The Untold Story Of General Bola Tinubu And His New Friends

It still comes as a surprise to some enlightened political actors that President Bola Tinubu is the first commander-in-chief since the advent of the Fourth Republic not to have a retired military officer in his cabinet.

Under him, the subordination of the military to the democratic structures of the state has been effectively entrenched.

All the ministers appointed in the Ministry of Defence are bloody civilians with political ascendancy over the military top brass.

Even more, for the first time since 1993, President Tinubu has appointed a substantive National Security Adviser from outside the military.

The last time that a non-military officer occupied that position in a substantive position was in 1993 when Ismaila Gwarzo served as NSA during the Ernest Shonekan interregnum.

It could be suggested by some that President Tinubu’s seeming aversion to the retired military brass may be a function of his upbringing in the pro-democracy struggle.

Tinubu’s exertions along with others against military rule have been well chronicled in the chapters documenting the fight for democracy in Nigeria.

Indeed, it is for his role that many in NADECO and Afenifere, maybe to their regret now, bent backward to position him as governor of Lagos State at the advent of democracy in 1999.

It is also explained that it was because of his efforts that otherwise defenders of democracy like Professor Wole Soyinka who were quick to rebuke President and Mrs Goodluck Jonathan have kept mum in the face of even more salacious slips of the Tinubu presidency.

Indeed, instead of patronizing the fabled military politicians, sometimes described as the owners of Nigeria has mostly ignored them.

Tinubu as governor and even after has mostly put a distance to the ‘owners of Nigeria’ positioned in Abeokuta, Minna, Zamfara, and the Taraba Hills.

He confronted them with his civilian troops, grabbed the power and is now running with it!

It is significant that beyond ignoring the ‘owners of Nigeria’ President Tinubu appears determined to consign them to the footnotes of history. If not, what could have explained the loud silence from the Tinubu Presidency when President Olusegun Obasanjo marked his birthday earlier this month?

Indeed, it is thought in some circles that President Tinubu’s legendary clashes with President Obasanjo may have been on account of the latter’s military credentials.

So it is against this background of the assumed antipathy towards retired military officers that we now observe the recent filial solidarity between the Tinubu presidency and the military.

First, was the president’s look away as the military embarked on a scorched earth policy in Okuama, Delta State.

While the gruesome murder of the 17 officers and men of the Nigerian Army has been globally condemned, the president appears to be looking the other way as his men in uniform permanently char the landscape of Okuama.

According to reports, many innocent lives have been lost in the army’s retribution on the populace despite the claim by the top brass that they know those who committed the gruesome murders.

It is wrenching that it is under a commander-in-chief with glorious accolades in the camp of the pro-democracy movement that we are witnessing the saddening violations of human and democratic rights in Okuama.

President Tinubu must call the military to order and allow an open inquiry into what led to the unpardonable killing of the officers and men of the army in Okuama.

Also, the inquiry should encapsulate the apparent declaration of martial law in Delta State to the extent that the Chief Security Officer of the State, that is, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, was barred by the military from a part of his state.

A second sign of a new perspective in President Tinubu’s attitude to the military was his physical presence at the burial of the slain officers. That presence has gone further to show the cord between the Tinubu presidency and the military.

Suffice it to say that under his predecessor, several military burials were done in Abuja but President Muhammadu Buhari simply stayed away. Even when the man he appointed army chief, Lt Gen Ibrahim Attahiru was killed in an air crash along with other officers and buried in Abuja, President Buhari maybe thought it beneath him to honour the deceased with his physical presence.

Tinubu’s gesture, including the national honours and scholarships to the children of the deceased officers, is commendable. Even in the midst of the sombre occasion of the military funeral, the president appeared able to muscle laughter with his declaration that the scholarship should also cover the unborn children of the slain military officers!

The apparent warming of hearts between President Tinubu and the military undoubtedly bears a tinge of the global supremacy of the military-industrial complex that is commonplace in democracies and dictatorships.

That the military is increasingly showing crass disregard for democratic rights was not just shown in Okuama, but also in the abduction and imprisonment of Segun Olatunji, editor of the online newspaper, FirstNews.

The shocking account of how he was abducted, forcefully detained, and maltreated while in detention bears echoes of the times of the Sani Abacha dictatorship. It is ironic that one of the legends of the fight against Sani Abacha’s inhumane administration with the name, Bola Tinubu is now president.

It is a pity that under him the same orgy of violence against the civil class is being perpetuated.

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