MR PRESIDENT, HEED THE “MADMAN”
By Tunde Olusunle
If his utterances, actions and overall behaviour betray a certain psychological imbalance, he deserves to be genuinely understood and excused. By his own account, he has been on the battlefield for well over four years, much as he should have been reassigned to other duties and replaced after two years. It is normal in the Western world for people who have experienced war and all that comes with it, to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, (PTSD). They are expertly managed, not vilified, to get them back to normalcy. War is not waffles. The uncertainties, the ambushes, the sounds of bullets and bazookas, the booming blasts of bombs and IEDs, the crimson colour of blood. Soldiers are humans, all of these get to them no matter how tough and rugged they are.
Rotimi Olamilekan, also known as *Sojaboi,* a former personnel of the Nigerian Army, has been prominent in the news of late. In response to government’s call for joiners into the Nigerian military, Olamilekan, a former lance corporal, took to the social media to call out the children and wards of the political class and the nouveau riche, to enlist in the armed forces. With its ranks massively depleted in the multipronged fight against insurgency, terrorism and banditry across the country, the Nigerian Army craves 28,000 fresh entrants. Olamilekan, a young man from the Yoruba country who is familiar with the proverb *omo’lomo la’n ran ni ise de toru, toru,* (it is the children of other people that are usually sent on distant or dangerous errands), canvassed that children of the privileged should taste of the experience of the children of commoners.
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Since his summary dismissal from service, Olamilekan has been very vocal about the service conditions of ordinary soldiers. In a podcast which featured media personalities like Daddy Freeze and Omoyele Sowore, Olamilekan volunteered that his last salary before his recent eviction from service, was about N111,000.00 only. This “enhanced” take-home envelope, he observed, came into effect about a year ago. Before then, his monthly earning was N51,000.00. He subsequently posted his last pay slip to buttress his contention. Espousing on the predicament of the ordinary Nigerian soldier, Olamilekan alleged they have to procure all their accoutrements by themselves, at their own cost. According to him, the ordinary Nigerian soldier pays for his uniforms, vests, boots, helmets and needed accessories.
As would be expected, the Nigerian Army has moved to water down the allegations of Rotimi Olamilekan. Appolonia Anele, a Lieutenant-Colonel and spokesperson of the army said in a press release on Wednesday April 8, 2026, that the submissions were false as it is the institutional responsibility of the army to provide the official gears and operational needs of troops. She contended that Olamilekan’s claims were false and misleading, as troops are adequately equipped and catered for. The army she noted, maintains a structured and transparent remuneration system, with additional benefits for personnel. Uniforms, boots and protective equipment, Anele noted, are dutifully provided through established logistics systems. Soldiers, she noted, are at liberty to augment institutional provisions should they consider such, inadequate.
This piece does not intend to probe the circumstances of Lance Corporal Rotimi Olamilekan’s dismissal from service. It is to request that President Bola Tinubu pays more than fleeting attention to the utterances of a lowly, young soldier, which would ordinarily be dismissed as the “rantings of an ant,” to borrow the words of the flamboyant Second and Fourth Republic scholar-politician, Dr Chuba Okadigbo. It is because the madman, despite his established mental imbalance, is capable of meaningful thought, that the respected second generation Nigerian poet, Obiora Udechukwu, titled his most successful volume of poetry, which was published in 1990, *What the Madman Said.* A whole lot is wrong with the contemporary organisational structure and operations manual of the Nigerian military in its entirety which is why it is not delivering tangibly. As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President Tinubu must sit back, reflect and recalibrate his intelligence, security and defence workbook.
It must be of concern to the President that yesterday, Thursday April 9, 2026, the government of the United States of America, (USA), commenced the evacuation of its embassy staff from Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, hitherto the nation’s safest haven. The American government is offering support in the areas of training, equipment and intelligence for the battle against insurgency, terrorism and banditry. They must be disappointed, however, at the suspect enthusiasm and ambivalent professionalism exhibited by their Nigerian counterparts which must be impeding their work. The trending US security advisory has identified 23 out of 36 states as red zones, which is as good as saying two-thirds of the country is besieged and traumatised.
