The lack of development noticed in Nigeria is felt everywhere in Africa. Nigeria’s potential for economic development has been disrupted and denied by the predatory and parasitic politics of its ruling elites who are seeking personal gain at the expense of the people. According to Meredith (2006:218), “in the first two decades of independence, there were some forty successful coups and counter-coups” in Africa. The military used the incompetence of the civilian rulers as an excuse to launch itself into power but its own pre-occupation like its civilian counterparts had been to hold power for the purpose of self-enrichment. Falola et al (1994) apparently piqued by the given situation say this of the Nigerian Military:
The Nigerian military is not a fighting force, but a decadent political party; plagued by a lack of sincere leadership, divided by ethnicity and religion, and permanently committed to the destruction of the country. It has generated the most destabilizing crises for the country, destroyed the economy, undermined the democratic process, and promoted a large-scale use of violence (ix).
In his attempt to mirror Nigeria and how it was hijacked by the military forces since 1966, the author of the Bulletin creates the Mulerian society (a corruption of Nigeria) with the Generals working themselves into frenzy and killing their best and by extension the Mularian state and society. There is no doubt that General Waja was a decent and patriotic gentleman officer but lacked the courage to distance himself from the rot that had taken over Muleria as demonstrated by the military leadership that he was part of. He got his comeuppance in a very humiliating manner. General Waja was derisively called “Arch-Bishop Makarios” by his colleagues because of his patriotic and anti-corruption stance hence his violent death in their hands. Babangida’s coup against Buhari’s regime was said to have occurred because Babangida was rumored to have been involved in activities inimical to the progress of the country. He was to be tried and cashiered off by the regime before he struck. He dribbled Nigerians for many years, promising to hand over first in 1990 but did not and was forced to hand over to an interim government in 1993 having scuttled his Transition–to-Civil-Rule Programme.
The Nigerian Army was so messed up that a one- time Chief of Army Staff, General Salihu Ibrahim (Retd) in a fit of anger and disbelief described the institution as “the army of anything goes”. It is in the context of this reality that we can understand Papa Waja’s quip to his son when he was a Major: “If I had known that it is this kind of yeye army you were going to join, I would have worked harder to prevent it” (The Bulletin from the Land of the Living Ghosts, 143). Yeye, a Yoruba word means unserious, useless and irresponsible. The statement goes to show how low the Mulerian army has gone.
Waja’s wife, Margaret Isabela is respected because of her consistency in the fight against the tyrannical military regime for twenty years after her husband’s death. Mrs Waja reminds us of Mrs Kudirat Abiola, the wife of Nigeria’s business mogul, the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola who was murdered in cold blood by elements of the military junta under the late General Sanni Abacha. In Muleria, nothing has changed within the twenty-year period. The regime under which General Waja served as the Vice-Chairman was known as National Salvation Council (NSC). The regime that took over, styled itself as the Law and Order Council (LOCO).
The military president (dictator), General Emmanuel Danladi, aka the devil of Bakassi is always in dark shades. He reminds the reader of General Abacha who was always in dark goggles during his dark days in Nigeria. General Babangida, who created the opportunity for the emergence of Abacha had described himself as an evil genius. When the Buhari/Idiagbon regime took over power from the civilian government of Alhaji Aliyu Usman Shagari on December 31, 1983, the new government herded many politicians into the kirikiri Maximum prison for various offences bordering on corruption, money laundering, maladministration and other illicit activities. In the novel, after the coup led by General Waja with his colleagues, many politicians were put in kirikiri prison for various offences. The novel’s civilian leader overthrown by the Law and order council is known as Alhaji Usman Seriki, a fictional representation of Alhaji Shehu Shagari.
The overthrow of the NSC and the brutal killing of the Head of state, General Bature and General Waja attracted the anger of the rebel musician, Bobo Kalakuta known for his criticisms of military dictatorship in Muleria. He terms this episode of fratricidal blood-letting into one of his most famous songs: “Overthrow Don overthrow overthrow” (The Bulletin from the Land of the Living Ghosts, 152). This musician was in real life, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the Abami Eda, who was indeed a celebrated gadfly and scourge of military dictators in Nigeria. As in the novel, Nigeria (Muleria) has for many years been going through excruciating fuel shortages, the escalating conflict in the Niger Delta, the Boko Haram menace (and the current and senseless herdsmen killings) and various forms of corruption which have stymied its growth and development. The ‘coupists’ in the novel call themselves Revolutionary Redemption Council. General Babangida’s group called the highest law-making, decision-taking of their regime, Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC).
