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Masters & Slaves

September 30, 1998

Lagos - A section of Nigeria ignores the nation's ethnic and religious pluralism and sensibilities, as its representatives hijack all the strategic posts in the land. WILSON UWUJAREN paints the complete portrait of the inequitable sharing of the national cake

General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Nigeria's military head of state is clearly the man of the moment. A week of globe trotting, in which he rubbed shoulders with some of the most powerful political leaders in the Western Hemisphere, has shot his confidence to bursting limit.

In a reciprocal gesture, Abubakar has also invited the United States President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister, Tony Blair to be guests of his government on 29 May, 1999 when a democratically elected civilian administration will be sworn in. The gesture is Abubakar's clearest indication that his transition programme is for real. Abubakar is certainly enjoying the best moment of his third month At the helms as Nigeria's head of state. At home and abroad, he is the toast of most people having steered the country away from the precipice and replaced the hopelessness of the dark days of Abacha with the promise of a democratic future. Abubakar has virtually bowled Nigerians over. Some want to give him the benefit of doubt. But the long absence of the military from the barracks since December 1983 creates a lot of doubts in some quartersabout the promised retreat.

"A few officers who have held political appointment have become so rich and lived so affluently that I cannot begin to see how they will accept or adjust to the rustic barrack life," a political analyst told Tempo.

This fear and the structure of the military itself in which the preponderance of its officer corps comes from one geo-political area triggered recent calls for the restructuring of the military and the Nigerian federation.

The call has taken various forms. While some protagonists prefer the establishment of regional armies, others are more inclined towards the regionalisation of army commands. These preferences are related. At the heart of the call is the growing resentment about the lopsidedness in the military structure and the role such structure had played, and will continue to play in the political leadership of Nigeria.

At 38, Nigeria is still a political and economic toddler. The hope of a great and prosperous nation sparked at independence on October 1, 1960 has been squandered, some analysts say, through bad leadership and the rapaciousness of the ruling elite. Interestingly, for all the 38 years of sovereign statehood, the military has ruled Nigeria for 28 years.

"We have had 38 years of independence, out of these 38 years, the heads of government have come from the north for 34 years and the military has ruled the country for 28 years . . . and what have we got since independence?" Richard Akinjide, former minister of justice asked in an interview with a Lagos newspaper.

"Each time the nation embarks on a civil democratic experiment and was at the verge of finding its bearing, the military will always intervene through coups. And each time, they have failed to prove that they are better than the civilians they overthrew. The panacea for coups is a restructured military," a former leading light of the defunct United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) told Tempo. Another warns that unless the military is restructured to reflect The geo-political diversity of the country, the 4th Republic is doomed. According to him, "all this hoopla about power shift would come to naught if a southern president emerged at the end of this transition programme only for the northern dominated military to sack it a few months after. How are we sure that a military that found chief MKO Abiola unacceptable will find another Southerner acceptable?" Chief Akinjide said the military had since 1966 "been used as a means of re-ordering political power and that is why there is northern dominance in government as reflected in northern dominance in the military." Not surprisingly, a group of southern political leaders rose from a meeting last week with a communique that was unequivocal about the south's stand on the issue of restructuring the military.

According to the group, "southern leaders believe that restructuring of the polity and of the armed forces and security services is an imperative which must take effect before elections can be held. The structure on the ground now is essentially still the same as that which denied Chief MKO Abiola the exercise of his mandate on account of being a Southerner."

The group urged the Abubakar regime to as a matter of urgency and patriotism, commence the "restructuring of the army into zonal commands, each headed by an indigene of the zones with at least 60 percent officers and men being also indigenes of the zones." Abubakar has declined to address these, deferring them to the incoming Civilian administration.

His stance is creating a disquiet of some sort in the polity, threatening to heat up the calm political waters. Leaders of the Alliance for Democracy such as Chief Abraham Adesanya have thrown their weight behind the calls for the restructuring of the military.

He recently delivered a veiled ultimatum to Gen. Abubakar to restructure the military by December or face a boycott of the transition. This could not be an empty bluff. In fact, Adesanya is underlining the fact that his group does not bluff. If recent antecedents are anything to go by, their call should merit greater attention. Unfortunately, Gen. Abubakar has been unable to adopt a coherent position on the issue of restructuring the military and the federation.

