The document discusses the debate around military recruitment in Nigeria. It summarizes that while the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has raised concerns about ethnic biases in recruitment, the military's focus should be on combat effectiveness. However, Nigeria's recruitment has historically been plagued by political and ethnic favoritism that has undermined professionalism. To properly address security threats and build an effective force, Nigeria needs to establish recruitment based on merit and national duty rather than equal representation or political access. Ongoing civilian democratic oversight is also needed to professionalize the military.

1. The Politics of Military Recruitment: What is to be done?
By
J ‘Kayode Fayemi
Underlying the recent alarm raised by the Christian Association of Nigeria [CAN]
over ethnic coloration in the admission pattern into our premier military institution are
three central questions: Should our armed forces be an equal opportunities force?
Should it simply be a combat effective, battle ready force recruited from the most able
in the most rigorous and competitive manner, in short on the basis of merit? Third,
should the manner of recruitment matter – if the training is standardised and geared
towards bringing the best out of every recruit. Finally, are these goals mutually
exclusive? The CAN outcry albeit atypical – certainly provides one the opportunity
to address a controversial element, which has plagued Nigeria’s defence manpower
policy since the end of the civil war. We must thank CAN for this public service.
The debate on whether an armed force should be a pure reflection of the society it
serves is one that every military undergoes. Examples abound the world over of such
debates in the United States, on the disproportionate number of blacks in the US
military; in India, on the influence of Sikhs, Moslems and other minorities as well as
in many European countries. As yet, no empirical evidence supports the notion of any
correlation between the military’s ethnic representation and its combat effectiveness.
The truth is that most efficient modern armies in the world have tended to pay scant
regard to the ethnic make up of their military. In fact, some like the British colonial
army promoted the concept of “martial and non-martial tribes” in places like India
and West Africa. Thus, there was a tendency to recruit soldiers from among the
Rajpoots and the Punjabi Moslems in India, and among the ethnic groups in Northern
Nigeria, Northern Ghana and the hinterland of Sierra Leone into the Royal West
Africa Frontier Force. Indeed, Hausa soon became the lingua franca of the military in
West Africa under colonial rule. Underlying this recruitment pattern were economic
and political motives that had little to do with the received wisdom about military
prowess. The colonial army was established primarily for the subjugation and
pacification of the local population, and to help British trade and administration. To
achieve these objectives, some ethnic groups were found more loyal and co-operative
than others were and they also happened to be less literate in western education than
their southern counterparts and therefore more amenable to orders.
Representativeness was never an issue for such armies and this early pattern of
recruitment was replicated in the post-independence armed forces, except in the
recruitment into the officer ranks where the forces needed educated men, and the bulk
of the educated men came from the southern ethnic groups. Yet, representativeness in
the military continues to occupy a far more sensitive spot in Nigeria’s version of the
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2. debate because the numbers game has been exacerbated by the Nigerian military since
the first coup in 1966, most especially in the aftermath of the civil war. Considering
that the tone of every armed forces is set by the officer corps, the state quota
recruitment procedure into the Nigerian Defence Academy has always created the
impression that the Nigerian military was more interested in an equal opportunity
force, rather than a combat ready fighting force. Given its more prominent role in
Nigerian politics over the past three decades, this has in turn elevated the importance
of having “our own sons” in the military hierarchy among various interest and ethnic
groups. Indeed, there is a sense in which it might be argued that CAN would be less
concerned about the lopsided nature of recruitment had it not concluded that the
military has become a permanent feature of Nigeria’s body politic, and therefore,
access to this national cake must be shared on an equal basis. This is indeed broadly
reflective of the view repeatedly expressed in civil society where some have even
argued that regionalisation of the armed forces is the only solution to perceived
domination.
