Corrupt govt officials, military officers sabotaging efforts to end insecurity – Obasanjo

• He noted that while it took 30 months to end the civil war fought between 1967 and 1970, the military efforts to contain Boko Haram for about 20 years had been complicated by banditry, constant kidnapping, cattle rustling

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has asserted that the deepening security crisis Nigeria is grappling with is engendered by widespread corruption and unethical practices among military officers and the executive arm of government.

He made the assertion in chapter eleven of one of his new books, ‘Nigeria: Past and Future’ unveiled last week.

According to Obasanjo, one of the ways corruption is hampering the ability of the military to rid the country of insecurity is the government commissioning of their kiths and kin to buy inferior equipment for the Army.

He noted that while it took 30 months to end the civil war fought between 1967 and 1970, the military efforts to contain Boko Haram for about 20 years had been complicated by banditry, constant kidnapping, cattle rustling, herder-farmer crisis from within, and ISWAT, ISIS, Al-Qaeda from without.

He said: “With poor equipment for the military by the executive, the military would appear to be handicapped by the quality of equipment invariably procured for it by either the kith and kin of the executive or someone related or associated in other ways.

“It became an industry where the executive or those close to them were made the procurer of inferior, second-hand refurbished, obsolete equipment and armament and made money while jeopardising the limbs and lives of those facing Boko Haram, who, because of the treachery of buyers employed by the government, may be able to outgun the Army and by outgunning the military, they will also outmanoeuvre them.”

Obasanjo called for adequate and special training of the military to combat fleeting targets living among the people, special training for intelligence acquisition and special equipment to deal with targets when fully and correctly identified.

He urged them to remain committed to defending the country’s territorial integrity and the world’s peace but must stoutly resist the temptation, the lure and the call into coup-making and an unconstitutional government.