The Nation Newspaper

Tag: remember

  • I remember Tayo Akpata

    The recent and sad passing away of Chief Tayo Akpata, brought back to me, memories of a positive encounter I had with the respected statesman in the turbulent sixties.  The political history of the First Republic, 1960 to 1966, is replete with the abuse of the federal parliamentary majority made up of the NPC, NCNC and NNDP for illegitimate ends, intimidation and violence against political opponents during elections, manipulation of the electoral process to produce candidates returned unopposed, and the publication of false, illegal and pre-determined election results.

    Thus the deliberate, intense and sustained assault by the parties in the federal coalition government on the opposition party, the Action Group and its control of one region, was almost scripted in its systematic and unrelenting nature.  As one set of assaults lost its potency, another set would unfold to take its place.  At times two or three such attacks would take place simultaneously.

    The confusion which occurred in the Western House of Assembly on May 25, 1962 was obviously stage-managed in order to provide an excuse for a declaration of a state of emergency in the West and thus enable the federal government to assume control of the region.  All this was in spite of the fact that the Action Group had a clear majority in the House, whose members had assembled there to pass a vote of confidence on Alhaji Dauda S. Adegbenro, the newly appointed Premier.

    As we all know, what followed the contrived chaos in the Western House of Assembly was a pre-planned sequence of events, to finally destroy the political opposition.  In the first place, the West was taken over by the federal government.  This was followed immediately on that very day by the issuance of restriction orders on the leading members of the Action Group party, to various uninhabitable parts of the old West.  The Coker Commission was then set up on June 16, 1962 to achieve the final destruction of the reputations of top members of the Action Group, particularly, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief S.O. Shonibare and Alhaji S.O. Gbadamosi, Mr. Alfred Rewane, Chief J.A.O. Odebiyi and Chief S.O. Lanlehin

    As the Coker Commission was rambling on with deliberate and vindictive speed, charging, accusing and insinuating, whilst depriving its victims, particularly Chief Awolowo, access to their own files and documents to enable them refute the charges, a new front in the single-minded war of attrition was opened,  Chief Awolowo and 30 of his most trusted and dependable party members were arrested and on November 2, 1962, charged with the commission of the offence of treasonable felony and related offences, and taken into prison custody.

    The obvious intention of the NPC and NCNC politicians in decapitating the Action Group, so to speak, was to eliminate it and gain control of the West.  With the creation of the Mid-west, and the ascendancy of the NCNC into power there, one aim of the conspiracy had been achieved.  The Mid-west was created out of spite for the Action Group, not as part of a programme of general state creation.  The Yoruba West was therefore available for grabbing by the NPC through their ally, Akintola’s NNDP.  The NCNC was effectively eliminated from the West when Chief Akintola’s UPP (United Peoples Party) absorbed the Western NCNC and metamorphosed into NNDP.  The NCNC thereafter joined the Action Group and other progressive parties to form the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA).  The NPC, NNDP and their allies then formed a conservative grouping which was called the Nigerian National Alliance.  Thus, battle was joined.  There was one thing the parties in power did not bargain for, namely, the steadfastness of the people of the West, indeed the greatly increased fervor for the Action Group and the resilience of that party, in spite of the fact that its leaders were in prison.

    At this stage, we students of the University of Ife, then based in Ibadan, decided to establish a students’ wing of the Action Group to support and encourage the Mother Party, which was under terrible and remorseless assault by the ruling Northern Peoples Congress and its southern allies including Akintola’s Nigerian National Democratic Party.  We also formed a campus version of the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA).  I was elected chairman of the Campus Action Group Party and automatically became Leader of the Campus UPGA.

    One of the major activities we planned was the invitation of Dr. M.I. Okpara, Leader of the NCNC and Premier of Eastern Nigeria, to come to Ibadan for an UPGA rally.  Our invitation was gladly accepted.

    We assumed that the rally would take place in a large field inside the Ibadan campus of our university.  We applied to the university authorities.  A meeting of the university governing council was hastily summoned and our request was turned down peremptorily.

    We then located another large field outside the campus at a village called Gbokodo. We were informed that we required the permit of the Ibadan Local Government Police to use it.  We applied to the Local Government Police and were turned down outright.

