Understanding Nigeria and the New Imperialism: Essays 2000-2006

Edwin Madunagu - 2006

Editors Biodun Jeyifo, Bene Madunagu, Kayode Komolafe and Chido Onumah
Contents
Editorial Note Foreword Introduction Part 1 Nigeria

1. Hegemony through Elections 13/6/2002

2. Beyond Party Mutations 18/7/2002

3. Studying the Abacha Years 18/1/2001

11

4. In Praise of the Oputa Panel 4/1/2001

14

5. Arguments Over the Middle Belt 1/6/2000 17

6. Sharia as a Power` Bloc Weapon 9/3/2000 20
7. In Defence of the Nigerian Nation 10/8/2000 23
8. Back to Fundamental Issues 24/8/2000 26
9. Contending Propositions Clarified 6/4/2000 29
10. Nigeria's Political Parties 25/5/2000 32
11. Settling Accounts with Biafra 4/5/2000 35
12. The Case Against Privatisation 14/12/2000 38
13. Sovereign Conference or Civil War? 16/3/2000 41
14. The Politics of the Senate Probe 17/8/2000 44
15. Profession Among Professions 25/7/2002 47
16. Impeachment in Nigeria 12/9/2002 50
17. Once Again, the National Question 19/9/2002 53
18. Minimum Democracy in Crisis 26/9/2002 56
19. Democrats of Doubtful Conviction 3/10/2002 59

20. Making a Victory Irreversible 2/1/2003 62

21. Nigeria 2003: History Repeated 1/5/2003 65
22. Fascism through the Third Tier 17/7/2003 68
23. Labour in Nigerian Politics 18/3/2004 71
24. The Rise and Fall of a Saint 27/5/2004
25. The Politics ofNigerian History 19/5/2005
26. The Movement of Nigeria's Presidency 26/5/2005
27. Claimants to the Presidency 2/6/2005
28. Nigeria and the American Prediction 23/6/2005
29. Notes on Geopolitical Alliances 18/8/2005 30. Further Notes on Resource Control 1/9/2005 31.
What Really Happened in 1998? 24/10/2002 32. Political Assassination 21/11/2002 33. Classifying
Presidential Candidates 13/3/2003 34. Where are They Taking the Country? 12/12/2002 35. Battle for
the Soul of Education 19/8/2002 36. History and Political Intervention 14/11/2002 37. Babangida
-Abacha -Obasanjo 25/4/2002 38. Traditional Rulers in a Democracy 21/3/2002 39. Aspects of our
Own Terrorism 7/3/2002 40. Do We Deserve this Government? 21/2/2002 41. Ethnic Politics
7/2/2002 42. Ideology and Governance 14/2/2002 43. Transient Unity Inspired by Death 31/1/2002
44. Organising for Specific Struggles 7'7/9/2001 45. Frustrated Nationalist Expectations 26/7/2001 46.
Emerging Political Associations 7/6/2001 47. Culture and Politics in Nigeria 14/6/2001 48. Once
Again, the Nigerian State 17/5/2001 .49. The State of Political Realignments 29/3,2001 50. Arguments
Over the Constitution 20/2/2003 51. More Complex than Politic& 28/8/2003 52. The State of Our
Nation 25/3/2004 53. What Is a Free and Fair Eiectio. 11,4/2002 54. Governance and the Third Ti.
'10;2001 55. Not By Slogans Alone ')816/2001 56. Antecedents of the Fourth Rec 12/4 57. Further
Reflections on the F 1111 2001 58. In Search of Foundations 11/12 :003
59. Disasters and the State 17/11 2105
60. Pacification and Resistance 1/12/2005 182
61. Not By Violence Alone 22/12/2005 185
62. The Sophism of Self-Perpetuation 9/3/2006 188 63. Agenda 2007 and its Opponents 29/12/2005
191 64. To BJ at 60, a Salute 5/1/2006 194 65. 1953 in Nigerian History 4/9/2003 197 66. Alternative
Roads to 2007 25/9/2003 200 67. Dictatorship and Military Coups 22/4/2004 204 68.
Engaging'Corruption at the Roots 21/4/2005 207 69. History and the Tragedy of 1989 3/4/2003 210
70. Vacation Notes 2/2/2006 213 71. Beyond Ethnic Presidency 9/2/2006 216 72. The Collective
Presidency 16/2/2006 219 Part 2 Olusegun Obasanjo 73. Obasanjo's Re-election Chances 8/2/2001
225 74. Defending Obasanjo in the Name of Democracy _31/8/2000 228 75. Obasanjo and the Third
Power Bloc 23/11/2000 231 76. Obasanjo's Degree of Freedom 18/5/2000 234 77. Obasanjo's
Settlement with History 27/7/2000 237 78. Obasanjo's Post-Election Manifesto 10/7/2003 240 79.
Criticising Olusegun Obasanjo 21/6/2001 243 80. Obasanjo in Cross River State 13/12/2001 246 81.

The Agreement that Produced Obasanjo 15/3/2001 249 82. Obasanjo's Election Manifesto 30/5/2002
252 Pirt 3 Africa and the World 83. Resurgence of European Fascism 11/7/2002 257 84. The
Philippine Democracy 1/3/2001 260 85. Africa and the International Community 21/9/2000 263 86.
The Warning from Uganda 20/4/2000 266 87. Twenty Years of Zimbabwe: A Balance Sheet 30/3/2000
269 88. History and Women ofValour 5/9/2002 272 89. America and the United Nations 10/4/2003
275
90. From Vietnam to Saddam's Iraq 24/4/2003 278
125. Yasser Arafat and The Economist 2/12/2004 386
126. Remembering Antonio Gramsci 13/1/2005 389 127. Message from Bala Usman 10/2/2005 392
128. For Albert Einstein 16/6/2005 398 129. The Story ofNikolai Bukharin '25/8/2005 401 130: For
Comrade John Garang 8/9/2005 404 131. As We Mourn Departed Comrades 6/10/2005 407 132.
Comrade Ita Ekeng Henshaw 1/7/2004 410 133. Who Replaces Bade Onimode? 27/12/2001 413 134.
Malcolm X and Abdul Rahman Babu 6/6/2002 416 135.1 Love Francis Arthur Nzeribe * 10/5/2001
419 136. Anthony Enahoro Speaks Again 14/3/2002 422 137. Marxists On Resource Control 3/5/2001
425 138. AReading of Bola Ige 5/4/2001 428 139. Colonel Abubakar Umar 19/2/2004 431 140.
Awolowo's People's Republic 28/11/2002 434 141. For Comrade Tony Engurube 3/11/2005 437 142.
Remembrance and Re-dedication 10/11/2005 440 143. Re-reading The Man Died 18/11/2004 443
144. Boro - Saro Wiwa - Dokubo 21/10/2004 446 Part 5 Theory/Reflections 145. Settling Accounts
with SNC 19/4/2001 451 146. The Nigerian Constitution 8/3/2001 454 147. Back to First Principles?
22/3/2001 457 148. A Collective Assessment of the Present 15/6/2000 460 149. Between Machiavelli
and Political Hypocrites 23/3/2000 463 150. Between Poverty and State Robbery 29/6/2000 466 151.
Clarifications on Ethnic Politics 21/12/2000 469 152. Confirming the Nature of the State 7/12/2000
472 153. Notes on the Evolution of States 24/2/2000 475 154. For Those In Search ofAnalogies
16/11/2000 478 155. Globalization and Human Progress 13/4/2000 481
156. May 29, History and the Law 8/6/2000 484 157. Ideology and the Ethnic Question 6/7/2000 487
158. Political Zones and Power Blocs 27/4/2000 490
159. Reflections on the Women's Question 20/7/2000 493
160. The Fall and Rise of Natives 13/7/2000 496
161. The Global Dictatorship 19/10/2000 499
162. Transition to Dictatorship 28/9/2000 502 163. Collegiality and Collectivity? 164. Notes on the'
New Empire 1/8/2002 19/12/2002 505 508 165. Humanist Resolution in Crisis 9/1/2003 511 166.
Contradictions in the Empire 29/5/2003 514 167. Leftists and Communists 9/10/2003 517 168. The
Ghosts of the Past 4/12/2003 521 169. History and 'Fetish' Democracy.. 29/1/2004 524 170. Prefatory
Notes on 'New Roads' 11/3/2004 527 171. Politics and Coups in Nigeria 6/5/2004 530 172. Speaking
to Power 11/11/2004 533 173. Prefatory Notes on Auschwitz 3/3/2005 536 174. Reflections on Human
Rights 7/4/2005 539 175. Theory of History Revisited 12/5/2005 542 176. Democracy: In Search of
Determination 30/6/2005 545 177. Socialism Reviewed and Renewed 27/10/2005 548 178. Notes and
Reflections on Terrorism 10/1/2002 551 179. Election Dilemmas for Radicals 13/9/2001 554
180. Reviewing Socialism: Matters Arising 15/12/2005 557
181. Nigerian Geopolitics 2/3/2006 560

182. Legislature and Governance 27/11/2003 563

183. Back to Barbarism 3/2/2005 566
Editorial Note
As indicated in the title of this book, the 183 essays collected in this volume span the years 2000-2006.
Because they were all written for a weekly newspaper column, each essay stands entirely on its own
and in this respect, the reader can start with virtually any essay in any section of the book without feel*
that the particular essay is de-contextualized. As we all know, successful column writing involves
mastery of the art of condensation, of the art and rhetoric, saying a lot with precision, economy and
clarity. These are all hallmarks of Edwin Madunagu's journalistic prose. Nevertheless, writing a weekly
column also entails a form of sustained dialogue with one's readers, with oneself even. This means
continuity between particular essays and it also means returning again and again to particular issues,
events and personalities. This is the basis of distribution of the essays in this book into five thematic
parts or sections. As much as possible, the essays in each part have been arranged within a
chronological sequence. However, this principle of organization has not been rigidly applied and thus
occasionally, a succession or group of essays is chronologically out of sequence. Eddie Madunagu
continues to write his weekly column and his readership continues to expand every week and every
year. Undoubtedly, there will be future "omnibus" editions of these essays. For now, we ask our
compatriots to join us in celebrating the rich harvest of revolutionary and humanistic thought and
imagination presented in and through the essays collected in this present volume.
Editors.

Foreword
Against the Dialogue of the Deaf and the Damned: Eddie Madunagu on Nigeria and the New
Imperialism
My friend and comrade, Edwin Madunagu (or Eddie as he is generally known) was born in 1946, the
year of my own birth. For this reason, it came as a startling, but frankly pleasing discovery for me as I
read some of the essays collected in this volume that for Eddie, the year of our birth also constitutes a
very special founding moment for the nation-being of our country, Nigeria. In this short prefatory note,
I shall not reveal which particular essays in the volume advance this thesis and with what arguments. I
will simply urge the reader who is intrigued by this fact to try to identify the particular essays in
question and come to an assessment of the validity of the thesis. Beyond that, I can state here that in
none of the essays that advance this view of 1946 as a foundational moment for the coming-into-being
of Nigeria does Eddie give the slightest indication that this view has anything to do with his own
personal biography, that is with the fact that he was born in that year. I believe that we should regard
Eddie's lack of self-consciousness on this matter as being generally reflective of his total selflessness as
a revolutionary socialist.
Nevertheless, it is also the Case that throughout virtually all the essays collected in this book, Eddie is
present as a distinctive voice, as an irreducibly unique consciousness. In my concluding paragraph at
the end of this piece, I shall return to this matter of 1946 as the year of Eddie's birth (and my own!) and

a founding moment for the birth of Nigeria but for now, I wish to briefly explore the other matter of the
pervasive presence of Eddie's unique personality or consciousness in the essays collected in this book.
At the most apparent level, this operates in terms of the pervasiveness of the personal pronoun "I" in
the vast majority of the essays collected in this volume. But the matter goes much deeper than this mere
linguistic marker of personhood and speaking voice. This contention is perhaps best exemplified by the
fact that nearly in all cases where this first person speaking voice is indicated, what Eddie is doing is
subjecting his own experiences, his own opinions and intuitions, even his most well-considered
analyses, reflections and theories to rigorous scrutiny in the light of the experiences, views and
analyses of others among his compatriots and the wider global community. As a matter of fact, on
many occasions in these essays, Eddie either begins or closes an essay with the assertion that a
particular interlocutor or compatriot whose views or activities he, Eddie, is discussing critically is a
"teacher" of his. And since the whole world knows Edwin Madunagu as a Marxist and socialist, it will
come as a surprise to readers of this book that many of those so identified as his "teachers" are either
not Marxists or socialists at all or are Marxists and socialists with whom Eddie has significant
ideological and political differences.
In presenting this book to its potential readers in Nigeria and beyond our national boundaries, I wish to
base my observations and reflections in this short prefatory note on this particular point. If one had to
descriptively identify the single most defining thing about the essays collected in this book, perhaps
one would have to say it is the vastness of the topics, issues and personalities covered. But this is only
slightly more obvious than another defining aspect of the book, this being the fact that, as a totality, the
essays are addressed to a very large and diverse body of groups and individuals within the Nigerian
national community and the broader community of all thinking and progressive people in the world.
Specifically, and with regard to the Nigerian national community, the essays in the book are addressed
as much to leftists and radicals as to democrats; humanists of the civil society organizations, human
rights community; stalwarts and champions of ethnic minority rights and advocates and defenders of
women's rights; conservative to liberal "constitutionalists"; and just plain "Naija" patriots. What is even
more remarkable about the apparently deliberate choice made by Eddie to widen the community of his
addresses and interlocutors in these essays is the fact that he is quite meticulous in addressing every
person, contention or community that he engages with scrupulous attention to what each person or
interlocutor or community representative has to say. Indeed, this principle is so rigorously and
uncompromisingly followed in all his essays that it becomes clear that the principle has the status of a
categorical moral and discursive imperative with Eddie as a revolutionary socialist: you do much harm
to your cause if you don't listen well to what others are saying, if you don't give as much
acknowledgement to what drives and impels others as you would want others to give to what drives
and impels you. Please read any essay in this book to see if this is an overstatement; read in particular
essays on or about figures like ChiefAnthony Enahoro, Yusuf Bala Usman, Sola Adeyeye, Tayo Akpata,
Bola Ige, and Reuben Abati to see how very careful Eddie is in getting their views and positions right
-to the utmost degree that this is possible - before or while subjecting them to scrutiny. In the light of
the immediately preceding observation, I would argue that this book is as good as any presently
available in terms of a book-length summation of virtually all the issues, the forces, and, let it be said,
the perplexities, which together constitute what Nigeria in particular and, more generally Africa and the
developing world, face for their survival at this historical moment. Let me "break this down", as the
African American brothers and sisters would put it.
Eddie takes great, almost superlative care to seek out those among his compatriots and others in the
world at large who are saying and doing things that will, for better or for worse, affect the lives of all of

us and perhaps of future generations as well. And he equally takes great care to present their views and
positions as faithfully as possible, almost with the exactitude of the mathematician that he is. For this
reason, in many of the essays collected in this book, Eddie has more or less presented extremely useful,
almost matchless summaries of the following subjects and issues: what the defenders of ethnic minority
rights or indigenous peoples are saying and demanding, most eloquently in relation to the terrible
human, environmental and economic devastation of our deeply troubled Niger Delta region; what the
diverse proponents of the geopolitical restructuring of Nigeria are saying, especially with regard with
arguments for and against a Sovereign National Conference (SNC); what the rise of ethnic militias
portend for our country and the contemporary world; where education, the media, contemporary
evangelical religion and, more generally, popular culture stand in relation to local and international
struggles for global justice; and attempts to come to a better understanding of the operations of a "new
imperialism" which, though it bears the traces of the old impel ialism, is still an unfolding
phenomenon, still in a period of inception before the sort of effective ideological and geopolitical
consolidation which the old imperialism enjoyed for about four hundred years. If you wish to know the
most up-to-date contending views and positions on these and many other issues of great, searing
relevance to Nigeria and the world at large, please read the essays in this book carefully and you will
come away a much better informed person. It would of course be wrong to give the impression that the
essays in this book merely give excellent summative discussions and nothing more on the issues and
topics listed above, if by "excellent" one means to imply neutrality. This is far from the case, as even
the most cursory and unreflecting of readers of the book will quickly discover. For Eddie is not only an
activist, militant partisan for the realization of popular democracy and socialism for our country, our
continent and the nations and regions of the world, he is indeed a desperate partisan, even a bitterly
frustrated and disappointed partisan. This is indeed the point from which derives the title for my
observations and reflections in this prefatory note: against the dialogue of the deaf and the damned.
What this implies is the fact that at the emotional and ideological base of nearly all the essays in this
book is Eddie's anguished consciousness that both within the community of Nigerian radicals and
leftists and the broader community of the national intelligentsia - of all shades of ideological opinion no meaningful conversation exists; rather what we have is a dialogue of the deaf and the damned. A
dialogue of the "deaf' because interlocutors and disputants in our national conversation don't take the
time to listen at all to one another, let alone hear one another as the same issues, the same ideas are
repeated and recycled again and again. And a dialogue of the "damned" because we seem headed for a
catastrophe that we might not survive this time around as we survived - after a fashion, at least our
Civil War of 1967-70. I have spoken of the desperation, the despair even, which marks many of the
essays in this book as the author again and again comes up against the diverse manifestations and
expressions of this dialogue of the deaf and the damned. must now speak of the boundless hope and
resilience that also mark the same despairing essays and may indeed be regarded as the dialectical
obverse of the desperation, the despair. And on this particular point, I wish to place as much emphasis
as possible on the word 'understanding" in the title of this bock.
Let me briefly explain what I mean by this point. Understanding Nigeria and the New Imperialism:
Eddie's revolutionary optimism here lies in a belief that things in our collective experience that may
seem too daunting, too confounding can be effectively confronted and transformed if one makes the
effort to understand them - in all the positive epistemological and political meanings of that word.
Another way of putting this is to say that what you don't understand you can't engage successfully.
Understanding may very well not avert a looming catastrophe, but it is at least a pre-condition, a sine
qua non of the possibility of victory. On this particular point, the most urgent message in this book is to
leftists, radicals and all lovers of popular democracy in Nigeria and that message is as clear as it is
bracing: if you would advance your cause and help to move our country and our continent out of the

present rot, you must first come to an understanding of your own present utter disarray, your own
present self-mystifications and your avoidance of the hard, bitter facts of the negative experiences of
the past couple of decades. I could identify and name the many issues on which, according to Eddie,
the left in the country today stands utterly confused and maybe divided, but I'll name only three: the
call to restructure or "re-federalize" Nigeria along ethno-national lines; the depth of the retreat from
anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism that totally dominates the work and the utterances of so many of
those struggling against the local and foreign bases of our national malaise and the dire material
conditions of the majority of our peoples; and the lack of attention to-the workings of the new
imperialism in naturalized and seemingly "neutral" discursive categories like "the international
community" beyond the more easily identifiable instrumentalities of institutions like the IMF, The
World Bank, the WTO, the G8 Summit, and the Economic Forum of Davos.
Mostly, the essays in this book propose the efforts needed to come to an understanding of these issues
as collective and collaborative research projects. But Eddie also advances some extraordinarily bold
and visionary theses that, on another occasion and in another context, I will hope to give a fuller
elaboration. For now, it suffices for me to say that the eloquence, clarity and force with which he
advances these theses mark Eddie out as perhaps the revolutionary conscience of our generation. I said
earlier that I would end this prefatory note where I started: on Eddie's naming, in some essays in this
book, of 1946, the year of his birth, as a crucial founding moment of Nigeria's nation-being. I also said
then that this was done completely unselfconsciously, without any regard at all to tine coincidence of
personal biography and national history. On the basis of that observation, I now make the following
speculation, a sort of Hegelian speculation: what it is that marks out certain individuals as those
through whom the historical process comes to the consciousness of their communities or their nations
is often precisely this fortuitous convergence of personal biography and the national historical process.
At any rate. as the readers of this book will readily find out, Eddie is deeply conscious of an lc = ation
to his his and ours. This is a great burden, but it is also a great hope. I compliment this book, produced
for the occasion of the 60th birthday of the --7.--21e and compatriot, to readers with a full consciousness
of both opportunity.
Biodun Jevifo, Ibadan, April 2006

Introduction
This book is a celebration of the life, works and struggles of a comrade and friend, Edwin Ikechilkwu
Madunagu. Madunagu was born on May 15, 1946. Since the early 70s he has played prominent roles in
revolutionary politics in Nigeria. Even though Eddie, as he is popularly known, has been a teacher,
author, organizer of radical struggle and an activist fior more than three decades, he is more widely
known as a newspaper columnist. Madunagu joined The Guardian in February 1985 as a member of the
Editorial Board. Though he was trained as a mathematician, his ideological clarity and his grasp of
philosophy, history, economics, and politics has made his Thursday column essential reading for
anyone trying to understand the social and economic turbulence that rules our world. This has
tremendously endeared him to the younger generation of Nigerians. Madunagu's passion and
commitment to the Nigerian working class, to peasants, women and youths is legendary.
While paying tribute to a comrade and friend, Peter Ayodele Curtis Joseph ("To Remember and to
Honour", The Guardian), he noted: "Of all the contemporary social developments that currently sadden
me, one of the most painful is the disconnection of Nigerians, especially the younger ones, from their

own history, including the history of their own immediate environments". Over the years, Madunagu
has sought, through his writing, to address this historical disconnection. For the past 20 years,
Madunagu's articles in The Guardian have provided a platform for progressive debate and struggle. He
has sought to popularize socialist and Pan-Africanist alternatives to the development-policy paradigm
promoted by the political elite under the tutelage of the international financial institutions and, more
generally, Western imperialism, especially in the new forms which many of the essays collected in this
book subject to enlightening critique. Madunagu believes Nigeria can still be rescued from the current
rot. To this end, he has used his column to expose the bankruptcy of Structural Adjustment Programs
(SAP) and other social and economic policies that seek to undermine our sovereignty and deepen
capitalist domination of all facets of our national life by these new forms of imperialist domination
subsumed under the seemingly neutral moniker of"the international community". Indeed, one ofthe
great merits and the equally great urgency of many of the articles in Madunagu's weekly column since
the start of the new millennium pertains precisely to his lucid expose of the policies, worldviews and
assumptions fueling the operations of this so-called "international community "
Madunagu's articles encompass every important national and international issue: supporting campaigns
against domestic policies that are inimical to our peoples' interests; showing working people and the
masses the need to reject the status quo and pursue development solutions that are collectively selfreliant and equitable; and expressing solidarity with peoples on the front line of the global
confrontation with imperialism such as Palestine, Cuba and Iraq.
Of the social issues facing Nigeria today, one of the most challenging is renewing the radical and
popular-democratic traditions of struggle in our society. The importance of this renewal cannot be
overemphasized. As Nigeria continues to drift, it is imperative for the new generation to have
alternative paradigms of discourse on society beyond the current globalized neoliberal discourse and
analysis. Madunagu has been a champion of this alternative discourse and this book aims to further the
debate on the way forward. It seeks to draw attention to and examine the reconstitution that Nigeria so
badly needs from past and present struggles. Among other important things, the book is an attempt to
mobilize an effort to prepare ourselves to play a role in the struggle against imperialist exploitation and
oppression - in Nigeria and worldwide. These are daunting challenges and we hope this book will offer
the occasion to launch a project of renewal to confront these challenges.

Hegemony Through Elections 13th June, 2002

NOTHING in recent times, has shown the true character of the Nigerian state, the Nigerian ruling
classes and the power blocs developed therefrom, as clearly as the current build-up to the 2002/2003
elections, especially the guidelines for the registration of new political parties recently published by, or
rather through, the Independent National Electoral Commission (MEC). I should hasten to add,
however, that the guidelines, as reprehensive as they are, say nothing, one way or the other, about the
personal integrity of the leaders and functionaries of the Commission, except possibly that they are not
revolutionary democrats. Not even a saint put to serve the Nigerian ruling classes and their social

system can do much better. In fact, if a saint is inserted into the Nigerian social system to regulate the
struggle for power he or she will emerge from the exercise painted devil-black. Several politicians and
pro-democracy advocates have argued that the INEC guidelines are in contradiction with the 1999
Constitution in some critical areas, and against the "spirit" of that basic document. The two-point
assertion is very correct. But the matter goes beyond that. I submit that a true democrat must question
both the Constitution and the Electoral Act, and then the INEC guidelines, their legitimate baby. The
monstrosity of INEC guidelines is a direct product of the power structure in Nigeria, the Constitution
and the Electoral Act. In short, in the final analysis, it does not matter whether the INEC people are
acting out a script, prepared by someone or some authority, or acting out their own script, inspired by
the Constitution, the Electoral Act and their own consciousness and understanding. The point is that
there is a very limited degree of freedom for any election umpire operating today in Nigeria. But I
agree that the INEC guidelines can be battled on its own grounds. Nigerians have a lotto learn from
such a battle. They will learn very quickly from such a battle - ifit is rigorously and uncompromisingly
waged - that the existing political system is heavily weighted against true democrats, the poor, the
marginalised, the exploited, the dispossessed and the internal colonial subjects. Let us therefore take a
look at this particular child of the Nigerian system, the INEC guidelines and its parent, guardian and
inspirer, the 1999 Constitution. INEC opened its Guidelines for the Registration of Political Parties
(dated May 15, 2002) with the following definition: Apolitical association for the purposes ofthese
guidelines is defined as an organisation or persons: "seeking registration as a political party in order to
participate in an election by meeting all prescribed statutory requirements" (section 1). The 1999
Constitution defines an "association" and a "political party" (section 229). It does not define a "political
association". This was done by INEC. Now, if the Constitution which is the nation's basic law defines
an association, then any other definitions of sub-sets of "association" made by any institution or organ
deriving its existence, powers and functions from the Constitution, must not detract from the general
definition offered by the Constitution. They can only signify and elaborate on what differentiates one
type of association from the others. A sub-set does not detract from the qualities of the full set of which
it is apart. For instance, if INEC wishes, it can sub-divide the set of associations into sub-sets: political,
cultural, social, ethnic, religious, occupational, etc, as the 1999 Constitution recognises and permits in
Section 229. So far, so good. Section 221 of the Constitution states: "No association, other than a
political party, shall canvass for votes for any candidate at any election or contribute to the funds of any
political party or to the election expenses of any candidate at an election". This is one of the most
criminal provisions in the Constitution, a guarantee that, through elections, the present power structure,
heavily weighted against the masses, will be maintained and perpetuated - until such a time that the
"wretched of the Nigerian earth" will accept their fate as immutable! Going by the letter and spirit of
the 1999 Constitution from which INEC has abstracted and then extended and interpreted, every
association, defined by the Constitution as "any body of persons corporate or unincorporated who agree
to act together for any common purpose, and includes an association formed for an ethnic, social,
cultural, occupational or religious purpose", can apply to INEC to function (that is the word used by the
Constitution) as a political party which the same basic document defines as including "any association
whose activities include canvassing for votes in support of a candidate for election to the office of
President, Vice-President, Governor, Deputy Governor or membership of a legislative house or of a
local government council". The import of this is that the various social-cultural organisations in the
country, religious groups and ethnic gatherings and regional formations, especially those in Nigeria's
internal colonies (the Niger Delta, etc) and even ethnic militias can seek to function as political parties.
The question is whether they can be registered as political parties. The Constitution and INEC say no,
not all of them. I can understand why ethnic militias cannot be registered: the state, any state
whatsoever, must remain, or aspire to remain, the only legitimate armed force within the territory
internationally recognised as belonging to that state. But why can't small pro-democracy, human rights
and socio-political groups and unarmed resistance groups in marginalised and colonised segments of

the Nigerian nation be permitted to function as political parties? Why can't a small group in this
country, which belong to all of us, start in a small place, test its message. platform and strength
electorally in a small area, if it chooses to do so, and then develop? The NE '.-=:erian state and its
institutions and agencies say that this will endanger the corporate exis: e of Nigeria and detract from
current "efforts" at developing, national unity. What should these small groups do? The Nigerian state
replies that they should find accommodation within the big "national" parties that have functioning,
well-furnished and well-equipped offices and documented memberships in at least 24 states. But in
seeking this accommodation they must dissolve themselves into the big parties since, according to
LNIC guidelines, (section 5), every party member must be so in his or her "personal capacity". No
group, as a group, can seek legitimate alliance with another group or party to wage a common electoral
battle. It must dissolve itselfinto a large group. This is another criminal provision, similarly aimed at
perpetual hegemony. In any case we all know that with very few exceptions, only big political
formations infinitely endowed financially can fulfill INEC's material and bureaucratic conditions. :Aso
know that these big political formations are not simply dominated by the power blocs, they are owned
by the power blocs. And their agenda is clear: the perpetual domination of Nigeria within the economic
framework of capitalist globalisation, neo-liberalism, mass impoverishment and enslavement and the
political ideology of "war against global terror". Any national or international dissenter is a terrorist.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has, in recent past made two statements which deserve some response.
He insulated himself from any perceived shortcomings in INEC guidelines, saying that it was not his
duty to write the guidelines; he did not write them; and, hi fact, had no time for such exercise. Anyone
who is dissatisfied should go to the court. But he was of the opinion that guidelines are necessary for
the registration of political parties. Fine talk. But we should know, going by the nature of the state in
general and Nigerian political history in particular, that INEC guidelines could not have seen the light
of day if the President did not approve of every line of it. If we do not know this then we should go
back to an elementary school ofpolitical science and political history. In another statement reported in
The Guardian of May 26, 2002, President Obasanjo gave six reasons why he "favours" democracy. The
reasons are that democracy is the only means by which leadership can be brought in or removed
peacefully; it does not allow for leadership till death do them part, as leaders have to periodically test
their popularity; it allows for competition" where the people can judge by programme and record; it has
checks and balances with three, four or even five arms; it allows for dialogue; and it gives minorities a
voice". The first five reasons are mere propaganda. INEC guidelines are a negation of the sixth. Nigeria
has been declared a democracy by the ruling classes, their power blocs, and the "international
community' whose endcrsement is now the decisive criterion worldwide for designation as a
democracy. The forthcoming elections, even the current preparations for them, are a further
confirmation of the designation of our country as a democracy. But popular and truly democratic voices
in Nigeria are saying that is a huge lie: that Nigeria is not a democracy and that the electoral process,
including INEC guidelines, are moving the country even further away from the direction of democracy.
These voices must become stronger, louder and sharper.
Beyond Party Mutation 18th July, 2002
TII EE political parties were "registered" for the 1999 general elections that brought General Olusegun
Obasanjo to office as "civilian" President ofthe Federal Republic ofNigeria. These were the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), the All Peoples Party (APP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Let us
recall how these three parties emerged. A large gathering of leading members of the Nigerian ruling
classes and their politicians and intelligentsia was taking shape towards the end of General Sani
Abacha's regime. Drawn from all parts of the country, the gathering, known at a certain time as G-34,
saw itself as the successor to Sani Abacha whenever it pleased God to terminate his neo-fascist regime
either directly or through the agency of his messengers. Many Nigerians did not know how it happened,
but Abacha died suddenly in June 1998. The G-34 was the largest and most "national" save-the-nation

group that immediately transformed into political parties. It named itself the Peoples' Democratic Party
(PDP), which brought memories of the Second Republic National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The
negotiations to consolidate the PDP broke down when a faction led by Awoists, the heirs of late Chief
Obafemi Awolowo, objected to three of the party's foundational elements. The first was the nearabsence of welfarist perspectives in the programme of the party; the second was the non-recognition of
the national question; and the third was the strong positions occupied in the party by people perceived
as anti-democrats and recent collaborators of military dictatorship. The faction withdrew and
approached the second largest gathering, the All Peoples Party (APP). Negotiations again broke down
on the three questions which the group insisted were non-negotiable. When the Awoists pulled out of
this second effort they decided to form their own party, the Alliance for Democracy (AD). There were
other disaffected groups. but they possessed neither the will not the power to pull out. The three parties
(PDP, APP and AD) that finally emerged from this process of mutations (that is, combinations and
dissociations) I called, and still call, the parties of Nigeria's two power blocs. In June 2002, three and a
half years after the "registration of PDP, APP and AD, the Nigerian state decided to recognise, or rather,
was compelled to officially recognise, further mutations ofNigeria's political foi illation. Three new
parties: National Democratic Party (NDP), United Nigeria People's Party (UNTP) and All Progressive
Grand Alliance (APGA) were registered, bringing the total to six. To better understand what happened
in June, we may go back to what happened in 1978/79, as General Olusegun Obasanjo prepared to
inaugurate the Second Republic (1979-1983). Three establishment parties
were the first to emerge. These were the National Party of Ni geria (NPN), the Nigerian Peoples Party
(NPP) and the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). A dispute later developed in NPP between the Zikists
(followers of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe) and the supporters of Waziri Ibrahim , one of the founders of the
party. What the country was told was that Waziri Ibrahim and his supporters wanted the post ofparty
National Chairman and the position of party presidential candidate to go to one man: Waziri Ibrahim .
The Zikists thought that this was a greedy proposition. Although admitting that Waziri was an
important figure in the party, they, felt that he should be satisfied with one of the two positions,
preferably, party chairmanship, and leave the other, preferably presidential candidature, to Nnamdi
Azikiwe, the other pillar of the party. But Waziri reasoned differently. Let me attempt a reconstruction
of his argument (in my own words, please!): The position of party national chairman is meaningless
(eve7n if it is something) if the party does not win the presidential election which is still to come. On
the other hand, presidential candidate is no position at all: after the election, you become either the
president or nothing. So, in the case the party loses the presidential election, both positions - party
chairmanship and presidential candidature - will come to almost nothing although on balance, the party
chairmanship will mean something in the nothingness while the party presidential candidature will be
nothing in nothingness. In this case, it will be better to be party chairman. However, if the party wins
the presidential election, the president will completely dominate, and overshadow, the party chairman.
In this case, it will be better to be the presidential candidate. Since the future is unknown, since no one
knows how the presidential election will go, it is safer to combine the two positions", so reasoned
Waziri, the leading financier of NPP. The Zikists, being more experienced in politics, saw the
irreconcilability of the two positions, and quickly seized the party machinery, compelling Waziri and
his supporters to withdraw and form another party, the Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP). A similar
development in the NPN was more dramatic. A large "national movement" ofNigeria's ruling classes
was growing in th bowels of the military dictatorship. After the regime lifted the 12-year old ban on
political activities (1966-1978), the national movement became the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
How Ma'am Aminu Kano and many of his supporters ever got themselves into the national movement
is a story we may not go into here. But history found them there, discussing with the most conservative
representatives of the Nigerian ruling classes. We can only guess what actually went on behind the
closed doors; but we were told a fraction of it, namely : Aminu Kano, a giant in Nigerian politics, the

defender of the Northern poor, the talakawas, was insultingly offered the position of publicity secretary
of the emergent political party. Aminu Kano's supporters pulled their leader out of the meeting and
formed the Peoples' Redemption Party (PRP). The five parties, NPN, UPN, NPP, GNPP and PRP were
registered. A rumour later developed, sponsored by the state i believe, that only two parties (NPN and
UPN) actually satisfied the conditions for registration, and that the other three (NPP, GNPP and PRP)
were registered for the purposes of "national unity", or rather the unity of the ruling classes. We also
learnt that the presidential candidates of the three "national unity" parties did not qualify to be
candidates, but were allowed, also for the purposes of "national unity". The rumour was
never substantiated and was never refuted. In the 1998/1999 registration exercise it was also rumoured
that AD did not actually satisfy the condition, but was registered for the sake of 'national unity". Again,
no substantiation, no denial. Back to June 2002. The three new parties (NDP, UNPP and APGA) were
formed, and are led, by former owners, sponsors and leaders of the older political parties of Obasanjo's
Republic (PDP, APP and AD). There was no expansion of the "political space". The three older parties
were simply sub-divided into six to allow internal dissenters to re-group. The retired military officers
who now dominate the leadership of at least two of the new political parties are not coming into politics
for the first time. But at the time parties were being formed in 1998/1999, the military officers were in
service and could not openly associate with the political parties they sponsored or formed. At least one
of the older parties and one of the new ones are "national unity" parties as defined above. My question
now is this: Who is being deceived? In the first place, the political crisis of the First Republic which led
to the first military coup d' etat in January 1966 and culminated in the 30-month Civil War (July 1967
to January 1970) was not the result of either too many political parties or the existence of small or even
ethnic-based parties. On the contrary it was the big parties, all of them national in membership and
coverage that were used as vehicles for prosecuting tribal competition and war. Ironically, it was the
small ethnic-minority-based formations that played the critical roles in re-uniting the country. in the
second place many Nigerians know that since the 1978,179 exercise every act of party registration in
Nigeria has been carried out with the same strategic objective (to maintain the unity ofexploiters and
oppressors) and tactics (massive deception with which the "national cake" is shared, in the first
instance, between blocs, factions and fractions of ruling classes). Although the "interests ofthe masses"
are invoked in the scramble for tl lc "national cake", little trickles down to them. Like those before
them, the establishment politicians in Obasanjo's Republic are deceiving no-one when they claim to be
promoting "national unity-through an arbitrary restriction on the number of parties and the drawing up
of bogus guidelines. Each time the Nigerian state and the ruling class carry out a fraudulent act against
the masses, history laughs at them and mocks them by dramatically demonstrating the opposite oftheir
claims. Thus, inthe weeks following the inauguration ofthe present administration in May 1999 and in
the week following the so-called registration in June 2002, ethnic and political violence rose inNigeria
This is just an immediate judgment ofhistory which sometimes appears as mockery. But a latter
judgment usually goes beyond mockery.
Studying the Abacha Years 18th January, 2001
START by commending my comrade and compatriot, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, for / putting out his
new book, The Abacha years: What went wrong, portions of which I have read in the newspapers. I
should also seize this opportunity to acknowledge the substantial contributions which Babatope,
through his writings, activities and engagements, have made to the development of radical politics in
Nigeria. I have read the proceedings of the public presentation of the book, and some of the comments
so far made on it. Instead of reviewing the book in the normal way I have decided to propose some
parameters for studying the "Abacha years" in general, and Babatope's account and analysis ofthe
period in particular. This, I hope, will take account of the book and the comments which the book and

the role of the author in the Abacha regime have so far generated. But before proceeding to the
parameters, I should first propose some general requirements for an objective study of "Abacha years".
The study has to begin from the start, not from some convenient point in the middle. Definitely the
story will not start from when Abacha started assassinating his opponents in 1995; not in early 1994
when the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) was formed on the platform of opposition to the
Constitutional Conference and another prolonged military administration; or later that 3 ear \\ lien he
started harassing and detaining radicals, unionists and patriots, and dissolving their organisations. The
"Abacha years" did not start even on November 17, 1993 when Abacha staged his coup. The "Abacha
years" started in December 1983. Having said this, I can now propose the following parameters for the
study of "Abacha years:" What we know of General Sani Abacha before he became Nigeria's I lead of
State on November 17, 1993; how he became Head of State; the active political forces and the
correlation and balance of these forces immediately prior to, and at the time be became Head of State;
how and why Abacha was able to draw into his government such an array of respected Nigerian
patriots and leftist politicians; continuities and discontinuities between the Babangida regime and the
Abacha junta; the dialectical and turbulent relationship between the Abacha regime and the Western
power bloc during that regime; the range of opposition that the Abacha regime had to confront and how
the regime confronted it; the policies and governance of the regime, or rather, the Nigerian state under
Abacha; the world and Nigeria underAbacha; the roles and what was expected of members of the
"Western power" bloc such as Babatope and Jakande in the Abacha regime; and the crisis of the regime
and its demise. It is a long list, and some of the parameters do overlap.
This is my proposal to anyone who intends to do a serious study (or serious review of a study) of the
Abacha years. Analysing the "Abacha years" is not simply a question of describing the atrocities of an
"evil man" and the refusal of Babatope and others to abandon the "evil man" when called upon to do
so, conveniently forgetting that Babatope and some ofAbacha's ministers were literally drafted and
donated to the "evil man". Perhaps I am jumping the gun. Most Nigerians outside the military first
heard of Sani Abacha when, as a Nigerian army brigadier, he announced the coup of December 1983.
The coup terminated the civilian government of President Shehu Shagari, re-elected four months
earlier. Abacha, perhaps, did not write the coup broadcast which he made; but those who listened to the
broadcast will remember the harsh delivery which Abacha gave to it. Abacha became commander of
the second division of the army in Ibadan. Abacha did not announce the coup that brought Ibrahim
Babangida to power on August 27, 1985. He spoke later, before the formal assumption of office by the
new military president. Again, we recall the particularly harsh delivery of his own radio statement. He
became Chief ofArmy Staff. If you do a newspaper research on the "Vatsa coup" of December 1985,
you will come upon Abacha's harsh condemnation of General Mamman Vatsa and others accused with
him even before they were "tried." Abacha was not just instrumental to, but responsible for, the
removal of Ebitu Ukiwe as Babangida's Chief of General Staff in 1986. He was also responsible for the
removal ofDomkat Bali as Minister of Defence and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1990 and the
respected general's eventual retirement. With Abacha effectively replacing Bali, nothing now stood
between the former and Baba- ngida, or rather Babangida's office. Left to Sani Abacha, mass
executions of soldiers and civilians would have immediately followed the armed uprising bfApril 1990.
No "trial" would have taken place. We may recall the role played by Abacha in the suppression of the
popular, but unarmed, protests that followed the announcement ofthe June 12, 1993 presidential
election. Abacha had ordered the elected civilian governor of Lagos State, Sir Michael Otedola, to
restore calm in Lagos State within 24 hours, or risk the militarisation of the state and imposition of
martial law- . The old gentleman had replied that he had no troops with which to restore order; and was
unlikely to have any troops in 24 hours, or even in 24 months. The humiliated governor, a Catholic
Knight, then told the infantry general not to wait for 24 hours, but should do what he planned to do
there and then. Abacha did exactly what he threatened to do, and we remember what happened. Finally,

Abacha insisted not only on becoming the Minister ofDefence in Ernest Shonekan's Interim National
Government (ING), but also on being named the most senior minister and the first in the line of
succession in the government. And he "succeeded" Shonekan! All these facts were open enough to be
known by Nigerian politicians, political activists, human rights and democracy campaigners before
Abacha staged his coup d' etat. If so, why did leftist radicals and progressive politicians such as
Abubakar Rimi, Iyorchia Ayu, LateefJakande, Ebenezer Babatope, etc, agreed to join Abacha's
government? Did Babatope and others believe that Abacha could be "used" to achieve a democratic, if
not revolutionary, objectives? Or that he would not attempt any atrocity on them knowing that
they were the pillars of his government? Or, that he would be removed from office before he could start
any atrocities? Or, that Abacha was, in fact, not as bad as he was portrayed? Or, that the sweetness of
office, privileges and money balanced the danger of working under Abacha? If I may make a leap: Why
have Nigerian leftists been victims of glittering political messianism: Murtala Muhammed, Ibrahim
Babangida and now Olusegun Obasanjo? Why was Murtala Muhammed hailed as a hero in life as well
as in death largely by Nigerian radicals of Southern origin when the facts of atrocities committed by
him and under him in the present Edo and Delta states during the civil war were known? To conclude
this fragmented intervention: I do not blame or hold Ebenezer Babatope, personally responsible for
accepting to serve under General Abacha; I hold political forces larger than him responsible. I do not
accept the judgment that he ought to have left Abacha's government simply because he was instructed
to do so by a fraction of the Western power bloc. Having been nominated into a government which
those who nominated him did not control, Babatope as an intellectual and activist was bound to enter
into new relationships and acquire new insights and perspectives which they did not have. He could
therefore not remain a carrier of the ideas of his patrons. But I hold that he ought to have left the
government at a certain point. He could have escaped from the country as some others did before and
after him. But that is, if he could. Five groups were responsible for General Sani Abacha coming to
power. These were the anti-Abiola group in the Armed Forces (anti-Abiola for whatever reasons);
leaders of the "June 12" movement who were also the leaders of the Social Democratic Party (SDP);
and fractions of the Radical Movement in Nigeria. They were the groups whose support Oladipo Diya
obtained for Abacha. They are responsible for the coming to power of General Sani Abacha. But they
are not responsible for the atrocities of the Abacha regime. They were, in fact, the prime victims. Those
responsible for the atrocities of the"Abacha years" are gradually being revealed.
In Praise of the Oputa Panel 4th January, 2001
HE revelations that have so far been made at the panel are very significant and useful, not necessarily
to the panel or the government that set it up, but to the people whose ultimate duty to themselves is to
utilise the revelations to understand the past and reconstruct this country along genuinely democratic
and humanistic lines. The revelations have filled some of the gaps in our knowledge of the immediate
past, and we are richer by that fact. Those who accuse some witnesses of not being sufficiently
forthcoming or of not fully admitting their own roles in state atrocities are missing the significance of
the panel. The Oputa panel is not about admissions. It is about revelations. Suppose every witness who
has so far appeared before the panel had made admissions a la Rogers, what would we have gained?
How would this have assisted us in organising an agenda for national reconstruction? It also does not
matter that most of the witnesses appearing before the panel have told some lies, or evaded some truths,
or exaggerated or under-played some incidents. We should expect this. What matters is that important
revelations have been made and that these are credible or plausible when put in the context of our own
knowledge. We are Nigerians and have been living in this country. We are not strangers from the planet
Mars. Those who set up the Oputa panel may have been inspired by some aspects of the South African
example; but they cannot reproduce the So uth African history or their Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. For one thing the Oputa panel is not about reconciliation. It is about truth. The Nigerian

government may not even be sincere in its declared reasons for setting up the panel; some government
leaders may even harbour vindictive or narrow objectives. These possibilities are not important. The
important point is that the panel has turned out to be significant and useful. The significance of the
revelations on the deaths of SaniAbacha and Moshood Abiola, namely, that these two Nigerians were
murdered in the same manner and, perhaps, by the same people, and for the same strategic objective, is
not simply that they confirmed some strongly held suspicions. I concede that this confirmation is
important. But beyond the element of confirmation, the revelation exposed the hypocrisy of the
Nigerian state and the perfidy ofmainstream Nigerian politicians and ruling blocs. When Abacha died,
some newspapers and magazines carried a statement alleging that the man was murdered. The
allegation was suppressed by the government of General Abubakar. I submit that no national or popular
interest was served by this suppression. Abubakar only exploited, for his own gain, the public anger
against Abacha. The public deserved to know
how Abacha died. And this for two reasons. First, to prevent yesterday's collaborators in bloody
dictatorship appearing as today's democrats and patriots. Two: Abacha had the right not to be murdered.
He could be arrested, tried and even executed under recognised laws of the land, or specially
promulgated revolutionary laws. But he had the right not to be murdered. Once you abridge the scope
and application of human rights - _.pt briefly and for reasons which are very clear and in the ultimate
service of human rights - you have subverted the essence of human rights. A few days before Abiola's
death, one of his wives raised alarm over the amount of pressure to which her husband was being
subjected. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, that of the Commonwealth and all sorts of
international diplomats and peace-makers descended on Abiola who had been in captivity in Abuja for
more than four years. These were the visits reported in the media. There must have been other visits
from within and outside the country that were secret. Specifically, Abiola's wife denounced the pressure
being mounted on her husband to renounce what he and many Nigerians regarded as an electoral
mandate to be the post-Babangida president of Nigeria. She warned that the authorities would be held
responsible for whatever happened to Abiola. The report of this statement was carried conspicuously in
the nation's leading print media. A few days later Abiola died. The rest is known. My question is: Is
there anyone in Abdulsalami Abubakar's government, or in Abiola's family, or in the "June 12"
Movement, who did not know in July 1998 that Abiola was murdered by or with the active
collaboration of those who dominated his life in the last days, namely: the military government, the
security agents, the international diplomats, acting for their principals, the International Community? I
shall answer my own question and say No. I shall however leave the follow-up questions for the
readers to ask and answer: they are obvious. The murder ofAbacha and Abiola - the former an
incumbent Head of State the latter a strong contender - was the Nigerian version of a long practice that
is universal: the use of coups d' etat and assassinations by senior functionaries of the state to resolve
difficult problems in their regime. Remember John F. Kennedy, the youngest American president whose
assassination in 1963 was planned and executed in the highest circles of the American state. A few
months after Abacha assumed power in November 1993, Chris Ali, the Chief ofArmy Staff and Allison
Madueke, his naval counterpart, were suddenly removed from office, and retired from the Armed
Forces. Given that Chris Ali was a key player in the removal of the Interim National Government
(ING) ofEmest Shonekan and the constitution ofboth the Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) and the
Council ofMinisters, political observers and analysts strongly suspected that there must have been a
power struggle within the regime. It took six years for a confirmation to come through the
instrumentality of the Oputa Panel and the testimony of Hamza Al-Mustapha. The other speculation,
namely that the Enternal struggle was over the fate of MoshoodAbiola, was also confirmed. Someone
has asked, naively, I think: why were only two generals removed when, as it was alleged, several
generals were involved? My response is that in an internal power struggle, the victor can only cut off
the weakest links in the chain of command. There are those that cannot be

When senior military officers present the leaders of a ruling military junta of which they are part with
demands, they are poised for a military coup. The significant point here is not that Nigerian army
generals were kneeling and weeping when confronted by the victors in a power struggle. I don't see
anything strange or abnormal in someone, soldier or civilian, faced with death, kneeling, weeping and
begging to be spared. To refuse to weep, or beg, or kneel is to be exceptional. And the Nigerian ruling
class does not possess many exceptional beings. The significant point for me is that no general, even
now as a free man, has had the courage to admit that he attempted to overthrow Sani Abacha and justify
the attempt. What a pity!

Arguments Over the Middle Belt 1st June, 2000

ASILENT but interesting debate is currently going on over the identity of the Middle Belt region of
Nigeria. I shall pick out five contributions tothis uncoordinated dialogue as reported in The Guardian of
April 6, May 6, May 8 and May 23, 000. On Wednesday, April 5, 2000, a group ofprominent
politicians, academics, public servants and retired senior army officers paid President Olusegun
Obasanjo a "solidarity visit" in Abuja. The country was then just emerging from the Sharia "Civil War"
and the consequent calls for confederation and renewed advocacy of a Sovereign National Conference.
Speaking under the umbrella of Middle Belt Forum, the visiting group made a number of important
pronouncements which we should examine closely. First, it categorically opposed Confederation and
Sovereign National Conference. Secondly, it said that the nine states that make up the Middle Belt are
not "politically North", adding that the meeting of governments of the 19 Northern states which
governors of the Middle Belt usually attend is a business and economic gathering. Thirdly, the visitors
said that the forum's objectives remained an "indissoluble and United Nigeria" that is just, equitable,
stable and secular, where "no particular religion would be the religion of any part or the whole
country." Fourtly, the forum reiterated its belief in Nigeria's present federal structure, adding that the
present six-zonal political structure in Nigeria was "merely a creation of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC)". Lastly, the forum declared that the Middle Belt having before "paid
with the blood of its citizens" to keep the country united was prepared to do so again to protect the
country as presently constituted.
From the comprehensive presentation made by the Middle Belt Forum we may isolate two issues which
are not likely to be accepted by the Northern power bloc but which the Western power bloc and other
political forces in the South are likely to embrace: the insistence on the secularity of the Nigerian state
and the Middle Belt not being "politically North". These are the only "controversial" elements in the
Forum's "manifesto" outlined above. An immediate comment which can be made on the latter issue is
that the area which today is known to us as the Middle Belt was part of a larger area created as
Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and amalgamated with the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the
Colony of Lagos in 1914 to form the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Lord Lugard was the creator
and first governor of the united colony. The name Middle Belt came into use about
17

two decades to the end of colonial rule (1960). It was both geographically and politically North until
May 1967 when the North was carved into six states. From that date the term "North" became
questionable politically. Today, the Middle Belt is still geographically North. It is, however, not "North"
formally and constitutionally. The Middle Belt's political "northernness" as claimed by some politicians
is therefore a legitimate debate issue. According to Richard Sklar in his book "Nigerian Political
Parties", the Middle Belt comprises more than half of the territory of the North and nearly 35 per cent
ofthe population. The question of secularity of the Nigerian state raised by the forum is political; it is,
in fact, the strongest point in the forum's address. It is a key demand for the survival of the country. The
gist of B alarabe Musa's recent interview with The Guardian (May 6) is that although the Middle Belt is
real, it cannot be separated from the "Core North" on the bases of "higher ideals" such as economic and
social development since, according to him, the Middle Belt is actually more backward economically
than the "Core North". I understand the "Core North" to mean the former Northern Region minus the
Middle Belt. Balarabe's argument, is first, that except in Benue and Plateau states, there is nowhere in
the Middle where "Hausa/Fulani Moslems" constitute less than 30 per cent ofthe population; and that in
some places this fraction rises to over 50 per cent. Secondly, he argues that "of the 250 ethnic groups in
Nigeria, I think, about 200 are from the Middle Belt". Balarabe asserted that the Middle Belt has never

been dependent on the "Core North". What Balarabe Musa is saying here, in effect, is that though the
Middle Belt is real, it is inseparable from the North or "Core North" using religion and ethnic grouping
as criteria. Although I am unable to confirm Balarabe's percentages, I completely endorse his thesis that
ethnic or religious separation is impossible in Nigeria in general and in the northern part of the country
in particular. But the Middle Belt can become politically and culturally independent of the "Core
North" whatever the historical links between the two areas. Having said this, I must also say that I find
it difficult to accept Balarabe's thesis that the Middle Belt has not been "dependent" on the "Core
North". This flies in the face of concrete historical experience. Potter Dabup, a former Deputy
Inspector-General of Police, is the chairman o f Middle Belt Progressive Union whose aims, according
to him, are "to foster unity among tribes and tribal nationalities of the Middle Belt, irrespective of their
religions, social and political affiliations". (See his interview with The Guardian, May 6). Alleging that
the Middle Belt has been a victim of"marginalisation", Dabup said that the Union will fight for the
political, social and economic emancipation ofthe Middle Belt Zone within a United Nigeria.
Reminded of what Balarabe Musa said on the ethnic-religious composition of the Middle Belt, Dabup
replied that Hausa/Fulani Moslems are settlers in the Middle Belt. He had earlier confirmed writing to
the governors of the Middle Belt states to withdraw from the meetings of northern governors as a way
of carving out a separate identity for the Middle Belt. Echoing the same position, the Speaker ofKogi
State House ofAssembly regretted that "the Core North used us to achieve their political gains only to
dump us as soon as it comes to sharing the loot" (The Guardian, May 8, 2000). I completely endorse
Dabup's propositions on the question of"marginalisation" and the need for political, economic and
social emancipation of the Middle Belt. But the argument that a group of Nigerians are 18

"settlers" in any part of the country is potentially volatile, and should not be made. The struggle against
marginalisation and internal colonialism should remain political. Partisans and militants of the Middle
Belt have to define their territory, objectives and strategies more clearly. The problem is much more
complex today than it was before the creation of 12 states. The Middle Belt Forum says, on the one
hand, thaz i:cts.-; present Middle Belt zone is a creation ofthe Independent National Electoral
Commission (TNTEC) - suggesting that it does not take the zone as real or popular. On the other hand
it says that the Middle Belt is separate from the "Core North", a serious political statement in defence
and promotion of Middle Belt identity. So, what is the real position of Middle Belt partisans and
militants in relation to the present Middle Belt zone? One ofthe roots of this contradiction in my view,
is that the Middle Belt as defined by the Constitutional Conference of 1994/95 is not the same as the
Middle Belt of Joseph Tarka's United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) of 1950s and 1980s. Tarka's
Middle Belt is much smaller than the piesent Middle Belt. The real Middle Belt will emerge when in
considering the question ofpolitical restructuring, a shift is made from ethnic and religious criteria to
popular-democratic ones. The Guardian of May 23 carried a report of separate interviews which the
newspaper recently had with Ibrahim Tahir, a former minister and university teacher and Ameh Ebute, a
former Senate President. While the latter echoed the demand for a separate identity for the Middle Belt,
the former called the Middle Belt "nothing but a fictitious group". He said the Middle Belt was a
"conception of British colonial officials" adding that "the people who classify themselves as Middle
Belt can never be found in a single belt", that is. "they are scattered all over". Ignoring Tahir's insults,
we may say that the only legitimate conclusion that can be made from his thesis is that separation along
ethnic or religious lines in the Middle Belt, or in any other region in Nigeria, is impossible. His thesis
cannot be an argument against the legitimate struggle against internal colonialism.
19

6
Sharia as a Power-Bloc Weapon 9th March, 2000
yOU may be angry, as I am. You may be disappointed and frustrated as many people are. You are
perfectly entitled to what those who have tried to transform humanity spiritually called righteous
indignation. But to understand the bloody events of February 2000 - for whatever reasons, including
the desire to join in searching for a solution - you have to look at the concept of power blocs, if you
have never done so, or return to the concept if you have encountered it, or attempt to look at the
February events through the prism of the power-blocs, if you are familiar with the concept. I can as
well state my conclusion: The bloody events ofFebruary, the Sharia Civil War, were simultaneously a
continuation of the power-bloc struggle in Nigeria and unanticipated fallouts from that struggle. There
are three main attitudes to the concept of the power-bloc as I have tried to apply and develop it in this
column since the Babangida era. The first is that the concept is a surrender to tribal or ethnic politics, or
to ethnic understanding ofNigerian politics. This is a very serious charge. The charge is serious not
necessarily because it is made by some of my admittedly reduced circles of comrades. It is objectively
serious, as serious, in fact, as the charge of "waging war against God" once formulated and applied by
Iranian mullahs with devastating consequences. But I plead: I have not embraced ethnic politics and
have not subscribed to ethnic reading or understanding of Nigerian politics. To do so is to be insane. I
have merely looked at a phenomenon and called it by its real name, detestable as it may be to me. The
second attitude - which is in opposition.to the first - is that of anger over the restriction of the
application of the concept to only two political groups or alliances instead of spreading it across the
country and seeing a power-bloc everywhere and in every political action. I plead: the concept of
power-bloc is developed to differentiate between political formations, according to their strategic
status, not to himp them together. Power-bloc is not a chieftaincy title which one can acquire once the
financial conditions are met. A power-bloc cannot be created at will, nor does it emerge spontaneously.
Once the historical conditions emerge, one can engineer it into being. The.third attitude is that of
indifference, if not irritation: "What is this power-bloc thing? This man is always writing theories that
may be applicable in Russia or Cuba, but are irrelevant here." Well, what can I plead here? All I can say
is that I am writing as a Nigerian about Nigeria, the only society I can claim to know and to which I am
attached, for better or for worse.
20

After thanking God for the country's latest reprieve - I don't know how many more reprieves the
country can enjoy before it is all over - Nigerian patriots and genuine democrats, especially the younger
ones, should learn to look every phenomenon in the eye and call it by its name. Power-blocs. What are
they?Answer: Given a state such as Nigeria, with defined boundaries, power-blocs are large political
groups which are in power or are pushing for power. What are the relationships between power blocs
and social classes and groups? Answer: A power-bloc is constituted by fractions of classes. In other
words, class fractions are the constituent elements or units of a power bloc. In economic straggles, the
struggles for material well-being, social classes operate at the level of modes of production and
distribution of material means of livelihood. But political struggles are waged by power blocs and
political groups at the level of the social formation, where by social formation we mean the aggregate
of the modes of production existing in a state. Perhaps this can be resented more clearly and coherently:

Social classes and their fractions wage both economic and political struggles. In economic struggles,
they operate in pure forms, with or without alliances. But in political struggles, where the question
ofpower is posed, social classes and their fractions must seek alliances beyond their specific classes if
they intend to go beyond ineffectual protests. A power-bloc is a strategic political alliance cutting
across class boundaries but under the hegemony of a class fraction. Let me now differentiate between
power-blocs and other political aggregates which we may just call political groups - the type which, in
lighter moods, I would call "crayfish" groups. Everybody is free to play politics, and many do.
Organising protests or demonstrations is playing politics; casting your vote in a rigged election is
playing politics; attending a political rally with or without material inducement is playing politics;
being engaged as a thug is playing politics; carrying masquerades or dancing troupes to welcome
politicians at airports is playing politics; in fact the masquerades and dancers as well as those who later
attend to the needs of the visitors in various ways are also playing politics. The nature of politics is
such that you can play it even in your home: It has countless forms and countless opportunities. But
when the chips are down, when question ofpower is posed, the "crayfish" political groups step aside
and the power blocs assert themselves. There are only two power-blocs in Nigeria and this has been the
situation since the end of the civil war (1967-1970). The war itself was a landmark in our country's
political history These power-blocs are called Northern and Western not because they are Hausa or
Hausa-Fulani) and Yoruba respectively but on account of the social and geographical location of their
cores, their centres of gravity. This point must be emphasised, the Northern and Western blocs are not
ethnic fon-nations, although each has a core which is both capitalist and ethnic. However, a core is a
core only if it has a covering, a core without a covering is not a core. A power-bloc therefore has both a
core and a covering. Each of the two power-blocs in Nigeria has a national covering. The three
governing parties in Nigeria - the PDP, the APP and the AD - as we see them are mere coverings for the
two power-blocs. If you look well and listen well you will see the cores. Every serious political crisis,
such as the present Sharia crisis, exposes the core as it has now done. With this rather long
introduction, I can now make my submission: the introduction 2I

of the Sharia by some states in the northern part of the country - inspired and supported by powerful
forces outside government - was a continuation of the struggle between the two blocs in the country.
Religion or religious manipulation is being used as a political weapon in the continuing struggle to shift
the balance of power. Sharia is a new front in the war of the power-blocs: if you lose, or are losing, on a
front, you open a new one. Even when you are winning, you may consider opening a new front in order
to achieve victory more quickly or decisively. A dangerous front has been opened in Nigerian politics;
dangerous because it has been opened by a power-bloc, not by isolated "extremists." The battle for
Nigeria may be decided, in the short run, on this front. And if it does, one way or the other, the
configuration ofNigerian politics will change. We ought to know where power resides in Nigeria, as
well as the real candidates and the real line-up in the struggle to shift it or re-adjust it. Taking forms and
shadows for essences and realities can be tragic. In this light those who think that it is the PDP that is in
power at the centre or, that PDP and APP are in real opposition to each other, or that when the chips are
down AD will oppose Obasanjo are tragically wrong. In spite of the power-bloc character of our
politics President Obasanjo may, if he is consistent, unite Nigerian nationalists, patriots and democrats
on this Sharia question. What he makes of this national unity is quite a different matter. Since events
are really moving very fast, all I can advise now is that whatever happens, the oppressed and the
exploited of this land as well as all Nigerian patriots, nationalists, democrats and human rights activists
should ensure that this question is not resolved against them.

22

7
In Defence of the Nigerian Nation 10th August, 2000
ITHE bottom-line is that the Nigerian nation exists. Nigeria is not a "geographical expression" even if
it could be so described sometime in thepast. Nigeria may, today, be a study in all the tragedies that
may befall a human society; but it is sionetheless a nation. I am making this affirmation to draw
attention to the tendency of Dtherwise perceptive and progressive Nigerian commentators to preface or
conclude their analyses of the Nigerian situation with broad judgment and sweeping generalisation that
leave us with nothing, that ignore positive or redeeming elements of our experiences, that dismiss
objective historical realities that our rampaging ruling elite cannot destroy; that ignore the fact that
there are genuinely patriotic and nationalistic social forces that are continuously struggling to promote
that well-being of the Nigerian nation and its people - while others are, of course, pulling in the
opposite direction. I completely endorse my compatriots' analyses and denunciation of the bankruptcy,
philistinisin, selfishness, treachery and alienation ofthe present class of civilian rulers. Although I feel a
bit uncomfortable with the description of some ofthese personages, especially the past ones, as "rouge
leaders," I am prepared to accept that perhaps my discomfort arises from the fact that this is the term
used by the "international community" to describe Fidel Castro, Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam
Hussein, among others. And the term is being used precisely at the moment the "community" is
considering abandoning it. However, my real problem is with the near-conclusion among some of my
compatriots that there is no 1.:Cigerian nation and that our duty is to build one, through a Sovereign
National Conference; : submit that, in spite of all the tragedies that have befallen us, and continue to
befall us, the Nigerian nation exists and has existed for more than half a century. To refresh our
collective memory and for the particular benefit of young Nigerians and foreigners, we may step back
into history. The process of constituting Nigeria took about 40 years around the turn of the 19th century
and was formally concluded in 1914 with the amalgamation of three British colonial territories (the
Colony of Lagos, the Southern Protectorate and the Northern Protectorate) to create Nigeria as a British
Colony. Colonial igeria was first administered as two semi-autonomous territories: the South and the
North. In 1936, the South was broken into two: the East and the West. In 1946, at the close of World
War II, Nigeria was transformed into a unitary colonial state. This date can be regarded as the
beginning of decolonisation. This transformation was institutionalised and effected, in part, by the
creation, in Lagos, the colonial capital, of a Legislative Council that
23

made laws for the whole country and included representatives of"natives" from across the country. At
the risk of sounding too formalistic, I would take 1946 as the date of birth of the Nigerian nation from
the point of the British colonial power. Incidentally the creation of the Nigerian nation by Nigerians
themselves took place about the same time - with the formation of the National Council ofNigeria and
Carneroons (NCNC) in 1944, the formation of the Zikist Movement in1946 and the 12-month tour
(1946 - 1947) of Nigeria undertaken by the NCNC under the leadership of Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi
Azikiwe, and Michael Imoudu (then president of the Railway Union). The tour was undertaken to

collect a national mandate to present a petition to the colonial office in London asking for an
accelerated advance of Nigeria to full independence as a united country. The delegation obtained the
mandate it sought. The tour started from the North, where Macaulay died, proceeded through the East,
and was concluded in the West and Lagos where a massive crowd welcomed it back. Later that year the
NCNC sent a delegation to London. The seven NCNC delegates were: Nyong Essien, Zanna Bukar
Dipcharima, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Paul Kale, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Adeleke Adedoyin and OlurunNimbe. Okey Ndibe, my friend and younger compatriot who shares this page with me, recently
declared in justifiable anger (The Guardian, July 20): "It is simply silly to recommend that Nigerians
adopt a system (Unwritten Constitution) merely on the ground that it has worked for the English...
where is our Magna Carta? What is the National or cultural cement that holds Nigeria together? In what
moments of history are Nigerians able to locate a shared national memory?" I accept the first part of
this declaration. But to the latter part, I respond: The Freedom Charter adopted by the NCNC in its
Kaduna National Assembly in 1948 after its nation-wide tour and subsequent protest visit to London
was superior to the English Magna Carta of 1215, for the latter was a class agreement to wage war
against the colonial power. The declarations and proclamations of the various Nigerian political parties
and the resolutions and agreements of Constitutional Conferences that preceded Nigeria's independence
were superior to the English Magna Carta. The resolutions of the Nigerian Labour Movement
embodied, in particular, in the General Strikes of 1945, 1964, 1974, 1981, 1988, 1994 and even 2000
and the movement's memorandum of the Political Bureau in 1986 were all superior to the English
Magna Carta of 1215. If you remind me that the Nigerian resolutions and agreements have been
undermined and subverted by ethnicity, religious manipulation, nepotism, corruption, intolerance, strife
and civil war, I would reply that an English monarch was once beheaded, that England once had a
military regime and that, even now, a civil war is going on in Britain. Anation develops by means of
contradictions and turbulence. I do not accept that any Federal Government in Nigeria since
independence consciously set out to destroy the Nigerian nation. I would argue that every Nigerian
government since independence has set out to reconstruct the Nigerian nation in particular ways. The
mission they set themselves was the reconstruction of the Nigerian nation according to their visions of
a strong capitalist state, resting on the exploitation and oppression of large
24

zments o f the population and dependent on the central capitalist nations. Every regime parsued this
mission with the means available to it and with the logic of the balance of forces which it inherited or
was able to promote. I hate being asked to choose between unacceptable options - like being asked to
choose between being shot, or hanged, or simply starved to th. I would therefore find it extremely
difficult to choose between the regimes Nigeria had since independence - if the criterion is the
conscious promotion of popular interests. I do not want to sound like a nihilist because I am not one.
All I am trying to say is t the Nigerian nation exists and has existed for more than half a century; that
every me, every social force (with the possible exception of some of those operating between ly 1966
and January 1970) since independence, has tried, not to destroy the nation but to reconstruct this
actually-existing nation in a particular way using the means available to it; that taking s = long view of
history, it is difficult to do a popular ranking oftlw regimes which Nigeria has had since independence;
and that the mission of contemporaries is not to found a Nigerian nation - since it exists but to
reconstruct the Nigerian nation along popular-ilemocratic lines, dissolving the existing power-blocs,
eliminating class, religious, ethnic and gender domination and oppression. It is legitimate to do a

comparison between Nigeria and other countries as members of the same human society, as members
of the "international community", or as members of regional groupings. It is also legitimate to compare
Nigeria with some other countries of the world on the basis of shared historical experiences or
contemporary conditions or aspirations or on the principle ofrevolutionary internationalism. But in each
case, there is a limit to this legitimacy and it has to be recognised and respected. For instance, while it
may be legitimate to speak of some universal principles of democracy, there is simply no model of
democracy, past or present, which can be legitimately recommended for Nigeria. Ultimately, Nigeria
has to be judged and developed on its own grounds.
25

Back to Fundamental Issues 24th August, 2000 /T is now clear that Nigeria's political elite from the
Southern part of the country have, in spite of our protestation, reduced the concept of Sovereign
National Conference (SNC) to that of Sovereign Conference of Ethnic Nationalities (SCN). The
tragedy of the situation is that they have succeeded in sucking into this reduction the radical political
forces which originated the concept of SNC a decade ago. I am now almost convinced that if a national
conference, sovereign or not, ever takes place in the near future it will be a conference of ethnic
nationalities. And it will be a disaster. I hasten to add here that I have no reason to oppose, and I am not
opposed to a conference of ethnic nationalities, just as I cannot oppose a national conference of
religious movements, or traditional rulers, or women, or men, or children. Whether such a conference is
what it claims to be - genuinely representative and national is quite another matter. What I am opposed
to is the reduction ofNational Conference to Conference of Nationalities. ANational Conference in the
sense I attach to the term, is a Conference of Nigerian people, not simply as representatives of ethnic
groups, but variously as representatives of social groups and classes, state institutions, political, social,
cultural, and professional organisations, trade unions, women's movements, student movements, etc
that constitute the Nigerian nation. In short, a national conference is a conference of the civil society
and the Nigerian state in all their complexities. Most of these other social aggregates are national in
history, composition, ideology and structure, and cannot be broken down into ethnic components
except in a civil war. I applaud the meeting ofAfenifere and Ohaneze to arrest ethnic communal
violence in the Lagos area. But I insist that when they meet, they meet as two ethnic organisations
among other similar organisations. Afenifere and Ohaneze may be wealthy, they may be powerful, they
maybe the dominant ethnic organisations in the areas they claim to represent. But their representation
of their ethnic groups is limited in two directions. First, there are many individuals, groups and
organisations in Afenifere and Ohaneze "catchment areas" that either do not belong to them or do not
owe allegiance to them, or both. This is true of the two organisations but Afenifere is relatively more
dominant (in Yorubaland) and Ohaneze (in Igboland). It will be ridiculous to dismiss these and
"rebellious" individuals and groups as inconsequential or representing nobody. In the second place,
neither the Yoruba ethnic nationality, nor the Igbo ethnic nationality can be adequately represented by
an ethnic organisation (such as Afenifere and Ohaneze). Why? Because of the insertion and integration
of the two ethnic nationalities in the Nigerian nation, Nigerian
26

[orny and the Nigerian state for about a century. Because these relationships are, and been, dynamic
and dialectical, the Yoruba and Igbo ethnic nationalities, like other is nationalities in Nigeria, have
acquired characteristics, attributes and even territories ire simultaneously Yoruba and non-Yoruba, Igbo

and non-Igbo. Conclusion: It will be t-nely difficult and potentially catastrophic to restructure Nigeriaso long as it remains country along ethnic lines. It is better to pursue apolitical strategy of systematic
reduction ethnic and regional domination, exploitation and oppression, while promoting popular ocracy
at all levels. IA is also clear that the political class as a whole has accepted the six-zonal political coral
ature for Nigeria. The six zones are listed as South-West, South-South, South-East, rth-Central, NorthEast and North-West. This means that geo-political restructuring i1 not feature in the agenda of a
Sovereign National Conference if one is convened at the Illithest of the political elite. They will be left
with "true (or fiscal) federalism" and "resource control." It has been reported that a meeting similar to
the one between Afenifere and &M eze recently took place between representatives ofNorth-Central
(the Middle Belt) the South-South. The conveners of the meeting, held in Port Harcourt, said it was
aimed at promoting NW interests of minority ethnic groups (The Guardian, 14/8/2000). I commend and
support it_ But one particular difference between the two meetings (Afenifere/Ohaneze and Middle
IL/South-South) should be noted. Whereas the former was a representative meeting of only two ethnic
nationalities (Yoruba and Igbo) the latter represented not less than 150 ethnic nationalities which,
within the context ofthe Nigerian nation, are ethnic minorities. since the nationalities in the Alliance are
not equal (in size, population, development, )urces, economic and political power, etc), and since one
part of it is in the South and other in the North, it can be said that the Middle Belt/South-South Alliance
is a mini-igeria. I therefore propose that whatever degree of autonomy is granted the political nes in a
restructured federation, the ethnic minority problem will remain within the zonal framework. Even if
we attempt to overcome this problem by making the state an autonomous omit in a restructured
federation, the problem will remain. Why? Because none of the states !lithe Middle Belt and the SouthSouth has less than 1,0 ethnic groups. A decision to confer autonomy on local governments will be
worse. The recent crisis in the Senate had to do with Senators' allowances, benefits and material
comfort and contracts for their provision. Enough has already been said and written and done on this
subject. I have also aired my view, namely, that the Senate episode as 2c ted out by the politicians was a
deceitful self-purgation that was inspired neither by honesty nor altruism. While I accept that particular
individuals may be guilty of state robbery, I submit that the entire political class is guilty of
expropriating the Nigerian people. Why? Because even without state robbery, the remunerations,
allowances, benefits and comfort expropriated legally by public officers are scandalous in a country
like ours. I therefore Fab mit that a radical downward review of the remunerations, allowances and
benefits of Nigerian public officers is now necessary. Attention has been drawn to the increasing
tendency on the part of state governments
iIN iIN
27

to t c Lail ltcnil and unconstitutional actions, sometimes in defiance of federal responsibility and
wishes, Examples cited include the institution of Sharia in some Northern states, the establishment or
encouragement ofparamilitary organisations in some Southern and Northern states and, recently, the
threat by South-South states to amend federal laws in respect of control of resources. The projection is
that at a certain point in this process there will be near-anarchy in the country in response to which the
Federal Government will agree to convene a national conference. My tentative response to this
dialectical scenario, this gradual build-up of quantity to the point where anew quality emerges, is this:
Only the promoters of Sharia have shown the determination and courage to pursue their programme to
the point where a serious national crisis occurs. Even if this happens, the President will most likely
intensify his chosen course of appeasement and conciliation. He will not call a national conference

unless the promoters of Sharia not only agree to it, but advocate it. By words or deeds, the political
actors now agree that the party system which they are operating has failed and that new parties have to
emerge. Non-actors reached this conclusion long ago. The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is at
best an uneasy alliance of several parties and, at worst, not a party at all. The All Peoples Party (APP)
has no ideological orientation or political agenda different from that of PDP. The Alliance for
Democracy (AD) has lost its national foundation and may continue to exist only because it is in control
of governments in some contiguous states and is playing a decisive role in a Federal Government which
it does not control in the folinal sense. My hope is that when the time of forming new political parties
comes people like Anthony Enahoro, Eskor Toyo, Abubakar Rimi, Balarabe Musa and Tunji
Braithwaite will form parties - like others have done and insist either that state registration of parties be
discontinued or that their parties be registered. But let me add that the present party system will not
collapse on its own. I hope no-one still subscribes to the bankrupt theory that a social system can
collapse under the weight of its own contradictions alone. Conscious human pressure is always
necessary.
28

