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Tag: life and times

  • Life and times of Nanna Olomu

    Nanna Olomu’s operational base was Ebrohimi, which his father founded about 1860 on leaving the ancestral  base at Jakpa when he felt unable again to endure his disenchantment with life in Jakpa, which was dominated by Governor Idiare, his cousin. Ebrohimi was founded by Nanna’s father, Olomu. It was built like most Itsekiri towns in a reclaimed site after clearing away all mangroves trees.

    In this atmosphere of a rich inheritance, noble birth, position, immense wealth, power and pervading influence, from Ebrohimi, Nanna Olomu launched himself into his future that was to immortalise him. Here, Nanna with care and persistence, built, spread and consolidated into vast commercial empire to the adjoining Itsekiri nations and hinterland of the Urhobo by trade, force, pacification and diplomacy.

        

    His birth and early days

    (1840-1916)

    The Itsekiri society of the 19th Century was a glittering, noble and affluent one, having enriched itself, its institutions and culture, with a well harnessed harvest of its earlier contact with the Europeans missionaries and traders.

    Nanna was born into the sophisticated well manned society about 1840 with a silver spoon in his mouth to Olomu.

    Nanna had patrilineal and matrilineal connections in both Itsekiri gentry and its nobility respectively. His father Olomu, was the 10th Olu of Warri, who reigned from 1674-1701. His grandmother, Iweroko, a lady of substance and virtue, was one of the two daughters among the 10 children of Ologbotsere Eyinmi Sanren of Egjorogbin quarters in Ode-Itsekiri.

    Nanna was of the 106 children (53 male and 53 females, 59 wives), himself was a polygamist and 40 children (26 sons and 14 daughters) the last of his children, a daughter, Dora Melise was born in August 1914, eight years to the day Nanna set his foot on Koko soil from 12 years of exile from his beloved land, two years in Calabar and 10years in Accra.

     

    Nanna’s mantle of leadership

    The young Nanna spent some years at the foot stool of his grandmother, Iweroko. He quickly exhibited noticeable signs of his genius, character, and enterprise. His father, noticing these sterling qualities himself, soon drafted him to serve in his war – canoe, first as a paddler and later as one of his own body guards.

    He helped his father during his many wars against other small and great unfriendly chiefs. His performances during the Eku war, he was promoted to a commander and was given his own war canoe. During the Eku war, his father made him commander general from 1872 until his father’s death in 1883 he held this exalted position of protector that is deputy to his father.

    The mantle of leadership of the Itesekiri fell on Nanna on 1884 after the demise of his father, Olomu, without any effective or strong opposition from his peers in the land, his appointment was accepted and confirmed by the British (Gofune) of the Benin River of the Bight of Benin.

    In 1885 Nanna was installed into the consul area by her Majesty, David Boyle Blair. At the ceremony, the silver headed stick embossed with the British royal coat of arms, which was the symbol of authority, was handed over to Nanna.

    In the aftermath of the collision course between Nanna and the British arrogant British consul named George Annestey, broke his staff into two and threw one half of it into the Benin River. Reason been that he had been in the Benin River for seven days and ignored by Nanna by committing the diplomatic snobbery of not paying him his respect as Governor of Benin River.

    So, from that incident in 1890 and in spite of Nanna’s protest to the marquis of Salisbury, a senior British foreign official, he lost his position as a governor of Benin River, only holding on it as an Itsekiri institutions to which in the first place, he had been appointed by the Itsekiri. The establishment in 1891 by the British government of the Niger coast protectorate government, covering most of the area along the Bights of Benin (Nanna’s trading empire), Nanna’s greatness and dominance in the area, British imperialism had arrived and was being entrenched.

    Prior to these incidents (which closed a memorable chapter in Itsekiri history), Nanna had performed his duties as Governor of Benin River highly creditably. His father was the wealthiest, most powerful and most influential merchant chief in Itsekiri land. Nanna inherited his entire father’s fortunes large, expensive, commercial empire, worked assiduously to harness, multiply and maximise them.

    He was not his father’s eldest son, but he had been strongly built up by his father that all his elder brothers accepted his new leadership role.

    Also Read: About ‘the great’ Nanna Olomu

    The Ebrohimi War of 1894

    The imminent war between the British and Nanna soon dawned. It all started firstly, in a lower scale with the creation of the Niger Coast Protectorate in 1891, whose authority embraced most of the areas along the Bights of Benin and Biafra. The arrangement was to impose direct British rule over the Delta territory and therefore, remove the power from the African chiefs in the area, including Nanna.

