Joachim MacEbong: Can Zaria be a teachable moment for the Nigerian army?

In the last two weeks, a few people decided to use social media to show appreciation to our soldiers fighting on the frontlines against Boko Haram, with the #ThankASoldier hashtag. It was a laudable idea that was extended even to the families of the soldiers.

It also made me reflect once on the relationship between the Nigerian army – and men in uniform, generally –  and the citizens they are supposed to serve, fondly referred to as ‘bloody civilians’. This relationship is mixed, to put it mildly. It is hard to find one Nigerian without an experience of the brutality, either first hand or reported, of the Nigerian military or police.

Up till 1999, just under 39 years of nationhood, the military had been in power from 1966 to 1979, and from 1984 to 1999, nearly 30 years in total. The result was a military cadre that was deemed to be well outside the bounds of accountability, and treated the civilian population with disdain for the most part. We see them drive against traffic on the roads at high speed, beat up conductors and other motorists, participate in extortion, and so on and so forth. All without consequences.

Since 1999, this lack of consequences for unbecoming and unlawful behaviour continued into this Fourth Republic. Incidents of ‘provocation’ by civilians were met by maximum force by the military, with Odi in Bayelsa in 1999, Gbaramatu in 2009 and the case of Mohammed Yusuf being some of the bloodier examples.

Those incidents led to the insurgencies in the Niger Delta and the North East. Nothing happened to those who took those lives, no one was held accountable, and yet it is clear that nothing has changed. Despite efforts by a few to appreciate our army fighting to defend the nation, we are confronted yet again with their failings.

News coming out of Zaria over the last few days is enough to fill anyone with concern. According to this account, the convoy of Tukur Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff, was blocked on the highway out of Zaria by a Shiite sect led by Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, and General Buratai had to come out to appeal that his convoy be allowed passage.

nigeria-mil

A video of senior army officers begging the sect members for passage surfaced early on Wednesday morning and confirms the story. In it, you can clearly see them engaging in a lengthy dialogue for over 8 minutes. The restraint shown by the military officers was significant, and was the first thing many who have watched the video noted. The reason convoys move fast is to prevent assassination attempts, and that lengthy delay would have made such an attempt on Buratai possible, were it being planned.

In addition, the situation was precisely what tear gas and rubber bullets are made for, and the road would have been cleared without any fatalities. The last minute of the video suddenly cuts to the convoy passing, and the sect members are not visible. No bodies are, either.

The real issue is what happened subsequently, when the army sent men back into Zaria to apparently arrest Zakzaky. They eventually arrested him, but the resulting violence led to a high death toll, said to be about 200 people. That is why we need an inquiry into the whole incident is desperately needed. We need to know what happened next, because that is the key to why so many lost their lives.

At the end of the day, we are in a democracy, and in such a system the military are not a law unto themselves. They serve at the behest of the state. In an ideal scenario, a blockade of a major highway out of a city would have been broken up by police armed with teargas, rubber bullets and water cannons, if need be. However, the police have been underfunded for decades, rendering them unable to carry such duties quickly and effectively. That is one reason military personnel move around fully armed among civilian populations, performing policing functions. Even bringing in Sheikh Zakzaky for questioning is not an army function, it is a police function.

Instead, we have dysfunction. This will not be fixed overnight, and certainly not in 7 months, but what we must do is to show that uniformed personnel can be held accountable for their actions, in order that people have trust in the institutions of the state. In July last year, three of Zakzaky’s sons were killed, and again, nothing happened. There was no inquiry. Even with a report by the Human Rights Commission indicting the army for the deaths of 34 people, no one was held accountable.

 

 

This state of affairs really cannot continue. As a nation, we have to begin to pass the message that all Nigerian lives matter, that life will not be taken by state agents without any explanation demanded and received, and the law taking its course. It is not just because it could you or me tomorrow, but because as trust in the state continues to break down, people take law into their hands. The result is more disaffected people ready to take on board whatever they are told by manipulative demagogues, who only use them as pawns on their path to prominence.

By all accounts, General Tukur Buratai is a model officer, and this is an opportunity for him and the army he leads, to show that they are no longer above the law. President Buhari has pledged to investigate allegations of human rights violations in the fight against Boko Haram, but now has a similar incident occurring under his watch. As Commander-in-Chief, he also has the opportunity to bring the army within the law. It will be a great way to walk his talk.

 

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail