By Godwin Onyeacholem
For Nigeria’s military, times have
never been this challenging. Plagued on the one hand by the fiendish activities
of some twisted minds that have taken over a vast cut of the country’s northeast
region, it is on the other assailed first by the charge of corruption against
its leadership by no less a group than many of its own low-rung soldiers, and
then an imputation of obvious interference in the electoral process by the
civil society and the main opposition party, All Progressives Congress (APC).
But let us for now skip the question of
corruption allegedly perpetrated by the top hierarchy of the military and face
the issue of clear bias in favour of the ruling People’s Democratic Party as
underscored by civil society and the APC.
The former has pointedly asked the
military chiefs to resign for the contemptibly partisan role they played in
forcing the Independent National Electoral Commission to postpone elections
earlier scheduled for February. While on its part, the latter through its
chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, openly accused the Military, especially the Army,
of working unremittingly with the presidency and the PDP with the aim of
rigging the March/April election for the PDP.
And how has the military responded to
this weighty accusation? While he’s silent on the call for the service chiefs
to resign, defence spokesman Chris Olukolade, Major-General and Director,
Defence Information, in his first reaction dismissed Oyegun’s assertion by
offering the familiar tepid and clichéd defence of the military as an
institution operating solely to protect the constitution and safeguard the
country’s territorial integrity, warning that the army should not be dragged
into politics.
And in his latest statement, he has pledged the military’s
commitment to the defence of democracy. He painted a picture of neutrality, but
what is on the ground says otherwise.
As expected, the Military’s response has
done little to erase the thick cloud of partisanship surrounding the Defence
Headquarters. Besides, Olukolade’s warning that the army should not be dragged
into politics provokes nothing but amusement – amusement because that fervent
caution is wrapped in unmistakable self-denial. The General knows that the
warning was unnecessary.
He knows it too well that the Nigerian military is
already drenched in politics, from cap to boot. However, he should be consoled
by the fact that the politicisation of the military did not begin with this
government, yet he should certainly be saddened that under this government, the
politicisation has taken a turn for the worse.
Otherwise, how do you account for this:
Just three days before the Council of State meeting at the Aso Rock villa to
which the chief of defence staff and the service chiefs were also invited, the military
top brass had at a meeting with the political parties given their word to
provide nationwide security for the general election to hold on the scheduled
dates.
But when they turned up at the villa meeting, they completely reversed
their position, citing security challenge. Nigerians would like to hear
Olukolade explain the dramatic security challenge that enabled a sudden
postponement of elections, within 72 hours of the promise of protection made by
his bosses.
Nigerians would also like to hear from
the army concerning the audio tape released by one of its exiled officers,
Captain Sagir Koli, detailing how the Presidency and the Army High Command last
June used the military, led by Brigadier-General Aliyu Momoh, to connive with
the PDP to rig the Ekiti State gubernatorial election in favour of Ayo Fayose
of PDP.
Listening to the tape, one was overcome
by a terrifying sense of horror at the way very senior PDP members holding top
positions in government schemed to decimate then APC government and subvert the
will of the people, using the army and other security agencies.
Olukolade
should bear in mind that the chief of army staff was mentioned in the tape by
Fayose as the one who supplied General Momoh’s cell phone number and, according
to the Ekiti governor, certified him capable of ensuring the success of the
rigging. Fayose said he didn’t know General Momoh before. Surely, the army
wouldn’t think Nigerians don’t deserve any clarification on this matter.
One felt thoroughly outraged, as every
right-thinking Nigerian who listened to the tape should, at the numbing
brusqueness, not to talk of the demeaning condescension with which ‘bloody
civilians’ like Musiliu Obanikoro, then Minister of State (Defence); Abduljelil
Adesiyan, Minster of Police Affairs; Iyiola Omisore, Osun State gubernatorial
candidate and Fayose addressed a whole brigadier-general of the Nigerian Army,
to the extent that General Aliyu himself, at a point, had to protest with some
measure of fury that he was not a ‘small boy.’
The above are just two among many
incidents showing lack of neutrality in the democratic process on the part of
the army. And then one wondered whether this was the same dignified army of yore,
an army which one had romanticised in his late teens and twenties, and in which
one had fancied a worthwhile career. Unfortunately, events so far have
conclusively proved the opposite. This, definitely, is not that army.
It is embarrassing enough that
countries like Niger, Cameroun and Chad are today sending troops into Nigeria’s
territory to come and help our military ward off the Boko Haram insurgents. But
for the same military to lay claim to impartiality when its actions in the
country’s democratic process clearly countermands that proclamation, seems to
indicate a military that seems to be gradually losing its raison d’etre, and as
a consequence, the confidence of the people.
Godwin
Onyeacholem can be reached on gonyeacholem@gmail.com
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