1. Dilemmas of Civilian Control in a Post-Military State: Interpreting recent
developments in the Nigerian Armed Forces
by
J.’Kayode Fayemi
Centre for Democracy & Development (Lagos & London)
Introduction
Aware of the work that we do at the Centre for Democracy & Development on Civil-
Security Sector relations in Nigeria, we have been inundated with requests to provide
an analysis on the recent exit of General Victor Malu as well as the Navy and Air
Force Chiefs, Victor Ombu and Ibrahim Mahmud Alfa and the implications for stable
civil-military relations. What was responsible for this “unexpected” development?
Did the service chiefs leave or were they pushed? Were the “resignations accepted”
because this was a mutually beneficial face saving way out of crisis? Was it the
outcome of a failed coup attempt? Was it just a routine decision blown out of all
proportion by the media? Or a pre-emptive strike against Babangida’s rumoured plan
to come back to office in which Malu and his colleagues were seen as pawns in
Babangida’s political chessboard? Was it the government’s belated response to
Malu’s claim at the Oputa Commission that he was loyal to all his political bosses and
proud to have served under General Abacha? Or could it just have been a case of
repeated acts of insubordination to the political authority that required an immediate
and decisive response.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, these reasons have been given in isolation and in
combination as having the explanatory strength for the exit of the service chiefs.
While some of the reasons can be subjected to rigorous scrutiny and objective
analysis, the views linking this exit to a failed or an attempted coup and the one
deriving an explanatory power from Babangida’s ubiquity in every design really have
no basis in fact. Not only do these conjectures ignore the balance of forces in the
military, which is significantly tilted in favour of “constitutionalists” (and I count the
three service chiefs amongst the constitutionalists), they also ignore the almost total
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2. control of the intelligence services by people personally loyal to the President.
Underestimated also is the opposition among ordinary Nigerians and the international
community to a military overthrow of government in spite of the growing
disillusionment with the performance of this government. Babangida may be involved
in many harebrained ideas, but people should also credit him with some intelligence
and self-interest not to engage his time in any puerile stoking of the fires of dissension
in the military even if he has the capacity to do so, as his detractors and admirers seem
to believe. Although General Malu is a very popular officer like General Musharaff of
Pakistan, Nigeria of 2001 is no Pakistan of 1999. Perhaps, President Shagari could not
have done this but it hardly merits a mention that the only reason why President
Obasanjo could remove three service chiefs in one fell swoop and replace them was
precisely because he is in charge and the military is not what it used to be. The
objective of this article therefore is to go beyond the media frenzy, trace the genesis of
the problem, establish what happened in as dispassionate a manner as possible,
examine the implications and make projections into the future.
Background to Service chiefs’ exit
In interpreting threats to any ruling authority and explaining the variables responsible
for any particular decision, it is important to caution ourselves as less emotionally
involved outsiders that we do not possess the same information as those in closer
proximity to decision making and therefore bound to assess things differently. Since
threats are neither a product of mechanical causality or technical accuracy identifiable
by all, threat perception in unstable polities hinges more on an inference rather than
tangible evidence. This is especially so in a country like Nigeria where national
security and regime survival are intertwined, a factor which makes analysis a very
selective process as a result of which the peculiar mindset of the perceiver, in terms of
his receptivity to threatening acts or information becomes a key determinant in the
decision making process. The consequence is that a certain level of over-reaction or
under-estimation develops on the part of the ruling elite, as threat perception becomes
driven by often opaque, fragmentary and even contradictory pieces of information.
Yet, even though the personality of a perceiver, like President Obasanjo, is key, it
should also be possible to delineate tangible situational factors – factors that have
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3. exacerbated problems of military disengagement from politics, clear internal political
pressures and the untoward influence of certain international actors. Viewed from
these perspectives, our contention is that it is possible to examine the relationship
between the armed forces and the civilian, political authorities in the last twenty-four
months and reach some definite conclusions about the nature and dynamics of the
relationship and what led to the exit of the military chiefs.
From the evidence available, it seems obvious that the Service chiefs did not resign
their positions in spite of claims to the contrary by the Secretary to the Government.
