To change January 15 as Armed Forces Day

AS a child, I watched with great fascination the military parades of the Armed Forces as they matched as one. The military music, the sergeant major who marched in front of them with some highly decorated staff he occasionally threw up and plucked from the air with great panache, all the while marching to the music of the military band, with discipline. I love the commander’s voice. Sometimes on horse back as the commander took the salute. May 24 was Empire Day. We all went to watch the military and police perform. Throughout my career in the office of the President I was never tired to watch parades of various countries. While Ambassador in Brazil I enjoyed the peculiar custom of the Brazilians to mount a guard of honour whenever I visited a Governor of a state (Brazil has 27 States and I visited all of them) or to the six other countries I was as credited to as Nigeria’s envoy. Some of the best spectacles I have seen are the military parades of China. The Americans know how to set up a parade, so do the Indians. The British with their black and red outfit and beaver caps simply take my breath away. As the cliché goes, the British know how to put on a show. The best military shows I have seen must be that of the North Koreans, the goose steps, the precision of movement, the faces, all of one shape and size, nothing different, proud, defiant, as thousands march as one, no one taller than the other, men and women emphasizing the spirit of the nation for which they are all willing to die.

In 1999, Nigeria was guest of India at the National Day of India. It was a spectacle to behold – the intricate head gear of the silks, the impossible regal march of the brown camels, and the parade of the Indian military. It was easy for me to imagine how the military could provide the cement and symbol and pride of national unity.

A few days ago, Nigeria celebrated its Armed Forces Day. Mr. President wore a simple dignified agbada while the military brass decked out in their Sunday best, to lay wreaths to our fallen heroes. My only complaint was that there were too many wreath layers. Prisons services, Immigration, Customs, Civil Services, Road Safety! Emergency services, Senator, Speaker, etc. Be that as it may, it was a dignified performance. I noticed that since when the President was sworn in, he had been faithful in dressing in his native agbada. I hope he does not deteriorate to wearing different regional attires like he tried during campaign. In some of those attires he frankly looked ludicrous!!!

Nigeria needs an Armed Forces Day. The question I am raising here is whether January 15 is a suitable date? Military by its nature is secretive and separate from others. Democracy by its very nature is open and inclusive. This year was the 50th anniversary of the first military coup in 1966. All the media had made reference to that epochal day with various degrees, of how Nigeria has faired since 1966. The military has ruled for 32 of those 50 years, civilian 18, even in those years – eight were quasi – military (1999 – 2007). Nigeria has been the best of the military and I dare say the worst. The verdict is that Nigeria no longer wants military rule. The verdict of the people as reflected in the media is that they do not like what the military has done to Nigeria. January 15 is a divisive date, it’s full of angst and ire rekindling memories too bitter to bear repetition unless the repeating of it has some curative value like the example the Jews at Passover who eat, salt, and something bitter, to remind them of their passage, then they eat honey or something sweet to remind them of God’s grace for them.

January 15, does not invoke the best values either for the military or for Nigerians. It was an unfortunate misadventure not a glorious conquest of good over bad. It was a day that began with the killing of our nationalists who brought independence, their wives, and leaders in various parts of Nigeria. Yes, it may not have been planned as a sectional coup; yes tonnes have been written about mistakes, etc – but I was surprised at the bitterness of the celebration of the descendants of those who lost their lives in that coup. January 15 was followed by major miscalculations, then another revenge coup, a pogrom, a civil war. Feelings are still raw as the resurgence for Biafra demonstrates. The rawness of the anger of the descendants and tribes of all those who died needlessly on January 15 – surprised me:– Sadauna, his wife, Akintola, Tafawa Balewa, Ribadu, Maimalari, Festus Okotie-Eboh, etc; yes and some Ibos too. It is, of course, possible that our view of January 15 , is coloured by the singular failure of the military in and out office – failure to deliver what was promised – end of corruption, rapid economic development: instead of being stuck in the quagmire of degradation, hopelessness and an incredible inability to turn the most gifted country into an industrial giant. Nigeria is now the example par excellence of corruption and its deleterious effects on a nation: a pall of corruption has come to settle on our people invading the air we breathe, every pore of our skin and a near certainty that no one has a cure for it. As we trash around for solutions we cannot find, we turn our attention to where it all began – January 15 and the military.

That sounds unfair and cannot exhaust the truth. A nation needs a day to extol its military because they are the people who would be called to defend us should the need arise. It is the military who had asked us to honour our heroes. The President must be a beacon of light, must restore dignity to Nigeria: if that is done, the military will also be dignified.

1776 in the history of the United States was sublimated. This was a war of independence. January V was a war of intrusion and of halting the progress of democracy. Even if, as it is argued sometimes that democracy was failing, then the military came to restore it in 1979. Democracy was never given a chance because in 1983, it is again purged and remained in exile until 1999. It is true Nigerians like order; they dislike corruption and corrupt politicians. But they also dislike with even more venom an inefficient, disorderly corrupt and disorderly military.

We want to believe that the armed forces could and should be respectable and respected. We need a day to honour them, like we honour democracy itself on May 29.
The day the civil war ended was the January 15, 1970 and as such was chosen as the Armed Forces Day. But the Ibos may not find this so palatable. The military should find a befitting day and proclaim it and begin to act as a body worthy of respect. When one mentions January 15, what comes to mind is not the end of the Civil war. Rather it is the gruesome story of those killed on that day. This maybe a generational thing and that as time goes on, the younger ones will simply remember it as the Armed Forces Day. On the evidence of the last one, this interpretation is optimistic.