By Samuel Malik

The recent directive given by President Muhammadu Buhari to the country’s service chiefs to bring an end to the six years Boko Haram insurgency within three months has been backed by a retired Colonel, Prince Zubair, who said the President must have “strategically seen the options available” before making the pronouncement.

Zubair, who spoke to our reporter in Abuja, said the President’s practical experience in military operations in the past means that he knows what it takes to fight a battle, especially with his promise to adequately support the armed forces.

“He has promised the fighting forces the right equipment and has warned his field commanders, ‘I will make provision for the welfare of the men. Make sure it gets to them’ and there is nothing as motivating as this,” Zubair, himself a war veteran, said, adding that the visit by the President to Chad, Niger, Benin Republic and Cameroon has led to the cutting off of the major supply route to the insurgents.

He noted that “the line of communication is where weapons, mercenaries, human beings, resupply Boko Haram”, adding that, “if these countries have decided to partner with us in the fight, half of the fight is won already.”

Commenting on the decision to move the military command and control centre to Maiduguri in Borno State, the retired colonel, who in the past led military operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone, said it was the sensible thing to do and likened it to a similar move deployed by the Nigerian Army during the Civil War.

“The CCC is just an advance base to coordinate and execute the overall commander’s plan. During the Nigerian Civil War, the moment the Army First Division that started the push got a foothold and captured Enugu, the 1Div Headquarters was moved from Kaduna to Enugu because the war was being fought in the eastern part of the country and the troops being moved were from the northern part of the country. So, the moment they got a breakthrough and captured Enugu, they moved their headquarters there and what this meant was that the reinforcement of men, logistics and everything they needed for the war were now based in Enugu,” Zubair explained.

“If they left the headquarters in Kaduna and prosecuted the war from there, they could be hampered. This is the same thing happening in the fight against insurgency and this is the advantage of having Buhari as president.”