by Rotimi Fashakin
On 25th February, 2013, the defunct
Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) organized an interactive session
for Public officers elected on its platform. As a follow-up to the Memo
sent to the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Party, General Muhammadu
Buhari (GMB), the National leader, used the occasion to drum up support
for the merger with other Political parties under the Nation’s political
space. He said: “A brief glance at the political history of Nigeria
confirms that to hold power at the centre you need a broad coalition,
alliance, merger or whatever you may like to call it. Today’s situation
is no different.” The content of that message was well received by all
because it was the needed elixir for assuring on the victory of the
Progressives in future elections against the reactionary ruling People’s
Democratic Party (PDP).
GMB was not unmindful of the PDP’s
well-oiled election-rigging machine. He said: “PDP does not need merger
or alliance. They are already merged and are in alliance with Police,
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the judiciary, and
also with the Nigerian National petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and pension
funds.”
Of course, GMB knew that, while the main
opposition political parties were busy merging for the purpose of
solidity of focus for the future, PDP was busy oiling the rigging
Infrastructure with its coalition partners. At that time, GMB was quite
circumspect in not including the Military Institution as one of the
partners in crime with the ruling PDP!
The Military Institution that bred the
likes of Generals Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, TY Danjuma, Alani
Akinrinade, etc was one with a rich tradition, anchored on patriotic
service to the fatherland. The Nigerian Military was never wanting in
honour, nobility and professionalism in the finest tradition of
soldiering. But under President Goodluck Jonathan, like every
Institution of state that has lost its independence, the Military has
become dangerously tethered to the ruling PDP.
Despite the constitutional delineation
of the maintenance of internal security vis-à-vis the role of the
Police, the Military continued to be called up for supervising
elections. If the Police is not adequately equipped to deal with
supervision of elections, then there is a fundamental defect in the
Nation’s security Architecture!
On 22nd June, 2014, Governorship
election was held in Ekiti State. The combined numerical strength of
security agencies –comprising of the Army, Police, Civil Defense, SSS
etc – deployed for that assignment was in excess of 36,700. Whilst PDP
chieftains had unfettered movement around the state, the All
Progressives’ Congress (APC) leaders were hounded into detention
centers. The team sent to the home of the Director-General of the APC
candidate, Hon. Bimbo Daramola, did not meet him at home. But his father
was arrested in lieu of his son and suffered dehumanizing treatment in
the hands of the PDP goons.
The PDP candidate, Mr. Ayodele Fayose,
was returned as duly elected, having won in all the sixteen local
governments in the state. The hands and the legs of that carefully
interred electoral copse are now protruding out! The audio recording of
the secret meeting involving top PDP Apparatchiks and serving Military
officers, in which the plot to use the military to harass and intimidate
the Ekiti people was hatched, is now in public domain. What is galling
was that a serving Minister of state for Defence intimidated a Military
commander with the wrath of the Chief of Army staff, who is a kinsman of
President Jonathan, should he refuse to cooperate with the PDP’s plan
to rig the election!
The Nigerian Military has lately been
involved in discomforting volte face that often put to question the
honour that the Institution once had with the citizenry. For instance,
on Wednesday, 31st December, 2014, at an interview with Punch
Newspapers, the Director of Army Public relations, Brig-General Olajide
Olaleye said: “Every serving and retired Army officer has at least a
copy of his certificates and credentials kept in the Nigerian Army while
that same serving and retired officer has copies of those same
certificates and credentials. And there is a laid-down procedure to
request for certificates. It is known to any serving and retired
officer.”
But in a complete one hundred and eighty
degrees shift, the same Army spokesman said on 20th January, 2015 that:
“Records available indicate that Major General M Buhari applied to join
the military as a Form Six student of the Provincial Secondary School,
Katsina on 18 Oct 61. His application was duly endorsed by the Principal
of the school, who also wrote a report on him and recommended him to be
suitable for military commission. It is a practice in the NA that
before candidates are shortlisted for commissioning into the officers’s
cadre of the service, the Selection Board verifies the original copies
of credentials that are presented. However, there is no available record
to show that this process was followed in the 1960s.
Nevertheless, the entry made on the NA
Form 199A at the point of documentation after commission as an officer
indicated that the former Head of State obtained the West African School
Certificate (WASC) in 1961 with credits in relevant subjects: English
Language, Geography, History, Health Science, Hausa and a pass in
English Literature. Neither the original copy, Certified True Copy (CTC)
nor Statement of result of Major General M Buhari’s WASC result is in
his personal file.”
