On Sunday, June 18, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte 1, the returnee Emperor of France, marched the French Imperial Army against the two armies of the Seventh Coalition at Waterloo, then in the Netherlands. The first of the Seventh Coalition Army was led by the British Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.
The Duke of Wellington, the account states, distinguished himself so well that the great Napoleon and his soldiers were badly routed. The Coalition forces marched on Paris on July 7, 1815, and forced Napoleon to abdicate the French throne. The 1815 battle ended what is known in history as the Napoleonic Wars.
The failure to stop Duke Wellington by the French Emperor marked the end of his reign and Napoleon never fought any battle till he died on May 5, 1821. Waterloo, the place of defeat is metaphorically used to describe a disastrous end of any venture or human endeavour, to date. But that is not the story here.
After the feat achieved in the battlefront, Duke Wellington led home his victorious armies drawn from the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom of Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick and Nassau. While on his high horse and followed by other Generals in the Coalition, the Duke decided on a shortcut, which happened to be a farmland.
But unbeknownst to him, the owner of the farm, peeved by the constant destruction of his corn and other crops by wayfarers using his farm as a thoroughfare, had fenced off the pathway, gated it, built a sentry post, and assigned his last child to be on guard. The farmer, a no-nonsense father, had also instructed his son that he should allow “nobody” access to the pathway.
The lad was on the sentry duty when Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley came calling with other battle-tested Generals following. The Duke met a locked gate, with a lad standing by on guard. He commanded: “Open up boy!” The lad responded: “No sir!”.
The Duke, startled, was said to have alighted from his horse, walked up to the boy and announced: “I am the Duke of Wellington”. Sizing up the Duke in his military fatigue, in what the Language of British and American Literature will describe as ‘dangerous eyeballing’, the lad asked firmly: “Would the Duke of Wellington ask a boy to disobey instructions from his father?”
Those words did the magic. The Duke got the message. He was not just a Field Marshall for fun. The Duke of Wellington understood what instructions were and how obedience to them could be sacrosanct to the success or failure of any venture.
He asked the lad: “Are you on duty here, boy?” The lad answered: “Yes, sir. My father asked me to guard here until he returns!” Turning to the other Generals, the Duke announced: “Boy, if you are on duty here, always do your duty well.” With that, he mounted his horse, others followed, and the Duke led them through the longer route to the warm welcome of the jubilant crowd waiting to celebrate the Seventh Coalition Armies for their success at the Battle Waterloo.
Seeing the Duke turning away, the lad, barefooted and clad in torn apparel, ran and announced enthusiastically, to the hearing of his father and other farmhands in the other section of the plantation: “Father, I have done what Napoleon could not do. I have turned back the Duke of Wellington”.
In one of the accounts of this incident, the British Heritage History series of Great Englishmen by the British historian, Martha Bertha Synge, otherwise known as M.B. Synge (1861-1939), states that while recounting the encounter with the lad, the Duke of Wellington, who later became British Prime Minister in 1828, said: “I once met a soldier who never wore a uniform; the little boy who would not leave his post.” The Duke further described the Battle of Waterloo as “…the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life” (Creevey Papers Chapter x, pg.236).
I have taken this historic voyage to address the encounter between Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, and Naval Lieutenant A. M. Yerima, on Monday, November 11, 2025, around Gaduwa area of the FCT, over a disputed piece of land.
Our focus today, however, is not about Wike and his conduct during the unfortunate encounter but on the role the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Olufemi Oluyede, played when Wike called the General in the heat of the outburst with the Naval Lieutenant.
Against all temptations, I am restraining myself from joining the crowd of the ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ Wike and concentrating on the professional intervention of the CDS when it mattered. Maybe, when the minister has gone through the full circle of the legendary Tortoise, his appointing authority would do an appraisal of his personality identikit and apply the necessary administrative sanctions.
We recollect the short fable of the Tortoise, who while setting out on a journey, his relations and neighbours bade him goodbye. One inquisitive cousin asked for Tortoise’s destination. The cunny one answered: “The place of disgrace.”
Out of curiosity, another relation asked what Tortoise would be doing while away. The trickster said: “Disgraceful acts.” Yet a concerned neighbour asked when Mr. Tortoise would return. The answer he got was: “When I am thoroughly disgraced.”
I only wish that one day, Minister Wike and other people in authority will see the wisdom in the words of the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower (October 14, 1890-March 28, 1969), who quipped: “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
Generals in the Military, world over, know the value of military solidarity and the need never to abandon any of their own in and out of office or formation. The contemporary US conservative democrat and eight-term congressional representative for Illinois District (January 2005 – January 2021), Daniel William Lipinski, summed up that concept when he posited that: “On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind.” That is the raison d’être in the Military.
That was exactly what General Oluyede, the CDS, did when Wike called him to report Naval Lieutenant Yerima. When the minister, after speaking with the CDS and handed the phone to the junior naval officer, with the announcement, “the CDS”, my heart skipped. I prayed silently that the CDS would do what is noble and professional.
To the credit of Yerima, the junior officer did not lose his composure. He merely readjusted his posture, offered the regimental compliment, “morning sir”, and explained his mission to the military overall boss. In doing so, the naval officer emphasised that he was on that spot on the order of a three-star General, the former Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Awwal Zubairu Gambo (retd).
