Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - why the army failed to defeat BH under jonathan

Buhari is anxious to prove that he is doing what GEJ could not do

so why are we not being told what weapons he has bought with his alliance with the US and his permanent globe trotting

can he afford to buy weapons 'silently' like Lai Mohammed APC spokesman stated that the govt was dealing 'silently' with the recurrent massacres by the Nigerian ruler's fellow Fulani pastoralists?

Buhar's army was quick to tell us that Boko Haram was 'technically' defeated, yet no wind of news on the weapons with which the army was equipped to achieve this feat which GEJ is described as not doing bcs GEJ and his cronies stole all de money?

hmmmm......fishy....fishy...

Why did Buhari himself declare that GEJ's govt simply stuffed money in suitcases and went weapons procuring, well after he and his APC team declared no weapons were bought?

The weapons GEJ's govt bought were catalogued in pictures with soldiers' comments on the weapons and their battle effectiveness, as well as whatever criticism they may have had about those weapons.

The information is readily available from the Facebook page of the Defence Ministry, if I got the name right, as well as even the efforts of the GEJ critics who followed the army efforts closely and have army friends on their Facebook pages who commented on the war affort and the role of various kinds weapons in that effort. . I learnt significantly from the Facebook updates of one such person whose name I dont immediately recall,  before and after the Chibok betrayal by Shettima.

Some of the best information on GEJ govt's weapons procurement also came from two mines of information on Nigeria, the Facebook posts of two pro GEJ writers, Kalu Aja, particularly on the group Spaces for Change, possibly one of the most effective means used in mobilizing Southern youth agst the GEJ govt until the founder Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri decamped  away from being anti-govt, possibly leading to the later change in the direction of the group, and the Facebook posts of Ena Ofugara on his own wall.

The emergence of the Internet and social media has greatly decentralized information presentation and analysis, meaning that anyone who wants comprehensive information on any subject, particularly social affairs, needs to maximise such social media as Yahoo and Google groups, individual Facebook accounts and Facebook group accounts, along with Twitter and possibly other sources such as Instagram, along with traditional news media, which are only able to make some progress in closing the gap created by social media by enabling comments on their online pages facilitating dialogue between readers.

The development of individuals as centres of knowledge and information analysis has also changed, so that well before Wole Soyinka emerged to speak up on the Fulani terrorist crisis and the enablement of the terrorists  by Buhari's govt through  Buhari's silences and rush to import  food for the Fulani terrorists' cows,  others had long done so and more frankly than Soyinka, meaning the Soyinkas and Reuben Abatis and others who were the earlier custodians of intellectual discourse in public space are increasingly becoming complementary to or even at times, peripheral to,  rather than exclusive bearers of intellectual commentary, with Charles Ogbu, whose only public presence is his Facebook wall,   assessing the issues of state complicity in Fulani terrorism and the govt's inadequacies more clearly than Soyinka, who labours under the burden of his yet inadequately explained support for Buhari, whose greatest critic he was for decades,  Ogbu's analyses  commanding mention by even Fani Kayode, a veteran of Nigerian politics, while Ezekwesili, former World Bank director, if I remember her position there accurately enough, ex- Nigerian minister in various portfolios, arrowhead of the anti-GEJ govt private sector coalition in the Bring Back Our Girls Movement,   has had to respond to charges of hypocrisy on the muting of the movement after GEJ govt was removed from office, from Ena Ofugara, whose only platform  is his Facebook page  and his only distinction is his use of that page.

How is the Prophet described as putting it, in spite of the inadequacy of that prophet  and the closed minds that now characterizes  much of the  religion he founded- "Seek knowledge, even as far as China".

As it is, you dont need to leave your house to get this knowledge.

Its at your fingertips in the virtual world.

thanks

toyin

On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 4:21 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

salimonu, what about those reports of govt procurement officials having traveled to s africa w cash to buy weapons since normal channels were being used to divert funds?
again, i take the comment that others have stated (i believe moses made this point), that we are talking about an entire institutional apparatus, not just a few bad eggs.
and i hope buhari is moving things forward, though a single president can't do everything, or anything, on his own
ken

On 5/7/16 8:51 AM, Salimonu Kadiri wrote:

We have got the ninth beatitude which says: Blessed are Professors of lies for they shall produce many dishonest fabrications. If Alex Badeh could tell Nigerians while retiring as Chief of Defence Staff on July 30, 2015, that the army he led lacked the equipment to fight Boko Haram terrorists and the NSA's Colonel Dasuki told the nation in August 2015, that the equipment ordered by Jonathan were yet to arrive Nigeria, the intelligent question to ask and answer is when were the weapons ordered between 2010 and 2015? If the weapons to fight Boko Haram, according to Dasuki, were yet to arrive Nigeria in August 2015, with what did he intend to dismantle Boko Haram in six weeks, as he promised in January, when he asked for the postponement of the Federal elections from February to March 2015?
 
The notion that Boko Haram was not defeated under the GEJ  govt due to theft of weapons money is fiction - Oluwatoyin Adepoju.
It is not a fiction that money meant for procurement of weapons totalling 15 billion US dollars were shared and traced to the Bank accounts of top military dogs under GEJ and highly placed PDP officials. What is fiction was to expect unarmed soldiers to fight armed insurgents.
S.Kadiri 
 

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Date: Sat, 7 May 2016 06:54:46 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - why the army failed to defeat BH under jonathan
From: oluwakaidara1@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Has the army bought any new hardware under Buhari?

None they have told us about beyond some second hand vehicles in need of repair they got from the US.

So, the military is still using essentially the weapons bought by the GEJ govt.

