TUKUR FOUNDATION AND THE MILITARY

TUKUR FOUNDATION AND THE MILITARY

What business has the Army Chief, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, got with a social vehicle like a foundation with a moniker of “Tukur and Tukur Foundation” or something in that line? This Foundation does intense social intervention works at Kaduna (the Ungwan Sarki neighbourhood and elsewhere).

Is this the appropriate thing for a war-time general to do when battles are still raging in the Northeast? Importantly, how is that Foundation funded? No matter the misplaced good intention of that Foundation, as long as the governors of the Northeast region romanticises Boko Haram as having “sophisticated” weaponry in relation to our hapless soldiers, that Foundation will surely come under scrutiny each time our fighting soldiers get slaughtered in the battle fronts.

In fact, the democracy that we have now schmoozes too much with the military to the point that it is reasonable to posit that the military is the fourth arm of our democracy, not the protectors of the land from external aggressors, which is where the military top brass shies from. Sitting governors and National Assemblymen paying courtesy visits to military honchos and the brass returning that gesture is now a feature of our “civilian democracy.” Worse still, as security indices drop, no one is bold to reprimand the military and all we get are endless photo-shots of “security meetings.”

Sunday Adole Jonah,

Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State

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