Nigerian Army is over stretched – Don

A university lecturer, Dr. Aminu Umar, has lamented that the Nigerian Army is being over stretched with simultaneous engagement in fight against insurgency and terrorism, misinformation and psychological warfare. Umar, the Head of Department, Political Science, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), said this in a telephone interview. He, however, noted that the army faced such situation because of “the nature of politics in Nigeria’’. “But above all, this issue of propaganda that has dominated the media overtime is because of the nature of the Nigeria setting; most Nigerians believe in what they see without digesting,’’ he said. Umar also said people with ill motive to damage and discredit the military, especially the army, were behind some of the misinformation emanating from the theatre of operation in the North East. He said some others did that for political gains. “The operation is not an easy one. It is not easy to fight a battle that you cannot easily identify the person (you are fighting) and it is not a clearly demarcated area. “If you know Borno and Yobe states, if you know what that environment is, you will know that the best soldier in the world will have difficulty in confronting an organised group like the Boko Haram. “When they (army) go to communities, you cannot just assault people; you must study and understand that these are the real Boko Haram terrorists that you want to engage. Whoever throws away his gun and wears his regalia and comes out clean, you cannot detect whether he is a Boko Haram or not. “That is why suicide bombings have happened in the theatre of operation or major city like Maiduguri,’’ he said. On how to tackle misinformation and psychological warfare which was having demoralising effect on troops in the frontline, Umar challenged the army to boost its civil/military relations. He added that the army must also map out its propaganda machine to make people believe in what it is doing, boost troops’ morale and weaken the terrorists and their sympathisers. Also, in a telephone interview, Dr. Khalifa Dikwa, a Sociopolitical analyst, urged the media not to “just report anything’’ in the ongoing operations in the North East but be patriotic. Dikwa further urged the media not to elevate the terrorists psychologically by giving them prominence in reportage. “The media should not just report anything, particularly in war. There are certain things they should avoid; it is part of patriotism to avoid some reports,’’ he said.