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I am today yielding the column to Professor Steve Egbo, a Lecturer cum Resource Person at the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies(NILDS), Abuja.
A very profilic younger friend of mine who regular readers of the column must by now be quite familiar with as I have severally quoted him, contributing seminal interventions on many issues interrogated on these pages.
He will be discussing the various ramifications of the recent, very unfortunate call for the return of the military by some people who were, no doubt, inspired to do so by politicians who failed dismally at the 2023 Presidential election, alongside their idle hangers-on. They also recruited, in some parts of the country, some urchins who were instructed to be shouting the name of President Putin, the same autocratic Russian president, who was to come and help facilitate their intended illegality.
Happy reading.
Last week, the Guardian newspaper published an editorial comment in which it marvelled at seeing some Nigerians publicly calling for a military take over of power in the country. Before the publication, the social media had been awash with such calls, together with rallies in some cities at which the military was being nudged on to so act.
Also, during the #EndBadGovernance# protest of August, 2024, people were seen on streets, begging the military to intervene in the political process.
In her book, ‘Times to Remember,’ Rose Kennedy, President JFK’s mother, stated that the most significant thing about living long is that things you never expected to happen, begin to happen. She wrote that book at age 83.
Before now it would have been unbelievable that any Nigerian, especially those above age 40
could, so openly and brazenly, be expressing a preference for military intervention in the governance of the country. Unfortunately, we have now all seen that happen, landing Nigeria at a torridly dangerous crossroad.
It was Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a man of great intellect and wisdom, who famously stated that the worst civil government was infinitely better than the best military government. Were Chief Awolowo to stop by in Nigeria today, and see the mess politicians have made of it, his reaction could only be left to the imagination.
So, how did we get here?
After the blood and toil that Nigerians expended, ridding the country of the likes of Sani Abacha, Ibrahim Babangida, and their fellow conquistadors, it is benumbing, seeing Nigerians calling for their return.
Not unexpectedly, government spokespersons have, grandiloquently come out to condemn the calls. The military high command has equally condemned, and rejected the cowardly invitation, while assuring Nigerians of the military’s commitment and loyalty to both the Nigerian constitution and the incumbent government.
Comforting as this assurance is, it failed to answer the big question which is why despite the crudity, the human rights violations, abuses and sundry atrocities associated with military rule, anybody could wish to see soldiers back in power?
This is the big question confronting us.
Nigerians born in 1999, the very year Nigerians saw the back of the military, are now in their mid- 20s, while those born under Babangida and Abacha would be in their late 20s and early, to mid 30s.
They know little of what military rule truly was, and they had probably been too preoccupied, or plain uninterested, in reading any of the several books that chronicled what chaos that period represents in the history of our country.
But is this unconscionable call just about the ignorance of our youth population, or the consuming hatred of those who are still smarting, and unable, to come to terms with the outcome of the last presidential election? Or are we, indeed, dealing with something much more fundamental and encompassing?
Nigeria’s first republic lasted a mere five years followed by thirteen years of military rule. The second republic lasted another four years and the military was again in power for the next 16 years.
With blood and tears, Nigerians fought relentlessly, clawing and biting, to send the soldiers back where they belong. Far too many Nigerians lost their lives in those better forgotten years of impunity and indescribable corruption, during which citizens were incarcerated and tortured, at will, in military dungeons. Nigerians who had the means simply fled into exile.
In 1999, the military made its final retreat and handed over power to politicians.
And Nigerians thought that a new era was here at last. Unfortunately, from that date till now, the country has steadily declined in spite of all the promises of life more abundant.
Winston Churchill it was who once said that “democracy may not be the best form of government, but insisted that “none is better”.
Democracy has characteristics that confer on it greater appeal than any other form of government. These include mass participation through the representative process, periodic elections, rule of law and adherence to the due process among others. Countries that respect these principles have seen democracy work, and the citizens have reaped the dividends.
But not Nigeria which has, unfortunately, moved in the opposite direction.
Our elected representatives, when not beating up their fellow citizens, represent only themselves. You would think they are drunk on something when you see them roughening up less privileged Nigerians.
What we call elections are mere periodic selections, just as our constitution regulates nothing. Instead of the rule of law, what we have is the law of the rulers. It is what trumps everything.
In government, due process is what the man at the top calls it – service rules be damned.
What an unfortunate, thoroughly beleaguered country? The military was no good, nor are the politicians any better.
The first republic was fashioned after the British parliamentary system. It failed. We, thereafter, opted for the American presidential system and they have all but bastardised it. Indeed, its failure has been more catastrophic as we merely changed the vehicle, but not the drivers.
As Shakespeare once lamented, “the fault lies, not in our stars, but in ourselves…”. So, the fault is not in the system but squarely in the managers of the system – that is, the political class.
They have deliberately and blatantly refused to adhere to the rules of the game.
Nigerian politicians have heaped, and continue to heap, so much abuse on the process that the country has literally grounded to a halt. Impunity, recklessness, lawlessness, insensitivity, systemic abuse, gross manipulations, deliberate sabotage and several other forms of negativities are now arrayed against the country by those very persons, and institutions expected to make it liveable.
It is all so sad.
Every socio-political system has a responsibility to the citizenry. Nigerian political leaders, and office holders, have flatly neglected this responsibility to the Nigerian people. Public office has become personalised and commercialised. They are bought and sold. And only those who can afford it can attain it. And in this commercial spirit and environment, no organ of government is spared the rot.
People no longer aspire to any office in order to serve the public good. They buy office in order to serve personal interests and the interests of their families and friends.
And while the buying and selling continue, Nigerians are completely forgotten, left only with the short end of the stick.
Nigerian youths are the greatest victim. With poor, or no education, lack of employment opportunities and the absence of avenues to express their youthful energies, they find outlets in negative pastimes – drugs, alcohol, prostitution, yahoo yahoo etc.
Poverty has become so socialised only those in the corridors of power do not experience it. Government policies, programs, preferences, values and priorities, even the words of their mouths, show serious disconnect from the realities on ground, as in when a senator bemoaned his ‘miniscule’ N14M monthly takehome. For them, it matters nothing if millions go to bed hungry every night.
Nigerian leaders bastardised democracy so much so, that citizens, neglected, frustrated, left angry and hungry, now look up to the military as a refuge from democracy.
Left at the mercy of bandits, kidnappers, murderers, extortionists and ritualists, life in Nigeria has relapsed into the dreadful state of nature which Thomas Hobbes denounced as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutal and short”.
Nigerians now sell everything they have to buy a one way ticket, for the entire family, to escape to foreign lands. Many migrate to menial jobs overseas, and endure whatever humiliation they are subjected to, rather than stay in a country that offers them nothing.
1999 was Nigeria’s second independence – a glorious dawn and a new beginning after the military had been fought to a standstill, in much the same way as the nationalists fought the colonialists. Nigerians welcomed democracy with high hopes and great expectations.
But all hope has now come to nothing, completely evaporated, the reason some people were, unreflectingly, calling for the military to come back.
But returning to one’s vomit is not an act of courage. Neither is it a prospect anyone contemplates with pride. It is an act of surrender to a condition that burdens the soul and breaks the human spirit. Nigerians are broken. That Nigerians are asking for the return of the military is the greatest atrocity Nigerian politicians, and militricians, have perpetrated against the Nigerian people and they must be held squarely responsible.
Will the military heed their call? Absolutely not. They dare not because neither Nigeria, nor Nigerians fared better under them too.The military’s place is in the barracks. Period.
But I have no doubt that when the story of this era in the annals of Nigerian history is told, historians will record that in the hands of predatory Nigerian rulers, democracy died.
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