Barely two months ago, one of the affected Generals stated in response to a question
about his possible retirement that he still had at least two years to go having only
served 33 of his mandatory 35 years as a public servant with no blemish on his service
record (Tempo, March 8, 2001). This was not a statement borne out of any intention
to call it quits, although it would appear as though it was deliberately made to pre-
empt any official explanation of his almost inevitable ‘resignation’ as untrue given his
open criticisms of government’s treatment of the armed forces. Nigerian newspapers
have also reported that until the day they were relieved of their service positions, the
two other service chiefs were still arranging appointments entirely oblivious of any
plans to leave office. (The Guardian, April 25, 2001).
This style of announcing departures from government as voluntary resignations is not
at variance with President Obasanjo’s pattern of disposing of senior public officials
whose services are no longer required. One of the Ministers disposed of in the last
cabinet reshuffle was informed of his fate at the regular breakfast prayer session on
the day he was sacked. In the previous reshuffle, one Minister heard news of his
‘resignation’ convalescing in a hospital after surgery. Although several departing
Ministers who insisted that they did not resign their posts have challenged the
President about the veracity of such claims in the past, he has ignored this and
continued to be less than forthright about the situation of senior public officials
leaving his government. Of course, it is arguable that since these were appointed,
rather than elected officials, the President is not obliged to fully account for their
removal beyond what he chooses to say no matter how economical he is with the
truth. Yet for a president whose watchword is transparency and honesty, the manner
of official removal also goes to show the extent of the government’s commitment and
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4. fidelity to its own transparency and accountability credo. A situation where Ministers
and Service Chiefs’ receive little or no notice of their removal and the public is left to
speculate about the reasons for the sack neither promotes efficiency of government
nor trust and confidence in it by the people.
On the media’s description of the President’s step as an “unexpected surprise”, keen
watchers of the deteriorating relationship between the military leadership (especially
the army) and the political leadership over the last twenty months would not have
seen this as surprising nor shocking in the least. What was surprising is that it took
this long to happen (at least in the case of the Army chief) who seemed to have been
the main target of the President’s action. The fact that the other service chiefs were
caught in the cross fire between a domineering president and a strong-willed army
chief came as a surprise as well, but this is not to suggest that they haven’t had their
difficulties with the executive branch of government.1 It would appear though that
sacking them alongside the army chief was just a way of cushioning the effect of
removing a popular army chief without unsettling a restive military. The fact that the
Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Ibrahim Ogohi is still in post underscores the
personality dimension of this frosty relationship.
To reduce this to a clash of personalities, however, is to miss the dilemma faced by
both the president and his army chief. At stake has been the fundamental issue of
governance in the security sector and how civilian and military leaders handle policy
differences between them. As well, it is about the extent to which professional
autonomy is recognised by civilian control of the military. Equally central to the
debate is the limits of objective civilian control that is not democratic. One can
identify at least four concrete areas, separate and sometimes intertwined in which
policy differences between the Presidency and the military have manifested
themselves in civilian control of the military sector, namely – (a) Role and Mission of
the military based on a shared understanding of the threat environment; (b)
Government’s commitment to military professionalism; (c) Professional autonomy
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The Air Chief, for example, has been involved in the controversial claims by an Abuja based medical
doctor kinsman of his (Dr Abalaka) regarding the discovery of a cure for HIV/AIDs. He is believed to
have given full backing to the claim and the presidency was not very pleased with this conflict of
interest on his part. Additionally, while the two have never gone public with their views, they have also
expressed serious concerns about the direction of military re-professionalisation programme under the
new dispensation.
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5. over military matters; and (d) Role of international players in the military & security
sectors.
The key issues at stake
a) Role and Mission of the Military – A Military mission gives an indication of
the threat a nation must deal with and its location in relation to that threat. Is it
internal, external or both? A ‘missionless’ military obviously poses a great danger in
relation to its primary role as a defender of the nation’s territorial integrity and it is
really the responsibility of the civilian, political leadership to define the role of the
military after due consultation with all stakeholders in society, including the military.
