Re: ‘Nigeria needs new military doctrine’
Nigerian Army

Re: ‘Nigeria needs new military doctrine’
Nigerian Army

By Mike Kebonkwu

In the opening paragraph of the piece, “Nigeria needs a new Military Doctrine” on the back page of The Nation Newspaper on Sunday, 2nd June 2024, the writer observed among other things, “… that there is a depressing disconnection between Nigerians and their military, a disconnection that has accentuated the crises of underdevelopment and stymied the effectiveness of the military in its numerous counterinsurgency wars in the Northeast, costly efforts to pacify the Northwest, and other internal peacekeeping duties”.

At the small right corner inset is the quotable quote: “Accordingly, it is absolutely imperative that the military retaliate against this dastardly act against troops.  The military would be fierce in its response.  We would bring overwhelming military pressure on the group to ensure their total defeat”.  The above statement was credited to the Director of Defence Media Operations (DMO), Major General Edward Buba in reaction to the killing of soldiers in Aba in Abia State by alleged IPOB militants.  The writer equally isolated three recent incidents to buttress his point and argument, such as the shutting down of Banex Plaza in Abuja over a dispute between a phone seller and a soldier; the Okuama killings in Delta State where 17 military personnel were killed in an ambush by militants, and the last being the killing of five soldiers by alleged IPOB militants in Aba, Abia State resulting in ongoing skirmishes to fish out the killers.

I find the conclusion depressing where Palladium likened the military to militants and insurgents.  He introduced some precepts like, ‘the people’s army’ and a ‘new doctrine’ as well as the disconnection between Nigerians and their military.  His treatment of these precepts was an oversimplification. I will talk about this presently.  To understand his point of view from the article, one expected the writer to have enunciated the existing doctrine of the military, pointing out its inadequacies to justify his position and demand for a new doctrine.  What therefore is the doctrine of the Nigerian military known to him?


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The military should protect Nigerian citizens as the guardian sentinel of our liberty, freedom and democracy and should not be seen to turn its weapons against the civil populace.  The people are not enemies of the state and the military cannot win a war against the people because it exists for the people.  In the same way, the military and its personnel deserve some measure of protection from hooligans who are mostly engaged and hired by some individuals to protect their business premises or pursue some political agenda.

Palladium further used the Arise television interview with the former CDS, General Lucky Irabor on the Banex incident, and response of the Nigerian Army Spokesman, Major general Onyema Nwachukwu as baseline for his analysis.  The writer did not omit to refer to other encounters in the past between the military and the civil populace in Odi in Bayelsa State and Zaki Biam in Benue State after the killing of 19 soldiers.  In concluding, he stated among other things that “…For when they respond fiercely  and indiscriminately to provocations like militants and insurgents, talking about retaliation and vengeance instead of calmly and forcefully saying they would bring the attackers to justice, how can they prove they are different from those animals who unfeelingly leave destruction in their wake”.  This is a summary dismissal of the military as not being different from the militants and insurgents in any way.


When the writer talks about the people’s army, he does not as much as state what a people’s army means.  Glossing over it therefore makes the analysis superficial. Is a people’s army about just civil/military relations; one is afraid there is a yawning gap in that article as it was full of bile, as if the writer had an axe to grind with the military, and given the way he concluded that  the military sees itself as superior to the polity. Furthermore, one was unable to see the disconnection between the military and the civil populace that the writer referred to.  His narrative was replete with unsubstantiated assumptions; for it cannot be said that the reason the military is not able to defeat or rein in insurgency or criminality in the country is as a result of any disconnection or occasional friction between the civil populace and the military.  The article failed to meet the threshold of good analysis when the writer talked about peacekeeping in internal security operations in aid of civil authority; that is a misleading concept. The Nigerian military could not have been involved in any peacekeeping operation within its own territory and geographical boundaries.


It is true that there have been frictions and clashes between some gangsters and hooligans who launch attacks on the military and other uniformed personnel or law enforcement agents in their course of duty, but not the civil populace as that would be misleading; otherwise it would be using the media space to create disaffection between the military and civil populace which does not really exit. The festering insecurity in the northeast and elsewhere is real and the reason we are at a dead end is the vexed issue of ethnicity, religion and bad politics conveyed through media distortions.    Nigeria is the only country I know where people support crime and criminality because it is perpetrated by someone from our ethnic nationality or religious persuasion. The campaign against the military will only leave us at the mercy of criminal gangs and hooligans.

We do not expect the military or the army to turn its weapons against the civil populace or undermine the rule of law in its internal security operations; we expect the soldiers to be disciplined and law abiding. They are not superior to the polity but for the general good of the state. 

It is also true to observe that the language and responses from the military may not have been elegant and civil, using a word like retaliation. The military needs to overhaul and fine-tune their language when relating with members of the public and avoid command regimental language while the same message can be passed differently. The Nigerian military should not stand as a spectre of fear to the society.  At the same time, hooligans and gangsters should not be allowed to weaken the state by attacking the coercive force of the state and putting the rest of us in apprehension, as we already are with Boko Haram, IPOB, herdsmen, bandits and kidnappers that now negotiate with government on even terms.  While we blame the hawk, we should also blame the chicken that exposes its chicks.


The Nigerian military remains in my perception a people’s army (Nigerian Army), and any disconnection with the Nigerian people is a figment of the imagination of the observer, regardless of our misgivings about some isolated incidents. The military uniform is similar to our national flag and symbol of our collective safety and security. When criminals attack our military, one should expect a strong response without media hype.


©Culled from the Nation Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved – 2024.