It may sound surreal, but it is true. Some Nigerians, no doubt out of despondency, are calling for a return to military rule! How fickle the sentiments of a people can be! Could Nigerians have forgotten so soon how profligates, dictators and blood-thirsty power-mongers in uniform had run entire African states aground? Have the atrocities perpetrated by African, nay Nigerian, military men faded from some people's minds so soon - how a handful of adventurers from the barracks had aborted the prosperity of the continent, murdered hope at infancy and turned fruitful Africa into a barren land?

Have we forgotten how the likes of Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, Idi Amin of Uganda, Masie Nguema Biyogo of Equatorial Guinea, Omar Bongo of Gabon, Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, Samuel Doe of Liberia, to mention a few, turned their countries into theatres of bloodshed, plague, famine and penury? Have we no lessons to learn from the totalitarian regimes of Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea? These desk-generals pillaged, plundered and devastated their countries and stole the liberty of their people.

The military era in Nigeria, which lasted three decades out of the 50 years of nationhood, represents an era of unbridled repression and the brutalization of the civil psyche, from which the nation is yet to recover. It is a matter for national embarrassment and regret, as one looks back now, that our dear country permitted, for decades, a gang of power-mongers in uniform to hold the entire nation hostage, turning the country into a lawless jungle, where arbitrariness and illegality defined public governance. Politically, socially and economically, the military brought Nigeria to its knees.

The protocol that formally binds this nation together does not give room for military rule. Section 1 (2) of the 1999 Constitution states emphatically that "the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any persons or group of persons take control of the Government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution." In this light, calls by some disillusioned compatriots for military intervention in the nation's politics must be seen as treasonable. We trust that the Nigerian military will, in the interest of the nation and their own interest too, discountenance such irresponsible calls and concentrate, rather, on discharging their constitutional duty to protect the territorial integrity of the country from violation.

Indeed, Nigerians must rise to extirpate any factors in the system that may encourage unconstitutional disruptions of governance. We hold the view, in this regard, that so long as the perpetrators of such unconstitutional acts of the past are allowed to continue to be men of influence in our society, the nation is condoning their treason. A machinery to sanction past subversions of the democratic process must therefore be put in place to deter similar adventures in future by other over-ambitious elements.

It is true that democracy is not yet be working optimally in our country. As a matter of fact, we recognize that the sentimental attachment, among some citizens, to the nation's dictatorial past is borne largely out of the failure of the political class to deliver any concrete dividends of democracy to the populace. Nonetheless, we submit that the only alternative to a bad democracy is a good one. It is the electorate's civic duty to make democracy work.

As US President, Barack Obama, observed during his visit to Ghana in 2009, Africa 'does not need strong men' (from the barracks or anywhere else) but 'strong institutions'. It must be impressed on the Nigerian public that the military is not an alternative government. Nor is it the watchdog of the nation's imperfect democracy. That role belongs to the opposition parties and the civil society, especially the press, as explicitly stated in Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution. We reject any recourse to autocratic rule unreservedly.