All of you unruly folks that jump the queue at petrol stations, beat the red light at traffic junctions, drive against the traffic on highways, overtake other passengers at the airport or in banks, take heed and fall into line because the 6th phase of WAI is at hand! Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed announced last week that the War Against Indiscipline, WAI, is to be revived 31 years after the Federal Government unceremoniously abandoned it. It is to be known this time as Change Begins With Me, the minister said.
It is not surprising that President Muhammadu Buhari wants to revive WAI, the most socially impactful program of his days as Nigeria’s military ruler in December 1983 to August 1985. WAI made Nigerians to queue up where they once fought and stampeded. Before the coming of WAI, chaos prevailed at Nigerian banks, airports, bus stations, food counters and petrol stations. This disorder often cost lives; in the late 1970s there were two terrible stampedes in Lagos, one at a cinema house and the other at the National Stadium. Dozens of people died in a stampede to enter a cinema theatre. Not long afterwards, the lights went out just as football fans were leaving the stadium. Dozens of people were crushed against the wall which eventually collapsed. Daily Times later published a picture of a mountain of shoes left behind by stampede victims.


I remember a scene I witnessed at Lagos Airport in 1979. The departure lounge was overflowing with passengers. When the Port Harcourt flight was announced, nearly half of the lounge emptied as people rushed to the tarmac, some clutching children, dragging bags, jumping over seats and tripping over other people. In those days Nigeria Airways was the only airline in the country. Its check-in method was chaos itself, as I witnessed in Kaduna on my way to Enugu in 1982. Boarding passes were not issued until the connecting flight arrived from Kano and Airways officers boarded it and counted the number of seats available.
Enter, WAI Brigade, with the stern, unsmiling Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Major General Tunde Idiagbon as its helmsman. WAI took the war against indiscipline to all nooks and crannies of Nigeria. When Idiagbon told Nigerians to show their patriotism, nearly everyone obeyed by hanging the national flag on their houses. Soon, tattered green white green flags adorned every building and every house. Idiagbon however warned at one of his monthly press conferences that a flag is not meant to be hoisted 24 hours a day, that it should be hoisted at 6am and lowered at 6pm.
WAI Brigade soon became notorious for its excesses. There was a famous butcher in Sokoto called Ruwa Gulmare who made a very juicy “Naman Rago Suya” near Ibro Hotel. He would slaughter 12 rams early in the morning, wash and hang them to dry by the roadside before he commenced the barbecue in the afternoon. One day in 1985 WAI Brigade descended on Ruwa’s suya spot, accused him of violating Sanitation Day by slaughtering his rams in the morning, and carted off all 12 rams in a garbage disposal truck. Everyone in Sokoto was talking about it that day. My friend Maikanti told me a story about an old woman in Suleja who had been frying akara balls long before most people around were born. One day in 1985 she made the mistake of assembling her frying pan during the sanitation exercise. A WAI Brigade volunteer young enough to be her grandson kicked and upturned the frying pan, spraying the old woman with hot oil.
There was a National Concord cartoon in 1984 that depicted the launch of WAI in the old Anambra State. It showed Igbo traders running helter skelter, thinking it was the second Civil War. Indeed, when two friends and I went to Nnobi in 1984 and our Fiat car broke down at Onitsha, a top mechanic who was repairing it for us told us the story of what WAI Brigade did to his once magnificent workshop. He said soldiers arrived and towed away a brand new Peugeot 504 that a customer brought for its first service. He said he ran to the wife of the Army Brigade Commander in Onitsha who owned a Fiat car and was his customer. She managed to retrieve the car just before soldiers threw it into River Niger!
Idiagbon carried his sanitation exercise into Nigerian prisons. He once visited a prison and was told that it was congested, with too many people on death row. He asked why there were so many people on death row and he was told that throughout the four years of the Second Republic, no civilian state governor in Nigeria signed a warrant to execute any condemned prisoner. According to newspaper reports at the time, Idiagbon asked how many people were on death row throughout Nigeria and he was given a figure of about 900. He summarily ordered all of them to be executed. The next day’s newspapers came out with screaming headlines that “Idiagbon orders execution of 900 prisoners.” That evening, Supreme Headquarters issued a statement warning newspapers “not to portray the Chief of Staff as a sadist.”
For a man who thought that Nigerian society lacked discipline in 1983, one can imagine what he thinks of today’s Nigeria. Then, as now, Buhari’s preoccupation was to deal with men and women who stole the nation blind. What Second Republic politicians did with public funds was nothing compared to what PDP leaders did in recent years. In sharp contrast to Col Sambo Dasuki, Shagari’s National Security Advisers Dr. Bukar Sha’ib and Professor Shehu Galadanci were saintly gentlemen of the old school who were never accused of any wrongdoing. All the detained Second Republic governors were variously accused of misusing security votes, inflating contracts, trading in Form Ms and hiding money under their beds. The worst case of ostentation, which Idiagbon displayed at a press conference, were bottles of champagne specially made in France for NPN Chairman Chief Akinloye. Compare that to Dasukigate, where billions of dollars meant for wartime arms purchases were shoved directly from CBN coffers into party chieftains’ bank accounts.
Bureaucratically speaking, reviving WAI is a piece of cake. Sometime last year, a civil servant sent me a text message saying that once created, the Federal Government almost never abolishes an agency. He said many pet agencies created in the years of military rule are still around as departments or units in various agencies, including WAI, which he said is still there as a unit in the National Orientation Agency, NOA. All Alhaji Lai has to do is to salvage it from NOA.
When WAI Brigade bounces back, it will need a no-nonsense commander a la Idiagbon. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is the anti-thesis of Idiagbon. Where Idiagbon was famously unsmiling, Osinbajo is a pleasant man who is always smiling. Idiagbon was a man who thought nothing of backdating a law that made a raft of crimes punishable by death. I can imagine what Osinbajo, a constitutional lawyer, pastor and ASUU member will say to that kind of law.  Nor can Alhaji Lai Mohammed usefully lead the new WAI; his immaculate flowing white agbada cannot elicit fear in Nigerians the way khaki does. With the Army currently busy on many fronts shooting at insurgents, pipeline vandals, cattle rustlers, violent herdsmen and Shiites, who will provide the military escorts needed for WAI Brigade to throw the fear of God into unruly Nigerians