    Subsequently, on this development, some of the European traders, especially James Pinnock, the Miller Brothers among others, gave more injury to their subsisting hatred of Nanna’s commercial power and wrote several orchestrated petitions to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce to dig in firmly with its new policy to penetrate into the hinterland beyond Nanna’s trading areas through the establishment of their own trade links through constabulary stations and vice consulates.

    Due to Nanna’s resistance of the British government role of exploitation of the Niger Delta area, the British planned to fight Nanna, to remove him, first found distant, but direct relations in faraway places. First, the British troops sacked and burnt down the town of Bobbi on the right bank of the Benin River where an Ijaw, Chief Deah, one of Nanna’s loyal supporters, dared to resist them. Nanna’s supply town on the Warri River, was destroyed, but not without some strong resistance put up by Nanna’s men there. All these skirmishes took place in the first two weeks of August 1894. The hand writing was clearly visible on the wall and Nanna immediately prepared the defense of his town, Ebrohimi.

    Available records revealed that it was a full scale war waged on Ebrohimi from three fronts left, centre and right with clearly written out instructions and orders and command under the directions of Real-Admiral Bedford. The Ebrohimi war started effectively in the early morning of August 26, 1894.

    The war dragged on for three months. Ebrohimi finally fell to the British after the strong resistance by Nanna and his men to defend his father land.

    At 9:00 am on September 25, 1894, Ebrohimi was raided, burnt down and that marked the fall of Ebrohimi in the war between Nanna/the British in 1894.

    Nanna, of course, had dispersed his family in different escape directions while he escaped in his loaded canoe through a secret carnal at the back of the town, which opened in to the nearby Adagbrassa creek. When the abandoned canoe was found by invading force on the morning of September 28, 1894 it only contained Nanna’s paper and documents. Nanna had out-smarted them and escaped to the Ijaw of Ekotogbo, heading Lagos. They caught up with some of his war generals, including his younger brothers, who were arrested, later tried and sentence to various forms of punishment.

    As for Nanna himself, he managed to get to Lagos and went straight to the house of his Yoruba friend of many years. Mr. Seidu Olowu. Ralph Moor returned with flaming vengeance to Ebrohimi on October 8, 1894 and caused the whole town and what was left of it to be burnt. Moor had issued a proclamation declaring Nanna a wanted man and put a heavy price of five hundred pounds sterling on his head for his recapture.

    Mr. Seidu Olowu temporarily rehabilitated the now fugitive Nanna and his fellow escapees and then wrote a petition for clemency on behalf of Nanna to the Governor of Lagos Colony.

    Nanna later established contact with his English bosom friend of many years. Mr. George William Neville. Neville was the founder Manager of the Bank of British West African (BBWA) in that same 1894 in Lagos. The bank later metamorphosed into First Bank of Nigeria Plc, which was co-founded by Nanna.

    So, the great and renowned Nanna, Governor of Benin River and Merchant prince of the Niger, now defeated and completely humiliated by all his foes, found himself in another life. As the Governor of Lagos had no jurisdiction, according to the British administrative arrangements and law in force to try him, he was handed over to the British consular court with headquarters in old Calabar.

    On his way from Lagos to Calabar, the boat stopped briefly in Benin River on November 8, 1894 for Nanna to pass through an identification parade, Itsekiris were stummed and deeply heartbroken to see their hero broken, un-kept and in chains, many were in tears, shaking their heads in sorrow.

    Nanna was later charged for waging a war to fight the Government of her Majesty the Queen, in the Niger Coast Protectorate so as to avoid complying with the terms of treaty of July 16, 1884, that he obstructed British Consular officers in the discharge of their duties, that he committed a breach of the peace in the Benin District of the Niger Coast Protectorate.

    Unfortunately, no legal defense required by the British law was provided for Nanna in this trial, which was nothing near fair or just. Nanna was found guilty, he was first detained there in old Calabar prison and two years later on the investigation of Ralph Moor, who still thought that he had not got his full pounds of flesh, Nanna was deported further away from home to Accra, capital of the then old Gold Coast to Christian Bong Castle, for life.

     

    Effects of Nanna’s fall

    And so Nanna, the Giant Iroko tree, fell just like especially, King Jaja of Opobo, who was only seven years earlier been similarly banished by the British. The Itsekiris broke up into two camps as Nanna was very popular among them. When his properties were offered for sale, they refused to buy them. A lot had been looted long before now. Peace eluded Itsekiri land for a long time after Nanna’s departure from the scene. In 1897, a civil war threatened the whole of the Benin River area, social and societal attendant confusions were felt even in non Itsekiri areas, prominent among them being the forcible entry into Benin City, against the Oba’s wishes, of acting Consul-General Philips, which resulted into the Benin massacre and expedition of 1897.

