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Tuesday 10 February 2015

Polls shift: Jonathans' military and impending verdict of posterity!

ABOVE PHOTO: jonathan, Sambo and defence chiefs
On 25th February, 2013, the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) organized an interactive session for Public officers elected on its platform.  As a follow-up to the Memo sent to the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Party, General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB), the National leader, used the occasion to drum up support for the merger with other Political parties under the Nation’s political space. He said:  “A brief glance at the political history of Nigeria confirms that to hold power at the centre you need a broad coalition, alliance, merger or whatever you may like to call it. Today’s situation is no different.”  The content of that message was well received by all because it was the needed elixir for assuring on the victory of the Progressives in future elections against the reactionary ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).


GMB was not unmindful of the PDP’s well-oiled election-rigging machine. He said: “PDP does not need merger or alliance. They are already merged and are in alliance with Police, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the judiciary, and also with the Nigerian National petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and pension funds.”  Of course, GMB knew that, while the main opposition political parties were busy merging for the purpose of solidity of focus for the future, PDP was busy oiling the rigging Infrastructure with its coalition partners.  At that time, GMB was quite circumspect in not including the Military Institution as one of the partners in crime with the ruling PDP!

The Military Institution that bred the likes of Generals Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, TY Danjuma, Alani Akinrinade, etc was one with a rich tradition, anchored on patriotic service to the fatherland. The Nigerian Military was never wanting in honour, nobility and professionalism in the finest tradition of soldiering. But under President Goodluck Jonathan, like every Institution of state that has lost its independence, the Military has become dangerously tethered to the ruling PDP. Despite the constitutional delineation of the maintenance of internal security vis-à-vis the role of the Police, the Military continued to be called up for supervising elections. If the Police is not adequately equipped to deal with supervision of elections, then there is a fundamental defect in the Nation’s security Architecture!
On 22nd June, 2014, Governorship election was held in Ekiti State. The combined numerical strength of security agencies –comprising of the Army, Police, Civil Defense, SSS etc - deployed for that assignment was in excess of 36,700. Whilst PDP chieftains had unfettered movement around the state, the All Progressives’ Congress (APC) leaders were hounded into detention centers. The team sent to the home of the Director-General of the APC candidate, Hon. Bimbo Daramola, did not meet him at home. But his father was arrested in lieu of his son and suffered dehumanizing treatment in the hands of the PDP goons.
The PDP candidate, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, was returned as duly elected, having won in all the sixteen local governments in the state. The hands and the legs of that carefully interred electoral copse are now protruding out! The audio recording of the secret meeting involving top PDP Apparatchiks and  serving Military officers, in which the plot to use the military to harass and intimidate the Ekiti people was hatched,  is now in public domain. What is galling was that a serving Minister of state for Defence intimidated a Military commander with the wrath of the Chief of Army staff, who is a kinsman of President Jonathan, should he refuse to cooperate with the PDP’s plan to rig the election!
The Nigerian Military has lately been involved in discomforting volte face that often put to question the honour that the Institution once had with the citizenry.  
For instance, on Wednesday, 31st December, 2014, at an interview with Punch Newspapers, the Director of Army Public relations, Brig-General Olajide  Olaleye said: “Every serving and retired Army officer has at least a copy of his certificates and credentials kept in the Nigerian Army while that same serving and retired officer has copies of those same certificates and credentials.  And there is a laid-down procedure to request for certificates.It is known to any serving and retired officer.” But in a complete one hundred and eighty degrees shift, the same Army spokesman said on 20th January, 2015 that: “Records available indicate that Major General M Buhari applied to join the military as a Form Six student of the Provincial Secondary School, Katsina on 18 Oct 61. His application was duly endorsed by the Principal of the school, who also wrote a report on him and recommended him to be suitable for military commission. It is a practice in the NA that before candidates are shortlisted for commissioning into the officers’s cadre of the service, the Selection Board verifies the original copies of credentials that are presented. However, there is no available record to show that this process was followed in the 1960s. Nevertheless, the entry made on the NA Form 199A at the point of documentation after commission as an officer indicated that the former Head of State obtained the West African School Certificate (WASC) in 1961 with credits in relevant subjects: English Language, Geography, History, Health Science, Hausa and a pass in English Literature. Neither the original copy, Certified True Copy (CTC) nor Statement of result of Major General M Buhari's WASC result is in his personal file.”
The gaps in the latest communication from the Nigerian Army, undoubtedly, revealed the politicization of the Nigerian Army, nay the Military, to favour the fascist agenda of the PDP to embarrass the Former Head of State. The relevant question to be asked is: When the Nigerian Army (NA) accepted the Form 199A filled out by General Buhari as a newly commissioned officer, was there authentication of the veracity of the information therein sought? I
f not, we should be afraid of the lack of scrupulousness of the process of the NA. If there was indeed a document by way of certificate submitted to support the Form 199A, we should ask the NA: where is the certificate? A former Chief of Army staff and Sandhurst-trained officer, General Alani Akinrinade, was livid with rage at the obnoxious role played by this clearly partisan Nigerian Army in the certificate saga. Said he: “It is an insult to the armed forces — a terrible insult to the armed forces. If they are so embedded in the system and they have lost their souls, then they can go ahead and join everybody else in castigating a General of Buhari’s calibre.
They are now talking about a school certificate. What is that? By the time he joined the army, in those days, there were no cutting corners. It is later when these same civilians took over from the army that admission into it became less transparent. I can give you an instance. There was Course Five around 1964: if one did not have a school certificate one couldn’t apply to join the army. And I know up to 1963 when the last General Officer Commanding left Nigeria, there were no corners to be cut. There was no such thing. Everything was on merit. And, that was how it was till Buhari’s time. Buhari attended the Mons (Officer Cadet School in Aldershot in England) and the Staff College; I don’t want to think they have an idea what they teach in those places.”

