National Security Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd) has heaped the blame low scorecard of the Nigerian Army against the Boko Haram insurgency on cowardice of some soldiers.
The campaign against Islamist Boko Haram insurgents is being hampered by “cowards” within the armed forces, Dasuki said.
President Jonathan’s men have usually refrained from making comments suggestive of the administration’s frustrations over the slow pace of the fight against the insurgents.
Although the administration does not appear to be happy with the slow pace of the Army in its match up against the insurgents it had chosen to remain reticent while working to turn the table in the war that hasa more than anything dampened the morals of Nigerians.
“Unfortunately we have a lot of cowards. We have people who use every excuse in this world not to fight,” Sambo Dasuki, the top security adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan, told an audience at the Chatham House think-tank in London.
“There is no high-level conspiracy within the army not to end the insurgaency.”
It is highly unusual for senior Nigerian security officials to comment on the counter-insurgency campaign, especially at the level of Dasuki, but it pointed to discontent within the security establishment with the conduct of the fight.
Dasuki, himself a retired Colonel, denied that the army was under-equipped, as critics have asserted, calling this an “excuse.”
He said reinforcements had been sent in to retake Baga, something he hoped would be completed soon.
But he said of the international troops stationed there: “That wasn’t that much of a multinational task force, it was by name (only), because they were all supposed to be physically there,” when in fact most were not.
Dasuki added that the headquarters was being moved to the nearby Chadian capital, N’Djamena, but that “Nigerians don’t see what the use is” of the regional force.
Analysts say regional mistrust has stalled efforts to fight Boko Haram, whose insurgency now transcends weakly policed borders.
He at the same urged Nigerian authorities to delay the February 14 presidential election to give organisers more time to distribute millions of biometric ID cards to voters.
