THE images from the scene of attack, what political mourners and others of their ilk have variously described as a 'dastardly act' and other words to that effect, are not only graphic but are as gory and disturbing as they could possibly be. This episode harks back to the murder in 1976 of then Head of State, General Murtala Ramat Muhammamed, by renegade soldiers of the Nigerian Army during a botched attempt at a forceful takeover of government.
But the victim of this vicious attack, Alex Badeh, was a four-star general in the Nigerian Airforce and until three years ago Nigeria's Chief of Defence under the Goodluck Jonathan administration. It was during his time in the saddle that the murderous Boko Haram insurgents were at the peak of their offensive against the Nigerian state. Although the administration would under his watch gradually push back the insurgency without achieving full victory but the fight in the North East was tough enough for the man to use his position as the joint chair of military defence to evacuate his extended family from the war zone.
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