Yusuf, An Army General at Work
Okey Ikechukwu
As Commander of the Multi National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), comprising detachments of the armed forces of Chad, Niger, Cameroun and Nigeria, Maj Gen Ibrahim Manu Yusuf left an indelible impression on his troops and on the joint efforts of the four affected countries in tackling insurgency. Before all that he was at the Nigerian Army Resource Centre, where his interventions stabilized the trajectory of the organization, under a new, very progressive and focused Maj Gen Wahad (Rtd). Yusuf turned up at the Nigerian Defense Academy (NDA) as its Commandant, prepared and determined to put his long history of informed engagement in hands-on military service and in driving learning and training within the Nigerian army to the best use possible.
As newly appointed Commandant of the NDA, his concerns were many. One of the most consistently needling was his desire to refocus the Academy as the specialized military university that it was originally designed to be, but with one eye on the profile and performance of similar institutions all over the world and the other on the peculiar needs of our environment and the demands of an increasingly virtual world with new paradigms for training and learning. Since the original vision and mission of the institution did not quite envisage the existing services, post-graduate programmes and other deliverables, including the generally expanded capacities of the NDA, it was only proper that a new strategic plan is devised, especially for the Academic Branch of the institution.
Thus, the General convened a wide spectrum retreat to reposition the NDA. He pegged his decision on the fact that the institution needed regular review of its “strategic focus, including curricula, knowledge delivery tools and methods, to ensure continued relevance competitiveness, quality assurance, and credibility in the academic community.”
He held that past strategic retreats made significant contributions to the growth and development of the NDA’s academic faculty, programmes, learning infrastructure, partnerships, and knowledge delivery models; but that these past efforts did not spell out “clear responsibility anchors, key drivers, action plans, timelines, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)”. For this and other reasons, his retreat of 2022, which was designed to enable the Academic Branch of the NDA conduct a detailed Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis and propose a roadmap for transformation, set out to design a template that would eventually transform the institution into one of the ten best universities in Nigeria within the next ten years.
To ensure maximum cross-fertilisation of ideas, Maj Gen Yusuf deliberately ensured that the retreat organized under him included the wider the academic community, the NDA’s traditional stakeholders, and professionals with global exposure. The new Strategy Document he had in view was to answer the following questions: (1) What do we need to do, to place the NDA on the right footing in a fast-changing, increasingly virtual world, wherein the very concept of warfare and military service have changed? (2) Who is to do what in the NDA, and within what timelines to achieve the new goals? (3) How can things be done differently and what are the resource implications of every proposed new line of action? (4) What are the best, globally competitive and credible, processes and procedures for the execution of an expanded, if not new, vision and mission? And (5) How will progress and impact, especially sustainable impact, be measured in this regard?
The Commandant held that the matter is not a question of designing a new trajectory on paper, but a question of determining, and guaranteeing, quality assurance in the NDA’s deliverables. He wanted the institution to step out of the retreat with implementable Action Points that would improve stakeholder perception, lead to better sectoral and industry ratings, turn in meaningful and relevant research output, and facilitate the procurement and deployment of facilities and personnel that would guarantee quality assurance and positively impact the current aspirations of the institution.
Yusuf saw, at least in part, the need to develop and ensure a consistently rigorous system with the best faculties, tools, and methodologies, Beyond that, he made every invitee to his retreat understand that his goal was to make the NDA proudly present itself as a specialized military university with improved and contemporary content, broad spectrum academic partnerships, exchange programmes, improved research funding, state of the art programme delivery methodologies, and overall faculty refinement.
In sum, he described the retreat as a call, and demand, for a document that would serve the NDA in driving revised and improved academic and other training programmes for officer cadets of the Nigerian military establishment, among other objectives. A review and realignment of academic programmes and the mastery and deployment of contemporary teaching methods and tools was anchored on Yusuf’s demand for “greater flexibility in curriculum design and delivery and the use of contemporary self-assessment techniques and Performance Assessment Systems”.
The retreat was to deliver a detailed, contemporary strategic policy document for the Academic Branch that would address the identified challenges, propose implementable solutions, with clear action points, timelines, resource needs/sources, implementation strategies, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and responsibility anchors. The document is to serve as the NDA’s roadmap, and working template, for self-reaffirmation, improved impact and a 21st Century Strategic Outlook. All said, it was all targeted towards better management, or elimination, of the increasingly blurry boundaries between academic faculties, strictly military programmes and the overall trajectory of the NDA.
