It is sad that many Nigerians today talk glibly about the
possibility of a coup or of military intervention in politics. They make
it seem as if this democracy is something we can exchange for something else.
We need to be reminded, as we celebrate democracy day 2017, how we got to this
very moment, and how precious democracy is to us as a sovereign people.
From 1966 to 1999 (with the short break of civilian rule from 1979 – 1983) the
military dominated the political landscape in Nigeria. It was eighteen years
ago yesterday when our country returned to civilian rule.
The military practically overstayed their welcome. The
first military coup in Nigeria was in January 1966, followed by the
counter-coup of July 1966, and then the civil war of 1967-70 which turned
Nigeria into a military theatre more or less as the Federal forces engaged the
Biafran secessionists in a fratricidal war that resulted in the loss of more
than a million lives, starvation and the tearing apart of the Nigerian
fabric. The military would remain in charge of Nigeria and its affairs
for more than 30 years in total, and it is worth remembering that virtually
every successful coup was welcome by the people.
It was thought particularly in the 70s that the military had
a role to play in many developing countries in Africa to ensure stability and
national discipline. The civilians who took over from the colonialists in
Nigeria and Ghana, to cite two close examples, proved worse than their
predecessors, and hence the usual argument for military intervention was
corruption, and the need to keep the country together, and check the excesses
of the civilian rulers. Military rule was perhaps closer to what the people had
known traditionally and also under the colonialists. Kings or feudalists who
did not tolerate any form of opposition, or free expression governed the traditional
communities and likewise, the colonial masters were dictators. The military
continued in that tradition. In-fighting among the emergent military elite and
the competition for power eroded discipline, and resulted over the years in
more coups.
To be fair, military intervention in Nigerian politics
yielded some positive dividends, and created a leadership cadre, and indeed
till date, the influence of the military in Nigerian politics, as seen in the
transmutation of many military officers into professional politicians, remains
a strong factor in the making and unmaking of Nigeria. But by 1990, with the
global wave of democratization, glasnost and perestroika, the collapse of the
Berlin wall, and the greater emphasis on human rights, and the rise of civil
society, the Nigerian public began to subject the military to greater
scrutiny than was hitherto the case.
After a fashion, every military government presented itself
as a corrective regime, with the promise to hand over power in a short while to
civilians. By 1986, the Babangida administration after a year in office had
launched a political transition programme, beginning with the establishment of
a 17-man Political Bureau. In 1989, the ban on political activities was lifted.
The military junta would later ban these existing political parties and create
its own parties, the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican
Convention.
This seemingly endless transition programme and increased
civil society activism merely drew more attention to the military and its
record in the public sphere. The people began to demand an inevitable return to
civilian rule. They complained about the human rights abuses of the military,
the apparent domination of power by the Northern elite, the marginalization of
other groups in Nigeria, and the spread of injustice and inequities.
When a Presidential election was held on June 12, 1993, and
the SDP candidate, Chief MKO Abiola won the election- an election that was
adjudged to be free and fair, Nigerians felt that the hour of their liberation
from military rule had come. But the Babangida administration refused to
announce the final results and subsequently, it annulled the election. It was a
disastrous moment for the Nigerian military and the administration. It also marked
the beginning of a national crisis that dragged on for six years. The Nigerian
people were inconsolable. In the course of the crisis, General Ibrahim
Babangida had to “step aside”, handing over power to an Interim national
Government (ING), which was soon shoved aside by General Abacha. Between 1993
and 1999, Nigeria had three different leaders: Chief Ernest Shonekan, General
Sani Abacha and General Abdusalami Abubakar.
The ensuing struggle for democracy was long and momentous.
Progressive Nigerians and the civil society turned against the military. The
South West declared that it had been robbed. MKO Abiola fought for his mandate.
The international community ostracized the Abacha government. Nigeria became a
pariah nation. The media was in the forefront of the struggle, and many
journalists were jailed, hounded into exile, publishing houses were set ablaze.
Anyone who criticized the soldiers was framed for one offence or the other and
thrown behind bars.
The progressive forces insisted that the military must go.
“Never Again”, the people chorused. There had been no other moment like that in
contemporary Nigeria. The martyrs of that people’s revolution were the
ones that died, including Chief MKO Abiola who died in Abacha’s detention camp,
the many innocent persons who were shot by the military, and every one who
suffered one major loss or the other. The heroes were the valiant men and
women who stood up for democracy and justice and opposed military tyranny. The
villains were the soldiers who trampled upon the people’s rights, and their
opportunistic agents in civil society. On May 29, 1999, Nigeria returned
to civilian rule. It was the day of our country’s second liberation, liberation
from the “years that the locusts ate.”
