KWENU: Our Culture, Our Future

Dear General President: Please talk and walk

War is not the best means of settling human affairs because it leads to destructive waste. I was in the thick of it all and we still had to do what we should have done in the beginning; that is talk. 

President Olusegun Obasanjo

on Wednesday, 12/12/01 during the launching of the Armed Forces Remembrance Day Appeal Fund
[The Guardian Online, Thursday, December 13, 2001]

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Greetings, General President!

PREAMBLE

By now you must have told yourself in the quietest of moments that you are not the messiah Nigerians were expecting. If you were, you wouldn’t be waiting for God to help you fight the fornicating or adulterous professors or to make up your mind about running for a second term. Fasting for two weeks and waiting for God to speak [ThisDay, December 3, 2001] is not going to provide easy answers, but you can always try -- as a mere mortal, that is. A messiah would know exactly what God sent him to do. Anyway, let’s not go paranormal; I am always against second-guessing God. So, when some of your political choristers started singing the God-sent gospel here in America, I told one to reserve the sing-along for the uninitiated.

Before you call me names, recommend a shrink, or tell me which part of hell to habit, I do believe that God sends everyone to accomplish something on earth. It is embossed on our palm as destiny. So, in that sense, I agree that you are as God-sent as a Wukari warrior sent to war. You just have to find out what God sent you to do by working closely with your Chi. However, when people talk as if your divine delegation was something the heavens specifically sanctioned and which they monitor second-by-second, they give the impression that no one should tell you which way to go. That is not democracy. How would they feel if we say that God sent General Sani Abacha to imprison you and to teach you a lesson? Or, maybe he was sent as Nigeria’s Herr Herod; in which case, God would be angry with you for calling Abacha all those ugly names in 1998 – “diabolical, deceitful and sadistic and mad” -- and for jailing his son and for not allowing the family to keep their loot as all other looters before and after him. But what do we know. Once again, let’s come back to earth.

NEW YORK, 1998

It is said that you are very good at criticizing when you are not in power; when you get in, the air up there changes your focus. And so it was that I was checking out things you have said in the past. You were in New York soon after your release from Abacha’s anvil. Madam Stella was with you. There was a reception at the Nigerian House in Manhattan. In a mine of an interview conducted by Mz. McLord Obioha and published in The Nigerian and Africa of September 1998, he asked if “you really think that [Ndiigbo] deserve an apology for pogrom of the war?” You retorted with typical Nigerian ‘question for your question’: “From who?” 

“From Nigeria,” the interviewer answered the interviewee. 

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION

Then you opened up and, in one unforced swoop, laid down unknowingly what your presidential program ought to have been all about (I will highlight the main point): “Who is Nigeria? From whom, that’s the question. That’s what I am asking you. Igbos are Nigerians. I have said that so many things have gone wrong. Two things that I want to see. I want to see a National Reconciliation Conference. If at that National Reconciliation conference, any group that wants to apologize to any group, so be it. The Igbos may accuse the Yorubas, the Yorubas may accuse the Igbos, the Hausas may accuse the Fulanis, etc., that we can do at the National Reconciliation Conference. After that, I believe that there should also be a Truth Commission. There are so many things that we do not know that we need to know. I believe in the saying that truth shall make you free, the more we know the truth the better. Once we have a reconciliation conference, emotions will be thrown up left and right. Then we go on at the Truth Commission, not with a view to punishing anybody but just to have an open society, transparency. …. If you are talking of transparency, let it be transparent enough.” […]

You did not stop there -- you continued. But, let’s stop and think about it. You were not running for the presidency at the time, but whoever would replace General Abubakar must bring about healing. You won me over right there! That was my position, stated and documented in 1997: “Let the healing begin” was actually the theme of the first Nigeria-Biafra War memorial lecture. I stated that our problem was spiritual and that there must be a spiritual healing dimension to the overall solution. Then there was the Babangida visit and the ambush by party card-armed Chief Solomon Lar, then PDP chairman; the Jos charade followed, and the rest is history in the making. 

