Reincarnation of our evil past

KWENU! Our culture, our future

Reincarnation of our evil past

MAX GBANITE

New Jersey, U.S.A.

Sunday, March 30, 2003

Most religious adherents believe that when a person dies, the soul goes through a period of judgment in the hands of the Almighty God. During this period of divine trial, the person, we are told by religious leaders, is asked to answer to how wickedly, nicely, godly, and evil s/he lived life on earth. After being judged by the higher power, habitation of heaven or hell is awarded immediately without the rights to Court of Appeal or to the Supreme Court. The decision is absolute. Any hope of reincarnation doesn’t exist in this scenario.

However, in a typical African setting, especially in Nigeria, most indigenes have this innate belief that they have a chance at reincarnation. This is unproven theory, unproven in the sense that I am yet to meet a person who truly recognizes that people do indeed come back to life after dying and being buried. However, there are those who state that there are similarities between the departed and those still here. Perhaps, because of this strong feeling of existence associated with reincarnation, some people, believing that they have a good chance at coming back, have resorted to committing evil acts against one another, communities against themselves and their neighbors, and politicians against their colleagues, and constituents.

From the archives of our political past, one could easily point to the various aspects of reincarnated actions and policies that have resulted to multiple deaths. The question one should ask is, when will this vicious cycle end? What are the intelligentsias, the saintly clergies, the traditional leaders, student bodies, the common citizens, and the so-called civil liberty organizations doing?

Going by what is happening today in the country, politicians from all the existing parties have shown that they are vacuous in what the country needs. Instead, all fingers continue to point at the military as the destructive fifth column. This particular argument is very foolish. It is the same stupid argument some people assert in blaming the British for solvable national problems. It is even more appalling to hear His Excellency President Olusegun Obasanjo refer to the honorable military as “Jack Boots,” as if he was never a member of the same elite military group. He castigates coup plotters as if he was never a beneficiary of such actions. He insists on non-violence elections but has not done much to curb the flagrancy with which members of his ruling party Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other parties quickly dispose of oppositions without trace. Incredible wonders of ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ syndrome!

Yesterday and today politicians have always hammered on the wrath they claimed that the military class brought on the country without thoroughly examining the roles played by them and non-military thugs and other civilians. Can anyone rightly suggest that the military created the problems that led to January 15, 1966 and December 31, 1983 coups and all the other changes in government? The answer is emphatically no. Yet the same problems that generated the possibilities of coup in those years have again reincarnated in today’s political dispensation.

The civilians are guiltier than the military in the destruction of Nigeria. A little digression: A catholic priest friend of mine once posited that members of the clergy who commit adultery are likely to receive greater punishment than married men who commit the same sin. His argument was based on the fact that the clergy are trained to know better and, as interlocutors of the Almighty God, they understand His Commandments more than the laity. The same argument holds for politicians; they stand to be punished more than the military in the eyes of God, since they -- and not the military -- have the people’s mandate. Yet politicians failed to deliver; instead, they created so much confusion within their ranks, acted as demigods to their people, and incited the nation against itself, resulting in some civilians urging the military to step in.

FLASHBACK:

It’s imperative that we honestly take a look at our past just to be able to understand how the evil of the past have resonated today by reincarnation. Nigeria, since independence from Britain, will be 43 years this October. It will be forty years since the first attempted coup of 1963 by the late sage Pa Obafemi Awolowo (some say it was trumped-up but, all the same, it was gazetted as treason). It will be 37 years since the first military incursion in 1966. What roles did the non-military members of the country play to sustain democracy? Please leave the British out of this, because what happened then is still happening today; and the British have since left.

His Excellency, President Olusegun Obasanjo, in one of his books titled ‘NZEOGWU,’ stated the reasons why his bosom friend, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, led the first military coup as follows: “As I gathered after the events, it was the mishandling of the elections in the Western region, and the subsequent total break down of law and order which resulted in complete insecurity of life and property, that was the last straw. Officers had discussed events in the country freely among themselves, particularly the middle-level officers, who attend an infantry course in Abeokuta around September-October 1965 and expressed utter disgust with the situation in the country. They talked of ineptitude and the lack of purpose of the government. The nation was sick, they said. Brinkmanship had become the order of the day. Every national issue since 1959 had led us one or more steps towards the brinks of a political precipice.”