9
Contending Propositions Clarified 6th April, 2000 HE current national debate on the future of Nigeria,
a debate that has been going on since the December 1983 coup de' tat, now sounds, more than ever
before, like ialogue of the deaf. In this type of dialogue, each person heais himself or herself, no one
else. The result is that questions are not answered, answers are not taken note objections are not
examined, factual corrections are not appreciated and new propositions not studied. For instance,
although several contributors to this national debate, including if, had correctly stated that the idea of a
Sovereign National Conference (SNC) ated General Sani Abacha's regime by almost four years, my
compatriot, Kole otoso, in his column of Wednesday, March 29, 2000 (The Argument Against )), still
that "the initial demand for a Sovereign National Conference was a statement of the try-wide rejection
of Sani Abacha and his government." This is not correct. The time cated by Omotoso was the time the
professional politicians - especially those of the ern power-bloc joined the demand for a Sovereign
National Conference, and not the of the demand. The demand originated from two political events in
early 1990: first, manner General Domkat Bali and several military and civilian functionaries in
Babangida's -emment were summarily and shabbily retired and dismissed in February 1990; and ndly,
the attempted coup ofApril 22, 1990 led by Major Gideon Orka. The demand e stronger with the
cancellation of the 1992 presidential primaries, the annulment of 1983 presidential election, Abacha's
coup, and the detention and assassination of Chief
If 0.1.4
"pa
ye
la_
The task I want to perform in the remaining part of this article is an unsolicited one; I hope it will be
appreciated. I shall try to summarise the key propositions which have far emerged from the debate and
which, to the best of my knowledge, have not been scended, exhausted or absorbed. Although this
exercise is likely to be irritating to those ded to the dialogue of the deaf - and there are many of them
among the national ters - I plead that it is a necessary one, first, to assist those who want to achieve a
ter understanding of the complexity of the issue and secondly as a guide to practical n. The debate has
now been essentially reduced to the desirability and possibility of a 'ereign National Conference (SNC),
the restructuring ofNigeria along confederal lines the constitutionality of Sharia. Other important
issues, critical issues for the majority of Nigerian people - such as economic, cultural, political,

citizenship and social rights -e either been eliminated or are assumed to be absorbed or subsumed by
SNC, ederacy, and Sharia issues. I do not accept this elimination or absorption thesis, because
1011!
29

it is not true. But if I am summarising and clarifying a debate, as I claim to be doing, then I cannot
ignore, but must find accommodation in, its governing rubrics, as presented in the media: SNC,
confederation and Sharia. What actually is a sovereign national conference? For those who propose the
convening of such a gathering, there is a general agreement on the meaning of conference; but there are
disagreements on the meaning of the two adjectives qualifying it: sovereign and national and it is the
perceptions on these that we have to summarise and clarify to assist the political debate. Here we have
to draw from history, experience, theory, and the debate itself A conference is sovereign if, from the
time it is constituted and inaugurated, it becomes independent in its operations and decisions.
Sovereignty does not refer to the manner of constitution or composition ofthe conference (that is
another sphere of struggle) or what happens to the final decisions of the Conference (that depends on
the balance of forces in the country, during and at the close ofthe conference). A sovereign conference
is not designed to supplant the government; and it is not the government. But it may, in the course ofits
life, come into irreconcilable conflict with the government, a conflict which can only be resolved by
one side suppressing the other. This appears to be the fear of many of the people who oppose a
sovereign conference. It is a legitimate fear. The relationship between the government and the
conference and what happens to the decisions ofthe conference are the subjects ofpolitical struggles and
negotiations preceding the inauguration of the sovereign conference. A conference is national if its
composition is national and if the issues on which it deliberates are national, that is, concerning or
affecting the nation as a whole and the relationships between the various elements constituting the
nation. The actual composition of the conference, that is, the practical interpretations of national
composition (for instance whether national means, ethnic groups, geopolitical zones forces, national
institutions, social classes and groups - or all of the above) is the subject of political struggle and
negotiations before the inauguration. To summarise and conclude these explanatory notes: A sovereign
national conference is a product of a political negotiation between contending political forces one of
which may be the government in power; it is not convened by the government, except in the most
formal and ceremonial sense; it is extra-constitutional, in the sense that its existence and operations are
not prescribed by the constitution. Indeed, a sovereign conference is a statement that the solution to the
problems the country is facing cannot be found within the confines of the existing constitution and state
institutions. Which means that a sovereign national conference is a form of transition. Furthermore, the
decisions of a sovereign national conference, unlike those of a Commission of Inquiry, are not for the
government to review or implement. A sovereign national conference has to prescribe the mechanism
for the implementation of its decisions. These, in my view, are the basics of a sovereign national
conference (SNC). It is important and indeed urgent for those who have advocated this type of
conference, but have not given sufficient thought to its meaning and implications, to do so, and decide
whether what they are calling for is a sovereign national conference, or just a high-powered conference
organised and facilitated by the government and whose decisions are
30

V- Dmmendations to the National Assembly and the President. On the other hand those o have opposed
a sovereign national conference instinctively and prejudicially should mine the basics to see whether
their opposition is really to the idea itself or to the proponents of the idea. The Federal Government of
Nigeria and its leading executive and legislative -tionaries, including President Olusegun Obasanjo and
Senate President Chuba Okadigbo, -e firmly rejected the idea of a sovereign national conference. Their
argument, as articulated st clearly by the president, is straight forward and simple. Supporting the
convening of a N-ereign national conference, or taking steps to cdnvene it, is a treasonable act for they
all sworn to uphold and defend the Constitutidn of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 999). This
Constitution prescribes the procedure for" amending it. A sovereigi conference not such a procedure.
The president's argument against a confederalifestructuring of igeria is similar: he and other state
functionaries have vowed to defend the present titution and its provision, including the federal
structure, until the constitution is amended accordance with the procedure set out in that constitution.
This position is very clear, it is rural, constitutional and, as far as it goes, correct. The implications are
also very clear: If u want a Sovereign National Conference you have to organise it outside and, perhaps
-you are unlucky - against the government. You must mobilise sufficient forces either to rsuade or
compel the government to be part of the conference (and commit treason in rae process) or to impose
your will on it. Similarly if you want a confederal restructuring of Nigeria, you should either proceed
according to the constitution or mobilise political forces strong enough to persuade or compel the
government to agree with you and therefore, commit treason. The Sharia issue boils down to the
questions: Is Sharia constitutional? Is it apolitical weapon? Is it a counter-weight to the demand for a
Sovereign National Conference and Confederation? The position of the Federal Government here is
ambivalent, to say the least. And it is ambivalent for one main reason: Sharia is in the Constitution. The
question is the status the Constitution ascribes to it. My provisional conclusion is that so long as the
current national debate - in all its facets - remains within the framework of the 1999 Constitution, so
long as the supremacy of the 1999 Constitution is affirmed by the dominant factions in the debate, the
proponents of Sharia will remain stronger.
31

r
10
Nigeria's Political Parties 25th May, 2000
MDUCH has been said about Nigeria's three ruling political parties: the Peoples Dembcratic Party
(PDP), the All Peoples Party (APP), and the Alliance for emocracy (AD). It is generally felt, even by
otherwise loyal party members, that there is something seriously wrong both with the parties,
collectively and individually, and with the party system in which the political parties operate. Beyond
that, it is felt that something has to be done to the parties and to the system as part of the envisaged
political and constitutional restructuring of the country. While some people call for the dissolution of
the parties and the formation of new ones, others have advocated the formation and registration of more
parties to effect a balance in the system. All these prescriptions simply evade the question: what,
actually, is wrong with the three ruling parties of Obasanjo's Republic? The answer can be sought
through an examination of the origins of the parties; what the parties are as against what they are
supposed to be; and what they have been doing as against what they are supposed to be doing. I again
recall though reluctantly, the death in mid-1998 of General Sani Abacha and ChiefMoshoodAbiola.
With General Abdulsalami Abubakar - and not any other general -assuming office as Head of State,
every political person knew that the civilian Head of State, civilian or non-civilian would come from
the South-West part of the country whatever the mode of succession: election or selection. If I am
challenged on this thesis I would respond that even if other political forces had contributed to the

struggle against Babangida-Abacha military dictatorships, only three political forces assumed power in
June 1998 through General Abubakar. Or, what amounts to the same thing, three political forces
adopted General Abubakar. The forces were Western power-bloc, the Northern power -bloc, and the
new imperialism, otherwise known as the "international community". This tripartite affiance agreed
that the next president of Nigeria would be from the South-Western part of the country, from the
Yoruba ethnic group, to be specific. The agreement was reached before the decision on the length and
character of the transition and before parties were formed. Indeed., Abubakar's transition would not
have taken off, or would have quickly collapsed if it took off, if the basic agreement on the location of
the highest political office in the land had not been reached by the political forces in power. In
historical perspective, therefore, the agreement on where the president would come from was more
important than the formation of parties. In fact the politics of party fon-nation was essentially the
politics of realising the basic strategic agreement on the location
32

ofthe highest political office in the land. This explains why leading politicians of the Western powerbloc initially attempted to form a party, the PDP, and later APP, with the political leaders of the
Northern power -bloc. The thinking was that since the Northern bloc had agreed to concede the
presidency to the west, it was safe to form a party with them. But when some politicians started to
speak and act as if the strategic agreement did not exist or existed only as a provisional agreement, the
two blocs moved apart to form their own parties: the PDP and APP appeared as parties of the Northern
bloc while AD appeared, undisguised, as the party of the Western bloc, the political wing ofAfenifere.
Perhaps, the political parting of ways between the ruling power-blocs resulting in the emergence of
three parties, instead of one or two, was inevitable for the following reason. Suppose the two blocs had
been united in one party, say the PDP. Even if they had confirmed their agreement over the presidential
office to the Yoruba ethnic gr Oup the inevitable disagreement to cede presidential candidate would
have created a serious crisis which would have eventually torn the party apart. This would have led to
political parting of ways in form of emergence of different political parties, each dominated or
controlled by one of the two blocs. This conclusion is premised on the conviction that neither the
Northern power-bloc nor the new imperialism ("international community") would have supported the
presidential candidature of a core Western bloc politician. Surely, they would not have supported either
Olu Falae or Bola Ige. General Olusegun Obasanjo was their choice. He was released from prison to be
president, not for abstract humanitarian reasons. And by endorsing him they kept to the letter - even if
not the spirit - of the agreement. Obasanjo became president, and it was victory for the Northern power
-bloc. Although the Northern power-bloc has not been too happy with Obasanjo's presidency, he still
remains the best option, given the circumstances. The conclusion of elections and electoral protests and
the inauguration of Obasanjo's Republic did not change the basic character of the parties as parties that
were formed to produce the president and as instruments of struggle between the two ruling powerblocs for hegemony. Each of PDP/APP and AD lost one battle and won one: the former lost the
presidency, but got the president it considered the "best" outside its bloc, while the latter lost the
presidency, but got a president that is of Yoruba ethnic origin. After all, in the prolonged agitation for
"power shift" what was demanded was that the president should be of Southern or, more specifically,
ofYoruba ethnic origin. There was no demand that such a president should be the candidate of the
Western power-bloc. The situation now is that PDP is the largest and the strongest ofthe three ruling
parties. At the federal level it produced the presidency and controls a comfortable majority in the
National Assembly, that is, the Senate and the House of Representatives. In particular the PDP has a
near absolute control of the entire fraction of the membership of the National Assembly produced by

the South-East and South-South political zones of the country. At the state level, the PDP is even more
dominant and comfortable: it controls a majority ofthe country's 36 state governments; including the
executive arms of government in all the states of the South-East and South-South zones.
33

Against this formal reality the nation and the political system are presented with following strange
situation: The president who was produced by, and belongs to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
which enjoys such comfortable dominance in the country's political system depends for his protection,
not on his party, but on the Alliance for Democracy (AD) which, in theory, should be the opposition
party at the federal level. The AD is the political guarantor ofthe presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo and
its main mission is to ensure the survival of his presidency and his election for a second term. Strange,
you may say; but that is the reality. In practical terms, the PDP is an uneasy coalition of several
"parties", some supporting the president, others acting in opposition to him. The president's own
"party" within the PDP is weak and this makes it both necessary and possible for AD to assume the
leadership of the defence. In national politics or, more specifically, in power-bloc struggles, the APP
has no strategic or ideological existence independent of that of PDP. The two are essentially the same.
But in the internal politics of the Northern power-bloc, the APP assumes a significance as an important
faction. Finally, it bears repetition that the present ruling parties - the PDP, the APP and the AD - are
power-bloc parties, whatever their appearances. We know their respective owners and we know those
that are added to the parties for the sake of national appearance. When a popular party for the liberation
of the oppressed segments and masses of Nigeria emerges, everyone will recognise it to be so. My
prediction is that the present party system will collapse and new political parties representing defined
and recognisable common interests will emerge.
34

77
Settling Accounts with Biafra 4th May, 2000
THE young Nigerians now threatening to actualise Biafra should forget or shelve the plan. In place of
"actualisation" they should, through research and study, reconstruct thz Biafran story in its fullness
and complexity and try to answer the unanswered questions and supply the missing links in the story.
This is a primary responsibility you owe yourselves: you should at least understand what you want to
actualise. If 30 years after Biafra, you want to produce its second edition, you need to benefit from the
criticism of the first. History teaches that a second edition of a tragic event could easily become a farce
- in spite of the heroism of its human agencies. On the other hand those who enjoy ridiculing Biafra instead of studying it are politically short-sighted. My own attitude to Biafra is neither "actualisation"
nor ridicule. I propose that accounts should be settled with Biafra. The road to Biafra was opened on
Saturday, January 15, 1966. Early that morning, a small group of young army officers, variously
reported to be between five and eight, led detachments of troops to seize the government of Nigeria.
They operated in Lagos, the Federal Capital, and the four regional capitals: Ibadan (Western Region),
Benin-City, (Mid-West Region), Enugu (Eastern Region) and Kaduna (Northern Region). In Lagos, the
attempt was crushed before sunrise but not before the death of the Federal Prime Minister, Alhaji
Tafawa Balewa, his Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh and a number of senior army

officers; the operation was also defeated in Ibadan, but it claimed the life of the regional premier, Chief
Samuel LadokeAkintola; in Benin-City and Enugu, the rebels were immobilised before they could go
far; the rebellion succeeded in Kaduna for three days and claimed the lives of several people, including
the regional premier, AlhajiAhmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, several members of his family and
a number of senior army officers mainly ofNorthern origin. After three days, Major Chukwuma Kaduna
Nzeogwu, the 28-year old officer who had led the Kaduna operations and had ruled the region for those
three days was persuaded to surrender to Mai or-General Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, head of the Nigerian
army - the argument being that the former's position was no longer tenable, politically and militarily.
By the end of the fourth day, Ironsi's military and governmental authority was firmly established across
the land, with his military governors effectively running the four regional governments. Col, Ojukwu
who had been the commander of the Fifth Battalion stationed in Kano, was Ironsi's military governor
for the East. On May 24, 1966, the Federal Military Government promulgated a decree which
35

essentially abolished Nigeria's federal structure and replaced it with a unitary one. Anti-Igbo riots
immediately erupted in the North. Multiply the February 2000 Sharia tragedy in Kaduna by a factor of
100 in casualty figures and property loss and you begin to have an idea of what happened. The decree
was suspended. On July 29, 1966, while Ironsi was attending a national conference oftraditional rulers
at Ibadan, his government was overthrown in a military coup d'etat organised and led by officers
ofNorthern origin. Colonel Gowon who had been Ironsi's Chief ofArmy Stag became Head of State.
Ironsi, his host, Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, the Military Governor of Western Region, and several army
officers mainly of Igbo origin lost their lives. Mass killings resumed, but now not only in the North, but
over the country, except Eastern Region. Now, multiply the May 1966 tragedy by a factor of 50, add to
it the fact that the killings were now led by armed soldiers whose commanders were now in power and
add to this again the fact that the killings did not abate for at least five months and you begin to have an
idea ofwhat happened. The rebellious officers first made a move to pull the Northern Region out of
Nigeria; but when they were advised that they were now in a military situation to rule the whole
country instead of a part of it, they dropped the idea of secession and became champions of "One
Nigeria". Colonel Ojukwu refused to recognise Gowon as Head of State. . Early in 1967, the Supreme
Military Council, with Ojukwu in attendance - his first since the July coup - was held in Aburi, Ghana.
In April 1967, Ojukwu started a unilateral implementation of the Aburi Agreements (on decentralisation
of power) when some federal civil servants successfully persuaded Gowon to repudiate the agreements.
Every honest person ought to have known at this point that the crisis had reached the point of no return;
that if dialogue and reconciliation were still possible then they would come not to prevent a war, but to
end it. At 2.00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 30, 1967, the 33-year-old military governor of Eastern Region of
Nigeria, Colonel Chukwuerneka Odumegwu Ojukwu addressed a gathering of civilian authorities,
military leaders, journalists and diplomats at the State House in Enugu proclaiming the birth of an
"independent sovereign state of the name and title of Republic ofBiafra". Four days earlier, on May 26,
1967, a joint conference of the consultative assembly and leaders of thought, also holding at Enugu,
had "unanimously passed a resolution mandating Ojukwu to declare the sovereign Republic ofBiafra at
an early practicable date". Between these two dates, precisely on May 27, Colonel Yakubu Gowon, had
declared a state of emergency, assumed wide emergency powers and carved the country into 12 states.
The Nigeria-Biafra war broke out on July 6, 1967 and ended 30 months later with Biafra's surrender.
Now, to a number ofpersonal recollections, One: The politics of the First Republic (1960-1965) was
heavily characterised by ethnicity, especially towards the end of that tragic period. Two: Of the five
army majors that are more frequently mentioned as leading the coup attempt, only one, Major Adewale

Ademo-yega, was non-Igbo by ethnic origin. Three: No Igbo political leader died and the only Igbo
military casualty occurred. not because he was a target but because he was considered a "nuisance".
Four: The attempted coup was the culmination of a long period of political crisis in Nigeria, a crisis
whose centre of
16

c- ay. was Western Region where, before the military intervention, the crisis had become ,an armed
popular uprising. As a schoolboy at Ilesha in the present Osun State, I had tnessed, and taken part, in
some of the operations. Five: The military take-over, starting f:om Nzeogwu's rebellion and ending
with Ironsi's appropriation of power, was ....:_derstandably very popular, especially in Western Region
and Lagos. Six: In Eastern Region a militant group in the present Bayelsa State, led by Isaac Bo ro,
rose in armed rebellion against the coup. They wanted political autonomy for the minorities, not the
replacement of Dr. Michael Okpara (an Igbo) by Col. Ojukwu (an 1bo). Boro's rebellion was defeated
after 12 days. My studies and reflections convince ire that this rebellion viz, s the authentic position
and voice of the minorities of Eastern INi2eria at the time. Seven: The initial wave ofpopularity
enjoyed by Ironsi's government staon stabilised and, with time, began to decline especially in Edstern
Region where, for no clear exceptional reasons, the military government adopted a generally hostile,
rude, ansensitive, arrogant and arbitrary mode of governance and communication. This attitude aid not
change significantly throughout the crisis and the war that followed. This was a major factor in Biafra's
defeat. Eight: The young army officers who led the January 1966 operations (or rather, those of them
who were still alive by May 30, 1967) did not support Secession. They preferred a war against the
Gowon government to conclude the January project. Nine: Biafra was opposed not only by its declared
enemy, the "North", but more crucially and devastatingly by its expected allies and sympathisers in
Nigeria. The rest is known.
37

12
The Case Against Privatisation 14th December, 2000
THE privatisation campaign has been renewed with the type of vigour associated with religious cultism
since the present regime came into office 18 months ago. It is necessary, from time to time, to review
the arguments of this fanatical campaign which is premised all the time - like all self-serving slogans of
the rulers - mythical "national interest". Even when it is prosecuted by intellectuals inclined to analysis
and historical investigation, the campaign fails to mention a simple historical fact, namely, that to
privatise derives from the Latin word privare, which means to convert the property of the community to
individual ownership; to dispossess; indeed, to steal, if we must call a spade a spade and focus on the
essence of the matter. The case for privatisation begins with a general ideological statement which goes
somewhat like this: It is not the "business" of government to dabble in economic and business
enterprises. The business of government", the privatisation homily continues, "is to provide the
enabling environment" for private individuals to engage in production and distribution. The so-called
"enabling environment includes the maintenance of "law and order", and the institution ofmonetary and
fiscal policies that would encourage production by the private sector. If this statement had come as a
preamble to a communiqu of the G-7, the leaders of the leading capitalist nations, who are trying to
shape the world according to their own interest, no-one in Nigeria would have complained. If the World

Bank and IMF had included the statement in their continuous communication with leaders of enslaved
countries, including Nigeria, we would have grumbled; but at least, we would also have conceded that
they are doing the duty for which they were created. But when the privatisation homily is echoed by
educated Nigerians who claim to be radical and progressive, we have reasons to weep. The truth is that
privatisation is a creed for the engineers and beneficiaries of capitalist globalisation, not for Nigeria
whose peoples have passed through slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism and are now being
crushed under global dictatorship with the support of their own rulers. The ideologues of privatisation
believe that privatisation is the only ownership policy in the means of economic production and
distribution recommended by, and consistent with a market economy and that to resist the market
economy is, to say the least, to step out of tune with the rest of the world, with the international
community. This they believe is madness and a prelude to suicide. In a recent magazine interview, one
particular convert to privatisation put it this way: "The train of privatisation is already at the station. It
is about to
38

officers" who defrauded the parastatals are the beneficiaries. Head or tail, the masses are the losers.
Now, the case against privatisation can be built on simple premises, concrete realities, that are seen and
felt everywhere, all the time. The first premise is that there are certain necessities of life that should, in
the year 2000, be the entitlements of every Nigerian, male or female, young or old, rich or poor,
employed or not employed, able-bodied or disabled. These include shelter, clean water, electric light,
education up to junior secondary school level, elementary medical care, means of elementary
communication, etc. The second premise is that although several goods and services in society are
consumed individually, several others are consumed collectively: roads, market places, waterways,
airporis, schools, hospitals, sports, etc. It is necessary to continually improve society's capacity to meet
these ever-expanding needs. The third premise flows from the first two and that is: there is only one
institution in society that can guarantee that these two sets of needs are met, and that institution is the
state. The question therefore is: How do we construct a state that possesses both the inclination and the
capacity to meet these social needs? And I say that, whatever other attributes this type of state should
possess, it must control some key sectors and institutions of the economy, it must control some strategic
means ofproduction. In the case of Nigeria these sectors and institutions must include not only the
Central Bank, the oil industry, and hospitals, but also NEPA, NITEL, transportation, schools and water
works. If I may ask: What makes someone a Nigerian, and not Togolese, or an Algerian, or a
Palestinian? Is someone a Nigerian simply because he or she is permitted to carry a Nigerian passport
and vote periodically in elections which are decided even before the polling day? What can all
Nigerians point at and say "this is ours"? Aso Rock? National Assembly? State Houses ofAssembly?
Police Station? I sympathise with those clamouring for resource control through state governments, and
Benue State elite who are struggling (perhaps in vain) to have the Benue State Cement Company
(BCC) belong to indigenes of the state. Only that on the latter I would have loved to see them agitate
that the company be owned by the Benue State Government.

13
Sovereign Conference Or Civil War? 16th March, 2000
NIGERIA has been reprieved from civil war several times in the past decade. The point is that this
reprieve cannot continue indefinitely. Sooner or later history may give Nigeria what the powers-that-be

have been reckoning. Ten years ago, on 22, 1990, a group of young Nigerian army officers attempted t6
overthrow the Federal vernment then headed by General Ibrahim Babangida. The military uprising was
perhaps bloodiest coup attempt in Nigeria's history: bloodiest not in terms of the number of le killed in
the attempt, but in terms of the number of people thereafter arrested, tried executed officially. Apart
from the bloodiness of the event, the coup attempt was unique a least two other respects. In the first
place the expedition was carried out with immense , one evidence being the massive onslaught on the
State House - then Dodan Barracks verhaps in the course of the coupists' desperate search for leaders of
government. In the end place the number of retired army officers and non-military persons involved
was
But the most significant aspect of the coup attempt of which I want to remind the on was the fact that
its main pronouncement - the factor that many people claimed was amponsible for its failure - was the
excision of some states of the federation from the country. /hope, with the passage of time, it will now
be possible for us to admit the frightening and embarrassing fact that the coup attempt was popular in
significant parts of the country. In at least three towns, university students came out in spontaneous and
massive demonstrations um support of the coup and, in particular, for the excision of some states from
the country. They carried hurriedly-prepared maps of the "new" Nigeria, that is, Nigeria without the
excised states. I invite all Nigerians, inchiding the hypocrites among us, to reflect on this
Wit.
Had the coup succeeded - and it almost did - there would have been, not a new military government,
but a civil war. Like the January 1966 boys, the 1990 coupists would not have retained power but they
would have initiated a course of events which would have redefined Nigeria in a way more
fundamental than did the Nigeria-Biafra war of (1967- .70). To conclude the war there would have
been, at the very least a conference - which would have been sovereign by the nature of its emergence to resolve the main questions posed by the coupists. Historically and politically, the current call for a
Sovereign National Conference (SNC) to debate the future of Nigeria emanated from that 1990
attempted coup and the manner it was suppressed. The annulment of the June 1993 presidential
41

election and the suppression of the massive and popular protests consequent upon the act, together with
the prevailing social and economic conditions created all, but one, of the ingredients - objective and
subjective - necessary for a civil war. The missing ingredient was the absolute control as it appeared to
us, of the coercive state machine under Babangida and then Abacha. ChiefAbiola's initial prevarication
notwithstanding, had there been a military defection, even of one army battalion, in Lagos, Nigeria
would not have been the same again - that is if it survived. Abacha's regime, 1993 to 1998, was a reign
of continuo us provocation, insult and bestiality which could, at any time, have resulted in a civil war
or a permanent armed rebellion - the type we have in the Congo, Sudan, Burundi and Rwanda or nearer
home, in Chad, Niger, Mali and Senegal. I am sure that President Olusegun Obasanjo, an army general
who had commanded troops in at least two civil wars, who had witnessed two coup attempts at close
quarters, who was a prime target in at least one attempt, who presided over a state for close to four
years (1976-1979), although not controlling it, and who had recently been a prime victim of state
terrorism, realises how close Nigeria was to civil war between the last week of February and the first
few days of March 2000. What was needed, but from which Nigeria was reprieved, was refusal by just
an army formation in Kaduna to obey Obasanjo's directives or a commander's orders. That did not
happen, and the country was, once again, reprieved. How many more times will Nigeria be reprieved? I
am sure, not many more times. There are several ways of avoiding a descent to civil war in the short
run. But I shall "pursue only one line of possibility, namely, that which goes through a sovereign
national conference. But before doing this I have to make two preliminary statements: the first is that

any attempt by Nigeria's power-blocs or the political class, as a whole, to pursue a partial and selfish
resolution of the Sharia crisis, that is, to resolve the Sharia crisis against the real interests o f the
popular masses of Nigeria - including the exploited and the dispossessed of the land - will fail woefully,
and will lead to a more severe, and therefore more dangerous, crisis. A comprehensive resolution must
be pursued. The second statement is that although it makes logical sense to refer the Sharia issue to the
courts, the crisis of which the Sharia was a mere manifestation, cannot be resolved in the courts. This is
essentially a political question, and must be resolved politically. It is also necessary to warn that the
existing political institutions, including the NationalAssembly, cannot resolve the crisis. Ahigh powered
conference is now historically inevitable. At least two political shifts and one confirmation were
observed during, and since, the crisis, and these are important enough for me to draw the attention of
patriots. The first shift was that some vocal, even if not very influential, political forces in the Sharia
states who had hitherto opposed the very concept of sovereign national conference joined the call for it,
arguing that that the country has had so far was "fraudulent unity". Secondly, the governors of the
South-Eastern zone who, together with their political leaders, had also never been excited by the call
for a Sovereign National Conference called for a confederal restructuring of Nigeria after a post-crisis
evaluation meeting at Enugu. The confirmation relates to the position of the Northern power-bloc and
the role of the former rulers of Nigeria - military
42

14
The Politics of the Senate Probe 17th August, 2000
THE first point that has to be made here is that there is nothing unique or extraordinary in the main
political event of the past month culminating in the removal of the leadership of the Nigerian Senate.
We only need to remark that, as expected, this event carried with it the familiar Nigerian flavour. From
time to time those who live on the sweat and blood of others, who manage an exploitative system and
benefit from it, try to save or renew their rule by openly sacrificing some of their members. In some
cases, the individuals and groups so sacrificed are carefully chosen, in other cases the sacrificial lambs
are thrown up accidentally. But in all cases the ruling blood-suckers are neither principled, nor truthful,
nor noble, in most cases, the event reflects the balance of forces or helps create a new balance, and
nearly in all cases the masses, the principal victims of the whole charade, are made to applaud. In fact
the louder and longer the mass applause, the more successful the thoroughly deceitful purgation is seen
to be. Glance through the history of the pillars of global capitalism - the United States ofAmerica, the
European Union countries and Japan - and you confirm my thesis. Only if we come to terms with this
point, and absorb it, shall we be in the correct frame of mind to construct the story behind the story of
the Senate probe. We start with an exercise in simple recollection: the straight story as reported by the
media, testimonies, allegations and revelations by the dramatis personae within and outside 1-1-1,.
-5,1,-,1,,,,,. ortri the rvrrynni 1 nor.-nwritc anfi-c7ifir.c, an el lin an nr.1 1 x mne rvf xm-r-; ni 1n
r."1;+;,,

group of senators representing a larger political bloc committed fundamentally t( g the Senate
leadership from office; and a powerful fraction of the Nigerian press exclusively on its ability to realise
its specific objective, namely, the removal of the leadership, the alliance was formidable. And the
political conjuncture could not been more favourable. It therefore came to pass that shortly afterwards
the "plotters" moved the motion the Senate should probe the award of contracts by the leadership ofthe

Upper Legislative .ber. A committee representing all "shades of opinion" in the Senate was set up to ,ct
the probe whose critical aspect was a televised public hearing before which political s and bureaucrats
of the Senate, including the president and his deputy, appeared testified. The testimonies, allegations
and revelations can be summarised: senators ed contracts to themselves directly or under assumed
names at inflated costs, contracts awarded to unregistered, and therefore, legally non-existent
companies; senate leaders, particular, the president, collected allowances in cash and in material which
exceeded -ere officially allowed; the Senate leadership and bureaucracy allowed and distributed fits to
themselves and other senatorsiatia

not resign their positions as recommended by the probe panel, and might, in fact, consider taking court
action against the panel. An indicted senator alleged that what each senator collected for furniture
allowance was about 40 per cent more than what the public was told. A colleague of his replied that the
other allocation was for something else. The senator's father who is a respected and prominent public
figure in Nigeria added that his son was not a thief, that there is no thief in his family and that his son
was being punished by the Nigerian government for his support for the Senate president whom the
government did not want. Several national newspapers carried reports of an impending trial of some
Senate leaders. Some went further to remind readers of the punishment prescribed by the AntiCorruption Law for the type of offences committed by the Senate leaders. Commenting on these reports
and speculations, a senator reminded the public that the Senate panel's report was not yet the report of
the Nigerian Senate, and would not be so until it was adopted in a plenary session of the Senate. The
leadership of the Labour movement threatened that Nigerian workers would take action if the senators
indicted by the panel failed to resign. But, by far, the most amazing development was the visit of
President Olusegun Obasanjo to Enugu and Anambra states, and, in particular, the Nnamdi Azikiwe
University, Awka, on Monday, August 7, 2000. This was a day before the Senate was to reconvene to
perform just one act, namely, to remove Okadigbo whose home state is Anambra and whose hometown is a few kilometres from Awka. The presidential visit defied all political rationality including its
Nigerian variety. Indeed, as an orthodox Christian would say, the ways ofNigerian leaders passeth all
understanding. But then, I recall the visit, in June 1994, of Gen. Sani Abacha to Lagos a couple of days
after Moshood Abiola was arrested for treason and flown to Abuja. On that visit, Abacha drove past
Abiola's house in Ikej a. I also recall the beginnings of World War II whenAdolf Hitler, the German
leader, moved from one vanquished European capital to another, saluting his victorious troops. Perhaps
Obasanjo's visit was not so strange, after all.

15
Profession Among Professions 25th July, 2002
N Monday, April 22, 2002, The Guardian reproduced on its opinion page an article originally written
for the TIME magazine by Stephen Faris, who, I guess, is a non-Nigerian. The reproduction was in the
best tradition of The Guardian: --.16ng, to the notice ofNigerians, reports and opinions which, though
originating from and published outside our borders, deserve our close attention and examination.
Usually The Ga,:7-dian follows with an editorial opinion" which it did in this particular case. Faris'
article ed "The whole truth", dealt with journalism practice in Nigeria: its recent history, ethics, blems
and challenges. It was, on the whole, a patronising, condescending and Eurocentric article. It was also,

not surprisingly, largely uninformed about the Nigerian reality. To practitioners of journalism in
Nigeria. Faris' article was insulting. But then, this thoroughly offensive article was anchored on an
event which the author claimed took place in Abuja, Nigerian capital. After the deserved denunciation
which Faris invited on himself- and he got a good dose of it - what remains is his story. And it is this
story, because it relates to a sibject which has been bothering me for a long time, that is of interest to
me now. Let me attempt to reconstruct the story, some of whose elements are public knowledge. Other
aspects are "exclusive" to Faris although all his claims on matters of fact can be verified. Some months
ago, the international cable television, CNN, carried a report that Nigerians, having tasted a return to
civil democratic rule for almost three years would not mind going back to military dictatorship. CNN
dressed up and presented the report on Nigeria's "nascent" democracy as a fair reflection on opinions
gathered from Nigerians. The report angered many Nigerians - including conservatives and radicals,
nationalists and imperialist stooges - and they denounced it vehemently. I was also angered by it, but
for a different reason, in fact two reasons. In the first place, I do not subscribe to the opinion that "the
worst civilian government is better than the best military regime". In the second place, I do not think it
is fair to present Nigerians with two equally unacceptable options: military rule or Obasanjo-type
civilian democracy. The CNN report, in addition to its condescending tone, arrogance and
superficiality, reflected these two unacceptable positions. As expected, ProfessorJeny Gana, the Federal
Minister of Information and Nati onal Orientation was also angered. After he and his ministry had
formally denounced the report, they organised a meeting with foreign journalists and international
media correspondents based in Nigeria. According to Stephen Faris, the meeting which took place in
Abuja, was convened for a "lecture on honest and accurate reporting". At the end of it all the journalists
4-1

were each given a bag containing "government reference books" and a "brown envelope stuffed with
about $400". Further down in his piece, Faris quoted Professor Gana as saying, on a different occasion:
"Other governments have been arresting journalists and closing down media houses. This government
will not do so. We believe that the success of this nascent democracy is in your hands". In response,
Faris commented: "But a truly free press must be liberated not only from government oppression, but
from the temptations of cash-filled envelopes like those issued by Gana's office". That is the kernel of
Faris' article, the rest is the dressing. Faris' article, as expected, invited several angry rejoinders. One of
the angriest was contributed, just four days after The Guardian reproduced the article. It came from
Levi Obijiofor, a former Guardian staffwho is now anon-resident columnist with the newspaper. I have
deliberately isolated Obijio for's rejoinder ("Brown envelope syndrome and salad journalism," The
Guardian, April 26, 2002) because it appears to subsume what most of the other critics of Stephen Faris
have so far said, namely, that the distribution of "brown envelopes" to foreign journalists at the Abuja
meeting, if it actually took place, was nothing peculiar to Nigeria and that the practice is universal,
going by different names in different countries. Obijiofor tells us that in Australia, it is called freebies;
in the Phillippines the journalists call itAC-DC, that is, "attacks and collects; defends and collects", the
Indonesians call it ampiop. For the avoidance of doubt, Obijiofor does not defend Nigerian journalists
against the charge of bribery and corruption. Rather, he was angry at Faris' inability to understand "not
just the scope of bribery among journalists worldwide but also how this unethical conduct impacts the
role ofjournalists as the conveyor belt of public information". He accused Faris of selective reporting. I
agree with Obijiofor, and would like to extend his conclusion: bribery and corruption not only exist in
all countries and in all professions but are deeper and more pervasive in advanced capitalist nations. I
shall, however, add that I am not comfortable with attempts at answering the charge of theft with "what
of you; you no be thief?" Concrete charges of theft should be answered. It is only after this that you are

permitted to make counter-charges, and abuses, if you choose. I would have rested the matter there and
with it the need to even write this piece if three simple, but fundamental, questions had not thrown
themselves at me - not for the first. time, I would admit. These questions are: "What is journalism?";
"Who is a journalist?"- "Are you a journalist?". First, .I searched through dictionaries, encyclopaedias,
journalism manuals and other reference materials. Then I recalled my own personal experiences.
"Journalism", a fat dictionary told me, is "the collection and editing of material of current interests for
presentation through the media of newspapers, magazines, newsreels, radio or television". Another one
said that journalism is "the occupation of reporting, writing, editing,, photographing or broadcasting
news or of conducting any news organisation as a business; writing that reflects superficial thought and
research, popular slant, and hurried composition, conceived as of exemplifying newspaper or popular
magazine writing as distinguished from scholarly writing". Ajournalist is "one engaged in journalism,
especially one employed to write or edit the subject matter of a news medium; a writer who aims or is
felt to aim chiefly at a mass audience or strives for immediate popular appeal in his or her writings".
One of
48

reference books defined a journalistic writing as writing designed to appeal to current ular taste or
current public interest". I declare that I am not influenced by the derogatory strands of some of these
fmitions when I try now to recapture how I came into the journalism profession. In the -1970s, our
organisation, the Anti-Poverty Movement of Nigeria (APMON4), s-scablislied organ which we called
"The People's Cause". At various times before the entry of BJ o the organization, I carried on as acting
editor, then editor of"Peoples' Cause", although reflection now, I believe I did not, at the time, know
what journalism was all about or hat an editor was supposed to be doing. I had, under me, assistant
editors, associate 'tors, correspondents and reporters, men and women who knew less than the nearnothing that I knew, Later, in Calabar, I became editor of other left-wing popular journals: "Workers
Voice", "Popular Journal", and "People's Manifesto". In L983 I became publisher
of "Nigerian Democratic Review" (NDR). Between that time and February 1985 when I joined The
Guardian's Editorial Board I served, first, as Special Correspondent and then, Managing Editor of a
Calabar-based magazine, "Insideout". It was only in The Guardian, after more than 10 years of
parading as "journalist", that I started knowing the rudiments of some aspects of the profession. But
according to the definitions ofjoumalism and journalists cited above, I was a journalist all along.
Anyone who puts some written materials together and circulates them or plays apart, any part at all, in
this process, is in the journalism profession and is entitled to be called a journalist. He or she may be a
wealthy person in search of a name, a politician pursuing a cause, a trader in search ofprofit, a rnan or
woman with little education in a different discipline but looking for a job. In other words, journalism is
a profession anyone can enter from anywhere. For some aspects of the job, no training is required, and
for others, you learn on the job. And yet journalism - this profession which has no boundaries - is very
powerful, for better or for worse. ANigerian state governor was overheard the other day saying that he
nourishes and guards his relationship with journalists because the latter made him. He was not
exaggerating - as his opponents would testify. My tentative suggestion to Levi Obijiofor is that a
profession whose boundaries are so elastic and flexible, which demands so little from entrants, but
which, in spite of this, or because of this, constitutes a very powerful socio-political institution, cannot
have a sustained or sustainable code of ethics. Journalism is a profession among .. professions.
49

4111111111111
16
Impeachment in Nigeria 12th September, 2002
ON August 13, 2002, the House of Representatives passed a resolution asking the President to resign
within 14 days, or be impeached. The motion catalogued presidential offences which, to the House,
amounted to "grave misconduct". A< soon as this political development became public knowledge the
presidency swung intc action in the typical Nigerian fashion. Solidarity marches to the Presidential
villa were arranged across the country; traditional rulers were summoned and mobilised to condemn
what they said they saw as an attempt to "heat up the system' whatever this new political jargon may
mean; prominent citizens and former Heads of State were approached to plead with tilt House leaders;
the media - electronic and print, private and government-owned - was mobilised to denounce the
attempt by "anti-democrats" to "truncate" our "nasceni democracy". As these hysterical reactions were
going on, there came the obviously carefully rehearsed allegation that the Nigerian Armed Forces were
being incited to intervene. This allegation was quickly and quietly dropped as the initiators saw the
possible consequences of its being acted upon. Finally, bags ofmoney were reported to have moves out
on "pacification" missions to strategically placed politicians. In this first wave of reactions no one cared
to look at the charges contained in the House of Representatives' motion. I was after this first wave which the organisers must have considered successful - that th( President, to satisfy foreign patrons and
fulfill all righteousness, responded to the charge; detailed by the House. But in one of his responses, the
President committed an error o judgment: by calling the impeachment notice a 'joke carried too far" he
infuriated man: members of the National Assembly and drew the Senate into the crisis. Political
impeachment is grossly misconceived in Nigeria. But because thes misconceptions serve the interests
of large sections of the ruling blocs and professions politicians, they are fed and kept alive by sections
of the media who serve the politician! Whereas sections of the press give the false impression that to
impeach means "to remov from office", the real meaning of to impeach is "to accuse a public official
before a appropriate tribunal of misconduct in office; to challenge the credibility of; to bring a
accusation against; to call into question; to cast an imputation upon; to call into account" Impeachment
is similar to charging a citizen before a court of law. This act is definite] far from conviction which may
or may not be the conclusion of a trial for a trial may result conviction (on being found guilty), or
acquittal (on being found not guilty). Same \Nil impeachment - which may end with the removal of the
impeached official from office
50

) or (re-affirmation in office if found not guilty). The 1999 Constitution of the Republic of Nigeria
provides, in its Section 143, for the impeachment of the and the Vice-President. Section 188 provides
for the impeachment of State and Deputy Governors. The provisions are similar. in an ordinary trial
before an ordinary court, a person can be said to iE,e. properly ifhe or she is brought to the court and
the charge formally read to him or her and plea is taken. Similarly, under the Nigerian Constitution, a
president or vice can be impeached, that is, constitutionally and properly charged, if "a notice of on in
writing signed by not less than one-third of the members of the National is presented to the President of
the Senate stating that the holder of the office of and Vice-President is guilty of gross misconduct in the
performance of the functions e, detailed particulars of which shall be specified". The President of the
Senate circulate copies of the indictment and presidential responses (if any) to members of lAssembly.
Each chamber of the National Assembly is then required to resolve third majority that the charges

against the President be investigated. Upon this n, the Chief Justice of the Federation, upon a request
from the President of the ill set up a panel of seven persons to investigate the charges. If the panel
reports House of the National Assembly that the charges have not been proved, then the 1, dies. But if
the panel reports that the charges have been proved, then each House of al Assembly is required to
confirm the panel's verdict by a two-third majority. As _ this happens, the President or the VicePresident - as the case may be - ceases to
We see that the process of removing a Nigerian President or Vice-President from through impeachment
is a very complex and tedious one. Beyond that, the process is y political, not legal. This is so because a
certain minimum number of members of anal Assembly is required to endorse a charge before the
process begins; a higher tac.,,e, of endorsement is required to start an investigation; finally whatever
the Endings ict of the panel investigating the charges, only the National Assembly's two-third
endorsement can push the President or Vice-President out of office. In practical therefore, it is almost
impossible to remove a Nigerian President through impeachment, n' t see how a serving President in
Nigeria will fail, at any time, to muster more than rd of the membership o f the National Assembly to
overturn whatever a panel may found. Since a no-case verdict by the panel means the end of the
process, many ans will, in fact, be disappointed if a President, whatever his or her sins, fails to stop
eachment at the panel state. From where will the judges be recruited who can, as a turn down the
President's lobbyists? Now, if it is practically impossible to remove a Nigerian President by
impeachment I believe all the actors know this - why did the House of Representatives resort to it? vhy
did many politicians and sections of the press behave as if the President was on verge of being
removed, as if the country's "nascent democracy" was about to be cated" by "enemies of democracy"?
There are three reasons for the action of the of Representatives, or rather the National Assembly - since
the Senate was later to
51

support the House. First, the impeachment notice was a means of forcing the President to accept a
proper balance of power and redistribution of resources; secondly, it was part of the campaign for the
2003 elections. The third reason can be put like this: "You can never say, what is thought not to be
possible can become possible through an accident or the workings of the strange dialectics ofNigerian
politics. So, let's try". The speculations on the "presidential hysteria" over impeachment are the same as
those of the first question. More directly, "presidential hysteria" arose, or were generated: first, because
the presidency wanted to gather favourable public opinion to resist the redistribution ofpower and
resources which it believed was the aim of the 'impeachers": secondly, because the presidency also saw
the impeachment threat as part of re-election campaign; and thirdly, because the presidency also
believed that accidents and strange dialectics are possible and it was absolutely necessary to guard
against them. Indeed, an accident occurred (the President calling legislators jokers); and strange
dialectics emerged (the entry of the Senate into the dispute). But the president will survive. He may not
win, but he will survive as president. The logic ofNigerian politics will ensure this. I had learnt, even
before I became a journalist, never to address myself to Nigerian ruling classes, or their state, or their
governments. I had learnt that it would be a huge mistake to assume that those who wield power are
ignorant. They might be ignorant of the overall movement of history, of the lessons of history, or even
of what is in their long-term interest. But they are not ignorant of their immediate interests. And, by and
large, those who wield political power are guided in their policies and actions by their immediate
interests. Even when the ruling classes appear to be divided on an issue and you identify some fractions
to be nearer popular interest than the others you will be making a mistake to think that you are saying
the same thing or even speaking the same language. You will discover your mistake as soon as you link
up with them on the issue. You will discover that their interests are not nobler than the interests of their

"opponents' in the ruling classes. Each time I deviate from this consciousness and address those in
power about the need to carry out one reform or the other, or avoid one mistake or the other, or follow a
particular line of action, I have ended up frustrating myself. For the rulers know exactly what they
want. This has been demonstrated in the general debates on Sovereign National Conference (SNC).
geopolitical restructuring, true and fiscal federalism, etc. It will be demonstrated again in the politics of
impeachment.
52

17
Once Again, the National Question 19th September, 2002 HARLES Njoku's article, "Burden of
history" (The Guardian, August 5, 2002), does not, in essence, contain much that is new in the debate
on the national question in Nigeria. But the article was a brilliant and powerful one. Combining
creativity iseness with boldness, the writer was able to re-present a known position on the question and
resource control in a refreshing manner. Njoku's position is not, to
popular language, Niger Delta" friendly and may even be described as harsh. The ef his argument is
that a "reinvention" ofNigeria "from a consensual meeting of a Lgn National Conference" is
impossible. You cannot describe the position as uninformed
Its usefulness is enhanced by the author not restricting himself to description, but g on to analyses and
prescriptions. I could not immediately agree to disagree with theses, lines of arguments and
conclusions. So, as I normally do in such situations, he article away, to be recovered when the need
arises. The need came on September with the publication, in The Guardian, of Alfred Ilenre's article:
"MPs, Obasanjo the Nigerian reality". Using the struggle between President Olusegun Obasanjo as a
lenre re-stated the argument for a confederal reconstitution ofNigeria along ethnic reality lines. This
position is an implicit and automatic solution of the resource control tion: For if the constituent
members of the Nigerian union are independent except in , then each will control its resources. We may
look at the positions ofNjoku and e more closely. As I understand it, Njoku's position is built on the
second sentence of article referred to above: "That linguistic groupings and tribal kingdoms pre-date
what is called Nigeria is obvious. However, to assert that these linguistic groupings and tribal gdoms
give Nigeria its sovereignty is mistaken". The Berlin Conference, Njoku reminds carved out and
allocated the area now known as Nigeria to Britain. The latter then blished a central government to take
over the administration of the area from trading panies. It was this colonial central government,
representing the British crown, that created country we call Nigeria. Njoku argues: "Nigeria as a.
sovereign nation state with her body of laws and institutions, recognised by other sovereign states, is a
creation of the central government, which has superseded all the linguistic groupings and tribal
kingdoms. And it rnust be admitted that it is a conquest pure and simple; therefore the talk of
reinventing Nigeria from a consensual meeting at a Sovereign National Conference is a nostalgic sham.

It is too late. The real meaning ofthe Biafran war is that it is the only serious attempt to lead a nationwide challenge and resistance to the conquest of linguistic groupings and tribal kingdoms by a central
government inherited by the British. It failed and that is the end ofthe matter". Njoku's thesis can be
reconstructed as follows; The colonial central government created Nigeria. The colonial central
government was succeeded by an independent central government in 1960. All acts of state creation
since 1967 have been carried out by the central government without popular consultation; General

Yakubu Gowon carved Nigeria into 12 states in May 1967 without consulting anyone; the present 36
states were created by the central government without consultation; the 36 states in Nigeria did not
come together to create Nigeria; rather, the central government divided Nigeria into 36 states, the
Federal Capital. Territory, and territorial waters; the last two belong to the central government as the
Supreme Court recently affirmed; the Federal Republic ofNigeria is larger than, and hence, not equal
to, the sum ofthe component states; none of the present 36 states can claim to be the successor to any
pre-Nigeria linguistic group or tribal kingdom. The Niger Delta and oil producing states should replace
their clamour for "resource control" with the acceptance of the 13 per cent derivation and then start
negotiations to have the percentage revised upwards by the National Assembly. The fact that the 1999
Constitution places the responsibility for reviewing the derivation quota on only the National Assembly
is a fortunate thing for oil producing states. Implicit in Njoku's position is an endorsement of the
present federal structure. Alfred Ilenre's main political concern has been - as long as I have known him
- the political reconstitution ofNigeria into confederal states along ethnic nationality lines. To him, this
is the only way of liberating minority ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. It is instructive that what Ilenre
calls "ethnic nationalities", Charles Njoku refers to as "linguistic groupings and tribal kingdoms". It is
not that Ilenre is not interested in other social and political issues. The point is that he sees in every
political crisis a support for his position and uses every political crisis to demonstrate the correctness of
his advocacy. Ilenre insists that Nigeria is not a nation, and has never been. It has remained what it was
when the British conquered and colonised it: a collection of ethnic nationalities. His prescription:
"President Obasanjo should resolve today to bring Nigerian community leaders and social groups to a
round table talk to discuss how to build a confederal Nigeria that will grant self- determination to the
federating ethnic nationalities for which our founding fathers fought, with some paying the supreme
sacrifce". Here then are two diametrically opposed perspectives on the national question. I may now
permit myself some observations and comments. To evaluate Njoku's position we may need to separate
his premises from his conclusions. When we do this we see that as brilliant and thought-provoking as it
is, there is a serious defect, and this defect is in the premises. And since Njoku is logical, the defect in
his premises invariably affects his conclusions. Missing from the premises is an explicit
acknowledgement of the existence and reality of ethnic exploitation in Nigeria, the core issue being
raised in the Niger Delta. Had he inserted the existence and reality of ethnic exploitation in his
premises - which are
54
erwise correct - his prescriptions would have included some forms of geopolitical ucturing. Also
missing from Njoku's premises is the class question, that is, the question redistribution of wealth not
only between states but also between social classes and ups - nationally and within the states.
Incidentally, Ilenre's position is also evasive on the class question. Furthermore, ugh I agree that we
cannot return what he calls "linguistic groupings and tribal kingdoms" their pre-Nigeria status, I do not
agree that Biafra-type wars of secession are no longer sable or that they cannot result in the break-up
of Nigeria if they occur. President Broz o managed to preserve the unity of-Yugoslavia, but his
successors could not. My brief ent on Alfred Ilenre's position is that it is maximalist. And being
maximalist, it cannot realised in the form prescribed by him - except through a war. And in this war, the
ternational community" will intervene ostensibly to guarantee the integrity of minority ?_ic
nationalities, but in reality pursuing its hegemonic agenda. The strongest illustration is n'Yugoslavia. I
would like to refer Njoku and Ilenre to Chief Anthony Enahopo's position on the Tonal question.
Although I am by no means saying that Enahoro's prescription is the last ord on the matter, I would say
that, in the very least, it takes care of the major defects in e positions of Njoku and Ilenre. First, it
recognises the existence and reality of ethnic ression - among other forms of oppression - in Nigeria.
Secondly, it addresses the class estion, his deliberate avoidance ofthe word class notwithstanding:

Enahoro's prescription of extensive welfare programme is a class prescription in our own setting. In the
third place, whatever may be his personal wishes and prayers on the matter, Enahoro would not rule out
the possibility of another Biafra-type war of secession, or its success if it breaks out. He would be
doing immeasurable violence to his intellect, knowledge and vast experience should he do so. In the
fourth place, theoretically and practically, Enahoro's position harbours the greatest possibility of being
realised without war. Two clarifications, for which I take responsibility, are necessary here. First, I
believe that neither Enahoro, nor any other person or group, conceives the proposed Sovereign National
Conference (SNC) as a forum that would be presented with a ready-made position which it would be
required to adopt. Rather, the SNC is a forum for negotiations. It follows that Enahoro's position is the
position which he, his movement and others who subscribe to the position will advance at the
Conference. In the second place, SNC is not the same as a conference of"ethnic nationalities" or
"linguistic groupings and tribal kingdoms". For better or for worse, there are, in Nigeria of today,
institutions, realities, entities and structures which are indivisibly Nigerian and which cannot therefore
be reduced to ethnic ownership.
55
18
Minimum Democracy in Crisis 26th September, 2002 T was Karl Popper, the celebrated Austrian
philosopher, who, many years ago, / formulated the following problem of democratic governance:
"How is the state to be constructed so that bad governments and rulers can be got rid of by a majority
vote, without bloodshed, without violence, and before they cause too much harm?". The philosopher
said that he was not theorising "the rule of the people" - perhaps because, at heart, he did not believe in
it - but rather the "rule of law that postulates the bloodless dismissal of the government by majority
vote". Since I believe that Popper spoke for the cream of the present political class in Nigeria, inspired
by the new imperialism, I shall address him as I would address a Nigerian politician. What I understand
Popper to be saying or implying here is that he would not be drawn into the argument over the
correctness, appropriateness or desirability of defining democracy as the "rule of the people". He would
also not concern himself with the methods by which governments come into office. His concern was
how a government, having come into office by any means whatsoever, can be removed peacefully - by
majority vote, he says - before it could do much harm to the community. "Majority", as used here, of
course, means the majority of actual electors, or the majority ofthe representatives of actual electors,
not the theoretical electors - the people - hypocritically enshrined in the Constitutions of many nations
of the world. In case the last point is not sufficiently clear or suggestive, let me recall a small incident
during the visit ofa delegation ofthe Political Bureau to a Nigerian military government in March 1986.
I led the delegation. Behind closed doors - on which the governor had insisted - the young military man
advised us not to waste our time discussing presidential elections. We could discuss "outstanding"
issues such as transition time-table, number of political parties, elections into National and State
Assemblies, etc, but not the presidential election. Then followed a session of questions and answers.
Why should we not concern ourselves with presidential elections? Because a president had already
been elected. Who was elected president? General Ibrahim Babangida: When was he elected? August
27, 1985. Who elected him? The army officers who brought him to power through a coup. If we were
"true democrats", and had followed Popper, what would have been our concern was - since Babangida
had already done "too much harm" - how to ensure his removal by officers of the Nigerian Armed
Forces "without bloodshed, without violence". Of course, we rejected the governor's advice, but we
were painfully aware that Nigerian governments
56

1964 federal election have been "elected" and removed by very tiny fractions of ion. At best, what we
have had can be called minimum democracy of minimum _ This is still the case today. Even then, the
question posed by Popper, as narrow deserves some consideration because it is playing itself out in
Nigeria today. In 1999, Nigerians were called out to elect democratic institutions for the governance is
now officially called the Fourth Republic, but which I prefer to call Obasanjo's tic_ At the end of the
exercise, we were said to have elected a President, a Vice-t, a National Assembly, 36 governors, 36
deputy governors and 36 State Houses bly. 774 Local Government Councils were also "elected". Today,
more than three years after the event, many Nigerians would agree that the results ofthe elections
reflect the voting patterns, and in fact, that the elections had been rigged at the stage ation of parties
and the heavy monetisation and widespread corruption of the The people who emerged as elected rulers
and members of democratic institutions not, and still cannot, be said to be our true choice. In any case,
they were sworn in, and have been ruling over us ever since. The latest crisis, the politics of
impeachment, is taking place within the context of this minimum icy. But just as President George
Bush says that September 11 changed, not a. but the world, so do Nigerian rulers claim that the politics
of impeachment affects erians and its outcome will affect the fate of all Nigerians. So, it is in the
interest of of Nigerians excluded from the democratic process in 1999 and threatened with exclusion, if
2003 comes, to join the impeachment struggle - on one side or the
With reference to Nigeria, the "majority vote" that Popper talked about in his abstract is the majority of
direct electors or the majority of a legislative body that has the to remove an elected official - from a
local government Chairperson or Councillor the President ofthe Federal Republic ofNigeria. Focussing
now on President Olusegun .jo over whom Nigeria's minimum democracy has received the strongest
test, the Constitution says that he can be in office - unless he is impeached - if he so chooses, fix.ir
years starting from May 29, 1999 when he was sworn in as winner in the "restricted" -mum" election as
described above. At the expiration of his four-year term, he can re-election and, ii re-elected, remain in
office for another, but terminal, term of four - unless again, he is impeached before the expiration of the
term. In other words, ident Obasanjo's "removal from office" can take place, via another "restricted" or
urn" election, only at the end of the current term of four years. The only other means moving him from
power - "without violence, without bloodshed and before too much _ is done" - is through
impeachment which, we have all seen, is almost impossible, given Nigerian political culture. I think it
will be fair and charitable to assume that when Popper spoke about majority vote, violence and
bloodshed what he had in mind was the struggles between members of the "minimum" electorate or the
representative institutions elected by the "minimum" ,eillectorate. He definitely would not consider
popular revolts by the masses who, having
57

been excluded by rigging and party registration from. the "minimum" democracy, haN. nowhere and no
means of exercising "majority vote". History has taught us that when peop who are deliberately
excluded from socio-historical processes intervene it is always wi violence and bloodshed - which
Popper feared. Popper's concern is therefore directed the dangers posed by these people should the
managers of our minimum democracy creat the conditions. Popper would also not want the conditions
created for the alternative (or is i alternate) minimum electorate, the military, to intervene since their
mode of intervention violence, or bloodshed, or the threat of it. So, how can the Nigerian state
restructure th polity so that it is possible for the minimum electorate to remove minority governments
th are thrown up from time to time to rule over us - "without violence, without bloodshed an before
much harm is done"? And, in particular, without the intervention ofthe excluded an cheated masses, or
the military? That is the question before the Nigerian ruling classes. but I think that Karl Popper, the

eminent philosopher, was posing an impossible proble on behalf of capitalist ruling classes. You do not
want democracy to be defined, or interpret or -practically acted upon, as the "rule of the people" - the
reason being that you fear th rple. You prefer minimum, or restricted, or manageable democracy where
political competition is between tiny but very wealthy groups, all firmly linked to the new imperialis
wedded to capitalist globalisation, all agreeing on the fundamental issues over which th masses are
groaning. You want this tiny oligarchy to settle its quarrels over the wealth ofthe nation peacefully,
"without violence, without bloodshed, and before much harm is done", Harm to whom", one may ask.
To members of the oligarchy? To the cheated and excluded masses? To the nation which, in reality, is
owned by the oligarchy? How can predators be at peace among themselves? Can they fight their battles
themselves? Don't they always invite these same "wretched of the earth" to do their fighting for them?
In any case why shouldn't the masses exploit the divisions within the thieving oligarchy to liberate
themselves by any means possible - just as the oligarchy uses any opportunity to sow seeds of discord
among the people? Who and what are the senior army officers -serving and retired? Are they not part
ofthe ruling blocs? Are they with the masses? Have they, in or out of government, served the masses? Is
their intervention in governance not a question of a power bloc employing their services, or allying
with them, first against their immediate enemies in the other blocs, and then permanently against their
masses? Knowing fully well that the people who are ruling under minimum democracy are not larger,
or more credible, or less corrupt, or less selfish, than they are, why would some senior army officers
not be tempted to make a come-back, directly or through the mechanism of minimum electorate and
minimum democracy? As long as the Nigerian ruling blocs unite to defraud themselves, they should be
left to settle their quarrels alone.
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19
Democrats of Doubtful Convictions 3rd October, 2002
HAT Aliyu Dasuki, a consultant to the Editorial Board of The Guardian, who died about a decade ago,
was my friend was a puzzle. Apart from our ages which I zuess must have been close, we were so
different in every other material particular. a prince; I was a commoner. He was very proud to proclaim
himself a capitalist and st; I was a Marxist, a communist and a socialist. He was Moslem; but regarded
me ist or an infidel. He was from the North; I was from the South. He was a rich man; a rich man. He
was a cultured gentleman with refined tastes; of course, I was not an. Why then were we friends; and
what was the content of the friendship? Dasuki answered the question himself, in my office at The
Guardian, Lagos, in 1990. He had been with me for about half an hour, enjoying a cup of coffee ette,
when another acquaintance of his entered. After the tripartite greetings -the usual Guardian jokes - the
acquaintance wondered what could have brought ki and me together at a personal level. Dasuki's
response, given after an gly long silence, can be reconstructed as follows: "I know where this
communist every issue, and I can predict him. I know where we disagree, and how far we and
whenever we reach an agreement, it stands. But you and I are supposed to same side, that is, the
capitalist side of the divide. But I can hardly predict you on and the democracy you preach is worse
than my friend's communist dictatorship. this communist is my friend". The man smiled and left the
room. I did not tell Dasuki at the time that I had a similar problem, namely, that I was increasingly
difficult to dialogue with, or even place, many of my comrades and orators. Between my opponents and
me, the battle line was clear and well The arguments were usually sharp, sometimes bitter, and from
time to time, g to abuses. But I was beginning, by 1990, not to know where I stood with comrades,
those with whom I was identified and classified as belonging to the I could count for myself more
deeply respected friends among the other in my own "camp". If the situation was embarrassing and
frustrating ten years link the origin with General Ibrahim Babangida's regime - it is now intolerable The

only political category that now binds many comrades in the indeterminate of socialist is democracy,
thanks to the new imperialism led by American rulers. comradely circles, this word has lost every
theoretical meaning, except as the ted political prescription for governance. The content of our new
democracy
59

is indeterminate; but the form and language should be as close to the American model as possible. In
the 1970s it was impossible to raise, let alone discuss, the national question (or ethnic nationality
question) in some socialist and radical circles. To these comrades raising the ethnic question was pure
tribalism, thoroughly unbecoming ofMarxists and socialists. In the second half of 1980, as the Soviet
Union and Eastern European countries were disintegrating or collapsing, I vigorously raised the
national question in almost every leftist political meeting I attended. I devoted a lot of space in my
column to the issue. For this, I was called a tribalist. My appeal to Regis Debray, the French Marxist
writer and Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese nationalist leader of the first quarter of the last Century, did not
impress the comrades. Regis Debray had predicted that the neglect of the national question by Marxists
would one day cause a tragic reversal for anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles. And at the
beginning of last Century Sun Yat-sen had urged his compatriots to embrace three ideological currents
and integrate them in their struggles. The currents were nationalism, democracy and socialism. Many
leftists were not moved. They repeated that the national question was non-Marxist, non-communist,
non-socialist, non-revolutionary and even non-nationalist. But within a decade the national question not
only became the organising principle ofmost important leftist discourses in Nigeria but also the theme
ofmost radical conferences. Democracy, and even socialist revolution, were seen through the prism of
ethnicity. Today, there is no substantive difference between the democracy of many leftist and the
democracy of traditional Nigerian politicians. And yet opposition to this democracy, of the exploiters
and predators was the historical reason and justification for the emergence ofleftist politics in the first
place. The situation I am trying to describe is even worse than it appears. Whereas the professional
politicians are on familiar grounds, merely continuing the tradition handed down by their predecessors
and mentors - and, of course, worsening it as they go on - the leftists are using their old language to
describe their new positions and practices. I am convinced that the professional politicians don't .1 by
rnuch respect for their new compatriots, the leftist converts to American democracy. The right to ethnic
self-determination which a little over a decade ago had not been recognised as a legitimate subject for
discussion in the Marxist movement has now become not only the leading ideological slogan but the
only one, not joining the campaign for popular democracy and socialism, but, in essence, replacing it.
Ethnic exploitation and domination are facts of Nigerian capitalist social formation_ Nigerians are
fighting these in various ways, according to how they see them, and how they experience them,
propelled by their various levels of consciousness. It is the categorical duty of every leftist to support
Nigerians fighting against ethnic exploitation and dominatio using the materials and means made
available to him or her by history. The duty is a democrati one and must be performed unambiguously.
The difference between leftists and non-leftis in this matter is as follows: Whereas non-leftists may see
only their immediate ethni circumstances, leftists see both the immediate and the totality, the nation;
and whereas no leftists may see only today and tomorrow, leftists see both the present and the future.
Beyo this, leftists have a moral duty to specially engage ethnic exploiters and oppressors fro
60

err own ethnic groups. But what we have seen is that many leftists speak either in general :erns, or are
ambivalent or concentrate on ethnic exploiters and predators from other ethnic groups. In some
instances their own ethnic groups are seen as the measure of all .-felinic groups, their interests the
measure of all interests, and their politica', .ivities the Teeasure of all democratic, radical, nationalist
and revolutionary activities. In a private leftist political meeting in 1990, while discussing the national
question in .!'geria, I referred to micro-nationalism in Yugoslavia under President Broz Tito. I told my
ompatriots that in a census conducted two decades earlier, citizens were given the option indicate their
ethnic nationalities or simply declare themselves Yugoslays. I reported that substantial fraction of the
population declared themselves Yugoslays. I challenged my :patriots to follow the example of
Yugoslays under Tito by renouncing their ethnic political -illations (not origins!) and declaring
themselves simply as Nigerians. Predictably, the oposal was not popular. I have, myself, publicly
renounced ethnic and religious political :nations three times since then. But I can understand the
attitude of those from small is groups. They are the ones whose peoples are fighting exploitation and
domination. -:at of those from big ethnic groups? Our leftist democratic platform will lack credibility,
will not be taken seriously, or respected, if we are seen to be one with politicians who and behave as if
their ethnic groups are the embodiments of all social-political values worse still" who, in discussing
political power, see only two or three ethnic groups in
I am, by no means, criticising all Nigerian leftist democrats. There are significant tions. Whenever I go
outside my small circle and discuss with people like Chief Enahoro or Chief Gani Fawehinmi or Dr.
Arthur Nwankwo, or Kayode Komolafe ng to the younger generation) my faith and hope are
strengthened. My criticism is 4 at that vast majority ofmy own ideological "family", the (former)
Mandan socialists, occupy significant positions in the media, in government at all levels, in labour mad
a non-governmental organisations (NC-0s). Some are in retirement from politics. lions and responses of
many of them in the impeachment politics have so far not that they believe in democracy or,
embarrassingly, that they know what democracy t. And yet the issues involved in the impeachment
politics are clear enough for a ftist democrat, who does not see the part for the whole, who does not
reduce the of democracy to the defence of an individual, to intervene objectively and ely. What we need
most urgently in this country, ihumbly suggest, is a Coalition or of genuinely democratic parties and
formations - literally to save the country.
61

20
Making A Victory Irreversible 2nd January, 2003 IHAVE no difficulty in deciding that the most
significant political event in Nigeria in the year 2002 was the registration of additional 24 political
parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in December. The significance lies
not only in the registration being a historic popular-democratic victory, but also in how it gives us a
very good opportunity to look again at the nature and working of the state, particularly the Nigerian
state. This historic event should be separated into two parts. One was the ruling, by the Supreme Court,
that some of the NEC guidelines for party registration were unconstitutional and therefore null and
void. The other part of the event was the struggle -led by Gani Fawehinmi, before and after the
Supreme Court ruling - for the registration of political associations denied registration on the basis of
INTEC's unconstitutional guidelines. Gani's case was brilliant, focused and precise. We can safely
speculate that were it not for the precise way in which the questions were put before the Supreme Court
by Gani Fawehinmi, the apex court might not have been able to deliver its historically precise
judgement. Without the Gani-led legal battle, the party registration coup staged by INEC against the
Nigerian people would have stayed. Without his political battle, after the Supreme Court's favourable

ruling, the import of INEC 's coup would have been sustained. The political parties would have
remained excluded. This is what I mean: We may recall that the Chief Justice of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria had joined the debate on the logical and legal implications of the historic judgement which
his Court gave. Gani Fawehinmi said that the judgement was tantamount to an order on INEC to
"immediately and automatically" register the political associations which went to court. NEC and the
government insisted that no such order was inherent or implied in the judgement. The Chief Justice
intervened, arguing that no order on registration was made. Why? Because the petitioners did not make
a specific request for an order compelling the parties' registration. He added surprisingly, in my view,
that if such a request had been made, it would have been granted by the Supreme Court. I have been
strongly urged to accept that this statement meant more than the innocent words suggested. But I am
not pursuing the matter: for history teaches that if, in an ongoing struggle, a statement or action is
unclear, you need not worry. Future statements and actions will more than adequately offer an
explanation. However, I have a great urge to say that if Gani Fawehinmi was not who he was the matter
would most probably have died there, that
62

011
the Chief Justice's pronouncement. Let us turn the other side of the coin. Without the Supreme Court's
favourable :t. is difficult to say what would have happened. More directly, suppose the Supreme had
ruled that INEC was right in what it did, in the coup it staged against the people? obably, proceeding
merely by the balance of social forces, the cl- leter of the state and commitment ofmany "democrats" in
the political class, the judgement simply have been recorded as another defeat for popular democracy,
and the country have moved on. Or, perhaps, it would have been the beginning of a chain of events
could not have been predictable? The credit for our historic event will therefore by the Supreme Court
and Gani Fawehinmi and his compatriots in that particular But we know where the bigger share goes:
Gani Fawehinmi. There are other speculations which, however - I must emphasise - do not, in the
derogate from our allocation of credit for the historic event. The Supreme Court country is political.
The court system is part of the state, rising and falling with the if pretences of independence can be
made at lower echelons of the system, it be made at the level of the apex court. I should simply
illustrate what I mean. The t into the Supreme Court is not just a matter of looking for competent,
qualified, ed and honest legal practitioners. The appointment must be "politically correct", current
American jargon. That is partly why several institutions and political office are involved in the
appointment of the Chief Justice and other Supreme Court Furthermore, no judgement of serious
political import - bordering on the security
111
ty of the state - can be delivered by the Supreme Court without prior notice to the et. And this is not just
a matter of the Supreme Court saying to the government: the judgement we are going to deliver next
week; we can see that it has grave implications; so get ready". Rather, consultations are held between
the Supreme the government on what to do. Options available to the government - Supreme Jezue"
might include: deploying and putting security forces on the alert, surveillance people or groups;
postponing the judgement; and, as a last resort, altering the We have also heard of cases of judges
losing their lives, through state terrorism, of cases before them. Please, don't be tempted to say: "this
can only happen in -s Uganda". It can happen in any country on the planet Earth. If the ruling bloc in
could decide to eliminate their own president, and eliminate the agent used, and massive cover-up
because the bloc thought the president was going mad and 2 the system, how much less a Chief Justice:
In any case, the state has many means of eliminating "undesirable" members of its key institutions.

