THE Head of State, General Sani Abacha, has this week made a statement which inspired a deep sense of rumination in me. It was at the end of activities marking this year’s Nigerian Navy Day that the Head of State advised the Nigerian military to henceforth be prepared to subordinate itself to the political class. If one remembers correctly, this was not the first time the General made this appeal which, obviously, points to the need for a climate required for civil rule. For an institution that is spending its 28th year in power out of the country’s 38 years of political independence, such poignant blandishment from the commander-in-chief needs quite more than a cursory appraisal. However, the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Mike Akhigbe, was also heard on the same occasion suggesting that the military should always be reckoned with in the administration of Nigeria. Not that the admiral disagrees with the C-in-C but Nigerians know quite well, also, that the issue raised by Gen. Abacha is the most idyllic for any civil society. In the Nigerian experience, however, the opposite tends to be the case.
The question is how these seemingly opposing views can accommodate the spectral images suggested by, say, Umar, a four-year old boy I met on a visit to a colleague’s house last week in Kaduna. Umar (not real name, of course) had come prancing into the living room where I and my colleague sat chatting. Also on a visit to my colleague’s wife with his mother, the boy was cutely dressed in (American) Army fatigues, complete with boots and a cocked beret, making him look like Sylvester Stallone in The Specialist. We were both amused by little Umar’s macho look and, as the boy punched the air in a kungfu-like puerile frenzy, my colleague commented, “Hm! If not for the militarisation of the (civil) society, how could this boy appear like this?”
Militarisation of society? The phrase rang a bell. Many years ago when we were in secondary school, a friend of mine was “arrested” by a policeman in a village market for appearing in chic military fatigues such as the ones our little friend sported last Sunday. My friend was able to extricate himself from the cop’s grip only after he had greased his palms.
Looking back now, one wakes up to the sudden realisation that when people appear in fake army uniforms in a village market, they are only making a politically correct statement about the society. One is all the more piqued by the way history repeats itself with so astounding a similarity. Today, the prediliction by the civil society to militarise itself physically and psychologically is increasing by the day. People are more wont to look and behave like soldiers more than ever before. They savour anything military to the extent that, looking around, one gets the distinct feeling that we are living in a society transforming itself more or less into a huge military garrison. The images may seem barely palpable, but they are there. The implications — not just for democracy, which is scheduled to restart full blown come October — are better imagined.
Look around you. Traditional rulers are sporting dark goggles, the type generals wear while on the fronts. The average civil servant refers to his superior as “the boss” (as in, “Our boss says salaries will be paid next week”) and his deputy as his “second-in-command” or “2ic”. Many a Nigerian calls his wife “first lady.” A friend of mine calls himself “the MILAD” of his house. And, perhaps to guarantee the survival of the trend, our youths, apart from engaging in drills or watching combat films the type soldiers watch in their messes, appear to feel comfortable in military-like attires. Top civil servants are falling over themselves to get their sons enrolled in military secondary schools, not out of a search for qualitative education but as a short-cut to getting them into the NDA eventually. Families that have a son in the army do flaunt the names of the officer whenever the opportunity presents itself. “My cousin is a colonel; you know.”
Well, perhaps one shouldn’t sound to be begrudging anyone wishing to sport his (earned and unearned) military credentials. In a society where the quest for material things is given the utmost priority, such penchant may be forgivable. And soldiery is identified — even if not synonymous — with material acquisition these days.
Soldiers seem to enjoy more privileges than the rest of us, especially when they are on higher rungs. Here are a few examples. Soldiers do not join the queue at the filling station. They don’t stop at police check-points; even if they do, they are quickly waved on without having to undergo the embarrassing frisk. A car I bought last year had a NDA sticker on it; I removed it, quite against the wise counsel of friends, because of the way traffic wardens greeted me around town anytime I passed; they thought I was an army officer. Soldiers put intimidating signs on their houses, such as, “MILITARY ZONE: KEEP OFF” ostensibly to scare away robbers and other transgressors. Nowadays it doesn’t matter even if it’s bloody civilians living in there. Moreover, senior army officers can be excused certain offences and, after their stewardship, may not face probes such as those being visited upon civilian administrators, ironically by soldiers! In our urge to get inducted, we so often tend to overlook the sundry hazards of military life — the court martials, the regimentation, the coup attempt consequences, the indictments, etc. No wonder even the Babangida-era Centre for Democratic Studies failed to reorient us Nigerians.
In this case, therefore, how could soldiers imbibe the spirit enunciated by the Head of State when it is the civil society actively seeking to subordinate itself to the military establishment? Nowadays many Nigerians would rather join the Army than a political party, for obvious reasons. While they consider military life at a higher level as more secure, materially profitable and socially more hallowed, they think politicking is a jungle full of uncertainties where only the fittest survives. No doubt, it would require more than a National Orientation Agency to change such attitude.
Those canvassing the fusion of soldiers and civilians to produce the hybrid political system called diarchy — a ‘Made in Nigeria’ system — may feel justified by the failure of the two extremes to live separate lives. Three decades of violent history has forced a union whose divorce may never happen. The canvassers would scarcely appreciate that even in mediaeval times soldiers lived in barracks while civilians led a separate life. In modem times, the view expressed by General Abacha has always been more sanguine. For, asking soldiers and civilians to rule together is like putting a motor car on the railroad or a train on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
* Published in my column, Melting Pot, in the New Nigerian Weekly today