The gaps in the latest communication
from the Nigerian Army, undoubtedly, revealed the politicization of the
Nigerian Army, nay the Military, to favour the fascist agenda of the PDP
to embarrass the Former Head of State. The relevant question to be
asked is: When the Nigerian Army (NA) accepted the Form 199A filled out
by General Buhari as a newly commissioned officer, was there
authentication of the veracity of the information therein sought?
If not, we should be afraid of the lack
of scrupulousness of the process of the NA. If there was indeed a
document by way of certificate submitted to support the Form 199A, we
should ask the NA: where is the certificate? A former Chief of Army
staff and Sandhurst-trained officer, General Alani Akinrinade, was livid
with rage at the obnoxious role played by this clearly partisan
Nigerian Army in the certificate saga.
Said he: “It is an insult to the armed
forces — a terrible insult to the armed forces. If they are so embedded
in the system and they have lost their souls, then they can go ahead and
join everybody else in castigating a General of Buhari’s calibre. They
are now talking about a school certificate. What is that? By the time he
joined the army, in those days, there were no cutting corners. It is
later when these same civilians took over from the army that admission
into it became less transparent. I can give you an instance. There was
Course Five around 1964: if one did not have a school certificate one
couldn’t apply to join the army. And I know up to 1963 when the last
General Officer Commanding left Nigeria, there were no corners to be
cut. There was no such thing. Everything was on merit. And, that was how
it was till Buhari’s time. Buhari attended the Mons (Officer Cadet
School in Aldershot in England) and the Staff College; I don’t want to
think they have an idea what they teach in those places.”
INEC gave notification of the timetable
2015 general elections at least more than six months ago. It was on the
basis of this that the timetable for the Primary elections of the
Political parties was drawn. The ruling PDP , all along, was very
comfortable with this arrangement because the party was sure that its
most feared Politician in the land, General Muhammadu Buhari, would not
emerge as the Presidential candidate of the APC.
The PDP-led Presidency, against all its
forecasts and devious plans, started becoming petrified the moment GMB
emerged as the APC candidate with a landslide victory. Whilst GMB’s
political image continued to soar, that of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan began
to nose-dive; obviously, the manner of Jonathan’s emergence as candidate
of the PDP was unhelpful for his aspiration. Like the Biblical house of
David and Saul, Dr. Jonathan started seeing attenuation of his
Political stature while GMB exponentially improved his public
acceptability over his position before the 2011 election.
Public opinion Polls (POP) conducted by
Jonathan’s acolytes and independents gave overwhelming victory to GMB.
The PDP-presidency started sniffing defeat many weeks away from the
February 14 date. Suddenly, the Presidency started sending surrogate
groups to test the waters on Polls shift.
The Military that had hitherto indicated
willingness to support the electoral process with security started to
buckle. At the Council of states meeting, which Dr. Goodluck Jonathan
had specifically summoned to accent to his devious plan, the INEC
chairman found himself in quandary with the volte face from the
Military. The Military, true to its behaviour under Dr. Goodluck
Jonathan, has moved from serving the Nigerian people to the
imperialistic interest of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
As a follow-up to its showing at the
Council of States meeting, the Nigerian Military, in a joint letter
signed by the Chief of Defense staff and all the service chiefs of Army,
Navy and Air-force, unequivocally stated inability to support the
electoral process with security. They averred an ongoing operation in
the North East would deplete their resources to the extent that there
would not be enough to support the elections.
It was a perfectly executed coup against
the Nation’s democracy by the Military, with the full cooperation of
the civil Authority. What was curious about the letter was that the
specified timeframe for this military operation in the NE coincided with
the time demanded for by the Presidency and the large army of its
lackeys! The INEC chairman and his Resident Electoral Commissioners had
earlier overwhelmingly indicated willingness and readiness to continue
with the scheduled election; the letter from the Nigerian Military or
better still, Jonathan’s Military, boxed the electoral body into a cul
de sac.
The electoral body Chairman saw through
the chicanery embedded in the Military’s missive; a well-coordinated
sabotage was in the offing should he ignore the letter and its content.
It was a totally flustered Professor Jega that addressed the Press on
Saturday, the 7th February, 2015 on the Polls shift to 28th March and
11th April, 2015.
It is unknown what the ripple effect of
this Polls shift may turn out to be. It is indubitably clear that the
Nigerian Citizenry is miffed by this utterly tendentious affront on the
sanctity of the electoral process in a democratic order. The Nigerian
Military that once stood strong in the task of keeping Nigeria one is
now, by covert means, encouraging its balkanization! Undoubtedly, a
harsh judgment of posterity awaits this Military for this infamous
decision.
God bless Nigeria.
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