A BRAVE SOLDIER IS A DEAD SOLDIER

  I thought that I would never again come to have the kind of feeling that I have right now, I thought that with the coming of the third republic and the coming into power of a democratically elected government in Nigeria, I would never come to feel like a bloody civilian again in my life, an acronym the military often used to humiliate those of us who are not uniformed like them in those agonizing years of military rule.

  Then, to those of us who do not understand most of the barbaric reactions in some of our officers, who do not understand why they are very swift to use their guns rather than their mouths especially when dialogue appear to be the very best bet, we are immediately called bloody civilians to remind us of our limitations and to somewhat make us understand that the military is a peculiar race whose activities cannot be understood by the uninitiated, bloody civilians.

  I did not understand why a rare gem and an intellectual phenomenon like Mamman Vatsa should have to die in the hands of those who are his childhood friends and military men like him but neither did I understand why Mamman Vatsa would plot a coup against his very friends and colleagues, I did not understand why the military would kill the very best pilot it has at the time, Squadron leader Martin Olufolorunso Luther, despite the American government plea to spare the life of such a well trained Pilot but then I did not understand why the best Nigerian pilot would involve himself in a coup to overthrow his government, knowing that the punishment for that is death. Well, maybe they are right in saying that I am a bloody civilian and just cannot understand their modus operandi.

  Today, the Nigerian military has sentenced 12 young Nigerian officers it sent to fight the Boko Haram without adequate arms and proper feeding to death for mutiny against their commanding officer. The young officers went wild, accusing their commanding officers of inadequate military, logistics and food provisions necessary to enable them match the enemy. It was alleged that some colleagues of theirs were killed under a sabotaging situation they related to the deliberate irresponsibility of their superior officers and out of that annoyance of losing their colleagues they were said to have carried out a mutiny in which they fired shots at their commanding officer´s vehicle.

  I have watched video footages of shabbily armed Nigerian soldiers fighting against a better equipped Boko Haram at some point of this war on terror, which means that these young officers had some justification for their reactions….. Oh, did I say justification? Pardon my effrontery; I am sure speaking from a bloody civilian point of view.  What is surprising, is that the Nigerian government has not dared to sentence any captured Boko Haram fighter to death since the very first one was captured up till date despite the atrocities they committed on our nation and our citizens, but the Nigerian army will be swift to kill those whose erroneous actions and overzealousness did not result in the death of anybody.

  As a bloody civilian, I want to plead on behalf of these innocent and young Nigerian officers, I do not think that they deserve death for their actions, they did not refuse to defend their nation, they only asked that their nation rise to its responsibility of providing them with the necessary equipments to carry out their duties in the most optimum condition. Long live the federal republic of Nigeria.