Today is June 12, 2020. Five years ago when I started my relentless critique of the Buhari government I was attacked several times, called an enemy of Islam, Northern Nigeria, and even when I blasted Bola Tinubu, some said I am not a good ambassador of the Yoruba nation. But over the years, many of the issues for which I was being attacked started unfolding and my criticisms began to reduce.
Let me be clear on three issues. One, I believe strongly in one Nigeria. I do not belong to the tribe of scholars and analysts that are advocating for the atomization of Nigeria. This is a ridiculously reductionist position. Two, my patriotism and scholarship behoove it on me to constructively criticize the government of the day so that Nigeria could be a fully developed nation. The wife of President Muhammadu Buhari was a good student of mine and her husband promoted my book generously then. But this should not prevent me from criticizing the government of her husband constructively. That belongs to the genre of Pseudo scholars who are looking for appointments and favours. It is only God that promotes. And three, I do not embark on my writings to draw attention to myself. Once in a while, I bring in my stories to encourage and energize the Nigerian youths in despair so that they could scale hurdles and rise to the top in life. But some have attacked me on this. I thank them for their views.
As we celebrate June 12 and democracy day in Nigeria today, I want to share three of my articles on this subject in the past two years with my audience so that they could assess for themselves if things have changed over these years. It is likely to be a long read.
1. June 12 in Nigeria’s Politics: Beyond Rhetorics and Symbolism
Late in 2015, I visited the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. Up till today, the memory of what I saw in terms of what Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany did to Jews still makes me recoil and shudder at the bestiality and insanity of maximum rulership, totalitarianism and Gestapo rule.
Hitler killed six million Jews in the Holocaust. Before millions of them were buried in mass graves, they were like walking skeletons and a good number of them were buried naked and in extremely dehumanising conditions.
The Jews have had a long history of persecution and oppression. The Ancient Egyptians enslaved them for over four hundred years before they were finally and miraculously rescued at the Red Sea. Most Christians believe that they are a specially chosen race by God. This is an issue within the precinct of the theologians and scholars of divinity but far beyond the intellectual and academic plane and contemplation of a political scientist. Then, persecution and oppression have a way of shaping one’s psyche in a manner no other force could do. The history of abuse and exploitation has brought the best out of Jews. They are daring, adventurous and prepared to take on any odd or challenge that comes their way with an uncommon vigour and resilience. The extraordinary 1976 raid at Entebbe in Uganda and the unprecedented defeat of six Arab nations in six days in 1967 and many more are testimonies of the extraordinariness of Jews across the globe.
During the Abacha monstrous and insane rule, the Yoruba across the nation became the Nigerian Jews and targets for oppression, repression and elimination by a bestial and power hungry semi-literate lunatic that was ready to destroy everything that stood in his way. And this is why no Yoruba man could go against the June 12 elections that produced MKO Abiola without dire social and political consequences.
Under the Abacha government the likes of Olusegun Obasanjo, Pa Abraham Adesanya, Bola Ige, Wole Soyinka, Generals Alani Akinrinade, Oladipo Diya, Abdulkarim Adisa, Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, all the NADECO members, the Afenifere group and all other prominent Yoruba leaders were all targets for Abacha’s elimination. He assassinated Kudirat Abiola, Suliat Adedeji and of course, MKO Abiola himself. Abraham Adesanya narrowly escaped death in broad day light in Lagos.
In 1997, I met a Yoruba naval officer, a Navy Captain, in Kaduna. I expressed my disgust at seeing him putting on the Abacha’s wrist watch and badge. He quietly closed his door with tears almost running down his cheeks. He confessed to me that all Yoruba officers were under the Abacha surveillance and that the wrist watch and the badge which became symbols of loyalty made him sick to his bone marrows every morning. That was the extent to which a sick man reduced the Nigeria’s Armed Forces to.
The pertinent question now is: what produced Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha in the Nigerian military? There are many reasons but the most important one is the bastardisation of the Nigerian federalism by praetorianism and military adventurism in power. It created a criminal 36 state structure that is incapable of endogenous development. It concentrated so much power at the centre, a development that created Babangida and Abacha that rode roughshod on the Nigerian nation. And until Nigeria is fundamentally restructured, another June 12 but this time bigger and more ferocious than the earlier one, could still be re-created.
While the APC, the south and perhaps the whole nation is celebrating MKO Abiola, Gani Fawehinmi and Baba Gana Kingibe – for me, he does not deserve the honour because he compromised the mandate by aligning with Abacha and working in the Abacha government – the restructuring of Nigeria is what should be agitating the minds of those who are singing the praises of Muhammadu Buhari to high heavens, otherwise, this celebration would be short-lived. They will be nothing more than sheer symbolism and repugnant and boring rhetorics that could tear the nation at the seams. Like I wrote in my last article, the honours done Abiola was to get at Obasanjo and make electoral gains in the south west next year, honouring Abiola under any guise would be welcomed by any Yoruba man but whether this would make them forget their deteriorating conditions of existence under the Buhari government is what I cannot predict with precision. But one thing is certain – the Yoruba people will never be carried away by mere rhetorics and symbolisms
2. The Politics of the June 12 As Nigeria’s Democracy Day
One of the strongest positions of the Realists in international politics is their pragmatic adulation of power and its prime importance in international politics. So sacrosanct is the preeminence of power that Mao Zedong correctly submitted that power emanates from the barrel of the gun. The strategic thinkers like Sun Tzu and Thucydides had earlier recognised the primacy of power in human life.