Read more at http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/columns/take-cover-wai-brigade-is-coming/145947.html#MSR3VOkjIfH5FrkY.99

I just checked my calender and discovered we are currently in 1985...

Nice read.

Gov Ajimobi tried it in Oyo State few yrs ago with his Operation Burst and it was quite successful.

I think the flogging part should be avoided though.

No one is an animal, there are better ways to correct human beings. We should learn from the western world

With the Army currently busy on many fronts shooting at insurgents, pipeline vandals, cattle rustlers, violent herdsmen and Shiites, who will provide the military escorts needed for WAI Brigade to throw the fear of God into unruly Nigerians
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If u ask me,na who I go ask?
On a lighter note,if d move is well handled and dey recruit people who won't abuse it like in the examples cited in the post,den I think it is needed to drive in some values into Nigerians.

Hmnn some people are still Stuck in the past. ...Nigeria has evolved we dont Need to be forced to be Civil , I have seen Nigerians queuing in Front of ATM to collect money...in Banks....to enter Brt...even fuel Station without been forced. a negative Brand like WAI will Not help our image....

Some people will not like this "post"
Wailers will be like " we aren't in the 80s anymore"
Corrupt people will be like " we aren't in military era"
But remember, we need this programme now more than ever, social vices are on the rise, lot of youth now feels there is always a shortcut to everything,

Baba is a man of his words,
Our youth suppose to use baba/osibanjo as a role model not people like fayose/dasuki.

WAI is here to stay, if you don't like it "port to Benin republic or drown in lagoon or joint the PDP avengers".

story they want to make Nigerians more indisciplined

Nigeria buhari place order for 78,000 koboko from sudan
earthly zoo news









long live

God bless Buhari for this sweet move