OPUTA PANEL

General President, true to your words, you instituted the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa Panel. We heard much more than we had expected: lecherous lies, dangerous deceits, and cowardly crimes. We heard of obscene acts and of truth shaming lies. We heard General Haruna tell of killing defenseless civilians to keep Nigeria one. Of course, there is more to tell. For example, who bombed Kalakuta Republic and caused the death of foremost female nationalist, Mrs. Fumnilayo Ransome-Kuti? Who sent the bomb that blew to smithereens the nationally acclaimed and debonair Newswatch journalist Dele Giwa? Who ordered the massacre of Asaba folks in cold blood? What is the whole truth about our defense minister’s involvement in the killing of Nigeria’s General of Generals, J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi? Who looked the other way while Ndiigbo were subjected to an anomie we now call Pogrom? Who actually planned the January 15, 1966 coup -- if not your friend Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu? And what was the depth of the aborted Jihad of January 18, 1966? 

We don’t need all that in one plate right now. The only regret is that we did not hear many regrets and apologies. Ohanaeze Ndiigbo set the right tone. Forget the billions of naira in compensation for now; a simple sorry would have soothed so many souls. Instead, the Arewa Consultative Assembly (ACF), piloted by Alhaji M.D. Yusuf decided to play ‘Federal Government’ and took on Ohanaeze, something Yusuf had been spoiling for, long before he captured the chair of ACF. So, by the time it was the turn of Afenifere, everyone was tired of fighting. We did not hear the apologies you had wanted, but we heard a lot on personal levels. A good beginning, I think. 

NATIONAL CONFERENCE

General President, everyone has been on your case regarding a conference of Nigerian nationalities. You have flatly refused to listen since you became president in 1999. Ex-Senate President Oyii (Dr.) Chinweuba Okadigbo gave it to us unsalted: it is the preoccupation of idle minds. Okay, but the thing won’t go away. It is so evident right now that there must be some talks to move Nigeria out of harm’s way. I bet you must be regretting that you don’t have the power to roll out the tanks at will. You must be cursing all those small boys in Abuja who force you to obey every traffic signal on the democratic superhighway. Well, you rolled past the lights twice already, in Odi (Bayelsa State) and in Zaki Biam (Benue State). See where they got you. These massacres and other mutually assured destructions keep the violence virus virile. We have already had a bad taste of religious “Wetie” in such southwestern cities as Oshogbo and Ilorin.

The matter is still simmering around you. Surely you do discuss with your political adviser, even though he is of AD/APP alliance. If so, then he must have mentioned his endorsement of a national conference. In case you missed it, here is what your Special Adviser on Political Matters, Okwadike (Dr.) Chukwuemeka Ezeife, reportedly said: "A Sovereign National Conference is inevitable. It is an idea whose time has not only come, but is also ripe. A Sovereign National Conference is inevitable. If we do not hold it now, we are only delaying it as we will hold it later. This is the truth of the matter.” He continued: "Nigeria has come to stay -- this is God's plan for us. …. We need to organize, to talk on the strategies of that organization so that we can become a true black power, where things work, where all people have a sense of belonging." (Daily Trust, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2001).

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

General President, let’s assume that all these people speak with God (thanks to GSM, I guess), what then is stopping you from laying the ground work for a conference of nations? You cannot be preparing to win again on this same flawed foundation and then call for a conference thereafter. You have been offered a unique opportunity to “settle” Nigeria’s soul. You told the world in 1998 that you had been up there (president) and down there (prisoner); and you were going no further. Well, you did. Like Mandela, another prisoner-to-president personality, you have once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leave a lasting legacy. 

Finally on your sermon in New York and in your response to the simple question on apology to the Igbo nation, you continued without further prompting: […] “Then on top of that, build a national conference which will now record the modalities for Nigeria’s restructuring, revenue allocation and all that. This is better done by a democratic government.” Yesterday, 12/12/01, you revisited the need for talk. Wouldn’t it be a shame if on 12/12/02 we revisit the following words: “We still had to do what we should have done in the beginning; that is talk”? And this after so much “destructive waster”?

NUFF SAID 

General President, you know what they say: Beware of what you wish -- you just might get it. You must know not to fight your destiny. As a young man, your bosom buddy Nzeogwu changed the course of Nigerian history forever. He died; you survived. You went on to be the last soldier standing straight when the Nigeria-Biafra War ended on January 12, 1970. In 1975, General Gowon was kicked out. Gen. Murtala Muhammed and you took over. On Friday, February 13, 1976, coupists cut him down in a hail of gunfire. You survived and became the head of state, with Colonel Shehu Yar’Adua as your deputy. Under your watch, Sharia was inserted into the Constitution, and the land use decree was smuggled in. In 1995, Abacha jailed you and Yar’Adua. Yar’Adua died; you survived. 1n 1999, you became president, with Yar’Adua devotee Abubakar Atiku as your deputy.  Irony of ironies, all hell was let loose: Biafra, Sharia, minority movements kicking against use of their lands, etc.