Storming the an act of extreme fear and despair. All this is just in preparation for my saying that we do
not know what input the authorities" made into the Supreme Court's judgement of December 2002. We
know how INEC was finally "persuaded" to respect the Court's ruling - just as know if the body was
encouraged (and by whom?) to take its initial obscurantist the ruling. In short, we may never know who
actually took the final decision to 24 political parties: INEC, or government, or both? Whatever the
combination
63

of forces that decided to respond to Gani Fawehinmi-led struggle by registering 22, later 24, additional
political parties and whatever the means by which that decision was reached, one thing is clear: the
registration was not an act of love for democracy, or the rule of law. or Gani Fawehinmi, or the political
associations. It was a state surrender in that particular battle. Yes. The registration was forced on the
Nigerian state. It was a popular-democratic victory over the state. Beyond that, it was a political
victory. A popular-democratic task issuing from this victory is the prevention of its political reversal since it cannot be reversed by any other court. The Nigerian state and the ruling classes which it serves
were compelled to accept, or even recommend, the Supreme Courtjudgement and will do everything
possible to reverse it politically. To prevent the reversal of the victory, that is, to make it permanent it
has to be expanded. And to expand it is to enshrine in our Constitution specific clauses embodying the
essence of that victory, namely, that Nigeria is a multi-party democracy. Beyond that, the conditions for
party registration should be further simplified to conform with the constitutional provision on the right
of association. A feeling shared by many Nigerians, including myself, is that there was an element
ofcynicism in the forced registration of the 24 political parties. The cynical reasoning must have
proceeded somewhat like this: "Since we cannot now avoid registering more parties including those
who went to court, we can as well register all the parties and confuse the situation for them". The
cynical smiles must be frozen, and can be frozen. I have two pieces of advice to give to the new
political parties. First, those political parties which were not formed solely for the purpose of
"bargaining" more effectively with bigger parties or power blocs should not dissolve - even if groups of
parties go into electoral alliances. The parties should not merge. They should remain and grow. But
those parties forined for tactical negotiating reasons should simply disappear after the "accords" hay
been signed. This will be their service to the nation. Secondly, restricting myself to thos parties which
came into being on the basis of clear popular-democratic opposition to th status-quo, I advise that
electoral alliances, if considered necessary, should be construct on clear progressive political platforms.
Such a platform should include, minimally, t' following four elements: the National Question and the
imperative of a geo-politic restructuring through a Sovereign National Conference (SNC); the
constitutional recognitio of basic social-economic rights of the Nigerian people including the right to
educatio health and employment; the secularity of the Nigerian state; and the recognition of th extreme
danger to national unity (or even existence) which periodic killings of Nigerians b their compatriots
poses.
64

21
Nigeria 2003: History Repeated 1st May, 2003 ALL an article, "The stolen presidency", published in
the Sunday Tribune of ember 4, 1979. It was written by Tai Solarin whom. I shall simply describe here

as t Nigerian and a leading member of the Unity Party ofNigeria (UPN). He was five weeks after the
installation of Shehu Shagari, on October 1, 1979, as president ederal Republic of Nigeria. In that
article, Tai Solaria, now late, made an unusual political projection: "if this government (meaning the
Federal Government of President Shagari) lasts for four years, the four-year NPN (National Party of
Nigeria) will been firmly planted as Government Party everywhere, and the UPN, GNPP, the NPP the
PRP will have been drained to annihilation, both in membership - it is already - and in morale. The
1983 election would , therefore, be between the NPN and the .11tionary Party, which having studied
how the NPN came to power, knows exactly to do to supplant the NPN for the presidency. There would
then be a confusion on the raft. Then a splash. Then commotion among the sharks. And we, the
common le, will have, as victims, paid the supreme sacrifice". Tai Solarin's projection can be separated
into three parts. The first was that within years, the "victorious" NPN would have been "firmly planted"
as the government everywhere, that is, including the Western States whose governments the UPN then
Aed. In the second projection, Tai Solarin said that within four years the parties in sition to the NPN,
that is, GNPP, NPP, PRP and his own party, UPN, would have "drained to annihilation" in membership
and morale, that is, as a political force. The projection was the boldest of them all. It was that the
election of 1983 would be een NPN, that is, the Government Party, and the Revolutionary Party which
was yet erge as a consequence ofNPN installing itself as a government party everywhere and
opposition parties being drained to annihilation. History realised the first two projections 1 For its
realisation, the third projection required both objective and subjective factors. objective factor was
presented by history, in full; but the subjective factor was tragically
We may take the first two projections together. Chief Obafemi Awolowo's last litical battle was to keep
his party, the Unity Party ofNigeria (UPN) together against the Itless pressure of the ruling National
Party ofNigeria (NPN) between 1979 and 1983. soon as Shehu Shagari was announced winner of the
presidential contest, ChiefAwolowo
65

rallied the other presidential candidates: Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe ofthe Nigerian People's Party
(NPP),.Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim of the Great Nigerian People's Party (GNPP) and Malan Aminu Kano of
the People's Redemption Party (PRP). The four veterans held a joint press conference, rejecting the
result of the presidential election. The critical ground ofrejection was that Alhaji Shehu Shagari did not
score at least one-quarter of the total votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the total number of
states in Nigeria. The published results showed that Shagari scored at least one-quarter of the votes cast
in only 12 of the 19 states into which Nigeria was then divided. The critical question was: What is twothird of 19 states? Awolowo said it was 13. The electoral body. following the opinion of NPN, said it
was 12 two-third. The Supreme Court of Nigeria decided it was the latter, and Shagari was proclaimed
president. The opposition parties later formed the Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA) of four parties, or
rather, of the governors elected on the platforms of four parties: UPN, NPP. GNPP and PRP. UPN
controlled the governments of the five western states: Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Ondo and Bendel. NPP
controlled three states: Anambra, Imo and Plateau. GNPP controlled two states: Borno and Gongola;
and PRP controlled two states: Kaduna and Kano. The ruling NPN controlled the remaining seven
states: Rivers, Cross River, Kw-ara, Sokoto, Bauchi, Benue and Niger. Thus, on the face of it, the
opposition was formidable, especially given the fact that their combined strength in the National
Assembly, if applied, could block any federal legislation. But this was not to be. Before long, NPP
reached an "accord" with the NPN and joined the federal government. The PRP leadership, after
"expelling" its two governors from the party, moved close to the ruling NPN and got some of its
leading members appointed advisers and assistants in the NPN federal government. The GNPP

leadership also dealt with its "erring" governors and was accordingly compensated. The NPP governors
could not be expelled: rather, the governors forced their party out ofthe federal government. But in
doing this, the NPP lost some of its leading members to NPN, The "draining to annihilation" predicted
by Tai Solarin had started. ChiefAwolowo and his party, the UPN, appeared impregnable. But not for
too long. The crises in the UPN took three main forms: defections from the party to NPN in search
of"greener pastures". struggles to supplant incumbent UPN governors as gubernatorial candidates of
the party in succeeding elections; and opposition to Awolowo's alleged "rigidity", dictatorial
tendencies". and "tribalism". Except that I do not subscribe to the charges against ChiefAwolowo, 1
would say that the three forms of party crises were also present in Alliance for Democracy (AD) in
Obasanjo's Republic. By the time the first post-1979 general elections were held between August and
,September 1983, the UPN had been thoroughly shaken: it,had not yet been "drained to annihilation",
but ChiefAwolowo had started to lose control of his party and many of his leading disciples. And, as a
consequence of this, his ability to check the power of the federal government had begun to decline.
Thus, the electoral body was able to announce, in August 1983, not only that Azikiwe and Awolowo
were defeated, once again. by Shehu Shagari in the presidential election but also that the ruling NPN
had increased the number of states it controlled from seven in 1 979 to 12 in 1983. From UPN, NPN
"captured" Oyo
66
it attempted to "capture" Ondo State, but failed. red the sacrifice of hundreds of human lives and
millions of naira to make e what it had almost swallowed. The NPN released Kwara State to UPN.
NPN "captured" Anambra State. Imo State was spared because incumbent Sam Mbakwe, went on air to
declare that if his mandate was stolen, then uld not live to use it. The NPN robbers knew he was
serious. From PRP, Kaduna State; and from the GNPP, the "ruling party" captured Bomo and the only
states the party controlled. In dealing with the opposition parties in NPN did not distinguish between
the UPN and NPP which had remained opposition, and the GNPP and PRP, or rather their leaderships,
which had the principle of"politics without bitterness", another name for accommodation similar thing
has happened two decades later, in 2003. History has been that in 2003, the party which sought
accommodation with the Government devastated, was the one flying Awolowo's flag. come to Tai
Solarin's third projection: the emergence of a Revolutionary having studied how the NPN came to
power knows exactly what to do to for the presidency". It was a loaded projection. Unfortunately, we
cannot am his terminal slumber to throw more light on it. But I hope that Nigerians the just concluded
"elections" in the country will appreciate his line of case, the projected Revolutionary Party did not
emerge between 1979 and ad not emerge between 1999 and 2003. The Second Republic alliance of 12
governors did not lead to the emergence of a Revolutionary Party. the governors reached out to leftists
and socialists outside the party system, :o a Revolutionary Party which, according to Tai Solarin's
projection, was supplanting the NPN. Revolutionary Leftists, on their own, did not succeed ?clueing a
revolutionary party. And NPN won again in 1983. now been repeated before our eyes. In 1999, the PDP
came to power es and considerations similar to those under which NPN came to power happened
between 1999 and 2003 seemed to follow the script written for He (1979-1983). PDP is the child of
NPN. A revolutionary party did not 999 and 2003 elections to engage this child, having, in the words of
Tai how it came to power in the first place. The PDP therefore "won" a second tly the same methods
used by its father, the NPN, in 1983. Did I say "the 7 Yes, the same methods, but now thoroughly
perfected. Do you ask me You know. Are you aggrieved? Then seek accommodation with the victorious
elections tribunals, or go back to Tai Solarin's historic projections. You uit history.
67

22
Fascism Through the Third Tier 17th July, 2003
TEACHERS ofPolitical Science like to differentiate between the authoritarian stat the totalitarian state,
and the autocratic state; and between these three state form and the fascist state. This academic exercise
is useful and I have no problem with except where imperialist, brainwashed "experts" try to equate any
or all of these forms state to Marxism, Socialism, or Communism. Politically, the four state forms are
variants dictatorship. That is what is of practical importance to partisans and advocates of populdemocracy. Authoritarianism, totalitarianism, autocracy and fascism have several politic features in
common. I shall proceed practically. An authoritarian state is a dictatorship in which political power is
centralised an concentrated in a dictator, or a small group, that is neither bound by a constitution - even
such a basic law exists - nor responsible to the people. An autocratic state is a dictatorshl in which the
dictator has unlimited power. A totalitarian state is a dictatorship in which t state is deified" to be
worshipped and unquestioningly obeyed by the people and whe there is a strict often militarised,
control of political and non-political spheres of life. fascist state is a dictatorship which combines
features of autocracy, authoritarianism a totalitarianism. It is erected on the suppression and
dismantling of all opposition. A fasci state may be supported by a political movement which terrorises
the civil society, or ideology which extols the virtues of order and discipline, or both. A fascist state
often exa a nation, a race, or an ethnic group while identifying a group or groups which it denounc as
main "enemy". Any of these state-forms can operate on a privatised economy or . nationalised
economy. History has shown this abundantly.. So, none of the state forms "natural" to either capitalism
or socialism. We are led to this excursion because of the current political trends in the count including
the threat to the local government system in Nigeria - trends and threats whi make it obligatory on us,
from now on, to carefully follow, and anticipate, the evolution the new political dispensation in the
country. We have to apprehend the emerge phenomenon and quickly and boldly identify its features
and motive forces, as well aspects of it that are new or unique, and those that had previously been
thrown up history. My fear is that the country may be heading, very rapidly, to a particularly bru form
of dictatorship. It is, however, sterile, at this stage, to quarrel over the specific label be given to the
evolving political regime, just as it is dangerous to simply call it a dictators) and stop there. After all,
Babangida's regime was a dictatorship; so was Abacha's and ei,
68

Shagari's. We have to closely watch President Obasanjo's administration as we watch every evolving
phenomenon - without dogmatism or prejudice. The warnings so far given by some media
commentators over "alarmist" ciations ofFederal Government's advertised intention to review the local
government em in the country are in order. Raising alarms without providing some analysis - even - can
mislead or confuse the people, in addition to damaging the credibility of L:7-ie opposition. It can also
be irresponsible. But then, there were strong reasons for the is which the local government reform
announcement generated across the country. In place, it is generally known that right from the
inception ofObasanjo's administration, over four years ago, state governors have never been
comfortable with the local ent system. The governors - of course in varying degrees, depending on
party ns, local balance of forces and personal interests - would prefer the local government to be a state
ministry, completely under the control of the governor with nominal or -isory role for the House
ofAssembly. In the second place, the record of actual relationships between the governors and
government chairpersons has been a very bad one. This was partly the result of izevernment
chairpersons trying to pose and operate as Chief Executives of their nts with all the endowments and
preferments they believe they see in the 1999 mution and the country's political culture. Beyond this,
the war-like relationship was 'due result of the general struggle for primitive capitalist accumulation, a

permanent 'tafunderdeveloped capitalist political economy. Primitive accumulation, or struggle

`"'national cake", is a factor which defies all morality, all ethics and all social rules, those of personal
relationships. So, when people heard the announcement that the ernment system would be reviewed
what came to their minds was "Ah! The have won". Genuine fears over the possibility of Nigeria
becoming a one-party state or, more id'y, a one-party dictatorship, are not new. False alan-ns are also
not new. Tendencies rz-ism have been part of the country's political history since independence. But
%,eri..s and pronouncements, starting from the April/May 2003 election and culminating mithe:Inite
postponement of council elections, pending "restructuring", and the war on .ia oil price increases, have
raised the level of national apprehension over the -12: my review of the general elections I was reliably
informed that many victorious f the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were embarrassed by the
size of ated to them. Are-elected state governor declared, in a private meeting, that _re was to win
decently and convincingly - that is, beyond any doubt - and in the He said he did not ask for the
"landslide" that was given to him; nor did he ::-Le to give him a hundred per cent vote in his or her
ward or local government happened was that most commissioners, special advisers; special assistants
ical appointees and party functionaries believed their only chance of retaining , or being re-appointed,
lay in their "delivering" as many votes as possibly, the votes, in their "areas" and "communities" to the
governor. Candidates for council elections competed among themselves for the highest number of
1111,
69

votes or percentage allocations to be delivered to the governor. While some were able obtain about 85
per cent, others targeted 100 per cent. A few went beyond the 100 p cent, that is, delivered more votes
than the number of registered voters. In many wards local government areas, opposition candidates
were allocated ridiculously low votes. some areas, they were simply given zero while their PDP
conquerors scored tens or ev hundreds of thousands. The situation, which was the same in at least other
parts of th geographical South, that is, in 17 states, was sufficient to re-inforce the widespread fe that
PDP was pushing for a one-party dictatorship. The main proposition of this piece is the answer to this
question: If President Oluseg Obasanj o, with the support of the National Council of State, had not
intervened withl-setting up of a technical committee for the review of the local government system and
h instead, allowed council elections to take place across the country in June 2003, wh would have been
the result? My submission is that the PDP would have captured all t chairpersonship and councillorship
seats in all the states of the geographical South - the possible exception of Lagos State where, for
purely tactical reasons, PDP would ha settled for a "draw" with the Alliance for Democracy (AD). In
the geographical North, t. PDP would have performed a similar feat in at least half of the states. The
logical question that arises from here is this: If the victorious PDP was in t position to expand its
electoral "landslide" to local council areas and wards, that is, to grassroots, why should it bother to
tamper with the local government structure" which party will control, whatever it is? The point is that
the President and the leadership of PDP are conscious of the deep contradictions within the party"
contradictions which tlif know cannot be purged (ethnic, religious, accumulationist). The proposed
restructuring the third tier of government is meant to compel directors, members and leaders of the P to
respect and abide by the hierarchy of the party and un-written rules of allocation of' "national cake".
Many "stake-holders" in PDP believe that the local government is not a of government but a
department of state government. In short, the restructuring, wh dealing with the opposition by making
the local government system a PDP agency, resolve or arrest some of the main contradictions within the
ruling party itself. And for nation and its suffering peoples, it will be fascism from the grassroots. I may
conclude on a charitable note. The president has the right to set up a "techn:. committee" to advise him
on local government reforms. He has the right to initiate constitutio amendments to this effect. But he

has no right to commit illegalities while pursuing th political objectives. And we, as a people, have the
right to oppose him and his party. Gi), recent developments and current trends, the PDP can easily
become a fascist mover and the Nigerian state, a fascist state. The rudiments of a fascist ideology are
already th "To move the country forward".
70

23
Labour in Nigerian Politics 18th March, 2004
HAD concluded the draft of the article "An Experience in Labour Politics" (The Guardian, March 4,
2004) when I learnt of the formation of a new Labour Party in Abuja. My aim in the present piece is to
sketch the involvement of the Nigeria labour c.ment and its fractions in Nigerian politics and, in so
doing, assist younger Nigerians to
the report of the birth of the new Labour Party in a proper historical context. My sources are Robin
Cohen's Labour and Politics in Nigeria (critically read), veteran and socialist teachers and fighters dead and alive - and my humble self. I focus on I. coups and big events, not because small groups and
small events are not important - in :hey have relatively been very important - but because they are not
the subjects of the fs,fnt exercise. By way of introduction, it is necessary to state that there is a big
difference between abour movement" and "labour unions", in particular. The Nigeria Labour Congress
(NLC) our union, being a union of labour unions in their essential ramifications. I have made r- liar
distinction between social (or mass) movements and non-governmental organisations It _-0s). The
Nigerian labour movement is larger and more robust than the Nigeria Labour ress (NLC) since the
latter is part of the former. Comrades Eskor Toyo and Baba o la are not part of the NLC but are
frontline members o f the Nigerian labour movement. are many partisans of the labour movement who
are not members of any labour or the NLC, who are not paid employees of the unions or NLC, and who
are not vtr. 'workers' in the strict sense. These clarifications are simply a prelude to the following that it
is the Nigerian labour movement, rather than the Nigerian labour unions, that en involved, and could
have been involved in Nigerian politics defined strictly here as 2de for power; and that of idea of
involvement of lab6ur unions, as labour unions, in in the sense attached to it here, is grotesque.
Apolitical organisation of the working ins 5 . which is aimed at political power should not be confused
with the economic groupings lass created for the protection and expansion of workers' rights under a
given slave And you cannot transform the latter into the former by simply renaming it, or enlarging
Soho on paper. be Nigeria Labour Organisation was set up in 1930 by J.A. Olushola and others "in sr.
nse to growing unemployment" in colonial Nigeria. The following year, in 1931, the an Workers'
Union/Nigeria Labour Party "set up by I.T.A. Wallace Johnson, a radical ier Leone journalist". Then. in
1948, Michael Imoudu. Coker and some other militant :Ialists and trade unionists decided to form a
Labour Party. Between 1948 and 1956,
71

several "workers - oriented political groups" were formed. These included the United Fron of the
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and NNDP Market Women's Guild. The Fron which was supported by
the NCNC contested the Lagos Town Council Election of Octob 1950 and won 18 out of the 24 seats in
contest. This was followed by the Freedo Movement (1950), the League (1951), the Convention
Peoples Party of Nigeria an Cameroons (1951), and the United Working Peoples Party (1952). In 1956,
a new Nigeri Labour Party was formed with Michael Imoudu as President and S.U. Bassey as Genera

Secretary. The party announced that it stood "against regionalisation in any shape or form' Members
included Tunji Otegbeye and Eskor Toyo. In 1961, the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) was formed. Led
by Gogo Chu Nzeribe an P.A. Curtis Joseph and others, the NPP declared itself the "party of the
Nigerian workin class - of the worker's, women, farmers and peasants, youths, students and progressiN
businessmen, intellectuals and professionals". In 1963, the Socialist Workers and Farme Party
(SWAFP) was formed with Otegbeye, Toyo, Goodluck, Bassey, Fatogun in th leadership. The party
declared: "Experience has shown that the struggle for total independenc and socialism may take any
forms ranging from parliamentary to armed struggle". In 1964 a new Nigeria Labour Party was formed
with Imoudu and Toyo in leadership. Later i 1964 or early 1965, some activists including Ola Oni,
Baba Omojola, Jonas Abam an t Khayam, broke away from the Nigeria Labour Party and formed the
Revolutiona Nigerian Labour Party. We may, without harming this review, take a 13-year leap to July
1977 when a All-Nigeria Socialist Conference took place in Zaria. The conference resolved that a
sociali
party should be formed, and that this party should be open and as inclusive as possible. smaller
conference was held in Lagos in September 1978. When the military government o General Olusegun
Obasanjo lifted the ban on open political activities later that year tw small parties emerged: the
Socialist Working Peoples Party (SWPP), led by Comrad Dapo Fatogun and the Socialist Party of
Workers, Farmers and Youths (SP V?IFY), led tr, Comrade Ola Oni. Predictably, none of the two
parties was registered for the gener elections which ushered in the Second Republic on October 1,
1979. The parties howev survived the civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari which was
overthrown i December 1983. On July 10, 1986, a new Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) which was
formed eigl years earlier, submitted a memorandum to the Political Bureau at a ceremony held at th
National Theatre, Lagos. The memorandum was drafted by socialists and leaders of th NLC. The
presentation ceremony was attended not only by leaders of the NLC and it affiliate unions but also by
nationalist politicians and socialists - young and old. Some membe of the Political Bureau were present
to receive the memorandum. Of course, a number o Bureau members, including Pascal Bafyau and
Ibrahim Halilu and myself, attended in du capacity: as partisans of the labour movement and as Bureau
members. The memorandum, titled "Towards a Viable and Genuinely Democratic Future' opened with
a declaration: "The numerous problems facing Nigerian workers, rural an urban poor, today have their
origin in politics. Therefore, the problems of unemployment 72

()went, retrenchment, factory closures, high cost of living, inability to bitant medical care, taxation,
excessive school fees and all forms of ducts of political decisions. Thus, it is clear that the problems
ofNigerian zone multi-dimensional and as such cannot be resolved within the strial relations practice".
Compare this declaration with what the current LC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, was reported to have
said at the e new Labour Party in Abuja on February 28, 2004, namely that "the as incursion into
mainstream politics because it has realised that solutions ions could not be solved through strike
actions", which he hinted Labour wry of. There are similarities between 1986 and 2004. There are also
4LC memorandum continued: "Labour in politics would broaden genuine io, it would halt the use of
tribalism, statism and religious differences as mipulating the people; it would be oriented and, above
all, forge a truly his- Id a definite ideological posture - which shall be socialism. For the bjective,
workers and other democratic groups and progressive individuals paoldet". Again, compare this with
what Comrade Sylvester Ejio for, the lithe new Labour Party said at the inauguration of the party on
February dy a state driven by the New Nigerian Personality, with a genuinely *Hess outlook, that can
engineer and empower the people socially and Spot the similarities and dissimilarities between 1986
and 2004. week ofApril 1989, the NLC sponsored a national workshop in Calabar abour and the

Transition Programme". The workshop was attended by The NLC leadership, senior staff associations
and mass organisations, ,leftist professionals, veteran labour and socialist leaders, radical youths,
oresolved that "Nigeria6Woiicers, in collaboration with other patriotic ry a very active role in General
Babangida's transition programme. In vochan effective role, the workshop urges the NLC to actively
sponsor the lour Party to prepare and contest for power in the Third Republic". The di was proclaimed
in Lagos on May 20, 1989, was sponsored by two ,arable, segments of the Labour Movement: the NLC
and the socialists. lior developed between the two sponsors over organisation, strategy and y regime
banned all the newly formed parties, including the Labour Party, year. anonpts have been made since
then to form a new Labour or Worker-It .h success was recorded...until the announcement of a Labour
Party ,Febromry 28, 2004. Last words: In the politics of the Nigerian left - until, - the terms "labour",
"working people's" and "socialist", when used meant the same thing and were used interchangeably.
73

24
The Rise And Fall Of A 'Saint' 27th May, 2004
N 1988, Jeffery Archer, the master story-teller, put out a collection of short stories titled: "A Twist in
the Tale". Like the collection he published eight years earlier, A Twist in the Tale had a piece on
Nigeria. The piece, with the title "Clean Sweep Ignatius", is the second in the 12-story package, and
one of the shortest nine pages only. In his preface. Archer warned us that: "of these 12 short stories,
gathered in my travels, 10 are based on known incidents - some embellished with considerable licence.
Only two are totally the result of my own imagination". There is also the self-protection declaration:
"This is the work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental". In summarising and presenting Archer's "Clean Sweep
Ignatius", I strongly feel the need to protect myself with the author's two refrains. And I hereby do so.
Beyond this, though remaining faithful to the core, I have also addee my own "embellishments" to the
story. We must first try to sketch the setting of Clean Sweep Ignatius. Archer publishes his story in
1988. So the incident must have taken place not later than 1988. Then mentioned a Nigerian Head of
State. So, the time could not have been before October 1. 1960, since the Queen of England was
Nigeria's Head of State before independence on October 1, 1960. Then, he indicated that the Head of
State in question was a military man. So, the period could only have been after January 15, 1966 when
the first military coup took place. Then, he mentioned Federal Parliament. There is a problem here,
since there were no parliaments during military dispensations. We can resolve this only by assumin:
that this was one ofArchers' "literary embellishments", that he meant one of those gathering that
resembled a parliament, such as the elite gathering before which Ministers in military. administrations
often tried to sell their masters' policies. Next, the author said that the incumbent Minister of State was
the 17th person to occupy that position in 17 years. Th reader may work this out him or herself, but
should note that the period in question between 1966 and 1988. The reader bears the responsibility for
the result of the exercist For Archer, as well as for me, we are dealing with a work of fiction.. No public
or maL excitement was generated by the appointment of the Minister of State. The appointmeni was
simply carried in the media, as expected. After all, the previous 16 ministers did not el much to reduce
the level of corruption in the country, nor were they known not to 1: corrupt themselves. But we cannot
say the same of the bureaucrats and the busines
74
at home and abroad.

They must have formed initial opinions on the new man and confirmed or changed tons as the man
started to act. In any case, the Minister soon established himself, opinion and in the media, as a
courageous and tireless crusader against corruption. people began, belatedly, to research and
acknowledge his honest and anti- credentials and antecedents. Some people concluded that he was, in
fact, a
Within months of his appointment, the Minister shocked many political observers for corruntion, a
senior bureaucrat in the mink-try "a -r-rpAri

invitation to a private meeting with the Head of State. The Minister tidied his office befa leaving for the
State House, almost convinced that he would either not return or ret-u. without his office. But the Head
of State surprised him. He was commended and thank for his performance, especially for his
courageous war on corruption. As a mark of confider in the Minister, he was now to be given a
sensitive and special assignment: compiling the _ of Nigerians who had private accounts in Swiss
banks, and how much each person Iv holding. The Minister was permitted to travel to any part of the
world, and to use a means available, assured that he was protected by the power of the Nigerian state;
he vr to conduct his investigations in utmost secrecy, starting with members of the junta's cabin past
and present. The budget for the assignment was open that is, unlimited. Before - minister took his
leave, he was given a special letter of authority, signed by the Heac State, to enter places, ask questions
and demand documents. He was given the rank Ambassador Plenipotentiary whenever he travelled
abroad. Finally, the Head of State hari the Minister a small pistol authorising him to use it if at any time
he found this necessar: The Minister quickly completed his assignment in Nigeria and prepared to try.
abroad. Since his assignment was a secret one, he had to lie to everybody, including family. He told the
latter, made up of his wife and four children, to prepare for a two-w vacation somewhere on the west
coast ofAmerica. They arrived there five days later checked into a luxurious hotel. A day after their
arrival, the Minister told his wife tha: would be travelling for two or three days to New York, on the
east coast ofAmerica. meet with a potential investor. The woman and her children should enjoy
themselves worry little about the bills. He then boarded a plane for New York, as he told his wife. he
spent only two hours in the city. From New York he flew to Geneva and, on am. checked into an
inconspicuous hotel. He slept soundly. On the following day, he we: one of the banks whose particulars
he had with him. He carried a briefcase. After t_ long hours, the Minister emerged from the building
without a brief case. The numb Nigerians with private bank accounts in Swiss banks had increased by
one! He left Ge-: a few hours later to re-join his family on the west coast ofAmerica. On his return to
Nigeria, the Minister went to the Head of State and handed him a list Head of State went through the
long list, thanked the Minister profusely, remarking that he had left out a name. "Who?", asked the
Minister nervously. "You", replied the of State with a smile. My question: At what point did the "saint"
start to fall?
76

25
The Politics of Nigerian History 19th May, 2005
preparing this article, but with a slightly different title, wondering what be an appropriate focus, and
what "peg" to use, I saw a story captioned -colonial officer faults amalgamation of Nigeria". The story
was based on a - titled "Nigerian Lesson" written by a former colonial officer in Nigeria and to The

Guardian in London. It appeared on the front page ofthe newspaper's y, April 28, 2005. ugh the story
which extends to the second page of the paper, I could not see on of the caption, but rather a regret over
the federal structure which the al power handed over to Nigeria at independence. There was nothing in
the story to justify the following opening paragraph: "From one of Britain's key in the designing of the
entity called Nigeria has come a damning verdict: It was a on the part of the colonial power to have
forced the different ethnic groups into a 14 ti cal entity." The point I am making here has to be stated
very clearly - for it is central in my on this issue. First, there is a difference between a regret over
"amalgamation", referring to the merger of the Southern and Northern Protectorates of Nigeria in and a
regret over the federal structures fashioned for independent Nigeria by the colonial power and Nigeria's
constitutional politicians between 19A4 and 1959. The regrets" are not the same, and one must not be
confused with the other. Of course, Eas the right to harbour the two "regrets", but they should be stated
separately. One also hold the view that the amalgamation of 1914 led to the bad federal structure of
1959) and the contemporary national question. But the person holding such a view be prepared to prove
it. My plea therefore is that one should make oneself very clear, tat we can freely decide to agree, or
disagree; and if the latter, to be able to, say where disagreement lies. This plea is all the more urgent,
even passionate, given that the way eria was formed, or rather, the way the formation of Nigeria is
reconstructed and
immilL-Treted is now, for some social and political forces, the central planks in the argument the
geopolitical restructuring of Nigeria. On the other hand, social and political forces no are opposed to
geopolitical restructuring or (a return to) regionalism and what they see "-ethnic politics" are assailing
these planks which they regard as myths. Any intervention imm..Lst be based on a clear understanding
of the opposing positions, and the latter must ternselves be very clear. The politics ofNigerian history
should be engaged with some
77

rules of engagement. The popular understanding ofthe creation of Nigeria, or the final act ofthis
creation is tha in 1914 Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria were amalgamated to produce a single
untry, called Nigeria. The critical word is "amalgamation," a very strong word, and a large theme, in
Nigerian history. While some intellectuals and political forces endorse and promote this understanding,
and build political campaigns for geopolitical restructuring on it, some hold that this understanding is
superficial and dangerously misleading, capable of being used against the unity and corporate existence
of the country. Bala Usman and Allcassun-Abba, in their book, The Misrepresentation ofNigeria, first
published in 2000 and re issued this year, strongly argued against the popular understanding. Let me
summarise what I understand as their position on this question. This can be found in Chapter 4 titled
"'Tlaref myths about the formation ofNigeria". The "myths" which, Usman and Abba sought to,
explode are, according to them, "the myth about what happened in 1914; the myth that Nigeria is an
arbitrary creation of the British; and the myth about Nigeria's internationa. boundaries". On the
question of 1914, they argued that the amalgamation of the Color,' and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria
and the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria in 1914 was the culmination of a series of amalgamations,
starting from 1893, and resulting in creation of the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. They argued
that the amalgamatic7 was not the merger of two separate and well-fonned entities, the North and the
Souf:.1.. "The amalgamation of 1914", they affirmed, "did not amalgamate two distinct entities,
standing apart from one another and having some cohesion on their own". I underAai them to be saying
that at the time the two protectorates were proclaimed in 1900, wh existed were not distinct or cohesive
entities, but "spheres of influence". Usman and Abba also argued that the formation of Nigeria, through
amalgamatio_ and incorporations continued right up to 1914, and beyond. Except for two brief
commen given below, I do not have any problem in appending to the authors' affirmation, a note took

long ago on this subject: "Hence, three separate, independent and uncoordinat forces, centred
respectively at Lagos (under a colonial governor), old Calabar (under Foreign Office Consul) and
Lokoj a (under a chartered trading company), spread out fro their bases and ultimately acquired control
over an immense block of tropical Africa endow with the name Nigeria". My first comment is that,
even ifthe forces seemed "uncoordinat on the ground, as they "spread out", they must have been
coordinated in London, t imperial capital. And the second is that the "spreading out" of the three forces
- if true would seem to indicate that what existed were "spheres of influence" yet to be brOu.,..71 under
British colonial rule. Parts of these "spheres of influence" would also seem to hat. been later conceded
to France and Germany. On the question of arbitrary creation Usman and Abba cited two frontline
Nigerian histori a: 5 J.F. Ade Aj ayi and E.J. Alagoa in support of their position that "in the light of
Britai:T economic and strategic interest" the "geographical compactness" of the area which la-. became
Nigeria "made these series of amalgamations, ending up with Nigeria in 19 imperative". I cannot now
say whether 1 had this "compactness" in mind when, in a I delivered in December 1997 in Calabar on
this question I had said: "Perhaps, if 78

:;ists had not come, a state would have emerged in this part of the world, powerful to weld together the
various ethnic groups and communities and create a nation out
On the question ofNigeria's international boundaries, Usman and Abba cited another the Nigerian
historian, J.C. Anene, to support their contention that Nigeria's borders not arbitrarily drawn. Anene
was quoted as saying: "No objective criticism of the laries ofNigeria should leave out of account the
realities of political and economic ions which prevailed in the boundary zones at the time the
boundaries emerged. If the of the negotiations are viewed against the background of these conditions,
one cannot e the conclusion that the boundaries represented, to a surprising degree, the realities [existed
at that time". In the context of this conclusion, I would request a confirmation, or otherwise, of !lowing
statement which I found in one of my study notebooks: "The first official 7::tion of the name 'Nigeria'
appeared in the debate in the House of Commons on the Niger Company Bill in 1899. Several persons
have tried, however, to discover who d the name. According to A. H. M. Kirk-Green, it was the London
Times in its issue itiary 8, 1897. Later in the same notes: "In the historical development of Nigeria, the
L was in a sense tacked on to the South, but the name 'Nigeria' was first given to the

Id like to conclude with two statements. First, the immediate future ofNigeria will not id on what we
are now made to learn, or unlearn, about the fon-nation of the country. eria breaks up, or is restructured
along ethnic and regional lines, or adopts a "true and federalism", or retains the present structure, it will
not be on account of new discoveries the way the country came into being. The fundamental internal
threat to the unity and rate existence ofNigeria is the suffering and deprivation which the Nigerian
masses the land actually see, feel and experience. It is the struggle of suffering masses that ssional
politicians will hijack; and then tragically re-direct. Remove this fun(' lmental . and you exhaust the
current debate. Secondly, there exists a national (or rather, ethnic nationality) question in Nigeria.
rtunately, or unfortunately, the solution cannot be found along ethnic lines for at least imple objective
reasons, namely: the ethnic nationality question has merged with the luestion, ethnic nationality
boundaries have disappeared in most parts of the country; thnically speaking, Nigeria's population
distribution is, today, so thoroughly mixed. Dlution to the ethnic nationality question, therefore, has to
be popular-democratic. In summary: the political battle over Nigerian history is very unlikely to lead to
a : the ethnic nationality question which is real in Nigeria has to be resolved within a .r-democratic
context; and the current popular mass disaffection - which may times take ethnic or religious forms could be opportunistically seized upon by the classes to seek ethno-religious solutions in their own
selfish interest.

79

26
The Movement of Nigeria's. Presidency 26th May, 2005
HE subject is the struggle over the movement ofNigeria's presidency; and I thi: should start from the
beginning. The clamour for "power shift", based on a natio - consensus or agreement, started early in
General Ibrahim Babangida's regime (198 1993). But it became a definitive political campaign after
Major Gideon Orka's abortiN coup ofApri122, 1990. In general, power shift, a mainstream political
concept, is a shortha, for the shift of political power, at the centre, from one geopolitical zone to
another. B when the campaign started it specifically meant the shift of political power from "Lugar
North" to "Lugard South" or more specifically, to what is now known as the South-We geopolitical
zone. For the same reasons that I am starting from the beginning, I think some explanat notes are
necessary here. By "mainstream politics", I mean the politics of the ruling clas and blocs; and by
"Lugard North" (which is henceforth simply referred to as the North mean the territory amalgamated
with the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria 1914. With minor adjustments, this territory is
coextensive with the present 19 states wh ruler gave the name "Northern States". By the same token, by
"Lugard South" (and n the South), I mean the territory given the name Colony and Protectorate of
Southern Nig in 1906 and then amalgamated with the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria in 1914 to fo the
Colony and Protectorate ofNigeria. With minor adjustments this territory is coextensi with the 17 states
which now go by the name "Southern States". The South-West geopolitio zone is coextensive with
post-1963, but pre-1967, Western Region, plus Lagos, or mL. specifically with the present Lagos,
Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Osun and Ekiti states. When General Babangida created his National Republican
Convention (NRC) Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1989, some groups within the latter reached a
"pow_ rotation" accord, to the effect that the North would produce the national party chairrn while the
South would prockice the party's presidential candidate who, in the event of party's success at the polls,
would become the President of the Federal Republic ofNigern A similar "agreement" was reached in
NRC, but in the latter the North was to produce , presidential candidate, leaving the national party
headship for the South. Although the mili regime was at that time "fine-tuning" anew constitution, only
a few politicians were bother about constitutions - after all, they had been without one for so long. All
that mattered v, a solid "arrangement" to succeed General Babangida. The agreements collapsed, as
everyone, with the possible exception of those do:
80

,:-zotiation", knew they would. Regardless of their sincerity - which was negligible - otiators did not
have the power to execute them. And these forces were the military e and the power-blocs, which
supported them. Eventually, however, after several of the transition programme, after several bannings
and un-bannings ofcandidates, forms ofarm-twisting by the military regime, a Southern (or rather,
South-Western) e emerged for the SDP and a Northern candidate for the NRC. A Presidential took place
on June 12, 1993, and the SDP's Southern candidate won. The election the result) was annulled, and the
winner thrown into detention. The "power shift" returned to the starting point. The Interim National
Government (ING) installed on August 26, 1993, as a means General Babangida out of office, had a
Southerner as Head. The regime lasted ee months, and was replaced by the military junta of General
Sani Abacha. The for "power shift" and "Southern President" resumed. But by the time General on June
8, 1998, he was close to transforming himself into a civilian president, definitively rejecting the "power

shift" demand. Amonth later the jailed winner 1993 presidential election, Bashorun Moshood Abiola,
also died. We were to the beginning. It was during the 12-month transitional military regime of lami
Abubakar that an implementable "power shift" agreement appeared reached. And this happened
because the military regime, the "international arid the ruling power-blocs in Nigeria supported the
idea. Olusegun Obasanjo, the first beneficiary of the new "power shift" agreement, an elected civilian
President on May 29, 1999. The platform was the tic Party (PDP), a government party from the point of
conception. The "'mower shift" agreement were not announced, nor were they expected to be later,
during the first term of President Obasanjo, when some "unserious" people started campaigning to
succeed to the presidency, and the President to be preparing for re-election, a disputed secret agreement
came to the that the agreement reached under General Abubakar stipulated that V6 0 uld govern for
only one four-year term, and then yield power (or, as iot return power) to the North. The controversy,
which raged for some have been resolved with another agreement: President Obasanjo could the
contest would be thrown open to the entire South. But, after this would definitely return to the North.
The agreement was of course that the government party. The agreement is now being implemented,
within and without, and feeble attempts at revision, as we march to
o(writing this piece, the main issue in the campaign for the scheduled 2007 is whether the incumbent
President Olusegun Obasanjo would namely: the agreement enshrined in the 1999 Constitution to mum
of two terms, and the extra-constitutional agreement to in 2007 by a Northerner. If the rumour that the
President is or extend the present one is true, then he will be violating the
81

two agreements unless the 1999 Constitution is constitutionally amended, or replaced, tc allow either of
these two speculations. Even then, the President's problem will not be over unless the constitutional
amendment, or replacement, is supported or, at least, not seriousl\ opposed, by the forces with whom he
is widely believed to have reached the extra-constitutional agreement. The President, directly and
through his assistants and advisers, with the exceptior of one or two, has repeatedly denied the charge
that an extension of tenure is being planned Those who doubt this denial hang their case on two pillars:
First, a couple ofmonths age. the President himself alleged that he was under pressure to stay in office "
a little longer". He did not name the people or forces mounting the pressure, but it is worthy of note
that he made the revelation, not in Nigeria, but in Europe - in Germany, to be specific. I am nc. aware
that he has repeated the charge. Many people believe the President was mercy, testing the waters' or
"flying a kite". The second source of doubt is the current National Political Reform Conference (NPRC
taking place in Abuja. The President's nominees in the Conference who include his mos; articulate
assistants and supporters have been behaving in a way reminiscent of ti: manoeuvres of Generals
Babangida and Abacha on the question of succession. Given th conduct of these functionaries, no one
who witnessed what happened under these Genera is likely to take the President by his words. The
critical element in the conduct of the President's men (and perhaps, worm:- was the manner, a
"mystery" Constitution was "smuggled" into the Conference. Ti controversy generated by the document
has since acquired a uniquely Nigerian flavo What are the facts of the case? The President announced
at the inauguration of the Confer that a number of documents would be presented to it as "background
papers". One these documents was to be the report of an All Party Constitution Review Committee the
draft amended Constitution emanating therefrom. When the document made appearance at the
conference it wasdiscoverethl&tit-wa`b the All Party Review Committee, but a different one.
Beyond that, it was discovered tliz the document was not a draft amendment of the 1999 Constitution,
but the draft of entirely new Constitution. The "mystery" Constitution prescribes a single six-year term
fa the office of President. The critics alleged that this was aimed at extending the tenure a President
Obasanjo by two years. An evil genius in Obasanjo's presidency could enter the following response:

"Tho was nothing mysterious either about the document or the way it was presented to Conference. The
All Party Review Committee was a presidential panel. So, there nothing wrong in the presidency
amending its report-by means of a white paper. That not derogate from its status as Report of the All
Party Review Committee. The charge smuggling could only have come from detractors. The document
was brought in bro day-light by Presidency officials and handed over to the Conference through some
of officials". The outcome of the Political Conference will, perhaps, settle this question.

27
Claimants To The Presidency 2nd June, 2005
gap between reality, and what rulers say is most evident in the "allocation" or "Idistribution" of political
power in Nigeria. What we are told is that there are 36 and a Federal Capital Territory, and that political
power at the centre is them. That is what the 1999 Constitution, following that of 1979, prescribes. Sani
Abacha's Constitutional Conference of 1995 there came a suggestion, cially adopted, but for the
purposes of sharing political power, the country divided into six geopolitical zones. Juxtaposed with
these prescriptions is an -er-distribution formula said to be based on the framework of the South and
replacing the pre-Civil War perception of a tripod comprising the North, the West or, more crudely,
Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. mere appearances, obscuring reality which lies deep, mocking at us.
The does not coincide with any of these declarations, is that there are two power-. The struggle for the
country's presidency is essentially between them. The the power-blocs is located in the northern part of
the country; the other in the And, to state the obvious, they are not "populist" or "bonapartist" or "all
they are class blocs. But to maintain and perpetuate the deception, the o appear national, and other
political forces are allowed to compete. This on will subsist until something gives way and a new
deception emerges. ever, is that, ultimately, a regime will merge which will start the process of cal
deception. this background, we may look at some of the claimants to the presidency t, according to the
1999 Constitution, at the end of May 2007. Two ans are here regarded as claimants: those who have
announced, directly their intention to contest the presidency in 2007, and those whose names ard, with
or without their public confirmation, as prospective candidates. is the current president, General
Olusegun Obasanjo. The others I shall o categories: those from the North and those from the South.
From the Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar; a former Military President, General a former Military Head
of State, General Muhammadu Buhari; a former of L agos State, Brigadier-General Buba Marwa; and a
serving civilian the South are three serving civilian Governors who may also accept to be candidates.
We know that, in Nigeria, politicians announce their interest
I
83

in high positions as a way of inviting serious negotiations of lower positions. President Olusegun
Obasanjo has publicly announced his intention to retire into private life once he has completed his
second term in May 2007. This is what the 1999 Constitution ofthe Federal Republic ofNigeria says.
Beyond that, this is the demand ofthe extra-constitutional agreement - alleged to have been reached
between the President and the Northern power-bloc. This alleged agreement requires that power return
to the North after May 2007. However, partisans have emerged campaigning for either the extension of
Obasanjo's tenure by two years or his being allowed to seek a third term. The campaign is being waged
inside the National Political Reform Conference through a manoeuvre to amend the present
Constitution or produce an entirely new one. The President has not ordered the campaigners to shut up.
Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has been in the race for the Presidency right from Obasanjo's first

inauguration when it was thought that his boss would be in office for only four years. If the office had
become vacant in 2003, Atiku would have become the favoured candidate among several other
candidates from the North. But the office did not become vacant and the attempt to press Obasanjo to
step down or, in the alternative, defeat him at the PDP presidential primaries, did not materialise. It was
strongly rumoured that Atiku significantly contributed to the defeat inflicted on former Vice-President
Alex Ekwueme at the primaries. If that was the case, Atiku's standing in the 2007 contest would have
been strengthened. The man has not publicly announced his candidature; but this is not necessary everyone knows he is contesting - even if it is ethical or permissible at this point in the life of a
government in which he is the official second-in-command. It is believed that, for various reasons, both
sides in the Obasanjo-Atiku relationship are trying hard to prevent an open rupture before the campaign
for 2007 is officially thrown open. General Muhammadu Buhari was the Military Head of State
between the night of December 30, 1983 and the morning ofAugust 27, 1985. His junta was brought to
power in a successful, but minimally bloody coup that removed civilian President Shehu Shagari from
office. 20 months later, Buhari and his deputy, General Tunde Idiagbon, were removed, and Generals
Ibrahim Babangida, Domkat Bali and SaniAbacha stepped in - with Navy Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe as
official political second-in-command. Buhari won the primaries of his party, the All Nigeria Peoples
Party (ANPP), for the 2003 presidential election. The contest in the party was very noisy, that is, noisier
than the average noise which electoral contests in Nigeria normally witness. However, Buhari won the
ANPP primaries. He chose the former Senate President, late Chuba Okadigbo, as running-mate. Buhari
lost the Presidential context - as many knew he would - to the incumbent, President Obasanjo. Buhari
lost for various reasons including the fact that he was not the candidate ofthe ruling party which the
power-blocs had not decided, again for various reasons, to abandon. I cannot now say if Buhari's legal
attempt to overturn his 2003 electoral defeat has come to an end. But the general has announced that he
would contest again, whenever the field is thrown open. General Ibrahim Babangida is General Ibrahim
Babangida, to adapt the language which a writer once used to introduce Professor Wole Soyinka. The
general does no
84

any introductions. We only need appropriate reminders: combat officer in the civil member of the
ruling Supreme Military Council in the Mohammed-Obasanjo ,:rations (1975-1979), liquidator
ofDimka's attempted coup (February 13, 1976), Ciiefof Staff under Buhari (December 1983-August
1985), Military President (August Au2ust 1993. I can say that, with the possible exception of late
General Murtala med, General Babangida had the capacity, more than any other ruler of Nigeria
..lependence, to attract to himself, as friends and collaborators, many members of intelligentsia, across
the land. of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election over which Babangida the
indications are that the general largely retains this attribute. Digging into this enon is outside the scope
of this piece. But the man is expected to contest the .vial primaries of the ruling PDP and go on to
contest the main election if he wins the es. And I think I can take the risk of making this addition: He
will definitely contest, his friend and former boss, President Obasanjo, does not seek a re-election or n
of his current tenure. Of all the "new corners" to the presidential race, from the North, the most
prominent 1 Marwa, a former Military Governor of Lagos State. His credentials appear to his alleged
performance in Lagos, his rising profile in the business world, the ease h he makes friends across
ethnic, regional and religious boundaries, his warm and bearing, and perhaps his being a son-in-law in
the south of the Niger-Benue cc - just like Babangida and Atiku. Some people allege, perhaps unfairly,

that he is r, substitute for General Babangida. Marwa comes from the same state as Atiku, explaining
why his recent public declaration for the ruling PDP was controversial violent. The other two
presidential "hopefuls" from the North are serving civilian one of them from the opposition party, the
ANPP. From the South, several groups and individuals have announced their claim to, or tn. the
presidency The groups include the leading "socio-cultural" formations in the t and South-South
geopolitical zones, while the individuals include at least one ilian governor. It would appear that either
these groups and individuals are the extra-constitutional agreement which zoned the presidency after
2007, to the or are using their declarations as "bargaining chips", a normal thing in Nigeria's politics. If
the latter, then, perhaps, the South-East groups are continuing their .against "marginalisation" and
President Obasanjo's high-handedness in the Anambra crisis; and the South-South groups may be
raising the stakes in their campaign for control" and "fiscal federalism". And if the groups are
contesting the extra-al power-zoning agreement, then they face an uphill task, to say the very least.
How the Nigerian state and the power blocs will manage, and then resolve, these t be predicted at this
point. All we can say now is that the incumbent Presidency National Political Reform Conference hold
the key to the immediate future.
85

28
Nigeria and the American Prediction 23rd June, 2005 AnN American intelligence agency recently
predicted that Nigeria might cease tc exist as a united country, or might become a "failed state", in
about 10 years fron ow. The Nigerian government and its institutions and functionaries, as expected
protested vehemently. I remarked that many of these official protesters were bein hypocritical, that
they, and indeed many professional politicians voice American-typ( predictions from time to time.
Several ordinary Nigerians also protested - some sincerely others less so. However, there were several
others who, while also protesting, suggestec we look inward to see the bases, if any, for this prediction
and what might be done tc prevent it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Naturally, many Nigerians,
including myself, would support a retreat to honest "soul searching". We should do this whether or not
the American agency concerned has retractet the prediction and whether or not the American
government, through its Nigerian embassy has also denied that the intelligence agency in question had
any ulterior motive in looking into the "crystal balls" and revealing what it saw. But I would wish to
preface this effort witl two propositions. They are simple and potentially non-controversial, but
nonetheles! irreducible. My first proposition is that American rulers, their institutions and their
agencies including those that call themselves, or are called "democratic" - do not love Nigeria as nation
or Nigerians as a people. They love only our oil resources, and other natural am human resources that
are required for their use. Indeed, in their calculation, our oil am other resources that are still untapped
are part of their strategic reserves. The Middle Eas oil is on the same side of this strategic equation.
Hence, we can go to hell, provided the of is left behind. Nigeria may remain a single (not necessarily
united) country, provided th cost of extracting oil therefrom does not rise above what is considered
economically rational On the other hand, Nigeria may break up provided the oil-flow to America
continue unimpeded, that is, provided the section or sections that eventually control the oil fields an
secure and are prepared to allow the oil's unimpeded flow at reasonable prices to when the "black gold"
is really needed and appreciated and where nature ought to have locate it in the first place, that is,
America. Left to the rulers of America, the present crop of Nigerians may vanish - in th literal sense
ofthe word - provided the territory known as Nigeria remains together with it known natural resources.
New inhabitants from the southern hemisphere or the newl:
86

countries of Eastern Europe can always be found to take over the territory ''"'protection" ofAmerican
marines. Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has shown the way. ario, however, is the disappearance of a
substantial fraction of Nigeria's (say 60 per cent) by any means whatsoever - civil war, ethnic
cleansing, natural , etc. The survivors, whose number will probably correspond to what is as a
reasonable population for Nigeria will then be re-organised and educated to role in the contemporary
division of labour as prescribed by globalisation. who thinks that I am exaggerating or joking here
should refer to the history of Ts foreign relations since the end of the 19th century, and particularly
since the of the 20th century. .1101y second proposition is directed at Nigeria and Nigerians; and it
relates to the ofdefending the "national unity and territorial integrity" of the country if and when is
made. My proposition here is that, even if we disregard the superstition that ives two civil wars, any
future civil war or generalised break-down of "law cannot be prosecuted or resolved the way the last
civil war was prosecuted and In particular, there will be no single "villain", no single "rebel leader", no
single or -rebel territory", and hence no credible or unified central authority to summon o defend their
country's "unity and territorial integrity". Genuinely patriotic, democratic and humanist voices - many
with credible antecedents - will rise, but be hopelessly marginalised. There are simply too many
spheres of discontent and in contemporary Nigeria. These spheres are active and can easily go into
fighting for objectives which may not be well defined, or not defined at all, at the beginning. Given the
backgroundtlescribed by these two propositions, the American prediction are of Nigeria can become a
self-fulfilling prophecy in a number of ways. Put and more directly, there are several political
flashpoints each ofwhich is capable Trig, a severe national crisis from which anything can happen. We
may recall that Inc. which led to the overthrew and execution of Romania's president, Nicolae a and his
wife on Christmas Day, 1989, started from some skirmishes at a police skirmishes between the local
people and police who were, perhaps, asking yAou carry", or a similar question in the Romanian
language. It used to be a "normal" and "normal" answers were nearly always given. But on December
25, 1989, the t- replied with stones; some other people, with better weapons, joined the rebellion ix- as
the fate of the old regime and its leadership was concerned, it was all over in World War 1 started from
the scene of an assassination in Sarajevo; and the andan genocide started from a plane crash. In other
words, given a background ,affection and discontent, an "ordinary" incident can become a spark. In
discussing can prediction, it is necessary not to forget this. The fate of the National Political Reform
Conference, the subject of an intense debate when the Conference was being set up in February 2005,
is now known. Nigerians insisted, and as President Olusegun Obasanjo admitted in a televised
xxerview early in June 2005, the Conference is a presidential commission. The report conference,
according to the president, will not be subjected to a referendum, as
87

demanded by some Nigerians. Rather, it might lead to governmental policy changes or amendments to
the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic ofNigeria. In the latter case. the recommendations by the
Conference will be considered by the government; the latter will then formulate its position on these
recommendations, perhaps, in form of a "white paper". The government's views will, thereafter, be
formulated as proposed amendments to the Constitution and sent to the National Assembly as an
executive bill. The passage of the bill, or its definitive rejection, may take the remaining part of
Obasanjo 's tenure as President. Even if the National Assembly passes the bill before President
Obasanjo leaves office, the remaining hurdles will take up the tenure. This means, in practical terms,
that Obasanjo's National Political Reform Conference is not, after all, the road to the future. It may not

even provide a "road map". What, by the way, were the main political issues the Reform Conference
addressed and tried to resolve? I may isolate six of them: geopolitical restructuring; true or fiscal
federalism, revenue allocation and resource control; the ethno-regional movement of the $7,7..sidency
and, to some extent, the movement of the chief executive offices of the states. "presidential" versus
"parliamentary" systems of government, or their amalgam; citizenship and indigeneity; the electoral
system, elections and political parties. These were the issues which dominated the proceedings of the
Conference and may dominate its Report. Nothing about the effect of globalisation on the masses; mass
impoverisation which they call poverty: or unemployment. Even then each ofthe "areas of concern"
considered by the Conference can be given either a popular-democratic formulation benefiting the
"common people", or an elitist formulation, benefiting the ruling classes and their power-blocs and, of
course, the new imperialism otherwise known as "the international community". All these "areas o:
concern" are flashpoints, as described above. Why, I may ask, was the system of collective presidency,
which may resolve our rulers' concerns, not tabled, or seriously debated, at the Reforms Conference?
The summ: of Middle Belt and South-South political "leaders" has proposed that states should remairi
the federating units "for the continued political stability, unity, peace and progress ofNigeria But they
said nothing about the current mass impoverisation in the country; they said nothing about real
democracy and self-determination for the masses. The summit also propose "rotational presidency
amongst the six geopolitical zones on the basis of equity, justice, fairness and historical antecedents",
and "recognition ofzones for the purposes ofpoliticL social and economic cooperation and the provision
of common services". My question is: Why not proceed from the concerns expressed in these two
proposals, merge the proposals and arrive at collective presidency whereby all the zones (or rather, all
the leaders of the zones) and, by extension and logic, all the states, exercise power together at each
given point in time, and hopefully, forever? Why not replace "rotational presidency" with "collective
presidency"? The point I am making here is that tht: ruling classes and power-blocs in Nigeria, and the
Nigerian state, are simply not serious formulating and resolving their problems. That is what is known
as political bankruptcy.
88

29
Notes on Geopolitical Alliances 18th August, 2005 1,L\G by what the present Constitution says, there
should be a general election Nigeria by April 2007, that is, in the next 20 months. It is therefore no
surprise L:.1 the country has entered the period of election-induced political alliances. -rm. _7.17:lents,
as some journalists call them, are mainly, but not exclusively, between
:I-actions of the ruling blocs and satellite political forces aspiring to move nearer 11111":: 7 7 litical
power. In this fragmentary piece, I look back at past alliances and 'um _Ind at what is now happening.
C.' ally, geopolitical alliances in Nigeria have been of three main types. Call tA+,. 2 -id C. Under Type
A are alliances between non-ruling political parties which -.-: 7 respective strengths - mainly electoral in different parts of the country and : hope that by coming together they will be able to command an
electoral t country, and thus displace the ruling party. Under Type B are alliances 1:. zonal or ethnic
segments of the ruling party. Confident that the party will thr _ 2 arty, these segments then aspire to
strengthen their positions or "bargaining 1111111 by coming together. The alliances are targeted at the
hegemonic segment . - e party. The message to the hegemonic segment is: "If you refuse to .. _Dined
strength and yield to our common demands then we shall move to 111111111:T Tally or form a new
party". Under Type C are alliances pursued by both by , aid the non-ruling parties, and this happens
when the ruling party is not so 2 in the ruling party if it fails to secure alliances with some smaller

parties. " 959 general election Type C predominated. Each ofthe three leading electoral m Peoples
Congress (NPC), the National Convention of Nigerian and the Action Group (AG) 7 sought alliances
outside its centre of the election, none of the alliances secured a winning vote, there was L;arifu.sion.
First, there were attempts to forge a larger and winning alliance -led alliance and the AG-led alliance.
Then, and some would say, were attempts to construct an alliance between the NPC-led alliance -*Tqui
alliance. The latter attempts succeeded and this yielded an NPC-iii, ,ialivernrnent. The AG became the
opposition party. election, Type C also predominated. By December of that 'thaw -7.=g.ement under
which Nigeria gained independence on October 1, , and disintegrated. First, the NPC-NCNC Federal
Government dealt
89

a severe blow on the AG, the opposition party. After this, the NPC turned against its partner. the
NCNC. The 1964 election was fought by two big alliances: the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) led
by the NPC and the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) le by the NCNC. The NNA won the
election which, to say the least, was very controversial. The NPC and its allies in the NNA built on this
victory and won the Western regional election of October 1965. How this led to the military coup of
January 1966 and the Civil War of (1967-1970) is outside the scope of this article. The 1979 election
was a parody of the 1959 contest. The National Party ofN igen: (NPN) won the election. The other
parties tried to challenge the result, but failed. Thereafter the NPN drew the Nigerian Peoples Party
(NPP) into a ruling alliance. The arrangemer: collapsed within two years. By the 1983 general elections
the ruling NPN did not require any alliance to secure a landslide iciory. Again, how this led to the
December 1983 militar coup and the subsequent 16-year military dictatorship is not the subject of this
article. may now take a leap to the present. I had not expected President Olusegun Obasanjo's National
Political Reforms Conference (NPRC) to produce any concrete results on its advertised mission. The
official report has gone to the National Assembly. There it may take a final rest. But I had expecte.. the
conference to produce at least one unofficial result, namely, alignment and re-alignmen of political
forces in the context of the politics of the power-blocs and those whose politic career rests on
"bargaining" with them for political crumbior residuals. We were nc disappointed: alliances were
indeed initiated before the conference disintegrated. Of all the alliances mooted, proposed or
concluded, the more relevant here we:- those between geopolitical zones. We have witnessed efforts to
form the following alliances among others: South-South and. North-Central (or Middle Belt); SouthSouth and South East; North-West and South-East. Added to these are the long existing alliances of th
Northern states and of the Southern states. Each of these alliances is embodied in Governors' Summit.
In the case of the North, there is an enlarged forum of Governors traditional rulers and elders. This
enlarged forum has no counterpart in the SouthernAllianc We may take a look at the six geopolitical
zones into which Nigeria is current: semi-officially divided. Starting from Lagos, the capital ofNigeria
between 1914 and 1992 and moving anti-clockwise, we have: Southwest, Southsouth, Southeast,
Northcentra.. Northeast and Northwest. You can see clearly from their names, and the way I have
arrange them, which zones belong to the South and which ones belong to the North. These zone were
created by Nigeria's "political class" in the Constitutional Conference organised 1994 by General Sani
Abacha's regime. They did this deliberately and consciously, assi gnir_ three zones to the North and
three to the South - as these entities were designated by Lor Lugard in 1914. It is in the name, and on
behalf, of these zones that alliances are now beir__ constructed. I think we should first deal, in general
terms, with the assumptions and pretensior of geopolitical alliances in Nigeria - assumptions and
pretensions that are as old as Niger: as an independent country. The first is the assumption and
pretension that a group enterir. into a geopolitical alliance actually represents the region or ethnic
community or communitie

90

-ms to be representing. In the first place the members of an alliance-seeking political are usually from
the same party - in most of the cases, the ruling party. They know do not represent all the political
tendencies in the geopolitical zone in whose name they and act. They do not even present all the
tendencies in the ruling classes, much less ,dencies in the subject classes. In the second place, they do
not represent, as they all the ethnic nationalities in the geopolitical zone. The second assumption (and
pretension) is that they have the mandate ofthe people geopolitical zone in whose name they are
seeking an alliance. The reality is that even the public declarations of the "leaders" echo popular
aspirations, they have not been ed in a manner genuinely beneficial to the popular masses. My
propositions apply of alliances across the country, not just to particular alliances. Geopolitical alliances
are over political power or issues that have bearing on political For the Nigerian ruling blocs and
classes the main issues, as listed in this column a of months ago, are: geopolitical restructuring by
which is meant the constitutional n and empowerment ofthe present six geopolitical zones; true or
fiscal federalism
enue allocation and resource control as central constituents; rotation of political more concretely, the
rotation of the office of the chief executive at the centre and presidential versus parliamentary system;
national unity, citizenship and and democracy and the electoral system. To these six issues, I may now
add n of internal colonialism, uneven development and self-determination.
South-South delegates to President Obasanjo's National Political Reforms
claim that the critical issues before the c4onference were the "resource control" t of true federalism, and
the tenure and rotation of the presidency. But it was se two issues that the conference could not agree
upon and therefore referred Obasanjo for determination. The President has, in turn, referred them to the
bly and a committee of the Federal Executive Council. conference could not reach a consensus of these
matters how better did the alliances fare? Two alliance-seeking geopolitical summits which took place
relevance here. The first was between "leaders" of the Northcentral zone (or ))1 and those of the
Southsouth. And the second was between the same Middle "leaders" ofthe Southeast. The first summit
proposed the retention of states g units and the rotation of the presidency between the six geopolitical
zones. 't was concerned with the problems of citizenship, national unity, equality Ines, peace and
security and democratic succession. ofthesc geopolitical summits took a definite position on where the
rotation the algebra of resource control. And yet, the alliance-seeking politicians issues, together with
the rumoured plot to extend President Obasanjo 's issues confronting them as self-proclaimed
representatives ofthe nation. the alliances standing?
I
ors
-+ 11
91

-ms to be representing. In the first place the members of an alliance-seeking political are usually from
the same party - in most of the cases, the ruling party. They know do not represent all the political
tendencies in the geopolitical zone in whose name they and act. They do not even present all the
tendencies in the ruling classes, much less ,dencies in the subject classes. In the second place, they do
not represent, as they all the ethnic nationalities in the geopolitical zone. The second assumption (and
pretension) is that they have the mandate ofthe people geopolitical zone in whose name they are

seeking an alliance. The reality is that even the public declarations of the "leaders" echo popular
aspirations, they have not been ed in a manner genuinely beneficial to the popular masses. My
propositions apply of alliances across the country, not just to particular alliances. Geopolitical alliances
are over political power or issues that have bearing on political For the Nigerian ruling blocs and
classes the main issues, as listed in this column a of months ago, are: geopolitical restructuring by
which is meant the constitutional n and empowerment ofthe present six geopolitical zones; true or
fiscal federalism
enue allocation and resource control as central constituents; rotation of political more concretely, the
rotation of the office of the chief executive at the centre and presidential versus parliamentary system;
national unity, citizenship and and democracy and the electoral system. To these six issues, I may now
add n of internal colonialism, uneven development and self-determination.
South-South delegates to President Obasanjo's National Political Reforms
claim that the critical issues before the c4onference were the "resource control" t of true federalism, and
the tenure and rotation of the presidency. But it was se two issues that the conference could not agree
upon and therefore referred Obasanjo for determination. The President has, in turn, referred them to the
bly and a committee of the Federal Executive Council. conference could not reach a consensus of these
matters how better did the alliances fare? Two alliance-seeking geopolitical summits which took place
relevance here. The first was between "leaders" of the Northcentral zone (or ))1 and those of the
Southsouth. And the second was between the same Middle "leaders" ofthe Southeast. The first summit
proposed the retention of states g units and the rotation of the presidency between the six geopolitical
zones. 't was concerned with the problems of citizenship, national unity, equality Ines, peace and
security and democratic succession. ofthesc geopolitical summits took a definite position on where the
rotation the algebra of resource control. And yet, the alliance-seeking politicians issues, together with
the rumoured plot to extend President Obasanjo 's issues confronting them as self-proclaimed
representatives ofthe nation. the alliances standing?
I
ors
-+ 11
91

30
Further Notes on Resource Control 1st September, 2005 /N SPITE of the billions of words that have
been spoken and written on this subject. and the tenacity and popularity of the campaign, I still think
that the concept of"resource control" needs further decoding. The reason is simple enough: Apolitical
&man: which is presented as being in the common people's interest, and for which the commor_ people
are being called upon to fight, a fight that may radically reshape the country anc profoundly affect the
common people, has to be understood, more and more, by these same prospective fighters and
beneficiaries. As for the intellectual and political leaders of the campaign, I assume they are equipped
with the overall strategy. If so, then they have an additional responsibility namel. to continue to work
out the logic, implications, tactics and language of the campaign. That is what I mean by decoding. But
if the strategy is not known, or clear then a useful lesso:, has to be learnt from the story of the handler
of an angry spirit. Having assumed the management of this spirit, the new handler allowed it to grow in
a way that made it becom uncontrollable. The result was that the handler was consumed by the spirit.
Note that th handler was not the creator of the spirit. He was merely an incumbent manager and nurse..
Permit me a digression. Karl Marx used the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" to describ., the state in
the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. At that beginning, socialist: was used
interchangeably with communism. This transition period Marx called the "low stage of socialism". He

admonished those socialists, among them his own "followers", wh peddled the concept of "the state
ofthe whole people": that every class rule was (and is) dictatorship. In this sense, the state in the
transition period will still be a dictatorship. Thi transition period is also a form of democracy, in so far
as it is the rule of the vast majority the people, the toilers. Here we see the dialectics of dictatorship and
democracy. As soo as it becomes possible to talk of the "state of the whole people", Marx insisted, the
sta would have ceased to exist qua state. That was Marx's position. But we have seen how many of
Marx's "followers made use of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat", ossifying it, and purging it of
aT dialectics and relativism. And we have also seen how this abuse had fashioned a powerf weapon for
the opponents of socialism. We have seen the consequences. It was in th context that decoding the
concept became a political necessity. At a more personal level. long-standing comrade of mine was
visibly embarrassed when I publicly described mysel sometime ago as a communist. This must have
conjured the images of the overthrow
92

1111114111
.:.mist" leaders of Eastern Europe. Anyone interested in pursuing this matter further see Etienne
Balibar's "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and Santiago Carillo's mmunism and the State. I have a
similar feeling about the concept of resource control. But, first, a caveat. I thing in principle, against the
campaign for "resource control", as I understand it, I have nothing, in principle, against the political
strategy of "dictatorship of the ". I only ask questions, request for clarifications, and argue the need for
decoding. doing this, I am acutely conscious of an older comrade's advice that I should steer r rather,
refuse to be dragged into ethnic politics and oil politics. But, then, we nufacture political issues, or run
away from political issues that have arisen. Rather, ith political issues as they are thrown up
historically. The only way of creating a ype ofpolitics is by radically intervening in existing politics,
and re-directing it by Lical questions. our words are prominent in the campaign for resource control.
These are: control, management and derivation. Historically and politically, and in the context ional
politics, the concept of ownership is abstract and, to some extent, illusory. pncepts of control,
management and derivation are concrete. 'ho own Nigeria? The answer is derived from the
Constitution: the Nigerian people na.. You cannot refute this on the terms of constitutional declarations
- even when m- that our common ownership of Nigeria is fake and illusory. You can only refute claim
via the concept of control. Who controls Nigeria? The answer is clear, from itution and from outside the
Constitution. The ruling blocs and the mainstream lite, through state institutions control Nigeria. And,
standing above these, is the x-12.1 community", the obfuscatory name for imperialism. dough it is a
good thing that the present campaign is about "resource control", a "resource ownership", the latter
concept frequently creeps into the campaign. It consciously banished. It is politically meaningless,
generating unnecessary heat ding the campaign. The case for resource control can therefore be pursued,
and pursued without reference to ownership. And the main ground for this case, as it is that oil is found
in particular areas of the country and beyond this, the search and exploration) and its actual exploitation
fundamentally affect the:reproduction of ic in these areas - much more than in other areas of the
country - to put the point is a straightforward case, and no other issue should be brought in here. igeria
has been proclaimed a federal republic and a democracy. Were it a unitary Bran absolute monarchy - or
its variant - the struggle for resource control would tastraightforward struggle between the state and the
people. But in a federation, ifiag units - in our case, the states - come in. Here, the struggle is, in the
first place, Ilse governments of the oil-producing states and the federal power; and in the iele, between
the governments of the oil producing states and the federal power, !hand_ and the people ofthe oilproducing states on the other. In this formulation chst:nction has been made between the government

and the people.

'
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A further clarification on the concept of control is necessary. What we are talking about control by
political authorities which can then delegate an agency - armed or unarmed - do an actual policing. I
think this point is obvious, or even trivial. But in Nigeria, political 71 legal formulations cannot be too
clear. Resource control is control by political authority plenary constitutional powers. One test of this
control is the power and authority to appo the management which will be responsible to it. The other
test - and many will say, the re' test - is the power of appropriation (of revenues or proceeds). This
brings us to the questic of "derivation", a term used to describe the proportion of oil proceeds that go to
the 0: producing states. Control, management and appropriation are linked by a chain. Break the chain.
remove any of the components, and we are talking nonsense. Now, if both the feder power and the
governments of the oil-producing states are, or should be, in the context the campaign for resource
control, "stakeholders", then there must be an algebraic form: or principle for sharing in the three areas:
control, management and appropriation. Ti_ formula is then used for the actual sharing as the need
arises. Here algebra becomes arithme oing by the main grounds for the resource control campaign,
which had earlier bev, listed, namely, actual location and effect on material and cultural reproduction of
life, anythi_ less than a 50 per cent share by the oil-producing states in the control, management a.
appropriation is a typical Nigerian joke. I cannot deceive myself into believing that I have proposed a
solution to the resour control palaver. What I have proposed is the beginning of a solution, not the
solution even the beginning of the solution. There are several problems associated with this particu
solution. First, boundary disputes between oil-producing states, and even oil-produc communities, are
bound to escalate. Secondly, there is this question of "offshore" "onshore" locations. Let me confess: I
do not understand this dichotomy. There is no location that is not part of Nigeria, there is no oil location
that is an overseas colon territory. My understanding is that the entire territory Nigeria is divided into
the fede capital territory and 36 states. If my understanding is wrong, an understanding which popularly
held, then a clarification, backed by the Constitution, or requiring constitutio: amendments, is
necessary. This is part of the decoding that I am talking about. Lastly, the toughest of all problems,
namely, the material and cultural well-bei and the empowerment of the "common people" of the oilproducing states. These are Nigerians whose lives are affected immediately, directly and profoundly
by oil location. exploration and oil exploitation. Theirs is the fundamental and permanent struggle that
can:it be settled by governmental arrangements, or by the National Assembly, or indeed by National
Political Reforms Conference, but by the people - on the ground, against competing governments of
exploiters.
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31
What Really Happened in 1998? 24th October, 2002
AT I can strongly claim, by circumstantial evidence and study of balance of social forces, is that the
coming into office ofPresident Olusegun Obasanjo in May 1999 was not the result of struggle
of"democratic forces", but a deliberate ofpowerful forces within and outside the country. It then makes
sense to assume s decision to be reached some form of agreement must also have been reached. that, I
guess that the death of General Sani Abacha in June 1998 and that of Chief Abiola a month later were
somehow linked. And beyond that, I expect future to assist us to determine whether or not Obasanjo's

ascendancy was linked demise ofAbacha and Abiola; or, put differently, whether Obasanjo could have
ident ifAbiola had lived. My first statement can betaken as a strong hypothesis; a not-too-strong
hypothesis; and the third, a weak hypothesis. The public concerning the "agreement" alleged to have
been reached between the Northern or fractions of it, and some Southern politicians including President
Obasanjo can be taken as one of the tests for these hypotheses. overing the causes of an accident is, in
most cases, a straightforward enterprise -fic method is adopted. It is often more difficult to uncover
deliberate or non-causes, because a cover-up is usually part of the pain. When investigators that an
accident is an "act of God" they should be understood to mean that the s could be established not
exactly but as a probability. They should not be to mean either that there is no cause or that God is the
cause. Furthermore, teaches us that the separation of a cause into (its) remote and immediate although
theoretically valid, is often deliberately employed to allow some agents nsibility or have their
responsibility reduced. Hence, in criminal cases, the uld be done only when necessary and practicable
and for the purpose of acing responsibility. All these are mere guidelines - out of many possible for
investigating and understanding the events of the second half of 1998 and especially the deaths
ofAbacha and Abiola which I strongly believe were nor "acts of God". My guidelines may, in the end,
not be useful.tBut they in mind. time General Abacha died in June 1998, the country was pregnant, and
ere expecting an explosion. But with the possible exception of the main - Abacha's military junta,
groups of military plotters, the two power-blocs
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and the "international community" - no one knew what form the explosion would take Having secured
his endorsement by the five political parties (which he created) as sole presidential candidate, Abacha
seemed not to know how to proceed. And the election waz, scheduled for August 1998. Everybody was
expecting something to happen before, ort August. Then "fate" intervened, and Abacha died. With this,
the various forces came to the open. The first struggle was that of succession. General Abdulsalami
Abubakar's faction. which must have included General Babangida, won, and Abubakar became Head,of
Stag It would appear that between Abubakar's assumption of office and the death of Mo shoo Abiola a
month later, an agreement, sponsored or endorsed by Abubakar, was reached make an "acceptable"
person from the Western power-bloc to succeed Abubakar throu a semblance of election and on the
basis of an improvised Constitution. The forces that lo out in the immediate post-Abacha struggle
included those pushing for a transitional civili regime to be headed by Moshood Abiola and whose
main agenda would be the convenin of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC). Then Abiola died and
Abubakar's positi was consolidated through the absorption of most of those pushing for a transitional
regime Some members of General Sani Abacha's family did not believe that the death their
breadwinner was a natural one. They suggested that he had probably been poisone They called for an
investigation. But since he was buried the same day, I don't know wh type of investigation was carried
out, if any. I am also not sure what thd result was, if any.. we can say is that just as Abacha's death had
a material cause his family's protest over h death had a cause. In other words, there was no smoke
without fire. A month later, in Ju 1998, Chief Moshood Abiola, the political and moral challenge to
Abacha's pretensions Head of State, died in detention - Abacha's detention inherited by his successor,
Gener Abdulsalami Abubakar. Some people, including members of his family, cried foul, but took quite
some time to persuade many people to doubt the report that Abiola's den during an audience with some
visiting Americans, was natural. The Oputa Panel was probat the first official forum where the
allegation was made not only that Abiola's death A unnatural, but also that his sudden death and that
ofAbacha were linked. Shortly. after the death ofAbacha, General Olusegun Obasanjo was released frc
prison where he was serving a 10-year term for allegedly trying to overthrow Abacll government.