Although, he concedes that there are unresolved issues, Abubakar is pleading limited time to be saddled with the trouble of addressing these knotty issues. He would rather prefer the incoming civilian administration is saddled with that responsibility. This excuse appeared sincere, but some observers were shocked by The arrogance of Abubakar's subsequent dismissal of the claims of imbalance in the officer corps of the military.

Addressing graduating cadets of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) on 19 September in Kaduna, Abubakar called on the young officers to see themselves as officers of a national army and ignore what he called "the retrogressive calls by some Nigerians for regional armies." He had earlier told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that the armed forces have always followed the principle of equal representation of the various groupings during recruitment.

This was an obvious attempt to puncture the arguments of those who claim imbalance in the military. To this group, Gen. Abubakar gave an advice: "For people who are thinking that there is domination in the armed forces, I will advise them to look at the setup of the armed forces to see who is where and who is who." Ironically, such an exercise presents a disturbing picture that rubbishes the image of a national military that Abubakar desperately sought to paint.

In the Nigerian military today, the balance of power clearly favours the northern part of Nigeria. Gen. Abubakar, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces is a Northerner from Minna, Niger State. The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), AVM Amir Daggash is a Northerner too. The Chief of Army Staff, Major-General Ishaya Bamaiyi is from Zuru in Kebbi, another northern state. The Chief of General Staff, Okhai Akhigbe, chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Jubril Ayinla and the Chief of Air Staff, AVM Nsikak Eduok Are Southerners. Southerners have traditionally been Naval chiefs. Admiral Murtala Nyako is the only Northerner to head the Navy. The reverse Is the case in the army, arguably the teeth of the Nigerian military.

Since independence in 1960, Nigeria has produced 14 chiefs of army staff. Of these, 12 have been from the north. The two from the south were Major General David Ejoor who was COAS between February 1972 and July 1975 and Lt. General Alani Akinrinade who led the army from October 1979 to April 1980.

". . . There were northern officers who resented the appointment of a Southerner as chief of army staff," Gen. Ejoor once wrote of his Own appointment. According to him, "since the fall of Ironsi, the north has Maintained absolute control of the army - even Gowon, who could not trust any Of the senior southern officers to be appointed chief of army staff, appointed instead, relatively junior officers like late Joe Akahan and later late Col. Bisalla. Even as late as 1979/80, a southern chief of army staff, Lt. -Gen. Alani Akinrinade served only eight months." Alani Akinrinade was removed as COAS by president Shehu Shagari following pressures from the northern establishment. Gen. Akinrinade was promoted into irrelevance and redundancy as Chief of defence staff while Gen. Jallo took his position as COAS. Nigeria has had eight military heads of state. Six of these are Northerners: Gen. Gowon, Gen. Murtala Mohammed, General Mohammadu Buhari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Gen. Sani Abacha and Gen. A. Abubakar.

The two Southern military officers to be head of state are General Aguiyi Ironsi and General Olusegun Obasanjo. Ironically, the two Ruled for a cumulative period of four years while northern officers are responsible for the remaining 24 years of military rule.

Currently, three of the five General Officers Commanding divisions of the army are Northerners. They are Major-General Abdulahi Sani Moukhtar, GOC 1 Mechanised Division, Kaduna, Major General Peter Sha, GOC 3 Armoured Division, Jos, and Major General Victor Malu, the commandant of the Lagos Garrison Command. Major General Felix Mujakpero, GOC 2 Mechanised division, Ibadan, And Major General Oladayo Poopola, GOC 82 Division, Enugu are from Delta and Oyo States. There is a complete absence of Igbo officers in the top army hierarchy and only recently were two Igbo officers admitted into the Provisional Ruling Council. The prominent Igbo generals, the army has produced since after the civil war, are Major-General Ike Nwachukwu and Cyril Iweze. The former rose to head the prestigious I Mechanised Division, Kaduna as GOC. He achieved this essentially because of a filial connection with the north. Nwachukwu, though an Igbo, has a northern mother.

