Is Military Coup Is Imperative In Nigeria?

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Mr. Chief Of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa: Military Coup is Imperative in Nigeria

Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD

“If you are a judge and you are corrupt, where do we go from here? Then everything has come to a halt. If the legislature is corrupt, you go to the judiciary for redress, if the executive is corrupt you go to the judiciary for remedy, if the judiciary itself is corrupt where do you go from there. That is a question, where do you go? To God whom you don’t see? To history which is past? To the future that hasn’t come? Today is here, so let us use it.”

These were the evergreen words of the Socrates of Nigerian Supreme Court, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, JSC and which pointedly defines the current situation in Nigeria. As Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister rightly put it: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

Justice Chukwudifu Oputa further pointed out in the case of Fawehinmi v. Akilu (2002) 7 NWLR (Pt. 769) 527 at 689 that: “Bad judgments can have a devastating impact on the economy and poverty reduction. They can discourage investment, undermine market confidence, and lead to increased corruption. Bad judgments can also erode public trust in the judiciary, which is essential for a stable and functioning democracy.”

To answer Chukwudifu Oputa, the only available solution currently begging Nigeria is a military coup, not by Generals of the class of General Christopher Musa, but by those young officers anointed with the patriotic spirits of Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Major Gideon Kwaza Orkar, Captain Jerry John Rawlings of Ghana and Captain Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso. Nigerians are hotly in need of current experiences of the people of Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Gabon Republics. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, and only the Nigerian Armed Forces can make it happen.

Nigerians had experienced benevolent military regimes led by such Heads of State as Generals Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, and Abdulsalami Abubakar whose regimes were more humane and people-oriented than the current crop of fraudulent political leaders under a fraudulent democracy. I could still remember how General Olusegun Obasanjo’s Universal Primary Education Programme enabled many young Nigerians like me from poor families to enjoy the benefits of free education from Primary School through secondary school to Colleges of Education and Universities. Where did Nigeria go wrong?

This question is principally directed at the Chief of Defence Staff Gen Christopher Musa who on Wednesday November 1, 2023, in Port Harcourt Rivers State, made the following statements: “I know there were a lot of apprehensions, I want to assure everyone that the Armed Forces of Nigeria is dedicated, is committed in ensuring, in securing, supporting and standing by democracy. I want Nigeria to be assured that the armed forces of Nigeria are here for them to protect them and to protect democracy and ensure that democracy thrives. They should have no fear. We have had a number of coups in countries around Nigeria, we have Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.”

Now that General Christopher Musa has mustered the courage to stand up in accordance with Winston Churchill’s diktat, we want him to equally develop the courage to sit down and listen. Agreed that as the Chief of Defence Staff it would be tantamount to express treason for him make any statement that tilts towards the support of military coup; but then it should have been ethically commendable if General Christopher Musa had avoided any comment on the subject of military coup in the first place.

From every angle of moral comprehension I consider General Musa’s statement a harvest of impudent lies constructed on the horrendous cowardly political stupidity of majority of Nigerian citizens, who are currently subdued under a brazen act of audacious rape of democracy by a gangrenous band of corrupt political leadership and Judges, who are presumptuously protected by a crop of bogus armed forces infested with scary indiscipline, unethical impudence and the elephantine pride of clay-footed warriors. To prove the foregoing epithet, let us take a piecemeal surgical scrutiny of General Christopher Musa’s statement. I will begin by compartmentalizing his statement to two sections:

First: “I know there were a lot of apprehensions, I want to assure everyone that the Armed Forces of Nigeria is dedicated, is committed in ensuring, in securing, supporting and standing by democracy.” Second: I want Nigeria to be assured that the armed forces of Nigeria are here for them to protect them and to protect democracy and ensure that democracy thrives.

On fact number one, I wish to inform General Musa that as the situation stands today in Nigeria, there is nothing credible about the current fraudulent democracy to be secured, supported or stood for by the Nigerian Armed Forces. Moreover, rather being apprehensive, the Nigerian masses are daily praying in droves for a genuine people-oriented military coup d’etat led by younger officers and not political Generals.

Joseph Addison made clear to us that: “No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.” Those who are apprehensive of a possible military take-over are the present corrupt and murderers of democracy made up of his current boss Ahmed Bola Tinubu and his cohorts, the notorious officials of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) led by Quota-Professor Mamood Yakubu and, the morally rancid corrupt judges represented by Justice Haruna Tsammani and Justice John Inyang Okoro.

