Democratic Crescendo: Lagbaja Inspires Soldiers To Protect And Uphold National Values

This culture of arrogance is demonstrated in the response to the recent arrest of a soldier, who was rightly apprehended for violating the ‘one-way’ regulation (facing oncoming traffic) by Sanwo-Olu on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway.

Going online, a soldier accused Sanwo-Olu of overstepping his bounds by arresting the lawless soldier, saying the governor had no right to arrest a soldier since the military was not under the control of any state governor, and especially in front of a military barracks. This is nonsense. The law is no respecter of anybody.

Shockingly, he added that the governor was “behaving like a tout” while attempting to stop people from plying the one-way route and that if he were in the shoes of his colleague, he would disobey the governor’s reprimand, defend himself, if necessary, but obey his senior officers. Other suspected military officers followed suit, dousing the polity with vitriol.

Although the COAS has doused tensions by saying the offender had been arrested, while disassociating the military from those online comments, Nigerians await decisive actions that will deter other soldiers from their anti-democratic conduct.

For now, many soldiers still ride roughshod over the citizens. They act tyrannically at will. In December, soldiers allegedly assaulted an Assistant Superintendent of Police, Edet Inyang, for parking his car close to their barracks in Asaba, Delta State. This is unacceptable. Soldiers are not a court of law that will mete out punishment for a parking violation.

While Nigeria’s chequered history saw the military rule the country for 29 years, creating a privileged force with untrammelled political power, its activities within Nigeria’s fraught federalism further embolden non-compliance to scrutiny and oversight.