INTERVIEW: Why I’m Supporting Peter Obi – General Enenche

Major General John Enenche is a former Director of Defence Information who served as Commandant of Army War College, Abuja, before retiring from the Nigerian Army. His association with the presidential campaign council of the Labour Party (LP) generated outrage from Nigerian youths over comments he made in 2020 about the EndSARS protests in his capacity as the defence spokesperson. In this interview with THE WHISTLER, Enenche explains why he is supporting the LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his youth-propelled movement called the Obidient Movement. Excerpts…

Can You Tell Us About Yourself And What You’ve Been Up To Lately?

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Okay, good. I’m happy to meet you this afternoon. I am Major General John Enenche, retired. I joined the Nigerian military as a cadet in 1984, for about three years and graduated in 1986.

I was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Nigerian Army Engineers. I served for a total of about 37 years, two months and 10 days. In the course of the service, I went through various courses available that trained me and brought me up to the status and rank of a major general.

Through that period, I had good training, particularly in leadership as it were, which is peculiar to the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and then also strategic training at the National Defence College among other military tertiary institutions.

Again, I held key appointments, which really influenced my experience and the knowledge I acquired. And then more so as a Coordinator, Defence Media Operations at the peak of my career.

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So in a nutshell, I had the privilege of going through the system and the system going through me, through the various courses up to the strategic level training. I was exposed to the high command whereby I had the opportunity and privilege of coordinating military operations in the country.

You Have Shown Interest In Politics Since Retirement. Did You Plan To Join Partisan Politics Before You Retired?

I never planned to go into politics. All I was planning for on retirement was for me to go into full-time ministry of preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then for a family tent-making business.

I was brought up in a business family. My parents were traders and were into the transportation business and I got led to do the same, and go into farming also. So that was my plan. The plan was almost done solidly with my wife, who was in charge of the business family. So, I was prepared to join them.

So I never planned to do anything close to politics at all. In addition, I wanted to be a consultant in my areas of academic competitive advantage as a Distinguished Fellow of the National Defence College, the Army War College and a fellow of the Nigeria Army Resource Center. For all, I am a permanent External Resource Person.

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So that was what I was prepared for in the real sense but not to go into politics. What you are saying maybe by implication, which I will not agree with. But that going into politics fully, no, that was not my intention before retirement.

You Are A Supporter Of Peter Obi Of The Labour Party, Why Do You Think He Is Different?

Yes, it is because I worked with him. That is one. I worked with him about 17 years ago, when I was the commanding officer of an Army engineers unit, in Onitsha (Anambra State). He just came in shortly after I took over as the commander. When he came in, we had this internal operation called Operation Mesa. The operation was not on the ground before he came. When he came, he appealed and it was approved for him.

I was the commander of the operation. And within two weeks normalcy was restored at the various flashpoints, the places where you had the heat of insecurity, criminality and all manner of things. It continued and within three months, the whole of our operational area of responsibility in Anambra State became very normal.

Of course, the police, you know, corroborated that much, much later, about five years into his administration, that is to buttress what I’m saying.

So that was where I knew him and with commendable attributes. He had the political will; he gave the strategic direction and also provided the logistics needed. He was there every moment, 24/7. He was in charge of the operation as the chief security officer of the state. And he was committed to the operation.

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Seeing that this man is coming out again, I reflected on what happened in the past. And I said yes, I will give him my support. That was what informed me that, because of the attributes and the kind of person he is and my encounter with him during that period.

Now, one good thing for me was that I went to Liberia from Onitsha for the United Nations Missions in Liberia. I took my battalion there. And when we returned, I discovered that the peace that we restored within six months was still sustained. So, I said yes, if this man is given another opportunity, he can still or he should still be able to replicate what he did because he’s a man that does not make excuses. It is either you deliver or you are gone.

I think within the period before I left, they changed about three Commissioners of Police for him, from what I heard. So, for such a person that will not tolerate laxity, and then you can see that because of that attitude, the police, which was supposed to be the first line, performed under the overall command of the military commander and other services.

That was what led me to say I will give him my support, and then as somebody who was outside. I was monitoring and observing the political terrain prior to the campaign; what you hear from the media is corruption, corruption, and corruption regarding leadership. That’s another thing I didn’t see mentioned anywhere about him, that he ever visited the EFCC or they invited him, nothing like that. That one was very, very important to me. Because in our setup here, corruption is now like an industry.

But here is somebody or among the people, at least among the prominent ones that I used to hear of, I didn’t hear that about him. So, in all fairness to myself, and to my conscience, I said, I will support him.

For those two reasons I know him; that he stood up and took the situation of insecurity in Anambra State headlong very well. From those two major reasons; I could now deduce competence capability and the strength which I used to see him moving. When I listened to him when he talks to Nigerians on the media, I said, well, this man, he should have something to offer in addition to what I knew about him about 17 years ago. So that’s just the simple reason why I decided to support him and become obedient.

What Are His Chances In This Election If You Want To Assess It?

As people will say, leadership is from God. For me, from the way he is going, I have never seen, even while we were growing up, that a political party with the status of the Labour Party, which we call a minor party, a party that does not have offices all over the place, will spread the way this one is spreading. I have never seen it.

And with the way people are embracing him, if I will say his ideology or what he was professing before his manifesto came out, I have never seen it. So, with that one alone, yes, he has a chance of winning because I’ve never seen where, on a daily basis, opinion polls, even for me, when I even discussed with people, majority of them I asked them who are you voting for, they will tell me it’s him. Of course, I will not say that one or two people didn’t tell me about the other prominent people.

So, with that one alone, if I will now say let me use my local population or local information sources, or from what I’m hearing, he can win. That is what I can tell Nigerians and anybody that wants to hear.

I believe that should encourage us because for us as a nation, I have heard; we have been hearing even before I came out of service, bad leadership, bad governance; or most of the interactions that I’ve had, and from local research, from other sources and documents, majority about (98%) talk about what? corruption in government. The narrative that is coming out from Mr. Peter, is that all that will change including security.

The other day, they asked him somewhere, he said even if you put a gun on his head, he will not tell you the plan that he has (on security). That is really strategic militarily. You don’t give your plans out. So, with a man talking like that, what option do I have for somebody like me to assess and predict that he can win the election?

What Do You See As Nigeria’s Future?

Our future is great. That is why we are having all these challenges. No good thing comes easy and every nation has had to pay a price for getting to where they got to. If you talk about the natural resources, we have them in reserves that can last for several generations If well harnessed.

Are we talking about human resources? You talk about the best brains in the world, medicine and all that they’re from Nigeria. If we have them in this country, remaining in this country, harnessing our natural resources things would be much better.

We’re talking about agriculture, the vast land and all can be well utilised, the minerals that we have, even if they say oil is going to be changed to gas, we can convert it to other uses for the reserves that will last us tens of decades still.

So, I see a great nation. I see greatness in Nigeria, if only we can have good governance and leadership. That is what I can see. There’s great, great hope for this country based on what God has deposited for us. It is all for us now to put the right leadership and good governance in place, and things will be better in the next few years.

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