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A few days ago, the Defence Minister, T. Y. Danjuma was quoted by the AFP international press as saying that the Nigerian Army is divided over what some officers alleged to be "demeaning" to them in view of their claimed expertise in peacekeeping which is the same subject or the curriculum of the current US organised military tutorials in some parts of the country. I really do not know in what context the defence minister told the story to the foreign reporters nor is it evident in the report itself what was the objective of such a comment which even laymen in military matters would consider flippant, if not self-serving, as alleged, for serving officers to be "divided" over a training programme properly scheduled for them by the government. This assumption is possible because, as the Minister himself was quoted as saying, they believe that the decision to make use of US expertise to train them was "political".

Speaking for myself as a ‘bloody civilian’, I have my own reservations about the whole training exercise and, indeed, anything concerned with troops deployment within the territory of Nigeria especially as it has been rumored that one of the underlying reasons for the training is to make the soldiers battle ready for the inevitable confrontation awaiting the federal authorities in the Niger Delta and else where in the country. That may not be true as what Nigerian soldiers actually do in the Niger Delta is more like wanton vandalism than peace keeping or peace enforcement because the government they war on its order is a partisan and, indeed, a faction in the imbroglio raging in the place. On the other hand, peacekeeping operations involve outside interventions in crises in which the government maintains manifest neutrality. It is however my privilege as a civilian to express my views even on matters military as long as such do not impinge on national security, strictly speaking and also, if in good faith construed. But ordinarily soldiers do have that liberty or power to question or debate such policy initiative of the C-in-C unless it boils down to patently unlawful orders directed at the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity, which international law enjoins them to always disobey. Fortunately, what is in issue here has no bearing with such matters that are specifically associated with military jurisprudence: we are squarely concerned here with a case of simple indiscipline by ‘over-sabi’ soldiers.

Ordinarily, a desire by soldiers to be trained locally because of the peculiarities of our environment and perhaps the likely accruals to the nation in terms of finance and institutional pride is commendable. Self-sufficiency in military matters is one of the hallmarks of a truly great nation. There is also the incontrovertible fact that our troops have been somehow tested in peacekeeping and peace enforcing situations with Liberia and Sierra Leone as ready examples. According to the report, the training programme, to the extent it is not teaching the soldiers anything new and that since the decision to undergo the training was itself made by the President, it is therefore "demeaning" and "political". One is disturbed by the insinuations and innuendoes that the military complainants seem to be putting across. Is it to be understood that when the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, gives a directive, the soldiers would be grumbling because they think it is political?

This is a very serious issue of discipline and professional commitment to submit to civil and constitutional authorities. In contemporary world affairs, most decisions of the sovereign authorities bordering on troop management, training and deployment are plainly political. It cannot otherwise be. It would be heretical if not a treasonable delict on the part of an US army officer, for example, to question the motive of the President for the deployment of US troops all over the world for various arcane missions. Even the much-taunted experience of our servicemen in ECOMOG and other operations were the outcome of purely political decisions. We went to Liberia for personal political reason better understood by Babangida alone and, of course, Abacha went to Sierra Leone for similar reasons. But the positive collateral dividends in these expeditions are that our troops got the requisite experiences on the field, never mind the diamond and other non-military sideshows that are now making the rounds. I am therefore disappointed that Danjuma, with all his acclaimed experience in military cum civilian affairs, could not see the underlying symptom of indiscipline in those complaints.

For a start, it takes a thoroughly politicized military to be complaining of an official decision as political. It is not within the prerogative of soldiers to be complaining about their deployment. I am not saying that they should not be consulted on technical details or on matters purely operational or tactical, but the ultimate decision to do anything or go anywhere, vis-à-vis other nations, is a political one, pure and simple and it is for the President to make it. That we have been living the aberrational national life in which soldiers unlawfully run the affairs of state should not confuse us as to how things are done in a civilized and law abiding environment. Our uniformed men must begin to re-orientate themselves to subjecting the military institutions to civil authorities. That is the duty they lawfully owe the nation and that is what, indeed, gives value and respect to their commission.

Even if we have mastered all that is it to learn about peacekeeping, is it too much for the Commander-in-chief to order for additional and comparative training such as the US is offering? Is it within the parameters of military discipline for official motives to be questioned the way Danjuma reported our officers to be doing? I am well aware that no knowledge is useless and one can never know too much. Can we honestly say that our troops performed superbly in their series of peacekeeping operations? Were the end results productively related to the enormous human and material costs? Were they as expeditious, efficient and effective as would have been militarily desirable?

Talking about a particular training been demeaning, it is beyond any iota of doubt that these same "expert" officers now complaining will be too glad to hop into a plane for a foreign training located even in Djibouti or the Gambia on how to lace their military boots if that would bring some extra dollars to them. If this very training had been scheduled to take place in the US where bounteous estacodes were likely, I can bet my last dime that there would have been a zombie scramble, even amongst the self-promoted military gurus, to participate in the "demeaning" training. Talk about discipline and professionalism. These issues may sound mundane but they speak volumes about how prepared our soldiers are to accept the changes, which this nation must undertake if she is ever going to make progress in her democracy project.

Knowing the type of military that we have now, when last did the term "unity" or espirit de corps institutionally applied to them? After all the testimonies at the Oputa Panel, can there still exist any more divided institution than the Army, anywhere? Perhaps the Minister used that expression wrongly; it ought to be clear to everyone that when we speak of the Nigerian army nowadays, the concept of division has become both denotative and connotative and that either way, our ongoing history is not comforting. If our soldiers feel that they do not stand to gain anything from the training they are now receiving, which certainly is not true, they ought to tell their commanders who would then, within the hierarchy, pass on the message to the authorities. It should not be a matter over which an undisciplined murmuring and evidently wayward division should result as the Minister just told the world.

Prof. Mike Ikhariale is a Law Professor at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA USA