Gen. Martin-Luther Agwai (rtd)

Amid denials of non-involvement in politics, concerns have continued to grow concerning recent activities of the Nigerian military especially as it relates to the country’s political environment.

Apart from the role the military played in the certificate scandal involving the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Muhammadu Buhari, a former Head of State and Army general, there has been growing beliefs of its alleged sympathy to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, especially concerning its alleged role in the Ekiti State governorship election in 2014.

The latest warning is coming from a former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, who rather thinks the military should concentrate more on meeting the security needs of the country instead of allowing itself to be attracted to politics.

Delivering a lecture to mark the 78th birthday of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, Agwai, who is the current chairman of SURE-P, a programme of the Federal Government introduced after the partial removal of subsidy from premium motor spirit in 2012, said leaders in the country must be prepared to embrace change if it comes or calls for it as only through this would the country experience growth and development.

He said the security challenge is not strange to him, recalling that as at 2003, he had predicted that the wars the nation’s soldiers would contend with, would be one without frontiers where every state of the federation is a battle field.

Titled: ‘Imperative of a National Security Framework for the Development and Progress of Nigeria’, and delivered at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library venue of the event, Agwai advocated the restructuring of the army towards professionalism and added since no meaningful development and growth could take place in an atmosphere of chaos, insecurity and crisis.

Since the only constant thing in life is change, people must be ready to embrace it for meaningful development of the country, he said while urging the military to take professionalism seriously so that they could effectively tackle insurgency and other security challenges.

He listed some causes of insecurity to include poorly developed democratic system, political and social exclusion of people and the deteriorating morals of the society lamenting that churches and mosques that ought to serve as moral compass in the country had become facilitators of corruption.