The Nation Newspaper

Tag: history

  • 1979 in contemporary history

    Today, ‘The Message’ chooses to migrate psychologically from the insanity of Nigeria’s political/ religious rigmarole to the global political tempest if only for a change. After all, elasticity has its own limit. And by so migrating, if  temporarily, some relief may come to the readers of this column over the current suffocating economic heat in the country. That is a way of ventilating a peaceful atmosphere for peace-loving Nigerians.

     

    Genesis of Today’s Global Crisis

    Some years ago, Al-Jazeera Television throbbed with   breaking news, saying that a United States military aircraft strayed into the airspace of Iran and the latter promptly responded by shooting it down. Iran announced another incident of the like a few days later. This disturbing development has further aggravated the tension between both countries, which had started with the Iranian revolution since 1979. That revolution had uprooted the country’s imperial despotism which had despotism had caged the citizens of that country for decades.

     

    U.S.’ Reaction

    In reaction to the fotuitous incident, the US authorities explained that the destination of the shot aircraft was Afghanistan and not Iran. They explained that its pilots accidentally lost control and strayed into Iranian territory.

     

    Threat to British Embassy  

    Shortly before that incident, Some Iranian students had besieged the British Embassy in Tehran, protesting the meddling of David Cameron’s government in the internal affairs of Iran. And in retaliation, Britain quickly evacuated her diplomats in Tehran and sent the latter’s diplomats in London packing despite Iran’s regret over those students’ action.

     

    Genesis of faceoff

    The genesis of the faceoff between Iran and the West took roots in the latter’s unexpected revolution of 1979. The faceoff actually started in February 1979 when Iran jumped onto the world stage with a surprising revolution. February 11, 1979 was the precise climax of a struggle, in that country, which began in 1963 between the oppressed people who were seeking emancipation from the shackles of imperialism and the implacable oppressors who wanted to keep that country’s innocent peasants in perpetual subservience. The success of that revolution has since changed the grand design of the Western powers for the Muslim world.

     

    The Grand Design

    That grand design was first expressed in 1902 by a British Prime Minister, Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman when he observed as follows:

    “There are people who control spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden resources.  They dominate the intersections of world routes. Their lands were the cradles of human civilizations and religions. These people have one faith, one language and the same aspirations. No natural barriers can isolate them from one another….If, per chance, these people were to be unified into one state it would then take the fate of the world into its hands and separate Europe from the rest of the world. Taking these considerations seriously, a foreign body should be planted in the heart of this nation to prevent the convergence of its wings in such a way that it could exhaust its powers in never- ending wars. It could also serve as a spring board for the West to gain its coveted objects”.

     

    Follow Up

    Sir Bannerman’s observation was in further pursuit of an earlier demand by one Theodor Herzl, a leader of the Zionist movement founded in 1879. Herzl, an Austrian Jewish lawyer and journalist demanded thus:

    “Let sovereignty be granted us (Jews) over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest, we shall manage by ourselves…”

    In response to that clandestine demand, another British Prime Minister, James Arthur Balfour issued a devastating declaration that now bears his name, which conceded a major part of Palestine to the Zionists as a home. That (Balfour) declaration has since put the Middle East in an incessant turmoil. The declaration read thus in part: “His majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this objective…. The rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country shall not be prejudiced by the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.

     

    Implementation

    To facilitate that objective effectively, some other Middle East countries had to be decapacitated economically and politically by excising from them, a juicy chunk of their lands. Thus, Lebanon was excised from Syria and Kuwait from Iraq. The strategy was to cause a dissention among the citizens of those countries with the intention of breaking the yoke of the Muslim unity which Bannerman had targeted in his infamous observation of 1902 quoted above.

    Now, how does Iran come into this picture when she is not an Arab country?

    That is a logical question that anybody who is not quite familiar with the Middle East and the intricacies of its political and economic set up would ask. Naturally, Iran is affected by three major factors: Politics, economy and culture. And by culture here, we mean ISLAM. Iran is a foremost Islamic country even if her official language is farisi and not Arabic. And, as an Islamic Country, whatever affects other Muslim countries must affect her.

     

    Turkey for instance

    The case of Turkey is a good example of a Muslim country of no-Arabic origin. Turkey was though not an Arab country, she was nevertheless the seat of the Islamic Caliphate until 1924 when a diabolical agent of the West came on stage as Head of State. His name was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk; a man who wanted to prove to the West that it was possible for a non-Catholic to be “Holier than the Pope” especially when it came to adopting the so-called Western Civilization. On March 3, 1924, just one year after assuming office as the ruler of Turkey, Ataturk introduced a Bill to the Turkish Parliament seeking to secularize his country by abolishing the office of the caliph without any consideration for the feelings and sensibility of the people he ruled.

    Presenting the Bill, Ataturk said: “Ottoman Empire was built and existed on the principle of Islam. Islam is Arabic in character and in concept. It shapes from birth to death, the lives of its adherents; it stifles hope and initiative. The Republic (of Turkey) is threatened by the continued existence of Islam in its midst….”

    With the passage of that Bill, Turkey was recognized as a secular state. Politics was separated from religion and Islam was relegated to a personal matter rather than the state religion that it was before then. The caliphate was abolished and Islamic law was abrogated. Ataturk borrowed the new Turkish civil law from Switzerland, the criminal law from Italy and the international law of trade from Germany. The Muslim personal law was harmonized with the European civil law. Religious instruction in public schools was prohibited. Purdah system was abolished and declared illegal. Co-education was introduced to schools. The use of Arabic alphabets was prohibited and replaced by the Latin Script. Adhan (the call to prayer) was no longer to be made in Arabic but in Turkish language while the national costume was changed to that of the Europeans even as the wearing of hat was made compulsory. What Ataturk did not do was to abrogate the tenets of Islam completely.

    Thus, by one man’s whim, Turkey lost her values and heritage of centuries in a bid to adopt the so called ‘modernity’ brought by ‘Western civilization’. One can imagine what Islam would have become today if countries like Iran, Indonesia and Pakistan had adopted the same misfortune.

     

    The emergence of Ayatullah Khomeni

    It was this same situation that prompted the late Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatullah Ruhullah Mousavi Khomeini to embark on the liberation struggle in 1963 that culminated in a successful revolution in 1979. Unlike Ataturk, however, Imam Khomeini knew that the greatest virtue that could be lost in the life of man was culture. He knew that without a clear-cut culture man couldn’t be better than a beast. He knew that such values as law, education and religion, which guide man in his peregrinations on earth, are the attributes of culture. He knew that a nation, which surrenders its culture and adopts that of another nation, has enslaved herself permanently to the caprice of the latter nation. Thus, Khomeini saw Islam, (the culture of over one billion Muslims in the world at that time), as the target of the Western imperialists, which needed defence and protection.

     

    The Revolution

    No one believed in 1979 that a mass protest which started like a small political billow, engendered by the country’s unarmed Mullahs could eventually grow into such a great magnitude of political ‘earthquake’. By the time the foggy dust finally settled, a new Iran had emerged from the debris of the old. Against the wish and expectation of the capitalist West, the secular, monarchical Iran became an Islamic republic. The drama was quite electric.

    Characteristic of the West, all hands were put on deck, at that time, to ensure that an Islamic republic did not succeed the tyrannical monarchy headed by the Shah Pahlavi and heavily backed up by the oppressive West. America was most active in that ambitious but vain effort. She would not easily allow the massive benefit she had been enjoying for decades in that oil-rich country, under the Shah regime, to slip out of her hands just like that. Thus, under the pretext of wanting to rescue her citizens from the siege laid by Iranian students on that country’s embassy, in Tehran, the US attempted an invasion of the country.  The espionage activities by the American diplomats, inside that embassy, against the new Islamic government in Iran had warranted the siege.

     

    The American strategy

    While a number of US F15 bomber jets were approaching Iran, President Jimmy Carter engaged his country’s press in a chat without giving any hint of the impending military operation in Iran. The tactics was to divert the attention of the press and that of the country from the illegal Pentagon’s military expedition. But no sane person can ever fault the contents of the Qur’an. More than 1400 years before that incident, a verse of the Qur’an had been revealed to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) thus: “They (the unbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed. Allah is the supreme schemer”. Q. 3:54.

    Jimmy Carter’s thought was that by the time he would be finishing his press address, the news would have reached him that America had successfully invaded Iran. He had therefore intended to announce the news of his ‘great’ successful scheme to the press as the epilogue of his address. And that would have served as his impetus for wining that year’s election for a second term in office. But, as Allah would have it, instead of the expected news, what he got was a shocker of his life.

     

    The failure of the American strategy

    Two of the F15 fighters deployed for the operation miraculously collided in the air, crashing with their contents, just at the point of entering Iran and consuming the lives of 16 top air force officers while the other jet fighters had to turn back having run into confusion. When this devastating news reached Carter, it was too much to hide and it quickly became a public knowledge.

    Thus, the mighty America failed woefully, with her technology, in circumstances she has never been able to analyze and explain convincingly. With that scheme, it became obvious that Jimmy Carter of the Democrat Party had dug his own political grave. Of course, he lost the election to the cowboy turned Politician, (Ronald Reagan) of the Republican Party. For about 444 days (well over a year), the 52 American hostages remained under the siege of the Iranian students. It took high-level diplomacy, through third party countries, to get them released.

