Ravenous Wolves in the Barn

By

Remy Oriaku

Recently President Olusegun Obasanjo's Special Assistant on Inter-Party Relations, Alhaji Mahmud Waziri, raised an alarm when he alleged that retired military officers were fuelling crisis in the three registered political parties with a view to justifying a return to military rule. This is not a surprise because the over-ambition of the Nigerian military is very well known. However, it seems callous of them to actively seek roles in governance after the harm they had done the nation by their previous incursions into government. They may be intellectually fit for politics in addition to having the requisite citizenship rights; the question, however, is whether they are morally qualified for continued participation in politics after their previous woeful outing.

So much of the state's resources is spent on the training of soldiers, especially those of them in the officer corps, that they are supposed to be among the most skilled manpower any nation possesses. In the United States the military academies at West Point and Annapolis enjoy reputations that compare favourably with those of renowned universities like Harvard, Princeton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale, and Chicago. Not only do soldiers acquire expertise in different fields of study they learn and gain a lot of discipline and leadership skills. In many countries military service is compulsory not because the state cannot pay soldiers' wages but because the experience draftees gain will make them better citizens. This was why there used to be cadet-training programmes in the government colleges. The Man-o-war programme and the orientation programme of the National Youth Service Corps were instituted for similar reasons. Even young members of the English royal family go through military service as part of their preparations for their future roles. In many countries successful military service has often been a prelude to a role in government. George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Alexander Haig, and Colin Powell are just a few of the American statesmen who cut their teeth on a military career. More recently the Republicans contemplated drafting Norman Schwarzkopf (Storming Norman) who led the United States forces and their allies to victory in the Gulf War in their search for someone who could defeat the successful and popular Bill Clinton.

Here in Nigeria the soldiers have had greater opportunities to serve in political offices even at the highest level but they have almost always ended up with a negative mark apparently because there is something essentially wrong with their training that makes them fail. They can hardly pass for gentlemen with stories of their private lives that are characterized by philandering, wife battery, and sadism. They have stolen routinely from the common purse. Before he went straight Murtala Muhammed, now ironically a patriotic icon, had during the Civil War made illegal withdrawals from the Central Bank in Benin City. It was also at the Central Bank that Sani Abacha too routinely practised what he was taught in military school about raids. Nigerian officers' training for courage and calmness under enemy fire has instead inured them to criticism and correction whenever they are caught in any of their several misdeeds. The result has been that the periods of military rule in this country have been commonly described as the Years of the Locusts. Yes, Nigerian military officers in government consistently behaved like commanders of an army of occupation, pillagers whose bounden duty it is to completely incapacitate the occupied territory. Like caterpillars they tended to eat up everything in their path leaving the country desolate. And being insatiable they held on to power for too long. Even when they eventually accepted a transition to elected government, apparently reluctantly, they contrived to call the shots from behind the scene the way puppeteers do. Not satisfied with that and to avoid taking too many chances some of them actually joined the fray directly and won elections conducted by their colleagues who are eager to protect their flanks.

Ordinarily, every citizen has the right to participate in government, provided (s)he does not have a criminal record. To that extent therefore many of our retired officers qualify to participate in politics because they have not been convicted. And they have not been convicted not because they have done no wrong but because they used ouster clauses in dubious decrees to keep themselves out of prison; even those who were indicted by probes have obtained pardon from their kind. This is perhaps a manifestation of the saying that there is no honour among thieves. Because they have stolen so much money, much more than they require for a hundred lifetimes, and are in search of something to spend some of it on, politics - especially the Nigerian type where money is a major determinant of electoral success - has been particularly attractive to them. They have an even more compelling need for contriving to remain in power through elective offices: To ensure that their past is not officially probed and their loot is retained, that is in addition to indulging further in their addiction to continued misappropriation of public resources. Today Nigeria is like one huge estate owned by soldiers and the rest of us are like tenants and serfs who live on and till the land which used to belong to us for the new masters who stole it from us. Many retired officers whose fathers did not own a hectare of land are now big farmers owning several hectares. They had facilitated this by promulgating a dubious Land Use Decree. This way too they had deliberately distorted the country's federal structure and created an all-holding centre that has appropriated the oil wealth of the South for easier embezzlement by the nation's soldier-pilferers.

Today, they own ships, choice estates, banks, and service agencies; that is in addition to the fortune they have stashed abroad. Being disinclined to risk losing their ill-gotten wealth, they have, on the other hand, shown much less interest in the manufacturing sector. They are not interested in creating fresh wealth but in guzzling what already exists and maintaining a tight hold on what they have already taken. Nigeria is not the only country that has been ruled by the military but her case is rather unique in the sense that military rule here has had nothing to recommend it; it has had an essentially and pervasively harmful effect on the nation. Even the much-vaunted achievement of preventing the break-up of the nation is punctured by the fact that the crisis leading to secession was caused primarily by military intervention in politics.

It seems as if more than any other country Nigeria has suffered the worst effects of military rule. Soldiers ruled Ghana for almost as long as their counterparts here have done but they did not steal their country blind or wreck her, as happened here; instead they left her disciplined and internationally respected. Korea is today a respected world industrial power due largely to the visionary leadership of a military president, Chung Hee Park (1963 - 79). Here in Nigeria they only envision buccaneering and retrogression. Unfortunately, retired soldiers occupy many prominent positions in the present dispensation even at the highest level: The President, his National Security Adviser, Chief of Staff, and Minister of Defence. The Vice-President retired from one of the para-military services. The Minister of Works and Housing is a retired police officer. The Governor of Bayelsa State is a former airman. Some senators and other legislators are ex-military men. That perhaps explains why nothing seems to have changed.

It stands to reason, therefore, that for as long as they play significant roles in our public affairs things will not get any better in Nigeria. They, therefore, have to be neutralized and routed to create an atmosphere conducive for the task of improving our country to begin in earnest. Fortunately this can be done if votes are not sold to them but are given to true patriots, not to their fronts or minions. There is nothing to be afraid of because no guns are involved in the political battle for the soul of Nigeria. One recognizes that there are some retired Nigerian soldiers who are men and women of integrity but they are a rare breed and have generally avoided the political field which they know has been polluted by some of their former colleagues in arms. For the sake of our future, the soldiers should retire permanently from public life and concentrate on "chopping" their loot
 

December 2001