Nigeria and Mali at 60: Reflections on lust for power

 


President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, left, and Bah Ndaw, Mali’s Interim President

 

Nigeria and Mali at 60: Reflections on lust for power

 

Seemingly caught between a rock and a hard place, citizens should not by default cast the military in the mould of de facto alternative government, writes Soyombo Opeyemi…

 

On this occasion of the diamond Independence anniversary, there is the need to review the sharp vicissitudes of Nigeria with a view to building a better and prosperous country.

Amnesia is a fatal disease in any human concourse. It appears quite easy to forget that it was martial rule that led to the Nigerian Civil War, which cost the nation about three million lives and socio-economic dislocation that remains with us till date. Army rule set Nigeria back 50 years in terms of development. Every coup-maker excoriated the previous government in order to gain legitimacy. No sooner had it settled down than it did worse than the regime it toppled. The military governments took the art of treasury looting to the highest point in Nigeria.

After stormy conferences in Ibadan (1950), London (1953) and Lagos (1954), the founding fathers of Nigeria agreed to live together under a federal arrangement. This led to an accelerated development in the three regions of the North, West and East. Nigeria had its golden years before the first coup. The military, with its centralized command structure, destroyed the federal structure, replacing it with a unitary system. The country is yet to recover from the strangulating unitary structure foisted on it through endless coups.

The military was not kind to itself either. One coup after the other, it destroyed the lives of many of its finest officers, retired senior and junior officers untimely and unceremoniously, shattered discipline, command structure and esprit de corps. Since a military government is patently illegal, it is always unstable, living in perpetual fear of coups from within its own ranks. Military interregnums brought Nigeria to its knees.

Therefore, it amounts to mental derangement for a people that suffered such cataclysm to perpetrate a situation that will orchestrate its recurrence.  We must be wary of words, actions, speeches and write-ups that seem to suggest a loss of faith in the current democratic order.

Be it a good or bad civilian government, the era of military regime is over in Nigeria. The military is not the watchdog of the nation’s democracy and should not constitute itself as one. That role has been handed to the press by Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution (as amended). The military is not an alternative government, being not a political party. There is only one alternative government; and that must be a political party. If one party in power is not doing well, then let another political party replace it at the next general elections.

“There is need for a law to protect the rank and file for disobeying treasonable orders and a law empowering them to arrest any superior officer who issues treasonable orders, to wit, to take over a media station for the purpose of announcing a coup, to take over a Government House of a state and the seat of the Federal Government for the purpose of governance. The National Assembly should, therefore, enact a ‘Treason(able) Orders Disobedience Protection Law’.”

Nigeria trains doctors and nurses to keep her citizens in good health. She trains teachers to educate her citizens. She trains soldiers to keep her citizens and territory secure from external aggression. The military cannot claim to be more important than teachers. Neither can doctors claim superiority over the police. The teachers are carrying out their lawful duties in the classrooms, the doctors and nurses are fulfilling their constitutional mandates in the hospitals, the farmers in the farms; so should members of the armed forces fulfil their lawful duties of defending the citizens and the country against external aggression. Let everyone and every institution fulfil their constitutional roles.

 

The road to hell

On the 16th of January, 1966, the Acting President, Dr Nwafor Orizu, made a radio broadcast to the nation and said, inter alia:

“I have tonight been advised by the Council of Ministers that they had come to the unanimous decision voluntarily to hand over the administration of the country to the armed forces of the republic with immediate effect. All ministers are assured of their personal safety by the new administration. I would now call upon the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army, General Aguiyi Ironsi, to make a statement to the nation on the policy of the new administration. It is my fervent hope that the new administration will ensure the peace and stability of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and that all citizens will give them their full co-operation.”

The General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army, Thomas Aguiyi Ironsi, replied, in part: “The government of the Federation of Nigeria having ceased to function, the Nigerian Armed Forces have been invited to form an Interim Military Government for the purposes of maintaining law and order, and of maintaining essential services. This invitation has been accepted, and I, General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi, the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army, have been formally invested with authority as Head of the Federation Military Government and Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces.”

