Open letter to Mr President: Militarisation of the polity

It is with utmost respect for your office and your person that I send you these few words. And I felt compelled to do so because, this for me, is a call to duty. It is a patriotic call and it is timely.I am aware that most leaders hear only what those close to them […]

It is with utmost respect for your office and your person that I send you these few words. And I felt compelled to do so because, this for me, is a call to duty. It is a patriotic call and it is timely.
I am aware that most leaders hear only what those close to them want them to hear. They read what those close to them draw their attention to. They see only what those who shield them 24 hours of the day want them to see. It is therefore a pity that most leaders have ears but they do not hear. They have eyes but they do not see. They are literate, but are denied access to books and newspapers.
Please allow me to draw your attention to a most dangerous step your watchers and close advisers are pushing you to take. It is a step that had been taken in the past by some of your predecessors in office with ruinous consequences. It is a step you will not wish for your enemy.
I speak of the militarisation of the Nigerian polity and its ultimate dire consequences. You may have been too young in 1964/65. At that time, as a little boy growing up in Etuoke in the then Eastern Region of Nigeria, you were barely seven years old. That period 1964/65 was the time some wrong headed leaders of Nigeria decided to experiment with militarisation of the polity. They wanted power at all cost in areas of the country where they were not wanted, and where their brand of politics was alien to the decencies at that time.
Because these men wanted to “win” at all cost and conquer followers instead of winning their hearts, and because they were in control of the police and the military at the centre, these leaders deployed troops to “supervise” elections in order to destroy opposition and force the populace to surrender to their whims and caprices.
You probably would have been told that your Premier at that time, a very charismatic and hugely popular leader named Dr Michael Okpara was the national leader of the coalition fashioned to free Nigeria from the yoke of the federal might. Their coalition was called UPGA. You may not believe that your Premier was prevented from touring the Western Region by orders from the Federal Government, just as the government you are now privileged to lead is being accused of humiliating and harassing governors who do not belong to your party.
Come election time, the ruling party at the centre, the NPC, deployed police and the military to harass and intimidate the populace. Opposition was thoroughly manhandled. And now that the field was left only in the hands of the ruling party at the centre, even legitimate governments in the regions were tortured while illegitimate governments could not be voted out because such unpopular governments were protected by the federal might.
In the end, the federal might had its way by massively rigging elections. People who felt pushed to the wall danced to the popular dictum of “those who make peaceful change impossible will experience violent change”. I am sure you must have heard or read about the “Wet e!” operations similar in dimension and ferocity to the Adaka Boro insurrection or the Ijaw militancy.
Mr President, it was the Wet e! operations provoked by the big stick of the Federal Government that led to military coup d’état of January 1966. That coup led to the counter coup which led to pogrom and consequently to the needless gruesome Civil War of 1967-1970. Mr President, we do not need or deserve that horrible experience again.
In 1983, the NPN which was a direct descendant of the NPC chose to follow the ignominious path of their father, the NPC. It was all about second term for the President and second term for most governors. The government had recorded woeful performance at the federal level and people thought a free and fair election would send the government packing. But what we had was that even the government that was very unpopular at the centre was determined to unseat popular governors in some states. The Federal Government of Mallam Shehu Shagari apparently misled by the locusts in his NPN decided to militarise the polity and send hordes of military and police personnel to lay siege on the states.
The old Ondo State now broken to Ekiti and Ondo states and old Oyo now broken to Oyo and Osun states were the states the NPN chose to toy with. At the election time there were more soldiers and police on the streets than civilians! Very heavy handed might was visible everywhere. Elections were recklessly rigged and, of course, those two states were set on fire. Several hundreds lost their lives.
And within three months, that is by December 31, the military decided that it had had enough of the madness of the NPN and sent the governments packing. For 15 years thereafter Nigeria was put under the jackboot while several of the notorious politicians fled the country.
Must Nigeria go through this silly despe-ration again? Must Nigeria continue to experi-ment with “Do or die politics”?
You will agree with me that the polity is getting seriously heated up. And right now kangaroo impeachments like in the inglorious days of Obasanjo have started rearing their ugly heads. Must the PDP, a proud child of the NPN and a grandchild of the imperial NPC, follow in the destructive path of its forefathers?
Mr President, we have too many problems on hand. We cannot allow the lure of office and the selfishness of politicians drag us 100 years backwards. The Nigerian military have no business with policing elections. Nigeria is not the only country that conducts elections. India is about six times the population of Nigeria; we did not see a single power drunk soldier on the streets during their recent national elections with over 800 million registered voters!
Mr President, the buck ends at your table. In all of these, all the self-seeking politicians urging you to deploy soldiers and the police to harass and intimidate opposition will run away and history will speak of only one person: Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, a great Izon man that God and good fortune placed at helm of affairs of a country of 173.5 million people.
Mr President, I beg you in the name of your Christian God, and with everything you hold dear to your heart, to resist any pressure to continue to heat up the polity. Do not ever send soldiers to any state to intimidate the civilian population. On good days, the upper- and middle-class people do not vote. Please do not scare the few who want to exercise their civic duty with stern looking heavily armed police and soldiers.
You have done well in the past by not tampering with judicial processes. Please do not bow to the dictates of desperate politicians in your party.
And if, as it is being alleged that you are using the Federal Government war chest to beat opposing governors to line through kangaroo impeachments, please for God’s sake, try and prove your critics wrong.
 
Let us save our dear country.
 
With respect
 
Your compatriot,
 
Chief Tola Adeniyi
Jagun Oodua Adimula ll of Ile-Ife.

Chief Adeniyi (FNGE) is the former Chairman/Managing Director of Daily Times Group