The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nigeria’s democracy

  • Nigeria’s democracy and the civil-military fault line

    Nigeria’s democracy and the civil-military fault line

    • By Pratt Elias

    Sir: On November 11, a brief confrontation between Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and a young naval officer swept across the country with the velocity of a nation primed for spectacle. A minister bristling with fury. A uniformed officer unmoved. Mobile phones capturing every second. The videos spread, commentary erupted, and the nation quickly split into camps.

    For some, the minister’s abrasive tone was the scandal. For others, the young officer’s composure transformed him into a folk hero, a symbol of resistance against elite impunity. But beneath the frenzy lies a far more consequential question: What does it mean for a democracy when a uniformed serviceman obstructs a constitutionally empowered civilian authority and a significant portion of the public applauds?

    This was not a clash of personalities. It was a warning, subtle but unmistakable, that something fundamental in Nigeria’s civil-military relations is beginning to shift.

    At first glance, the encounter appeared straightforward: a minister attempting to access a site he described as an illegal development and a naval officer refusing to yield. Voices rose, tempers flared, videos circulated. Yet the true significance lies elsewhere. A serving officer blocked a minister performing a statutory duty. In any stable democracy, such a moment would trigger immediate concern, not because ministers are flawless, but because the Armed Forces cannot decide which civilians they will obey.

    Every democracy rests on a core doctrine: the military must remain subordinate to civilian authority. This is not symbolic; it is structural. Carl von Clausewitz, in On War, described military force as a continuation of political intercourse carried on with other means. The military is therefore never an autonomous power. It is an instrument of the state, deriving its legitimacy from obedience to civilian direction. Clausewitz warned that once military power drifts outside political control, it becomes a threat, not a safeguard.

    For Nigeria, a country scarred by coups and military rule, this doctrine is not an abstraction but a condition for national survival. The constitution vests operational command in the president because the military must never become a self-directing force answerable to sentiment or personal loyalties. That is why the incident cannot be dismissed. The moment a junior officer feels entitled to obstruct a minister performing lawful duties, military discipline begins to drift away from constitutional restraint toward personal discretion and emotion, exposing the system to disorder.

    A democratic society must be careful about the heroes it elevates. Applauding a soldier who confronts a minister may feel satisfying in a country frustrated by governance failures, but such applause is dangerous. It normalises the belief that a uniformed officer may assess, judge, and reject the authority of an elected or appointed official based on personal views or popular sympathy.

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    One detail makes the situation even more troubling: the supposed superior who allegedly deployed the naval officer is a retired officer. A retired officer has no operational authority, no place in the chain of command, and no right to redeploy or direct serving personnel to another duty location without the consent of the proper deployment authority. Once serving officers begin to act on the informal directives of retired figures, the military re-enters the grey zone Nigeria has struggled for decades to escape, a space where shadow chains of command thrive and discipline fractures into private loyalties. This is not professionalism. It is institutional deterioration.

    The confrontation of November 11 was not merely embarrassing. It was a quiet alarm, a sign that the boundaries sustaining Nigeria’s democracy are fraying. A soldier defied a minister. A retired officer was implicated. And a substantial portion of the public approved.

    Nigeria cannot afford to forget what Clausewitz taught. Democracy survives only when the military remains firmly under civilian authority.

    The response must therefore be firm and immediate. The military high command should reaffirm civilian supremacy through clear directives and, where necessary, disciplinary action. Political leaders must exercise authority with the legitimacy that commands respect rather than provoke defiance. And the public must recognise that cheering a man in uniform today may empower the very force that could one day dismantle their democracy. The remedy lies in institutional accountability, not viral defiance.

    There is an additional danger. Members of staff of the Federal Capital Territory Administration carrying out lawful assignments may now be exposed to physical threats if citizens begin to imitate the episode by resorting to force to defend their interests, whether legal or illegal. The outcome is predictable: a breakdown of law and order.

    •Pratt Elias,

    Yola, Adamawa State.

  • Deepening Nigeria’s democracy

    Deepening Nigeria’s democracy

    • By Ike Willie-Nwobu

    Nigeria’s June 12 celebration of its democracy day is itself a historical thumbs-up to the distance the country has covered in the past two decades.  June 12, 1993, was the day Nigeria held an election deemed free and fair amidst a repressive military regime, which turned out to be a cruel charade that ushered in a more brutal military regime. The winner of that election, M.K.O Abiola, which was annulled, died in custody just a year before Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999.

