The celebration of what appeared to be Russian flags by #EndBadGovernance protesters in Northern Nigeria was actually a display of the Nigerian Armed Forces flag. This highlights a deeper yearning for military rule among the protesters, not an endorsement of Russia.
I had been distraught with profound sadness over what I thought was the unwarranted, self-denigrating, and counter-productive celebration of Russian flags by #EndBadGovernance protesters in the far North until someone called my attention to the fact that it is actually the flag of the Nigerian Armed Forces that protesters display — or intend to display— in their processions.
This makes sense because the protesters always chant “(Mulkin) soja muke so,” which translates as “we want military rule” as they wave the flags. It’s instructive that they never mention Russia. Why would they fly the flag of a country and not mention its name but instead sing the praises of the military?
The Nigerian Armed Forces flag has three colored stripes: red on the top, blue in the middle, and white on the bottom. Since presidents are also commanders-in-chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, they routinely fly the Nigerian military flag, along with the Nigerian national flag, when they deliver formal public addresses, as these photos of Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Ahmed Tinubu show.
The Russian flag’s tricolor scheme is similar but slightly different from that of the Nigerian Armed Forces flag. It is white on the top, blue in the middle, and red on the bottom. Red and white are transposed, but the blue in the middle is common to both flags.
A grasping but illiterate tailor eager to cash in on the sudden popularity of the Nigerian Armed Force’s flag mixed up the colors’ positions and unintentionally mass-produced Russian flags. I think he has been apprehended.
It’s also possible that this unintentional error birthed a new reality that meshed with Russia’s support for the military regimes in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
But it’s important to acknowledge that the flags symbolize a yearning for a return to military dictatorship, not the start of Russian colonialism.
Unfortunately, nostalgia for military rule isn’t limited to these northern protesters. In the aftermath of the 2023 election, for example, calls for a military coup trended on Twitter for days.
In moments of severe existential strife, people tend to develop a kind of cognitive bias called rosy retrospection. This is the propensity for people to recall past times more romantically than they actually were as they recede into distant memories.
Military rule was horrific. Those of us who came of age during military absolutist monocracies will never support a return to military rule.
The opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author, and does not necessarily align with the views of JolibaLive News! or any of its staff members. The author is in no way associated with this online news blog.
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