2007 Elections An Open memo to the Nigerian Armed Forces, Police and Security Agencies
MAX GBANITE
New Jersey, U.S.A.
Friday, March 23, 2007
“Democracy is not a matter of sentiment, but of foresight.
Any system that doesn’t take the long run into account will burn itself out in the short run.”
Charles Yost.
“Democracy without morality is impossible.”
Jack Kemp
I chose to start this memo with the above quotes to stimulate your thinking process to ask such altruistic questions as: How did we get here? What was our past experience with democratization? What roles did security agencies as institutions play to assist or impugn the democratization process? And to be able to come to a reasonable assessment, you must look into your archives to ascertain what your various history departments chronicled. A careful study of events from the First Republic to date will show that sentiments devoid of foresight were the basis of decisions taken by the leaders, resulting in the immediate crash of democratization. Also, democracy must be supported with morality to be sustainable.
You bear the inscriptions of Nigerian Armed Forces, Nigerian Police Force, and Security Agencies... in other words you are agents of the people. This means that the taxpayers' sweats generate the incomes you receive as salaries, the incomes used for your respective trainings around the world. However, historical precedence has shown that the ruling party most often finds loopholes in the laws to use you against the same Nigerians you have sworn to defend under the Constitution.
For instance, in the First Republic, you were used in Ibadan, Western Region and in Tivland, Middle Belt, as agents of repression, which later led to your taking over the government. Again in 1983, during the Second Republic, your services were sought; instead, you opted to overthrow the government. Then the labyrinth of lawsuits in 1993 and the attendant confusion wrought on the Judiciary led to the interruption of experimented diarchy and the birth of Interim-Government, which lasted for only three months, and set the stage for your overthrowing of the government.
And this Fourth Republic, going by current antecedents, has set the stage for history to repeat itself. Visible show of force is evident within all the Forces. The military’s timing of color-of-change exercise held at Eagles Square on March 19th, 2007 -- just 26 days to a national election -- is seen by many as a show of solidarity and commitment to the Commander-in-Chief who probably is bent on using their services to intimidate the citizenry. This show of force could have been held in October.
The print media reported that the police have ordered 500 armored vehicles, 40,000 AK-47 assault rifles with 20 million rounds of bullet, 30,000 K2 riffles with 10 million rounds of bullet, 10,000 units of Beretta pistols with 2 million rounds of bullets, bulletproof vests to support the users, helmets, and various other types of ammunitions usable in other rifles.
Pause for a second and ask: Why now, just days to the elections, and not eight years earlier to fight the influx of robberies and insecurity?
How come the much heralded Nigerian Defense Industries (NDI) could not produce any of the local content of the products; yet, some time in 2005, Nigerians saw President Obasanjo on television trying out one of the pistols supposedly produced by NDI?
Nigeria’s checkered political history is replete with mismanagement of power and electoral process resulting in the replacement of politicians by ‘militricians.’ For instance, take a look at some excerpts of what your colleagues, starting with the current Commander-in-Chief, wrote in their respective books while describing the truncation of democratization in Nigeria.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his look titled ‘Nzeogwu’ wrote
“…it
was the mishandling of the elections in the Western region, and the subsequent
total break down of law and order which resulted in complete insecurity of life
and property, that was the last straw… the election of that year was fought on
regional loyalty, with strong tribal bias. But the government that emerged was a
coalition of two regionally-based parties leaving the third party, also
regionally-based, out of the cold. With no patriotic feeling left and with
selfishness, greed, corruption, sectionalism and tribalism being extolled, the
third party embarked on ceaseless mischief to ensure that the unstable stool
fell, no matter what happened to those sitting on it, around it and under it.
The cry and attitude was ‘North for the Northerners, West for the Westerners and
East for the Easterners.’ Nobody seemed to care sufficiently for Nigeria as a
nation. Those who were not directly involved in the politics of the day, which
were politics of hatred, division, victimization, destruction, unabashed graft,
greed and ostentation, were powerless to do anything about it. The nation was
divided within itself. But obviously, the ship of the nation had drifted
aimlessly for too long.”
The above quotation remains one of the most used in my various articles because it best describes the pattern of behavior of politicians of the past and their influence on the citizenry. However, President Obasanjo, being a firsthand observer of that era, was also an active participant in the disastrous civil war (caused by the irresponsibility of both politicians and their co-opted military patrons of that era), rose to the rank of a full general in only 19 years in the military. He became a military head of state for 3 years and, later, an elected president for eight years. In other words, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo reeks of experience. Therefore, he has no excuse for failing the nation, especially in the areas of security, corruption, infrastructural development and, above all, democratization process. He has indeed misused his God-given opportunity to do better than his predecessors. In the opinion of many, he has failed the nation; and, if the voice of the people is the voice of God, then he has failed God too.
