I dedicate the column today to a great couple, Chief and Chief (Mrs.) Adebisi Akande, who are celebrating their birthdays this week. I was their guest on Tuesday and had a wonderful time. They are worthy role models and exemplars of patriotic zeal that we desperately need to move beyond pedestrian thinking to greater heights for the nation. Happy Birthday! Igba odun, odun kan. Ase.
No thanks to her controversial, impatient and rebellious young Turks, Nigeria tasted the forbidden fruit as a kindergartener among nations for the first time 50 years ago today. And like the accursed of the Garden of Eden, it has never been the same for her.
For a colony, independence is the political kingdom. On October 1, 1960, Nigeria had a promising future ahead. She was moving from the golden to the platinum era of existence. The signs were good on the economic and social sides. There were optimistic signs of the black gold. Not hoodwinked by that prospect, she prioritised the right mix of developmental goals and planned for the right results.
Politics, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish. And it turned out to be the undoing of a nation on the move.
There is no shortage of theories on the cause of the fall of the First Republic. For the vast majority of theorists, it was not a question of structure; rather, ethnic politics was the foremost culprit. For advocates of a unitary system, the republic was structurally-doomed because of its adoption of a genuine federal system which afforded the regions ample opportunities for grassroots development and cultural democracy. For others yet, both of the above downplayed the powerful machinations of the enemy outside her borders. It was neocolonialism triumphant!
The majors and captains who conspired and planned the first military coup in the history of Nigeria were most likely convinced of the rightness of their cause and the nobility of their plan. They thought that they were doing the country a huge favour. They were disturbed about the violence of its politics and the baseness of its leadership cadre. They believed that they were the conscience of the nation. Believing that there was a moral burden on their heads, they struck.
Rightly or wrongly, it was clear that they took sides in the political conflict that afflicted the republic at the time. From the various official and unofficial reports on the coup, certain facts emerged. First, some of the young officers involved in the coup resented the acrimonious character of the politics of the times and thought that they were on a conscientious rescue mission.
Second, there were the more regionally-inclined officers who, in addition, resented the dominance of the North and its political party in the affairs of the nation. Needless to suggest, there is no way to parse this than understand it as another expression of sympathy for the South and against the North.
Third, there were those moved by the specific cases of political corruption and electoral malpractices in 1964 and 1965 and the controversial federal census of 1964. For this group, the Western Regional election of October 1965 was the final straw. It didn’t help matters that there was a rumour making the rounds about an impending forceful crackdown on the West sequel to the violent protests against the election results.
Fourth, from the list of officers and other ranks involved in the planning and execution of the coup and the list of its military and civilian casualties, many found it difficult to believe that it wasn’t ethnically-motivated. Without justifying the ensuing developments, including the crisis in the North and the July counter coup that followed, one must have to infer that the belief of an ethnic motivation of the January coup must have been a considerable factor in these subsequent developments.
Now, to what end was the first bite of the forbidden fruit? What did it accomplish or fail to accomplish? What lessons were learnt and how have we fared as a result?
We would never know what the plotters were up to and how prepared they were to change the republic for better because they failed in the mission to secure power. That, in itself, may be a damning verdict on the quality of their planning ability. They killed and maimed for nothing and they never had access to political power, having been outfoxed by the Generals.
On their part, the Generals thought that they had a prescription for whatever ailed the nation. It was, in their judgment, too much independence for the regions; therefore, they needed to be reined in to promote not just unity but uniformity. For 13 years, this therapy was administered with unparalleled passion in various degrees by three administrations. Needless to add, it failed woefully, the most visible evidence being the scars of Biafra and its reincarnation in IPOB.
Typically, apologists of military rule justify it on two grounds, one of which is backward-looking, while the other is forward-looking. For the former, the argument is analogical to the retributive justification for punishment. Bloody civilians misbehaved politically; they deserve to be taught a lesson. Without politicians messing up, the military won’t dare interfere with the democratic system. So the argument goes.
The forward-looking argument is corrective and developmental. The presupposition or presumption is that the Army has the discipline to push the development agenda of a new state and put in corrective measures for the politicians to build upon. Therefore, intervention is not so much of a punishment, but more of a developmental effort to help the new nation advance its interests beyond the bickering typical of civilians.
To be fair to the second argument, a disciplined military has an edge over civilians in the promotion of development. But our experience as a nation has been the opposite. As it turned out, we did not have a disciplined military. Indeed, it was the lack of discipline that motivated the first military coup in the first place and its failure was just a good evidence of this observation.
More importantly, however, no sooner than the military took over, the nation was plunged into a senseless war that cost us dearly in human lives and material resources and further divided us beyond repair till today, 50 years later. There were a few indices of development in bridges and refineries and higher institutions. But what one clean military hand gave to promote development, the other corrupt military hand took back. Indeed, to the extent that corruption was the foremost legacy of the military in power in this country, one can justifiably proclaim that its intervention was to a negative end.
Now to the first argument, just as retributive punishment is problematic because it offers no good justification, so the idea that military intervention is justified as a punishment for civilians’ misbehaviour in power is without merit. Were it to have merit, it must yield a better political system and good political behaviour on the part of civilians. But we know that civilians have not been given the chance to learn the rope.
The first military intervention was just five years plus four months into the First Republic. It wasn’t enough time for politicians to mature. That intervention lasted 13 years. Then the military struck again just after four years of the Second Republic. Thereafter it was serial coups and counter coups. How are civilians supposed to learn the art of democratic governance?
The only good that may be claimed to have come out of the national experience of January 15, 1966 is that 32 years after they first tasted the forbidden fruit, the military finally realised that it is too poisonous for its system and too acidic to be of any lasting benefit to the political system. That realisation is the beginning of military wisdom.
NATION
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