General Buba’s Death and Our Debt to the Military, by Farooq A. Kperogi

November 29, 2025 Alabidun

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General Buba’s Death and Our Debt to the Military, by Farooq A. Kperogi

In 2020, The Atlantic published an explosive story, which claimed that in 2018 Donald Trump told advisors he could not understand why someone would fight and “die for their country” when there was no financial incentive. “They don’t make any money,” he allegedly said.

Trump denied ever saying this, but the question he was accused of asking is one that many people, sometimes silently, sometimes cynically, often ponder. Why would anyone sign up for a profession where death is in the job description, where the reward for failure is injury or burial, and where the financial compensation is modest at best?

That question returned to me with haunting clarity after the tragic capture and execution of Brigadier General Musa Buba by ISWAP terrorists near the village of Wajiroko Borno State. His death tore open a fresh wound in the collective conscience of Nigerians. It was the loss of a man who had already given his youth, his health, his labor and ultimately his life to a country that often takes such sacrifices for granted.

His death, and the heartbreaking video of his widow wailing in grief, made me reflect again on why people still choose to serve in the military despite knowing that such grief is always lurking around the corner.

The unsettling truth is that the people who volunteer for military service sign a contract that exposes them to death on behalf of the rest of us. They agree to die in our place if it comes to that. They agree to run toward gunfire while we run away from it. They agree to confront dangers, insurgents, terrorists, and bandits so the rest of us can enjoy the illusion of normalcy.

They do all this without the financial rewards that might rationalize such a bargain. They do it for reasons that are deeper and more complex than money.

People enlist for many reasons. Some do so out of patriotism or a sense of duty. Some choose a life of service because it is part of a family tradition. Some are motivated by the desire for adventure, camaraderie, or a structured life. Others join because it offers a path of social mobility. Many do it because they believe in something larger than themselves.

In Nigeria today, military personnel have become the last line of defense against a wide spectrum of threats that most modern armies are not expected to confront all at once. Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province menace the northeast. Bandits terrorize the northwest and the northcentral.

Violent secessionist groups destabilize the southeast. Oil thieves and pirates plague the Niger Delta. Kidnappers stalk highways and farmlands. All of these conflicts demand responses and interventions, often simultaneously, from a military force that is overstretched, fatigued, and insufficient in both number and resources.

Nigeria has a population of more than 230 million but a military strength of only a little over 200,000 personnel across the army, navy, and air force combined. That is a shockingly small ratio for a country confronting multiple internal wars.

Worse still, many units remain underequipped. Soldiers are deployed for months without proper rotation. Officers and enlisted men fight in terrains where they lack the tools and technology that modern warfare requires. Yet they continue to serve, taking on an impossible load because the alternative would be national collapse.

It is no surprise that what many Nigerians interpret as the arrogance of military personnel is sometimes nothing more than the survival instinct of people who operate in near-suicidal conditions. There is a certain swagger that comes from knowing you confront mortal danger so others can sleep with both eyes closed. It is not unearned. It is not misplaced.

This came into sharp relief during the recent confrontation between Navy Lieutenant A. M. Yerima and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. Although Yerima was performing a task that was beneath his training, I nonetheless saw a young man in uniform who has chosen a career where death is a daily possibility.

I saw someone whose risk profile is radically different from that of the politicians who bark orders at them. I saw someone whose job obliges him to stand between armed criminality and the rest of us, even if it costs him his life. If that produces an edge in his tone or carriage, it is understandable.

General Buba belonged to that same fraternity of men and women who live with death shadowing their every deployment. The video of his widow’s anguished lamentation captured something Nigerians rarely confront honestly. We see uniformed men and women. We see boots on the ground. What we rarely see are the families they leave behind, the children who wait for fathers who will never return, the spouses who dread the sound of a knock on the door.

Buba’s widow gave us a glimpse of this private grief that only military families truly understand. Her words, her sobs, her brokenness reminded us that every fallen officer is not just a statistic. He was a human being with hopes, aspirations, and loved ones who cared for him, hoped he would come back to them, and whose world would never be the same without him.

Contrast this with the United States where the public culture is almost worshipful of the military. Whatever one thinks of American militarism or foreign policy, the society itself shows deep and consistent reverence for those who serve.

Veterans are honored at sports events. Military families receive special recognition. Fallen soldiers are memorialized in formal ceremonies. Presidents often speak directly to the nation about soldiers killed in action. Flags are lowered. Names are recited. Sacrifice is acknowledged.

In an April 27, 2013, column titled “Baga and Boston: A Telling Tale of Two Tragedies,” I shared the following personal anecdote of the American reverence for their military:

“I recall an incident in 2005 that drives home this point. My American friend and I took a road trip to Florida from Louisiana. It was during Hurricane Katrina, which caused severe petrol shortages that led to long lines at filling stations. As we journeyed, we realized that our truck had almost completely run out of petrol. So we decided to fill our tank before proceeding. But every petrol station we went to had impossibly long lines….

“Then my American friend turned to me and said, ‘Farooq, I think I’m going to have to use my military ID to get us gas.’ I had no idea that he served in the US military. He was a graduate student like me. I told him he couldn’t pull it off. People were angry and frustrated because they had been waiting in line for hours on end…, and I thought they would never allow anyone to get ahead of them unfairly. In fact, we had been told that someone’s head had been blown off a few hours earlier at a petrol station when he attempted to jump the queue.

“But when my friend went to the petrol station manager’s office and presented his ID card, he was told to bring his car and fill it. And he had no military uniform and no gun. People in line were told that my friend was a military officer who needed to be somewhere urgently. I thought there would be a massive resistance. There wasn’t. Instead, there was a deafening chorus of ‘thank you for your service to our country.’…

That is earned respect. A Nigerian military officer in a similar situation in Nigeria would never be allowed to jump the queue without dire consequences—unless he wore his uniform and had guns.”

Nigeria can learn from this cultural instinct to treat military sacrifice as sacred. President Bola Tinubu should take the lead in shaping a new national attitude. He should improve the welfare of military officers on the war front. Better equipment, better insurance, better housing, and better living conditions should be nonnegotiable.

Moreover, the deaths of soldiers should not be acknowledged only through statements posted on social media by presidential spokespeople. Though this is a slight improvement over the previous administration, which failed to acknowledge the deaths of many senior officers even through official channels, it is still not enough. Tinubu should personally speak to the nation when officers fall in battle. It signals respect. It tells families their grief is shared. It shows the country understands the magnitude of the sacrifice.

General Musa Buba’s death is a reminder that every soldier who dies for Nigeria dies for all of us. His life and death raise a question that outlives the political dispute around Trump’s alleged remarks. Why do people choose to die for their country?

The answer is simple and profound. They do it because someone must. They do it because nations cannot survive without those willing to stand between danger and the people. They do it because they believe the safety of millions is worth more than the safety of one.

We owe them more than silence. We owe them more than perfunctory condolences. We owe them honor, dignity, and a country that recognizes that their sacrifices keep the rest of us alive.