The years of military coups are now best forgotten by Nigerians. But they were years in which military adventurers turned Nigeria into one huge playing field, in an unbridled quest for political power.
Even though coups were a widespread military phenomenon, General Ibrahim B. Babangida (IBB) is deliberately used to headline this piece because among others, he self-confessedly, participated in all successful coups in the country, including the one which ushered him to power.
As the military coupists have themselves admitted on different occasions, coups were typically opportunistic. Ambitious soldiers simply capitalised on the pervasive wave of discontent by civilians with the outgoing regime – civilian or military – in executing their coups. In those days, not only was it common for civilians to openly invite the military to take over power, especially at periods of discontent or dissatisfaction with the order of the day, it was also common to find civilians jubilating when some coups succeeded.
The often undisguised clamour for military incursion to politics was a strong fillip for the IBBs of the Nigerian military. It was the first step for justifying the illegal take-over of government.
Next was the imperative of seeking legitimacy as a prelude to full consolidation of power. IBB understood this only too well. When he overthrew General Muhammadu Buhari (as he then was) after his 1985 coup, he immediately began a series of elaborate public relations schemes. The Buhari administration had been increasingly loathed by the public and IBB understood that pandering to the people and presenting to them a picture of himself that was radically different from that of Buhari would bring the people to his side.
The Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, had been very critical of Buhari. IBB simply appointed its then president, Bola Ajibola as his Minister of Justice and Attorney-General. Decree 4, much detested by the Nigerian media and by which journalists could be imprisoned for publishing stories – whether true or untrue – that embarrassed public officers, was promptly abrogated.
The Nigerian Security Organisation, NSO, by then the local equivalent of the FBIs and KGBs of this world had come under heavy criticism for its high-handedness. IBB got this agency to throw its doors open and the public was fed with images showing how pathetically the outgone government had treated detained Nigerians. Not even IBB’s nomenclature was spared. Whereas his predecessors were known as “Head of State”, IBB preferred the more populist appellation, “President.”
From one gimmick to another, IBB deliberately strove to appease the people and charm them to lose their vigilance, forget that he was a usurper of power and believe that he was to be preferred to the man he overthrew.
IBB, an intelligent veteran in the power game, understood that legitimacy for his government could only flow from the people. He realised that even though he controlled a large military with a considerable arsenal, it was with the people that real power resided.
IBB earned not only legitimacy but also love for his new regime. A famous activist writer quipped on national television that IBB’s regime was “one of the best things to happen to this country.” In the process, he consolidated power, making it ever more difficult for the people to rise up against him and his co-travellers.
We now know that the era of military coups was a big disaster not only for the military itself but for the country as well. The military completely demystified itself. Where once people regarded it as a beacon of decorum, integrity and altruism, in unravelling, the military put a lie to all of this, and let it be known that they were no better than their civilian counterparts. The military, is still reeling from its self-destructive incursion into politics. I wonder how career officers feel whenever another chunk of Abacha loot is reported to have been returned to Nigeria as has happened routinely since 1998 when Gen. Sani Abacha, IBB’s successor passed on.
It is in the light of all of these that one must ponder the fate of Nigeria on one hand and the Nigerian judiciary on the other hand as the judiciary journeys on the same route that is devastatingly similar to that from which the military has since beaten a retreat.
It would appear that the judiciary is increasingly finding the allure of politics and the company of politicians, irresistible.
In the last several years, a number of curious judgements has steadily emanated from our courts. Two have been particularly telling in recent time, largely because they have emanated from the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court.
In the first of these cases, the Supreme Court in 2020, disregarded official and uncontroverted evidence that showed that a gentleman had come fourth among other contestants in the gubernatorial election in Imo State and ruled that he was the winner of the election. So, in a democracy, the Supreme Court itself ignored the universal norm where the wish of the majority as expressed in an election is upheld. You could say that Governor Uzodimma of Imo State, aided by the court, executed a successful coup against the people.
In a more recent case, Senate President Ahmed Lawan had in bidding for the presidential ticket of the APC, not participated in the official primary election (sanctioned and witnessed by INEC) for the ticket for the Yobe North senatorial district. But this did not affect the ruling of the Supreme Court which has since pronounced him winner of the primary election in which he didn’t participate. In what can be interpreted as another coup, Ahmed Lawan is, by courtesy of the Supreme Court, now the APC senatorial candidate for the zone.
In taking these and similar decisions, the courts do not seem to take into cognisance the public’s perception of them. Unlike IBB for whom legitimacy by cozying up to the public was an art form, the courts have so far carried on rather unabashedly.
Indeed, only recently, the Supreme Court has had to issue a stern, even if inelegantly articulated warning to the public to desist from criticising the latest or in fact any judgement of the Supreme Court.
Unlike IBB, the court appears to have forgotten that the Supreme Court does not exist for its own sake. It exists at the pleasure of the people to whom it owes a duty to dispense justice equitably and transparently. Ultimately it is to the people that the power which it believes it has, actually belongs. When judgements that curiously overturn the legitimate wishes of the people are dispensed brazenly by the Supreme Court, of all courts, the people have a right to call the court to question.
A good number of citizens has since taken the Supreme Court to task for its questionable judgements. This is the way to go. More socially-conscious Nigerians need to lend their voices to these condemnations, and stridently too. Operatives in the judiciary will become more circumspect in the understanding that there is an educated and activist public painstakingly scrutinising their every move.
Collective vigilance is one way by which we can help to curtail the apparently growing influence of politicians in the judicial space. As our experience with military coup plotters has shown, had Nigerians duly appreciated their innate power and exerted it in the days of yore, coups would not have succeeded and both Nigeria and its military may have been spared the ordeal of military incursion in politics.
We owe it a duty to our country to stop our once revered judiciary from going the way of the military.
•OKORUWA works for the communications consultancy, XLR8
