January 15th 1966 and the Legacy of the military

Yesterday was Armed Forces Remembrance Day, signalling the emergence of the military 60 years ago. On the 15th of January 1966, to be precise, a certain Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu addressed Nigerians through Radio Kaduna announcing martial law and the takeover of power by the Supreme Council of the Revolution. The aim of their action, he said, was to “establish a strong, united and prosperous nation free of corruption and internal strife. Our method of achieving this is purely military,” he arrogantly said. By the end of the day, a significant part of the political class in the North and the West had been wiped out and the military had taken over the political system.

In his column in Daily Times (3/2/1966), the late anti-corruption crusader, Tai Solarin, blasted the civilian political class for destroying Nigerian politics through their twin evil practices of corruption and election rigging. He confidently boasted that: “Now we have been saved – and we want to stay saved”. Eight years later, on 4th October 1974, Tai Solarin returned to the theme in his famous declaration: “The Beginning of the End”. The occasion was the announcement by General Yakubu Gowon that the armed forces were no longer ready to hand over power back to civilians in 1976 as had been programmed. Tai Solarin, seething with anger wrote that: “There was nothing whatsoever today to justify the elongation by a single day, of the army regime over this federation.” His reason was simple; the military had become more corrupt than the civilians they overthrew for corruption.

At the time of the coup, the African military had a good reputation. Following the publication of Samuel Huntington’s book “The Soldier and the State” in 1957, the political science establishment in the United States and Europe had been pushing the idea of the military as the most modern, disciplined and organised institution in Africa that could play the modernising role that the Turkish military had played in their own country. Huntington, who died in 2009 after a long career of supporting militarism, was very influential in creating the ideological basis for supporting military rule. He created the myth of the military as the African Cincinnatus. In Roman mythology, Cincinnatus was the model par excellence of human selfless service and civic consciousness. He had been invited by the representatives of the people in a period of national decay to carry out a fundamental civic responsibility – repair and reconstruct the decomposing political institutions and structures. Having brilliantly carried out his civic duty, he scorned the glory of power and the appeals for him to remain as ruler and left the scene.

In contrast to the mythical Roman hero, the soldiers in power in Nigeria and elsewhere were unwilling to relinquish power. In January 1966, General Aguiyi Ironsi declared that he was a temporary impartial arbiter accepting the responsibility of power only for the short time. He promised that his sojourn in power was necessary to reorganise the world of civilian politics, which would then take back the power that belongs to it.  It was the memory of the betrayal of that promise that pushed Tai Solarin to make the declaration of the beginning of the end.

As successive military regimes were transforming themselves into “natural rulers”, the responsibility fell on what we now call Nigerian civil society to oppose military rule and fight for a return to democratic rule. Those in the forefront were anti-corruption crusaders, human rights activists and their organisations. Tai Solarin, Bala Usman, Gani Fawehinmi, Wole Soyinka, S G Ikoku, Usman Bugaje, Alao Aka Bashorun, Baba Omojola, etc, were part of the first generation of such activists and many others followed them. The struggle against military rule was not completely unproblematic. It appeared that a certain form of political ethical code was thus imposed on the Nigerian military by civil society in the 1970s and 1980s. That the military could organise occasional coup d’états for the resolution of acute political crisis, the reorganisation of structures and institutions and the organisation of elections but they should not try to perpetuate their rule. That code has been broken since the commencement of the Fourth Republic and there can be no excuse for the return of military rule.

Nonetheless, the military had ruled Nigeria for almost 30 years and has impacted strongly on the country’s culture and institutions. As we reflect of the meaning of January 15th 1966 for our political system, it is clear to me that military rule ultimately impacts negatively on society by generalising its authoritarian values, which are in essence anti-social and destructive of democratic politics. Politics in this sense is understood as the art of negotiating conflicts related to the exercise of power. Military regimes have succeeded in permeating civil society with their values – both the formal military values of centralisation and authoritarianism and the informal lumpen values associated with “barrack culture” and brutality that were derived from the colonial army. If today, our political class are as crass, crude, violent and corrupt as they are, it is not unrelated to the fact that they have been acquiring a lot of “barrack culture” over the past few decades. Sadly, the exercise of “barrack culture” by politicians of the Fourth Republic has become a threat to the sustenance of our hard-fought democracy.

Unlike previous Republics, the Fourth has endured for 26 years but the quality of governance has declined considerably. After two retired generals and three civilian elected presidents, the result is that corruption remains the winner. Corruption anchored poor governance has led to the erosion of state authority and competence and the outcome is the spread of small arms and light weapons among a young civilian generation that are using them to kill, kidnap and attack both security agencies and their civilian neighbours. Violence has become the order of the day as insurrectionist movements, Jihadi groups, secessionists and bandit-terrorists define a life for the people that is “brutish, nasty and short”. For two decades, the armed forces have been called upon to re-establish state authority, peace and order. This task has been difficult because the governing class has been losing legitimacy due to its endemic corruption. Fewer people are ready to FIGHT FOR Nigeria as self-service becomes the new ethos. In this context, both the military and the civilian governing class need to change their ways and rededicate themselves to public service. Are they ready to do that?

Are citizens able to activate an all-inclusive combat to ensure that all public officers with a corrupt past and/or present be prosecuted and appropriately punished if found to be guilty. Can we clean up the political process? If we can, we would need to note that contrary to Nzeogwu’s belief, the method cannot be military, it must be based on democratic principles and the rule of law.

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