Shortly after this, Abiola died. And shortly, after this Obasanjo was pai,. private, but well-publicised,
visit by General Ibrahim Babangida. The visit was to welco Obasanjo back from the shadows of death
and to persuade him to stand election for office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This
was long before the future ru: parties were formed. After a period of "indecision", "consultations" and
"prayers", dui which professional persuaders went to work, Obasanjo agreed to seek election. It was 71
surprising that Obasanjo later joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) given that those who played
critical roles in the politics of releasing him and persuading and assist him to run for the presidency
were all in PDP. He ran for the presidency under the platli of PDP and won. The rest of the story is
known. Now, no person installs another in office" however small the office may be" with an agreement.
More directly you just don't release someone from prison and makel
t1 STL
3111
96

I il
IIP
y Lout reaching an agreement with him or her. So, when it was alleged two years agreement was
reached between General Obasanjo and those who installed should have been shocked. What people
wanted to know was the content of t. After a long period of silence, President Obasanjo admitted that
there was t which some presidential candidates endorsed, but which he Obasanjo, did He mentioned the
names of some of the presidential candidates who signed t. One of the alleged signatories admitted
signing the agreement, but insisted nothing in that agreement which Obasanjo's administration had not
already In other words it was immaterial whether Obasanjo signed the agreement or is have already
been over-implemented by Obasanjo's administration. Later, alleged to have presented the draft
agreement intervened to say that Obasanjo the agreement through another person, a friend of his. The
agreement had ems: that Obasanjo would serve only one term; and that some key economic ministries
would be reserved for the "North". Later, a prominent politician said -o actually signed the agreement,
it would not be unusual. It was politics, he
W11
r,1111 w
, 1..1111
.ill N
telescope this typically Nigerian debate: First Character: "There was an -ou signed it" . Second
Character: "I did not sign any agreement, but others cter: "It does not matter whether you signed the
agreement or not; after all 4-eci out the contents of the agreement - and even more". Fourth Character:
Character signed the agreement, but through his friend". Fifth Character: en; if the second Character
really signed the agreement, there was nothing it was all politics". If experience is anything to go by,
this public debate has replaced by other' debates and to be resurrected whenever a prominent it for
public understanding or support. this article has been too fragmentary, let me now attempt to pull
together the main points. At least six significant political events took place in Nigeria -ere the adoption
of General Abacha as consensus presidential candidate s he created; the sudden death of Abacha; the
assumption of office by -ar; the release of General Olusegun Obasanjo from prison; the sudden and the
endorsement of Obasanjo under a disputed agreement. There are that these events were linked. To make
matters a bit clearer, the agreement about was not just between two groups: the "Northern" politicians
and ential candidates. At least four groups were involved: the Northern power-power-bloc; the Nigerian
military; and the "international community", or sm. The Northern power bloc and the military acted
closely together; the -bloc had the sympathy of the "international community", although the latter to

time, remind some Nigerian pro-democracy activists that their agenda rotten.
(N.
N
1 IN
'11111'
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32
Political Assassination 21st November, 2002
OF all the political developments that currently bother me, the one most difficult for me to analyse and
comprehend appears to be the new regime of politica: assassination in the South-East zone ofNigeria.
General Sani Abacha's junta first professionali sed political assassination, and then developed it into a
systematic method of fighting the "enemies" of the state in general and the supporters of Chief
Moshood Abiola in particular. After the death of the general and the inauguration of Obasanjo's
government. the nation enjoyed a brief assassination-free period. Then the evil regime returned - thus
confirming the thesis that apolitical weapon, once it emerges out ofhistorical circumstances. does not
simply disappear, and is not withdrawn at will. However vigorous the campaigns against the weapon,
however righteous or self-righteous our opposition to it may be, a political weapon disappears only
when the circumstances that brought it into being, the need which nourishes it, and the conditions
which make its employment possible disappear. Thus, whereas it is debatable whether or not the
weapor. of aircraft hijack employed in Nigeria in October 1993 has disappeared, we know that the
weapon of political assassination in Nigeria did not come as an aberration. It is, in fact, stir. being
fashioned and developed. I am of course, not the only one bothered by the regime of political
assassination. But what bothers me more is the peculiarity ofthis regime in the South-East. I can,
withou: being cynical, advise a Nigerian politician who is scared by the spectre of political
assassination to disengage publicly from politics, and be seen to have done so. But then, iE the SouthEast; especially in Enugu and Anambra states, non-politicians are being assassinated politically. Chief
Victor Nwankwo, who was assassinated in Enugu a couple of weeks ago, was not a politician in the
Nigerian sense of the term: hustling for office - appointive or elective - and "chopping" from politics.
However, although Victor was not a politician, he was political in the sense that his thinking, his
actions, his ideas and his pronouncements were all informed and influenced by politics, radical politics,
to be specific He was a brilliant intellectual, engineer and publisher. His contemporaries say he was
very brilliant as a student. I can also confirm that he was a serious human being. I first met Victor in
Enugu in 1990 when I was a guest of his elder brother, Arthur Nwankwo. I had come to attend events
marking Chinua Achebe's 60th birthday in Nsukka and to negotiate the publication of a manuscript by
The Fourth Dimension the management ofwhich Arthur was then handing over to Victor.
98

r Chimere Ikoku, assassinated in the same city, Enugu, a fortnight after the
c Victor Nwankwo, was not a politician. However, as an academic and ,,tionged to the radical political
tendency. In other words, he was political. I in Jos in May 1976, at a meeting of a national committee
of solidarity with th Africa then fighting the apartheid regime. Professor Ikoku chaired the az7.;:d as
Secretary in the absence of the substantive Secretary. We, on the the appointment of Chimere Ikoku as

Nigeria's first leftist University Vice-have since followed, including the latest: ProfessorAkpan H. Ekpo
of ft-vo, A few months before Nwankwo and Ikoku were murdered, armed .prayer ground at Enugu.
The priest can be described the way that I have murdered compatriots, that is, he is political and
radical, but not partisan. escaped unhurt, but some worshippers were reportedly killed and others other
priests, I understand, have recently escaped assassination in Enugu. ago, Anambra State witnessed the
murder, in Onitsha, of a prominent
pt a further description of the frightening phenomenon that now in parts of the South-East, including
Enugu and Anambra States. We Wiwa, the radical writer and minority rights activist, a highly political
slter who was executed by General Sani Abacha seven years ago, in 'Star: -Wiwa was offered large
sums of money to keep quiet and betray He was offered a big and lucrative position in government. He
ailed. He called the bluff of the blackmailers. He was threatened. agents to go to hell. Having exhausted
all possible means of calling but without success, the forces against which he was battling decided died.
If the opportunity of the "Ogoni Four" had not offered itself for death sentence on Saro-Wiwa, other
opportunities would have been -maces whose power, while it lasted, was second only to that of God.
not interested in coming to power through a coup or otherwise, idered by the Abacha junta to be more
dangerous than opposition tested, but disloyal, army officers. Why? Because Saro-Wiwa's t deep into
the foundations of the civil society and some state would say, Saro-Wiwa's ideas were becoming a
powerful weapon. Officer and his collaborators can be arrested and executed. The ordinary politician
can be defeated or rigged out of an election. there. But the "danger" represented by someone like SaroWiwa It is deep, pervasive and "poisonous". And you know how poison of political assassination in the
South-East can be likened to the
N%,
: why has politics in the South-East produced the Saro-Wiwa why has political assassination ofnonpartisan radicals become East? Or put differently, why has the conservative political right the SouthEast? If I restrict myself to the level of politics and the
99

state, a provisional answer can be given. The Eastern power-bloc was destroyed dui. the crisis and civil
of(1966-1970), leaving Nigeria with only two power-blocs - the West:.; and the Northern. The situation
subsists. But the struggle to reconstitute the power-blo;. the East, with the Igbo ethnic group as core,
has been going on since the end of that and the re-integration of defeated Biafra into the Federal
Republic of Nigeria. The struggle is between the political forces in support of this reconstitution those
opposed to it. Of course, there are political forces which, for various reasons. neither here nor there.
Most of those fence-sitters are opportunists seeking to benefit fr both sides. The whole argument over
Igbo presidency is an aspect of the struggle for against, the reconstitution of an Eastern power-bloc. If
the dividing line appears confus. to you, then seek out the political opportunities for explanations. And
in doing this you 1:- distinguish between revolutionary partisans ofa truly equal and united Nigeria and
opportur who seek accommodation in slave situation. Whereas before Olusegun Obasanjo became
president, the struggle was altogether a do-or-die affair, it has now become so. And whereas before
Obasanjo it not an either-or question, today it is. Several Igbo politicians argue that you are eith support
of the historical project, or you are against it; that you cannot eat from both si Those who are against
the emergence of the power-bloc seek federal support to hold c. the control of their states, while trading
away any claim which the Igbo mainstream politic' make on the centre. Those in favour want to
establish their hegemony in the East as a of strengthening their claim on the leadership of the centre. I
think the group opposed tc emergence of an Eastern power-bloc is the one fashioning and using the
weapon ofpol:- assassination. It would appear that there is a support for my thesis in the press stater:.

which Arthur Nwankwo, brother of the slain Victor Nwankwo, released after the lat.: burial atAjali,
Anambra State. This support, I think, I saw, at least, in the list of the goverrir. and state agencies Arthur
indicted for complicity in the murder. In conclusion, let me make two quick points. As I recalled in this
column a cc ofweeks ago, the Austrian philosopher, Karl Popper, posed the question of how to co a
state such that governments can be changed by a majority vote, without violence, wi bloodshed, and
before an incumbent government does too much harm. We may Popper's class prejudices and reflect on
his question. Secondly, we should try to m distinction between victims ofpolitical violence in general
and victims of deliberate po assassination.
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33
lassifying Presidential Candidates 13th March, 2003
TOTLE who, with the possible exception of his teacher, Plato, was the most ious philosopher of
ancient Greece, taught the world the fundamentals of c.',1,sification of objects and phenomena. In
particular, he advised that a classification re problems than it solves if it does not help us to understand
objects and etter by revealing their similarities and differences and identifying generalities nes. A
classification which blindly dumps its subjects together, or arbitrary n, is harmful even if each element
ofthe set, in isolation, is brilliantly analysed. claim to know an object or phenomenon, Aristotle
advised, we should go it is (description) and to what group it belongs (classification), to an explanation
-le proposed four causes or principles of explanation: the material cause (the which the thing is made);
the formal cause (its design); the efficient cause (its !der); and the final cause (its purpose or function).
nowadays, more frequently than before, thrown back to classical thinkers, :le, because our various
"experts" are becoming more and more unintelligible mselves and those who are compelled to accept
what they say. I am shocked, by the types of classifications and analyses now being carried out on our :
3pdi dates by "experts", indigenous and foreign. A particular classification, "Lc in the print media
grouped our presidential candidates into four categories: -_-_;,gory are two army generals - General
Olusegun Obasanjo and General ;;,4L Buhari - who, according to the author of the classification, are
"candidates ILATI.1, appeal_ and with organisation throughout the country to see them thrOugh the
;:3 of the election". In the second category are to be found candidates "with ,L- onal name
recognition". We are told that "these candidates are persons of haracter who stand for principles that
could influence the two candidates with sation". What is remarkable about these "purists", the classifier
tells us, is ept of winning does not include forming a government. To them, winning an simply
participating or taking part". Included in this group are Gani Fawehinmi
science Party, NCP), M.D. Yusuf (Movement for Democracy and Justice, a-abe Musa (People's
Redemption Party, PRP), and Anthony Enahoro (National lc Party, NRP). :,ossification under
consideration puts the I0o-speaking presidential candidates ,:eaory. We are told that each of the
candidates has a personal agenda, which
101

he disguises as an lgbo ethnic agenda. Their strategy into produce a stalemate in the electic: a situation
that will then give them a weapon stronger than their command of the popul.: vote. In this group are
Emeka Ojukwu, Jim Nwobodo and Ike Nwachukwu. The four: category is made of"candidates from
political parties organised around some local people These parties, according to our analyst, "cannot

contribute to the democratic developme:ii of Nigeria. In fact, they are pollutants of the already charged
atmosphere as the peop proceed to the 2003 election. In my view these candidates are abusing the
democrat: process". Although the writer did not name the candidates in this category, we can, b process
of elimination, see that they include Arthur Nwankwo of the Peoples Manda: Party, Yomi Ferreira of
the Democratic Alternative and Sarah Jubril of the Progressi\ Action Congress. The writer has
preference for the two first-category candidates: General Obasan-and General Buhari. He promised to
perform his "patriotic duty of endorsing one of candidates" on a later date. If he could, he would, in
fact, "campaign for the candidate my choice vigorously". In any case, he hopes "Nigerians would make
their choice fro:7 these two candidates". How I wish I could stirAristotle, Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky
fro their graves to confront our political analyst. They would have asked him to state whe Nigeria is,
where it is moving, and where it should be moving. They would have asked hi_ to say what democracy
means. For any Nigerian "expert in political analysis" this is elementary requirement. It does not
require an original or ground-breaking treatise, for v, are all living witnesses ofthe Nigerian tragedy. I
invite you to join me in looking a little mc7 closely into the classification I have chosen as a case study.
Let us first look at the two presidential candidates - Obasanjo and Buhari - that a. said to possess a
"national appeal and with organisation throughout the country to see the: through the various stages of
the election". Adolf Hitler of Germany had a "national appea and his organisation, the National
Socialist Workers' Party (NAZI Party) covered the whc of pre-World War II Germany and extended
beyond the country to other countries Europe. Hitler's youth organisation was as large as the Nazi party
itself, and his par. military formations perhaps had more people under arias, across Germany and beyoi.
than the German national army. Furthermore, Hitler actually won a "national" election become the
German Chancellor in 1933. In Africa, Kamuzu Banda had a "national appeal in Malawai and his party
covered the entire country. The party which supplanted Bang and sent him to his grave has a "national
appeal". The ruling Nationalist Party in aparthc South Africa had a country-wide organisation and
could have defeated Nelson Mandela African National Congress (ANC) if the latter had been allowed
to take part in electic:- under the state controlled by apartheid Nationalist Party. Today, President Thabo
Mbet has a "national appeal" and the ANC has a nation-wide organisation which has won successive
post-apartheid elections. In Cuba, Batista had a "national appeal" before revolution of 1959. He won
"national" elections. He was removed by the Rebel Army a-the July 26 Movement whose leader, Fidel
Castro, became a leader with "national appea If General Ibrahim Babangida had organised a party in
the first six months of rc<2.i7-1 (1985-1933), he would have had more than a "national appeal" and his
party would ha:,.,
102

wide" presence... what do these examples and many more - which I would had the space - teach us
about the dialectics of "national appeal", "nation-on", elections, and state power'? I shall only suggest
here that Obasanjo and "national appeal" because they are the candidates of the power-blocs which trol
of the Nigerian nation and the Nigerian state. Obasanjo has not moved democracy that it was in 1999.
There is no indication that either he or Buhari after May 2003. stretch my imagination to understand
why anyone could have put Gani Balarabe Musa and Anthony Enahoro in the same category. But I can't
w M.D. Yusuf belongs in the same category. Perhaps, because, according to idea of victory in the
coming election is "taking part", not winning. This is conservatism and cynicism; it is an insult, not just
to these illustrious Nigerian the Nigerian masses who know who they are, what they really stand for,
and their standing as presidential candidates. I should simply say here that Gani larabe Musa and
Anthony Enahoro are participating in the coming elections nature and character ofpolitics and elections
in Nigeria and the concept of al" and "nation-wide organisation". They are also participating to win if,
view of history, we see victory beyond fraudulent declarations over score waves. 1213o-speaking

presidential candidates are not playing "ethnic politics". They "Nigerian politics". Ojukwu,
Nwachukwu and Nwobodo are playing the same Cs as Obasanjo and Buhari. The only difference is that
the latter have the and the Nigerian state machine behind them. Put differently, if Ojukwu, Nwobodo
are playing "ethnic politics", so are Obasanjo and Buhari. Just hat Obasanjo and Buhari are doing and
what they are saying as well as the :.inored and are promoting them. The only candidates not playing
"ethnic "Nigerian politics", are the ones being dismissed as supplanting "winning" art", and the ones
called "pollutants". Now, as to the fourth category. I am a political analyst can describe Arthur
Nwankwo of the Mandate Party, Yomi the Democratic Alternative and Sarah Jubril, the only woman
presidential ":pollutants ofthe already charged atmosphere" whose parties "cannot contribute icTatic
development ofNigeria"! I would ask the person who put these words in `Ise to these Nigerians,
pleading either that he made a mistake or had lost Nigerian reality. To put the record straight, I would
affirm that the candidates -pollutants" are, in reality, significant contributors to the democratic
re-:Nigeria and Nigerian polities. I have refrained from mentioning the name of :rder not to divert
attention from ideas which may have several carriers in Jeyond.
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34
Where Are They Taking the Country? 12th December, 2002
T. most significant provision in the draft revised Constitution recently produces by the National
Assembly is that of single-term rotational presidency. The single- term proposal is designed, in the
main, to promote the strategy of rotation among the six geopolitical zones, for if the president is
restricted to one term the rotation will move faster. Beyond that, the National Assembly thinks that this
is the most effective means o: removing the "power of incumbency" in electoral contests. Next in
significance to the single-term rotational presidency proposal is the issue of financial autonomy for the
National Assembly. Following this is the clarification ofthe status ofthe local government system, its
structure, powers and their distribution, and, of course, mode of financial appropriation. These draft
revisions, and some others, are intended to regulate the relatiops between the various blocs, segments,
and strata ofthe political class and arms and levels of govemmer: in their appropriation of the resources
and wealth ofthe nation. Nothing more. We should perhaps look at the draft provision for a single-term
rotational presidenc:, a little more closely. And in doing this, we should employ a simple logic and
common sens: available to "lay" men and women who may not be sophisticated enough to understand
thz self-serving philosophy oflaw informing the constitutional reviews now being carried out b:,, the
National Assembly. Suppose it is the turn of the South-South political zone to Droduc. the president.
The leaders of Edos, Ishans, Itsekiris, Urhobos, Ijaws, Orons, Ibibios, Efiks, Quas, Ogonis, Annangs,
Ikweres, the large number of ethnic groups in the Northern Croy River State called Atams, and perhaps,
the people ofBakassi, etc., who together constitu: the South-South, will rise to make a claim. Suppose,
by some miracle, an agreement reached on which ethnic group should occupy the South-South slot of
the single-ten. presidency. Then the other ethnic groups will have to wait for 30 years for just another
or. of them to be chosen! The National Assembly is also proposing the election of two Vice-Presidents,
inste-of one. One of the Vice-Presidents, the wise men and women in Abuja proposed, shotf. come
from the same geopOlitical zone as the President. Why? Simple. In case the incumbe: president dies,
resigns orotherwise leaves office, he or she will be replaced by the Vic President from his or her
geopolitical zone - thus completing the slot of the zone! If that the case I would advise the National
Assembly to name that particular Vice-President t1 First Vice-President or, better still, the Deputy
President. Now, suppose under ti dispensation being proposed by the National Assembly, the President
and the Dept:'
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7,2sident behave the same way and the National Assembly considers that any impeachment
meaningless unless it takes the president and his or her deputy together? Suppose the uty President is a
greedy and "traitorous" person and enters into agreement (with Stantive conditions) with some other
zones to have the president impeached. What we then have is a president from one zone whose power
base is located in another. Since these scenarios are quite possible in Nigeria - indeed very possible the National Assembly h has opted to resolve the ethnic nationality question through single-term
rotational ency, must deal with these scenarios, and several others. But let us ask again: What problem,
exactly, does the National assembly want to with this single-term rotational presidency advocacy? I
answer for the wise men and and say: the question of distribution ofpoliti cal power and what the
possession of power can bring. Attention is concentrated on the executive arm of government in spite
ofthe constitution, that is where the power lies. Now, let us make a shift. of posing the question: "How
do we arrange the exercise of executive power so rotation among the various sections of the country is
fastest?", let us ask: "How do e the exercise of political power in Nigeria so that at all times, at all
locations and the people are in charge of their affairs and get the benefit of being in charge?". l
Assembly posed the former question and got the answer which is compatible mission: rotation of a
single-term presidency. Although it is possible to answer the bly's question differently, it will be more
rewarding to attempt the alternative that is, the latter question. To do this, I recall my 10-year old
proposal. It goes bike this: First of all, let us see the social composition of Nigeria not as the rulers
really is: the poor and the rich, the weak and the strong, the exploited and the oppressed and the
oppressor, women and men, children and adults, ethnic ethnic majorities, Christians, Moslems, other
believers and non-believers, and rural dwellers, the educated and the non-educated, etc. The first step of
alternative question posed can be put like this: We must seek justice and the various groups listed
above. And if the National Assembly and the msist on "rotation ofpower-, then rotation must first be
among the groups thereafter go to geopolitical restructuring. Let the country be divided into 8 the
difference between this structure and the one being proposed by the iv being that the North-Central
zone (Middle Belt) and the South-South into two. There will be an 8-member presidential council or
presidency veers, inchiding the power over the Armed Forces and other coercive. There will be one
member from each region, or zone. power will be vested in the council as a collective, not on the
chairperson among equals. There will be a Chairperson and a Vice-Chairperson, be in office for six
months, so that in a period of four years, each member have been in office for a session as Chairperson
and for another as Vice-Chairperson. If this is done you will see that the "rotation of the speed of light.
This is just one alternative proposition on geopolitical one based on what I may call national
egalitarianism. Unlike the
105
National Assembly, no humanist patriot would advocate the production of a new Constitutio:-. through
revisions in the National and State Assemblies. There must be a National Conference which can be
made sovereign if those who advocate the sovereignty of the conference are serious and believe in
themselves. Miraculously, but fortunately anyway, some leaders c: the Northern power-bloc have now
been won over to the idea of national conference. As I was drafting this piece, the Miss World tragedy
was playing itself out in Kaduna and Abuja. A young woman requested me to explain to her what was
really happening. summarised it as follows. ANigerian girl won the Miss World contest last year. It was
the: decided to honour the winner by staging this year's competition in Nigeria. Some Nigeria-. elites
opposed the decision for various reasons - religious, moral, ideological and cultural But many elites,
including the federal and some state governments, supported it. In the course of the debate, during

which the beauty contestants arrived in the country, a female print journalist made an unfortunate
religious statement which the various "gatekeepers" o the newspaper unfortunately could not stop. As
soon as the newspaper discovered this mistake it retracted the statement, apologised several times and
offered some acts c atonement and restitution. All to no avail. Riots broke out in Kaduna and Abuja.
Hundreds of lives were lost; hundreds more were wounded; thousands were either displaced or
rendered homeless. Properties worth perhaps billions of naira were destroyed. Still the newspaper
continued to apologise; still to no avail. At a point, a state government, throup its deputy governor,
issued a religious decree condemning the female journalist to death anal asking every adherent of that
religion to strive to carry out the death sentence. When my listener could not quite comprehend the
latter part of what I was saying, I gave an illustration..1 I, in Calabar, located at the south-eastern tip of
Nigeria write something which anno,, some Nigerians located at the farthest point along a straight line
drawn from Calabar. Tiles people issue a decree that I should be killed. One of those who receive this
injunction is m-friend of more than two decades from whom I buy kolanuts and cigarettes and exchans
banters almost every night. One night I approach his kiosk. Instead of searching for the bi-z, kolanuts
from this basket, he reaches for a sword and cuts off my head. Then my listen understood me. Her
response, if recorded in this piece, could immediately transform m hypothetical case into reality: The
entire incident is simply shocking, depressing, an frightening, Suppose a member of the Sharia
Movement, through an "election" on the platfon of one of the political parties, or through a coup d'etat,
becomes the President of th Federal Republic of Nigeria? Where are these people - Abuja politicians
and Shari vanguards - taking the country?
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35
Battle For the Soul of Educatiott 29th August, 2002
A's educational system has degenerated so much in the last 10 years that very thought of it creates a
sort of paralysis in me. I voluntarily left the university system almost two decades ago. One of the
organisations I left behind at the itirCalabar was the Staff Students Consultative Committee, or SSCC.
Formed in was made up of a cross-section of the University community, specifically, yes of academic
staff, junior workers, senior staff, and students. These -es were not chosen arbitrarily; rather, active and
progressive members of the us unions were lobbied to belong to it. The unions included the Students' c
StaffUnion of Universities (ASUU), Non-academic StaffUnion(NASU), StaffAssociation. Activists in
progressive socio-political organisations on were also involved. ain programme of SSCC was to defend
and promote the interests of the unity as a whole, promote active unity and solidarity among the various
the community - students, teachers and workers - and by so doing, carry along unity as a whole, or a
fraction of it, and promote cordial relationships .university community, its immediate neighbourhood
and the large Nigerian membership of SSCC were women and men, Nigerians and expatriates. To
enticate this narrative, I shall take the liberty to mention a few members of Madunagu, who is still
teaching in the University and who was, at a critical life of SSCC, the Secretary of the university's
branch ofASUU; Kayode was then Bene's student in the Biology Department and now a senior
journalist newspaper; Sister Eileene Sweeney, who was then a Senior Lecturer in the artment of
English; Okokon Okon who was the Secretary of NASU; and m who was then a junior worker in the
Department of Political Science, er in the same department. I co-ordinated and hosted the SSCC while I
. The group is now dead, I regret to say. But while it lived it was able to type of crises that have rocked
the university in the last 24 months. degree of material and spiritual degeneration of the Nigerian nation
in the last in say the least, alarming. Needless to say, the degeneration continues. Within system, the

degeneration of the university system is deeper than that of any of the system. Today, we do not know
the worth of any degree, diploma or
107

certificate awarded by the university. The corruption and commercialisation start at admission..
Regardless of what WAEC, NECO, and JAMB say, a candidate seeking admission into the university
will succeed if the right connections can be made and the right fees paid. And while in the university a
student can move from year to year, from level to level, and finall:,il graduate if the student can do the
right "sorting" at the right time, to the right persons, and through the right channels. At the best of
times, the grade you score in an examination C7 test does not depend entirely on what you write; at the
worst of times the former does nc: depend on the latter at all. The infrastructure of teaching, learning,
research and materia and human reproduction has broken down almost completely. Security has
disappeared as a social category, and the disappearance is not appreciated by the younger ones, the
students, who have not known better times. Apart from flashy cars and dresses, beauty and grac-,-, have
also disappeared as social categories on the campuses. Sectarian groups - ethnic an religious - have
since replaced or marginalised progressive pan-Nigeria political movements And armed groups have
instituted a parallel regime on the campuses. Students pay more attention to the armed groups which do
not talk or write, but act, than to the official authorities which talk and write, but do not act. The most
frightening aspect of the situation is that the students appear to be happy and their teachers not too
disaffected. But the fear that the university system will collapse or die is an exaggerated one. The
university system will neither collapse nor die; the nation's educational system will no collapse and will
not die. Indeed, the number ofuniversities and tertiary institutions in NigeriL. will continue to grow; the
student population will continue to rise, so will that of teachers. Jr every university there will be a ViceChancellor with two or more deputies; bursars anc several deputy bursars; registrars and deputy
registrars, etc. More professors will be named: the senate will become larger and will continue to
supervise and produce graduates anc award higher degrees. Above all, money - which will not be fairly,
or honestly or rationally allocated - will continue to flow into the purse of the University - from various
sources. The system will therefore continue. But something in that system can collapse, or die. That
"something" which can collapse or die while the system in which it is embodied remains alive, is what
I call, for lack of a more appropriate name, the soul of o ur education, where the soul is given its semisecular meaning, namely, "the inspirer or moving spirit of some action or movement; the animating
principle; the essential element or part of something; the embodiment of some quality." Let me
illustrate with a recent event. On Saturday, August 10, 2002, the Cross River State Radio in its 9.00am
news relay, announced the decision of the State Ministry of Education to publish the names of students
of secondary schools in the state who had recently been expelled on account of their involvement in
"secret cult" activities. The ministry then warned that the "war against cultism" would continue until
the "menace" had been wiped out of all educational institutions in the state. In the same news relay a
high-ranking state government functionary was reported as denouncing the upsurge in cult activities in
the University of Calabar specifically. Earlier this week, Governor Donald Duke had made a special
broadcast regretting and condemning the alarming wave of cult-related violence in the state's
institutions of high learning. He promised tougher action on the part of his government and the law
enforcement agencies to
108

and eliminate the phenomenon. The governor was angry, very angry. At the time the or was making his
broadcast, several students of the University of Calabar and the ar Polytechnic had been reported killed
in various parts of the city. Only the law ement agencies can say authoritatively whether the dead
students were cult members, er the suspected killers were cultists and what the motives for the murders
were. In to this situation, the state government rushed an anti-cult bill through the House of bly. It
became law without delay. This gave some "teeth" to the governor's angry ast. Rumours inundated the
whole community. I invite readers to go through the rumours and ponder on the import. We heard that
cults and their activities were sponsored tieians, political office holders and some university teachers
who use them as ds, thugs, enforcers and executioners; that the cults operated inter-campus and pus;
that, in particular, the warring Calabar cults received re-enforcements from outside Calabar; that most
of the cult members are children of rich and highly-citizens; and that the war in Calabar was a revenge
for what Calabar cultists had done on campuses outside Calabar. The war appears to have ended, at
least as far 'ers can see. But it will erupt again. Why? Because the foundations and motive -e not been
addressed. The problem of the university is complex. The approach to its solution must also be
ional. First, a reform of the university system in line with the position currently assed by the Academic
StaffUnion of Universities (ASUU) and the National ofNigerian Students (NANS) is necessary. ASUU
should continue to mobilise against the so-called University Autonomy Bill which is an attempt to
make the university system irreversible. Secondly, a programme of education for moral should be
initiated for the entire university community: students, teachers, administrators. It should be a
programme that religious charlatans cannot 1, the system of law and order on the campus should be
more effective. The hes should be linked and pursued simultaneously. But wait a minute: This called
Nigeria of which the university system is a part, and which dominates it system and on which the fate
of the system ultimately depends, itself requires ental transformation. In other words, the educator
needs to be educated. transformation no durable reform can take place in the educational system.
109
36
History and Political Intervention 14th November, 2002
rrHE "stakeholders" in the politics of our country are in various categories. And I am employing this
popular term even when I am not very sure of its meaning, beyond the idea that a "stakeholder" is
someone who has a conscious and active interest in a matter. At least 90 per cent of Nigerians are not
stakeholders in the politics of the nation, while at most 10 per cent are. Of the 10 per cent, about half
are current politicians and political office holders; and about half of the remaining five per cent are
those who, for various reasons, follow the politics of the country with varying degrees of
understanding. The remaining 2.5 per cent are those I call political interventionists: elder statesmen and
women, successful businessmen and women, frontline traditional rulers *religious leaders. retired
politicians and public servants, and prominent "community leaders" and "leaders of thought". Literally
speaking, millions ofpeople intervene in politics in various ways; but those I give the title are those
whose interventions have acquired the status ofprofessionalism and who take themselves seriously in
this business. Although they benefit immensely from politica. processes, political interventionists claim
they are not acting as politicians or partisans and do not want to be so identified. But they want, with
some justification, to be taken as seriously as they take themselves when they intervene in political
crises. They are generall:, past middle age, beyond 60 years, in fact. Their declared aim, each time they
intervene, i to preserve the unity of the Nigerian nation. If you run through our political history as a:independent nation, you will find numerous cases of our political interventionists at worm; Prominent
examples include intervention in the crisis leading up to the civil (1967-197(1 and those made during
the Abacha dictatorship. Collating, analysing and assessing thes -.. cases will be a worthwhile research
project. I only wish to look at one particular pre-CiY War intervention under the regime of General

Yakubu Gowon and a recent one unde-President Olusegun Obasanjo. On Saturday, May 6, 1967, Chief
Obafemi Awolowo led a delegation of a_71 interventionists formation, the National Conciliation
Committee to Enugu to persuade L:. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu to allow representatives
of Eastern Region tee join file Committee to find a peaceful solution to the crisis generated by the
bloody coups 'ssacres of the preceding 16 months. The main concern of the Committee, sa: J' o in his
introductory remarks, "is to ensure that Nigeria does not disintegrate". Et d his own personal opinion,
namely, that "I would like to see Nigeria bom: dl P
110
tiler by any bond because it is better than breaking the whole place up because I think h unit will be the
loser for it". ChiefAwolowo argued 'The economy of the country is so grated that I think it is too late in
the day to try and sever them without risking the death one or both of them. We have come, therefore,
to appeal to you to let Eastern entatives attend the meeting of the Committee". The mission, very
predictably, failed. Three weeks later, on May 26, 1967, a joint ng of Eastern Region's "Consultative
Assembly" and "Leaders of Thought" met at and passed a resolution asking Ojukwu to declare the
Eastern Region of Nigeria an dent state of Biafra. Ojukwu did exactly that four days later. And on July
6, 1967, ke out. ChiefAwolowo's mission failed for a couple ofreasons. First, it came too the two sides
had already taken positions which were not easy to dismantle at that It is like an aircraft preparing for a
take-off. There is a point at which the take-off can er be aborted. The best an interventionist can do is to
allow the plane to take off and it thereafter. In the second place, although Awolowo's delegation was
composed of t people (all male!) - just like the Eastern Leaders of Thought - it was not trusted by as a
genuine peace-maker. Specifically Ojukwu believed that the "peace mission" Gowon. In the third place,
everyone knew that apart from its moral authority some people would even question), the peace
delegation had no power to guarantee 'ses made or agreements reached. That was over 35 years ago but
the culture has changed. The politics of the present on, including the crises it has been generating, is
built around President Olusegun This is not strange. Even the most democratic presidential system of
governance und an individual, the president, who, in that capacity, is the executive head of the that
administers the affairs of the ruling blocs as a whole. Furthermore, the strategy ed Obasanjo's regime in
1999 was concerned principally with putting the former Head of State back in office. The present
politics still caries its birth-mark. It is for that I call the present political dispensation in Nigeria
Obasanjo's Republic: a er where every major issue is about Obasanjo and where every major crisis has
iat its centre. at the very beginning of his tenure, the president was at the centre of the crisis the first
Speaker of the House of Representatives - the critical question being the embattled Speaker should be
impeached or not, but whether Obasanjo him to be removed or not. The same applied to the first
president of the Enwerem. Although the battle-cry was raised in the Senate, the removal of successor,
Chuba Okadigbo, was a successful test of President Obasanjo's ,er. Since then Obasanjo has been the
motive force behind every attempt to -e up" principal off leers of the National Assembly. The president
is central not only in his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but also in other es. The other
major political crises have developed from disagreements the president and the people or between the
president and the National Tie impeachment crisis is in the latter category. It has provoked major
111

At present, one of the leading organisations of the political interventionists is The Patriots. Before The
Patriots made their intervention last month two former Heads of State, General Yakubu Gowon and
Alhaji Shehu Shagari, who ruled Nigeria in the periods (1966-1975) and (1979-1983) respectively,
announced an intervention. The two former rulers - one military, the other civilian - wrote a joint letter

to the National Assembly to freeze the impeachment process against President Obasanjo so as to create
a conducive atmosphere for them to 'reconcile" the two parties, or rather, to save President Obasanjo.
This intervention looked feeble. Why? For the three reasons I gave in the case of the pre-Civil war
intervention. Beyond that, there were serious questions ofpolitical and moral credibility which the
former Heads of State had to answer. In any case, we did not hear again from Gowon and Shagari for a
long time. Shortly after the former Heads of State's initial intervention, The Patriots, an organisation of
prominent Nigerians, predominantly Southern and, predominantly, if not exclusively male, intervened
in the impeachment crisis to save the "unity Of the nation" which was being threatened by the National
Assembly's impeachment notice. The Patriots offered three proposals for resolving the crisis. First, the
president should drop his re-election plan. Secondly, the present four-year presidential tenure,
renewable once, should yield place to an unrenewable term of five years. Thirdly, the presidency
should rotate among the six geopolitical zones. And finally, the National Assembly should drop the
impeachment proceedings against the president and settle the matter politiCally. It is clear that the last
proposal was the most important, the most critical and above all the most urgent. The first proposal can
be carried out any time before the 2003 election; the second and the third entail long processes. But the
last is a question ofnow. From what I read in the media it was not clear if The Patriots' proposals were
elements of a deal or independent proposals, some of which could be rejected and others accepted. In
any case it is clear that The Patriots' intervention suffers two of the weaknesses identified in the preCivil War intervention namely, the group could not be trusted by all the sides, and it had no power tc
guarantee compliance with any possible agreements. Hence, it had to collapse. And it collapsed. At the
beginning ofNovember 2002, Gowon and Shagari surprised the nation b:, announcing a successful
hosting of a "reconciliation" meeting between the Presidency led by the President, and the National
Assembly, led by its leaders. An agreement whose only substantive element was the dropping of the
impeachment proceedings was announced. My reading is that having quietly resolved the money issue
- which was the main, if not the only, real issue - the two sides wanted anyone or anything to publicly
end the "struggle" between them. In my entire life, I have seen only a few other instances of this level
ot political opportunism and lack ofprinciple.
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37
Babangida - Abacha - Obasanjo 25th April, 2002
MANY Nigerians are angry over the methods now being adopted by President Olusegun Obasanjo to
seek re-election in 2003 as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They see the solidarity
visitations and the planned marches Abuja as very similar to the method adopted by late General Sani
Abacha in 1996- 1998 perpetuate his rule through a parody of election. Abacha's sudden death on June
8, 1998 ,ed his plan. We may recall that General Ibrahim Babangida whom Abacha succeeded a similar,
though more refined, plan. It was also aborted - though, in his own case, the on resulted from tactical
miscalculations. Apolitical philosopher once said that every historical tragedy - either in form of an
event or in form of a personage - usually .s itself; but that this second appearance is more of a farce
than a tragedy. General 7 zida's manouvre to succeed himself, via a tortuous transition programme, was
a tragedy for the country. General Abacha's manouvre was a farce. But what ofPresident --ijo's current
manouvre? Is it a continuation, in another form, ofAbacha's farce or an r.,:y new tragedy? In any case, I
say, with all humility, that any historically informed ,.an who claims that President Obasanjo's current
manouvre was unpredictable is :-...iive or hypocritical, or both. In an interview published in The
Gaurdian shortly after the civilian government of ,,t Shehu Shagari was overthrown in December 1993,
General Danjuma, a former ,e fArmy Staff, a straight-talking, courageous (and some would add,
sometimes brutal) who had retired from the Nigerian Army four years earlier, said that it was ellp able,

and indeed stupid to believe, that the new military regime in Nigeria - or any military juntas - would
have no idea of those to whom it would hand over power then it decided to disengage. This was an
apparent response to those who were g Dodan Barracks, the military junta's headquarters, with
unsolicited suggestions e civilian dispensation. Many Nigerian politicians either did not read the
interview see any serious import in Danjuma's very revealing thesis. General Babangida, -ceded
General Buhari in August 1985, repeated Danjuma's idea at least on three during his long tenure
(August 1985 to August 1993). Babangida put it this way: he did not know who would succeed him, he
knew who would not. In January General Babangida had inaugurated the Transitional Council to
assuage the ,-,-:_iticians whose race to power the general had aborted several times, Danjuma ,other
interview, this time to the African Guardian. In it he 'predicted" that the
113

military would not relinquish power onAugust 27, 1993 as Babangida had promised. Rather, the
Transitional Council would be succeeded by another transitional arrangement which would still be
under military hegemony. Before Danjuma's prediction, thousands of groups of 'persuaders" had
emerged urging Babangida to stay for four more years, by election or by any other means. History went
almost exactly as Danjuma had asserted and predicted and as Babangida had hinted. General Ibrahim
Babangida planned to succeed himself. General Sani Abacha made the definitive announcement of the
coup of December, 1983, he made the main announcement of the coup ofAugust 1985 that brought
General Babangida to power; he claimed the credit for foiling the Major Orka -led coup ofApril 1990;
he forced out Navy Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe from office as Chief of General Staff in September 1986;
he forced out and replaced General Domkat Bali as Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, in January 1990.
During the uprising that followed the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election he
threatened and issued an ultimatum to the civilian governor of Lagos State and he was named by
several authoritative sources as the leading figure in the group of senior military officers who swore
never to allow Chief Moshood Abiola to become President whether he won the election or not. He was
retained not only in the Army when Babangida "stepped aside" in August 1993, but also as Minister of
Defence in the Interim National Government (ING) which General Danjuma had "predicted." He
forced into the ING decree a clause stating that in the event that the Head of that arrangement became
unable to continue to perform the functions of his office, the most senior minister would assume the
office. And he made himself that most senior minister. On November 17, 1993, General Abacha
became Head of State. It was predictable, and was indeed predicted, even before his coup d'etat, that
Abacha was heading for supreme power. His appointment ofrespected civilians into his Provisional
Ruling Council (provisional not in terms of its tenure, but in terms of its composition), his manouvring
with the election into the Constitutional Conference and the work of that body, his March 1995
"discovery" of an attempted coup in which Generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Musa Yar'Adua were
"implicated," the terror regime he mounted from 1994 till his death in June 1998 while at the same time
announcing a transition programme to 'democratic- civil rule and the cult of personality he created
(including the wearing of "Abacha badges" by some civilians and senior army officers). etc, showed
very clearly that Abacha wanted to succeed himself. But if some people did not see this at that state,
then his subsequent delegation of his lieutenants to "oversee" the operations of the five "political
parties" formed under his transition programme, his adoption, by these parties, as consensus
presidential programme, the rise of many Abacha "persuaders" and the three million-march to Abuja to
"persuade" him to contest the presidential election scheduled for August 1998 would have convinced
even a fool that Abacha was bent on succeeding himself. The election of President Olusegun Obasanjo
in 1999 was an arrangement, a high-powered one. This had been stated and demonstrated so many
times and I hope no Nigerian would, today, argue against that assertion. It was a tripartite agreement

between the two leading power-blocs in Nigeria and the military High Command, with the new
imperialism (or the international community) acting as "facilitator". The framework or, rather, the

consideration, used for this arrangement was more geo-ethnic than ideological-political. Given this
agreement which was to be executed by those in the position to do so, the so-called presidential contest
between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the alliance ofAlliance for Democracy (AD) and All
Peoples Party (APP) was a huge deception, a historical fraud. But President Obasanjo, as soon as he
assumed office, started to repudiate the agreement that brought him into office, he began to construct a
new power base -independent of his erstwhile sponsors. Many of the people who openly supported his
candidacy and campaigned for him began to complain as soon as he started making his appointments
and "moving things around." Part of Obasanjo's strategic move was to render the three officials
political parties (PDP, APP and AD) and the differences between them irrelevant in guaranteeing the
political security of his government, its future, and its reproduction. Thus, although Obasanjo was
elected on the platform of PDP, AD legislators have been his government's strongest supporters in the
National Assembly while AD governors have been the loudest advocates of a second presidential term
for the South-West zone and, ipso facto, for Obasanjo. They see the two terms - the South-West and
Obasanjo - as the same and therefore use the two terms interchangeably. Enter Senator Arthur Francis
Nzeribe. He does not need any introduction. More than a year ago, he declared that there were only two
candidates for the 2003 presidential election: President Obasanjo and General Babangida. If the
political class did not intervene, he warned, the contest between the two giants would definitely lead to
a serious political crisis resolvable only by a coup d'etat or civil war, none of which is desirable. Hence,
the need to intervene and choose one of them as a consensus candidate and persuade the other to
withdraw arid support the choice. What Nzeribe said and did more than a year ago is what his
compatriots are saying and doing today. Don't forget Obasanjo's contribution to the crisis in the Senate
leading to the removal of Chuba Okadigbo as Senate President and the election of S enator Anyim Pius
Anyim to replace him; don't forget the Electoral Bill scandal. And now, the birth of the tribe of political
heavyweight persuaders from the three parties, and the threatened five-million-people march to Abuja
to plead with Obasanjo not just to contest the 2003 presidential election but to accept to be presented as
"consensus candidate." You may conclude the script: Obasanjo will succeed himself.
115

38
Traditional Rulers in a Democracy 21st March, 2002 COUPLE of weeks ago a meeting of Village
Heads in Akwa Ibom State took place in Uyo, the state capital. Organised, proclaimed, hosted and
directed by the state government, the meeting brought together about 2,500 grassroots traditional rulers
in the state, including clan heads and paramount rulers from the 31 local government areas that
constitute the state (according to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of NiEeri.a) _ For our
collective self-education and as basis for my present intervention, I should, perhaps, put together, in a
rational and logical manner, what is supposed to be the present situation: In Akwa Ibom State, as well
as in some other states in this part of the country, a clan is constituted by a group of villages, and a
group of clans makes up a local government area over which a paramount ruler rules traditionally.
Hence, the following hierarchy of traditional rulership (in ascending order): village head, clan head,
paramount ruler. At the village level, there is expected to be a village council headed by the village
head; at the clan level, we assume, as we are informed, that there is a council of village '@atvz-.%&,-

%.C'Mkks.c,tvoLs.eas S o ,a clanhead is logically expected to be zN%Au.,\eth\-\,,,Y\c\\\\.2,Ne.,\\''\

%\k\e.as_s_e.kR.N-Qa.u.s..(ve.2..di_u_tt-Lese wrtsl. At the local government level, there is a council
of clan heads from whose ranks tlle paramour:. ruler is chosen. So, a paramount ruler is logically
expected to be, in addition, a clan hea and a village head. At the state level, there is a council of
traditional rulers, constituted'': paramount rulers and other government-nominated members who are
expected to hol: some traditional titles or positions. The Chairperson ( I have never heard of a woman
in ti-_,.., position) is appointed - or at least endorsed or anointed - by the state government. In its
editorial of February 25, 2002, the Akwa Ibom State-owned newspaper, The Pioneer, made a claim,
which it is fair to assume, represented the state government's position: "The inaugural conference of
village heads ofAlcwaIbom was another remarkal-le development aimed at fostering unity among
traditional rulers and putting an organ setting in place for a well structured and functional
administration at the grassroots". editorial then submitted a thesis, namely, that traditional rulers are the
"custodians of c tradition, custom and usage as well as pillars and on-the-spot potential directors of
grassroots socio-economic and political developments". Reminding us "in case we I-forgotten" that the
village is the "building block" for the nation, the editorial asserted: "With_ the village head there can be
no village government in Nigeria and without the vill government there would be no local government,
no state government and, to a large ex: all no Federal Government".
116

The claim made by The Pioneer, presumably suggested or endorsed by the state government is what it
is: a claim or, if you like, a strong hope. It is pointless arguing it too strongly. If you are a political
scientist, an academic researcher, a politician or political activist, a patriot or nationalist, you may
simply follow the "remarkable development" closely and empirically - with whatever energy and time
at your disposal or that you can allocate to the undertaking. And if you are a tradition list you may clap
or beat your chest and thereafter echo or popularise the claim. As c!-,r. ii-te, I'separate the claim into
two parts. I accept the first part, namely, that the meeting of all the government-recognised village
heads in the state, under the platform of Conference ofVillage Heads, can, indeed, foster "unity among
traditional rulers". Unity, at whatever level, provided it is not against the people or the nation, is
desirable and should be supported. But I have strong (but perhaps, tentative) reservations on the second
part of the claim, namely, that the conference was aimed at "putting an organised setting in place for
well structured and functional administration at the grassroots". I would rather suggest that the existing
structure of the polity, namely the division f a local government area into council wards, the division of
a state into local government areas, and the division of a country into states and the Federal Capital
Territory together with (my own proposal) the further division of council wards into communities or
neighbourhoods whose political leadership are elected - the type experimented upon by the Bassey
Ekpo Bassey-led Calabar Municipal Government in 1988/89 - provides a viable political-administrative
structure for grassroots and popular democracy in Nigeria. Sociologically, it is obvious that Nigeria is
made up ofvillages where big towns and cities and urban centres are conceived as "big" villages or
groups of villages. But it is not correct to say that "without the village government there would be no
local government". I can conceive of a village government without a village head in the "traditional"
sense attached to headship, but in the popular-democratic sense attached to it in the Calabar experiment
cited above. In most parts of the country, the village, as we know it, will coincide with a community or
neighbourhood as conceived in Calabar. In any case, even now, Nigerian villages are essentially ruled
by local and state governments. The village heads merely seek accommodation within them and
struggle for benefits from them. That is the reality on the ground. The plea by The Pioneer that the
"local government leadership should endeavour to be sufficiently close to the village governments to

inspire confidence and faith in the undertaking at the level of public administration" was, at least, in
part, an admission of this reality Nothing I have said so far should be construed as a dismissal or
condemnation of the initiative taken by the Alma Ibom State to convene a Conference ofVillage Heads.
I commend the initiative and the energy put into it. I should also not be seen as saying that traditional
rulers of various categories and their various councils and conferences have no roles to play in a
democratic Nigeria. They have important roles to play - unless and until there develops a national and
popular demand for the abolition of the institution of traditional mlership in Nigeria. This is my
ultimate hope and there is nothing blasphemous or heretical it it.. It is true, as The Pioneer said, that
-traditional institutions had been in place before the
117
advent of foreign missionaries and administrators". It is also true, to a large degree, that the colonial
rulers "would not have effectively functioned without the village head." But the authority of village
headships most of which were originally instituted by the colonial rulers had been progressively eroded
by inevitable political developments. Today, many village heads and traditional rulers are local tyrants,
extortionists and economic parasites. Beyond that, their roles as paid agents of government at all levels
have not been sufficiently democratic or humanistic. To be blunt, many contemporary village heads and
traditional rulers in Nigeria have merely added a layer of burden on the shoulders of the masses,
especially the poorest of them, the majority of whom are women. Let councils of traditional rulers at
three levels of democratically elected government -community or neighbourhood (as I have suggested)
local government area and Qtate- serve as First Reoliblin_tyip vv%IeN en reduced powers. The
National Council of Traditional Rulers should be abolished. You will recall that the Senate in the First
Republic was constituted by members appointed by the regional governments with a certain number, if
my memory serves me well, appointed by the Federal Government. Although that Senate was less
powerful than the House of Representatives, it was far from being ceremonial or advisory. My proposal
is that traditional councils acting as Senates at the three levels of government, should be appointed by
the respective legislatures and their functions should be purely advisory. We have to distinguish
between grassroots politicians, community leaders (who are, by definition, political) and traditional
rulers. For instance, whereas traditional rulers are not popularly elected and women are largely
excluded from their ranks, community leaders are either politicians seeking elective offices (or seeking
appointments from elected officers), or pressure-group activists seeking restitution for their
communities or advocating one reform or another. Many of them are women. I re-endorse the 1987
recommendation of the Political Bureau on this matter, namely, that the role of traditional rulers
"should be confined to the local government areas within their communities where they have relevance.
Even here, however, they should not be granted legislative, executive, or judicial functions". (Emphasis
mine)
118

39
Aspects ow Our Own Terrorism 7th March, 2002
NOTHING I have written on this subject since September 11, 2001, should be construed as a dismissal
of the reality of terrorism. Terrorism is real and has been part of human experience since the beginning
of recorded history. And there is no state in the world where terrorism is absent, or new. There is
terrorism in Nigeria, and it has ?:,,,:ten with us since colonial times. All I have said is that the current
American-led war against "global terrorism" is a cover, a deception, by the rulers ofAmerica and their

European allies to achieve a strategic objective of global imperialist hegemony. The September 11
terrorist act was really horrible, frightening and saddening. But I doubt ifthe rulers ofAmerica
experienced genuine grief - the type that ordinary people across the globe felt. September 11, in my
view, only provided the opportunity for American rulers to launch a campaign of terror on nations and
peoples they consider a threat to their imperialist interests. Many people have even suggested that
security and intelligence agencies in America got sufficient hints of an impending calamity and duly
informed their political masters. But the latter, perhaps not anticipating the scale, waited for their
"enemies" to play into their hands and provide the justification for the "final solution." In any case, as I
have earlier said, terrorism exists and is real. The global dictatorship now waging a bloody campaign
against terrorism is insincere, cynical, hypocritical and selective. It has found it difficult to define
terrorism precisely or at least distinguish between terrorism and other forms of political violence. But
they had been quick to distinguish between prisoners-of-war whose treatment is covered by the Geneva
Convention and the people they call "illegal combatants," like the Al-Qaeda, who are not so covered
and can be treated like animals. This distinction is not only self-serving but also silly. It offends all
international conventions, including the Geneva Convention. By their actions and utterances, however,
the global dictators, their spokespersons and their military forces seem to go by the rule that terrorists
are militant political Islamists and those opposed, for whatever reasons to the regimes the dictators
support or have installed. But this selective and evil definition should not lead us, as I suggested above,
to dismiss the reality of terrorism. For those who have no world to conquer and exploit, but a society to
humanize Ind democratise, terrorism is much easier to define and recognise. Our own experience
eriables us to give the following definitions. Terrorism is the pursuit ofpolitical objectives by violence,
threat of violence or generation of fear directed not against armed defenders of the state or armed
opponents of the state, but against an unarmed civilian population or
119

segments of it. Thus defined, there are, at the general level, two types of terrorism: state terrorism and
civil-society terrorism, the former directed against the civilian population, and the latter against the
state. At another level there are interstate terrorism and intra-civil society terrorism, where the former
characterises a state divided against itself and the latter describes what we know in Nigeria as
communal or inter-ethnic "clashes." There is also what we may call institutional terrorism as distinct
from individual terror, where by the latter (which is a category of Marxist politics) we mean either an
act of violence directed against an individual or selected individuals (military or civilian) or an act of
violence carried out by an individual or individuals (military or civilian), acting in isolation, that is,
without institutional support. To conclude this rough delineation of types and forms of terrorism,
another clarification is necessary. If a civilian group, or an individual, carries out an act of terror in
conjunction or collusion with the state or under the direction of the state, that act is state terrorism. The
converse is also true but a bit more controversial: if armed agents of the state, acting independently
(that is, without superior orders) carry out an act of terror either alone or in conjunction with some
civilians, then that act is civil-society terrorism. This is a rough taxonomy ofterrorism. I shall remain
largely at the general level, and may not go into such details in every example I am going to cite. Dele
Giwa, the founding Chief Executive and Editor-in-Chief of the Newswatch magazine, was assassinated,
via a letter bomb on Sunday, October 19, 1986. Going by the impact of the explosion, it was clear that
the assassins expected the man to die instantly. They succeeded. The following facts havebeen
established in regard to the incident. First, the bomb was a highly sophisticated and powerful one, made
especially for the military. Secondly, 24 hours before the incident the victim had been questioned by
senior functionaries ofthe Nigerian security service and the military intelligence on grave charges of
insurrectional sedition and treasonable felony. Thirdly, a day or so before the fatal bomb blast, the

director ofthe military intelligence had phoned Dele Giwa's home, requesting to be given the address of
his home. Fourthly, the envelope housing the bomb was marked "from CC," meaning Commander-inChief. Fifthly, the magazine and its senior editors including Dele Giwa, had been having a rwming
battle with the state. Sixthly, the victim had, two days before he was killed, apprehended a danger to his
person and had gone to brief his lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi. And seventhly, the Nigerian state not
only refused to seriously investigate the assassination, but also placed every obstacle in the way of
Giwa's lawyer who sought to carry out a private prosecution of the military personnel who harassed the
victim shortly before he was killed. Although these established facts together constituted a prima facie
case of state terrorism, a trial would have determined whether it was actually so or was simply a case of
individual terror conceived, planned and executed by an individual or a group of individuals acting
without institutional orders. ChiefAlfred Rewane, a 79-year-old nationalist and democrat was shot dead
on October 6,1995 in his Lagos residence. The established facts of this incident showed that it was an
act of state terrorism ordered by the regime. The violent elimination of Kudirat Abiola (Lagos, June 4,
1996) and her husband, Moshood Abiola (Abuja, July 7 1998), were also instances of state terrorism.
The judicial murder ofKen Saro-Wiwa (Port Harcourt, 120

November 10, 1995) was also a case of state terrorism, despite its deceptive legal form. The murder of
Sani Abacha was an instance ofintra-state terrorism; the crash of a Nigerian Air Force plane in Lagos
on September 26, 1992 which claimed the lives of about 200 persons, mainly middle-rank military
officers, pointed to intra-state terrorism; the same with some cases of successful coups d'etat (1966,
1975, 1976, 1983, 1985), the reported cases of attempted coups d'etat since the Babangida regime
(1985, 1990, 1995 and 1997), and of course the massacres of May to October 1966 and the Civil War
that followed it (1967-1970). The assassination of Chief Bola Ige a few days before last Christmas, the
mob killing of an Osun State legislator a few days earlier, and the explosions at a military weapons
depot in Lagos in January 2002 were all acts of intra-state terrorism. The controversies generated by the
investigations of Bola Ige's murder and the interim report of the military authorities on the explosions
are more than strong indications. And if we cast our minds back to the Abacha days we would
recognise as state terrorism the various bomb blasts in Lagos and the attempted assassinations ofAlex
Ibru and Abraham Adesanya, among others. Ethnic militia attacks on military and police formations,
and revenge missions carried out by the state were all acts of terrorism. The same goes for the so-called
communal clashes.
This reflection on terrorism in Nigeria has led me to adopt a homily of political philosophy: If you want
peace, pursue justice. Although many Nigerians who daily moot this homily are far from being sincere,
I can see no other means of eliminating terrorism. But to whom in Nigeria is this homily addressed? It
is, in the first instance, addressed to all Nigerians. But in the second instance, and most importantly, it
is addressed to the Nigerian state. Why? Because the Nigerian state is the only institution with the
power, the means and ultimate responsibility to create the conditions for the elimination of terrorism.
How can it do this? By discharging its essential responsibilities as a state. What are these
responsibilities? They include, in the words of John Le Carre in one of his novels, the institution of
popular democracy, protection of life, pursuit of justice, provision of health care, education and full
employment and maintenance of a sound administrative infrastructure. A state which fails to deliver on
these, according to Le Cane, is a "failed state.-

40
Do We Deserve this Government? 21st February, 2002 ST, gave this piece the working title: "Between
ASUU and President Obasanjo". Later, even before I had put down a sentence, I changed it to "Meeting
the President on his own Grounds". Almost immediately later, I changed the title, yet again, to "How to
Attack Corruption in the Citadel". And finally I adopted the title that appears above. All these changes
were attempts at finding the best way to intervene and coordinate the ongoing debates between
President Obasanjo and sections of the Nigerian population, in particular, the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU), sections of the political class, pro-democracy and human rights activists, and the
labour movement. Let me try to refresh your memory, university teachers, organised under ASUU, had
reminded the Federal Government of the agreement which ended one of the longest strikes by
university teachers in recent history. The reminder, unexpectedly, provoked a debate which later
snowballed into mutual hostility. At a stage, the president became very angry and accused the teachers,
in the words of Paul Nwabuikwu, of being "a band of lazy and unproductive professionals", who were
interested in "selling handouts and sexually harassing female students." (The Guardian, February 6,
2002). I think Nwabuikwu was trying to be decent. What the president actually said was that by midday, on a normal working day, Nigerian university teachers had returned either to the staff clubs or to
their offices "doing ladies." He asked his listeners not to pretend to misunderstand him. He meant
exactly what he said: drinking beer in the staff clubs or "doing ladies" in their offices. Nwabuikwu was
persuaded that the president was right but thought he would have used a more "decent" language,
befitting the nation's Number One Citizen. Now, on a normal day, I would have argued as follows: If
what the president alleged was essentially true, but only expressed in "unpresidential" language, then
the language, though provocative, should have been overlooked in favour of a self-critical examination
of what he had said. Well, my days have not been normal of recent. The responses given to the
presidential charges and abuses by ASUU, both at the national and at the University of Calabar chapter
levels, were as abusive 'as the president's charges. They engaged the president on his own grounds. If I
were in the leadership ofASUU, I would have done exactly the same. But the revolutionary dictum is
this: if a critic abuses you, first deal with the criticism objectively, vigorously and exhaustively;
thereafter, take liberty to abuse back. ASUU tried to follow this dictum. Many people now believe that
the president's abusive language is one of the greatest threats
122

to his re-election in 2003. The reason, they say, is that the beneficiaries ofthis language are his very
powerful challengers. The critics list a number of President Obasanjo's recent "unpresidential"
utterances. Although the president has since explained, and some would say, apologised, for some of
his angry outbursts, many people believe that there are no prospects of any redeeming change in this
particular presidential trait. The critics, however, failed to list the various encounters between the
president and Nigerian communities in the United States ofArnerica and Britain in the early days of his
presidency. These encounters should have been included - for the sake of completeness, as we would
say in Mathematics. They were marked by ugly, angry and abusive scenes. The public abuse of
appointed political functionaries, including ministers, assistants and advisers may be excused: the
president appointed them and had warned them in advance of his general methods of controlling and
directing his subordinates. But inexcusable are the abuses regularly visited on elected officers, civil

servants, journalists and ordinary citizens. There is an unpopular and, to some extent, unfair and
insensitive saying that "a people deserves the government it gets". I don't know or perhaps cannot
recall, the source or origin of this political philosophy. All I know is that it is old and Machiavellian and
has been widely criticised, sometimes absolutely and, at other times, with insightful exceptions. Many
people have said, in public and in private, that Nigerians do not deserve the present government; that it
has betrayed our hopes and expectations; that it is abusing us instead of serving us. I would subscribe to
this verdict. But the matter has to be examined a little more deeply and generally. Let us assume a
democratic electoral ideal: a government is popularly elected in a free, fair, bribery-free and transparent
democratic election - where these words carry their ordinary, true and non-cynical meanings. A
combination of factors could have led to the government's election: the popularity of the programmes,
declarations and manifestoes of the political group or its leader; their track record or antecedents; their
credibility, however derived; their being the best of evils, out of which we are compelled to choose one,
etc. In this case, it can be said that the people, represented by the electorate, deserve the government
they have got. Another scenario: suppose the people, but another one, or even the worst judged by some
rational humanistic criteria. Here, again, we can say that the people deserve the government they have
got. But if in either case there is a substantial derogation from our idealistic regime, then this statement
deserves a qualification, or even reversal. If, for instance, a governance comes into power, or office,
through a rigged election, then the people cannot be held responsible for their "choice" except for
allowing themselves to be swindled, deceived, intimidated, or simply overwhelmed. But this is a lesser
offence. I f an unpopular government assumes power through electoral rigging, then the people cannot
he said to "'deserve" that government as long as the same people are seen to be strtiggling to remove
that government. The same consideration applies in a situation where a deniocratically and popularly
elected government, having assumed office, deviates from its platfornt, pretensions and promises. Now,
suppose a government comes into being through a revolution, or a coup
123
d' etat, or any other "undemocratic" means. Do we deserve it? Yes, if the process of its coming to
power, or the demand for its coming to power, is popular where popular, here, has its true and ordinary
meaning. Otherwise we do not deserve it, except to the extent that we have failed, within the human,
material and political resources at our disposal, to stop its assumption ofpower. But, if on assumption
ofpower, a popularly acclaimed regime turns out to be bad, and we immediately start the struggle to
remove it, then this is a sufficient political "atonement" for our political error. And we cannot, from that
point on, be said to deserve it. On the basis of what I have said above, I may now re-pose the question.
Do we deserve the present Nigerian government? My answer is no, we do not deserve it. I return this
verdict on two grounds. In the first place, the election which brought the government to power failed
the democratic test on several counts. I don't need to dwell on this. It is a general opinion, and it is true.
Many people have tried to explain, and others have sought to excuse it: we desperately wanted the
military dictatorship out by all means, and General Abdulsalami Abubakar's compromise transition was
a God-given means of realising this national desire. My second ground is that there are determined,
patriotic, progressive and truly democratic forces struggling to dislodge the present set ofrulers
democratically. Please note the words I use to identify and describe the political forces-in-opposition. I
don't mean those who may simply want to dislodge President Obasanjo, democratically or otherwise,
take his place and thereafter continue the same anti-people and imperialist-inspired policies but now
under a new ethno-religious or regional ruling core. T.O be direct and concrete, the opposition forces I
have in mind include the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), although I fervently hope it would stop
sometimes regarding itself as a mediator between the government and the people. It should remain a
focused partisan of the people. Then, there are the radical pro-democratic and human-rights groups.
Then, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), provided it would seriously engage the "bad

eggs" in its ranks. Then, in a special class ofhis own, is Chief Gani Fawehinmi together with his lawpractice and political organisations. For the last mentioned, please refer to his statements and activities,
even within the last one month, and the latest of his numerous books, Petrol Price Increases in Nigeria:
The Truth You Must Know.
124

41
Ethnic Politics 7th February, 2002
T_ WO days before the end of last year, a meeting took place at Ikom, a city in the northern part of
Cross River State. Tagged Atam Congress, the meeting attracted a moderate number of professional
politicians, public figures, non-professional political activists, youths, academics, traditional rulers and
business people - men and women. The name Atam, by the way, was for a long historical period (and
even now) used in this part of the country to describe the non-Efik speaking peoples of the president
Cross River State. The name was originally (and to some extent, even now) a derogatory and abusive
one. The "Atams" are found in the three senatorial districts of the state, southern, central and northern,
but predominantly in the latter two. It is also important to state that Efiks are found in all parts of the
state, but predominantly in the southern senatorial district with Calabar as indisputable capital for all
Efiks, at home and in diaspora. If"Atams" are today defined as non-Efik speaking indigenes of Cross
River State, as many people do, then they constitute a numerical and geographical majority in the state.
But Efik is widely spoken in Cross River-State and parts ofAkwa Ibom State for reasons historical just as Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo are widely spoken even in areas outside the geographical regions now
defined as theirs. For the benefit of those far from here or who may not, for various reasons, be
particularly interested in what happens here, "Atams" are made up of several ethnic, sub-ethnic,
cultural and linguistic groups. Now, if "Atam" is a derogatory term, why would the people so abused,
decide to officially and formally adopt the name? One of the leading organisers ofAtam Congress, a
serious academic and a former Commissioner in the state explained in a paper he presented at the
congress: "It is a clarion call to establish a legacy for future generations of the people mis-guidedly
called the ATAMS for whatever reason, good or bad. Let us build a formidable force out of such
connotation. The great Ibibios have used such name-calling to galvanise them towards collective
consciousness, quite admirably. Formidable fronts have also been built out of such purported
derogatory name-calling such as Wawas, Owambe, or even such term as Juju Music, among others.
This is the essence ofthe founding fathers, mothers, sons and daughters of the collective called Atams"
Later, in a private discussion with me, the academic went further to justify the adoption of the name.
My reading-interpretation of what my friend was saying is as follows. Since we want to mobilise our
people for collective empowerment and pursuit of collective good. it is necessary to find a rallying
theme, slogan ,:r even name - as a collective identity, so to say. In this circumstance, is it not more
practical, reasonable and positive to adopt a name (derogatory or not) by which we have been
125

collectively known for a very long time than to start searching for a new name or worse still, to
continue fighting this name? This is pure dialectics; and I accept it in the realm of thought and
reflection. It is what some Marxist would call negation of negation which, in theory as well as practice,
is the extraction and absorption of some elements ofphenomenon B (which itself is a negation of
phenomenon A) in the process of negating it (phenomenon B), and obtaining higher phenomenon C, a
synthesis so to say. Of course, the production of a synthesis begins a new dialectical process, ad

infinitum. But whether, at a given point in time and space, this dialectics is positive or negative, fair or
unfair, revolutionary or retrogressive, national unity enhancing or disintegrative, depends on the
historical and political context. Let us see. Going by what is happening across the country, the central
objective of the Atam Congress is as expected to develop "a united front in all we do and should do,
and say; predicated on the ideological frame-work of unity is strength, a perspective from which we
should aggressively and legitimately confront divisive tendencies; to wit, myopic and individualistic
pursuit ofhappiness that tend to further disintegrate our collective development imperatives." The Atam
Congress denounced the "marginalisation of our people who deserve play not only at the centre
forward but also at the goal posts, with maximum equity, fairness and justice to all other stakeholders
in the state." Then, a call for understanding: "We graciously call on our governments at the relevant
tiers and other well-meaning groups in our beloved state to see what we are doing as well-intentioned,
democratic, legitimate and quite emulative of the collective consciousness characteristic of the
Ohaneze Ndigbo, Afenifere and Arewa Consultative Forum, among other current democratic upsurges
of energising nationalistic consciousness variants" Then, an assurance: "Ours, like these, is in no way
an attempt to undermine our democratic aspiration nor practice, nor our country's socio-political, sociocultural or socio-economic imperatives. Rather, it is aimed at supporting good governance at all levels."
Again, going by what is happening in the country, there is nothing unusual or offensive in these
declarations. But shortly after the meeting in which these declarations were made, a particularly harsh
counter-statement was issued by Cross River State Youth Vanguard. Signed by an "Atam" man, the
statement strongly suggested that the real objective of the Atam Congress was to dislodge Governor
Donald Duke (an Efik man) from office in 2003 and replace him with an Atam person. The statement
refuted the charge of marginalisation and described the promoters of Atam Congress as opportunists
and political failures. It predicted that they would fail again in 2003 and that Donald Duke would be reelected governor. Essentially, what the Vanguard did was to make the Atam question explicitly political
- which it is. All the "socio-cultural" groups cited in Atam Congress'. statement, including Ohaneze
Ndigbo, Afenifere and Arewa Consultative Forum, are political, their "non-political" posture
notwithstanding. Since the ultimate objective ofpolitics is power, the Vanguard has discovered nothing
new and has revealed no "hidden" agenda: the Atam Congress is merely pushing for what other "sociocultural" groups across the country are aiming at: that is to say, political power. Those opposing the
Atam Congress and rallying round Governor Donald Duke are also aiming at the same thing: political
power. Since they are currently in power, or allying
126

themselves with the people in power, they don't need to issue a manifesto as the Congress has done, but
to advertise the "fairness and achievements" of the government, which they did. Governor Duke tried
to deflect the controversy by declaring, on Friday, January 18, 2002, that he was not opposed to the
Atam Congress. He, in fact, declared himself a member of the Congress. You see politics! We are
therefore led back to the fundamental question: ethnic politics, or ethnic nationality politics - since
"nations" and "nationalities" have entrenched themselves in our political lexicon. ChiefAnthony
Enahoro was one ofthe country's politicians to renew the call for regrouping our polity along ethnic
nationality lines. In his advocated system, there are about 70 of such groups in Nigeria. While some are
ethnic nationalities others are ethnic nationality constellations. In my understanding of this system,
ethnic groups like the Igbos, the Yorubas, the Hausa-Fulani and the Efiks constitute nationalities, each
of which can stand alone, while groups like the "Atams" constitute constellations of ethnic nationalities
which should be grouped together. In a situation where the leaders of every ethnic group -big or small -

now consider themselves a "nation", Enahoro's system, while trying to resolve the ethnic nationality
question in Nigeria, creates new political problems. In the first place, big groups, basing themselves on
number, population movements and power - whose origins lay in colonial policies - will lay claim on
contiguous smaller groups or parts of them. In the second place, some groups in designated
constellations will refuse to belong, while others may push for hegemony within the constellations. I
am at this point, making no new systemic proposals. Ethnic politics is here with us. I appreciate the
existence of ethnic domination and exploration in Nigeria. I also appreciate the dangers ofethnic
politics. While hoping that further historical developments and popular-democratic struggles will
resolve these contractions, all one can demand, for now, is as follows: the 2003 general elections must
be free, fair and democratic. In particular, the Electoral Law must make room for the emergence ofnew
political parties, or regrouping of political forces, which, if they so wish, should be free to take part in
all the elections.
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42
Ideology and Governance 14th February, 2002 ACOUPLE of weeks ago, a media event took place in
Abuja, the Nigerian capital. It was a typical Nigerian celebration complete with gorgeous attires,
beautiful speeches, sycophancy, self-praises, dances, boisterous noises and, of course, millions of naira,
some of which were expended openly and "legally" and others appropriated secretly and pocketed by
individuals as bribes and "self-help." The participants were, all the while, oblivious of the horrible
human and social conditions in Nigeria. The event was the awards by the Nigeria Union of Journalists
(NUJ), supported by the Ministry of Information and National Orientation, to state governments for
their "performance" in the iarious areas of governance: road construction, education, environmental
care and protection, agriculture and economic development, "democratic dividends," standard of living,
communal peace, etc, etc. State governors were awarded not only medals of various types; gold, silver
and bronze, but also marks graduated in percentages. It was a depressing and laughable event. The
electronic media in Cross River State not only celebrated this event, praising its government for its
awards, but also proceeded to castigate the governments of the South West which boycotted the
celebration and the exercise leading up to it. The countrywide "Media Tour" led by the Federal Minister
of Information and National Orientation and executed by hundreds of journalists, resulting in the
awards of medals and marks, raises a major ideological question and a number of ordinary questions
concerning governance. We may first uncover the hidden ideology. Any government, however brutal,
alienated or bad, must do "something" for "the people." For a government to exist and survive, even for
a day, as a governing authority, it is compelled to do "something," not only for itself but also for the
people; it has to "perform," as Nigeria's political language would put. The Third Reich, that is, the
German state under Adolf Hitler (1933-1945), considered to be one o f the worst organisations to
administer a human community since the beginning of written history, did "many things" for the
people; it "performed" in many respects. Hitler's party was first named the German Workers' Party;
later it became the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or simply the Nazi Party. The Nazi Party
restored the nationalistic pride of Germans, humiliated in World War I; it checked unemployment; it
established huge labour camps and public works; it identified and located national scapegoats (Jews
and communists, in the main); it vigorously pursued industrialisation. Hitler hosted the llth Olympic
Games in Berlin in 1936; he constructed wd.slataschciasandhosRitals, established farms, improved the
environment, united his
128
"chosen" people and mobilised them. In short, Hitler actually improved the lives of large sections of the

