Time Out with Generals in Umuahia

By Olusegun Adeniyi

On 26 November 2012, I was the lead speaker at the annual Chief of Army Staff Conference in Asaba, Delta State. I spoke on ‘Terrorism and Inter-Agency Coordination in Nigeria’. While congratulating me later that night, one of the Generals ‘confessed’ that when some of them learnt about my invitation, they kicked against ‘a small boy’ coming to address them at such an important conference. But then Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt General Azubuike Ihejirika, according to him, insisted that if the committee considered me good enough for the conference, why should it matter that I was ‘a small boy’. So, when I was contacted to moderate the lecture being organised for Ihejirika’s 70th birthday in Umuahia last Friday, I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation.

With the theme, ‘Leading Nigeria Forward: Strategies for Security and National Cohesion’, the keynote speaker was former Kaduna State Governor Ahmed Makarfi, who incidentally attended Federal Government College (FGC), Enugu from 1973 to 1978 and had some of his old classmates around to welcome him to Umuahia. At the ceremony chaired by former Foreign Affairs Minister, Major General Ike Nwachukwu (rtd), the discussants were Vice Admiral Dele Joseph Ezeoba (rtd), a former Chief of the Naval Staff, Major General Ashimiyu Olaniyi (rtd), a former Nigerian ambassador to Pakistan with concurrent accreditation to Afghanistan, and Dr. Elelenta Nwabuisi Elele, an engineering mathematician with 31 years experience in the United States military. While Makarfi’s intervention dwelt on the leadership gaps, institutional failures and societal fractures that have brought us to the current state of national insecurity, what struck me most was the sheer number of retired army Generals in Umuahia. But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.

Thanks to Governor Alex Otti, the Abia that I met last weekend was quite different from the one I experienced 11 years ago when I last visited and on which I wrote a column, ‘The Road to Arochukwu’ which rankled a few people in the state at the time. In July 2015, I had visited the state to attend the burial of the late Mrs Lydia Okoronkwo, a member of our church who until her death worked at the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHDA) in Abuja. “While I lack the words to describe what we experienced, I can say that it (Ohafia to Arochukwu) is indeed the worst road I have ever travelled in this country,” I wrote in the column under reference. “I still cannot understand the criminal neglect of the road to Arochukwu, a popular and historic town that one has heard so much about. To worsen matters, screaming billboards along the way read ‘Ochendo is working’! For the uninitiated, Ochendo is the political nickname of the former Abia Governor (now Senator) T.A. Orji, who spent eight years in power in the state. It is almost as if Orji’s handlers were mocking Arochukwu people.”

The same ‘treacherous stretch’ of 30 kilometres that took us more than two hours to navigate in July 2015 now takes less than 15 minutes to drive through on an asphalted road that was commissioned last Friday. Meanwhile, everyone I encountered in Umuahia spoke glowingly of Otti and the evidence is there to see, especially in the area of road infrastructure. Though I have also heard what his administration is doing in the education and health sectors. Once a landscape of neglect and despair, Abia State is gradually being transformed into a beacon of hope, progress and tangible results by Otti. But that’s not the issue for today.

At Ihejirika’s birthday ceremony in Umuahia, I counted almost a hundred retired Generals. They included four former Chiefs of Army Staff (Alexander Ogomudia, Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau, Farouk Yahaya and Ihejirika himself), three former Chiefs of Defence Staff (Leo Irabor, Christopher Musa and Ogomudia), a former Chief of Air Staff (Mohammed Dikko Umar) and a former Chief of Naval Staff in Ezeoba. Of course, there were dozens of retired Army Major Generals/Brigadier Generals, Air Vice Marshalls/Commodores and Naval Vice Admirals/Rear Admirals in attendance.

In recent days, I have ruminated over how we allowed these military men, some who retired in their forties and fifties, to practically go to waste. Men who were trained in some of the best military institutions in the world. Men who commanded brigades, divisions, and entire theatres of operation. Men who understand the Nigerian terrain and the informal power structures that no satellite image can capture. Yet at a period we are at war on multiple fronts, we ignore the institutional knowledge, strategic experience, and the leadership capacity of these men.