The notion that Boko Haram was not defeated under the GEJ govt  due to theft of weapons money is fiction.

thanks

toyin

On Fri, May 6, 2016 at 9:02 PM, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:

Ken, we Nigerians possess sophisticated academic papers which, so far, have not enabled us to solve any of the socio-economic problems confronting our country. J. M. and M.J. Cohen must have had Nigerian intellectuals in mind when they wrote in A Dictionary of Modern Quotation (New York: Penguin Books, 1971) thus, "It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem." I wonder if fifteen billion dollars ($15 billion) appropriated for procurement of military hardware were stolen, would "Nigerian Army Transformation Agenda" from October 2010 until 14 January 2014 have been useful  in the war against Boko Haram? Who was in charge of the so-called Nigerian Army Transformation Agenda?  In answering that question, it is noteworthy that on 8 September 2010, President Goodluck Jonathan removed the Chief of Army of Army Staff, Lt-General Abdulrahman Danbazzau and replaced him with Major-General Azubuike Onyeabo Ihejirika. However, when General Azubuike Onyeabo Ihejirika was removed on January 14, 2014, he had transformed himself into a billionaire not in naira but in dollars. On 12 April 2012, the 24 hours full time employed soldier, General Ihejirika, registered a company named Goodok Oil and Gas. Deceitfully and covertly, the three Directors of the company had Ihejirika as their first name thus, Ihejirika Okechukwu, Ihejirika Chika and Ihejirika Goodluck!! Ihejirika's company got 7 476.95 square meter of land in Abuja. So on the 22nd of September 2014, Nigerians got to know through Point Blank news online that the US wanted Ihejirika sudden billions probed. 

While asking for the postponement of 28 February 2015, Presidential election for six weeks Sambo Dasuki said that the six weeks were more than enough to wipe out Boko Haram from the North East. But speaking on his retirement on 30 July 2015, the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Sabundo Badeh said that the Armed Forces he led lacked the equipment to fight Boko Haram terrorists. The National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, responded in August 2015 that the military equipment ordered by Jonathan Administration had not arrived in Nigeria. The sharing of fifteen billion dollars, meant for procurement of military hardwares to fight Boko Haram, among 17 military officials and their cronies is now an open secret. And without any complication, the stealing of $15 billion money for military weapons was responsible for the failure of the Nigerian army to defeat Boko Haram under Jonathan. 

S.Kadiri

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - why the army failed to defeat BH under jonathan
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
From: harrow@msu.edu
Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 11:38:50 -0400

thanks okey. it is often the case that situations are most complicated than what the simple headline catches. it was interesting, anyway, that one of those factors seems to have captured the attention of the BBC. but it was a quick paragraph, nothing more
ken

On 5/3/16 9:49 AM, Okey Iheduru wrote:

Dear Ken:

It's so easy to fall for propaganda. Yes, the Nigerian military can't fight because the government and the army stole the money meant for procurement. However, it's much more complicated than that. For one much more nuanced perspective, please see the paper abstract below, and get the full gist by clicking on the URL provided for the rest of the paper.

Peace as always!

Okey

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Okey C. Iheduru, "Social Transformation and Military Leadership: The Nigerian Army and Fourth Generation Wars" in Ebenezer Obadare and Wale Adebanwi, eds., Governance and the Crisis of Rule in Contemporary Africa: Leadership in Transformation (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2015), pp. 235-264.

Abstract:     

Whereas the role of the military in African politics continues to receive wide attention, the internal leadership process of the armed forces has practically become an analytic black hole. This paper seeks to fill this lacuna by using the Nigerian Army (NA) as a case study of "context specific leadership events" as a framework to understand the conditions under which leadership is produced, and how those conditions shape their leadership paths. The most important context-specific event in the Fourth Republic (1999-present) has been the series of efforts to "transform," re-professionalize, and "re-invent the military as a political actor" for democratic stability after 29 years of military dictatorship. These efforts culminated in the adoption and implementation of a "Nigerian Army Transformation Agenda" from October 2010 until 14 January 2014 that sought "To transform the Nigerian Army into a force better able to meet contemporary challenges." The "transformation" agenda, however, coincided with and was truncated by the emergence of the Boko Haram Islamist terrorist insurgency whose battlefield successes have cast serious doubt on the organizational effectiveness and combat readiness of Nigeria's armed forces in a changed asymmetric war environment or "Fourth Generation wars." Extant studies of civil-military relations and security sector reforms assume that civilian leaders will prioritize control over the military or even actively participate in, or structure, the military's concept of transformation. In Nigeria, those attempts were largely cosmetic and lacked civilian control and guidance to the military to truly eradicate old habits of human rights abuses, corruption, nepotism, deterioration of professionalism, and the privileging of organizational and individual material interests. In this vacuum, the NA designed and implemented a narrowly defined "Nigerian army transformation agenda" (NATA) from 2010 until 14 January 2014. Although it led to laudable changes within the NA, the "transformation" merely addressed the symptoms rather than the real problems and sources of institutional decay, and thus failed to prepare the NA to respond to the biggest security threat Nigeria has faced since the end of the civil war in 1970. The resultant inability to defeat the insurgency by a once revered army exemplifies the limits of contemporary leadership in Africa's conventional armed forces. Several factors — the cascading effects of failed or incomplete transformation; the impediments created by entrenched military organizational interests; the politicization of the military and insertion of its leadership into the crossfire of Nigeria's ever-widening fault lines in the run-up to the 2015 presidential elections; the ambivalence of African rulers and their foreign partners about enhancing the capacity of African armies; inter-service rivalry and institutionalized corruption; and the increasing realization that Fourth Generation wars are becoming un-winnable — all help explain the paradox of a transformative leadership and the failure or ineffectiveness of institutional response to threats to stability and national security.

Read the rest of the paper at: SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2592798

On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 4:54 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

the govt stole the money for army procurements
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-africa-36155883

--
kenneth w. harrow
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu

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