President Jaafar Nimeiri’s State (May 1969 – April 1985): No Ideological Stone Left Unturned in the Military

By: Abdallah Ali Ibrahim

Summary
(Like all armies, the Sudanese Armed Forces have undergone varying degrees of “ideologization” from the state. Even Ibrahim Abboud, who led a traditional institutional coup, politicized the military to see itself as the protector of the people — from themselves — namely, from democracy.)

Influential Sudanese circles are disavowing the Sudanese Armed Forces during the brutal war it is currently fighting, dismissing them as nothing more than an “Islamist militia” (i.e., affiliated with the “Kizan”) that was ideologically groomed and infiltrated over three decades of rule. The officer corps, according to this view, was entirely drawn from Islamist cadres, either by replacing existing personnel or monopolizing military academies for recruits from their faction.

Let us set aside, for now, the unsubstantiated assumption underpinning this argument — namely, that an army can be anything but an instrument of the state that houses it. The Islamist “Salvation” regime may have gone too far in its dealings with the military, but the army, whether we like it or not, is the institution tasked with administering state violence. Imagining it as separate from the state is a fallacy.
Here, however, we will limit our discussion to highlighting that the Islamists were not the first to ideologize the military or monopolize its functions. On the 56th anniversary of Lieutenant Colonel Jaafar Nimeiri’s coup on May 25, 1969 — which began a 16-year rule until his ouster by the April 6, 1985 Revolution — it is important to remember that the Nimeiri regime did not ideologize the army once, but repeatedly, because it was not a single state, but rather several “mini-states,” if the expression fits.

Due to its extreme ideological fluctuations, Issam Mirghani (Abu Ghassan), author of The Sudanese Army and Politics, described the May Regime as consisting of “contradictory sub-eras swinging from the far left to end in a dark right-wing phase.” Mansour Khalid similarly wrote in The Sudanese Elite and the Addiction to Failure that the May period saw “multiple Mayos,” not just one.

We will examine the May Regime’s ideologization and domination of the army in two main phases. The first, from 1969 to 1983, saw the influence of leftist, Arab nationalist, independent, and technocratic groups. The second, from 1983 to 1985, witnessed Nimeiri adopting a religious mantle with support from the Muslim Brotherhood. In both periods, the military was deeply politicized.

Mirghani noted that the armed forces were “the first victim of any military regime,” referencing both the Abboud coup in 1958 and Nimeiri’s in 1969. Upon seizing power, Nimeiri sought to consolidate control by purging most senior officers, accusing them of reactionary right-wing loyalties or being incompatible with the new leadership. Mansour Khalid counted 20 officers removed in this purge — a small but influential group. This was accompanied by extraordinary promotions that bypassed standard procedures for seniority and rank advancement — an unprecedented step at the time.

Mirghani overlooked that even the High Council of the Armed Forces — which institutionalized the 1958 Abboud coup — had included lower-ranking officers like Mohamed Khair Shannan and Mohiuddin Ahmed Abdullah, who later overthrew the council in 1959 and forced their inclusion in it.

Nimeiri’s early regime also appointed civilian administrators to high military ranks, such as generals. Non-commissioned officers who took part in the coup were promoted without thorough vetting. Military ranks were inflated for political reward, with positions like general being granted in branches like medical services or military music — units with little operational impact.
State security, public security, administrative control, and military intelligence became political police, wielding power over the army. Branches that supported the regime, such as the armored corps and paratroopers (whose members had helped execute the coup), were rewarded generously, turning the military into a hierarchy of paratroopers and armored units first, national security second, and a proper army last.

During the confrontation between Nimeiri and the Communist Party, which culminated in the failed July 1971 coup, Nimeiri disbanded the “Free Officers” organization — the group behind the 1969 coup — after initially planning for it to serve as his political base. He replaced it with the “May Free Organization” led by General Khalid Hassan Abbas, a member of the Revolutionary Command Council and Commander-in-Chief.
Key members included officers like Saad Bahr, Sayed Ahmed Hamoudi, and Mustafa Ortchi, who were arrested during the July 19 coup and later killed in the infamous Guest House Massacre on July 22. The coup had been carried out by young communists and leftists from the first cohort admitted to the military academy based on political affiliation after the May coup.

