In the following chat with our Sam Kayode, North-east Theatre, operation Hadin Kai, Commander, Major General Christopher Musa, speaks on a variety of issues. Excerpt
General, so much delay has affected the prosecution of captured insurgents. And now the govt has to go after about 64 of them who escaped from Kuje custodial centre recently.
Yes it worries us. And prosecution can take place only when the work of the joint investigation centre (JIC) is done with those who were captured and not surrendered. It’s a long process. When they capture them, they sort out who the insurgents are. And this is to stop them from blending with the non combatant civilians because they are always trying to disguise. So you have to know who is who and what part each person played. It takes a long process and time coupled with the exhibit that would be tendered in court. This is because even when you know the culprit is Boko Haram, but you don’t have enough evidence and exhibits, the judge may throw the case out. You must bring exhibits to show that he is a Boko Haram. That is why the Attorney General used to send his representative to be involved in the thorough investigation and screening. After this process in isolation, the ones who do not have any cases are released while those involved are recommended for prosecution. We do this so that we have water tight cases that will not fail in court. When we ask about this delay you are pointing, they will say it’s a legal issue. All I can tell you now is that about 64 insurgents were part of those who escaped from the kuje correctional centre. They are the same people awaiting trial all this while. Some of them were the key Boko Haram Comanders arrested and kept in kuje for prosecution
The figures of those defecting are swelling. It’s close to 80,000 now and soon it would be 100,000 still counting. How do you intend to keep this large number of people in just three camps for so long?
Ours is to provide security to make sure that they do not breach any form of security. We are doing our part and the State government is trying it’s best to handle the management of the surrendered but it’s beyond them now because of the high number. So it has to be a whole government affair. Both Federal State and council. It’s the Disarmanent Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) that would handle such programs. And this is one year of the program running. We started in July last year and it’s a year now. After sorting into combatants and non combatants, the combatants are left with their family members and are very well catered for by the government. They have limited movements. They can’t go outside the 3 camps. It’s the non combatants that are allowed some movements. Mark you the sorting out is done by the community members who are brought in to identify them. I told you the people know themselves and can tell which part everyone played in the crisis. Non combatants are treated differently from the combatants based on roles played. The State Government has continued to feed them making life easier for them in the three camps. Those you referred to in Bama are brought down here for distribution as soon as the profiling is done.
Cuts in……so the delay in the creation of the fourth camp for them is security related?
Obviously! We cannot create a camp where the lives of the people will be endangered. It must be a secured place where lives will be protected.
General, Chibok ladies that most residents had given up on have started trickling into the state capital. Looks like getting the rest of their classmates may not be as oblivious as it looked before.
Obviously, that is our intention. And we hope to get all of them including Leah Sharibu. Her case is peculiar because they captured such a large number, released everyone but held on to her. That is why her case is Special to us and Nigerians must know this.
Update Nigerians about the progress report from sector 1 of the war theatre.
Well we will continue to do our job. We are not stopping at any point especially on our clearance operations to free the space of insurgents. The challenges of the rains are here and you know what that means. We can’t move to so many places especially with heavy equipments. So you must move light. There is heavy vegetation everywhere so it obviously affords ambush sites for the insurgents to hide out to do one or two crazy things here and there. When vehicles get burged down in the marsh we spend hours to pull them out. And don’t forget the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are still there as a major challenge to troops.
But we have remained focused and our operations have remained ongoing. Obviously with the rains falling, it equally hampers our air operations and that is a set back. But the sector is doing fine.
Do we still have operational no go areas you want residents of the state to take special note of General?
Wherever residents are, the Commander on ground will tell them what to do so they will know how to live and move around safely without being hurt. We restrict people in certain areas because of unexploded ordinances that are scattered around. Those are the things we want then to avoid.
Sector 2 has been a bit quiet. Any update on that side?
They have been trying their best too. They never had challenges with those defectors. But now Damboa has a lot of combatants who have surrendered. And when we ask them what is the issue, they tell you they were suffering, hungry and tired of the war. So they too have started coming out which is good. We want to pull out as many as possible so if it’s only the commanders remaining we will see how they will fight further. Sector 2 has had their fair share of similar challenges like those of the rainy season which we experience here too. A recent flooding in that axis has destroyed the Azir bridge which is almost 30 meters long. But our engineers and the state government are working hard to fix it so that commuter movements can be restored.