    Yet, America was not done. She went ahead to freeze Iran’s foreign reserve of $80 billion in addition to imposition of economic sanctions with the intention of running that country’s economy aground. The only Iran’s offence in this case was to chart an independent political course that could liberate her citizens from the manacles of the Western imperialism. Ever since, the relationship between America and Iran has remained icy.

    That relationship however, further deteriorated recently when Iran started a nuclear project with which to prop up her economy. America responded with a threat saying the United States would not tolerate any nuclear project in Iran because she could not trust that Islamic nation. And of course, America’s voice was re-echoed by the United Nations, through the mouth of the latter’s Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.

     

     Greyhound

    Only a fool will not know that the UN, as presently constituted, is the greyhound of the US through which the latter barks randomly at the rest of the world.

    But for the recent Iraqi episode that became regrettable for the self-appointed policeman of the world, and of course, the North Korean case, which has become a cancerous sore on the head of the US, another Gulf war would have either ensued or been in plan by now. The secret of America’s military successes in various parts of the world is neither in technological advancement, nor military superiority per se. The failed rescue mission in Iran can confirm this. That secret is rather in her ability to cause schism among some other nations and races.

    Iran has never been a prey to America’s direct military aggression, even when the Shah Pahlavi was in power, because she has never played a fool dancing to the sour music of that predatory country in a seeming open market.

     

    Sanction as weapon

    Now, with the threat of invasion of Iran by Israel on the one hand and economic and political sanctions against her by the Western NATO allies on the other, will history repeat itself? One fact has become clear about the US political trend ever since that country withdrew from her self-isolationism in 1945. Her internal politics has been regularly dictated by her foreign policy. Thus, many American Presidents have won or lost elections at home due to the foreign policy of the concerned President. Will this also repeat itself? The days ahead will answer this fundamental question as events continue to unfold even as the ongoing crisis between Israel and Palestine also remains a cog in the wheel of global peace. But with the objection by China and Russia to any economic sanctions against Iran, the US and her allies will have to watch their steps carefully especially with respect to any planned invasion of Iran before embarking on a military action. Iran is neither Iraq nor Afghanistan. The world cannot afford another World War now. No one should attempt to plunge it into one. A word is enough for the wise.

     

    Coup in Saudi Arabia

    In the same 1979, some disgruntled elements fortuitously staged a coup against the monarchical government of King Khalid. The aim of the coup was not to change the system of government but to hijack the monarchy in the name of a Mahdi (a promised messiah). That incident caused a stoppage of salat and Umrah for almost four months.

     

    Invasion of Afghanistan

    Also in 1979, the now defunct Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with the intention of annexing her and that incident led to an unprecedented jihad that paved way for the emergence of the Taliban government of that country.

    All these incidences of 1979 jointly formed the foundation for the global turmoil of the 21st century now pervading the world and threatening human existence. The details of the coup attempt in Saudi Arabia will be discussed in this column at another time soon. Watch out for it.

  • Geopolitics, history and civilisation

    THE visit of the US President Donald Trump to France to commemorate the French Independence Day of July 14, the day the Bastille was stormed in 1789, trigerring the historical French Revolution is remarkable in many respects.

    These are in terms of the history and geopolitics of the EU and the US as well as the resonant and reverberating effect of that on global diplomacy peace and stability in our world today. Here in Nigeria a reaction to my column of last week called Acting President Yemi Osinbajo [the AP] the ’Gorbachev‘ of Nigeria and I want to take issues with that today in the context of today’s topic. Donald Trump’s visit to France this week to mark the anniversary of the French Revolution of 1789 should be viewed not only in contemporary terms but also historically to appreciate its immense significance. This is especially necessary since the media hostile to the US president have seen the visit and the utterances of the American president on French soil as conflicting with his presidential campaign rhetoric on France. Similarly it is important to examine the unique election of the new French president in terms of French history, since his election has been hailed as the Second French Revolution by the leading world media led by Time Magazine. It is my contention today that the description of Macron’s election in comparison with the original French Revolution was an exaggeration.

    This is because the French Revolution threw up a leader for France and that leader Napoleon Bonaparte [1769 – 1821 ] is head and shoulders above both Donald Trump and Emanuel Macron and that unusual as the elections of both were in their two nations, Napoleon’s legacy should drive the way in which both seek to lead the world after their meeting this week in Paris. A brief narration on Napoleon’s legacy will show the way on how that legacy built our world and civilization as we know it today. Napoleon was an Army Officer who came into power in 1799 in a military coup during the French Revolution and was Emperor of France from 1804 to 1814. He was a soldier born in Ajaccio on the Medoterranean Island of Corsica which was ceded to France a year before he was born which meant he had his first loyalty to his native town before he became a French soldier.

    That simple event dogged his early life as he furthered his military career amongst royalists, revolutionaries and nationalists and he had to know when to dine and flee amongst the three groups in the extremely bloody environment of the French revolution from 1789 to 1799. But Napoleon survived and went on to become First Consul for life and used plebiscites to establish his dictatorship until the French so trusted him and relied on him for their security such that he made himself Emperor of France in the presence of the Pope in an era in which the Church was the state while the monarchy had been decimated by the French Revolution. Nevertheless it is Napoleon’s legacy as a military and political leader that attracts our attention today.

    Historians, great ones at that, have conceded that all the trappings of civilization that we enjoy today in the modern world came from the rule of Napoleon after the French Revolution. Napoleon instituted meritocracy, equality before the law, religious tolerance, property rights, secular education, and the codification of laws called the Napoleonic Code and spread these in all parts of Europe and the world that he conquered in his many battles and invasions during his life.

    Napoleon also introduced rational and efficient local governments, stopped rural banditry, encouraged the arts and culture, promoted scientific research, and spread his Napoleon Codes every where there was French rule in his time. Equally and importantly he tried to strangle France’s major enemy the English by attempting to cut off England from having access to its rich colony India by capturing Egypt but was defeated by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar and later by the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. So, how then can we compare the two leaders of France and the US with the legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte without conceding that the hood does not make the monk? But then that is a set task for today.

    First let us look at the state of the politics and culture of both nations today as these two are sufficient to see us through any fair comparison in terms of relative and global civilization. The two nations face the terrorism of ISIS but are confronting it differently because of their politics. Donald Trump is trying to block Muslims from entering the US and for now the Supreme Court has given him the green light for sometime on that. But France cannot do that ever because colonization and the French policy of acculturation has opened France up to Islam such that France has the largest population of Muslims in Europe today. Indeed Macron was elected on the fear of Brexit and the prospect that migrants would be expelled like Trump was threatening in the US. Yet France has had the worst types of terrorist attacks in Europe in recent times.

    The French see the election of Macron as the victory of tolerance and accommodation in civil society but really I see a surrender of the French state to hostile forces that have penetrated Europe and France in particular in terms of labor, capital, talent, religion, and technology. Again let us look at culture and especially religion and its state in both France and the US. In fact feminism has taken over the high point of the social and political life in both nations. Both nations practice and recognize gay rights and marriages.

    In the US the Obama Administration called the endorsement of gay rights by the US Supreme Court as a major achievement of its tenure while in France the gay marriage bill was endorsed before a belated massive demonstration against it took place in Paris. Nowadays it is difficult for any politician in either nation to get elected without overt endorsement of gay rights and feminism. Yet this is a major axe that not only the bloody ISIS but also China and Russia the two nations that are about to take leadership of the world from the US, EU and NATO have to grind with the western world. I presume this was what Donald Trump had in mind when he said in Poland on his way to the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany that what was at stake is the fate of Western Civilisation. In addition Christianity is dwindling in Christian Europe France and the US but the freedom of worship and religion is still a well observed tenet of the law in these nations .

    In a democracy of demography of one man one vote it is not difficult to see the looming power shift in western democracies as the election of the Mayor of London has shown quite recently. Surely Western Civilisation may be about to stew in its own urine politically, demographically and religiously and Donald Trump’s alarm may have come too late. Anyway I make bold to say the wily and innovative Napoleon in his time would have seen that well in advance and strategized against in the interest of his beloved France. Lastly, an sms from phone number 234701117902 sent by Dr Ekeanyawu, Imo State to me reads thus –‘ you concluded your Saturday JUNE 8 2017 commentary with Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    I pity you because Nigeria is history already. Osinbajo will be the Gorbachev of Nija zoo soon. He will be in Abuja speaking to no one. And for the igbos in the north, the quit notice means nothing. Those who gave the ultimatum will be the ones that will be on the run if they make the costly mistake of killing any Igbo come Oct 1 ‘- My reaction to this sms is that I definitely disagree that the Acting President will be the Gorbachev of Nigeria because he has said the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable and I believe the government is capable of implementing and sustaining that no matter whose ox is gored. In addition when the Soviet Union broke into its constituent 15 states under Gorbachev, no lives were lost unlike the Balkans in the nineties when there was bloodshed and genocide. That will not happen in Nigeria by God’s grace. I have in recent times been ending this column with the phrase – long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria – before the calls for expulsion and secession gathered momentum and cacophony in our polity and will not be deterred from doing so. Especially today, which happens to be my birthday. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • Lagos Assembly restores History in schools

    The Lagos State House of Assembly at its plenary has passed a resolution to revive and enhance the teaching and learning of History in the state’s schools for nation building.

