Nigeria is 60 years old this year and of those years, soldiers from the Nigerian Army have ruled for a sizeable part.

We will recall how barely six years after independence, some officers of the Nigerian Army tried to forcibly take over power but failed. Their action set the tone for a series of military coup d’etats that overrun Nigeria for years.

After the first coup that failed, soldiers took over power and did not relinquish it for another 13 years. Barely 4 years after they relinquished power to a democratically elected government, they took it again and started another military junta. The second one lasted another decade before the administration was forced to step aside. The last junta lasted for 6 years and it is considered one of the most violent periods in Nigerian history.

Coincidentally, Nigeria’s current president, Muhamadu Buhari, is a retired soldier and former military ruler himself. He first gained power after the 1983 coup d’etat, only to return 32 years after.

It is notable to also state that the winner of the presidential elections that ushered in the 4th republic, Olusegun Obasanjo, was a former soldier and military Head of State himself.

Nigeria seems to have a special attraction for former military rulers or the military rulers have the means and followership required to win elections.

Whatever it is, the military’s incursion into Nigeria’s sociopolitical life is unbecoming, not to talk of documented cases of human rights abuse by members of the Nigerian army.

These abuses do not take place during combat activities but individual or group actions that are beyond their defined roles. Remember how in 2001 then president Obasanjo gave a nod to soldiers to extrajudicially kill Nigerian citizens in Odi community, Bayelsa. The most recent example of this is the drafting of soldiers to the #EndSARS protests and the shooting that resulted in human deaths and is now remembered as the #LekkiMassacre.

These soldiers act like they are beyond prosecution during these actions and one wonders why it is so.

The mentality of a lot of soldiers is that they are above civilians and have all the power. They are also aware that Nigeria is not a country of consequences.

The many documented cases of human rights abuse have gone unpunished and this has emboldened them to even do worse things. Soldiers need reorientation and retraining. Also, there must be consequences for actions, or it will get worse and it will become clear that the military does not have a monopoly of violence.

Ayọ̀délé Ìbíyẹmí

“Ayọ̀délé Ìbíyẹmí is a lifetime student of Literature. He is also a reader who writes occasionally. For him, words are what makes the intractable world livable. Ayo tweets at @Ayo_eagles. He was a Wawa Book Review Young Literary Critics Fellow and won the 2019 Ken Saro-Wiwa Prize for Book Review.”