    The effects of Nanna’s fall without argument, hit the Olomu and Nanna families. It was an ugly tragedy of the century. Nanna’s own immediate family never returned to settle again in Ebrohimi after the total destruction of the land.

     

    Nanna in exile in Accra

    Nanna began the second period of his exile from home in 1896 in Accra, capital of the old Gold Coast. Nanna lived a quiet, but more determined life in Accra, never allowed his circumstances to affect him. His bosom friend, George Neville, at this point upon his return to England on retirement in 1899, kept close contact with Nanna in Accra.

    Together with Nanna, himself and his friends they wrote petitions for clemency for the release of Nanna to the colonial office, with lobbies and committees of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, host of other groups. All his goods and properties had been sold, confisticated, with part of the proceed by the British government to settle for the costs of the Ebrohimi/British War. Nanna, undaunted,  carried on with his life well, his wife, Mammie, whom he took with him to exile, had three children for him in Accra.

    An enlightened man, Nanna sooner than expected, thought about giving his children education. In 1900, he sent for 12 of his children and nephews, who were 10years and above to join him in Accra for specific purpose, Western Education. He also encouraged them in skill and technical development, especially Carpentry. While in Accra, Nanna embraced Christianity and one of his sons was also baptised.

     

    Nanna’s return home (Koko)

    When it was very clear that he was going to be pardoned and released to return home, Nanna dispatched messages to all his relatives back home in Nigeria to assemble and make preparations for the big return. There was jubilation in the land of Itsekiri, the Urhobo clans of Agbarho, Agbon and Effurun were equally in high spirit to receive him.

    Delegates came from almost all families and communities in Itsekiri land to welcome Nanna back home from exile. Gifts of cow and bulls were delivered to him as part of the welcome. Many slaves freed by the British returned to live with him and serve him upon his return.

    The large ground to welcome him was triggered off triumphantly early that morning on August 8, 1906. New America, as Koko was known then, was not developed and populous as it is today.

    After Nanna had settled down, he began to plan and build the town around one mile square piece of land surveyed and mapped out forms of settlement. With his craftsmen sons, relative and others, he began in 1907 the direct labour construction of his own residence, which was then known as Nanna’s palace, today taken over as Nanna’s Living History Museum, Koko.

    • Onime is Curator, Nanna Living History Museum, Koko.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Onime

     

     

    Nanna recaptured the memory of Ebrohimi in his new town; the palace was completed in 1910 on precompacted soil in a manner befitting his status of a wealthy and influential Itsekiri man, who is the head of a large and growing family. He is reported to have dedicated it to his father, Olomu, as a replica of his house destroyed in the British/Nanna Ebrohimi War of 1894.

    Nanna’s palace is approached by long, straight, well compacted and wide, well kept road at the top of which it stands majestically, reviving and ensuring the survival of Ebrohimi. Nanna encouraged his children and relatives to build their own residences on both sides of the wide road observing a definite well recessed building.

    One remarkable aspect of Nanna’s palace is that it was built with local materials loamy soil mud, good quality mangrove posts. The original building has gone through some restorative and preservative work. The thatched roof, for example was changed to corrugated iron sheets in 1929. The Nanna palace became a National Monument in 1979, but was officially declared a National Commission for Museums and Monuments on  September 2, 1990.

    It is authoritatively said that among Nanna contemporaries, like Jaja of Opobo, Kosoko of Lagos, Oba Ovonranwen of Benin, Atahiru of Sokoto etc., only Nanna’s treasures, artifacts and documents are intact in one piece. Also, while others never had the opportunity to return home or released to die and be buried at home, Nanna was the only one, who went into detention, released and gloriously died and buried in his land in 1916.

    Onime is Curator, Nanna Living History Museum, Koko.

  • Life and times of lawmaker ‘Sugar’

    Gunshots brought an abrupt end to the life and political journey of Temitope Olatoye (a.k.a Sugar) in Ibadan on Saturday.  The Ibadan politician took the political stage by the storm but fell while his sun shone. He was a member of the House of Representatives.

    Olatoye fell by the  bullets of unknown assailants, ending a vibrant and political life of 46 years. His star shone in Ogun and Oyo states, where he lived and worked all his life until the evening of Saturday March 9.

    The Oyo State Police Command said Sugar was gunned down by unknown assailants at about 6:30 pm on Saturday while counting and sorting of the governorship and House of Assembly elections were going on across the state.

