Newswatch article: Abacha's Legacy and Oladipo Diya
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Date: 1/17/00 2:08 AM Eastern Standard Time
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Newswatch
Abacha’s Legacy
By Niyi Osundare
Nothing fails like failure. No wonder lay philosophers have observed that
while success often lays claim to a thousand parents, failure is always an
orphan. There is something about the aroma of success that compels
followership in teeming folds, and the stench of failure which repels like a
nightsoil-man’s burden.
Consider this: who even at his most clairvoyant could have thought, talk less
of, predicted about two years ago that General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s late
"maximum dictator", would today become the object of infamy, contempt, and
ridicule? Who could have thought that the incredible fortunes he was piling
up at the expense of the Nigerian people, would so soon be subject to probe
and seizure?
But today, Sani Abacha is dead. His hurriedly buried carcass is being
metaphorically exhumed, its unsightly innards displayed to the world. His
hidden vaults are being opened, his bank accounts bursting with Nigeria’s
money in different parts of the world are being pursued. His hit men, those
men (any women yet?) so wantonly paid by him with our own money to murder and
maim and muzzle, have found themselves on the other side of the wall. His most
intimate passions, down to his bedroom pranks and preferences are the subject
of roadside banter and beer-parlour gossip. Nothing earth-shakingly new about
this: Abacha has simply gone the way of all tyrants. A poet of my
acquaintance once saw a vision about the tyrant’s testicles turned into
inflated balloons in the hands of street children. I think it was all in
connection with his thesis about the resilience of virtue, the eventual
triumph of good
over evil, the residual power of the people who always outlast the palace.
A nation has a long history; so we must steer clear of hasty foreclosures
which take no cognisance of the blind spot in the eye of time. Thus while we
cannot call Abacha the most unfortunate man in Nigeria’s history (for that
history is an ever unfolding process), we can safely call him the unluckiest
Nigerian ruler so far. Again, bad luck stinks. Which is why most if not all
the Abacha cronies have now put a safe distance between their former master
and benefactor and themselves.
Our column this week is about these men and women of evil who supped with the
tyrant, flattered him, spied for him, murdered for him, dropped his name for
infernal favours, drafted his murderous decrees, wrote his vile speeches,
formed or joined his political parties whose sole aim was to make him
absolute, eternal monarch, played court jester or professors-in-residence –
and got rich at Nigeria’s expense.
Where now are these leeches and time-servers, vile to their conscience,
treasonous to their country, treacherous to history? Haven’t many of them in
their shamelessness joined the finger-pointing crowd, swearing they never had
anything to do with their former master? Haven’t many become governors,
legislators, ministers, commissioners, special advisers, and other
functionaries in the "new democratic dispensation", still unrepentant,
obstinately
unpurged of their former crimes against the people of Nigeria, and eagerly
ready for further crimes?
The point being made here is: reproachable as Abacha’s regime is, and evil as
the man himself has turned out to be, General Sani Abacha did not act alone,
couldn’t have acted alone. No one can rule a country all by himself, even
when that country is not as contentiously diverse and aggressively
heterogenous as Nigeria. How could all these people who ran Abacha’s errands
and literally ate from his hands now so hypocritically wash themselves clean
of
the mess of their former boss, even when the fortunes accummulated from that
murderous mess forms the basis for their present political power and social
status?
Of this finger-pointing crowd, perhaps no one’s action is as bizarre and
incredible as that of Oladipo Diya’s. In one interview after another since
his very lucky escape, he has had one bad thing or another to say about his
former boss. He even called him dictator! But the waters of a thousand rivers
cannot wash Diya clean of the wanton bloodshed of the Abacha-Diya junta.
How can we forget Diya’s role in the crises following the annulment of the
June 12 election, the way he corralled traditional rulers in the south-west
and a few political opportunists from that zone into support for their
so-called constitutional conference, his demonisation of NADECO, his various
insensitive statements etc? Was Diya ever aware of the incarceration of Chief
MKO Abiola, the frustration of whose electoral victory paved the way for
Diya’s Number 2 job in Abuja? Was he on sabbatical when Ken Saro Wiwa and
others were condemned to death, when Kudirat Abiola, Chief Alfred Rewane, etc
were assassinated? If Diya has any sense of shame, he should just shut his
mouth, thank his stars, and stop insulting the intelligence of fellow
Nigerians who suffered his tyranny and are now being made to endure his
impertinence.
Abacha’s court messengers were many, so were his hit men. We haven’t heard
much from Abdulkareem Adisa, ex "action governor", ex works minister, who
once sang and danced in an "Abacha-for-ever" parade before finding himself in
the jaws of the hyena himself. What about Alhaji Arisekola, contractor
extraordinary whose solidarity with his friend in Abuja gave the city of
Ibadan a red May Day in 1998? As for Abacha’s professors, the nation is still
waiting for their philosophical dissertation on "The Pleasures of Tyranny".
In our effort to rid ourselves of the legacy of Abacha, we need to ask some
salient questions: why do some Nigerians find it so easy to profit from
tyranny? Why are they prepared to do anything for a slice of power? Why
wouldn’t they think twice before betraying their conscience, their country?
Why are Nigerians so tolerant of treachery and evil? Abacha is dead, but,
alas, Abachaism remains a national malaise, waiting for a desperate cure.
Volume 30, No. 25 Transmitted 12 January, 2000
" Newswatch 2000
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