The Problems
Analysts who spoke to this magazine last week contended that lack of investment in training, failure to maintain equipment and corrupt procurement practices constitute the major bane of the of the Nigerian military. They pointed out that, contrary to the situation in the 1990s when Nigerian troops helped end the ethnic-motivated civil wars in sSierra Leone and Liberia, those sent to Mali in 2013 did not have the necessary equipment and training to join in the real fight against the al-Qaeda-backed Tuareg rebels.

A recent report indicated that surveillance drones which Nigeria bought from an Israeli firm some years ago that might have been used to hunt for the more than 200 girls held by Islamist rebels, have been left grounded due to poor maintenance. The drones were reportedly bought in 2006 for deployment to Niger Delta to fight oil theft and kidnapping. But the manufacturers said the drones were never put to use as there has been no demand for spare parts or routine maintenance for unmanned vehicles from Nigeria. The machines reportedly cost between $15 million and $17 million each though. Rather, the Nigerian Air Force last year also unveiled its own locally-made drone it named Gulma at an Air Force base in Kaduna. But the drone has not flown since and the Air Force said last week that it was still training operators for the unmanned aircraft.

There have also been reports of Nigerian soldiers losing their lives because their equipment failed to live up to expectation during confrontations with the insurgents. An unconfirmed report last year indicated that 70 soldiers on a mop-up operation were killed when they entered the Sambisa forest for an operation because the bomb dropped by an Air Force jet did not explode because it was expired.

Sources also told this magazine that unlike the Nigerian military, the Boko Haram insurgents fight with weapons like rocket-propelled grenades, RPGs, which can take down an aircraft, and other sophisticated equipment. “Nigerian soldiers are brave but do not have much equipment,” noted an analyst. In the attack it launched on Bama Barracks last year during which it killed over 180 people, for example, the insurgent group displayed its substantial fire power with the deployment of many RPGs, machine guns and pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns.

The attack the group mounted on Giwa Barracks earlier this year was no less spectacular. A recent report indicated that the militants had acquired the weapons through alliance with rebels who fought in the Libyan and Malian wars. Members of the insurgent group successfully used anti-aircraft gun on an Air Force jet during a raid on their enclave last year. A recent statement by the military indicated that a middle-aged man who was arrested in Borno State led the troops to a cache of weapons which included anti-aircraft guns, rocket propelled grenades as well as general purpose and other brands of machine guns which the insurgent group was planning to use for an attack. The weapons were found buried in the premises of one of the churches earlier burnt by the insurgents in Kalabalge Local Government Area of the state. Also recovered from the location were thousands of various calibres of rounds of ammunition and links.

On the contrary, according to sources, most Nigerian troops confront the insurgents with AK-47 rifles, with no ballistic helmet or fragmental jacket, while relying on their superior military training to gain the upper hand. A source listed some of the equipment a modern day soldier should have in operations, but which Nigerian troops lacked, to include ballistic helmet, fragmental jacket, personal and special weapons mounted with special equipment like binoculars for accuracy, bayonet, night vision goggles, and hand grenades.

There have been reports of soldiers dying because they ran out of out of ammunition to fight back during confrontation with Boko Haram insurgents as a result of rationing of bullets. This magazine gathered that most military units battling the insurgents are also contending with obsolete equipment, as the men in uniform have no communications equipment other than mobile phones. Reports indicated that some of the Armoured Personnel Carriers, fighter jets and the helicopter gunships that were being used in the ongoing fight against the insurgents were acquired between 1979 and 1982.

Air Marshal Adesola Amosu, the Chief of Air Staff, confirmed this in a press briefing he held to herald the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Nigerian Air Force two months ago. He told journalists that some of the equipment in the arsenal of the Air Force are as old as the Service. “The challenge the Nigerian Air Force is facing today as we clock 50 is obvious. We have been on for 50 years; some of the platforms that we have are as old as the Nigerian Air Force. Even when funds are made available, dodgy procurement processes have ensured that high-end equipment that may have little value, but are veritable avenue by contractors to skim off government money, are purchased.”

