By Ikeazor Akaraiwe, SAN
Respectfully submitted: It is a very bad idea to send the military to the South East or anywhere else as the primary problem solver. As Abraham Maslow famously said, “When your only tool is a hammer, you see every problem as a nail.”
Militaries worldwide see every problem as a nail to be hammered into place by the major tool they have, the hammer. What the problem in the South East needs is intelligence, investigation, and arrests, and not boots on the ground.
The DSS and DMI should be able to have telephone eavesdroppers to locate conspirators and terrorists PLANNING to disrupt the South East.
Years ago, when I visited Maiduguri to deliver a paper on PreTrial to the bar and bench, the complaint was that the military had decimated the population of young men, arresting at will any young man within the vicinity of a bomb blast (in the days of regular bomb blasts within Maiduguri), and killing many.
It was then quipped to me that the decimation was so bad that there might be no husbands for the young girls in the next generation!
Truth be told, the growing terrorism in the South-East must be nipped in the bud, but the solution in my respectful view, may not be more boots on the ground but enhanced intelligence gathering, which the military by orientation may not be equipped to do.
For example, how do the sit-at-home enforcers communicate? By telepathy, by runners, or by telephone?
Ikeazor Akaraiwe, SAN
