Nigerian soldiers are notorious for their brutality and bad behaviour, especially towards the civil populace. In spite of the fact that they have been out of power for 16 years, delinquency in the ranks of the Nigerian Army personnel is still unrestrained. The misconduct graduated inversely recently when a group of soldiers defiled a Magistrates’ court in Benin, the Edo State capital, shot indiscriminately and freed four suspects brought there for arraignment for traffic offences. This is condemnable.
Throwing decorum overboard, the soldiers, said to be attached to a construction company, had earlier invaded the premises of the Edo State War Against Indiscipline, and beaten up the workers before heading for the court. The WAI officials had arrested a couple for traffic violation, but were prevented from putting them to trial by the pugnacious Army personnel. This amounts to gross irresponsibility. A court of law is sacred; it is the temple of justice, which should not be desecrated for any reason. This act should not be tolerated and the soldiers concerned must be visited with severe punishment after a thorough investigation had been conducted.
The military is a repository of self-discipline and rectitude, an institution whose members subscribe on oath to be loyal to the nation and its laws. Any military that cannot subordinate themselves to civil authority portend danger to democracy. But the case with the military in Nigeria is replete with crude tales of recklessness, insubordination and bellicosity. Here, soldiers, because they usually get away with impunity, have come to be law unto themselves. In June 2015, Amnesty International accused the Nigerian military of gross abuse of human rights in the war against Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East. It is a repugnant tradition that has to change, with the top hierarchy leading the way.
A few of the misdeeds bear recollecting. Two weeks ago, a Nigerian Navy rating got inebriated at his duty post in Ikorodu, Lagos, where he was guarding oil pipelines along with his colleagues. The outcome was that he picked up his weapon and started shooting, killing one and injuring two other persons. He should not get away with murder.
In a callous case that occurred in 2005, a naval officer, Felix Odunlami, shot a commercial motorcyclist – Peter Edeh – at a traffic light in Ikeja, Lagos point-blank for brushing his car. Odunlami was dismissed and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013 after a lengthy legal process that terminated at the Supreme Court. In a celebrated incident in 2008, four ratings attached to Harry Arogundade (a rear admiral), brutalised and stripped a lady, Uzoma Okere, naked in Lagos.
Her offence was that she did not leave the road fast enough for the officer’s convoy to pass. Okere sued and was awarded N100 million in damages. In spite of several appeals, the courts insisted that Arogundade and the NN must pay for their misconduct. The actions of Arogundade, the ratings and others, perhaps influenced the Chief of Navy Staff, Ibok-Ete Ibas, to lament on Saturday in Calabar that the Navy had paid N1billion as fines for the misconduct of its officials in the last four years.
The immediate past governor of Lagos State, Raji Fashola, put the issue of military misconduct in proper perspective in 2012 when he arrested two Army officers – KI Yusuf, a colonel, and AJ Adeomi, a staff sergeant – for driving illegally on a dedicated BRT lane. Fashola said, “I don’t use (the) BRT lane; I sit in traffic and I expect everyone who wants to drive his car to do the same. Those officers that I caught today are very bad examples for the military.” Despite this, military personnel persist in breaching the law, but it is only a strong action that will serve as deterrent to the bad eggs in the Armed Forces.
The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, must reform the Army, and make the personnel answerable for their actions in line with the rules of engagement with the civil populace. There is sanity in the military elsewhere because infractions by officers are decisively dealt with, no matter the rank of officers involved or their past service to their nation. Although they were in the line of duty, 5,600 American soldiers were dismissed for drugs, alcohol, crimes, sexual assault, mistreatment of enemy combatants and other misconduct in 2007. By 2013, 11,000 had been fired for the same offences, while 387 officers suffered the same fate in the same year.
Noticing a growing trend, Ray Odierno, a general and the US Army’s chief of staff, said, “We’re paying a lot more attention to it now. We are not tolerant at all of those showing a lack of character. We have to refocus ourselves so we get to where we think is the right place.” In Nigeria, these infractions would have attracted little or no action.
To maintain robust military-civil relations necessary in building a truly democratic and civilised society, the Chief of Defence Staff, Abayomi Olonisakin, and other top brass must take firm actions against infractions, no matter how negligible. That should start with the brigandage in Benin. The new military leaders should work on the harmonious relationship between civil society as a whole and their various services established to protect us. As a discipline institution, military service members have to internalise the commitment to civilian control and the fundamental rights of the citizens.