On December 12, 2015 in Kaduna State, north central Nigeria, the military allegedly mowed down hundreds of Shiite Muslims who allegedly tried to obstruct their path. Till date, their leader, Ibrahim El zakzaky and his wife are still in detention, although authorities like to sugar coat it as protective custody.
While Nigerians are still mortified by that horrific event in Kaduna, under the disguise of a military exercise code named operation Python dance ll, the military on September 15, 2017 invaded south eastern Nigeria-Umuahia and Aba-in particular, unleashing sorrow, tears and blood on the civilian populace. Coincidentally, in the 1980s, after a fierce and unfortunate encounter with the military, which led to the death of illustrious Mrs Fumilayo Kuti, mother of the highlife music maestro, the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the radical musician had released a hit song, aptly tagged ‘Sorrow, Tears and Blood, them regular trademark.’ Events in the recent past have confirmed that Fela’s odious characterisation of the military was on point.
While the army in particular is basking in the euphoria of killing defenseless civilians (whose tax money is used to fund them) in both north central and south east Nigeria, it is being given a bloody nose by the religious insurgent group Boko Haram, in the north east.
It is common knowledge that Bornu and Yobe states were practically turned into killing fields by the terrorists and citizens have remained exposed to being raped, kidnapped and sold into slavery or killed for nearly 10 years without adequate protection from the army that’s brutalizing Nigerians in other zones.
Rather than carry out their military drills in the dreaded Sambisa forest where Boko Haram holds sway, urban centres such as Kaduna, Umuahia and Aba are their preferred training grounds.
What a paradox?
The disappointing performance of the military against Boko Haram which had been regaining momentum through increased spate of bombings and steady return to the territories which the military claimed it had recovered, prompted the then Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo to order the military high command to return to their central command base in Maiduguri. And upon his return from medical vacation in London, in August, President Buhari endorsed Osinbajo’s decision by renewing his call on the military to defeat the insurgents without further delay. Despite the presidency’s marching order to the military, Boko Haram is still a significant threat to life in the north east, sometimes making incursions into Internally Displaced People, IDP camps and educational institutions like University of Maiduguri where they have recently killed and kidnapped both students and lecturers.
In fact, the National Bureau of Statistics , NBS and Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN attribute the current high cost of food partly to displacement of farmers in the north east due to acts of terrorism which has been preventing them from tiling the soil for food.
Before the Kaduna tragedy and the recent Umuahia debacle, there were massacres committed by the army against unarmed citizens in Zaki Biam, Benue State and Odi, Bayelsa State in November 1999 under the watch of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Curiously, these heinous crimes by the army against civilian population within a country, not under civil war condition occurred during the watch of former military dictators who later became presidents in democratic settings.
A quick trend analysis reveals that under the regime of other democratically elected presidents like Umaru Yar’Adua of blessed memory who succeeded Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, whom Buhari succeeded, although civilians rubbed off the military on the wrong side, such irksome Nigerians were not sent to their early graves by deadly military force as has been the case in the two instances earlier cited.
What that indicates to me is that no matter their claim to the contrary, once a soldier, the nihilist orientation never really dies, even when they replace their khaki uniforms with Agbada frocks as they exit the military jackboot arena and step into the tough but civil political turf.
Arising from the forgoing scenario, I have come to the conclusion that the claims of being reborn democrats by former soldiers when they are trying to engage in politics, are actually mere gimmicks meant to beguile the gullible voters who they lure into voting for them to get into office, only for their deadly fangs which they had retracted when seeking the mandate, to become unbridled soon after they have captured political power.
Going forward, and given what we know now, before choosing their leaders, l suggest that Nigerians should apply the cautionary measure that lawyers refer to as caveat emptor-buyer beware.
Unsurprisingly, owing to the vicious and cold blooded approach of the Nigerian military in tackling insurgents within the internal territory of Nigeria, international civil liberty organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have had course to indict the military in several reports. Consequently, they had cautioned the military on the need to respect the rights of civilians in the course of discharging their duties of reining in insurgents, but the military has always denied the allegations.
Now, my candid observations and concerns about the ignoble trend of Nigerian military’s aggression against civilian population actually is with a view to drawing its attention to areas in which it has been adjudged wanting. Whether they like to hear it or not, most Nigerians don’t believe that the military has done a good job of reorientation from military and autocratic rule to democratic system of governance..
The military need to know that as an institution of govt, it is owned by all Nigerians and not just by those who lead it now. The men and women of that inestimable and highly valuable organization that is meant to be an instrument of national defence and stabilisation, must subject themselves to scrutiny and criticism as the executive, legislative, and judicial arms of govt and even the fourth realm of the estate-the media do.
One other thing the military must recognise is that they cannot be allowed to intimidate those of us they love to refer to as ‘Bloody Civilians’ just because they have custody of the arms and ammunition that WE THE PEOPLE procured for them to protect us.
Onyibe, a development strategist and alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts USA, is a former cabinet member of Delta State government
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