    Sugar, as he was fondly called, lived like a warrior in his Lagelu Local Government area of Ibadan. He reigned unchecked. He ruled the political scene of the local government for four years till late 2014 and enlarged his popularity to the neighboring Akinyele Local Government, when he  won the House of Representatives election for the Lagelu/Akinyele Federal Constituency early 2015. His 2015 election to the House of Representatives confirmed his popularity and dexterity in winning elections.

    The late politician was largely unknown to the public until his election to the House of Assembly representing Lagelu State Constituency in 2011. He won the election on the platform of Accord Party at a time people of the state rejected the then governing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under the leadership of former Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala.

    In line with the wide rejection of the party across Southwest states, Sugar picked the ticket of Accord Party, which was under the leadership of former Governor Rashidi Ladoja, who also left the PDP in 2010. It was believed at the time that Sugar’s grip on elections in Lagelu made Ladoja concede the ticket to the late politician. It was believed that any party or politician, who wanted to win the local government, needed Sugar and his supporters. Sugar and his followers, it was believed, were able to stand against the brigandage of the PDP in elections at the time.

    He defected to the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) within two years in the House of Assembly. It was believed that Sugar defected to escape prosecution over a case he had in Ogun State at the time.

    For winning the House of Assembly election, Sugar came to political limelight and his rise was steady until his death. He became so powerful in the local government and Ibadan as a whole to the point that he believed he would win the Oyo Central Senatorial seat without stress. The district cuts across five outer city local governments in Ibadan, the four local governments in Oyo and two in Ogbomoso.

    Sugar prepared the ground for his senatorial ambition since his days at the state assembly. He started philanthropy and did several projects that suggested he was spending more than his income. He donated buildings, did free health services, donated to associations, groups and communities in addition to helping the needy.

    The kind gesture brought a great addition to his political influence and changed some people’s perception of the late politician as a mere thug. He won the heart of many and rose in popularity.

    This accounted for why he got the House of Representative ticket. In fact, Sugar rolled out his campaign to contest the governorship election since 2017. When the All Progressives Congress (APC) only conceded his current ticket to him, he defected to the Action Democratic Party (ADP) to easily pick the senatorial ticket. He lost to Sen. Teslim Folarin of the APC in the election.

    This prompted him, according to politicians, to work for the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Oluseyi Makinde, in the Saturday election.

    He exuded confidence, but was easily exasperated. He owned a club house on Iwo Road-Ojoo expressway, where many people dread as most of those who club there are believed to be either given to violence or habour criminal tendencies.

    Sugar hailed from Efungade-Onigbodogi compound, Alafara Oje in Ibadan North East Local Government Area of Oyo State while his ancestral villages are Onigbodogi and Alape both in Lagelu Local Government Area of Oyo State. The young Temitope had his primary school education at St Michael Primary School, Yemetu and I.M.G Primary School, Beyerunka, Alafara Oje both in Ibadan. He then proceeded to Ikolaba Grammar School, St Luke’s College, Molete and Alugbo Comprehensive High School, Egbeda, all in Ibadan, Oyo State for his Secondary School education. He later attended Federal College of Education, Abeokuta, Ogun State, where he obtained his Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE). He proceeded to University of Ibadan, where he obtained a Bachelor and Master’s degrees.

    Until his death, Sugar was the Chairman, House Committee on Urban Development and Regional Planning.

    The politician would be remembered for his philanthropy, election winning formula, though which failed this year, and his dominance of the Lagelu politics between 2011 and 2018.

    His political trajectory was similar to that of the celebrated politician from Ejioku in the same local government during the Second  Republic, Alhaji Busari Adelakun. Sugar was feared as Adelakun and was respected for defeating anyone that stood in his way.

    He was a member of the Celestial Church of Christ, lively and calculative.

    In Sugar, Ibadan lost another politician of negative fame, who struggled until death to turn round his reputation to no avail.

     

     

     

     

  • Life and times of Pa Ibidapo

    The nation is certainly yet to fully account for the desperate moments that followed the slaying of General Ramat Murtala Mohammed on February 13, 1976 on the road to the mosque.

    Already, we heard how a feisty Dimka hijacked the Federal Radio station; his drunken gaffe in mistaking “dusk” for “dawn” while announcing the coup and how he was eventually dislodged by loyal troops.

    Elsewhere in Ikoyi, Lagos that fateful Friday, more drama – by far less grim but nonetheless significant – soon unraveled after the dastardly act. At the official residence of the second-in-command (the then Lt. General Olusegun Obasanjo), a certain federal contractor and his workmen had continued with some maintenance work, oblivious of the calamity that had just altered the course of Nigerian history forever.

