Soldiers for Election.

POLITICS OF DEPLOYMENT OF SOLDIERS DURING ELECTION.

The deployment of armed forces of the federation in elections is constitutionally wrong and unnecessarily dragging members of the armed forces to the arena of politics in Defence of the interest of the Commander -in-Chief. By SS. 217, 218 and 219 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) when read together the President cannot deploy members of the armed forces of the federation for "election purposes" in aid of civil authorities without an Act of the National Assembly.
It must be pointed out that the Act of the National Assembly is different from a Bill or Resolution of the National Assembly. An Act of the National is a law that has gone through all the readings in the National Assembly and passed as a Bill and assented to by the President. As at today there is no Act of the National Assembly that authorizes the President as Commender-in-Chief to deploy members of the Armed Forces of the Federation 'for election duties'. Anywhere such authorization was given before now as in the case of Ekiti State was illegal and abuse of power and office.
 In a democracy, the norm is the rule of law and what this means is that all government policies and actions must comply with the Constitution, (which is the ground-norm) and all Acts of the National Assembly. The implication of this is that even if the INEC  request for  aid of members of the armed forces in the forthcoming elections in Nigeria they cannot have it because the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the federation cannot give authorization when he is legally not empowered to do so.
 The unfortunate truth is that all the political gladiators in all divides are aware of this facts and position of our constitution but choice to thwart the democratic process and call it 'politics'. And they wrongly believe that the powers of the President to 'determine the operational use of the the armed forces of the federation' is used in isolation and independent of any condition president.
 The leaders in playing partisan politics should always do what is right as failure to so do is tumbling the country upside down.

Ike Ake.
 

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