(fwd) THE ROAD TO KIGALI - ADEBAYO WILLIAMS
olorunfemi ojo
THE ROAD TO KIGALI
ADEBAYO WILLIAMS
(Tell, June 1st 1998, pp.
32-34)
Dear General Danjuma,
Your silence is profoundly eloquent. But it is no longer golden. There
comes a time in the life of a nation when silence, however dignifying and
statesmanlike, is tantamount to cold complicity and collusion with the
forces of evil. For a man justly celebrated for his seminal interventions
national affairs, a man widely respected for his blunt and occasionally
brutal candour, your current silence over the state of the nation is
bizarre, to say the least. Unkind and uncharitable folks have attributed
your silence to a new found prosperity, to the fact that you belatedly
stumbled on the callous truth that the power of property is also the main
property of power. A few have pinned it down to the corrupting nature of
unsavoury association, particularly with some influential but otherwise
undesirable aliens who are bent on milking Nigeria dry. And yet others have
ascribed it to a terminal weariness about the destiny of Nigeria as a viable
state. I tend to think that matters are far more complex and complicated
than this. I will therefore be more charitable.
As immensely ironic as this may be, the first and last time I had the
opportunity of being close to you was on July 30, 1995 when unknown to me we
were both passengers on a British Airways flight from London to Lagos. I
was pleasantly surprised to find you personally wheeling a trolley to a
standstill next to mine. As they say, you carried your own trolley and I
carried mine. I was struck by your simplicity and austere disdain for the
pageantry of power. I could not but help wondering to myself that here was
a man who for a fleeting moment was the defacto ruler of Nigeria in the dark
confusion that followed the assassination of General Murtala Mohammed, a man
who could have seized power for himself had he not been possessed of
superior nationalist awareness. You muttered something to me about the slow
and tardy nature of the conveyor belt. But for me the conveyor belt was a
gripping metaphor for the nation itself. We were later joined by Alhaji
Ahmed Joda. I reminded the great man of our encounter a few months earlier
at the hightable of the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation annual lecture. I had
seized the occasion to denounce military misadventure in power in Nigeria.
The Alhaji nodded briskly and then calmly ignored me.
Sir, you will agree with me that matters have degenerated even further
since our last memorable
encounter. The entire country lies prostrate under a brutal military siege.
The western part of the country is erupting in flames and mayhem. True to
projection, General Abacha's transition programme which began as a great
farce has terminated in a colossal fraud. But in a definitive electoral
snub, the entire country has boycotted a sham transition and - by
extension - their military tormentors. Yet, the process, of transforming
General Abacha into the Emperor Suharto of Aso Rocks proceeds apace and with
increasingly brazen contempt for the will of Nigerians and the international
community.
Sir, such is the breathtaking impudence, the sheer mindless effrontery of it
all that I must urge you to tarry awhile as I recollect my breath. When
General Suharto emerged as the undisputed leader of Indonesia, it was in a
moment of grave national peril. Suharto was the only one who escaped death
out of six most senior officers earmarked for elimination by radical Marxist
officers. The Indonesian army, if you will recall, arose as an instrument
of national liberation from Dutch colonisation and not as an instrument of
colonial pacification of the local people. Despite the persecution of the
Chinese minority the struggle for the soul of Indonesia was predominantly
ideological and not predominantly ethnic as it is unfortunately turning out
to be once again in Nigeria. A moody and truculent conservative Suharto may
be, but he was not perceived by his countrymen -unlike now - as being part
of the problem. In a frantic misapprehension of history, General Abacha's
advisers have confused Nigeria with Indonesia and their man with Suharto
circa 1965.
Let us now view the nation our own General Suharto will preside over. After
five years of a relentless and desperate siege, and fifteen years of baleful
military rule, the country has collapsed infrastructurally. All the major
national institutions are in ruins. The military, like a serpent that has
bitten its own tail, has gone completely berserk, baring its fangs in
delirious fury as the poison heads for its central organs. A deputy head of
state and two other generals are the latest victims of this inexorable
momentum towards self-annihilation. You were the one who said that no
nation has ever survived two civil wars. But if this is not a creeping
civil war, I wonder what it is. We are on the road to Kigali: the dateline
is Rwanda 1994.
