A former Provost Marshal of the Nigerian Army, Maj-Gen Pat Akem-Vingir (retd), has stated that the military requires at least 500,000 personnel to effectively combat terror groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
“Our army is small. We need to have an army of at least 500,000 personnel,” the retired general said during the Friday edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political program aired on Channels Television.
According to Global Fire Power, the Nigerian military currently has around 230,000 personnel. Maj-Gen Akem-Vingir highlighted that many of the military’s gains in the fight against insurgency in the North-East have been lost due to insufficient manpower to secure territories after clearance operations.
He explained, “When you are fighting insurgency, you must capture ground and hold it. It takes troops to do that. When you capture ground, then you build and hold so that people can resume their lives and there will be security, but if you are clearing areas and you are not holding, then they (terrorists) will come back.”
The retired general also dismissed the relevance of the newly formed terror group, Lakurawa, which is operating in the North-West zone of the country. He referred to the group as “one small tiny group” merely seeking attention.
“We shouldn’t recognise them, we shouldn’t even discuss them because they will think they are being noticed now and want to do more. They are one small tiny group that shouldn’t even get our attention; that should be swatted away – that shouldn’t be given any energy to feed upon. They are seeking attention,” he said.
Maj-Gen Akem-Vingir urged the government to provide the military with adequate equipment, training, and “full authority” to neutralize threats to national security.
“The president needs to give the instruction to security agencies in the open where Nigerians will hear it. When he does that openly, and tell them I want to see your needs on my table in two weeks because, without security, you can’t be talking about governance,” he added.