He further wrote, “The election of that year was fought on regional loyalty, with a strong tribal bias. But the government that emerged was a coalition of two regionally-based parties leaving the third party, also regionally-based, out of the cold. With no patriotic feeling left and with selfishness, greed, corruption, sectionalism and tribalism being extolled, the third party embarked on ceaseless mischief to ensure that the unstable stool fell, no matter what happened to those sitting on it, around it and under it. The cry and attitude was ‘North for the Northerners, West for the Westerners and East for Easterners.’ Nobody seemed to care sufficiently for Nigeria as a nation. Those who were not directly involved in the politics of the day which were politics of hatred, division, victimisation, destruction, unabashed graft, greed and ostentation, were powerless to do anything about it. The nation was divided within itself. But obviously, the ship of the nation had drifted aimlessly for too long.”

Mind you, President Obasanjo was herein describing the exact actions and pattern of behavior of civilians then in power. If you have followed events in the country since 1999, you can see the similarities. My contention and that of many who love this country is that the incumbent President knows fully well what happened in the past, and he has had four full years to make sure it doesn’t occur again. Alas, somewhere in-between his Federal Cabinet, Aso-Villa Cabinet, Living-Room Cabinet, Kitchen Cabinet, Bedroom Cabinet, and Fundraiser cabinet, he has allowed himself to be blinded by the events of our past which are reoccurring today and, are about to encapsulate his administration.

To buttress the issue raised in Obasanjo’s book, one of the principal actors of the January 15, 1966 coup, Major Ben Gbulie stated the reasons for the putsch in his book, titled ‘NIGERIA’S FIVE MAJORS, Coup d’etat of 15^th January 1966, first inside account,’ as follows: “It was no great surprise to me that some of my colleagues were busy contemplating a coup d’etat. I found the idea quite agreeable myself. A coup d’etat, I strongly felt, was actually long overdue in Nigeria. And that for reasons which were not only numerous and varied but also defensible. For far too long the country had been at the crossroads, tottering dangerously on the brink of disaster. The political situation was gradually but surely getting out of hand. Mass murder had been, and was still being committed in the West, even at the time of speaking (late 1965) -- what with one political power clique in that Region engaging its adversary in a decided but undeclared war. Incidentally, while I was attending the course at Abeokuta, I had personally seen the bodies of the two Hausamen decapitated by unknown political thugs at the local railway station. It was such a ghastly sight I could not help feeling nauseated. But violent political killings had become everyday occurrences. So had arson, looting and rioting.”

Ben Gbulie continued: “Thuggery in the country, particularly in the “Wild West” (a nickname by which the turbulent Western Region was then significantly known), had long become a lucrative profession. The entire West was in fact swarming with daily-paid gangsters-hooligans always ready to strike, on cash basis, at the behest of their employers, who were the manipulators of the various political party machinery in the country.”

He further stated: “A bold red sign, a clear sign of an imminent national disaster, had long loomed large on the nation’s horizon. The Federation had floundered through a widely boycotted general election and the census crisis which had preceded it. And, although the annual Tiv operations (cleverly designed to hound out and eliminate politicians opposed to the NPC) had folded up for the year, hundreds of innocent lives had been lost in excess of the normal yearly casualty toll. Thousands of people had been rendered homeless, as town after town lay ravaged in the wake of the internal security (IS) operations originally meant to restore law and order. The country’s politicians not only appeared to be above the law, they seemed to be actively engaged in breaking it-in using the military to achieve their fulsome political ends. But if the prevailing political situation had constituted an unpleasant jar to Nigeria’s nerves, the stench of corruption in high places had given her a racking stomach-ache. Bribery and graft had long exchanged places with high moral principles which the country’s leaders had callously flung to the winds in the name of the so-called “eating of the national cake”. The politicians and public officers had indeed let the nation down. Globe-trotting (ostensibly to seek financial aid) had become a common practice, while many a public servant had fraudulently enriched himself with the ten percent takings and kickbacks from contractors. Embezzlement, too, was on the increase.”

