Lt General Farouk Yahaya: A Mission to Degrade Terrorists
Early last month, what has become a routine scenario played out in the harsh and inhospitable Sahel region between the Nigeria Army and members of Boko Haram and Islamic State for West Africa Province (ISWAP). Before a phalanx of the NA were men and women of the terrorist organizations. The men wore long gowns with bowed faces. Sitting cheek by jowl, the women were in burqah, idling away or chewing groundnuts. There were children, as well. They had all surrendered to the superior firepower of the Nigeria Army.
There have been dozens o such instances in the recent past such that, the military under the command of a new Chief of Army Staff, has chalked up successes after successes and, in the process, decimating or degrading the ranks of those terror organizations.
In a well-done piece written by Adetokunbo Abiola on February 18 for Defensepost, an online publication, the journalists thumbed up for the NA: “The development (taking the fight to the base of the terrorists) illustrates the success of the army’s new, aggressive approach of ground troop deployment and aerial bombardment in Borno, including an increased troop presence in the south of the state to beat back the insurgents.”
According to the analyst, it is the change in strategy by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Farouk Yahaya, that is largely responsible for these successes. The COAS spoke to officers and men of the NA about the change in strategy last November. “The plan of action,” Abiola went on, “combines sustained airstrikes with Tucano aircraft and heavy artillery bombardment, utilizing synergy between the army and the air force in its offensives while enhancing intelligence assets, elements absent in the past.”
It is not only journalists who have been thumbing up for the fighting forces against Boko Haram and ISWAP in the Northeast. Even the civilian population have weighed in with their own praises. It is not hard to know why.
Those who suffer most in the kind of insurgency that has gripped Nigeria for years are the civilian population terrorists kill, kidnap and then hold hostage for ransom. Unable to match the Nigerian Army in one-on-one combat, terrorist organizations such as Boko Haram often turn their attention to softer targets – unarmed civvies.
But when the same civilians start eulogizing the fighting soldiers, you know that, definitely, something good is happening to one of the fighting forces – certainly not Boko Haram.
Just last week, Nigerians and the rest of the world got to know of the many tactical victories the Nigeria Armed Forces have recorded against terrorists. In coordinated airstrikes and ground operations, 42 terrorists were killed with two of their kingpins, Dogo Umaru and Malla Buba Danfulani terminated.
For that, a group, Northern Youth Network (NYN) praised the combined effort of the military and intelligence services – the DIA, DSS and other intelligence agencies.
“We must commend the military for a job well done and encourage them to sustain the tempo in order to rid the country of bandits and terrorists,” the convener of the group Mallam Abdulrahman Ahmed told journalists recently. “We are excited that very soon, with the level of enhanced intelligence efforts in the affected areas, insecurity in the country will be a thing of the past in the nearest future. The onslaught on bandits by the highly trained and professional officers and men of the military is highly commendable and must be sustained.”
Continuing, Ahmed singled out the fighting soldiers in the theatres of war in parts of the north. “We especially celebrate the ground troops, who go after the fleeing terrorists and bandits after the airstrikes. Their gallantry is most appreciated. These coordinated approaches to the war have yielded positive results.”
Yes, positive results is what analysts mention frequently these days concerning the fight against terrorists. And the man responsible for those positive results is none other than Gen Yahaya in his renewed fight to degrade the terrorists. In as much as he is fighting the great battles, it is also commendable on his part that he is tackling little but significant things.
In understanding the character of individuals, the Greek-born, Roman citizen and essayist, Plutarch aka the prince of ancient biographers once mused that “a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of character than battles when thousands fall, or the greatest armaments, or sieges of cities.”
To that, you could add that even slight or unusual gestures count as well in understudying humans, in knowing who they really are deep down. In that sense, Nigeria’s current Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Farouk Yahaya revealed much of his person although inadvertently and it was not even planned.
Just before last Christmas, the video of a youth corp member proposing to a female soldier in an orientation camp in Kwara state went viral on social media. On bended knee like a medieval knight wooing a prospective spouse, the young man, first of all, put his proposal ring on the soldier’s finger then followed it up with a prolonged French kiss.
