Season for Uniformed Men
Elizabeth Ohene
"Professor Soyinka who had lent his undisputed weight to the coup, now sees that the military government 'condemns everyone who had the misfortune of being in control of public funds".Those who have been arguing that the wearing of military uniforms make more patriotic and honest citizens have been getting quite a number of irritations. Unfortunately, the issues at stake are so grave that one cannot even have a moment's mirth at their expense.
When the military seized power in Nigeria, they themselves and their civilian apologists attempted to attribute very high and altruistic motives to them they had to step in to save Nigeria from the prospect of total extermination and the rape of politicians.
There was supposed to be nothing in it for the soldiers themselves. They had taken on a most thankless job because they loved Nigeria so very much.
Many of the civilians who jumped on the bandwagon were so besotted with joy that their political opponents had been booted out that they were unwilling to see in the December 31st 1983 action, an attack on a system they had believed in and participated in, and a wholesale condemnation of civilians.
Some of them thought that the attack was aimed solely at the ruling National Party of Nigeria and made spurious arguments to support their stand. It suited the soldiers quite well if people chose to read into their actions motives which they knew they did not have.
The soldiers could not, of course, be seen to have limited their wrath to the NPN such an action was likely to unleash passions they did not feel up to containing and a charge of partisan politics was likely to stain their pro- claimed altruistic motives. What was more, the justification of the military intervention would hardly have stood up if the soldiers were to demonstrate that there was a civilian alternative to the Shagari administration.
The fact of the matter, as has been stated on other occasions by this writer, is that soldiers see things only in the light of military versus civilian and nothing else and the division among the civilians only makes their work that much easier for them.
The appointment of eight top military men as Ambassadors and High Commissioners by Nigeria's Supreme Military Council is part of the grand military design.
Obviously, out of a population of almost 100 million people, only serving and/or retired military personnel could be found worthy to represent Nigeria abroad. In the realm of diplomacy also, soldiers seem to be better trained than civilians.
The NPN appointed Ambassadors and High Commissioners are probably as corrupt and inept as the home-based officials that appointed them or as the popular charge goes, they were "political-appointees" and therefore had to be recalled. Is the suggestion then that political appointments are evil? In which case the question will have to be asked - are the military-appointed soldier-diplomats not political appointees - seeing that only one career diplomat has been named in the list of the new appointments?
Having tasted political power, Nigerian soldiers have found it very hard to adjust to the "ordinary life" of the camp. Those of them who went back into the forces after the "hand- over" of 1979, found it particularly trying.
It is only human that a man who used to manage 95 percent of the revenue of the whole of the country should feel unfulfilled at managing the affairs of a mere brigadge.
Those of them who went out of uniform and into retirement found it even harder still to adjust, it did not matter that their retirements had been made as comfortable as possible by the politicians in the misguided hope that their comfortable circumstances will help keep them satisfied.
But they heard the sirens which stopped the traffic for the political leaders who took over from them, sometimes they were stopped them selves, and they remembered the days when they were the objects of all the fuss; they saw the newspapers carrying photographs of miserable politicians and watched them on television and re called the good old days when the press hung on their every word and asked their opinions about everything.
They saw Alhaji Shagari in conference with world leaders and told themselves "there but for October 1st, 1979, we would be" and they heard the stories of the "good life" being led by the politicians.
"How could anybody expect Brigadier Joe Garba to 'retire into oblivion' aged less than 40 when the whole world used to hang on his every word, just a few years back?"
They saw the foreign businessmen who used to flatter them and bring them expensive gifts for their wives. every time they visited Lagos - these same miserable foreign businessmen now came to Nigeria and did not even bother to phone them.
However, he is now beginning to realise that even the non-NPN politicians are running the same risks as the NPN politicians that he hated.
Some of these businessmen who had promised to pay the fees for their children in fancy private schools in Switzerland and Britain were actually now avoiding them.
It did not take very much to conclude that the foreign businessmen must now be paying the fees for the children of the politicians in fancy private schools in Switzerland and Britain.
How could anybody expect Brigadier Joe Garba to "retire" into oblivion, aged less than 40 when the whole world used to hang on his every word, just a few years back?
And yet there he was, walking through Murtala Muhammed Airport and not making the slightest impression on the crowd and the air hostess behaving as though he were an ordinary mortal!
External Affairs Minister Dr Ibrahim Gambari - one of the token civilians in the government
That definitely could not be allowed to continue and what was more, even the corporals in uniform had lost their status in the society to lowly party chairmen of villages! It is not difficult to find national and altruistic motives when the move is made because invariably the civilians would have dug their own graves with their bickering.
Poor Professor Wole Soyinka, lamenting what he now sees as "an unprecedented blanket condemnation of everyone who had the misfortune of being in control of public funds", is obviously a victim of the typical military ploy he thought the coup was against the NPN thus he gave his support.
Professor Soyinka who had lent his undisputed weight to the coup, now sees that the military government "condemns everyone who had the misfortune of being in control of public funds".
This has led him to the rather revolutionary idea of when a kick-back is not a kick-back. According to Prof. Soyinka, the conduct of those politicians who were opposed to the NPN should not be examined by the same yardstick as the NPN politicians.
If a UPN politician, for example, is seen to have inflated the cost of a state contract, he should not be deemed guilty of corruption, because he was only looking for money to do what the soldiers did on December 31st, 1983 - i.e. overthrow the NPN government.
Thus, going by the good Professor's argument, a politician should be deemed corrupt only when he was an NPN politician, if he belonged to another party, all his money-making methods could be justified because his ultimate aim was to find enough money to overthrow the NPN government.
Prof. Soyinka argues that the tribunals that will be trying the politicians should not assume that the non NPN politicians "operated in a normal situation, or that the people whom they led expected them to fight their battles with a slingshot on the one hand, and the bible or the koran on the other."
It will be interesting to see how the tribunals deal with Prof. Soyinka's advice in handling the politicians that will be appearing before them.
One is not wishing the UPN and NPP politicians any more aggravation than they have already endured, but it could very well be that an opportunity is in the offing for civilians to recognise the fact that the soldiers regard the civilians as the enemy and are more interested in providing jobs for their boys than in saving Nigeria.
