By
Anote Ajeluorou
14
years after, Nigeria still struggles to shake off the incubus of military rule that
continues to constitute a blight on the country’s socio-economic and political
fortunes. Nigeria’s current effort at democratic rule has a serious handover
from prolong military rule, especially with official impunity and corruption at
its heart. Also, a sizable number of the current political gladiators are of
military stock, individuals who played active and pivotal roles in Nigeria’s
political trauma, individuals who stalled all efforts at democratic restoration
while they enjoyed the spoils of office.
But how did the military come to wield so
much power over Nigeria’s large civil populace so much so that it almost
annihilated it? What subterfuge did the military employ to wheedle civil
populace into accepting it to its peril? Who were the invincible men in army
uniform that warmed their way into the hearts of civilian population and played
and manipulated them so well that a militarized ethos became entrenched into a
national psyche? What love-hate relationship existed between the military the
civil populace while the military ruled? Importantly, who where Muhammadu
Buhari, and especially Ibrahim Babangida, and how did they gain notoriety as
maximum rulers?
These varied and complex questions are the
thrust of a new book, Soldiers of Fortune:
Nigerian Politics from Buhari to Babangida (Cassava Republic Press, Abuja;
2013), by unarguably Nigeria’s best
known expert in military matters, Max Siollun, who writes about Nigeria’s
military, as no insider would be able to write about that establishment that
evokes so much mixed feelings. His first book, Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture (1966
-1967) gives such firsthand factual account about the coups and counter-coups
that ousted the First Republic in 1966, which eventually resulted in a bloody
30-month old civil war. Indeed, Siollun’s factual, almost eye-witness narrative
of the grim events and masterminds of every stage of the coups and the fragile
political contexts that provided the impetus cannot be surpassed.
It’s with such eye for details that he has
brought to bear on this new book, as he relives and recreates again the
tumultuous political years of the 1980s, with an impotent President Shehu
Shagari, who could not rein in his powerful cabinet members, who went on
corruption spree that brought in the military yet again to power. The military
were to stay for the most prolonged and convoluted military-inspired political
campaign ever there was in Nigeria.
Gross corruption and poor management of the
economy (with hyper, run away inflation in overdrive) in the Shagari government
brought back the military, with Buhari as head although the architects of the
coup were Babangida, Sanni Abacha and several other well-known coupists from
the days of Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s ouster from power way back in 1975. In fact,
when the Shagari government was toppled there was widespread jubilation among
the civil populace, as indication of its lack of popularity in not being able
to deliver the democratic dividends to the citizenry. This wide acceptance of
the military, Siollun posits, emboldened Babangida to inflict himself on
Nigerians the way he did.
Siollun writes, “Politicians continually fell
into every trap set for them by military conspirators. A factor that few
Nigerians will admit today is that the military always enjoyed widespread
support any time it deposed an elected government. The military were always
cajoled into political power and welcomed as heroic redeemers after each coup.
Babangida revealed the extent to which civilian preference for military rule
over democracy encouraged the military to retake power”.
But the Buhari/Idiagbon’s regime didn’t last
either. It turned out to be too draconian, as it curtailed all civil rights enjoyed
by Nigerians, especially freedom of expression. It also failed to deal
decisively with the economic problems it inherited from Shagari. Once again,
entrenched coupists, Babangida, Abacha, Joshua Dogonyaro and their henchmen
took over power to usher in the most convoluted political transition campaign
that stretched the national imagination to its limits.
It is Babangida’s eight years in office that
Siollun’s book concentrates on as marking a watershed in Nigeria’s military
intervention in politics. Babangida seemingly reinvented all the known rules as
means of entrenching himself indefinitely in power. He wielded the tools of political
patronage and settlement to devastating effect. These tools also polarized the
military and created dichotomy between political office appointees and professional,
careerist soldiers, with the former looking down on the later on account of the
stupendous wealth they amassed.
Such rich officers later became Babangidas’s
headache, as he could not convince them on the need to leave the political
stage having tasted the wealth that came with political power. Senate
President, David Mark and Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako (retired as
Vice Admiral) were some of these powerful military office holders that partly
held Babangida and Nigeria hostage to the evil genius of Babangida.
Siollun does not spare details. His account
is a re-enactment of Nigeria’s bitter history in the hands of men employed and
paid by Nigerians to protect them, but who turned against them in their
self-proclaimed mission of redemption from elected civilian administrations. It
was always the same story; elected governments are accused of performing badly
in office. That becomes a pretext for staging a coup.
Beyond researching into his material, Siollun
has in this book also brought insider witnesses to give immense credibility to
the narrative. A principal actor like Domkat Bali speaks on some of the potent
issues of the day. In Soldiers of Fortune,
every step or missteps taken by Babangida are documented. He gives his
convoluted transition train great attention and relives some of the intimate
and behind-the-scenes’ maneuverings that shaped Nigeria’s watershed moment at
democratic efforts that produced implacable June 12.
Siollun’s narrative of the Gideon Okar coup
is reminiscent of his first book, where coup narrative is easily his forte. He
brings out the actions in their broad theatre in a gripping, thriller narrative
style. He also presents in graphic style how and why the coup failed in spite
of its bloody execution.
Siollun paints a grim picture of the military
after the annulment of June 12, when he writes, “The annulment polarized the
army’s professional and political wings to such an extent that the army
factionalised into “little more than an assorted array of conspiratorial
groups”. As coup plotting had become some officers’ preferred method of
settling differences of opinion, different pro and anti-Babangida forces in the
military planned several overlapping coups…
“Colonel Ababukar Umar (Commander of the
armoured corps) later admitted that he and other officers (including Gen.
Abacha) also planned a different coup… However, Umar told his men to stand down
after Gen. Abacha and Brigadier Mark disagreed and favoured the continuation of
military rule under a new regime not led by Babangida”.
Siollun’s book indicts the likes of Senate
President, Mark and Governor Nyako, who vehemently opposed restoring June 12
while they enjoyed political offices as soldiers, but who eventually became its
biggest beneficiary at the inception of the current democratic dispensation. They
were also the ones whose action led to the spilling of innocent blood of
Nigerians on the streets while protesting their continued stay in office after
June 12 expired their illegally appropriated mandate.
This is the chief aim of Siollun’s Soldiers of Fortune: Never to forget.
With Nigerians often falling into collective amnesia, Siollun’s book will
continually nudge them awake and never to forget what had gone before. Mark and
Nyako and others of their ilk are now not only beneficiaries, but champions of the
democracy they once worked so hard to scuttle!
Soldiers
of Fortune is Nigeria’s recent history rewritten with a keen eagle-eye. Its
fast narrative pace makes it a delightful and a must read.
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