For some of us who were old enough to have experienced the era of military rule in Nigeria, the mere mention of a rumoured coup d’etat was more than enough reason to send jitters down our spine.
Our democracy is anything but ideal, but the mere contemplation of replacing that with some Jackboot as head of state, for me, is inconceivable. The soldiers belong to the barracks and there they should remain.
But having expressed this caveat, there is the need for us to pause a while, do some introspection and ask some probing and critical questions around our 26 years of uninterrupted so-called democracy.
Rumours were rife in the last two weeks about the arrest of 16 senior military officers over an alleged coup attempt.
However, typical of our way of officially reacting or responding to issues such as this, the military authorities have continued to deny that the officers were arrested over a coup plot.
Tukur Gusau, Director of Defence Information, said, “The Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN) wishes to categorically state that the claims by the said publication are entirely false.”
The military said the 16 officers had been arrested over “issues of indiscipline.”
The army announced that “a routine military exercise has resulted in the arrest of sixteen officers over issues of indiscipline and breach of service regulations,” adding, “Investigations have revealed that their grievances stemmed largely from perceived career stagnation caused by repeated failure in promotion examinations, among other issues.”
Gusau said the investigation was “a routine internal process aimed at ensuring discipline and professionalism are maintained within the ranks.”
The explanation for the arrests left more questions than answers. This is because to say they were arrested for issues concerning career stagnation does not hold water. If indeed the reason for their stagnation was because they failed the necessary examination for promotion, then they have nobody else to blame but themselves. But pray, when has that become an offence to warrant arrest? Career stagnation, at worst, can only attract retirement.
We have had some generals who rose to the highest rank in the military without passing some military required professional courses.
While Nigerians were pondering over all of these, suddenly the news of the sack of the service chiefs by President Bola Tinubu came in on Friday.
Again, while announcing the sudden sack of the military bigwigs, the presidency said the reasons for the sack are unconnected with the rumoured coup.
The Presidency said it was a move to “inject new direction” into the armed forces.
The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said that Tinubu acted within his authority to make leadership changes in the military.
“Service chiefs can be hired and fired by the President. He is the Commander-in-Chief. He has the power to hire and fire.”
Onanuga’s submission about the President’s power to hire and fire is common knowledge and a no brainer. But the coincidence in the arrests and trial of the 16 officers, the cancellation of military parade during the nation’s independence anniversary on October 1, and now the sack of the service chiefs all in one month, is too much to be dismissed as a mere happenstance.
True be told, with or without the admission of the Federal government, whether there was a coup plot or not is not so much the worry. The real thing to worry about is that a coup can still take place and so those under the illusion that it cannot happen here will be doing a great disservice to themselves.
Nigeria is not immune from the increasing wave of coups in Africa. The nexus between these military putsch and our irresponsible civilian leadership across the continent is very clear for all to see.
Again, another common denominator wherever these soldiers strike is that they often ride on the sentiment of the people for validation.
To say that our political class have behaved irresponsibly is to state the obvious. This has been the case since our return to democracy in 1999, and getting worse by the day. The devil-may-care and the in-your-face display of opulence by the political class in a society of mass hunger and deprivation is a call to anarchy. Whether we want to admit it or not.
How on earth can the use of a limousine as an official car by a politician who has not done anything outside public service be justified? How do you tell people to buy Nigeria or Nigeria first, when all public officers travel abroad to treat flu or hold birthday parties? How do you abandon our hospitals and leave our schools in decrepit conditions and your children all go to schools abroad?
Whether we want to admit it or not, Nigerians are not happy with our democracy. A democracy that daily seeks to preserve the interests and maintain the status quo, legally and otherwise, of the rich while throwing the ordinary folks under the bus, will not enjoy the sympathy of the people when these guys strike.
A democracy that is daily blurring the divides and uniqueness among the three arms of government, all in the name of loyalty to the Executive will not enjoy the support of the masses when the khaki boys come calling.
It amounts to wishful thinking to believe that with insecurity rising, poverty increasing while our politicians are sending ’emails’ to fellow legislators to celebrate at the Senate, the downtrodden will have nothing to lose when a coup d’etat occurs. A democracy that is getting increasingly intolerant of dissent is akin to dictatorship. A democratic government that ordered the killing of harmless youth protesting the high-handedness of the police, is totalitarianism in disguise.
There is no gain saying that the reason why coup d’etat across Africa is spreading is because the coupists enjoy the support or sympathy of the people.
Finally, as we said in the opening remarks here, one of the reasons democracy still trumps military dictatorship is that in the former, there’s hope that after 8 years there will be change but in the latter, there is no guarantee how long the soldiers will stay. But when one disastrous civilian rule is followed by another for many years, there is hardly anything to lose if there is an interruption.
To avert this ugly option, our politicians must get serious and prioritise service over irresponsible behaviour, ostentatious and obscene acquisitions of public funds and wealth. They have everything to lose. The ordinary people who are already on the ground and preoccupied with existential threats, need fear no fall.
