We’ll not truncate democracy because Nigerians prefer it - COAS

The Chief of Army Staff, Taoreed Lagbaja, on Wednesday, March 6, 2024 said the army will not truncate democracy because Nigerians prefer democratic rule to the military junta.

“The armed forces of Nigeria, particularly the Nigerian Army, has come to terms with the country’s choice of democracy as the preferred system of governance,” Mr Lagbaja said at the 5th annual seminar on career timing and management held at Abuja.

Mr Lagbaja said the Nigerian Army is an agent of democracy and would always defend the Nigerian Constitution.

“We are, therefore, agents of democracy and have no desire to truncate it,” Mr Lagbaja said. “The Nigerian army will continue to defend our constitution.”

Earlier in February, President Bola Tinubu, at the Diamond Jubilee of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in Kaduna, urged the Nigerian Army to shun actions that could truncate Nigeria’s democracy.

Nigerian Army, Mr Tinubu said, “must shun any acts that are inimical to the well-being of our nation and acts which can destroy the gains of democracy which we have enjoyed in the last 20 years.”

In recent times, Africa has witnessed a wave of coup d’états truncating democratic governments in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Sudan, and most recently, Niger Republic and Gabon.

From 1966 to 1993, Nigeria experienced several coups, excused by military regimes on widespread corruption, electoral fraud and violence, poverty, and insecurity.

Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 and has enjoyed stable democracy since then.