    If history holds lessons for Nigeria’s democracy, it is one of resilience and rootedness found in the will of the Nigerian people and repeatedly dipped in blood over the years.

    Twenty five years later after its epochal return, Nigeria’s democracy is all cause for celebration especially with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in power. The president may be flawed, like every other person and president. His presidency may be as imperfect as the country and humanity that sustain it, but the small steps made so far show a man who knows the stringent demands of democracy and is prepared to walk its painful path.

    President Tinubu’s readiness to embrace the sacrifices that democracy demands departs from the misadventures of his predecessor who preferred a militarized kind of democracy marked by understated autocracy and insularity. The clear difference between the two governments can be explained by the different backgrounds of the two men in charge. One, a former military coup plotter, the other a democrat at heart who once found the courage to go on exile to court the democracy he believed in. It also has something to do with courage and counsel.

    Where Muhammadu Buhari preferred to surround himself with leaders from the North, giving their parochial views the gravitas of law, President Tinubu has shown the kind of openness that democracy is so fond of. This key difference in personality and politics has reflected in appointments made so far. While Muhammadu Buhari deemed only people of his ethnic and religious stock fit enough for key security and government positions, mostly ignoring people from the Southeast, President Tinubu has been willing to deal every section of the country a fairer hand.

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    This inclusive approach has been key to tackling the insecurity that reduced the country to such chaos between 2015 and 2023. It has also taken a lot of sting out of secessionist agitations within the country. There is a distinct feeling that he will do more the longer he stays in office. The president’s approach is the balm that democracy offers, the elixir to the divisions that are inevitable in the coming together of many disparate parts.

     Like mathematics, democracy is about numbers and power. For democracy to operate smoothly, the majority as well as the minority must have access to clear and uncluttered space at the table. While power must remain with the people being the majority, democracy is often fair enough to include the minority whose feeling of exclusion can lead to dangerous levels of animosity and hostility.

    In a country where democracy has not always reflected diversity, reducing political appointments to ethnic or sectarian affairs is a recipe for the kind of disaster that was the Muhammadu Buhari presidency. In electing Tinubu who went into exile in the days when Nigerians fought to restore democracy, Nigerians went for someone who had made sacrifices for the country and democracy, someone who knew and loved democracy enough to fight and flee for it.

     The 2023 elections may have been flawed the way Nigeria’s democracy has remained deeply flawed since 1999. But something is cooking, and has been cooking for twenty-five unbroken years. In a continent brimming with dictators and their pseudo democracy, it is no mean feat for a country of Nigeria’s size and challenges to have emerged from thirteen years of  military rule to sustain  democracy for more than two decades.

    Slowly, Nigeria, surrounded by poor, landlocked crisis-ridden countries, has become a beacon of democracy. The military who have seized power in Mali, Guinea, Niger, Burkina Faso and Gabon as well as elsewhere in Africa know that Nigeria’s model repudiates as well as rebukes them for truncating democracy in their countries.  President Tinubu showed as much in strongly reprimanding the coup plotters in Niger Republic shortly after he assumed office.

    Nigeria remains a deeply divided country with many people waiting for the slightest opportunity to flash their ethnic and religious cards. It is also a country of many dictators and potential dictators many of whom have been sworn in as state governors. But with each day that passes, democracy makes a giant stride, increasing the distance between the country and the days when the military caused the country to bleed nonstop. This is worth celebrating, especially because stability comes from consistency and continuity and Nigeria’s democracy continues.

    Democracy means freedom beginning from free speech, which is the fulcrum of all other freedoms. It means the freedom to vote and be voted for, it means freedom under the law. What democracy means is indescribable, and Nigerians must guard against the darkness that imperils what is invaluable precisely because it is indescribable. 

    Nigerians must agree to work together to sustain their democracy. It is beyond President Tinubu who is only a temporary totem of the transience of power tethered to Aso Rock. It is also beyond any ethnic or religious group. Sustaining Nigeria’s democracy is a fight for the present but especially for the future.

    Nigerians must eschew a return to the past, especially for the sake of those fixed in the country’s future. For Nigerians to remain free of the cage that dictatorship is, vigilance is key.

    •Willie-Nwobu writes via Ikewilly9@gmail.com