Calls for military intervention: Misery, harsh policies driving Nigerians to desperate choices

Nigerians were exhilarated with the return of democracy in 1999, but 25 years on, the buccaneering nature of politicians, their penchant for poor service delivery, morbid hatred for probity, accountability, and credible/transparent elections, among others, are forcing some flustered citizens to make extreme choices, including calling for military intervention in governance. ENO-ABASI SUNDAY writes that deep despondency permeates every facet of the polity consequent upon soaring cost of living. And while the political elite splurge on fine wines and exotic automobiles amid poor service delivery, calls for regime change could become more strident in the days ahead even though military insurrection holds no solution to the country’s woes.

The return to civilian rule in 1999 went down as a watershed in the annals of Nigerian history. But 25 years later, democracy, as practised by most Nigerian politicians, has bequeathed to the country a legacy of waste, unfulfilled dreams, and horrible developmental credentials, which have left the people nonplussed and hopeless.

Stricto sensu, the consensus is that in the last two decades or thereabouts, Nigerians’ lives have taken a turn for the worse, as confirmed by the country’s plunging Misery Index. This index also finds expression in over 130 million citizens being plunged into multidimensional poverty, the uncontrollable rise in inflation, the leaping unemployment rate, and widespread insecurity.

Beyond the saprophytic lifestyle that most Nigerian politicians live, they also thrive in selling fantasies and lies to the electorate, with only an infinitesimal percentage of them operating above board.

Across the country, many elected officeholders are famed for poor service delivery, adept in deception, and do not care a hoot about a dent in their reputation.

As a special breed of individuals whose mindsets cannot be gleaned from what they say when on the soapbox, they have also left enough conviction that their promise of a “perfect society” should never be taken seriously because with most of them, what is preached is worlds apart from what is practised.

Indeed, the long-suffering nature of the Nigerian people has made it possible for the political class to clown around in the name of governance, taking the people on a lengthy ride while they do everything humanly possible to guarantee their comfort and that of their immediate family members and cronies.

With their hefty monthly pay (even when members of the electorate, including pensioners, are unpaid for several months), it is clear to all that for career politicians, service to the people is secondary to service to themselves.

Like the typical lazy workman who blames his tools for poor delivery, the typical Nigerian politician takes no blame for his/her gross lack of capacity to perform but has perfected the skill of blaming others for his/her failings.

Juxtaposed with military rule, the difference between both is something akin to six and half a dozen. This is indeed the dilemma that most hapless citizens have found themselves in, which has now forced some of them to tinker with extreme choices, including calling for returning the military to governance.

By whatever nomenclature or appellation that it goes by, military rule is an aberration in modern society, given the repressive, rapacious, and gluttonous tendencies of its practitioners.

Gross absence of truth, transparency, and sincerity of purpose are some of the vestiges of long years of military governance that the country has endured. Not only has military rule been more of a curse than a blessing to the country, but it has stunted the growth of democratic ideals, which ought to have blossomed in the country.

To date, the massive scars on the country’s democratic canvass have been both evident and indelible, just as the temperament, actions, and inaction of the political class continue to betray sound civic and democratic culture.

Research confirms this, rightly establishing that military rule has done more damage to the country’s psyche than good. Associate Prof Etim Okon Frank, a lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Uyo, and Prof Wilfred Isioma Ukpere, of the Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, in their research titled: “Impact of Military Rule on Democracy in Nigeria,” confirmed this much.

“Consequent upon the long years of military governance, the obvious outcome would be militarised political culture, manifested in the political behaviours of the dramatis personae in the democratic arena. The Nigerian civic culture was eroded and militarised culture was imbibed. Thus, the rule of operation became that of order, combat rather than dialogue, disregard of court orders, and violation of human rights became the tenets of militarised civic culture in a democratic dispensation. These values and norms are unknown to democracy.

“Democratic values include spiritual or moral principles, ideals, or qualities of life that people favour for their own sake. Democracy is rooted in several key values or norms. These values supply democracy’s moral content and give its institutions and procedures their normative purpose, including freedom, inclusion, equality, equity, welfare, negotiation and compromise…”

A rash of invites for military insurrection
MILITARY rule in Nigeria has a rich history of corruption and human rights abuses and has been characterised by periods of authoritarianism, repression, and violations of civilian rights. These abuses have often resulted in widespread suffering and hardship for the people.

