Alake: Military has no business in governance 

The  Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebob has said military has no business in governance while reiterating  that the recent spate of coups in  Africa is not the solution to  the problems  confronting  the continent.

Alake said this in an interactive session he had with newsmen  at his palace, Ake, Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State to mark his 80th birthday ceremony.

According to the revered monarch,  the military must carry out its duties in accordance with the constitution, instead of interfering with the business of governance.

Alake, who was  a  Principal Staff Officer to Major-General Tunde Idiagbon, during the Muhammadu Buhari military regime lamented the recurrence of military coups in African countries.

Reacting to the recent coups in Garbon, Bukina Faso and Niger, Alake who retired as a Colonel in the Nigerian Army, asked the military to allow politicians to  make mistakes and learn from their mistake.

The monarch recalled the  experience of the nation under the late military head of State, Sani Abacha,  noting that no Nigerian would pray for such era to return.

His words: “The military has constitutional roles to play, it is written in the constitution of every nation and I will appeal to the military to keep to its constitutional roles because governance is not the work of the military and we all saw what happened in 1998 in Nigeria before the change of government in 1999.

“So, let everybody play his role for which the constitution has given him, the role the constitution assigned to each person is what that person should follow or what the group of people should follow.

“If politicians are making mistakes, let them make mistakes, they will correct themselves, they will get better and better still and Nigeria will get stronger at the end of the day.”

Speaking on how Nigeria and Ogun state can achieve security,  the monarch enjoined his colleagues in the traditional institution to be deliberate in ensuring that they go back to how their forebears secured their domains in the early days of human race.

“I’m sure nobody is happy about the security situation in Nigeria, but it is a major government business, the security of lives and properties is a major job of any entity that is worth being called government.

“The new government is working hard on this, but security is the business of all of us,  so we must work in tandem with the security agencies if we want to sleep with our two eyes closed.

“We must report any strange movement, we must report anything that will later turned out to be dangerous to the lives of our people. Nobody brings money into a country where there is insecurity, so investment can never come here if the investor himself cannot even visit his establishment and see what is being done with his money. So let us make it a business of everybody to work with security agencies and government to make Nigeria a safer place.”

Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun, says  recent spate of coups in  Africa is not the solution to  the problems  confronting  the continent