By Chidozie Egbuna
The lesson we take from the Boko Haram menace is that we are now a country
with out
a legitimate effective military. What we have is a situation where the
emperor is
without clothes and the subjects are running scared and vulnerable. The
corrupt and
ineffective Nigerian generals have disintegrated our military into an
organized boys
scout that is ill equipped, untrained, mismanaged and unprepared to defend
the
country. I support the Nigerian soldiers who are trying to defend our
country under
these difficult circumstances but I denounce our thieving generals who are
making
the task of these troops impossible to carry out.
Since the end of the Biafra war, Nigeria has been ruled by kleptocratic
system of
government that was heavily military sponsored and abetted by corrupt
generals of
the Nigerian army. At the conquest of Biafra these military men, beginning
with
Gowon established themselves in the corridors of power and ran the country
as if it
was their personal bank accounts. Without accountability or a system put
in place to
hold these men accountable, we have now a military that is ill equipped
and unfit to
defend the country. We have these debased generals to thank for the
present state of
our military.
To understand this present problem, we must look at history and the role that
military generals have played in the destruction of the Nigerian army in
particular
and our society as a whole. After independence, the world had high hopes
for Nigeria
as the giant of Africa. This hope was shortly dashed when we started
having military
coups one after the other and thus the emergence of these generals and the
disintegration of the Nigerian army.
General Ironsi and later Gowon was a product or benefactor of the first
military
coup before him and after several years in power, Gowon was in 1975
overthrown by
General Murtala Mohammed. Subsequently, Murtala was murdered few months
later and
his deputy General Obasanjo rose to power and ruled until 1979. To his
credit,
Obasanjo had a military sponsored election to hand government over to a
civilian
government. The damages of our decadent generals had already taken root
during this
period.
The first military government of a civilian Shagari administration came to
power.
This period also was characterized by violence, divisive and ethnic
politics and
unbridled corruption. In 1983 General Muhammadu Buhari another military man
overthrew the Shagari administration. General Buhari during his reign had
zero
tolerance for corruption especially by the Nigerian political elite.
General Buhari
tried to end this menace but in 1985 General Ibrahim Babangida with the
support of
the corrupt elite, overthrew the government of Buhari. The Nigerian military
establishment and the rakish generals could not allow a renegade like
Buhari to come
and try to stamp out corruption. The Babangida gang took over and
continued to
squander the country’s fortunes with impunity. Babangida’s military coup
came to
get rid of Buhari who truly attempted to fight this evil. They eliminated
Buhari and
reinstalled their kleptocratic system within a short period. The economy
continued
to decline as Babangida initiated many senseless economic policies that
stifled the
economy and created a huge international debt.
Rampant corruption and the looting of the nation’s resources also
characterized
General Babangida’s era. During this period, Nigeria witnessed an
uncontrolled abuse
of human rights and restriction of freedom of the press and other civil
liberties of
citizens especially the opposition were grossly violated. The disssolute
generals
approved of Babangida’s regime because it was comforting to their cronies
that they
can now rape and pillage Nigeria once again having eliminated Buhari from
the scene.
Nigerians became unease about Babaginda’s leadership and with pressure
from the
international community; in 1993 he initiated an election, which even his
enemies
described as the best election in Nigeria’s short political history.
When Moshood K. O. Abiola won this supposedly fair election, the nefarious
generals
once again grew apprehensive. The military establishment put enormous
pressure on
Babangida to reject the results. Consequently, he annulled the election
and put in
Ernest Shonekan as an interim leader of the country. Abiola later died under
mysterious circumstances. Once again, another military leader General Sani
Abacha
pushed Shonekan away a few weeks later. Abacha also grew his network of
iniquitous
generals as the condition of the military further deteriorated.
Abacha’s era was a period of great abuse of human rights and political
killings.
This period saw the increase in the number of thieving generals in the
military as
Abacha himself spearheaded the growth of his fellow unscrupulous generals
and the
enormous increase in their wealth and political power. An example of this
was the
killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa a writer and an advocate for the Niger Delta
cause. The
gross abuse and kleptocracy of Abacha’s era was to be the end of the
military rule
in Nigeria and the thirst for democracy. Once again we see the military
general’s
insatiable hunger for power in their quest to loot and destroy the nation’s
resources. The rakehell general’s wealth and power continued to grow
during this
period but Nigerians have had enough. The general military’s might
continued to
decline as these enemies of the state continued to loot and destroy their own
institution by neglect and corruption.