INEC gave notification of the timetable 2015 general elections at least more than six months ago. It was on the basis of this that the timetable for the Primary elections of the Political parties was drawn. The ruling PDP , all along, was very comfortable with this arrangement because the party was sure that its most feared Politician in the land, General Muhammadu Buhari, would not emerge as the Presidential candidate of the APC.

The PDP-led Presidency, against all its forecasts and devious plans, started becoming petrified the moment GMB emerged as the APC candidate with a landslide victory. Whilst GMB’s political image continued to soar, that of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan began to nose-dive; obviously, the manner of Jonathan’s emergence as candidate of the PDP was unhelpful for his aspiration. Like the Biblical house of David and Saul, Dr. Jonathan started seeing attenuation of his Political stature while GMB exponentially improved his public acceptability over his position before the 2011 election. Public opinion Polls (POP) conducted by Jonathan’s acolytes and independents gave overwhelming victory to GMB.

The PDP-presidency started sniffing defeat many weeks away from the February 14 date. Suddenly, the Presidency started sending surrogate groups to test the waters on Polls shift. The Military that had hitherto indicated willingness to support the electoral process with security started to buckle. At the Council of states meeting, which Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had specifically summoned to accent to his devious plan, the INEC chairman found himself in quandary with the volte face from the Military.

The Military, true to its behaviour under Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, has moved from serving the Nigerian people to the imperialistic interest of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. As a follow-up to its showing at the Council of States meeting, the Nigerian Military, in a joint letter signed by the Chief of Defense staff and all the service chiefs of Army, Navy and Air-force, unequivocally stated inability to support the electoral process with security.

They averred an ongoing operation in the North East would deplete their resources to the extent that there would not be enough to support the elections. It was a perfectly executed coup against the Nation’s democracy by the Military, with the full cooperation of the civil Authority.  What was curious about the letter was that the specified timeframe for this military operation in the NE coincided with the time demanded for by the Presidency and the large army of its lackeys! The INEC chairman and his Resident Electoral Commissioners had earlier overwhelmingly indicated willingness and readiness to continue with the scheduled election; the letter from the Nigerian Military or better still, Jonathan’s Military, boxed the electoral body into a cul de sac.

The electoral body Chairman saw through the chicanery embedded in the Military’s missive; a well-coordinated sabotage was in the offing should he ignore the letter and its content. It was a totally flustered Professor Jega that addressed the Press on Saturday, the 7th February, 2015 on the Polls shift to 28th March and 11th April, 2015.

It is unknown what the ripple effect of this Polls shift may turn out to be. It is indubitably clear that the Nigerian Citizenry is miffed by this utterly tendentious affront on the sanctity of the electoral process in a democratic order. The Nigerian Military that once stood strong in the task of keeping Nigeria one is now, by covert means, encouraging its balkanization! Undoubtedly, a harsh judgment of posterity awaits this Military for this infamous decision.
 God bless Nigeria.
Engr. Rotimi Fashakin.

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