Having served meritoriously for 33 years, capping it with the headship of an organization that was his nostalgic base, Maj Gen Yusuf was honoured with a Pulling Out Parade; after a year of commendable military service that saw him hold many notable command and staff positions. In his valedictory speech during the Pulling Out Parade, Yusuf acknowledged the contributions of past Commandants and recounted with nostalgia his military journey that culminated in his appointment as commandant of an institution he cherished with all his heart.
He recalled how he spent 3 years (1993–1996) in peace support operations in Liberia, under ECOMOG, how he served as Brigade Commander of 21 Armoured Brigade, during Operation Zaman Lafiya and subsequently, as GOC 7 Division during Operation Lafiya Dole. He also led his Division during Operation Deep Punch, an operation that is captured in our national military annals as “the largest, single most successful, most decisive and most enduring counter insurgency operation in the Northeast Theatre”.
To say that Maj Gen Yusuf came prepared for the job of Commandant of the NDA is no exaggeration, or platitude, because he had done four tours of duty in the Academy as an Instructor, OC Equitation Wing, Military Assistant to Commandant, Acting Adjutant and Academy Registrar. His appointment as Commandant was actually, as he confessed, his “professional ambition”. His desire to retire from the military after serving in this privileged position is a long-held desire fulfilled. Hear what he said to Nigerians on the day of his Pulling Out: “I have attained my highest goal in military service and expended all my objectives and strategies for the betterment of the Academy and the Armed Forces of Nigeria”.
Yusuf sees members of 69 Regular Course and 70 Regular Course as the best trained cadets from the Academy since it’s inception in 1964. His tenure saw the reconfiguration of the Academy to produce junior leaders with the capacity to deal with the current and future security and defence challenges confronting the nation. Besides academics, he saw to the rebirth and completion of many infrastructural projects, including some that had been abandoned for 20 years. This was in addition to new and ongoing projects, including the fortification of NDA Permanent Site, through the excavation of anti-vehicular ditches, construction of wall fence and perimeter roads.
The comprehensive review of NDA military training curriculum to meet the need of AFN in view of current national security challenges, the introduction of combat shooting and new physical fitness training parameters, and the construction of new obstacle course which is a replica of the obstacle at Shere Hills Jos are a few of his many innovative interventions.
Today, the NDA has a new link road between its Permanent Site and the NAF Base Kaduna. It also has Basic Airborne and Amphibious Courses for Army and Air Force Cadets, Basic Amphibious Course for Naval Cadets, Basic Range Management Course for Army Cadets, Instructors’ Course for Army Cadets, and a Joint FGN and World Bank approval for the construction of 2.5 Mega Watts Hybrid Power Solar Project, under the Energizing Education Programme – Phase II. This will provide a dedicated and uninterrupted power supply to the Academy; in addition to a 600KW solar power project which, upon completion, by December 2023, will provide the cadets accommodation with uninterrupted power supply.
There is much to be said about Maj Gen Yusuf’s achievements as commandant of the NDA. There is even more to be said if we look across the length and breadth of the Nigerian army during his years of service. But our concern here is to say “well done” to a man who represents the best in military service, professionalism, genuine patriotism, dedication to excellence and refinement in self-presentation.
He reminds one of the likes of late Maj Gen Maman Kontagora, one of the best ministers of works in our national history. His tenure as Administrator of Ahmadu Bello University during a crisis sometime in the nineties, rendered many noisy and self-inflated academics and scholars speechless by his administrative prowess and wide knowledge base. Yusuf’s orientation and impact also puts to shame the emotional rigidity, academic myopia and small mindedness you sometimes find among presumably well-exposed scholars. He would go to the very ends of the earth to find, and deploy, capacity anywhere he finds it.
Maj Gen I. M. Yusuf is very much understated in many ways, from the angle of public consciousness. But then, that is the way of the military. No strictly professional soldier, or well-trained officer is out for a popularity contest. They only understand duty and service. The desired end-state for any task is never an applause for them. It is to face the next assignment. So, somebody should quicky grab this man and inflict some serious tasks on him, before he goes about enjoying himself in retirement. Who knows, he may even go into hiding for all you know!