The northern fraction of the Nigerian elite recognized the power of military force in the affairs of men and they used it to their own maximum advantage until it dawned on them that Nigeria was tottering on the verge of disintegration and they consequently returned power to the their counterparts in the south. In fact, they recognized the dire consequences of losing the petro-dollar from southern Nigeria in case the country was dismembered.
The power sadism and recklessness of the Babangida government and Abacha’s murderous regime drew attention of the nation to the need to convene a sovereign national conference in order to determine the future of Nigeria. These two military despots nearly destroyed Nigeria completely but for Providence.
The annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections by President Babangida was one of the most tragic events in the Nigerian history that pointed greater attention to the opportunism of praetorianism and totalitarianism; and the dangers the northern fraction of the Nigerian elite portended for the nation. Were Nigeria not a nation where ethnic and religious barometers determine national direction, Babangida should have been put on trial for the death of hundreds of Nigerians that attended his infamous annulment.
The northern fraction of the Nigerian elite suffer from two crucial problems which will always undermine the development of their people and which could be said to be responsible for the annulment of the June 12 elections. In comparison to their southern counterparts they are more backward, selfish and opportunistic. They deliberately keep their people in perpetual ignorance. Fifteen million of their children of school age are out of school. This puts their southern counterparts far ahead of them in the development of their peoples. Out of 57 years of Nigeria’s independence the northern elite have ruled the nation for 40 and yet the north is the most backward region in Nigeria. This is a most confounding oxymoron. Most of the private universities in Nigeria today are in the south. The state universities in the region could be counted on finger tips. There is hardly any state in the south today without a state university. By all standards, the north today is decades behind the south in terms of development because of a backward and annexationist elite. Ignorance has prevented progressive positive actions against a roguish northern elite but has foisted on the region a seemingly unending religious violence and ethnic intolerance.
Again, the northern elite fraction are not enterprising and business minded. The key businesses in their zone have been hijacked by the southern elements. Emir Sanusi, and a progressive, that has been a very outspoken critic of the unprogressive northern elite nearly lost his throne last year and yet the north needs more of him in order to progress.
All the above realities make access to political power for the northern elite a do-or-die affair and it is the spirit behind the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential elections.
Since, 2015, I have been a consistent critic of the Buhari government, albeit, constructively. This has been the case because the government has been riddled in severe contradictions. But for President Buhari to have honoured the memory of Chief MKO Abiola, irrespective of the political undertone, with the highest honours in the land and making June 12 the national democracy day, I doff my hat to His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Long live the President. Chief Gani Fawehinmi for decades was the conscience of the nation. The GCON honours conferred on him are well deserved. But for Baba Gana Kingibe …
3. President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief MKO Abiola and the Elite in Nigeria’s Politics
In my primary school days, I had a friend called Michael. He was not particularly brilliant but was highly favoured by Providence. He had a Bachelor’s degree in History from the Obafemi Awolowo University in the 1980s. But by a strange coincidence, he got a job in one of the oil companies. We were all happy for him, especially those of us his friends teaching in the secondary schools then. We all hoped that from his vintaged economic position that succour would come our way. However, with time, Michael’s self-centeredness and selfishness stated manifesting itself. He made it a policy not to help any of us his friends. He could spend thousands of Naira in ceremonies and public functions where he would be praised to high heavens. But when it came to helping his friends, Michael was a disaster.
When I was pursuing my M.Sc in International Relations in the Obafemi Awolowo University in 1986, Michael gave me a ride in his car to Akure. Seeing him I was so elated and hoping that my financial fortune would be brightened that day. But I calculated very badly. When eventually I alighted from his car, I was expecting my friend to bring out his purse and doll out about five hundred Naira to me. Sadly, Michael waved at me and drove off. Ten minutes after his departure, I was still glued to the spot bemoaning my fate as a secondary school teacher ravaged by erratic salary payment and absolute poverty. A month later, I met a mutual friend and I related my ordeals to him and he laughed. He recounted his harrowing experiences with Michael and those of other friends. Eventually, I completed my postgraduate studies in Ife and joined the Nigerian Defence Academy in 1991, pursued a PhD in Political Science and became a Professor in 2010.
Other friends also made consummate progress in their own right. But the year I became a professor was the year Michael lost his job due to financial impropriety. Today, he is lonely, isolated and shunned by all friends. This is always the fate of selfish and self-centred people like Michael.
Olusegun Obasanjo and Moshood Kashimawo Abiola were school mates in Baptist High School, Abeokuta in the 1950s. While Obasanjo joined the military and rose to the rank of a four star general, Abiola went to Britain, obtained a degree in accounting and became a magnate and octopus in the world of business.