Now, Section 87 of the 1963 Constitution, which was in force until the fall of the First Republic, provides as follows:

(1) There shall be a Prime Minister of the Federation, who shall be appointed by the President.

(2) Whenever the President has occasion to appoint a Prime Minister he shall appoint a member of the House of Representatives who appears to him likely to command the support of the majority of the members of the House.

(8) The office of the Prime Minister shall become vacant (a) when after the dissolution of the House of Representatives, the Prime Minister is informed by the President that the President is about to re-appoint him as Prime Minister or to appoint another person as Prime Minister; or (b) if he ceases to be a member of the House of Representatives otherwise by reason of a dissolution of Parliament.

(9) The office of a Minister of the Government of the Federation other than the Prime Minister shall become vacant if the office of the Prime Minister becomes vacant.

By virtue of the above provisions, the meeting of the Council of Ministers, presided over by Alhaji Zanna Buka Dipcharima, which decided “to hand over the administration of the country to the armed forces”, was completely unconstitutional. It must be noted that as at 15 January, 1966, the National Parliament was not under dissolution (nor prorogation).

By the same token, the broadcast by the Acting President inviting the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army to take over the administration of the country and the acceptance of the same by General Aguiyi Ironsi, were absolutely unconstitutional.

The Acting President or President had no such constitutional power to invite the Nigerian Armed Forces to form an Interim Military Government. The actions of the Council of Ministers and the Acting President bordered on treasonable felony. The act of the General Officer Commanding, Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi, was treason writ large!

Talking on the first coup,” wrote Chief Richard Akinjide who was the Federal Minister of Education at the material time (and later Attorney-General of the Federation in the Second Republic), “when Balewa got missing, we knew Okotie-Eboh had been killed, we knew Samuel Akintola had been killed. We the members of the Balewa cabinet started meeting.  But how can we have a cabinet meeting without the Prime Minister acting or the Prime Minister presiding. So, unanimously, we nominated acting Prime Minister amongst us and we continued holding our meetings. Then we got a message that we should all assemble at the cabinet office. All the Ministers were requested by the G.O.C. of the Nigerian Army, General Aguiyi Ironsi, to assemble.

 “We assembled there, having nominated Zanna Dipcharima as our acting Prime Minister in the absence of the Prime Minister, whose whereabouts we didn’t know. We approached the Acting President, Nwafor Orizu, to swear him in because he could not legitimately act as the Prime Minister except he was sworn in. Nwafor Orizu refused. He said he needed to contact Zik, who was then in West Indies. Under the Law, Acting President Nwafor Orizu had all the powers of the President.

 “Well, I have read in many books saying that we handed over to the military. We did not hand over. Ironsi told us that ‘You either hand over as gentlemen or you hand over by force!’  These were his words. Is that voluntary hand-over? So we did not hand over. We wanted the Acting Prime Minister to be in place but Ironsi forced us – and I use the word ‘force’ advisedly – to hand over to him. He was controlling the soldiers.

“The Acting President, Nwafor Orizu, who did not co-operate with us, co-operated with the GOC. Dr. Orizu and the GOC prepared speeches which Nwafor Orizu broadcast, handing over the government of the country to the army. I hereby state again categorically as a member of that cabinet that we did not hand over voluntarily. It was a coup.”

Sections 37 and 41 of the Criminal Code provide as follows:

 

  1. 37. (1) Any person who levies war against the State, in order to intimidate or overawe the President or the Governor of a State, is guilty of treason, and is liable to the punishment of death.

 

  1. Any person who forms an intention to effect any of the following purposes, that is to say –

(a) to remove during his term of office otherwise than by constitutional means the President as Head of State of the Federation and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces thereof; or

(b) to likewise remove during his term of office the Governor of a State; or

(c) to levy war against Nigeria in order by force or constraint to compel the President to change his measures or counsels, or in order to put any force or constraint upon, or in order to intimidate or overawe any House of the National Assembly or any other Legislature or legislative authority; or

(d) to instigate any foreigner to make any armed invasion of Nigeria or of any of the territories thereof; and manifests such intention by an overt act, is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for life.

