When the president is not commander-in-chief

All newspapers reported so without a denial from anyone concerned. Though it seemed untrue and unbelievable, President Goodluck Jonathan had decided, no longer should he be addressed at public functions as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic.

I thought it was a

trivial correction that should just be brushed aside. The more I tried to do so, the more it bothered me. Why would the President of the Federal Republic, born and raised in the tradition of Presidents being so addressed and at times wearing the uniforms of the different arms of the forces of the land suddenly effect a formal rejection of being so honoured? For days especially given the vitriolic response in the social media, I hoped that an explanation of whatever might have influenced the decision would flow from the State House at Aso Rock and none came.
In governance, symbolic gestures and policies go far to condition societal reaction and response to the whole process of governance particularly when the gesture is coming from such a one as the Head of State. The many aides have a task to monitor the national mood and should normally have advised that given the various challenges over which the President does not seem chiefly in command, such a notice even to masters of ceremony was politically hazardous.
In 1960 the Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa did not answer to the appellation of Commander in Chief but the President of the Parliament and the nation Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was thus addressed. The use of the term was seen as normal when the military seized power in 1966 and ruled till 1979. It is noted that when civil rule was restored, civilian leadership relished the appellation, hoping that it would give them muscle over the military whose interregnum had not only initiated an appetite for power, but had created in fact a strong and viable military political class. It was hoped that the title would instil a discipline of submission to civilian leadership in the military.
The Constitution in ope-ration succinctly puts it thus in: - Section 130 (1) and (2), "There shall be for the Federation a President. The President shall be the Head of State, the Chief Executive of the Federation and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation."
Also, Section 218(1) of the constitution spells out the powers of the President as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation to include the power to determine the operational use of the armed forces of the Federation. Going by this, the President and none other is the Commander -In-Chief of the Nigerian armed forces.  You are hence bound to wonder what is really happening.
The published circular to this effect was signed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, a lawyer and one time President of the Senate who should have been mindful of the wrong signal this circular would send if made public as was indeed made. The circular stated that it had come to the President's attention that several Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as other Organisations often use his unofficial pictures in programmes of events, invitation cards or publications.
Mr. President has, therefore, directed that, henceforth only his official portrait should be printed in official documents or displayed in offices, and further directed that except in purely armed forces programmes, Mr. President should not be addressed as the "Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria." The circular went on to provide the official approved designation and appellation of the President for the all public purposes.
Time has always made jesters of leaders who go for the trivial, when faced with more substantive challenges in view of what the action symbolised. While Rome burnt, Nero the Emperor in drunken stupor was composing a song bedeviled by the rhyming of a word in the lyrics. The decision to worry about correcting that trite blemish on the Presidential mantle was to me against the spirit of the age, which is that the nation is at war. The nation has its armed forces committed in continental hotspots and a crippling insurgence in which troops are dying. There is news of fresh conscription into the armed forces of up to 9000 men. The time for the President of any nation to answer Commander in Chief is decidedly the time that the nation's troops are at war and responding to it. More so now that Nigeria has just secured a deserved seat in the Security Council of the United Nations. A notice of not to be called Commander in Chief when all along it had been the norm was easy to be misunderstood by the national psyche and barrack mentality.
The gesture symbolised not strength, but weak-ness and a deficiency in appreciating the national predicament and was adjudged so in all the commentary that I have read. The simple directive also lends itself to being given interpretation far beyond its simple meaning. For in the absence of a preferred rational for the change, one must place oneself in the President's frame of mind to be able to understand how something that trivial could be of significance to the President. If a sympathiser, you could agree that the President's much touted transformation agenda is so significantly successful as to afford the nation the luxury of such a nomenclature change. But you must compare the calibre of President Jonathan to Presidents before him who did not bother about this, if the pressure of office even allowed them to worry about the small itch.
If you are critical of the President, you would do a quick evaluation of the development claims seen beside the runaway corrup-tion going by the assessments and ratings of global transparency agencies. Then you look inward and begin to list abandoned priorities - the lingering crisis in the ruling party, the ASUU strike of over 100 days of loss of university education time, the nearly 40 over acting Chief Executives of Federal parastatals, and many more. Worrisome.
For whatever it is worth, the President of 5he Federal Republic is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic.