Instead of stamping out the ills, Nigeria has been overwhelmed by corruption and other widespread abuses. There is no alternative to the ballot box
Last Friday, January 15, marked the 50th anniversary of the first military coup in Nigeria. Quite naturally, there have, in the last few days, been some landmark events and the publication of commemorative interviews from family members of the political leaders and top military officers who were killed at the period. And that has helped to reopen old wounds at a time the country needs to come together for the challenges of the moment.
January 15, 1966, represents everything that bodes ill for our country. On that day, many prominent Nigerians were murdered in cold blood, and in circumstances that bred a destructive and almost irreversible polarisation of the armed forces and the nation. Thus January 15, 1966, remains, for many Nigerians and especially the founding fathers, a date that turned a very promising country into the political and economic debacle that it is today.
Therefore, the significance of the 50th commemoration of the tragedy goes beyond the fact that an elected civilian government was toppled; it was also a day that shattered the peace of our country and sowed strong seeds of lasting discord from which we have not recovered up till now. The January 1966 coup gave rise to the brutal and even bloodier July 29 counter-coup of the same year, the aftermath of which were the declaration of Biafra and attempted secession by the then Military governor of the then Eastern Region, Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. The 30-month long Nigerian civil war, initially dubbed a police action, would later follow.
It is noteworthy that in announcing the coup on Radio Nigeria on January 15, 1966, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu said most memorably: “Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low places that seek bribes and demand 10 per cent; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers or VIPs at least, the tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds.”
It is sad that 50 years on, and after several military regimes, those same ills still plague the nation. It is even more tragic that the story of that era remains an emotive subject, not only because Nigerians are not able to approach their history with the dispassionate disposition necessary for any objective assessment but also because many of the scars arising from the first military coup in Nigeria have refused to heal. In fact, it would seem that the coup laid the foundation for everything that subsequently blossomed into the intractable problems of our nationhood today.
It was for instance, on January 15, 1966, that a junior military officer issued orders to his superiors. Such impunity, arbitrary exercise of discretion and professional indiscipline are part of our problems today. Perhaps more tragic, the current generation finds it difficult to make sense of those unfortunate events of the 1960s for which they had been handed one-sided stories, depending on who is doing the narrative. The disparate accounts of a few of the military leaders of the time, which have been more for self-glorification, have not helped matters.
An attempt by a previous government to assemble a committee to write the history of the civil war predictably came to nothing.
Part of the lesson in all of this is that many great nations have experienced all manner of upheavals on their path to lasting nationhood. However, we can now, with a benefit of hindsight, unequivocally agree that the bullet can never be a substitute for the ballot.
Part of the lesson in all of this is that many great nations have experienced all manner of upheavals on their path to lasting nationhood. However, we can now, with a benefit of hindsight, unequivocally agree that the bullet can never be a substitute for the ballot.
We must also accept that the January 15, 1966 debacle occurred in the military-political culture of post-independent Africa, with emergent but unstable nation–states. Today, 50 years after, we still have a nation to build. Coming to terms with our history and going beyond it will be a major step in that regard
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