Tag: Coup

All Nigerians cannot be afflicted by collective amnesia. They could not have easily forgotten the pains of oppression and repression inflicted by jingoistic dictators. The scars of militarism have not healed. The memory of dictatorial brutality still haunts our collective psyche. The poser is: what prompted some Nigerians into suggesting the intervention of the military to resolve a transient economic crisis? Who are those calling for coups?

In 1970, shortly after the civil war, former ceremonial President Nnamdi Azikiwe, who spoke at a symposium in Lagos, described military regime as the rule of impostors. Universally, the mandate of the military is never from the people. To whom are they (soldiers) accountable? Azikiwe queried.

There is no accountability to the constitution and the people by those who rely on the barrels of the gun. It is a colossal assault on democracy.

Despite the fact that many political leaders, particularly elected and appointed office holders, have not learnt their lessons – as they have continued to indulge in profligacy, theft, and graft in high places – their displacement by soldiers is not an option. Indeed, it is archaic to rejoice at the forceful seizure of power or at the hearing of martial music followed by a hoarse voice calling: “Fellow Nigerians”.

In the current circumstance, it is gratifying that the highest military hierarchy has disowned the advocates of power hijack and reiterated the Armed Forces’ determination to tackle insecurity, defend Nigeria’s sovereignty, and the nation’s territorial integrity.

The problem with a coup is that it breeds more coups and there will be instability.

Barely six years after independence, some young military officers posed as modernisers and tried to convince Nigerians that they were driven by puritanical zeal. Some scholars even celebrated the putsch as an act of patriotism.

The coup failed and senior officers capitalised on it to seal the fate of civilian leadership. Instead of clearing the mess, they compounded it through their own agenda, aptly driven by the craving for power, political relevance, and scramble for the state’s resources.

The Head of State, Major-General Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, was in want of political experience. He leaned on some technocrats and scholars from his own part of the country and was advised to abolish federalism and impose unitary system through his faulty unification decree. Aguiyi-Ironsi, popularly called Ironside, acquiesced to the suggestion, and it dug the pit into which he and his government later fell.

Already, there were complaints that the coup of 1966 had an ethnic connotation. Of the five majors, only one was Yoruba. Others were from the old Midwest and old Eastern regions, bounded by ethnic ties. While Northern, Southwest, and Itsekiri political leaders and Army officers were killed, those from the tribe of the coup leaders were spared.

The military became a casualty at that point. It lost its unity, cohesion, and purpose. Barely six months after the first coup, some Northern officers staged a retaliatory coup to avenge the killing of their kinsmen. The retaliatory coup heralded a succession crisis.

Since tribalism had crept into the military, the next in rank to Ironsi, Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, was rejected. As General Yakubu “Jack” Gowon was assuming the reins, the military Governor of Eastern State, Colonel Emeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu, rejected him, insisting that the subsisting succession pattern should be followed.

Within a year of military rule, a civil war was foisted on the country by its soldiers. It lasted three years. Many people died. Families were displaced and dislocated. A lot of resources went down the drain. Many soldiers perished. Up to now, Igbo land, which was the battlefield, has not recovered. The animosity has not disappeared either. A full national integration is still a tall order.

After ruling for nine years with the help of experienced politicians, some of whom later took part in the corruption that further created a hollow in the records of military regimes in the seventies, General Gowon refused to leave office. He shifted the handover date.

The third coup, led by General Murtala Ramat Muhammed and some other officers, was bloodless. But six months later, Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka and his gang assassinated the Head of State.

Through his “retirement and dismissal with effect” whereby many honest, decent and promising young civil servants, including university lecturers who were dreaded as leftist ideologues, were swept by the wave of retrenchment, the Murtala Muhammed regime cowed and shattered the civil service. Consequently, civil servants jettisoned time-tested professional ethics and started to cut corners, thinking that their career stability could not be guaranteed. It was ironic because, following the coups, the civil service had to be positioned as a dependable ally of military rulers.

The first 13 years of military rule were full of anguish, drama, superimposed theoretical stability and hypocritical transition to civil rule guided by several decrees from the Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who said the best presidential candidate might not win the 1979 election.

Either by design or predetermined accident, the military returned four years after, in 1983, following the failure of the civilian regime of Alhaji Shehu Shagari to live up to expectation.

The second phase of military rule was full of horror. From January 1984 to August 1993, Nigeria suffocated under the rule of jackpot. Military decrees outlawed basic human rights. The media, which the soldiers knew could be a threat, became their target for liquidation. When reporters sought to know the position of the Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari on press freedom, he said: “I am going to tamper with that.” Decrees Two and Four were used to terrorise reporters. Some went to jail. Others were unjustly detained.