Grranted this is not always a determination based on an ‘objective’ assessment of the
threat environment, but given the stated commitment of the new administration to a
professional military, the military had hoped that the exercise in search of military
mission in the immediate aftermath of a discredited era would be subjected to a
measure of professional assessment. Instead, it appeared that the political leadership
came prepared with its own pre-conceived notions about what to do with a military
that carries a lot of negative baggage and it felt the solution was to reduce its size
arbitrarily without any objective assessment of the threat environment and the
capability of the institution.
Although it later balked at this original intention to reduce the size of the military and
the president even publicly disagreed with his Defence Minister that such a decision
was taken, there is still a strong perception within the military that various actions
taken were driven by a desire to tame the institution. In spite of these initial
misgivings, the military leadership went embraced the new administration’s declared
commitment to professionalism enthusiastically. This was partly due to the quality of
the military leadership and the recognition on their part that reforms were not only
desirable, but also essential following years of decay. But they soon felt disappointed
by the continued lack of clarity over the mission of the military. Whilst many,
including the army chief, believe that the military mission should be restricted to an
external, combat role such as peace-keeping as a means of strengthening civil-military
relations and re-orienting it towards a more professional outlook, security chiefs like
the National Security Adviser, insist that internal security operations is a
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6. constitutional duty “in terms of suppressing insurrection and acting in aid of civil
authorities to restore order when called upon to do so by the President”(Section 217 c
of the 1999 Constitution).
For many of the officers keen on redeeming the battered image of their profession, a
focus on the external with a clearly defined role and mission in peacekeeping is
critical to removing the military from politically tainted projects internally. The
involvement of the military in Odi, Bayelsa State in November 1999 brought this into
clear relief and these officers argued that if the military must get involved in internal
security operations, proper criteria would need to be drawn up for evaluating their
involvement in such non-combat operations. Not a few of these officers saw the plan
therefore to start a new division dedicated to oil protection at a time that the same
government was keen on size reduction at best a confusing move deeply suspicious
move to get the military embroiled in political issues.
Although the government has since returned to earlier suggestions to have a defence
review that would guide steps taken in the security sector, by setting up a committee
headed by Major General Enahoro to revise the country’s defence policy with a view
to clarifying military role and mission, the ownership of the process of defence review
remains questionable and the issue of military mission remains unclear.
(b) Commitment to Military professionalism: The lack of clarity about the role
and mission of the military has affected the direction of the re-professionalisation
agenda. Critical to the re-professionalisation of the armed forces as far as the military
was concerned is the ability of the State to provide efficient and well functioning
institutions and infrastructures and an enabling environment for their constitutional
tasks to be accomplished. General Victor Malu aptly captured the feeling of his
colleagues in The Tempo interview:
“Having come out of very many years of neglect because of our
mismanagement, we expected that the civilian government was going to
address issues…Unfortunately, from June 1999 to date, we haven’t got
anything meaningful to assist us in the process of professionalisation. Our
training institutions have not improved, the training aids with which we
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7. conduct the training to reprofessionalise have not been provided; the situation
in the barracks has not changed; as a matter of fact, it has deteriorated…we did
not get anything done last year by way of capital projects and we thought these
were the things we were supposed to do if we are going to improve on our
well being to keep busy in the act of re-professionalising…”
While General Malu’s views above reflect the feeling of despondency both within the
military hierarchy and the rank and file, it is hardly fair to blame the civilian
government for the years of neglect in the military; even less so to expect the
President and his team to change this anomaly in two years. What the political
leadership can be blamed for is the lack of shared understanding about the problem
and the lack of ownership of the re-professionalisation process even by the elected
representatives of the people. The feeling is rife within the military as it is in civil
society that the life of the average Nigerian has not improved in the last two years of
civilian governance. Unlike in civil society however, where these things are
expressed daily in the public domain, they have simmered underneath the surface in
the military, partly due to the nature of the institution but mainly due to the military’s
credibility deficit with the Nigerian people who blame all soldiers for the mess the
country is in. Hence, his military constituents saw an Army Chief who raised these
difficulties publicly as a breath of fresh air, a step which inevitably put him at
loggerheads with his political masters.
