By Valentine Obienyem
I had come back from school on that fateful Tuesday, the 7th of July, 1998, feeling worn and worried. I was determined to take my usual siesta, confident that I could not be disturbed, largely due to my serene environment. Suddenly, I heard loud wailing. It had all the trappings of bereavement. Who could be wailing at this time of the day? Had something heart-breaking happened?
Out of curiosity, I stepped onto the balcony to catch a glimpse of whatever was happening. I saw a vast concourse of people in the street – weeping, sorrowing, singing elegies and dirges, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, and visibly devastated. I was told, though still unconfirmed, that Chief M.K.O. Abiola – the apotheosis of our emergent democracy – was dead! I dismissed the news at once as the antics of scaremongers bent on destabilising Nigeria at all costs.
Later in the day, precisely at 6 p.m., Ray Power confirmed the news. I heard it with a sadness that was not feigned. Shocked Nigerians gave him almost divine honours. Everybody pitied his condition, even if all could not love him.
Juxtapose the foregoing with what happened when Nigeria’s “maximum ruler,” Infantry General Sani Abacha, died, and observe the contrast. Abacha’s death was greeted with rejoicing, feasting, and merrymaking. We at LASU even staged a mock burial for him in ecstatic merriment. People like Chief Gani Fawehinmi declared, with such assurance – as if descended from the assembly of gods who decide human fate – that Abacha’s soul was at the hottest part of hell.
These reactions show us how exasperated most Nigerians were with Abacha, and how they plainly saw his death as an opportunity to condemn him. Even to this day, his name is spoken with bated breath. Nigerians marvelled, but none mourned. Summarising his rise and fall, I would say that he stole to the throne like a fox, ruled like a tiger, and died like a dog.
Utilising the liberty that Abiola and Abacha’s deaths have provided, the reckless fringe among Nigerians satirise them heartlessly – perhaps without due respect for the dead, quite un-African, one may say. These people count Abacha and Abiola as part of Nigeria’s political problems.
They are doing an effective hatchet job on the duo’s achievements and worth. Their admirers, on the contrary, praise them and count their deaths among the most tragic events to have happened to Nigeria in the 20th century.
Let us now examine the reasoning of the four major factions: the anti- and pro-Abacha camps, and the anti- and pro-Abiola groups.
The anti-Abacha group greeted his death with an exhalation of relief, as if a long and terrible nightmare had ended. Why? They claimed that Abacha was a caricature of a leader in power. According to them, he emerged during a time when the perquisites of government tempted a hundred generals to contest for power via coup d’état.
Because his power was derived from the military, he was ungainly, avaricious, cruel, vindictive, never forgiving, and totally ruthless. He took sardonic pleasure in proscribing newspapers and knew little about what the people were thinking. His worst sins, they said, were committed around June 12 and against the opposition, whom he either imprisoned or hounded into exile.
Chief Anthony Enahoro, already over seventy years old, is cited as an example of unjust treatment. They resent what they call “the tenacity with which he sentenced all rule in an unchallengeable will,” and they mourn the lives wasted in his bid to “keep Nigeria one.”
They accuse him of governing Nigeria with dour integrity and devoted incompetence. His coldness and taciturnity, they argue, were manifestations of shyness and self-distrust, unbecoming of an executive president.
They even petitioned the devil, like Gani Fawehinmi did, to accept Abacha’s soul at the hottest part of hell. Finally, they pray that Nigeria may never see his like again. We hope not. Yet, I suggest that it is sometimes necessary to behold and suffer, once in many years, the power and limits of the human mind – it is instructive.
On the other hand, the pro-Abacha group remembers him as a patriot who stabilised Nigeria in turbulent times. They insist that he acted with a deep love for the country and was more equitable than most in dealing with foreign powers. They argue that he appeared on the Nigerian political scene as an angel of light and peace amid the chaos of June 12.
On the economic front, they believe he left a worthy legacy, passionately committed to returning Nigeria to its economic glory. They credit him with reforms in banking, ports, petroleum, and other institutions. They even point to today’s resurgent economy -rightly or wrongly -as proof of Abacha’s genius.
To allegations that Abacha was cruel, insensitive, and vindictive, they reply that, judged by the standards of his time, he was not the ogre the opposition made him out to be. Rather, he applied, on a broader scale, the absolute governance methods typical of benevolent military dictatorships.
They claim that beneath his cruelty lay a tenderness rarely exposed to the public. He wept over the death of his son, Mohammed, and repaid his friends’ loyalty with sincere affection. They say Abacha spread inconspicuous kindness among his supporters through contracts and other favours. They lament that he is gone, believing no other government ever so fully desired the good of Nigeria. I venture to say that the many tales of stolen billions make effective nonsense of these spurious claims. Exit Abacha.
Enter Abiola. The anti-Abiola group, including those who desired his complete destruction, looked into his past to contextualise his sufferings. To them, Abiola was not the saint Nigerians took him for. They argue that he courted the military, made his fortune from their patronage, and had a hand in nearly all coups – even those that overthrew democratic governments he later claimed to support.
They believe that his quarrel with the military was nothing but a lover’s quarrel – often passionate, yet transient. Asked to summarise him, they say Abiola moved in picaresque style through a Nigeria of corruption, contracts, coups, and politics, where cleverness was the supreme virtue and success pardoned all.
Then come the moralists. This group detests Abiola for the example he set for Nigerian Youth. They accuse him of sexual overindulgence, driven by a eugenic passion to spread his genes, even seducing girls barely of age.
They argue that the number of his wives and children would pose a riddle to any accountant. They wonder why such a man wanted to become Nigeria’s president.
On the other hand, the pro-Abiola camp cannot speak of him without singing his praises. They point to his wealth and the vast number of companies he owned as evidence of his brilliance and insight. No other Nigerian, they say, has built such an impressive edifice of success: shipping, philanthropy, oil, printing and publishing, insurance, sports, aviation, industrialisation, telecommunications, construction – you name it. To them, he was genius personified.
To the progressives, Abiola is seen within the broader context of Nigerian politics. They admit he was no saint and had many children out of wedlock, but argue that such “by-products” are common among affluent Nigerians and thus forgivable. More importantly, they look beyond the man to what he symbolised – June 12.
That date has become a watershed in Nigerian Political History. It represents an uprising against political oppression and the first real opportunity for the politically marginalised South to produce a president in a country hitherto dominated by the North.
We salute Abiola’s high sense of justice and courage, unshaken after four years of inhuman and undeserved detention. Though his death was unfortunate, we must accept it as a fait accompli and continue with the business of nation-building. Indeed, like nature, history knows only continuity amidst change.
When famous people die, we often think their death marks the end of an era, but it is better seen as a beginning and a challenge – so that the verdict of history may vindicate Abiola.
So, my compatriots, if M.K.O. lived and died for democracy; if he lived and died for justice; if he lived and died for equity, then the best way to immortalise him, I believe, is to carry on where he stopped. Like Abiola, we should be infinitely disposed to accept any suffering for the sake of democracy without flinching.
The beginning of our success shall be the enthronement of a Southerner as president of this country. Anything short of this is unacceptable and would be a great disservice to Abiola – wherever he is. This, I think, is the best legacy.