Before you begin to wonder why I'm inflicting these apocalyptic rantings on
you, let me explain myself. I grew up thinking of you as a major presence in
Nigeria's pantheon of flawed heroes. I confess that I also gained snippets
of your higher seriousness and exemplary patriotism from a former military
assistant of yours. Needless to add that it is exactly twelve years since
that intense and brilliant colonel went under in the periodic blood bath and
abattoir cruelty that have characterised military rule in Nigeria.
Permit me, my dear general, to dredge up rather traumatic matters. I do
this not to re-open old wounds, but to place the trajectory of your
distinguished career in proper perspectives. You first burst into national
consciousness when you literally burst into the old Western region state
house on July 29, 1966 to effect the arrest of the then head of state, Major
General Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi. That was the last anybody ever heard of the
bluff, hard-drinking and tragically apolitical soldier, and of his host and
companion, Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi. Contrary to received opinion that the
illustrious Fajuyi was merely playing a good host, I often wonder whether he
could have survived that terrible uprising given the fact he had already bee
n branded an “Action Grouper” by none other that General Ironsi himself at
the meetings of the then Supreme Military Council. This was obviously due to
Fajuyi’s radical and forthright opinions about the state of the nation.
In apprehending Ironsi, you were acting the part of the Northern (Nigerian)
nationalist. From the point of view of pragmatic power play and of an army
that had been ethnically fractured, there was nothing particularly wrong or
evil about this. You reportedly berated Ironsi for his failure to bring the
failed coupists of January 15 to trial. Ironsi was caught between the hammer
and the hard place. It was obvious that he critically misread or couldn’t
care a hoot about the balance of force after an abortive revolution that
January. The great veteran of the Congo campaigns was to pay for that error
with his life. The country itself was to pay a greater price in the form of
a uniquely savage civil war. Up till this moment, the country is still
suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the momentous
bloodletting.
But let this not unduly delay us. Historic individuals often triumph over
modest and unflattering antecedants. Even the then Colonel Murtala Mohammed,
the man who led the return match to July 1966, underwent an apostolic
conversion of Pauline proportions. He became an exemplary Nigerian patriot.
So did you. General Mohammed is today justly celebrated by many Nigerians as
the most dynamic and heroic leader we have ever had. In retrospect, some of
the measures taken during his brief rule bear the hallmark of unthinking
petulance, or of thoughtless crypto-fascist radicalism. But no one can deny
the late hero his electrifying presence, or the messianic glint in his fiery
eyes for that matter.
That was arguably Nigeria’s golden moment. With yourself and General
Olusegun Obasanjo -the man you once described as easily Nigeria’s best head
of state, and who incidentally is now spending his third year in jail – as
the other legs of the ruling tripod. Nigeria seemed headed for the moon. As
a young man growing up in that heady period, I can tell you that nobody
cared who ruled Nigeria as long as it was well ruled. I can reveal to you
that my bedroom was adorned with a huge poster of General Mohmmed’s first
SMC meeting. Standing ramrod straight and upright was a youthful Colonel
Mohammadu Buhari on one corner. At the other corner was the boyishly
handsome Colonel Alhaji, who was later tragically killed in the Sao Tome air
disaster. Around this time, a fellow youth corper, who was allegedly
misbehaving was hauled before the then Colonel Solomon Omojokun who was
ordered to go back to his base and sin no more.
Those who felt at that point that Nigeria was God’s gift to the black race
and its armed forces the most patriotic and nationalistic of institutions
certainly knew what they were talking about. If Nigeria had any problem
then, it was an embarrassment of riches in terms of human and natural
resources. Twenty years on the dream had dramatically evaporated, leaving in
it’s wake a critically hobbled giant, a military in shambles and a failed
political class. Sir, what happened? And how can we get ourselves out of
this terrible mess? My deal General, it is the apocolypse staring us and the
entire West African sub-continent in the face. If Nigeria goes under, so
will the entire region. It is no longer a question of democratic governance.
Before democracy there must be a nation; before partisan politics there must
be a polity. All the institutions that could support democracy in Nigeria
have been fatally rubbished. Let us deceiving ourselves.
Let me be painfully blunt. The rot did not start with General Abacha. He
has only been an unsympathetic undertaker. Given the inexorable logic of
history, there was always going to be a Nigerian military ruler who will
refuse to go, no matter the state of ovation. The rather dubious honour
actually belongs to General Yakubu Gowon. But Gowon lacked the guile and the
sophistication to pursue his ambition. That historic role had to wait for a
mesmerizing juggler of genius: General Ibrahim Babangida. While Gowon barely
managed to hang on for one year after reneging on his promise, Babangida
temposized for eight years, shifting the goal posts until the planks caved
in on him. If Babangida was the soldier who did not want to leave, there was
bound to be another soldier who will bluntly refuse to leave. General Sani
Abacha, a soldier with a supreme disdain for civil and political society,
perfectly fits the bill. This is the troubling conjecture that we have
arrived at.