Who wants to help fix roads at the risk of being captured by the Islamic state of west Africa (ISWAP)? Don’t you think that is responsible for the foot dragging of the state government in spite of your recurring shouts to get the roads in the theatre fixed?
I don’t think it is fear that is affecting the state government. It’s just the challenge associated with doing so many things at the same time. Doing roads here has a big challenge because you don’t get most of the equipments and even the raw materials like granite from here. These are the challenges they are having. So we expect the North East Development Commission (NEDC) and the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian affairs to come in and help us fix the roads. We have presented some of the challenges of the roads and they agreed they were going to be involved. At least it would take off some of the burdens from the state government.
Six workers were abducted while trying to fix the Chibok Damboa road last December. Any word about their whereabouts from your troops?
Efforts are being made to track who and where they are. However, we have been able to recover some women captured from that axis. You know, sometimes,
because of the communication challenges in the area, it takes time for us to get to know about these incidences except when we stumble on them and they are released through our operations.
How many Chibok women have you rescued since you took over command here?
So far we have been able to get about 5 of them now. I also know that a relation of the Emir of Askira Uba was equally abducted. We got all of them back home safely. To respond on your question of the Chibok ladies, we don’t want to speculate on the status of how many of them are still alive in the bush but to wait until they come out completely.
To sector 3, what was the casualty figure in the recent ambush of troops in Gubio?
We had four casualties actually. Two soldiers and 2 civilian JTF. You see, these insurgents are just a bunch of idiots and criminals. What are they doing? Cattle rustling, stealing of food, people’s phones and cash. And when this happens sometimes the communities remain mute. They hardly want to talk due to the fear that had been instilled on them.
With the infighting among the terrorists, Boko Haram or ISWAP which of the factions that are tormentors of residents around sector 3 axis of the theatre?
Cuts in………Both are the same. They are both battered by war, fighting for survival. And for what to eat. They do the same things and they keep on fighting themselves. In the Gubio ambush, we actually captured one of the gun trucks of the insurgents because we had a reinforcement that came to the location after they ambushed our troops. They had to scram on seeing our reinforcements coming. I was in Gubio to see things for myself and we are still investigating the incident.
On collaboration between sector 3 troops and the Multi National Joint Task Forces (MNJTF) in the lake Chad region
They just finished Lake Sanity and have pulled out. But our troops are continuing their work in the area with desert sanity. As I noted earlier, we are in the wet season and the challenges inside the tumbus islands are tremendous because it’s full of water. But we are still tugging on in spite of slow movement. The insurgents have a way of sneaking in and out of the islands depending on the pressure we put on them. But they will soon meet their end.
Status of fishing in Baga, sir?
Life is back in Baga. Normal fishing is going on. And other economic activities have started picking up. Residents are equally farming in the place.
Is it right to say at least 10 percent of the fresh fish that comes out of the Lake Chad is from the insurgents and their hired staff?
Actually it’s difficult to make that kind of postulation. Because all the areas they are supposed to get fish and bring out are impossible for now. They can’t send fish to Maiduguri directly anymore. What they can do is to take their own catch to maybe Niger using the waterways and round trip it into our markets. But surely not within the jurisdiction of my troops. You know we don’t have control over the international borders. They can’t bring fish directly into Maiduguri. That is impossible now.
Nganze was extremely battered by the insurgents when they took over. What is the status of Gudumbali now General?
There is nobody in that place for now. What is standing between us and Nganze is manpower to dominate the area. That is the only thing remaining. This is because our troops are engaged in other critical areas too. We only patrol the area for now. And we can’t risk leaving the police alone there because they would be a target for arms by the insurgents. But I assure you something will soon be done there soon.
Some of the political leaders have been happy that the military has done well in capturing all the council area headquarters in Borno but worried that most of the surrounding villages are still no go areas because terrorists are still hiding inside the Savannah. How do you react to this?