Although those in the hierarchy of the armed forces have always espoused the need to
have a military that reflects the make up of society, it is difficult to know what is
meant by this? It is noteworthy that between March 1967 when NDA turned out its
first set of graduates and December 1985, when it became a degree awarding
institution, only 1,486 of the military’s 3,811 commissioned officers received regular
commission, according to school records. The remaining were either Emergency
Commission cadets (421), Short Service Commission cadets [1,239) and Direct Short-
Service Commission cadets [765]. Although the EC and SSC commission have since
been phased out, recruitment into these commissions which produced more than half
of our military officers during this period reflected a disturbing level of cronyism and
ethnicisation wholly unsuitable to a fighting force.
It is arguable that regardless of how their commission was obtained, the SSC provided
an opportunity to utilise skilled manpower from the ranks, and many of the SSC and
EC officers exhibited and continue to display an acceptable degree of work ethic in
their duties. Yet personnel with GCE/WASC entry level qualifications tend to be
more productive, better disciplined and most likely to finish their enlistment than SSC
and EC officers who did not possess the requisite entry level qualifications for regular
commission. Even so, the level of professionalism among officers trained at the NDA
had been on the wane over the past decade. Military involvement in politics has not
helped matters. For many cadets, access to NDA is the shortest route to political
power, rather than a call to national duty. Inevitably, the Defence Academy started
attracting the wrong kind of recruits. At a point in the mid 1980s, no fewer than
15,000 applications were received for only 200 places into the NDA, many from those
who had deliberately dropped out of universities to pursue their politico-military
careers. Even after the Defence Academy became a degree awarding institution, in
1985, the problem did not go away. Although the increased educational qualifications
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3. of new entrants ought to have led to improved trainability and overall force readiness,
the overt ethnic, class and political colouration of the recruitment process played a
significant role in undermining this. It is common knowledge that siblings of top
military officers and their civilian cronies had the greatest chance of success in any
entrance examination to NDA, even if they have the IQ of a toad. The whole concept
of state quota had become a silly joke as it only provided the opportunity for senior
officers from each state to share available places among themselves. Before long,
every keen observer can see the nominal quality of new entrants, the crisis in the
manpower planning process, and the failure of the internal mechanism of attaining
institutional coherence.
If as argued above, the tone of any military is set by its officer corps, an officer corps
that had entered the military for reasons that are not strictly military is a recipe for
organisational dysfunction. The various extra-military functions taken up by the
officers, especially in political administration had not only made it impossible to
maintain the physical and professional qualities needed for a combat ready force, they
have also contributed to the reduction in institutional cohesion in the armed forces. As
officers take up political duties, the officer-troop ratio needed for easy management,
command, control and regimental discipline is seriously affected. All of this
invariably resulted in a decline in the level of discipline, training, administration and
the entire organisation’s efficiency. Thus, the turbulence that engulfed the efficiency
of military manpower became rooted in the defective recruitment process and
progressed gradually to a situation whereby approximately 30% of entrants into NDA
failed to complete their course in the 1980s. It could be worse now. As though this
was not bad enough, the rate of desertion and unauthorised absence amongst those
that completed their training and got commissions became unacceptable even to the
military establishment as revealed in the Directorate of Army Staff Duties and Plans
records.
In fact, a 1981 study of combat readiness in the Nigerian army not only confirmed
that retention of unemployable officers and men created a façade of an efficient and
big army, but puts overall readiness at less than 40%. There is every reason to believe
that combat readiness is now less than 20% of enlisted men and officers – less than a
division strength of the current army size of 80,000. In spite of this unenviable record
in force readiness and work ethic, interest in the services, especially the army grew at
a geometric rate in the 1980s. The only noticeable exception was in 1990 when the
usually high number of applicants to the NDA reduced by more than 25% following
the well publicised deaths of Nigerian soldiers in the Liberian peacekeeping duties. It
would appear that this experience in military engagement dampened the conventional
wisdom in the unlikelihood of real war situations. It confirmed the view that the more
combat engagements there are for our soldiers, the higher the tendency for desertion
and lack of interest in the armed forces. Viewed against the attraction of political
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4. office via a military commission, there is still a general feeling that the military
occupation guarantees a higher social stratification even if there are some risks to this.