German population; he did more than "something" for his people. And yet the man is adjudged one of
the worst rulers in modem history! Why should he be so judged after doing so much for the Guinan
people? Why? From January 1984 to May 1999, a period of more than 15 years, Nigeria was ruled by a
succession of military juntas: General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, General Sani
Abacha and General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Chief Ernest Shonekan's administration (August to
November 1993) cannot be listed independently because it was merely a brief military-backed
transition from Babangida to Abacha. All these regimes did many "things" for the people. Buhari's
regime initiated and executed a "WarAgainst Indiscipline" (WAI). Everyone knew that the country was
very "undisciplined" at the time Buhari came to power. The regime changed the nation's currencies to
check money hoarding and forgeries and generally injected discipline into the financial sector; it put the
rampaging politicians behind bars and dismantled their structures all with the aim of protecting the
"common people" from evil people. Babangida released imprisoned politicians as an act of
"humanism," he initiated a national debate on the acceptability, or otherwise, of International Monetary
Fund (IMF) diktats; he initiated a National Political Debate under a 17-member Political Bureau to map
out a political future for the country. The Political Bureau actually reflected the nation's ideologicalpolitical spectrum, with progressives commanding a comfortable majority. The debate was national and
well conducted; the bureau carried out its mandate thoroughly and seriously. There was turj,ulence
within the debate and in the Bureau; but that was to be expected. Babangida introduced the Structural
Adjustment Programme (SAP); he rationalised, disciplined" and "liberalised" the system of foreign
exchange and importation. Both reforms were accepted, even lauded, by large sections of the private
sector, national and international. e set up the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure
(DFRRI), the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), and a programme of social mobilisation
called vT...12\ISER. Babangida constructed roads, bridges and airports; set up schools and hospitals;
ceived the establishment of Export Promotion Zones (EPZs) and actually laid the dation of one in
Calabar; he developed Abuja up to the point where it was possible to e it the functional capital of the
country. He physically moved there with the core of this emment. Finally, he made history in the sphere
of"political engineering" by establishing political parties for the country: one, a little-to-the-left and the
other, a little -to-the-After grumbling for a while, a vast majority ofNigeria's professional politicians
and Thew-breed" went into them and sought political power under them. Babangida therefore quite a
lot for the "people." Yet, today, many Nigerians consider General Ibrahim gida's record so bad that they
would consider preventing him from coming back to even through democratic elections. Why? General
Sani Abacha also did many things for the "people." He was reputed to halted Nigeria's drift to civil war
and disintegration; he introduced the War Against line and Corruption (WAIC); he tackled corruption in
the economy, especially in g sector; he "energized" the fight against corrupt business practices ("419");
he 129

organised a constitutional conference which actually produced a constitution; he initiated the formation
of political parties which many politicians joined. Beyond all these, he built roads, bridges,
schools,hospitals etc-,he tstaliAst-\_ed iad.ustries_ He 'performed' so well that some monuments,
including aSpeczalis?T ospitali ktwatilorrt_ State., were named in Cross River State was re-named after
Babangida. But today, in many circles, the name-f-g-actia-A-symiyirmywiiih. General Abdulsalami
Abubakar who succeeded Abacha, also did many things for the "people". In addition to initiating the
recovery of Nigeria's money stolen by his predecessors in office, he piloted Nigeria to a "democracy"
and gave the nation a Constitution, one that was actually promulgated and is still in use. After leaving
office he was feted at home and abroad. Today, he is abused in many quarters, and I don't know how
many politicians or political groups would invite him to be their presidential or gubernatorial candidate,
Why? The point I am labouring to make by this long narration is that every governance, political

governance, has a special ideology which is open and a general ideology :rich is hidden. An element of
the latter is massively deceptive and is expressed in terms such as "the government has performed",
"the government has made achievements", "the government has done things for the people," etc. Once
you adopt this element of the hidden ideology, consciously or unconsciously, every government, even
the worst one on planet Earth will pass your test or investigation. You may undertake a six-month tour
with 1,000 journalists. The result will be the same: pass. The adoption of a true element ofthe hidden
ideology will lead to the real questions such as: What has the government done in relation to what it
can do with the resources at its disposal? What can the government do if the wealth of the nation had
not been appropriated illegally and through state robbery? What can the government do if its policies
had been more egalitarian and popular and less elitist? What can the government do if its political
economy had been less exploitative, less patriarchal and sexist, more humanistic, more progressive?
What can the government do if it had not set itself up as infallible, all-wise and second to God? If the
people who undertook the Media Tour had asked these questions and several other pro-people ones,
they would have come out with an unambiguous and true report: Failure for all governments in Nigeria
from the top right down to the bottom.
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43
Transient Unity Inspired by Death 31st January, 2002 S ofAugust 1974, the Nigerian Labour
Movement was dominated by four central labour organisations: the Nigerian Trade Union Congress
(NTUC), the United Labour Congress (ULC), the Nigerian Workers Council (NWC) and the Labour
Unity Front (LUF). The first (NTUC) was regarded as radical, Marxist and allied to the international
socialist movement; the second (ULC) had the label of conservatism, and was generally regarded as
pro-government, inspired by imperialism and international capitalism; the third (NWC) claimed to be
ideologically neutral; the fourth (LUF) was an attempt to unify the movement around a radical and
progressive platform. There were more than one thousand labour unions, most of which were allied to
one or the other of the four centres. The others claimed to operate individually and independently,
although from time to time, they were compelled to combine briefly to wage one struggle or another. I
must quickly add that the ideological and political labels and claims attached to the unions and their
centres were not totally or everywhere correct; but that point is not relevant in this piece. What is
relevant is that the often violent antagonisms and contradictions within the Nigerian Labour Movement
were of a higher degree than those between the movement on the one hand, and e employers of labour
and the Nigerian State on the other. And, sadly, many labour Illeatiers benefited materially and
otherwise from the internal squabbles. In fact, there were l'' 'limbo ur leaders whose main political
platform was anti-unity. And this had little or nothing to with real ideological or political differences.
Then, in September 1974, a prominent labour leader, J. Oduleye, who was, at a the national treasurer
ofULC, died. His burial at Apena Cemetery in Lagos brought all the factional leaders of the Nigerian
Labour Movement; The labour leaders and political associates who delivered funeral orations
bemoaned the disunity in the ent. Other mourners, including rank-and-file workers, expressed similar
sentiments. end of the funeral rites, even before they left the cemetery, all the factional leaders agreed
to work towards unity and form a single united centre for the Nigerian Movement. The agreement later
translated into the historic Apena (Cemetery) Lion. Drafted by Okon Eshiett, then director of the Trade
Union Institute, the on was signed by Wahab Goodluck, S.U. Bassey, Okon Eshiett, J.O. James, le, A. J.
Oluwese, F.O.A. Odeyemi, H.P. Adebola, M. A. 0. Imoudu, J.U. Akpan Ramos, among others. In
December 1975, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on the basis of the Apena Declaration. That was
the second NLC, the first

131

having been formed in 1950. But this triumph in Nigeria's labour history was short-lived. The second
NLC died shortly after its formation. Why? Because as soon as the birth of NLC and its leadership
were announced, several labour leaders and activists, disaffected for various reasons (some altruistic,
some not so altruistic) protested loudly and carried their protest to the military government of General
Murtala Mohammed. Exploiting this protest and using it as an excuse, the military government stepped
in, instituted a Commission of Inquiry into the affairs of the movement, denounced the new NLC,
banned several labour leaders from further participation in the movement and initiated and directed the
formation ofnew labour centre: the third NLC, which came into being in February 1978. The military
government "educated" and warned Nigerian workers and their unions: "The present regime will not
tolerate indiscipline and is committed to a new trade union structure in the country which will ensure
that workers can elect their leaders in accordance with a code of conduct, ,;onsistent with the
government's overall national programme of enforcing discipline in all facets ofpublic life." The people
that received this "education" included Michael Imoudu, Goodluck and S.U. Bassey each of whom had
put in at least 30 years in militant anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle for human dignity and
popular democracy in Nigeria The rest is history. I have made my point: the unifying power of death
and the often transient character of this power. In fact, going through our own political history, one can
tentatively say that the breakdown of death-induced unity often sends a community backwards, beyond
the point it was before the "unifying" tragedy. Don't ask me why, because that is the question I am
asking. Twenty-five years before the death of Oduleye and its aftermath narrated above, on November
18, 1949, to be exact, 21 Nigerian coal miners were massacred by the colonial police at Enugu. About
59 others, were seriously wounded. The miners, about 6,000 daily paid "labourers" were peacefully
demanding an improvement in their wages and other conditions of service. The Nigerian Nationalist
Movement, badly fragmented along political and ethnic lines, temporarily suppressed their differences
and, in one voice, condemned the massacre and demanded restitution. They went further to form a
National Emergency Committee (NEC) which brought together the various factions. Represented in
NEC were such leaders like Kingsley Mbadiwe, a leading member of the National Council of Nigeria
and Camerouns (NCNC) rc-named National Council of Nigerian Citizens after independence, and
Mokwugo Okoye, a leader of the Zikist Movement which had been painfully alienated from the NCNC
which inspired its formation in 1946. The National Emergency Committee vehemently refuted the
colonial government's allegation that the police fired at the workers in "self-defence", insisting that the
miners were unarmed and did not threaten the police. It called for a Commission of Inquiry, warning
that "unless the Commission of Inquiry is given the fullest facilities to establish the truth about the loss
of 2l lives and the wounding of59 men, relations between the government and the people of this
country would have suffered an irreparable damage."
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44
Organising Parties for Specific Struggles 27th September, 2001
`BUT, why can't these people organise apolitical party specifically'to fight against zoning?' asked a
Calabar politician in anger. He was reacting, in Calabar, to the reported declaration by Alhaji Abubakar
Rimi that he would no longer abide by his party's policy of zoning political offices, and would,
henceforth, support the decision of any Nigerian to contest any office of his or her choice. He would, in

particular, contest the 2003 presidential election regardless of the part of the country to which the post
would be zoned by his party, the PP ogles Democratic Party (PDP). Rimi holds that the zoning
principle is undemocratic. He _..)mplained that in the 1999 election, he was persuaded to withdraw his
presidential candidature for the sake of party and national unity and to ensure that no excuse was given
to make the military go back on its pledge to relinquish power. But he is now convinced, more than
ever before, that the principle of zoning poses immense dangers to party and national unity and, indeed,
to the survival of democracy in Nigeria. I have knownAbubakar Rimi for about 20 years. I admire his
straight-talk culture. Whether he is right or wrong is another matter, whether you agree with him or not
is a different question. The point is, Rimi is a straight-talker. And this should be admired in a country
like Nigeria and in a "political class" like the one to which Rimi belongs. However, the Calabar
politician is right: politicians and activists like Rimi, who hold strong positions on Nigeria's socialpolitical system but who are nonetheless persuaded that abstaining from electoral politics under this
system is undesirable should resolve the conflict by organising political parties whose main platform
would be the campaign for political reforms. In particular, the agitations for "political restructuring",
"true and fiscal feder.alism" and "resource control" ought, by now, to have produced strong political
parties committed to the realisation of these reforms. The present ruling parties in Zambia and Malawi
were organised specifically to fight for "multi-party democracy" in their countries. The main opposition
party in Zimbabwe was founded for the establishment of"democracy" in the country. Whether these
parties were sincere or have been able to deliver on their promises is quite another matter. The point is
that they chose an important issue in the country, made it their main political platform and fought
elections on that platform. There is, in leftist politics, a revisionist argument, very old; but ever current.
It goes somewhat like this: "You can only change a system from within, in any case, it is much easier to
change a system from within than from without. You should therefore find a means of getting into
power or joining those in power, to be able to practicalise your ideas. Otherwise, you risk becoming
irrelevant in politics - that is, if you are not imprisoned or rendered
134

materially miserable, or even killed." This argument which I have deliberately simplified, is sometimes
presented with much rigour and sophistication, especially by Marxists. It is nonetheless revisionist and
often opportunistic. The opportunism inheres in its generalisation to cover all situations:
FromAbubakar Rimi to Balarabe Musa; from Gani Fawehinmi and Femi Falana to Olisa Agbakoba;
from Anthony Enahoro to Marxist Leftists. Although our political history has provided thousands of
examples of how the principle of entrism can lead to disaster for individual entrists and whole
communities and organisations, the entrist argument has proved resilient. It is resilient not because it is
correct. It is not. It is resilient because political activists of the left have failed in two particular
directions. First, they have failed to credibly combine non-electoral politics with electoral politics.
Hitherto, it has been an "either - or" attitude, abandoning or even denouncing popular struggle as soon
as they become electoral politicians or are appointed into political offices. Secondly, they have failed to
elevate their advocated reforms or transformations to the status of clear electoral platforms undiluted by
entrist principles and political alliances. Going through the programmes and various position
statements of the Peoples' Redemption Party (PRP), the Movement for National Reformation (MNR)
and the National Conscience Party (NCP) and consulting my political notes, I find at least three issues
from which a political party genuinely committed to reforming the Nigerian polity can choose a main
election campaign platform while not ignoring other issues of "good governance." These are: the
sovereign national conference; geo-political and fiscal restructuring; human rights and directive
principles of state policy. It follows from here and what I have earlier said in connection withAbubakar

Rimi that political parties can also be organised specifically to oppose any of all of these platforms. The
call for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) is essentially a campaign for a new agreement by
living Nigerians on how they want Nigeria and its peoples to be governed and its resources managed
and administered: fairly and equitably for the benefit of all Nigerians. The name historically given to
this type of agreement is constitution. In the formal sense therefore, an SNC is a constitutional
conference. But it is a constitutional conference of a particular type, reflecting the turbulence of the
country's history, and the abuses and dehumanisation to which its peoples have been subjected over a
very long time. The demand for an SNC also reflects the experience that the world has accumulated,
over such conferences in the past decade, Of SO. The current (1999) Constitution is no constitution at
all. It is a ockery which powerful people and institutions interuret the wavciti.,4,4-,,-- zunceiN ea,
W11-1 reflect me complexity of the nation and the zrent problems and demands. The composition ofthe
conference will therefore, of necessity, 'The complex: comprising, democratically elected
representatives of the people as Nigerians, ,..esentatives of ethnic nationalities, non-party organisations
ofthe civil society andNigerian institutions. The political party or parties canvassing a sovereign
national conference :11 have to work out the relationship between the conference and the incumbent
government the way its decisions will be ratified and put into effect. This, together with the
composition, oture and rules of the conference will define its sovereignty. Geopolitical restructuring
has two components: territorial and political. The territorial
135

component entails, first, the grouping of the present states into regions as a way of bridging the gap
between the strength of the Federal Government and the weakness of the states; secondly, adjusting,
where necessary, the boundaries between the present states and even creating new states; and thirdly,
creating new local government council areas or adjusting the boundaries between the existing ones, as
the case may be. The political component of restructuring entails, first, the distribution of functions and
powers, including the powers of material appropriation, between the three levels of government:
federal, state and local; secondly, redefining unambiguously, the relationships between them; and
thirdly, establishing the status of the regional structure. Although the demand for true or fiscal
federalism can be subsumed under the campaign for geo-political restructuring, it has now become
necessary to treat resource control, a particular aspect of true or fiscal federalism, as an autonomous
subject. The party or parties genuinely committed to social reforms may start with a thorough critique
of chapters 2, 3 and 4 of the 1999 Constitution. These deal with Fundamental Objectives and Directive
Principles of State Policy (Chapter 2), Citizenship (Chapter 3), Fundamental rights (Chapter 4). For this
exercise the party or parties will require the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the United
Nations' Declaration on Human Rights and the Conventions, Charters and Declarations of the United
Nations' General Assembly as well as United Nations' sponsored conferences on social, economic,
political, legal, religious, cultural and gender rights. The objective here is to produce a document of
comprehensive and concrete rights to be enjoyed by the Nigerian people everywhere and at all time.
The rights should be comprehensive, they should be justiciable, that is, legally enforceable. The
document should also include the duties and obligations of the Nigerian state and its various
governments to the Nigerian people and, of course, conversely. Not to be left out is the question of state
robbery, nepotism, corruption and the proportions of the wealth of the nation that state and political
functionaries are permitted to appropriate as salaries and allowances, or steal, either directly or through
privatisation.
136

45
Frustrated Nationalist Expectations 26th July, 2001 AFRIEND ofmine, about my age, literally ran into
my office. He was looking for a newspaper which carried the report that General Muhammadu Buhari,
a member ofNigeria's Council of State and our country's military Head of State from January 1. 1984 to
August 26, 1985 had asked Nigerian Moslems not to vote for a non-Moslem in :::e 2003 elections. I
calmed him down and asked the library assistant in our Research Library to search for the newspaper.
While the newspaper was being searched for, I engaged my visitor in dialogue on the strike action
embarked upon that day by the academic staff of the polytechnic of which he was a member. I was
relieved when he switched from Buhari to the state government, the owner of the polytechnic. He
denounced the government and the governor in unprintable words. I listened to him without
interruption. Eventually, the library assistant appeared with a newspaper, The Guardian, and handed it
to the visitor. As it turned out the newspaper carried, not the original report, but several reactions it
They called, among other things, for the expulsion of Buhari from the Council of State. i friend was
satisfied even with this. After reading these secondary reports, he rose to go. _ I stopped him. "What,
really, is the matter? I asked him. Returning to his initial angry Id, he said it was very disgraceful and
disappointing that a man of General Buhari's e, a former Head of State, a General in the Nigerian Army
and a member ofNigeria's est advisory council, the Council of State, could ask Nigerians not to vote for
non-lem candidates. He threatened to write an attack on the "fundamentalist" General. 'c,- to prevent
the man's anger turning on me and partly to end the discussion and visit, I with him completely, I even
strengthened his case: Buhari's outburst was not only ceful and disappointing, but also provocative. My
tactic worked and we parted as des on the same side of the barricade. Everybody who witnessed this
interruption of work agreed with the man. Far from being angry that he took close.to 30 minutes of
time, the library users cheered him all the way. They all agreed that Buhari's alleged nation of
Moslems, in whatever circumstances it might have been given, was gleeful", "disappointing", and
"provocative" for a former ruler, a former Head of State. ,;. a climb-down from the pretentions
ofnational leadership. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe can be described as the founder or at least one of the
founders m nationalism in Nigeria. I am led to this description through a close examination of _-:nation
of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroun (NCNC) in 1944, the ushment of Zik's string of
nationalist newspapers, the 12-month country-wide tour
137

which this nationalist movement, under his leadership, undertook in 1946)47; the ion-nation of the
Zikist Movement in 1946; the protest delegation of the NCNC to London in 1947 under his leadership;
and the presentation ofNCNC's Freedom Charter at its 1948 Kaduna Convention. Azikiwe later became
the Premier of Eastern Region, President of the Nigerian Senate, Governor-General of Nigeria,
President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and founder ofthe University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He did
not name the institution the University of Nsukka. He called it the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. After
his experience in Biafra where he was a hostage or, at best, a reluctant participant, Azikiwe became the
Owelle of Onitsha, the fourth in rank to the paramount ruler of Onitsha. Many people saw this, at the
time, and even now, as a disappointing climb-down for Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Zik ofAfrica. Chief
Obafemi Awolowo founded the first modern political party in Nigeria: the Action Group (AG).
Originating from a pan-Yoruba movement, Egbe Omo Oduduwa, the Action Group rose to become a
well-organised and disciplined national party of social democracy, drawing members and allies from
across the country. His party in the Second Republic, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) built on the
legacy of the Action Group. Chief Awolowo became the first Premier of Western Region where his
party, the Action Group. f7.7.-tablished national leadership in social transformation, modernisation and

social welfarism. He later became the Leader of Opposition in the Federal House of Representatives. It
has been claimed, and widely believed, that the young army majors who attempted to stage the first
coup in Nigeria in January 1966, planned to release Awolowo from jail and install him as President.
They failed in their coup attempt and hence in their plan to mike Awolowo President. When General
Yakubu Gowon became Head of State in August 1966, one of his first acts was to release
ChiefAwolowo from jail to help him unite the country according to the vision and wishes of those who
won the political battles of January - July 1966. Soon after, Awolowo became and assumed the title of
Leader of the Yoruba. To many people, it was a disappointing climb-down for Chief Obafemi
Awolowo. Ocita Agwuna was Deputy President of the Zikist Movement. A heavily bearded militant
nationalist, socialist and Marxist, Agwuna delivered the now historic public lecture. "A Call for
Revolution", in Lagos on 27 October 1948. Organised by the movement and chaired by Anthony
Enahoro, then Editor of the Daily Comet, the lecture called for rebellion, sabotage, and armed
overthrow ofthe colonial regime. Agwuna and Enahoro were arrested. Defiantly, the Zikist Movement
organised another rally 100 days later. Addressing the rally, Raj i Abdallah, the Zikist president, asked
Nigerians to renounce allegiance to the British Crown. He and other Zikist militants were arrested. In
the trial that folloWedAbdallah refused to enter a plea before a colonial court; Agwuna challenged the
authority ofthe court to try him, declaring himself a prisoner of war. They were all jailed. Abdallah was
later to join one of the conservative constitutional parties. His death, in the early 1970s, attracted only a
brief mention in a local newspaper. Agwuna became a traditional ruler in Anambra State. He is still on
the throne. Theirs was a chain of climb-downs. Chief Awolowo once said that to be a good Nigerian,
you have to be a good member of your community. It was a loaded dictum which, in this era
of"postmodemism" and ethnic nationalism, I have not ceased to ponder. I believe I am a good member
of the
138

community where I live in spite of my attitude to religion and inter-ethnic group relations in that
community. But I am not sure I am a good member of the Igbo ethnic group going by the popular
understanding of that phrase. Am I, for that reason, a bad Nigerian? Did Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe become a
better Nigerian when he became the Owelle of Onitsha? Did Aminu Kano, one of our national heroes,
become a better Nigerian on account of the role he was alleged to have played on behalf of Northern
Nigeria in the blood-bath leading to the coup of July 1966? Did Abdallah and Agwuna become better
Nigerians after their Zikist days? Did Chukwuemeka Odumegu-Ojukwu become a better Nigerian, or
better Biafran, by assuming the title of Ikemba Nnewi having failed to obtain a pan-Igbo chieftaincy
title? When did General Murtala Mohammed become a good (or better) Nigerian: When he led
Northern soldiers in July 1966, or when he prosecuted the civil war brutally, or when he became Head
of State, or when he tried to purge Nigeria of social and political decadence, or when he stood up
forAfrica in Addis Ababa (1975)? Is General Buhari a better Nigerian on account of his position on
religion and politics? Whatever your answers or objections to these questions, one thing is clear:
genuine national leaders of the Nigerian nation cannot be found in the ranks ofpost-independence
government leaders, past or present. Arnan is motivated by sectional interest (political or religious),
mobilises sectional forces and becomes Head of State, by a coup d' etat or a fraudulent election, and we
expect him to be transformed into a national leader by the sole fact ofhis accession to power! ANational
Council of State, comprising these same leaders (past and present) is constituted and we expect both
the council and its members to become national by the sole fact of their being so named! Our
nationalist frustrations are rooted in our political illusions. But Nigeria will win. And genuine national
leaders will emerge.

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46
Emerging Political Associations 7th June, 2001
THE last few weeks, at least six political associations have announced their existence, and intention to
seek registration as political parties, either alone, or in combination with other associations. The
groups include the National Conscience Party (NCP), a labour-centred political group yet to acquire a
name, National Progressive Forum (NPF), the National Frontier (NF), the National Solidarity
Association (NSA), and the United Nigeria Development Forum (UNDF). The first group, NCP, we
should know fairly well, -en our knowledge of its leader, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, and the contents of its
programme atready presented to the public. The second, that is, the labour group may be something
similar to the Labour Party of Babangida's transition. The third group, NPF, is reported to be made up
of "hard core progressives", where I hope that the meaning of "progressive" has not changed so much
from the definition that was given in December 1982 in Bagauda, Kano at a national Seminar:
"Towards a Progressive Nigeria", by a participant Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe "Generally" said Ekwe-Ekwe,
"progressives are those who believe in the possibility and the desirability of progress, identified here as
the socio-economic and moral improvement of the human condition, which predicates on a high
optimism about human nature". But in class societies, progressive politics is "geared towards the
amelioration of class contradictions in favour of the dominated classes and other strata, or in fact the
abolition or overthrow of the class character of the oppressor state by the dominated". I have no reason
to deviate from this definition. Of recent we have heard of unity talks between the progressives and the
Movement for National Reformation (MNR) led by ChiefAnthony Enahoro. MNR's platform is well
known: democracy,. equitocracy (implying the empowerment of regional and ethnic groupings),
responsible, accountable and civilised governance. The combination will be an interesting
development. Fear is reportedly evoked by the fourth, fifth and sixth political associations which are
regarded as military formations through which soldiers, once expelled from governance, seek to come
back to power. The fourth political association, NF, is said to be a "splinter group ofPDP" the fifth,
NSA, is said to be made up of "those who served under Babangida", and the sixth, UNDF, has "mainly
middle ranking officers who served underAbacha". The advertised leaders ofthese groups - including
the one said to be faction ofPDP and therefore expected to be civilian - are retired military people who
held political officers or high military command positions between 1985 and 1998, spanning the
regimes of Generals Babangida, Abacha and Abubakar. Most of them are young, and all are wealthy,
very wealthy. Although
140
their knowledge of what government is all about ma y not be profound, they know what power is,
having exercised it in the crudest and most arbitrary way. The "mainstream" and "democratic"
politicians and their friends in the media are afraid of them. Why are they feared? How I wish I could
start my analysis with some faith in what Nigerian politicians and state functionaries say in the public.
Unfortunately, in Nigerian politics, what is said is always distant from what is believed; and what is
done is seldom in consonance with what is said. You will commit a grave error of judgement if you
ever take publicly expressed fears as anything near genuine inner worries. What we are witnessing, is
not a new phenomenon. Retired military officers have increasingly entered partisan politics, playing
leading roles, since Babangida's transition. What is happening now is a mere expansion of this
phenomenon: a more rapid entry of military people, in substantial numbers, into partisan politics. In the
present dispensation, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a retired army general; the
Minister of Defence is a retired general; the presidential chief of staff is a retired general, so is the

National Security Adviser; three senators are retired officers who wielded immense political power
under Babangida. One of them almost became the president of the Senate when the office suddenly
became vacant last year. At least one state governor had served as a military governor, several retired
military officers occupy legislative and executive positions in state and local zovemments. The three
registered political parties, especially, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP), have several retired military
and police officers as leading members. There are, no doubt, developments to fear in Nigeria's electoral
politics as the nation marches to the magic year 2003. But shadows should not be mistaken for the real
objects. Two elements make up a masquerade: the mask and the human being. The mask is not the
masquerade, nor is the human being. Contradictions between the mask and the human being are
normal; the mask may appear tough and military, while the human being hind it is timid. The
masquerade lives with these contradictions in normal times. But in s2-7-:ous crisis, the masquerade
sheds its mask, drops its mystifying name and assumes the marrie of the human being. But that is
during serious crisis which may never come in a !pa.i-ticular case. So, what really are we to fear in the
present situation in Nigeria? First, we ought to distinguish the following state forms in the political
universe of cmpitalism: military dictatorship; military-backed or militarised dictatorship; neo-liberal
democracy; and popular democracy. The first two forms can be classified broadly as *.atorship while
the third and fourth forms can go under the name democracy. know what military dictatorship is. The
younger generations of Nigerians should simply er to the regimes of General Buhari (1984 - 1985),
Babangida (1985- 1993), Abacha 993- 1998) and Abubakar (1998-1999). Examples of military-backed
or militarised orship include South Africa under apartheid, Zaire under Mobutu, the present regimes
Rwanda and Algeria, fascist and police states in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, any under
Hitler, Spain under Franco, and Portugal under Salazr. Two critical points to be made here. First,
although military-backed or militarised dictatorship may not have military people, serving or retired, in
political positions they may, in certain historical stances become more brutal, more repressive and more
unaccountable (politically,
141

judicially and socially) than pure military regimes. Secondly, a military-backed or militarised
dictatorship may, in fact, be an elected government operating under a constitution. Hitler's government
was elected, so was Mobutu's government in Zaire and Abel Muzorewa's government in ZimbabweRhodesia in the late 1970s. Obasanjo regime has the potential of becoming militarised. Neo-liberal
democracy and popular democracy are state forms that can, in general. be contrasted to dictatorship military, militarised and military-backed. Neo-liberal democracy is what the Nigerian political class
says it is fighting to establish, or develop, in Nigeria. The system consists of a small number of large
parties, that mutually agree that they should be dominant, or even exclusive , in a system, that is
heavily monetised; parties whose programmes are similar in essential matters: privatisation,
deregulation and "free trade". But, above all, liberal democracy accepts the subservient role of Nigeria
in the global capitalist "village". We know what popular democracy is. It is the opposite of neo-liberal
democracy within the family of Western democracy. Again, a crucial point can be made here. Given a
historical setting, like Nigeria, where retired military and police officers ,:mstitute a strong fraction of
upper and middle classes, these two forms of democracy - neo-liberal democracy and popular
democracy - may have substantial number of retired military and police officers in political offices. The
United States ofAmerica is an old example. What to be watched is the role of coercive institutions of
state (army, police, etc) in governance and the nature and democratic content of the governing or
emerging political parties. The background (military or civilian) ofpoliticians and political office
holders is of secondary importance until a serious crisis erupts when, like in Yugoslavia, retired

generals are summoned to the barricade.

142
47
Culture and Politics in Nigeria 14th June, 2001 F4VERYWHERE you go in Nigeria, there is politics.
In organisations and institutions . of the civil society, in schools, colleges and university campuses, in
state apparatuses, in cities as well as remotest villages, in the family, in religious movements, there is
politics. About a year ago, I went to Imo State to see a comrade of mine. I stumbled on a village
meeting which, I was told, had been called to settle a land problem. But for the three hours I was in
attendance, the meeting was discussing what I met it discussing: politics. From there I went to Oturkpo
to pay a condolence visit to a family which had just lost a prominent member to paid assassins. I met
the family discussing politics and left them two hours later still discussing politics. When I returned to
Calabar a relation of mine came to report his "disobedient" son to me. But for the two hours he spent
with me he was discussing politics. As I saw him off, I reminded him of his mission. He promised to
come back. The other day I asked a younger member of our household, who is not particularly
theoretical in her attitude to life, why the price of garri, the staple food in this part of the country, had
gone up so much. She said she did not know. But the way she answered the z aestion suggested to me
that she knew "something" but that this "something" would likely e regarded by me as "rumours", the
production and dissemination of which is a thriving Industry here. She knew, however that rumours
irritate me especially when offered without ,q1.:alification. When I sensed her Pontius Pilate attitude, I
changed my tactics: I asked her to tell me the rumours about the price of garri. Having been thus reassured, she told me that Ithe young men and women in the central and northern parts of the state who
used to farm II ad abandoned their farms to seek employment with local governments. When I asked
her hat these people could possibly be employed by local governments to do, she said they Isere
employed to collect taxes and levies, clean council premises and act as bodyguards Ord. "fronts" for
council officials. She then added this parting information: the people who Imo. abandoned the farms,
causing the price of garri to rise, had been employed as c npaigners, election-riggers and thugs for
candidates during the last local government tibctions, and had been promised employment. These
deserters from the farm, now "general otair of local government councils, regard themselves as
politicians and political office ers, reaping the "dividends of democracy". My investigation shows that
every house in Ilim -income quarters of Calabar has at least one of such "general staff'. irormNow, the
paradox: Although there is too much politics in Nigeria, political power is ised by a very small fraction
of the population even when we include, in the ranks of
143

political power wielders, the array ofenforcers, 31b-q&N-277, t111:.!!125_:. and consultants who are
employed in the exercise of poTh:', a situation characterised, on the one hand, by too much politics L:-.: 7 1 severely restricted circles of political power wielders and very little or no, popular ofpolitical
power. What we see are discontinuities between the various spheres and levels of politics; in particular
between the decisive levels of political power and other levels politics which do not affect what
happens at the decisive levels. Cross River State, as I said earlier, leads the country in what you may
call "rum mongering". But our rumour-mongering is not the destructive type. Our rumours do break
bones; they make you laugh even at yourself. We arc also experts in grumbl-especially about the
relationship between the state and the people. We grumble about neglect, betrayal, deception,
corruption, delinquency, inefficiency, insensitivity, alienatiam and criminality. In private discussions

and most pubic events, in churches, in schools, a markets, in buses, on motor-bike, taxis wherever two
or more people gather denunciations iiiticians and public officers go on continuously. Judging by the
way these people are cursed everyday and everywhere, I am sure their places in hell are assured.
Everyone is involved in this business of grumbling and rumour-mongering: young and old, men and
women, rich and poor, educated, not so educated and illiterate, public workers, privately employed, self
employed and the unemployed; men and women of God and practical unbelievers, house-owners and
tenants, criminals and crime victims, etc. But this seeming booming industry has no transforming
potentials in the social and political sense. It rarely leads to organised protests or other forms of
collective political action. It does not lead to individual acts of heroism. The reason is that our peoples'
attitudes to oppressive and exploitative institutions and individuals are deeply ambiguous, to use the
expression of Gavin Williams in his essay: "Nigeria: APolitical Economy" (1976). The powerful, the
wealthy and the "successful" are continuously criticised, abused and cursed; but they are also envied. It
is easy for a "successful" man, denounced yesterda-., in a mass gathering, to recruit thugs from that
same gathering to deal with the more voc.a.. "rebels". Almost everyone complains and swears that
church leaders exploit the miser?. ignorance and fears of their followers and live on their sweat; but I
can testify that people borrow money to make Sunday offerings which they swear are usually "eaten"
by the men and women of God. About two years ago, four university professors were among the crowd
of born-again Christian crusaders that I saw from my office windows dancing alonz Goldie Street
under a heavy downpour. Less than two kilometers away, at that particular time, the academic staff of
the university was holding a crucial meeting. These professors are among those who regularly discuss
the need for revolution with me. I am sure some my relations here who have denounced me as "Oyibo
Calabar", for refusing to atterk: village and ethnic meetings and church festivals, would, if I am in
trouble today, rally rounc their "brother". Almost in all Nigerian cultures, "success" is not only admired
but worshipped. Anc: "success" is measured almost entirely in material terms. After using my
volkswagen beetle car for 20 years, I got a new car last October. Everyone who saw the car, including
my co144

workers and professional colleagues, congratulated me. A few added some prayers. A male university
student shouted in ecstasy: "Oga, that car de walka o", meaning that the car can speed. His female
partner expressed the confidence that one day I would buy a "v-boot". My protest that I bought my first
car in 1974 did not impress them; they were also not deterred in their congratulatory mission by my
boasting that I was using two cars in 1975, one belonging to me and the other belonging to my fiancee
who had no house and therefore no garage to park a car. I went home that day a depressed man. But a
shocker awaited me. My son had suddenly returned from school before the end of school term. Instead
of explaining to me why he had come home, he congratulated me on my new car. I ignored his
congratulations and asked why he had come home. Equally ignoring my question, he assured me that
the car was "very beautiful". Small children in my neighbourhood have a name for me: "beetle sir", a
reference to the car which, to them, was my main identity. They shout this enthusiastically along an
entire lane whenever I drive past. On seeing me the morning after my acquisition of the new car, the
children seemed to be confused: they did not know whether to continue to call me "beetle sir" or
acknowledge my new car. After some hesitation, during which I deliberately slowed down, the children
shouted "beetle sir" - to my inner gratitude. Nowadays, they shout louder in apparent recognition of my
new car. Neither my friends, nor my comrades and colleagues, nor the young people in my household,
nor the small children in my neighbourhood, nor indeed the vast numbers of people, known and
unknown, who besiege me everyday "to obtain", have asked me how I was able to acquire the new car.
My unsolicited explanation that the car was literally forced on me was boring to my listeners, and I

dropped it.
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48
Once Again, the Nigerian State 17th May, 2001
0 N TUESDAY, April 24, 2001;the Federal Government of Nigeria informed the public, through its
secretary, that the commanders of the country's Army, Navy and Air Force had retired, and that
President Olusegun Obasanjo had accepted their resignations and thanked them for their "loyal
services, professionalism and contributions to the on-going transition to democracy." The secretary then
named new appointments that had been confirmed by the President. The entire communication took 98
words. Since the Nigerian state, like every other state, is a secret cult - the most secret of all cults - we
are not likely to be offered more illuminating information on this matter, now or in the near future, until
history throws up another Oputa panel. We are therefore left, for now, to work with what we are told,
what everyone can see, and, of course, what we can find out by some other means. But then this last
category of sources has a status that is generally controversial, although sometimes very useful. We
may examine more closely the little information we have got to see if we can learn a little more, or
confirm certain things, about the Nigerian state. We were told that the former service chiefs "retired,"
not "were retired." In case you are wondering what the difference between two terms is, I will say that
the difference is that, going strictly by what we were told, the officers were not "sacked," or
"dismissed," or "terminated" or "booted out," or "flushed out" - some of the more common terms used
in Nigeria to describe employer-initiated disengagement of an employee. The formal implication of the
government's choice of words is that the men had approached the President and told him, most
probably individually and in writing, either that they would like to leave the armed forces and, by
implication, relinquish their command positions or that they would like to relinquish their command
positions in the armed forces and, by tradition, leave the forces. For unlike university vice-chancellors
who are expected to return to the classroom and active study when their terms expire or past Israeli
prime ministers who frequently return to government as ministers, Nigerian service chiefs disengage
from the armed forces immediately they leave office. I shall not be impressed by an argument that this
is the tradition in armed forces generally. In the first place, it is doubtful if the practice of instant
disengagement is universal in time and space. It may be universal in the world of our former colonisers,
the creators of the Nigerian army and the world of the imperialists presently training Nigerian soldiers.
But their "worlds" don't make up the real world. The reported statement by Nigeria's Defence Minister
that the appointment of a service chief is political and terminal does not
146

reflect universal history or wisdom. The government statement did not say why the service chiefs
retired. Perhaps the men themselves did not give any reasons. Or, perhaps they gave inane reasons like
"for personal reasons", "to face my business", "to spend more time with my family," etc - which are no
reasons at all. Or, perhaps they gave real reasons which the President thought it was better for everyone
to suppress. We do not know. But we are not completely helpless here if we choose to go just a step
beyond the official statement - to the utterances of those involved in this huge deception. The Minister
of Information and National Orientation said the retirements were in the national interest and for the
security of the nation. Why? Because the action was taken by the President who knows more than
everyone else what constitutes "national interest" and "national security," answered the minister. He

denied that the retirements were "political." Ifl were the minister, I would simply have told inquiring
journalists: "Since the men retired on their own and were not retired by the President, you should go
and ask them why they retired. What the President did was to accept their resignations." That would
have been a challenge to the retired officers, but then, a state, a super secret cult, does not throw
challenges to its functionaries over the need to be silent on secret matters - what the Sicilian mafias call
the law of omerta. It rather assists injured or disaffected functionaries - with threat, blackmail or
promises of better things to come - to keep the law of silence. However, there is no negative without
positive elements: talking the way the minister did give the positive impression - which has been
strengthened by subsequent official and semi-official pronouncements - that the service chiefs did not
go on their own as suggested in government's statement. The President himself ruled out "politics"
from the retirements in his media chat a few days after the event although he admitted in the same chat
that, beyond a certain rank, military appointments and tenures are "regarded as political." He cited age,
length of service and "other military factors" as explanation for the officers' retirement. We know,
however, that the three men still had a few years to go whatever criterion was used: age or length of
service. One of the retired men also ruled out politics, and cited length of service - leaving out age and
other "military factors," a retired colleague of his even warned -enemies of the government" not to use
their retirements to sabotage the government. Praising the government which retired him, he virtually
presented Olusegun Obasanjo and Theophilus Danjuma to us as saints. The law of omerta! Through the
agency of the President, his minister and the retired officers, we now have some more ideas about the
retirement, but gill not much. It was left to a nameless source, which nonetheless sounded authoritative,
to provide a breakthrough. Quoting a "presidency official who asked for anonymity," The Guardian in
its issue ofApril 30, 2001, gave four reasons for the retirement: "Failure to fully submit to the authority
of the civilian ministers of state in charge of the Army, Navy and Air Force; refusal do support the
American military personnel in the country; failure to check some officers who incite the rank and file
in the military against government policy; and reckless spending which the government believes is the
hang-over ofpast military administrations." Although Ilan not impressed by these charges and would
expect critical people not to be, I would
147

char ms , if concede that given the ruling political culture and philosophyor true, are sufficient reasons
for the officers to be removed by the President who appointed them and who is so intimately wedded to
imperialism. But then, why were we not given these reasons in the first government statement, or
immediately after? The fact that they were given much later; and anonymously, raises serious doubts.
In any case, why should the retired officers still remain quiet even when they are openly accused of
theft? The law of omerta. A day after the retirement exercise, I held a discussion with a number of
comrades of my own generation. It was an angry discussion, from the start to the end. But the anger
was not over the removal of the former service chiefs or the way the retirement was announced. The
anger was over the new appointments. One comrade had asked: "Why is no-one, east of the Niger,
found suitable for appointment as a service chief?" It was not for me to answer the question, but to
clarify it. First, I got a confirmation from him that by "east of the Niger" he meant not just the five Igbo
states but also Cross River, Akwa Ibom. Rivers and Bayelsa states. Next I reminded my comrades that
going by the power and personal wealth they confer, there are coercive institutions of state (some
known to law. others unknown) as strategic as the Army, Navy and Air Force. Appointments into, and
dismissals from these institutions are never announced. My conclusion is a familiar one: the Nigerian
state, as demonstrated in the recent retirements and dismissals in the Armed Forces. is, like other states,
a vicious and violent instrument of class domination, a secret cult that enforces the law of omerta on its

functionaries. But beyond this, the Nigerian state is not the state of all Nigerians. It is essentially, the
state of the two power-blocs in the Country.
48

9
. The State and Political Re-alignments 29th March, 2001 AS RE-ALIGNMENTS for the 20'03
presidential election in Nigeria gather momentum, it is, perhaps, helpful to recall the prelude to a
similar election exactly 20 years earlier, in 1983. Any radical democrat who also happens to be a
member of my own generation will be sad over the political combinations and dissociations now taking
place in the country. Remember 1983. But why do I refer to presidential election and not general
elections after all what took place in 1983 were general elections and what will take place in 2003 will
be general elections, comprising presidential election, gubernatorial elections, legislative elections and,
perhaps, even local government elections? I focus on the presidential election because our postindependence political history has so far shown that the presidential election is decisive whether it
takes place first or last. The reason can be found in the distribution of power between the centre and the
states and hence the hegemony of the former whatever the constitution may say. Nigerian politicians
are largely conscious of this; but I doubt if their political practice is sufficiently informed by this
consciousness. In any case, those that are harassing their opponents at state and local government
levels, those that are prepared to kill, decimate and immobilise their opponents to brighten their
chances of re-election, should become conscious of the fact that the centre is the king-maker at all
levels of the polity, federal, state and local. By centre I mean not just the government, but the Nigerian
state comprising the institutions of ideological persuasion and falsehood (e.g. government media),
public administration (e.g. INEC) and coercion (e.g. police, security services and the army). Five
political parties contested the 1979 general elections which ushered in the Second Republic (19791983). In descending order of electoral fortune these were: the 'National Party of Nigeria (NPN); the
Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN); the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP); the Great Nigerian Peoples Party
(GNPP); and the People's Redemption Party (PRP). The electoral body, the Federal Electoral
Commission (FEDECO), declared Shehu Shagari, the NPN candidate, the winner of the presidential
contest. It was a very controversial declaration, as we all know. In the gubernatorial race, of the 19
states into which the country was then divided, UPN took the five contiguous states of Western Nigeria:
Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Ondo and Bendel; NPP took Anambra, Imo and Plateau; GNPP took mo and
Gongola, while PRP took Kaduna and Kano. NPN took the remaining seven es: Kwara, Benue, Bauchi,
Niger, Sokoto, Cross River and Rivers. In an article written shortly after the elections and titled "The
stolen presidency' , Tai Solarin predicted that by the next elections in 1983, the NPN would have
become
149

virtually the only political party in the country as it would have "drained" all the other parties. The
election would then either return the NPN massively at all levels or lead to a general bloodbath in the
country. Said Solarin in the Sunday Tribune issue of November 4, 1979: "If this Government lasts four
years, the four-year-old NPN will have been firmly planted as Government Party everywhere, and the
UPN, the GNPP, the NPP and the PRP will have been drained to annihilation, both in membership - it is
already starting - and in morale. The 1983 election would therefore be between the NPN and the
Revolutionary Party which, having studied how the NPN came to power, knows exactly what to do to

supplant the NPN for the presidency". Solarin based his prediction not simply on the fear that NPN
would try to preserve and strengthen what he believed it had stolen, but on the ruling party's fascist
methods of governance which started to emerge as soon as the Second Republic was inaugurated. I
remember that I was so impressed by Solarin's prediction that I quoted it several times in my political
writings and speeches during the life of that republic, and after. I believed that perceptions similar to
that of Solarin informed the various re-alignments of political forces that took place between 1980 and
1983. First, the governors of the states controlled by UPN, GNPP and PRP constructed a platform
called the Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA) for co-operation and regular consultations; then the NPP
joined the platform; then there were talks about forming a party, the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP)
which would be a merger of UPN, NPP, GNPP and other previously non-electoral, but radical groups.
The UPN did not subscribe to this, preferring an alliance of independent parties. As expected, these
broad re-alignments produced internal crises in PRP and GNPP and, to some extent, the NPP. The PRP
first broke into two factions; FEDECO gave recognition to the faction supporting the NPN. Later the
faction supporting NPN broke into two, with one actually merging with NPN. GNPP broke into several
factions some of which later dissolved into the NPN. The PRP faction opposed to NPN later broke into
two factions with one opting to fight the 1983 election under the banner ofNPP which, in effect, meant
adopting the NPP presidential candidate as its own. A rally organised under this arrangement in Kano in
March 1983 and addressed by Nnamdi Azikiwe and Abubakar Rimi, drew one of the largest crowd in
the politics of the Second Republic. FEDECO refused to recognise the PPA and PPP for election
purposes, insisting that the parties in these groupings must first dissolve themselves before seeking
registration under the new names. The political crisis ofthe Second Republic, I now see more clearly in
retrospect, was in particular the crisis of re-election, and in general the crisis of bourgeois democracy.
By the middle of 1983, Tai Solarin's prediction had come to pass. All the parties and groups opposed to
the NPN had come under siege. The entire country had been polarised as if preparing for war. On one
side was the ruling NPN supported by the main institutions of state that had constitutional roles to play
in the impending elections: FEDECO, the police, secret security organs and the courts. At a stage the
country could be called not just a fascist state, but also a police state in the literal sense: the police
became openly partisan and violent in its engagement with anti-NPN parties and groups. I remember
Wole Soyinka and Yemi Ogunbiyi writing two ofthe strongest political denunciations of the NPN
150

government, with the latter calling the Inspector-General of Police, Sunday Adewusi, the Deputy
President and the former shouting at the police boss: "you are not God". Adewusi was indeed the
Deputy President and at times, the defacto President. He was almost a god. On the other side of the
divide were other electoral political forces: traditional, reformist, radical and revolutionary. They were
supported, though critically, by the major non-electoral organisations of the civil society: the labour
movement, the academic unions, the student movement and radical leftist groups. I remember that from
December 1982 when the Left held a conference "Towards a Progressive Nigeria" in Bagauda Lake
Hotel, near Kano, under the auspices ofAbubakar Rimi, the Kano State governor, until the election in
1983 the radical movement to which I belonged campaigned vigorously for the unity of all anti-NPN
forces. In short NPN had the Nigerian state; its opponents had the civil society. It was a massive
mobilisation of the people against the NPN. But it was futile. The NPN not only won the 1983 elections
but massively improved its electoral status. The party retained the centre in a landslide; it took
Anambra State from NPP; it wiped out GNPP; it took Kaduna State from PRP and installed its
favourite in Kano; in the West, it took Ondo, Oyo and Bendel states from the UPN; but mass uprising
compelled it to return Ondo. The conclusion here is also the lesson, a sad lesson: In the electoral
struggle between the Nigerian people and the Nigerian state, the latter won. The latter won not only in

1983, but also in 1964, 1965 and 1993. My fear is that the nation's political compass today does not
point away from 1983. In other words 1983 may repeat itself in or before 2003. More directly, the state
may win against the people in 2003. A patriotic duty is.to work to prevent at least two elements of 1983
from repeating themselves: in the first place, the security forces and the electoral body should be
blocked from partisan involvement in the elections; and secondly, the armed forces should be prevented
from intervention, partisan or not.
151

50
Arguments Over the Constitution 20th February, 2003
HE Constitution of a state is, in the first place, an expression of the balance of forces in that polity. In
other words, reading a constitution closely, noting what is said, as well as what is not said, and how
what is said is said, you will be able to say what classes or fractions of classes hold power. In the
second place, ideological declarations notwithstanding, a constitution is a reflection of the character of
the state: in pa-r.lcAA"\z.-1,-*\116.\-ia iasz.As'y o-i Mut-ra1-&-moc.,-nK\c, bourgeois or proletarian,
conservative or revolutionary, etc. In the third place, a constitution is a statement, by the classes in
power, of how they intend to rule over the policy. Tht contradictions and evasions in a constitution, as
well as its language, help to clarify tilt character of the state and that of the ruling classes that control it.
The point is that a constitutici is not, as is popularly claimed, a "contract" between the state and the
citizens, or betweol the government and the people. Essentially, a constitution is an imposition by some
sectiorm of the polity on the others. Those doing the imposition may be in the majority or minority they
may represent popular interests or the interests of a privileged few If a constitution i a contract at all it
is a sectional one between the classes and fractions that hold pow economic, political, social and
cultural. The rulers then impose the sectional agreement au the rest of the population with appropriate
doses of ideological statements - to convey tIoMM impression that "the people have agreed". When
arguments break out over a constitution differentiations should be made between arguments over the
sectional contract and argumei admittedly, a very strong statement, an extremist position, many 1,vott
over the imposition. Such differentiations should be made in the current debate on Nigerian
Constitution. The above is, say. All I would say is that it is a correct bottom-line from which there may
be minor al major deviations; and that, in any case, the statement reflects the situation in an
overwhelmil majority of the nations of the world - "democratic" or not. Nigeria is a classic exarnpli
When debates and struggles ensue over the constitution, as is the case in Nigeria, popular democratic
forces have clear options: One is that, while the ruling power-blocs seek 1, adjust the terms of their
internal contract, to shift the balance of advantages within t] contract, popular-democratic forces should
intervene to extract more concessions - the rulers are compelled to make to remain rulers of living
human beings. In other won: agitate for popular amendments to the constitution. Another is to struggle
for an entirc new constitution. The two options may also be dialectically taken together, although ti
option, just like the second, is more difficult, requiring a popular-democratic movement ti
152

s relatively developed politically and ideologically. I shall here be considering the first option, that is,

the review of the Constitution of the Federal Republic ofNigeria, 1999. I start, like The Guardian
editorial of February 7, 2003, with the proposal popularised by The Patriots, for a single-term of five
years for the president and state governors, and their deputies. There are three reasons why this
proposal should be supported by popular-democratic forces. The first reason is a concession to the
rulers. It flows from the agitations o f the marginalised, or rather, non-power bloc, fractions of the
Nigerian ruling classes: there are many ethnic groups in Nigeria, and if an ethnic group is not to wait
for eternity before its turn to "rule", then a single-term of five years, or even two years, is a bright idea.
The second reason is that a single-term of five years will bring nearer the day a popular-democratic
president or governor will be elected. The third reason is that the struggle for "second-term" has
established itself as a violent one, and the common people are the real victims. If these reasons are
weak, then my conclusion will be that the five-year single-term is not the issue. The next question we
may consider is the constitutional requirement, characteristically loaded with provisos, that an elected
member of a legislature or executive who resigns from the political party on whose platform he or she
was elected should resign his or her position. Ordinarily, this should be a straightforward provision. But
not so in Nigeria. For the simple requirement goes on to admit a loophole: "provided the resignation is
not as a result of a split in the party" and, I may add, the disappearance of the party! But there should
not have been a problem if the inspirers and authors of the Constitution were a bit more sincere. The
provision should simply have said that if an elected member crosses the carpet, as the saying goes, he
or she should vacate his or her seat. And stop there. If there is a split in a political party and the split is
apprehended by the relevant authority (electoral body or the court), the latter should be able to make a
pronouncement, on the basis of the party's constitution and rules, on what the legal status of the party
and the contending factions is. Thereafter, the law should take its course. If a party disintegrates or
disappears, the relevant authority should make the pronouncement. Thereafter, all political office
holders elected on its platform should resign. The critical premise here is that the "relevant authority" is
not, or has not become, an instrument of a power-bloc or a powerful clique. I doubt, very strongly, that
a regime, other than a popular-democratic one, can establish or guarantee the existence of a truly
independent, impartial and credible "relevant authority". So my suggestion is hanging in the air. A.t
least five deputy state governors have left office since the beginning of the present dispensation. I
followed the case of Lagos State, Osun State and Cross River State very closely. In the three states the
deputy governors essentially ceased to be members of the zovemments - whose deputy heads they were
- long before their exits. In each case, the governor made his deputy powerless and irrelevant and
almost defenceless. In each case :lie deputy fought back, but he or she knew it was a hopeless battle.
Eventually the governors applied the ultimate constitutional weapon: impeachment. I am not at all
interested in the :uarrels between the governors and their deputies except that I have seen, and I am
painfully .,-,rare, that in all the stage of a governor-deputy governor fight the common people, the
153
wretched of the earth, are usually the "combatants" and main victims. A simple solution here is to
amend the relevant article of the constitution to make a deputy governor a senior commissioner, to be
appointed, and to be removable, by the governor. Same goes to the Vice-President. The common people
have nothing to lose, except their positions as potential combatants in bloody fights between their
oppressors. The Conference of Speakers, or rather, some Speakers of State Houses ofAssembly has
come out with proposals for constitutional amendments which indicated that they would prefer a local
government system whose existence and operations are completely under the control of state
governments. The speakers do not want the "interference" of the Federal Government. In particular,
they do not want the inclusion of the list of local government councils in the Constitution. Why? So
that the state governments will be free to create new local councils as they like. Shortly after the
speakers' proposal, another group of politicians argued for the abolition of the local government and its

replacement with state-created local administration. Popular-democratic forces should simply reject
these proposals and their variants. The local government system ought to be strengthened to become
responsible grassroots self-administration, largely independent of federal and state governments. The
third tier is the terrain where popular-democratic forces must assert themselves, electorally and extraelectorally. This is where they have the brightest opportunity, in the short-run, to show the difference
between the right and the left in politics and governance. The leader of one of the smaller parties has
suggested that three months before general elections, the President, the Governors and Local
Government Council Chairpersons, as well as their deputies, should vacate their positions and be
replaced by the Chief Justice of the Federation, the Chief Judges of the States and Chief Judicial
Officers in Local Government Areas respectively. His reason was the need to remove or reduce the
"power of incumbency". This proposal is worth examining. If we accept the 1999 Constitution as a
basis for constitutional review, then we can say that Chapters 1 to 4 are the mosfimporlam o the
document These deal with General-Provisions including Pow en ofthe Federal, Republic ofNigeria
(Chapter 1); Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy (Chpater II); Citizenship
(Chapter III); and Fundamental Rights (Chapter IV). These chapters should be reviewed, line by line,
word by word, to make them consistent with international conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory.
154

51
More Complex Than Politics 28th August, 2003 0 N Saturday, August 09, 2003, at about 10.30 a.rn, I
heard a loud commotion outside the gate of our residence located in a rural community in Calabar
South Local Government Area. I asked two young members of our household to go out and check out
the matter, and then moved away from the gate, to shield myself from further distractions. But my
respite did not last for long. The two young women who went out soon came back with a report for the
rest of us. I summarise the story.
An elderly member of our household had asked a boy in the community aged 14 years, to invite a few
of his peers, then idling away on holiday, to join in cleaning up our short street. The old man promised
that the boys would receive some money to "manage" the holiday. The boy - let us call him Edem asked the old man to name the price. The old man offered something modest. Edem mutiplied the offer
by four, saying that he knew "Sir" would not mind paying the amount. When the old man refused,
Edem went to his mother, next door, and lodged a complaint against Ete Ukpong (Ukpong's father), as
the old man was popularly khown in the community. On receiving the complaint, Edem's mother,
called Eka Edem, shouted: "Etc Ukpong, I want to see you". The man replied: "Eka Edem, I am very
busy now: I shall see you, later". But the woman was too annoyed to wait. She rushed 31 the fragile old
man: "Ete Ukpong, what have I done to you that you would not allow my son participate in "chopping"
from the Ibo man?" This was the cause of the commotion which we heard. I was the person referred to
by Edem as "Sir" and by his mother as "the man". Readers can imagine how I felt on receiving this
report. But I quickly overcame feelings and decided to deal with the matter philosophically and
politically and generalise lessons. This piece is one way of doing this. My family has lived in Calabar
continuously since 1976. I myselfhave lived here continuously since then. I may also add that my stay
in Calabar has been very active ally and otherwise. Even when I was with The Guardian in Lagos,
Calabar remained tre of my politics. My children, for no fault of theirs, cannot speak the Igbo language.
If do not speak Igbo as first language, but as third - Yoruba and English coming as second respectively.
My spouse's ancestors, down to her parents, were from this the country. But, as 1 said, I decided to deal
with the provocation philosophically iii"tically, for I saw it as a manifestation of the Nigerian problem
at a personal level. To to how I did it, my readers have to be taken one or two steps back. We moved to
this rural community with considerable reluctance; or. to put the

155

matter more correctly, I delayed our movement as long as I could. There was an obvious irony here
because, ordinarily, one would have thought that I would be happy to return to rural life. The reason for
my delay was a subjective one. In the preceding two decades we had lived in a sub-urban area of
Calabar. Here we were ordinarily residents: our house was inconspicuous for its ordinariness; we drove
ordinary cars, and we still do; we dressed ordinarily; our domestic life was also ordinary. I was acutely
aware that if this relative ordinariness was transplanted into a rural community, it would become
conspicuous and different by its newly acquired relative "affluence". Even if we could, it would not be
enough to offer material assistance, from time to time, or even continually, to needy members of the
community - and every resident appears to be desperately needy. Even with the purest of intentions and
love, it would be silly to embark on mass political education and social conscientisation on "empty
stomachs". We decided, after a long period of"soul-searching", that it would be necessary to provide
something, or create something, in the community - a permanent something that the entire community
would enjoy in common - before physically moving there. At the beginning of 2000, we relocated to
the community, having constructed something and established something. The something we
constructed was a borehole to provide a source of clean water, free of charge, to members of the
community. And the something we established, or rather whose establishment we actively inspid, was a
community youth association for collective self-improvement of the youths in particular and the
community in general. That was 45 months ago. Today, the borehole is there, well maintained,
functioning optimally, and delivering services efficiently. But I cannot say the same thing about the
male-female general development youth association. A partial listing of the problems can be made:
Sexism, elitism, selfishness, philistinism and proprietary inclinations. For objective reasons ofpoverty
and unemployment, individual members have not been contributing financially to the development of
the organisation; but a few have been benefiting, or rather "chopping". Despite the material and
ideological input that has been made into the project over the last 45 months, we are still struggling to
keep it alive organisationally and materially. My "popularity" rating in the community remains as high
as ever. Children still greet me "Beetle Sir", although I rested the car in question almost three years
ago. More children have since joined the originators of the salute. I am greeted as "Professor",
"Doctor", "Chief', "Comrade", "Our man", etc, depending on the group and the expectations, for every
salutation carries an expectation - material or otherwise. I report that I always respond to the best ofmy
ability. It was against this social background that my neighbour confronted EteUkpong,- on the need
for her son to "chop" from "the Ibo man". As soon as I overcame my initial feelings, I called a meeting
of our household and informed them ofmy plan to send a fOur-point response to the woman through a
delegation. I listed the four points: First, that Etc Ukpong's offer to the boy Edem was fair and was
meant to assist him and his peers, and that we could, if we had wanted to do so. obtain free assistance
to do the clean-up. Secondly, that the woman should look back at her own personal experience in life
and all the people she had met and all the relationships she had kept, and see if instead of calling
156

me "the Ibo man" it would not have been more appropriate to call me "that mad man" who does what
others do not do. Thirdly, why is it that her church leaders who drive on our road with more and better
cars, do not care about the maintenance of the road, and would prefer to leave it to "the Ibo man".

Finally, that the woman should examine and compare her current relationships with two "Ibo" men: one
is the Chief Priest of her church to whom she regularly pays dues, levies and offerings and who is
assisted free of charge and in several ways by her children, including Edem, and the other is a
neighbour who asks for nothing, but tries to give. The three-member delegation, which included Ete
Ukpong, and two young women, was dispatched about 9.00 a.m on Monday, August 10, 2003. I asked
them to dramatise their mission so as to attract as many members of the community as possible. They
should deliver their message in the open, in front of the house. The delegation performed excellently.
They approached the woman's house in a single file, and this drew everyone that sighted them. More
people joined as the mission progressed. The effect was dramatic. Everyone condemned the woman for
provoking the "generous" and "quiet" man. The woman herself re-acted by blaming Ete Ukpong for
causing the whole trouble and then falling on her knees and begging me through the delegation. She did
not deny saying what she was reported to have said, but blamed it on Ete Ukpong's manner of approach
to her son. The rally, (for that was what the gathering suddenly became) decided to accompany the
woman to our house to beg me. The delegation requested for a little delay to allow them inform me. Of
course they knew what my answer would be. I sent them back to the rally with the assurance that no
"begging" was necessary; that the woman merely aired her views, and I responded, and the community
intervened. The matter has ended. As a demonstration of goodwill I sent a copy of my complimentary
card to her with a final reminder that I am Edwin Madunagu, not "the Ibo man". Last line: Another
group of adolescents later did the clean up of the street under a new arrangement reached with Ete
Ukpong. The new price was a little higher than what Ete Ukpong had offered to Edem, but much lower
than what the boy had demanded. Edem was later sighted participating in the work. But I could not
confirm if anything was "dropped" ix him.
157

52
The State of Our Nation 25th March, 2004
rrWO stories on the front page of The Guardian, Thursday, March 4, 2004, arrested me for an unusually
long time. The stories, the first, a calamity, the second a lamentation, made an instant and shattering
impact on my emotions. The reason might be that they were appearing on the same page or that I was
also reading between the lines. I heard myself asking the desperate question: What exactly can we do to
halt this descent to the unknown? The first story was titled "Gunmen attackAkume's convoy, kill PDP
Chief, Agom", while the second carried the caption "Enahoro, Soyinka form a group to check misrule".
We start with the March 4 calamity and end with Wole Soyinka's lamentation. Governor George
Akurne ofB enue State, a member ofthe ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was travelling from
his headquarters in Makurdi to Abuja on Wednesday, March 3, 2004, when his convoy of cars was
attacked by "suspected bandits" along the Lafia-Akwanga road in the neighbouring Nasarawa State. In
Nigeria, a bandit is an armed robber. The time of attack was given as 7.15 a.m; that is, broad daylight.
The road is a major one, leading to the nation's capital. The governor's mission was "to attend a
meeting at the Presidency" according to The Guardian report, or "to attend a PDP meeting", according
to another. The attack claimed two lives: ChiefAndrewAgom, it former Managing Director of the
Nigeria Airways and a member of PDP's Board of Trustees; and Sergeant Joseph Ngam, the governor's
police guard. Some other people in the governor's entourage sustained "varying degrees of wound".
The Guardian reported, that "Governor Akume, who was in the same car with Agom, escaped death by
the whiskers", but elsewhere in the report the paper quoted the Chief Press Secretary to the governor as
saying that "Agom and the police orderly who were in the escort car were killed in the shooting spree".
My questions here may be called trivial or immaterial. Yet they are crucial if we must understand the

types of forms of armed "banditry" now ravaging the country, their motivations and primary targets,
and, beyond that, their perpetrators. If Agom and the governor's police orderly were together in the
escort car, it follows that either the governor, Agom and police orderly were in one car, and the bandits
killed Agom and the police orderly, with the governor escaping death "by the whiskers", or there were
two "Agoras", one with the governor, and the other with the police orderly, in separate cars.
Anewsmagazine later confirmed that the former was the case. But in a situation where everyone,
including the "bereaved", the investigators and the political authorities, is under suspicion this
confirmation does not settle the matter. 158

My second problem is this: The attack took place in broad daylight along a major road. Governors
normally travel in convoys with sirens blaring. The "bandits", were likely to have known that they were
attacking the convoy of a big person. Did the convoy run into the armed robbers who were operating in
the area or was the attack a planned ambush? If the latter, what was the motive: robbery or
assassination?Again, if the latter, who was the target, or who were the targets? Since the Agom tragedy,
several other, even more bizarre high-profile killings have taken place in the land. There have also been
allegations of high-profile threats of assassination. Each raises similar questions. At 3.00 a.m. on
Sunday, March 7, 2004, barely four days after the murder of Andrew Agom, the Chairman of the Kogi
State Independent Electoral Commission, Chief Philip Olorunipa, was shot dead in his bedroom by
"suspected assassins". The report said that the killers, on entering the premises, went straight to their
victim's bedroom and shot him. They knew where the target was, and his police guard could not help
him. The police immediately announced the arrest of three suspects, including a leading member of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). A few days earlier, a prospective candidate in the March 27 local
government elections in the state was similarly killed. About four weeks earlier, on Friday, February 6,
2004, ChiefAmino-Sari Dikibo, the National Vice-Chairman of PDP for South-South, was killed by
gunmen" later identified by some authorities as "armed robbers", a few kilometres from Asaba, capital
of Delta State. Like Agom, Dikibo was on his way to a meeting. The Guardian of Sunday, March 7,
2004 carried, on its front page, a story: Kalu on Death Threat: Enough is Enough. It was a report of an
interview with Governor Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia State the previous day. In that interview the governor
informed the nation ofa letter he recently wrote to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
complaining that the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the ruling PDP had threatened to eliminate
him (the governor) the same way Chief Bola Ige, a former Federal Minister of Justice was eliminated
over three years ago. The governor cited his deputy as a witness to the open verbal threat. In the same
interview Governor Kalu said that Dikibo had complained of threats to his life three days before he
(Dikibo) was killed. The PDP leadership, of which the governor was supposed to be a member,
immediately denied the governor's allegations. The governor, in turn, denounced the PDP's denial, and
raised a general alarm of the existence, in the country, of a murderous gang. The Abia State Deputy
Governor first confirmed his part of the story but later repudiated it - after holding some meetings with
some highly placed people in Abuja. As the controversy raged, the federal authorities withdrew the
business licences of Governor Kalu. About the same time, the Deputy Governor released the content of
the memorandum he sent to the governor on the "death threat". The document did not mention "threat".
We shall hear and see more. In a two-part article, another letter to President Obasanjo The Guardian,
February :4 and 25, 2004, Professor Niyi Osundare told the president: "In the reckoning ofmost
,,:LIerians, you are the most arrogant, most insensitive, most callous, and most self-righteous d
hypocritical ruler that this unfortunate country has ever been saddled with in its hapless
159

size yarn costing N80.00 when you assumed office in 1999 now costs N300.00; a bag of rice which
was N3,200.00 then now costs N4,800.00; a bag of cement was N550.00 in 1999; now it goes for
N1,000.00". Etubom Bassey Ekpo Bassey complemented the list: "Transparency International has
moved us from the disgraceful position of the 27th most corrupt country in the world under Abacha to
No.2 under Obasanjo; the World Health Organisation says our healthcare system is the worst but one in
the entire world; as UNDP insists, whereas a whopping 48.5 per cent of Nigerians lived under poverty
line in 1998, Chief Obasanjo quickly achieved the higher figure of 70 per cent in 2001". Bassey
lamented: "Today, the picture ofpillage and plunder of the vast majority by a handful of their
countrymen and women is complete; so is the cognate picture of utter destitution, rampaging poverty,
violent crimes, unspeakable insecurity, of blood and death everywhere. And Osundare continued: "Dear
President, how many more riots, how many more corpses, do you need to see in the streets before you
know that your social and economic "policies" are killing the people you vowed to protect?
Deregulation. Monetisation. Privatisation. Why is your emphasis always on price increase than the
efficient running ofNigeria's refineries Concerning privatisation, who stands to profit by the sale of our
major national holdings if not the already rich and their friends and associates? How can the so many
Nigerians perishing from today's pain become the inheritors oftomorrow's gain"? As I said earlier, some
prominent Nigerians, including ChiefAnthony Enahoro and Professor Wole Soyinka, were reported to
have formed a group "to save Nigeria from sliding into civilian dictatorship and one-party state". At a
press conference in Lagos on March 3, 2004, Soyinka, on behalf of the group, Citizen Forum,
denounced the "increased intolerance of dissent, a contempt for constitutional procedures, abuse
ofpolice powers, a flagrant debasement of the electoral process, cynical manipulation of the judiciary,
leading to a loss ofpublic confidence, an on-going agenda for the destruction of intellectual institutions,
the usurpatien ofpopular will by Mafioso conspiracies, arrogant insensitivity to mass economic
realities, erosion of checks and balances entrenched in the separation ofpowers". He then made an
indirect call: "Irrespective of ideological leanings or party allegiances, all mature citizens with a sense
of civic worth must surely feel demeaned or, at the very least, concerned by the predator mentality that
now pervades all tiers of governance". These reports, taken together, present a very grim picture of our
country, and constitute one of the most vehement denunciations of the present regime I have so far
seen. The question is: What exactly can we do?
160

What Is a Free and Fair Election? 11th April, 2002

BEYOND popular slogans and official cynicism and deception let us try to articulate the features of a
free and fair election. But before doing this, I would like to make one preliminary assumption and one
prescription of a general nature. The assumption is that the political setting is a multi-party one, since if
we assume a non-multi-party system, the set of requirements for a free and fair election will be
different. By multi-party political setting we mean that the right to form political parties and contest
elections on these platforms is extended, unabridged and unqualified, to all citizens. I shall return to
this point. The general preliminary prescription is that the political system does not admit of imposition
of monetary or other material requirements on political parties or their candidates. To drive this point
home: if, for instance, a political party wishes to locate its offices in Afghanistan-type caves or shanties
instead of in palatial mansions or decides to campaign on horsebacks instead of jets and limousines,
that is its problem. The assumption I am making regarding multipartism is informed simply by what

has now been generally accepted in most parts of the world by most social classes and political forces.
The prescription on monetary and material requirements is informed by the co-existence, in our
country, of abject mass poverty on the one hand, and a small enclave of obscene wealth on the other. I
may add here that if these provisions are endorsed by the political system, then there will be no need to
ask for independent candidacy. With this background, we may now attempt to describe what a free and
fair election means, and we may do this stage by stage. Stage 1: Voter registration: There must be a
properly enacted law, consistent with the constitution, clearly stating the conditions which a Nigerian,
(by birth, naturalisation or adoption) has to fulfil to be eligible to vote and be voted for. There must
have been a sufficiently long publicity campaign by the relevant authorities and all stakeholders (as the
saying now goes) educating the citizens at large and inviting the eligible citizens to come and register
for the election. The registration centres must be sufficiently large in number, and well spaced, in such
a way that no citizen seeking to register should be discouraged by reason of distance or congestion. In
concrete terms, a voting centre must be within reasonable walking distance from the home or working
place of every citizen. There must be sufficient registration materials and sufficient number of
registration officers at every registration centre, at all times during the period of registration. The
registration period (the number of days and the number of hours each day) must be long enough to
accommodate all those who wish to register. The communication between the registration officials and
citizens coming for
161

registration must be in a language understood by both sides; the procedure must be simple and
transparent and a citizen, whatever his level of education or literacy, must be able to complete the
process with minimal assistance. Finally, and most importantly, at the end of the registration exercise,
the voters' register so compiled must reflect what actually took place: no multiple registration and no
disenfranchisement, deliberate or accidental. Stage 2: Registration ofparties and their candidates: We
are assuming a multi-party political system not because multipartism is part ofthe definition of
democracy but because multipatism is the only form of democratic rule that is realistic at this stage of
world history; and I am, of course, proceeding from Abraham Lincoln's definition of democracy as
"government of the people by the people, and for the people" The qualifications for eligibility to stand
as candidate in any election should be very clearly stated and publicised as widely and as effectively as
the qualification to be a voter. And the electoral agency and its functionaries must not manipulate the
process of registration of candidates. It is the responsibility of the parties to select their candidates, by
whatever methods decided upon by the relevant organs of the parties. And where there are rival
candidates from the same party or a dispute over a party's choice, the electoral agency should be guided
by the party's constitution and rules in settling the matter. Any other disaffection should go to the courts
for adjudication. Stage 3: The campaigns: An election cannot be said to be free or fair if there are no
campaigns or, if campaigns arc allowed, they are conducted under intimidation, threats, violence, fear
or other forms of terrorism. For an election to be deemed free and fair, the following minimum
conditions must hold: all competing parties and all competing candidates must be allowed equal access
to publicly-owned media, electronic and print; both the publicly-owned and private media and their
practitioners must enjoy full freedom, limited only by previously existing laws of the land and not laws
hurriedly enacted for checking individual or press freedom; the Electoral Act must state whether human
rights and press freedom violation issues should go before the normal courts or should be brought
before special courts or tribunals set up by law for the purpose; parties, candidates and their supporters
- and indeed, all citizens - must suffer no obstruction in organising and conducting campaigns. If

campaigners are required to "apply" for permission to hold rallies or meetings, this must be solely for
the purpose of ensuring police protection. Permission must be automatic; there would neither be
inducement nor bribery of the electoral agency or its officials, security agents, opposing party agents,
or voters, before, during or after the election. There should be no thuggery, no violence, no
intimidation, no restriction, no harassment. Stage 4: Voting process and declaration of result: There
should be as many voting centres as there were voter registration centres; there should be no purchase
of votes, of voters, of electoral officers, of security agents, of rival polling agents. There should be a
correct voters' register at every polling centres; the voting procedure should be as simple as the voter
registration exercise; there should be no inflation or deflation of voters' registers, no maximum voting,
no multiple voting. Electoral results should be declared at the voting centres and genuine certificates
signed by the electoral officers and embodying these results, should be issued to the party agents and
security personnel who must endorse them. For
162

the avoidance ofdoubt, maximum voting, which I personally witnessed during Babangida's transition,
can be described as follows: suppose there are 500 names designated to vote in a polling centre,
according to the voters' register and the distribution of eligible and registered voters. Suppose further
that of those 500, only 200 had actually voted at the end of the voting exercise. The electoral agency or
its officers may then decide, or agree, to sell the remaining 300 votes to willing buyers. This must be
avoided. By multiple voting we mean a situation where a voter votes more than once at a polling centre
or votes in more than one centre. In any dispute arising from the final declaration of results, the
recourse must be to the certificates issued at the polling centres. In the situation sketched above, three
separate and mutually independent organisations, namely, the electoral agency, the political party
agents (and hence the party and the candidates) and the security agents must have copies of the results,
from the grassroots up to the local government, state or federal levels, as the case may be. In that case,
and the Electoral Act must be explicit on this, what is announced at the centre should be legally
challengeable in the appropriate courts. And, should rival or fake certificates surface in the court, as has
hitherto been the case in Nigeria, then we must go back to the raw votes. There must be no time limit to
the determination of truth. That is part of the price of democracy. I must admit, at once, that the
attributes of free and fair elections sketched above are strict. But they are neither abstract nor utopian.
They are realistic and realisable. If we apply these rules retroactively, we shall have no difficulty
agreeing that none of the elections held in this country since independence was free and fair. But we
would also admit that, perhaps, the annulled presidential election of June 12, 1993 was fairer and freer
than all the others. And going beyond our borders, we would also agree that the election that brought
President George Bush ofAmerica into office and the one that recently returned President Robert
Mugabe to office were not free and fair. However, in the case of the latter the main political question
was, and still is, land. Just as no sane person will ask the Palestinians to decide in a vote whether they
want an independent state. The question of land in Zimbabwe goes beyond election, especially one in
which the racist global dictatorship has a huge interest.

