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THE SYSTEMIC RAPING OF NIGERIA BY THE MILITARY; By New York, New York, USA It is ironic that when the army shot its way into the Prime Minister’s residence that early morning on January 15, 1966 their scurrilously avowed reason was to eradicate the 10% contract-paddlers. Many citizens initially sang the nunc dimitis believing that their Messiah had finally arrived. Now forty years later, a civil war and internecine cannibalization within its ranks and file, Nigerians look with nostalgia to the days public officials were content with 10% loot/commission..
The Nigerian military has so systematically distorted the Nigerian polity that democracy as we know it is simply impossible in Nigeria. The Nigerian military is simply not satisfied with looting the public treasury: it has subtly distorted the polity and metastasized to all the organs of the society that a cure short of throwing out the child with the bath water is not possible.
Immediately, the civil war ended and pressures began to mount on the military to hand over power back to the civilians, elaborate and deliberate plans were set in motion by the Generals to make sure that they remain relevant forever in Nigeria.
The LAND USE DECREE (1978): The first attempt to subvert the Nigerian people was the adoption of the Land Use Decree in 1978 under General Olusegun Obasanjo. The effect of this decree was to vest all real estate in Nigeria on the state. The citizen is made simply a tenant at the sufferance of the military governors. All undeveloped pieces of land were vested in the state. Since this was alien to Southern Nigeria, the military incorporated this Act in the constitution handed down to all subsequent governments. This was done to make it impossible for subsequent governments to abrogate it. They knew this Decree was unpopular and feared that subsequent governments might try to repeal it and recover the land they had acquired under its provisions.
The effect of this decree was not only to radically distort the land tenure system in Nigeria, but it created a new middle and upper class of military landowners , large scale farmers and land developers. Since the land is vested on the state governors (all of whom were military officers) they quickly shared all the choicest real estate in Nigeria among themselves and their proxies. The old GRA (Government Reserved Areas) became (Generals Reserved Areas). Traditional land was acquired without payment of adequate compensation. Every senior officer became a large-scale farmer and land developer overnight. The money for the development was systemically stolen from public coffers and experts were imported under governmental clout.
Then there was the Privatization Decree under the same Obasanjo’s government, which auctioned off most state assets to the military and those in the corridors of power under them. Every parastatal had substantial military ownership (bought of course with the assets of the state often at ridiculous and non-transparent prices!)
BABANGIDA"S SHORELINE ACQUISITION DECREE:- Then during the never-ending transition to civilian rule, he promulgated another decree that vested all land within 100 meters of the continental shoreline of Nigeria on the Federal Government. The shoreline is the most sought after real estate the world over. By vesting this particular asset directly on the Federal Government, Babangida made sure that Military personnel like him would acquire the choicest real estate on the Southern Beaches and shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean in the Southern Cities of Lagos, Port Harcourt, Calabar and Warri. The shoreline was immediately seized by the military authorities.
Even the developed high density Maroko serving the high brow Victoria Island was not spared. Overnight, the Lagos State Governor, Colonel Raji Rasaki sent bulldozers to wreck havoc and uproot thousands of families into homelessness. Till today not a penny has been paid as compensation. The argument was that the abodes never had certificates of occupancy from the state. But the settlement had been there long before the Land Use Decree. But in Nigeria ex post facto decrees are the rule rather than the exception. Such decrees have even cost four young men their lives by firing squad!
GENERAL ABUBAKAR’S DECREE 32 of MAY 10, 1999 (Remuneration of former Presidents and Heads of State and Ancillary Matters) came into effect in January 1999. Under the provisions of this decree:- Presidents and Chiefs of General Staff and Vice Presidents, their SPOUSES and SURVIVORS are paid N350, 000.00 and N250, 000.00 monthly respectively and are provided with three cars each changeable every four years,. They are also given free medical services and 30 day- vacation annually anywhere in the world!
Let me reiterate each former head of state whether elected or not, a coupist or appointed by quixotic individual fiat is to be paid annually N4.2Mil. and the Chief Genera Staff or Vice President (note the order too!) is to receive 3Mil annually. In addition they are to be provided with three cars each with all maintenance, of course, and these were to be replaced every four years! They are to be provided with free medical treatment and a 30 -day annual vacation anywhere in the world..
By the wording of this decree, this largesse is not only due the heads of state and vice presidents but also to their spouses and survivors. The decree does not define what is covered under "spouses" and survivors. In Nigeria these BIG MEN have a minimum of four official wives and Harem’s in the dozens and hundreds. Any president who believes in traditional religion can marry as much as the King of Lesotho. Nigerian Petrodollar may soon not be enough to meet this obligation!
How do we define an entitled person under this decree? Is it any offspring? Is it anyone who depended on him? Is it any member of the nuclear family or extended family? Does it include illegitimate offspring? Can a child fathered by the entitled person be deemed illegitimate under Nigerian laws and customs? How do you establish the right to these largesse? Through DNA or cultural acceptance during the life of entitled person? Are survivors of survivors entitled to same rights? If so to what generation?