“On paper, it (Nigeria) maintains the broadest spectrum of capabilities in the region, but in reality much of its equipment is unfit to be deployed for prolonged periods of time,” the International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its annual review, The Military Balance – 2014. This, coupled with operational blunders from the top, has led to frustration and ,low morale among the troops, as shown by the recent attack on the General Officer Commanding 7 Division, Major General Ahmed Mohammed, by his soldiers protesting the killing of their colleagues in an ambush by insurgents while returning from an operation.

Officials of the Nigeria Ministry of Defence and National Security Adviser last week disassociated themselves from the disbursement of military budgets and award of contracts. But analysts have attributed the failure of the military to rout the insurgents despite the state of emergency imposed on the three North-east states in the past one year to the failure to properly equip and fund the military for the task.

A Funding Challenge
The situation has led to questions about the adequacy of the funds budgeted for military operations. About three weeks ago, Major General Abdullahi Muraina, the Chief of Account and Budget of the Nigerian Army, stirred the hornets’ nest when he revealed that funding has been the major obstacle to the military’s prosecution of the war against the insurgents.

The General, who spoke at the opening of the 2014 Training Week of the Nigerian Army Finance Corps for Warrant Officers/Senior Non-Commissioned Officers at Jaji, Kaduna State, said resources at the military’s disposal were not enough to combat the current security challenges confronting the country. “Currently, budgetary allocation for the military is inadequate to meet the contemporary security challenges and also cater for the welfare of the Nigerian Army. The Nigerian Army is enmeshed in the bureaucratic bottlenecks for the funding approvals for military operations. This calls for a review as the increasing speed at which the effects of conflict appear in the operational environment will continue to challenge commanders.”

The military chief consequently advised the government to “evolve other means of funding and supporting military operations other than the normal budgetary allocation. Such means include but are not limited to strategic cooperation and liaison with other civil industries for the production of uniforms and other equipment”. Going into specifics, the Army finance chief noted that the military’s capital budget for 2014 is just N4.8 billion.

While trying to prove the inadequacy of the budget, General Muraina noted that: “Now, to provide only one item for the troops engaged in the operation in the North-East. Assuming we committed 20,000 troops, cost of the jacket and the helmet is in the average of $1,000. If you change that to naira it is about N150,000. If you now have about 20,000 troops, this means they are going to spend about $20 million and that is about N3 billion. N3 billion as a percentage of N4.8 billion, which is the capital budget for this year, is more than 50 per cent. And that is just one item. We are not talking about uniforms, we are not talking about boots, we are not talking about structures where they will stay; we are not talking about training.”

Then there is also the claim that, as paltry as the military claimed it is, the funds are not released on time due to bureaucratic bottlenecks. The CDS and the service chiefs, according to reports, confronted the Minister of Finance about this about two weeks ago. But at a press conference in Abuja after the signing of the 2014 budget into law, the Minister said government has always prioritised defence spending. In her words: “Defence spending is top in everything. You know that military establishment needs new things to assist in its work and ours will not be different. To be specific, the military has about N968.12bn and we have disbursed N130.7bn between January and April 2014.”

Out of the amount, N85.9bn was released for personnel cost while the balance was for overheads and capital expenditure.

Investigations reveal that Nigeria is not among the leading countries in Defence spending in Africa, as countries like Egypt, South Africa, Algeria and Kenya have higher military budgets than Nigeria. In his Democracy Day speech last week, President Jonathan ordered the military to launch a full-scale war against Boko Haram. The President said he has tasked the military to do anything possible to ensure that the Boko Haram insurgency becomes history in the shortest possible time. Analysts however insisted that unless the issue of funding of the military, corruption, equipment and morale of the troops are tackled, that order may end up like the endless state of emergency which has so far failed to yield the expected result of reining-in the insurgents.