In most countries, the investment made in training military leadership does not expire at the point of retirement. That knowledge is a national asset. In Rwanda, for instance, retired military officers are embedded in everything; from agricultural development programmes to district governance structures. That is because President Paul Kagame understands that the discipline, logistics thinking, and capacity to execute under pressure which hallmark military training can be deployed for the greater good of the country.

In Nigeria, we retire our generals, organize elaborate send-forth, and wave them goodbye. Some find their way into politics, which is its own conversation. A few receive appointments into the boards of private security companies. The vast majority simply disappear with their knowledge untapped. General Ihejirika himself is instructive as an example. He is an Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria graduate of Quantity Survey whose military career spanned critical periods in our nation’s security evolution, from internal security operations to counter-insurgency campaigns. He was COAS during one of the most operationally demanding periods in Nigeria’s post-civil war history. The campaign to retake territories seized by Boko Haram, the internal reorganization of an army that had grown comfortable and complacent etc. These are not lessons that can be extracted from a PowerPoint presentation or a policy brief written by someone who has never fired a shot. They live in the man who I understand is now a farmer in his village. And in the men who served alongside him but are now in retirement, wondering whether the country they spent their youth defending still has any use for them.

I thought about all this as I watched Ihejirika receive tributes in Umuahia. Here is a man whose institutional memory of the Nigerian military and its operational challenges is irreplaceable. Yet the formal architecture of the Nigerian state has no structured mechanism to draw on that experience. We have no equivalent of the US Army War College’s Senior Fellow programme, where retired officers continue to contribute to strategic doctrine. We have no National Security Council advisory framework that systematically incorporates retired military leadership into threat assessment and conflict prevention. The Defence College in Abuja remains primarily a pre-retirement filing station rather than a true centre for strategic thinking that bridges serving and retired expertise.

Yes, I am aware of the complexities. There are genuine concerns about deploying retired military officers in advisory roles in active conflict environments. Questions of accountability and the risk of militarizing the civic space are not frivolous. But the alternative is a structured waste of capacity at precisely the moment when Nigeria can least afford it. What I therefore propose is a conversation that Nigeria’s policymakers appear unwilling to have. It would require a National Human Resource Audit of retired senior military personnel, their specializations, areas of operational experience, language capacities, and regional knowledge. It would require the creation of formal advisory frameworks at both federal and state levels that draw on this expertise in a structured and accountable ways. It would require, perhaps most fundamentally, a shift in how Nigeria’s political class thinks about military expertise. Not as a threat to be managed through pension and distance, but as a resource to be deployed in service of national survival.

These propositions are not radical. Most serious countries feature existing versions of it. What should embarrass us is that we continue not to. Nigeria is not short of problems. But it is also, if we would only look honestly, not as short of solutions as we pretend. Some of those solutions are sitting in retirement. The question is whether this country will ever find the wisdom, and the political will to knock on their doors, especially at a period we are thinking of restructuring the police for each of the 36 states to have their own formation. In terms of training and doctrine, considering the security challenges we now grapple with, these retired Generals would be useful to any serious governor who desires to create enduring security outfits for their states.

Overall, I considered my trip to Abia State quite eventful. On arrival in Owerri last Thursday, we all left for Umuahia in a convoy of long buses. The same on our way back last Saturday. Throughout both journeys, Ihejirika was the topic as retired military officers spoke glowingly about his kindness, professionalism, eye for talent and pan-Nigerian disposition. I paid attention to the testimonies of these retired Generals. Even though Ihejirika and his wife have two children (both male) who are now successful young men in their own right, former NYSC Director General, Major General Johnson Bamidele Olawumi (rtd) who coordinated the Umuahia event reminded me last Saturday that Ihejirika has many other ‘children’ in different parts of Nigeria. “Even my family members know that General Ihejirika is like a father to me,” declared Olawumi who is currently a member of THISDAY editorial board. I also knew the risk Ihejirika took to save the career of my friend, Brigadier General Mustapha Dennis Onoyiveta (rtd) when power mongers were baying for blood just because he (Mustapha) remained loyal (as ADC) to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua at a most difficult period in our country’s history. In a recent interview, Ihejirika recounted how he resisted the pressure to terminate Mustapha’s career. “I explained that this officer was one of the best among his peers and I said No. I called for his file and saw that it was excellent, and nobody had written a petition against him. But it was a tough one.” It was indeed a decision that could have cost Ihejirika his job as COAS considering how desperate some people were to deal with the ‘Yar’Adua Cabal’ at the time. But he stood by his principles.