Nothing like that had ever happened since the inception of National Youth Service Corp in 1973, a union of a youth corp member and an officer overseeing their training and welfare in the orientation camp. It is unprecedented. (It must be said however that social media played a huge role in spreading the love story between soldier and student. There is no record of such amatory adventure in the past.)
Though the graduate campers were excited to no end after the proposal, the soldiers were not amused at all. The camp commandant himself would have been furious, whiskers quivering threatening fire and brimstone on the errant officer.
Nigerians and, perhaps, the entire world avidly followed the love saga of the corp member and the female soldier, how she contravened a standing military rule, her detention and then eventual release.
Of course, without the intervention of the COAS, it is possible, just possible, the female soldier would have spent Christmas and New Year bemoaning her fate in a military detention facility. But the number one man in the Nigerian Army changed all that by ordering the soldier freed. It was not an arbitrary decision, though.
According to reports on the matter, the COAS appealed to the Army hierarchy to “pardon the erring army officer but to be strongly reprimanded against engaging in any kind of act that contravenes the military code of conduct for its officers and men.”
“The COAS, in his wisdom, believes that the young female soldier will retrace her steps and show remorse for engaging in acts that negate military ethical codes, by the time she is pardoned and forgiven. Hence, he has been appealing for her to be pardoned. This is what he has been doing behind the scene, in the last few days,” a senior military officer was quoted as saying.
To most people, Yahaya’s prompt intervention “in the spirit of Christmas” is proof of his humanness, of his understanding that sometimes emotions of the heart as demonstrated by the female soldier can be forgiven even though such outpouring of love contravene the Nigeria Army’s code of conduct and ethics.
In the public eye, nothing has defined the COAS more than this supposedly illicit relationship between two people in uniform – one in her army fatigues, the other in his regulation corp member outfit.
But to his fellow professionals – his superiors and subordinates – other larger and more demanding national issues have caught and held the general’s attention.
In mid-January, for example, when he hosted Onuoha Ukeh, MD of Sun newspaper, in Abuja, Yahaya expounded on the significant role of the media in the fight against Boko Haram insurgents and banditry. In as much as the media can work together with the soldiers for a peaceful Nigeria, they could also do better by denying the insurgents badly needed publicity because they thrive on it if only to show they are still active.
According to the COAS, “fifty per cent of the military’s job would have been done” if the media denies bandits publicity. Insurgents and terrorists of any stripe – whether al Qaeda, ISIS or Boko Haram – do really depend on the media to record and publicize their shocking and weird mass killings and decapitations.
During the visit of the Sun executive officer, “the COAS maintained that support and sacrifices of the media in the fight against insurgency and banditry are well noted and highly appreciated,” adding that “expectations of the NA are that the media will continue to support the efforts of the military, as part of their patriotic duty, by giving publicity to troops’ operations, which will undoubtedly shore up troops’ morale and fighting will.”
Contrarily, denying insurgents and terrorists media publicity would deprive them of the very thing they need to spread their campaign of terror on the streets of America, Europe or Africa.
Quoting him through the NA spokesman, Onyeama, Yahaya insinuated “that insurgents and bandits thrive on the publicity they get from a section of the media…if their activities are denied media publicity, fifty per cent of the military’s job would have been done.”
Born on January 5, 1955, in Sifawa Bodinga, Sokoto state, General Yahaya always wanted to be in the military from very early on. It was no surprise that after his primary and secondary education, he joined the Nigerian Defence Academy in 1985 as a cadet officer trainee. He was just 19.
Five years later he has commissioned a Second Lieutenant into the Nigerian Army Corp of Infantry of the 37 Regular Course of NDA. Yahaya belongs to a generation of ambitious army officers who do not rely on their military experience alone. While in service, they expand their educational horizon with degrees from other disciplines.
Mohammed Buba Marwa, current chairman of NDLEA is a glaring example. He holds degrees in History and International Relations. Yahaya is another. He also has master’s degree in International Affairs and Diplomacy.
It is not hard to see why. Life as a professional soldier will come to an end someday. The degrees in those disciplines could come in handy later, as they did for Marwa in his post-army years when he served as Nigeria’s envoy to half a dozen or so countries.