    We became desperate.  Premier Mike Okpara was due in a few days, and we had no ground for our rally.  Someone suggested the University of Ibadan campus.  The universities of Ibadan and Ife had a common boundary.  It was just a 30 minute march from Ife campus to the centre of U.I. campus.  But we were confident of a negative response if we applied to the U.I. authorities for the use of their grounds. Luckily, someone recalled that the U.I. Students’ Union had large grounds and an impressive union building.  This was independently administered by the Students’ Union without interference from the university authorities.  We were elated since we expected immediate approval from our fellow students in U.I.

    And so we confidently contacted the President of the University of Ibadan, Students Union, Pip Edhore.  To our terrible shock, Pip flatly turned down our request.

    Desperation set in until a colleague from U.I. itself said, “Why don’t you go to see Mr. Tayo Akpata, the Senior Assistant Registrar, Students’ Affairs?  He can overrule the Students’ Union President”. With great reluctance, doubt and skepticism, we approached Tayo Akpata.  After hearing us out, Akpata, declared that the Student’s Union President’s attitude was baffling.  He considered it a breach of our constitutional rights of freedom of expression and freedom of association.  He therefore overruled him and gave instructions that we were to be given the full use of the Students’ Union premises.  Our surprise and joy knew no bounds, that a member of the university administration could be more “radical”, more liberal, than a student leader.

    On the appointed day, with Dr. Mike Okpara already in Ibadan, we received news that the University of Ife Governing Council had met again and that all students were banned from moving out of our campus on that eventful day.  As we were all resident in hostels in the campus, this last straw broke the camel’s back.  We mobilized, grouped together and the whole campus, including initially disinterested students, linked arms together and matched out of the campus singing war songs.  No one dared to stop us.  We arrived at the University of Ibadan Students’ Union premises.  Dr. M.I. Okpara, Alhaji Dauda Adegbenro, Acting Leader of the Action Group, Professor H. Oluwasanmi (later Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ife), and a host of other major political figures were there waiting for us.  The ground was packed full, with people virtually standing on each other.  Great speeches were made, and we had a great rally, thanks to a young, radical Assistant Registrar called Tayo Akpata.

  • Do we remember?

    Do we remember?

    She is regal in a self-effacing way. But she is audacious in a plebian way. She lived the glorious contradiction well when Oby Ezekwesili paid a visit to The Nation last week.

    Her royalty is unofficial, but it is borne not from being a mainstay on some eastern throne. It is out of her personal idiosyncrasy: her carriage, suavity, diction, the sublime simplicity of her sartorial being, a sort of intangible air of audacity that emanates from one accustomed to standing in the high places of the world. Her biography in international finance and the vault of government affirm this fact.

    But her plebian bona fides come from her ability to stoop, to take on causes often associated with what we can call “radical,” an anti-establishment persona that sees her taking on the Jonathan government with as much vigour as she exercised when she stunned an APC gathering with a piece of her mind. And when she is at work, her big, bold eyes convey a daring that can shoot down an elite quarry. It can also soften in the lofty way of the same corridor of power.

    So that was what I observed in close quarters during her visit. She came with a train of the Bringbackthegirls devotees. Her case was clear. We should not forget the over 200 girls that some miscreants whisked away in the name of God. With some of my colleagues like Soji Omotunde, Tunji Adegboyega, Lekan Otunfodunrin, Dele Adeosun present, Ezekwesili took us through the story of the kidnap and all the drama that we have witnessed since. She spoke with deep feeling. But what came out of the meeting was that she and her group felt the media had moved to other things. The story of the helpless girls has retreated into a footnote with occasional flashes. Revealing her plebian side, she wondered if the government would be so nonchalant if one of the girls was a daughter from the tony class.

    It was a good meeting, and I had to do some personal reflections myself, and I could not but agree that we in the media have not been fair enough to the girls. Stephen Davis, the Australian political geographer, as part of his earthquake ‘revelations’ about Boko Haram, said that the girls are subjected to molestation, and that they are raped at will. I think Davis is in a position to know. He is a negotiator on behalf of the federal government. The Jonathan government, in spite of its volubility, has not unveiled any statement on Davis as yet, except the lickspittle comments from Marilyn Ogar of the DSS.

