How Buhari’s Failure To Supervise Military Activities Is Affecting Terror War

“That is a huge sum of money only for Operation Lafiya Dole alone yet there are other military operations in other parts of the country that requires funding too. By and large, the president releases about N100 billion to the mili­tary every quarter”.

“Somebody who makes money from that kind of sys­tem will not want the crisis to end because it becomes a cash cow. In most cases, just like it happens in every public service, if you are posted to a lucrative position, you are ex­pected to bring some returns.

“If you are posted to head an operation for example and the president releases N15 bil­lion to you every quarter, even without anyone telling you, it is expected that you appreciate your superior that posted you there either by cash or allow­ing the wife to come and supply uniforms, boots and so on. If there are compromise during the supply of the equipment, nothing will happen because you cannot query your boss’ wife”.

He added that as command­er-in-chief of the armed forces, President Buhari’s job goes be­yond just providing funds and equipment for the military to prosecute the war against in­surgency but also to effectively monitor how the assignment is being carried out.

According to him, some of these problems could have been addressed if President Buhari can pay a surprise visit to the field of operation of these military men and see things for himself whether the funds disbursed are effectively utilised or carry out a secret investigation on activities of the military officers heading the various operations.

He, however, said President Buhari has failed to do that because once he assigns some­one to do a task, he doesn’t supervise but believes that the person the task was assigned to “has the capacity to deliver”.

“These are not problems that the president can solve be­cause he doesn’t supervise once he gives you a task. The presi­dent has given the military all the support in terms of fund­ing but his supervision mech­anism is completely lacking.

“His lack of supervision is a very big problem in winning the war and even affecting performances in other key sectors of the economy. What makes the difference between the public and private sector is basically supervision.

“I believe that if the presi­dent can supervise the oper­ations of these commanders, we will achieve much result in winning the war. However, I think the president is limited by age, health and other factors. I remember he once said that old age will limit his perfor­mance”.