 “The government of the Federation of Nigeria having ceased to function,” was a blatant lie conveyed to the public by Gen. Ironsi. Following the unfortunate killing of the Prime Minister, the Premiers of the North (Sir Ahmadu Bello) and the West (Chief Ladoke Akintola) by the mutineers, the Acting President had the constitutional power to appoint a new Prime Minister from the House of Representatives or the governing party in the central legislature. The Governor of the Northern Nigeria was constitutionally empowered to appoint a new Premier from the party in power in the Northern Legislative Houses. The same could have held for the Western Nigeria – a new Premier could have been appointed by the Governor of the West from the Western House of Assembly.

With the manifest failure of the Nzeogwu-led coup d’état, the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army should have pledged his allegiance to the Constitution and loyalty to the new government. Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and other coup plotters should have been arrested (and they were eventually arrested) and charged with treason and murder. These measures would have preserved our democracy and forestalled the mindless orgy of blood-letting of imponderable proportions in the barracks and the nooks and crannies of Nigeria for gruelling 48 months!

One must state in parenthesis that the Nzeogwu military putsch was not an Igbo coup. Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, it could be argued, was more of a Northerner than an Easterner or Mid-westerner. Those callow officers, including Major Adewale Ademoyega – who was among the leading mutinous soldiers that planned the coup – were merely hot-headed and prone to taking harebrained decisions. Nzeogwu himself was a doctrinaire Marxist who had been psychologically misled by a weird ideology. Although there was spontaneous embrace of his coup by the masses from North to South, Nzeogwu also would have been one of the worst dictators in history had his coup succeeded. However, the mismanagement of the coup by Ironsi accounted for the imputation of an ethnic agenda.  At any rate, it is the finger that sins that the king cuts. You cannot hold an entire race responsible for the sin of a couple of its members. That is totally inadmissible. Consequently, the pogroms directed at the Easterners were unwarranted and completely reprehensible.

This writer is very much aware of the political crisis in the Western Region, which simmered till the early hours of 15 January, 1966. By that date, despite the mis-deployment of the police and the army, over 1,000 lives had been lost; over 5,000 houses burnt. Even the newly-inaugurated Premier, Chief  Ladoke Akintola, went into hiding! The Western Region election of October, 1965 had been massively rigged in favour of the unpopular Akintola government. And it came on the heel of the 1964 general election that was equally manipulated in favour of the government of Balewa. But the Premier of the West enjoyed the backing of the Prime Minister.

Earlier on 19th May, 1962, the regional leadership of the Action Group found Premier Akintola guilty of charges of maladministration, anti-party activities and indiscipline and consequently voted for his resignation. The federal leadership ratified the decision with majority of the Action Group-dominated Western Region House of Assembly in support. But Akintola refused to abide by his party’s decision, threatening fire and brimstone. He had secured the support of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and Northern Premier Ahmadu Bello – the two, especially the latter, being sworn political enemies of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The Western House of Assembly sitting convened on 24th May, 1962 to pass a vote of confidence in the new Premier Adegbenro ended in a fracas as Akintola’s supporters disrupted proceedings with the connivance of the police. A sitting of the Federal House of Representatives was convened on 29th May, 1962 which declared a state of emergency in the West. The Hansard of the House shows that the emergency declaration was premeditated, ostensibly directed at the Action Group.

In the meantime, Awolowo and 30 of his associates had been arrested in November, 1962, on (politically trumped-up) charges of treasonable felony and were sentenced to various prison terms in June, 1963. The eclipse of the Action Group by the ruling coalition government riled the people of the Western Region. They seemed to bide their time in order to remove the burden of an unpopular government from their shoulders. The rigging of the parliamentary elections of 1965 became the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back.

