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PEOPLES AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA In defense of ex-soldiers
Last Wednesday the Nigerian Tribune, under the banner headline, "2007: Confab bans IBB, OBJ, others", reported the Chairman of the Committee on Party and Electoral Reform, Senator Joseph Wayas, as saying his committee has recommended barring people above 50 from the next general elections in 2007 in order for Nigeria to move forward. "What I have done," said Wayas speaking rather imperiously, "is to establish rules, procedures, for moving Nigeria forward. It has not been aimed at any particular individual or person." Obviously those caught in this age-net include President Obasanjo, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, former head of state and Obasanjo's main rival in the last elections, General Ibrahim Babangida, former military president, and even the youthful looking Brigadier-General Muhammadu Buba Marwa, former military governor of Borno and Lagos states. While Obasanjo is suspected to harbour aspiration for a third term, the others are known to have their eyes on the presidency come 2007. By design or coincidence, only the vice-president is not an ex-soldier. Probed further by Tribune on the implication of the age limit, Wayas said, "I don't mean any harm. I am only a statesman helping Nigeria. Don't make the issue too technical. I am beyond petty ideology, in fact by implication I might even have included myself. There is room for fresh leadership for Nigeria to move forward." The last time Wayas adopted a similar take-it-or-leave-it posture, he got, in a manner of speaking, a well-deserved whack across his knuckles. This was back in the early days of the Second Republic. Readers will recall how, as Senate President, a somewhat arrogant Wayas, swinging in an executive chair in his office, told Nigerians one night on the NTA Network News, that his Senate had taken a decision on the revenue allocation bill before it and anyone who didn't like its method in giving what many thought was a disproportionate share of the cake to the center, vis-a-vis the states and local government, can go take a jump into the lagoon. "We have taken a decision, chike nan", he said or words to that effect. The late Chief Bola Ige, as governor of the old Oyo State, and the late Dr. Ambrose Ali, as governor of then Bendel State, among many other Nigerians, didn't like Wayas’ finality. They liked his advice that they go jump into the lagoon even less. And so they headed for the Supreme Court to seek redress. The court promptly and predictably told Wayas that the powers of his Senate to make laws did not include doing so anyhow. The court told Wayas that the method his Senate used in passing the revenue allocation bill was wrong and therefore its decision was invalid, null and void. About a quarter of a century later, Wayas does not appear to have learnt his lesson. Otherwise he would not have spoken to Tribune with such finality about his committee's arbitrary conduct in fixing an age limit for presidential aspirants. Age, as some of us pointed out when military president Babangida toyed with barring "old politicians" from his transition programme between 1985 and 1993, has absolutely nothing to do with transparency and accountability in governance. Every age bracket, like every tribe or religion or region, or profession, has its fair share of the good, the bad and the ugly. It is therefore foolish to bar people from politics, not on their own individual merit, but simply because they are young or old or - and this takes us to the topic of this piece - simply because they were once soldiers, even if they had participated in military coups. Before this age-limit dimension by the Wayas committee, there was much talk of banning some past military leaders through the instrumentality of the Oputa Panel and the Okigbo Report. The Wayas twist is yet one more evidence of the limitless capacity of the political class to abuse the powers they are entrusted with. If defending ex-soldiers sounds like an outrageous thing to do, you should remember that historically virtually all coups have been widely welcomed as good. As Karl Maier, one time Lagos Correspondent of The Independent of London observed in his widely well-regarded book, This House has fallen: Nigeria in Crisis "The general populace and sometimes even the most strident pro-democracy activists repeatedly applauded soldiers who overthrew government they did not support... Businessmen, politicians and media tycoons played a vital role in the coups." The fact is that except for the unsuccessful but bloody Dimka coup of February 1976 in which the popular head of state, General Murtala Mohammed, lost his life, and the even bloodier but also unsuccessful Orka coup against Babangida in 1990 whose organizers purported to have excised the far North out of Nigeria, every military coup in this country, including those against the democratically elected governments of Prime Minister Abubakar Tafa Balewa in January 1966 and President Shehu Shagari in December 1983, as well as that of General Sani Abacha against the Interim National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan, were applauded by the general populace. To applaud a coup does not, of course, mean that people have no right to change their minds about it once it is clear that its organizers have failed or are failing to deliver on their promises as, indeed, has been the case