Also, when a reporter asked when he intended to return power to civilians, Buhari said he had no plan. After a few seconds, he said: “May be, after 10 years.”

Such was the nature of the military. Soldiers had a morbid fear of the ballot box.

Due to the highhandedness of the regime, it was toppled by those who later did not fare better. The gap-toothed successor, military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida always beamed an infectious at a nation he held captive with subterfuge. He became an inveterate military fabulist who hoodwinked the nation into the false belief that he was in office for Nigerians. It became evident that Babangida was overstaying his welcome in office. The military leader took Nigeria on an experimental journey that led to nowhere. Nicknamed the Evil Genius and Maradona, IBB, as he was popularly called, pretended for over eight years as a man of the people and went on a wild goose chase.

As politicians and civil society groups challenged him to a duel, he bought more time with a dubious transition programme, shifting the handover date three times. He banned, unbanned, and banned vociferous political actors, lawyers, and rights activists.

IBB survived a phantom coup, allegedly masterminded by his long-standing friend, General Mamman Vatsa, and the Major Gideon Okar putsch.

As the clamour for transfer of power intensified, the military president imposed two political parties – Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) – on Nigerians. The manifestos were drawn up by the military.

The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the criminal annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election. The National Electoral Commission (NEC), chaired by Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, conducted a free and fair election. But the transition programme was truncated. It became a waste of time, energy, and huge financial and human resources; it was a national flop.

Read Also: Military denies report of coup scare, threatens legal action

Babangida boasted that although he did not know who would succeed him, he knew those who would not. He also boasted that he was not only in office but also in power. That posturing reflected his reluctance to honestly dispense a self-acquired power and mandate secured by tricks, cajoling, and deceit.But, power, although alluring and intoxicating, is nevertheless transient. IBB was compelled to step aside in ignominy.

But he had foisted on the country an inept and illegal Interim National Government (ING), led by the late Chief Ernest Shonekan, who was effortlessly shoved aside by General Sani Abacha, whom IBB deliberately left behind.

Abacha had been a principal actor in all the coups that occurred post-Second Republic. His voice ricocheted throughout the country as a soldier of fortune. He gave tonnes of reasons for toppling every government and midwifing a new one in his broadcasts after each coup.

Of all the military dictators, Abacha was the most difficult and complex. He successfully manipulated the divided political class to an advantage, stabilised his regime, used and dumped politicians and tightened his grip on the country. The hope of revalidating the June 12 poll results became illusory. In a twinkle of an eye, the maximum ruler mooted the idea of transmuting from khaki to babanriga.

It was an era of state-organised bombings and killing of pro-democracy crusaders who were in the trenches. Civil rule agitators were falsely accused of plotting coups. Once they were roped in, prison was their next destination, if they were not hanged.

Abacha cowed Nigerians into submission. He raised a team of chorus singers, lackeys, and confederates who campaigned for self-perpetuation.

Also, he turned attention to the media, closing down newspaper houses, detaining editors and trying innocent people for phantom coups. Over two decades after his sudden demise, the Federal Government is still recovering Abacha loot, which runs into billions of naira. Military regimes became more corrupt than the civilian authorities they upstaged.

After Abacha passed on and General Abdulsalami Abubakar began the implementation of his transition programme, old soldiers who dictated the tune in blissful retirement foisted one of their own, General Olusegun Obasanjo, on the country. The rest, as it is often said, is history.

What memorable past of the soldiers of fortune in power would recommend them as a viable option in the nation’s search for a better future?

Is it their destruction of the federal principle, which guarantees unity in diversity for the amalgam of incompatible tribes or ethnic groups?

Is it the typical assassination of targeted political leaders and colleagues during the ritual of coups? Is it their intolerance of opposition and opinions of “bloody civilians”?

Is it their pillaging of the state treasury, their divide and rule tactics and enslavement of the polity?

Obviously, those threatening the polity with a coup are either principal actors in the corruption conflagration the current administration is working hard to douse or are beneficiaries of the evil system that has tied down the nation’s development. They are the corrupt elements who now see a bleak future as the current government makes things work for everybody and not where a few reap bounties from entrenched grafts and diabolical pomposity. 

As psychologists would say, those calling for a coup now are suffering from cognitive dissonance, a feeling of conflict between their values and beliefs. They need help.