    (Meanwhile, once the news of the sad incident broke, OBJ had obeyed his instincts: he simply went into hiding.)

    Then, a truck-load of battle-clad troops barged into the official quarters of the second citizen, shepherded by some officers in a Landrover.

    As the vehicle pulled to a halt, they jumped down and spread out ominously, guns at the ready. Their leader was no other than Brigadier Joe Garba (now of blessed memory) who then made for the door and blasted the locks with gunshots to enter the main house.

    The foregoing rare eyewitness account was narrated to this writer by Pa Meshack Emiola Ibidapo, the federal contractor on duty at OBJ’s official residence that day.

    “Having ransacked inside without any trace of Obasanjo,” Pa Ibidapo recounted vividly, “they entered their vehicles and sped off with anger and disappointment written all over their faces.”

    Viewed against the backdrop of the ensuing cold succession calculations over Mohammed’s remains that dark afternoon, no prize for guessing what could have been the mission of Garba and co at OBJ’s abode at that hour…

    The referenced anecdote is only one of the trough of fond memories distilled from my years-long interaction with Pa Ibidapo who joined his ancestors on April 3. He would have been 90 on November 7.

    Indeed, it is impossible to have lived in the Fashola/Oludipe neighborhood of Surulere, Lagos in the past five decades and not encountered the enigma of Pa Ibidapo.

    I was his tenant in the 90s; a relationship from which sprouted the intimacy of a father and an adopted son. As his widow (Mummy Jadesola Ibidapo) once said, had they a daughter my age, it would have been impossible for me not to have become their son-in-law.

    Given that deep bond nourished in good and bad times over the past quarter of a century, it is, therefore, a bit of a struggle for me to, even as a writer, now find the appropriate words, terms, to capture the enormity of Pa Ibidapo’s mystique: strict yet loving; frugal in taste yet generous to people around; playful yet profound in counsel.

    Sunday evening was often the moment we spent together. Though a teetotaler in the past six decades, he would indulge me by treating me to – shall I now admit illegal – “mini OPEC” (few Guinness) behind the back of the “Life President”, while we reviewed national events of the passing week and debated any topic under the sun. (More confessions on “OPEC” later.)

    During such fellowship, you could not but feel the depth of his insight, the energy of his patriarchy and the sheer intensity of his humanity.

    From his many reminiscences and anecdotes, there were legion lessons to be learnt – the virtues and values of diligence, patience, honesty, discipline, fortitude, faith, charity and modesty.

    Count yourself lucky if he ever attended your “Owambe”. He rarely attended social parties. At sun-down, he would certainly be found at home, already rocking his reclining chair, watching the television.

    It is perhaps a measure of his personal discipline and flexibility that he was able to manage diabetes for close to 50 years after being diagnosed at mid-life. Noticing the trail of water dripping from the AC unit in my bedroom one early morning then, for instance, he would counsel me against sleeping while the air-conditioned hum – a habit I eventually had to drop.

    Indeed, his is a moving story of a boy who rose from lowly circumstances and, by the sheer force of industry, made it big and very early. Once a miserable squatter in Isale-Eko, he later became not only a real estate mogul with a portfolio of choice property scattered across Lagos but also a top stock market player. And in what easily evokes the biblical exhortation that “remember the son of who you are”, he never really forgot his own humble beginnings.

    One of his siblings is Chief (Mrs) Olusola Saraki (mother of Senate President Bukola Saraki).

    At the completion of Standard Six in his native Owo, Ondo State, he migrated to Lagos in pursuit of the proverbial golden fleece. But he would realize that the streets of Eko were not exactly flowing with milk and honey as any native from the provincialism of Owo with impressionable mind would have anticipated.

    He had to squat with an uncle, Pa Justus Okunrinboye.

    With the latter’s support, he enrolled at Yaba Technical Institute (now known as Yaba College of Technology) in 1948 for a short engineering course among the pioneering set. He would have loved to further his studies but for finance. It was for this singular reason that he soon formed the resolve to not only ensure his own children get the best education possible, but also to support all educational causes if fortune smiled on him.

    After YABATECH, he took up a clerical work with Barclays Bank (now Union Bank Plc). Ever so ambitious, he soon found the lowly bank job inadequate. By 1954, he took a leap of faith by resigning from the bank to set up his own company, M.E. Ibidapo Contracting Services Limited (MEICS) and registered with the Public Works Department (PWD).

    Surely, conscientiousness always finds a way. Industry and honesty would soon distinguish him among PWD’s pool of local petty contractors.

    In the countdown to the nation’s independence in 1960, Lagos (then the federal capital) was astir with preparations.