These activities as enumerated by Major Ben Gbulie are still prevalent in today’s Nigeria. The use of political thugs to intimidate opponents, especially within the ranks of PDP and AD-controlled areas, is as common as hotdogs are in America. The politicians of today have no regrets over the past behaviors of their ancestral politicians. Corruption is even greater today than in the 60s. We have a President who has canvassed the globe seeking elusive foreign investments and imagined restoration of respect for the country, only to allow his ill-advised personal ambition to exacerbate to a higher degree all the evils of the past that he claims to have tamed. What a telepathic service! When would we learn our lessons? If those we elected into office had sincere wishes for the masses, as they claim, why are they killing the people’s hard-earned democracy? Why are the same citizens allowing themselves to be used to kill the democracy they claim to cherish?

This writing will not be complete without the mentioning of the views presented by another living actor and member of the ‘five majors,’ Major Adewale Ademoyega, whose views is congruent with those of President Obasanjo and Ben Gbulie on the roles played by irresponsible civilians and their elected political collaborators in destabilizing the country’s democracy during the First Republic. Ademoyega in his book titled,“Why we struck: The Story of the First Nigeria Coup,” wrote: “There was no doubt that 1965 was a year of political gloom throughout Nigeria. Generally, people had been disillusioned and disaffected with the Balewa Government and the rulership of the Balewa/Akintola/Sarduana clique of the NNA. Economic, social, educational and political problems were not solved. Corruption was rife and nepotism was the order of the day. The safety valves of the nation were reposed in such institutions as the Courts, the Census Commission, the Electoral Commission, the Police, and finally the Armed Forces. But the sanctity of those institutions was being politically assailed, assaulted and dragged in the mud, so that they were fast losing their credibility. It became obvious that the national leadership was nearing its collapse and that the ship of the nation was heading for the rocks. Still, it was drummed into people’s ears by the Federal Government’s radio, television and newspaper that certain NPC leaders had said that the NPC would rule Nigeria for the next twenty-five years. No doubt, the wishes and feelings of the electorate were not taken into consideration.”

This is reminiscent of what is happening today in Nigeria. The PDP, ANPP, and AD-controlled states have been manipulative and dominant in the usage of the media. Since such apparatus of mass communication is under their control, those contesting for office under other parties are denied the rights and opportunity to use taxpayers’ medium of broadcasting. It is even worse on the federal level; no other party enjoys the national media coverage given to the incumbent’s political rallies. Those charged with running agencies such as Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Radio Nigeria (RN), and Voice of Nigeria (VON), are all under the patronage of the government and would risk losing their jobs if they gave other candidates equal coverage. Although the Broadcasting Corporation of Nigeria (a regulatory agency) insists on equal coverage, their constant warnings without sanctions have proven to be lip service.

CONCLUSION:

“Where money speaks, truth is silent,” an unknown writer once wrote. One cannot possibly conclude without looking at Kola Omojola’s postulations in his book titled, ‘At the Crossroads: Challenges and Options for Nigeria”: He stated: “One of the strongest undercurrents of the Nigerian society today is money. The factor of money as observed in the indiscriminate methods of acquiring as well as the riotous ways of spending it dominates both the pulse and impulse of the nation. The smell of money pervades every area of social life. The undue emphasis on money in every facet of our daily living is dysfunctional and can only lead us to ruin if unmoderated.”

This is probably one of the most serious impediments to our national stability. Students, disenfranchised because of collective insensitivity by their lecturers and government, have become easy preys to political moneybags, who easily convert these students to cultists, and use them in carrying out political assassinations. Unemployed youths have since joined ethnic militias whose benefactors readily use them to maim, impale, and out rightly kill any opposition to their candidates. In Nigeria, they say that money is everything. The PDP-led government has indeed amassed so much money to the point that a survey carried out by the economic intelligence group, with the assent of Central Bank of Nigeria, revealed that of the $42.8 billion that left the country as capital flight since 1970 to 2002, $18.8 billion actually left between 1999 and 2002. Talk of transparency and anti-corruption!