It also foisted on the country, a reign of widespread corruption and economic hardship, as well as a proven absence of a sustainable solution to the country’s many challenges.

But all these demerits did not deter some Nigerians from approaching the military to overthrow the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led government owing to the administration’s failure to improve their quality of life.

The Nigeria Defence Headquarters (DHQ), which confirmed the curious takeover requests from unnamed persons, suggested that proponents of the coup d’état are basing the calls on alleged poor welfare within the Armed Forces.

The Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Tukur Gusau, in a statement he released via the DHQ’s official Twitter account @DefenceInfoNG, said that the military frowned at such calls for military intervention in the nation’s democracy, describing it as “unpatriotic, wicked,” and an attempt to divert the focus of the Armed Forces from their constitutional duties.

As the country grapples with inflation and a severely weakened naira arising from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-initiated economic reforms, the #EndBadGovernance protest also provided aggrieved youths nationwide another opportunity to bare their minds. In far-flung parts of the country, including Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Bauchi, and Nasarawa, Zamfara states, some of them went overboard flying Russian flags and calling for an overthrow of the government.

In Kaduna State, some of the youths stormed the precincts of the 1010 Division Workshop, a military facility, and urged the army to move. Only recently, another video shot in the New Lagos Road area of Benin City, Edo State, also showed protesters flocking around a slowly moving convoy of the Nigerian Army, with some of them calling on the soldiers to take over the government.

Unmet expectations, failed promises put military’s return on some citizens’ wishlists
APART from the curiosity raised in some quarters, many are beginning to question whether calls for military intervention in governance mean that Nigerians are losing interest in democracy. But a recent report and a professor of law put things in perspective. While the report points out a litany of challenges that are making Nigerians gasp for breath, the university teacher insists that citizens are weary of our rulers’ hypocrisy and perceived insensitivity.

The Nigeria Country Report entitled “Threatened Aspirations, Undaunted Resilience: Nigerian Young Women’s and Men’s Prospects For Livelihoods, Employment And Accountability,” by Partnership for African Social and Governance Research, did a good job of outlining some factors that have continually hobbled youths and made their potential permanently latent. The report was done in concert with the Mastercard Foundation.

According to it: “A new World Bank report indicates that unemployment is significantly higher for Nigerian youth (42.5 per cent) compared to non-youth (26.3 per cent), with the rate of employed males at just 46.4 per cent while that of women is at 40.6 per cent (Mboho, 2021). Data from the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics show that the number of youth eligible to work in Nigeria is about 40 million, but only 14.7 million are gainfully employed (Nairametrics, 2020). This implies a high youth unemployment rate among the country’s youth and a weakened labour force since the most active working-age population is not employed. A survey on the youth unemployment rate from 1999 to 2020 (see Figure 5) revealed an exponential increase in unemployment among youth (15-24 years) from 2016 to 2020 relative to 1999 to 2013; unemployment was lowest in 2014 and 2015 (O’Neill, 2021).”

The report, which quoted a male with disability highlighting the lack of effective implementation of existing government policies as a major albatross, added, “The majority of the youth in Nigeria place a high premium on education, even if they are not guaranteed government employment after schooling. Nigerian youths are believed to leverage their knowledge from formal education to pursue other life endeavours.”

It continued: “According to Nigerian population literacy data retrieved in 2016 from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 59.6 per cent of the adult population aged 15 years and above) in Nigeria can read and write, with the adult male population literacy rate at 69.2 per cent and the adult female population at 49.7 per cent. Interestingly, the youth literacy rate was 79.9 per cent for males, 65.3 per cent for females, and 72.8 per cent overall for the population aged 15 to 24 (Country-meter, 2022b). Despite the literacy rates, Nigerian youth suffer from high unemployment rates.”

A further reflection of the chaos that citizens have had to contend with, the report added, is insecurity, which it states is the bane of youth aspirations in the country. “Nigeria is facing several insecurity issues such as Boko Haram, kidnapping, farmer-herder conflict, and ritual killings. The agitation by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the southeastern part of Nigeria has added to the list of the insecurity indices in Nigeria. The IPOB has constituted itself as a government as it declares sit-at-home at will in the region. This has continued to hamper businesses. Regarding the insecurity, an in-depth interview participant disclosed that Boko haram had pursued her from her privileged zone of the North-East, where she would have loved to farm. “I am scared to move to my state…”

Professor of Law at the Lead City University, Ibadan, Oyo State, Olu Ojedokun, thinks that citizens are wary of the hypocrisy of our rulers and their perceived insensitivity. But most know that the worst form of civil rule surpasses any military adventurism.”