What appears to be the bastion of the independence of the judiciary – the Judicial Service Commission – had been removed and appointment of judges brought under political control by the Republican Constitution of 1963. Disputes arising from the 1963 population census festered. The abuse of power, using the Regional and Federal Electoral Commissions, the misuse of security personnel, especially the police (and elements of the armed forces) and circumscription of the judiciary by the Prime Minister, resulting in macabre social tension, among others, were what snowballed into the coup d’état of 1966. (It is instructive to note that, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the highest court at the material time, affirmed that the removal of Premier Akintola by his party was constitutional.)

In sum, the absence of justice or abuse of power sounded the death knell for the First Republic.

Equally, the same abuse of power using the Federal Electoral Commission, misuse of security personnel, especially the police (and elements of the armed forces) and political control of the judiciary by the President, resulting in escalating social tension, led to the December, 1983 coup.

 

Military’s lust for power

However, in virtually all the cases, whether in Nigeria or Mali, no military officers seize power on behalf of the people. The military usually cashes in on the frustration of the public to stage a coup in order to satisfy the lust of its officers for power. Hence one military coup usually leads to another.

The situation is the same in Mali. The rigging of parliamentary elections, using the electoral body and the judiciary, the abuse of power and misuse of security agents against the people (protesters) constituted the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back.

“We are full of effusive praises for President Muhammadu Buhari for practically confronting these unconscionable leaders at the 57th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Heads of State in Niamey. Buhari deserves all the garlands for this unprecedented display of pointed frankness to his brother leaders of Ivory Coast and Guinea. Other ECOWAS leaders must follow in the footsteps of Buhari to ensure Presidents of Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea do not spark off a conflagration in their respective countries.”

 

But let no one be deceived. Military officers do not grab power on behalf of the masses. When Lt. Moussa Traore seized power by force of arms from the civilian President Modibo Keita in 1968, the Malian citizens welcomed the ‘saviour’ from the barracks! Traore had cashed in on the economic hardship of the masses. But what did the Malians get in return for their embrace of the unelected ‘saviour’? Brutal dictatorship that lasted for 22 (twenty-two) years until another military putsch swept Traore from power!

Consequently, my snorts of contempt could be heard on the streets of Bamako when on the 18th day of August, 2020, news filtered to the world that many Malian civilians had welcomed the military putsch against the embattled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, who had failed to succumb to the month-long massive street protests calling for his resignation. Coups after coups, the African populations have failed to learn from history!

“Well, the Army took over and they continued to blunder. They continued to do what they were trained to do: that is, to destroy: to kill; and to loot,” submitted Chief Mbazulike Amechi, Minister of Aviation in the First Republic.

Have we not been here before? Have Malians not been there before? Nigerians, in their millions, from North to South, welcomed virtually all military coups. But what did we get at the end of each and every coup d’état?

“Military officers do not grab power on behalf of the masses. When Lt. Moussa Traore seized power by force of arms from the civilian President Modibo Keita in 1968, the Malian citizens welcomed the ‘saviour’ from the barracks! Traore had cashed in on the economic hardship of the masses. But what did the Malians get in return for their embrace of the unelected ‘saviour’? Brutal dictatorship that lasted for 22 years until another military putsch swept Traore from power!”

 

Collapse of economy

A former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Alfa Belgore, once lamented how military rule stifled Nigerian development. He recalled the many development agreements with the German government in critical sectors of the country’s economy in the early 60s, which had to be abandoned because of army rule. The strong economic foundation laid by our founding founders began a gradual plunge from the period of military take-over in January 15, 1966, notwithstanding the oil money that came later, which was largely mismanaged. Martial rule signalled the premature death or decimation of hundreds of flourishing industries, many of them multi-nationals. Even those established during the heyday of the army rule did not survive the depredations of the subsequent military governments, as one coup succeeded another. The then flourishing private/ mission schools were taken over by force, progressively decayed and destroyed. Today, the carcasses of these schools are being returned to their original owners!  The public corporations too collapsed under the mismanagement of military regimes – Nigerian Railway, Nigeria Airways, Nigerian National Shipping Line, etc., etc. Indeed, things became so bad for the country that national aircraft and ships were seized in foreign countries on account of unpaid debts!

