B’Haram: Outdated weapons hinder military operations

 

There are strong indications that the ongoing military operations against  insurgents in the North-East may have been seriously hampered by lack of modern military hardware and the prevalence of aging equipment in the Armed Forces.

Saturday PUNCH learnt that the military had been faced with the difficult challenge of using mostly refurbished military hardware in the critical campaign against the deadly members of the Boko Haram sect.

It was learnt that a good number of the military hardware in the country such as the Armoured Personnel Carriers, the Alpha Fighter Jets, the MIG Fighter Jets and the Helicopter gunships that were being used in the ongoing fight against the insurgents were acquired between 1979 and 1982 by the Alhaji Shehu Shagari regime.

A very senior military source, who spoke to one of our correspondents on Thursday, on the condition of anonymity, said that the successive military administrations that took over the governance of the country did not pay adequate attention to the importation of military tanks, fighter jets, helicopter gunships, APCs and other hardware.

It was further learnt that the situation persisted from 1999 under President Olusegun Obasanjo to the Goodluck Jonathan administration. It was gathered that Shagari had obtained the hardware to position the Nigerian Army as a force in the sub region.

Our correspondents gathered that a good number of the APCs deployed during critical military operations against the Boko Haram insurgents had either failed to fire or had broken down in the middle of action.

The source said that the APCs which looked new with their bright paints were merely mostly refurbished.

It was stated that the situation had resulted in the deaths of some Nigerian soldiers in the hands of the insurgents.