Colonel Zida is playing with fire

Last week, Lieutenant-Colonel Yacouba Isaac Zida received a properly suited president Jones at the Ouagadougou airport and rode with him to the presidential palace where my president delivered the ultimatum and where he, the lieutenant colonel promised not only to leave office but leave power. However at the expiration of the ultimatum, Zida reversed himself […]

Last week, Lieutenant-Colonel Yacouba Isaac Zida received a properly suited president Jones at the Ouagadougou airport and rode with him to the presidential palace where my president delivered the ultimatum and where he, the lieutenant colonel promised not only to leave office but leave power. However at the expiration of the ultimatum, Zida reversed himself and disobeyed the order of a superior officer contrary to military order.
This gross act of insubordination could have been ignored before President Jones in his humility refused the title of commander-in-chief. But having seen the light and consequently been invested with the insignia of a field marshal, he is not just the head of the biggest, baddest army in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in the world. It is a personal insult to the military institution for a junior officer to renege on a promise made to a superior officer. Zida is very lucky, in the days of ECOMOG, he would not have lived to announce his defiance; he should have asked both Charles Ghankay Taylor and Corporal Foday Sankoh.
It is incidents like this that makes me support CAWAN, that group campaigning for respect of the office of the Naija president. The way things are going it is not impossible that the opposition APC has held meetings with Col Zida; after all, late pictorial evidence showed that some prominent opposition figures took pictures with Jacob Zuma before he had the temerity to seize $13 million arms fund that he later surreptitiously released. The things the opposition would do to for political mileage.
As a result of this insult to 170 million Naija, this soldier should be very afraid from now on. If he suffers a headache, it would be as a result. If Burkinabe return to the streets to burning and looting to send him out of his inherited throne, it would be as a result. You don’t mess with a global power and sleep in peace of in doubt ask Osama bin Laden.
This insolent colonel must have been egged on in his conduct by reading opposition newspapers who daily chronicle heavy losses as we toy with insurgency at home. They claim without a shard of photo-shopped or vocal evidence Naija has lost almost 30% of its northeast territory to a rag-tag army of insane murderers called Boko Haram. This must have made the colonel wonder what inspired the president of a country that cannot tackle insurgency at home shunt to another sovereign state to issue ultimatum as if it is dealing with a vassal state.
On behalf of 170 million Naija let me inform Zida that authentic news comes only from NTA, FRCN and NANS. To break the language barrier VON’s French broadcasts are as authentic as the tagline of an old record company – his master’s voice. In case this colonel believes propaganda rather than officialese, our military pioneered coup making at home and even imported it across the sub-region. Naija generals have headed armed forces of nations bigger than 16 million and stronger too. He should never toy with our president.
The fact that our president could abandon the fire burning his own roof to give fire lessons in Ouagadougou shows how powerful we are and how much we have gotten our priorities right. Just because towns such as Damboa, Gwoza, Gamboru-Ngala, and Mubi fell into the hands of insurgents is no reason to think that Naija has lost its military glory. That our chief of defence staff lost his hometown to insurgents without losing sleep should tell Col Zida that we could afford to waste anything without repercussion.
If this impudence is informed by news from opposition media Zida should realize that their editors are English and Journalism 101 failures. They once misquoted the new defence chief as promising to end the insurgency last April. Later, they reported a cloned voice of him reaching a ceasefire agreement with the Boko boys and misled our gallant troops into staying further military action. It was all part of a grand conspiracy to ridicule our commanders and force our president to take them off their cosy seats and fat allowances. Mr President has thankfully refused to do so. How are editors, who sit on their haunches daily, waiting to be spoon-fed with press statements to know that pregnant generals wear robots under their uniforms which jump at the sight of cameras and microphones to mimic the sounds of their masters? Col Zida should apologize and comply before we….em, err – block the export of its cotton, gold, petroleum and vegetable oil. Then they will all die on the streets, like Chibok parents.