    Deadlines became the buzz word. A few days to the D-day, there arose an emergency at PWD. There was a need for contractors who could quickly construct the bases of 22 holes for Nigerian flags on the then Cowrie Bridge in front of the iconic Bonny Camp. Among the six local contractors shortlisted, MEICS was the only one that eventually met the target both in time and job integrity when laboratory test was administered.

    Spared what would have been a national embarrassment at the historic occasion, the then colonial Senior Works Superintendent of PWD could barely conceal his relief. Publicly, he singled Pa Ibidapo out for commendation, describing him as “one of our best contractors”.

    With such sterling testimonial, he naturally became the darling of the PWD authorities and, hence, became the favorite for top-profile jobs to be delivered on time. As years rolled by, so grew his fame. The reason he was still the one contracted to carry out maintenance work at the official residence of the deputy head of state in 1976.

    So, by 30, he had become a multimillionaire (when Naira was still mightier than US dollars). Rather than take more wives as was the vogue then, daddy took to philanthropy.

    On the home front, he was undoubtedly also a role mode. He remained devoted to his childhood sweetheart, Mummy Jadesola who he married on February 15, 1951.

    Truly, by their fruits you shall know them. Among their brood is Professor (Mrs) Yemi Tunji-Bello (former acting Vice Chancellor of Lagos State University and wife of present Secretary to Lagos State Government, Tunji Bello), Kunle (a pilot), Tayo (an investment banker), Rogba (visual artist) and Joke (business tycoon).

    Though he stopped drinking at 30, Pa Ibidapo nonetheless supported “OPEC” by never failing to host its “summit”, even when denied the courtesy of prior notice, with his son-in-law, Tunji Bello, presiding as “Life President” and this writer as “Life Secretary General”, rapidly putting down bottles of Guinness. Kayode Komolafe (of THISDAY) is the “Life Vice President”. For the un-initiated, OPEC jocularly refers to our exclusive club of Guinness devotees.

    Mankind just lost a truly loving and decent man.

    RIP, Daddy, our eternal Grandpa.

     

  • The life and times of a master spook

    The life and times of a master spook

    Columnist apologizes for the brief disappearance of column. It was due to a traumatic personal bereavement. Even then and as usual with him, yours sincerely had tried to pull off a coup against adversity. But this time around, it turned out a bridge too far. There comes a time when the body simply refuses to go along with the whiplash of the mind.

    And yet events continue to unfurl at such a breakneck speed that it is now certain that this is going to be an even shorter century than the short and explosive twentieth century. Just take a sampler. In only four weeks, we have heard the phenomenon of Brexit , renewed carnage in France, turmoil in Turkey and dramatic developments in Europe which have now paved the way for three of the four major powers of the western world to be led by women. And even the rogue, famously rumpled and meticulously untidy Boris Johnson has made a dramatic reentry as Foreign Secretary in Britain.

    On the home front, the call for restructuring is reaching its highest decibel in the post-military era even as President Buhari continues to infuriate his growing critics by what they consider the lopsided pattern and particularities of his appointments. Apparently, they can shout from here to eternity, the stiff old general is not for turning. The ruling party gives the impression of an ideological tailspin as top government officials and party grandees make confusing and contradictory pronouncements.  Yet the ground of promise is gradually beginning to give way. For the first time agony and confusion are writ large on the face of the Nigerian underclass as well as its master class.

    If we were to put a fine historical comb to it or subject events to the rigour of dialectical analysis, we may discover these seemingly disparate developments both at the national and international level are not completely unrelated in the sense that they speak to a growing crisis of the nation-state paradigm which will eventually lead to its modulation or the modification of its harsher absurdities.  This is of course subject to the eternal law of uneven development. There are nations and there are nations.

    Of all the recent developments in Nigeria, none can be more fascinating and intriguing than the passing to higher glory of the old Zamfara master spook, Umaru Aliyu Shinkafi. It is the end of an era and Umaru Shinkafi is the last of the Mohicans, a glorious lineage of gentleman-spies who belong to a now extinct breed of aristocratic spy-masters. His glum taciturnity betrayed cutting edge intelligence and a sharp rapier-like wit. Like an ancient nobility of domestic espionage, Shinkafi could see farther than most of his contemporaries, an advantage he hid under a forbidding veil of silence, secrecy and stealth.

    There are some people who carry in their commodious bosom the tormenting and turbulent contradictions of their age.  Umaru Shinkafi was undoubtedly one of these people. His political career encapsulated the contradictions of politics in the epoch of military ascendancy.  Yet in a curious and contradictory manner it also points the way forward for a nation hobbled by a crisis of core political values and vanishing possibility of elite consensus.

