Why Is Boko Haram Stronger? Nigerian Armed Forces Claim To Have Refurbished Military Hardware

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.

It was 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.

A good number of the military hardware in the country such as the Armoured Personnel Carriers, the AlphaFighter 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 senior military source, on the condition of anonymity, said on Thursday 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.

The correspondent 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.

The unreliable state of some of the APCs in the arsenal of the army had, on some occasions, resulted in the capture of some soldiers by the insurgents.

Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State had on Monday said that Boko Haram members were better armed and motivated than Nigerian soldiers battling to end insurgency in the region.

But the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, in a swift reaction to the governor’s claim, had said the military was winning the war against Boko Haram insurgents.
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