    The House called on Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to direct the Deputy Governor Dr Idiat Adebule, who doubles as the Commissioner for  Education, Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board and other relevant agencies to enhance the teaching of History.

    The Assembly also called on the Ministry of Education to brief its House Committee on Education on the strategies to be used to achieve the teaching of History.

    The prime mover of the motion and Deputy Majority Leader, Mr Olumuyiwa Jimoh, said: “There had been a decline in the teaching of History in schools, which plays down the importance of historical events.

    “Our history and collective patrimonies should be taught in schools to address some of the fundamental issues on nation building and give us direction.

    “Without history, we are a lost race, it is through history we know our origin and tradition. We need to resuscitate it and make its teaching compulsory. Without our history, there is no way we can develop,” Jimoh said.

    The lawmakers, who took turns to decry the decline in the teaching of History in schools, said the country as a whole had suffered from such decline and negligence.

    According to him, History is so important for nation building as well as the socio-economic, cultural and political development of the nation.

    The lawmaker decried the decision of the National Council of Education in 2007 that teaching of History was not necessary in schools.

    Contributing, Chairman of the House Committee on Education, Hon. Olanrewaju Ogunyemi from Ojo Constituency 2, confirmed that History was no longer being taught in primary and secondary schools in the state.

    He explained that the importance of history in the schools could not be over-emphasised, adding that it helps the people to remember their past and make plans for the future.

    “The Minister of Education once called for the re-introduction of History in our schools. The subject was replaced with Civic Education and Government.

    “All these have not been able to give the students what they need to know about the society. No one can kill History no matter how they try. The earlier we bring back the subject the better,” he said.

    Also, Hon. Abiodun Tobun from Epe Constituency 1 said learning is  continuous, adding that History should be taught from primary to secondary school and the university.

    He said most Nigerians know about their national and political leaders through History, and that people adopt role models by learning about them.

    Hon. Bisi Yusuf from Alimosho Constituency 1 stated that the decline in history was affecting the nation’s social institutions.

    “We have moral decadence in our society today because we don’t study history anymore unlike what used to happen in the past,” he said.

    In his submission, the Speaker of the House, Mr Mudashiru Obasa described history as a “teacher”, saying its teaching has so many benefits to the nation.

    Obasa said: “History is like a teacher teaching us where we were, where we are and the way to go. It is to our own advantage – politically, economically, culturally and others.

    “It is important to return history to our curriculum.”

    The Speaker added that there was a need for an overhaul of the educational curriculum to move the nation forward.

  • June 12: What’s Babangida’s place in history?

    June 12: What’s Babangida’s place in history?

    Twenty-four years after the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election by the then Military President Ibrahim Babangida, it remains an important milestone in the country’s political history, because it was a vote against military rule and a vote for democracy. Deputy political Editor RAYMOND MORDI looks at the place of Babangida in history.

    The annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election by the former Military President, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) is widely regarded as a colossal blunder committed by the man who could have gone down in history as the one who introduced the most radical structural changes into public administration, in response to pressing domestic and international economic realities.

    After his successful palace coup of August 1985, Babangida reigned over the country like a colossus. He had captivated many Nigerians with his charisma, particularly his toothy smile and could have gotten away with many of his perceived atrocities against the people, if he had not committed the ultimate blunder of annulling the June 12 presidential election.

    During the eight years he served as Nigeria’s military president, IBB nearly succeeded in entrenching democracy in the nation’s polity but for a hiccup along the way. His regime sunk billions of naira into nurturing two political parties during his lengthy transition to civil rule programme. But, he truncated that transition midway, when results trickling in from the June 12, 1993 presidential election suggested that the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola had won the contest.

    The election is widely regarded as a watershed in the country’s political history, because for the first time, Nigerians defied the culture of docility to vote for the exit of the military from power in a telling manner. In that election, Nigerians chose the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the late MKO Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe who contested on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Abiola not only defeated the candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC), Bashir Tofa, in his home state of Kano, he also defeated him comfortably with 58.4 per cent of the popular vote and a majority in 20 out of the then 30 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    That election was adjudged to be free and fair, and peaceful. But, the Babangida-led military government, which had been playing games with the transition, chose not to announce the final results. Subsequently, on June 23, the election was annulled.

    Observers see the annulment as a coup against the Nigerian people and an act of brazen injustice. Many of those who played key roles at the time, including the chief electoral umpire, Humphrey Nwosu, have since confessed that “their hands were tied” and that indeed MKO Abiola won the election.

    Since he was compelled to step down unceremoniously, Babangida has not been able to come up with a coherent explanation of what happened. Twenty-four years after, he has not been able to say precisely why he annulled the election? In his trademark maradonic style, he has been deliberately giving vague or misleading answers. In his June 23, 1993 broadcast, when he officially annulled the election, he said, among other things, that he took the decision as a favour to Abiola, because the latter would have been killed, if he was allowed to take office.

    In that broadcast, Babangida had also stated that his major objective of the transition programme was to build a lasting foundation for democracy. He added that the June 12 election, like the presidential primaries that were cancelled the previous year, did not meet the basic requirements of democracy: free and fair elections, un-coerced expression of voters’ preference, respect for the electorate as final arbiter in elections, decorum and fairness on the part of electoral umpires, and absolute respect for the rule of law.

    IBB said he had overlooked the breaches because of his determination to keep faith with the handover date of August 27, 1993. He said the breaches continued into the June 12, 1993 election, on an even greater scale, but Humphrey Nwosu’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) went ahead and cleared the candidates. He added that the courts were also intimidated and subjected to “the manipulation of the political process by vested interests, to the point that the entire political system was endangered. Under these circumstances, the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) decided to annul the election in the supreme interest of law and order, political stability and peace”.

    While acknowledging that he allowed the breaches to keep faith with the transition programme, he still blames Nwosu for clearing the candidates and the courts for being intimidated and manipulated by vested interests.

    Abiola had sought IBB’s approval before joining the presidential race and it is on record that the then military president gave a go-ahead to the late MKO. It is also on record that the approval was not for altruistic reasons. First IBB saw it as a way of resolving the credibility crisis he faced in 1992 after the botched presidential primaries and so observers say it was a way of convincing Nigerians that the transition programme was still intact.

    The consensus of observers is that history would not forgive Babangida for deliberately toying with the mandate of the 14.2 million Nigerians that voted for Abiola and Kingibe on June 12, 1993. Many of those close to the corridors of power at the time say Babangida was compelled by ruling northern oligarchy to annul the election, to prevent power from shifting from the north to the south. Tofa was the first northerner to lose a presidential election to a southerner, even though the election was not a regional battle.

    The result of the election is believed to have shocked the northern establishment and their military cohorts and they prevailed on Babangida to annul it. The ruling class had hoped that the combination of Tofa, a Muslim from the North and Dr Sylvester Ugoh, a Christian from the Southeast, was a winning formula. But it did not work out that way. Nigerians gave victory to the more popular pair of Abiola and Kingibe without minding ethnic, religious and regional considerations.

    Observers say there were two issues that were dreaded by the ‘geo-ethno-military-ruling-clique’. First, Abiola’s election would have led to a shift of power from the north to the south; second, the free, fair and credible election would have led to a shift of power from the ‘geo-ethno-military-ruling-clique’ to the Nigerian voters for the first time.

    Nigerians were also compelled to reach the escapable conclusion that the objective of Babangida’s long transition to civil rule programme was to transform into a civilian leader. The fact that he sought to return to power after the Olusegun Obasanjo era as a civilian leader lends credence to this conjecture.

    Nigerians had tolerated all sorts of whimsical ideas from Babangida during the transition. He kept shifting the goal post; he disbanded all the political parties that were in existence then, established and funded two political parties that were the only ones recognized to contest for elections, unilaterally disqualified many politicians and also cancelled primaries that did not meet up to his expectations. The annulment was the last straw that consumed his government and forced him to “step aside”. He left behind an Interim National Government (ING) led by Chief Ernest Shonekan who was handpicked for the assignment, but the ING contrivance only survived for 83 days; in November 1993, General Sani Abacha, who was in the ING as Minister of Defence, seized power. It was obvious that the military never wanted to relinquish power.

    June 12 brought out the worst and the best in the people: the worst in the military and its hungry agents. The injustice also released the people’s energy and capacity for protest. It brought out the best in Nigerians; progressive-minded Nigerians spoke in unison against military tyranny and the violation of their right to choose. The Abacha military junta, which had initially deceived Nigerians about its intentions, unleashed a reign of terror on the country: media houses were attacked, journalists were jailed, bombed, beaten, civil society activists were hauled into detention.

    The repression was nevertheless met with stiff resistance. The people insisted on the restoration of the June 12 mandate, the military’s exit and Abiola’s declaration as winner of the election. On June 11, 1994, in what is now known as the Epetedo declaration, Abiola declared a Government of National Unity and asked for his mandate to be duly recognised.

    He was subsequently arrested for treasonable felony, but that only added fuel to the protests. Abiola later died in custody on July 7, 1998, about a month after Abacha died.

    Without doubt, June 12 has undermined the place of Babangida in history. Otherwise, his regime witnessed a whirlwind of activities and more policy initiatives and fiscal measures than all other past regimes put together.

