Civil Military Relations in a Post-Colonial State: An Interrogation of Nigeria’s Military Internal Operations

Abstract

The current corps of Nigerian army are products of top tertiary military and policy institutions. They have demonstrated their prowess internationally , especially, in peace keeping and peace enforcement. Forty-four years (44 yrs) after the Nigerian Afro-Beat Maestro (Fela) sang, “…they leave sorrow, tears and blood…” , the Nigerian army is still riveted in gross human rights abuses. Recently, it is competing with Boko Haram on who comes first on the list of International Criminal Court’s (ICC) human rights abuses. Given that the army is trained to use maximum force and the fact that post-colonial states’ crises, especially in Africa , and specifically Nigeria are internal. There has been the debate on the establishment of medium force outfit in Nigeria, which led to the establishment and subsequent disbandment of National Guard in the 1990s. The debate continued to rage in this Fourth Industrial Revolution era. But the cost implication of running such a paramilitary outfit has posed a major hindrance. To fill this gap, this paper joins the debate and argues for the establishment of an Army Constabulary Corp (ACC), a medium force between the army maximum force and the police minimum force. The paper uses the Feaver Agency theory of civil military relation as its theoretical framework. The study collated data through documentary methods. In analysing the data, the qualitative data were transcribed, interpreted, and analysed through systematic logical inductions.