with most military regimes with the notable exception of General Murtala Mohammed's. However, while it is fair to condemn soldiers for their general failure to deliver on their promises, it is grossly unfair to say that the military as an institution was a complete failure or to hold every soldier individually responsible for such failure simply because he is a participant in a military regime. Not only is it grossly unfair, it is also grossly arbitrary. In spite of the guns soldiers in politics held over our heads, they could not have ruled over us without support from other sections of society. Nigerians tend to have very short memories, but it was less than 35 years ago that some academics from our universities and senior civil servants and even politicians busied themselves dressing up military rule as redemptive. More specifically back in the early 70s, intellectuals in government like Chief Tayo Akpata, a commissioner in the then Midwest State, late Mr. Ukpabi Asika, the administrator of the then East-Cenral State, and super permanent secretaries like Chief Allison Ayida, and even politicians like Chief Femi Okunnu, the federal commissioner of works in General Yakubu Gowon's regime and today, the leader of the Lagos State delegates to the NPRC, tried, fortunately in vain, to sell to Nigerians the idea of a "national movement" headed by a "politicized military hierarchy." Another "super permanent secretary," Eme Ebong, even led a team of senior civil servants to Egypt, Zaire and Guinea to study these military-turned civilian dictatorships as possible models for a Nigerian one-party state under the military. Indeed no less than the great Zik of Africa, became a principal proponent of diarchy, a government of the military and civilians, with the military holding the veto. Other leading intellectual-politicians who supported Zik in his advocacy included the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, Adviser to President Shagari and one-time Senate President, and the late Mr. S. G. Ikoku, once considered a "progressive". Not to be left out, even President Obasanjo once argued in 1985 that we should stop regarding military rule as an aberration. The point of all this is that what is good for the goose should also be good for the gander. If we must punish ex-soldiers for merely staging coups, or participating in military regimes, then we must also punish all their collaborators and promoters, whether they are politicians, academics, journalists, newspaper publishers, bureaucrats, traditional rulers or whatever. And anyone who doubts the depth of the collaboration with soldiers of these sections of society, need only refer to the late Professor Billy Dudley's seminal book on Nigerian politics, An introduction to Nigerian Government and Politics (Macmillan: London, 1982), to have his doubts dispelled. If, however, we are to punish all ex-soldiers and their collaborators for the ills of military regimes, there would hardly be any leaders worth the name left to govern society. The time-honoured thing to do, therefore, is to punish only those found guilty by courts of law or tribunals, of venality or treason or other crimes against the State. Coups, in principle, are of course crimes against the state. In practice, however, they become crimes only when they fail. Once they succeed and they subsequently deliver on their promises to rectify the misdeeds of their predecessors they become tolerable. They become objectionable only when they begin to overstay their welcome as corrective regimes. The Constitutional qualifications for and disqualifications from the National Assembly (Sections 65 and 66), State Houses of Assembly (106 and 107), Presidency (131 and 137), and Governorship (177 and 182) are about all that are required for transparency, accountability and competence in governance. They are also about all that a society needs to have proper democracy. To prescribe additional qualifications based on age or tribe or region or religion or profession or on such nonsense as zoning, is not only unfair and arbitrary, it is also cowardly on the part of those who have the power and responsibility to establish the rules of the game. Less than three years ago, Professor Jerry Gana, the president’s political adviser, agitated over an attempt by the National Assembly to impeach his boss ahead of the 2003 general elections, and agitated also by calls for the president to do a Mandela (forgo running for a second term ), said in The Guardian of October 17, 2002 that it was wrong to deprive the people of their right to chose who should govern them through the ballot box on grounds other than those stipulated by the Constitution. “The legal right and the Constitutional right of every Nigerian to present himself or herself before the electorate,” he said, "should not be violated. Allow people who are the repository of political power to decide. Why are people afraid of elections? Mr. President is popular within the country, and so are why people afraid of election?" It may not be politically wise for ex-soldiers like Generals Babangida, Buhari and Marwa who once exercised dictatorial powers to pursue their rights to stand for elective office, but if, according to Gana, it was wrong to force Obasanjo to do a Mandela back in 2003, why have the president’s political adviser and his boss been using every means, foul or fair, to stop those they do not like from succeeding him in 2007?
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