  • Biafra: The unchangeable history

    This was not the article meant for this column today. The original plan was to continue the theological analysis of Ramadan in continuation of last Friday’s article. But since the circumstances of life are not the same, the need to change gear becomes warranted here.

    Yoruba Adage

    An axiomatic Yoruba adage was rekindled last week when some self-seeking elements called Biafra agitators came forth with a fabricated quotation from no source and credited it to the first Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello. The deliberate fabrication was meant to be a justification for their evil agitation

    in a restive inconsequential game of rebellion. The Yoruba adage goes thus: “Any slave that wants to illegally hijack a bequeathed estate (of an orphan) will surely want to fabricate a rootless history to justify his dubious but inordinate claim”.

    The true manifestation of that adage cannot be better experienced at any other time in Nigeria than now. In a desperate effort by some incurably tribal political marauders claiming to be Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and their Igbo partners in arms named Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) to find reason for their rabid desire for secession, an historically injurious fabrication was hurriedly added to the existing cyber garbage with the

    intent of forcing it down the throats of innocent Nigerians who are expected to consume the poison and swallow it hook line and sinker.

    Tell us another

    The fabricated lie credited to Ahmadu Bello is as follows: “The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the north as willing tools and the south as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their future.”

    Now, take a second cursory look at that quotation and any rational human being will ask rational question.

    The statement was said to have been made as a by the late Northern Premier as a Christmas message to Northern Nigerian Christians on October 12, 1960. Haba!  Why would a well-informed personality like Ahmadu Bello give a Christmas message in October when he knew that December was the time of Christmas in Nigeria? Even if he was not a politician, could he have presented such a recklessly venomous statement to his followers as a goodwill message? When blatant liars are fabricating lies, they hardly think of the situation of listeners or readers. What kind of Christmas message would a Premier of Ahmadu Bello give give in October when he knew that that Christmas season was invaraiably December in Nigeria? Were the Northern Nigerian Christians of the 1950s and 60s so idiotic that they could not understand the Premier’s message and distinguish the wheat from the chaff? What was their response to the message? Liars hardly think of the implications of their lies while fabricating them. These so-called Biafra agitators will need a new fabrication for the generation of their age bracket to justify their thoughtless claim. The fabricated one as become stale and unsellable.

    Facts of history

    “The truth has come and falsehood has vamoosed; surely, falsehood is meant to vamoose (in the presence of the truth)”.  Q. 17: 81 History is like a phenomenal weather which all people of an area feel at once and which no individual or group can unilaterally alter by sheer whim. The more you try to alter it the more it firmly re-establishes itself. Whether it is interpreted and relayed positively or negatively, the fact remains that history is not anybody’s personal property and cannot be anybody’s monopoly. The dramatic personae in the amphitheatre of history are too many and too variant to be taken for granted. For instance, we know as a matter of historical fact that the Nigeria handed over to Nigerian politicians by the colonialists at independence was a loose federation of regional units. Each unit was constitutionally at liberty to grow according to the magnitude or limit of its economic resources.

    We know, and we have not forgotten that the first shot at the Presidency of Nigeria in 1963 was taken by an Igbo man, Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe who occupied the office of Mr. President until January 15, 1966 when Nigeria’s first republic was forcefully terminated via an all Igbo planned military coup.

    We know that the preparation for that coup had started in 1953 when a frontline Igbo politician allegedly expressed with delight, at a State banquet in Lagos, that “Ibos domination of Nigeria was a matter of time”.

    We know that a part of that grand design was the sprouting of the people of Igbo origin to all parts of Nigeria in readiness for taking over when the time was ripe for the execution of the plan.

    We know that the episode of 1954 election which gave victory to Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in both the Eastern and Western regions and which would have made it possible for the Igbo people to rule the West in addition to the East was also part of that design.

    But for the astute and political sagacity of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who moved with alacrity to engineer cross-carpeting as a new political paradigm in Nigeria at that time to preempt the impending slavery of the Yoruba people to their Igbo counterparts surreptitiously, Yoruba people would have remained under the serfdom of Igbo economic and political hegemony till today in a winner takes all tango.

    Further developments

    Yet, we know that following the Igbo military coup of 1966 which saw people of other ethnic groups massacred, it was another Igbo man, Major-General Johnson Agyui-Ironsi who assumed office as Nigeria’s first Military President. Thus, an Igbo civilian was Nigeria’s first President who was succeeded by an Igbo military President. The agenda was to ensure that whatever political situation could become of Nigeria, an Igbo man was to be at the helm of affairs. And that was hurriedly as certained by a daring decree 34 of 1966 enacted by Ironsi to perpetuate his tribesmen in power. That decree obliterated all traces of federalism and turned Nigeria into a unitary form of government where power was to start flowing down to the regions from the centre which he manned.

    Incidentally when Ironsi’s regime collapsed after six months in office, it was the Igbos who first coined the non-existent word ‘MARGINALISATION’ and cried to the world for rescue from the persecution of Hausa and Yoruba tribes of Nigeria. That cry of the owl remains on course till today. The truth is that Igbos of Nigeria can never be satisfied with any post other than that of the President.

    They believe that Nigeria is made for them and others in the country are only to serve them.

    The killing of Ahmadu Bello

    One of the foremost political icons in Nigeria’s first republic and a patriarch of the political party called Northern People’s Congress (NPC), was Alhaji (Sir) Ahmadu Bello, the first and only Premier of Northern Nigeria. He became Premier of Northern Nigeria in 1954 through a popular election and was killed as Premier in January 1966 in a tribal/religious military coup plotted mainly by soldiers of Igbo extraction led by one Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The plotters had killed this icon in cold blood before looking for reasons to justify their heinous crime. The three reasons they later gave were corruption, tribalism and religious bigotry. It was a matter of calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it.

    Premier Bello’s flanks

    Among the four Premiers in Nigeria at that time, only Ahmadu Bello could not in any way be evidently linked to corruption. Unlike others who lived opulently, Ahmadu Bello was an ascetic personality who served his people patriotically without any blemish. He left only a small residential bungalow in his home town of Sokoto at the time of his death. Who else left such a flank? Sir Ahmadu Bello could also not be singularly accused of tribalism because tribalism was the basis of all the existing political parties of the time. No Premier from 1954 to 1966 could be exonerated from tribalism directly or indirectly. They were all guilty of it.

    It can be recalled that certain tribal groups such as Ibiobio State Union (IBU), Ibo Federal Union (IFU) Egbe Omo Oduduwa (EOO) and ‘Jam’iyyar Al-Ummar Nigeriya ta Arewa’ translated as Northern Elements Progressive Association (NEPA) which later transformed into Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) were all tribal socio-cultural organizations that metamorphosed into political parties. All those parties preceded ‘Jam’iyyar Mutane Arewa’ meaning Northern People’s Congress (NPC) to which Ahmadu Bello belonged. Many other ethnic-based political parties later emerged to broaden tribalism in Nigerian politics. If anything, Ahmadu Bello was the least tribally inclined Premier of his time. Why did his killers link him alone to tribalism?

    His 1959 Christmas message

    Of the four Premiers in Nigeria’s first republic, only Ahmadu Bello was bold and sincere enough to allay the fear of the minority groups in Northern Nigeria by making a public policy statement about his government’s stand concerning tribalism and religious bigotry. Here is an excerpt from what he said while sending a Christmas message to northern Christians in December and not October 1959 as fabricators want Nigerians to believe: “…We are people of many different races, tribes and religions, who are knit together by common history, common interests and common ideals.

    Our diversity may be great but the things that unite us are stronger than the things that divide us. On an occasion like this, I always remind people about our firmly rooted policy on religious tolerance.

    Families of all creeds and colour can rely on these assurances. We have no intention of favouring one religion at the expense of another.

    Subject to overriding need to preserve law and order, it is our determination that everyone should have absolute liberty to practice his belief. It is befitting on this momentous day, on behalf of my ministers and myself, to send a special word of gratitude to all Christian missions”.

    “Let me conclude this with a personal message. I extend my greetings to all our people who are Christians on this great feast day. Let us forget the difference in our religion and remember the common brotherhood before God, by dedicating ourselves afresh to the great tasks which lie before us….”

    Any sensible reader who can compare and contrast the two speeches above will surely be able decipher the truth from the falsehood.

    Years, after Ahmadu Bello’s unjustifiable assassination, some evil elements in the media, in active conspiracy with certain political demagogues went to fabricate another statement and credited it to the late Norther Premier as a justification for killing him. The concocted statement was culled from an unknown newspaper called ‘The Parrot’.

    Truth and falsehood

    The Premier’s Christmas message quoted above was made on Thursday, December 24, 1959 (the eve of Christmas) through a radio broadcast and it was published by all newspapers in the country including the vociferous ‘West African Pilot’ owned by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the boisterous ‘Tribune’ owned by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the clamorous ‘Daily Times’ jointly owned privately by certain prominent individuals at that time on Christmas Day. It was equally published by many other smaller newspapers in Nigeria. All those newspapers are identifiable in Nigeria’s media history even though most of them are now defunct.

    On the other hand, the place and occasion of the fabricated statement credited to Ahmadu Bello was not indicated and cannot be traced in Nigeria’s newspaper history.

