Nyesom Wike and Lieutenant Yerima – Concerning Chains of Command (CCC)
By: Deji Yesufu
One does not need a prophet or a doctor to reach the conclusion that all is not well with public service in Nigeria. If you get sick in this country, the first port of call for most Nigerians is private hospitals. If you need anything done expressly, productively, and intelligently, you do not go to public institutions in Nigeria; rather, you employ private hands. Many public institutions now operate something they call a “PPP” – Public-Private Partnership. In these contracts, private entities invest in public institutions, and reach an agreement that the private company will recover its investments with profit, while the public institutions have the opportunity to function and provide services to people. This article will not attempt to examine the problems with public institutions in Nigeria. Rather, I hope to extricate one element within the Nigerian civil service and show that as long as there is no working chain of command in public life, there can be no country.
What occasioned all these was the spectacle that greeted the whole world a few days ago. Nyesom Wike, the minister for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, is seen in a video confronting Lieutenant Yerima of the Nigerian Navy over the ownership of a land in Abuja. It is obvious that this land belongs to a senior naval officer, who has only recently been retired by the Bola Tinubu government. But this officer might have acquired this land, and also instructed his “boys” to ensure that no one trespasses on the land. There has obviously been an earlier encounter on that same land between officials of the Federal Capital City and the Navy. Minister Wike had believed that if he came to the land with the full force of his personality and the weight of officials from his office, the soldiers on that site would be intimidated and would give in. On the other hand, it was obvious that the soldiers were ready for a fight. Wike is seen confronting the young man, calling him a fool, and demanding that he get his way immediately. The boy is unmoved. And his response, “… I am not a fool, sir…” has since made him a hero before many Nigerians. Minister Wike is clearly portrayed as the villain in this matter. But things are not always black and white – especially for those of us who have history etched on our minds.
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A few weeks before he was assassinated, Lt. Col. Victor Banjo wrote his boss, Major General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, a letter, where he reminded his superior of the reason why the chain of command is sacred in the military, and why it must not be desecrated. Banjo had been arrested on the 16th of January, 1966, as part of those who planned the coup that had eliminated the leaders of Nigeria the previous day. Banjo was arrested by two officers in the military while he waited in the ante-room to Ironsi’s office. He had come to see his boss. The officers who arrested Banjo were his juniors. But they arrested him merely by wielding weapons at him. Banjo said in that letter that the chain of command in the military was not a divine instruction, but rather something founded on years of tested tradition. He then predicted that if he could very easily be arrested by junior officers, there was nothing stopping another junior officer from arresting Ironsi himself with a gun. Banjo was trying to show that authority should not be wielded merely with weapons (or uniform, as the case was with Lieutenant Yerima), but through the chain of command. That is why, a few days after Ironsi’s death, when Brigadier Ogundipe ordered a junior officer of northern extraction, and the latter ignored him, Ogundipe went into hiding immediately. The authority of a man emanates from his office and not from weapons. What then is the chain of command within Nigerian public office?
One of the biggest problems with the average Nigerian mind is the fact that we have lived for too long under the oppressive rule of the military, and very few Nigerians understand the role of the military in the Nigerian national life anymore. It appears that Nigerians think the military is doing us a favor by staying away from government. In fact, there are metrics that show that the Nigerian military is practically untouchable. This is why, after that unfortunate squabble between Wike and Yerima, retired Gen. Tukur Burutai issued a statement lampooning Wike and saying that his actions threaten national security. It is no longer news that people in the Nigerian military are kept at bay, and kept from returning to ruling Nigeria by a political class that “settles” them. One of these means of settlement is giving many people in the military unfettered access to landed property. To the extent that no one questions ownership of those lands, as long as the owner is “an officer”. If we manage to remove Wike’s rumbustiousness from that scene, what happened that day is a clear violation of the chain of command.
The Nigerian military is a group of men, although possessing arms and ammunition, who are themselves servants of the civil populace. The civil populace has elected men and women into government, and also invested these people with constituted authority. It means that people in public office have authority over every person within that public space, including the military. Minister Wike does not need the endorsement and approval of President Tinubu to access a landed property within Abuja, where he is the Minister. As Minister of the FCT, Wike is practically the governing authority in Abuja. The only person his authority does not cover is the president who appointed him to office. What I saw in that video was not a bold, handsome, and young military officer; what I saw was Brigadier Ogundipe of 1966 being replayed again. What I saw was a northern military hegemony that is bent on clipping the wings of a constitutionally appointed government official. What I saw was disdain for authority and a silent protest against the way and manner persons of southern extraction were using power in the North. It is not surprising that a thing like this will happen only weeks after news of a potential coup against the Tinubu government had just reached Nigerians. When the names of those being investigated in the coup were listed, all of them were from the core north of this country. If Nigerians think that July 29th, 1966, cannot repeat itself again, they should think again. Regardless of who Minister Wike is, the fact remains that his office allows him access to any space within the FCT. That he needed to storm that land with the weight of his office, and in person, was already a detraction to his authority. And that a young officer, a mere lieutenant, will disobey his orders and nothing happens, is not a good sign at all.
Let me conclude with a balance: Minister Wike has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. It is no longer a secret what he did in Rivers State to secure Bola Tinubu’s win in the presidential elections of 2023. It is also not a secret that his appointment as Minister of the FCT is a kind of “settlement” for what he did for the APC in that year’s election. In fact, Wike has become the means of not just helping the APC win elections but also destabilizing other political groups – like the PDP, where he is still a member. I make this point to show that authority or command does not always stand on constitutional pronouncements; they also hinge on moral standing. The Bola Tinubu government cannot run roughshod over constitutional provisions in this country and then turn back to stand on the same constitution to derive its authority from it. A man’s moral strength, the fact that he has done everything well, many times, stands as the basis for his command or authority. When a man has no morality, he will require the whole weight of his office to implement a command, and he will be humbled by a mere junior officer in the military. All is not well with Nigeria, and those who have the ability to pray should ask God for help. If the government of Bola Tinubu is overthrown by unhappy northern military officers, this country may never recover from the confusion that will follow. We have managed to keep the military in the barracks for 26 years. We should do everything to ensure they never return to government.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at [email protected]
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