No government could match the military regimes in the art of corruption. Indeed, it can be argued that the civil governments accused of corruption by coup-makers could actually pass for saints. The military reportedly introduced security vote into governance, which has now become a slush fund for some of those holding the levers of power. Indeed, the civilian public officers who currently indulge in corruption could be said to have learnt the art of brazen larceny from the military regimes. General Abacha alone is credited to have looted about $5 billion (five billion dollars)! That is N1.8 trillion at the exchange rate of N360 to one dollar!

“Parliamentary system of government remains the best option for Nigeria. It is cheap to run in comparison with the American presidential model. I earnestly urge President Muhammadu Buhari, Senate President Ahmed Lawan and Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila to return the country to parliamentary democracy, effective May 29, 2023. Every election will then be fought at the constituency level. The federal Prime Minister or the Premier at the state level will be primus inter pares, being only first among his equals.”

 

Desk generals

When on the 13th day of September, the media was awash with the report that the alliance of opposition politicians and civil society groups (the M5-RFP) who had led the masses to stage enormous street demonstrations, had rejected a transition charter of the Colonel Assimi Goita-led National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), accusing the military junta/ coupists of an attempt to “grab and confiscate power”, noting that the military document “did not reflect the views and decisions of the Malian people,” I simply sniggered!

Even when you dine with the devil with a long spoon, the cutlery will still be grabbed from you and confiscated! Col. Goita! Officers of his ilk are merely band of opportunists, who love to fish in troubled waters in order to satisfy their lust for political power. But for the decision of ECOWAS to shutter its borders and demand a civilian transition leadership, Col. Assimi Goita planned to remain in power for three years, during which he most likely would have settled down to transmute from military to a civilian dictator! Despite the Tuesday, 15th day of September, 2020 deadline given by the regional bloc for the military leaders to immediately hand over power to a civilian government, the dissident soldiers dithered.

ECOWAS and Malians should be vigilant. Goita may still overthrow the newly-inaugurated Transitional President, Bah Ndaw, in order to satisfy the coupists’ lust for power. No military officers seize power on behalf of the masses!

In order to preserve constitutional rule in the region, ECOWAS leaders should have rejected any arrangement that would include the mutinous soldiers under the self-styled banner of National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP). No military officers impound power in order to save or serve the masses. They do so to sit behind desks in Government Houses in order to enjoy the perks of political office.

Here in Nigeria, and during the coup years, we saw generals emerge not by fighting wars, not by any acts of derring-do in warfronts but by sitting behind desks in Government Houses! The civil populace bore the brunt. Many unarmed civilians were regularly mauled, tortured and imprisoned in a show of force by the desk generals. In one instance, Ola Rotimi, the renowned playwright and author of The Gods Are Not To Blame,  was ordered to put his both hands on a car and horsewhipped like a schoolboy by one of the ubiquitous soldiers set to define their times!

“The military was not kind to itself either. One coup after the other, it destroyed the lives of many of its finest officers, retired senior and junior officers untimely and unceremoniously, shattered discipline, command structure and esprit de corps. Since a military government is patently illegal, it is always unstable, living in perpetual fear of coups from within its own ranks. Military interregnums brought Nigeria to its knees.”

Besides, no soldiers would risk committing treason and then hand over the ‘fruits of their labour’ to any other group! MKO Abiola waited in vain for the Abacha junta to fulfil its own part of the ‘bargain’ by handing over power to him! No military officers hijack power on behalf of the masses!

 

The germane question

The corollary question would then be: how should state and non state actors respond when the political class becomes irresponsible and pushes their country towards the precipice? The symptoms of a country on the brink are corruption, bribery, tribalism, nepotism, impunity, religious bigotry, manipulation of the electoral management body and the judiciary, misuse of the security operatives, especially the police and the armed forces, unlimited access to the public till by state actors, especially elected politicians. The list is by no means exhaustive. But the most dangerous causes of instability in Africa are the manipulation of the electoral body and the misuse of the security agents, especially the police, elements of the armed forces and the judiciary.

