What informed this, especially in view of the denial of any coup bid by the Defence Hqrts?
As Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai, holds one of the highest and most important offices in Nigeria’s military hierarchy. Any authorised statement from the office of the COAS can thus not be treated with levity, particularly when it touches on the country’s political stability and democratic sustainability. This is why a public alert by the COAS that some unnamed persons were making politically motivated overtures to soldiers sent alarm signals through the polity. The Director of Army Public Relations, Brig-Gen. Sani Usman, had issued a statement informing the public that the COAS “has received information that some individuals have been approaching some officers and soldiers for undisclosed reasons. On the basis of that, he has warned such persons to desist from these acts”.
The COAS’s alert spurred speculations that some anti-democratic elements could be contemplating a military coup, with strong warnings against any such misadventure. Among those who cautioned potential coup plotters to forget any such thought were the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who vowed that Nigerians would resist any attempt to derail the country’s democracy; the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led faction of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the Afenifere socio-political group, leading lawyers as well as civil society groups and pro-democracy activists. In his reaction, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Paul Arkwright, expressed his country’s opposition to any military disruption of Nigeria’s political process, saying that the United Kingdom would continue to stand firmly in favour of democratic governance in Nigeria.
It is unfortunate that the alert by the COAS was shrouded in an ambiguity that allowed dangerous rumours to fester. For instance, it was silent on the identities of the individuals or groups seeking to influence soldiers negatively, the nature of or motive for the overtures or the officers and men who had been fraternising with people outside the military in violation of their organisational codes. Since the COAS considered the information at his disposal reliable enough to issue a public alert, he ought to have been sufficiently painstaking to avail the public of more specific and authoritative details to render nugatory any potentially incendiary speculations. More importantly, the COAS most certainly has the requisite authority and operational machinery at his disposal to act decisively in apprehending and ensuring the prosecution of anyone trying to undermine the country’s democracy and stability without unnecessarily causing public apprehension.
Matters were not helped by the timing of the COAS’s alert when President Muhammadu Buhari is out of the country attending to his health abroad. True, the President had duly handed over the duties and responsibilities of his office to the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, in acting capacity pending his resumption in accordance with the constitution, to ensure there is no vacuum. However, mischievous elements either among the political class or even within the military must not be given the slightest opportunity to constitute a danger to the continued evolution of democracy in the country.
Unfortunately, the COAS’s alert, perhaps unintentionally, lent credence to the incredulous proposition that anyone could even be thinking of the possibility of a coup in contemporary Nigeria after 18 years of unbroken democratic rule. A similarspecter of forced termination of the democratic process was deliberately fuelled in certain quarters during the incapacitation of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.
The COAS’s alert becomes even more curious in the light of the firm and forceful assertion by the military high command last Wednesday that there is absolutely no coup plot by the military against the present civilian dispensation. According to the Director of Defence Information at the Defence Headquarters, Maj-Gen. John Eneche, at a news conference in Abuja, “What I am telling you on behalf of the Armed Forces of Nigeria is that nobody should be afraid of any coup. The Armed Forces is totally loyal to the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, and in complete subordination to civil authority. At all levels of commands, we are out there, including our troops, and we will remain focused and conscious about the oath of allegiance that we have taken and guided by the constitution of this country”.
What then was the basis for the COAS’s alert? Did he consult other members of the military high command to ensure a coordinated response to whatever information that he had? Whatever may be the case, one good thing that is very obvious is the vehement opposition to any military coup by the overwhelming majority of the polity. The enduring lesson of our political history is that the worst democratic government is always infinitely better than the best military dictatorship. At least a non-performing elected government can be displaced in a future election unlike a military government that can only be dislodged by superior force.
