By Dayo Sobowale
It is unfashionable globally nowadays to have successful military coups. A former Nigerian general noted recently that mobile phones have made coups impossible as they make connections available and can make it quick for those in power to mobilize against coup plotters. Yet we have had two in Mali and Guinea in recent times . In ECOWAS states , the fashion is always for ECOWAS states to call on the soldiers to return to the barracks and hand over to the dismissed democratic government , but the coupists never do because they know ECOWAS has no military clout to dislodge their hold on power in their country . In other places after condemnation by the international community the soldiers draw up a time table to conduct elections and return the country to democracy or have their leaders change uniforms and become political leaders and continue their hold on the political system by other means as in Burma recently .This has been the style of the so called third world or what western democracies have always termed or derided as banana republics .
Funnily enough it seems that this is no peculiarity of the third world as a new book on what happened after the former US President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid in the US has revealed . It is not necessary to mention the title of book or its authors because I find what they have written as irresponsible and disgusting and more of a threat to the security and stability of their nation the US than the so called Jan 6 Capitol Insurrection which has been the yardstick of calling to call to order or calling the Big Lie , the insistence of Donald Trump that the 2020 presidential election was rigged . I will nevertheless discuss the allegations in the book and do an objective and pragmatic analysis here today .This is because of my belief that in the quest of the authors to make money like the New York Governor who wrote a book on his brilliant handling of the raging pandemic prematurely , as he was later found out to be incompetent on his handling of the pandemic leading to many unnecessary deaths , these authors threw caution and knowledge under the bus . In addition I contend that they are not as familiar and knowledgeable on the workings and nature of coups as Africans and indeed Nigerian who have lived with coups and military intervention as well as the consequences of failed and successful coups or military interventions .
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The book reportedly said America’s incumbent military boss appointed by Trump reportedly phoned his Chinese counterpart and assured him that in spite of Trump’s post election tantrums the US is stable and he would not order an attack on China and would indeed let China know if an attack by the US was imminent . Reportedly the Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke to the American military boss and asked him to be ready for action and he said he was prepared . This top general also had a meeting with his high command and got a one by one commitment similar to an oath that they are with him in calling to order their Commander in Chief of the US military then , President Donald Trump . The book is not fiction as it claimed interviews of key participants . But the former US president has called it fiction and has gone to defend the military boss that he would not phone the Chinese and if he did as the book claimed , then that would be treason . That assertion and conclusion of Donald Trump is part of our examination and analysis today .
I start with what I will call the Chinese connection and note that the authors do not know about the Chinese political system , culture and ideology . The president of China is the supreme leader of the Chinese communist party which controls and rules over China .He is a an absolute leader and his leading general cannot do anything without him . The authors have literally put this Chinese general’s life in danger if he acted without the consent or approval of the Chinese president . Similarly the US top military boss involved will have to make a statement to defend himself on a serious security breach if he indeed made the phone call . The American general is lucky so far that Trump lost the election and that means that his coup has succeeded as I do not see the Biden Administration removing him for the phone call or his obvious military intervention in the presidential system under the Trump presidency .Of course the Speaker of the US legislature who admitted putting the military on alert during the aftermath of the Jan 6 insurrection will not allow any bad thing to happen to this general as she prompted the military intervention or collusion against a sitting US president . How the issue is resolved will depend on how the Biden presidency sees the future of US politics and the looming danger of what is good for the goose being good for the gander . That certainly deserves leadership discipline which is in short supply in the very divisive US that we are seeing on the world stage today .
To those of us familiar with failed and successful coups , we know that execution is the price of failed coups . The authors have put the career of US generals involved in danger if not in jeorpardy . They should find out about the history and political culture of Nigeria . It is enough to tell them that our present president was a general and he had been a military head of state before . When democracy returned after military intervention he contested and lost elections to be president twice before getting elected and reelected for another term. Indeed our last team of military chiefs were rewarded as ambassadors even though they were unable to defeat Boko Haram or stop the growing banditry and insecurity during their tenure . In Nigeria the military have become an integral part of the political class and leadership . That cannot be said of the American political leadership and political system and that is the taboo that this dangerous book has revealed on American politics and diplomacy .The authors should have promised to write on why American generals under the leadership of the American general who phoned China lost Afghanistan so swiftly and left American security equipment in the hands of the Taliban so recently . This military leader should be asked to explain the quality of training the American military gave the Afghan army which surrendered to the Taliban without a fight . That will be a worthwhile effort that will educate how American military leadership built and lost both the war and democracy in a foreign land . That will be more educative for the entire democratic world instead of writing and glamorizing military intervention in America’s hitherto admirable , and inimitable political and democratic culture , with zero tolerance for military intervention in politics .Once again From the fury of this pandemic , Good Lord Deliver Nigeria .
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