Buratai first army chief to lead battle, repel ambush -DHQ

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has declared that focused military leadership by the service chiefs anchored on provision of battlefield materials and regular payment of allowances were the motivating factors sustaining troops’ successes against insurgents.

It said the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, remained the first service chief to lead troops in the battlefield and repel an ambush.

Speaking to journalists in Abuja, Coordinator, Directorate of Defence Media Operations, Major General John Enenche, said focused leadership, provision of battlefield materials and regular payment of allowances provided by service chiefs since assumption of office in 2015 were the motivating factors driving the performance of troops in the ongoing war against insurgency.

“I want to state that the overriding motivation for what we have been achieving in the Northeast is leadership. Leadership in peace time is not the same with leadership in conflict times or times of war; they are never the same thing at all.
“One thing that the military (soldier), be he an officer, a soldier, rating, the airman or airwoman will desire when they are in the frontline is the leader being there with them and for them,” he said.

Enenche noted that “in peace time I can just do a letter; I can just pass verbal instructions, which stand as an order but in times when we are solving these security challenges, even in conventional periods or in the times past, not contemporary times, the major motivator is leadership. Is the leader there with you? Is he there for you? I can tell you confidently that it is one of the major areas the Armed Forces of Nigeria had stood out in the North-east. Are there examples? Yes, there are.”
He said, “in 2015 when this set of service chiefs came on board, the first thing was to ensure that regular visits were conducted to the Northeast with the commanders on the ground at the inception of that operation.

“When it was changed to Lafiya Dole and to demonstrate that, if you go back into history the various components, the land component, the air component and maritime component, the service chiefs all visited.”

Enenche recalled that “the convoy of our Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai was even ambushed. Go into world history; there is no record where a service chief has gone into the frontline and was ambushed.

“The ambush was repelled with heavy casualties on the part of the enemy. If it was 35 years ago, assuming there was something like a committee or council of service chiefs they would have queried him but that wouldn’t have arisen because he was only demonstrating leadership.”