    Do we remember the girls whose crime was that they became boarding students in a school in Chibok to write an exam? Do we remember that these girls were surrounded and the kidnappers took all of them in buses on roads that ran through Borno State where a state of emergency was reportedly in place? Do we remember that the spokespersons of the military gleefully flattered our relief when they said they had rescued them? Later it turned to be an apocryphal effusion, and that the only girls who ran to safety did it on their own heroism?

    No one should forget that the president, in his ritual media chat, virtually denied that the girls were missing, and asked the parents to provide proof with the list? There was also an inversion of culture when the first lady, the dame and mistress of the English Language, asked the mourners to visit her. We know that the bereaved stay at home, and condolences pour in from high and low. They were asked to come from faraway to visit the mistress of English who wanted to know if “na only you waka come?” Do we remember the cry to heaven that “there is God o,” and those who kignap  should not embarrass her husband’s government? She was particular about those “sharing blood.”

    We also remember that the commander-in-chief left the Chibok people to their calamity when he cut off a visit to the place and up till now, he has not visited Borno State, in spite of calls for the commander-in-chief to take command.

    Shall we forget that Shekau appeared on a video and mocked our government? No one will forget that Hilary Clinton and John McCain made contemptuous remarks about our government.

    The story of the Chibok girls is a metaphor of the collapse of the war on terror. BH is running rampant about the Northeast. The Jonathan administration has spent a trillion naira a year on defence. Yet, as Borno Governor Kashim Shettima noted, they have superior firepower over the Nigerian army.

    The first job of a government is security. If that government fails on that score it has failed everywhere else. What the Jonathan government is feeding on is a cynical psychology. His government believes that it is a victim. His supporters are hyping this morose psyche by saying the northerners want Jonathan to fail. Who in the North, I sometimes wonder!

    Is it the emirs, who are under attack? Is it the top politicians who have been victims? Is it their economy that is going to shreds? Is it the mosques or their top clerics who are hiding? If these people are really behind it, then they must be really suicidal and cynical as well.

    Some elements in the North say the Jonathan administration is allowing it in order to achieve a goal: keep the Northeast paralysed and consequently deadlocked for 2015 election. That view is being bandied about. But we have no proof of that.

    Yet what is clear is that the Jonathan administration has proved itself incapable of fighting down the insurgents.

    Our soldiers are good men. They cannot, however, do beyond their training, command and equipment. We have not seen the evidence of the huge money expended on them. Is it corruption? If it is, why has the president not asked his men, the ministers and the contractors, to account for what happened to the money? If he has, why is the situation still dire in the North?

    If the Jonathan administration does not handle the insurgency, it has no right or moral ground to parade the clowns of TAN who want him to impose another four years of imbecility on us.

    The other point I noted with Ezekwesili is the failure of Nigerian youths. In my days at Ife, the universities of the country would be shut down indefinitely until the girls are brought back. Rather some moral impostors in the name of NANS gave the president an award. Not long ago, they also gave Bode George. Our youths are a failure. My generation is no better. At least we began well. They are a group of never-do-wells who spoil the few good youths around doing good things. But as a generation, it is tragic. However, I was glad to see a few of them with Ezekwesili in their visit to The Nation. It is a thing of cheer. –

  • Governor Amosun, remember us too

    SIR: Governor of Ogun state, His Excellency Ibikunle Amosun was recently

    showered with praises by none other than former President Olusegun Obasanjo on his giant stride in infrastructural development in the state. That, despite the fact that both men are in opposing political camps goes to show the developmental stride of this administration is commendable and laudable.

    Be that as it may, the Ibikunle Amosun developmental programme to me is lopsided in the sense that, since inception, the government has not considered it necessary to embark on any developmental programme in MAKOGI/MAGADA/MAGBORO town of Obafemi Owode LGA despite the overwhelming vote the governor received from these communities.

    The people have endured so much difficulty and hardship in accessing the basic necessities of life in these communities. I want to implore the governor to explore the economic opportunities inherent in these communities by providing the basic social amenities moreso that most of us have transferred our tax payment to Ogun State while others are being encouraged to do same.

    • Anthony Ineh

    Makogi Town,

    Ogun State