However, the university teacher who believes that what the country is practising is not democracy stressed: “We do not have a democracy and have not had any since 1999, but what we have had is civil rule, and the present crop of politicians have not earned much credit by the constant clowning around with governance and the failure to cut down the cost of governance. People feel that the pain is only felt by the former middle class and those on the margins.”

While admitting that there is a “direct relationship” between the political class’ failure to secure the nation and citizens making extreme options, including calling for the military’s return, Ojedokun added that a “further failure lies in the lack of confidence in the judiciary and electoral bodies because people are searching for legitimate options to address the slide. There is also a need for a complete restructuring of our governing apparatus as a matter of urgency; engagement with the people, a proper dialogue, and not one-way traffic should be considered.”

Legal practitioner Abasumo Ekong Bassey believes that sad scenarios like the one painted above leave citizens frustrated because government officials pay scant heed to service delivery and accountability.

“There’s no doubt that the citizenry has become despondent regarding the state of the Nigerian economy. Frustration is palpable and all you need to do to observe this trend is to take a walk along the streets and observe even the low vehicular traffic, scanty human activities, and palpable frustration on the faces of the few people that are on the streets,” Ekong-Bassey said.

He continued: “⁠Of course, the lack of probity and accountability is a major reason for the current resentment that Nigerians are expressing toward governance. But even more poignant is the insensitivity of the ruling class: the purchase of luxury cars for legislators, increase in feeding allowance of members of the executive branch, replacement of presidential aircraft at exorbitant prices, and many more untoward stories from a leadership that should be executing austerity measures commensurate with the climate of hardship currently being endured by ordinary Nigerians.

For Dr Olabode Badiru, a rural development communicator who works at the University of Ibadan, those calling for military intervention “may be influenced by the exaggerated successes of the military juntas in our West African neighbourhood. The initial momentum and grandstanding could appear romantic to the naive. But it doesn’t take long before the reality sets in that one has replaced a monster that has a short leash with another one that is practically unleashed.

Badiru, who added that the perception that the politicians are lounging is valid, however, asked: “What is the lifestyle of an average Nigerian? It seems we only hate something when it’s not being done by us. Our politicians reflect our value system as a people. Nigerians love to show off. It will therefore be hypocritical to expect our politicians to be ascetic. I agree that our leaders must be above board by doing optically pleasing things, considering our economic situation, but they are just displaying the tendencies of the average Nigerian.”

Why calls for military intervention may get more strident
EVEN though pro-democracy activist Mr Femi Aborisade does not accept that the calls for military intervention are dominant or representative of the position of a majority of Nigerians,” he maintains, “It is a fact that the majority of the ordinary people are angry and highly disappointed, particularly with the hardship under the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s regime. But it does not mean that the disappointment is against the system of determining rulers through elections in preference for military dictatorship. The anger is that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been ruling in total disregard for the welfare of ordinary people in a manner worse than military dictatorships.

“Of course, it is superfluous to say that the lack of accountability, probity, and profligacy under the Tinubu regime, which has allowed the rulers to swim in opulence while the masses wallow in poverty amid plenty has contributed to the resentment against criminal neglect of the welfare and security of the masses. There is anger against a governmental system that benefits the few rulers and punishes the masses by subjecting them to hunger and rendering them incapable of meeting the basic existential physiological needs,” Aborisade explained.

He added: “There is nothing the elite political class can do to stop the agitations of the masses for change. The collapse of any anti-people government and the triumph of the popular peaceful revolt of the masses is as certain as the day following the night, in the long run, no matter the short-term pyrrhic advantage of the ruling class. However, the focus of the masses is not on the military; it is on a fundamental system change. The masses are not struggling to remain enslaved because military dictatorship will be a continuation of enslavement.”

Asked if democracy is losing its allure and appeal to Nigerians, as reflected in the invitation that some are extending to the military, a former diplomat, Dr Yemi Farounbi, said: “The increasing calls for military intervention are not necessarily that the citizens do not love democracy; it’s more because the leaders are not democratic in deeds and truth. The fact that they are civilians does not make them democratic.

