An expert in Military Studies, Dr Muhammed Abubakar, has called for increase in Nigeria’s military strength in terms of capacity, modern equipment, manpower and capabilities to deal with emerging security challenges.
Abubakar, who is also the publisher of OurNigeria News Magazine, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said that the strength of the nation’s military was not commensurate with its population, land mass and proximate volatile neighbours.
According to him, in military ranking in Africa, Nigeria is number four after Egypt, Algeria and South Africa.
“Our government should know that the challenge Nigeria is facing is more than that of South Africa, Algeria, and Egypt but at the moment, they are doing far better than us in terms of fighter jets, bombers and tanks.
“I think we should channel more funding to our armed forces and bring ourselves at par with a country like Pakistan.
“In terms of population, we have about 200 million plus together with Pakistan; the kind of security challenges that Pakistan is facing is similar to the current security challenges we are facing.
“The banditry, the drug cartels, the insurgents, dangerous neighbours – the military of Pakistan is about 600,000 or more and here, we are just struggling with 200,000 or more not to talk of equipment,’’ he said.
He also called on the government to improve the remuneration of military personnel in line with global standard.
Abubakar who urged all Nigerians to play active role in tackling the challenges of insecurity in the country, however called for good governance and a rein to political violence in the country.
According to him, Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, IPOB agitations and other security challenges are largely the offshoot of political violence.
He added that governance without accountability, efficiency and proper inclusivity were the root causes of political violence in Nigeria.
According to him, unequal distribution of resources, injustice, absence of rule of law and deep division among the people have also exacerbated the security challenges.
“We should have started tackling insecurity by correcting these anomalies.
“Fix the issue of good governance, make the local government system to work, ensure equal distribution of resources, do more inclusivity in the system, create job opportunities, let there be rule of law.
“Let our judiciary work in such a way that if you commit a crime, you will be punished so that other people will say this is a deterrence mechanism,’’ he said.
Abubakar said even though the military has been able to stabilise the situation by bringing insurgency to a halt, the root causes have not been addressed.
According to him, although insecurity in the Northeast has been largely tackled, the resurgence of banditry in the Northwest has made some of the insurgents in the Northeast to join the bandits.
“In fact, some of them have gone as far down as Niger to meet their collaborators there because the root causes have not been addressed.”
He however gave kudos to the military for achieving a great deal in tackling the security challenges in the country. (NAN)
