Children as coup plotters

The Nigerian police routinely outcompete themselves in absurdities, but the arraignment of 30 children last week in Abuja by the police for allegedly plotting a coup to topple the Bola Tinubu administration was the lowest point the police has ever sunk to.

It is the biggest embarrassment and ridicule this country has been thrown into in decades and I think that the IGP should apologise for humiliating the country before the international community. The children are among the 70 people brought to court last Friday, charged with treason and inciting a military coup after they took part in the protests last August.

Aged between 12 and 16, they were arrested in different parts of Northern Nigeria, and incarcerated in Abuja in a terrible detention centre, something that didn’t happen even under Gen. Abacha. We all know how Abacha was unbelievably cruel, but he never locked away children to starve them to death. The police authorities should be ashamed of themselves for perpetrating such a heinous abuse of minors.

At the Abuja high court, the kids looked famished, emaciated, tormented and traumatized. Four of them even fainted, forcing the presiding judge, Justice Obiora Egwuatu, who was visibly alarmed and irritated at the sight of the young, famished and sickly boys, to adjourn sitting abruptly. On resumption of sitting, the court adjourned the case till January. If those kids are detained till January in the same conditions, a few of them will not come out alive. The scene at the court was despicable, a throwback to what might have happened in Idi Amin’s Uganda.

The prosecution counsel, Audu Garba, told the court that the four kids were rushed outside because there was no space in the courtroom for all of the accused persons. He lied. However, the judge insisted that space should be created for all of them as he wanted them all in the courtroom. The prosecution then proceeded to ask the court to strike out the names of the sick defendants and discharge them pending when they are well enough to stand trial. But the defence counsel, Marshall Abubarkar, asked the court to discharge and acquit them.

The court eventually discharged the four sick children – Umar Yunusa; Usman Suraju; Musa Isiyaku and Abdul Ganiyu – pending when they recover and admitted the rest of the kids on stringent bail conditions. I’m shocked that this is happening in Nigeria under President Bola Tinubu, who was once a pro-democracy activist. The outrage across the country reflects our overall shock and disbelief.

I am relieved that the Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, has asked the police for the case file, possibly to intervene and set the children free. But does it mean that the AGF was not aware of the fate of these kids all this while? If these children had died, who would have held the police responsible? Who regulates the activities of the police?

A week earlier, the government had accused The Guardian newspaper of inciting the military to take over the government. In a press statement issued on Saturday, October 26, Bayo Onanuga, the President’s spokesman, said the paper’s lead story published the previous day, ‘’openly incites unrest against President Bola Tinubu and advocates regime change under the guise of journalism’’.

He argued that ‘’The Guardian’s agenda is unmistakable from the cover illustration to the article. In attempting to create a balanced veneer, the author condemns military rule while fanning the flames of military intervention’’. The paper had in its Friday lead story published a lengthy feature article in which it reported that faced with a harsh cost-of-living crisis, Nigerians have resorted to extreme measures, including calling for military coups. The Guardian has launched a robust rebuttal to the government’s allegation.

But why is the Tinubu administration so obsessed with the fear of a military coup? Why does the government seem to harbour a phobia for coups despite repeated assurances from the Defence Headquarters that the military will never be involved in an unconstitutional change of government? There are two theories that can explain this. One, by frequently accusing the opposition of coup-baiting, the government wants us to live in fear and silence, weaken critics and frighten civil society. Second, the effect of a terrible experience.

Between President Tinubu and Bayo Onanuga, there could be something in the past that triggered an irrational dread for the military coups. Both men were very active in the pro-democracy struggle of the 1990s. The former was a journalist while the latter was initially a politician and later a pro-democracy activist. In 1995, Onanuga’s colleague at The News magazine, Kunle Ajibade, was jailed for life by the Abacha junta for the story the magazine published. Tinubu and many other activists had fled into exile overseas, and those who did not leave the country were murdered by the junta’s snipers. After Abacha’s death in 1998, Tinubu returned, contested the election and was elected Lagos state governor in 1999.

He then picked a young police officer, Kayode Egbetokun as his chief security officer and ADC. Upon taking office last year, the president appointed Egbetokun as the IGP and Onanuga as the spokesman. Psychologists believe that past traumatic or negative experiences can have long-lasting impacts on our behaviours and outlook on life. This is known as ‘’Negativity Bias’’ in psychology and could be the reason Onanuga and Egbetokun are obsessing about coups. Dr. Eric Nass, a clinical psychologist in Belmont, Massachusetts, has done extensive work on how anxiety, traumatic experiences and fear negatively impact the ability of leaders to make informed decisions.

I should also note that both Presidents Obasanjo and Buhari also lived through terrible experiences during the military era. So, why did they not publicly display symptoms of anxiety and fear of coups? Buhari in particular was constantly demonized in the press and called all sorts of names, but I can’t remember Femi Adeshina issuing press statements claiming that a newspaper was engaged in ‘’coup baiting’’. What is different now? Any psychologist around?

Etim is a journalist and author