But let me play the devil's advocate. Why should they leave? For whom and
for what? This is where the remorseless logic of history catches up with the
Nigerian political elite, particularly its military and civilian factions.
Your descendants cannot leave because their fathers have eaten sour grapes
and the sons' teeth are set at the edge. Let me now recall your celebrated
"Gunslide" interview, at the inception of the Buhari regeme. In the course
of that, memorable interview with The Guardian, you rightly and
patriotically denounced the inept and corrupt Shagari regime and its more
infamous scoundrels. But you also bristled with contempt for the entire
Nigerian political class irrespective of guilt or complicity in the fiasco
that was Nigeria's Second republic., I noted your strange, hostility to the
late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. In another context, you famously
dismissed Alhaji Lateef Jakande, a fallen icon of purposeful governance in
Nigeria, as a "bushman".
For students of history, of how attitudes and shades of perception often
harden into dogma, that was a major signpost in the war of hegemony between
the military and civilian factions of the Nigerian ruling bloc. That war
began when Ironsi browbeat the rump of the Balewa government to hand over
power to the military. It has proceeded with increasing
deadlines ever since. Now, do not get me wrong. A political class that
cannot defend it’s turf, that cannot fight it’s corner is not really a class
and therefore deserves to be consigned to the trashcan of history. In order
to complete this pacification of the Nigerian political class, in order to
fatally rubbish the politicians, the military had to fashion out a renegade
political class after its own image. This was the phenomenon we witnessed
with General Babangida’s “newbreed”, an amalgam of jobbers, self-seekers and
fugitive drug barons. With General Abacha, the “newbreed” have suffered
further evolutionary regression. The have become civilian cadres of a
neo-military state.
Those far-sighted members of the old political class who saw through the
ruse decided to give military-directed politics a wide berth. They became
apostles of "siddon look”. But they were few and far between and it was very
easy to isolate them. Their colleagues, blinded by greed and opportunism,
fell for the bait. Others, who should have known better, became pathetic
pawns on a gigantic chessboard. Such is the complete annihilation of the
Nigerian political class that with General Abacha, political parties are not
parties at all in any sense of the word but civil instruments for the
perpetuation of a military state. I chuckled to myself when the eighteen
Northern elites, their minds concentrated by the thought of immanent
political extinction, finally rose. But it could well be a case of too
little too late.
But the triumph of the military over the political class is a pyrrhic
victory. You can test this by how the institutions itself has fared. This
is indeed why I write you this letter. The cost has been frightening and
disproportionate. While militarising the Nigerian society the military
itself has become heavily politicised. The ravages have been enormous, and
I need not repeat these. As an icon of professionalism in the Nigerian
Army, you must be traumatised by this development. Let me give you just one
example as it touches you. The late General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, when he
was asked to comment on your rather severe denunciation of him, was known to
have replied that it was against military ethics to answer back to a
superior officer. That was the old military code of discipline and cohesion
at work. But this shinning personal example could not hide the
institutional rot for long. You will recall that shortly after, a
mysterious fourteen page advertorial appeared in the defunct Citizen
magazine published by my good friend and former Youth Corps mater in the old
East Central Nigeria, Mohammed Haruna. The advertorial bore the signature
of a retired major who is now an influential emir. It was incredibly
scurrilous and calculated to cause maximum damage to your person and
reputation. As your old colleague, General Alani Akinrinade noted then, the
advertorial breached the Official Secrecy Act. That was a tell-tale sign of
an army slowly unravelling.
The process of self-demystification now appears to have been completed. The
army has begun to feast on its own decaying innards. General Abacha's
propagandists may continue to delude themselves that the recent ousting of
Johnny Koromah in Sierra Leone is proof of the army's professionalism. I do
not intend to wash our dirty linen in public, and I do not intend to take
anything away from the brave and outstanding Colonel Maxwell Khobe. But the
western media is currently awash with the murkier and more unseemly details
of that "victory". Suffice it to note, however, that the mere fact that
matters ever came to blows between the Nigerian Army and a third rate,
ragtag force is a sure sign of disrespect and contempt. When the Lesotho
armed forces were threatening peace and democracy in their country, all the
army of a democratic post-apartheid, South Africa had to do was to give them
marching orders without having to deploy a subaltern. They filed back to
their barracks with their tail between their legs. All Nigerian patriots
wait for the day when our own army, its honour and integrity restored, will
play the same role in a properly democratic Nigeria.