Interestingly, I have never had any personal encounter with Iherijika beyond occasionally meeting him at events. And we didn’t even have an opportunity to interact throughout my stay in Umuahia last weekend. Let me therefore wish him good health and many more years of active service to his fatherland.

Vickie Irabor’s Worthy Example

On 28th May 2023, Mrs Vickie Anwuli Irabor launched her book, ‘The Journey of a Military Wife’, at a period her husband, General Lucky Irabor was still serving as Chief of Defence Staff. When I learnt that some retired military officers were angry with the book, I went to look for it and eventually got a copy. Although it was apparent that the book wasn’t subjected to any editorial process, it nonetheless contained a lot of relevant information about the Nigerian Army that researchers would find useful. But I also noticed what riled the retired military officers and wrote about it. Below is a paragraph from my column at the time:

According to Mrs Irabor, most retired military officers exhibit certain behavioural traits after their tour of duty, and she warned their wives to be fully prepared: “Furthermore, since the tension and absenteeism which the job brought to the family is gone, nights would be free so military wives must prepare!” (emphasis hers). And then the punchline: “While this may sound like a joke, some retired military wives during an interview revealed that the sex life of retired officers get to another level because the military job and its tension is no more there, so all they do is sex!” (Again, the emphasis is her’s). While I plead with the retired Generals to see the lighter side of the ‘revelation’, I also hope Mrs Irabor is ready for a serious ‘battle’ in the bedroom once her husband retires.

At the Sam Mbawke airport, Owerri, last Saturday, I met a visibly angry Mrs Irabor as I exchanged pleasantries with her husband. “You know what you did”, she told me calmly when I tried to extend my greetings to her. But I was surprised by what she said next. “I have republished the book and would like to give you a copy.” A few hours later, I was at the Congress Hall of Transcorp Hilton where she was directing a musical play, ‘Soldier’s Heart’ that was staged last Sunday. She gave me a copy of the book and flipping through, I discovered it has been properly edited, taking into account my criticisms.

A legal practitioner who attended University of Benin and Northern University, Dhaka, Bangladesh, with three Masters in management and finance law, as well as in conflict, security and development, Mrs Vickie Anwuli Irabor has demonstrated that it can be ennobling when we learn from mistakes and make course correction. And with that, I can now gladly recommend her book, ‘The Journey of a Military Wife.’

Ita-Giwa @ 80

Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, who clocks 80 today, has had a remarkable life and career. A United Kingdom trained nurse who set out early in the world of business by representing a number of multinational pharmaceutical firms in Nigeria, Ita-Giwa was elected into the House of Representatives during the ill-fated Third Republic under General Ibrahim Babangida between 1992 and 1993. She was also elected Senator for Cross River South in 1999 on the platform of the now-defunct All Peoples Party (APP). She left the Senate in 2003 after which she served as Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters, first to President Olusegun Obasanjo and then to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

Without doubt, Ita-Giwa has, in her own quiet way, broken many glass ceilings in promotion of the rights of women and in defence of the vulnerable of our society who include her own kinsmen in the Bakassi Peninsula, now ceded to Cameroun. On a personal note, I had several opportunities in the past to interact with Ita-Giwa. Especially when she was living in Apapa, Lagos where THISDAY operational headquarters is located. And I found her a very wonderful woman with incredible sense of humour. As she joins the Octogenarian Club today, I can only wish her long life and good health.

Happy birthday, Mama Bakassi!

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