The thieving generals laid the foundation for the destruction of Nigerian
economy
with their brutal force and insatiable lust for power, money, and the
establishment
of a corrupt and unaccountable system of government that we have to this
present
day. The thieving military generals answered to no one except their fellow
thieving
members who rewarded themselves well as their circle of powerful members
and network
grew. The thieving generals made the rules as they went along in
establishing an
environment in which corruption and kleptocracy flourished. They grew
businesses and
used their stolen loot to finance and reward their friends while the
masses suffered
ultimate deprivation of the most common amenities of sustenance. The
thieving
military generals did not come to restore or participate in nation
building but
rather they came to grab the oil money and to build their networks of
influence that
rewarded their friends and punished their enemies.
I highlight this brief history of Nigeria’s thieving generals as the main
source of
some of the problems we are facing as a country today. We know that some
of these
thieving generals are currently financing the activities of Boko Haram
with the very
money they stole from the country. The average Nigerian is no longer safe
as a
consequence of the type of country that the thieving generals have
established for
the rest of us.
As we look at Nigeria’s thieving generals, we would try to show how they
have stolen
from the country and used that money to consolidate their powerful
networks which
has been running the country since Gowon’s era. The military oligarchy is
solely
responsible for the chaos and the ineffectiveness that we see today in the
Nigerian
military. The thieving generals have in essence, to use a common
expression, eaten
their own children. The thieving generals have destroyed the Nigerian army
and other
vital institutions of our country and now we are all vulnerable to the
menace of
Boko Haram. We have a military that lacks even the basic equipments or
weapons to
fight a vicious enemy who is motivated by fanaticism and abhorrence of all
Nigerians.
The information that is being reported by several newspapers is that the
Nigerian
army is so poorly trained and equipped that they are actually avoiding a
confrontation with the Boko Haram. The Boko Haram is invading villages and
slaughtering innocent civilians while the Nigerian army tries to stay out
of their
way because they do not have the fortitude, training or equipment to
confront or
engage Boko Haram. The soldiers cannot function because of the thieving
generals
have created a dysfunctional and impotent armed force. The chicken has now
come to
roost.
The soldiers do not trust their generals who have betrayed them by their
corrupt
practices and ineffectiveness. The recent mutiny in the 7th Division will
support
this premise that our military is in complete decay from years of abuse from
thieving generals and their cronies.
Our thieving generals in most western countries would be imprisoned or
face various
charges of corruption and ineptitude. Not in Nigeria where corruption is an
established institution. This monster is feed and encouraged and now it
has created
an environment where the country is unsafe and cannot defend itself from
enemies.
Do not blame President Jonathan for the Nigerian menace that started and was
established long before he came into power. The Nigerian institutions
including the
military are rotten to the core and the military’s failure is greater than
President
Jonathan or any other Nigerian leader for that matter. We need to put the
focus on
our thieving generals and hold them accountable for squandering the resources
designated for our nation’s defense.
Finally, our military needs a complete overhaul. This refurbishing must
start by
court marshaling any known thieving general. These corrupt thieving
generals must be
tried by military tribunals if found guilty of embezzlement sentenced to
prison or
dismissed from the military without pension. This is how it is done in most
developed countries of which Nigeria aspires to be part of. These men have
established themselves as criminals of the state who have stolen money
that was
meant for training, equipment, and salary. Nigeria must expunge all thieving
generals if the military is to have a chance of confronting the enemies of
Nigeria
like Boko Haram. The thieving generals must be replaced by a younger, highly
trained, nonpolitical junior officers promoted to positions of leadership
for the
future Nigerian army that will be based on intelligence gathering and
modern warfare
techniques.
The future Nigerian army should be made up of men and women who are
trained to
combat terrorism and defend our country. The current army is not trained
in that
type of combat and the enemy that they are currently facing is more
vicious than
anything imaginable. We cannot win the war on terrorism by blaming the
president or
the finance minister and calling them names. Removing and reorganizing our
military
leadership and removing the scourge of thieving generals can only win the
war on
terror. The old cronies who benefited from coups must be replaced with a
better
trained, highly paid, corruption free professionals who want to serve and
defend
their country from any foreign or domestic treats. The president can move
quickly in
this direction to investigate those who have rendered our military
impotent and
bring them to book. Until we do that, I will use the words of Jibrin
Ibrahim, the
eminent political scientist, “ Now we know that our military does not
function.”