Ironically, when Nigeria achieved independence in 1960, Igbo officers dominated the officer corps of the army. In fact, at independence, only six of the 31 commissioned officers in the Nigerian army were Northerners. They were Maimalari, Kur, Usman Katsina, Yakubu Gowon, Pam and Largema. Fourteen officers were from the core Igbo states And 4 others from the Igbo speaking parts of Delta State. West had six officers: Adekunle Fajuyi, Banjo, Adeyinka Adebayo, Ogundipe and Ademulegun. The first coup and the reactions it engendered tragically altered The picture of the officer corps of the army. In the coup of January 1966, most of the senior northern officers were killed. The second was the revenge coup of July 1966 that wasted the cream of Igbo officers in the army. The civil war that followed was to finally wipe out what was left Of senior Igbo officers in the army of Nigeria. The Igbo are still to Be re-integrated into the military 28 years after the civil war. Even The Yorubas have not fared better.

Although cleverly disguised, the foregoing scenario leaves no one in doubt as to the paternity of the Nigerian military. There are historical evidence that could help illuminate the state of the Nigerian military today. It is called the Nigerian Army but very Few Nigerians know that the motto of the country's army "Victory is From God alone," which is written in Arabic, is an adaptation from the Flag of Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio, the first Sultan of Sokoto. Not many have stopped to wonder how is it that all Nigerian Soldiers speak Hausa. It is the Lingua Franca of the Nigerian military. It Is not a co-incidence too that the elite military institutions and formations are located in the North. The Nigerian military school is in Zaria. The university town also hosts the Army Depot. The Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA) is in Kaduna. The Command and Staff College is located in Jaji, Kaduna State. The National War College Is in Abuja. Bauchi is base of the Armoured Corps Centre and School. The headquarters of the artillery and infantry corps are in the north. Long before the trend unfolded, the plots had been carefully scripted. The strategy was a product of power speculation by the late Sokoto prince and premier of northern region, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello and his political soul-male, Alhaji Mohammadu Ribadu who was defence minister in the first republic.

The strategy was simple: If the North had the army, they controlled the country. It was a strategy whose effectiveness as a tool for post colonial power struggle within the Nigerian state has been most remarkable. The execution began with the recruitment of northern students into the military academy. At the launching of a book, Power of Knowledge edited by Alhaji Isa Kaita on December 22, 1992 at the Durbar Hotel in Kaduna, Alhaji Maitama Sule told a story of how Alhaji Ribadu went to the military school in Zaria, and the officer in charge, a white man told him some of the students could not continue because they failed. "When he looked at the names, it was either Mohammed, Ibrahim, Abdullahi or Yusuf." Sule said Ribadu was amazed and told the white man, "you don't know what you are doing and because of this you cannot continue to head the school." "I think Shehu Yar'Adua was in the set. You can see, what Shehu Yar'Adua later became in life. This is the power of forward planning," Sule declared. He recalled how Galadima Bida, a junior Defence Minister in the First Republic, went to one of the schools, in Bida, and handpicked some boys for the military. If I look at my right, I would see one of them and if I look at my left, I would see yet another," he said Gen. -Ibrahim Babangida was sitting on Sule's right, while Brigadier-General Aliyu Gusau Mohammed was on his left at the occasion. While northern politicians, traditional and religious leaders were busy visiting schools and recruiting young lads into the military, the South would only recommend the profession to the school drop outs in their midst. It was a mistake. "Anything anybody would want to say about military involvement in government; if you don't have your man at the helm of affairs, you would have been dealt with or you would have been killed", Sule said of the northern strategy. The military has made the primacy of the north in the political affairs of the country possible. It has made up for the region's disadvantage in education, economy and other sectors. Through the region's hold on the military, it has been able to decide the political future of the country exclusively.

It was the northern military which annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election because the winner, Chief Moshood Abiola, was not acceptable to the oligarchy. Although a few senior southern officers remain in the army, they hardly occupy positions of influence. Even those that occupy such positions, do so at the pleasure of the northern military cabal, the system that threw up characters like Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, the former chief security officer, CSO to the late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha who at the peak of his reign even recorded salute from Generals.