54
Governance At the Third Tier 18th October, 2001
THE crises ravaging the local government system across the country since the begin ning of the present

political dispensation lead directly back to the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. The existence and
operation of the local governments arc provided for, and guaranteed, under Section 7 of that basic
document. The provision is strong, direct and unambiguous. But not only does it contain seeds of
discord, it also strikes at the root ofwhatever autonomy and respectability the drafters of the
Constitution might have intended to grant the local government through other provisions in the
Constitution. Here goes the opening paragraph of that section: "The system of local government by
democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed, and
accordingly, the government of every state shall, subject to section 8 of this Constitution, ensure their
existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and
functions of such councils." This sentence consists of two parts. But what the first part promises is
rendered precarious by the second part. To put the fate of a grassroots government system in a state in
the hands of a 25-member assembly is not a convincing advertisement for democracy. Nor does it make
sense to put the purse of a local government in the pocket of a state government that is not more
altruistic. Section 8 of the Constitution to which reference is made deals with the creation ofnew local
government areas and the adjustments ofboupdaries between existing ones. I shall come back to this.
My understanding of the structure of the Nigerian polity has been that it is a federation _ of three levels
of government: federal, state and local. That, of course, does not mean .a rejection ofK.C. Wheare's
classical statement of the federal principle, with its implied two.- level structure. The federal principle,
Wheare said, is the "method of dividing powers so that the general and the regional governments are
each, within a sphere, co-ordinate and independent." I am acutely aware that implicit in the
Constitutions of the best known federal states and embodied in their political practices, is a two-level
governmental structure. Nigerian federalism may, after all, not be an exception. In fact, that is what the
first paragraph of section 7 of the Nigerian Constitution says. However, going by the way we talk about
our "three tiers of government", and have talked about it since the local government reforms of 1976, I
would consider it normal that a Nigerian regards Nigerian federalism as a three-tier structure which has
been distorted. Essentially, however. Nigerian federalism is today a two-tier federalism. The so-called
"third tier", the local government, is a little more than a department of the second tier. My question: Is a
situation where a state governor or a state
164

House ofA ssembly can, with a stroke of the pen, dissolve a local government council or dismiss its
executive authority a desirable one? My answer is no. It is contrary to what Nigerians believe Nigeria's
federalism should be, namely, a federal system which satisfies Wheare's definition, except that instead
to two-tiers, we have three. In such a system, adopting Wheare's postulate, the three tiers will be
"autonomous and coordinate." The basis of my judgement is the national political debate conducted in
1986 by the Political Bureau of which I was an active member, and the current, dominant political
sentiments in Nigeria. Many contributors to the political debate underlined their perception ofthe
importance of the local government by suggesting the abolition of states, that is, a two-tier arrangement
consisting of the federal government and the local governments! Ironically, it is the local governments
that are being abolished, except as centres of state robbery and unconscionable self-appropriations. The
popular vision of the local government as an autonomous and responsible grassroots government is,
however, attainable. The first thing that has to be done in this direction is to remove the power to make
laws for the establishment and functioning of the local government from the state government and to
place the matter at the level of constitutional provisions, just like the provisions dealing with the
functioning of federal and state governments. If you argue that political office holders and public

servants at the local level are inexperienced and unskilled, I would argue that, relative to the local
government area, the local politicians and public servants are as inexperienced and unskilled as their
counterparts at the federal and state levels. And if you protest that local politicians and public servants
are thieves, I would laugh and argue that their counterparts at the federal and state levels are not better.
This may sound anarchistic or nihilist, but it is not. We are dealing here with a political and public
service culture that is not segmented, but truly rational, from the base to the top. So, let the principle of
the "learning process" be applied 1-o the three tiers of government. The "anarchistic" problems that are
envisaged can be taken care of by strengthening democratic institutions and the law enforcement
agencies. The 1999 Constitution makes it clear that under no circumstances can a state government -7e
removed by federal authorities, not even where a state of emergency is declared. Why a different stroke
be applied to the third-tier? The functions ofthe local government listed in section 7 and the Fourth
Schedule of Constitution are separated into two parts: the functions that the local government performs
a.,:ne and those that it performs in conjunction with the state government. This is similar, Except in
form, to the separation between the Exclusive Legislative List (reserved for the eral government) and
Concurrent Legislative List (a joint domain ofthe federal and state 1,-emments). What is required here
is the raising of the status of the functions of the local spvemment to that of a Legislative List,
demarcating those functions that are exclusive from that are concurrent between the federal, state and
local governments. The functions 4C-_-,e local government contained in the 1999 Constitution, when
pulled together, are well ,aur :alated and adequate for our circumstances. What is required here is a
thorough -ssion, in a Constitutional Conference or Sovereign National Conference, of the mode "
francing items in the Concurrent List, such as Education, or rather, the mode of deducting

at source, the local government's contribution to the execution of items in the Concurrent List. Also
well articulated is the process of creating new local government areas or adjusting local government
boundaries as stipulated in section 8 of the Constitution. What is required is the conscious recognition
that the final act in this exercise belongs to the National Assembly and, of course, the President whose
assent is constitutionally required for all Bills of the National Assembly to become law. It is however
expected that once the process has passed through the community, local government and state levels,
the National Assembly and the President will merely act as approving agencies. The approval ofthese
latter institutions are required because the creation of a new local government area is an amendment of
the Constitution. And the Constitution cannot be amended without the nod of the National Assembly
and the President. The current controversy over the location of the power to create new local
government areas should really not have arisen. What I have said above notwithstanding (and here I am
adopting the language of the Constitution), I think the adoption of the presidential system at the local
government level should be reviewed. I strongly feel that councillors should be fully involved in the
running of the local government, performing both legislative and executive functions, as was the case
before the present political dispensation. The local government is simply too small for the separation
ofpowers and functions inherent in the presidential system. It is wasteful in money and time. It will also
be a development of "grassroots democracy" if local governments constitute democratically elected
neighbourhood or community committees at ward levels to execute community work. Only a small
fraction of local government revenues will be required to "empower" such committees. The "dividends"
in social development, socio-political consciousness and poverty reduction will be immense. For this,
we may need to study the experiment of the Calabar Municipal Government between 1988 and 1989
under the chairmanship of Bassey Ekpo Bassey.

55
Not By Slogans Alone 28th June, 2001
THERE are two general lines of thought among Nigeria's political elite on the imme diate future of the
country. There are those who believe that the present political structure, together with the system of
material appropriation on which it is created is alright in principle, subject to amendments and reforms,
from time to time, in accordance with the requirements of normal national development. In particular,
they believe that the present constitution requires only to be properly edited to remove unintended
ambiguities and typographical errors. In other words, no radical constitutional reviews are desirable or
necessary. On the other hand, there are those who believe that correcting perceived national imbalances
which they see as the only means of holding the country together requires a fundamental restructuring
of economic control and the system of governance. I am not concerned here with those who hold the
former view, that is, those who say we are okay. The system they support and from which most of them
benefit immensely in power and wealth, cannot be sustained, in the long run. I am also not concerned
with those who are hypocritical in their support for the latter view, or are proposing compromise. Most
of these people are opportunists and professional "peace makers". Their positions are even more
unsustainable, and will be the first to collapse. I am concerned with the campaign for economic and
geo-political restructuring. I must admit, however, that I am not satisfied with the manner this
restructuring campaign is currently being prosecuted. My concern is that the campaign has been
dominated by slogans: true federalism, resource control, power rotation, sovereign national conference.
But the accompanying analyses. and prescriptions have not been sufficiently rooted in our concrete
history. I propose that we go beyond slogans and general analysis to precise, E. storically-rooted
prescriptions. The current idea of geo-political restructuring of the Nigerian fzderation was initiated,
and first put in print, following the extreme distortion of the federal 5:. stem under General Ibrahim
Babangida and the violent, but abortive, coup ofApril 22, 1990. The initiators included ChiefAnthony
Enahoro, under the auspices of the Movement ?.= National Reformation (MNR). I shared the elder
statesman's idea except that whereas E7.alloro took ethnic nationalities as basic units in the
restructuring project, I did not, for grac.tic al and ideological reasons. Enahoro also took historical and
cultural affinities as bats: ,:: criteria for zonal or regional groupings. Eight regions were proposed: four
regions in -,:-th and four in the South. in this proposal there will be two regions in the present Di .-.1-1South zone and two in the present North-Central zone (or Middle Belt). I called this
167
restructuring the principle oftriple balancing. Partisans of geo-political restructuring should be concrete
in their advocacy. The slogans of true federalism, or fiscal federalism, as currently used, grew from the
idea of geo-political restructuring. By these slogans, the protagonists mean an American-type
federalism where, as is generally believed, there is no interference by the Federal Government in affairs
and responsibilities of the states, where the states are allowed to operate their own police forces, where
economic control and revenue appreciation by the states are relatively greater than what they are in
Nigeria, etc. I see nothing to oppose in these propositions, except to complain that the analyses and
opinions I have so far read, and heard, on these matters have not been sufficiently rooted in our
concrete history. For instance, we once had regional and local authority police forces in Nigeria. They
were abolished? Was the abolition correct at the time it was carried out? If yes, what has changed in the
country to make a re-introduction necessary and capable of avoiding the previous dangers? There are
three tiers of government in Nigeria: federal, state, and local. Since the inception of this political

dispensation, state governments have been at loggerheads with the Federal Government. Local
governments have also been at loggerheads with both the state governments and the Federal
Government. Except in the area of resource control (to which I shall come presently), advocates of true
federalism and fiscal federalism have tended to endorse the encroachment of federal and state
governments into the jurisdiction of local governments. The higher tiers of government interpret the
provision of the constitution in their own interest and to the detriment of local governments. They
appropriate constitutional responsibilities and rights that are either not there or are ambiguous. A case
in point is the tenure of local governments. Who has the power and responsibility to suspend a local
government chairperson or dissolve a local council: the state governor, or the state House ofAssembly,
or neither of them? Advocates of true federalism and fiscal federalism should say what the status of
local government should be in their proposed structure: autonomous tier of government or
administrative departments of state governments. A lot has been said and written on resource control. I
have learnt immensely from both the words and the passions. I think I would pass any fair theoretical
examination on the subject. But I am not sure of my grounds in applied resource control. The latter is
yet to become a weapon in my hands. And I don't think I am alone in this predicament. I was discussing
the other day with a Niger Delta friend of mine when he suddenly asked if, in reality, I was in support
of resource control. I said yes, that as a Marxist and a socialist, resource control is a core belief. I then
asked him for permission to ask my own question. He gave it. "What is resource control? I asked my
friend. He turned sharply towards me: "You mean you don't know the meaning of resource control? I
told him I had a meaning in mind but was not sure I was right. I pleaded with him to help nie by telling
me what he himself understood by the term. He gave it to me: "Resource control is the control of
resources." I asked if that was all and he said "yes, that is all; we want to control our resources". At that
stage I suggested we sit down. The point I am making here is that the concept of resource control has to
be defined
168

more concretely. In his two-part article, "Political Economy of Resource Control", Segun Ige
differentiated between resource ownership (which he thinks should be left to God) and resource control
which he defined as "acquiring direct political power over resource production, management and
utilisation in the area of location to ensure regeneration of the environment and overall sustainable
human development of the people". He also differentiates between resource control and principle
ofderivatiOn, considering the latter as an exploitative and fraudulent principle. The federal
government's share of revenue from natural resources (which it would share with state and local
governments) would, according to Ige, be by means of taxation. So far, so good. But who will exercise
this control: state governments, local governments, communities, or the three of them? How? If
communities are to be involved, would this not necessitate the political reconstitution and constitutional
empowerment of communities (or council wards) to enable them perform these functions? The concept
of SNC has been defined and clarified many times over. I have nothing new to propose. I only have two
questions to ask: First, in what precise ways is Sovereign National Conference (SNC) different from
National Conference (NC)? Secondly, is SNC/ NC synonymous with Conference of Nationalities
(CN)? If so, how? If not, what is the difference? How will SNC/NC/CN be constituted? Will the
constitution resemble the recent gathering in Abuja of traditional rulers and "eminent" citizens? I ask
these questions not in support for those who are opposed to change to make their advocacy, clearer,
more historical, more rigorous and therefore more powerful. I recall Karl Marx's advice to critics
ofHegel's philosophy from the left. He started by conceding that Hegel was wrong; but he went on to
insist that since Hegel was rigorously historical, any opposition to him from the left, which aimed at
transcending Hegelianism, must possess superior intellectual attributes in addition to superior social

forces. Do not forget that ideas and arguments can become material forces. Slogans alone, Marx
insisted, would not transcend Hegel. That is exactly the point I am urging on all protagonists of change.
169

56
Antecedents of the Fourth Republic 12th April, 2001
my concern here is simple, embarrassingly simple. It is the periodisation of the political history of
Nigeria since independence. When, a couple of weeks ago, I had a light discussion with a group of
young Nigerians and foreigners, I was questioned on my reference to the present era as Nigeria's Fourth
Republic, a name I had myself adopted only very reluctantly. The irritation of my listeners increased
when I went ahead to delineate the preceding three republics which are implied in the reference to Ole
present one as the fourth. I was challenged on the criteria used for this delineation and ,,Lused of
inconsistency. Let me recapture what I said. By the First Republic we mean the period between October
1, 1960 when Nigeria gained independence from Britain and January 15, 1966 when the first military
coup d'etat took place. But strictly speaking, Nigeria was not a republic throughout this 63-month
period. Becoming independent as a constitutional monarchy (although the monarch, in our case, was
the Queen of England, represented in Nigeria by an indigenous Governor-General) Nigeria acceded to
the republican status only on October 1, 1963. Since the changes brought about by the event of October
1963 were not really essential no-one has seriously objected to the naming of (1960-1966) as First
Republic. The period between October 1, 1979 when the military government of General Olusegun
Obasanjo handed over power to an elected Executive President, Shehu Shagari, and December 30,
1983 when the latter was overthrown in a coup led by Generals Buhari, Babangida, Abacha and
Idiagbon is what we refer to as the Second Republic. Between the First and Second Republics was a
13-year period of military dictatorship (1966-1979): Aguiyi-Ironsi (January-July 1966), Yakubu Gowon
(August 1966-1975), Murtala Mohammed (July 1975-February 1976) and Olusegun Obasanjo
(February 1976-September 1979). This period is not referred to as a republic probably because there
was no clear or coherent Constitution and the governments were not elected. I shall call this period the
First Military Dictatorship. By the Third Republic is meant the tenure of the state and local government
administrations elected during the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. The Third Republic thus
lasted from January/February 1992 to November 1993 when General Sani Abacha overthrew the
regime of Babangida's nominated successor, Chief Ernest Shonekan. The designation and acceptance of
this period as a republic, side by side with the (1960-1966) and (1979-1983) periods is, to say the least,
very irritating. Only state governments and local councils were elected; the Federal Government which
exercised military hegemony over these two tiers was not elected; it was a military one. The two 1.70
registered political parties that ran the state and local governments were created by the military. There
was a Constitution, the 1989 Constitution, but it was not used. Yet, that period has been accepted as a
republic; the political office holders in that republic are today referred to as Honourable, Senator, His
Excellency, etc. What a country! The period between December 1983 and May 1999, encompassing the
regimes of General Buhari, General Babangida, the interim government headed by Shonekan and the
regime ofAbacha, I call the Second Military Dictatorship. The Fourth Republic was inaugurated on
May 29, 1999 with Olusegun Obasanjo as its first elected president. Abacha's regime (November 1993
to June 1998) is not referred to as a republic although at certain stages there were political parties,
political activities, elected local government councils and a Constitution, the 1995 Constitution. That
President Obasanjo is referred to as "Chief' and not "General" is a reflection of the hypocritical and
opportunistic character ofNigeria's political class. Here is a man who was a commander of an army
division during the civil war, who received the surrender of the Biafran forces, who later commanded
the entire armed forces as military Head of State, who passed through all the army ranks, jumping over

only the rank ofMajor-General, who was unjustly jailed, but then released and pardoned with his rank
of General fully restored. He is therefore as qualified as any other Nigerian army officer, alive or dead,
to be called a general. But since the political class wants to give the impression that the man is now a
civilian, running a civilian government, he is referred to as a Chief while Buhari, Babangida and others
who served under him and were promoted and endowed by him are called generals. We thus have four
republics and two military dictatorships. Two explanatory notes are however necessary to complete the
delineation. First, the Third Republic is embedded in the Second Military Dictatorship. Two,
Shonekan's Interim Government (ING) which lasted from August 26, 1993 to November 17 of the
same year was merely a sluggish change-over from one phase of the Second Military Dictatorship to
another phase of the same regime. Of all the periods of our post-independence history, the one most
useful in the work of constitutional review and political restructuring is the First Republic. This is why
I say so: What is undesirable for us in the year 2001 is depicted so clearly in the politics and
governance of the First Republic. Put differently, the subsequent periods of our history have merely
given false solutions to the problems of the First Republic, while destroying the relatively positive
element of the latter. Let us see. Nigeria became independent as a federation of three unequal regions,
and later, four: three in the South and one in the North. The latter, in land area, was three times the size
ofthe three southern regions combined; the official records put the population of Nigeria at the time as
nearly equally divided between the North and the South. During the First Republic, Nigeria practised
what was known as parliamentary Fvstem of government. At the centre, was a Head of State at first a
Governor-General and z,or, after the attainment ofrepublican status, a President; and a Council
ofMinisters headed by a Prime Minister. The presidency was ceremonial, that is. it had no executive
functions; :al executive power lay with the Prime Minister and his Council of Ministers. Every zl.:ister was a member of Federal Parliament, either an elected member of the House of
171

Representatives or a nominated senator. Each minister had an assistant, called parliamentary secretary,
who was also a member of parliament. The Prime Minister, his ministers and the ministers'
parliamentary secretaries did not receive double pays as members of the executive and members of the
legislature; each was paid from only one budgetary allocation. There was a Leader of Opposition who
was the leader, in parliament, of the minority party, or leader of the largest minority party. The position
was officially recognised and officially paid as such. The set-up at the centre was replicated in the
regions. In terms ofrelationship with the centre, the regions were as autonomous as they could be in a
federation: the regions were fiscally autonomous and had their own constitutions which were, in the
final analysis, subordinate to the Federal Constitution. There were regional police forces and native
court messengers or enforcers, called Kotuma in the East. These institutions were political instruments
in the hands of the party and government in power. The First Republic operated a multi-party political
system. The parties did not require registration by the electoral body to exist and contest elections. In
addition to three large parties there were several medium and small ones. There were provisions for
independent candidates. If you check the first decree which the army issued immediately on assuming
power in January 1966 you will see the number and types of political parties from feudal and
conservative parties to radical, socialist and revolutionary ones. The left alone had about 10 parties,
from reformist social-democratic to revolutionary Marxist. Two of such small parties later bore arms
and collaborated with the federal side in the present South-South political zone during the civil war,
thereby playing a more significant historical role than the big parties that caused the war. I may add,
however, as a sad digression, that when the war ended the victors suddenly remembered that their
armed collaborators were banned organisations. They were ordered to shut up. Some complied, but

those who did not were dispatched to join the defeated Biafrans in prison. We can see in this narration,
the positive, semi-positive and negative aspects of the First Republic quite clearly. We cannot say the
same of the other periods.
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57
Further Reflections on the Future 11th January, 2001
IN the second half of December, I searched for the most important idea or issue in Nigeria's political
life in the year 2000. My first problem and some people would say it is an idle one was how to locate
that particular year historically. I could not decide whether the year 2000 was the last year of the
second millennium, or the first year of the third. Popular opinion says it is the latter, but, by what I was
taught and have taught others, it is the former. Since I was not in the mood to make a compromise on
this particular issue and was not prepared to alienate my readers by insisting on an unpopular view on
an inconsequential subject, I decided to shelve the matter. My search for the most important public
subject in the year 2000 led me to the press statement issued by Chief Anthony Enahoro on December
15, 2000. I put the statement aside and continued my search. Then I came upon the editorial issued by
The Guardian in its edition of December 22. Enahoro's press statement attracted my attention for the
simple reason that it was made by Enahoro: political statements made by this patriot and nationalist are
usually deep, holistic, futuristic and therefore very important. On the other hand I was attracted to The
Guardians editorial on account of its caption: A national conference without the government.
Incidentally, the editorial took off from a view-point credited to Anthony Enahoro, and both the press
statement and the editorial dealt with the same subject, namely, the future ofNigeria through a
Sovereign National Conference. I stopped my search and concentrated on the two documents,
deliberately reading each one several times, noting all the points, small and big, central and marginal. I
was happy I did, for the approach was rewarding. ChiefEnahoro issued his public statement, according
to him, to redeem his promise, made when he came back to the country several months ago, to speak to
the nation at the end of a country-wide political consultation. He had planned to visit all the six geopolitical zones. In the event he visited only four. He did not visit the North-Western and North-Eastern
zones. He met the "leaders" of the former in Abuja, he was then advised by them lax to bother to go to
the North-Eastern zone, but to meet with the "leaders" of the zone in Abuja through the Arewa
Consultative Forum (ACF). Even the substituted meeting did not c place. Chief Enahoro, a thoughtful
politician, meticulous in the-sense of Chief Obafemi M. .Dlowo, must have analysed this incident,
although he failed to include the result ofthe iianYysis in his advertised statement. My tentative
conclusion, or perhaps, speculation, is t the "leadership" of ihe North, as articulated by Enahoro, is not
enthusiastic about the .orm being canvassed, namely, a SovereignNational Conference ( SNC) and a
regional
173

(zonal) restructuring of the polity of the Nigerian federation. But this does not mean that the North is
not enthusiastic, or that a different political approach to the question of"leadership" would not have
produced a different response. Hoge directly, the response obtained by Enahoro from his contact with
the "North" cannot be said to be representative of the position of the "North." This does not mean that
tint leaders of the North consulted, or were intended to be consulted, by Enahoro are wrong. It means,
right or wrong, their views may not be coincident with the views of the North. The issue ofauthentic
representation will be very crucial if ever we come to organising a national conference. But who are

these "leaders" that Enahoro spent several months meeting across the country? According to his
statement, these included the President of the Federal Republic, state governors, legislators, party
leaders, traditional rulers, media executives, religious leaders, trade unionists, student leaders, women
leaders and other opinion leaders. This is near-exhaustive list, provided the "other opinion leaders"
include leaders and members of civil society organisations, that is, human rights, pro-democracy and
community-based elopment groups, among others. And what are the issues that need to be discussed in
a a I conference for which Enahoro's consultation is a preparatory effort? According to the The
Guardian, these include the restructuring of the polity, fiscal federalism, resource control by states,
introduction of the Sharia in most northern states, and in general, the terms ofco-existence ofNigeria's
geo-political entities given the incessant ethnic and religious programmes which have almost become a
way of resolving even common disagreement." This list is an eloquent and precise expression of the
need to adjust the relations between groups and institutions that make up the Nigerian federation. But
what of issues that affect all Nigerians? Enahoro answers my question by including, in his own list,
"pauperisation of the populace", "multi-party democracy", "ineffective women-oriented programmes".
"persistent fuel scarcity," and "insecurity of life and property." Beyond all these, Chief Enahoro
provided the country with a strategic political focus beautifully articulated by his organisation, the
Movement for National Reformation (MNR), as far back as March 1993: "The MNR's view is that
instead of searching for one new man to be President, the country ought to be searching for new
structures to be produced by a national conference composed of representatives of the ethnic groups
and national organisations." I agree completely, but urge the "national organisations" to wake up
because the success of the conference depends on them, not on ethnic nationalities, or rather, ethnic
leaders. While ethnic leaders concentrate on relations between ethnic groups, or rather, big ethnic
groups, the national organisations will keep on insisting on relation between social classes, groups and
between individuals, and between individuals and the Nigerian state. Among the national organisations
that must wake up are the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Nigerian Students Movement and, of
course, the Nigerian Left as scattered in numerous groups as it may be. They should all link up in the
new year and make pan-Nigerianism and popular democracy their irreducible platform. The Guardian
raised an important question, namely, the viability of a national conference without the government. I
shall respond to this question by recalling a brief
174

moment in the history of Zimbabwe. In mid-1970s, as the liberation war was approaching a decisive
(and of course victorious) moment, the white minority government of Southern Rhodesia became
desperate. Suddenly, the government accepted the principle of black "majority" rule and drew up a new
constitution which it said would lead to it. The white rulers even changed the name of the country:
from Southern Rhodesia to Rhodesia-Zimbabwe. An "election" was organised and a black politician, a
reverend gentleman called Abel Muzorewa, became prime minister of Rhodesia-Zimbabwe. The latter
was then proclaimed independent. While this theatrical show was going on, the armed liberation
struggle led by Joshua Nkomo, Robert Mugabe and Ndabaningi Sithole continued. In other words the
jokers in the Rhodesian capital, Salisbury (now Harare), were ignored. At a stage, Britain, the colonial
power, seeing the inevitability ofnationalist victory in the war of liberation, stepped in to limit the
damage to itself, the white population, and the vast colonial investment and infrastructure in the
country. The liberation fighters were invited to Britain and genuine independence under genuine
majority rule was agreed upon. The war ended and the Salisbury jokers were compelled to accept the
resolution. By the time negotiations ended in Britain, the jokers who called themselves a government

knew they were irrelevant politically at that point in time. In the pre-independence election that
followed, the liberation fighters scored an overwhelming victory and became the government of
independent Zimbabwe. Abel Muzorewa whose party had won most of the seats in ZimbabweRhodesian "parliament" only managed to secure three seats in the National Assembly of genuinely
independent Zimbabwe. It shocks me that even before the end of the first year of this administration,
Nigerian politicians had started struggling for nominations for the elections the 1999 Constitution says
would take place in the year 2003. It is either the political class is deeply contemptuous of the Nigerian
people or is utterly bankrupt in the understanding of history, or both. The question is: Are the
politicians struggling for positions in the present political structure or in a structure whose features are
yet to emerge? For me, it would be a national tragedy if the present structure survives the present
administration. It is the patriotic duty of the "national organisations" earlier mentioned to ensure that
this does not happen.
175

In Search of Foundations llth December, 2003

IREAD Sola Adeyeye's article, "Foundational Principles for Nigerian Renaissance". One reason was
that his name sounds like someone I interacted closely with many years ago, perhaps as a classmate or
schoolmate. The other reason was that Adeyeye ppeared in the article to be engaged in a type of
exercise to which I can say I am now addicted, namely, trying to describe as briefly, clearly, and
precisely, as possible, what Minua Achebe would call "the problem with Nigeria". I engage in this
exercise from time to time to test my sanity in light of what I fear could be the destructive impact of
our current national situation on one's body and brain. The impact on the body we can see and feel, but
the impact on the brain may just be treacherously insidious. I adopted a similar test of sanity when I
was in detention several years ago, by constructing, from first principles, the validity of the Pythagoras'
Theorem and, whenever I was really down, by demonstrating that the sum of the three interior angles
of a triangle is 180 degrees. An obviously angry Adeyeye said that "Nigeria is a big mess". I agree. He
said that there is need "to begin an immediate rescue mission for our fatherland". Again, I agree except
to say that I would have substituted "land" for "fatherland". He said that the latest talk about
"optimism" in Nigeria was "nothing but falsehood, decorated by courts of professional bootlickers, paid
image makers, sycophantic crumb grazers and toadying trumpet blowers in the periphery of power".
Strong words, but I agree. He said that the mission to rescue Nigeria must begin "by enshrining certain
bedrock principles that are indispensable to peace and progress in a pluralistic society like ours". I
agree that certain "bedrock" or "foundational" principles must be enshrined in the constitution. But we
have to ensure that what is enshrined is actually foundational, that no foundational principle is left out,
and that those that are included are well constructed. And we must also not forget that the process of
enshrining the foundational principles will be a bitter struggle, perhaps going beyond electoral politics
and parliamentary debates. Adeyeye presented the "problem with Nigeria" under five headings: The
principles of secularity; the principle of true federalism; the principle of justice, the rule of law and
accountability; the principle ofconstitutionalism; and the principle ofbuilding bridges. This was how
Adeyeye described the principle of secularity: "Nigerians must be free to believe or not believe in God.
,Likewise, those who choose to believe in God must be free to worship Him or Her in whatever way
they choose, so long as their own freedom does not
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condition in general will be improved, and self-realisation by the masses (not just the elites) in
particular will be enhanced. Not only must we not pursue shadows, we should also not pursue objects
that are half-shadows. Let me quote Adeyeye: "We need to terminate t1 virtual omnipotence and
omnipresence of the Federal Government which causes the epilepsy of our power supply, paralysis of
our railway system, incapacitation of our police, ruination of our educational system, pollution of our
environment, corruption of our polity and strangulation of our economy." The question is: Are we sure
that all these ills and social maladies are caused by the "virtual omnipotence and omnipresence of the
Federal Government"? Are we sure that the character of the ruling classes is not partly responsible for
these ills? Are we sure that even if every ethnic group becomes an autonomous unit in a true federation,
these ills will not be reproduced in each of them, with the relative conditions of the popular masses
remaining unchanged, or only marginally changed, perhaps not even for the better? In support of the
"principles ofjustice, the rule of law and accountability", Adeyeye gave what a journalist would call a
"quotable quote": "Justice is the only glue that keeps a country together". He went on: "Unfortunately,
ours is a country where justice is often tied, continually perverted and habitually mocked". I agree with
the professor on both counts. The little problem I have arises from my addiction to definitions. We are
talking, not ofjustice in general and in the abstract; but ofjustice in a concrete social formation called
Nigeria, a segment of the real world with specific history and experiences, a deeply patriarchal society
with real, not imaginary, class, ethnic and gender cleavages; a country which provides a very strong
case study of the national question and internal colonialism. We should be very concrete when we talk
ofjustice in such a society. I should perhaps refer Adeyeye to the distinction which ChiefAnthony
Enahoro drew between democracy and equitocracy. Democracy conveys the idea of equality between
individuals; equitocracy refers to equality between groups. Combining the two concepts, with apology
to Enahoro, we arrive at a concept that can be fully elaborated: Equitocratic democracy. I agree
withAdeyeye's main submissions on "the principles of constitutionalism", namely, that the present
constitution is a "forgery foisted on Nigeria by a cabal of military adventurers", that "we must replace it
with a testament that emanates from the sovereign wishes of our people". He replaced the popular
"Sovereign National Conference" with "Sovereign Conference of Nigeria Peoples". If the reason I
attach to this change is the same as his, namely, that the rulers and power-blocs may be prevented from
cynically presenting themselves as "national", then I have no objection. The "principle of building
bridges" which Adeyeye enunciated in the closing paragraphs of his article is subsumed in his earlier
principles. An important "foundation principle" lefi out by Adeyeye relates to fundamental human - and
peoples' - rights: economic, political, social, etc. These are so important that they cannot be subsumed
under any other heading. Indeed, if we are allowed just one principle, I would vote for fundamental
rights -as many other principles issue from there.
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59
Disasters and the State 17th November, 2005
IDISTILL only two types from the large family of phenomena known as disasters. There are disasters,

like the October 22, 2005, Bellview plane crash, and the death of Nigeria's First Lady on October 23,
2005, in Spain. These disasters are also called accidents. There are also disasters, like Hurricane
Katrina, that hit the south eastern coast of United States ofAmerica in the first week of September
2005. These disasters are not accidents. They are foreseen. I am concerned here with the attitudes and
reactions of the state to these types of disaster. In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina, I received from
America, so many communications embodying critical accounts and opinions from the non-mainstream
press or "the other press". The essence, or centre of gravity, of these analyses was that the American
government, headed by President George Bush, was not serious about protecting the potential and
actual victims of the hurricane, and that these victims were mainly the poor and lower social classes,
most ofwhom were blacks. Not that the mainstream or establishment press did not criticise the
government's handling of the disaster. They did. The point is that their type of criticism was not deep or
concentrated enough and its effect was often vitiated, or even neutralised, by "on one hand...on the
other hand" type of "objectivity". I filed the "treasonable" communications away. Later, I received a
communication which went beyond the earlier ones in the sense that it contrasted the reactions
ofAmerica's rulers to Hurricane Katrina to the normal reactions ofthe government of Cuba to
hurricanes and other natural disasters. I also filed away this particular communication, knowing full
well that all of them would soon be recalled. It was really not the double-tragedy that befell Nigeria in
the night of October 22 and 23, 2005 that recalled the profane communications from America. It was,
rather, the open letter written by Chief Gani Fawehinmi to President Olusegun Obasanjo on the tragedy
and the expected public reactions to it. Like the American rebel critics, Fawehinmi said what is
normally not said in "decent" and "sensitive" quarters. The charge against him, from several quarters,
was not that he said the wrong thing, but that he said the right thing at the wrong time. There were also
some people - whose views, I think, should be ignored for now - who charged Gani with saying the
wrong thing at the "wrongest" time. The right "thing" was the criminal negligence charge levelled
against the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo over the Bellview plane crash in which 117
persons perished, and the sudden death of Stella Obasanjo. The "wrong" time was the time Obasanjo
was
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mourning his wife. Given that a man should normally mourn his wife for at least six months., what
time would have been considered appropriate, or right, to make the Gani-type criticism? I shall come
back to this, but first we return to George Bush's America and Fidel Castro's Cuba.
According to one of the rebel communications from America: in September 2004. a category five
hurricane, similar in strength to Hurricane Katrina, battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mileper-hour-winds. 1.5 million people, representing 13.3 per cent of the population, were evacuated "to
higher ground ahead of the storm". The hurricane destroyed about 20,000 houses, but no life was lost.
How did this happen? Simple. The hurricane was foreseen, and the Cuban government prepared for it.
According to Marjorie Cohn, quoting Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University New
Mexico, "the whole civil defence in Cuba is embedded in the community. People know ahead of time
where they are going to". As soon as the hurricane alarm was sounded, Cuba's leaders went to
television and took charge. Nelson Valdes then contrasted this with President George Bush's reaction to
Hurricane Katrina a year later, in September 2005: "The day after Katrina hit the gulf coast, President
ish was playing golf. He waited three days to make a television appearance and five days before
visiting the disaster site". He quoted the New York Times editorial of Thursday, September 1, 2005:
"Nothing about the president's demeanour yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness
- suggested that he understood the depth of the current crises". Comparing the reactions of the

government ofAmerica to those of the Cuban gOvemment, Valdes testified: "Mere sticking people in a
stadium is unthinkable in Cuba. Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighbourhood. They
have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighbourhood and already know, for
example, who needs insulin. They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, so
that people are not reluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff'. The director of the United
Nations International Secretariat for Disaster Reduction, Salvano Briceno, advised other countries:
"The Cuban way could easily be applied to other countries with similar economic conditions and even
in countries with greater resources that do not manage to protect their population as well as Cuba
does." When Hurricane Ivan hit Cuba in September 2004, the authorities did not impose a curfew or
restrict people's movement in any way. "Yet", as Marjorie Cohn reported, "no looting or violence took
place. Everyone was in the same boat". Compare this with the widespread looting, killing and rape that
were reported in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Mayor of New Orleans
"explained" that the problem was caused by "desperate people trying to find food and water to survive".
He blamed the outbreak of violence and crime on drug addicts who have been cut off from their drug
supplies, "wandering the city, looking to take the edge of their zones". Many Americans believe that the
attitudes and reactions ofAmerica's state agencies to Hurricane Katrina were largely informed by class
and race. "The people affected were largely poor people - poor. black people", said a church minister.
President Fidel Castro and Cuba, who has compared his government's preparations
180

for Hurricane Ivan to the island's long-standing preparations for an invasion by the United States, said
that "Cubans had been preparing for this for 45 years". The day Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans,
Cuba's National Assembly sent a message of solidarity to the victims. The message said that "the
Cuban people have followed closely the needs of the hurricane damage in Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama, and the news has caused pain and sadness". The assembly however observed that "the
hardest hit were African-Americans, Latino workers, and the poor who still wait to be rescued and
taken to secure places, and who have suffered the most fatalities and homelessness". The National
Assembly hoped that the entire world would "feel this tragedy as its own". The government of Cuba
had earlier offered to send medical supplies and doctors to America. We may now return to Nigeria and
the open letter written by Chief Gani Fawehinmi to President Olusegun Obasanjo over the nation's
twin-tragedy: the crash of the Bellview commercial airliner, causing the death of all the 117 people on
board, and the death of Nigeria's First Lady, Stella Obasanjo. Both happened between the night of
Saturday, October 22 and the morning of Sunday, October 23, 2005. Gani wrote his letter on Sunday,
October 30, 2005, a week after the tragedy, two days after the burial of the First Lady, and three days
after the president had returned to work. The subject of the letter was of public interest and this was
underlined by the three days of national mourning declared in the country and the fact that the First
Lady was given a state burial. I have gone over Gani Fawehinmi's 17-page letter several times, and I
am convinced that this eminently patriotic Nigerian felt and conveyed deep sympathy to the nation. He
conveyed same to the president for the loss of his wife and many of his citizens in one night. The
central message of the letter was that both tragedies could have been avoided had the Federal
Government ofNigeri a, which President Obasanjo heads, been more responsible, more disciplined and
more concerned with the welfare of the people. Specifically, Gani felt that Stella Obasanjo, whose
natural beauty he attested to, ought not to have one for sire must, this could have been done in Nigeria,
not Spain. He also felt that the Bell-view plane tragedy would not have occurred if the Nigerian
Government, which Obasanjo heads, had paid more attention to the country's aviation industry. I
endorse both views. Final reflection: The crash of the Bellview airline plane in the night of Saturday,

October 22, 2005 has been classified as accident in the following sense: None of those on board passengers and crew - and no one outside the plane, was believed to have deliberately caused the crash.
But, suppose someone had caused the crash by say, planting a time-bomb in it or trying to hijack it?
Can we still call it an accident? Suppose again, that . plane was not directly attacked, but had suffered
maintenance neglect, or the plane was \,) old to fly', or the proper contact between the plane and air
control was not made, or -;!id not be made, and that these factors were, individually' and collectively,
responsible crash. Can it still be called an accident?
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60
Pacification and resistance 4th December, 2005
S a young student, I was highly intrigued by the word "pacification". I was aware that the ordinary
meaning of"pacify", is "to allay anger or agitation", or "to restore a tranquil state", and that in this
sense, pacification is the process of achieving or restoring peace. But in politics and political history, I
found that "pacification" conveyed :something radically different. It means, specifically, the violent
suppression of mass discontent. protest or rebellion. Although I found, later, that pacification - in the
political sense - also =:. --41 j..,dthe ideas of restitution and appeasement - suggesting that the victims
of the policy liniSt have been considered by the perpetrators as having some grounds for their attitudes
-this did not dissolve the confusion that afflicted me, the joke that the English Language appeared to be
playing on me. The resolution ofthe contradiction in the meaning ofpacification came to me in the form
of Machiavellianism: the end justifying the means. In President Obasanjo's Republic, pacification
means the restoration of peace by the elimination of sources of opposition essentially by violent means.
The other means include the threat of violence - implicit or explicit - and the settlement of opportunists
and traitors. That is what is known as the peace ofthe graveyard. One way of settling a dispute and
restoring peace is to eliminate the opposition as a group and settle some of the opponents as
individuals. My problem as a young activist was my mobility to see that there are several forms of
peace and that pacification only conveys one particular form. Contemporary theatres of pacification in
Nigeria include the Niger Delta on top of the list. President Olusegun Obasanjo appears to be
embarking on a twin programme of political pacification: general pacification of the polity, and special
pacification of specific segments of the polity. He is doing this either as a necessary step in the
realisation of the rumoured "third term" agenda, or to realise the immediate pacification objective of
the "international community", or both. The objective ofthe general pacification is to neutralise all
pockets ofpolitical opposition within the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and to
defeat, even before the 2007 contest, all opposing political forces, including those that are now in
existence and are known, those that are in existence but underground, and those that are threatening to
emerge. The objective of the special pacification is to blackmail into submission, by legal means, by
"settlement", and by state violence, all ethnic-based opposition to the present geo-political structure and
the political course which the regime intends to perpetuate.
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The agenda sketched above is being pursued with the support of, and indeed, in alliance with,

imperialism a.k.a the "international community". If the President succeeds in both objectives, an
immediate product will be the emergence of a new hegemonic power-bloc in Nigeria, a new powerbloc that will shake up, from the roots, the existing two power blocs - the Northern power-bloc and the
Western power bloc - absorb their best parts and supplant them. It will be a thoroughly conservative
and pro-imperialist power-bloc, a slave component of the international community, a brutal and
traitorous stooge that has no national pride. If this calamity - which was predictable, and was indeed
predicted - befalls Nigeria, then we shall see what fascism or neofascism is in reality, that is, outside
the textbooks. It is then we shall see, in practice, what the "international community" means by
"democracy" and the "fight against terrorism". I am reminded of an anecdote: A certain geography
teacher loved speaking about winter. On retirement, he stepped out of the school compound where he
had lived and taught for several years. It was during a particularly severe winter, but he could not
recognise the weather. He was told by his former students that it was winter. "No, children", he
answered, "this is not winter. It is a disturbance in nature". Let us not behave like the old geography
teacher. In a recent private chat, a comrade of mine suggested that the regime in Nigeria must have
been given the task ofundermining genuine democracy, not only in Nigeria, but also along the entire
West Coast ofAfrica. Countries cited as examples included Ghana, Togo, Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire. The
task is to ensure that the imperialist agenda (consolidating the new American Empire) is realised in
every country in the region. The comrade also suggested that two countries in the Third World - Nigeria
and Indonesia - have been permitted by the "international community" to delay the introduction of even
the minimal market democracy being proposed for the periphery of the new American Empire. The
consolidation of the empire is more urgent than democracy! We both laughed, but I would have been
mad to throw away his hypotheses. Everyone can see what the regime is doing with the African Union
(AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), NEPAD, etc. I wish to propose that
we expand our conception of the "third term" agenda. I remember I made a similar proposition during
the tail end of General Ibrahim Babangida's transition programme when it became clear that the
General planned to install either himself, or someone, in power or, at the very least, prevent some
categories of people from succeeding him. I suggested then that the rumoured "hidden agenda" of the
general should be subsumed in a larger, more robust, formulation of our political problem. In a similar
manner, I am suggesting that in the present situation, we should move from speculation to assumption.
It makes practical political sense to assume that President Obasanjo has a -third term" agenda, that is,
he is planning to extend his tenure as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria beyond May 2007,
or stamp his imprimatur on the post-2007 zovernance, by means that are not yet clear, even to himself.
But our conception of this zenda must be a mature one. My proposition is based on this simple
reasoning: Given the current national and iternational situation, and the role which Nigeria is being
made to play in it, President
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Obasanjo, acting in concert with the "international community", will fight to install, in office, as his
2007 successor, someone as loyal, as trustworthy and as dependable as himself. The best "someone" is
of course Obasanjo himself. If this fails, the strategists will move to the "second best", and then the
"third best", etc., and the weapons they will assemble in their arsenal will include the constitutional and
the unconstitutional, the legal and the illegal, the peaceful and the violent, the national and the
international. The exact weapon or combination of weapons to be used to realise this objective depends
on the balance of forces at the appropriate moment. I believe that if the problem is formulated in this
way, what is now known as the "third term" agenda will simply appear as one possible form - out of the
several which the problem may take - rather than the problem itself. The problem remains even if
Obasanjo renounced his alleged ambition tomorrow. If that is the case, then a single strategic solution

which will deal with "third term" agenda, as well as other forms of "undemocratic perpetuation", may
be sought. I am convinced that this proposition embodies a strong strategy, one that is capable of
winning or, at least, stopping a national mockery or disgrace. I am, however, also convinced that it will
not appeal to many professional politicians including, in particular, those who are waiting to be pacified
or for the correct offer to fall in with Obasanjo's plans, and those who do not want to stake anything in
any pursuit, but would rather dream of winning in all cases. Although my proposition is not a
revolutionary platform, I believe it is one around which a broad democratic, anti-fascist, coalition can
be built; or if such a coalition is already in existence, it could help to strengthen it, expand it and
sharpen its focus for the 2007 battle. I find it difficult at this time to predict the trajectory of President
Obasanjo's pacification campaign. I doubt, however, if the effort is necessary. What is necessary at this
stage is, first, to follow, very closely, the political developments in the country especially in, and
around, President Obasanjo, the NationalAssembly, and the PDP. Secondly, to follow, very closely,
what is happening in the pacification campaign in the Niger Delta and in the Southeast geopolitical
zone; thirdly, on the basis of this close observation, to try to see or work out the connections between
seemingly disparate events; and fourthly to try to make simple one-step predictions, that is, to
intelligently speculate on what could immediately follow. The minimum political act that is demanded
of every Nigerian patriot and democrat, at this stage, is a simple vow: that the "third term" agenda whether in the restricted form of extension of tenure or in the general form of "undemocratic
perpetuation" - will not be allowed to succeed. The resolution must be unconditional and categorical;
that is, it must not entertain "exceptional" situations such as the existence of "emergency" or threat to
"national unity" which some people must now be articulating. Make this resolution today and seek out
other resolutionists. We have to resurrect the spirit oflune 12, 1993 even without an Abio la.
18-1

61
Not by violence alone 22nd December, 2005
IWAS, on Thursday, December 8, 2005, considering how to begin this article when The Guardian of
that day arrived, and literally showed me a partial picture of what I wanted to capture. I refer to a
front-page story and a page 3 report, both carried by the paper. Titled "Federal Executive Council
denies third term bid", with a kicker, `MDD, MRD, plot to incite Nigerians, says PDP', the front-page
story carried the summaries of two statements issued byAbuj a the previous day: one by the Federal
Minister of Information, the other by the National Secretary of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP). The page 3 story was captioned "Ohanaeze raises alarm on planned meeting by Onoh,
Nwabueze, others". It gave a summary of a statement issued in Enugu by the current leadership of
Ohanaeze Ndigbo. Incidentally, the very next day, December 9, 2005, The Guardian carried reports
which re-informed the previous day's stories. Taken together these stories reminded me that the Nazis
did not employ only violence to come to power in Germany. They also needed more than violence to
retain power. They fashioned the weapons of official falsehood, blackmail and propaganda, making
them the "lubricants" ofviolence. These lubricants made violence easier and more "legitimate" to use.
We have seen this in Nigeria before. We are about to see it again. I am using the statements cited only
as case studies. Many more have been issued since then. The Information Minister spoke for the
Federal Government after the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council; and the PDP National
Secretary spoke for the party. Essentially and practically, the two institutions are the same; the
"differences" between them are elements of the deception of the political system. But on December 8,
2005, they spoke as separate institutions and were so reported. Speaking first, the Information Minister,
said that the allegation of a "third term plan was a rumour, orchestrated by power-seekers bent on
confusing Nigeria." He "revealed" that President Obasanjo's National Political Reforms Conference

had proposed more than 100 amendments to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
and that the tenure of the office of President was just one of these. Why then, the Information Minister
wondered, should people single out and start orchestrating this one item? Such people must be "power
seekers" and "confusionists." I hope the Minister was just playing "Nigerian politics," that he knows
the answer to his question. But in case he does not, I offer it: We are ignoring all the other alleged
proposals, and focusing only on presidential tenure, because at this juncture in our history every other
185

thing, including the other 99 elements, the fate of the entire constitution and the political system, and
indeed the corporate existence of the country depend critically on the alleged self-succession plan. Put
differently, Mr. Minister, the issue of "third term," that is, the alleged self-perpetuation plan by
President Olusegun Obasanjo, is now the dominant and decisive political question in the country. That
this question is dominant and decisive is a result of the occupation of our country by neo-fascist forces.
The National Secretary of the PDP, in his own statement, accused two recently formed political groups
- the Movement for the Defence of Democracy (MDD) and the Movement for the Restoration of
Democracy (MDR) - of blowing up the third term question "-to incite Nigerians against the Obasanjo
administration." Borrowing from the fascist-like language ofthe politics ofthe Second Republic, but
lacking its substance, the party secretary thoroughly abused the leaders of the two organisations.
However, he managed to deny the third-term charge and the rumour that the regime would soon set up
its opponents in a coup plot as General Sani Abacha did in 1995 (in which General Obasanjo himself
was the first accused) and again in 1997 (in which General Oladipo Diya, Abacha's deputy, was the first
defendant). There is no doubt that the PDP leadership, in whose name the secretary was speaking,
knows the leaders of MDD and MRD very well; and conversely. They know themselves, having
originally come from the same group. The secretary even predicted that his estranged compatriots
would soon start pleading for re-admission into the PDP caucus. The only comment that is necessary
here is that long before the current crisis in the ruling party, and long before the emergence of the MDD
and the MRD, we predicted what is now unfolding, and pledged to resist it. We are not in the
bandwagon of those called the "new democrats." Although the National Secretary was forced to enter
formal denials, his warning is worthy of note: "The law will follow its natural course if any politician
or any other person, no matter how highly-placed, crosses the line between legitimate protest and
incitement capable of causing a serious breach of law and order. Regime security is not parallel to
national security." This is a very poor parody of the language of the Second Republic National Party of
Nigeria (NPN). But the blackmail and threat implicit in the statement are clear. What emerged from the
statement of the PDP secretary and that of his compatriot at the Information Ministry was that the
regime ofPresident Obasanjo identifies estranged leaders and patrons ofthe ruling PDP as its main
enemy - that is, the main opposition to the regime and in particular, to its alleged self-perpetuation plan.
The PDP is entitled to its perception and analysis. The page 3 story was issued by the current President
and General Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo on behalf of the organisation. It was meant to be an alarm and so it was - over a meeting then being planned to take place on Saturday, December 10, 2005, at
Enugu. The meeting took place as planned. The name ofthe hotel, as well as its physical Ilbcation were
given. The time was also given. The alarm-sounders were, thereby, asking that they be taken serious,
and so they were. The summary of Ohanaeze 's statement was
186

that the Igbo leaders planning the meeting aimed to use it to "destabilise Ohanaeze Ndigbo by
maligning and discrediting its leadership, so as to create a parallel platform to be used to launch
unwarranted attacks on the Federal Government, as well as to castigate some of the SouthEast
governors who are not favoured by the so-called Igbo leaders." The Ohanaeze leadership, it is clear
from this statement, was angered by the fact that the meeting was being planned for Saturday,
November 10, 2005, the very day the PDP was to hold its National Convention in far-away Abuja. The
leadership then made this inciting pronouncement: "While we appeal to our law-abiding members to be
calm in the face of this obvious provocative action, we also call on our governments and security
agencies to note that this matter has grave security implications. We therefore appeal to the appropriate
authorities to please take necessary steps to forestall a possible break-down of law and order that may
arise from this dubious and misconceived move by the so-called Igbo leaders to cause confusion". May
we ask: First, what was the "obvious provocation" in a group fixing a meeting which coincided in time,
not in venue, with the meeting of another group? More directly, what was there to provoke the
leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in some Igbo leaders fixing a meeting of their group for a day that the
PDP was holding a National Convention? We can guess the answer, but let the personages concerned
tell us and, by so doing, expose their own pretensions and false claims regarding political partisanship
and representation of the general interests of the Igbos. Secondly what are the "security implications"
of a group of Igbo leaders, just like leaders of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF)
Afenifere, etc., holding an open meeting in a state capital? Let the alann-sounders answer the question,
and by doing so, tell us more. Now, in what sense did the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo describe the
conveners of the Enugu meeting as "so-called Igbo leaders"? As a political columnist recently
observed, although none of the existing ethnic and "socio-cultural" organisations in the country had a
democratically elected leadership, some leaderships can be adjudged more credible than the others.
And going by the advertised names, I don't see how those who issued the "security alarm" under review
could legitimately describe their adversaries as "so-called Igbo leaders." As I was drafting this article it
struck me that the three statements under review were issued by personages of the same geopolitical
origin. If there were leftist or patriotic or nationalist politicians, I would have merely noted the
coincidence and moved on. But this is the politics ofNigeria's power-blocs which is heavily influenced
by regionalism and ethnicity. I therefore asked myself: Is this a mere coincidence, or is it the
continuation of the well-known, but cynical allocation of duties and functions along geopolitical lines?
You can take this exercise: Check out the periods, since the end of the civil war (1967-1970), when the
Nigerian state and the ruling blocs were in serious crises; then check those who were given the task of
defending the state ideologically. Similarly, check out the periods of"democratic pretension," and see
those whose task it was to organise and legitimise fraudulent elections.
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62
The Sophism of Self-Perpetuation 9th March, 2006
HE picture is now clear and complete: The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Fr intends to retain
President Olusegun Obasanjo and most of the present state governors in office beyond May 2007.
Ideally, the party would prefer to do this "legally", that is, according to the constitution and state laws of course, as read and interpreted by the party. More concretely, the PDP wants to amend the 1999
Constitution to allow its elected officials of state who will be completing their second and final term in

May 2007, to seek re-election. And, unless the unforseen or unforseable happens, they will win the
"election." The PDP's implicit suggestion therefore, is that the coming battle will not be a legal one.
Whatever other colorations it may wear, the battle will not be decided in the courts, except for matters
arising from the detention of "enemies". So we are left with propaganda, blackmail, sophism, bribery
and fascist violence as main internal means of executing the project of self-perpetuation. The external
weapon is the support, or endorsement or "neutrality", of the international community. My main
concern in this piece is with the weapon of sophism. Protagoras, a profound thinker in ancient Greece,
was the first person to call himself a Sophist. His self-appointed task was to go around delivering
lectures on politics, philosophy and culture. He received payments for this and was respected. Those
that came after him were not so respected as they focused only on the development of political skills.
Away from ancient Greece, a sophist will, today, be defined as "someone who reasons adroitly and
speciously, rather than soundly". Sophistry is a "subtle, tricky, superficially plausible but generally
fallacious method of reasoning; a false argument". And sophism is a "specious argument for displaying
ingenuity in reasoning or for deceiving someone; any false argument fallacy". And to complete the
picture, "specious", used as an adjective, is defined as "visuall. pleasing; having deceptive attraction or
allure; having a false look of truth or genuineness". A modern sophist is, therefore, a smooth charlatan,
a smooth liar. As form ofmisinfon-nation, sophism or sophistry, is more insidious than propaganda or
ideology. For, sophism does not, like propaganda or ideology, seek to exaggerate partial truth
(propaganda) or present partial truth as universal truth (ideology). Rather, it seeks to present falsehood
as universal truth, approaching the status of science. This it does by the employment of what appears
like high-powered erudition. Sophism has taken a vanguard position in the array of political weapons
currently being used against the Nigerian masses.
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Over time, political sophistry has developed and taken shape, in the campaign to extend the
constitutionally prescribed tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo, or to perpetuate him in power. I call
this the sophism of self-perpetuation. It proceeds along three main lines. The first line of argument is
that President Olusegun Obasanjo's antecedents as a commander during the Civil War (1967-1970), as a
military Head of State (1976-1979), and as a civilian president since May 1999, eminently put him
ahead of every other Nigerian, at any time, as a presidential candidate in the scheduled 2007 election.
The second line is that if the 1999 Constitution is amended to allow President Obasanjo to stand as a
presidential candidate in 2007, and if he subsequently becomes the democratically chosen presidential
candidate of the PDP, then he would not be running for the third time, but for the first time under an
entirely new Constitution. And the third line is that constitutional provisions notwithstanding, it will be
stupid and unpatriotic to send a good President away from the Presidency at a critical point in the
history of the country. Put differently: one should not be in a hurry to change a good thing -just for the
sake of change. In any case, who, and where, are the other presidential candidates? These sophistic
lines of argument ignore the settled democratic principle that a ruler should not be the immediate
beneficiary of a constitutional amendment enacted under him or her. This principle becomes even
stronger in the context where the ruler is the inspirer of the amendment. Also ignored is the view
supported by significant events, that the Civil War would have ended much earlier, and the nation
would have been spared the immense human cost exacted by it, if certain military officers and
politicians had been less conservative. Finally, I think it is generally known that ifwe define the period
(July 29, 1975 - September 30, 1979) as Mohammed-Obasanjo period, then the sub-period (February
13, 1976-September 30, 1979), following the assassination of General Murtala Mohammed on
February 13, 1976, was in relative terms, a period of de-radicalisation. A young student of history may

be permitted to draw an analogy between Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin on the one hand and General
Mohammed and General Obasanjo on the other. The governors ofPDP-controlled states are in the
vanguard ofthird-term sophism. In the second weekend of February 2006, the governors held a longawaited meeting with their party leaders. At the end of that meeting, Governor Peter Odili of Rivers
State was reported as having said that he would support a third term for President Olusegun Obasanjo
'if the Constitution allowed it". Almost immediately, ChiefMatthew Mbu, the veteran politician and
Chairperson of South-South Peoples Assembly (SSPA) of which Peter Odili is a prominent member
described the governor's statement as his personal opinion which did not reflect the position of the
Assembly. The governor, he said, was not speaking for the 7eople of the South-South. Mbu re-stated
the Assembly's core demand on that question, 7.arnely, that the South-South geopolitical zone should
produce the country's President in -,07. The SSPA is also canvassing for rotational presidency, and the
urgent review of the 99 Constitution to give effect to it. It is worthy ofnote that the Assembly is also
campaigning for "30 per cent affirmative Jon for women in appointive and elective position at all levels
of which five per cent could be for women with disability or physical challenges, joint control by the
Federal
189

Government, the resources-bearing states, the local administration and the communities where these
resources are found of all minerals, mineral oils and natural gas in, under or upon any land in Nigeria
or in, under or upon territorial water, continental shelf and exclusive economic zone ofNigeria". This
must be one of the Assembly's latest formulations ofthe "resource control" demand. I wonder how
Governor Odili reconciles these categorical positions with the support for the third-term agenda. We
should not forget that Port Harcourt, the capital of Peter Odili's Rivers State, is the de-facto
headquarters of the South-South, a geopolitical zone of ethnic minorities. Earlier, on December 19,
2005, a meeting of prominent politicians from the three southern geopolitical zones - South-West,
South-South and South-East - took place at Enugu. Southern governors made a significant presence at
the meeting which had meanwhile, adopted the name Southern Forum (SF). One of the resolutions of
that meeting was that the next President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to be elected in 2007,
should come from either the South-South or the South-East geopolitical zone. The Saturday, February
11, 2006, gathering according to The Guardian, was "a joint meeting of the Board of Trustees, Council
of Elders and National Executive Council of SSPA". Immediately after the meeting, Governor Odili
declared in a Cable News Network (CNN) programme: "If there is a legitimate constitutional
amendment that permits him (President Obasanjo) to contest, I will be one of the people that would beg
him to run", You see now? On his own part, Governor Victor Attah ofAkwa thorn said, after the
SSPAmeeting: "The people that are waiting have a very good reason to wait because they know that it
will be good that this person has been able to start this reform that we never had. How many years have
we had independence? We could not dream about these reforms, we could not get debt relief, we could
not get the kind of respectability we are now getting in the international community, we could not
accumulate this kind of foreign reserve that we are accumulating now". He continued: "So, it is even
good for him to continue, let us learn a bit more from him before we take over. Maybe, that is why
nobody is jumping to say, I want to contest the presidency, for the simple reason that if you know
something, please continue for a bit longer". You see now? Finally, hear Governor Nnamani: "So, if the
constitution is amended and a situation arises where the PDP offers President Obasanjo nomination, he
accepts and runs, I believe he is a good product. I believe he is certainly a good candidate and I doubt,
when you consider the stature of the personality involved, the role he has played as a detribalised

Nigerian, his constituency: former military constituency and now, civilian constituency. There are
certain things you cannot buy, I believe he would be a candidate that can stand against any other
candidate any time any day". Compatriots, you see how our governors, the political leaders of the
Southern Forum, are battling to state a simple position: commitment to retaining President Obasanjo
and themselves, in office beyond May 2007? Reading them is a study in sophism.
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63
Agenda 2007 and its Opponents 29th December, 2005
ir. CONSIDER it necessary to start by formulating the question - since we may not all subscribe to the
same understanding, even as we use the same terms. By Agenda 2007, in a narrow sense, I mean the
current political campaign, whether supported by President Olusegun Obasanjo or not, to extend the
tenure of the President beyond May 2007, by constitutional means, or otherwise. And by "constitutional
means," I mean amendments to the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria by the methods prescribed by the
constitution. In a wider sense, however, Agenda 2007 means the enthronement or anointment of a new
regime in May 2007, by the current regime - whether President Olusegun Obasanjo is at the head of
that new regime or not. The implication of this two-part formulation is that even ifthe current campaign
for President Obasanjo's self-succession is terminated tomorrow, even if the present rebels in PDP are
reconciled with the party, the problem remains. Agenda 2007 will, in fact, be strengthened by such
eventualities. The wider formulation subsumes the narrower one. The present article is, however,
concerned with the narrower question of self-succession. The partisans, advocates and supporters
ofAgenda 2007 constitute a very complex family; but not nearly as complex as the family of the
opponents. As illustration: There are political forces which are opposed to Agenda 2007 because they
hold that power must shift to the Northern part of the country after May 2007. And there are political
forces which are opposed to Agenda 2007 but insist that power must remain in the South after 2007.
While waiting for time to dissolve these complexities, I remain within the framework of my present
definition. Apartial list ofpartisans ofAgenda 2007 would include the president himself, in the forefront.
Then follows the set of those who believe that Obasanjo's self-succession is the only guarantee that
they themselves, or the groups to which they belong, will remain in office and in power and continue to
enjoy the benefits which office and power can buy or continue to enjoy state patronage. It will be
truthful and charitable to recognise that there are Nigerians who genuinely believe that it is in the
interest of the nation (for reasons of stability, unity, anti-corruption campaign, economic reforms, etc.)
for President Obasanjo to continue in office beyond May 2007. Following this category are those who
believe that it is in the interest ofhumankind and the "international community," that the present regime
in Nigeria continue in office indefinitely. Finally, there are those who support Agenda 2007 for no
reason other than that
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this is the position taken, and indicated, by their "leaders". The opponents ofAgenda 2007 would
include, in the forefront, those who believe that after sojourning for eight years in the "South", "power"
must return to the "North." There are those who subscribe to this position categorically and
unconditionally. But there are partisans who offer an additional justification, namely, that an agreement
was reached in 1998/1999 between the leaders of the "North" and those of the "South" to the effect that
power would return to the North after General Obasanjo's presidency. When this alleged agreement was
mentioned in 2002, many Nigerians, including the president himself, offered denials. Now that a party

to the agreement has spoken, let us wait for new denials. Next on the list are those who believe that
power must rotate among the six geopolitical zones in the country. Then, there are those who believe
that Agenda 2007 is an assault on our "nascent democracy", and the beginning of fascist rule as well as
a fundamental violation of the letters and spirit of the 1999 Constitution. Also in the vanguard of
opposition to Agenda 2007 are those who see the campaign as directly opposed to their own ambition
to become or produce, the president in May 2007. Again, to be truthful and charitable, we must
mention those who believe that the regime of President Obasanjo had been an unmitigated disaster for
the masses of this country, and that it would be suicidal for the nation to allow him to continue in office
beyond May 2007. Beyond these are those who oppose Agenda 2007 because their leaders have
opposed it. I may, at this stage, offer a reminder: In apolitical struggle, an individual is important only
to the extent that he or she represents political forces or, better still, to the extent that he or she is able
to draw or summon political forces into action when necessary. Agenda 2007, as defined, is still at an
early stage of formation. This stage is characterised by state-supported threats and violence, as well as
infiltration, subversion and blackmail of opposition political grounds and state institutions. A
movement for the realisation of the agenda is yet to emerge. Nor has the opposition to it been
institutionalised, if it will ever be. Hence, the question of how the battle will be fought out can only be
answered indirectly, for instance, through an examination of developments in state institutions and
political formations as well as actions of individual leaders. These can be grouped under the following
five categories: political organisations; the Nigerian state; regional and ethnic nationality organisations;
civil society organisations; and the "international community." Political organisations: From the large
number of open political organisations in the country, including the 30 political parties which were
officially approved for the 2003 elections and which participated directly or indirectly in that election,
we pick out the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the rebel movements which
developed within it as tangibly relevant in the battle under discussion. President Olusegun Obasanjo
has won the battle for the leadership and control of the bureaucracy of the party. I think one can say
that, unless a major accident occurs, Obasanjo will win the presidential primaries of the party, if he
contests. We can go further to say that the same forces which see him to victory in the primaries will
ensure that he wins the presidential contest. The Movement for the Defence of Democracy (MDD) and
the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) are opposition groups that developed out of
the crisis in
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the PDP, the factions that lost out in the intra-party struggle for the control of the party. It is now known
that Agenda 2007 was a major question in that crisis. The abandonment of this agenda will definitely
dissolve both movements. If the basic character of the Nigerian ruling classes, namely opportunism demonstrated and confirmed over and over again in our political history - is anything to go by, one can
predict, without fear of being proved wrong, that a formula for reconciliation will be found which
produces both President Obasanjo and his opponents as victors. The Nigerian state: The more relevant
state institutions in this struggle are the National Assembly and the State Assemblies (which are jointly
responsible for amending the constitution); the coercive institutions of state including the police, the
security agencies, the army; the judiciary; the state anti-corruption agencies including, in particular, the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Corrupt Practices Commission and the Code
of Conduct Bureau; the state economic regulation agencies, especially those responsible for granting
licences and the electoral bodies, including, in particular, the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) which is responsible for registering and de-registering political parties and

deciding which factions to accord recognition in the event of factionalisation, and the security agencies
that are responsible for issuing security clearances to election candidates. All these institutions are, as
of now, under the control of the partisans ofAgenda 2007.
Regional and ethnic nationality formations: From ethnic formations - whose census is difficult to take,
in view of the high rate of their production and extinction - we take out the Arewa Consultative Forum
(ACF), the Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the various militia groups in the Western geo-political
zone, including the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), the various militia groups in the Niger Delta; and
the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State ofBiafra (MASSOB). From regional
formations we list the Northern Elders Forum, the Northern Legislators Forum, the Northern Senators
Forum, the Northern Governors Forum, the Southern Legislators Forum, and the South Forum. While
all these formations - or their majority factions - are opposed to Agenda 2007, some insist that power
must remain in the South, while others insist it must return to the North. The civil society: The most
relevant formation here is the Labour Movement organised under the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
Next to it are the youth organisations, including the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS)
and the various radical youth formations in the northern part of the country. Of these, only the
leadership of NANS, most surprisingly and unfortunately, is in support ofAgenda 2007. The others are
firmly against it. The international community: By this we mean those who rule the world - both
directly and through the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Paris Club of creditors. The international community is, for
now, in support ofAgenda 2007. Of all the forces that today line up against Agenda 2007, the most
formidable, whose actions are decisive, are the "international community" and the aggregate of forces
inspired by the Northern power-bloc.
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64
To BJ, at 60, a Salute 5th January, 2006
WHAT a coincidence! Today, the day I am proceeding on vacation from this page, is the 60th
anniversary of the birth of Biodun Jeyifo (BJ) who, when he was just half his present age, showed me
not only the analytical power of Marxism but also its beauty. And by so doing he showed me how to
write a Marxist critique. BJ showed me who a proletarian intellectual is because he is one. To the
world, BJ is a very brilliant scholar and professor of English, one of the best in the literary community
world-wide. I want to say - with the moral authority of our movement - that he is also one of the best in
the Marxist tradition world-wide. I cannot fit a tribute to BJ into an article. Not even an extended essay
can do it. Other mediums will be explored. But I have to do something here, today. Therefore in lieu of
a tribute, I dedicate to Biodun Jeyifo the following article whose title would have been Reviews and
Projections had the giant's birthday not fallen on this day Of the more significant events which took
place during December 25 those that I think are pointers to the future would include: the removal of
Governor Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa from office; the meetings and statements ofregional political
groupings; arguments between the Nigerian government and the American State Department over the
plot to extend President Obasanjo's tenure before May 2007; the "security alert" in the Niger Delta; the
police on protesting women; the "civil war" in Ibadan, capital of Oyo State; and the emergence of a
new right-wing political party. My projection is that these events foreshadow the period between now
and May 2007, that is, the last phase of Obasanjo's tenure as "constitutional" president of Nigeria. Let
me, however, begin with some general propositions. The policies and actions of the Nigerian
government and the Nigerian ruling blocs and classes cannot be understood outside the context ofwhat
is now widely, but misleadingly, called the "international community", but which many people,
including myself, insist on calling its real name, imperialism, or, the new imperialism. More than ever

before, the Nigerian economy, and the associated social programmes,, are dictated and enforced by the
"international community". This is done mainly through the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), the Paris Club of creditors and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Sometimes, the
dictation and enforcement are carried out directly by the rulers ofAmerica and Britain. The second
proposition is that although the dominant political question before the
194

nation at this point is whether President Obasanjo will be allowed to extend his tenure beyond May
2007 - by whatever means - the threat of fascist dictatorship associated with the self-perpetuation
campaign, will not be removed by the mere fact ofPresident Obasanjo dropping his "third-term"
agenda. The key players in the game can produce a compromise solution which serves all sides - the
Nigerian power -blocs, the "international community" and Obasanjo's regime - a solution which will
see Obasanjo leaving office in May 2007. That compromise, we should all know, may not hold a better
promise for the masses. It is gratifying to note that some Nigerians, including legal practitioners and
media organisations have now seen that the manner Alamieyeseigha was removed from office on
December 9, 2005, was a mockery of the Nigerian Constitution and the famed "rule of law" and "due
process". I am particularly impressed by the editorial opinion of The Guardian on the matter
"(Impeachment and arrest ofAlamieyeseigha", December 22, 2005). The point is that, for whatever set
of reasons, the Federal Government ofNigeria decided that Alamieyeseigha should be removed from
office, arrested and put on trial. The government did just that - using all the forces it could deploy or
coerce, especially the military, the police, secret agents, the EFCC and the State House ofAssembly.
The question is: Why was the Federal Government not confident that the serious allegations against the
man and what we saw him do would "nail" him? The answer to the question is a fascist signal. We saw,
in December 2005, high profile regional meetings ofNigerian politicians. Each ofthe meetings came out
with statements on the future ofNigeria and the succession to President Obasanjo. By the end of the
month, there had appeared a North-South polarisation. The Northern politicians insisted that Obasanjo
must return power to the North in 2007 in accordance with the agreement reached in 1998, and that no
amendment should be effected in the constitution before that return. The southern politicians, on their
part, insisted that power must remain in the South beyond May 2007. These were the aggregated
positions. But none of the two groups is politically homogeneous, although one can say that the North
is more homogeneous than the South. There are members of the Northern group who argue that, instead
of using threats, the North should negotiate itself back to power. Within the ranks of the South, there
are those who would not mind if President Obasanjo is the immediate beneficiary of the demand that
power should remain in the South. The next few months will be crucial. Quite alarming and distressing
was the report that a group of unarmed Nigerian women, most of them public figures and accomplished
professionals and academics, were violently dispersed by armed policemen in Lagos for staging a
peaceful demonstration. The women who went under the banner "Concerned Mothers" were
demanding a thorough-going reform of the aviation industry which had suffered three fatal accidents
within six weeks. That the police took this action on unarmed women, peacefully protesting a nonpolitical issue, was alarming. But more alarming was the fact that the police authorities condemned the
women's action and merely referred to police brutality as "overzealousness' on the part of some of
them.
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The police said the Concerned Mothers did not obtain police permit for the peaceful demonstration.