Eventually, Abiola contested the 1993 Presidential but he was denied his mandate by the Babangida regime. As a senior retired military officer, Obasanjo had an ample opportunity to help Abiola, his old school mate and a fellow Egba indigene from Abeokuta. But he never did. Even when he eventually became the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he had the full powers to honour the memory of Abiola but he scuttled the opportunity.
Not only MKO Abiola is the victim of President Obasanjo’s self-centeredness. Generals Oladipo Diya, Tajudeen Olanrewaju and Abdulkarim Adisa were equally implicated in the Abacha’s phantom coup as Obasanjo. But for the eight years that he was President of Nigeria, he never used his position to grant them a Presidential pardon and restore their ranks. It was President Goodluck Jonathan that Providence used to give these officers a respite. Obasanjo has a lot in common with my friend, Michael.
On 4 June, 2018, what Obasanjo failed to do in honouring Abiola was done by President Muhammadu Buhari. He honoured MKO with the highest honours in the land – GCFR and recognised June 12 as the national democracy day. For this, I greatly salute the President. Chief MKO Abiola deserves these honours and many more.
However, I must stress with emphasis that while dealing with the Nigerian elite, a scholar must go beyond the pedestrian and simplistic plane. These elite are the same in their primitive accumulation and exploitation of the Nigerian masses. In their struggle for power, they use all means to realise their goals – ethnicity, religion, subterfuge, betrayal and even murder. So, I do not belong to the tribe of those analysts who would take side with one faction of these elite at the expense of the other.
In terms of morality and contributions to the development of Nigeria, I do not see Obasanjo inferior to all the APC politicians trying to demonise him. There are so many criminals in the APC today that should be in jail. Turn the searchlight on each of them, you would be amazed at the rottenness you will encounter. Obasanjo has made so much contributions to the development of Nigeria that could never be rubbished by the current APC propaganda and deceit. He put his life on the line, fought the civil war in order to keep Nigeria one. He handed over power to the Shangari government in 1979. As President, he brought back the Middle class that was wiped off under the Babangida and Abacha regimes.
I know this would not go well with the uncritical and simplistic who will never bother to ask crucial questions. Why did President Buhari have to wait till eight months to the general elections before honouring the memory of Chief MKO Abiola? Why did he have to wait until he fell out with Obasanjo to do this?
Without equivocation, I submit that two reasons are behind honouring the memory of Abiola at the current Nigeria’s critical conjuncture. The first reason is to win the support of the South West in the 2019 general elections. The dismal performance of the economy under the Buhari government and the litany of unfulfilled promises have significantly diminished the ratings of the APC in the south west. Without any fear of contradictions, I submit that the electorate in the south west are highly articulate and could not be deceived by mere symbolism. The current President of the Federal Republic served under the Abacha government while Abiola was in jail. Why did he not use his influence to help Abiola then? In fact, given his puritanical posturing, why should he even serve under a murderous regime like Abacha’s? Scholars are to interrogate all aspects of the phenomena under consideration. And to do otherwise is to descend into dogma and repugnant intellectual mischief and deceit.
Now back to the APC government. In concrete terms and based on the facts on the ground, it is self evident that the APC government has failed the nation. The poverty level today is higher than what it was three years ago. Then, a liter of petrol was about N87 but today it is N145 and the salaries of the workers remain the same without any review. It does not require any rocket science to know that today the Nigerians are groaning under the yoke of the failure and non-performance of the APC government. The security achievements in the north east have been obliterated by the killer herdsmen in the middle belt. Today Nigeria has been turned into a killing field but in the face of all these stark realities, the APC propagandists and apologists would rationalise and pontificate. In politics, this should be expected. But my greatest concern is when scholars, out of sheer primordial, ethnic and religious sentiments attempt to come up with spurious arguments devoid of rigour and empericism. Scholarship is not about sentiments and briefs but it is based on facts, immutable and stubborn facts, that are irrepressible.
So, back to my point on the south west electorate. Today, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has lost so much grounds in the south west. For now he stands on a shaky ground in the zone. No doubt, the Lagos State Government will easily win the next elections. But thinking that Buhari would enjoy the massive support of 2015 is to relish in electoral delusion. The opposition this time is also fielding a northern candidate who will split the votes in the zone. In Plateau, Benue, Taraba and in many parts of Adamawa and southern Kaduna, President Buhari has lost his goodwill due to the activities of the herdsmen. In the south south and south east zone, he is extremely unpopular. So, whosoever that thinks that the APC under the present government could easily win the 2019 general elections might be in for a lot of surprises.
Another reason why the APC has offered to honour Abiola at the moment is to get at Obasanjo. Well, maybe. The Yoruba have never accepted Obasanjo as their leader. But that is not to say that any outsider could come and rubbish him without serious reprisals. So those people trying to use the EFCC and the security agencies to silence him should take note.
The biggest enemy of the Nigerian masses today is the Nigerian elite. It would be simplistic, uncritical and highly unacademic to see one fraction as superior or better than the other. They are all united in the pauperisation of the masses of Nigeria. But then, the masses should end their lamentations in 2019 by using their votes wisely and make performance a critical point in who wins or loses in the elections.
Toba Alabi is a Professor of Political Science and Defence Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna
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