It is just as well that the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Taofeek Lagbaja has paid a well-publicized visit to the governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwoolu. This is coming against a background of rising insecurity, the growing spate of kidnapping, the return of marauders to our highway and the increasingly unruly behavior of some military personnel particularly of the lower cadre to constituted civil authorities.
As far as the optic of military-civilian relationship is concerned, it is expected that the visit, a symbolic reaffirmation of the superiority of civil authorities over the military, should go a long way to smoothening ruffled feathers and reassuring the public that all is well. Jide Sanwoolu is not known to be a boorish and uncooperative fellow driven by egomaniac pomposities. He should let the verbal bruising in circulated videos serve as a reminder of the seething furnace of anger and resentment in the land.
All over the world, a sense of entitlement can be found even in the highest echelons of the military. More often than not, this is always well-managed. But if it is not, it leads to humiliation and self-deflation as General Douglas MacAuthur, arguably America’s most decorated military officer, was to find out to his chagrin when he attempted to tango with the feisty no-nonsense President Harry Truman over the direction of the Korean War.
He was summarily cashiered. In recent times, it was only when a top serving American general hinted that the sacred tenets of presidential transition would be enforced to the letter, even if it means physically bundling out any intruder that the anarchic presidential rogue slunk out of the White House. He would have been treated as the unruly thug and bounder that he is.
Ever since human society discovered the deployment of force and violence as the organizing principle of the state, the arms-bearing classes have always been accorded a pride of place at the apex of the society. They are seen as the custodians of societal stability and arch defenders of its corporate and territorial integrity. Often in times of anarchy and turmoil, they usurp the supreme authority of the sovereign to protect the sanctity of the dominion.
But this is only a temporary measure to stem the tide of anarchy as they must return to their hideout on the margins of the society from whence they came once order is restored. Even in ancient times, the established consensus was that the military hierarchy does not have the governmental nous, the basic competencies and skills to rule over the complex and countermanding perplexities of the human society in its variegated intrigues and treacheries.
Military training is of a different order: to instill discipline and enforce strict compliance. The difference between military and political leadership can be illuminated by Sir Isaiah Berlin’s famous dichotomy between the fox and the hedgehog: the hedgehog knows one big thing, but the fox knows many small things.
There are however some exceptional and extraordinary individuals of genius who combine in their unique personality the countervailing prototypes of top warrior and world-historic statesman: Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Charles de Gaulle, Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh, Dwight Eisenhower and arguably the founding troika of the Russian Revolution: Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.
What is incontrovertible is the fact that Modern societies accord serving and retired military personnel rare honours, respect and privileges in recognition of their patriotic services to the nation and the willingness to lay down their lives at short notice at the behest of the society.
In the summer of 1999, after lining up for several hours among a teeming crowd queuing for an American visa in Amsterdam, yours sincerely was quietly intrigued when a lady calmly called out American serving soldiers and ex -servicemen to form a much shorter queue. One later discovered that this is quite the norm in America where serving or delisted soldiers of whatever rank are treated with special respect and admiration wherever they go.
One would have thought that in an arms-suffused society, the normal tendency would be for arms and their bearers to suffer a drastic demystification. But then there is a qualitative difference between professional managers of violence and its mere purveyors. In a nation where the refinement and sophistication of the instruments of incapacitation has reached the zenith of human ingenuity, the fear and awe of the military class is the beginning of wisdom.
The same intriguing dynamics has been at play in the evolution of the Nigerian military from a colonial army of internal occupation to current efforts to make it regain its reputation. The annulment of the freest and fairest election in the history of the nation, itself an act of physical and psychological intimidation against the civil populace, remains a blight on their record and reputation. But since the advent of the Fourth Republic, the military hierarchy, despite minor hiccups, has put their best foot forward.
Unfortunately, there is always a weak link in this tough chain of professionalism. And it is the lower-most ranks, the military rabble or what we choose to call the military hoi polloi. They are the ones who come into most contact with the civil populace. Hard and hardy indeed will be the senior officer caught in the market haggling over the price of yam or freeloading on a battle-tested motorcycle.
As a result of their elementary and rudimentary training, particularly where it comes to psych-ops and the manipulation of reality to achieve a stated objective, military underlings lack the discipline, the fortitude, the endurance and the capacity for higher deception, dissembling and dissimulation associated with the higher ranks.
In retrospect, and given their extraordinary civility and gentlemanly conduct, nobody would have thought that the mid-ranking officers’ formation of the Nigerian army was a seething cauldron of anger and discontent in the run up to the mutiny that terminated the First Republic. Or just imagine the calm and placid atmosphere that preceded some of the most momentous military uprisings in Africa.
We may have to thank the military underclass for their understandably lower threshold of pains and capacity for suffering without flinching. It may be an accurate barometer for gauging the smouldering resentment among the subalterns. In confronting the errant soldier, Governor Jide Sanwoolu was faced with a testy and nerve-tingling conundrum, and he acquitted himself honourably.
To have allowed the errant soldier to go scot free would have amounted to opening a floodgate of traffic anarchy and chaos. That particular route was already becoming notorious for the disproportionate number of military personnel and some miscreants driving deliberately against the traffic with impunity and disdain for order clearly written on their visage. It may be due to the presence of a nearby military barracks. Horrendous accidents have occurred as a result of such impunity.
However justified the case may appear, there can be no two laws in the same society, one for soldiers and another for the civil populace. It is an invitation to chaos and anarchy. Perhaps as a result of his limited education and exposure, the subaltern compounded his initial error of judgment with an appalling sense of entitlement, repeatedly insisting to the governor that he was a serving soldier who must be granted some positive discrimination. As we have demonstrated, this is not how soldiers in civilized polities conduct and comport themselves.
For his rogue colleague and the other impersonating confederate to have taken to the airwaves to babble insensate nonsense about Sanwoolu and the federal authorities may well be an indication of the massive discontent among the lower ranks of the armed forces which cannot be blithely brushed aside. There is too much anger and resentment in the land.
Consider for example when Tunde Fashola arrested a redneck for driving on a designated route. The senior officer took it in the chin and was contrite and very remorseful indeed. The lowly soldier does not speak the same language with the governor. There may even be a possibility that he considered his apprehension an act of monumental injustice.
We must do everything possible to avoid a revolt of the military underclass in this complex and complicated country. In Liberia, it led to unremitting savagery and a fifteen year eclipse from which the country is yet to recover.
This is an excellent opportunity for the Lagos State government and the military authorities to enter into a partnership to alleviate the horrific living conditions of the subaltern. Better barracks, better transportation dedicated to the lower ranks, a revolving loan scheme and improved welfare are urgent necessities.
Understandably, the need to insulate the army hierarchy from partisan politics may prevent open flirtation with the political class beyond the call of duty. But these things can be done quietly, without funfair or publicity and with maximum integrity.
Unless the army is operating under an old feudal code in which every soldier’s status is already preordained and pre-assigned, it should open the eyes of its lowly cadres to further education and useful training which will prepare them for life beyond the barracks. Every soldier must learn a useful modern trade before being de-commissioned.
The possibilities for military/civil authority collaboration are immense and should not be thrown away simply because of the misguided angst of some errant service people. In the coming world order, quite a lot will depend on the superior intelligence and the capacity for swift reaction of the average soldier. The illiterate army of the future will be the army that has refused to educate and re-orientate its lower masses.
