IRIN Focus on restiveness in the security forces

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] LAGOS, 13 March (IRIN) - There was tension in Nigeria in the week leading up to 11 March. A group calling itself the Armed Forces and Police Patriotic Front of Nigeria had threatened "revolution". In widely circulated leaflets, it had asked the lower ranks of the armed forces and the police to start an indefinite strike on Monday to protest alleged neglect by the authorities. In letters to embassies, the group had urged diplomats to leave the country before 5 March for their safety. "While no harm is intended for any foreigner," the letters said, "we are going to withdraw security men from all services on or before 10 March, thereby creating a vacuum that could be used by hoodlums to commit heinous crimes." The government urged diplomatic missions and the public to ignore the threats, but evidently took them seriously. Using a carrot-and-stick approach, the authorities ensured that 11 March passed uneventfully. A few days to the appointed date, President Olusegun Obasanjo replaced the top brass of the police force instructing their successors to reform the police and address the concerns of the lower ranks. The army, for its part, reminded soldiers of the dire implications of going on strike. "The army as a regimental institution does not encourage and allow unionism," Major General Okon Eket Okon, commander of the elite 2nd Mechanised Division, told his soldiers. Anyone who participated in a strike "would be tried for mutiny and the penalty is death". At the same time the military authorities promised that everything would be done to meet the welfare needs of armed forces personnel. Late in January, a group calling itself the National Union of Policemen (NUP) had issued similar threats to press demands for the payment of overdue allowances. Senior police officials dismissed the threats on the grounds that the statutes that established the armed and security services did not allow policemen to strike. However, on 1 February, police in 14 of Nigeria's 36 states withdrew their services for the first time in the country's history. Banks in Lagos and other cities were forced to close their doors since there were no security personnel to guard them. Fear gripped the public, which felt exceptionally vulnerable at a time of increasing violent crime. The government reacted by saying the strike was a "mutiny" and deploying soldiers to perform police duties. By the next day, the strikers were back at work. More than 153 police officers were dismissed for their alleged role in the strike, but the unprecedented action appeared to achieve immediate results. Obasanjo ordered the immediate release of four billion naira (US $35 million) for the payment of the outstanding allowances. More than 3,500 policemen have been promoted, including some who had held the same rank for up to 15 years. The concessions won by the policemen apparently encouraged them to ask for more, prompting members of other security forces to press their own demands. In addition to the armed forces, the prison services have also threatened to strike. While the problems in the security forces date from the decade and a half of military rule that preceded Obasanjo's government, it is widely believed that he has been slow to act. Critics cite as an example a fire that broke out on 27 January at an army base in Lagos, setting off massive explosions that resulted in the death of over 1,000 people. About a year before, a parliamentary committee on defence and security had visited the depot and alerted the military authorities to the dangers it posed. However, nothing was done before disaster struck. When Obasanjo visited the military base a day after the explosions, angry soldiers engaged him in altercations. When Vice-President Atiku Abubakar visited it two days later, soldiers stoned his motorcade. Less than one week later, the police went on strike. Government officials have alleged that certain subversive elements were taking advantage of the difficulties Obasanjo inherited to foment trouble and prepare grounds for the return of military rule. There have been reports in local newspapers suggesting that the munitions depot disaster resulted from sabotage. "Those who have threatened to make Nigeria ungovernable ... must be very clearly told that never again will Nigerians tolerate a return to the dark and oppressive days of dictatorship," Minister of Information Jerry Gana said last week. The country's most senior military officer, Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Ibrahim Ogohi, felt compelled to issue a statement reaffirming the military's loyalty to Obasanjo. "The Armed Forces after several years of disastrous involvement in political government and the havoc it wreaked on [military] professionalism has resolved since 1999 never to be involved in political governance," Ogohi said. "The various programmes put in place for re-professionalising the armed forces have been in full gear and there is no going back to the dark days of military government." Most Nigerians seem to have developed a distaste for military rule. Indeed military misrule is blamed not only for the sorry state of the country's economy, but also for creating the widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the nation that has found expression in ethnic, religious and communal conflicts in the past three years. "That Nigerians are not ready to countenance further military rule is not in doubt," a political analyst Okey Onyekwere told IRIN. "But that doesn't mean there are no adventurers in the military foolhardy enough to try to seize power. And if they do at a time many of the component nationalities are restive, it could be a recipe for the country's disintegration." [end]