    Evidence of fabrication

    The first time any genuinely existing newspaper ever made reference to that fabricated statement was on November 13, 2002 (42 years after it was purportedly made. And ‘The Tribune’ newspaper that published it only claimed to have culled it from an online column published on October 24 2002 by a purported Yoruba Journalist (name withheld) who entitled it ‘the northern Agenda’. It can therefore be deduced that the statement was actually fabricated not in the 1960s but in October 2002, by the so-called columnist who credited it to a newspaper that never existed. The objective was to give it an undeserving credibility. What a country! What a people! What a shame! This is a typical case of an obvious mischief by heartless mischief makers just to fetch ephemeral fame and illegal income.

    The belief was that once such a fabricated article appears on the internet and is ignorantly quoted by some inconsequential writers, it would automatically become a document of facts and authority. That is Nigeria for you.

    The coup episode

    January 15, 1966 was a Saturday like no other one in the history of Nigeria. It was on that day that the bitter seed which germinated and grew into the thorny tree that now feeds Nigerians with unpalatable political fruits was planted. The evil planting marked the beginning of an agonizing political voyage of destiny on which Nigerians embarked without a compass. Coming up in the sacred month of Ramadan, the day actually came to confirm the axiomatic thought of an Arab poet who once asserted in a couplet that: “Nights are heavily pregnant; they give birth to wonders in the days….”

    The major casualties

    The heartless rascals in Nigerian military who struck in the January 1966 coup to terminate a democratically elected government must have foreclosed the consequences of their criminal action. They killed virtually all the major key players in the then Nigerian politics except those of Igbo extraction and of course, some non-Igbo people who were then in prisons. The Prime Minister, Alhaji Sir Abubakar

    Tafawa Balewa and the Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh were killed in Lagos. The Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, was killed with his wife and some other people in Kaduna, the then Headquarters of Northern Nigeria. The Premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola was killed in Ibadan, the then Headquarters of the South Western Nigeria while some military top brass of non-Igbo extraction were killed in different military barracks across the country.

    Except for Lt. Col. Arthur Unegbe (an Igbo military officer) who was killed for being too close to Maimalari and could not be trusted, no other Igbo man of note, politician or military, was killed in that coup. As a matter of fact, if there was any feeling of the coup in the Eastern Nigeria at all, it was that of victory and heroism. The top military officers who were killed in the senseless coup included: Brig. S. A. Ademulegun; Brig. Zakari Maimalari; Col. Kur Mohammed; Lt. Col. J. Y. Pam ; Col. S. A. Shodeinde; Lt. Col. Largema; Lt. Col. A. G. Unegbe; S/Lt. James Odu and a host of others.

    Coup planners and executors

    That overwhelming majority of the planners of that coup as well as its executors were of Igbo extraction could not have been a mere coincidence. It is particularly notable that the chief beneficiary of the coup (Major-General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi) was also of Igbo extraction. Almost all the military appointments after the coup were

    for men of Igbo extraction and none of these, except Hassan Katsina and Muhammadu Shuwa was a Muslim. How else could a coup be tribal and religious?

  • Will Nigeria ever learn from history?

    In reaction to the quest for secession by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), four pro-North youth groups have issued a quit notice to the Igbo in northern region. IPOB and the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), spoiling for a showdown , have also urged the Igbo to obey the ‘order’. Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU examines the terse statements from both sides and its implications for national unity.

    Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

    Forty-seven years after the end of the civil war, there are ominous signs of looming disaster again. Is history about to repeat itself? Will Lord Lugard’s forced and false union survive the latest threat? Does the North/East antagonism not portend mutual and assured destruction? Are there no better institutionalised mechanisms for interest aggregation, grievance ventilation and crisis resolution in a democratic polity?

    Two days ago, exuberant leaders of some pro-North groups – Arewa Citizens Action for Change, Arewa Youth Development Foundation, Arewa Students’ Forum and Northern Emancipation Network – fired some salvos from Kaduna, the headquarter of the old North. They were full of bravado. A quit notice was served on Igbo residing in the vast region. The threat paled into the firing of a sharpened arrow across the Niger. The target was the camp of Nnamdi Kanu, the self-acclaimed leader of a crusade for a new country, who, like his deceased role model and symbol of the ill-fated Biafra, has succeeded in equating showmanship with statesmanship.

    The import of the rascality was not lost on the aggrieved street boys on the other side of the Niger. The reaction to the provocation was neither civil nor just. Indisputably, there is a feeling of psychological disintegration. The wound of the three-year civil war has not healed. The bitterness was aggravated by the terse statement from Northern political capital. Reminiscent of the late Col. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s moves in 1966, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) welcomed the eviction order without a deep reflection, urging the easterners to comply without delay. The implication was the demonstration of a loss of faith in the country and confidence in the ability of government to guarantee law and order in the North.

    In the Southwest, there was sober reflection among people who lamented the outbreak of civil war and endured the pains of protecting the abandoned property left behind by fleeing Igbo, who heeded the call to relocate to the East in the past. Having played a stabilising role at that delicate period, the politically sophisticated Yoruba is taken aback by the inability of both the North and the East to manage their reactions to the unfriendly tendencies of a highly defective federal state in a way that may not necessarily endanger real or imagined national unity.

    To other critical stakeholders, the onslaught by the youths from the North is perceived as a further disservice to the cause of togetherness. It has inadvertently made the quest for a sense of belonging a tall order. Nigerians, irrespective of their states of origin or ethnic nationalities, have the fundamental right to reside in any part of the country. Therefore, the Northern ‘rascals’ appeared to have taken laws into their hands by attempting to infringe on the liberty of Igbo to live peacefully in the North without any fear of molestation. But, the restless Igbo agitators, unmindful of the ethnic suspicion in the fragile federal nation-state, have also aggravated the tensed situation by making a foul proposal that could endanger their kith and kin, if there is a sudden mass migration from the Arewa land to an imagined state of Biafra celebrated by sponsored day dreamers.

    On both sides, ethnic jingoists are beating the drums of war. Their sponsors appear to be enjoying the irritating show of rebellion. Political leaders are pretending as if all is well. Although prevention is better than cure, the government appears to be aloof to an impending doom. The foundation of national unity is shaking. This is the awful picture of Nigeria at 57.

    What is the crux of the matter? The agitators from the East are seized by nostalgia. They are projecting themselves as heroes of an inexplicable struggle for secession in a disunited Nigeria, where they claim the Igbo or the Southeast is permanently marginalised. Their quest for self-determination may be legitimate, but the basis for the balkanisation, as it is being perceived by other parts of the country, could be disputed.

    There are some puzzles: are Igbo truly marginalised? Where is the evidence of marginalisation? Is it because Southeast has five states and the Northwest has seven? Have Yoruba not complained about some forms of injustice, following the annulment of ‘June 12,’ and also under the Jonathan administration? Which section of the country is not marginalised? Which region does not have one complaint or the other against the lopsided federalism? Why will Igbo now settle for a situation where they will need a visa to travel from the East to Lagos, Abuja, Maiduguri and Sokoto for lawful businesses?

    Again, does the wild struggle has a scope and limitation? What about Igbo who are home already outside the Southeast? What is not clear is whether the geography of the proposed Biafra of Igbo will accommodate Igbo indigenes of Edo, Delta and Rivers states, who have not endorsed the strange cause with any show of goodwill and solidarity.

    In reaction to the quest for secession by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), four pro-North youth groups have issued a quit notice to the Igbo in northern region. IPOB and the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), spoiling for a showdown , have also urged the Igbo to obey the ‘order’. Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU examines the terse statements from both sides and its implications for national unity.

    The renewed war of liberation, as it were, has received the tacit endorsement of prominent Igbo leaders. Many of them are maintaining a strategic silence, knowing that, if the plot fails the second time, they will not be accused of culpability. Instructively, prominent Igbo intellectuals and businessmen abandoned Ojukwu midway into his misadventure. Eminent Igbo leaders who have spoken in support of the renewed clamour for secession have done so at great risk to their previous national outlook. The question is: are Igbo, who are being asked to return home, not the victims of a mindless and futile struggle for an elusive Biafra, which was dead and buried in 1970?

    Back to the Northern jesters. Is the opinion of the isolated four groups representative of the dominant view in the region? What is the motivation for creating panic for sojourners and settlers of Igbo extraction who are law abiding? Have the Igbo traders in the North violated any norm of their host? IPOB has been accused of confrontational attitude by the latter-day northern irredentist. But, how? When does a mere agitation for a separate state becomes an intimidation to a region of three zones in a country of six geo-political zones? Why are they now hypocritically supporting the plot which their illustrious fathers fought gallantly to abort between 1967 and 1970? Who are the people sponsoring the reckless mission of the paper-weight northern groups? Why can’t the group align their reactions with the much more coordinated view of the properly constituted regional mouthpiece, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF)?

    The scenarios portend greater destabilisation and danger to national unity. The lessons of the past are instructive. The cries of despondency by ethnic military activists who fueled disharmony under the guise of group marginalisation were the main prelude to pogrom in the late 60s. None of the top actors was a victim. The casualties were ordinary folks, who could not comprehend the hidden agenda of warlords after swallowing the dogma of flawed nationalism. Secession was not easy in 1967. It led to disaster, depopulation and wastage of human and material assets. It will not be easier in the foreseeable future.

    Yet, the factors that provoked secession have not faded, 47 years after. When a section of the country is complaining about perceived injustice, the grievances must not be ignored. A responsive and responsible governor should guarantee an atmosphere of equity, justice and fair play in an atmosphere of cooperative federalism. In particular, the onus is on President Buhari, who fought on the side of the federal forces to repel the Biafran forces, to deeply reflect on the demands of the agitators. Mere suppression of agitation may not avert another war, which will herald a gloomy future for both sides. Nigeria does not need a second civil war, which it may not survive. The reason is that the tribulation will be much for the government and a fledgling country fighting battles with Boko Haram insurgents, violent migrant herdsmen and Niger Delta militants.

    What is the solution? Taking up arms is not the antidote. Dialogue or reconciliation is the answer.  In a plural society; an amalgam of incompatible social formations; there must be institutional respect for peculiarities, a recognition of self-determination, which has become the anthem of the millennium. The government can avert pandemonium and disaster of monumental proportion by embracing the option of restructuring. That restructuring should bear fruits of devolution and redress the perceived injustice or marginalisation. It will also prevent domination of other ethnic nationalities by a particular ethnic group and give the diverse people of Nigeria an equitable sense of belonging.

  • Between history and Bamaiyi’s ‘vindication’

    General Ishaya Bamaiyi’s latest intellectual perversion Vindication of a General ordinarily should not deserve a response from seriously minded people. For one, Gen Bamaiyi successfully portrayed himself in the book as a bundle of contradictions, and a person of doubtful integrity. Or how else can one describe someone who claimed every other person he ever associated with or serve under as evil?

    Before I am accused of exaggeration, let me give examples. In the book, he described his immediate older brother- the late Major-General Musa Bamaiyi as callous, mischievous and dishonest (page213-216); His town’s Emir (Zuru) Gen. Sani Sami (rtd) as an ingrate and insincere (page 185); Gen. M. Gausau (his former GOC) as incompetent (page 38); Gen. A. Z. Kazir, (his former Chief of Army Staff) an officer of doubtful loyalty (page 40); Gen. M.C. Alli (his former Chief of Army Staff) a coward (page 45-46); Prof Yemi Osinbajo (present Vice President) as an indecisive and diabolical Attorney General (page 133); and Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar,(former Head of State) an ex-convict (page113).

    This is against the background of Gen. Bamaiyi’s bigotry in the same book where he proclaimed himself to be ‘too honest and too smart’ (page 12).

    To put the record straight one is compelled to respond to Gen. Bamaiyi’s revisionism of history in his desperate attempt to rehabilitate himself from oblivion engendered by his self- inflicted habitual treachery and deceits.

    Suffice it to say, the book is a study in contradictions and incoherent thoughts. The general posited that there is nothing phantom about the 1995 and 1997 coups. This conclusion is understandable from his perspective. He claimed to have detected and foiled the coups. This suggests out rightly it will be self-contradictory for him to admit that the coups were phantom. Yet, Gen. Bamaiyi provided evidences throughout the book that the coups were indeed phantom. On 1995 coup, he claimed: “I had doubt about Gen. Obasanjo’s involvement in the coup based on the briefing we received from the DMI, Col. Sabo, the SPI report, and the statements of other coupists. (page 41).  What is more, the principal motive that led to set-ups to eliminate key political and military leaders was provided by Gen. Bamaiyi. According to him, “…based on available evidence and body language of Gen. Sani Abacha himself, the goal of the transition programme was to return himself to power at the end …”

    The perfidy of Gen. Bamaiyi was epitomized by his poor and failed attempt to exonerate himself from the 1997 coup set up against Gen. Oladipo Diya. In the first instance, he admitted inadvertently that there were attempts to set up Gen. Diya before 1997. Let me quote him: “Alli appeared to have agreed to help set up Diya but later confessed to such a setup … (page 56). Again, he asked a question which succinctly suggests set up against Gen Diya, “If we had tried to setup Gen Diya in 1996, why did he agree to deal with us again in 1997? (Pp56-57).  Also, Gen. Bamaiyi admitted that he presided over an army that manufactured evidence against officers for personal considerations. In another instance, he wrote: “Brig. Gen. Sabo, the DMI, once wrote a report to Gen Abacha alleging that Gen. Babangida, Dr. Mike Adenuga, and I had been seen on Kaduna Road discussing how to overthrown Abacha.(p57)” He further admitted that Abacha cohorts manufactured evidences to get rid of their enemies. (pp95-96). It is therefore obvious from Gen Bamaiyi’s narratives that Gen Oladipo Diya was apparently a victim of the ‘Abacha for life cohort’.

    His rendition on the 1997 coup was riddled with incoherent thoughts and contradictions. In one breath, he argued that Gen Diya began the coup plan in 1994 which he Bamaiyi informed Gen Abacha about (page 43-44). Yet, he reported that Gen. M. C. Alli was retired for plotting against Gen Abacha and the same Abacha prevented the retirement of Gen Diya on several occasions (page 43). Haba! You are not talking to fools.

    The historical facts of the 1997 phantom coup are in the public domain. Nigerians do not need a Bamaiyi revisionism to form opinion on who concocted the coup. The Chief investigator of the saga – Col. Frank Omenka had told TELL magazine of Jan. 11, 1999, “When I hear people talk of Diya’s coup I laugh because I know the truth it was not, pure and simple.” Even Gen. Victor Malu admitted that Gen. Diya was not the planner of the plot.

    If the truth must be told, Gen. Bamaiyi thrives on Niccolo Machiavelli adopted philosophy that ‘gratitude is a burden and revenge is a pleasure’-Tacitus c.55-120A.D. His tirade against Gen Diya apparently is informed by the Diya’s question during the trial “Where is Bamayi? I am surprised that the Chief of Army Staff is not here. He is the mastermind, the executioner and the planner of this incident. I am not going into details of that now because this is a clear case of set up…. and it is organised right from the top.” It was a speech made literally at the point death. It was a speech that exposed Gen Bamaiyi’s real character deficiency.

    Is it not curious that in the entire book, Gen Bamaiyi never for once mentioned the inglorious attempt of his cohort to murder Gen Diya on December 13, 1997 while he was on a plane trip to Gen. Lawrence Onoja’s mother’s burial in Benue State. Few days later Gen Diya was arrested purportedly for a coup. The truth is sacrosanct. No matter how many times a lie is told repeatedly, it is still a lie.

     

    • Afowowe is of the Department of History and International Studies, Osun State University.
  • Osun: History meets the historic

