Benjamin Amaechi 2

I recently stumbled on this video and I felt a wave of sadness. You can immediately see the lack of morale in the troops. This is so sad. We saw the Minister of Defence go before the National Assembly in February to defend its 2026 budget. The COAS office is not running on groundnut money either. These are massive institutional budgets. The kind of money that should not just buy hardware and fund operations but should also take care of the people doing the actual fighting. The soldier on ground. The man carrying rifle in Sambisa. The woman providing intelligence support in a forward operating base in Katsina. These are the people I am talking about. Because here is the thing. You can buy all the APCs and MRAPs in this world. You can hold all the strategy meetings in Abuja. But if the man pulling the trigger has not been paid his allowances in three months, if his family back home is suffering, if his barracks looks like something from a horror film, what exactly are we doing? Morale is not something you can just talk about in press conferences. It is something a soldier either has or does not have. And when he does not have it, it shows on the battlefield. What is the current state of barracks accommodation? Are troops in active theatres being rotated properly or are we just leaving the same men in the bush until they break down? When a soldier falls, is his family truly getting what they were promised? Are allowances reaching the rank and file or getting lost somewhere between Abuja and the frontline? I am asking because Nigerians deserve to know and our soldiers definitely deserve better. Dear Lt. Gen. Shaibu, Gen. Musa, nobody is questioning your commitment. But commitment must translate into something the ordinary soldier can feel. Visit the trenches more. Not with cameras and entourage, but to truly see what the boys are dealing with. Push welfare packages through. Make sure allowances land on time. Prioritise proper rotation of troops so we stop burning out the same set of people. These things are not extras. They are the absolute minimum. Nigeria asks its soldiers to give everything. The least we can do through our military leadership is make sure they are not giving everything on an empty stomach and a broken spirit. God bless the troops. God bless Nigeria. Copied