A member of the defunct 2014 National Conference, Col Tony Nyiam, has revealed why soldiers took to their heels on sighting members of the Boko Haram, saying that “today’s soldiers lack the spirit of patriotism, commitment and courage which should be the attribute of a gallant soldier.”
Nyiam, who spoke at a symposium on the National Conference and the 2015 elections organised by the HH Macaulay Centre for the Advancement of Democracy yesterday in Abuja, blamed what he termed undue interference in the recruitment process into the armed forces as reason “there are soldiers who are lily-livered in the war front.”
He said: “The Boko Haram is exploiting the problems in our society and we not having a constitution that janitors the people. Even the Boko Haram itself is a self-determination product of the gaps in our constitution. Our constitution is such that does not allow people to be what they want to be. If people in the North-east want Sharia, it is their right; if then goes through what I will call referendum. The face that prevented them for exercising that right, leaves some of them with no choice.
Nyiam, a participant in the botched Maj Gideon Orkar-led coup against former military President, Gen Ibrahim Babangida (retd), recalled the high level of professionalism in his days as a soldier, particularly said the political class who go out of their ways to promote mediocrity instead of merit for the sort of ill- prepared personnel recruited into the Army.
“The police in Nigeria depend on the government on how to conduct its operations. It never happen anywhere in the world, in any democracy, the police is never controlled by anyone outside its scope and derive its authority from the laws of the land. But in Nigeria, the constitution domiciled that function in the executive.”
Source: People’s Daily
