No, echoes of 1966 do not hint at some military adventurism, which with hindsight was — and, to those not able to think through Nigeria’s eternal political crisis, could still be — some grim deus-ex-machina.
But for Nigeria and other countries beggared by military rule, the plague is no more than harebrained zooming to, harebrained zooming fro, and on the balance, rooted on the same spot! In Nigeria’s peculiar case, it could well be net retardation!
So, it needs no especial acuity to realise any such suggestion is a barren desert, when what is needed is a spring of ideas to think through the problem — no matter how grim and dire it appears — and arrive at sustainable solutions.
But echoes of 1966 could well and truly be gleaned from the latest Northern Elders Forum, NEF’s psychological war against the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency, by its threat to drag Lt-Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, former chief of Army staff (COAS), to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged human rights abuses, of the Nigerian Army under him, in the Boko Haram anti-terror campaign.
Just as well, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has decried the NEF threat, but all the elements, back in 1966, are here: ethnic grandstanding, regional confrontation, cultural chauvinism and political rascality, all pressed into service in the zero-sum power game.
The warring camps may have changed, but the war logic — or illogic — remains constant.
Back then, it was the North versus the West, with the East in the Northern camp, to crush a common enemy.
But right now, the alliance is altered: it is the “North” versus the East — “East”, meaning the old Eastern Region: present South East and South-South; with the West (present day South West) enjoying its newfound entente with the traditional North, with which it fought to the death in the First Republic.
Again, the clear motive (on both sides) is to crush a common (power) enemy; and the grand prize is the toxic Presidency — definitely more toxic than the Prime Minister’s office of the Tafawa Balewa era.
So, it is natural that the likes of Comrade-Senator Uche Chukwumerije would, in reaction to the Ango Abdullahi challenge, rise in defence of Gen. Ihejirika, an Ndigbo son.
Senator Chukwumerije’s riposte, that anyone thinking of heading for ICC, would do well to watch his back; for following closely might well be ghoulish tales of genocide, dating back to the pre-Civil War northern massacre of the Igbo, a pogrom that morphed into alleged Igbo genocide during the Civil War (1967-1970) itself.
That would fall pat into the theory propagated by the late Chinua Achebe, in his swansong There Was A Country, and by the even more blood-chilling documentation by Emma Okocha, in his Blood on the Niger, a well documented tale of the Asaba massacre, by Nigerian soldiers, of Western Igbo civilians: never accepted as full Igbo by Biafra; never accepted as full Nigerians by Nigeria either!
It was a neither-nor zone of death that, according to Okocha, turned the waters of River Niger crimson with innocent blood of defenceless civilians.
But that claim was no less proudly negated by Brig-Gen. Alabi Isama, in his Civil War memoir, The Tragedy of Victory, in which he claimed the Third Marine Commando Division, where he was chief of staff under the mercurial Brig-Gen. Benjamin Adekunle, never massacred any Igbo, as Biafra’s propaganda claimed, to hold on to its eastern-most reaches, in the face of federal troops’ onslaught.
But there is no contradiction in the two claims: First Division (which Okocha’s book accused of genocide) and Third Marine Division (which Alabi-Isama cleared) fought at different theatres of the war.
But all these justifications and counter-justifications would appear not so important in Prof. Abdullahi’s NEF latest campaign. The target is not Ihejirika per se. It is rather President Jonathan, his commander-in-chief (c-in-c).
Gen. Ihejirika was only the Army chief. Above COAS, in the command chain, is the chief of defence staff, the Defence minister, before the ultimate boss, the C-in-C. So, if Ihejirika is frog-jumped to the ICC, Jonathan too is endangered — and he might well be the ultimate catch!
But Prof. Abdullahi’s merry riposte to Senator Chukwumerije’s grim historical reminder appears suggestive of a grander agenda. Talks of alleged genocide at Odi and Zaki-Biam, at ICC, could also suggest a dragnet for former President Olusegun Obasanjo, unrepentant C-in-C when the terrible deeds were done.
Obasanjo is, of course, the northern friend turned fiend, regarded by many in the aggrieved northern camp as the region’s nemesis, the perceived orchestrator-in-chief of the present power cul-de-sac the “North” now finds itself.
An ironic casualty, should Odi and Zaki-Biam get to ICC, could be Gen. Victor Malu, one of President Obasanjo’s COAS’s, who would double as victim and alleged perpetrator. As COAS, the Odi massacre was under his charge. But he only realised the evil after the pacification guns turned on his own people at Zaki-Biam! So long for selective principle!
Not a few have, therefore, suggested that after the physical trauma of mindless Boko Haram butchery of innocent Nigerians, making the president appear incompetent and clueless, his northern traducers have upped the ante to psychological trauma of post-office ICC trouble.
If that indeed is the case, no pity for President Jonathan from here. Sure, the Nigerian presidency is such a stressful job that about anyone on that hot seat deserves citizens’ empathy. But Jonathan is hardly anyone’s model president, a notorious fact even his most uncritical supporters would concede.
But that is not why he is undeserving of pity. Even after being a victim of impunity from the so-called Yar’Adua cabal, during the late president’s last days, he himself has erected a devil-may-care presidency of impunity, with the brazen criminality his supporters are unleashing in Rivers State. That gravely desecrates his high office, pours odium on institutions of state and endangers democracy. The president as hideous bully, misusing lawful coercion for partisan scores, seldom earns citizens’ endearment.
But Jonathan’s most unforgivable flaw is, as a minority president whose native region bears the brunt of Nigeria’s petroleum mismanagement, he has proved more comfy with the president’s near-imperial powers rather than work towards altering the fundamentals for the greater good.
All too soon, he would cease to be president. Perhaps then he would develop the Malu syndrome: victim of the bestiality of the status quo, when he had, as president, a fighting chance to change it for the better.
Ay, a national dialogue is afoot. But it is almost an open secret that it would be little more than a sop for Jonathan’s presidential re-run credentials, with nary much changing.
But the Jonathan attitude appears no different from his opponents’. Everyone appears bent on having a go at the toxic presidency, despite its clear toxicity!
Yet, without first fixing it, with the dysfunctional current “federalism” that gave birth to it, the future is less than assured, despite the pervasive din of democratic(?) bickering, ala 1966.