When the Sudanese Socialist Union — the one-party system — was established, military politicization became systematic. Mirghani noted that the armed forces became “an essential arm of the ruling political party,” and military oaths were now pledged to “defend the May Revolution.” The one-party state allocated military leaders seats on the party’s Political Bureau, Central Committee, People’s Assembly, and local councils. A special “Secretariat for Armed Forces Affairs” was created within the party, headed by a political appointee. Weekly lectures were organized in army camps to indoctrinate officers and soldiers in defense of the May regime.

Nevertheless, the regime was intolerant of dissent from the military. On January 23, 1982, senior officers met with Nimeiri to express public discontent over corruption, especially involving his office manager Baha Eldin Ahmed Idris and the “Wad Nimeiri” cooperative (named after his hometown), which provided charity services to the army and was overseen by his brother Mustafa Nimeiri. Nimeiri reacted harshly, retiring 13 officers — from major generals to majors — and dismissing Army Commander Abdel Majid Hamid Khalil. According to Mirghani, the military returned to “a state of loyalty and silence.”

The Islamic phase of the May Regime began in 1983 with the promulgation of the “September Laws,” which abolished inherited secular legal systems and introduced Sharia as the new foundation. Nimeiri proclaimed himself the Imam of the nation, and allegiance to him became a religious duty. Mirghani described how “lines of officers and soldiers marched in formation to pledge allegiance to the Imam, the renewer of faith.”

Mansour Khalid cited a revealing letter from General Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab, then Deputy Commander-in-Chief, to Nimeiri. The letter praised him in the name of the armed forces, which had supported him from the outset of the May Revolution. “Today,” the letter stated, “you have honored the army with the application of Islamic Sharia; its soldiers are now soldiers of God, its banners adorned with ‘There is no god but Allah,’ and its battles are now jihad in the path of God.” The army, the letter added, “sees the Sudanese people rallying around you in religious awakening and application of divine rule. It joins them in renewed allegiance, pledging loyalty to the Holy Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet.”

Mansour Khalid described this stage of the May regime as one of “religious hysteria,” which opened the door for the Muslim Brotherhood to penetrate the remaining structure of the army. Ironically, this “State of the Imamate” was not what the Islamists had initially sought when they called for “God’s sovereignty.” After reconciling with Nimeiri in 1977, their main demand had been for the revision of colonial-era laws to conform with Sharia. A committee was formed, dominated by Islamists, to draft these reforms. But Nimeiri, according to Mansour Khalid, employed his tactic of “deliberate disruption” — previously used against the communists — by implementing aspects of their vision that were extreme or unplanned, forcing them to go along.

For Nimeiri, adopting the religious mantle was a last resort after exhausting all other political forces and ideologies. He turned to the Imamate in a final attempt to confront the rising Southern Sudanese nationalist movement, the SPLA led by Colonel John Garang. The Islamists, instead of being daunted by the heavy burden, embraced it, pledging allegiance to Nimeiri. Their leader, Hassan al-Turabi, declared that they had turned the armed forces into a tool to “liberate Sudan from the octopus of colonial legacy,” while secular parties placed their hopes in Garang — a wager they are now losing.

Those influential groups who now shun the military in its current war against the Rapid Support Forces, citing its supposed residue of “Islamist ideologization,” are making a grave mistake — against themselves as much as against the army. In doing so, they ignore the complex historical roots behind the politicization of the Sudanese military, singling out the Islamists while overlooking that every Sudanese regime has ideologized the military to some degree. Even Ibrahim Abboud, at the helm of a traditional institutional coup, politicized the army to see itself as the guardian of the people — from democracy.

There has never been a military free from the fat of state politicization. To demand one blindly, or to judge existing armies by that yardstick, is to divorce history entirely — to live, in the words of British writer Elizabeth Longford, in “a house without windows.” Those who do will never learn from their mistakes — except how to repeat them.