As General Norman Schwarzkopf of United States Army pointedly stated, “It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” Therefore, any soldier or officer of the Nigeria Armed Forces who witnessed the barefaced rape of democracy in the last Presidential election and still believes that a credible change is not desired, is either an accomplice to the crime against the people or is cowardly helpless to speak out and act in accordance with the will of majority of Nigerians.

It needs to be pointed out that, apart from those of the commanding ranks of the Nigerian Armed Forces and members of their families who fall into the class of oppressive politicians, the rest members of the Nigerian Armed Forces and members of their families go to the same markets, live in the same types of slums with no functional electricity power supply, no functional pipe-borne water supply, and protection of life and property like ordinary Nigerians. It therefore follows that being a member of the Armed Forces or Police Force does not immune any person from the existing purgatorial economic and security challenges in Nigeria.

General Christopher Musa knows what it took him to pass his most competitive entrance examination to Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA); including the tedious trainings and examinations it took him to ascend to his present pinnacle of professional attainment. How does General Christopher Musa morally feel that his boss and President of his country is someone with a forged certificate legally certified by a United States University and Court but only protected by a rotten class of judges? Prof Chinua Achebe made it known to us clearly that: “A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy, educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.” Can this be said of the man called Bola Ahmed Tinubu?

General Christopher Musa fully understands, as the Guatemalan human rights activist and 1992 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum rightly puts it:

 “Peace cannot exist without justice, justice cannot exist without fairness, fairness cannot exist without development, development cannot exist without democracy, democracy cannot exist without respect for the identity and worth of cultures and peoples.”

On fact number two, I wish to state with due respect that General Christopher Musa lacks the moral competence to assure Nigerians of protection by the Nigerian Armed Forces, when the same armed forces cannot credibly protect themselves. It was George Orwell, the author of the iconic novel “Animal Farm” who told us that: “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” Can Nigeria and Nigerians of today speak of their Armed Forces, the Police Force and other security agencies as “rough men who stand ready to do violence on their behalf?”

George S. Patton jr., made us to understand that: “The soldier is the army.” Today in Nigeria, the reverse is the case. What we have instead is a soldier that is not the army. The Nigerian soldier is like what Evan Wright describes as the “American little pit bull.” “They beat it, starve it, mistreat it, and once a while they let it out to attack somebody. This is the best way to describe any violent action perpetrated against the civilian population today by members of the Nigeria Armed Forces.

It took the Nigerian Armed Forces 30 months (July 6, 1967, to January 15, 1970) to suppress the Biafran secession. Can General Christopher Musa explain to Nigerians and the international community why the same Armed Forces since year 2009, have not been able to defeat Boko Haram and its sister Islamic insurgent organizations—ISWAP, Sokoto Caliphate Janjaweed miscalled Fulani herdsmen and Islamic Military Bandits in order to bring lasting peace and security in our nation?

The immediate past Chief of Defence Staff General Lucky Irabor earlier in May 2023 informed the world in his key-note remark during the 75th anniversary of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations that Nigeria had not only contributed over 200, 000 troops in 41 United Nations Peacekeeping Operations worldwide, but spent a whooping sum of 8 billion US dollars of Nigeria’s hard-earned oil money to restore peace in Liberia during her civil war. Today Nigeria is in a state of multiple civil wars with fraudulent democracy while Liberia is at peace with stable and credible democracy. Which country is contributing billions of dollars to restore peace in Nigeria?

Nigeria used her hard-earned oil money to support the Black Liberation Struggles in Republic of South Africa against Apartheid oppression. Today, the same Nigerians are treated like lepers by the people and Government of South Africa. That was never the case under the regimes of Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan or any previous military Government. It started with Muhammadu Buhari who was a certificateless, ghost and fraudulent President, and now to the “Pablo Escobar” of Nigeria, Alhaji Ahmed Bola Tinubu, another certificateless, fraudulent President.

Let me be specific in reminding General Christopher Musa why the current crop of leaders of the Nigerian Armed Forces under him lacks the competence to assure Nigerians of maximum-security guarantee or protection of the current corrupted democracy. In November 2021, Nigerians were shocked to the marrow when a serving Brigadier General, Dzarma Zirkusu was ruthlessly killed by Boko Haram insurgents; the first of its kind for a senior army officer of the rank of Brigadier General to be slaughtered under such disgraceful cheap circumstance.