In February 2000, after the Kaduna killings that followed the Sharia saga, the Southeastern governors called for “modalities for Nigeria’s restructuring.” In fact, they suggested confederation a la Aburi Accord. You called them names. The entire Southern governors addressed revenue allocation. They called it Resource Control, which is another way for your “revenue allocation.” You told Justice Bola Ige to go court. What else is left? “All that”! All that is left, General President, especially with the unpopular Election Bill you just signed, is for you to step up to the podium and make your dream come true. Listen to yourself, as you did in 1979 -- when you refused to sit tight; forget that voice that comes when you fast, and goes when we do what ASUU men allegedly do well with female students. Come 2003, you will not walk home alone; you will walk home a hero.

AREWA, BIAFRA, ODUDUWA, etc.

General President, it is so sad that we all jump up whenever Biafra is mentioned. Biafra lives in all the nationalist movements from Niger Delta through Gani Adams’ OPC to Tivland. The state of Sharia suggests de jure secession; the same Sharia you thought would fizzle out -- it hasn’t. Your Yoruba kinsmen have planted Oduduwa constitution and a flag to match. We should sometimes stop and ask a simple question: Why? The answer, sir, is so simple it is incredible: the problems that led to Biafra are still with us. The only place to resolve them is at a conference of the various nationalities that are seeking separation either by refusing to share the bed or by simply edging the other out of the family fortune. This is a domestic dispute; it must be resolved as in all domestic disputes by talking. 

Some of your ministers are not helping matters here with their unguarded emissions. The crude remarks of Minister of State for Defense (Navy), Mrs. Modupe Adelaja, [ThisDay, December 11, 2001] smack of grade-A insensitivity. It is so sad that in this day and age some Nigerians are labeled “traitors” for fighting to survive genocide perpetrated by those who should have talked. I think daddy’s daughter should have listened to Pa Abraham Adesanya, Afenifere boss, and stayed away from public office. We could therefore dismiss her “pardoned to buy and sell” ethnic slur, albeit appalling foulmouthedness, as a consequence of ignorance, or a result of incomplete or truncated home tutoring. A little bird told me that as many as 14 ministers may be leaving Abuja in January 2002. Please do us all a favor and send ’Dupe home to Daddy dearest. It will be one small step on the road to sensitivity training of our many cultural illiterates. In a decent democracy, she would not last a day in office after those nasty and obviously anti-Igbo remarks. 

CONCLUSION

You said last June: "If the drumbeat changes, then the dance-steps will also change and those who are not willing to change their dance-steps will be left there, dancing the wrong dance, and the drummers will drum for those dancing the right dance." [In “More ministers may go, says Obasanjo” [The Guardian Online, Friday, June 15, 2001]. In case no one is telling you, you could be dancing to the drumbeat of the drummer, but you are dancing to the wrong drummer’s beat, a sycophantic sound of leeches and lizards. In fact, your agbada is just fluttering in the air. If you keep your ear to the ground, you will hear the drumbeat of ants. Many are dancing to the drummers of a national conference of Nigerian nations. From the passed opportunities of Aburi Accord, let us march to possible opportunities in Abuja Agreement. Things cannot continue to fall apart while we salivate over 2003. If a little apart we must stay, let’s figure out the modalities together. Otherwise, we could all burn out our cherished colonial contraption called country and ourselves in a marked marriage. 

Finally, when you told CNN that "my fate is in the hands of God, at the right time God will show me the way," you are telling the world that you are dancing to a drumbeat only you hear. In response to your ASUU quip, the University of Ibadan chapter Chairman, Dr. Biodun Onilude, said: “A soldier thinks more of the next war, a politician thinks more of winning the next election, while a statesman is more interested in the next generation.” General President, you do not have nine lives, please be a statesman: talk or walk; or, preferably, talk and walk. Then, “I dey kampe” would have a whole new different meaning.

Everything else is embellishment.

M. O. Ené, NJ, USA
Thursday, December 13, 2001