Ex-CDS Agwai to military: stay off partisan politics

From a former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen. Martin Luther Agwai to the military: don’t dabble in partisan politics.
According to him, the military should target an effective way to tackle the security challenges facing the nation.
The military has been at the centre of discussion after some of its officers and men were allegedly used by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rig the June 2014 governorship election in Ekiti State.
An audio recording of a session where the rigging plans were being fine-tuned by some PDP chieftains with Brig. Gen. Aliyu Momoh was released by Capt. Sagir Koli.
The Court of Appeal has also reled that the military should have no role in the organization of elections after the polls in Osun, Edo, Ondo were militarized.
Gen. Agwai spoke yesterday in a lecture he delivered to mark ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s 78th birthday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
Agwai also urged the nation’s leaders and the citizens to accept change and move with it to enable the country experience the desired growth and development.
Gen Agwai is the chairman of the SURE P, an interventionist body created by the federal government to manage the funds generated after the withdrawal of petrol products subsidy in 2011.
He was Chief of Army Staff and became the CDS between 2006 -2009 before retiring after serving as the head of the African Union Force in Darfur, The Sudan.
He titled his lecture the “Imperative of a National Security Framework for the Development and Progress of Nigeria.” It was delivered at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL).
The lecture was organised by the Centre for Human Security arm of the OOPL with a theme, ‘an agenda for the developmental future of Nigeria.’
Gen Agwai advocated the restructuring of the army towards professionalism.
He said peace and security is crucial to a people or nation, adding that no meaningful development and growth could take place in an atmosphere of chaos, insecurity and crisis.
According to him, the only thing constant in life is change, hence the need for leaders to embrace the change needed to bring about growth and development in the country.
Gen. Agwai urged the military to take professionalism seriously so that they could effectively tackle insurgency and other security challenges.
He described national security as holistic in nature while making a case for overhaul or reforming of the  security sector for better result in a changing time.
He identified some of the precursors of insecurity to include poorly developed democratic system, political and social exclusion of people and the  deteriorating morals of the society.
Gen. Agwai also hinted that churches and mosques that ought to serve as moral compass in the country were regrettably becoming facilitators of corruption
He noted that the security challenge is not strange to him, recalling that as at 2003, he had predicted that the wars the nation’s soldiers would contend with, would be one without frontiers where every state of the federation is a “ battle field.”