Buhari should get 2021 going with a bang by launching Operation Blitzkreig in Borno State aimed at wiping out Boko Haram once and for all

Ayo Akinfe

(1) As we enter a new year, it is clear that things will have to change dramatically in Nigeria. We need to diversify our economy, build up our infrastructure, create an unprecedented number of jobs and attract foreign direct investment. None of this can happen without security

(2) I am still perplexed as to how there can be so much insecurity in a country where the president is a retired major general with plenty of battle experience. President Buhari was the deputy commander of the Nigerian brigade which broke out of Owerri in 1968 so brilliantly and also served as a UN peacekeeper in Lebanon

(3) There is very little Boko Haram should be able to throw at Nigeria that President Buhari should not have direct experience of. Boko Haram occupy one corner of northeast Nigeria. As a military general, President Buhari knows that they can easily be encircled and wiped out with a coherent military plan known as a pincer movement

(4) President Buhari does not need me to tell him how the allies encircled the Germans on the Falsise Pocket in Normandy, how the Red Army encircled the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad or how Field Marshal Erich von Manstein came up with his novel Blitzkrieg tactics to encircle the British and French on 1940 by cutting through the Ardenne Forest

(5) In the Battle of France, the world was treated to a new kind of warfare involving fast-moving armoured divisions backed up by air support. Using these kind of tactics known as Blitzkreig, Field Marshal von Manstein cut the French Army to ribbons and forced the British Army into the most humiliating defeat ever in its history. If this is tried in Sambisa Forest, Boko Haram will be history within a week

(6) Personally, my favourite general ever was the Red Army’s World War Two commander Field Marshal Georgi Zhukov. A master tactician, he beat the German Wehrmacht back from within a few kilometres of the Kremlin all the way to Berlin. Field Marshal Zhukov’s formula was simple - attack the flanks of the enemy, encircle them and smash the main body with a full frontal assault

(7) Is someone really trying to tell me that no Nigerian general has thought of using these Zhukov or van Manstein tactics in Borno State? I refuse to believe that

(8) If we launch a four-pronged attack from say Adamawa State, Cameroon, Niger Republic and Chad using 100 T-55 battle tanks, 200 Saurer armoured personnel carriers and say 10,000 troops backed up with air cover, we will wipe out Boko Haram within 72 hours

(9) For some inexplicable reason, there is a political reluctance on the part of this government to rout Boko Haram. I can only put it down to the fact that some people in high places believe they may need these armed militia groups in the future. We saw this play out in Sudan with the Janjaweed militia which did the government’s dirty work that the official armed forces could not be seen to be engaged in. We also saw it in East Timor

(10) With two years of his tenure now left, President Buhari can at least go down in history as the man who eradicated Boko Haram from Nigeria. To do that, however, he is going to have to confront some of his most staunch backers. Let us see if he has the courage to face them down as we enter 2021