While all who might have watched the video of that ugly encounter had no privilege of knowing what the CDS told the young naval officer, the action that followed indicated that the General must have upheld the sanctity of Duke Wellington’s injunction that any soldier on duty should “…always do your duty well.” Otherwise, Yerima would have moved his men out of the disputed site after the telephone conversation. That would have had an unmitigated negative effect on the psyche of the men in uniform!
I have read arguments here and there about who was right and who was wrong. Some commenters, especially the celebrated night-soil man of Lagos, in charge of dirty gutters and oozing latrines, went overboard, calling for the young officer’s summary dismissal.
I am least bothered by all those pro-and-anti-arguments. The most important thing for me is that General Oluyede saved the dignity of the Military by not ordering Yerima out of that place after his telephone conversation with the minister and the young officer.
And this position has nothing to do with whether or not the CDS supported his colleague, General Vice Admiral Gambo (retd). No. The truth be said: If the CDS had done otherwise, nobody in uniform, be it military or paramilitary, would ever deserve the respect of the populace!
It is only in Nigeria that the encounter between Wike and Yerima can take place. It is only here we don’t value our soldiers. While not all men in military uniform are honourable, we must understand too that every profession has its own black sheep! Those who stay awake so that we can sleep deserve our respect!
That is why the sane countries of the world respect their service men. They equally honour their veterans. By the Nigerian military setting, the former Chief of Naval Staff, is entitled to some levels of military compliments after service. Yerima announced that when he told the CDS that he is the Security Officer (SO) to the retired Vice Admiral.
That, in essence, means that the top naval brass has the right to deploy his security personnel wherever he wishes. Until decided otherwise, Gambo is considered to own the land in dispute for now. The Naval Lieutenant, Yerima, is his Security Officer. That settles the question of the legality or otherwise of the young officer’s presence and that of his men, on the site.
If anyone has any issue with why military personnel should be on guard duty at a construction site, the interrogation should be directed at the military leadership and those who deployed armed military personnel to the homes of retired Generals and other top military brass. The first element of soldiering is obedience to superior order; that is given, any day!
Thus, it would have been unprofessional for a Regular Course-trained officer like Yerima to subordinate his military high command directive to the whims and caprices of a bullying adult who doesn’t know that the white chicken’s age comes with wisdom (adìye funfun kò mo ara è l’ágba). The argument that the military being subordinate to civilian authority does not hold water here. No trained military personnel will succumb to the shouting of a civilian over a command given by a higher military authority.
If Yerima had deferred to Wike’s age and position, he would have gone back to base to face military discipline. The young officer, in my view, displayed that submissiveness of the military to civilian authority by not meeting Wike’s insult with insult.
His honourific: “I am not a fool, sir”, got me! Nothing stopped him, but for his military training, professional discipline and good family upbringing, to have responded thus: “I am not a fool, Sir. But in case you are from a generation of fools, Sir, please accept my sympathy, Sir!” If that had happened, we would only debate it and question his upbringing, and probably, his constituency would have sanctioned him in the end. But the young officer chose decorum, he displayed the lost adult maturity of his aggressor!
Besides, the tension that we all saw in that encounter could only have been managed by a well-trained “Regular Course” officer who has “integrity” like Yerima! The Nigerian Armed Forces should be proud of Yerima and his conduct. Little wonder that no section of the military (active or retired) has condemned the young officer.
Something worse could have happened, especially as Wike kept daring the young officer with his “you will kill all of us” outbursts. A soldier friend once told me, apparently quoting Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, that “only a madman argues with a man holding a gun.” What if Yerima lacked “integrity?” What if he had the same character disposition as the minister? Or what if their roles were reversed? Just imagine the last scenario!
It is worthy to note that the minister called the CDS at the heat of the encounter, One can only ask that if Wike knew, ab initio, that he could dial up the CDS once, why did he not do that before leaving the office? If, for the purpose of this argument, the former Chief of Naval Staff acquired the land in dispute illegally, is it in the position of the minister to be the enforcer of the law on land usage contravention? What was the intention of storming the disputed land with armed policemen, a possible shoot-out with the military boys? And again, as a father, does Wike still call any of his doted children “fool” when in rage?
Whatever may be the final decision on this matter, the biggest lesson for me here is the veracity of the saying of our sage that 20 years after the younger one had been born, the older child is still in the womb (ogún odún tí a ti bí omodé, inú ni àgbà wà). The elder here is our amiable young “officer with integrity”, Naval Lieutenant Yerima. The most professional officer in this encounter is the CDS, who, when it mattered most, preserved the dignity of the Military! Nigerians, old or young, privileged or otherwise, have learnt from the CDS’s intervention that every military personnel wears his or her uniform in trust for the nation!
And, if I am further tempted to counsel Minister Wike on this matter, I would simply ask him to ask his Yoruba friends the meaning of the saying: “Gbòngbò ònà sún omo l’ésè, iwájú ló ún sún omo sí” – the protruding root on the road only trips a child forward! If he continues in this stride, the day is near when the minister will meet “a soldier who never wore a uniform; the little boy who would not leave his post.” May the gods and the ancestors give him listening ears! Ise!
