50th Year Of Military Jubilee In Our National Life

Today 15th January makes it 50-years our brothers in UNIFORM struck to be part of our national life. They truncated our nascent democracy with the hope of taking us to a greater level of prosperity.

The event that happened on 15th January, 1966 did not end easily as it led to counter coup and later resulted to civil war.

Many said we don't need to look back since we cannot reinvent the past. But it is a common saying that those who fails to understand the past will be doomed to relive it.

Before anybody get us wrong, we are not praying for the military to come back.

Our Uniformed brothers came to power when Nigeria was just 5years and few months. We cannot but mention them in our history as they have accounted for 50% of our national life. They created States to polarise our diversity and put up constitution for us.

Many are saying Military era was better than civilian days. Let us ask from India and Pakistan who became independence same day to tell us their stories. Till today the latter has not recovered from impact of the military. One thing is certain, if our democracy has been allowed to grow we would have been better than this.

Here is the big question, who are the military? They are Nigerians like everyone of us so why are we referring to them as aliens.

Surprisingly, since 1999 those people we are referring to as Military have dropped their kakhi for Agbada. They are stakeholders in our today politics that many are celebrating. Thus, they still dominate our politics from Local to Federal levels.

Since 1999 we have been having retired military officers as Chairmen, Governors and Presidents with the current one being of one of the beneficiaries. So what has changed? They are just changing faces.

Here is our stand, since they have come back in another regalia they should take us back to true federalism and stop this feeding bottle system.

Happy Armed Forces Remembrance Day.
Good Governance Advocates