The ethnic dominance in the police is also glaring. Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie, the Inspector General of Police is from Katsina State. Alhaji Abubakar Jika, one of the Deputy Inspectors General of Police (DIG) is from the North. Of the 18 Assistant Inspectors General of Police (AIGs) 16 are from the North. Worse still, only 13 of the 39 commissioners of police are Southerners (see box). None of the eight zonal commands of the force is located in the Core Igbo states of Imo, Ebonyi, Abia, Enugu and Anambra. Enugu and Ebonyi are available to the zonal headquarters in Makurdi, Benue State; while Abia and Imo states report to Calabar. The zone five headquarters in Benin-City, Edo State takes care of Anambra. The distribution of key personnel is a far cry from what it used to Be in the recent past. As recently as 1988, Edo State could boast of having at the centre at least three DIGs (Victor Omeben, Fidelis Oyakhilome and Parry Osayande). But not anymore. If this is surprising, the state of affairs in the internal affairs ministry will certainly prick the hearts of the authors of the principle of Federal character as a provision of the federal constitution.

From independence in 1960 till date only one Southerner, Mr. Alex Ibru, has been minister of internal affairs. All the other twenty internal affairs ministers are Northerners (see box). Even when a southerner led, the powers of the office had been seriously emasculated as the key departments under it were transferred to the presidency or other supra-national organisations. Take the passport office for example, of the 19 bureaucrats who Have been Chief Passport Officers of the Federation, only one is a Southerner.

The story is the same at the Nigerian Immigration Service. Since 1966 when Nigerians took over from expatriate personnel as comptroller- general of immigration (as it is now called) only one Southerner has occupied that office. He is J. E. Onubuoju who was at the helms between 1966 and 1967. The other six helmsmen in the department are Northerners (see table). The present Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) paints a similar picture. The incumbent sole administrator of the service, Major-Gen. Samuel Ango is the fourth northerner to head the service. The three others are Alhaji S. A. Musa (1975), Alhaji Abubakar Musa (1982) and Dr. Bello Mohammed (1988-1994). Three southerners, A. Diyan, H. E. Duke and Oyebode Oyeleye have equally led the NCS. If there is another ministry where a particular section of the country has maintained clear dominance, it is defence. Since 1960, Nigeria has produced 14 defence ministers, only one of the lot is from the south. General Olusegun Obasanjo, a former head of state holds the singular distinction of being the only southerner to be defence minister. (see box). In a way, analysts perceive some link between the northern control of the military and its domination of the defence ministry." Defence is a sensitive ministry that is often given to only trusted loyalists of a particular regime.

In fact, many heads of state, including the incumbent, General Abubakar have combined the portfolio with their other jobs. You would not expect a northern military that is distractful of other ethnic nationalities to entrust such a custom sensitive ministry to them," a retired army chief said. The mines and power ministry is also another area in which the geo-ethnic divide in the country is also palpable in the distribution of ministers. There have been 20 different mines and power ministers since 1960. Of this number, 16 are northerners, while four are of southern origin. The picture is even worse in one of the parastatals of the ministry, the National Electric Power Authority Plc. Engr. Dr. A. Banjo who ran the corporation from 1962 to 1963 is, till date, the only Nigerian of southern origin to enjoy such "a privilege," (see table). Only one southerner has ever managed the affairs of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting company. He is the first indigenous chief executive of the company, Mr. A. O. Ekunkunam who was in Charge between 1981 and 1984. Since he left, all the four chief executives that have managed the mints, including the incumbent, S. S. Batta have been from the North. As far as the office of the secretary to the government of the federation is concerned, the last decade has been clearly a northern affair. Since Chief Olu Falae was removed in 1990 as secretary to the federal government, no southerner has been appointed to the office.His successors, Aliyu Mohammed, Aminu Saleh and the incumbent, Gidado Idris are from the North.

On the whole, out of the 13 secretaries to government that the nation has produced, six were southerners (see table). The North and South are tied in the numbers of Central Bank Governors each has produced. From the North are Alhaji Mai Bornu, Mallam Adamu Ciroma and the late Alhaji Abdulkadir Ahmed. Southern CBN Governors include, Mr. Ola vincent, Mr. Clement Isong and the incumbent, Dr. Paul Ogwuma. Information management is one sector in which the south retains commanding influence. Apart from the fact that nearly all the leading national newspapers are located in the south, especially the west, all but two of the information ministers the country has produced since 1960 are southerners.