What is clear from the above is that good personnel are at the heart of any effective
military organisation, and a defective recruitment pattern has implications for the
level of discipline, attrition rate and the organisation’s institutional cohesion in the
long run. Yet, CAN’s call for equitable recruitment process only addresses one half of
the crisis faced by our military, which has in turn affected morale, discipline and
espirit de corps. To address that half of the problem, it has to be situated within the
broader political-military context that takes into consideration what the military
mission is and what objective threats are faced by the nation? This way, necessary
force levels can be determined, without falling prey to the institutional reluctance that
has prevented the military from reducing the armed forces personnel to a level
commensurate to the threats faced, in order to enhance operational efficiency and
technical professionalism.
For example, if the military mission is primarily coastal – protection of offshore
economic interests, and external – peacekeeping duties, are the personnel currently
emphasised in the armed forces order of battle suitable for the types of missions the
military may be called upon to perform? Are the manpower levels cost-effective, and
most importantly, does the institutional recruitment process procure individuals that
are wholly dedicated to their military duties, reliable and efficient. Put more
graphically, why is the Nigerian Navy virtually dead and the air force almost non-
existent if the real threats are as explained above; why do we need four divisions of
over 80,000 men and officers in the army, and why was recruitment up till the late
1980s process geared towards sophisticated equipment and modern technology, when
officers are not fit enough to withstand pressures not otherwise common in their
previous infantry based experience? Although the Training and Doctrine Command of
the Army,[TRADOC] has tried to address this confusion by formulating doctrine
centrally, this has only slightly reduced the degree of subjectivity and prejudice
hitherto prominent in policy making because the distortions in the career build up of
officers has been largely compounded by the political encumbrances of the military,
not by lack of ideas as to what is right and proper.
The truth is that the only real threat identified by the military is primarily internal –
although a lot of this is couched in grandiose regional and continental imperatives.
Thus, the conception of military force is not based on any objective assessments of
threats, but on the notion of permanent subjugation of civil society. This is what
makes the CAN’s outcry relevant to the debate. The ethnic background of soldiers
becomes relevant particularly when there is possibility that the military might be used
to quell internal disturbances or subjugate their own citizens. To this end, an
unrepresentative military institution does imply an unequal distribution of military
burden and military power. There are credible reports for example that many soldiers
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5. serving in the southern parts of the country are of northern extraction, and the
perception in periods of political turmoil such as is prevalent in present day Nigeria is
that the ultimate aim is to use these soldiers against a people perceived to be against
military rule.
In a military controlled by a hierarchy increasingly less interested in any serious
notion of professionalism, this constitutes a real security concern for the people. Just
as in the days of the colonial army, rulers revel in the notion that their lot is better
protected by surrounding themselves with officers from a particular section of the
country. At the same time, they build a wall excluding others, except those ready to
pick the crumbs from under their desks. Ironically, those at the receiving end are
usually the most able officers whose insistence that the goals of Nigeria’s defence
policy will be best served when governed by a well articulated conception of real and
perceived threats, the inter-relationship between the subjective and objective social
forces in the nation’s development, the extent to which threat levels have influenced
doctrine, force structure, arms procurement and other defence issues in a systematic
and coherent fashion.
Defence manpower policies with doctrinal roots in bland notions of equal opportunity
rather than equality of access has never worked. Equally, while the key issue is not
really equal representation of any group, this objective security concern on the part of
the people will only disappear if high standards for military service are set and
maintained, recruitment procedure fully standardised and the socialisation process in
basic training effective. One thing is very clear: if the objective of an efficient and
effective national defence is to be achieved, this can only be done by a cohesive cadre
of nationally minded officers, which increasingly seems only possible under an
accountable civilian, democratic authority, which is answerable to civil society.
Whether the rhetoric about professionalising the military is true or not, the onus
remains with the civil society to make this a reality. The more civil society
organisations like the Christian Association of Nigeria get their teeth into what makes
the military tick, the less chance there is for the military to keep its secrets secret from
the rest of us. Our military is sick, and only a collective effort will save it from itself.
Dr Fayemi’s book on Nigeria’s Defence Planning and the Future of its Armed
Forces is due out next year.
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