IT is not clear what the Nigerian Army wishes to achieve with the alarm it sounded over plans by alleged shadowy characters to stall the second inauguration of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency on May 29. On May 4, in a statement issued by army spokesman Col. Sagir Musa, the Nigerian Army alerted the public to what it believes is a subterranean plot by some disgruntled people working in collusion with foreigners to cause disaffection and engender chaos among Nigerians. The sole purpose of that plot, the army continues, is to ensure that the inauguration was disrupted.
Col. Sagir puts it blithely: “Some of these mischievous elements thought that we would not have safe and successful general elections but were proved wrong, hence they want to derail the scheduled handing over later this month and to scuttle the democratic process in the country. Their body language and unguarded utterances seem to be in tandem with the above and imply tacit support for the criminals. For example, credible source has shown that some individuals are hobnobbing with Boko Haram terrorists, while others are deliberately churning falsehood against the security agencies with a view to setting the military against the people and the government. They are also demoralising troops and security agencies through false accusations and fake news…We also noted that foreign interests are also working assiduously to cause disaffection and divide the coalition Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to give room for the so-called Islamic State for West African Province (ISWAP) and its defeated local franchise, Boko Haram terrorists group, to resurrect.”
The attempt by the army to induce national paranoia is unlikely to work. It is possible that those who loath the Buhari presidency would want the government to come to grief one way or the other. But to suggest that such a malevolent objective could be procured by enemies of the government months after the conclusion of the election, and despite the pendency of a suit against the ruling party’s electoral victory, is to stretch credulity to its elastic limit. If, however, the government’s enemies are hard at work to scuttle democracy and rub the nose of the Buhari presidency in dirt, the army has done precious little to prove that point with the political statement they released two Saturdays ago.
Very little has changed over the decades, despite the hesitant but salutary steps Nigerian democracy has taken to entrench progress. Past military regimes were accustomed to spreading bogey accounts of impending insurrections and coup plots. Some were true, others were concocted. Indeed, those military governments became so used to believing their accounts of plots that they learnt how to deploy those ghastly stories to subvert protests and opposition efforts, rein in perceived enemies, and sometimes deploy them deliberately to destroy specific people, institutions and other targets. Col. Sagir’s statement on the alleged plot against the May 29 inauguration should, in a democracy, come from the Defence ministry. Political and politicised statements have no business coming from the army directly. They tend to suck the military into politics and give the unwholesome impression that troops are for a faction of the political elite.
The military should concentrate on winning the war against Boko Haram. It should not allow distractions such as reading “body language” and weighing “unguarded utterances”. They are unfit to make such assessments. Fake stories have become a global phenomenon. The army and everybody else must get used to dealing with them. But no matter how potent they are, fake stories and other sponsored stories have limited effects on the course of wars. Tactics and strategies, together with sophisticated military hardware and well-trained soldiers, often determine victory. In fact, critics may begin reading the army’s statement as a weak attempt to justify the troubles plaguing its troops at the war front.
Government spokesmen see bogeys where there are non, and sometimes the secret service in developing countries also feel obligated to come up with reports of subversions that exist on paper. After painful transcending the destructive intrusion of politics into service discipline and camaraderie, the military must never allow that era to return, even subtly. It is sad that democracy in Nigeria is not growing as it should, with institutions strengthened and public officials subjecting themselves to the rule of law, but the military can help themselves and the country by sticking to a clear-sighted approach to relating with democratic institutions. After all, they must know that the military did not, and could never, vote as one man, in one direction. That is why they must be above suspicion. Let them stick to their job and let those saddled with writing security reports worry over the fidelity of what they write.