The ugly sight of violence (created and practiced by civilians) as one of the incessant problems that militate against democracy was well articulated by the Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, in a preface to a 1985 edition of his book, "The M an Died": In describing the level of violence the civilians unleashed against itself during the election of 1983, he wrote: “Violence in politics takes many forms. All dead-end approaches to political goals-that is, political acts which create a cul-de-sac for all participants in the political process, including even those who initiate the process, constitute a violence which in itself breeds counter-violence. The nature of violence can be purifying or it can be obscene. The violence which preceded, accompanied and was the predictable aftermath of Nigeria’s 1983 elections was ironically, a gross obscenity. The first thing to not is that it was unleashed by the party which was already in power. The purpose was to cow the populace into retaining the status quo, terrorizing voters away from manifesting their political allegiances. One example: In Ondo State, one of the staunchest, if not indeed the most implacable base of opposition to the National Party of Nigeria, three leaders of the main opposition party, the UPN (United Party of Nigeria) were killed, gangland-execution style, in their own homes. The assassins went coolly from one house to the next on a given and shot down their victims in front of their families. Seven were on the list; three were not at home when the killers called, and one escaped with gun shot wound. This event took place months before the election.”

Soyinka continued: “It was calculated either (i) to initiate a violent reaction which would give the incumbent president occasion to use his emergency powers, cancel the elections and impose his own administrator, or (ii) to serve as an unmistakeable warning to the opposition. If popular leaders could be shot down with such impunity, what chances have the faceless followers? Such, in identical or qualitatively similar details were the acts of violence unleashed on the people of Nigeria.”

What happened in 1983 is still happening today, and it has nothing to do with the Military or the British. The civilians are perpetrating this dastardly act against itself; hence, they are guilty of sabotaging democracy. Any follower of events in Nigeria since 1999 would know that we have already suffered the loss of over thirty political leaders, and countless faceless civilians in the hands of hired assassins. The question is, what is Obasanjo doing to stop the carnage? Or, what have the Christian clergies who parade themselves as the spiritual and moral guides of the society, and their Islamic counterparts doing? What are the so-called civil liberty organizations doing to stem the violence? What are the ever-present journalists (the fourth estate of the realm) doing? NADECO, if you are truly genuine and a protector of the oppressed and democracy; where are you? Our traditional leaders, what have you done?

We need answers to these questions urgently.

The situation has gotten so bad that incertitude has permeated the whole country to the extent that Nigerians who are clamoring for the election keeps wondering:

(a) If the election would really hold, given that INEC has broken every electoral guideline in the constitution, and the ruling party have insisted on maintaining a stranglehold on INEC as if they are Siamese twins,

(b) Would the election be fair and free as proclaimed by the ruling party, and

Are these actions not in itself ‘reincarnation of our evil past’? Your guess is as good as mine!

However, it is imperative that Christian and Muslim leaders, the intelligentsias, the very powerful media, all the lovers of democracy, and Nigerians residing abroad begin to demonstrate their abhorrence for violence and corruption. We must all start advising the incumbent president and his party and all the executive governors, even those in the opposing parties but are in control of their state’s party machinery, to conduct a free and fair election devoid of rigging, violence, and any act capable of usurping the wishes of the masses. Otherwise, they would trigger mass demonstrations that could give the military class another pretext to return to power. After all, they the military have the rights under the Constitution of Nigeria to keep the country as one entity, and never allow its dissolution.

Since this particular election is non-issue based, Nigerians, it appears, will settle for a return to the status quo ante; at least, let Obasanjo be returned on a fair and equitable election. However, what election analysts must ponder is, can any of the parties muster enough votes to win two-thirds of the twenty-four states required by the constitution to be declared the winner? Are we going to invite Chief Richard Akinjide, SAN or Honorable Clement Akpamgbo, SAN, both erudite scholars of law, to argue the validity of such mathematical dilemma? Keep reflecting on these, folks.

It is important for religious leaders in the country (Christians and Muslims) to stage a peaceful demonstration across the country in denunciation of these dastardly acts. The media should never relent in using its various media to decry these acts. Those in position of authority must empower the security organs within the country to take control of the situation, no matter to what party the actors belong. Many Executive Governors in PDP-led government have been accused of ordering the elimination of their perceived opposition; some members of AD and ANPP are by no means innocent.

May the souls of those who were killed and all victims of Nigeria’s democracy since 1999 and those who would likely be victims of violent acts during the coming elections rest in peace in heaven. May the Almighty God, the Merciful, not grant the perpetrators of evil acts peace in this life, and when they eventually die and face judgment at the gates of heaven, may they be awarded eternity in burning hell. And, if they are adherents of indigenous religions, may they never reincarnate as human beings in their next life, but as nonbeings.

Amen.