The sack of Service Chiefs last week by President Bola Tinubu has provoked harsh words over their performance in office, with many lamenting that they presided over the needless death of more than 22, 000 citizens.

With high-profile killings, abductions and other crimes, their era was regarded as a period of inefficiency, leading to the sigh of relief that welcomed Tinubu’s action.

Since they came in at a time the nation was under the grip of bandits, kidnappers and ritual killers, there were high expectations from Nigerians. But the hope turned into a nightmare as non-state actors operated with reckless abandon across the country.

Though their removal was not surprising given the emergence of a new leader of the country, many saw their exit as overdue.

The President had, last Monday, relieved the Chief of the Defence Staff, Lucky Irabor, Chief of the Army Staff, Farouk Yahaya, Chief of the Naval Staff, Awwal Gambo, Chief of the Air Staff, Isiaka Amao, and the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali of their duties.

Of the attacks that took place during their tenure, many were quick to point at the Abuja-Kaduna train attack, the Owo massacre and Kuje jailbreak as their lowest points.

Apart from questioning the capacity of Nigerian security personnel, the incidents exposed many fault lines in the nation’s security architecture.

Security architecture

The human and material losses that accompanied the incidents are countless as many victims are licking their wounds while the victims died for no crime of theirs.

On March 28, 2022, bandits ambushed an Abuja-bound train in Kaduna, bombing the rail track and killing eight passengers.

No fewer than 168 persons were taken away in the attack which was largely attributed to the failure of intelligence.

Security experts had accused the authorities of failing to act as the incident happened a few days after unidentified gunmen invaded the Kaduna airport, killing an official on the runway.

There was also the Owo massacre of June 2022, which saw bandits attacking Saint Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State, killing no fewer than 70 worshipers.

The state police command said the attack was carried out by gunmen at about 11:30 a.m., while the church service was ongoing.

Eyewitnesses said the gunmen threw explosives into the church and started shooting as the worshippers scampered for safety.

On the heels of that incident was a deadly jailbreak in Kuje, the heart of the Federal Capit6al Territory, FCT, Abuja.

No fewer than 400 inmates escaped in the attack the Islamic State in West Africa Province, ISWAP, claimed responsibility.

Four inmates, several attackers and a security guard died in the incident, which happened less than 47 kilometres from the Presidential Villa, Aso Rock, Nigeria’s seat of power. About 1,000 inmates were in the facility when the attack took place, according to officials.

The event increased the number of prison escapees in Nigeria, which was over 5,000 at the time.

They’ll be remembered as inefficient

These, however, led to the conclusion that the outgone Service Chiefs would be remembered for high-profile attacks and deaths of countless citizens.

Coordinator General, Access to Advocacy and Rights of the People, Mr. Akintunde Adedeji, said: “We all witnessed the spate of insecurity under President Buhari. It was unchecked. History will remember them as being inefficient. It will remember them for displaying gross ineptitude as they were unable to reduce the spate of insecurity to the barest minimum. We were all living witness to the allegations of corruption that permeated the military bodies.

“History won’t record anything good about them. It is one thing to be the head of a military organisation, it is another thing to have the will, the patriotic zeal to be exemplary in the discharge of duties. This has to do with a disposition towards addressing or tackling insecurity. The body language of the Commander-in-Chief who is a retired general was not the best. It rubbed off on those Service Chiefs. As the saying goes when the head is rotten, the whole body is useless.

“As a former military man, the Commander-in-Chief did not measure up in ensuring that he put the Service Chiefs on their toes to reduce insecurity to the barest minimum. The lack of will and patriotic zeal to address it was responsible for the inefficiency of the service chiefs.”

Nigerians’ expectation

Chairman, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, Mr. Debo Adeniran, on his part, said: “Every administration wants to be unique. Whatever the Service Chiefs did wrong was not obvious because it was not significantly different from what their predecessors did. The truth is just that Nigerians are dissatisfied with the state of security and intelligence gathering in the nation.

“In most cases, preventable security breaches do occur, especially in areas prone to terrorist attacks. And that is a minus in the way law enforcement and intelligence agencies do their work. That might be the reason they were removed. Maybe the new administration wants to inject new blood or invigorate the security architecture to send a signal to those that are coming in.

“History will remember them as people who passed through and did their best, which wasn’t good enough for the aspirations of the Nigerians. In Nigeria, you can’t say citizens are well-secured because kidnapping happens always. Inexplicable killings go on in several parts of the country. There are massacres in various states such as Kaduna and Plateau.

“ It could be that during their tenure there was a failure of intelligence. It is either the intelligence gathering was flawed or the means through which they obtained intelligence was awkward. This could have led to the killings and the attack on the railway, the kidnap of passengers and the pogrom that happened on farmlands and several villages in different parts of the country.

‘Nigerians are not happy’

National Coordinator, Activist for Good Governance, Mr Declan Ihekaire, comment on the issue, said: “Rather than say they were sacked or removed, I will say they were relieved of their duties based on the change of guard, which is at the discretion of whoever is at the helm of affairs in every country. We can say that they have not done well in their duties, but it is not to say that they didn’t do their best. Though they did their best, the fact remains that the security situation is still very porous, so porous that the government of today must do so much to give hope and assurance to the citizenry that security will be better.

“I will urge the current administration to endeavour to have a conference of past and present Service Chiefs where questions on what has resulted in the current situation can be asked. Through those questions, they can proffer solutions. Before the service chiefs came in under Buhari, banditry and killings had been in existence. During Jonathan, Yar’Adua and Obasanjo’s administration, insecurity was there. Now, the question should be why hasn’t it reduced drastically? Is it because Nigerians are not happy with themselves? Is it that external forces are fuelling the crisis? Is it that we don’t have the resources to combat the criminals? Is it that there was no money to carry out operations? These questions should be asked.

“The current administration should be able to broaden its knowledge of governance because when they do so, they can capture where the previous administration failed and what will be done differently to get things right.”

Worse

Also speaking, acting National Chairperson, Socialist Party of Nigeria, SPN, and Oyo State Coordinator of Campaign for Democratic and Workers Rights, CDWR, Mr. Abiodun Bamigboye, said: “The job of the Service Chiefs, which is to ensure adequate protection of lives and properties of Nigerians was defeated, not only under the Buhari administration even under his predecessors. The failure was so much under the Buhari-led administration. It showed that they failed in their responsibilities.

“Under them, insecurity got worse. What we used to know under Jonathan was Boko Haram; under Buhari, we began to have banditry, insurgency and herder-farmer clashes. While kidnapping became a big business, youth restlessness doubled. All of these are the scorecard of the service chiefs.

“I don’t think relieving them of their duties is a wrong decision, although it won’t strengthen the security network in the country even though they are replaced with the best. I say this because at the root of insecurity in this country are also economic issues. For instance, what is the population of unemployed Nigerians? It is so massive than the population of many European countries combined.

“The poverty rate is so massive too. When this is looked at, it will be understood that it is not about changing the Service Chiefs but paying attention to the root of insecurity.

“Any government that wants to end insecurity must ensure that the economic root is tackled. It is not just having a general as a president, the rate of unemployment and poverty also fuels insecurity. Without a government that would tackle unemployment and poverty among others, there is nothing that Service Chiefs can do that would translate into improvement in security.”