Nigeria: Arms and the Nigerian Army

opinion

... what justification did Badeh and his service chiefs have for donning their uniforms adorned with shiny epaulettes and brass buttons when for years on end they ran an army without arms? How could he and the military command in good conscience court-martial any soldier for insisting on his right to be armed before being sent to battle? How could he sleep at night knowing this, or that his men had not even been trained for battle in peace time?

As I watched Air Chief Marshall Alex Badeh, the recently retired Chief of Defence Staff, elaborate on the confession in his valedictory speech of July 31 that he, as the nation's number one soldier, presided over a military "that lacked the relevant equipment and motivation to fight," I searched for signs of shame and penitence. I saw none. That was four days ago when Badeh spoke on Channels Television's News at 10. "Good thing," I said to myself, "that he is in mufti and won't further disgrace his uniform." But I wasn't going to let that opinion rest on the TV appearance, so I decided to go beyond the newspaper reports of Badeh's "pulling out" ceremony to read his valedictory speech in full. Surely, there had to be a hint there of remorse that he had knowingly sent hundreds of his men into battle with the Satanic Boko Haram literally bare-handed and so to their assured death or, if "lucky," grievous bodily harm. There had to be in it some pained acknowledgement of the criminal hypocrisy of deciding to court-martial over a hundred officers and men of the army for insubordination, cowardice, and desertion when they had only insisted on being properly armed for war.

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