Armed Forces Remembrance Day: Who Does Nigeria Remember?

Today, January 15, Nigeria once again marks Armed Forces Remembrance Day (AFRD). Officially described as a solemn national moment set aside to honour courage, sacrifice, patriotism, and the supreme price paid by men and women who died in service to the country.

More than a date on the calendar; it is framed as a collective pause, an opportunity for national gratitude. From the battlefields of the Nigerian Civil War to peacekeeping missions across Africa, and from counterterrorism operations to the ongoing fight against insurgency, banditry, and other security challenges, members of the Armed Forces of Nigeria are said to have demonstrated exceptional courage across diverse theatres of operation. Their sacrifices, we are told, restored normalcy to many communities, strengthened national stability, and formed the bedrock of our collective freedom and unity.

This is the template for Armed Forces Remembrance Day. It is what exists on paper, and is what Nigerians are expected to feel.

But in recent years, the “sacrifices” of the Armed Forces have become harder for the average Nigerian to locate in their lived reality.

Instead of protection, the Armed Forces have increasingly come to symbolise  intimidation and repression. This is not a recent development. While other countries might have witnessed the evolution of their military institutions alongside stable democratic traditions, Nigeria is a fledgling democracy, and its Armed Forces have not always functioned in ways that inspire public trust or collective pride.

Nigeria’s history is marked by repeated military interventions in governance, beginning with the January 1966 coup that dismantled the First Republic. What followed were decades of military rule, interrupted only by brief civilian interregnums, until the final return to democracy in 1999. That history left behind centralised power structures, weakened institutions, constitutional distortions, and a political culture deeply shaped by force rather than accountability.

Between 1985 and 1999 in particular, under the regimes of Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha, Nigeria experienced some of its most severe human rights violations. Those years were characterised by a culture of impunity in which extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention were commonplace. Draconian decrees criminalised dissent, restricted freedom of speech and assembly, and silenced political opposition. Journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens were routinely harassed, intimidated, detained, or tortured.

The nation’s return to democracy has not dismantled this legacy. The failure to confront past abuses or hold perpetrators accountable has only entrenched impunity further, weakening the rule of law and shaping how power continues to be exercised.

Today, the Armed Forces are still routinely deployed as political tools to intimidate citizens, suppress dissent, and enforce the will of the state. 

This is visible in the Nigerian government’s response to protest across the country, from the #EndSARS demonstrations of 2020 to more recent protests against kidnapping and insecurity, including in Ekpoma. Military and police forces are mobilised not to protect civic expression, but to stifle it. Alongside this is the Nigerian Police Force’s well-documented penchant for brutality — arbitrary arrests, extortion, illegal detention, and violence against civilians — which has become so normalised that it is regarded as an unavoidable feature of public life.

Taken together, this reflects a direct continuation of the colonial and military logic embedded within Nigeria’s security institutions: they were not designed to serve the people, but to control them. In this context, the distinction between protection and oppression often collapses.

So with all of this in view, the question becomes unavoidable: is there truly much to celebrate today?

Armed Forces Remembrance Day calls on Nigerians to honour the courage, sacrifice, patriotism and supreme price paid by the men and women who laid down their lives in service to the nation. But it is worth interrogating who has truly laid down their lives, and continues to do so, for Nigeria.

Consider the ordinary Nigerians who protest despite the threat to their safety, demanding accountability from an unresponsive state. The journalists and press workers who are harassed, detained, and intimidated for speaking truth to power. The organisers and community leaders who mobilise people, fill institutional gaps, and push for change where the government refuses to act.

These are sacrifices that are not commemorated with wreaths or state-sanctioned speeches. They do not come with uniforms or official recognition. Instead, they are met with surveillance, arrests, intimidation, and silence. Yet these are the people who consistently place themselves in harm’s way to demand a more humane Nigeria — often in spite of the state.

Armed Forces Remembrance Day insists on a narrow definition of sacrifice, one that values service to power over service to people. It asks Nigerians to honour institutions without interrogating how those institutions have been used, and to remember selectively, even when history and the present offer ample reason for caution.

Until Nigeria is willing to confront its past honestly — and reckon with the role its Armed Forces have played in shaping repression as much as security — this day will remain misaligned with the country’s realities. The problem is not remembrance itself, but who is remembered.