By Ugar Ukandi Odey, Jos
The immediate past governor of Plateau State, Senator Jonah David Jang, has insisted that the issue of who are the service chiefs in charge of the command of the country’s Armed Forces is the exclusive right of the President and Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Reacting to popular calls and agitations by many Nigerians that the present Service Chiefs have over stayed their usefulness and apparently bereft of ideas of how to deal with subsisting security challenges around the country, Jang, who is also the immediate past senator representing Plateau North in the National Assembly, simply said ” I have no quarrels with President Buhari on who are his Security Chiefs. I served in the Nigerian Military for twenty seven years and was retired as a one-star general, and the appointment of service chiefs has always been the prerogative of the President and Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces “.
Senator Jang however noted that the problem apparently is that when people do not retire, or are not retired, it hinders the growth of younger officers, and impinges on the possibility of them to rise to certain positions.
On the other hand, he said, when others retire or are retired, vacancies are created and promotions take place to move officers upward on the rungs of the Service.
Jang expressed concern that when older officers do not go as at when due, stagnation occurs in the ranks, and you begin to have the rather awkward situation where senior officers perform functions that are below their ranks or meant for younger officers.
According to Jang, beyond the popular claim that the subsisting military leadership has run out of ideas on how to effectively neutralize insurgency and allied crimes, the truth is that by professionalism and training, the Nigerian Military is trained to fight conventional wars and not to counter insurgency.
To worsen matters, Jang added, the rules of engagement in the country’s Services do not allow for retention and consolidation of experience sometimes leading to premature retirement of trained and competent officers whose knowledge would have been resourceful during challenges of insurgency and allied upsurges.
Regretting that today Soldiers are deployed to man checkpoints on the highways, Jang harped on the exigency of training a special unit of the Military on counter insurgency instead of deploying troops fresh from conventional training to go and fight insurgency,
saying men of the Armed Forces should be found in situations of violence and civil disorder only when it is obvious that the Police cannot cope.
Jang also noted that, ab initio, the strength of the Nigeria Police has not been sufficient to cater for the national population. He therefore advised the Federal Government to do the right thing by equipping the Police and the Armed Forces to cope with their constitutional duties.
