President Tinubu and General Musa, while the going was good.
The story of alleged coup plot plan, which rented the air a few weeks ago, was a scoop from the Sahara Reporters. Other media outlets came with the story and its enlarged contents after the New York based online Media, owned by Omoyele Sowore, published it.
That the breaking of the story came from Omoyele Sowore’s connected Media, makes it an “evil” to the Federal Government. If it were to be another “friendly” Media that got that news broken, it probably would have been tolerated by the federal government. Who knows – the government probably, would have denied it more reluctantly.
Of course, the source where the “bad news” broke from would remain of great concern to the government of President Bola Tinubu. Why Sahara Reporters of all institutions? You may likely come under such “confused mind” if you were to be the president and his managers.
In addition to above, the government and its crisis-management team committed an extension of blunder in the technic of managing an awkward situation at times of crisis like the one under discussion. And what was this mismanagement?
The government – through its communication managers, but most importantly, at the level of the Military High Command, though admitted to the arrest and detention of a One-Star General [Brigadier General] and about 14 other officers of the Nigerian Army, the president’s managers insisted that the arrest of those officers had nothing to do with any coup plot. But instead, Nigerian were told that those officers, arrested and detained, were so arrested because they were grudging for not being promoted – “having failed their promotional examinations.”
That explanation given by the presidency and the Military High Command did not hold water at all – it could have been a story told to the marines. There was another addition the government people brought to the narration of defence of this denial on coup plot, which tore any paper of defence into shreds. And that was insinuating the cancelation of the October 1st anticipated Military parade – a long-standing tradition and culture Nigerians always enjoy, from the leakage of the plot. Too many Nigerians did not believe in that line of story, but everybody kept a sealed lip.
Then suddenly, just within a week of the alleged aborted plot and its full rebuttal, the President sacked – sorry relieved, all his top military chiefs, except Chief of Defense Intelligence – Major General E.A.P Undiendeye. Those sacked are Chief of Defense Staff; General Christopher Musa, Chief of Army Staff was moved upwards to become CDS, while another officer was appointed CAS, Chief of Naval Staff and Chief of AirForce Staff.
I think those that are not touched by this little Tsunami would be the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of the DSS. And to be strictly fair, these two Institutions – the Police and DSS, though are core members of the Country’s Security structures, they are not members of the Nigerian Armed Forces. The Nigerian Armed Forces consist of the Nigerian Army, Nigerian Airforce and the Nigerian Navy.
The presidency has told us emphatically that the exercise has nothing to do with the so-called coup story but strictly a move to “inject new direction” into the armed forces.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Tope Ajayi, gave further details on the necessity of the exercise by saying that it is President’s desire “to inject new direction, vision, vigour and energy” into the military, before adding that, “this is not a reaction to any rumour of coups. He is exercising his powers. The service chiefs have done two years.” He spoke more.
“We are fighting security issues — Boko Haram in the North-East, banditry in the North-West, IPOB and ESN in the South-East, kidnapping in the South-West, and other crises in the North-Central. In the last 15 years, look at our national budget — security taking the largest chunk. The President wants to deal with this matter once and for all, so that the money going into defence expenditure will be better deployed to fund critical infrastructure like power, roads, broadband, education, and healthcare,” he said.
The purpose of the flushing therefore, according to the President and his men, is strictly to reenforce and rejiggle the Nigerian Security architecture. And I am sure nobody should fault this giant step of safeguarding the Nigerian people and their properties – government properties inclusive. However, there are some imperatives, in conjunction with some dynamics that must be analysed while decoding the oddities of our times within the corridor of this narrative.
One, and this is very important, with the sack and appointment of new henchmen into the Nigerian Armed Forces, at least between 60 to 100 officers, at the Generals’ level will leave the Armed Forces. And this is because most of the officers now appointed are from Courses 39 and 40 of the Nigerian Defense Academy [NDA], meaning those senior officers, of Course 40 and above, can never serve under their juniors, because such is a military taboo.
My prayer is that all those that are forcefully leaving shall be going away happily, otherwise it might be counterproductive to turn any huge numbers of disgruntled people – who are efficiently and classically will-trained in the science of arms and ammunition, into the market where insecurity dominates.
Besides, the cost of training an officer to the rank of a General in the Nigerian Military is as colossal as it is scaring. One would rather advise for prudent usage of human materials at the point of decision taking for a purpose like this.
Of course, there is nothing wrong if such huge sacrifice of well-trained human materials should be cost of putting a coup plot down, or to bring insecurity to an end in our dearly cherished country.
But if not, then one can only development more hatred for politicians and their political cosmetic window dressing. We should not forget that we are dealing with politicians – albeit, the Nigerian politicians, that ranked as some of the most dangerously deceitful in the whole world.
Conclusion
There could have been a coup plot – thank God we have been told that there was nothing like that. There might as well be nothing like that. However in-between the reality of the truth in-between the former and the latter, which led to why the Tsunami of that quacked those officers away came, we should not forget of Political Signatures at play.
There are lots of turning around over the country. For example, the South-East is boiling with the issue of Gunmen, built around IPOB and ESN, and all eyes are on Mazi Nnamdi Okwu Kanu, without anyone thinking of looping most of the vampire governors, top politicians and other top businessmen from the South-East, who are Principalities and Powers – perpetual members of the predators’ kingdom. And decision from this geopolitical zone on the Nigerian security enterprise helps in monitoring the political pregnancy of 2027.
There are more explosive security decisions coming from Northern Nigeria that Heavenly Angels themselves could be scared dabbling into.
In the North-East, Boko Haram and ISWAP -all Terrorist organisations, as far as this author is concerned, have made a firm return to theatres of war, with likely anchoring of territorial command. Ditto North-West and North-Central, where governmental authority is almost ceding control of command to the nefarious terrorists. But, most worrisome of these dangerous factors is the debate of either to pamper the terrorists with glove hands or to liquidate them at once. And this is a silent debate different elite groups of the Nigerian “dealership” political elite, that parades itself, most unfortunately, in the place of “leadership”, are involved.
Then, the votes that could deliver the rightful candidate to the Aso Rock Villa in 2027, remains another “Thunderbolt” of the present equation, in distribution of men and materials – ala carte General Christopher Musa and his likes. Could it be that General Christopher Musa and his co-travellers, became pawns in the game of chess, controlled by Rulers of Darkness within the Nigerian territorial space? It is just a question, please.
The good news here however is that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu – the master political tactician, is in command of this sailing Ship, and because of his political shrewdness, many may want to believe that he understands the body movement of all personae dramatis around him, and most importantly, he is actually supervising the uploading of data into the navigational system of the Ship, in preparation for safe delivery of the 2027 pregnancy.
It is just the way the Nigerian political juggernaut’s cookie crumbles.
Godwin Etakibuebu; a Veteran Journalist, wrote from Lagos.
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