Anyone can imagine Yahaya following the same trajectory as his senior colleague after his tenure as COAS. But for now, making the NA as professional as it can be is his major priority, professional in times of war and peace, their relationship with one another and with civilians.
Nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari on May 27, 2021, to replace the erstwhile COAS, Ibrahim Attahiru, who died in a plane crash, Yahaya is as professional as they come. Indeed, when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Defence and Army, it was a fait accompli that he merited his new role as Army Chief.
Before then, he’d held prestigious and demanding positions in the NA, chief among as Garrison Commander Headquarters Guards Brigade, Directing Staff at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC), Deputy Director Army Headquarters Department of Military Secretary, Deputy Director Army Research and Development and the Chief of Staff, Headquarters Joint Task Force Operation Pulo Shield. He was also Principal General Staff Officer (PGSO) to the Honourable Minister of Defence, the Commander, Headquarters 4 Brigade and 29 Task Force Brigades (Operation Zaman Lafiya).
Only days after his nomination by PMB, the senate confirmed Yahaya as COAS without as much any objection from members of the committee. It was a delighted Senator Aliyu Wamakko, Chairman of the committee and from the same state as Yahaya who announced to the floor of the Upper Chamber his confirmation.
In his address to his colleagues in the house, Wamakko enthusiastically declared that during the screening exercise, “the nominee’s knowledge of the strategic capabilities of the Army was exhaustive and impressive. He showed a clear knowledge of the Army which is apt for a Chief of Army Staff. Despite the Army being the largest of the Armed Forces, the nominee was clear in his vision to encourage joint operational synergy with other services for success in all theatre of operations.”
Continuing, Wamakko said the “nominee agreed on the need for the command to have more transparency and disclosure to the Committees on Security in the Legislature in order to ensure a harmonious working relationship, considering that they are critical stakeholders in the security sector governance.”
Equally important is that the nominee had been cleared by the DSS and no petitions were received to challenge his nomination.
More important to the COAS, according to the senator is the need to “ensure peace in the forthcoming elections,” and also “to deal with non-kinetic issues such as the settlement of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Boko Haram’s insurgency.”
A year and two weeks into his tenure as COAS, Yahaya has not been found wanting so far in leading the NA. Considering his pedigree and a relationship going swimmingly with both senior and junior ranks, it is clear which direction he wants his colleagues to go, what objectives he has for the Army in particular and the military in general.
A glimpse of the COAS’s concern for his officers was amply demonstrated during the Armed Forces Remembrance Day on January 15 to honour fallen Nigerian heroes starting from World War 2 through the civil war to recent confrontations with insurgents. There were the usual parades, laying of a wreath and much else. But the COAS went a step further by presenting a new Hilux jeep to living but retired army officers in Calabar, capital of Cross River state.
The COAS’s gesture connotes that it is not only the dead that deserves the honour. The living, particularly those who have served Nigeria meritoriously, are deserving as well. On that day, therefore, on behalf of the COAS, Major General P. Malla, Commander of the 13 Brigade of the Nigerian Army, presented the utility vehicle to Warrant Officer Stephen Ekpe at Calabar’s Millennium Park.
Turning otherwise hard-fighting terrorists into wimpy POWs shows the level of professionalism Lt Yahaya has brought to the NA. Freeing a woman soldier in love from detention and gifting a retired soldier with a vehicle shows his personal touch as a human being, all of which makes Lt Yahaya the soldier in the man and the man in the soldier.
The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday confirmed the appointment of Major General Farouk Yahaya as the Chief of Army Staff, COAS.
Yahaya was appointed by Buhari as COAS following the death of the former, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Athahiru in a plane crash in Kaduna along with 10 others in May.
The Senate had last week grilled Yahaya on his suitability for the job.
Yahaya‘s confirmation followed the presentation and consideration of the report of the Joint Senate Committee on Defence and Army at plenary.
The report was presented by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Defence, Senator Aliyu Wamakko on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday.
According to the lawmaker, Faruk’s nomination was in line with section 217 (2abc) of the 1999 Constitution as amended and in accordance with the provision of sections 18(1) of the Armed Forces Act, Cap A20 Law of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.
He disclosed that the Committee did not receive any petitions on the Nominee was cleared by the Department of State Security Service (DSS).
