Saturday, April 11, 2020

The Greed, Lies, Cowardice, and the Shame of of the Generals.

Our territorial integrity was violated. Our political independence was undermined. Our Armed Forces and the entire security apparatus were humbled. And the Boko Haram firepower was deftly demystified by a contingent whose financial resources pale into insignificance in comparison to what obtains in Kano or Lagos State, Nigeria.
The Chad Republic of Idris Debby is not as rich as Kano State, and certainly not as financially buoyant as Lagos. But Mr. Debby accomplished in a few days what no Nigerian General has been able to do for years: Vanquished the Boko Haram sect and put a lie to their much-bandied invincibility.
Nigeria is ranked 43rd out of 138 in Global Military Strength or Fire Power ranking. While the Chad Republic is ranked 87th position. While the 2017 Military budget of Nigeria was about 1.5 Billion USD, that of Chad was $219 Million. For the year 2018, Nigeria was $1.9 Billion and Chad was $216 Million. And Nigerian Projection for 2019 was 1.6 Billion USD. And a few days ago, one General Adeniyi of the Nigerian Armed Forces was redeployed for crying out loud about the shortage of modern weapons available to them.
Over the years, I have written copiously and stated unequivocally that President Buhari, would rather our men and women in uniforms are ambushed and slaughtered like chicken than to preside over the death and defeat of the Boko Haram fighters. Today, I am expanding that to the Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri Generals, as well as the influential Northern power brokers at the core of our war military battle against the Boko Haram sect.
It is irrelevant that their own people are being killed, displaced and continue to find refuge in makeshift camps all over the North-East. As long as the petrol dollars continue to flow into the region and into the pockets of the greedy Generals and their sponsors in the name of fighting insurgents, IDPs must continue to flourish as a new normal. The Almajiri culture started in a similar manner.
Thanks to President Debby, the cat is now out of the box. The lack of progress in the war against the sect is least connected with a shortage of men or women to fight the war. Whatever your goals are and whatever use you are making of the Military Budget, President Idris Debby of Chad and his army have, indeed, settled one dubious fallacy for good - the invincibility of the Boko Haram militias is a hoax.
So, shame on all of you, Service Chiefs. The joke is now on you, Generals. You can't fight. You can't protest the violation of your integrity by the Chief of Staff to the President. And in your privileged and secluded cocoon, resignation is an aberration. Where is your honor, and where is the warrior in you?
Like Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh and the spineless greedy Generals before you, you have accumulated so much wealth and so much landed properties at home and abroad. Yet, you are too legit and too entrenched in corruption to quit.
Where is your conscience? And what legacy, what culture, and what pride about the uniforms are you bequeathing to those in the lower ranks in the face of the unhinged greed and cowardice ravaging the Nigerian Armed Forces? And that's the tragedy of the Nigerian modern military.
As always, I am not calling for the dismantling of this country. And neither will I play refuge to political correctness. It is no longer about the North in general. The narrative has undergone a major shift. It is about the Hausa, the Fulani, and the Kanuri Generals and the power-brokers whose definition of wealth and power has no reckoning in morality, civil liberty, empathy, and human kindness.
In light of your stupid lies and excuses, your unfathomable greed, corruption of the justice system, dictatorship traits, the indiscriminate wastage of our oil wealth over the years, the desolation of our educational system, and the emptiness that your leadership exemplifies, it will be very difficult for me to support any of you again aspiring to be the President of this country.
You have corrupted and demoralized our Armed Forces - undue promotion, demotion and killing of our finest through coups and counter-coups continue to define the culture our Military. You misappropriation our natural resources, and turned our luscious landscape into one where bloodshed competes with a flighty harvest.
When we are supposed to be exporting Medical Doctors and personnel to other African countries, we are bragging about importing the same from China. Now that the majority of you can no longer travel abroad to buy panadol for your headache, you've just realized how appalling the state of our healthcare facilities is at home.
The year 2023 is still a long way to go, and to those of you manipulating the affairs of the State from behind the curtain, you have all the time in the world to do the right thing and govern in the true spirit of the real Progressive party that Nigerians voted for in the 2015 Presidential election. Otherwise, this is going to be your last. Period.
Thank you. Stay safe. And stay blessed. The Lord is our Strength and he is watching all over us. Happy Easter, folks.

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