Yet, this is not a dilemma faced only by the new civilian government in Nigeria.
Indeed, the transition to democracy in the last decade has presented African countries
in particular with two critical challenges on the important issue of creating a
professional army: on the one hand, that of establishing an effective and accountable
military, capable of protecting the security of the state and its citizens, and on the
other, that of establishing effective civilian oversight of the armed forces and security
agencies. The problem for such governments therefore is often how to find the
necessary balance between allowing the military to fully discharge its duties by
providing it with the necessary resources and also ensuring that civilian rather than
democratic control of military activities is maintained. Given the faustian bargains
that had been struck with the military in the quest for a civilian dispensation in
Nigeria, the room for democratic and consensus driven oversight of military activities
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8. had also been foreclosed. Hence, the ideas of Aso rock had largely become the ruling
ideas with no alternative mechanism for ensuring balance. Even when the legislators
in the Defence and Security Committees of the National Assembly argued for a major
improvement programme for military barracks and military equipment, there has been
limited means of enforcing their concern for these issues if the executive branch does
not share it. This disdain for accountability by the executive branch was helped by
the widespread notion in the country that the president’s background in the military
had equipped him with sufficient expertise to deal with security issues in a manner
that can hardly be challenged. The danger was that it also encouraged unnecessary
dabbling into issues of strictly professional nature by over-zealous presidential aides.
c) Ensuring professional autonomy over military matters and relationship with
the Defence Ministry: Perhaps one of the most critical fallouts of the above tension
with regards to re-professionalisation has been that of ensuring professional autonomy
over military matters. The military leadership is of the view, and rightly so that the
political leadership must respect professional autonomy in spite of the temptation to
want to display an all-knowing ubiquity in their responsibility for broad policy
decisions over military matters. In their view, while it is appropriate for their political
masters to set the framework for issues such as size, shape, organisation, force
structure, weapons procurement and conditions of service on the one hand, it is
inappropriate for the presidency or the Ministry of Defence to also want to take
operational control over these strategic issues. To the military leaders, even if the final
decision is with the political leadership, success can only come in a climate of
sustained dialogue and interaction between the civilian, political leadership and the
military leadership. Unfortunately, for much of the last two years, the well-respected
political leadership in the Ministry, General Danjuma, has not paid sustained attention
to these issues due to failing health and his erstwhile affable deputy, Dupe Adelaja, is
not seen to be in charge even though she works very hard. Instead, there is a strong
but hardly substantiated claim that the Ministry is run by the Minister’s Special
Assistant who is not accountable to any political authority except his boss. The fact
that the Minister’s Special Assistant has no military background is seen to be a major
problem for someone with allegedly limited knowledge of military issues.
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9. While the mistaken notion that civilians have no business in military operational
matters is rife in the military, and the civilian bureaucracy in the Ministry of Defence
is seen to be largely deficient, it is also true that the military generally respects
civilians who they are convinced take sufficient steps to understand the institution
even if you are not a flag-waver for their cause. As General Malu claims in his Tempo
interview, “Just because you’re in the Ministry of Defence doesn’t mean you know
exactly how the military operates”. The irony of course is that the connection is not
often made by the same officers that this is the effect of the deliberate policy of
populating the Ministry with soldiers when the military was in power. Even, middle
ranking positions, which should have been held by civilians, were turned into staff
offices for undeployable but politically connected officers who refused to go to the
field. Indeed, throughout the period the military was in power, not only were civilians
working in the MoD employed independently by the various services, (hardly the
feature in other ministries where they were centrally recruited) at least 90% of the
civilian staff belonged to the junior grade. Even the less than 10% in professional
grade played no crucial role in defence policy deliberations, thus creating a vacuum in
the knowledge base of civilians about the military.
