Ordinarily, the call by Robert Clarke, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) for the military to take over power would have been ignored as an innocuous comment by an ego-offensive agent provocateur out to raise his public nuisance value and seeking to be noticed. But amid rumors of an imminent military take-over, in the wake of the escalating insecurity that has consumed the nation, the dramatic warning by military authorities to soldiers not to honor the invitation to stage a military coup has raised red flags that portend dire consequences for peace, stability and national unity. It is just as well that the military yesterday, rejected the call and declared loyalty to President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian constitution. In a statement issued by Brig-Gen Onyema Nwachukwu, Director, Defence Intelligence (DDI), the military dissociated itself from the call to seize power, warning soldiers to resist the invitation to disrupt the democratic process. The military reaffirmed that the Nigerian army is a professional, disciplined, loyal and apolitical institution that has clear constitutional roles and responsibilities. Therefore, the army seriously warned and advised all officers hobnobbing with such a treasonable idea or contemplating a coup to desist from doing so, because they would face the full wrath of the law; saying its loyalty to the civilian establishment was irrevocable. Well said!
“The attention of the military high command has been drawn to a statement purported to have been made by one Robert Clark (SAN), suggesting that the current political leadership should hand over power to the military for the purpose of restructuring. The Nigerian Military wishes to dissociate itself from such anti-democratic utterance and position. Let it be stated categorically that the Armed Forces of Nigeria remains fully committed to the present administration and all associated democratic institutions,” the statement noted. The Defence Headquarters maintained that: “We shall continue to remain apolitical, subordinate to the civil authority, firmly loyal to the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari and the 1999 Constitution as amended. We shall continue to discharge our constitutional responsibilities professionally, especially in protecting the country’s democracy, defence of the territorial integrity of the country as well as protection of lives and properties of citizens.
“The military high command wishes to use this opportunity to warn misguided politicians who nurse the inordinate ambition to rule this country outside the ballot box to banish such thoughts as the military under the current leadership remain resolute in the defence of Nigeria’s Democracy and its growth.” The DHQ further stated that it amounted to treason for any military personnel to contemplate such an act. “We also wish to remind all military personnel that it is treasonable to even contemplate this illegality. The full wrath of the law will be brought to bear on any personnel found to collude with people having such agenda. The current security challenges are not insurmountable. The Armed Forces of Nigeria in partnership with other security agencies are working assiduously to ameliorate the challenge. Nigeria will know peace again. Please be warned!”
It is sad that Nigeria’s political class has not learnt any hard lessons from the country’s checkered history. After 22 years of uninterrupted democratic governance, Nigerians who thought their country had turned the page on coups and military rule would be shocked that a lawyer was inviting soldiers to topple the democratically-elected civilian government. But it isn’t enough to issue a public disclaimer. There must be more to it than meets the naked eye as the grapevine is rife with rumors of politicians meeting with military personnel and sending signals that the political class will welcome a military intervention, ostensibly to save the country from terrorism and insecurity. It just cannot be that the military was so rankled by the public declaration of some obscure lawyer; SAN notwithstanding. If there is incontrovertible evidence that makes Robert Clarke’s call a credible threat as to warrant a public rebuke by the army, Nigerians will like to see such evidence; otherwise, the army would be deemed to be playing a fast one, in the circumstance, for reasons best known to them.
Many Nigerians cannot even remember the last time the word “coup” was used in the country. And so, if the army is issuing warnings about a sinister plot or a call to arms to oust the ailing President Buhari and thereby derail the hard-won 22-years of uninterrupted democratic rule in the Fourth Republic, Nigerians should begin to worry; aware, more than ever, of the army’s repeated infractions and violation of its sacred mandate against the principles of democracy. The last time that word “coup” was used to describe political events in Nigeria was on November 17, 1993 when Chief Ernest Shonekan, then head of the Interim National Government (ING) announced he was “stepping aside” to save Nigeria from apocalypse. The ING was a contraption created by former military ruler, Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) when he was forced out of power after a botched transition following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by MKO Abiola. As it turned out, Shonekan did not voluntarily “step aside” but was elbowed out by Gen. Sani Abacha who subsequently seized power and instituted a reign of terror that lasted until his unexpected death from a heart attack.
The army’s warning comes in the wake of simmering tension within the polity amid inflammatory rhetoric by some northern politicians and groups who have been assailing the polity with veiled threats on the need to consolidate the Buhari presidency as an urgent national imperative that will keep power in the north until 2027. One such northern elder, Junaid Mohammed announced some time ago that the North has decided to keep the presidency under Buhari or any other northerner until 2027. It is indeed perplexing that in the context of 2023, this self-fulfilling prophecy is a fallacy that has been elevated to mainstream thinking of the northern political establishment, who’ve vowed to defend the northern presidency as if Aso Rock was their personal estate. But in their obsession to hold on to the presidency after 2023, no northern politician is clairvoyant enough to diagnose the challenges of a presidency that now operates as a business enterprise with offices in Abuja and London. It is reckoned that the Buhari administration was aware of the dire security situation and the expectation was that the killing, maiming and terror would at least have been contained. This has not happened, but that does not warrant calls or invitation for military intervention.
The explosive potentialities of such a call, are very risky, and if not carefully managed, could push Nigeria to civil war. It is unpatriotic and utterly irresponsible for anyone let alone a SAN to be summoning soldiers to remind them of their previous pastime of staging coups. Nigeria has institutions to cater to exigencies arising from vacancy at the seat of power, including the death or incapacity of a sitting president. When people spend time scheming and heating up the polity with inflammatory statements ornamented with harmful grandiloquence, such people are certified enemies of the nation. And it appears the ruling APC has failed to rise above its reputation as a nondescript contraption of strange political bedfellows. Despite holding commanding majorities in both houses of the legislature and controlling a majority of governor’s mansions, in addition to the presidency, there is a discernible power vacuum that has re-ignited ethnic tension and opened political fault lines; engendering a cocktail of wild speculations with some saying the alarm sounded by the army was a clear attempt to tele-guide a coup, ostensibly because of the president’s failure to tackle terrorism and insecurity and incapacity to govern. Nigeria is bigger than any president who is nothing but an employee of the Nigerian people who elected him. While you can easily replace the president, you cannot replace Nigeria. If anything untoward should happen to the country, Nigerians should hold the ruling APC party and its ramshackle government accountable.
