Former Chief of Defence Staff General Lucky Irabor (retd) and other retired senior military officers have endorsed the declaration of a state of emergency to combat the escalating Boko Haram insurgency, asserting that a clear political commitment is essential to galvanize national power for an outright victory.
ABUJA – A group of retired senior military officers have thrown their weight behind the call by former Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor (retd), to declare a state of emergency to effectively combat the Boko Haram insurgency. Irabor, in his new book, ‘Scars: Nigeria’s Journey and the Boko Haram Conundrum,’ argued that a lack of political will has hampered the nation’s counter-insurgency efforts.
Irabor, who served under the Buhari administration, wrote: “The government had not yet mustered the political will and instruments to declare a war against Boko Haram. With an emergency proclamation, backed by the National Assembly, there will be greater and more focused attention by the government to galvanise all the elements of national power towards the war.”
The recommendation comes as Boko Haram intensifies its attacks in the North, with the group recently seizing the border town of Kirawa in Borno State, destroying a military barracks, and forcing over 5,000 people to flee to Cameroon.
Supporting Irabor’s strategic assessment, Brigadier General Peter Aro (retd.) described the proposal as “apt and deeply informed by experience,” adding: “But it must be a genuine state of emergency — not the kind where governors and local government chairmen still operate as if it were business as usual. When politics steps aside and security takes full command, coordination improves, resources flow faster, and the chain of authority becomes clear.”
Retired Major General Dayo Olukoju, while agreeing on the necessity of an emergency declaration, stressed the need for a multilateral approach to address the root causes of the terrorism, including issues of freedom and identity. Col. Saka Folusho (retd.) warned that a state of emergency must be coupled with tackling the illicit arms trade that sustains the violence. Meanwhile, the Northern Elders Forum reiterated its demand for the government to take “very serious action” by massively deploying security agencies.