Shun politics, Army commandant warns security agencies

The Commandant of the Nigerian Army Training and Doctrine Command, Major General Mohammed Shehu Abdulkadir, has called on the Nigerian Armed Forces and other security agencies in the country to subject themselves to civil authorities and refrain from politics so as not to be distracted from their statutory duties.
Abdulkadir said on Tuesday when he paid a courtesy call on the Niger State Commissioner of Police, Desire D. Nsirim, at the Niger State’s Police Command Headquarters, Minna that security agencies must not be involved in the politics of unguarded statements by politicians jostling for political power in the country.
According to him: “The only thing I would ask you (Army and security agencies) is, let us not be divided about what the politicians are doing.
“Let them do their politics while we do our own jobs because we must not be seen to be partisan but we must be neutral bodies.
“When wrong things are happening, we must correct it and when the right things are done, let the government take the credit.
“We are only meant to be seen, not to be heard.
“We will only be heard when we perform our statutory duties.
“If we are not doing our jobs, nobody would hear us, but when we do our jobs, the more we gain internal satisfaction and the more we get recognition because if there is anything I want to see it is that the larger society would take us back like they used to respect us.
“But not when we roll out guns and other lethal weapons that the larger society would respect us.
“After all, it is from the larger society that we came and at the end of our service, it is to the same larger society we shall return.
“At the end of the day, you will not remain in the police barracks, while I will not remain in Army Barracks.
“Therefore, I am advocating for good civil-military relationship and good policing, because when civilians are looking for help, the policeman should be their first port of call and if you do that, the better for us because we cannot live outside Nigeria.
“It is inside it, we must live.”