By Walero Ajiwo
Dogs are great and faithful servants. African hunters and the military do not trifle with the roles of dogs in hunting expeditions and modern warfare. In Connie Goldsmith’s Dogs at War, readers are shown how the military selects and trains dogs to work with handlers in every branch of the US military. Such dogs, at the risk of their lives, effectively guard military bases, sniff out concealed explosives and other weapons, and alert their handlers to hidden enemies.
The enviable roles of dogs during wars led to the coining of the term “top dog” in the 1860s. The Louisiana Democrat (Alexandria, LA) on July 13, 1859 wrote , “whether he’s top dog or bottom dog in the fight”. Today, the term means to be the boss, leader or to be victorious. Over the centuries, when military personnel step out of the confines of their highly regimented barracks and cantonment, to meddle in the affairs of civilians they are compared to irate dogs. Instead of “dogs of war” what you have are “dogs at war”.
On January 25, 1988 irate officers of the Nigerian Airforce, under the rulership of the unrepentant General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (Rtd), molested the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, who later became the winner of the 1993 elections in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the clumsy Air Vice-Marshall Nura Imam mindlessly passed off the violation of the rights of the late 14th Kakanfo of the Yoruba kingdom as a non-event until facts emerged that the offensive airmen actually besieged the Ikeja home of the late pillar of sports in Africa.
The rage of the Mad Dogs in Nigeria Airforce against the household of Abiola has not been an isolated case in Nigeria. Over 1000 ‘Unknown Soldiers’ burnt down the late Fela Anikulapo’s Kalakuta Republic and threw his 76 years old activist mother, Funmilayo Ransome-kuti, from a second-story window during General Olusegun Obasanjo regime on February 18, 1977. The show of shame did not end there.
On October 4, 2005, over 200 “unknown soldiers” burnt down a police barracks at Surulere, Lagos and killed at least three persons. Under the civilian administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, troops from the Nigerian Armed Forces carried out what has gone down in history as the “Odi massacre” against the ijaw town of Odi in Bayelsa State on November 20, 1999. Indeed, the Nigeria military, at the drop of a hat, is excited to mindlessly pounce on vulnerable civilian targets.
Such narcissistic tendency was again on display last Thursday March 6, 2025 when a rampaging troop of men from the Ikeja Airforce Base of Nigeria Airforce unleashed mayhem on defenseless civilian staff of Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company at its headquarters. This band of marauders, in a gestapo fashion, injured over a hundred staff members and journalists, stole telephones, laptop devices and the database of the CCTV of the organisation. These criminals must be charged for arson, assault, economic sabotage and treason for trying to destroy the electricity supply system that takes care of over one million households in Lagos and Ogun State respectively.
The dogs have lately been at war in Nigeria. The dogs are not only attacking civilians. Some political top dogs have also been at war. Professor Wole Soyinka’s “Season of Anomy” is playing out on multiple reals in Nigeria. Just a stone throw from the scene of the orgy of violence scripted, acted and produced by the officers of the Nigeria Airforce in Ikeja, the state House of Assembly in Lagos State has been attracting global attention on how dogs eat dogs. 36 of the 40-member Lagos State House of Assembly, on January 13, 2025, accusing their Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa of “gross misconduct and abuse of office” impeached him from office. Mrs Mojisola Miranda was immediately “elected” as the Speaker of the house. In what is unfolding as a comedy of the absurd, 49 days later, after the “intervention of some elders of the All Progressive Congress”, the same lawmakers who publicly chorused “We reject Obasa, we reject him in totality” voted him back to office a week later. The dogs at war, prodded by elders, behaved in a manner that is repugnant to the tenets of democracy. On a single day, the world was served an indelicate dish of a series of resignations, counter resignations and elections in the hallowed chambers where laws are supposed to be made. Despite a subsisting court case which Obasa has refused to withdraw, the gladiators make counter claims that the “issues” in the Lagos State House of Assembly have been resolved as a “family matter”. This sordid exogenous solution in a purely legislative affair by unelected “party elders” is tantamount to political meddlesomeness. The same way the tribe of military officers resort to self help.
The political topdogs involved in this charade must be suffering from a high degree of rabies. As they eat one another for dinner, they have conveniently reduced the affairs of governing about 20 million people to a dubious family matter driven by greed and avarice.
When dogs are at war against one another, the people condemned to be around them as observers are the real victims. The dogs are also angry in Osun State and Rivers State respectively where commonsense has flown through the roof of reason.
It is disconcerting that the “Renewed Hope” agenda of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has not in any way improved the way political actors conduct the affairs of state. This is why Nigerians are experiencing more of a “Deprived Hope” under this political dispensation. Otherwise, how can Nigerians make sense out of the nonsense going on at the apex parliament in Nigeria. The Senate President of Nigeria’s senate, Godswill Akpabio and Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, two political top dogs, have been eating each other’s ears in the past few weeks. The matter came to a head this Thursday when Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan who, on February 28, 2025 after a public dispute with the Senate President over seating arrangements in the Senate, accused the senate President of trying to lure her into “za oza room”, was suspended by the Senate for six months. Nigerians should not be surprised if this ongoing Senatorial farce follows the trend of the dog affairs in the Lagos State House of Assembly.
It is pathetic that while Nigerains are wallowing in penury and dying from lack of access to effective over the counter medications our legislators are busy squabbling like the famed Tom and Jerry characters. The topdogs are not satisfied with eating one another for dinner. In a bid to paper over their moral and political faux pax, Nigerians are now regaled with contrived rainbow kisses by top dog senators within the premises of the Senate in the full glare of the world. Nigerians elected senators to be involved in lawmaking and not any romantic grandstanding. If kisses were proof of love, Senator Ned Nwoko and Regina Daniels would not have been divorced. Our nation will remain in a conundrum as long as those who should be engaged in law making are more interested in advertising lovemaking.
When dogs are perpetually at war in Nigeria’s parliaments and military, deprived hope will continue to be the lot of Nigerians.
● Walero Ajiwo, an author and political analyst, lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
