Scholar Credits Buratai-Era Reforms for Military Gains Against Boko Haram, Warns Against Reversing Course
By Matthew Eloyi
A newly published scholarly study says the Nigerian Army’s adoption of “mission command” and a series of institutional reforms between 2015 and 2021 helped it degrade Boko Haram and ISWAP’s territorial control, and is urging current military leadership not to reverse the changes.
The book, “Military Transformational Leadership in Action: The Buratai Era,” by Dr. Mohammed Sani Abubakar, examines the tenure of Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, CFR, Rtd, as Chief of Army Staff. In an exclusive interview with our correspondent, Dr. Abubakar said the seven-year research project, which began in 2016, was designed to document how leadership decisions and doctrine translated into results on the battlefield, an area he said had been widely commented on but rarely studied rigorously. He stressed the book is a scholarly examination, not a biography.
“There was very little academic documentation of how leadership decisions, doctrine, and institutional reforms actually produced results on the ground,” he said.
Dr. Abubakar identified the deliberate adoption of mission command at the tactical level as the most significant doctrinal change of the period, saying it empowered junior commanders to act on their own initiative rather than waiting for clearance from Abuja. He said this was paired with a greater emphasis on intelligence-driven operations, civil-military cooperation, and integration of special forces with conventional units, along with an after-action review culture that allowed the Army to learn from setbacks.
The book points to three institutional reforms as having the greatest long-term effect: the expansion of scenario-based training for asymmetric warfare; improvements to logistics, medical evacuation and equipment maintenance; and the creation of new divisions and operational commands that decentralised decision-making. Dr. Abubakar said the evidence lies in battalions now able to run independent operations and in the Army’s capacity to deploy across multiple theatres simultaneously.
Asked about the hardest decisions of the period, Dr. Abubakar cited resource allocation under scarcity – deciding where to concentrate limited platforms, commanders and intelligence assets -and the pressure to act on incomplete information. “Leaders had to make decisions with 70% of the information and trust their subordinates to adapt,” he said, describing this as a broader lesson for military and civilian leaders operating with constrained resources.
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Dr. Abubakar said his research drew on military records, policy documents, interviews and firsthand observation, including extensive access to General Buratai built through a prior working relationship. He said he cross-checked interview accounts against official records, after-action reports and media archives, and presented multiple perspectives where sources conflicted, in order to preserve objectivity.
The book credits the period with more deliberate civil-military engagement than seen before, including quick impact projects, medical outreaches and press briefings. However, Dr. Abubakar said such efforts must be institutionalised beyond individual personalities, and that the Army, police and other agencies should treat civil-military cooperation as an operational necessity rather than public relations.
Addressing criticism that the security situation did not significantly improve over the period, Dr. Abubakar said security “is not binary,” arguing the Army recovered territory, degraded Boko Haram and ISWAP’s ability to hold ground, and restored freedom of movement in many areas, even as threats mutated into banditry, kidnapping and attacks on soft targets once kinetic pressure increased. He said his book does not claim total victory but documents what was achieved and what remains to be built upon.
On allegations of human rights violations by troops during the period, Dr. Abubakar said his research addressed the issue directly, noting the establishment of human rights desks and investigation panels. He said it would be unrealistic to claim no violations occurred in a seven-year campaign involving more than 100,000 personnel, but argued that accountability and operational effectiveness “are not opposites,” and that oversight and rules-of-engagement training must keep improving.
Dr. Abubakar’s advice to the current Chief of Army Staff was to sustain mission command and institutional learning rather than centralise decision-making again, while continuing to invest in training, troop welfare and equipment maintenance, and to deepen civil-military cooperation. “Technology and firepower win battles, but trust and intelligence from the people win the war,” he said.
He said he hopes the book informs four audiences differently: policymakers, who he said must sustain reforms regardless of who holds office; military officers, who he said must keep empowering subordinates and adapting doctrine; researchers, whom he urged to document Nigeria’s counter-insurgency experience for the study of military transformation in Africa; and young Nigerians, who he said share responsibility for national security alongside the military.
The book’s closing message, according to Dr. Abubakar, is that “transformation is not an event. It is a continuous process,” and that lessons from 2015 to 2021 must be built upon rather than forgotten as Nigeria confronts new security challenges.