As noted earlier, it should be remembered that the Nigerian military was fought by human rights and pro-democracy organisations. The struggles against the military were intense in spite of the support given to the government by intellectuals and other forces. During the regime of Babangida, the Presidential Advisory Commission (PAC) was packed full with renowned Nigerian intellectuals like Ikenna Nzimiro, Tunji Aboyade, etc. In the novel, the consistent struggles of the Mothers of the Missing led by Margareth Waja led to the hurried abandonment of power by the military leaders to Angela Isabella. The support of degenerate apostates like Prof. Ignatius Alawiye who work for the military did not prevent the defeat of the regime. The people of Muleria are courageous and extra-ordinarily resilient in the way and manner that they confront their adversity. The humiliation of Joe in the hands of the authorities is a throw-back to the horrors encountered by Nigerian journalists during the era of the military in Nigeria especially during the regime of Abacha.
Another parallel between Muleria and Nigeria can be seen in the strike jointly organized by the Mothers of the Missing and the National Workers Congress. The former leadership of the Congress had for thirty years collaborated with the military authorities. The leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress sold out in the heat of the struggle for the revalidation of the June 12, 1993 elections but for the leadership of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) under the leadership of Frank Kokori. The struggle for democracy was sustained until the intervention of international forces which resolved the crisis by eliminating General Abacha and Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the two contestants to the leadership of the country. Like Abacha, who was rarely seen in the public, the Chairman of the Law and Order Council is not seen in the public for several years. Newspapers and magazines are prohibited from circulation; foreign journalists like Mike Hubbard are deported while the local ones like Joe are arrested and detained in underground detention dungeons. In Nigeria, during the regime of Babangida, Patrick Wilmot a radical Sociology lecturer at Ahmadu Bello Uiversity (ABU) Nigeria, was deported by Babangida for his critical stance against the government.
Bulletin from the Land of Living Ghosts is a deliberate fictional representation of the crisis of governance in Nigeria especially during the military era. The Bulletin in its resolution wastes the heroic struggles of the people as political power is hijacked by another member of the ruling class. The novel really allegorizes the Nigerian condition. Muleria, in the historico-fictional permutation of the writer is a socially, politically, culturally and economically diseased country which could be understood with the formula: Muleria + Nigeria = Malaria. Such a misgoverned country requires a battling collectivity with a strong and committed leadership, hence the emergence of the Mothers of the Missing. The Mothers of the Missing literarily anticipates the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign Group which is a group of Nigerians led by women fighting for the release of the Chibok Secondary School girls who were abducted by the Boko Haram Islamist group since April 2014 from their school in Borno state of Nigeria.
Conclusion
It is important to reiterate that these three novels are a testimony to the continuing efforts of Williams like other Nigerian writers to engage through narratives, the crises of underdevelopment, elite complicity and leadership failure Nigeria is confronted with. But it is worrisome to note that perhaps, in tandem with the author’s critical realist orientation, these three novels end up on the note of empowering the status quo at the expense of the marginalised and battling collectivity whose efforts to change the system come to naught as members of the decadent class continue to hold sway even when there is a regime change thereby making nonsense of the so-called “change”. The writer, in spite of his otherwise genuine creative efforts appears to be steeped in the allure of petti-bourgeois consciousness and its allied pettifogging tendencies. He needs to imbue the people with the strength and ideological clarity to sustain their struggles with a view to enthroning an irreversible change.
Concluded
Uwasomba is of Department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife.
THE inmates were not treated like humans and therefore they decided to elect a leader. The leader worked so hard to make the asylum a commune. Through the notes left by the late doctor who had worked at the asylum, more information about the state of things and the character of the Emperor are revealed. The doctor had been framed up as a subversive element and enemy of the state and eliminated. The doctor’s father had said of the Emperor: