The Weapon of Speech: Rhetoric and the Nigerian Military

Several myths have been created and perpetrated by the Nigerian intellectual class regarding the Nigerian military establishment. More than the myths by the military itself, the myths created by the opinion moulders of civil society have an added veneer of legitimacy, accuracy and perhaps also, respectability. True, the Nigerian military establishment is not entirely innocent regarding civil society's perception of it. Indeed it played an ingenious role in the general construction, popularisation and ultimately entrenchment of its own image.