Before the war on Niger…

Nigeria currently has a vicious war on her hands. Only that the war hugs the backlines of national attention unless something dastardly happens as it did last week when another set of gallant soldiers fell to the battle against terrorism. Some officers and men lost their lives in a Nigeria Air Force (NAF) helicopter crash in Shiroro council area of Niger State. The official narrative was that the helicopter crashed in bad weather while on casualty evacuation mission en route to Kaduna, but terrorists laid claim to shooting it down for assaying to attack their positions. Whichever is true, this country is ruing  her loss of high grade manpower to the mishap.

The surveillance MI-171helicopter crashed near Chukuba village in Shiroro council area last Monday, according to a statement by the military. Air Force spokesman Edward Gabkwet, Air Commodore, said the aircraft departed Zungeru Primary School on its way to Kaduna, but was discovered to have crashed near Chukuba village. “Efforts are ongoing to rescue the crew and passengers on board the helicopter, while preliminary investigations have commenced to determine the probable cause of the crash,” he further said. Subsequent reports, however, failed to indicate there were crash survivors, while independent reports said the helicopter was transporting troops wounded in battle against terrorists to Kaduna military hospital at the time it went down.

No sooner had the NAF spokesman issued his own statement than a video clip surface online showing terrorists who claimed responsibility for the crash, saying they shot down the aircraft with AK-47 weapons. The narrator in the video, who spoke Hausa, said the terrorists responsible for the aircraft takedown were followers of Dogo Gide, one of the notorious bandits terrorising parts of Niger State. Reports said counter-terrorism efforts had been ongoing in the axis and lately resulted in the death of no fewer than 53 terrorists. But also, a day before the crash, Army personnel were reportedly ambushed on the Zungeru-Tegina Road with many officers and soldiers slain. The military acknowledged late last week that 36 officers and men were lost to the ambush and helicopter crash. Meanwhile, in their less-than-three-minute video that went viral, terrorists claimed they killed more than a dozen soldiers on the aircraft. Showing off the purported wreckage and fatalities, the narrator said: “These are bodies belonging to soldiers of the Nigerian Army who attacked us with the intention of causing us harm. They did this to see the downfall of Dogo Gide, and by God’s grace he is still alive and won’t die. These are dozens of soldiers, as you can see. This is their airplane…”

Even though the initial NAF statement stopped short of acknowledging fatalities, President Bola Tinubu led the condolence call. “The tragic loss of our gallant officers and soldiers in a helicopter crash at Chukuba village near Shiroro, Niger State, yesterday, brought immense sadness to me,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “While we mourn their untimely departure, we will forever remember them, not just as servicemen, but as national heroes who gave their all for the peace and security of our country,” he added. Also on Tuesday, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lieutenant-Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja visited Niger State where he called on troops to remain resolute in bringing the nation’s adversaries to their knees and restore sanity to troubled areas. A statement by Army spokesman Onyema Nwachukwu, Brigadier-Gen., said the Army chief admonished that the fight against insurgents and bandits was a just cause in defence of motherland, telling the troops: “You are, therefore, in the noble profession of arms and must not allow your morale to dwindle. We must defeat the adversaries of our people and take back every inch of space where they are hibernating in our land,” he told the troops.

“Nigeria already has enough to contend with without taking on another war.” 

Not that the military admitted the terrorists’ claim of responsibility for the crash. Chief of Air Staff Air (CAS) Air Marshal Hassan Abubakar cited seasonal challenges with weather conditions as the probable cause. Speaking in Abuja when Niger State Governor Umar Bago visited to condole with him over the crash, he explained that much as it was so desired, operations by the military to degrade enemies of the state couldn’t be wholly devoid of mishaps. “The ideal thing is to strive for zero incident and accident in any operational environment. And we are striving for that. It is virtually impossible to achieve, but then you strive for it so that at the end of the day, you minimise whatever happens. Or when it happens, the effect is significantly abated,” he said. The CAS added inter alia: “We also have other challenges that are seasonal. For example, the rain has come and there is route cloud, and this hampers what we can see, especially in terms of our strike capabilities. Also, when the harmattan comes, it has effects on our operations.” He stated the the Air Force and indeed the entire armed forces would nonetheless remain dedicated and undaunted in their efforts to eradicate security challenges posed by non-state actors; and that “as long as we operate, fly airplanes, there would be incidents and accidents, In fact, the volume of (these) is directly proportional to the rate of operations.”

Later last week, both Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Christopher Musa and the CAS visited troops in Minna and Kaduna to cheer them up. Air Marshal Abubakar’s narrative was echoed by the force’s spokesman, Gabkwet, as he cautioned members of the public against abetting terrorists’ propaganda by sharing the video of the alleged crash site with pictures of military fatalities. “While the NAF regrets such unfortunate incidents, especially as they involve the loss of lives of our colleagues, the service will never shy away from unravelling the probable cause of the crash with a view to drawing lessons,” he said, adding: “For those aiding and abetting the propaganda tendencies of terrorists, deliberately or inadvertently, by spreading videos of the alleged crash site with gory pictures of dead military personnel, the need to rethink the consequences on the morale of troops, families of deceased personnel as well as on Nigeria’s national security is imperative.” 

Foregoing illustrated just how deeply bruising was the casualty lately suffered in the anti-terror war. And it wasn’t the first bruising encounter by the Nigerian military with terrorists’ touted firepower. In March 2021, a NAF 475 Alpha jet went off the radar in insurgency-prone Borno State with two crew members on board, and with Boko Haram terrorists claiming they shot it out of the sky and showing off in a video what they purported to be its wreckage. The military didn’t locate the aircraft wreckage until a full year later. A more direct encounter occurred in July of same 2021 when another NAF fighter jet was downed by insurgents in the border area between Zamfara and Kaduna states. The pilot, Flight-Lieutenant Abayomi Dairo who had gone on a raid against criminals’ hideouts, successfully ejected from the aircraft as it crashed amidst a hail of gunfire from those even NAF acknowledged to be armed bandits. Dairo deployed “survival instincts” to avoid capture by the bandits and found refuge in nearby settlements until he was rescued. Armed insurgents have since been considerably degraded by the military, but the Chukuba village crash potentially indicated they are far from being vanquished. Besides the crashes for which terrorists claimed direct responsibility, there have been others incurred in the course of operations against criminals and with fatal costs to the Nigerian state.

Nigeria has been at war with terrorists for some decade and a half and the latest encounters evidence that the battle is yet unfinished. This should be instructive. The war threatened against military putschists in Niger Republic by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), of which Nigeria is the spine, would be one too many. It was reported at the weekend that military chiefs of the sub-regional bloc, following their meeting in Accra, Ghana last Thursday, said a D-day had been fixed. But Nigeria already has enough to contend with without taking on another war. Niger is a feeder point for terrorists in the Sahel region and the proposed war could unleash a new wave into Nigeria, which shares a long border with that country. ECOWAS should have no difficulty winning the war with Niger, but it will have a long battle to fight winning the peace in the aftermath. And Nigeria will be the biggest theatre of that post-war battle. Are we prepared for this?