Having acknowledged the fact that military involvement in politics has undermined
military professionalism, it also ought to be stated that respecting the professional
autonomy of the military in a civilian dispensation should not mean abdication of
responsibility on the part of the civilian, political leadership. This is one of the
paradoxes of the arguments for objective civilian control. While objective civilian
control allows the military to concentrate on military matters and minimise its
involvement in political issues, the logic of it also delimits civilian control over
military matters. Hence, when layers of civilian bureaucracy are imposed on the
military, it seems clear that this is bound to generate tensions no matter how well
intentioned the idea might be. Although it is too early to judge whether the new
structure of service ministers superimposed over the coordinated structure of national
defence is working, it is not difficult to see that it would exacerbate unresolved
tensions within the Ministry of Defence. Not only will it further undermine the
platform of the Chief of Defence Staff meant to coordinate the activities of the
services – already diminished by General Malu’s seeming disrespect for the occupant,
it also actively promotes inter-service rivalries as each Minister pushes the case of his
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10. or her service rather than enhance a common understanding of the role and mission of
the armed forces.
(d) The place of foreign advisers in the military re-professionalisation programme:
Although all of the issues raised above are central to the disagreement between the
military and the executive branch of government, they pale into insignificance when
the involvement of foreign advisers in the re-professionalisaion programme enters the
debate. And yet this disagreement is not so much about involvement of foreign
advisers per se. The Nigerian military is not new to bi-lateral military cooperation
agreements. After all, it is the product of a colonial army, the British set up the Army
and the Navy, the Germans set up the air force and the premier training institution,
Nigerian Defence Academy was established with the assistance of the Indians. The
problem this time is about the nature and extent of that involvement of external
agents.
Although there were various options open to the administration on coming to power,
the administration in its wisdom decided to engage the services of a foreign private
concern of retired military officers known to have close connections to the
government of the United States in the re-professionalisation programme. The
organization, Military Professionals Resources Incorporated (MPRI), describes itself
as a "professional Services Company that provides private sector leader development
and training and military-related contracting and consulting in the US and
international defense markets". It has been involved in military training, weapons
procurement and advisory services in Croatia, Saudi Arabia and Angola before
winning the US government supported contract to be involved in Nigeria. In 1999,
MPRI undertook on behalf of the US Department of Defense and USAID Office of
Transition Initiatives an 8 - person, 120 day assessment mission aimed at developing
"an action plan to integrate a reformed military establishment into a new civilian
contexf”. In the course of the assessment mission in the country, it also ran a series of
workshops on civil military relations for senior military officers, civilians and various
armed formations across the country. Since completing the initial assessment, it has
signed a new contract "The Transition-Civil Military Program for Nigeria" which
focuses on three key areas - a) Military reform; b) Creation and development of new
civilian institutions for civil-military affairs; and, (c) Support for de-militarisation of
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11. society.
No doubt, all of the above constitute areas in which support can be rendered to the
Nigerian military, as long as local ownership is not jeopardised and this involvement
is under the purview of the legislature and the professional military, not just the
president and the Minister of Defence. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.
MPRI has become a permanent fixture in the Ministry of Defence with an office and
full complement of staff. Apart from the undisguised opposition of the military
professionals to MPRI’s unrestricted access, MPRI’s belief that models of civil
military relations from a different social-cultural context can be transferred into
another context wholesale is seen to be more problematic. Since this is also a pattern
that Nigerians have become familiar with in other fields of government – the seeming
dependency on foreigners for assistance even where local expertise will do - General
Malu’s public criticism of the need to “protect our nation” struck the right chord with
even people such as Gani Fawehinmi and others not known for their endorsement of
anything coming from the military. General Malu went to great lengths in his
interview with Tempo to explain his opposition to the involvement of MPRI and the
Ford Bragg team:
We are a sovereign nation and we should protect our national interest. I don’t
think it’s the duty of any foreign country to tell us what our defence policy or
what our strategic policy or those things that can only be determined by
Nigerians should be…
…Part of the misunderstanding we had with the Americans coming to train us
was that they wanted to train us in the rudimentary art of soldiering. We
objected to that because we are an army of well-trained soldiers and seasoned
officers that lack logistics…
Unfortunately, General Malu lost this media war. The fact that his position on foreign
involvement can hardly be faulted was damaged by his seeming endorsement of the
atrocities committed under General Abacha at the public hearings of the Oputa
Commission and for this, the media pilloried him to no end. Although the president is
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12. not unaware of the argument about the potentially negative role of a private American
organisation that is not even accountable to its own government nor Congress
directing the re-professionalisation of the Nigerian military, it was important to him
that his position prevailed over the military leadership’s stance in favour of abrogating
the MPRI contract if civilian control is to endure. Whilst he did not concede to a
wholesale review of the contract, he was not opposed to ‘diluting’ the American
involvement by inviting bi-lateral actors by key players such as the British Military
Advisory Training Team (BMATT) or the South Africans with which a Defence
protocol was recently signed.