One easily recalls that the judiciary (the Constitutional Council) was one of the major institutions abused by the ex-President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire to push his country into a needless civil war. It is regrettable that President Alassane Quattara (78) of Cote d’Ivoire and President Alpha Conde of Guinea (82) have now pushed their countries on the brink of avoidable wars by misusing the electoral body, the judiciary and the security agents, especially the police and the armed forces!

 

Buhari’s cautionary note

In this connection, we are full of effusive praises for President Muhammadu Buhari for practically confronting these unconscionable leaders at the 57th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government in Niamey, Niger Republic, on 7th September, 2020.

Declared Buhari,“It is important that as leaders of our individual member-states of ECOWAS, we need to adhere to the constitutional provisions of our countries, particularly on term limits. This is one area that generates crisis and political tension in our sub-region. As it is, the challenges facing the sub-region are enormous; from socio-economic matters to security issues, the ECOWAS sub-region cannot, therefore, afford another political crisis, in the guise of tenure elongation. I urge us all to resist the temptation of seeking to perpetuate ourselves in power beyond the constitutional provisions. I commend those in our midst that have resisted such temptations, for they will be deemed exceptional role models in their respective countries and the sub-region as a whole. Related to this call for restraint is the need to guarantee free, fair and credible elections. This must be the bedrock for democracy to be sustained in our sub-region, just as the need for adherence to the rule of law.”

President Buhari deserves all the garlands for this unprecedented display of pointed frankness to his brother leaders of Ivory Coast and Guinea.

It behoves the other ECOWAS leaders to avoid the unsavoury situation of having to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted. They must follow in the footsteps of Buhari to ensure Presidents of Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea do not spark off a conflagration in their respective countries through their morbid desire to cling on to power. There is already a combustible political situation in these countries. They must save the region from further political crisis.

“The current crop of officers appears set to play their allotted constitutional role in the socio-economic development of Nigeria. The military high command must enforce with stubborn rigidity international best practices in military-civil relations. One cannot imagine a French soldier beat up, gun-butt or horsewhip an unarmed citizen on the streets of Paris or a British soldier ordering a U.K citizen to do a frog jump on the streets of London, as we observe here in Nigeria! Neither can a US soldier engage in a bayonet or gun battle with a US police officer! Such vestiges of coup years must disappear altogether from Nigeria.”

 

Delimiting the powers of the president

This author believes that statecraft should not be left to chance or at the mercy of good men. Even the good men today may become bad men tomorrow! Our governance institutions should so strong as to be able to check or withstand any good or bad leader.  One of the best ways to achieve this in Africa is to limit the powers of the head of state, especially with regards to appointment. The head of government should be stripped of the power to appoint the chairman and members of the electoral management body and the head of the police. Such powers should reside in a democratic committee of the institution of judiciary. But the head of state may remove such officers upon two-thirds votes of members of the upper chamber of the legislature on the grounds of gross misconduct. This is without prejudice to the need to devolve powers to the constituent states, provinces or regions, especially in the large and multi-ethnic societies in Africa.

President Buhari was recently censured for his comments that the APC-led federal government could have used the army, the police and other security agents to overrun the opposition at the 2019 general elections but chose not to do so. But Mr Buhari only stated the obvious. He knew how some previous leaders had deployed elements of the military and the police to rig elections on behalf of the party in power. Rather than criticisms, the message to draw from the President’s comments should have been on how to build a military institution and security architecture that cannot be abused by any head of state.

Contrary to the practice and widely-held notion, the President’s power over the armed forces is circumscribed by the Act of the National Assembly.

Section 218 (4) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) expressly provides as follows:

“(4) The National Assembly shall have power to make laws for the regulation of –

(a) the powers exercisable by the President as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation; and

(b) the appointment, promotion and disciplinary control of members of the armed forces of the Federation.”

Therefore, it is the responsibility of the National Assembly to enact laws that make it an impeachable offence for any President or Commander-in-Chief to issue an unconstitutional order to the armed forces and a crime for the military high command to execute such an order.

