The Army’s nationwide operation raises more questions
than it provides answers despite Nigeria’s struggle with insecurity.
There’s something that sounds immediately sinister about the
Nigerian Army’s “Operation Python Dance” simply because of its code
name.
Of course, the Army always tries to
downplay the first impression the name creates to ease tensions about
its intentions, and that makes sense. The code name is originally
derived from Exercise Egwu Eke, an Igbo phrase. This is because the
operation was first launched in the southeast region in 2016 to combat
criminal activities like armed robbery and kidnapping.
The most prominent reason “Operation Python
Dance” rings a very loud bell in Nigeria today is because of its very
controversial status in the southeast region especially when it returned
for a second run in 2017, code named Exercise Egwu Eke II or Operation
Python Dance II.
The exercise, used as training for troops,
gained widespread notoriety after soldiers of the Nigerian Army were
involved in well-publicised clashes with members of separatist group,
the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and its controversial leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
Soon after the commencement of the exercise in
2017, soldiers publicly clashed with IPOB members with the group
alleging that dozens of its members were killed in a crackdown that
lasted over a week and ended in the disappearance of Kanu before he
later resurfaced in 2018.
IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, was believed to have been kept in Army
custody when he first disappeared, but he resurfaced in Israel after
over a year
In the course of that week, soldiers also
attacked the Abia State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists
(NUJ) in Umuahia, assaulting a national union officer and damaging
laptops, phones, as well as other valuables in the building. Their
crime? Someone was taking photographs of troops from inside the building.
Over
a year since Operation Python Dance II, the Army is relaunching the
exercise for a third run (Operation Python Dance III); only this time,
it will be conducted everywhere across all six geopolitical zones in the
country.
During a flag off ceremony on Friday, December 28, the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Tukur Buratai, represented by the Army’s Chief of Training and Operations, Major-General Lamidi Adeosun,
announced that the exercise will run from January 1 to February 28,
2018 as a fulfillment of the Army’s mandate to conduct internal security
operations in the country to combat criminality and other security
challenges.
More crucially, Maj.-Gen Adeosun noted that
the exercise aims to ensure that law and order is maintained as the
nation approaches the 2019 general elections.
He said, “As the build up to the 2019
general elections gathers momentum, an upsurge of security challenges
such as stockpiling of arms by criminal groups, formation of ethnic
militias and violence induced by political activities has been observed.
“These challenges coupled with other
security threats across the country such as terrorism, militancy,
kidnapping and banditry portend that dissident groups and criminal
elements could cash in on the situation to perpetrate large scale
violence before, during and after the 2019 general elections.”
Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Tukur Buratai [Facebook/HQ Nigerian Army]
Why does a military training exercise aimed at
combating criminal activities across the country hold troubling
possibilities? Well, to begin with, public trust in the Nigerian Army is
characteristically low.
During a series of protests by hundreds of members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN)
in October, soldiers applied lethal force and opened fired on
demonstrators, killing around 50 people and injuring dozens. Even though
the Army only admitted to killing six while also claiming that soldiers
acted with utmost responsibility, several video evidence of the clashes
on social media have proven its claims to be largely false.
The Army’s conduct with those protesters and
its conduct during Operation Python Dance II in the southeast and during
many of its engagement with civilian populations don’t exactly fill
anyone with confidence about a large-scale military operation in the
country, especially during an election year.
There have been complaints, most especially in
2018, about how stretched the Army is with troops being deployed
several times in civilian areas mostly to battle criminal activities
that are best (or, at least, should be) handled by the Nigeria Police
Force.
Further stretching troops to combat “an
upsurge of security challenges”, even in parts of the country that are
not troubled, begs for more convincing answers than preventing possible
election-related troubles.
This is particularly puzzling since the Army
has recently suffered damaging losses against terrorist group, Boko
Haram, in the northeast region that has been troubled for nearly 10
years, with the group’s insurgency leaving tens of thousands dead and
millions displaced.
Why is the Army broadly applying a military
operation to cover peaceful locations in the country when it could more
properly focus attention on critical conflict zones?
The crux of the fears surrounding Operation Python Dance III rests squarely at the door of politics.
The main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has criticised the exercise as a ploy by the ruling government to intimidate voters and rig the 2019 presidential election.
“Our nation is a democratic state and we
are not in a state of emergency that requires the militarisation of our
electoral process,” an official statement read.
For all of the brash shooting from the hip
that the PDP has been engaging in as an opposition party, its position
on the true import of Operation Python Dance III is clearly the same as
the position of an impartial observer of the exercise.
With President Muhammadu Buhari,
a former military Head of State, at the helm, military moves tend to be
placed under more scrutiny than the usual; and Operation Python Dance
III is one of such that should raise eyebrows.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s past as a military dictator has brought extra scrutiny on his command of the Nigerian Army
Nigeria, as a democratic state, does not have
an overwhelming security problem that should trigger a military
operation on the scale of Operation Python Dance III.
And the fact that it covers the period of
high-stakes elections already set to be contentious makes it all the
more worrying about what the results might be.
The only silver lining to hope for with
Operation Python Dance III is that it means Nigeria will most likely not
experience the same wanton blood-filled start to 2019 as it did in
2018.
On that note, while Nigerians will hope that
the exercise bears fruits for the nation with no costly drawbacks, the
fears about the true intentions behind Operation Python Dance III will
remain, for good reasons.
Happy militarised New Year, Nigeria.