BY EMAMEH GABRIEL
Since leaving office as Chief of Army Staff in January 2021, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai (retired) has made a habit of commenting on Nigeria’s security challenges across various platforms. He has spoken on television, in newspaper interviews, and at university lectures across the country, offering diagnoses and prescriptions for how the military should handle banditry, kidnapping, and insurgency.
His most recent comments came on June 1, 2026, when he appeared on TVC and declared that he does not believe security agencies cannot locate bandits. “If they can locate ordinary citizens or social media influencers,” he said, “I don’t believe they cannot locate these bandits that flaunt their loot” .
Perhaps his intentions are noble. Perhaps he genuinely believes he is helping. Or perhaps, like many retired generals the world over, he simply cannot resist the urge to tell the current occupants of his old office how they are getting it wrong. But here is the problem. Sometimes a statesman needs to know when to talk and when to keep quiet, especially when the subject is national security. And especially when his own record, now firmly in the rearview mirror, offers very little to boast about.
Buratai was Chief of Army Staff for six years. Six full years. From July 2015 to January 2021. That is longer than many cabinet ministers last and longer than some presidents stay in office. He is, in fact, Nigeria’s longest-serving Army chief in democratic history.
And in those six years, how many terrorist kingpins did he locate?
Between July 2015, when he assumed office, and January 2021, when he left, Nigeria recorded at least 1,350 schoolchildren abducted in mass school attacks. This figure includes the Dapchi abduction of February 2018, where 110 schoolgirls were taken and Leah Sharibu remains in captivity to this day. It includes the Kankara abduction of December 2020, where over 300 boys were marched into the forest. It includes the Kagara abduction of February 2021, where 27 students were taken along with teachers and family members. It includes the Jangebe abduction of February 2021, where 317 girls were taken in one of the largest mass school abductions on record.
These are not abstract statistics. They are children, who were taken on Buratai’s watch. The fact that many were eventually released after negotiations (allegedly) does not erase the trauma of their abduction or the failure that made it possible.
For context, the ICIR reported that the Buhari administration, under which Buratai served, recorded a 300 per cent increase in schoolchildren abductions compared to the Jonathan administration that preceded it. That is not a record to be proud of. That is a record that should give any retired general pause before he opens his mouth to criticise his successors.
His Record in Numbers
On June 1, 2026, Buratai appeared on TVC to dissect the abduction of schoolchildren in Oyo State. His message was confident, almost dismissive. He insisted that security agencies possess the capacity to locate bandits. “I don’t believe they failed to locate,” he said. “If they can locate ordinary citizens, social media influencers, I don’t believe they cannot locate these bandits that flaunt their loots” .
He went further. He said Nigeria possesses specialised units trained for sensitive rescue operations, including the Navy’s Special Boat Service and the Army’s Special Forces. He said the Army has rescue and VIP protection units. He said the only reason these missions take time is the need to avoid collateral damage .
All of this may be true. But here is what Buratai did not mention: when he was the one sitting in the command center, when he was the one with access to the same technology and the same special forces, the results were not exactly spectacular.
Let me be fair. Buratai inherited a difficult situation. When he took over in 2015, Boko Haram controlled several local governments in the North-East. By the time he left, the insurgents had been pushed back, confined largely to the Sambisa Forest and the Lake Chad basin. That is not nothing. He also, to his credit, was willing to put himself in harm’s way. In 2017, he revealed that his convoy was ambushed in Mafa village, Borno State. He lost two soldiers, including an officer. Ten terrorists were killed. Five were captured.
But here is the difference between Buratai and the security chiefs he now implicitly criticises. The men currently in the trenches have achieved something Buratai never did during his six years: they have captured and prosecuted terrorist leaders.
The elimination of ISIS second in command and other senior ring heads of both ISWAP and ISIS in recent times are records you can erase.
Three months ago, troops arrested Sule Yellow, a suspected bandit who used the TikTok handle @suleyellow6 to promote the activities of criminal gangs. He was taken into custody after reportedly collecting ransom from a victim’s family. On June 3, 2026, four suspects linked to the Owo church massacre were sentenced to death. In a separate operation, the DSS recently arrested a wanted terrorist kingpin, Ibrahim Rabiu, also known as “Vendetta,” in Kaduna.
These are not small achievements. These are terrorist leaders and attackers brought to justice. They happened under the current administration.