I am sure most of you senior officers remember that Major Adewale Ademoyega recently passed. He was one of the five majors that wrecked havoc on the nation on January 15th, 1966. He probably died of heartache from watching the nation he once wanted to save being plunged into disaster by his junior colleague (Obasanjo), who was then a captain and a fellow Yoruba, because of sentimental leadership devoid of morality. Narrating events of the past, Major Ademoyega in his book ‘Why We Struck: The Story of the First Coup, wrote,
“…generally, people have been disillusioned and disaffected with the Balewa Government and the rulership of the Balewa/Akintola/Sarduana clique of NNA. Economic, social, educational and political problems were not solved. Corruption was rife and nepotism was the order of the day. The safety values of the nation were reposed in such institutions as the Courts, the Census Commission, the Electoral Commission, the Police, and finally the Armed Forces. But the sanctity of those institutions was being politically assailed, assaulted and dragged in the mud, so that they were fast losing their credibility. It became obvious that the national leadership was nearing its collapse and that the ship of the nation was heading for the rocks. Still, it was drummed into people’s ears by the Federal Government’s radio, television and newspaper that certain NPC leaders had said that the NPC would rule Nigeria for the next twenty-five years. No doubt, the wishes and feelings of the electorate were not taken into consideration.”
The above statement in a nutshell denotes a déjà vu. In today’s Nigeria, the once very highly respected Judiciary and their rulings have been dragged to the mud or “into shit” (as the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would put it) by the ruling party and their cronies. The legislators have taken corruption to a pungent level. The police activities, especially in matters of corruption and incompetence, are at a fuzzy-mathematical level. The Census Commission has added its own confusion. The Electoral Commission (INEC), established to be independent, has become Siamese twin of the existing ruling party, PDP, and partisan in its activities. The government-controlled radio and television stations have taken the art of propaganda to admirable levels. Nigerians are told by their President that the elections of 2007 is a “do-or-die” situation, and that he would not hand over to anyone he did not select. Nigerians are being told that PDP will rule for 50 years without interruption.
The ugly violence being witnessed today, and probably being exacerbated through the overheating of the polity by various agents of destruction reminds one of what Professor Wole Soyinka, in a preface to a 1985 edition of his book “The Man Died,” narrated of the events of 1983. He wrote:
“… the violence which preceded, accompanied and was the predictable aftermath of Nigerians 1983 elections was ironically, a gross obscenity. The first thing to note is that it was unleashed by the party in power. The purpose was to cow the populace into retaining the status quo, terrorizing voters away from manifesting their political allegiances.”
He cited an example:
“In Ondo State, one of the staunchest, if not indeed the mot implacable base of opposition to the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), three leaders of the main opposition party, the UPN (United Party of Nigeria) were killed, gang land-execution style, in their own homes. The assassins went coolly from one house to the next on a given and shot down their victims in front of their families. Seven were on the list; three were not at home when the killers called, and one escaped with gun shot wound. This event took place months before the elections.”
Preparatory to the 2003 elections, we read about the killings of Chief Bola Ige, Chief Harry Marshall, Chief Aminisoari Kala Dikibo, and a host of others. Today, preparatory to 2007 elections, Funsho Williams, Dr. Demola, and others have become victims of sentimental democracy and of immorality. Therefore, distinguished members of Nigerian Armed Forces, Nigerian Police Force, and Security Agencies, your responsibility in protecting democracy is to make sure that you carry Nigerians along as partners in the preservation of democracy through credible elections. Nigerian citizen’s prayer is that you do not allow your members to be used against them just because a Commander-in-Chief said that the election is a “do-or-die” affair.
Your commanders must, like the former Inspector General of Police (IGP) M. D. Yusuf, harbor the determination to frustrate election rigging. as the Northern police boss in 1965 elections, Alhaji Yusuf was motivated by sheer determination, high moral upbringing, patriotic zeal, and loyalty to Nigerians when he made that choice. He was further compelled by what he said in his book “Aristocratic Rebel”:
“Past elections had found police colluding with the NPC power brokers to subjugate other parties’ chances at the polls.” :::: “Such collaborations usually took various forms. Police would ignore complaints from other parties. Sometimes, helped to put out of circulation stalwarts and agents of rival parties, not a few times, they actively took part in falsifying votes and figures.”
In describing his actions, he wrote:
“I was waiting for the elections. I was determined that this time police would not be used. But my wait was aborted by the January 15th, 1996 coup.”
If the police did these 42 years ago, they have not changed... going by what is happening today. The same police at the highest level have refused to obey court orders when the case is against members of the ruling party, but they are quick to move against other parties. What a shame.
Since the election is here already, in the same spirit of Alhaji M. D. Yusuf, you must partner with Nigerians whose name you represent to make sure that a violent free environment is created. All electoral materials must be protected and provided at all the polling stations. All electoral officers must be protected from violence to enable them to do their duties. Acts of thuggery must be eliminated and, if after doing your duty, Nigerians through their votes choose another candidate to lead the nation other than the choice of the ruling party, that candidate must be supported and allowed to take over. When that happens, then the true journey of democracy has begun.
If you are able to carry Nigerians along in this and future elections, you will command greater respect and admiration from the people; hence, the name Nigerian Armed Forces, Nigerian Police Force, and Security Agencies becomes appropriate.
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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See also: Salute to Nigerian Armed Forces