T. Y. Danjuma’s unfortunate idioms

The open outburst at a public function in Jalingo last week Saturday March 24, 2018 by Lieutenant General TheophilusYakubu (TY) Danjuma (retired) was very un-statesmanlike of a former General Officer Commanding (GOC) 3 Division of the Nigerian Army, a former Chief of Army Staff and a former Minister of Defence. Most Nigerians find General Danjuma’s reckless allegation against the military worrisome because it borders on national security. The seditious lyrics in his call for self-defence are equally too serious to be ignored.

Speaking at the maiden convocation ceremony of the Taraba State University, Jalingo, General Danjuma urged Nigerians to defend themselves against killers in the country because the armed forces collude with the bandits. Danjuma chose to mention bandits in place of herdsmen, possibly to demonstrate his knowledge of paronomasia. Talking with tongue in cheek, General Danjuma said “They kill people, kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movements, they cover them. If you depend on the armed forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one. The ethnic cleansing must stop in Taraba State, must stop in all the states of Nigeria. I ask every one of you to be alert and defend your territory, your state”.  The tragedy in General Danjuma’s regrettable remarks is further worsened by the fact that those highly inflammatory words were spoken in the presence of young university students. 

Reacting on behalf of the military, Nigeria’s Defence Minister, Mansur Dan Ali, said the call by TY Danjuma on the people of Taraba State to take up arms and defend themselves is an invitation to anarchy. TY had accused the Nigerian military of colluding with militia herdsmen to kill people. Mansur said “The Nigerian Armed Forces is well organized and highly professional in discharging its constitutional mandate”. He thus urged anyone who has any evidence of wrongdoings or dereliction of duty against the troops to tender such for necessary action.

A Middle Belt based civil society group, Middle Belt Conscience Guard, has called on the federal government as well as the international community to hold TY Danjuma responsible for any breach of peace in the region. National President of the group, Prince Raymond Enero, warned that the group will not hesitate to drag TY to court over any degeneration of the security situation in the area. 

The prime message in General Danjuma’s implied idioms is the insinuation that the killings in Taraba and other riverine states in the middle belt region of the country failed to cease because the military has taken side with suspected killer herdsmen. Further interpretation of  T Y Danjuma’s hypothesis would simply infer that suicide attacks and abduction of school girls by insurgents have not stopped in some north eastern states of Nigeria because, according to TY Danjuma, “the military provides cover for the insurgents”. 

The same theory propounded by Danjuma putatively suggests that “banditry and kidnapping in Zamfara State failed to stop because all the security agencies involved in combating the menace have been conniving with the bandits and kidnappers”. General Danjuma cannot claim to be unaware of the fact that the military he is accusing alsolost many troops to violent attacks launched by insurgents and bandits in northeast Nigeria and Zamfara State respectively. General Danjuma’s wrong application of syllogism led him to erroneous conclusions because his propositions were predicated on wrong premises.

The Wukari-born army General turned theorist was in some way speaking inferred idioms. An idiom is one of the many literary devices referred to as figurative expressions. Figurative expressions could come in various forms including simile (called tashbih in Arabic), metaphor (majaz in Arabic) and circumlocution (itnab in Arabic). These and other stylistic techniques such as homonyms (jinas in Arabic), oxymoron (tibaq in Arabic), metonymy (kinayah in Arabic) and paronomasia (tauriyyah in Arabic) all combine to form the subject matter of Arabic rhetoric. An idiom, in specific terms, is an expression that has figurative meaning which is unrelated to the meaning of the phrase or sentence articulated.

Indeed, T Y Danjuma’s igniting statements were his own circuitous way of expressing his hatred in idioms  for President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration. Others including two former Heads of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo and General Ibrahim Babangida have their peculiar ways of disclosing their ill feelings against President Buhari. While Obasanjo as a professional letter-writer would write open letters, Babangida would choose to issue a statement designed to be refuted afterwards. The question to ask is: why are all these retired military colleagues of Buhari against him? 

It would be recalled that in his inaugural speech at the Eagle Square in Abuja after taking Oath of Office, President-elect Muhammadu Buhari said “I belong o everybody and I belong to nobody”. Many did not grasp the rhetorical implication of this statement by Buhari. Others who read between the lines of his speech, most likely, misjudged him for a joker. Few people also thought the declaration was a mere rhetoric meant to adorn the speech. More than half-way into his four-year tenure as Nigeria’s President, the three categories of people who listened to Buhari’s speech realized that he is actually what he claimed to be when he said he belonged to nobody.

The discontent currently being voiced by these army Generals could be out of their failure to intimidate President Buhari to play their respective but self-serving scripts. Their individual comments, given their respective approaches, must have sprout from motives other than constructive criticisms. They each, I guess, have access to President Buhari by which they could draw his attention to certain things they find detrimental to the collective interest of Nigerians. General Danjuma is currently the Executive Chairman, Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative (PCNI). Well, as Nigeria’s President, Buhari isn’t the first to come under damning condemnations from former leaders or statesmen. When General Babangida was serving as Military President, Obasanjo maintained that IBB was so distrustful that if he said‘Good Morning’, you had to look out (of the window) to know whether it was actually morning or evening.

In spite of General Danjuma’s past military records and public perception (which he is attempting to ruin), it is important for relevant security agencies to interrogate him over those un-elderly remarks. While some writers have referred to him as “master of the gaffe’, others are calling for the examination of his medulla oblongata, considering his advancement in age. T Y Danjuma’s recent idioms define him better as dacnomaniacor polemomaniac. May Allah (SWT) make our end on this earth a good one, amin.