soldiers, Nigerians were pained and shocked at the high casualty figure,
an unprecedented one in the annals of Nigeria’s post-civil war military
history.
Nigerians were at the same time left wondering what had gone wrong with
the military.
But Pointblanknews.com investigation has uncovered how a heartless
military leadership only bent on satisfying pecuniary interests, wasted
the lives of military officers and gallant Nigerian soldiers in Metele on
the altar of a fight to become Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, a
position from where all military policy decisions as enunciated by the
government of the day, are carried out.
Majorly, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai and the Chief
of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadiq Abubakar, have since been embroiled in a
fight to outdo each other to succeed the Chief of Defence Staff, General
Gabriel Olonisakin, all whose tenure expired more than one year ago but
was extended by President Mohammadu Buhari.
On the night of the attack, the Commander of the 157 Battalion, Lieutenant
Colonel Sakaba had, on noticing that the base was surrounded by
insurgents in gun trucks, wielding sophisticated AK 47 rifles and
rocket-propelled grenades, sent out a third signal for air support, having
sent out two earlier ones after receiving intelligence that the terrorists
were spotted within the vicinity, who actually started shooting from a
long distance.
“The signals were passed through the normal service channels of
communication under the Operation Lafiya Dole for the Chief of Air Staff
to authorize air support, but he refused to do so.
“The terrorists had a field day killing our soldiers, who were obviously
in short supply of arms for which the army high command had received huge
budgetary votes.
“The insurgents opened fire from all sides, having surrounded our
soldiers, making it near impossible for any soldier except for a few lucky
ones, to escape.
“Both the commander, his deputy and hundreds of soldiers were wasted in
one night because of an ignoble power play at the military high command”,
a senior officer of the rank of Major General told Pointblanknews.com.
Further investigations also revealed that most times, the loquacious chief
of Army Staff takes credit for successes in the North-east operations,
refusing to include in his swashbuckling braggadocio, the several air
strikes carried out by the Air Force in the joint task force of
Operation Lafia Dole which repelled the insurgents thus allowing ground
troops to move in and finish off as they would say ”remnants of the
terrorists”.
The Air Force chief’s refusal to respond to a signal to carry out an air
interdiction was designed to teach the army chief of staff a lesson and
put him in a bad light that would make it impossible for his competitor to
attain the position of Chief of Defence Staff.
But it ended up a tragic lesson for Nigeria-death of 150 soldiers!
On the flip side, soldiers on the battle field have complained of lack of
arms and quality arms as they use low grade weapons compared to the
sophisticated ones in the possession of the insurgents. This is despite
the huge budgetary allocations running into hundreds of billions made to
the army.
“These people (service chiefs) have nothing more to offer. They have lost
a sense of direction. They should be retired. If they are not retired,
they will kill all our soldiers and other things will follow”, a military
officer said.
Soldiers who survived the attack had stated that the insurgents wielded
superior firepower. “Our commander, Lieutenant Colonel Sakaba told us to
prepare for battle after being briefed by one of our soldiers whose duty
is to monitor what is coming from distance.
“We engaged the terrorists for over 40 minutes before we ran out of
ammunition on that very Sunday. They were well equipped and armed with
rocket propelled grenades, more than 12-gun trucks mounted with anti-air
craft shooting at us from a long range.
“Some of us ran out of bullets and they overpowered us, we fled but those
who could not escape were slaughtered like chicken. Our formation is
surrounded by big trenches and barbed wires, which became a trap and made
it difficult for them to escape. I watched many of my fellow friends die
helplessly in cold blood,” a survivor said.
Another survivor said: “most of our people dropped their arms and pulled
off this dirty uniform. The bodies of our troops littered everywhere but
we watched the news and heard army headquarters saying troops repelled the
attack.
“The Army chief and other generals only sit in Abuja and lie to Nigerians
whereas soldiers are being killed on daily basis. We lack manpower but
nobody is telling the president the truth.
“The president should demand the whereabouts of all the soldiers deployed
to Operation Last Hold to fight Boko Haram under Major General Abbah
Dikko. The answer is, all of them have been crushed by Boko Haram and
their new weapons and arms are what the Boko Haram is using to attack us.
Please, help us tell Mr. President that the service chiefs are just lying
to him.”
“Our lives don’t matter”, he wailed.