What enraged President Obasanjo would appear to be the manner of General Malu’s
use of the media flank, which was construed as an open insurbordination clearly
meant to challenge his authority. Although he realised that many of the issues raised
are serious even if he has refused to admit this in public, his position became akin to
President Truman’s when General Douglas Macarthur, as Commander of the US &
UN forces in Korea publicly criticised the limited nature of the war efforts, continued
with the war into China and jeopardised the delicate negotiations in Korea. Realising
how popular Macarthur was with his troops and the republican dominated Congress,
Truman still went ahead and relieved Macarthur of his Command position. In the
same vein, President Obasanjo was absolutely correct to have relieved General Malu
of his job. If he hadn’t done so, he would have risked a military institution ridden with
insurbordination and disloyalty to him as an embodiment of the State. Indeed, my
own view is that General Malu had calculated the risk involved in what he was doing
and felt sufficiently determined to sacrifice his military career on the altar of insisting
on a professional principle. It would have been unprofessional of him to raise these
concerns publicly if he wasn’t ready to leave the job. Indeed, those who know him
insist that he resorted to speaking to the media because his private pleas in the past
year have largely gone unheeded.
By bringing these issues to the public domain, it is also my view that General Malu
deserves commendation rather than abuse even as he deserves to lose his position.
General Malu has clearly helped civil society in general by ensuring that military
issues do not remain in the dark recesses of the executive branch of government by
raising the stakes in the media. By this, he has raised a fundamental issue of
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13. accountability of the political leadership to the citizens even as the political leadership
demands the accountability and subordination of the military. This is the silver lining
that has come out of this event and society must not allow this opportunity to be lost.
Which way forward for military reform?
It is tempting to think that the removal of General Malu and the two other service
chiefs will improve civilian control of the military and security establishments and
enhance military professionalism. It is also tempting to treat the symptom of external
involvement as the cause of the crisis of military professionalism. The truth is that
none of this would happen if there is no structured and sober response to the valid
points contained in General Malu’s critique. Indeed, the new service chiefs will face
the same problems with the political leaders if military reform does not address the
germane issues raised above nor will it address the dilemma of a post-military
government in search of a fool proof anti-coup strategy. The challenge that still has to
be dealt with is how to ensure not only civilian oversight, but also democratic control
of our military and security establishments whilst at the same time equipping them to
competently discharge their duties in defence of the nation?
The crucial point to make is that civilian control should not be seen as a set of
technical and administrative arrangements that automatically flow from every post
military transition. It must be seen as part of complex political processes, which must
address the root causes of militarism in society, beyond the formal removal of the
military from political power. While formal mechanisms of control are not in
themselves wrong, the reality underpinning the crisis of governance in Nigeria is the
fact that subordination of the armed forces to civil control can only be achieved when
civil control is seen as part of a democratic struggle that goes beyond obeying
presidential orders, but one that ensues accountability to the rest of society.
The conclusion this leads to therefore is that what we need is not just civilian, but also
democratic control of the security sector (including the military) and this can only be
fully addressed through a range of measures – ensuring comprehensive constitutional
dimensions of democratic oversight of security sector activities; redefining the role
and mission of the military, developing a civilian, security sector expertise; ensuring
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14. professional autonomy over military matters and recognising the holistic nature of
human security in terms of ensuring freedom from fear and want and not just absence
of war and societal violence. By encouraging further public debate on our security
sector in an issue oriented manner - as the government embarks on its constitution
review road show around the country – we would be giving voice to the voiceless and
taking the views of ordinary Nigerians on security and military reform into account.
Let us seize the moment!
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