So sir, what to do? Let me give some modest proposals for stabilising
Nigeria before a major surgical operation can even be attempted on the fast
expiring giant. First, General Abacha will have to leave, in the greater
national interest. After five years, he has not only become part of the
problem, he has actually compounded it. Under his continued rule, the
corporate existence of Nigeria can no longer be guaranteed. As matters
stand today. Nigeria is in danger of being engulfed in a horrendous pogrom,
or of disappearing in a Yugoslav-type ethnic cleansing. The signs are
already there with the military, intellectual, political and economic
leadership of the Yoruba nation either in jail, exile or the threat of death
hanging over them. The brutal despoliation of the riverine minorities
continues without respite. When you put all these factors together, they
are a sure recipe for messy and anarchic bloodletting.
After General Abacha, a Government of National Emergency must be put in
place. It could comprise of the following: Basorun MKO Abiola, Mallam Adamu
Ciroma, Chief Alex Ekwueme, a top army officer noted for patriotism and
professionalism and a respected representative of the Southern minorities.
The states shall be run by a State Emergency Committee comprising respected
and respectable citizens of each state and a representative of the armed
forces. This government must be in place for at least two years during
which strenuous attempts must be made to breathe back life into our national
institutions and fashion out a code of national conduct. Let us not deceive
ourselves. No democratic governance is feasible with the current context of
failed national institutions. Depending on how General Abacha leaves, all
those who have contributed to the economic and political adversity of the
country in the past twenty years must be ready to face some retribution as a
way of laying a firm foundation for the future. In the case of those who
have looted the treasury, all efforts must be made to trace and repatriate
the ill-gotten wealth. In appreciation of their past services to Nigeria,
the armed forces must be granted a safe passage back to the barracks and
adequate resources within the context of the nation's pressing needs must be
guaranteed to enable then achieve re-professionalisation and institutional
re-orientation within the shortest possible time.
A year into its inception, the National Emergency Government must organise a
Congress of Nigerian Nationalities which must fashion out, if it is still
possible, a New National Order and Organogram. Depending on the outcome of
the Congress, and assuming that we all agree to remain as a single federally
corporate entity, nation-wide elections must be held within a year from
which all members of the Government of National Emergency at the state and
national level, members of their family and relations are automatically
disqualified. Elections must be held simultaneously throughout the country
or at best staggered into a two-tier arrangement. Nigeria must enter the
millennium on a clean slate, with the eighties and nineties written off as
Nigeria's wasted decades.
Sir, you will note that this thumbnail sketch which is by no means
exhaustive or sacrosanct takes care of existing realities and the political
trauma of the past five years, particularly the criminal annulment of the
June 12, 1993 presidential election. While we cannot ignore the reality of
military rule in the past fifteen years, it is obvious that the armed forces
must henceforth be insulated from partisan politics. Owing to this reality,
it will be absurd and pretentious to prevent or disallow retired officers
from actively participating in the political process of the country, once
the absurdly well-heeled among them are able to explain the source of their
outlandish wealth. It may even be that at the end of this period, a retired
soldier will emerge as the undisputed democratic president of Nigeria. So
be it. The alternative to this route of national redemption is the road to
Kigali and national calamity. General Abacha appears hell-bent on travelling
this gory road. In the name of himself, of the armed forces, and of
posterity he must be dissuaded. I believe you are one of the few remaining
Nigerians who can perform this important national duty. I now urge you to
perform your most patriotic task for a dying nation.
Text of an open letter by Adebayo Williams to Lt. General Theophilus Yakubu
Danjuma
Martin Fregene
Netters
The comments by Adebayo Williams, highlighted below, is exactly what the
nation needs, creative thinking that will catch the attention of
patriotic soldiers in government. That Nigeria has gotten to the
cross-roads is not in doubt, that Gen. Abubakar does not have the
intellectual, political, or moral authority to deal with our situation is
even, to a greater extent, not in doubt. This is a time for creative and
powerful men of political thought to come forward for the survival of
what we all call our Patria
Best
Martin