    A top ranking officer of the elite special branch, Shinkafi viewed the military incursion into Nigerian politics and the subordination of the old Nigerian political class to military whims with quiet outrage. No retired Nigerian Inspector General of Police or head of domestic intelligence has ever been so magically rich or phenomenally influential to challenge the military aristocracy in their acquired political turf. Although coolly resentful of military incursion into politics and its appropriation of the political heirloom of the nation, Shinkafi was too disciplined, too intelligent and too politically savvy to force an all out confrontation which would have threatened the system and turned him into a political martyr.

    Till the end, both the military class and unyielding spy master viewed each other with wary respect and cagey regard in a classic parity of nuclear deterrents. They had numbers on each other. When General Babangida eventually banished him to the sidelines of his doomed Transition Programme, Shinkafi quietly complied despite his enormous investments. And when General Sani Abacha summarily discountenanced his political outfit, the late Marafan Sokoto calmly took it in the chin. But behind the scene, he became a quiet facilitator and resource person for what became the historic All Politicians Summit of 1995.

    A pack of distressed and disoriented dogs cannot become spectators at a lion’s funeral. Despite its manifest failings what the Nigerian military had in sufficient abundance were cohesion, discipline, focus and abiding loyalty to an institution once its institutional authority and hegemony is threatened by countervailing political forces.  Class blood is thicker than ethnic water. Shinkafi would find this out in a hard and bitter manner.

    As the Abdusalaam  Abubakar Transition got underway, Shinkafi who had heroically stuck out his neck once again against military political shenanigans by facilitating an alternative platform would soon  discover that all the ranking military officers with whom he had formed the ANPP began deserting in droves once it became clear that General Obasanjo was the military candidate and the PDP the preferred route to military disengagement. Famously and with witty alacrity, the Zamfara spook pointedly asked one of them: “Is your posting out?”.

    “Politics as military posting”. That historic and haunting phrase in all its beguiling anachronism and national befuddlement may well serve as the most befitting epitaph for post-military politics in Nigeria and the complete subordination of the political class and total domination of the Fourth Republic by the old military master class. So overwhelming is this domination that of the four presidents that we have had so far in the Fourth Republic, two are retired generals and former military rulers, one is the direct sibling of a former influential general and presidential hopeful while the last was an autocratic imposition on the nation by a departing military general turned civilian despot.

    It may well be that this authoritarian democracy is a painful but inevitable stage for all traditional societies in a state of traumatic transition to political modernity. But it is important to know where the rains started beating us in the current phase of the journey to national self-actualization riddled with potholes and dangerous mines. All the current noise and uproar about restructuring, fiscal federalism, the inviolable sovereignty of the state and nation, self-determination for constituting ethnic nationalities and the phenomenon of state larceny can be traced to the fundamental and fundamentalist military ethos bequeathed to the nation by the departing military barons as exemplified by the 1999 constitution.

    The Don Quixotes of the much rhapsodized Jonathan Constitutional Conference who collapsed most of their otherwise sensible recommendations into the same 1999 Constitution should know that they are tilting at imaginary windmills. They have merely converted a problem into its own solution. It is obvious from his public utterances that the general from Daura holds most of the purveyors of this conference in utter contempt.

    This is probably because while they were at it and while Jonathan was dithering with even the most anodyne of the recommendations, the Nigerian masses intervened decisively by electing a man who is not sold on elite shenanigans and who does not take political hostages.  With the raucous masses hooting and braying for the blood of those who have led the country into its direst economic perdition since independence, Buhari can do no wrong even if he chooses to fill up all the vacancies with his Daura people. For those who are already down, the fall of evil men and women is enough consolation and catharsis.

    Umaru Shinkafi would be chuckling in his grave. It was said by those who knew him that despite his aloof aristocratic mien, his grave exterior and his forbiddingly disobliging countenance, he was man with a robust sense of humour. This was precisely the kind of outcome he was trying to avoid by trying to forge an elite consensus among the fractious political class of his beloved nation to no avail. He was said to have left the sinking Shagari government after warning of an impending coup and when it became obvious that the Sokoto aristocrat was in no position to do the needful. Although his politics was archly conservative, he had come away with a healthy respect for the old political class of the South West after interrogating some of the suspects in the famed Treason trial of 1962.

