General Wahab: Military Not Trained for Internal Security
Linus Aleke in Abuja
The Director General of the Nigerian Army Resource Centre, Major General Garba Wahab, has said the military’s primary role was to defend the nation against external threats and quell insurrections, with training focused on combat and tactical operations.
He said their expertise lay in high-intensity conflicts, not internal security or law enforcement, explaining that internal security, maintenance of law and order, and civilian protection typically fell under the purview of other agencies, such as the police, trained for these specific tasks.
General Wahab, in a chat with THISDAY, said: “We believe that it is cheaper, easier, faster to deploy the military. So we keep on deploying them both. We are failing to realise that they have a responsibility which is different.
“You can not continue to use them in internal security because they are not meant to maim people. They are meant to kill. By deploying, you are wasting resources. It is a monumental waste we are having right now.”
He, however, advocated further training for the police and other agencies saddled with internal security to enable them to perform their functions, so that the military could be withdrawn to barracks to build capacity relevant to modern warfare.
“We must find a way of training those whose job it is to maintain law and order, as well as other internal security operations in society, to enable them to take over from the military. That is why I spoke about process and procedure. We must start putting the process in motion because, even if the military are not trained for internal operations, they are already deployed.
“So, do you want them to remain? If you don’t want them to remain, who is going to take over? You must start training those who are supposed to take over. Therefore, if you don’t effect corrections on these identified gaps now, we will continue to go round and round, and the same problem will continue to manifest.”
He stated that there are issues with the nation’s security architecture that must be corrected.
