Irabor’s Scars on Northern Boko Haram and the Dead Horse Theory

By YUSHAU SHUAIB

There are fewer things more dignifying than erstwhile a towering nationalist fig extends the courtesy of respect wrapped successful humility. General Lucky Irabor, erstwhile Chief of Defence Staff, exemplifies that uncommon blend of spot and grace. When helium invited maine to the presumption of his caller book, “SCARS: Nigeria’s Journey and the Boko Haram Conundrum,” I was reminded that down the imposing subject azygous lies a antheral of reflection, intellect, and empathy — unless, of course, 1 dares to transverse the line. 

This prime stands successful crisp opposition to the arrogance I person encountered astatine a strategical institute wherever a fewer officers’ inflated egos near small country for courtesy oregon intelligence exchange.

I could not be the publication motorboat owed to a scheduling struggle with the International Public Relations Association’s, IPRA, Golden World Awards successful Ghana, wherever some the Nigeria Customs Service and my organisation, Image Merchants Promotion Limited, IMPR, were being honoured. On my instrumentality to Abuja, each copies of the publication had sold retired astatine the designated bookshops, and I was owed to question to Canada that aforesaid night. Learning of my predicament, General Irabor personally ensured a transcript was sent to maine — a motion that spoke volumes astir his character.

Taking the proposal of his friend, Vice President Kashim Shettima, that “to genuinely bask a book, work it connected a agelong journey,” I opened it mid-flight and did not halt until I reached the past page. In little than 24 hours, I devoured the 300-page memoir — a profoundly analytical, well-researched, and intellectually stimulating enactment that goes acold beyond the emblematic autobiographical recount of a retired General.

Irabor’s SCARS stands retired for its communicative style. It is not a self-indulgent memoir but a reflective chronicle that blends idiosyncratic acquisition with humanities investigation and argumentation critique. He writes with world precision, referencing different scholars, tract experiences, and verifiable data. Between the lines, the discerning scholar tin consciousness his measured but steadfast convictions connected the Boko Haram insurgency, Niger Delta militancy, IPOB separatism, Yoruba nationalism, and the societal decay that has haunted Nigeria since independence.

The publication is simply a panoramic chronicle — from the civilian warfare and subject coups to antiauthoritarian transitions and insurgencies — offering a sober reflection connected the choices and failures that person defined Nigeria’s evolution. Notably, Irabor avoids sensationalism oregon name-dropping; adjacent his acknowledgments are strikingly humble contempt the calibre of personalities, including erstwhile Presidents who aboriginal attended the unveiling successful Abuja.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, successful his foreword, aptly describes the publication arsenic “a soldier’s honorable reflection connected a nation’s unfinished journey.” But the existent revelations prevarication wrong the pages — successful Irabor’s unflinching interrogation of Nigeria’s governmental and motivation contradictions.

Among the book’s astir intriguing points is his assertion that nary full-fledged coup d’état successful Nigeria has ever occurred without civilian collaboration. He argues that soldiers, bound by their oath of allegiance, often warrant interventions “through the prism of nationalist defence.” This mentation shifts portion of the blasted for Nigeria’s subject incursions to opportunistic civilians who manipulate oregon alteration specified actions for idiosyncratic gain.

Equally provocative is his humanities framing of Northern Nigeria’s recurring spiritual conflicts. Irabor traces their roots to Usman Dan Fodio’s jihad of 1804, viewing it arsenic the starting constituent of organised spiritual militancy successful the region. While this position is historically grounded, it risks oversimplification. Thankfully, Irabor tempers his statement by contextualising it wrong the broader “millenarian revolts of aboriginal colonialism,” suggesting that some Islamic revivalism and Christian evangelism during the assemblage epoch contributed to shaping Nigeria’s spiritual and societal divides.

One country readers whitethorn find conspicuously absent is immoderate notation of the tragic decease of gallant General Ibrahim Attahiru, the precocious Chief of Army Staff who perished successful a level clang soon aft Boko Haram’s ...