The Federal Government has given the armed forces and other security agencies the nod to embark on mass recruitment.
The PUNCH gathered in Abuja on Sunday that the directive was to give fillip to the war against terrorism in the country.
It was also learnt that those who
attended the expanded National Security Council meeting in Abuja on
Thursday emphasised the need for the recruitment.
A highly placed military source said
that President Goodluck Jonathan issued the directive for more
recruitment into the army in March after the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.
Gen Kenneth Minimah, had briefed him about the operations of the army.
The source, who did not want to be
named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said the
army did not begin the recruitment immediately because of the need
to expand training facilities in parts of the country.
It was learnt that the army would commence the recruitment in May 2014.
Our source said, “We have in the pipeline, the plan to recruit. We are holding it because we want to upgrade our facilities.
“The presidential directive to us to
recruit was given in March when the COAS briefed the President. But
the excercise would start next month (May)”
The source added that because of Boko
Haram and other security challenges, the recruitment would now
hold twice a year unlike in the past when it was done once.
Another source said, “It is true that
recruitment has to be beefed up. The Federal Government has granted that
request but recruitment is not just the number.
“You must note that you cannot produce a
soldier in three days or weeks; this is a serious business involving
the requisite facilities for training.
“If you want to raise your recruitment
for instance, from 1,000 recruits to 2, 000 per annum, you must increase
the facilities for their training.
“And I can tell you that it takes time
for you to increase such facilities. You see, the issue is that the
country has neglected the Army for so long; several public commentators
have questioned why public funds should be spent to maintain a large
army when there is no war.
“But is it wise for you to start
screaming where are the soldiers when you did not make arrangement for
training just because there is a threat now?
“For you to increase the number of
those being recruited, you have to increase the structures for
recruitment because as you are recruiting, you are training.
According to him, the structures on the ground can only accommodate a particular number of recruits.
He said that the best the army did last year was to increase the timing for recruitment.
“It used to be annual but it is now going to be twice a year,” the source added.
He said that the recruitment issue was
being taken more seriously because the about 150,000 men and
officers of the army had come under stress due to the involvement of
some of them in internal security operations.
The source explained that the army
had assumed some traditional responsibilities of the Nigerian Police
Force, especially in the North –East where many police facilities
had been destroyed by insurgents.
The National Security Adviser, Col.
Sambo Dasuki, had at a recent international seminar on the Observance
of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in Internal Security
Operations on February 25, 2014 said that the Nigerian Armed Forces
were engaged in internal operations in 32 states.
Dasuki had said, “As you are well
aware, our great country has been grappling with a plethora of security
challenges occasioning the loss of lives and property.
“These civil disturbances, ethnic
tensions and recently, terrorism and insurgency in the North-East have
engaged the attention of the government and security agencies as
concerted efforts are being made to contain the situation and restore
normalcy to the affected parts of the country.”
It was further gathered that the
expanded National Security Council meeting on Thursday discussed
extensively, the need to boost the capacity of other security agencies
like the police, the State Security Service and the Nigeria Security and
Civil Defence Corps.
The council was said to have expressed
concern that the “army was being unnecessary overstreched,” through its
involvement in internal security operations.
When our correspondent contacted the
Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen Chris Olukolade, he replied ,
“I am sorry I can’t speak on that without contacting the relevant
authorities .”
He however promised to speak with one of our correspondents on the issue on Monday (today).
But a security consultant, Ben Okezie, criticised the planned recruitment, saying it was late in coming.
He noted that the process might be hijacked by politicians who were always waiting with a list of candidates.
Okezie said the government should rather
recruit ex-service men and other retired security officers into the
army, stressing that the nation could not afford to wait for the time it
would take to train the fresh recruit while the insurgency rages on.
He said, “This government is like a
patient in the hospital whose psyche is disturbed by the drugs given to
him. How can government recruit civilians into the Army? How long will
it take to train them with many northern youths willing to join Boko
Haram?
“Whenever there is recruitment,
politicians will bring a long list of thugs and those they want to use
during elections. Is this not what happened in the Niger Delta during
the Amnesty programme?
“Recruiting civilians into the Army now
is like going to the World Cup and you are now going to the village to
recruit footballers. Boko Haram has trained its fighters long ago.”
Okezie advised the government to
constitute a special operation task force made up of serving and retired
security personnel who are indigenes of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states
to provide intelligence on Boko Haram, since they are conversant with
their states of origin.
According to him, the task force members
should be well paid and should be made to know that their mission was
to save their states.
Another security expert, Max Gbanite,
observed that increasing the numbers of soldiers would not help to win
the war against terrorism.
He argued that what the government
needed to do was to declare that the nation was at war and to assess
what it would take to prosecute it.
Gbanite also advised the government
to mobilise the vigilante groups and consider the use of Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle known as drones in the campaign against the insurgents.
He said, “The government must consider
the use of human and electronic equipment for intelligence gathering.
We must localise the war by using vigilance groups or civilian JTF.
There is also a need for geo-spatial intelligence. We need to know
whether Boko Haram has underground tunnels like Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
“If they have underground tunnels,
drones can’t see them;so we will need human intelligence. I am disturbed
that the sect is mimicking The Lord Resistance Army of Uganda by
kidnapping children.”
Meanwhile, the Defence Headquarters
said on Sunday that the military was satisfied with the ongoing
operations against insurgents in Borno. State.
Its spokesman, Olukolade made this
known during an interview with journalists on the sidelines of a media
tour of military operations in Maiduguri, that the troops had been
able to sustain momentum in terms of the offensive against the
terrorists.
He said,” The bases we visited are part
of the responses to the terrorist offensive and that is an achievement;
the military had moved close to where the insurgents are.‘’
The defence spokesman added that the
morale of the soldiers was high, adding that ‘’we are expecting to see
more successes from the troops’’.
The News Agency of Nigeria reported that the journalists visited military camps in and around Maiduguri.
The journalists were also taken on night
patrols by the troops which lasted from 9pm to 12.30am . around
Maiduguri and its environs.
The essence of the tour, according to Olukolade, is to have a first-hand information on the operations of the troops.
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