By abiodun KOMOLAFE
This must be a particularly thoughtful moment for Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate, and world acclaimed novelist. This is not because the man is ageing. Rather, it is because the atmosphere of his familiar turf, human rights activism, is cloudy and, its future, uncertain. Soyinka has paid life its dues and he must be happy that the society, to which he has devoted so much, is giving him so much in return. When he once tagged this generation a wasted one, not many people liked his guts; quite a good number of Nigerians even bemoaned him for not possessing the spiritual eyes to discern God’s plans for His creatures.
But how time flies! With the twists and turns that have characterized Nigeria’s socio-political landscape, a la Unknown Soldiers syndrome, those who then held dissenting opinions about Soyinka’s position would have by now had a rethink. And it seems as if Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s president, and de jure Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s Big Brother Party, is handicapped. Hence the reason why, contrary to Soyinka’s quest for justice, the killers of the late Dele Giwa, MKO Abiola, Alfred Rewane, Bola Ige, and a host of other Nigerians, may never be found.
In the late 70s, when Nigeria first experienced the fury of the “Unknown Soldiers”, Obasanjo was the military ruler. It was an “Unknown Soldiers’ judgment” by a known High Court judge that handicapped Obasanjo from finding the killers of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, one of Nigeria’s foremost activists. Then, Soyinka was a ‘bloody’ university lecturer. Which therefore meant that, though he might have some tremendous big thoughts as regards how his country was being run, he might not have had the accompanying tremendous big mouth to project his thoughts. About three decades later, the ghosts of the “Unknown Soldiers” are still rearing their ugly heads and at the same time terrorizing our land.
However, even with the world at his feet, Soyinka still does not wield tremendous powers good enough for him to be heard. Though, he has grown with time, with national and international admirers at his beck and call, it still seems as if he is on the other side of the fence. This is because the bigs and the powers that actually make things happen in Nigeria are not in support of his pronouncements.
This is the more reason why, in Nigeria, it has become a sin, punishable by anything, for anybody, whatever his rank or position, to question the morality, or legality, or authority, or whatsoever, of anything that has got to do with the man in power. Governance in Nigeria has been reduced to a family affair where those who find themselves outside the power bloc gnash their teeth only for their tormentors to smile away their sorrows. We have rulers who promise to provide leadership when indeed they are only interested in the pursuit of the chanciness of ceremonial symphonies. Our “political powers are unscrupulous in the use of their powers” and our quest for the truth with respect to how we are being “governed” has always ended up in pitching Them against Us – Nigerians against Nigerians.
When democracy is not played on a level turf, it becomes something else. In such a democracy, decisions are by decrees and policies are by executive fiats, not by popular consensus. That is why those who are accusing President Obasanjo of inefficiency have forgotten that he was (s)elected, not as a leader to claw Nigeria out of the jaws of those who have all along been coveting with impunity the people’s commonweal but, as a ruler, mandated to sit chief and huge over a conquered territory, presiding over the mystery of a nation and the misery of a people. And it seems as if he enjoys working more in periods of conflicts and uncertainties than in times of peace.
This therefore explains why he looks like a magician who only strayed into politics without understanding the nitty gritty of politicking, especially in the area of searching for … investors … and … debt rescheduling, … and … debt conversion … and … debt forgiveness. That is why he settles a conflict by creating another one and why, as our own way of “moving forward”, while the desirable is not available, the available remains grossly elusive.
I have hardly commented on political camps because I do not believe in political camping. After all, of what benefits have all the different political camps, which Nigeria has over the years boasted of, been to the citizenry? In what ways has the Olusegun Obasanjo/Anthony Anenih camp fared better than the Atiku Abubakar/Orji Kalu camp? What did the Ibrahim Babangida/Augustus Aikhomu camp do to subdue democracy in Nigeria that the Muhammadu Buhari/Tunde Idiagbon camp failed to do? And, by extension, what is mainstream politics but another avenue for the covetous enrichment of a few individuals at the expense of a susceptible majority? What has PDP done for the people of Ondo State in its one year of occupation that Alliance for Democracy, AD, did not do when it held sway in the state?
Who has benefited from the intra-party wrangling and squabbles that have taken the better part of Governor Rasheed Ladoja’s government in Oyo State? How should the people of Osun State discern the dividends of mainstream politicking when all the governor does is to embark on jamboree trips and commission near non-existent projects? How should Ekitis reap the benefits of a government when they do not even know whether Ado-Ekiti has (been) relocated to Lagos where the governor engages in media propaganda? How soon have we forgotten that the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s Action Group so succeeded in putting life into opposition politicking in the country that most of what the South West boasts of today as a region are the results of the political resourcefulness of Awoists. And it is on record that the region fared better than any other regions in the country, including those that were then ‘mainstreamly politricking’?
In 1970, Nigeria’s external debt stock was less than one billion dollars. In 1980, it rose to $3.5 billion, and, in 1983, it was US$8.93 billion. Officially, it is now a little above $30 billion. Yet, the untenable excuse of “using subsidy to boost the economy” persists. Yet, feasting in government quarters continues unabated. Ask the Auditor General of the Federation, how much went into hosting the last Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and All Africa Games and how much we realized either in cash or in kind. Nonetheless, unemployment continues to dehumanize (the) youth, hunger kills (the) aged, and hopelessness becomes the lot of the seeming hopeful. Of course, one of the end results of these abnormalities is the cessation of principle of non-violence from being “a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation” but a thing of “puerile passivity”, guided by a psalm of revenge and other retaliatory tendencies. That is why, though our freedom dates back to the 60s, we remain in political and economic bondage.
While I have no problems with the Soyinkas of Nigeria who hold the views that the major cause of our problems has been our continued refusal to talk on how we should co-exist as a nation, my worries are on what should be the composition of such a body and who determines its terms of reference as well as its “no-go” areas? Probably, due to any executive manipulations and jungle injunctions, if its recommendations eventually go the way of the now rested Justice Chukwudifu Oputa-led Human Rights Violations Commission, what should the people do: take to the streets to protest another annulment or simply keep quiet until ‘it happens again’? And the actors: how should they be treated: like victors or villains? In all honesty, do we need a Sovereign National Conference before realizing that some “Unknown Soldiers” have been handling Nigeria like a book, opening its chapters as they suit their whims and caprices, thereby bequeathing to Nigerians a traumatizing yet persistently deregulated cocoon of hegemony?
Why have Nigeria’s activists of our immediate past kept quiet so soon as to have given our tormentors an easy ride over the affairs of our country? Where are the NADECO chieftains of yesteryears who gave the late General Sani Abacha and his goons a run for their lives? It is disheartening to note that Soyinka is leaving behind a disgruntled generation of youth with a bleak future under the tutelage of a weary army of political jesters and pretenders. The elders have gone astray and the youths are going wild. This is simply because those examples the youths are expected to follow are themselves lost in the wilderness of ego-tripping and the phenomenon of bigmanism.
The truth is that we have seen the beginning of “Unknown Soldiers” dealing with the opposition. But when the coast is clear and there is no opposition to deal with again, then, it will be intra-Unknown Soldiers’ nest-killing. And history has all along proved that when dogs begin to eat dogs, even civil wars become a child’s play. Then, Soyinka will have once again been vindicated. It is only a matter of time!
May the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!
- KOMOLAFE wrote in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria (ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)_