Once again the Nigerian state

Once again, the Nigerian state

On Tuesday, April 24, 2001, the Federal Government of Nigeria informed the public, through its secretary, that the commanders of the country's army, Navy and Air Force had retired, and that President Olusegun Obasanjo had accepted their resignations and thanked them for their "loyal services, professionalism and contributions to the on-going transition to democracy." The secretary then named new appointments that had been confirmed by the President. The entire communication took 98 words. Since the Nigerian state, like every other state, is a secret cult - the most secret of all cults - we are not likely to be offered more illuminating information on this matter, now or in the near future, until history throws up another Oputa panel. We are therefore left, for now, to work with what we are told, what everyone can see, and, of course, what we can find out by some other means. But then this last category of sources has a status that is generally controversial, although sometimes very useful. We may examine more closely the little information we have got to see if we can learn a little more, or confirm certain things, about the Nigerian state.

We were told that the former service chiefs "retired," not "were retired." In case you are wondering what the difference between two terms is, I will say that the difference is that, going strictly by what we were told, the officers were not "sacked," or "dismissed," or "terminated" or "booted out," or "flushed out" - some of the more common terms used in Nigeria to describe employer - initiated disengagement of an employee. The formal implication of the government's choice of words is that the men had approached the President and told him, most probably individually and in writing, either that they would like to leave the armed forces and, by implication, relinquish their command positions or that they would like to relinquish their command positions in the armed forces and, by tradition, leave the forces. For unlike university vice-chancellors who are expected to return to the classroom and active study when their terms expire or past Israeli prime ministers who frequently return to government as ministers, Nigerian service chiefs disengage from the armed forces immediately they leave office. I shall not be impressed by an argument that this is the tradition in armed forces generally. In the first place, it is doubtful if the practice of instant disengagement is universal in time and space. It may be universal in the world of our former colonisers, the creators of the Nigerian army and the world of the imperialists presently training Nigerian soldiers. But their "worlds" don't make up the real world. The reported statement by Nigeria's Defence Minister that the appointment of a service chief is political and terminal does not reflect universal history or wisdom.

The government statement did not say why the service chiefs retired. Perhaps the men themselves did not give any reasons. Or, perhaps they gave inane reasons like "for personal reasons", "to face my business", "to spend more time with my family," etc - which are no reasons at all. Or, perhaps they gave real reasons which the President thought it was better for everyone to suppress. We do not know. But we are not completely helpless here if we choose to go just a step beyond the official statement - to the utterances of those involved in this huge deception. The Minister of Information and National Orientation said the retirements were in the national interest and for the security of the nation. Why? Because the action was taken by the President who knows more than everyone else what constitutes "national interest" and "national security," answered the minister. He denied that the retirements were "political." If I were the minister, I would simply have told inquiring journalists: "Since the men retired on their own and were not retired by the President, you should go and ask them why they retired. What the President did was to accept their resignations." That would have been a challenge to the retired officers, but then, a state, a super secret cult, does not throw challenges to its functionaries over the need to be silent on secret matters - what the Sicilian mafias call the law of omerta. It rather assists injured or disaffected functionaries - with threat, blackmail or promises of better things to come - to keep the law of silence.

However, there is no negative without positive elements: talking the way the minister did give the positive impression - which has been strengthened by subsequent official and semi-official pronouncements - that the service chiefs did not go on their own as suggested in government's statement. The President himself ruled out "politics" from the retirements in his media chat a few days after the event although he admitted in the same chat that, beyond a certain rank, military appointments and tenures are "regarded as political." He cited age, length of service and "other military factors" as explanation for the officers' retirement. We know, however, that the three men still had a few years to go whatever criterion was used: age or length of service. One of the retired men also ruled out politics, and cited length of service - leaving out age and other "military factors," a retired colleague of his even warned "enemies of the government" not to use their retirements to sabotage the government. Praising the government which retired him, he virtually presented Olusegun Obasanjo and Theophilus Danjuma to us as saints. The law of omerta! Through the agency of the President, his minister and the retired officers, we now have some more ideas about the retirement, but still not much. It was left to a nameless source, which nonetheless sounded authoritative, to provide a breakthrough.

Quoting a "presidency official who asked for anonymity," The Guardian in its issue of April 30, 2001, gave four reasons for the retirement: "Failure to fully submit to the authority of the civilian ministers of state in charge of the Army, Navy and Air Force; refusal to support the American military personnel in the country; failure to check some officers who incite the rank and file in the military against government policy; and reckless spending which the government believes is the hang-over of past military administrations." Although I am not impressed by these charges and would expect critical people not to be, I would concede that given the ruling political culture and philosophy of government the charges, if true, are sufficient reasons for the officers to be removed by the President who appointed them and who is so intimately wedded to imperialism. But then, why were we not given these reasons in the first government statement, or immediately after? The fact that they were given much later, and anonymously, raises serious doubts. In any case, why should the retired officers still remain quiet even when they are openly accused of theft? The law of omerta.

A day after the retirement exercise, I held a discussion with a number of comrades of my own generation. It was an angry discussion, from the start to the end. But the anger was not over the removal of the former service chiefs or the way the retirement was announced. The anger was over the new appointments. One comrade had asked: "Why is no-one, east of the Niger, found suitable for appointment as a service chief?" It was not for me to answer the question, but to clarify it. First, I got a confirmation from him that by "east of the Niger" he meant not just the five Igbo states but also Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Bayelsa states. Next I reminded my comrades that going by the power and personal wealth they confer, there are coercive institutions of state (some known to law, others unknown) as strategic as the Army, Navy and Air Force. Appointments into, and dismissals from these institutions are never announced. My conclusion is a familiar one: the Nigerian state, as demonstrated in the recent retirements and dismissals in the Armed Forces, is, like other states, a vicious and violent instrument of class domination, a secret cult that enforces the law of omerta on its functionaries. But beyond this, the Nigerian state is not the state of all Nigerians. It is essentially, the state of the two power blocs in the country.