    Osun: History meets the historic

    You can’t step in the same river twice 
    —Heraclitus, Greek philosopher

    The excitement reached a head, as the party hit the November 27 interchange, that flies over Gbongan road, in Osogbo.
    He was no yokel; but in his excitement, prancing and skipping, he yodelled like one.
    “Ogbeni, the Awolowo of our time,” he chirped, “don’t forget the Bisi Akande trumpet!” — and, all zeal and fervency, he pointed towards Gbongon.
    The Bisi Akande Trumpet Bridge was some 40 kilometers away, at the old Gbongan junction, with Ibadan-lfe expressway.  But this enthusiast couldn’t imagine Osun Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, letting go of his Guild of Editors guests, without showing off his architectural wonder.
    It was March 18.  The Guild of Editors chose to hold its committee meeting at Osogbo.  The governor also seized the occasion to show the elite of the Nigerian media Osun’s developmental strides.  Though Ripples is no member of the Guild, he was invited to join the August visitors in March.
    The bussed company, with the governor himself in-situ, set out, from the Oke Fia Government House, quietly enough.
    But they lost their anonymity that moment, at the Olaiya junction of Alekuwodo,  in Osogbo’s commercial hub, someone sighted the  governor, and let go a yelp.
    Before you knew it, an excited, beaming, dancing company was pumping fists and flashing “V” (for victory) signs, with their two fore-fingers, a sign original to Winston  Churchill, Britain’s World War 2 hero; but popularized in these climes by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, first premier of the old Western Region.
    The governor, himself a study in boyish excitement, returned the “V” compliment;  and an impromptu carnival of love, mutual doting and appreciation ensued.  As the convoy rolled slowly by, on the newly named Workers Avenue, so did the excited people swell in their numbers.
    But everything got to a head on the November 27 bridge, when the governor and his entourage disembarked, the accompanying officials explaining the work-in-progress; and the governor himself chipping in now and then, especially the engineering and technical details.
    The first leg of the tour was on the Oba Adesoji Aderemi ring road, that ripples with history, old and contemporary.
    Oba Aderemi (1889-1980), was Ooni of Ife (1930-1980); and was first indigenous governor of Western Region, during which time Chief Awolowo, as Premier, performed his social transformation wonders, that hauled the old West clear of the other regions, of North and East.
    But, as Oba Aderemi offers today’s Osun a symbolic tieback to the Awolowo golden age, so does its 17.5-kilometre stretch project, to a future Osun, clear historical landmarks.
    Those monuments capture its infrastructural remake, from a backwater “civil service” state that rose and fell by Abuja’s dole; to a land poised to harness its resources, in the finest tradition of the Yoruba Omoluabi.
    It is a classic case of history meeting the historic-minded.
    Those monuments?  Four bridges, really.
    Five Judges, to commemorate the five Court of Appeal justices, whose verdict reclaimed the Aregbesola mandate, after almost a four-year struggle; November 26, the day that judgment was given; November 27, when the first Aregbesola administration birthed, and August 9, the day the governor won re-election, despite the hideous plots to skew the vote, by the Jonathan Presidency, flush with success in a similar gambit in Ekiti.
    By design or by accident, November 27 and Bisi Akande Trumpet bridges appear the grandest of the signature road projects, wrapped in political symbols, that would in history, define the developmental temper of the Aregbesola years.
    Bisi Akande immortalizes Osun’s very first attempt at serious governance (1999-2003), since its creation in 1991.  But that attempt was scuttled, during the Obasanjo South West electoral tsunami of 2003.  November 27, on the other hand provided a doughty root for August 9, that day in 2014 the Osun local forces trumped illicit “federal might” to renew Aregbesola’s mandate.
    The rest of the project tour, the Osogbo Government High School, one of the 11 avant-grade public schools springing up in different locations of the state; and the Nelson Mandela Freedom Park, Osogbo, are no less impressive symbols of developmental governance.
    But the Mandela Freedom Park offers something somewhat novel — an informal museum of leisurely history.  Mingling with park seats, on close-cropped lawns, is a special section bearing busts of Titans of the progressive politics of the West, from different ages: Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Bola Ige, Chief Bisi Akande and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
    Yet, another section of mini-galleries, boasts marble plaques, that encapsulate the tenure of every Osun governor, military or civilian, from Col. Leo Segun Aborisade, the first governor (military administrator) to Aregbesola himself.  So, as loungers relax, they can read up their history and civics.
    Dominating the park landscape is the impressive Atewogbeja Fountain, a tribute to the Osun river and its trove of fresh-water fishes.  The fountain waters are electrically programmed, at night, to tumble down in a rainbow of colours.
    Incidentally, the tour ended at Olaiya junction, with the unending tryst between an appreciative people and their governor!
    From the tour revelations, Osun, of the Aregbesola years, would appear in a flux of rapid change; to justify the Heraclitean quip: you can’t step in the same river twice!   Indeed, Osogbo had come a long way from the old rural town,  to a growing modern city, gradually holding its own in serenity and winning infrastructure, drawing new businesses across different sectors.
    So has Osun shrugged off its laggardness to, despite its puny resources, point the way in the schools feeding programme, which the Federal Government just adopted on a national scale.
    Surely then, the Aregbe legacy is assured, came what may?  Not exactly.
    Indeed, Osun is painfully poised at a critical juncture between the short-lived but enduring Western Renaissance under  Awo, before the SLA Akintola Demo forces blighted everything; and the  post-1999 Lagos of sound developmental governance and golden continuity, which has become a national reference.
    You could feel palpable panic, the way some Osun conservatives, in concert with Yoruba irredentists, tried to mould themselves into emergency Yoruba warriors against phantom Hausa-Fulani threat, when the Ife disturbance was nothing but mutual criminality.
    The Afenifere veterans that dived into bed with Femi Fani-Kayode’s subversive Yoruba nationalism would appear splashing in the Osun political river, panic-stricken that, after the Aregbe years, so much has changed you can’t step in the same river twice.
    So is Iyiola Omisore, with his trademark spew of verbal rot, perhaps gripped with the fear that, with the balance of forces, he might just be graduating, from serial failure to veteran failure, in his quixotic gubernatorial quest.
    Still, that would appear no done deal.  Even as Heraclitus declared nature was in a flux, Parminides, his Greek contemporary, countered nature was static and unchanging! That contradiction could give the conservatives some hope, no matter how tenuous.
    So, Osun could well be changing; but maybe not rapidly enough to banish that 2003 electoral ghost, that traded solid gold for glittering tinsel.  For that, the state paid a stiff price in hideous stagnation, in the dreadful pre-Aregbe years.
    However it goes, Aregbesola’s personal legacy, like Chief Awolowo’s before him, appears secure.
    But not the Osun developmental fate, ironically again, like the old West, where Awo wrought wonders only for the Demo renegades to blight everything.
    Osun’s best bet, therefore, is a post Aregbe-era of stellar developmental strides, anchored on present efforts.  That way, Osun may yet emerge the ultimate development wonder of the 4th Republic, just as the old West was the 1st Republic’s.
    Ay, Lagos holds that honour now.  But even the most doting of Lagosians would admit the post-1999 Tinubu movement (which incidentally Aregbesola was part of) only re-engineered a decaying former federal capital.  Osun, under Aregbe, never had such a head start.
    But the threat to Osun enjoying a Lagos-like golden continuation, and not enduring the old West’s reactionary roll-back, would appear to lie less with the Osun conservatives, no matter how desperate they may be, but with the governor’s own internal foes, craving pork but pretending all is cool.
    That is the direction to address, if Aregbe must, like Tinubu in Lagos, get the successor(s) to further entrench Osun’s unfolding renaissance.

  • Learning from history

    It is looking like a script from a classic film in which the main actor is the last to be killed.
    But this setting isn’t a film, even as the actor has exhausted all the tricks in the books to escape being exposed as one whose word isn’t his bond.

    Many people have sneered at Victor Moses’ absence from Nigeria’s two international friendlies against the Teranga Lions of Senegal and the Stallions of Burkina Faso inside the Barnet FC’s Hive Stadium in England, which was meant to blend the Super Eagles ahead of the crucial 2019 Africa Cup of Nation qualifier tie against Bafana Bafana of South Africa in June. Indeed, the Eagles have another titanic clash against our perennial rivals, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon in August inside the magnificent Nest of Champions Stadium in Uyo.

    Those who have winked at Moses’ new theatrics argue that the scenario recurs when Nigeria has a friendly or away matches. They reckon that Moses, being the soul of the Eagles, ought to play in such build-up games to help the coaches fashion out the right strategies to conquer the South Africans and the Cameroonians later in the year.

    Besides, this school of thought can’t believe that Moses is injured, having seen Chelsea’s last game against Stoke which the Blues won 2-0. Moses played for 70 minutes, with no crunchy tackle from Stoke players. Moses is believed to have followed the path of Eden Hazard, another Chelsea star, who opted out of Belgium’s international friendly, raising the poser of the troublesome club versus country debacle, mostly with European clubs, when they are in contention for trophies.

    Why would any player decide to collude with his European club to dodge his country’s matches, knowing that he is dispensable? Can players not learn from what has become of the club’s stars when they are no longer useful? Sadly, these “escapee” players eventually play for the clubs ten days after missing their country’s games. Medical experts reckon that injuries that could keep a player out of a game would need between seven to 14 days to heal. Even at that, such players have to train to attain match fitness before playing again. Will anyone be surprised if Moses and Hazard play for Chelsea next weekend? It won’t be for the first time, I dare say.

    Soccer followers are peeved by Moses’ stunts and have considered the theatrics of reporting to the camp for Eagles’ doctors to evaluate his injury as an afterthought to escape the vituperations against him in the build-up to Nigeria’s victory over Algeria in one of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers in Uyo, last year.  These soccer analysts opine that several players accept to play for their clubs using pain killers; not for their countries.

    The flipside to this argument is the school of thought which feels that the players would always play for their clubs because they pay their wages. But this submission is selfish because clubs engaged them after watching them play for their countries. What have all the European clubs that our past stars played for done for them since they stopped playing beyond inviting them to play testimonial matches? How many European clubs have come to watch the Nigerian league, for instance, and pick a rookie, who will immediately play for them? Isn’t it embedded in the rule that players must play 75 per cent of their countries’ national team assignments to qualify for work permits, especially in England? Isn’t this the reason many ageing African stars don’t get their deals renewed in the twilight of their career?

    It is true that most countries use and dump their stars, but the bigger picture is that most of them attain the star status playing for their countries. Besides, they are quick to preach patriotism to the younger ones in the twilight of their careers. Need I name players who have turned coat on Nigerian assignments in their later days with European clubs?

    My happiness with Moses is that he has chosen the path of honour by submitting himself for recheck by Eagles’ doctors. The coincidence of always sustaining injuries days to Nigeria’s away games or friendlies is worrisome. It smacks of conspiracy with the European clubs, which I feel strongly isn’t the case with Moses. I will be thrilled if Moses remains in the camp to give moral support to his mates. It also won’t be out of place if he watches both matches.

     Nigerian coaches, I dey laugh o!

     My apologises to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who made I dey laugh o, a lingo. I honestly didn’t want to talk about Nigerian coaches again, since they hate to be told the truth. I’ve been attacked for defending the recruitment of a foreign coach for Nigeria, with many alleging that I’m an agent.

    Who is a football coach in Nigeria? From the records, to become a coach now, you must have played the game. You must have retired unexpectedly due to injury. No one cares if you are a trained coach with requisite qualifications to do the job, as long as you can joggle the ball. With this kind of credentials, it shouldn’t shock anyone if our coaches fail when pitched against renowned coaches elsewhere. They certainly cannot give what they don’t have.

    In the past we had better trained coaches, such as Adegboye Onigbinde, Alabi Aissien, James Peter, Monday Sinclair, Ufere Nwankwo, Bitrus Bewarang, the late Willy Bazuaye, the late Udemezue, and the late Shuaibu Amodu et al. These coaches distinguished themselves handling domestic league sides to win laurels. Their feats ensured that they were elevated to handle the country’s soccer teams across all cadres.

