By Attah Sunday<\/p>\n
Those who whipped up ethno-religious sentiments in the run up to the 2015
\ngeneral elections certainly knew what they were doing. Far from the wider
\nmisconception of seeing those unguarded hate comments as desperation of
\nsome people to see their candidate win the presidential election, the
\nreduction of national issues to jingoistic street level jibes was
\ndeliberate. I recall that the doomsday scenario painted should a particular
\ncandidate lose the vote was backed by the “America’s” prediction that
\nNigeria will disintegrate in 2015.<\/p>\n
We are now halfway into 2016 and I am still a citizen of a one indivisible
\nNigerian, even though there are current security breaches that must be
\ntactfully handled to thwart the contrived crises that are aimed at
\nachieving what the election tension could not achieve. Terrorists and
\nmilitants have formed groups that are threatening the socio-political,
\neconomic and territorial stability of the country if only to make a show
\nthat their election period threats were not mere posturing. But this too
\nhas failed in its objective and purpose because it took only a short while
\nfor the militants to realize that blowing up oil installations is nothing
\nshort of the Niger-Delta region and its allied South-East region committing
\nsuicide by installment.<\/p>\n
The strategy has now shifted to new grounds with a routine retirement of
\nsenior officers in the Nigerian Army being twisted out of context to revive
\nthe persecution syndrome that the same forces behind the aforementioned
\nbreaches want to ride on for achieving personal ambitions. The military
\nauthorities adequately explained that the retirements were the result of
\nservice exigencies – there were investigations that indicted these men of
\nbeing partisan in the 2015 General Elections while others were indicted for
\nstealing public funds through defence contracts. Had a rating or junior
\nofficer committed any of these infractions in violation of the relevant
\noath same would have been fired and jailed without any media organization
\nwasting as many as two sentences to report it. But then that is the danger
\nof pursuing political balance because had the authorities court martialed
\nand jailed these men we won’t be having this conversation.<\/p>\n
The conversation is an ugly one. The first reaction to the retirement was
\nthat loyalists of former President Goodluck Jonathan have been sacked from
\nthe Army without going into the details of their misdeeds. Perhaps, the
\nrealization that a military officer whose sworn allegiance is to the
\nFederal Republic of Nigeria shouldn’t be a GEJ loyalist forced a change in
\ntactics. The sacked officers became “mostly” from the South South, South
\nEast and a few from the North Central but this too was soon discarded,
\npossibly because while the claim is not true it would have also confirmed
\nthat the fired officers played the ethnic card instead of working for
\nNigeria.<\/p>\n
People who wanted to discredit a national institution were thus in a
\nquandary. The disaffection being whipped up in some quarters must be
\nsustained and the sack of rouge officers is the only cannon fodder
\navailable. Under 72 hours, the narrative of the forced retirement was to
\nchange again. The last round of change was that they were loyalists of late
\nPresident Umaru Yar’Adua, former President Jonathan and his National
\nSecurity Adviser, retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki.\u00a0 Like the previous
\ninterpretations of the sacks, this one too fell flat because the former
\nmilitary men signed up to serve their country and not politicians.<\/p>\n
There are also the simple questions that are not being asked. What did
\nthese people do while in office? For instance, if the aides of Dasuki took
\npart in the criminal theft of money meant for buying arms to fight
\nterrorists should he be excused simply because he hails from a particular
\npart of the country? If a military officer on national assignment on a
\npresident’s staff were to supervise the distribution of bribes to rig
\nelections, should he be left off the hook simply because his them principal
\nis of a certain ethnic stock? We must also be brave enough to interrogate
\nour system and agree whether or not commanding officers should abuse the
\nsupport the military provide during elections should be converted to a
\nrigging spree and intimidation of the opposition? Should the sacked
\nofficers have been rewarded with promotion when the theft of defence
\ncontract money meant that other gallant soldiers and officers died for lack
\nof equipment? If the military becomes populated by career thieves and
\nethnic apologists can we still boast that we have a military? Why would any
\ngroup or persons want Nigeria to have a compromised military? We cannot in
\ngood conscience answer in favour of any of these questions because that
\nwould portray us as dysfunctional society that has no hope of growing out
\nof it.<\/p>\n
We therefore summon the courage to find out what we stand to gain by
\npoliticizing the military to the extent that some people now want the very
\nprocess used for ensuring ethical standards and professionalism to become
\nthe subject of external inference. To say such mindset is irresponsible
\nwould be an understatement. The military must not for any reason be
\npoliticized. Those who think politicizing events in the Nigerian Army could
\nbe exploited for their sinister motives of building support for
\nsecessionist groups should have a rethink as this is an institution whose
\nfunction is too crucial to be jeopardized by ethnic thinking.<\/p>\n
As they did with beating drums of war in the name of electioneering, as
\nthey did in propping up terrorists, as they did in attempting to sabotage
\nthe economy, the detractors of Nigeria got it wrong again by trying to
\nbring ethnic politics into the sack of compromised officers. Instead of
\nsounding like the whimpers of a victimized underdog they actually ended up
\nsnarling ferociously, a declaration of war on peace loving Nigerians.<\/p>\n
Declaring war on the state whether directly or through proxies is not known
\nto be acceptable in any state so a day of reckoning will arrive for those
\nbeating the drums of division and war. When that day comes, those waging
\nthis low intensity insurrection against the Nigerian state owe the rest of
\nus valid explanation. They should therefore save the energy being
\ndissipated on demonizing the military and channel same to articulating
\ntheir reasons for troubling the nation.<\/p>\n
Attah is Secretary General, Stand Up Nigeria and contributed this piece
\nfrom St. Don Bosco, Beirut, Lebanon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Attah Sunday Those who whipped up ethno-religious sentiments in the run up to the 2015 general elections certainly knew what they were doing. Far from the wider misconception of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n