Nigeria should then be fortunate that MKO Abiola was prevented from taking up his mandate! Otherwise, every Nigerian yet unborn would have cursed the day Abiola was elected President of Nigeria. Who can tell us how many wives President Obasanjo has? How many children does he have? I doubt if Nigerians are aware of what the Generals have done and continue to do to Nigeria. It is true they looted the country dry: it is true they took Nigeria through a civil war. But the greatest tragedy is that they have stolen the soul and future of Nigeria!
Almost all Ministers of the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja have been military men. Remember Gen. Magoro? Remember Gen. Jerry Useni? Remember Gen. Mamman Vatsa? Each and every one them is or was a billionaire owning estates not only in Abuja but in every state capital in Nigeria.
What is the result of these various nefarious decrees by the army in Nigeria today? The result is that the military not only monopolizes political power today, but in all probabilities will continue to for the foreseeable future. Not only do they control the economic might but their offspring are likely to continue to control in the future unless a radical surgery is performed to excise the metastases of this cancerous lesion from the Nigerian polity.
Nigeria has never had more than 150,000 citizens in the military. Look at the percentage of elected politicians today in the country. From the Local Government officials, through state legislators, state Governors and Federal legislators the percentage of military personnel is more than 1000% of their entitlement.
We are already told that the candidates for the Presidency come 2007 are Generals Babangida, Buhari and Marwa. The only name being mentioned seriously among them is Vice President Atiku Abubakar. However, Abubakar’s sun seems to be setting by the day in the matador with the Generals.
The truth is that since the generals shot their way to the corridors of power in Nigeria, they have been running a relay race, handing the baton of leadership when and to whom they wish. General Ibrahim Babangida made this clear when he stated that he did not know who would succeed him but that he knew who would not. This evil genius not only proved the point by annulling the election of Ahaji MKO Abiola. He also disproved the first part of his assertion by single handedly handing Nigeria over to Mr. Ernest Shonekan, as if Nigeria were his personal fiefdom.
It was not a secret that when the army chose Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1979 itt was because he was the most unlikely to question the status quo. There were strong aspirants from both North and South who would have provided strong leadership for the country, but the army feared any contender who could tip the apple cart. There were Alhaji Shehu Musa, Adamu Chiroma and Alhaji Maitama Sule from the North as well as perennial contenders Zik and Awolowo from the South. The army simply did not want any possible head ache. And only Shagari could give them sleepless nights. Even when the election produced an unexpected stalemate in the first round, they quickly obtained the "12 and 2/3 of a state t" non precedent- setting ruling of the Supreme Court (which the US Supreme Court re-enacted in 2000 in Bush v Gore!).
Whenever the heat is on them, they have simply reached out to the most malleable puppet they can rely on. When they picked Mr. Earnest Shonekan, who had never held any elective office and who had no constituency, it was because they knew they can hold power behind the scenes. Again, when it was opportune to have another interregnum, they reached out to a prisoner serving a life sentence. They whisked him from prison, granted him a state pardon and made him president. Why did they do that? And why did they bear with him even when he appeared not to follow the script? Those, who had vowed to go into exile , should he loose, were later to swallow their disappointment. But they knew at least he could not probe them. He was one of them and he cannot probe them without bursting himself. When a relatively independent and stubborn Abiola appeared on the horizon, they panicked and did the unimaginable. They annulled his election and damned the consequences.
There have been many rumors of an agreement between Gen. Babangida and Gen. Obasanjo. No one has denied this till date. Recently at the launching of Alhaji Shehu Musa’s autobiography Chief Alex Akinyele, former Minister of Information under Gen. Babangida reminded us that there was an agreement between Gen. Babangida and Gen. Obasanjo that the later would hand over to the former after his tenure. Chief Akinyele went on to state that only former military men and their civilian ministers had the experience and the resources to rule Nigeria!
Gen. Obasanjo’s government has recently been doing everything possible to undermine the potential candidacy of his Vice President that the later has virtually been emasculated. Why probe the BPE and not the reign of Babangida? Why have we not probed the Petroleum Task Fund of Gen. Buhari?
It always amuses me when I hear such terms as "our nascent democracy" or "Second Republic", "Third Republic" and "Fourth Republics" The truth is that there is no democracy in Nigeria. If anything there has only been the "First Republic" handed over to us any the colonial masters. Was Shehu Shagari elected president on the provisions of the 1979 Constitution? Was Earnest Shonekan elected under any constitution? Did Nigerians promulgate the 1999 constitution or have they any input in its provisions? Did Nigerians actually vote in Gen. Obasanjo in 1999 or 2003? Is Gen. Obasanjo’s government one by the people and for the people? The last time I checked democracy was defined as the government of the people by the people and for the people.
March 2004 |