In the month of June, there would be another historic date
for Nigerians, that is June 12, a definite milestone in Nigerian democracy
even if the Federal Government has been largely in denial since 1999. MKO
Abiola deserves to be honoured post-humously not just selectively by states in
the South-West but by the Nigerian Government as a kind of restitution, and by
this, I mean a formal declaration, for record purposes, that he was indeed the
winner of that June 12, 1993 election.
This brief excursion to the recent past is important because
it is so easy to forget. I have met young Nigerians who have never heard of
Chief MKO Abiola. In a country where history is no longer taught in schools,
that should not be surprising. The Nigerians who were born in 1993 are
today out of university, and many of them may never have experienced military
rule. They were still children when their parents fought for this
democracy. Whoever makes the mistake of even remotely suggesting any form
of return to military rule is an enemy of the Nigerian people. Such
persons would be taking this country back to 18 years ago and beyond.
Whatever may be the shortcomings of our democracy, this
system of government has served the Nigerian people well. We may worry about
the form or the shape, or the character of our democracy, the opportunism and
imperfections of the professional political class, or the weakness of certain
institutions but all told, this is a much better country. The best place for
the military is to function under a constitutional order and to discharge its
duties as the protector of national sovereignty. Any soldier who is interested
in politics should resign his commission, and join a political party, politics
being an open field for all categories of persons, including ex-convicts,
prostitutes and armed robbers. I find the auto-suggestion of military
intervention gross and odious. It is regrettable that those whose duty should
never in any shape include scare-mongering were the ones who started that
nonsensical discussion in the first place.
For the benefit of those who do not know or who may have
forgotten, we once lived in a certain country called Nigeria, ruled by the
military, where the rights of citizens meant nothing. The soldiers were our
rulers. They were above the laws of the land. The people were their
subordinates. They called us “bloody civilians.” The media was not free.
Your insistence on free speech could land you in jail. Under the guise of
enforcing discipline, the military treated the people as if they were slaves.
Everything was done “with immediate effect!”, including the suspension of human
rights.
Today, democracy has given the Nigerian people, voice. There
is a greater consciousness of the power of the people, as well as the need to
hold persons in power accountable. The electoral process is still imperfect,
but the people are now supremely confident of their right to choose. But
not all our problems have been solved. For example, exactly 50 years ago today,
the late Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, hero of the Biafran Revolution, led the people
of the Bight of Biafra on a secession move out of Nigeria.
He said: “…you,
the people of Eastern Nigeria, Conscious of the Supreme Authority of Almighty
God over all mankind, of your duty to yourselves and prosperity; Aware that you
can no longer be protected in your lives and in your property by any Government
based outside Eastern Nigeria/Believing that you are born free and have certain
inalienable rights which can best be protected by yourselves. Unwilling to be
unfree partners in any association of a political or economic nature… Now,
therefore, I, Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, by virtue of the
authority and pursuant to the principles recited above, do hereby solemnly proclaim
that the territory and region known as and called Eastern Nigeria together with
her Continental Shelf and territorial waters shall henceforth be an independent
sovereign state of the name and title of The Republic of Biafra…”
In other words, the people of Eastern Nigeria no longer felt
free or protected or respected inside Nigeria. They opted out. In the
Ahiara Declaration of 1969, Ojukwu summed it all up as follows: “When the Nigerians violated our basic human
rights and liberties, we decided reluctantly but bravely to found our own
state, to exercise our inalienable right to self-determination as our only
remaining hope for survival as a people.”
The civil war ended on January 12, 1970 but 50 years since
the declaration of secession by the people of Eastern Nigeria, Igbos are still
protesting about their relationship with the rest of Nigeria. But
significantly, they are not the only ones complaining. Farmers are
complaining about pastoralists, indigenes about settlers, Christians about
Muslims and vice versa, women about men, men about women, youths about the
older generation, the people of Southern Kaduna are unhappy, other Northern
minorities too, the people of the Niger Delta have been unhappy since the
Willink Commission of 1957/58, the other over 400 ethnic nationalities that are
not recognized in Section 55 of the 1999 Constitution are also wondering
whether they are truly part of this union…Basic human rights and liberties are
still being violated.
Nigeria remains a yet unanswered question. Democratic rule
may have opened up the space, but our country still suffers from a kind of
hang-over. The people are free, but they are today everywhere in chains:
politically, economically and ethnically. This is the sad part of our democracy,
but the best part are the many lessons that the people are learning about the
meaning, the nature and the cost of the choices that they make or that they
have made.
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