Many of those on whom the responsibility for physical actions against the adversary squarely falls are yet to fully take ownership of our common national or service cause.
Lt. Gen Tukur Buratai, Nigeria's chief of army staff, has blamed the lack of commitment of Nigerian soldiers on the frontline for renewed Boko Haram attacks.
He made the comments at the opening of a “Transformational leadership workshop”, organised by the Army Headquarters Department of Transformation and Innovation at the Army Resource Centre, Asokoro, Abuja on Tuesday.
The statement is coming in the midst of renewed attacks by Boko Haram targeting Ill-equipped Nigerian troops and military bases in Borno State.
Buratai said: “It is unfortunate, but the truth is that almost every setback the Nigerian Army has had in our operations in recent times can be traced to insufficient willingness to perform assigned tasks or simply insufficient commitment to a common national/military course by those at the frontlines.
“Many of those on whom the responsibility for physical actions against the adversary squarely falls are yet to fully take ownership of our common national or service cause.
“I, therefore, believe that the transformational leadership workshops will again remind and clarify to participants what our President and Commander-in-Chief meant by ‘this generation and indeed, future generations of Nigerians have no other country but Nigeria, we must remain here and salvage it together”.
“The President’s exhortation, though about 35 years old, is still relevant today given, as we see in some cases that apathy has even increased amongst the younger generations.
“This is evident in the many successes that the NA has achieved in our operations and the high performance of our personnel (both officers/soldiers) in international/multinational operations or other military duties.
“And this is the reason why I have always ensured that the promotion of NA personnel is essentially based on professional considerations only. But we all know that professional capacity is not a sufficient condition to succeed in a task; willingness to perform the task is equally necessary."