The women replied that they did not require a permit, but needed only to inform the police oftheir plan
- which they did. We all know that the police were wrong and that the women were right. What "threat"
did the law enforcers see in the women's protest? Were they afraid that the protests could be hijacked
by the government's enemies? Were they just acting out the intolerance for which their political bosses
are well known? Were the police or their overlords merely sexist? Whatever the case the police
violence on the Concerned Mothers was an eloquent statement on the character of the road of fascism.
The crisis in the Oyo State branch of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), began as
soon as the state government was inaugurated in May 2003. Two factions emerged: one led by the state
governor, the other led by the governor's alleged "godfather". It was exactly like the crisis in the
Anambra State branch of the party which erupted about the same time. Like the Anambra State crisis,
the Oyo State struggle was over government appointments and patronage, and next to that, over the
control of the party in the state. In both states the "godfathers" were supported not only by the national
party leadership, but also by federal state apparatuses, including, in particular, the Nigeria Police. The
crisis in Anambra State - which claimed an Assistant Inspector General of Police - has been stabilised,
with the governor in office, but the godfather in power. The crisis in Oyo State has, however, proved
unresolvable because the "godfather" is bent on removing the governor by whatever means, or
combination of means, possible. He is combining the constitutional means (impeachment by the House
ofAssembly) and the extra-constitutional means of using armed thugs and the police to dislodge the
governor and his administration from the Government House and the State Secretariat. It is necessary
to state that what is taking place in Oyo State, and in Anambra State, is also taking place in Plateau
State, and Adamawa State, and perhaps in other PDP-controlled states where the state governors are not
known to be in support of the President and his self-succession plan.
Just before Christmas, a new political party, Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy
(MRDD), came into being and immediately applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) for registration. The new party is led by estranged leaders of the PDP who had alleged that the
ruling party and the government it controls had been captured by anti-democratic forces. Ideologically,
there can't be any difference between PDP and MRDD. The party is unlikely to take any position on the
economy, politics, foreign relations, the national question, etc, that is significantly different from that of
the PDP. The new party is simply a response to Obasanjo's third term agenda and his appropriation of
the party for the purpose of realising it. Two further points can be made about the new party: First, the
Northern power-bloc will dominate it; and secondly although it has the potential of being the rightwing "nemesis" of PDP and the present regime, the party will dissolve, or be still-born, or be allowed to
wither away, if President Obasanjo reverses himself or somehow reaches some accommodation with
the rebels on party control and the third-term agenda.
196

The police said the Concerned Mothers did not obtain police permit for the peaceful demonstration.
The women replied that they did not require a permit, but needed only to inform the police oftheir plan
- which they did. We all know that the police were wrong and that the women were right. What "threat"
did the law enforcers see in the women's protest? Were they afraid that the protests could be hijacked
by the government's enemies? Were they just acting out the intolerance for which their political bosses
are well known? Were the police or their overlords merely sexist? Whatever the case the police
violence on the Concerned Mothers was an eloquent statement on the character of the road of fascism.
The crisis in the Oyo State branch of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), began as
soon as the state government was inaugurated in May 2003. Two factions emerged: one led by the state
governor, the other led by the governor's alleged "godfather". It was exactly like the crisis in the
Anambra State branch of the party which erupted about the same time. Like the Anambra State crisis,

the Oyo State struggle was over government appointments and patronage, and next to that, over the
control of the party in the state. In both states the "godfathers" were supported not only by the national
party leadership, but also by federal state apparatuses, including, in particular, the Nigeria Police. The
crisis in Anambra State - which claimed an Assistant Inspector General of Police - has been stabilised,
with the governor in office, but the godfather in power. The crisis in Oyo State has, however, proved
unresolvable because the "godfather" is bent on removing the governor by whatever means, or
combination of means, possible. He is combining the constitutional means (impeachment by the House
ofAssembly) and the extra-constitutional means of using armed thugs and the police to dislodge the
governor and his administration from the Government House and the State Secretariat. It is necessary
to state that what is taking place in Oyo State, and in Anambra State, is also taking place in Plateau
State, and Adamawa State, and perhaps in other PDP-controlled states where the state governors are not
known to be in support of the President and his self-succession plan.
Just before Christmas, a new political party, Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy
(MRDD), came into being and immediately applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) for registration. The new party is led by estranged leaders of the PDP who had alleged that the
ruling party and the government it controls had been captured by anti-democratic forces. Ideologically,
there can't be any difference between PDP and MRDD. The party is unlikely to take any position on the
economy, politics, foreign relations, the national question, etc, that is significantly different from that of
the PDP. The new party is simply a response to Obasanjo's third term agenda and his appropriation of
the party for the purpose of realising it. Two further points can be made about the new party: First, the
Northern power-bloc will dominate it; and secondly although it has the potential of being the rightwing "nemesis" of PDP and the present regime, the party will dissolve, or be still-born, or be allowed to
wither away, if President Obasanjo reverses himself or somehow reaches some accommodation with
the rebels on party control and the third-term agenda.
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65
1953 in Nigerian History 4th September, 2003
NIGERIAN history, the year 1953 may be approximately reviewed under the double theme of militant
nationalism and regionalist transformation. But to put that in con text we have to go a few years back,
specifically to 1944, 1946 and 1948-49. In 1944 young militant nationalists succeeded in persuading
their older inspirers, including Herbert Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe, to form and head the first
countrywide nationalist political movement in Nigeria, the National Council of Nigeria and
Cameroons. When Cameroons was separated from Nigeria, the movement was re-named National
Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC). In 1946, the young followers ofAzikiwe formed a militant
political group, the Zikist Movement, as a youth wing of NCNC and "protector" ofAzikiwe's person
and politics. In the same year, radical nationalists, critical of foreign churches, formed the National
Church ofNigeria. As expected, the Church became a quasi-political organisation. It allied itself with
the Zikist Movement and the NCNC. About this time, militant nationalist labour leaders, including
Michael Imoudu, F.O. Coker and Nduka Eze, initiated a class struggle to carry the labour movement for
militant nationalism or in the alternative, construct a rival militant faction in the movement. They allied
themselves with the NCNC. Thus, at that early stage, the NCNC had three militant formations as i'is
political "enforcers" and propagandists: the Zikist Movement, the National Church ofNigeria and the
radical wing of the labour movement. Some of the names in this momentous development may be
listed: Michael Imoudu, Kola Balogun, F.O. Coker, MCK Ajuluchukwu, Raji Abdallah, Oged
Macaulay and Nduka Eze. On October 27, 1948, the Zikist Movement organised in Lagos a
revolutionary public lecture: A Call for Revolution, that is, a revolution against colonial rule. The

lecture was delivered by Osita Agwuna, the Deputy President of the movement and chaired by Anthony
Enahoro, then Editor of the Daily Comet. We shall return to Enahoro. I only need to insert here that,
The Comet was one in the chain of newspapers owned by Azikiwe, the National President of the
NCNC. Enahoro, Agwuna and several militants were arrested, charged with sedition and jailed. Less
than two weeks later, on November 7, 1948, coincidentally the anniversary of the Russian Socialist
Revolution, the Zikists organised another public rally in Lagos. In that rally, Raj i Abdallah, then
President of the movement declared: "I am a free citizen ofNigeria, holding no allegiance to any
foreign government and bound by no law other than Nigerian native law and the law of nations. We
have passed the age of petition. 197

We have passed the age of resolution. This is the age of action plain, blunt and positive action."
Abdallah, who refused to enter a plea in court, and his compatriots, were arrested and j ailed. The ranks
ofj ailed militant nationalists were swelled a year later when the colonised nation rose against the
murder of 21 Nigerian miners in Enugu by the colonial police. The Zikist Movement was banned on
April 13, 1950. A month later two radical movements emerged to continue the struggle: the Freedom
Movement led by Ajuluchukwu and Nduka Eze, and the Nigeria Labour Congress led by Michael
Imoudu, F.O. Coker and Nduka Eze.
Against the background sketched above, we may now appreciate the events of 1953. A new labour
union centre, All Nigeria Trade Union Federation (ANTUF), was formed in August 1953 from the ruins
ofNLC, which had been formed three years earlier. ANTUF, which initially brought together about 20
trade unions, had Michael Imoudu as President and Gogo Chu Nzeribe as General Secretary. Imoudu
led the Railway Union; Nzeribe led the Union of Post and Telecommunications Workers, while Eze led
the Amalgamated Union of the UAC African Workers. Eskor Toyo, still in the struggle today, was one
of the intellectual lights ofANTUF. That was 50 years ago! ANTUF was a radical successor of the
radical NLC. The federation called for the establishment of a political wing of the workers' movement
"with a view to realising a socialist government," the state ownership ofmaj or industries and "social
and economic security" for workers. It decided, wisely, not to affiliate to any of the rival international
labour centres. Their other decision, namely, not to affiliate with any political party which meant, in
practical terms, to end the radical labour movement's historic alliance with the NCNC was in my view,
an error. In any case, according toRobin Cohen, the author ofLabour and Politics in Nigeria,
"cooperation with the established political parties at this stage was, in any case, unrealistic." How did
Cohen reach this conclusion? The answer is anchored on the fateful constitutional agreement reached in
1953 between British colonial power and leaders of Nigeria's emergent bourgeois political class. This
was how Cohen put the matter in the book cited above: "The formation ofAiNTUF coincided with a
constitutional conference in London which effectively regionalised political power." But why should
the envisaged regionalisation of political power make cooperation between the radical movement (in
labour and politics) and broader nationalist parties unrealistic? Cohen's opinion was that "the politicians
neither needed the support of the labour movement against the colonial power, not was cooperation
with the radical elements in the unions feasible after 1950". Let us look at the matter more closely. The
constitutional, conference earlier referred to took place in London between July and August 1953. The
main agreement of that conference, according to James S. Coleman, was that "Nigeria would be a truly
federal state with limited and specific powers allocated to the federal government and residual powers
inhering in the regional governments." This would be a departure from the 1951 constitution which
provided for an essentially unitary state with specific powers devolving from the centre to the regions".
Lagos was consequently excised from Western Region and made the federal capital. Most Nigerians
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would today support the view that the 1953 agreement was a positive landmark in the constitutional
development of the country. I do not intend to argue this point. I would only submit that, ironically, the
regionalisation of political power, or rather, the transformation of the political system into a federal
one, with powerful regions and a weak centre, dealt a severe blow on the content and character of
militant nationalism in Nigeria. For militant nationalism in Nigeria was born with, and developed
within, unitarist consciousness. It could not, and would not, adjust to regionalisation. One may argue
that regionalisation of political power was not alone responsible for the decline of militant nationalism
in Nigeria. The determination of the colonial power to crush militant nationalism and the betrayal of
the nation by the emergent "constitutional leaders" can also be counted as factors. But then the
"constitutional leaders" were strengthened in their course of betrayal by the promise of exclusive zones
o f power and control. The "constitutional" political parties, which developed from 1950, were
essentially regional parties. The NCNC, which had been born, and had developed, as a pan-Nigerian
nationalist movement soon embarked on the course of regionalism. It was in the course of this
regionalisation of political power that Anthony Enahoro, who had captured national headlines as a rebel
nationalist campaigner and journalist, emerged as a "constitutional" political leader. But this
constitutionalism was radical, progressive and humanist, in addition to being federalist. Enahoro retains
his youthful attributes, more than 50 years after his emergence. And that is why I am concluding this
review of 1953 with him. I am not interested in the debate as to whether it was Anthony Enahoro, or
Samuel Akintola, that first moved the motion in the Federal House of Representatives asking that
Nigeria be granted independence in 1956. What I consider important are the following historical facts
whose veracity I have cross-checked: Enahoro, together with Arthur Prest, formed the Mid-West party
in 1950; the party became the Mid-West section of the Action Group when the latter held its inaugural
conference in Owo in April 1951; Enahoro was, at that conference, elected joint Assistant Secretary of
the Action Group; later that year he was elected to the Western House of Assembly and was later
elected by the latter to the Federal House of Representatives. In March 1953, Enahoro, then 29 years
old, moved a motion in the Federal House "requesting the House to endorse as a primary objective the
attainment of self-government for Nigeria in 1956." This motion, according to historical records, "gave
expression to an Action Group policy, adopted at that party's annual convention of December 1952".
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66
Alternative Roads to 2007
25th September, 2003
Ap, FEW weeks ago, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria was reported in the media to have
cautioned General Ibrahim Babangida and Vice-President bubakar Atiku against "heating up the polity"
by prematurely initiating the campaigns for the 2007 presidential election. Both men have formally
denied starting the campaigns and have warned those involved in the activities to stop using their
names to advance their selfish political ambitions. Their message to the country was that 2007 was still
a long way off and that Nigerians should concentrate on proffering solutions to the problems of the
country. Predictably, neither ofthem denied he had ambitions for 2007. Before the presidential warning
and the subsequent denials and admonitions, the polity was indeed "heated up" by presidential
campaign activities and media reports and commentaries on these activities. General Babangida and

Afenifere, one of the leading "socio-cultural" formations of the Western power-bloc, appear to be at the
centre of this "premature" electioneering which, I am sure, is still going on, but now in different more
covert, ways. This premature electioneering together with the pattern it has so far assumed, has one
major premise or assumption, namely: that the existing political system and structures will subsist, and
that political power will return to the "North" in 2007, after dwelling in the "South for eight years
(1999-2007). Another assumption, perhaps a secondary one, is that in an election in Nigeria, what is
primary is the candidate: the political platform on which the candidate should run, or would run, comes
only after the choice of the candidate. In any case, the assumption goes on, if there is any need to
consider political platforms first, then given the present reality and projections from that reality, the
political platform to consider is the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). I propose that with these
assumptions there is no future whatsoever for Nigeria, not to talk of an enviable one; and that for there
to be a future worth looking forward to, for the masses of our people, these assumptions must be
confronted ideologically and politically. The task is for popular-democratic forces. Humanity makes its
own history, so said Karl Marx. But he added, we do not make history just as we want, we cannot remake the world just as we wish to see it. We make and re-make the world with the material resources
and social forces acquired and transmitted from the past. This is a statement both to mystics, evil
politicians and political rulers who attribute the disastrous results of their acts to the will of God, and to
the masses
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and their true leaders who may be tempted to believe that Nigeria's "deliverance" depends on a change
of hearts by these same evil personages. On the material resources and social forces transmitted from
the past, humankind applies its knowledge, consciousness, strength, courage, faith and commitment to
remake the world. The conclusion here is that the present generation of Nigerian masses and their
leaders bear substantial responsibility for the state of the nation by failing to do enough to checkmate
the modern enslavers, the enemies of the people and their foreign collaborators and inspirers. But there
is a limit to that responsibility and that limit is indicated by the material resources, institutions,
structures and social forces, and indeed the rot, inherited by them.
It is with this sober understanding that I approach the plans of modern enslavers and colonisers of
Nigeria, and those they have blindfolded, for 2007. My own premise is, of course, that the popular
masses, their organisations and their leaderships have the means, ifproperly organised, to frustrate the
enemies of the people and genuine progress, re-make history by reconstituting and reconstructing
Nigeria in their own interest and, in the process, re-make themselves. Since the last years of General
Babangida's rule, the popular political demand in this country has been the restructuring of the country.
The demand has been led by leftists, liberal democrats and true nationalists. The objective of this
political restructuring, as articulated by leftists, is to create a constitutional and institutional framework
for the exercise of democratic self-rule at the grassroots, create a level of economic control and
political administration between the states and the Federal Government so as to further reduce the
powers of the latter and create a more enabling environment for the struggle against internal
colonisation and unequal development. Ancillary benefits of this exercise are countless. I have, myself,
supported the advocacy that the present geopolitical zones be upgraded in status politically and
economically with the suggestion that the South-South and North-Central zones should each be split
into two. The result would be a federation of eight zones. In addition, I advocated the empowerment of
the wards that currently make up each Local Government Area (LGA) in the country to be able to carry
out community development. Nigerian leftists, liberal democrats and nationalists have not asked that
this constitutional change be effected by diktat. They have rather called for the convening of a
Sovereign National Conference (SNC) where they would put forward their proposals, having sensitised

and mobilised the people around their platform. ChiefAnthony Enahoro and his colleagues in the
Movement for National Reformation (MNR), who have worked harder than any other group on this
matter, have spelt out their position on the composition, structures, operations and agenda of the
conference. They have moved from the advocacy of eight federations to 18 in the transformation of
Nigeria into a federation of federations. They have drafted a constitution for the federation and, I
believe, they are now doing the same for the federating federations. The Nigerian rulers' response to
this call is well known. It has essentially been that
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ofrejection. It is against this background that the campaign for the 2007 presidential election was
engaged less than three months after the inauguration of Obasanj o 's second presidency. The first act of
this premature electioneering was the reported "invasion" of the South-West by agents of General
Babangida, and the counter-moves by vice-president Atiku's forces. We learnt of this from the
leadership ofAfenifere, which asked Chief Olu Falae, one of its prominent members and former
presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), to respond to the allegation that he was one
of the key figures Babangida's agents met when they "invaded" the South-West. The man formally
denied the charges and challenged his accusers to provide any proofs they had. Of course, they had no
proof, and the matter was rested there especially after the group's leader welcomed Falae's denial. But I
knew there was no smoke without fire: Babangida's "invasion" of South-West AD was the fire; the
interrogation ofFalae was the smoke. Then a couple of weeks ago, an AD leader said that the rumoured
incursion of Babangida into the South-West was an indication of dissatisfaction with Obasanjo's
government, and that if the general joined his party, his ambition to be a presidential candidate would
be considered along with others. So, the battle for 2007 has been engaged. Let me say with every sense
of responsibility that if there is no qualitative improvement on the strategy with which popular
democratic forces engaged the rulers during Obasanjo's first tenure (1999-2003), then the country may
arrive at 2007 along the road designed by our rulers. There will be no change in the structure of the
country, except possibly the emasculation of the local government system; there will be two powerful
presidential candidates from the "North" and a number of other candidates from the "South". The
running mate of one of the "Northern" candidates will be a "Westerner" and the running-mate of the
other will be an "Easterner". One of the two teams will win the race. But, depending on how things
proceed in the country and the attitude of the "international community", President Obasanjo may have
a change of heart and seek a third term "to save the nation". That is Alternative Road One. It is also
possible that under the pressure of the various political and ethnic factions in the country - some of
them armed - the federal government is stampeded into making superficial constitutional concessions
which, rather than solving the problem of deep national disaffection, end up satisfying nobody and
leading the country to disaster and anarchy. That is Alternative Road Two. There is however an
Alternative Road Three, and this is the road of serious and coordinated engagement by popular
democratic forces. In this regard, I shall limit myself to two supporting propositions. My first
proposition is that the primary task before popular-democratic forces in Nigeria is not the push for the
production of a new constitution for the country. It is not even the convening of a Sovereign National
Conference (SNC). The primary task is the construction of Pan-Nigeria Popular Democratic
Organisation, whatever name may be given to it. The second proposition is that globalisation, neoliberalism, monetisation ofpolitics, increasing poverty and decline of revolutionary consciousness have
together put an end to
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the era of small leftist political formations. Efforts must be intensified to pull together all genuine and
serious popular-democratic forces, including leftist political parties and groups, and civil society
organisations, to re-direct the politics of the country. Every other thing that has to be done will have to
proceed from this primary national duty.
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67
Dictatorship and Military Coups 22nd April, 2004
WEstart with the front-page report in The Guardian of Thursday April 1, 2004; titled "Military
authorities move Al-Mustapha from prison." The summary of the report was that at about 2.00 a.m the
previous day, Wednesday, March 31, "some 200 armed men and mobile policemen" came to Kirikiri
Maximum. Security Prison, Lagos, where Major Hamza Mustapha had been detained on court orders,
and "seized" him. The Comptroller-General of Prisons, in whose custody the detained army officer was
placed, gave the approval for the seizure and eventual transfer of the former security officer to late
General Sani Abacha to "an unknown destination". This report, if substantially true, as I think it is, was
a sufficient indication that not only the army, but the entire country, was in trouble. But in Nigeria,
playing with the intelligence of the people, through massive deception, has always been a mode of
governance. Fortunately, however, many Nigerians can reasonably and correctly analyse most ofwhat
they see or hear - official pronouncements notwithstanding. And Nigerians who are trained and
equipped through the strivings of the masses to be able to do so owe themselves and their countrymen
and women a duty to continuously do this analysis, and sound early warnings. Putting aside the official
and semi-official statements that were later issued by, or extracted from the government and the army,
let us proceed from the verifiable reports obtained from the media and eye-witnesses. First, the armed
contingent that came to, or was sent to Kirikiri was large enough to put down an incipient rebellion, or
initiate one. Secondly, this force came to "seize" a junior army officer who has been in one form of
confinement or another for over five years. Thirdly, the regime which the army major served was
officially replaced almost six years ago and the army in which he is an officer has since been so
thoroughly purged and restructured that one can say that it is now, in fact, a different army from the one
he knew when he and his master were in power. Fourthly, although the prison authorities claimed that
the detainee's seizure and movement were authorised by them, what happened was, prima-facie, an
illegality. The officer was detained at Kirikiri by a Nigerian court, and only that court can discharge or
move him by its own decision, or by the decision of a higher court, or by the pronouncement of a
political authority constitutionally empowered to do so. I say to those who claim to
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have brought, or restored, democracy to Nigeria: What happened at Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison
in the early hours ofWednesday, March 31, 2004, together with the official attitudes towards it, shows
that Nigeria is as far away from democracy as the sun is from the earth. The characters of those
involved in the episode, and the crimes attributed to them, are immaterial in this assessment.

Democracy is not designed for, or against, individuals. The nation later learnt from various sources that
the army officer in question was either planning a coup, or was involved in a coup plan, at the time of
his forcible seizure from Kirikiri. The question that jumped out of my mouth when I heard this rumour
was: How can a person in the circumstances described above be planning a coup? I immediately
realised that this was a very naive question. Is this not Nigeria? Is the Nigerian army not the one
described by a former respected Chief ofArmy Staff as "army of anything goes"? In any case, the initial
statement from the Federal Government was to the effect that there was no coup plot, that what
happened was a "security breach" by some soldiers and civilians and that the breach was being
investigated. There was a hint that civilians and serving soldiers were involved. The army first denied
that there was anything at all. I could sense some nervousness from the way the army chief and his
spokespersons responded to media questions. We should sympathise with, or even salute, those
Nigerians who have vowed to resist any coup d' etat with their blood. I believe many of them are
sincere and patriotic. But then much more than sincerity and patriotism is required here. You can only
resist a coup d'etat if you know that what is happening, or has happened, is a coup d'etat, or if the
people who are in the position to say so declare that what is happening, or has just taken place, is a
coup d' etat. Otherwise, you, the coup resister, may become a coupist or a coup suspect. Suppose, in the
concrete case under review, an honest and patriotic Nigerian had noticed the unusual operations around
and inside Kirikiri Prison, and had decided - quite justifiably for anyone who believes that Nigeria is a
democracy - that what he or she was seeing was an incipient coup d'etat, and had acted on that
perception. It would have been a multiple tragedy. If the patriot came out alive, he or she would have
been told by the prison commander that what happened at Kirikiri was normal, and that, in any case, it
was authorised; government spokespersons would have declared that nothing unusual happened, that it
was a mere "security breach"; the army would have denied knowledge of any military movement. What
I have said so far is not simply a comment on the recent "coup scare". It is also a fragmentary essay on
manifestations or attributes of dictatorship. There is a relationship between dictatorship and military
coups. I make two propositions. First, every class rule is a dictatorship. And this dictatorship is
essentially a dictatorship of a class, or a coalition of classes, over other classes and groups in the polity.
Since a state rules over a polity as a whole, this dictatorship is, in the formal sense, a dictatorship over
the polity. But we know the victims. To the extent that every class rule is a dictatorship it can be said
that practically every state in the world is a dictatorship. This i s a maximalist position, I admit. But it is
correct; or, rather, it is more correct than any other position on the question of social classes and
political power. My second proposition is that states and regimes vary in democratic
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content, from near - zero to the maximum democratic content compatible with class rule. Nigeria's
dictatorship has a miserably low democratic content. The poor democratic content of governance in
Nigeria is manifested in various ways including election rigging; disrespect for basic human rights, the
dignity of the human person, and the rule of law; contempt for the constitution and its provisions;
political intolerance; maginalisation of the broad masses of the people and groups including women,
children, workers, and ethnic minorities, in decision-making processes; unilateral imposition of harsh
material conditions on the people; state repudiation of agreements entered into with the citizens, etc.
The masses are primary victims. But fractions and factions of the ruling classes and power blocs that
are temporarily disaffected or out of favour also complain. The latter are however usually in stronger
positions to respond to situations they do not like. One of the responses of disaffected fractions and
factions of the ruling blocs to situations they do not like is the coup d' etat, actual or threatened. By the
way, the bloc, or faction, in rower also uses the charge of attempted coup d' etat as a weapon against the
"opposition" -,ctions. Either way, the masses are primary victims. Many innocent lives have been

destroyed in this country in the name of state security. I have no illusion that that era has come to an
Although I have told this story several times in the past, I will tell it again, but now in a summary. I met
a military governor in an official capacity a fairly long time ago. In the course of our discussion, the
governor advised me to rule out a presidential contest from the set of elections proposed for the return
to civil rule. When I asked why I should do this, he replied that a presidential election had already been
held. "When and where"? I asked. "Just before dawn onAugust 27, 1985, and in Lagos", he replied.
"Who were the candidates and who were the electors"?, I pursued. He replied that General Babangida
was the only candidate, and Nigerian army officers were the electors. The governor then went on to
make a declaration, namely, that the Nigerian army was a legitimate segment of the Nigerian nation and
had, through its patriotism and courage, demonstrated its right to elect a president. Other segments
ofthe population could go ahead and fill other political offices. The army -or any armed faction, for that
matter - has earned the authority to choose presidents and of course, depose presidents. It is difficult to
say how far this "militarised" consciousness still rules the Nigerian army, the purges and education of
the last five years notwithstanding. The least we can say is that the low democratic content of the
Nigerian polity, together with the severely restricted spaces for mass political intervention and
participation, continuously feeds this type of consciousness, not just in the military, but in the society as
a whole. Only mass political empowerment, and active political participation of the people can
bury ,"militarised" consciousness and its manifestations: coup scares, actual coup, and false allegations
of coups.
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68
Engaging Corruption At The Roots 21st April, 2005
IVIrY INTEREST at this moment is not in the particular high-profile cases of cor ruption now being
investigated or in President Olusegun Obasanjo's cur ent anti-corruption campaign. My interest, at this
point, can be formulated as questions: How do we construct apolitical economy, apolitical system, and
a public service, such that there would be little incentive for engaging in high-profile corruption? How
do we construct a political economy, a political system, a state system, and a public service, such that,
even if a corrupt and criminally-minded person manages to find an incentive, he or she will find a highprofile corrupt act very difficult to commit? What type ofpunishment can be an effective deterrent in
high-profile corruption? This is my response to Obasanjo's campaign and the revelations of March and
April, 2005. I think one way of engaging my questions is to go through, in slow motion, some reported
high-profile corruption cases in Nigeria. I learnt long ago that to confront a particular phenomenon you
may need to start with some case studies, review them, ask some "unorthodox" questions and make
some "heretical" marginal notes. I wish to adopt this method in looking at high-profile corruption in
Nigeria. And by high-profile, I mean high-profile: National Assembly, Ministers, Governors. I start
with some cases in the Second Republic (1979-1983), at least to show that the phenomenon we are
witnessing now emerged long ago. Only that it has now assumed monstrous proportions. On Tuesday,
September 15, 1981, the House of Representatives ordered the cancellation of all overseas tours by its
members "in view of the state ofthe Nigerian economy and the drain on foreign exchange that these
tours constitute". To ensure that the order was complied with, "the Sergeant-at-Arms and some
policemen were sent to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport to stop members who might want
to flout the House's order". But, in spite of this measure by the House of Representatives, 16 members
of its Committee on Internal Affairs flew out of the country that same night. They claimed to be going
on tour of overseas countries "to see how their borders were made impenetrable to aliens"! The
pertinent comment here is that the legislators were able to defy the order ofthe House first, because the
order was not serious, and secondly because the money was there and the will was there to spend it.

Sometime in August 1981, the Senate Committee on Education divided itself into two teams (A and B)
for the purpose of visiting a dozen countries in virtually all the continents
207

ofthe world. TeamA visited London, Stockholm, Amsterdam, New Delhi, Bombay, Peking. Tokyo and.
New York, in that order. They spent only a Saturday night in Amsterdam! Each Senator travelled by
first-class. Team B visited Dar-es-Salam, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Havana, Kingston,
Ontario and New York, in that order. Their self-appointed and, of course, self-serving task was to study
the systems of education in the countries to be visited! Again, how was it possible for these legislators
to embark on this money-yielding and self-enriching adventure? The answer is simple and
straightforward: the money was there, and all were committed to spending it. In May 1982, a member
of the Oyo State House ofAssembly made 20 allegations of corruption against the Executive. In
particular, he alleged that "a top official in the state got N2 million from a N24 million contract". The
legislator was promptly kicked out ofthe government party to which he belonged, while the reporter
who filed the report for publication in the government-owned newspaper was dismissed. The Speaker
of the House narrowly escaped impeachment for allowing the legislator to make the allegations.
Having escaped e,achment, the Speaker announced the dissolution ofthe Commission of Inquiry earlier
set up by the House to probe the allegations. Finally, the Speaker ruled that, henceforth, members
wishing to speak on motions on adjournment must notify him in advance. That same month, the
Majority Leader of the Ogun State House ofAssembly alleged that the Deputy Governor had corruptly
amassed N3 million to fight the 1983 election. He was promptly expelled from the ruling party and
removed from his legislative post - without debate. These two incidents took place in states ruled by an
opposition party reputed to be progressive. Also in May 1982 the Governor of Sokoto State attempted
to increase his contingency fund by 40 per cent. When the Speaker of the State House of Assembly
resisted this, he was promptly impeached, removed from office and expelled from the ruling party. Any
of these stories could have referred to actual events in the current dispensation called th.2 Fourth
Republic. But they are separated from the current dispensation by about 22 years. Furthermore, every
state in the Second Republic with the exception ofKaduna State under Balarabe Musa, and possibly
Kano State under Abubakar Rimi - recorded numerous stories of this type. In the case ofKaduna State,
Governor Musa was impeached in June 1981 precisely for resisting this type of high-profile corruption.
We may now go to the current dispensation. At least three "explosions" have so far taken place this year
in President Olusegun Obasanjo's anti-corruption campaign. The earliest took place in the Nigeria
Police Force; then followed by the one which took place simultaneously in the National Assembly and
the Federal Ministry of Education and then the explosion in the Ministry of Housing. We may start with
the National Assembly and the Ministry of Education. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not assuming
that the official reports were true in every "material particular". Rather, my insistence is that this story
and the others reported below could have referred to actual events in several public institutions ofthe
Fourth Republic. The "facts of the case", as presented by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) were as follows: Sometime before March 22, 2005, an allegation of official
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corruption was levelled against a Minister and some Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. "The
specific allegation", said the EFCC chairman in an official report, "was that some members of the
National Assembly demanded from the Minister of Education who in turn offered to the members of

the National Assembly some amount of money in order to smoothen the process of passing the
ministry's 2005 budget. The amount ofmoney involved is the sum ofN55 million". The money was
raised via a "loan" from the NUC and a "grant" from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri
(FUTO), and then shared by some Assemblymen - with a small "dash" for a Senate bureaucrat who was
accordingly instructed to adjust the Ministry's budget upwards. When I asked a journalist comrade of
mine what a minister could have personally gained by bribing some lawmakers with such a large sum
ofmoney, he laughed, and told me that the money could be recovered ten-fold in just one contract made
possible by the National Assembly and awarded by the ministry. It was then that I recalled what Yusufu
Bala Usman said during the Second Republic: "The total wage bill of a state government can be
realised as profit or commission on a single contract of construction, supply, or sale of crude oil"
(Behind the Oil Smokescreen). On January 17, 2005, the Federal Government announced that the
Inspector-General of Police (IG) had requested to be allowed to proceed immediately on terminal leave
and then retire from service at the end of that leave, on March 6, 2005. The request was granted. He
was subsequently arrested by EFCC on Friday, March 28. Then, on Monday, April 4, 2005, he was
charged to court on a 70-count charge. The summary of the charge was that "he was into money
laundering and theft of police funds". He also "allegedly invested stolen funds in blue-chip firms and
banks, and owned several accounts where huge sums ofmoney were lodged in pseudo names".
Altogether, the former IG was accused of stealing N10 billion from the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in
the three years he was in office (March 6, 2002 to March 6, 2005). The pertinent question is this: In
what type of political economy and public service is it possible for a single individual to steal - or even
attempt to steal - such a huge sum of money? On Monday, April 4, 2005 - President Olusegun
dismissed his Housing and Urban Development Minister, a woman. The official reason was the
"embarrassing handling of the sale of the Federal Government property in Lagos, in violation of the
Federal Executive Council decision and the clear and repeated directives from President Olusegun
Obasanjo on how the sale should be conducted in a fair and transparent manner". The official statement
of dismissal indicated that the Minister's explanation was "unsatisfactory". The pertinent questions are:
Why the sale at all, given that there are many public institutions, middle and lower cadres of the public
service and homeless people that could take up such property -without changing the capitalist character
of the Nigerian political economy? And, even if the sale had been done in a "fair and transparent
manner", as directed by the President, how many Nigerians could have benefited from the sale of
houses, each of which was offered for an average ofN100 million?
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69
History And The Tragedy Of 1989 3rd April, 2003
ICONSIDER the year 1989 a tragic one in the history ofpost-independence Nigeria. Coincidentally, the
year was also significant in the history of the Nigerian Socialist Movement. Beyond that, it was a
tragic year for the world socialist movement. For the avoidance of doubt, by history, I mean, the actual
movement of society through a continuous chain of contradictions, and resolutions of these
contradictions. History is not the official records of the deeds of rulers, or the sanitised accounts of
events rendered by victors. Although the deeds and pronouncements of rulers and the state over which
they preside d the classes whose interests they represent may, in certain periods, be significant, even
u1/4,.,cisive, the point I am making is that they, alone, do not constitute history. My concern in this
piece is limited. I wish to present, in chronological order, and as logically as possible, and without
analysis, some critical events which took place in our political history in 1989. I want to put the records

straight, as the saying goes, so that researchers and analysts, and Nigerian youths, in particular, can
have a reliable compass. And I am restricting myself to the political actions of the military government
of General Ibrahim Babangida and the responses of a fraction of the socialist movement. I am
compelled to undertake this unusual exercise because I have heard, and read, certain accounts that
amount to a gross and dangerous distortion of history. Nigerians who are 25 years old today were
merely 12 years old in 1989, 2 years old in 1979, and unborn in 1975. In a country where history is not
accorded a respectable status in school curriculums and where what is given by the media is often
eclectic, youths are placed in great jeopardy when they are required to actfrom the premise of our
history .. Let me begin this account with the main political deeds and actions of the military
government in 1989. On February 28, 1989, Professor Eme Awa was removed as Chairman of the
National Electoral Commission (NEC) and replaced with Professor Humphrey Nwosu. A month later,
on March 31, 1989, the Prohibition Amendment Decree (1989) was gazetted. The decree stipulated that
"banned" politicians would not be allowed to "canvass for votes for, or on behalf of themselves or
others". Violation would attract a five-year jail term or N250,000 fine. A few days later, on April 3,
1989, the Guidelines for the formation and registration ofpolitical parties were approved by General
Babangida's Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC). A month later, on May 3, 1989, the ban on party
politics was lifted. By 6.00pm on July 19, 1989, 13 political associations, including the Nigerian
Labour Party (NLP), had submitted their applications for registration as political
210

parties. On September 29, 1989, NEC recommended six political associations, including the Labour
Party, for registration as political parties. Eight days later, on October 7, 1989, the AFRC turned down
NEC's recommendation, banned all the newly-formed political parties and announced the formation, by
government, of two political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican
Convention (NRC). Now to the Socialist Movement. I shall mention only a few names that are
absolutely necessary for the account. More than half of these Nigerians have passed away; others are
alive. In February 1989, the Directorate for Literacy, led by Comrade Bassey Ekpo Bassey, who was
then the Chairman of Calabar Municipal Council, and Comrade Eskor Toyo, a professor of Economics
at the University of Calabar, organised a Conference in Calabar. It was a successful political gathering
of the Nigerian Left. In early April 1989, a four-day (April 4-7) national workshop under the auspices
of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) was held in Calabar. The theme of the workshop was Workers and
the Political Transition. In attendance were leaders and representatives of the NLC, leaders and
representatives of senior staff associations, professional groups and mass organisations as well as
radical intellectuals, workers and students organised under the National Association of Nigerian
Students (NAM). The NLC Workshop was the first outing of the Labour Congress after the lifting of
the nine-month ban placed on its leadership by the Babangida's regime in March 1989. Together with
Kayode Komolafe of This day newspaper, I played a crucial role in producing the unified force that
ensured the emergence of the new NLC leadership under Comrade Paschal Bafyau. The new NLC
president and his team were given a Hero's Welcome to Calabar by crowds which literally took over the
CalabarAirport and later "seized" the ancient city. The event was organised by the Calabar Group of
Socialists in conjunction with the state branch ofNLC. Among the socialists were Bassey Ekpo Bassey,
Eskor Toyo and myself. The Calabar Workers' Workshop passed a resolution asking the NLC to
sponsor a Worker's Party as soon as the ban on political activities was lifted. The Nigerian Socialist
Alliance (NSA) was formed on Wednesday, April 5, 1989 in a room on the ground floor of
Metropolitan Hotel, Calabar. As NSAwas being formed, the National Executive Committee (NEC)
ofNLC was holding a meeting in the Conference Hall of the hotel. The meeting ended with a resolution
to sponsor a Worker's Party. The meeting's national secretariat made up of two Coordinators was set up

for NSA. I was one of the Coordinators, the other being a comrade ofAkwa Doom extraction, a close
associate of late Comrade Dapo Fatogun. The night before, on Tuesday, April 4, 1989, Bassey Ekpo
Bassey and I organised and hosted a meeting of veterans of labour - socialist struggle - who had been
invited to the workshop. The meeting was held in Bassey's house in Calabar. It was a coup, as none of
them knew what was being planned, some believing it was a dinner. Known antagonists were conveyed
in different vehicles. The gates were locked as soon as the buses entered the compound. Although
reporters were barred, an Oyo State Television crew manage to enter the compound. Unable to
persuade them to leave "empty handed", I granted an interview in the Yoruba language on the prospects
of the proposed Labour Party.
211

Veterans who were "captured" for the meeting included Wahab Goodluck, M.E. Kolagbodi, Mokwugo
Okoye, S.G Ikoku, Eskor Toyo, Dapo Fatogun and Ola Oni. The veterans agreed to keep the veterans'
forum alive and support the Labour Party whenever it was formed. Bassey and I were appointed
conveners of the forum. On its part, the inaugural meeting of the NSA agreed to draft a Programme and
a Constitution for the proposed Labour Party and put these forward for the consideration of the labour
leadership. I took part in drafting the two documents, which later proved unacceptable to the labour
leadership. The rejection of the socialists' documents by the labour leaders effectively ended the joint
"sponsorship" of the Labour Party. From then on it was NLC's show. The Labour Party was launched in
Lagos on May 20, 1989. Socialists, though excluded from the leadership, opted to play the role of
giving the party the needed credibility, colour and justification. The inaugural meeting ofNSA ended
about 4.00am on Thursday, April 6, 1989. I got to my house about 30 minutes later. I had slept for less
than two hours when I was awakened by a comrade sent by Bassey Ekpo Bassey. I was asked to come
out and help save the cement which we reached less than three hours earlier. What happened was that
as soon as the inaugural meeting ofNSA ended, a number of comrades re-assembled at the same venue
to reverse the decision earlier taken. Bassey and I rushed to the venue and took our seats. It was about
7.00am. The reason provided by the "rebels" was that they were not comfortable with working with
some of the veterans because of what these veterans did in the past, before and during the First
Republic (1960-1965). We listened to them and patiently re-presented the case for NSA, the Veterans'
Forum and the Labour Party as elements of the same political strategy. After about seven hours, the
earlier agreements and decisions were confirmed. On September 9, 1989, some members of NSA met
in Kaduna and removed me in my absence, as a National Coordinator ofNSA, accusing me of taking
unilateral actions. No replacement was made. On September 19, 1989, NSA members and some labour
leaders attending an executive meeting of the Labour Party in Calabar held a joint meeting with
Calabar-based socialists and overturned the decision of the Kaduna meeting. On October 7, 1989, as
the AFRC was meeting in Abuja over party registration, a meeting of NSA, convened by me, was
taking place in Lagos. The NSA meeting broke up shortly after it opened because one of those who
took the Kaduna decision insisted that I had been removed. This was the last meeting of the NSA. Later
that day the AFRC announced the proscription of the Labour Party and the other 12 parties that had
applied for registration. Thus, in one day, the Nigerian Left, or a fraction of it, lost both its core
organisation, the NSA, and its electoral ally, the Labour Party. It was also about this time that the
communist regimes in Eastern Europe were falling, one after the other, as if obeying the domino theory.
1989 was indeed a tragic year.
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70
Vacation Notes 2nd February, 2006
IAM happy to be back to this column. I had been planning the vacation for an unbe lievably long time more than three years - before I finally embarked on it on Sunday, January 1, 2006. Why did the plan
drag on for so long, and why did it terminate when it did? For the first part of the question, I think there
were many reasons for the prolonged plan to go on vacation which, going by our family tradition,
meant my travelling out of Calabar and suspending my normal activities and engagements for at least
one unbroken week. Some of these reasons can be articulated; others, having to do with pure inertia,
are difficult to articulate, at least by me. Of the reasons that I can articulate, some were objective,
others subjective. The former included my daily routine and structure of engagement since I relocated
fully to Calabar on leaving Lagos in September 1994. This routine demanded my being physically
present in Calabar virtually every day. The subjective reasons had to do with alienation from my natural
political terrain. My friends and comrades are well aware of this. Two main factors were responsible
for my terminating the plan and proceeding on leave on January 1. The first was what I may call a
political block in relation to this weekly column that I had maintained unbroken since President
Olusegun Obasanjo came to power in May 1999: I suddenly did not know what to write after drafting
the piece Reviews and prospects which I later changed to To BJ at 60, a Salute (January 5, 2006). Quite
uncharacteristically, I felt that I had said everything I had to say about the direction Nigeria was
moving under Obasanjo and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Many predictions were
coming to pass with alarming - and depressing - precision. I tried the foreign scene for a subject.
Nothing came. Then I turned to non-political issues. For being escapist, this worsened the block I had.
As I was battling to see what I could do in the circumstance, a message arrived from Lagos. Sent by a
younger colleague in the media, the short message informed me that my friend and comrade, Professor
Biodun Jeyifo, popularly and affectionately known as BJ, would be 60 on TImirsday, January 5, 2006.
To mark the event, the message went on, a dinner which would also serve as occasion for tributes, was
being organised by BJ's friends and former students in Lagos, that evening. Finally, I was told that I
had been chosen, "by popular demand," as one of the speakers. The message, sent through my spouse,
came around Christmas. She passed it to me without comment. I also made no comments, but we both
knew it was an invitation I could not dodge without a strong reason
213

which must be convincing to BJ. Then, the following day, a nearly identical message, from another
source, was sent to me via the office phone. Now, I had known that BJ would be 60 on January 5, 2006.
I also knew that BJ had arrived in the country, from America: he had, in fact, telephoned me as soon as
he arrived. But, thereafter, he had remained silent. I told my spouse that if within three days BJ had not
communicated with me on the planned dinner and the invitation to me, of which he must be aware, that
would mean that I must be present. A week passed, and nothing from BJ. It was then I decided, or
rather, the decision was thrust on me, that I must attend the Lagos dinner cum night of tributes. Why
could I not reject this invitation as I had rejected several others before it? Simple. My joining forces
with BJ in 1975 was a defining moment in my revolutionary career: I took a leap unto a path from
which I have never deviated, and will never deviate. This is the path of categorical imperative of being,
and remaining, a revolutionary Marxist and socialist humanist and hence the categorical commitment to
the liberation of the toiling masses of Nigeria, of the African continent, of the Third World, and of the
world as a whole. This commitment required that everything I did thereafter, even to earn a living, even
in my family, must serve the cause ofpopular liberation. When I reflected on my decision to be in
Lagos to honour B3, and juxtaposed this with my mental block, I saw that I must take a vacation: not

just to honour the pre-eminent literary critic and theorist, but also, by so doing, break my block. As
soon as I announced my decision to the family (nuclear family), my spouse and daughter started to
pack my bags and make other arrangements - something they had not done before, for, in our family,
patriarchy and headship naturally do not exist. In fact, in our family, the "traditional" male-female
division of labour has, in some vital respects, been reversed - with amazing results, to the glory of
radical feminism. With my decision, I sent a note to the Chairman of the Editorial Board of The
Guardian requesting for a six-week absence from this column. As I finalised my arrangements to leave
for Lagos, I took another decision: since the time I had at my disposal would not be sufficient to renew
contacts with even a fraction of my Lagos friends and comrades, I would simply attend the BJ event
and immediately withdraw from Lagos. This, I did. So, I attended the BJ event, but did not visit Lagos.
I left Calabar on Monday, January 2, 2006, with two young men, one of them on the steering. We got to
Nnewi in Anambra State about 4.30 p.m. Since I could not afford to spend more than 18 hours in
Anambra State, I decided to remain there, and send the two young men to Nnobi, my hometown, which
has physically merged with Nnewi, to assess the situation in my family (the larger Madunagu family).
They came back with the report that almost all members of the family were at home for the Christmas
and New Year celebration. I sent them back to bring a particular female member of the family to my
"hideout". She came, and we agreed that I would reach the family through her. As incentive to make
her undertake such a burdensome mission, I had to listen to her stories sympathetically. She came back
the following morning (Wednesday, January 3), and we all drove through Nnobi, to a niece of mine
who had just lost her mother (my sister). From there we drove to Onitsha. On the way I briefed her on
my trip and sent, through her, messages to at least 20
214
members of the family. We separated at Onitsha: she, to return to Nnobi with the burden of explaining
my disappearance; we, to continue with our journey across the River Niger. It was while at Nnewi that I
received a telephone message that comrade SOZ Ejiofoh, a frontline trade unionist, had lost his spouse.
I immediately requested one of my companions to send a text message of condolence to SOZ, since I
am still learning how to operate these modem communication gadgets. It was also at Nnewi that I told
BJ by phone to expect me at Ibadan about 5.00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 4. I also confirmed that the
comrade who had sent the first invitation would be with him as I had requested. We arrived in Benin in
the late afternoon of Tuesday, January 3. In the morning of the following day, Wednesday, January 4, I
sent my companions to my immediate elder brother who had resided in that city for more than 30 years.
As soon as the emissaries came back, we set off for Ibadan, arriving there about the time I had
communicated to BJ. The invitation sender, Kayode Komolafe (KK), soon arrived. It was a memorable
night re-union, animated by "Guide?' and "Star". The following morning, January 5, we all set out for
Lagos. As the Lagos event (tributes and dinner) has been generously and copiously reported in the
media, I shall omit the story here. I only have to remark that had I not attended that event, the only
image ofBJ that would have appeared would have been that of a good human being, a radical social
critic, and a brilliant literary critic and theorist, not that of a practising revolutionary Marxist. So, I am
happy I was there, although I was only able to present two episodes out of about 13 that came to my
mind. We left Lagos the following morning Friday, January 6, 2005, on our return journey to Calabar.
Our first stop was at Ilesha (Osun State) where I had lived from about the age of two to the age of 20. I
was able to locate the three houses where we had lived at various times, and the secondary school I
attended. From Ilesha we moved to Akure, the capital of Ondo State, where we spent the night. From
Akure we moved to Asaba, Delta State where we spent another night. We arrived Calabar in the
afternoon of Sunday, January 8, 2006, via Onitsha, Awka, Enugu, Okigwe, Umuahia and Ikot Ekpene.
This last bit of the trip was largely uneventful except for my quarrel with a Road Safety man near Itu
who did not know how to demand a bribe, and thus save his and the traveller's time. The seven-day trip

was the only period of my absence from this column that one can call a vacation. For, within hours of
my return, people forgot that I was on vacation. With time I also forgot. Has my block disappeared?
Honestly, I don't know. But here I am. With what is happening in the country how can I justify being on
vacation?
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71
Beyond Ethnic Presidency 9th February, 2006
WilICH ethnic group, or geopolitical zone, will produce the President of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria after May 2007? This is currently the domi nant political question in the country: a question
made dominant by the ruling classes whose leading bloc is in control ofthe Nigerian state. Mind you: I
did not say "after President Olusegun Obasanjo," but "after May 2007," because the incumbent
president is in the probabilistic equation. This dominant question has been made to hide the more
critical and decisive question before the country, but, as my Urhobo friend used to say, "the small
pickin wey put him face inside water", believing he is hiding, is deceiving himselfbecause "him back
dey show". We cannot however, ignore the dominant question for at least two reasons. In the first place,
large segments ofthe masses have been drawn into this question as a result ofthe ideological hegemony
which the ruling classes continue to exercise in the country. In the second place, if "katakata" does not
take over before then, the resolution of the dominant question - one way or the other - or its deflection,
will significantly if not tragically, affect the development of what I have called "critical and decisive
questions" (the national question, including the upsurge, in the Niger Delta, among others). It is then
this dominant question will vanish overnight. If a man is consumed by fire you don't start asking about
his beard, for this will be the first to go. Anyone who is struggling for a seat in a sinking boat cannot be
described as wise. In discussing the "problems in Nigeria" - of which the location of the presidency is
said to be one - or invoking the "interests of the nation", it is necessary, at each stage;to remind
ourselves implicitly or explicitly - depending on the context - of a simple, but critical socio-political
thesis which the rulers and their ideologues try strenuously to obfuscate, since they cannot refute it.
This thesis is that sociologically and ideologically, and at times politically as well, and in spite of
shades of coincidences, there are fundamental differences which are not merely quantitative, but also
qualitative, between the nation, on the one hand, and the state and the ruling classes, on the other; and
between the state on the one hand and the ruling classes on the other. Approached differently, we can
say that at each point in time, the problems that these social categories - the nation, the state and the
ruling classes - face, and the interests that drive them, are different. Applying this thesis to the subject
under discussion, we can propose that the interests of the Nigerian nation, the Nigerian state, and the
Nigerian ruling
216

classes do not coincide on the question of location and movement ofthe Presidency. Although,
subscribing to this simple thesis, and employing it, cannot guarantee a complete understanding -of the
Nigerian political theatre, any political analyst who rejects or ignores it can be likened to a blindfolded
footballer. Every politician appears to be taking positions on the future of the country. It is possible
however to take a complete inventory ofthe stronger and more significant political positions on the
specific question of location (and movement) ofthe presidency. The Northern power-bloc wants the
presidency to be returned to the North after Obasanjo's tenure which should end in May 2007. This,

according to the bloc, will be in conformity with a gentleman's agreement reached before Obasanjo was
anointed as president in 1999. After this return, the presidency, or federal power, should rotate, or rather
alternate, between the North and the South. These two regions appear to the bloc to be the natural, or at
least historically confirmed, units between which federal power in Nigeria should alternate. The
Southern Forum, and the groups that make up this "confederation," want the presidency to remain in
the South after May 2007. Obasanjo's successor as president, should preferably come from the SouthEast or South-South geopolitical zone. There is, no consensus on whether Obasanjo, who is from the
South, should run for a third term, that is, succeed himself in May 2007. Ohanaeze Ndigbo, one of the
groups in the Forum, wants the presidency for the South-East; the South-South group wants it; and
Afenifere, representing the South-West, would support either of the two. The National Assembly which
is initiating a constitutional review on presidential location and tenure, and other matters, says it will be
guided by the wishes of Nigerians. It has provided several options in a draft. In particular, the
Assembly proposes the creation of two vice presidential positions (one from the North and one from
the South) and the alternation of the presidency between the North and the South. The leadership of the
House, battling with loss of credibility, denies that it is in the campaign to extend President Obasanjo's
tenure beyond May 2007. The Patriots, a group of eminent elder statesmen (in the literal sense, for I
don't think there is a woman in their ranks) advocates a single presidential term of five years. But they
insist that any draft constitution must be submitted to a referendum. Once led by Chief FRA Williams,
a prominent lawyer (now deceased), The Patriots is currently led by Professor Ben Nwabueze, another
prominent lawyer. There are those politicians I would call "true democrats", if I may borrow a
perspective from Karl Marx. These politicians say they do not believe in the zoning of political offices.
They say it is undemocratic, among other defects. I think, to be consistent, the "true democrats" should
also reject the concepts and practice of "federal character" and "quota system", and the "resource
control" campaign. Some segments ofthe Nigerian population including, in particular, politicians and
religious leaders, are in support of the exclusion of ethnic origin and religion from the questionnaire for
the forthcoming census. I would, expect "true democrats" to be in the forefront of this position. What I
would love to see is a development of these positions into a coherent and internally consistent political
platform, complete with clear standpoints on the economy and imperialism. This may show
217

us a way out. There is another group of anti-third term campaigners who I may call, for lack of a better
name, "constitutional democrats." Their key argument is that those who are campaigning for the
retention of the presidency in the South after May 2007 may actually, even if unwittingly, be assisting
the plan to extend President Obasanjo's tenure, for the latter is from the South. My comment here is
that if politicians are making ethnic and regional claims to the presidency, and this is accepted, or
tolerated, as legitimate politics, then it makes no sense to persuade a particular ethnic or regional
formation to drop its claim on the grounds that their own campaign would strengthen Obasanjo's
alleged third term agenda. The position of the presidency headed by President Obasanjo rests on three
planks. First, that the President has performed well and will continue to do his good work for the
country. Secondly, that those who are alleging that the President has a "third term" plan are political
enemies and saboteurs. And thirdly, that the President will never act against the constitution of the
country. The presidency has therefore affirmed nothing, and has denied nothing. But the campaign for a
"third term" has not been repudiated. The minimum charitable deduction that one can make from this

position, against the background of the ongoing campaign and the abuses from the presidency, is that
President Obasanjo would seek a "third term" if the constitution is amended constitutionally to permit
an extension of current presidential tenure which expires in May 2007. This deduction provides
sufficient grounds for the intensification of the campaign against the alleged "third term" agenda. These
are the significant positions on the subject - significant in the sense that, to varying degrees, significant
political forces can be rallied to defend each of them; or, put differently, each of them can be used by
individuals behind it to rally political forces for any objective whatsoever, including blackmail,
sabotage and bargaining for concessions from desperate power-perpetuators and power-seekers. The
positions embody in the main, the diverse immediate interests of the factions and blocs of the Nigerian
ruling classes; and minimally the immediate interests of the popular masses ofNigeria. To a certain
degree, the dilatory and diversionary position of the presidency embodies the interests of the Nigerian
state as an underdeveloped and thoroughly dependent neo-liberal capitalist state. These positions and
the interests they embody cannot move Nigeria forward, to use the current ruling language. To get to
the road forward you have to abandon the problematic of"presidential location", go beyond it, so to say.
Radically different perspectives are called for. And if they are already in display, they must become
dominant or be made dominant. Ifyou shine your searchlight on ChiefAnthony Enahoro or the Niger
Delta militants, you will see elements of alternative perspectives - including "collective presidency" on the organisation and distribution of federal power in Nigeria. I shall look at these alternative
perspectives in the following weeks.
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72
The Collective Presidency 16th February, 2006
S at the time I began this piece, the following claims on the location and movement of Nigeria's
presidency, starting from May 2007, could be considered dominant: that the presidency should return to
the North in May 2007, and thereafter rotate, or alternate between the North and the South; that the
presidency should remain in the South and thereafter rotate between the six geopolitical zones starting
from the South-East or South-South; and that the presidency should remain with the incumbent
President Olusegun Obasanjo, and thereafter move according to constitutional provisions or national
consensus. Other claims may be added to dominant ones - for the sake of completeness. These are: that
the presidency should move to the South-East and thereafter rotate between the six geopolitical zones;
that the presidency should move to the Southsouth and thereafter rotate between the six geopolitical
zones; that the presidency should emerge democratically through elections in which there is no zoning,
that is, no geopolitical restrictions. The politicians canvassing the last position argue that this
"democratic" principle, which is in consonance with the constitution, should be strengthened rather
than undermined. Together with the politicians who want the presidency to return to the North, the
"true democrats" insist that the incumbent President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is from the South-West
and who will be completing his second - and last term according to the 1999 Constitution - should not
be allowed to run a third term, or have his second tern extended by constitutional amendment or by
other means. But the Southern advocates insist on constitutional amendments. It is important to note, or
should ,I say, not to forget, that these arguments and the accompanying struggles are going on, almost
exclusively, within the ranks of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Fractions of opposition
parties and radical democratic groups are only insisting that President Obasanjo should not have a third
tem. The National Assembly claims to be consulting with the Nigerian people in its desire to amend the
constitution. The amendments to be enacted will not be tailored to benefit any one or any group in
particular. Whoever the cap fits when the amendments are enacted may wear it. Since the National
Assembly is dominated numerically and through the support of the state by the PDP, the positions listed

above are the ones reflected in the Assembly. To complete the picture, the governors of most of the
states controlled by PDP (and PDP controls about 29 of the 36 states) are reported to be in support of
the third term
219

plan for Obasanjo and, of course, for themselves. The significance of this support will become clearer
as the game-plan for 2007 unfolds. We should however, remember that it was the PDP state governors,
using the party's national primaries, that almost sank Obasanjo's 2003 re-election chances. They also
saved him in the end. We may therefore expect state-based opposition to the third term agenda to
emerge from the ranks of those who are warming up to succeed the incumbent governors that are
currently serving their second -and final - term. Of course, once the battle is won at the centre, it is
automatically decided at the state level. How are these struggles for succession likely to be resolved?
Well, as the struggles continue and as April 2007 draws nearer, unless there is an unexpected
intervention by a political force which has not yet emerged on the scene, a dominant position will
emerge and this position will seek to neutralise or absorb the other positions through self-seeking
compromises, bribery, blackmail, harassment, force or threat of force. We shall then be put through a
parody of elections, and a president will be declared. It is also possible that no "election" takes place,
and that President Obasanjo's tenure is extended through the declaration of a state of emergency to
preserve the "unity and territorial integrity ofNigeria." But the problem of rotation or distribution of
"federal power" will remain and will, in fact, become more acute. The conclusion whose premises I
have been trying to sketch is that the arguments over the location and movement ofNigeria's Presidency
cannot be resolved democratically in the short run, and by the current ruling classes and their powerblocs. The mathematician-cum-political scientist who can produce a generally acceptable formula for
the movement of the presidency deserves a Nobel Prize. And if; in addition, he or she can obtain a
consensus on the starting point for this movement, then a bigger prize will be required. It is against this
background that I propose that the question of whether Obasanjo will remain in power after May 2007,
or who should take over the presidency from him, or how the presidency should rotate and between
which constituent units should be transformed into, or superseded by, the question of how "federal
power" can be democratically and equitably distributed or shared at all times. Of the various solutions
to this problem, one of the least complicated is the "Collective Presidency" which is predicated on the
presidential system of government. The particular variant of Collective Presidency which I am going to
sketch is directed at achieving three minimum objectives. First, to resolve, in the interim, the question
of distribution of"federal power" between various claimants, and perhaps by so doing, save the country
from being plunged into greater chaos whose victims will be the long-suffering, impoverished and
defrauded masses. Second, to resolve the question of "fiscal and true federalism" and "resource
control," also in the interim. And thirdly, to create the minimum framework for the popular masses to
enhance their struggle to ameliorate their present material conditions. I hasten to add, however, that if
the masses are not organised and mobilised, they cannot take advantage of even the most favourable
political conjuncture. Conjunctures will come and go.
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Now, to toe proposal: Instead of electing a single president for the country, as has been done hitherto, a
member of the Federal Collective Presidency will be elected in each of the six geopolitical zones in the
country. The six members so elected will form the Collective Presidency. While the tenure of the

Presidency will be four years, each of its elected members will be eligible for re-election for a
maximum of one more time. The Chair of the Collective Presidency will be held in rotation between
the six members starting from the Southsouth and moving in anti-clockwise direction. The Chair of the
Presidency will be held for eight months by each member. The Deputy Chair will also be held in
rotation, starting from the Northeast zone, and moving in the clockwise direction. Basic ground rules:
Members of the Presidency are equal in status; the Chair and Vice-Chair have no special powers;
decision will be reached by consensus or by a 75 per cent majority with no casting vote. There will be
no dictatorship of the Chair, if I may borrow from Reuben Abati's "dictatorship of the presidency,"
there will be no Oyo State-type of exclusion for the purpose of converting a minority to a majority. The
second leg of my proposal relates to "true and fiscal federalism" and "resource control." My position on
the latter is an endorsement of the position presented by the Southsouth delegation to President
Obasanjo's National Political Reform Conference, namely, 25 per cent derivation, together with a
massive emergency programme of restitution, or what ChiefAnthony Enahoro calls "Marshal Plan," to
rescue the Niger Delta. I would also argue that this principle of devotion of resources should be
extended to the local government level. (I refer to my piece "Further notes on resource control",
September 1, 2005).
I re-affirm my earlier argument that Nigeria is at present neither a democracy nor a federal state, and is
not moving to either. What we have is a dictatorship of unitary presidency. I therefore endorse the call
for the institution of genuine federal principle. I see nothing wrong in the creation of regional police
force, given the present reality of security and law enforcement in our country I think I should add here
that the composition, structure, and command of the country's armed forces and "intelligence" agencies
will necessarily come up for discussion. Since this is an interim proposal, the subject may be
postponed. I would like to state, once again, that these are minimum proposals which can be effected
immediately. They offer no direct challenge to the power ofNigeria's ruling classes and the powerblocs, taken together. But they imply the re-distribution of this power among them and hence the
political restructuring of the ruling classes and blocs and the possibility of "peaceful" emergence of
new power-blocs. I have not called for popular power, let alone socialism. have not even repeated the
abolition of capitalism. In fact, I have not argued the case of the masses directly or in strong, terms. The
proposals are for the rulers, to be implemented by the rulers, to prevent their plunging the country into
inter-ethnic or inter-regional chaos where the masses, who are currently not well prepared to meet such
eventuality, will be the victims. But if the rulers reject proposals like these and fail to see the
handwriting on the wall, not even the international community or the global dictatorship ofPresident
George Bush can prevent the enactment of alternat: methods to save Nigeria and its peoples.
221

Part Two: Olusegun Obasanjo

73
Obasanjo's Re-Election Chances 8th February, 2001
OPPOSITION to Obasanjos re-election started even before he was sworn in for his first term on May
29, 1999. This initial opposition came from the ranks of those who made his first election possible.
They were complaining of "marginalisation." On the other hand, support for his re-election was
initiated by some of those who fought to prevent his becoming president. The "converts" discovered,
soon after Obasanjo was sworn in, that he was, in fact, the right man for them, for the country and for
democracy! This political re-alignment around Obasanjo has continued in the uniquely Nigerian

fashion: opportunistically, commercially, selfishly and with minimal ideological or political guiding
principles. Two political blocs have consequently emerged around the question of Obasanjo's reelection: one opposing his re-election, and the other supporting it. They are both noisy, and neither of
them appears to be serious. But underneath the noisy blocs are real political forces and power-blocs that
will decide the presidential contest, when it comes. It is amazing that many Nigerian politicians
actually believe that the declarations now being made by these partisans will determine our political
future. Obasanjo himself must be laughing. To put it very simply: it is not everyone or every group that
makes noise that will contribute to the decision on Obasanjo's political fate. The decisive forces are
either not speaking at all or not speaking about re-election. Let us therefore look at the matter a little
more seriously. To set the context, we may start with a number of constitutional clarifications. First, the
1999 Constitution prescribes a maximum of two consecutive four-year terms for a President of the
Federal Republic ofNigeria. The constitution does not say the President must run, or must be allowed to
run two terms: It only says that he or she is permitted do so if he or she can. Secondly, a presidential
candidate must be nominated by a political party where, in the sense of the Nigerian Constitution, a
political party is not simply an organisation defined historically and politically, but a political
organisation registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to contest elections.
To make the point clearer, INEC does not regard, as political party, Gani Fawehinmi's National
Conscience Party (NCP) or the newly revived Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) or the
Eastern Mandate Union, or the South-South Progressive (SSPRO). INEC is not impressed by the
various Peoples Congresses or the party which the leadership of the labour movement and some leftists
have threatened to form. Party registration is not a question ofpopularity; it is a question of recognition
and registration by INEC. The latter is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Of
course the Senate can withhold
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confin-nation. But, as we have seen since the beginning o f this regime, the Senate's power to do this is
only theoretical if the president insists. Recall the appointments into the Board of the Niger Delta
Development Commission (NDDC). The decision of INEC on party registration cannot be challenged
in any court of law. In the third place, the principle ofpolitical zoning, or zoning ofpolitical offices
(elective and appointive), is a party or power-bloc agreement, not a constitutional matter. To put it
differently and more clearly, this whole talk about the presidency moving from the South to the North
or from one political zone to another in clockwise or anti-clockwise direction, or randomly, is exactly
what it is: a Nigerian talk. The 1999 Constitution does not ' recognise the division ofthe country into
North and South and into zones. The politicians who drafted a constitution in 1994/95 under General
Sani Abacha inserted the zoning principle; Lit it was expunged by the late general. General
Abdulsalami Abubakar who succeeded Abacha had the opportunity to insert the principle into the
constitution he handed over to his successors; but he did not. The politicians protested against several
aspects of the imposed constitution, but they did not protest against the exclusion ofthe zoning
principle, which they regard not only as very important but also as holding the key to Nigerian unity.
The situation then is as follows: the zoning principle cannot be enforced constitutionally. Any
disagreement that arises in the "actualisation" ofthe principle will therefore go to the parties. If, against
substantial internal opposition, a party hierarchy decides to enforce the principle, the party will either
split or disintegrate. The struggle will then shift to INEC whose political location and constitutional
status we have just noted. This is the context within which President Olusegun Obasanjo will formally
seek re-election in 2003. To assess his chances, it will be helpful to recall the coalition of forces that
brought the retired army general to office in May 1999. The forces were the northern power-bloc, the
western power-bloc, the Nigerian state presided over at the time by General Abdulsalami Abubakar

and, of course, the international community (or the new imperialism). Of course there were other forces
and other factors such as the radical movement organised in the labour movement, socio-political
organisations, human rights and pro-democracy groups. But none of these marginal forces acted
independently. The coalition of forces which created Obasanjo's regime passed through two periods. In
the first period, which started immediately after the death of Sani Abacha, the political forces listed
above agreed that the next president must be an elected civilian, must come from the Western part of
the country, and must be produced without much delay. No candidate was agreed upon at this stage. In
the second period inaugurated after the death ofAbiola and the collapse of G-34, the Western powerbloc was knocked out of the alliance. I can make two projections both based on the premise that
Nigeria's political system, political structure, electoral system, party system, etc., will either not change
in the next two years, or will change only marginally, in spite ofthe political noises that are being made.
The first projection is that the forces which brought Obasanjo to power will remain not only active but
also dominant. These forces - the two power-blocs, the Nigerian state (which includes critical
institutions like the aimed forces, the police and INEC) and the international
226

community may not however retain their relative positions of strength in the country. For instance, the
state as a weapon may not be powerful in the hands of Obasanjo as it was under Abubakar, and the
northern power-bloc may be weaker today than it was two years ago. The second projection is that the
balance of forces will be in Obasanjo's favour. In other words, Obasanjo's chances of being re-elected
are more than 50 per cent. Why? Because he has gained more than he has lost. What he is rumoured to
have lost in the North he has more than made up in the South-West. Obasanjo's support in South-East
and South-South zones as well as the Middle Belt will not diminish in spite of all noises about the
Southern Governors Meeting, the South-South Forum and the National Integration Group (NIG),
otherwise known as the under-50 club. Beyond all this, Obasanjo is now in a position to deploy state
power and resources directly instead of being a recipient of state favour as was the case in the first
election. To summarise and conclude: The re-alignment of political forces around President Olusegun
Obasanjo (in support and opposition), the radicalisation ofpolitics across the nation, but particularly in
the Niger Delta, the West and the Sharia states, the deliberately orchestrated reception given to VicePresident Atiku Abubakar by the governors of the 19 northern states, the consolidation of the Northern
Governors Forum and the rise of the Southern Governors Forum, the intervention of the National
Integration Group (NIG), the speculation that General Ibrahim Babangida will run for the presidency,
and hence against Obasanjo, the apparent resoluteness of ethnic political formations, etc, are important
and even exciting. But given the present political system, nothing has so far happened to threaten the
re-election of President Obasanjo in 2003. His re-election will be threatened only if the political system
is changed or Obasanjo himself commits a grave political error.
227

Defending Obasanjo in the Name of Democracy 31st August, 2000

AM worried and saddened over the vehemence with which some people and institutions, especially
those with whom I have associated ideologically and politically, defend President Olusegun Obasanjo. I
am saddened not just because they defend the President so strongly - they have the right to do so - but
because in doing this, they claim to be defending democracy and popular interests, that is, popular
democracy. They ignore and often endorse the president's arrogant and rude language; they grant

themselves the liberty to abuse anyone who disagrees with, or criticises, the president; but they deny
the right of opinion to any politician who disagrees with the president even politely. I admit that there
are times when the defence of a political course or principle merges, in practice, with the defence of a
public figure. An example is a war situation where almost everything is at stake and where a leader
may symbolise or embody the public will to survive. Even in such situations, people of my own
ideological and political orientation try - even ifunsuccessfully - to separate public will and interest
from the person of the leader. But I doubt if Nigeria is in such situation now. I recall the initial phase of
General Ibrahim Babangida's long rule. At a stage it became absolutely impossible to have a serious
discussion with some comrades on Babangida's policies and actions. Of course, if you could not discuss
or analyse, you could also not project. This frustrating situation endured until around October 1988
when Babangida launched his war against socialists and "extremists." Further back in history, I recall
the coming to power of Generals Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo in July 1975. Criticism
ofthe new regime was "disallowed" until two events around December 1975: the first was the selfpromotion of the new military rulers and the second was the destruction, by soldiers, of the town
ofUgep in the central part of the present Cross River State. All this is now history. But I am afraid that
history may be repeating itself here; and if history repeats itself, the consequences of repeated errors
will be more severe, because they will now include not only the consequences of errors, but also the
consequences of refusing to learn from past errors.. It is unnecessary to cite instances of vehement and
intolerant defence ofPresident Obasanjo by Nigerian radical democrats in the name of democracy - a
political principle we had upheld for long before it was repackaged and imported to us by the
"international community." Democracy is now a magic word that can be invoked to achieve any
objective. I invite my Nigerian compatriots to do a survey of our newspapers and magazines especially
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the weekend editions of the former and all issues of the latter - since the beginning of this year to see
what is being done to the nation and its political development in the name of democracy. I invite you to
join me, in tracing the roots of this phenomenon and the circumstances that have continued to nurture
it. I recall the year 1991/92 when Babangida's regime reached the limit of its capacity to manipulate its
own transition programme. I say Babangida's regime rather then Babangida because many forces were
involved in the manoeuvre and this has been more than confirmed by the personages involved. I recall
that the transition programme and calendar were changed every month on the average; legislative,
gubernatorial and presidential primaries were held and annulled several times; politicians were banned
and unbanned, disqualified and rehabilitated; noisy politicians were gathered from their meeting places
and locked up in prison. One ofthe results of this manoeuvre was the hardening ofthe belief held
particularly in the Southern part of the country that Babangida had a "hidden agenda" which included
his self-perpetuation or, in the alternative, the frustration of the demand for "power shift," that is, the
emergence of a Southern president. From then on, the demand for termination of military rule became
inseparable from the demand for power shift; and the latter, with time, reduced, in practice to the
demand for a president from the Western part of the country. By the time Moshood Abiola became the
presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for the June 12 election, the party became
the electoral vehicle for realising the strategy of Southern (Western) presidency. The inauguration ofthe
Transitional Government in January 1993, the annulment of the June 12 presidential election (which
Moshood Abiola won); the stepping-aside of Ibrahim Babangida, the inauguration of an Interim
National Government (ING) and finally, the Abacha coup d'etat of November 17, 1993 were seen as
moments in the continuous effort to prevent the emergence of a Southern (Western) president. This

perception was correct and I shared and still share it. The struggle against General Sani Abacha was
inseparable from the struggle to actualise Abiola's presidency. And when Abacha and Abiola were
murdered in mid-1998, it was taken for granted - even by leftist forces and pro-democracy and human
rights movement - that the next president would be from the Western part of the country. The three
political parties registered under Abdulsalami Abubakar's transition programme - the. Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), All Peoples Party (APP), and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) - adopted that
strategy - with marginal, but varying degrees of internal dissension. The Western power-bloc, the main
force of the Western presidency strategy, would have preferred an AD member (invariably from the
West) to become the president. But its main opponent, the northern power-bloc, leading a coalition of
smaller political forces, did not allow this to happen; rather, another Westerner, Obasanjo, the candidate
of PDP, won the election and was inaugurated. After a brief and turbulent, but ultimately fruitless,
resistance to Obasanjo's presidency, the Western power-bloc adopted him. But beyond this, the bloc
carried into this new relationship a large fraction of the country's leftist, radical, pro-democracy and
human rights forces with whom the bloc had been in strategic pro-Western-presidency alliance since
the early 1990s. And just as the call for an end to military rule and inauguration o f democracy was
reduced to the demand
229

for Western presidency, so has the defence of this democracy now become the defence of the president
(who is a Westerner). We are already witnessing the consequences of this development. The first
casualties are, of course, the class and national perspectives in otherwise radical and leftist politics.
What remains in this type of bereaved radical politics I am yet to assess. Beyond that, those who, for
whatever reason, deny freedom to the opposition to criticise or disagree with the president also deny
themselves that freedom. What we then have as criticism are superficialities, signifying a shift in
strategic political focus. Thus, the demand fora Sovereign National Conference (NSC), even of a
Constitutional Conference, is becoming weaker and weaker, the decisive battle against internal
colonialism in the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta is receiving weaker and weaker support; all
available time, energy and resources are deployed to dramatise and support one side in the intra-elite
struggle over primitive accumulation, at the expense of the masses' struggle against exploitation and
poverty. And the masses gain nothing from the drama, whoever the victor; the country's complete
surrender to globalisation and the new imperialism or "international community" appears not to
frighten us; the need to democratise the political system by restoring the rights of citizens to form
parties - a right acquired in 1922 under colonialism - is no longer seen as a pressing one. This is a very
dangerous trend.
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75
Obasanjo and the Third Power-Bloc 23rd November, 2000
/T is now time to recall, and then pull together, some of my earlier propositions and projections on the

present political dispensation. The purpose of this exercise is not to create grounds to claim that I have
been proved right. What does any Nigerian gain by being proved right on the prediction of tragedies?
Nothing. The purpose of the exercise is, rather, to see if my earlier propositions and predictions can
assist us in understanding what is now happening in the political theatre and in predicting the
immediate future. And predicting the immediate future is aimed at assisting us, if we so desire, to avoid
the most undesirable possibilities. Let me however confess that I am not just saddened by political
developments which I had foreseen. I am actually frightened by what I can see. The present political
crisis has undoubtedly been shaped by the variants of executive presidency and party system presently
in force in the country. But the political system is not the cause of the crisis. Even if the rulers had, for
instance, chosen the parliamentary system, instead of executive presidential system and multi-partyism
instead of three-party system, there would still have been crisis - perhaps, even more serious. The
difference would have been in the instruments of struggle. Given the social formation, political
struggles are waged under circumstances and with instruments provided by history. What I am
suggesting here is that the "political system" imposed on the country by the military regime of General
Abubakar with the acquiescence of the power-blocs is not responsible for the present crisis. The
Nigerian crisis goes deeper than the political superstructure - executive presidency, three party system,
two-chamber National Assembly, etc. The crisis grows from the substructure, from the social formation
dominated by primitive accumulation. I had proposed that there are two power-blocs in Nigeria: one
located in the Northern part of the country, the other in the South-Western part. The northern powerbloc traces its roots to Alhaji Ahmadu Bello; the South-Western power-bloc claims to be resting on the
legacy of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Each of the two power-blocs is engaged in two struggles
simultaneously: against the other power-bloc, and against the rest ofNigeria. Struggle for what?
Struggle for domination and control ofNigeria. The former struggle (or aspect of the struggle) is to
overwhelm and defeat; the latter is to cajole and incorporate. I can be more explicit: the two
power:blocs are struggling for supremacy or, at the very least, to share power equally between
themselves; but in this two-cornered battle, each power-bloc is striving to enlist the support of other
non-bloc political and social forces. I hope, with what has happened so far, I shall no longer be required
to prove this power-bloc proposition.
231

I had predicted that President Olusegun Obasanjo would try to articulate and create a third power-bloc
which would, in his own calculation, neutralise and eventually supplant the existing blocs. But one
cannot create a power-bloc by sheer will and determination. If a power-bloc emerges, then the materials
for this must have been provided by history. The two power-blocs, especially the South-Western one,
carry serious contradictions. It is these contradictions that Obasanjo is exploiting - legitimate
exploitation, ifwe are discussing politics and not abstract morality. If Obasanjo's power-bloc emerges,
then the initial core materials must have come from the two power-blocs the balance between which
has hitherto sustained him in power. President Obasanjo has been accused of "influencing" the
production of the present leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. The question is: Why
should he not? He is a member of PDP; he was chosen, in a fiercely contested party primaries, as the

presidential candidate of the party; he won the presidential election according to the rules and the
existing dominant political culture and morality. If he occupies such a pre-eminent position in PDP,
why should he not seek to use this position to influence the production of its leadership? Why should
he be denied the rights which ordinary members of the party possess? If President Clinton ofAmerica,
or Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain finds himself in a political party like the PDP and a social
fonnation like Nigeria, he would behave exactly like Obasanjo. Those who argue that Obasanjo ought
not to have "interfered" in the PDP election are therefore not talking politics and dialectics ofpower.
They are deceiving no one, but themselves. They are only strengthening the allegation, or suspicion,
that those who catapulted him to the presidency only wanted to use him to remain in power. But
Obasanjo has said "no". President Obasanjo has also been accused of interference in the conduct and
outcome of the recently concluded National Convention of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). This is a
much more serious issue. But, then, I ask: Why did Obasanjo unilaterally choose Chief Bola Ige as
minister? Why did he refuse to route his nomination ofAD ministers through AD or Afenifere
leadership? Why did AD and Afenifere allow Obasanjo to win this particular contest of wills? Why
should Obasanjo not be actively interested in the affairs and production of the leadership of a political
party that has so stoutly stood by him in the National Assembly and beyond? What Obasanjo is alleged
to have done, or to be doing, to AD is very critical to the emergence of the third power-bloc to which he
is clearly committed. I hope no one will construe what I have so far said as an endorsement of President
Obasanjo's policies and actions. I am only arguing against political hypocrisy and naivety. A cat that
wants to eat fish must be prepared to wet her feet. I had suggested that, in Nigerian politics, as
dominated by the power-blocs, the charge of corruption is merely an instrument of struggle. In private
life, in mosques and in churches, some Nigerian politicians may indeed, be against corruption; but in
politics, the charge of corruption is a political weapon. It is currently being employed, very savagely,
by the competing power-blocs, and in the struggle to create a third one. The presidency and its
supporters accuse the National Assembly leadership of corruption; the National Assembly accuses the
presidency of corruption; everyone accuses everyone else of corruption; and
232

the Anti-Corruption Law is there to deceive or appease Nigerians and attract foreign investors. It is all a
huge lie. The official campaign against corruption is a lie. And the lie will explode, sooner or later.
Those in the civil society who know that it is a lie, or are in the position to know that it is a lie, but
continue to behave as if it is a genuine campaign are committing treason against the people. To sum up:
An attempt is being made to articulate a third power-bloc in the country. The crises in PDP, AD and, to
some extent, APP, owe their dynamics, in part, to this attempt. The protagonists, being self-righteous
and messianic, believe that the new power bloc would supplant the existing one, thus becoming the
only power-bloc in the country! Because the attempt is being tied to a single-minded system, the realignment ofpolitical forces along discernible ideological lines, the strengthening of the political
organisation for the minorities and, perhaps, the abolition ofexecutive presidency to be replaced by a
collective presidency. The present government is therefore a transitional one: transitional in the sense
that, if the regime does not preside over the liquidation of Nigeria, then it will be succeeded by a
government operating on a qualitatively different basis entailing a new Constitution, a new political

structure and a new principle of federalism.