The problem is really with some of them.They are not telling themselves the truth. Which infrastructure did you put in some of these places? There is nothing in the place. The Nganze they are talking about has nothing. That is why we insist that all these kinetic efforts of ours is just 25 percent of the input expected to end this thing. 75 percent of the challenge is political, humanitarian and good governance. All what we are doing would just be cosmetic remedy without infrastructure. Because if these insurgents get back there they will just take over. Now they have no light, no water, hospital, schools etc, so what are we doing? It would be the same challenge. What would they eat? And I tell you it would be easier for the terrorists to convince the residents to return to where they came from without all these things. It’s good Governance that will help the people.
From here to Mongunu is about 145 km and from Mongunu to Cross is over 30km. From Cross to Kukawa is 10 km. From Kukawa to Gudumbali is about 42 km. The distances are not much if the roads are good. Now if you want to get to Gudumbali you have to come through Magumeri to Damasak before going to Gudumbali instead of driving straight to Gudumbali because there are no good road infrastructure. And these are the challenges we are talking about.
With this road lamentation, it means Kala Balge people are purely on their own this rainy season because they are surrounded by water and lots of marsh landscape and are usually cut off when the rains come down.
Not really, we have troops in kala Balge. And there are people there. We meet their needs by air.
Discipline and welfare
We are doing our best on discipline.We understand the challenges as they come and we are doing our best to address them. We have ensured that welfare is good as such, no soldier can complain about welfare. I talk to my soldiers directly and they give me information about all their challenges. There is no soldier that I cannot talk to directly. So I am aware that all their operational allowances are paid as at when due. So if there is anything like that, they will send me a text. I gave them one of my numbers. My Officers know that I mean well for them too and it’s just a way of back checking on all fronts to ensure the right thing is done. You know asymmetric warfare is not like conventional you have to consistently reinvent yourself to be ahead of them. That is why anywhere you are having that weak link and you dont cover it up, it will surely affect you in this kind of war. Even the officers have that access, so that there would be no weak link so the enemy cannot capitalize on it.
Your message to the entire war theatre
We want the people to continue believing in us and reporting whatever they see as wrong. We are grateful for their help except that some people still do business with the insurgents and this should stop. It’s annoying. Those people are ready to buy a bag of rice for as much as 60,000 if they get their hands on it and we are saying don’t give them. A litre of petrol can be bought for as much as N10,000 per litre. So you can see the attraction is much. They still rustle cattle and bring same to our markets through third parties. We have seen women sneaking in with stuffs in their body parts to go sell to them. All these are the challenges we want residents to stop doing with them. All those business people thinking that they are making money. You are eating blood money because they are using it to kill other people.
Reaction to the need for more foreign troops or mercenaries to prosecute the war.
Look these guys Will come with their own terms and you have to fulfill them. And they will come and complicate your situation. And you may end up going to ground zero. Initially it would look like they are making progress but it would not be like your own. They will prolong the thing and cause more trouble for you. And for the amount you wish to pay them, why not just give your troops in form of equipments to defeat the enemy?
With the heavy demands of troops on the theatre now, will soldiers be able to vote with the advent of the next general election?
Everyone is entitled to vote. It’s just that it’s not well sorted out in Nigeria. In some other climes, the military and security vote a day before everyone else. This is so that they will be able to concentrate on their duties the following day. If that is done for troops, it would be fine.
Our problem here is that we are always on duty when there is election. And you can’t wear uniforms to go and vote. That should be sorted out by the independent national electoral Commission (INEC).
I believe even the new system would eliminate so many fears of anomalies which causes inhibitions.
In the name of advocating for a special day for the security to vote, can’t some voting be done online too? Or are we not ripe for online voting so some troops can vote from any location as long as there is network?
…cuts in..Are we not using ATM’s all over the world? So what else are we waiting for? But again what we need to have is a comprehensive census to build a national data base. With the data base, you can capture every Nigerian all over the world. So it’s easier to do anything if you have a voters card. Just tell the computer, give me 18 and above and every year it will give you details of all those who turned 18 and above.
You don’t need to run up and down at all because it’s easier. Finally we must get a good forest security management system, organized border control, enhanced judiciary, effective policing system, and fix the lapses in the correctional services so that what happened in kuje will not be repeated. That is why the ministry of interior is also very critical in the enhancement of an encompassing security system.