He added: “There’s a massive disconnect between the people and those governing them. So, the people do not think that the government is representing and protecting their interests any longer hence they have lost complete trust in elections as their opportunities to change government and elect those that they believe can faithfully represent them. The call for military intervention to put an end to a civilian regime is more an indication of a lack of trust in the electoral process than a distrust in democracy. They have seen the charade called governorship elections; they have heard of boasts by party leadership not to win elections, but to capture states, and they have seen the shams called local government elections. So, the people have come to believe that since the election no longer presents them with the opportunity to change unpopular or poor government, they are calling for undemocratic methods for changing the civilian regimes.”

He continued: “It is true that the institutions and processes that make democracy enduring are not in place. For example, there are no viable opposition parties that ought to provide alternative political and economic platforms for governance. The parliament, at all levels, has become tied to the apron strings of the executives and, therefore, cannot be trusted to provide any check on the excesses of the executive. The judiciary has stopped being the last hope of the common man; it has become the instrument of the Kaabiyesis in the executive. The judiciary has also stopped being the propagator and defender of the Majesty of the Rule of Law. On the contrary, it has become a willing footstool of the executive. Unfortunately, the executive has become more opaque in operations at all levels, more unresponsive to the wishes of the people, more inattentive to the needs of the people, more uncaring for the security and welfare of the people, and more intolerant of divergent views in a plural and sometimes pluralistic society.

“Having concluded that there’s no legitimate way to unseat the dictatorial executive, they believe the only way to forcibly uproot that executive is through a military putsch. And they are encouraged by the situation in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Congo. We must remember that the youths constitute 60 per cent of the population, and are not aware of the evil that a military regime can usher in. These youths were not old enough when the military withdrew 25 years ago. These youths were probably toddlers then.”

How to silence extreme calls by citizens
SINCE “the worst civilian government is far better than the best military government,” the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Oyo Branch, Michael Olajide Olanipekun, therefore, thinks that the call for military insurrection.  “is misplaced despite the hardship that Nigerians are passing through. I will rather advise that the citizens should wait till 2027 and change the government to a preferred one… those calling for a military takeover must have been those who were too young not to have witnessed the days of military incursions into Nigeria’s governance in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, which period laid the foundation for the political and economic problems of Nigeria.”

However, the NBA chief quickly advised the political class to sincerely and critically assess the country’s sorry situation and strategise on giving Nigerians purposeful governance, ensuring that the country’s natural and human endowments count. “If this is done, the extreme options and ideas will be forgotten. But to a certain extent, I agree that lack of probity, accountability, and the profligate lifestyle of the political class may play crucial roles in Nigerians’ resentment towards democracy. But I want to quickly add that the military does not fare better when it comes to lack of probity, accountability and profligacy. The military were the masters of those anomalies… so the extreme option of military incursion into the nation’s governance is not the solution as far as I know.”

Olanipekun’s views align with that of an author and a retired professor of crop physiology and nutrition at the University of Ibadan, Olabode Lucas, who said: “People should remember that we have had military governments for more than 25 years since we got independence, and we were not better for it. It is on record that the military in Nigeria institutionalised corruption and destroyed the moral fabric of the country. Unfortunately, the present political players are not giving us hope because of their extravagant way of governance.

“Military government is frowned upon by the international community, and isolated countries like Mali, Niger, Guinea, and Burkina Faso that presently have military governments are not faring well as they are overwhelmed by the enormity of governance problem.”

“I agree that people are frustrated with the present situation in Nigeria. Hunger and want are the lots of the people presently. Democracy may not bring the immediate solution to our problems, but it is better than a military system of governance. We need public-spirited politicians to govern us, and we can only get them with time through the ballot box. The military government is not the solution to our problem because we don’t have military leaders like Mustafa Kemal Atatürk of Turkey or a benevolent dictator like Lee Kuan of Singapore, who can take us to the Promised Land.”

Giving his perspective on how to silence voices calling for coups, Dr Badiru said: “Nigerians just want the most basic things, and in all honesty, that is not too much to ask for. The government should invest in data-backed safety net programmes to cushion the effect of the economic hardship caused by the twin policies of fuel subsidy removal and floating of the naira in the foreign exchange market.”