the methods applied by the Nigerian airforce are too visible to the untrained civilian eye.
In his statement, the General Lucky Irabor says they got information that Boko Haram terrorists were gathering somewhere in Kala Balge local government, I will not ask who gave them this information because it totally betrays tactical military intelligence but I will question the “intelligence” of the intelligence. Kala Balge must surely be larger than a football field so it is highly impossible and maybe totally impossible for the military to mistake an IDP camp for a terrorist cell unless the two camps were sharing a fence or were next door neighbours. This is highly unlikely.
While we have questioned the quality of the intelligence, let us question the quality of the response of the Nigerian airforce. General Irabor says they instantly responded by coordinating their air component to strike the location.
This further reveals the poor quality of intelligence protocol in the Nigerian army. You do not just strike at a location marked “X” by your “intel” because he is an “intel” or has given accurate information before in the past. As a civilian with little knowledge of military operations, I stand to be corrected but let me outline how a military general would respond to such intelligence in his area of command.
Intelligence in modern warfare, the location of a place is not given as an address with a name but by GPS coordinates. GPS coordinates are accurate so unless our Airforce is still using Local Government names as addresses which only shows how tactically backward we are then the air strike was no accident of locations.
Even when exact coordinates are acquired, there are usually ethical questions of bombing terrorists and the innocent by standing civilians. This is why ground troops are usually sent to see off this sort of military operation, to reduce casualty figures and perhaps arrest and detain the people that surrender and further gain intelligence by interrogating them.
Airstrikes are usually the last option when civilian casualties are at the least minimum and can be seen as a necessary sacrifice. This was not the case in Kala Balge, there was just a direct order to bomb a location the Airforce were not really sure of and killed the people they were trying to protect.
An incompetent military fighting a war will only kill more people than the enemy it tries to protect them from.
About two years ago, I was engaged in a debate with a JTF private and naively asked him why it was so tough to just bomb the entire Sambisa and wipe out its population. His answer was cold and accurate, “Our enemies are not in uniform.”
This is why military intelligence is the order of the day. A country that further develops its Arsenal and fails to develop intelligence will only drop bombs on itself as is the case of the accident that happened yesterday.
In a sane country, there would of course be sacks and resignations, speeches by several government officials answering to the angry families of the dead health workers, trying to bring closure. There would be investigations into the military operation, there would be arrests and prosecution of the military officers found culpable, there would be shame and disgrace but this is not that country.
Welcome to Nigeria, where all is fair in incompetence and war.
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