On September 3, 2018, an officer of the Nigerian Armed Forces of the rank of Major General, Idris Alkali was gruesomely murdered by unknown persons. On December 18, 2018, a former Chief of Defence Staff of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh was murdered in cold blood along Abuja-Keffi Express Way while returning from his farm. On July 16, 2021, Major General Huseini Ahmed a serving Army Director and former Provost Marshall of the Nigerian Army was killed by unknown gunmen on Lokaja -Abuja Road.

In three years, Nigeria lost under detestable and questionable internal security circumstances four Generals of its Armed Forces. And General Christopher Musa wants Nigerians to believe that the lives of Generals matter much for the same Nigerian Armed Forces much more those of the ordinary Nigerian citizens. Could these acts of heinous humiliation of the image of the Nigerian Armed Forces have taken place under a military regime or in any African country?

Let me briefly highlight some ignominious humiliations of the Nigerian Armed Forces by rampaging Muslim bandits and insurgents that beg for a surgical reassessment of their now polluted guiding principles piloted by the current fraudulent democratic political leadership. Maybe it would be instructive to begin with the recent.

On August 14, 203 in Niger State, one of the core central Sates of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 36 Nigerian soldiers and officers were callously killed by Fulani Muslim bandits. The Nigerian Air Force rescue helicopter was also shot down by the bandits. According to Defence spokesman Major General Edward Buba: “The helicopter crashed with 14 of the earlier killed in action personnel, seven of the earlier wounded in action personnel, two pilots and two crew members.” The rescuers died, the wounded eventually died, and the dead died a second time in the hands of their killers.

But what baffled me most was the treacherous vituperation of the Fulani-born Governor of Niger State Umar Bago who, instead of assisting the Nigerian Armed Forces to dismantle the heinous insecurity in his State warned the Armed Forces against taking action against the killers of our soldiers and officers because the killers were his Fulani kinsmen. What mattered to him were not the lives of the gallant men of the Armed Forces, but the cattle owned by his Fulani bandit-kinsmen.

This can only be tolerated under a fraudulent democracy and bankrupt Armed Forces.  Guess what! Today the defence of the same country is in the hands of the same Fulani collaborators and godfathers of the murderous bandits and Islamic insurgents. The Chief Security Adviser is a Fulani. The Minister of Defence is a Fulani. The Minister of State for Defence is a Fulani. At the right time Nigerians will decide who actually owns their country.

On March 28, 2022, Islamic terrorists attacked an Abuja-Kaduna bound passenger train, killing 14 passengers, wounding undisclosed number, and abducted 63. The final batch of the hostages was released on October 5, 2022. For the six months those innocent Nigerians were held captive within the center of their country, their captors collected whooping ransoms exceeding 6 billion naira from the victims’ families under the protection of a fraudulent democratic President.

This happened in the center of the country, not Nigeria’s borders with Benin, Niger, Chad, or Cameroon. The Federal Government under a so-called democratically elected President was there. The Nigerian Armed Forces were there. The so-called dreaded Directorate of Security Services (DSS) was there. The so-called gallant men of Nigerian Police Force were there.

When the bandits threatened to execute the remaining 23 captives who could not afford the one hundred-million-naira ransom demanded from each hostage, what the Nigerian Government did was to shamelessly constitute a Presidential Committee ignominiously named “Chief of Defence Staff Action Committee” (CDSAC) headed by the Chief of Defence Staff General Lucky Irabor, to negotiate the release of the remaining hostages with the bandits, instead of going after them militarily.

What General Lucky Irabor and his “Chief of Defence Staff Action Committee” finally agreed with the bandits and which Nigerians and the world were not informed was the readiness of the Federal Government to pay the ransoms for the remaining victims and further swap the hostages with their members held in Kuje Prisons (Kuje Correctional Centre), Abuja. The Federal Government under the advice of the Committee thereafter agreed that such release should be done by allowing the Islamic terrorists freehand to invade the Kuje Prisons and release their members themselves under loose security arrangements in which Nigerian security men attached to the Prisons would be tactically withdrawn for the entire duration of the operation.

