By Joy Babayeju
United Nations distinguished service award-winning former Commander of African Union Mission in Darfur, Sudan (AMIS), retired Major-General Collins Remy Ugo Ihekire, has vehemently condemned calls by anti-democratic elements for military take-over of government from the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration.
The Elder Statesman and a Vice Chairman of the United Igbo Elders Council and also a member of Ogbako Ndigbo Nile (Worldwide) was visibly upset by the recent call for military takeover by protesters.
“I vehemently condemn in the strongest terms, the irresponsible, ill-advised, ill-motivated calls by anti-democratic elements who do not mean well for a united, equitable, just and democratically administered Nigeria, for military take-over of government from the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration under the guise of the current protests in the country”
Those were the words of the visibly agitated former Executive Secretary of Niger Basin Authority in Niamey, Niger Republic, in an exclusive interview with National Newsblast Newspaper in reaction to what he termed “brazen desperation to destabilize the country and return her to the dark days of military misrule that put the country in dire straits”
Ihekire who is the Chairman of Retired Army, Navy and Air Force Officers Association of Nigeria (RANAO), Imo State Chapter and who hails from Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State, said, “Nobody in his right senses would prescribe military rule because the military rules with dictatorship that cannot be accountable to the people. Any government that can not be accountable to the people is not a government of the people by the people for the people. ”
Said he, “History has shown that military rule in Nigeria was divisive, thereby creating ethnic, religious and geopolitical acrimony between the federating units in the nation.”
He cited the case of state creation in the country, saying, “Since independence, State creation in the country has been done only by the military regimes with disregard for federal democratic procedures in furtherance of unpatriotic interests. The iceing on the cake of the abbreviation of federalism was the creation of local governments for the states”
He stressed that “Nigeria is facing challenges that can only be resolved by a democratically elected government with the political will to effect the needed socioeconomic and political restructuring.”
The member of the Elder Statesmen Council queried, “Did you rate the last administration of Buhari, which was in reality a quasi military regime? Have you asked what all the billions of dollars borrowed by the Muhammad Buhari government during his eight years in office were used for? Have you bothered to check whether the projects funded with the borrowed money were equitably distributed across the regions of the country as dictated by the principles of democratic federalism? If you have checked and discovered anomalies, do you not think the wrongs will be better righted by democratic means than by military fiat?”
He submitted, “If you asked me, I would subscribe to the position that, for Nigeria, the worst democratic government is better than the best military rule any day. The bane of the Nigerian polity has been military interventions. The current faulty 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was formulated by the military devoid of democratic inputs from the people, which is a glaring example.”
Ihekire further queried, “How can you be shouting that your problem is a faulty Constitution foisted on you by the military and now that you have a democratically elected government with the political will to effect desired amendments to the same faulty document via democratic means in the National Assembly, you start contemplating military takeover? Is that not a dangerous signal that something is wrong with those advocating for military take-over? Is that not a signal that you can not survive in a democratically sanitized environment?”
He concluded, “The only reasonable alternative scenario is that you are sane but averse to a democratically administered polity for obvious anti-democratic ulterior motives or agenda.”
He warned against returning Nigeria to the horrific 1966 scenario by destroying the gains of democracy since the birth of the Fourth Republic via military take-over.
