Ex-Military Officers want President Jonathan to Launch Full Scale Attack against Boko Haram
Retired senior officers of the Nigerian Military have urged President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a total war on the Boko Haram sect and starve their members of access to resources.
The ex-officers who said the Federal Government would be wise not to depend only on provision of arms by the United States government, want the military to launch a proper full-scale military operation against the terrorists as the war against the insurgents was not full-scale yet.
They said, “There are many types of war. We have insurgency and the operational mode is internal security operations; that is what we have been doing. There is the guerrilla warfare, which the terrorists are using; they hit and melt away.
“We also have the conventional warfare, which the President and Commander-in-Chief must declare and determine the mode. It could be a police action, which is the lowest level of warfare. He could say he is fighting a war of invasion on enemies encroaching on our territory. That is the type of war we should be fighting now to uproot the enemy.
“When you say you are fighting a war, it means that the federal troops are the friendly forces, while Boko Haram should be the enemy forces. It also means that the friendly forces must do everything to defeat the sect. As of now, we are fighting insurgency. It is not a national task because, if it were, everything would be directed towards it.”
“The army of 150,000 should be quickly built up to a minimum of about 500,000 so that we can capture the ground and occupy it sufficiently. Retired officers should remain in their places and join the police for internal security. Internal security should go side by side with total war. What happened in Kontagora or Yobe should not happen; we should have men on the ground for surveillance.”