By Owei Lakmefa
IN early 2012, a television station invited me, as Acting General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to its early morning programme in Abuja. I was to discuss the State of the Nation with particular reference to the economy and well being of Nigerians. I arrived as scheduled, but was told the live programme was to be delayed as two other persons had been invited.

I was to learn that the station had announced my programmed appearance and the Presidency had called to complain that I was biased against the Government and would use the opportunity to attack President Jonathan’s policies. It asked that government representatives be invited to ensure a balance. The station obliged and a Spokesperson came from the Presidency with another from a government institution.

An obviously angry spokesperson complained that thanks to me, he was roused from sleep and asked to proceed to the station. He turned to me and asked rhetorically “Owei, why are you giving us so much problem, I thought His Excellency is your brother” This was in obvious reference to the fact that President Goodluck Jonathan and I are Ijaws. I smiled and we went into the studio.

When the programme did not seem to be going well for the Government team, the Spokesperson argued that I was unfairly holding the President accountable for the failures of past administrations that had neglected the refineries, run down infrastructure and generally under developed the country.

I responded that he was being unfair to the President, a well educated and conscious leader who was conversant with the past failures, had dissected the country’s problems and proffered a seven-point solution before asking Nigerians to vote for him as he had the answer. Haven been given the mandate to govern the country, I said what Nigerians want are results not excuses.

As President-elect Muhammadu Buhari prepares to take over the mantle of leadership, I am hearing the old refrain of how the past administrations had brought the country to its knees. Top functionaries of the APC, the newly emergent ruling party are accusing the PDP of ruining the country in the past sixteen years including the economy and the efficiency of the military.

I am not sure we need such analysis or claims now. I thought it was because the PDP was not seen as performing well, that the electorate took the Presidency from it and gave it to the APC. Perhaps years of living under military rule is affecting my thinking on such matters.

In the past, a military group will overthrow the government, accuse it of indiscipline, corruption and ruining the country. Then it will serve the populace a three-course meal with   probe panels for starters, a main dish of hope and expectations and a dessert of failures.

Debates about the PDP running or ruining   the economy in the past sixteen years are on, and I am not about to jump on it. But an issue I feel strongly about are the claims about the military. We cannot blame civilian administrations for the state of the Armed Forces; military regimes are responsible for this. What makes an army is not just the training or quality of arms, but also the esprit de corps amongst its rank and file. That comradeship was destroyed with the coups and counter coups the military carried out against civilian administrations and military regimes. The military was destroyed when it periodically tied up scores of its officers, and executed them for alleged coup plots and coup attempts.

Discipline is key to the training, culture, survival and development of any Army. For decades, this was lacking in the Nigerian military. It was a military in which a Non Commissioned Officer   refused to salute a general or take orders from him without any repercussion. An Army in which generals pee in their pants in fear of a Major.

Twenty two years ago, then Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Salihu Ibrahim had publicly cried out that the country was having an ‘anything goes’ army, and that mini armies were operating within the larger Nigerian Army.

General Ibrahim who had survived detention in 1985 during a coup plot, had in his farewell speech in 1993, said “It is an open secret that some officers openly preferred political appointments to regimental appointments, no matter the relevance of such appointments to their careers …we became an army where subordinate officers would not only be contemptuous of their superiors, but would exhibit total disregard to legitimate instructions by such superiors.”

This was the type of military that the civilian administration inherited in 1999. So how can it be responsible for the state of the Armed Forces? If anything, the civilian administration helped restore some sanity by retiring over one hundred senior officers who had served in political positions for a minimum of six months. What is also noticeable   is that since the return to civil rule, some sanity has prevailed in the Armed Forces; the prevalence of men and officers from various parts of the country feeling inferior or superior to their colleagues has reduced.

It is agreed that initially, the military performed poorly in the war against Boko Haram which was worsened by countries blocking arms sale to us, but we all agree that this has changed; the military has turned the tide of that war.

I am not advocating that the Buhari administration should not enquire into activities of the Jonathan administration. But the relevant institutions should carry out such tasks. We should also avoid trial by media.

This brings me to the AIT controversy which the APC beautifully nipped in the bud. What I was more concerned about, were journalists who galloped to the side of reaction justifying such a blatant attack on the press and freedom of expression. If we excuse one attack, we open the doors to future attacks. We must always insist that legal and constitutional procedures be adhered to even where we think the press has erred.