STATE OF THE ARMY: Gen. Olukolade Speaks About Missing Girls, Soldiers' Weapons, Moral & Allowances

 * Training session of the Nigerian Army

Nigerian Army is facing physical, financial and moral hardships in the operation against Boko Haram insurgents in the North East.

DHQ Director of Defence Information, Major General Chris Olukolade, cleared the air on the current state of the army in an interview with ICIR Nigeria, published on May 5, 2014.
Where are the allowances?
Olukolade tagged as untrue reports that soldiers’ allowances have been cut from N30,000 to N15,000, added that no one is stealing their money and, in fact, nobody can do it because of the current system of checks. He urged journalists to ignore unconfirmed words of soldiers, and the military men to be patient if a delay occurs.

“Everybody will get their entitlement,” Olukolade promised. 

Exhausted by the North East
The DHQ official further reacted on another complaint: the tour of duty. The soldiers lamented that some of
them have been in the North East for two years, instead of six months.
Olukolade noted that this idea “depends on how the operation goes”, confirmed that six-month rotation is sacrosanct, especially for foreign missions. Nevertheless, he reminded that the commanders know the appropriate time to rotate the troops, and a soldier must be ready to remain where he was posted, regardless of how hazardous it was.

“The idea of rotation is conditional, it is situational and it is not as if it is a standing regulation for every operation,” the DHQ official concluded.

However, we cannot expect sacrifice from the troops if they lack food, sleeping kits and get only three sachets of pure water in the desert heat. Olukolade responded to this claim, stated that “every action is being taken to meet the comfort of soldiers on that mission”.
Big guns on the battlefield
Comparing weapons of soldiers and terrorists, the general confirmed that insurgents used large-calibre anti-aircraft weapons for their ground operations. He reminded that the main purpose of such weapons is to shot down the aircraft, while their effectiveness in ground warfare is limited. Other weapon type in Boko Haram’s possession is Browning Machine Guns. However, Olukolade denied their decisive superiority, added the success on the battlefield is a matter of training and the will to fight.

* Terrorists’ armoury captured around Lake Chad in March 2014
The general said superiority of Boko Haram weapons, seen on photos from captured or seized arsenals, can be explained by the fact that these fighters form an “undisciplined setting” and they can “come with all kinds of weapons – just one group”.

“The Nigerian Army has scales of ammunition for a battalion, for a company and for a platoon which are graded as in a regular army. You cannot have an army where every soldier is carrying machine guns,” Olukolade stated.

According to him, the grades of weapons on service in the military are still higher.

“Haven’t you seen our tanks on the field? Do they have tanks?” the general asked.

The situation with weapons on the battlefield is graded by the regimentation of the system.

“There is a table of equipment for every formation. And we cannot say because we are fighting insurgents then…” Olukolade explained.

Resources for the army
The DHQ official was upset by claims that budgetary money was being stolen in the Nigerian Armed Forces:

“If you hear, for instance that N2 billion has been given, do you know how much goes into feeding soldiers? Do you know how much goes into fuelling the tanks and vehicles? You hear N2 billion and you think it is a lot…

The general reminded that that each soldier is entitled to N30,000 a month and must be fed three times a day. It is necessary to fuel their patrol vehicles and tanks. Weapons’ servicing also requires money. Therefore, these imaginable N2billion may never go into “somebody’s pocket”.
Where are the missing girls?
In the final part of the interview Olukolade made comments on abduction of GGSS Chibok female students.

“Let me tell you, there is no information on this matter that we ignore. We take every information even though many of them are so misleading,” he stated.

In the next few hours he reacted to new Shekau’s threats from fresh Boko Haram video in almost the same words.

“We don’t need to tell people what we are doing,” the general noted.

He further condemned spreading of false information, as it has a negative effect on the morale of the troops. Olukolade does not believe the rumours that all of the girls were trafficked out of Nigeria, added that the military is making searches for the Chibok girls frantically.

“The Chibok incident is very unfortunate because it has brought a lot of reversal and doubt on the military. But it is consistent with terrorist patterns all over the world. It is left for us all to do our best to continue undistracted,” Olukolade concluded.