Former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Admiral Ola Sa’ad Ibrahim (Rtd) has blamed politics for failure of the military to defeat Boko Haram under the leadership of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Ibrahim on Monday in Abuja told journalists during a lecture he delivered at the National Defence College (NDC) on Military Leadership and National Security, that “In our time, there were so many distractions.”
The CDS served from October 2012 to January 16, 2014, and also as Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) from 2010 to 2012.
Ibrahim added that: “Up to the time the Commander in Chief then declared a State of Emergency, you will hear: ‘we are negotiating here and there, please slow down,’ north eastern elders were worried.
“Can you imagine fighting a war and the people you were trying to protect were thinking that soldiers out there on the streets of Maiduguri, were an army of occupation, which brought a lot of political dimension to the issues.
“And when political dimension, combined with several other policy choices, the result was what we saw, when the state of emergency was declared, I thought there was a little celebration, because the political dimension was like giving you a job and tying your hand behind your back.
“Besides the resources to take on such challenges were neither here nor there, to the level one would have expected, we were not prepared for the nature of the insurgency, even our procurement processes were tailored towards or heavier on conventional warfare.”
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