The recent appointment of General Christopher Musa as the Minister of Defence has been met with applause in many quarters.
The logic is seductive, put a soldier in charge of the war. However, expecting this appointment alone to solve Nigeria’s security mire is not just optimistic, it is unrealistic.
We must remember that Gen. Musa is not a stranger to the theatre of war, he is the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff. If military strategy alone were the cure, the symptoms would have abated during his tenure as CDS. The persistence of the crisis proves that our problem is not a lack of military capacity, but a deficit of political will.
As the saying goes, “To uproot a tree, you must deal with the roots.” For too long, we have been trimming the branches—fighting foot soldiers while the financiers and logistical backers sleep soundly in their beds.
The harsh reality is that the intelligence community and our political leadership, from the Local Government to the Federal level, are not ignorant of the actors behind this instability. The identities of the sponsors, the routes of the supply chains, and the localized complicity are known. What is missing is the ruthless political will to fish them out and punish them, regardless of whose ox is gored.
We commend the President for appointing a seasoned military officer to the portfolio, it is a right step that brings technical expertise to the cabinet. Yet, we must warn against the complacency of thinking a uniform in the Ministry equates to peace in the streets.
Until the political class aligns with the military to crush the roots of terror, specifically the sponsors and the saboteurs, General Musa’s tenure will be another chapter of managing a crisis rather than ending it.