- * As Son Takes Over His Father's Place
By Celestine Okafor.(Editor-in-Chief/Defence Correspondent) @CeleOkaf11
President Idris Deby of Chad was on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, Killed after sustaining gunshot wounds during armed skirmishes with the Chadian rebels, the military authorities in Chad have revealed.
Deby, 68, as Commander-in-Chief of the Chadian Armed Forces for 30 years, was known to always lead assaults from the front where a battle was hot.
Spokesman of the Chadian Army, General Azem Bermandoa Agouna, said in a statement read out on state television that Deby who won elections for another term a few days ago “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend.
According to of the Army, Deby and the troops engaged rebels in a duel on the northern flank of the country. His death happened 24 hours after he won elections for a sixth mandate.
In the 11 April election, Kodi Mahamat Bam, Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission announced that Deby came first with 79.32 percent of the votes cast; Albert Pahimi Padacke, former prime minister, was second with 10.32; and Lydie Beassemda, the first female presidential candidate in Chad’s history, came third with 3.16 percent.a
Last year, he helped Nigeria to wage war against Boko Haram, liberating a part of Nigerian territory from the insurgents.
President Idris Deby of Chad has made a U-turn on his move to pull out of the regional anti-militant fight days after he made the statement, Africa feeds reported.
After his successful campaign against Boko Haram last week, he made a grand entry into Ndjamena the way Julius Caesar did after his defeat of Pompey. Immediately, he became the toast of the Western media as the strongman of the Chad Basin, the Maghreb and West Africa.
And as an African whose head is bound to swell after listening to his own panegyrics, Idris Deby said he was no longer to take part in any blitzkrieg against the insurgents. In fact, he invited Nigeria, the big neighbor, to come and take over the liberated territory since he was not another Attila the Hun, ready for territorial conquest!
He told his soldiers in the battlefield that “This place will be our zone until Nigeria sends its troops. Stay with them for about a month. Do not let them free captured weapons or any Boko Haram (fighters).” The pull-out was to affect operations related to Boko Haram in the Lake Chad basin and other militant groups in the Sahel region.
However, another statement from Ndjamena made Deby’s colleagues in the Chad basin heave a sigh of relief. According to the Africa feed report, a government statement has now said that the Chadian army will continue to participate in joint military operations against militant jihadist groups. “The statement said those efforts will cover the region, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali.”
According to the government, Deby’s remarks were only meant to signal that the army would no longer conduct unilateral operations beyond its borders.
“It was never a question for Chad of disengaging from the (anti-Boko Haram) Multinational Joint Task Force or from the G5 Sahel joint force, much less from (MINUSMA),” the statement said.
The report has it further: “Chad is part of the Joint Multinational Task Force, JMNTF which is made up of countries in the Lake Chad region impacted significantly by the Boko Haram insurgency. The main members are Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon with Benin also contributing some personnel.
Chad is also part of the G5 Sahel operation to fight terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM. The G5 in the Sahel also comprises Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso. President Deby in recent weeks visited Chadian troops in areas Boko Haram and other militants have been launching attacks against Chadian soldiers. Chad destroyed five bases of the Boko Haram in response to an attack on a military base on March 23 that killed 98 Chadian soldiers.
Deby said after arriving back from his visit to the troops that “Our troops have died for Lake Chad and the Sahel. From today, no Chadian soldiers will take part in a military mission outside Chad.” He had already claimed victory over the terrorist group, Boko Haram saying their bases have been completely destroyed. Since Boko Haram launched its bloody insurgency in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria more than 30,000 people have been killed and nearly 3 million displaced. Boko Haram’s activities have extended beyond Nigeria to other countries within the Lake Chad Basin covering Niger, Chad and Cameroon. These countries continue to struggle to completely defeat the terror group and often suffer deadly attacks from the group.”
Meanwhile, the Chadian Army has announced late Idris Deby's 37-year-old son, Mahamat Idris Deby, a four-star General in the Chadian military as the new leader of the country.
Deby died on the battlefield after three decades in power, the army announced. The shocking announcement came after the 68-year-old was proclaimed the winner of a presidential election that had given him a sixth term in office.
The army said Deby had been commanding his army at the weekend as it battled against rebels who had launched a major incursion into the north of the country on election day.
Deby “has just breathed his last breath defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield,” army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television.
Deby, 68, had ruled Chad with an iron fist for three decades but was a key ally in the West’s anti-jihadist campaign in the troubled Sahel region.
On Monday, the army had claimed a “great victory” in its battle against the rebels from neighbouring Libya, saying it had killed 300 fighters, with the loss of five soldiers in its own ranks during eight days of combat.
Deby would have been one of the longest-serving leaders in the world, after provisional results showed him winning the April 11 election.
He was a herder’s son from the Zaghawa ethnic group who took the classic path to power through the army, and relished the military culture.
His latest election victory — with almost 80 percent of the vote — had never been in doubt, with a divided opposition, boycott calls, and a campaign in which demonstrations were banned or dispersed.
Deby had campaigned on a promise of bringing peace and security to the region, but his pledges were undermined by the rebel incursion.
The government had sought Monday to assure concerned residents that the offensive was over.
There had been panic in some areas of N’Djamena on Monday after tanks were deployed along the city’s main roads, an AFP journalist reported.
The tanks were later withdrawn apart from a perimeter around the president’s office, which is under heavy security during normal times.
“The establishment of a security deployment in certain areas of the capital seems to have been misunderstood,” government spokesman Cherif Mahamat Zene had said on Twitter on Monday.
“There is no particular threat to fear.”
However, the US embassy in N’Djamena had on Saturday ordered non-essential personnel to leave the country, warning of possible violence in the capital. Britain also urged its nationals to leave.
France’s embassy said in an advisory to its nationals in Chad that the deployment was a precaution and there was no specific threat to the capital.
The rebel raid in the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem was carried out by the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), based in Libya.
The group has a non-aggression pact with Khalifa Haftar, a military strongman who controls much of Libya’s east.
FACT, a group mainly made up of the Saharan Goran people, said in a statement Sunday that it had “liberated” the Kanem region. Such claims in remote desert combat zones are difficult to verify.
The Tibesti mountains near the Libyan frontier frequently see fighting between rebels and the army, as well as in the northeast bordering Sudan. French air strikes were needed to stop an incursion there in February 2019.
In February 2008, a rebel assault reached the gates of the presidential palace before being pushed back with French backing. (Source: Africa Feeds and AFP). NNL