Any order to the members of the armed forces and security operatives, especially the police to aid and abet rigging of elections or to turn your guns against unarmed civilians, are patently criminal and unconstitutional. Such crimes are not covered by statute of limitations. “I’m only obeying or executing orders from above,” is no longer an acceptable alibi, for those familiar with proceedings at the International Criminal Court!

“Seemingly caught between a rock and a hard place, citizens should not by default cast the military in the mould of de facto alternative government. The military is not the watchdog of the nation’s democracy and should not constitute itself as one. That role has been handed to the press by Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution (as amended). The military is not an alternative government, being not a political party. There is only one alternative government; and that must be a political party.”

 

Ending judicial corruption

Whereas the executive has considerable influence over the judiciary in Mali, the Nigerian judiciary, constitutionally, enjoys considerable independence. The undoing of the judiciary in our clime, substantially, has its roots in election petitions. General Ishola Williams once alleged that“All the judges are just using the election tribunals to make money. All those who had gone through election tribunals are millionaires today. I challenge any one of them to say no.” (Sunday Independent, March 14, 2010). The bombshell of the retired general was preceded by the submission of Festus Keyamo:“Today, there is nothing that has put our profession and the judiciary on trial more than the widespread allegation of corruption oozing out of many election tribunals. If left unchecked, very soon the politicians will have scant regard for lawyers and their skills. They will simply come and pay you only transport fare to show your face in court. ‘The rest,’ they will tell you, ‘has been taken care of!’” (Sunday SUN, 24/ 08/ 2008).

It is thus a matter of regret that some state institutions now employ (threats of) investigation of judges as a tool of blackmail and intimidation of the said priests in the temple of justice. How did we sink so low in this country? Why has lust for power and money brought our country to a sorry pass?! While we call on the National Judicial Council, with the active support of the Nigeria Bar Association, to sanitize the sacred institution of the judiciary, emphasis should be on how to end manipulation and rigging of electoral process, which opens the floodgate of election petitions.

 

Limiting access to public fund

Above all is the need to smash the cut-throat contest for political office by removing unrestrained access of public officials to public resources, which they eventually deploy to undermine all state institutions. Such resources are equally deployed on the electoral field in order to ensure the highest number of votes goes to the highest bidder. If not checked and extirpated from our political system, vote-buying, a dangerous trend which became entrenched in recent years, will ensure that even freedom becomes a commodity that can be bought by the highest political bidder!

 

Resignation from office

On the 28th of August, 2020, the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, announced his resignation from office on health grounds. No leader is compelled to die in office. Resignation from office is an inalienable right; it’s part of democratic tenets. African leaders should imbibe the culture of resigning from office, especially when their continued leadership is no longer tenable.

 

Scuppering treason from within

Soldiers, we all know, obey orders. They are not exactly protected from disobeying patently treasonable orders such as an order to protect an officer announcing a coup on a radio station, to take over a Government House of a state or the seat of the Federal Government. Since no society can be completely free of deviants, there is need for a law to protect the rank and file or junior officers for disobeying treasonable orders and a law empowering them to arrest any superior officer who issues treasonable orders, to wit, to take over a media station for the purpose of announcing a coup, to take over a Government House of a state and the seat of the Federal Government for the purpose of governance. The National Assembly should, therefore, enact a ‘Treason(able) Orders Disobedience Protection Law’.

 

Military training for all

A nation should prepare for war in time of peace. Consequently, the Legislature and the Executive should kick-start the process of compulsory military training for citizens in line with Section 220 of the Nigerian Constitution.

“220. (1) The Federation shall establish and maintain adequate facilities for carrying into effect any Act of the National Assembly providing for compulsory military training or military service for citizens of Nigeria.

(2) Until an Act of the National Assembly is made in that behalf the President may maintain adequate facilities in any secondary or post-secondary educational institution in Nigeria for giving military training in any such institution which desires to have the training.”

 

Removal of statute of limitations

According to Section 43 of the Criminal Code Act, A person cannot be tried for treason, or for any of the felonies defined in the three last preceding sections, unless the prosecution is commenced within two years after the offence is committed.”

