Insecurity: Other Wars General Musa Will Face

The appointment of General Christopher Musa, Nigeria’s immediate past Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), as the country’s new minister of defence, has enjoyed a rave heralding by not a few Nigerians. Hardly has there been so much public appeal for an individual to occupy this esteemed and sensitive office as has been the case of this gentleman.

At least two factors dictated the circumstances of his appointment. First was the country’s vulnerability in the face of a sudden rampage by terrorists in the wake of his exit from office as CDS. Having been caged during his tenure as CDS, his exit seemed to have spurred them into a revenge mission, in the misguided mindset that their nemesis was out of the way.  Second, the country needed a competent hand to reverse and restore the pressure on the same terrorists in their outrage against the country and the gambit of running amok across the country – terrorising, killing and kidnapping innocent Nigerians from their homes, schools and worship centres at will.  Hence comes his sterling career record, especially during his tenure as CDS when he endeared himself to many Nigerians as an efficient response to the challenge.

Right from his nomination for the office by President Bola Tinubu and the eventual screening by the Senate, the man’s appeal had spread so deeply that his outing at the Red Chamber was literally more for allowing him endear himself to Nigerians than verifying his competence. As far as his competence was concerned, a wide cross-section of Nigerians had considered it a done deal. Indeed, the personal circumstances of General Christopher Musa testify to the adage that a gold fish has no hiding place.

With his swearing in as minister by President Bola Tinubu, he must have resumed on a running pace to face the task of caging the country’s enemies who are out to destroy it. However, as he must be developing strategies for the different areas of engagement with these sworn enemies of the country in the various established theatres of the war on terror, he also needs to prepare to fight additional wars, which on the surface may be benign but remain insidious, even as such, may even determine his success or otherwise in his sensitive high profile national assignment.

The first of these remains the metaphorical cleaning of the ‘Augean Stable,’ which comprises the huge load of administrative hubris occasioned by the wide swathe of play-outs of incompetence by his predecessor as Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, and the present Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle.

Whereas Mohammed Badaru Abubakar resigned on health grounds, the retention of Bello Matawalle remains a most incongruent dispensation that will hamper the operations of the new minister, General Christopher Musa.  Ordinarily, Matawalle should have left office out of patriotism to give room for the new dispensation of General Musa who is now in charge. But as one of the typical Nigerian politicians who see the occupation of public office as a birthright, his aversion for such path of honour is understandable. That is why President Bola Tinubu should redeploy him as soon as possible.

Also out of place in the new dispensation is the retention of the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu. Granted that he is a retired police officer, and therefore, a component of the country’s security community, the contingency facing the country today is beyond salutary measures of touch-and-go nature. Nigeria is facing a full blown war of asymmetric nature, whereby the enemy is embedded with our people and is heavily armed beyond the routine capacity of the police.

Besides the foregoing, there is yet no record in the public domain of his earlier engagement in a military grade armed conflict as the country is contending with at this time. To have appointed him into office as National Security Adviser was a monumental error in the first place, which the downturn in the country’s fight against insecurity is proving on a daily basis. His removal is just what President Tinubu owes Nigeria in spite of whatever political value he is to the president.

Another insidious theatre of war for the minister shall be the civil service bureaucracy in his Ministry of Defence, which he has to contend with. Given the exigencies of his brief, which dictates dominating the various theatres of war and winning such, he will need an upgrade in the work ethic of the Ministry of Defence to drive his operational agenda.

Coming from the military establishment with its command and instant response culture, Musa will be meeting with institutionalised lethargy by bureaucrats, who often act as if the world needed to wait for them in order for things to move on. This is a war he needs to win in-house to guarantee victories on the battle field.

The foregoing notwithstanding, there will be sundry pressures from politicians who will besiege him with an entitlement mentality, claiming to have been the drivers of his new fortune as Nigeria’s minister of defence.  These are the league of hangers-on who will now add to their beat, the daily appearance at his office, hoping and waiting for the goodies to roll out into their coffers. How he handles them will determine how far he will go in his national deliverance assignment.

Not the least among the complement of ‘side wars’ he will contend with are pressures from local and foreign contractors who may assert themselves given the sensitivity of their wares being security equipment. He has to balance his time between strategising with soldiers on the battlefield and signing cheques to buy peace of mind.

While some of these challenges may be common to other ministers, the scope of their incidence may be more pronounced in the defence sector, given the imperatives of urgency and limited room for errors of judgement.

This is, however, wishing General Christopher Musa, Nigeria’s new minister of defence and our Knight in Shining Armour success as he goes out to fight the demons after the soul of Nigeria.

•Written By Monima Daminabo