In spite of widespread condemnation of Operation Python Dance II in the South East, it has been reported that the Military has declared that it would not only continue the operation in the South East but that Operation Crocodile would be launched in the South West and South South.
The Constitution excludes the military from maintaining law and order in that constitutionally, maintenance of law and order is the function of the police, except when the police asks for assistance through the order of Mr President. The Constitution limits the role of the armed forces, including the Army, to RESTORATION of law and order, and at the invitation of the President. Rightly or wrongly, our courts have established that by constitutional provisions, for Mr President to involve the military in civil governance, the sanction of the National Assembly is required. That was the holding of the Tribunal that decided the petition of the APC against PDP in the 2014 gubernatorial election in Ekiti State, which is a reiteration of previously established principle in other cases. That holding/principle was not upturned on appeal as the court found that the IGP and the Chief of Army Staff who were the 4th and 5th Respondents were not proper parties in an election petition. According to the Tribunal, even "in the event of insurrection or insurgency, the call on the Armed Forces to RESTORE order MUST be with approval of the National Assembly...as provided in section 217(2) (c) and 218(4) of the Constitution as amended."
In his intervention on operation Python Dance II in the South East (even where there is no insurrection), Femi Falana, SAN, has also cited the case of Yussuf v Obasanjo (2005) 18 NWLR (Pt 956) 96 where the Court of Appeal held that "It is up to the police to protect our nascent democracy and not the military, otherwise the democracy might be wittingly or unwittingly militarized. This is not what the citizenry bargained for in wrestling power from the military in 1999. Conscious step or steps should be taken to civilianize the polity to ensure the survival and sustenance of democracy". Therefore, the military Python Dance II operations in the South East and the threatened Operation Crocodile in the South West and South South should stop. It is not the only undemocratic, it is also unconstitutional. It offends our sensibilities. It is an affront on our psyche. As Ebun Olu Adegboruwa puts it, pythons (as well as Crocodile) belong to the forest. Let the military carry out its operations in the forest. Let operation Python Dance and operation Crocodile be taken to the murderous segments of the herdsmen and Boko Haram insurgents in Sambisa Forest. The military operations (operation python dance and operation Crocodile) are nothing but execution of military coup against civil authorities to achieve undisclosed or hidden political agenda of undemocratic forces. We did not resist military dictatorship to be foisted with a diarchy of civilian-military political regime. We reject it. Nigeria is not under military dictatorship. Nigeria must remain a society under a predetermined Constitution and rule of law, not a society governed by the whims and caprices of an unelected cabal hiding behind the military. The armed forces, including the military, do not own Nigeria. Nigerians collectively own the armed forces and the armed forces must carry out their operations subject to the wellbeing and respect for the democratic rights of the people.
Femi Aborisade.
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