LEWIS OBI 08173446632 sms only [email protected]
AN American Army chief finding his route obstructed by a crowd of Evangelical Christians in any American city, especially the southern states, would stop and ask for a right of way. The likelihood is that those who control the crowd would create a corridor to get the Army boss to be on his way. It wouldn’t take three minutes. But in the rare circumstance of his being refused, the American Army chief would smile, crack a joke, and ask the pilot car to turn. It won’t take three minutes, either. At the back of his mind is “the Evangelicals are not the enemy; al Queda, the Taliban and the Caliphate are.”
The Nigerian Army chief, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, did the same on Saturday 12th December in his encounter with the Islamic Movement of Nigeria also known as the Shi’ites. He stopped and asked for right of way. He was refused. The general then failed to promptly take the next natural decision, crack a joke, and ask the pilot car to turn. After all, the Shi’ites are not the enemy; Boko Haram is. It wouldn’t have taken three minutes. That’s the first judgment failure on the part of General Buratai.
He was hurrying for his appointment with the Emir of Zauzzau. Yes. But even if he was delayed 10 minutes by the detour, the Emir would understand, knowing the Shi’ites and their processions.
An American army chief has not been born who would remotely contemplate bulldozing his convoy through an Evangelical throng which may be out on a crusade, a revival, or deliverance or a passion tide procession. Religious events tend to attract oversize crowds, Christian or Muslim, (ask Lagosians about ‘Redeemed’ on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway) and these crowds spill into the streets and other public spaces sometimes.
But when Gen. Buratai acted the juggernaut, it meant that the Nigerian Army has turned its guns on fellow citizens whom the army has a duty to protect and defend.
I remember in primary school the story of the excited English boy: “I’ve done what Napoleon could not do. I turned back the Duke of Wellington!” Well, truly, he turned back the great duke who had just returned from the 1815 Waterloo campaigns at which he defeated Napoleon. The boy had his father’s instruction not to let anyone ride through the grounds. The Duke and his party arrived and the boy refused to budge. The bemused duke cracked a joke and turned.
Gen. Buratai is not Duke of Wellington. Not even close. The Duke would have turned had he encountered the Shi’ites. Because Gen. Buratai refused to turn, his convoy left a heap of corpses in its trail as it rode to its destination. The Army returned to cart away the bodies, apparently to hide the crime, but, alas, some of the images were already in the Internet.
A US army chief would never do what Buratai and his party did in Zaria, even by accident, but if he (American) did, he would call the secretary of defense an hour or two later to tender his resignation. If he was as naïve or as presumptuous not to quit, he knows that as surely as the day follows the night on Sunday morning the secretary of defense would call to ask him to hand over to his second-in-command.
The Army’s version of the incidents is fascinating. The Shi’ites, it said, had tried to assassinate the Army chief – with stones and machetes. The Shi’ites had committed the unforgivable crime of blocking a public roadway. The lot fell on the Army to protect public interest using the rules of engagement.
But no matter how the Army spins this incident, the duties of the departments of government are constitutionally assigned to a large extent. Even a lay man like me knows that the Constitution did not assign the duty of controlling local, city, and municipal traffic to the Army. It belongs to the Zaria Local Government to punish anyone obstructing traffic in its area of authority.
And under which law is the obstruction of public roadways punishable by summary execution by firing squads? And when Amnesty International writes up the Nigerian Army in unflattering language and threatens to file a report with the International Criminal Court, our colony of pseudo-patriots will resume their usual flag waving to defend an Army that constantly acts as if it has lost sight of its mission.
A US county would not beg the Islamic Movement of Nigeria to stop obstructing traffic. It would send citations, with such hefty fines which would instantly get the attention of the movement. If the fines are not paid, after a while they will double as in Washington DC where they double in 30 days.
If the Islamic Movement is judged a ‘serial violator’ for blocking roadways, the Zaria City Council could, for instance, impose a fine of N2,000 on each Shi’ite every six hours he or she is committing that offence which amounts to N8,000 fine per day. If the annual “Arba’een symbolic trek” takes four days, that totals N32,000 for each. The police would protect the procession and document the count with pictures and videos. If the police reported 5,000 trekkers, that’s N160 million right there for the Zaria City Council. If the movement fails to pay in time, the city doubles the fine and after a reasonable wait, the city should go to court to recover the fines, the costs and the interests.
That way, each year, the movement makes a provision for N160 million to cover the municipal costs of its traffic obstruction. That’s what I imagine Americans would do in the circumstance, and that’s how the rule of law works. It’s fair to everyone.
Now, let’s for the sake of argument grant that Gen Buratai and his convoy ‘boys’ lost their cool and opened fire in anger on the Shi’ites for obstructing their commander’s movement. If this spur of the moment killings are justified (and they are not) how can anyone explain the return of the Army a few hours later to demolish and burn the house of the Shi’ite Leader Sheikh Ibraheem ZakZaky, a man the Army killed his three grown sons and 34 others precisely 17 months ago? They did not stop there, they moved against the Shi’ites’ headquarters which they also destroyed.
They also destroyed another Shi’ite location and in all these places they killed as they destroyed. I don’t know how Gen. Buratai finds the conscience to continue as Army chief or how the minister of defense and the President let him stay. Speaks volumes.
Originally published 19th December 2015