DOGS VS BOKOHARAM: The ‘dogs of war’ in Boko Haram enclave

Lance Corporal  Adi  of the Nigerian Army Corps of Military Police (NACMP) is one of the  heroes of the war against the Islamist  group, Boko Haram, in the North-east. A native of Pakistan,  Adi’s platoon was  singled out for commendation  by  the Chief of  the Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Azibuike Ihejirika,  for executing an  operation  in Maiduguri, Borno State capital..

“Acting on a tip-off that that there was a  house in the town serving as an armoury for the terrorists”,  recalled Major General Raphael Isa, Provost Marshall of the Nigeria Army, at a  crowded gathering of serving and retired military officers,  royal fathers and journalists  at the parade grounds of the Nigerian Army School of Military Police, Basawa, Zaria, Kaduna State on  Monday,” the house  was searched  thoroughly for weapons. But  not  a single weapon was found”. He went on: “Frustrated, the troops began to leave thinking the information was false”. But Adi and  his colleagues refused to leave, insisting that there were weapons concealed somewhere in the house.

Since Adi is a dog – brown-white sported Labrador – and his team were international trained canines, the human soldiers had no choice than to respect the sniffing sense of the animal.

Adi was a gift from the Pakistani Chief of  the Army Staff  to his Nigerian counterpart  when the latter visited Pakistan last year.

“On the insistence of the dog”, the Provost Marshall went on, “this time the house was taken apart  pieces by pieces”.
*One of the dogs with sniffing sense (Insert) Capt. Nneka Olimma-Osakwe

*One of the dogs with sniffing sense (Insert) Capt. Nneka Olimma-Osakwe

“If you see the kind of armaments that were recovered from the house, you will shudder.

“You could imagine what kind of damage these weapons could have wreaked on human beings”.

He had interrupted a demonstration of  the feat of  the sniffer dogs  to narrate the story.

In one of the shows, a row of army rug sacks was arranged  with  a sample of narcotics hidden in one. The sample drug was placed in one of the bags by the representative of the Director General of the Nigeria  Intelligence Agency (NIA).

It took just about five minutes for the dogs  to search the  bags to reveal the drug It would have taken about 60 minutes by a human to search the 12 bags.

Moments later, Lance Corporal   Asko, a huge tailless German Shepherd – or is it a Doberman? -was led by its handler to the sacks. He went round sniffing from bag to bag. Some four minutes after,  it arrived where the sample narcotic was concealed. It dipped its snout into the bag, sniffed and sat still beside the bag. The trainer  opened the bag and took out the offensive substance to the wonder of the crowd, which clapped at the performance.

In another, a cocktail of “ingredients” for making Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) was put in can-coke container and hidden  underneath a  car. Lcp Zana – another fierce looking German Shepherd – was led to find it among  a row  of cars. Wagging its tail, the dog  smelled the first car from corner to corner, tyre to tyre and dragged away it handler to the next car, where  the evil material was placed.

As it went from corner to corner, it pulled its handler to the spot where the bomb material was tugged up underneath the car. It went down, sniffed up, wagged its tail vigorously and went down on its four and refused to move, to indicate it had accomplished its mission.

In  an interview, the person in-charge of the training of the dogs, Capt. Nneka Olimma-Osakwe,  opened up to Sunday Vanguard about her “soldiers”.

“They are trained to be disciplined, brave and tough”, she said.

“We have about 60 of them, and each can perform most  of all the tasks though a few are specialists. They can crawl for long under enemy fire to rescue someone. They can find persons trapped in collapsed structures; help you find your way back home if you are lost, and so on. Where machines may fail, the dogs don’t make mistakes. They are very dependable”,  Nneka, who finished from Inland Girls Secondary School Onitsha in 1990 before joining  the Army in 1993, said. According to her, the   dogs and their handlers were trained in Nigeria and  the US.

“It takes a lot of effort, time and resources to train these dogs. But, most of all, you must have love for them if you must be an effective handler. It is all about love for animals, and dogs have the highest sense of smell among all animals. And you can take that advantage and make them  do so many things for the benefit of human beings and still accord them their rights and respects as reliable partners “.

“My dogs are  my soldiers. They have their ranks and they also get promotion. If they are promoted, their salary is increased.  And please don’t ask me how they spend their money . But it  is reflected by the extra luxury accorded them when promoted”, she said.

The dogs were brought in for demonstration during a one-day law enforcement seminar organised by the NACMP.

At the opening ceremony of the seminar,  Isa had this to say on  the dogs: “The performance of the Military Working Dogs (MWDs) in the North-east is a testimony of the innovation of the Chief of the Army Staff. Currently, a platoon of MWDs are being used for search and rescue operation, cordon and search, detection and other sundry operations in which excellent results are achieved,” been given for the purchase of more, to form another platoon.