    In 1999, the Marafan Sokoto sacrificed his burning ambition to rule the country and the larger class interest of his feudal extraction to become a junior partner in an alliance with a party that was so politically hobbled and strategically hamstrung that it barely registered outside its South West redoubt all in a futile bid to prevent a military steamrolling of the entire country. This was at a time when those who are now screaming restructuring and fiscal federalism were lining up behind their military paymasters and godfathers, just as they did during the June 12 debacle. Shinkafi was not sold on an elite consensus based on ethnic obsessions.

    In the event, it was a resounding rout. The military-backed coalition gave the alliance a shellacking from which it never recovered. Thereafter, a humbled Shinkafi retreated behind a wall of silence to watch unfolding events. It was the last sigh of a noble man in politics. Thereafter, Obasanjo turned his itching attention to the two rudderless opposition parties as they expired in his massive anaconda embrace. Now, everybody is crying for another national summit as if this will alter the fundamentally destitute character of the Nigerian political class, or make them amenable to genuine and altruistic nation-growing.

    In politics as in life, a person’s true worth cannot be determined by the post they have held or the preferment they have acceded to but by the position they take at critical moments. It is this cult of heroic example that posterity takes away as building blocks for a saner society.  Judging by the outpouring of grief on the occasion of his translation to higher glory and the glowing tributes that have been heaped on him, it is obvious that even though he did not realize his ultimate ambition, Shinkafi will forever be regarded and remembered as a decent man and avatar of principled politics. May Allah grant him eternal repose.

     

  • His life and times

    His life and times

    Until his death yesterday at the age of 83, the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Abdullahi Bayero, was a highly respected figure and one of the nation’s most prominent traditional rulers.

    Seen as a key link between tradition and modernity, Bayero was part of the triumvirate of influential traditional monarchs in the North, which included the Sultan of Sokoto and the Shehu of Borno.

    One of the longest serving emirs in the history of the emirate, the Emir had in recent times been plagued by ill health and had even undergone medical treatment in October last year in a London hospital.

      Bayero was installed the Emir of Kano on October 22, 1963, following the death of Muhammadu Inuwa, who ruled for three months only. He was the 13th Fulani emir of Kano and the 56th ruler of the Kano Kingdom. His father Abdullahi, a former emir, reigned for 27 years

     Born on July 25, 1930 to Abdullahi Bayero and Hajiya Hasiya into the Fulani Sullubawa clan that has presided over the emirate of Kano since 1819, Bayero was the 11th child of his father and the second of his mother.

     He started his education in Kano studying Islam, after which he attended Kano Middle School. He graduated from the School of Arabic Studies in 1947. He then worked as a bank clerk for the Bank of British West Africa until 1949, when he joined the Kano Native Authority. He attended Zaria Clerical College in 1952. In 1954, he won a seat to the Northern regional House of Assembly.

     He was head of the Kano Native Authority police division from 1957 until 1962, during which he tried to minimise the practice of briefly detaining individuals and political opponents on the orders of powerful individuals in Kano. He then became the Nigerian ambassador to Senegal.

    During this time he enrolled in a French language class. In 1963, he succeeded Muhammadu Inuwa as Emir of Kano.

    Bayero is a former chancellor of the University of Nigeria and till his death, the chancellor of the University of Ibadan.

     Long reign

     A much loved traditional as well as spiritual leader, Ado Bayero’s reign was one of the longest in the country.  He ascended the throne at a time of rapid social and political changes in the country and when regional, sub-regional and ethnic discord was increasing.

     As emir, he became a patron of Islamic scholarship and embraced Western education as a means to succeed in a modern Nigeria. The constitutional powers of the emir were whittled down by the military regimes between 1966 and 1979. The Native Authority Police and Prisons Department was abolished, the emir’s judicial council was supplanted by another body, and local government reforms in 1968, 1972, and 1976 reduced the powers of the emir.

    During the Second Republic, he witnessed hostilities from the People’s Redemption Party-led government of Abubakar Rimi. In 2002, he led a Kano elders forum in opposing the onshore and offshore abrogation bill.

     Though he had a relatively long and peaceful reign, his years on the throne were not free of challenges. In January, 2013, for instance, a failed assassination attempt on him left two of his sons injured and his driver and bodyguard dead, among others. Recently, crisis broke out between the Emir and the Kano State Government over the installation of a radical Islamic cleric as Wazirin Kano by the latter.

    Bayero had recently in a brief but colourful ceremony turbaned the Chief Imam of Waje Central Mosque, Dr. Mohammad Nasir Mohammad as the new Wazirin Kano following the vacuum created by the death of Alhaji Isa Waziri last year.

     Reports stated that the government had kicked against the appointment in response to a notice by the Emirate Council of the intended action following allegations of ‘impropriety against the new occupant.’