In line with this clandestine agreement, on Tuesday July 5, 2022, at about 9 pm, these terrorists who had by then identified themselves as ISWAP attacked Kuje Prisons (Kuje Custodial Centre), Abuja, where more than sixty of their members were being held. In the attack that lasted for three hours without any response by Nigerian Armed Forces, more than 800 of the 994 inmates were released. Indeed, the operation was carried out under a situation of sublime confidence that the terrorist had the time to give every inmate willing to escape the sum of two thousand naira for transportation. An Armed Forces that cannot protect the seat of Federal Government is talking of protecting the people.

On Saturday September 11, 2021, bandits invaded the Nigerian Air Force Base in Mutumji, Dansadau Local Government Area of Zamfara State, killing nine Air Force personnel, one soldier and two Policemen. The attack came barely 24 hours after the Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle had pleaded to the Federal Government for amnesty for the bandits. This was the same Governor the incumbent Governor of the State accused of bankrolling the activities of the bandits and gifting the bandits Toyota Hilux mini trucks. This is Bello Matawalle, Nigeria’s current Minister of State for Defence. Which way Nigeria?

On Sunday June 5, 2022, Islamic terrorists marched all the way from the north and invaded St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State in Southern Nigeria killing over 50 worshippers in broad day light, and returning to their base unscathed. On 13 April 2021, Captain Adeolu Adedayo was murdered alongside 11 soldiers in Konshisha Local Government Area of Benue State.

On May 12, 2022, Miss Deborah Samuel Yakubu, a second-year student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, was publicly stoned to death in a most gruesome manner under the watch of the Sultan of Sokoto by irate Muslim mobs for a trumped-up accusation of blasphemy against Islam. Added to the above humiliation laced with insult to Nigerian Christians was the rioting that followed the arrest of the few noticeable culprits, in which many property and business assets belonging to Christians were destroyed in Sokoto.

On Tuesday August 24, 2021, Muslim terrorists invaded Nigeria’s elite Military training institution Nigerian Defence Academy, killing Lieutenant Commander Wulah and Flight Lieutenant C. M. Okoronkwo, abducting Major Datong, with 2nd Lieutenant Onah sustaining gun-shot injuries. Incidentally, the said Nigeria Defence Academy is situated directly opposite the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, where on March 11, 2021, 39 students were abducted by bandits who demanded 500-million-naira ransom and held for 50 days in captivity until the payment of negotiated reasonable amount under the auspices of Sheikh Ahmad Gumi.

The most disturbing part of this calamity is the fact that most of these victims of the terrorists both in kidnapping and killings both within and outside the Armed Forces were Christians. This not only underscores the on-going genocide against the Christians of Kaduna, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Adamawa, Borno, and Taraba States, in which indigenous inhabitants are being forced out of their ancestral lands and Muslim immigrants resettled, but evidently defines the Nigerian Armed Forces as a tool of Islamization and protection of fraudulent democracy.

It also underscores the dangers inherent in the unfolding callous islamization of Nigeria under a Government with a Muslim President and a Muslim Vice President in a predominantly Christian nation. Nigerian Christians witnessed with awful apprehension when a notorious Indian Muslim preacher Zakir Naik  who was expelled by his country India, arrived Nigeria on the invitation of Sultan of Sokoto Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar whom he addressed as Head of State, and flanked by men and officers of Nigeria Air Force, which he addressed as “Muslim Air Force.” Many Nigerians are still waiting for official reactions from the Federal Government in respect of those callous references.

I wish to remind General Christopher Musa that the Nigerian Christian community has not deleted from their memory the heartless murder of a generation of young Christian military officers under the questionable September 26, 1992 Nigerian Air Force Lockheed Hercules C-130H crash in Ejigbo Lagos, in which 158 identified and a number of unidentified mainly Christian Southern and Middle Belt officers of the Nigerian Armed Forces met their untimely death.

Till date no panel of inquiry was set up to investigate the disaster that took the Nigerian Armed Forces 48 hours send a rescue team within a radius of 10 kilometers from Murtala Mohammed International Airport. We remember these victims as a reminder of the fate of every Nigerian Christian under a Muslim leader.

There is therefore no doubting the fact that the only way to save Nigeria from its present precipitous democracy is the urgent enthronement of a corrective military regime made of up of non-sectarian ideologically focused young officers.

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