Under Buratai, Abubakar Shekau remained at large. The Boko Haram leader was not killed until May 2021, four months after Buratai left office. The kingpins were still operating. The abductions were still happening. The soldiers were still dying.
Let me recall, as many Nigerians do, the steady drumbeat of bad news during Buratai’s tenure. According to the Nigeria Security Tracker, security operatives were dying with alarming regularity. In 2018, at least 268 were killed. In 2019, that number climbed to 357. By 2020, it had reached 609.
Six hundred and nine security operatives killed in a single year. That was Buratai’s fifth year as Chief of Army Staff. The year the terrorists were supposedly being contained.
A report prepared for the European Peace Facility found that between 2015 and 2020, the entirety of Buratai’s tenure as army chief, no fewer than 1,297 soldiers were killed in the fight against Boko Haram and ISWAP. Nigeria accounted for the overwhelming majority of those fatalities.
One thousand, two hundred and ninety-seven soldiers. Buratai was their commander. And now he wants to tell the current military how to do its job.
The Shadow of Zaria
There is another matter that Buratai’s recent media appearances have conveniently avoided. The Zaria massacre of December 2015.
Buratai had only been Army chief for five months when his convoy was reportedly blocked by Shiite protesters in Zaria. What followed was a military operation that, according to the Kaduna State Government, left 347 Shiite members dead. The Islamic Movement in Nigeria puts the figure much higher—over 1,000 killed, including 193 children and 23 pregnant women. The government conducted a mass burial. The bodies were dumped in a single grave.
In 2021, a civil society organisation called on the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute Buratai for alleged crimes against humanity, including the Zaria killings. The group also accused him of ordering the killing of civilians during the #EndSARS protests at the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020.
These allegations have never been fully investigated. The victims’ families are still waiting for justice. And Buratai, instead of answering these questions, is on television telling the current security chiefs how to do their jobs.
There is a word for this. It is called chutzpah.
I am reminded of a story that Olusegun Adeniyi once told about the Russian czar Nicholas I and the rebel Kondraty Ryleyev. Ryleyev was sentenced to death. The rope broke during his hanging. In those days, that was considered a sign from heaven. The man should have been pardoned. But as he stood up, bruised but alive, he made the mistake of opening his mouth. “In Russia,” he said, “they don’t know how to do anything properly, not even how to make rope.”
The czar heard of his words. The pardon was torn up. The next day, the rope did not break.
The lesson is simple: once the words are out, you cannot take them back. Buratai has opened his mouth. He has said that security agencies can locate bandits if they want to. He has implied that the only reason criminals are not caught is because someone does not want them caught. If that is true, then the question must be asked: under his watch, when he was the one calling the shots, where were the captures? Where were the kingpins? Where were the terrorists paraded before the cameras?
Reno Omokri, Nigeria’s ambassador-designate to Mexico, put it well in his response to Buratai. He reminded the former army chief that it took the United States nearly thirteen years to locate and kill Osama bin Laden, despite satellites, a global spy network, and all the technological and human resources available to the world’s only superpower.
“It took almost thirteen years to get Osama Bin Laden despite the satellites, global spy network, and other technological and human resources available to the United States,” Omokri said. “So, General Buratai may want to understand that it is not as easy as he makes it appear to Nigerians.”
He then delivered the closing blow: “Rather than making statements that risk eroding Nigerian citizens’ confidence in their government and its security architecture, perhaps General Buratai, as a former Nigerian Ambassador, whose words should build faith in Nigeria, may want to take an informed position and weigh his public utterances in light of the privileged position he once held.”
Buratai held a privileged position. For six years, he sat in the command centre. He had access to intelligence that the rest of us will never see. He had the authority to direct operations, to approve raids, to order arrests. He had the very technology and manpower that he now says should be enough to locate bandits.
And yet, when he left office in January 2021, Boko Haram and ISWAP were still very much alive. Shekau was still at large—he would not be killed until four months later. The kingpins were still operating. The abductions were still happening.
So when Buratai speaks now, when he suggests that the current security chiefs are not doing enough, when he implies that the technology exists and the only thing missing is the will, one cannot help but wonder: is he talking about them, or is he talking about himself?
The truth is that Buratai did not solve the problem of school abductions. He did not capture the kingpins. He did not bring the Zaria victims to justice. He presided over a period of heavy military casualties and left office with the job unfinished.
So here is my advice to the retired general, offered in the same spirit of public service that he claims for himself: stop talking.
Discussion about this post