Due to the severity of the crime of treason, it is proposed that the National Assembly should delete Section 43 from the Criminal Code. Treason and treasonable felonies against elected government should not enjoy any statute of limitations.

 

A ray of hope

There is a ray of hope. The current crop of officers appears set to play their allotted constitutional role in the socio-economic development of Nigeria. They will subordinate themselves to constituted civil authorities. They will remain the pride of the nation. The military high command must enforce with stubborn rigidity international best practices in military-civil relations. One cannot imagine a French soldier beat up, gun-butt or horsewhip an unarmed citizen on the streets of Paris or a British soldier ordering a U.K citizen to do a frog jump on the streets of London, as we observe here in Nigeria! I often wonder what statutes confer such powers on our soldiers! Neither can a US soldier engage in a bayonet or gun battle with a US police officer! Such vestiges of coup years must disappear altogether from Nigeria.

The security agents must be richly rewarded. Members of the police, the armed forces and other security agencies who sacrifice their all to keep citizens safe and secure deserve the best from the Nigerian system.

The nation must reward members of the armed forces handsomely. Our soldiers must be well paid. We must cater for their children. Modern and sophisticated training programmes constantly should be organized for the military. The death of a US soldier is a blow to the entire nation, so also must be the death of any Nigerian soldier. Our soldiers must be the pride of the country, a formidable threat to any external force!

 

Back to the golden years

Having restated the need for every institution, including the military, to keep to its constitutional mandate, it is important to stress that the socio-economic and political situation affects all citizens of the country. We all go to the same market.

Parliamentary system of government remains the best option for Nigeria. It is cheap to run in comparison with the American presidential model. The National Assembly will do the citizens a world of good by returning the nation to parliamentary democracy. It is highly cost effective as cabinet members are chosen from the legislature. Besides, public supply (finances) will come into constant scrutiny by the constitutional opposition. There will be only one general election as against several in the presidential system. Above all, it discourages the winners-take-it-all syndrome, a distinguishing feature of the presidential system, completely unsuitable for Africans.

Parliamentary Nigeria in 2023

Finally, I earnestly urge President Muhammadu Buhari, Senate President Ahmed Lawan and Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila to return the country to parliamentary democracy, effective May 29, 2023. Every election will then be fought at the constituency level. The federal Prime Minister or the Premier at the state level will be primus inter pares, being only first among his equals.

Using the 2019 figures, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria is $447 billion (Dollars) while that of the United States is $21 trillion (Dollars)! Whereas the wealthy US has 15 federal ministries, the economically-poor Nigeria has 24 federal ministries with 36 ministers! It is proposed that the proviso in Section 147 (3) of the 1999 Constitution, requiring every state to have a minister in the federal cabinet, should have no place in the next dispensation. The National Parliament should consist of 200-member House of Representatives and 73-member Senate (two per state and one from FCT), who work on a part-time basis. Federalism is an arrangement between the central and component states. Hence local government is within the exclusive preserve of the state government. Any state that so desires can turn every household in the state into a local council! There should be devolution of powers so that the federating states will no longer be vassals or appendages of the central government, hence many items in the Exclusive List should return or be transferred to the Concurrent List. Every state progressively should be able to mine its God-given resources and, in the next 25 years, be self-sufficient.

As earlier indicated, a democratic committee of the institution of judiciary should appoint the chairman and members of the electoral commission and the head of the police. But the head of state may remove such officers upon two-thirds votes of members of the upper chamber of the legislature on grounds of gross misconduct. The same should hold in every state save for the fact that the two-thirds vote should be secured in the unicameral legislature.

These are among the best gifts this nation deserves on this occasion of 60th Independence anniversary.

Nigerians should not despair. Malians should not sink into despondency. Although it is totally undesirable, sometimes it gets worse before it gets better – the story of police-SARS being a good example.  Congratulations Nigeria! Congratulations Mali. Happy diamond celebrations!

  • Soyombo, author of Buhari v. Yar’Adua (2008), media practitioner and public affairs analyst, sent this contribution from Abeokuta via densityshow@yahoo.com (08060177135)