Former Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor (retd.), has said that fighting insurgents in the north was difficult at some point “at a stage in the fight against Boko Haram, the military resorted to using abandoned and dilapidated vehicles, including those from the Nigerian Civil War, due to poor equipment conditions.”
the retired general made the revelation in his book titled Scars: Nigeria’s Journey and the Boko Haram Conundrum.
This comes against the backdrop of past incidents in which soldiers were sanctioned for complaining about poor equipment.
In 2014, several soldiers deployed in Borno State were court-martialled after protesting inadequate weapons and logistics to confront Boko Haram fighters.
Some of them were sentenced to death for mutiny, though the sentences were later commuted.
Irabor, who was the Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole (the operation against Boko Haram in the North East) between March 2016 and May 2017, stated that the equipment situation in the theatre was “deplorable,” prompting commanders to improvise in order to sustain operations.
He specifically said they scavenged dilapidated and abandoned vehicles to strengthen their fighting capability.
Irabor said, “It is worth noting that at a particular stage of operation, the Lafiya Dole theatre’s equipment disposition was deplorable. In order to boost the fighting capability of the forces, therefore, we resorted to scavenging dilapidated and abandoned vehicles.”
Copies of the book can be gotten through contacting us.
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