RE: Why Are Senior Military Officers Being Targeted in Nigeria? By Sadeeq Garba Shehu

RE: Why Are Senior Military Officers Being Targeted in Nigeria?
By Sadeeq Garba Shehu

As a retired military officer, I find the TimesNG‘s article titled “Why Terrorists Abduct, Kill Top Military Officers in Nigeria” By Mukhtar Ya’u Madobi broadly useful and largely correct in identifying a worrying trend. However, some important distinctions need to be made to place the issue in proper context.

First, the article is correct that attacks on serving and retired senior military officers have significance beyond the individual victims. Senior officers are symbols of state authority, national defence and military professionalism. When they are abducted or killed, criminal and terrorist groups derive propaganda value from the incident and seek to create the impression that the state is weak and unable to protect even those who once occupied the highest levels of its security architecture.

The article is also correct that some retired officers may be attractive targets because they are perceived to possess influence, connections or financial resources.

Likewise, in certain cases, officers who previously commanded operations against insurgents, terrorists or bandits could become targets for revenge or symbolic retaliation. I do recall there was one ex army spokesman a Lt Col on whose head Boko Haram publicly placed a bounty) .

The discussion on the psychological effects is equally valid. One of the objectives of terrorism and organised criminal violence is to create fear beyond the immediate victims. Attacks on prominent military figures naturally attract public attention and can undermine confidence in state institutions if they become frequent.

The article is also right that retired officers are often more vulnerable than the public assumes. Many civilians imagine that retired generals move around with substantial armed protection. In reality, most do not. Security details attached to retired officers are generally designed to deter routine threats and provide personal assistance. They are not configured to withstand a determined attack by heavily armed bandits or terrorists operating with superior numbers and tactical advantage.

The article is equally correct to highlight intelligence gathering by criminal groups. Many kidnappings and attacks are preceded by surveillance, information leaks, pattern analysis and exploitation of routine behaviour. In several parts of the country, criminal groups have demonstrated an ability to monitor targets for extended periods before striking.

Where the Analysis Falls Short

Where the article is less convincing is in treating all such incidents as part of a single phenomenon. Not every attack on a serving or retired military officer is necessarily terrorism, revenge, or a deliberate campaign against military veterans. Different incidents have different motives.
The killing of Major General Idris Alkali in Plateau State arose from a specific communal crisis and mob violence. The assassination of former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, occurred during an attack on his vehicle while travelling near Abuja and, although widely regarded as an assassination, the precise motive remains debated. The killing of retired Air Vice Marshal Muhammad Maisaka and his grandson in Kaduna was attributed to armed gunmen, with some reports suggesting possible assassination while others pointed to criminal violence. The killing of Brigadier General Uwem Udokwere in Abuja was reported as an armed robbery and home invasion. There have also been cases involving the kidnapping of senior retired officers, including Major General Maharazu Tsiga, Major General Duru (fate unknown) and, more recently, Major General Rabe Abubakar.
While the victims share a military background, the motives behind these attacks are not always identical. Some may be acts of terrorism, some kidnappings for ransom, some targeted assassinations, some revenge attacks, and some simply manifestations of the broader criminal insecurity affecting many parts of the country.

From a professional security perspective, at least four categories should be distinguished:

1. Terrorist or insurgent targeting – retaliation against officers associated with counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operations.
2. Kidnapping for ransom Or prisoner swap – officers targeted because they are perceived as wealthy, influential or capable of attracting substantial ransom payments.
3. Targeted assassinations – where motives may be personal, political, criminal, economic or linked to previous service.
4. General criminality – armed robbery, home invasion, communal violence and other crimes that could affect any citizen.
One weakness of the article is that it tends to merge all four categories into a single narrative of “terrorists targeting senior military officers.” While that makes for a compelling headline, it is analytically imprecise. A proper security assessment must distinguish between them because each category requires a different prevention and response strategy.

The Missing Dimension: Community Security Versus Personality Security

There is also one major point missing from the article.The solution is not, and cannot be, to place every retired general under permanent armed protection. Nigeria has thousands of retired military personnel, police officers, judges, senior civil servants, traditional rulers and other high-profile citizens. No country, regardless of its resources, can realistically assign a platoon—or even a section—of troops to every retired senior officer.
Retired military officers are ultimately a subset of the wider civilian population. They live in the same communities, travel on the same roads, attend the same places of worship, use the same markets and depend on the same public security infrastructure as ordinary citizens. Therefore, the most sustainable way to protect retired officers is not through exclusive security arrangements but through improving the overall security environment for everyone.
If roads are secure, communities are protected, intelligence networks are functioning effectively, emergency response times are short, and criminal groups are denied freedom of movement, retired generals will be safer because the communities in which they live are safer. Conversely, if an entire community is insecure, the presence of one or two armed escorts will rarely stop a determined kidnapping or assassination attempt by a well-organised criminal group.
The strategic objective should therefore be community security rather than personality security. Protect the community effectively and retired officers, traditional rulers, business leaders, civil servants and ordinary citizens alike will benefit from the same protective umbrella. Strengthening the security system as a whole is far more sustainable than attempting to harden individual targets one at a time.

An Additional Observation

The article correctly mentions intelligence gathering by criminals, but it does not sufficiently address the larger question of why such actors are able to operate with relative freedom in some areas.

Historically, intelligence work involved deep penetration of communities and hostile networks. Many Nigerians grew up knowing that the man selling cigarettes near a motor park, the trader in a local market, or even the apparently harmless drifter on the street might in fact be an intelligence operative quietly gathering information. When I joined military service in the 1980s, it was not unusual for intelligence personnel to travel in crowded buses molue spend time in border communities, or blend into local environments simply to observe, listen and collect information.
Today, there is sometimes a perception that intelligence has become overly centralized, office-bound federal and state capitals bound and focused on VIP protection and official engagements. Whether entirely fair or not, the lesson remains valid: effective intelligence against bandits, terrorists and kidnappers is rarely gathered from behind desks. It is gathered through human networks, local knowledge, undercover penetration, community engagement and persistent presence where the threat actually exists. Intelligence personnel should be in markets, transport hubs, border communities, livestock routes, mining sites and vulnerable rural areas—not merely in conference rooms and official convoys.

Conclusion
The article correctly identifies a serious security concern and rightly draws attention to the psychological and symbolic effects of such attacks. However, it somewhat overstates the idea of a deliberate campaign against senior military officers and understates the broader reality that these incidents are symptoms of a wider insecurity affecting the entire population.

The most effective response is therefore not increased VIP protection, but stronger intelligence, better policing, improved community engagement, faster response capabilities, more aggressive action against informants and criminal facilitators, and the restoration of state presence in vulnerable areas.

Ultimately, the true measure of success is not how many escorts a retired general has, but how safe the average Nigerian feels in his or her own community. Ex generals ex security personnel are a sub set of the community. If Nigeria succeeds in securing its communities, roads, markets and villages, retired military officers will be protected as part of that success. If it fails to secure the wider population, no realistic number of escorts will ever be enough. That is the central strategic lesson that should be drawn from these unfortunate incidents.

Group Captain Sadeeq Garba Shehu rtd., Private Security and Defence Consultant, Adjunct Professor George C Marshall European Centre for Security Studies Germany