As preparations for the general election next year gather momentum, events around the country point to a situation capable of subjecting the integrity of Independent National Election Commission (INEC) and its resolve to give Nigerians an election to be proud of, to a real shock test. INEC, it must be given to it, has the competence to deliver on its mandate. Already the commission’s facilities are becoming targets of vandals and arsonists inspired by suspected political interests that are determined to scuttle the process even before the first ballot is cast.
The INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has, severally, at any given opportunity, insisted that the commission relies on others for its security needs. It is the duty of the Police, the paramilitary bodies like the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and, to a limited extent, the military, to provide all the security the electoral body requires. But that is not happening.
And now the military high command is throwing into the mix a completely bizarre dimension capable of shaking the confidence of INEC and, in particular, the electorate, their expectations and how realisable they can possibly be under normal circumstances.
Recently, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, jolted the nation at a press conference when he alleged that politicians are mounting pressures on the military to compromise the 2023 general election. This is common not only in Nigeria but elsewhere in the developing world with fledgling democracies. But if he wanted Nigerians to take him seriously as they are expected to, he should have come clean on who these politicians are. That would have helped the rest of us in determining the credibility of the claim bearing in mind the fact that, in a democracy, the military takes orders from the ruling political class.
We’ll Not Fail Nigerians In Curbing Threats To National Security – COAS
Since the General did not name names, it is, therefore, safe to conjecture that he may have affirmed what Nigerians already know about how soldiers play underground roles in the process of manipulating the electoral process in Favour of their preferred candidates. We saw it in 2019. The then Chief of Army Staff, General Yusuf Tukur Buratai, actually confirmed it even if he qualified his statement by saying that the soldiers involved were ‘fake’.
Nigerians waited for him to order the arrest of those ‘fake’ soldiers used to frustrate the democratic process. Up till the time he left office, not a single one soldier was arrested for impersonating or any other electoral offence. And this, in spite of widespread complaint and condemnation of the act which was so brazen and in favour of a particular political party.
Gen Irabor also at the press conference alluded to the possibility of misconduct within the rank and file when he admitted that he could not completely rule out internal sabotage within the security system. Still, and even at that, we consider it pertinent to emphasise that in a system as complex as the military, there will always be a chance of the existence of ‘bad guys.’ The problem, in some cases, is that the high command is excessively concerned about their public image that they tend to believe that they are super human incapable of failure.
If the truth must be told, we make bold to say that the military have already been politicised to the point that the only thing left is for them to mount the soapbox. A lot that is reprehensible is already going on within the military that Nigerians find them as good reasons why they, the military, would want the status quo to persist. The endemic corruption in their system and the bogus expenditure profile that are crying to high heavens for remediation are enough for them to make themselves available for any kind of inducement provided they are shielded from exposure. Only a suicide prone military officer will allow what happened to Air Marshal Alex Badeh to repeat itself.
This newspaper, earlier on this page, discussed how a whopping N206 billion was inserted in the budget of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. Just one ministry, there could be others, N206 billion for military equipment. Is that the kind of financial inducement General Irabor is referring to? If the Senate had not exposed it, that money is enough inducement for any soldier, regardless of rank, to kill for any politician.
We are persuaded to remind the military and other security agencies in the country that Nigerians crave for a free and fair election devoid of any form of manipulation. The security agencies and the military, in particular, are in a position to know and appreciate what Nigerians are going through and their wish to bring about a change, an improvement in their circumstances. The conviction is that only good leaders chosen, freely, through the ballot box can guarantee this.
