General TY Danjuma's Allegation of Army Conspiracy:The Task Before the Government

General TY Danjuma's Allegation of Army Conspiracy:The Task Before the Government by  Ogiri John Ogiri.

I have been following very closely the debates,uproars and condemnations that emerged in the aftermath of the recent statement made by General TY Danjuma, a former Nigerian army chief and defence minister, during a convocation ceremony at the Taraba State University, Jalingo, that Nigerians should defend themselves or die since the army could no longer be said to be neutral in the current farmers/Fulani herdsmen violent confrontations. According to the retired general and elder statesman  “I am not a politician and politics is one profession I don’t want to belong to because if I am a politician, I will not say what I am going to say to you now.
“When I arrived in this arena, I saw rich cultural display and I was amazed at the rich cultural heritage of our people. Taraba is a mini Nigeria with diverse ethnic groups living together peacefully, but the peace in this state is under assault.
“There is an attempt at ethnic cleansing in the state and of course, some rural states in Nigeria. We must resist it. We must stop it. Every one of us must rise up.
“Our Armed Forces are not neutral. They collude with the bandits to kill people, kill Nigerians. The Armed Forces guide their movements; they cover them. If you are depending on the Armed Forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one.
“This ethnic cleansing must stop in Taraba State and other rural states of Nigeria, otherwise Somalia will be a child’s play." (Cf Punch Newspaper, March 25,2018)
For me,that such a passionate call for self-defence as was made by the respected retired army general is nothing new and special. Many Nigerians themselves, who have been victims of these unprovoked attacks and violent confrontations in the various villages or communities where those attacks have taken place, have already conceived and domesticated in their minds the idea of self-help for survival. However,what made the call special was that it came from a man who knows very deeply or should know the in and out of Nigerian army; a man who should be privy to intelligent security information. This is why I think we should not ignore his call, for if we ignore it,we do so at our own peril. More so, his statement has introduced a new perspective of looking at the reasons armed insurgency in Nigeria has persisted and continued to evade well-intentioned solutions proffered and utilized by experts over the years.
Therefore, the task before the federal government and the Nigerian Army is that they shouldn't just disagree with the elder statesman; that won't be sufficient to raise the confidence bar in favour of the army. Rather, it should carry out a proper investigation to determine whether or not General TY Danjuma has told the truth. As a former army chief and defence minister, the General knew what he talked about. A man of his own pedigree wouldn't just wake up and decide to paint the army in bad light. I think his statement is an indictment of the federal government's failure to protect the vulnerable. It is a pointer to the reality that Nigeria is suffocating; that all is not well at all. This is no time for propagandist politics. It is a time to face the facts presented by the realities of our time and accept responsibility with a view tackling our current security challenges in the most honest and responsible ways.
While I cannot and should not believe that the entire army hierarchy in Nigeria is complicit in the allegation of non neutrality and conspiracy, that would be a wrong generalization, however, it may be true that some commanders may have compromised the supposed neutrality of the army. This should be properly investigated and whoever is guilty should be made to face the music in accordance with laid down laws. Until this is done, the revered Nigerian army may be on the verge of losing its hard-earned confidence of the Nigerian people. Loss of confidence in the security architecture of a country can push her citizens to resort to self-help. This is a potential incendiary for anarchy. We must not let it degenerate into such primitivity.
I do hope that the government would do needful before it is too late.