    Many of these coaches were products of the Teachers Training Schools, Colleges of Education, Physical and Health Education Colleges, which trained games masters and mistresses of yore. So, they have a background to their jobs, with cognate knowledge of how to identify, groom and expose talents. Movement up the ranks was done through such coaches’ achievements, not what we have now.

    If we must stem this slide, the League Management Company (LMC), in conjunction with the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF, must implement the policy where only certificated coaches are allowed to sit on the bench of any club. LMC and indeed NFF must organise periodic coaching seminars for our coaches to help them improve. This idea of anyone being a club coach must stop. Both bodies must insist on assisting our club representatives to continental competitions because the shame of our current ouster falls on us. How can the abundant talents at the grassroots get lucrative deals with bigger teams in the world, if our clubs can’t qualify for the second round in the continent?

    Besides, LMC and NFF chieftains must monitor all the stages of the domestic league games to ensure that true winners emerge. It speaks a lot about how teams win the domestic league, if in the following season as many as 15 new players are recruited to strengthen such a side.  Commonsense tells me that such a team can’t win games since they need time to blend to play as an indivisible unit. LMC and NFF must discourage our continental ambassadors next year from beefing up their teams with players who have failed with other teams in the past in Africa under the guise of their experience.

    The story of Leicester City of England should guide our club owners in recruiting players. Leicester is still in the UEFA Champions League, in spite of their shambolic Barclays English Premier outings because they kept the bulk of their last season stars. When things went awry for them, they sacked their Italian manager, Claudio Ranieri and promoted his assistant. Leicester are back in the groove, winning all its three games since Ranieri was shown the exit door.

     Unity at last

     Part of the problems of the Super Eagles is unity among the players. It will shock many readers to know that our players don’t communicate with themselves when they are out of national assignments. This writer was miffed when told that two of our players in the same European club were not on speaking terms. The discovery arose when one of them couldn’t provide the telephone numbers of his team mate.

    Ridiculous, you have not heard anything, especially after the late Samuel Okwaraji told journalists that he had to walk towards three members of the Super Eagles “mafia” to ask why they were not passing the ball to him at half-time. The late Okwaraji pointed at his shirt to ask if it was different from what the “mafia men” were wearing. Of course, it wasn’t and the culprits knew so. They changed their minds in the second half and Okwaraji scored a goal for Nigeria. Funny? I don’t think so, because it is common knowledge that members of the country’s most successful Eagles side refused to pass the ball to the late Rashidi Yekini, after his feats. Need I remind you of what transpired in one of the matches?

    So, when the news broke on Tuesday night from the Eagles’ Crown Plaza Hotel camp in England that those in the camp were missing Captain John Mikel Obi, I sighed, knowing that only foreign coaches achieve such feats. I’m a Nigerian, but our local coaches create camps in the team to satisfy their whims and caprices. It is the reason the Eagles totter under their tutelage. You don’t need any seer to tell you all the blocs in the Eagles, which become evident even during training. Our coaches don’t give a hoot.

    I’ve enjoyed watching the clips of the initiation of new Super Eagles players on video from the Crowne Plaza Hotel in London. I laughed watching Ebuehi dance. The way he twisted his waist and rolled his bum showed the impact Nigerian artistes have in the world of entertainment. Initiation ceremonies are meant for bonding. Please don’t remind me about what we passed through at the Government College Ughelli. Just try and drink heavily salted water and make an attempt to whistle. Great GCU, Up Mariners! Keep the ship sailing.

  • A fatherland and its paradoxical history

    A fatherland and its paradoxical history

    Title: Scented Offal (2016)
    Author: Sam Omatseye
    Publishers: Topseal Communications, Lagos
    Reviewer: Ademola Adesola

    There is a connection between history and literature. Indeed, history serves as a beneficial source of material for literature. The bounties of history are all rich harvests for literature. History, in this connection, is also a subject of literature. As such, the human tragedies and humanitarian crises which history chronicles painstakingly are correspondingly of great interest to literature, a wide-ranging human enterprise.

    Accordingly, there is a sense in which the literature of a country can as well be viewed as embodying its history. In this respect we are on the turf of historical fiction. Such fiction, Barzun postulates, “transmits the ideals of a community now living, long past, or soon to be born […] it helps men to live and to remember.”

    It is this responsibility of enabling his fellow compatriots, especially the young, “to live and to remember,” that Sam Omatseye discharges in his narrative poem, Scented Offal – a graphically recreated account of the multivalent history of a land that was later to be christened “Nigeria”. In scope, the narrative spans the periods between 1900 and the end of the bitter and vulgarly resolved war of secession. For Omatseye, what was intended to be a simple lyrical poem morphed overpoweringly into “a long, tempestuous tale of my fatherland”.

    So, with the thorough meticulousness of a steadfast historian and the uncommon scrupulousness of a master poet, Omatseye deftly recreates the paradox-laden history of the most populous black nation on planet earth. Immanent in the realities that prevailed in the different segments of the periods covered in the poem is the unrivalled pre-eminence and implacable dominance of paradox in human affairs.

    In artistically chronicling that chequered history, the poet amplifies the roiling and ringing paradoxes that characterise the country right from inception. And these oxymora, in their varied manifestations, strongly combine to convulse the country and disastrously inhibit it – to rephrase a Marxian maxim – from evolving as a nation in itself into a nation for itself. The gains derivable from plurality and cultural differences have not amounted to much for the country, as Omatseye’s narrative affirms, because the various ethnic nationalities are always hoisted on their individual petard and are too very much at peace with the self-serving culture of denial – a disavowal which makes what is demonstrably false to insist on being acknowledged as irreproachably genuine.

    Therein lies the import and the aptness of the title of the poem, Scented Offal. The deodorising of something that is naturally malodourous (offal, which is the innards of an animal such as the heart and liver) presupposes that something is wrong. It signals that a thing that is phoney is assuming the hue and make-up of something authentic. In other words, there exists a dissonance between the olfactory (scent) and the visual (offal) codes. The fragrance coursing through the nasal passage is unrelated to the substance from which it flows.

    And that is the real story of Nigeria, a country whose fetid and offensive realities across varied sectors are freshened repeatedly with the cologne of denial, deceit, and dissemblance. Its unity is a “scented offal” (the various ethnic groups distrust one another); its constitution is a “scented offal” (the “we” in its preamble is as false as the democratic credentials of those who swear by it); its federalism is a “scented offal” (the federating units federate in un-freedom); and its bureaucracies too are “scented offal” (they are feckless and at the mercy of big [wo]men).

    All of these constitute significant parts of the internal struggles of Nigeria. And Omatseye’s work helps to reiterate the point that whether a country succeeds or not largely depends on the outcome of its internal struggles. The results of Nigeria’s internal struggles are such that ensure that it continues to ply the highway of underdevelopment.

    The engrossing narrative of Scented Offal is divided into six sections: The first division, with the heading, “Scented Offal”, captures the pre-independence phase of Nigeria’s history (defined by the theatrics of bloodshed, paradox and denial: “In this blood we saw the cousin/Who is us but who is not/ […] By lying about our blood ties/We inhabit a brood of denial”); the second division, “The big three”, projects the political activities and ideological underpinnings of the undertakings of Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Obafemi Awolowo (other notables like the Sardauna – who the poet’s narrative voice says his “flourish” is irresistible and is “Regal like a pious lord” – are equally featured); and the third division sings of the flag “Independence” of 1960, underscoring the paradox of a new beginning radiating the unsightliness of decay (“A new decade/A decadence dawned/ […] Was an era that erred/By lying to itself”).

    Moreover, the fourth division, “The West burns”, records the beginning of the Yoruba people of Western Region, their feats, and the political conflict that rocked them, leading to “A State of emergency that marched/In shaky gaits before the gates/Flung wide open for the jackboot boys”; the fifth division, “Military coup”, sings of the unmemorable morn when Nigerians on January 15, 1966, woke up to find the military calling the shots, and with “rude boots, guns and brawls/Sullied our cities north and south/Slaying with abandon the proud/Of our democracy”; and  the sixth division, “Civil War”, details the horrors of a war that was as false in its civility as it was in its eventual resolution with the dissembling annunciation – “No Victor, no Vanquished”. It is worthy of note that it is tellingly paradoxical that what was meant to be an end to an aberration actually signalled the beginning of yet-to-be-resolved absurdities.

    What Omatseye, the poet-historian, does in the slim, forty-eight-page narrative poem is to use fiction as a tool to interrogate Nigeria’s paradoxical and multipronged history.

    All in all, what stands out in Scented Offal, which gracefully saves it from the damnation of reading like a social commentary or an unadorned historical testament, is the unreserved appropriation of the resources of language. It is through the deployment of the resources of poetic language that the poet achieves the defamiliarisation of the familiar signposts of Nigerian historical realities. With such tropes as equivocation, symbolism, paradox, oxymoron, irony, hyperbole, and imagery, Omatseye embroiders a somewhat complex tapestry of an entertaining, educative, and instructive narrative. The work has its low points, but they do not substantially detract from its merits as an imaginatively realised faction.