Attempted coup in Nigeria?

It was alarming recently to hear the government of Tinubu confirm what has been rumoured for months in Nigeria – the coup attempt by some discontented army officers with the system and their quest to change the government by force through the barrel of the gun. Stories have been rampant in Nigeria of how bandits and terrorists rob citizens at gunpoint. They kidnap citizens at gunpoint, and demand ransom at gunpoint. It is not surprising that there could be some soldiers and officers of the Nigeria armed forces who want to rob power at gunpoint. The truth is that those soldiers have become the same as the ordinary criminals who perform terrorist activities.

There is no doubt that there are a lot of things happening in Nigeria that are very disconcerting and which genuinely create disaffection and disenchantment in the citizens towards their leaders. Would you mention which one and leave the other? From the insecurity challenges which result in the death and destruction of lives and property of the Nigeria citizens while the leaders are busy enjoying their holidays abroad, to the incessant power grid collapses which result in national blackouts that throw the nation in darkness, rendering production and productivity impossible, to the obnoxious borrowing of money from both within and outside Nigeria which is stolen by officials of government and rendering Nigeria a debtor nation without infrastructure to show for the borrowing, to the abhorrable and prohibitive transportation cost and flight tickets which make movement around Nigeria tearful, to the bad roads which make road journeys a death trap, to the lies which the government tells to cover up its incompetence and corruption. It is really a sad time for Nigerians.

There’s no doubt that Nigerians are yearning for a change. We can’t continue to move in this direction. However, of what benefit will be a change that will take us from the frying pan to fire? There’s no doubt that rigging of election is a form of civilian coup. However, of what benefit would we have to exchange a civilian coup with a military coup? Supporting a military coup because of allegations of rigging elections is like approving armed robbery by some people if they concentrate on robbing only fellow armed robbers who robbed the people. No! Robbery is robbery, no matter who is robbing and who’s being robbed. On the day the robbers can no longer find their normal target, they will switch to another target. This is why when the military conducts a coup, they will say nice things to the people and horrible things about the politicians. They may even kill some of the politicians. But immediately the politicians are out of the way, they turn their guns against the same civilians they were pretending to intervene to save.

For the avoidance of doubt, there have been about 180 military coups in Africa since the independence of Africa. Most of them ended badly. All the leaders who came by military coups transformed themselves into life Presidents until they died in office or were killed through military coups. If the country was unfortunate that the leader died in office, the son of the military leader will be appointed to replace him. Examples are rampant in Africa. The story of the Eyademas in Togo is insightful. Their father, Gnassingbe Eyadema came in through a military coup on 14 April, 1967, and died suddenly on February 5, 2005 after spending about 38 years in power. On his death, his son, Faure Gnassingbe, took over, and the son is still ruling till date. A lot of their citizens have been killed in the process of sustaining the military-born government. Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, fought his way, through guerrilla warfare, to the presidency of Uganda. He has governed for about 40 years from 26 January, 1986 till date. It’s believed that his son will take over from him when he passes on.

Muamar Ghadafi killed the King of Libya and took over power on 2nd March, 1969. He governed for more than 42 years and was killed on the street during the Arab spring on 20 October, 2011. Because no Libyan was groomed to take over from him apart from his children, Libya slipped into civil war till date. Sudan is a very current example. The military staged a military coup to upstage the democratically negotiated government led by a Prime Minister. The two emerging Generals who hold sway in power disagreed with each other on who should be in charge of the country and turned the gun on each other and the country degenerated into civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of Sudanese citizens. Anyhow you look at it, military intervention has brought untold hardship on African people.

Nigeria is even a more volatile place with respect to coup making and execution during the era of coups in Nigeria. The country has had about eight military coups since independence and none of them ended well. The first one on January 15, 1966 killed the Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa, and a lot of other powerful politicians and high-ranking military officers. This led to the revenge coup that killed the Head of State, General Aguiyi Ironsi, and nearly wiped out the entire Igbo people in a pogrom around Nigeria. A civil war resulted in the confusion that nearly led to the dismemberment of the country between 1966 and 1970 and ended with the death of more than a million Nigerians.

The first coup after the war was in 1975, which led to the overthrow of General Gowon, and replaced by General Murtala Mohammed. In 1976 Murtala Mohammed was brutally killed on the streets of Lagos in a failed coup led by Buka Suka Dimka. As a result of the failed coup, all the officers who were accused of participating in the coup, majority of them being from the middle belt, including the Military Governor of Plateau/Benue State then, were executed by firing squad. Dimka was one of the best students in the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA). The next coup brought General Buhari to power in 1983. Buhari ran a government with no respect for the fundamental human rights of Nigerians. Soldiers went into the market to compel citizens to sell their wares at government decreed prices. Decrees were made by Buhari to grant the military the right to detain Nigerians without trial as he liked. Tribunals were set up, headed by military officers with little or no knowledge in law, to try Nigerians for corruption and other offences resulting in the execution of some of them. Some of the decrees ousted the jurisdiction of the courts to question their validity. Indeed the decree was ruled to be superior to the Constitution. Decree is the order of the Head of State reduced to writing. Buhari once made a law and backdated it in order to execute three youths who were charged with dealing in drugs which didn’t carry death penalty as at the time some of them committed the offence. The houses of great citizens like Obafemi Awolowo were broken into and searched without warrants and without reasonable suspicion of any crime committed.

So much was the infringement on the human rights of Nigerians that most citizens got tired of Buhari’s regime, leading to his overthrow on 27th August, 1985 by General Ibrahim Babangida. His regime was more refined than Buhari’s regime but was equally brutal. Babangida executed his best man, General Mamman Vatsa, some months after taking over power for allegedly trying to overthrow him. In 1990, Major Gideon Orka led other young military officers in an attempt to overthrow Babangida. The coup failed after killing some soldiers. Orka and all his fellow coup plotters were executed. Babangida arrested people without trial. He organised the 1993 presidential election won by MKO Abiola and for inexplicable reason annulled it, plunging the country into political turmoil for years. The annulment made way for General Abacha to take over power. He continued with the brutalisation of the Nigeria citizens through military decrees. Obasanjo and Yar’Adua were sent to prison for an alleged coup that people still believed never took place. Yar’Adua died in prison. Abacha set up his deputy, General Oladipo Diya and others in a coup and was to execute them, but died suddenly before he signed the execution order.

There’s nothing Nigeria has gained from military interventions except tears and blood. None of the military leaders who promised to hand over power to a democratically elected government kept the promise on the date they promised. Gowon promised to hand over power by 1975 but later changed it to 1979. Babangida promised to handover power by 1990 but shifted it to 1992, and yet shifted it to 1993, and eventually annulled the final election. The military turned out to be more corrupt than the civilian regime they overthrew. There’s no need for any modern Nigerian to ever prefer military regime to a civilian regime. The news, therefore, that some officers were busy planning a coup to overthrow the current government is unacceptable.

Why would the military even want to physically overthrow a civilian government when the military helps to rig the election that brings it in? Tinubu’s government may be terrible, but everyone knows the terminal date for the regime. Nobody knows the time any military regime will end. The only way out of every evil regime in Nigeria is for everyone, including the military, to work together to ensure free and fair elections which will produce legitimate elected leaders whose objective will be the security and welfare of the people. The era of military dictatorship in Nigeria is over.