Jide Osuntokun
To most people and in many cultures all over the world the death of relation or friend makes one to suddenly realize one’s own vulnerability and mortality. King Solomon in his Ecclesiastical discourses makes us realize that all our human exertions to acquire and accumulate wealth come to nothing at the point of death. Our mansions, money and fame will not prevent the cold hands of death from grabbing us when our time is up. Yet we foolishly behave as if we will live for ever. Even to those of us who are orphans and who have lost brothers, sisters and wives we know the death toll would sound for us one day, yet we refuse to reconcile with the fact of death and prepare for eternity. To all believers in the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and even to believers in a pantheon of gods, the message of David as contained in the book of Psalms is appropriate. Psalm 90:12 says “So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”. One of the certainties of life which we mortals bluntly refuse to accept is the predictable winters of our lives and the inevitability of death. The longer we live the closer we are to the end of our lives. We always hope the older ones will pass on before the younger ones but it does not always follow our human mathematical logic. However, it is certain that death will come when it will. If we knew the end of our lives from the beginning, then we would not be men but God who knows the end from the beginning.
When I read about the death of Dele Agekameh, fellow columnist in The Nation, I was taken aback because unlike his friends, I did not know he had been on dialysis since some years ago. I had always seen him as robust and energetic man bubbling with energy and activism for politics and journalism. Our paths crossed during the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan when he and Dr Steve Azaiki, former secretary to Bayelsa State Government approached me and others like Professor Bolaji Akinyemi about the desirability of setting up a national think-tank to function as a non-governmental intellectual body to discuss all issues that may come up in public life.
During the military regime of Olusegun Obasanjo, something like that existed in Nigeria but like all such institutions, it died with the regime that set it up. To a certain extent the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs functioned as a think tank for politics among nations and what Nigeria’s position should be on issues of importance in the global community. The NIIA was perhaps most influential during the Murtala Muhammed/ Olusegun Obasanjo regime when its Director – General, Bolaji Akinyemi was as influential in foreign policy formulation and execution as the foreign minister, Colonel Joe Garba. The NIIA was then the public face and platform for sounding out the views of the critical public on the direction of the government in its foreign policy.
I remember Joe Garba hosting at the NIIA a press conference addressed by Lopo do Nascimento, prime minister of Angola under president Augustino Neto during which time some South African white soldiers captured by the Angolan forces while fighting alongside UNITA against the MPLA recognized government in Luanda were presented to the public. This drew so much public attention and support for government that for once Nigeria was seen to be punching at the right weight in the international arena. Of course the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has always been hostile to or intolerant of the NIIA. The research body is today almost out of action since the coming of the Buhari government. The point I am making is that the idea of a national think tank was not absolutely new. But until Agekameh and Asaiki were driving a new move, the idea remained latent. I remember Professor Akinyemi asking me to prepare a lead paper to lay out the idea of a think tank when we held the first plenary in Lagos. I drew the attention of the assembled audience to the varieties of think tanks from government funded ones to those supported by corporate bodies and others funded by security or intelligence outfits. I drew the attention of the audience to the fact that funding in a sustainable way was critical to the performance of any think tank .The initial enthusiasm soon petered out sometimes afterwards. The reason for this was that some people felt the movement was sponsored by South-south vested interests or generally by politicians coming from the minority areas. The source of funding was opaque and tightly kept by those at the centre of it all especially those from the Niger-Delta. This really did not matter to me personally but I have learnt my lesson that well-meaning ideas do not usually fly because when funding runs out, the death of the ideas is almost inevitable. The moment the people behind the ideas are appointed into government jobs, they lose their interest either because of conflict of interest and because government appointments cannot be had while belonging to non-governmental research institutions especially when such bodies may criticize government.
Permit my wandering thought rather than focusing on the irreplaceable death of Agekameh. I always read his column on Wednesdays and I am sometimes amazed about the information at his command. Some of the information in his possession appears like classified information and that is the strength of his column. A good journalist should be able to ferret out information that would be useful to the public but which the government would naturally not want the public to know. As a columnist myself, I impose a gag rule on what I write so that I do not divulge government sources to which I was privy and which I had access to when I was in the ministry of foreign affairs or when I was ambassador of Nigeria to the Federal Republic of Germany. In the United Kingdom and in Europe generally and in the United States, government files were usually locked up for a period ranging from 30 to 100 years to protect people who gave confidential opinions and advice to government. The situation is however changing. I wonder what the rule is in Nigeria where we have no viable or well organized archives. Even when people write their memoirs, they still hold on to information which if publicly displayed may harm the interest of their countries. I remember advising the late Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle to write his memoirs. Adekunle was an unusual man who spoke Ijaw, Bachama, Hausa, Igbo, Fulfulde and Yoruba. He was of course the most flamboyant and adventurous war commander during the Nigerian civil war. I felt his story would not only have enlivened Nigerian history, it would also have removed some of the dark spots in the history of the army and its involvement in Nigerian politics. His response to my urge for him to write was his usual retort that he knew too much about Nigeria and that he had information that could destroy the country. I do not know whether General Akinrinade too has refused to write his memoirs because of the same consideration.
Perhaps a journalist like Dele Agekameh is not faced with the same problem. Of course the cardinal rule of journalism is protection of sources. Many Nigerian journalists have suffered for refusing to divulge the source of their information. The fact that our journalists are exposed to danger of state and government persecution with nobody to defend them is a major problem facing Nigerian journalists. They are poorly paid and salaries are irregular and infrequent.