IN contemporary state system, ultimate power lay with the military not so much for its famed discipline and cohesive structure, but because it monopolizes access to organised, purposeful and legitimate violence.

Among other defining characteristics of the modern state, which includes definitive and delineable territories, the military is the most decisive guarantor of the state, fending off external threats to its territorial and sovereign integrity and also weighing in heavily to halt internal subversion or insurgency.

In both cases, without the decisive force of military, state’s sovereignty or territorial integrity will be mere academic debate.

Modern states without standing military or army like the Vatican has neither the ingredients of extant territory to invite external aggression or the local conflictual and disputant politics to generate internal insurgency or subversion.

Therefore, its lack of standing army correlates with its parody of modern state. Vatican’s head of state is the perpetual pope, whose tenure is determined by the natural cause of death. Its ministers and other officials are disparate and discordant band of several nationals welded together by the transcendental ecumenism of Vatican doctrine.

Switzerland, another state that disavows standing army declared herself neutral and the world largely accept that, though her citizens bear arms.

The military. therefore, as the core of the sovereign status of the contemporary state cannot be over-emphasized. However, the military in the tradition of modern state are subordinate to the political authority which derive its legitimacy from the free will of the people. The mechanism for the exercise of the popular free will of the people is democratic election.

The military, therefore, is permanent structure of the state while government exists and is legitimate through periodic choice of the people through democratic elections.

The existing government at any time provided is the choice of the people; exercise control on behalf of the people over the military, but does not own it.

A disciplined, responsible military is one which matches with dis-interest and indifference, the contest of various factions and parties for the control of government through democratic elections but with eternal and eagle-eye vigilance, on an infraction on the state for which the military is second-tier fabric after the people.

The Nigerian military in the past has not demonstrated this neutrality in the contest for power by political parties. In 2003 and 2007, the military weighed in considerably in electoral matters in favour of the ruling party.

The ruling Peoples Democratic Party heavily mobilized the military to its rigging effort and most Nigerians questioned the integrity of a military that lent itself easily and effortlessly to the fraudulent  rigging of the election by the ruling party.

The then army high command even shamelessly announced its unalloyed support for a government formed through a world acclaimed electoral malfeasance.

The military functioned as the armed thug of the ruling party, while the police force reduced itself to mere security guards of the ruling party.

The inability of the Nigeria military and police to differentiate themselves from the existing government and ruling party is partly rooted in their colonial history.

Originating from the British formed Royal West African Frontier Force (RWFF), it was largely to enforce the will of the undemocratic colonial state.  It was essentially conceived as a ruthless and violent organ of the colonial state to enforce the extortion, expropriation and exploitation of the colonized through the maximum application of force and compulsion.

The essential ideology of the colonial army is violent subjugation of the people. There is no question of the defense of the people.

Having derived from this background, the Nigerian military, successor to the colonial force, continued to view its loyalty first to existing government and ruling party. Sometimes it sets itself as rivalry to when it through the threat of violence or actual use of violence, overthrows the ruling party.

But essentially, it acts as its arm.

However, the coming April elections will hugely challenge the military to shed its colonial outlook; and given the roles the military played in the contemporary popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the Nigerian military must undertake some introspections.

When the brute force of former Egyptian leader, through his police could not end the popular revolt, he drafted the military ostensibly expecting the demonstrators to be cleared off the street. But the Egyptian army with a tradition of standing with and for the people rolled out the armoured tanks, but availed it to protesters, who graciously hitched a ride with their soldiers.

Even before the military command made a vow that it will forcibly evict the demonstrators from the street, rank and file soldiers were already exchanging banters with the demonstrators.

The world which is generally repulsed against army rule graciously embraced Egypt’s military when the disgraced despot handed over to them. For their role in the revolution, the military in Egypt was reliably considered as safe hands to nurture the country’s transition to democratic stability and order.

On the other hand, the role of the Shah Pahlavi army in Iran, 32 years ago in putting down the popular revolt ensured that the fate of the military was tied to that of the disgraced Shah.

The Shah’s army quickly disintegrated, while the revolution created a brand new military from its ranks. The Nigerian military has another golden opportunity in the coming elections in April to redeem its unsavory image in the past as the armed wing of the ruling party.

It can begin now to sound clear and loud that it would watch keenly the polls, but with enormous indifference to the fortunes of the contestants.

BY CHARLES ONUNAIJU, a journalist, writes from Abuja.