The only northern information ministers are Major-General I. B. M. Haruna who was commissioner in the Murtala-Mohammed regime and Professor Jerry Gana who was Abacha's first choice as information minister. Analysts attribute the concentration of media organs in the south to the region's head start in education and the intellectual atmosphere which have provided a solid base for the information industry to blossom. However, beneath the seeming southern monopoly of the information sector is a fact that most people are either oblivious of or have elected to over look. It is the complete domination of the senior managerial position in most federal government owned media established by northern technocrats. While Dr. John Nwodo (Junior) currently supervises the information ministry as minister, the Directors General of the Voice of Nigeria, (VON), News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), New Nigerian Newspaper (NNN) and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) are all northerners. They are Mallam Yaya Abubakar, Mallam Wada Mai, Dr. Abubakar Abdul Rasheed and Alhaji AbdulRahman Michika, respectively. Only the sole administrator of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc, Mr. Peter Enahoro is a southerner. Like the information ministry, the judiciary is another area where The south for many decades held the ace. Until 1997 when the late General Sani Abacha appointed Abdulahi Ibrahim, a northerner from Kogi state as the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, all the 10 Justice Ministers (see box) came from the south. While that tradition lasted, analysts said it was not considered abnormal because of the abundance of legal expertise and personnel in the south. In terms of the number of lawyers, the experience of the Bar and the concentration of courts (both magistrate and high courts, and appeal courts), the south and the north are many years apart. As further evidence of this gap in legal education, while the north produced its first Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) in the early 1990s, the title has almost lost its prestige in the south concerning the many lawyers who parade the title as suffixes to their names. Being a late comer to the legal profession, the north had to live with the dominance for decades. But the years of tolerance seems to be over. Under the regimes of General Ibrahim Babangida and Gen. Sani Abacha, the north has left few in doubt as to its determination not only to catch up with the south, but to dominate affairs on the bench at the federal level. Out of the 12 Supreme Court Justices at the apex court under IBB, nine were from the north (see table). Of the three from the south, two were from the east and one from the west. At a point during the Abacha regime, both the chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Mohammed Bello, the president of the court of appeal, Justice Mamman Nasir and the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Babatunde Belgore were all northerners.

This picture has not been radically altered by the retirement of Justice Bello and Justice Nassir. The relay of Northern jurists has simply continued with Justice Bello passing the baton on to Justice Mohammed Uwais. Northern domination of the Bench, insiders say is assured by a strategy that ensures the appointment of judges of northern origin, whose retirement days are far into the future, into courts like the appeal court or the supreme court. "It is not impossible to find a northern supreme court judge who is in his late 40s or early 50s. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to find a southerner who is even in his 40s in the same court. The result is that the young northern judge rises and eventually becomes chief justice while his southern counterpart who is often times older and more experienced, than the chief justice gets retired before it is his turn to head the court," a source said. The foundation for the complete northern take over of the judiciary which was laid by IBB was consummated by the Abacha regime with the appointment of Abdullahi Ibrahim, the North's first Senior Advocate as Nigeria's first Attorney-General and Minister of Justice from the region. The re-appointment of Ibrahim into the same portfolio by the Gen. Abubakar regime has further rubbed in the fact that the office of the Attorney General of the federation has finally been cornered by the North. It is not only offices that have been appropriated by the northern establishment. The late Gen. Abacha also supervised the transfer of some of the legal infrastructure in the south to the north.

The apex court, the Supreme Court has shifted base from Lagos to Abuja. While this is understandable in view of the status of the city as Nigeria's new capital, the same cannot be said of the relocation of the Nigeria Law School from Victoria Island in Lagos to Abuja. The movement was clearly ill-advised. At the time the late dictator ordered the relocation, there were no facilities in Abuja, prompting the trustees of the school to peg its intake at 1,500 law graduates who must have left the university with a minimum of a second class (lower) degree. Just as the judiciary has fallen into the hand of the north, the lucrative Petroleum Resources Minister has also been taken over by The North. Although Special Adviser on Petroleum Affairs promised by the head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar has not been appointed, there is no ambiguity as to who calls the shot in the dollar-soaked ministry. With the abolition of the Petroleum Resources ministry by the Abubakar regime, the head of state now takes personal charge of Petroleum matters. Interestingly too, the two powerful technocrats in the industry whose advice will form the basis for any oil industry decision by the head of state are themselves northerners. They are the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engr. Dalhatu Bayero, a Kano prince and the permanent secretary for Petroleum Resources, Alhaji Kashim Hashim. For an industry which is largely southern-based, this picture is shocking.
To be continued!

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