It should agitate the President that same yesterday Thursday April 9, 2026, Oseni Braimah, a Brigadier-General and Commander, 29 Brigade, Benisheikh, Kaga council area, Borno State, was killed in an attack by Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa Province, (ISWAP). Eighteen soldiers were taken down with him. Braimah is the second General to be wasted by the bloodhounds terrorising the country’s North East within the last five months. Brigadier-General Musa Uba, erstwhile Commander, 25 Task Force, also in Borno State, was ambushed, abducted and executed by the very same ISWAP, November 18, 2025. Within the period, Lieutenant-Colonels Umar Farouq, Salihu Iliyasu and Saidu Paiko, were all taken down in Kukawa local government area, Borno State. The number of officers and other ranks who have been lost alongside these senior officers is better imagined.
If I were the President, I would be thoroughly embarrassed that the annual appropriation for security and defence has been on the ascendancy in the three annual budgets prepared under my superintendence between 2024 and 2026, and approved by the national assembly, without commensurate results. Aggregated, the budgets for security for the three years 2024, 2025 and 2026, is a staggering N15.83Trillion, ($11.3Billion). Rather than positively impact national security, the ogre of insecurity is indeed festering, gaining additional hectarage and mileage across the length and breadth of the country. It is official that actual releases and cashbackings have been slow in coming necessitating perennial shifts in the lifespans of various budgets. But what exactly has been done with what has been received thus far?
Our military has become patently distracted and more interested in matters outside their core martial mandate. They are grabbing infinite parcels of land as we see in Abuja for instance, where all the acreage between the detour to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, (NAIA), to Giri Junction on the Gwagwalada-Lokoja road, has been fully taken. Every arm of the military today has its own university, (aside the purpose-built, degree-awarding Nigerian Defence Academy, (NDA)). Every service has a “holdings company” which is involved in the development of real estate. Every service is building its own “hotels, suites and convention centres.” Many Generals prefer to be “Managing Directors” of such enterprises, rather than be on the front lines. There is talk of an exponential increase in the number of military multibillionaires in this season of national angst and anomie.
Which is why President Tinubu must take Rotimi Olamilekan’s claims very seriously. The snake may have unseen limbs inside it with which it slithers, a Yoruba proverb tells us. Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, who has become something of a Fourth Republic parliamentary institution, had previously spoken along Olamilekan’s lines. He alluded to scant-equipped soldiers virtually facing the enemy with bare hands on the battlefields. Could the security establishment be taking advantage of the very fact of the President being a non-initiate, to “blur his vision” from reality and undermine his intentions? No two individuals can ever be the same. No two leaders can ever think or act in the same way. President Olusegun Obasanjo was very well enabled by the residual wisdoms of veterans of his primary professional constituency, the military, when he was in office. His Chief of Staff, was Major-General Abdullahi Mohammed, GCON, (of blessed memory); his National Security Adviser, (NSA), Lieutenant-General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, GCON, while his Defence Minister was Lieutenant-General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, GCON. These were very experienced, war-tested Generals.
President Tinubu on his birthday Sunday March 29, 2026, announced that his accumulated salaries be henceforth kept in a dedicated trust to support families of fallen soldiers and maintain of injured troops. His gesture is supposed to be expanded into a pool of funds which will be supported by state governors. This is a laudable gesture no doubt, but it does not in any way resolve the fact of the very worryingly slipshod management of our national security. To the chagrin of Nigerians and the watching world, the Chief of Defence Staff, (CDS), recently pleaded that psychopath terrorists frittering the blood of innocent Nigerians and our soldiers in parts of the country, be seen as prodigals and availed parole! There’s no better evidence of lack of institutional seriousness about the battle against insecurity than such flippancy. For your foreign collaborators, this is put offish. I imagine the inimitable Fela Anikulapo-Kuti describing such a pronouncement by a CDS, as “craze talk,” or better still “animal talk.”
About time for the President to seek genuine help and direction from those who should know. His famed wizardry in political strategy has yet to translate to an enduring grasp on national security. He needs genuine guidance and assistance like years ago.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja
(DEMOCRACY NEWSLINE NEWSPAPER, APRIL 10TH 2026)
