A chorus of retired senior military officers has rallied behind former Chief of Defence Staff General Lucky Irabor (retd.), endorsing his bold proposal in his new book, Scars: Nigeria’s Journey and the Boko Haram Conundrum, for a National Assembly-backed state of emergency to decisively dismantle the Boko Haram insurgency that has plagued the northeast for over a decade. Irabor, who helmed the military under ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, lambasts the “absence of political will” as the insurgency’s lifeline, arguing that only a unified mobilisation of economic, diplomatic, and military resources can translate tactical victories into strategic triumph.
In the book, launched last week, Irabor writes: “The government had not yet mustered the political will and instruments to declare a war against Boko Haram. With an emergency proclamation, backed by the National Assembly, there will be greater and more focused attention by the government to galvanise all the elements of national power towards the war. It should be noted that strategy deals with the aggregate of the elements of national power. These include economic, political, social, diplomatic, information, and military. The political authority stands at the apex. The success at the tactical and operational levels will never translate to victory if there is failure at the strategic level. Tactical operations alone rarely bring about the desired outcome in political situations.”The call gains urgency amid Boko Haram’s ferocious resurgence in 2025, with over 300 attacks claiming around 500 civilian lives in the first half alone, per Good Governance Africa data. The group’s guerrilla tactics and extremist ideology, bolstered by local support and reckless political rhetoric, have stretched Nigeria’s forces thin, displacing 2.2 million and crippling border communities.
Brigadier General Peter Aro (retd.) hailed Irabor’s blueprint as “apt and deeply informed by experience,” stressing a genuine emergency—unfettered by politics—would streamline command and resource flow. “Having served at the operational, strategic, and geo-strategic levels, he speaks with the authority of someone who truly knows his terrain,” Aro said. “But it must be a genuine state of emergency—not the kind where governors and local government chairmen still operate as if it were business as usual. When politics steps aside and security takes full command, coordination improves, resources flow faster, and the chain of authority becomes clear. Such an approach, free from political interference, would give the military and other agencies the freedom to act with precision and integrity.”Retired Major General Dayo Olukoju echoed the support but urged a holistic tack, blending emergency powers with multilateral root-cause probes.
“I agree with him. But like I do say, a multilateral approach should be added to it. I was in Maiduguri when we captured one of them, and the terrorist was unrepentant. We have the elite, traditional, spiritual, and military leaders—all of them have roles to play,” Olukoju argued. “The root causes are there—have we been able to look into them? Those causes include issues of freedom, identity, among others. If these things are not looked into, I hope we don’t have a resurgence. I am not saying the state of emergency can’t work—it’s perfect—but we can go further to do what I have earlier said.”Colonel Saka Folusho (retd.) concurred succinctly: “There was nothing wrong in declaring a state of emergency on insecurity.”
The endorsements come as Borno Governor Babagana Zulum decries ignored pleas for border reinforcements, following Boko Haram’s October 3 seizure of Kirawa—razing a barracks, homes, and the district head’s palace, displacing over 5,000 to Cameroon. A separate assault killed four soldiers, torching equipment, while a Banki repulse left one officer wounded—exposing overstretched defenses amid 2.2 million IDPs and escalating humanitarian crises.
Boko Haram’s coordinated strikes, including a September 6 massacre of 63 in Darul Jamal (seven soldiers among them), have reversed military gains, with the group—despite degraded leadership—exploiting vacuums for mass abductions, bombings, and territorial grabs. Over 40,000 dead since 2009, the insurgency’s ideological grip and local enablers demand Irabor’s strategic overhaul, analysts say, to avert a full relapse.