233

Obasanjo's Degree of Freedom 18th May, 2000

SEVERAL commentators, including Reuben Abati, see, at the root of Qbasanjo's problems, a
contradiction, or at least an absence of logical connection or correla tion, between his philosophy of
government and his political strategy and tactics (see Abati's Friday column: Obasanjo's problems, The
Guardian, April 28, 2000). These analysts see anti-corruption and transparency as key elements of
Obasanjo's philosophy of government; the strategy, however, is that of compromises and what Abati
called "deal-cutting." The strategy, they claim, is not only not realising the philosophy but is frustrating
it. According to them, recent instances of counter-productive deal cutting are the ones that saw Arthur
Nzeribe retaining his Senate seat and Chuba Okadigbo retaining the position of Senate President. One
may also speculate that several patently corrupt and "anti-democratic" personages are still holding their
public positions or walking the streets in freedom as a result of "deals" with the President ofthe Federal
Republic ofNigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Obasanjo, the political
analysts and commentators urge, ought to be more "pro-active" rather than adopting the method of firefighting, reacting after the event, repairing damages and "cutting deals." I have no disagreement,
broadly speaking, with Abati's identification, or even description of the problems ofNigeria, or the
forms these problems have assumed under Obasanjo's presidency. My disagreement is with his belief
that President Obasanjo is free to solve the problems the way he (Abati) indicated. The fact, is that no
ruler, however powerful, popular or legitimate, is free to do as he or she wishes for the simple reason
that a ruler, in the final analysis, is not an independent operator but a representative of social forces
which, in reality, are the repository of the power which the ruler wields and whose interests the ruler
protects and advances. A ruler cannot be independent of these forces and their interests, material and
non-material. Of course, depending on the balance ofrelationships and contradictions within the
complex of social forces which produced him or her and on which he or she rests, a ruler may enjoy a
relative degree of freedom. But the idea of independence is an illusion. So it is with President
Obasanjo. I want to invite Abati back to the ground by recalling how Obasanjo became President - an
objective historical fact whose meaning and consequences neither he (Obasanjo) nor any other person
can wish away. The death, within a space of 30 days in mid-1998 of both Gen. Sani Abacha and Chief
Moshood Abiola was either an act of God or carefully planned and executed acts of political
assassination, in other words, strategic elimination. I am inclined to believe the latter. But, whatever the
case, three political forces - the new imperialism or international community, and Nigeria's two powerblocs - benefited 234

from the double disappearance. It was a relief to all of them, and they proceeded to make the best of the
opportunity and arrive at a compromise. Obasanjo was the product of this three-cornered compromise.
Obasanjo's presidency is still resting on the compromise and agreement between the new imperialism,
the northern power-bloc and the western power-bloc - although the alliance is turbulent and unstable
for various reasons. Even a casual political observer- an observer of deeds and not just of words - will
notice that President Obasanjo cherishes and nourishes this alliance as the only viable and realistic one
for him and for his presidency. Obasanjo may at times, be irritated by the alliance, but he derives
immense benefits from it and his presidency rests on it and he is not making any visible attempt to
replace or reconstruct it. Nigeria's current problems, including the sustained political crises - and, in
particular, the types of solutions officially proclaimed and the manner of their execution - bear the
character and constraints of the alliance, its composition and its contradictions. Let us take the problem
of corruption. Corruption and state robbery are the dominant forms of primitive capitalist accumulation
in an underdeveloped and dependent economy and society such as ours. Now, the two ruling powerblocs in Nigeria have, in their ranks, the most powerful, the most endowed, the most strategically
located and the largest number ofcapitalists and capitalist accumulators in the country. Let me hasten to
say that the capitalist class is distributed across all regions and ethnic groups. But I am talking of
concentration, power, endowment, and strategic location. The point I am making here is that Obasanjo's
presidency and power rest on an alliance of social forces that, for reasons of class interests, are least
capable of fighting corruption in Nigeria. Where will the president recruit his anti-corruption vanguards
and campaigners? If he moves outside the power-blocs to capitalists in the other geopolitical zones he
will have two problems instead of one. In the first place these other capitalists will behave exactly like
their brothers and sisters in the power-blocs. the second place, Obasanjo will be testing the will of his
power base. And if the president decides to move outside the capitalist class in recruiting his anticorruption fighters, that is what is called class suicide, is it? So what should Obasanjo do? Let us next
take the Nigerian Senate. Who is Arthur Nzeribe, by the way? He is a professional politician, a
Nigerian capitalist, older and more exposed as a member of the capitalist class than most of his
colleagues in the National Assembly. Is he a tribalist? Yes, I link he is, like most of his adversaries in
and outside the National Assembly. Was he, in his impeachment tragi-comedy, acting out this tribal
hatred? Probably yes, like most of his ;accusers who were acting out of ethnic hate. Were Nzeribe's
allegations against Obasanjo Sivolous? I don't know and no-one can pronounce on this outside the
country's Constitution and Senate's rules. Is he a clean politician? All I can say is that he is not dirtier
than his MCC ors. Is he qualified to be a senator of the Federal Republic ofNigeria? I am inclined to
Limy that both Nzeribe and his adversaries are not qualified to be in the Senate judging by the . mazy
they got there and how they have performed so far. But since this will expose me to the age of nihilism
I shall merely say that, going by the distance of their class interests from a interests and what they have
done since they went into the Senate to advance and . protect these class interests, Nzeribe's opponents,
in and outside the Senate, are not more
235

qualified than he is to be in the Senate. Could he have been expelled from the Senate? No. The balance
of forces in the country could not allow it. Could he have been suspended? Yes, but he would have been
recalled within days. Is he an anti-democrat? All I can say is that he is not more undemocratic than his
opponents. Why did he withdraw the impeachment notice against the president? To save Okadigbo and
pave the way for his kinsmen to come to Aso Rock to beg the president to "forgive and forget." Now to
the Senate President. Could President Obasanjo have succeeded in removing Chuba Okadigbo from the
presidency of the Senate? Yes, but at a very great material and political cost. Okadigbo does not belong
to a power-bloc. He owes his position to the balance between the two ruling power-blocs. Is Obasanjo
free to choose a Senate president, a successor to Chuba Okadigbo? No, if Obasanjo gets Okadigbo out,
he (Obasanjo) will be compelled to nominate a successor who reflects the balance between the powerblocs that constitute the governing alliance in Nigeria. In other words, Obasanjo could not just
nominate the senator he likes and impose him or her as Senate president. His nominee has to satisfy, in
particular, the conditions laid down by the northern power-bloc. President Olusegun Obasanjo,
therefore, does not enjoy absolute freedom in his presidential actions and decisions. This has been
demonstrated not only in his anti-corruption campaign and his confrontation with the National
Assembly, its leadership and some of its members, but also in the Sharia Civil War, Niger Delta
Development Commission Bill, confirmation of ministerial and ambassadorial nominees, Senator
Waku interview and the 2000 Appropriation Bill, etc. There is nothing strange here, for no ruler enjoys
absolute freedom, as earlier stated. The only difference in the case of Obasanjo is that even those who
should know his constraints, or are part of the constraints, also urge the president to do the impossible.
236

77
Obasanjo's Settlement with History 27th July, 2000
IVHEN, on May 29, 2000, President Olusegun Obasanjo announced the con version ofthe dismissal of
fonner Biafrans from the Nigerian public service to retirement, my immediate feeling was that he was
desperately trying to isolate, d'..-fuse or diffuse the threat to "actualise the sovereign state of Biafra."
Later,however, my feeling moved away from cynicism to charity, to the hypothesis that he was trying
to settle accounts with the Nigerian Civil War of (1967-1970). As a lover of history, or rather, as a
passionate believer in the principle of settling account with history, I welcomed Obasanjo's move. But,
again, I was assailed by "unpopular," if not dangerous, thoughts. Let me pick three of them as
illustrations. One: I felt that Obasanjo ought to have gone further to rehabilitate Gen Aguiyi-honsi,
Nigeria's first military Head of State. Two: With what I know ofNigeria, I felt that r:s presidential
pardon will soon lead to substantive revisions ofthe accounts ofthe Nigerian crisis and Civil War
including the accounts previously given by the beneficiaries of Obasanj o 's don. Three: Taking a long
view of history I was not sure which one would be more sienificant: Col. Ojukwu of the Nigerian Army
or Gen. Ojukwu of the Biafran Army or Chief Ojukwu, Ikemba Nnewi. These, definitely, are not the
type of thoughts to start gating at a time ofjubilation over the presidential act of"final reconciliation." I
therefore decided to suspend any comment on the subject until my thoughts on the subject became
more disciplined and "patriotic." I stood by this personal censure until I came upon two publications on
related subjects. The first publication is a biography of Maj.-Gen. Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, Nigeria's first

military Head of State. The book titled, Ironside, was written by a Nigerian journalist, Chuks Ho
e2bunam, and published by Press Alliance Network Limited, London, in 1999. The second publication
appeared as an extended opinion article on page 7 of The Guardian On Sunday issue of July 2, 2000.
Titled: Is Obasanjo the president of all Nigerians?, the article was contributed by Enyeribe Onuoha.
Iloegbunam's book was an effort to refute what the author regarded as falsehoods in official and nonofficial records of the life and acts of Gen. Ironsi, and by means of this, rehabilitate the late General.
His book is the product of a research conducted over a 10-year period. Onuoha's article, on the other
hand, was a denunciation of what is now known in public discussion as "marginalisation." The author
was writing on the "marginalisation" ofthe Igbo ethnic group which he claimed has been going on since
the end of the Civil War but has been intensified under the current Presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo.
What struck me on reading these two publications was not just the "facts" they contain - some of which
are quite alarming and have to be checked
237

out - but the passion with which they were presented. It was this passion more than the "facts" that
really disturbed me and inspired me to revisit President Obasanjo's attempt at settlement with history. I
shall not review the two publications - at least not here - but will merely use them as points of
departure, what we, journalists, call "pegs." I shall first deal with the issue of"marginalisation." But the
time political power was regionalised in Nigeria, that is, around 1950, three power-blocs had emerged.
This emergence, nurtured and encouraged by British colonialism, was a definite defeat of militant
nationalism in Nigeria: it is one ofthe roots of what we now call marginalisation. By 1960 when
Nigeria became formally independent these blocs had become entrenched. For convenience, let us call
the blocs Kaduna, Ibadan and Enugu. Each of the blocs had an ethnic core which dominated the
minority ethnic groups awarded it in the regional arrangement. The crisis of 1960 to 1966, together
with the Civil War that followed was essentially a war of the power blocs- although I must hasten to
add that other political forces, including minority and radical forces, intervened for various reasons,
including the desire to seize the opportunity to correct historical wrongs and imbalances. The Igbo
power-bloc was defeated in that war, and the victors are still in power, and will remain in power until
Nigeria is reconstituted along popular-democratic lines. This reconstitution will end marginalisation,
not only the marginalisation of Igbo ethnic group, but also the marginalisation of the popular masses
across the land and the minority ethnic groups some of which the Igbo power-bloc oppressed before
and during the Civil War. My general position on the question of marginalisation is this: Any group or
class that feels marginalised, or threatened, or cheated, or is disaffected should initiate a political
struggle for restitution, and not believe that justice will be "awarded" without a struggle and the
sacrifice, risks and pain that come with it. Appealing to Obasanjo, or even abusing him, cannot solve
the problem. You must struggle and prepare to make sacrifices. But this position t requires one
important qualification or caveat: So long as we remain one country - and by t this I stand - no group,
however determined, can liberate itself in isolation. In Nigeria, marginalisation is historical and
structural, and the structure is a national structure. It can be ended only through the restructuring and
reconstitution of Nigeria along popular-democratic lines. My specific position on the question of Igbo
maisinalisation is to remind Onuoha that the Igbo power-bloc was defeated in war and simultaneously

eliminated as a power- bloc. That is, the marginalisation of the Igbo ethnic group, as claimed, is the
result of defeat and elimination as a power-bloc. The question therefore is whether Onuoha wants a
democratic state, eliminating all power blocs. Each choice is a call for struggle. Now, to the second
"peg" of this article: Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi. The Nigerian crisis and Civil War claimed many lives,
millions of them. For the purpose of this intervention, the casualties can be separated into categories.
There were political, military and government leaders, there were armed vanguards, that is, people who
initiated courses of armed actions and mobilised and led others, there were conscious activists who
understood the conflicts in their various ways and took positions, there were innocent victims, many of
them, and there were scape-goats, people who died because people simply had to die. There were other
categories or sub-categories, but we can stop here. Of all the scape-goats or sacrificial
238

lambs that the crisis and Civil War produced, the most prominent was Gen. Ironsi, the first indigenous
Head of the Nigerian Army and the first Nigerian military Head of State. Leon Trotsky, the Russian
revolutionary, once remarked that the most dangerous position to take in a conflict where the battle line
is clearly drawn and the opponents are determined, is that of the middle course. Charting a middle
course is different from sitting on the fence for while the latter is passive, the former is active. But in
pictorial representation, the two are the same. For a person to sit on the fence in a conflict situation is
dangerous enough because he or she may be eliminated by either side as a nuisance or obstacle, but to
chart a middle course is extremely dangerous because being active and not passive, he or she will
definitely be regarded by each side as supporting the other side. I am not concerned here with the
correctness or otherwise of the middle course. All I am saying is that in a serious conflict, it is an
extremely dangerous course. Gen. Ironsi's life and death as Nigeria's Head of State is a study in the
tragedy of the middle course. However, if30 years after the end of the (1966-70) crisis and war,
Obasanjo for whatever reasons decided to pardon those who took up arms and were defeated, he ought
to rehabilitate the man who tried, at a stage, to stem the crisis by charting a middle course, and died in
the process.
239

Crizasanjo's Pcst-Electiiom Manifesto

- 1:-) f- _ iOS second term had become a "fait accompI. 1. - J be done, "mass action, or no mass action'
I took the staters L.s of optimistic not ofpessirnism or trimphalism. I understood the declaration in the
context ofthe particular article, For a truly 'brand new President' (The Guardian, June 18, 2003), and of
the perspectives and orientation ofNwabuikwu's column in The Gordian. But I disagreed with him
when he added that "the wisest thing to do in this circumstance is to pray for this president's success
because, whatever one may feel about this iften exasperating man, his performance in the next four
years will have implications for the prosperity, security and indeed the very future of this country". No.
Although the fate of our country, in the short run, is tied up with that of the ruler, a whole nation cannot
be reduced to supplications for the success ofthe ruler. The prayer should be that the Nigerian people be

given the wisdom, strength and courage to produce the leadership they desire and deserve. I may
attempt to expand this important point and make it a bit clearer. Although the immediate future of the
country and its people is tied up with the conduct of President Obasanjo's administration - in view ofthe
said fait accompli - what Nigerians should pray for is not the administration's good "performance", but
the wisdom, courage and strength to insist on good performance. And, beyond that, and in general, we
should pray to be able to produce a government that we desire and deserve. And beyond that, we should
pray to be able to ensure that such a government, when produced, remain faithful and on course. Of
course, the president oo his administration will, and should, continue to pray for their success. They are
alread:, doing this - at least publicly. Practically, what we need to do, beyond prayers, beyond sporadic
opposition is to continue to subject the declaration and actions ofthe government to thorough
examination and systematic, radical criticism. As Karl Marx admonished, critics should not present the
world with a dictum: "This is what you must do". Rather, they should subject everything to radical
criticism and let what must be done issue from that criticism. Our president is a very religious person.
That, we must recognize, going by his public speeches and statements. He believes he has a mission,
which no mortal can terminate or frustrate. He is convinced that. for a clear purpose, God snatched him
from the "jaws of death" to become president. Well, this may have some persuasive power for some
people. But, then, in Africa, every political ruler has passed through the "jaws ofdeath". so to say. By
the nature ofAfrican politics each day a ruler is in power is a reprieve from death. Politics in Africa is a
bloody civil war.
240

Being snatched from the jaws of death" to become president cannot therefore be such a strong reason
for the type ofbelief Obasanjo appears to harbour in what he sees as his destiny and mission. It is my
belief that the president has somehow found a powerful political weapon in the public invocation of the
name of God, an invocation he made at least 10 times in the speech he delivered at his second
inauguration at Eagle Square. Abuja, on May 29, 2003. Someone has drawn my attention to the fact
that Nelson Mandela who spent about 28 years in a maxinium-securi tv island prison and became the
first black president Outh Africa after his release, did not once invoke the name of God when he paid a
long -.-:1-iotional tribute to his departed elder comrade, mentor and former co-prisoner, Walter Sisuiu.
And it is not that Mandela does not believe in God. President Obasanjo, in his inaugural address, said
he had a vision of "a united Nigeria, a strong Nigeria, a prosperous Nigeria, a peaceful Nigeria, a just
Nigeria, a great zeria". His goal is to develop a "sustainable democracy in a truly united nation".
Wonderful WV The declaration sounded much like the preamble to the Second National Development
Plan 1970-1971, published 33 years ago, in 1970, under General Yakubu Gowon. The military ruler had
promised, under the plan, to establish Nigeria as "united, strong and self reliant nation; a great and
dynamic economy; a just and egalitarian society; a land of bright and full opportunities for all citizens;
a free and democratic society". Gowon published this national democratic manifesto as Nigeria was
emerging from a 30-month bloody Civil War. In the five years that followed, until he was overthrown
in July 1975,the governmental course actually followed by General Gowon was a negation of the
manifesto in each of the areas listed. Given the poor performance of Obasanjo's government in its first
dispensation May 1999 - May 2003 and the manner this non-performing government was confirmed in
office via April/May 2003 general elections, and the public praises which the president is still

showering on 'the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which conducted the disastrous
elections and the self-congratulatory posture of the government and the ruling party over their nonperformance and electoral successes, there is little hope that the government will deliver on its latest
promises. The President congratulated his government and other administrative, political and security
institutions, and indeed the people of Nigeria, for what he called the "milestone event ofcivilian-tocivilian transition", that is, the successful passage from the first to the second dispensation. At least one
newspaper commentator has refuted the claim that this passage was the first in our post" independence
political history. There was a civilian-to-civilian transition in 1964, and another one in 1983. In both
cases successor governments were successfully installed. The president also congratulated Nigerians
for the transition, in May 1999, "from the darkest episode of our history to the dawn of hope". In my
view the end of the Civil War in January 1970 can, more appropriately, be given that description. May
29 has now been confirmed by the president as the "National Democracy, Human Rights and
Thanksgiving Day". Segments of the nation's pro-democracy and human rights community, as well as
many politicians, regard June 12" the day in 11993 when Moshooci Abiola was elected president" as a
more legitimate Democracy Day. These people have been urging the president to officially recognize
June 12 and adequately rehabilitate Abiola
241

111 C3.1 Criticising Okssegun Obasanjo 21st June, 2001

/ALM a critic ofPresident Olusegun Obasanjo and his government. And rightly sdo This -. 7, zagement
is likely to intensify in tone and frequency as the year 2003 approaches. 3 2: I am Obasanio's critic, not
because he is struggling to free himself from the power-10- .., . =ii: s -.Ha: brought him to office,
construct an independent political bloc and invade the western power-bloc. The logic of his position
compels him to do so; he has the right to do ::,,- ..- 2 he is in the position to do so. I am critical of him
not because there is a plan to 7 '-":-.7 him for re-election in 2003. Obasanjo is most likely to be better
than most of his IA: , ..:-.-.. a! opponents. I am critical of General Olusegun Obasanjo in his position as
current ' ,Zpc.,5::-Inilitary transition on two grounds. First the performance of the transition is ,, ; ,,,, ,
below expectation from the premise of our people's minimum needs; and secondly, .. 1e are powerful
political forces in the country which would like to extend this transition, i lire% ;.-7. 7-lake it
permanent. This has to be opposed. I hope we know that this post-military .7.:::...- .-...:n. may continue
beyond 2003 with or without Obasanjo himself. A restructured t7 . :71 the popular-democratic and
equitocratic sense of the term, has to come into !lifr;E- ,.: :eibee the next presidential election. That will
be the definitive end ofthe post-military aisrL ' 7: 7: My self-assigned role as Obasanjo critic
notwithstanding, I hold that there are rules .--.1-..-, ist crui de political criticism in general; and the
more public the subject of criticism, h se .7-,,Dre scrupulously the rules of criticism must be followed.
Obasanjo should benefit from 1: . se rules, two of which are: the ethical rule and the rule ofpolitical
responsibility TI-E, Mier requires that Nigerian critics speak and write as Nigerians, committed to
Nigeria and ' braving a -stake" in the'survival and progress of the country. Nigerian critics should not
ip...,,Ped ,as if they are merely doing a job or pracitising the art of criticism. The ethical rule, it the
main, requires that we avoid attacking our subject as a person, or speculating on his Niter private
motives. Only public acts of omission and commission are legitimate issues 7.-r- :H.dcism. Critics
should differentiate between the public sphere and the private domain. 1 ...7 we should admit that there
is a problem here, the lines between the public and the e are sometimes not clear. In practical life, we

often have to deal with issues that izraL,..e the dividing line between the public and the private. It is
known, for instance, that Pres...,:1,frit Obasanjo is a born-again Christian. Normally, religion should be
a private affair t... s country. But then, each of the president's public speeches and statements, since he
case .n.to office. has been punctuated and laced with religious invocations and exhortations.
circumstances. it will be legitimate to regard the president's religion as public affairs
243

subject to legitimate public criticism to the extent of his innovations and exhortations. Yet another
problem. The novelist, Frederick Forsyth, has said that a public figure's life can be divided into three
spheres: the public, the private and the secret. Forsyth may not have been original, but I first read this
taxonomy in his collection of fictional stories No Comeback. An application of the general principles
sketched above leads me to suggest that critics are allowed a free hand in the first sphere, but they are
to leave the second sphere severely alone. The third sphere, that is, the secret sphere, is problematic,
because it is a complex mix. One way of dealing with the problem is to sub-divide the secret into the
political and the non-political, merge the former with the public sphere and the latter with the private
sphere. This will bring us back to our original dualism, the public and the private. To illustrate: if we
discover that President Obasanjo has signed a secret military pact with a foreign country, or has
secretly ordered a military or para-military crackdown on his opponents, or perceived opponents of the
state, we are obliged to bring this to the open, and criticise it. On the contrary, if we discover that the
president has secretly met with his friends to "cool off' at a time and in a place we least expected him,
we should leave the man alone.
Beyond these rules, I believe that every political critic ofPresident Obasanjo will benefit from some
knowledge ofhow this personage came into being politically. He did not descend on us from the blues.
If a political biography of President Olusegun Obasanjo were to be sketched, it would, most probably,
start on January 1 5, 1966. Not that he, then a Major, took part in the first military attempt to overthrow
the government of Nigeria which was staged that Saturday morning. On the contrary, he took part in
suppressing thereby helping the second attempt to succeed. The first attempt was led by three Nigerian
army maj ors: Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeaj ma and Adewale Ademoyega. The
second attempt. initiated as soon as the first attempt was started, succeeded on January 18. It was led by
the official head of the Nigerian Army, Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi, who then became the first Head
of Federal Military Gtvemment and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and Lt-Col. Yakubu
Gowon who became Ironsi's Chief of Staff, Army. Obasanjo's specific role, according to the
information volunteered by him and later confirmed, was that he persuaded Nzeogwu, his close friend
and leader of the rebels in Kaduna, to surrender to Ironsi. Obasanj o's argument was that the rebels had
achieved their principal objective, namely, the overthrow of the civilian administration and that to
continue the struggle to assume power was to ask for a civil war which, he believed, the rebels did not
desire. About 18 months later. Obasanjo, then commanding the army garrison in Ibadan, helped to
frustrate the attempt by a radical detachment of the BiafranArmed Forces to link up with presumed
sympathisers in the West and Lagos and simultaneously overthrow Ojukwu (Enugu) and Gowon
(Lagos) and achieve the original objectives of the January boys. Obasanjo did this directly, by military
action, and indirectly by deceiving those who the ught he was a sympathiser. The roles of Obasanjo in

these two events, the majors' rebellion of January 1966 and Biafra's att .1-ripted incursion in August
1967, are crucial in understanding President Obasanjo politically today. Twenty-eight months later, in
January 1970, Olusegun Obasanjo, now a Colonel and Commander of the Third Division of the
244

Nigerian Army, received the unconditional surrender of the Biafran Armed Forces in the field.
Obasanjo's roles in the termination of the war and re-unification of Ni zeri a have largely shaped his
attitudes to Nigeria (paternalism and messianism) and to eastern part the country (contempt).
Subsequent high points in the trajectory of Obasanjo's political history include: his appointment as
Chief, of Staff, Supreme Headquarters (1975), following the coup led by middle-rank officers;
appointment as Head of State (February 1976), following the assassination of General Murtala
Mohammed, the decisive and ruthless manner in which he dealt with those found guilty of coup
plotting (May 1976), the brutal and insensitive methods by which he handled the Ali-Must-Go uprising
by university students (1978); his politicA decision to hand over power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari
(October 1979); the publication of his war memoirs, My Command and biography of his friend
Nzeogwu (1987); his statement that Moshood Abiola was not the "messiah" we had been waiting for
(1993); his insistence on coming back to Nigeria from the safety of Europe (1995) even when he had
been warned that Abacha would kill him on the spurious charge of treason. These high points, among
others, should provide some necessary background knowledge for the critics of President Obasanjo.
Finally, President Olusegun Obasanjo, as I have said, is a born-again Christian. He was literally
snatched from the jaws of death to become the President ofthe Federal Republic of Nigeria and
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. He therefore believes that his life was spared for a
particular assignment of human redemption. Flowing from this, he believes that, in the affairs of
mortals, he is infallible. Beyond that, Obasanjo believes that neither his life, nor his regime can be
terminated, unless God wishes. This, for Obasanjo, is not just a homily. It is a practical article of faith.
Critics of the incumbent President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should therefore understand the
subject of their criticism.
245

President Obasanjo in Cross River State 13th December, 2001

IN the last quarter ofNovember 2001, exactly 10 years after military president, Gen eral Ibrahim
Babangida paid an official visit to Cross River State, a civilian presi dent, General Olusegun Obasanjo,
did the same. Babangida's visit was well reported 1-i the press, as expected. He exhibited his own
brand of warmth and charisma, dazzling -, er-., one with whom he came in contact and every audience
he faced. He visited a cross-section of the state, opening or commissioning one project after another.

Finally, he went to Obudu Ranch, located in the northern fringes of the state. Unfortunately, on his
journey :ek to Calabar, a tragedy struck; one ofthe helicopters which conveyed some state officials
accompanying him, crashed into the marshes defming the final approaches to Calabar. The tragedy of
the crash was not simply that all those on board lost their lives. Part of the tragedy (or was it the main
part?) was that if the helicopter had been in a better condition and if a system of search and rescue had
existed, even in a modest form, many of the lost lives would have been saved. In any case, General
Babangida landed safely in Calabar and bade his hosts and hostesses farewell. But why am I recalling
this tragic event when President Obasanio's visit apparently went so well? His wife arrived Calabar a
day ahead ofillim to commission some IcGO projects; he himself arrived in his flamboyant manner and
threw humour at everyone and at every gathering; he was accorded a state-organised civil reception; he
was given a chieftaincy award which aLnitted him into the council of traditional rulership in Calabar;
he brilliantly scored a politic al goal by re-naming Calabar International Airport the Margaret Ekpo
International Airport: he opened the Calabar Free Trade Zone (CFTZ), thus giving a presidential
endorsement to ti2 upgrading ofthe zone from a mere Export Processing Zone (EPZ) whose foundation
stone was laid by President Babangida 10 years earlier; he net and discussed with what was officially
described as the "common people" ofthe state; he commissioned several pro ects in the central and
northern parts of the state and, finally, he opened the Bebi Airstrip which is to serve the rehabilitated
Obudu Ranch. It was indeed a crowded programme for a four-day visit. But then, even if I cannot
immediately recall all that General Babangida did during his own visit 10 years ago (his biographers
will give you a long list any day), I know that the visit was both a dazzling and as "significant" in
content and form as that of Obasanjo. The only difference is that Babangida's visit ended in an accident.
Most people will today remember Babangida's visit to Cross River State in 1991 only by that accident.
You can now see the role of accident (or its polar opposite, luck) in history. By renaming the Calabar
International Airport after her,

Margaret Ekpo has been honoured and immortalised in her lifetime, so the Nigerian media reported.
The dogged fighter for national independence, democratic governance, national unity based on justice,
and women's emancipation is, in addition to her other attributes, a lucky woman. I rejoice with her and
with all other Nigerians, particularly those from her part of the country, who felt this honour. I would,
however, argue that President Obasanjo's proclamation was more of a political campaign than the
bestowal ofhonour. Nnamdi Azikiwe, nationalist first President ofNigeria, had a university and an
airport and some other smaller monuments named after hirn; Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the first and
last Prime Minister of Nigeria had a university and other monuments named after him; Ahmadu Bello,
the late Sardauna of Sokoto aid the first and last Premier of Northern Nigeria and, by far, the most
powerful Nigerian pc''' -. his clays, had a university named after him in his lifetime; Obafemi Awolow .
Premier ofWestern Region also had a university named after him. Similar he been bestoIrved on
Samuel Ladoke Akintola, Murtala Mohammed, Aminu Kano, Babanida (College ofAgriculture,
Obubra, Cross River State), Sani Abacha (Spe it Hcsphal. Uyo, recently re-named, I understand);

NIKO Abiola, Simbiat van Ikoku, Michael Okpara and several others all establishment personages a:1
',,.,-omen of timber and calibre. B _ :for the sorts ofKen Saro-Wiwa who courageously, brilliantly, and
vigorously camp aim for social justice for minority ethnic groups in Nigeria in the last quaver : century
- campaigns which others are now merely popularising, or 7 re% LUIZ downwards, or openly
denouncing in practice, ifnot in words. But, thm. . 777 makers ofhistory, ifwe must go individual, are
those who initiate the strua-E.rle But returning to Margaret Ekpo, how I wish she had been honoured
by the procI on of the actual realisation ofjust one ideal for which she fought. As I had earlier I rejoice
with her. And I hope she will regard her honour as not belonging to her alone, :o all her compatriots,
dead and alive, with whom she waged her life's battles. She sh _id merely regard herself as holding the
flag. She should, in particular, remember Gamhc S 41b and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. Fin the second
day of his visit, President Obasanjo met with the "common people". Reizarding, himself as a "common
man", a senior lecturer at the University of Calabar who had once served as a commissioner in the
government of Cross River State, attended the gathering. I would myself not have attended, not because
I don't regard myself as a "common man" a thoroughly meaningless term but because I would have
known what would happen there, given my fair knowledge of President Obasanjo. That was the
lecturer's first mistake: attending the meeting at all. But his second mistake was more serious; he raised
his hand to be allowed to speak. He was recognised. And he spoke. Were I in the lecturer's shoes, even
if I had been persuaded by some strange force to attend, I would have remained silent and, ifpossible,
inconspicuous, recording the proceedings, as much as I could, in my brain. Even if I had been called
upon to speak without my signaling my intention to do so, 1 would have replied with a hand signal that
I had very bad sore throat. But the man spoke. And he got his answers from the president. The
247

lecturer had complained generally about the situation in the country's university system. The president
replied him with intimidation, abuses and embarrassment. Obasanjo asked the man what his current
salary is compared to what he was earning a couple of years ago. The man replied. More abuses.
Having finished with the lecturer, the president then descended on university teachers generally and
their union, the Academic Staff-Union of Universities (ASUU), in particular. He called them every bad
name imaginable, concluding with the declaration that Nigerian university teachers not only have not
contributed to the development of the country, but have not even contributed to the development of
university education and the university system. My lecturer friend committed a third mistake: agreeing
to answer all the questions posed to him by the president. He ought to have refused to answer some
questions and, better still he ought to have made a political statement directly to the audience. The
consequence could not have been worse than the humiliation he accepted for himself and for his
compatriots. I have always insisted that university teachers should be political. Radical, but patriotic
and progressive, national political engagement has been a key platform ofASUU since the 1980
leadership ofBiodun Jeyifo. It should remain so, or rather, go back to it. I understand that the next
speaker, that is, next to the embattled lecturer, was a female university student who spoke of the really
terrible conditions under which she and her colleagues were assumed to be acquiring specialised

knowledge. The president, now becoming more political than ever, sympathised with the students,
accusing university teachers ofbeing partly responsible through insatiable demands for wage increases
for the plight of their students. This is a well-known political tactic; pitching the disaffected against the
exploited, the exploited against the marginalised, and finally the marginalised against the dispossessed.
Those who address President Obasanjo as "Chief are just playing politics. And they know it. The fact is
that our president is a General of the Nigerian Army, not retired, because generals really do not retire.
The president's Defence Minister is a general; his National Security Adviser is a general, and the Chief
of Staff in his presidency is a general. Although most of the other members of President Obasanjo's
government are not army officers, each of them, more or less, behaves like one. I have said it before,
and I repeat it here: if ?resident Obasanjo is to be remembered in history, it will not be en account of his
installing a civilian president in 1979 or becoming a civilian president 20 years later. He will be
remembered in history as the army officer who received Biafra's surrender in the field in January 1970
and, next to that, as the man who integrated Nigeria more firmly than any other ruler in our postindependence history into the new imperialism, the global dictatorship.
248

81
111I1110 went that Produced Obasanjo 15th March, 2001
=Me agreement that produced Obasanjo's presidency allied some serious gaps in my own
understanding of the Fourth Republic, as the present transitional political _ Ald, however, say that I do
not believe all the details fed to -ut I believe that Olusegun Obasanjo could not have been .7-7e a
presidential candidate (in fact, the president) without
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.s. I hope no one believes the opposite, namely, that a man
of death and packaged by the power wielders for a political - - ?us as Nigeria's presidency without
some understanding ed in the project. I ask: Does anyone honestly believe nearly descended to civil
war and for which several c :hers incarcerated and dehumanised could be awarded
".
*may? I answer for all adult Nigerians and say no. Therefore we should are disputing: the very fact of
the agreement or its alleged details. e, if there are disagreements they could only be over the details.
time Obasanjo was sworn in as president, insisted that his regime was f-ment between four political

forces: the Nigerian state, the Norther-zA the Western power-bloc, and the new imperialism
(popularised as th ). It did not. at that time, and does not, now, require a genius to \\That is required is,
first, a careful study of Nigeria's politic a7 --oteentik 2,11-.1_: _7 ten t ofthe presidential election of
June 12, 1993 and the de , of7viosho,c,c Abiola, the man who won that election according to the mles,
anigaba...anh7 7: est application oflogic; and third, the invocation of historical antecedents _esainjo's
presidencywas a compromise between contending forces. This mu -.71 and said in May 1999. The nly
footnote I may add here is that like all politice ses. the one that proe,..:_. ed Obasanjo's presidency was
a tentative or provisionll whether or not the panics recognised it as such to be abrogated unilaterally
cosive shift in the balar.2e of forces that produced it occurs. Political comprom,s for ever, nor are they
dissolved by agreements. What we are witnessing 27
r
- s attempts to abrogate the 999 agreement or change its terms which boils down, : the thing. With this
preamble. we may now go to the agreement as alleged. But before then I 1:-_ink I shouldmake a
number of points to guard myself against possible charges of naivety
249

and prejudice. There is no officially authenticated text, but then it will come in versions - like the Aburi
Accord of 1967. If the crisis becomes really serious, the international community which knows all, sees
all and influences all, can release the authentic text - provided that act will be of help to the faction it
supports or wishes victory. Furthermore, I take what I have read in the newspapers on this matter as a
strong hypothesis: strong because they are plausible (in essence, not necessarily in details) given what
we know ofthe political history of Nigeria. From what I have gathered from the media, the political
agreement under discussion, that is, the one that produced Obasanjo's presidency, must have been
entered into sometime between June 1998 when Abacha died and Obasanjo was released from prison
and May 1999 when the latter was sworn in as president. Let us examine the content of the agreement
as I can reconstruct from what I have read. The agreement involved two personages, a number of
witnesses and a guarantor. The personages were General Abdulsalami Abubakar the then military Head
of State and general Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military Head of State and the president - elect, the
former acting for the Nigerian State and the Northern power bloc, the latter acting for the Western bloc.
The witnesses were the three registered political parties. The guarantor of the agreement was the
international community. The body of the agreement can be divided, for easy assimilation, into four
parts. Part One: Obasanjo would be president for only one term, that is, (1999 - 2003). He would not
seek re-election; he would be succeeded by someone from the South-East political zone; the latter
would also be in office for only one term (2003 - 2007); the South-East president would be succeeded
by someone from the South-South zone; the latter would also be in office for only one term (20072011). Part Two: The three political parties would take turns in producing the president for each of the
three sub-periods into which the entire period covered by the agreement was divided. Part Three:
Obasanjo's government would clear all outstanding debts owed contractors, uphold accountability and
fight corruption. Part Four: If President Obasanjo violated any of these provisions, then the Nigerian
Army should feel free, and indeed obligated, to overthrow his government. This final part is what is
sometimes called protocol. Let us try to make some sense out of this agreement. I have a strong feeling

that some parts of the agreement have not been revealed, or are unknown to me. I think there should
have been some undertaking on political appointments and commitment to some decisions taken by
previous governments. Perhaps these missing parts are contained in the protocol which, in high-power
agreements, are usually not part of the main texts and sometimes not even written. I also feel that the
second part of the agreement, the one dealing with party rotation, makes no sense. Given the relative
strengths of the parties in different parts of the country, how can the APP produce an Igbo president and
AD a South-South president? Furthermore, if this provision was made, then the assumption was that
the three parties would exist for at least 12 years. This would be political naivety ofthe highest order.
Or, perhaps. the provision was inserted simply to show some respect for the leaderships of the three
parties - and nothing more. We must realise that the forces in the
250

agreement are located above the political parties and act, only in part, through the parties when it is
convenient to do so. The forces own the parties as instruments. My third observation (or rather
speculation) is that the core of the agreement is the first section of the first part, namely, that Obasanjo
would be president for only one term and that the presidency would move from the South West to the
South-East. This makes sense to me because given that the front runners in the struggle for the
rulership of Nigeria have been the northern and western power-blocs, it would be in the interest of the
northern bloc, once the presidency had been conceded to the west, to get it out as quickly as possible
from that zone. Put differently, the northern power-bloc would want the presidency to move as quickly
as possible from its rival, the western bloc, to the south-east not because it loves the latter but because
it would want power to move away from the west before it is consolidated the way the hegemony of the
northern power-bloc was consolidated before the crisis of June 12 annulment. I may enter a final
speculation: appointments into the commands of the Armed Forces by President Obasanjo were part of
the protocol attached to the main agreement. I sympathise with those whose patriotism and democratic
instincts are assaulted by this agreement. But I must confess that I was not shocked by it. Why should I
be shocked by the logic of a situation we know so well? I hold, however, that this agreement does not
constitute an additional cause for worry. It is an element of Obasanjo's transition and will dissolve with
the end of the transition. My proposition is that all democratic and non-hegemonic forces, including the
labour movement, should enter the struggle for 2003 - at all levels and in their different ways - so that it
does not resolve into a two-cornered or three-cornered fight. With this entry any group that plans to
take the country back to the immediate Fast will have to contend with several forces saying no.
251

82
Obasanjo's Election Manifesto 30th May, 2002
0 N Thursday, February 7, 2002, President Olusegun Obasanjo addressed the opening session of a

three-day Presidential Retreat on Electoral Process and Political Violence in Abuja. Two days later he
addressed the closing session ofthe gathering. Then on Thursday, April 25, also inAbuj a, he announced
his intention to '-eek re-election. Taken together, these three statements constitute Obasanjo's platform
for re-election as President ofthe Federal Republic ofNigeria in 2003. It is a very clear platform" so
clear that what is left out can be reasonably, fairly and logically deduced from what is 1 juded. I doubt
if the president can improve upon this platform; nor can his party, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP). Before looking at this platform, we may remind ourselves that conventional wisdom teaches
that one should always differentiate between what a person thinks and says of himself from what he or
she really is and does. I accept this as wise dictum, but will only add, as corollary and methodology,
that there is no way of objectively assessing the latter (what one really is ) without reference to the
former (what one says of himself or herself). Furthermore, also by way of methodology, one is entitled
to question what a person says and promises to do by referring to his or her antecedents, dispositions
and circumstances. This should be our approach to Obasanjo's re-election manifesto. In his opening
address at the presidential retreat, President Obasanjo descended heavily on those behind the ethnoreligious wars and political violence that have ravaged the country for so long: a situation which his
regime inherited but which had become worse since his assumption of office on May 29, 1999. The
president warned that this trend poses a grave danger not only to democracy but also to the existence of
the Nigerian state. He argued: "Every occurrence of violence erodes the legitimacy of the state and the
leaders, leaving democracy to stand alone and exposed to those who want to subvert it further or
destroy it altogether, because those people would not have cause to rise and defend it". Pursuing the
issue, the president alleged that powerful, but anti-democratic forces and individuals were behind the
regime of violence. In other words, the violence which now characterises the nation's politics is far
from being spontaneous; it is organised, directed and funded by powerful anti-democratic people who
want to get power by all means. Nigerians, he said "notice how private armies are being raised and
unbelievable amount of money being set aside by those who plan to muscle their way into elective
offices". I share the president's apprehension, but think he should look beyond one direction for sources
of political violence. Both seekers and defenders of power employ violence, and anti252

democratic instincts are not confined to one side. After re-stating his fundamental opposition to cthnoreligious wars and political violence which, according to him, are now being -asedl-,y anti-democrztic
forces as paths to power, Obasanjo faced the future and made a personal pledge and invited his
opponents to do the same: "I pledge that I, Olusegun Obasanjo, will abide by any stipulations, rules,
regulations which in addition to the laws of the nation, this retreat will propose in order to ensure the
survival four democratic system with its integrity intact. I further pledge that for the duration ofmy
political career, in whatever capacity I find myself, I will respect the rules of fair competition, abide by
the laws of the land, and prevent the subversion of the ideals and values of the democratic system. IfI
or my party wins an election, it will be fair victory, and I appeal to my opponents to be fair as well".
The president then turned to God, as he usually does: "I know that God will hold me responsible and I
will not go without His sanction, and so will all of us, if by my words and actions, I willfully cause
harm to the person, property or life or any competitor or opponent". In brief, the first leg of President
Obasanjo's re-election manifesto is the rejection of etlano-religious and political violence including, I

believe, state-sponsored violence or harassment, as paths to power or retention ofpower. We may have
cause to refer to this presidential pledge as the battle for 2003 develops. The second leg deals with free
and fair elections which the president pledged to uphold and defend. He argued: "when people only
vote without choosing because elections are rigged, and when politicians employ coercion instead
ofpersuasion, such that fear and timidation nullify free choice, then, we have no reason to expect that
the populace will spect elected leaders and their officers. And, of course, a leader who is not respected
is eader who is not trusted. And any such person has no moral right whatsoever to regard Emself as a
leader, let alone expect others to see him as one". We must thank the president :7: 7 introducing this
category of electoral politics, so brilliantly and beautifully articulated: --,,ote without choosing".
Employing this category, one would like to ask the president in bow many general elections since
independence in 1960 had the Nigerian people voted without choosing or, what is the same thing, in
how many general elections had the people meted and chosen. Was the 1999 election which brought
him to office one of the exceptions? An answer is necessary to assist us to appreciate, in practical
terms, how an electorate can 1.ewi sut choosing. In his closing remarks at the presidential retreat,
President Obasanjo attacked both c militias and the ethno-regional formations described in the media as
socio-cultural hors. These include, in particular, .Afenifere, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), . Ndi
Igbc. He believes that these formations are primordial outfits which ,,t-dinicity and violence in
politics", if I may borrow the summary of the president's :;;;;; - ided by The Guardian in its editorial
of February 26, 2002. Continuing this he paper said that the president argued that on the whole, these
fon-nations ed their usefulness in so far as their activities can be seen to be political. He :jwtha we have
a representational democracy, members of these organisations served ifthey joined the political parties
rather than pursuing narrow agendas
253

that are fully capable of interfering with the political process. As presently constituted, he considers
their role to be a drag on national unity". This should be taken as an important leg of the president's reelection manifesto. The president has since approached the National Assembly with a bill banning
ethnic militias. But nothing has been done in respect of"socio-cultural" organisations. On the contrary,
as suggested by The Guardian, the president's actual relationship with these organisations had not been
hostile. How seriously then does the president expect us to take his opposition to "socio-cultural"
organisations? The president's April 25 declaration repeated all the elements detailed above, but went
further. The new elements can be summarised: He severely criticised the three political parties, or
rather their leaderships. The parties, he said, "appear as congregations ofpeople who are just concerned
with personal aggrandisement and little regard for public service". He lamented that when he took
office on May 29, 1999 he had "grossly underestimated the extent of the damage, the depth of the
decay into which our nation had sunk". Given this situation, the president said, "it has been a
formidable task to reconstruct what it took nearly two decades to destroy, and the challenge has been all
pervasive, economic, political, social, moral and cultural". His administration, he claimed, has, in three
years, recorded r,t iressive achievements in the nation's economy, infrastructure and standard of living.
More specifically "there are today more cars plying our roads, our motor parks are beehives of activity,
more aircraft land and take off from our airports, and ports are busier. There are more jobs. The
employed earn more, and living conditions continue to improve". He would continue with this forward

march if re-elected president. He then made another claim, a more courageous one: "there is certainly
much less despair in the air. Hope in a brighter future has been rekindled. There has been a quantum
leap in the amount of faith Nigerians have in their country". While the president's criticism of the party
leadership is correct, I wonder how many people, outside his cabinet, his personal staff- government's
big-time contractors and political office holders would uphold his summary assessment of his
achievement and the offered indicators of this achievement. The president concluded the manifesto by
pledging, once again, to play by the rules: He would fight a -clean electoral battle"; he would respect
the rights of others and hence would not stop anybody who may wish to oppose him; he has no
favourites among current elected office holders, and hence would neither support nor oppose anyone
who may wish to seek re-election. After the elections, the president said, 'those men and women who
have been freely and fairly elected by their various constituencies" will be his "favourites". We may,
again, have cause to refer to this pledge.
254

Part Three: Africa and the World

3
Resurgence of European Fascism 11th July, 2002
INApril 2002, the people of France came out to elect a new president. According to the presidential
electoral system, in place since 1962, the president of the republic is elected directly. There were
several candidates, of whom three were re arded

Socialist Party lost 2.5 million votes; the Communist Party which, in the 1970s, was the largest party of
the left, lost 1.6 million votes during the same period, and the Greens, another left-wing party,
increased its electoral strength by 500,000 votes. Altogether, the French left, which is the only real and

stable alternative to Le Pen, lost 3.1 million votes between 1995 and 2002, while the fascists (or the
extreme right) gained almost a million. A number of observations are necessary to fully appreciate the
import of these figures. First, the voter turn-out was low. Those who failed to exercise their right to
vote did so either because they saw no presidential candidate deserving their votes, or do not like
voting for one reason or the other, or were physically unable to vote. Those in the first and second
categories were in the majority. Not all these absentees are democrats. On the contrary, many of them
are fascists. Secondly, a substantial proportion of those considered by law to be too young to vote, are
politically active and have taken part in the extra-electoral political action, and are ready and available
for future actions. Not all of these virile political actors are democrats. On the contrary, many of them
are fascists, that is, Le Pen's supporters. Now, let us look at Le Pen, the villain of French politics and
the political platform that has just shaken the French nation to its foundations. Le Pen has been
politically active for about 50 years. In the French war against Algerian nationalists in the 1950s and
early 1960s Le Pen served in the French army as a paratrooper. He was a "political" soldier, so to say,
and opposed Algerian independence absolutely. He also opposed independence for other French
colonies, including Tunisia. By 1961, Le Pen had become a well-known fascist activist, ready to
employ violence of any scale and at any time to make a point or achieve an objective. In 1974, that is,
28 years ago, he contested the French presidency for the first time. He got only 0.7 per cent of the vote.
His proportional share of French vote has steadily risen and is now 18 per cent. The following are
excerpts from the man's platform, as offered by lime magazine of May 6, 2002. "Immigration: End
legal immigration, deport illegal immigrants and curtail naturalisation of foreigners seeking citizenship.
Give French citizens priority for all jobs and public housing; create a separate medical benefits system
for foreigners working in France, so that French tax money would not be used for foreigners' care;
Europe: Renounce all European accords and treaties, abandon the euro and return to the.Franc. Crime:
Expand and give new powers to the police; create 200,000 new prison beds; reinstate the death penalty;
discontinue state payments to parents of delinquents. Education: Rewrite textbooks to resist "Marxist
conditioning" as well as "cosmopolitan cultural imperialism"; re-orient teaching to "preserve the
national memory"; requiring students to participate in patriotic events and holidays. Society: Outlaw
abortion and end official recognition of same-sex unions. Hear Le Pen: "I don't say the gas chambers
didn't exist. But I believe that it is a point of detail in the history of the Second World War": "the
affirmation that your body belongs to you is completely absurd. It also belongs to life itself, and -in part
- to the nation"; "this frightening phenomenon imposes its customs, values, its religion, and steals our
souls; the tide of immigration will submerge us after first having ruined us"; find it artificial to bring
players from abroad and rebaptise them into French national team"; "Chirac
258

as abdicated his national powers to a federal Europe, kowtowed to the United States and . s mantled the
French Army". This is a European fascist platform par excellence, clearly and brilliantly articulated. 'is
Adolf Hitler, the Furhrer, risen from the dead. No Wonder several other fascist leaders --. Europe
identify with Le Pen: From Austria, to Belgium, to Denmark, to Italy, to the z-therlands, to Switzerland.
Some of those who distance themselves from Le Pen are only .-..::::oarrassed by his style. Others
regard him as arch-fascist who may turn round in the future to devour them after dealing with their
common enemy. But Le Pen is the overall leader just as Hitler was the undisputed European fascist
leader between 1925 and 1945. Lie Hitler, Le Pen has not hidden his agenda which has existed as a

public political platform, per:_ c ally updated, for almost half a century. But why should such a fascist
programme, qtly advertised with venom, attract such a level of fanatical support, both electoral and
rJara-electoral in the land where "the Rights of Man" were proclaimed more than 200 0`2:1"'S aeo? The
answer is that the mainstream political parties (of the right and of the left), ucpresenting the two leading
classes in France - the capitalists and the working people - 'byre failed to respond to problems that have
burdened the masses of the French nation for ,... time: unemployment, crime, terrorism, violence and
insecurity plus declining social .3141,7, . When people complain about crime and insecurity, the
political left responds that -.TaTors of crime are victims of the system". Okay, how do we change the
system? :as no credible or concrete answer beyond swinging from one extreme to the ne time
borrowing from Chirac, at another repeating what they said in 1970s, but ding, anything that Le Pen
says. :-:ere Le Pen, the fascist, is categorical, Chirac, the mainstream politician, is abstract 111114r: Le
Pen says to deal with crime he will expand the powers of the police, prison space, reinstate the death
penalty and starve the parents of delinquents. zhtforward. But to solve the problem, Chirac says he will
"establish local centres to hear cases against delinquents, hand out heavier penalties -711nistry of
domestic security". Now, tell me, for ordinary, non-intellectual in insecurity and whose lives are daily
threatened, and who have seen one -.al programme after another come to nothing, whose prescription is
more Unemployed youths believe - wrongly, I would say - and complain that taking their jobs and
overstretching the social facilities meant for them. Le
1 send back the immigrants already in the country and prevent new ones Fat5c:st: but simple and
straightforward. But hear Chirac: he would "create massive
programme" to prevent the poor suburbs "where many immigrants live" -.etios. This is someone who
has been president for, seven years and whose 3eo?le have seen and borne for so long. 7a1 ur. :lose
solution makes more sense: Le Pen or Chirac? Le Pen is the roduct

The Philippine Democracy 1st March, 2001

Y way of introduction, the Philippines are a group of islands off the south-east coast ofAsia. The
country was named after King Philips of Spain, the colonial power in the area between the 15th and
19th centuries. As part of the settlement that ended the Spanish-American War at the close of the 19th
century, Spain sold the Philippines to America for $20 million. Cuba was similarly sold; but the latter
has since charted a different historical course. When the Filipinos (that is what the natives of the
Philippines are called) attempted to challenge this transferred enslavement, the United States
ofAmerica, the new colonial power, replied in force, brutally suppressing the uprising. Since then the
Philippines has remained in America's "sphere of influence." About two years ago, a man named
Joseph Estrada was elected President of the Republic of the Philippines. Before he became President,
Estrada was a film actor, a playboy and a gambler - three professional engagements which, some
people claim, require the same set of human attributes. As a public entertainer and free spender, the
man was very popular especially with children and those who patronised his services. With minimum
efforts on his own part but with large doses of public naivety and ruling class bankruptcy, Estrada
succeeded in carrying over his popularity from public entertainment to politics. He became a political
celebrity and a hero. But the party did not last long. On December 7, 2000, the 22-member Philippine
Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, began the trial of President Estrada on four charges:
"corruption, bribery, betrayal of public trust, and culpable violation of the Constitution." A conviction

on one of the four charges would be sufficient to remove him from office; but regardless of the weight
of evidence that would be produced by the prosecution, it would require a two-thirds majority vote in
the trial court to convict him on any of the charges. In other words, the Senate-judges could shut their
eyes and ears to all the evidence and simply wait for the moment to put up their hands for or against.
That is the beauty of "democratic" Constitutions. The charge on which Estrada's impeachment trial was
based was that he took an equivalent of $8 million in bribes from illegal gambling syndicates. But as
the trial proceeded more allegations of criminal misconduct were thrown up by prosecution witnesses.
One allegation was that Estrada was keeping a bank account under a false name, that at the time of
revelation, the account held $10 million, and that Estrada desperately tried to transfer the account to
another name after the first name was uncovered. It was later alleged that Estrada and three
260

of his mistresses were keeping accounts in seven banks and that these accounts held about 671.5
million. This, the prosecutors said, contrasted sharply with the $690,000 Estrada declared as assets on
taking the oath of office two years ago. This would be a clear violation Philippine Anti-Corruption
Law. The prosecutors must have congratulated themselves am nailing Estrada at last. How I wish
politics and law followAristotle's deductive logic. But don't. Jubilantly, the trial prosecutors, who were
by no means neutral in this matter, ivinE, been appointed by Estrada's enemies asked the impeachment
court to order the ien banks to produce the records which they (the prosecutors) required to prove their
ations. Estrada's lawyers opposed the application, insisting that the court had no "iction on the matter.
When the court rejected the prosecutors' applications, they - a step that politically terminated the
relevance of the Constitution and accelerated process that led to Estrada's resignation or, more
correctly, his removal from office. process embodies the essential character ofwhat I call the Philippine:
democracy. I am g to extra-parliamentary actions which finally got Estrada out of office. These actions,
mg to the model of democracy fashioned and promoted by the "international -t!hiT," are
unconstitutional, illegal and undemocratic. But this point is being evaded -international community."
Why? Because the result, namely the replacement of a more Americanised Filipino was more important
than insisting on academic ns of the Constitution. The question, however, is: Was the process leading to
the of Estrada a re-inforcement of democracy in the Philippines, or its abortion? My 5 that the process
is neither a re-inforcement nor an abortion of democracy; it is a re-definition of democracy for the
Philippines, for us. Let us look at the process
,1111 II
itq

44. NI 1 I ill
I
,111,14,7
The Senate of the Republic of Philippines opened impeachment proceedings against Estrada under
public pressure. It did so, not because it cherished the ideals of at because it wanted to save itself. This

was the common objective of the p optical disagreements on minor tactical issues notwithstanding. The
senators
1,1, Iloilo%
it
,ed. Estrada wanted to use the trial to exonerate him and save his presidency for themselves; those who
opposed him wanted to use the trial to remove him from e themselves. Knowing the political system
very well the Roman Catholic
predominantly Catholic nation, warned in the early stages ofthe impeachment
would call out the people on protest and demonstration if the Senate found the The Church carried out
its threat even before the trial became stalemated. .-:-:-.=ocracy of the "international community" the
action of the Church should crizi=ial incitement or treasonable felony. But it passed as element of
Philippine
'1111111,11(410
'II`
4, demonstrations calling for the resignation ofEstrada continued, the Vice - Nlacapagal-Arroyo,
daughter of a former President, resigned as Philippine So cli,,,j Welfare, a position to which she was
appointed by President Estrada, position of Vice-President, a position into which she was elected
directly She thereafter joined the call for Estrada's resignation. This is another element democracy. The
variant of democracy prescribed for us by Euro-America
261

demands "undivided loyalty" from vice-presidents. Either this, or resignation. ButArroyo, a thoroughly
Americanised Filipino, jettisoned this requirement of democracy and initiated a civil war within the
government of which she was deputy head. As she was doing this, armed guerrillas joined, or were
enlisted into the democratic process (Philippine variant, mind you). During the last weekend of the year
2000 a wave of bomb attacks swept through Manila, the capital. Casualties included 22 dead and more
than 100 wounded. Although security forces linked the bomb attacks to the impeachment trial and
made some arrests, it was not clear on whose side - the president or his opponent - the attackers were
acting. The bomb attacks were followed by death threats, near-physical combat by Senate-judges and
ejection of spectators who were jeering at some senators from the public gallery. Estrada, on his part,
attempted to confine the process to Euro-America prescriptions because therein lay his power: "I think
all ofus should follow the Constitution. We should all follow whatever is the verdict of the senate
impeachment trial." Before then he had alleged that there was a conspiracy against him, as ifpolitics,
including democratic politics is not, by its very nature, conspiracy: "They are doing everything in their
desire to seize power." But Estrada believed his enemies would fail. Why? "Because many people are
praying for me" - just as Catholic priests were leading mass prayers against him. By now the process
was no longer following the written Constitution, for the latter was lagging behind concrete history.
The process was rather following the logic ofpower and the imperative of survival. The An-ned Forces
and the National Police informed the President by telephone and through a delegation that they had
withdrawn their support for him. He was therefore "on his own," as Nigerians would say. That was

treason; but it passed. The Armed Forces, now joined by the political opposition, pledged allegiance to
the Vice-President. That was treason; but it passed. The Vice-President endorsed the statement. Treason
again; but it passed. Finally, the Supreme Court declared the presidency vacant, and later swore in the
vice-President as the new President. Multiple treason; but it passed. Will someone please articulate and
summarise the Philippine democracy for us?
262

Africa and the International Community 21st September, 2000

ANT to preface this discussion on our continent's relationship With the "international community" with
selections from what two of my teachers taught me long ago. One was my teacher in history and
politics, and the other my teacher in the Yoruba language. er was addressing himself to political
activists generally and to those of leftist 'ion in particular; the latter was speaking to oppressed and
dominated people -here. My history teacher cautioned that although human beings make their own they
do not make it just as they wish. Human beings make (their) history with the circumstances,
constraints, and possibilities inherited and transmitted from the while endorsing the thesis that
circumstances make human beings, my teacher -'Aurnan beings also remake circumstances. My Yoruba
language teacher, relying, n the elders, advised that even if one is sent on a slave mission he or she
should e that mission in the manner of a free-born (that is, if a total repudiation of the is impossible).
These are very simple statements, perhaps, not even original to A But they are often forgotten where
and when a consciousness of them could humanity much pain.
Acouple ofweeks ago, the Liberian government announced the arrest, in Liberia, ision journalists
working for a British television station. The four were arrested .1-ting together a documentary to prove
the alleged complicity ofPresident diamond smuggling and "gun-running" in Sierra Leone. The
allegation had .1: international community -America and Britain, in particular. The arrested were
promptly charged to court as required by the Liberian law and the lessons oval community on
democracy and human rights. The charge was that of 2n the weight of the evidence the government
claimed to possess, including journalists went ahead with the alleged activities after the Liberian
authorities ever reasons, refused to grant them the permission they sought. But the community was not
satisfied with Taylor's brilliant compliance with its precepts: tl:e Liberian government and the person of
the president. = :an state department ordered Taylor to release the journalists immediately; cc -.oed by
the American Ambassador to Liberia who ha's allowed himself the _ I :matic liberty to regularly insult
and threaten the president of the country m A British government official was quoted by the British
Broadcasting BC Ito have warned the Liberian government that it would be pitching itself tional
community if the arrested journalists were not promptly released. A
263

day later, the same medium reported the Secretary-General of the Organisation for African Unity
(OAU) as saying that putting the four journalists on trial was a violation of press freedom. He asked for
their unconditional release. The Liberian government at first replied very forcefully, but then kept quiet.
Two days later the four journalists, including a Sierra Leonean, were released and flown to London.
One of them later admitted the offence and apologised to the Liberian government. About two months
ago, in the countdown to President Bill Clinton's state visit to Nigeria, a newspaper reporter asked a
prominent Nigerian politician and academic what he thought about the American president's visit. His
reply was typical and I paraphrase it: Bill Clinton's visit is a very good thing, for it is "the final seal of
approval" on our country. As the only super power on earth, the United States ofAmerica is the only
country that can give us this seal of approval: it is now left to us, having received this seal, to position
ourselves to be able to exploit its potentials maximally. A few weeks later, as Clinton was about to land
inAbuja, our personage appealed to Nigerian journalists to exercise caution in what they would write
immediately before, during and immediately after Clinton's visit. My reading of his advice was this: I
am not asking you not to report the truth, or to report the truth. All I am asking you is to avoid writing
anything - true or false - that might portray us in bad light and hence jeopardise our ability to reap the
full potentials of Clinton's visit. On Wednesday, August 23, 2000, Radio Nigeria carried a news
analysis on President Bill Clinton's visit to Nigeria. After praising the Federal Government for its
diplomatic "coup" in bringing the most powerful man in the world to Nigeria, the news analyst then
contrasted Nigeria's democratic regime (on which Clinton's visit would place a stamp of authenticity)
with the non-democratic regimes of Idi Amin (Uganda), Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire) and Muammar
Gaddafi (Libya). I was shocked that such a grotesque comparison can be put out by a Nigerian
government medium - all in the service of the international community. The radio also reported that the
United States embassy in Nigeria had requested for the list of our National Assembly's principal
officers. The, same news broadcast reported that Nigeria's former Heads of State and members of the
National Assembly had bee:. asked to report on Friday, August 25, to be accredited for admission.to the
state banquets. to be organised for the visitor. Days before the arrival of President Clinton, the
America:: State Department had announced that a grant of about 4.5 million American dollars wouLl
be given to Nigeria for the strengthening of democracy in the country. The grant would channeled
specifically to the Labour Movement and the Ministry of Defence. Each of these announcements
together with how it was made was an act of national humiliation. I understancl that this is nothing
when compared with the humiliation inflicted on our nation during the vi itself The announcement of
the grant was duly made during Clinton's visit. But the American president did not forget to ask our
president to press the Organisation of Petroleum Exports. Countries (OPEC) to reduce the price of
crude oil. On Thursday, August 24, two African Heads of State, including ours, went to Si .tea. Leone
to deliver to imprisoned Foday Sankoh a letter announcing his removal anz replacement as leader of the
rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF). That was shon
264

Ji.steer the international community had approved the setting up of an international war crime tri':= al
to try Sankoh and his murderous gang. The following day, the international community, lz preparing for

an international conference on racism in SouthAfrica, had arrogated to the credit for ending apartheid
in South Africa and bringing about democracy and rity rule in that country. Nothing was said of the
30-year armed struggle that actually Azania. That same day while celebrating the appointment of
General Abdulsalami
r as international community's special envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo Radio Nigeria
described President Laurent Kabila as another Mobutu, while ignoring a's complaint that his country, a
sovereign member of the United Nations, has been by its neighbours. The rise and proliferation in
Africa of non-governmental organisations (NG0s) -almost exclusively by the international community have been described as a lution" comparable, according to one European writer, to the rise of the
nation-state However, many people now know that what the international community claims doing
through its funding NG0s, it is actually negating through the contents of the
es it supports, through its pressure on governments and institutions in Africa, and the policies and
activities of the owners, agents and representatives of giant nal corporations, that is, through
globalisation. The question therefore is: What is the status ofAfrica in the international community?
modern slaves? Are our governments mere slave prefects? I return to my teachers. e between what the
international community induces us to believe about itself it is in reality can be established by concrete
examination of concrete reality both lime and in crisis situation. And we should be guided in our
relationship with the 1 community not just by what they say, but by what they do and what they make
do and say. Finally, although our situation is a humiliating one, we should know ye that knows that he
or she is a slave - and goes about his or her slave mission as - is half-free, but a slave that rejoices in
slavery and glorifies the slave master is clover into servitude.

265

86
The Warning from Uganda - 20th April, 2000 Ij ET us 'go over the story to see if such a tragedy can
happen, or may indeed be happening, in Nigeria. About a decade ago, in Kanungu, a semi-rural
community in Uganda, a middle-aged priest in one of Christianity's orthodox churches was defrocked
for claiming, among other things, that he had made physical contact with Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary, and
God, and had been given harsh messages from them to the priests, members of the church and the
world. The church authorities believed the defrocked priest had lost his head. The man bowed and
disappeared. Eight years later, he re-appeared in the same community, bearing the same name, and
almost the same looks (except for his slight ageing) and manner of dressing. He had however, acquired
a foreign accent and greater eloquence in speaking. After hiring a roof over his head, and assuming the
title pastor, the returnee established a church which he called The Movement for the Restoration of the
Ten Commandments of God, whose doctrines and messages were exactly the same as those of the rebel
faction which he had unsuccessfully attempted to establish in the orthodox church. The membership of
the Movement (or rather Church) grew very fast, especially among the poor and the sick. Most of the
congregation were women and children. Shortly before the end of the last millennium, about September
1999, the pastor announced to his congregation and the public that God had told him (the pastor) that

He intended to end the world at the end of the millennium, that is, at midnight on December 31, 1999.
Only His chosen children, members of the church would go to heaven. The members were then asked
to sell off all their earthly possessions, hand over the proceeds to the pastor and his Council of Elders
for onward transportation to paradise - where there are no thieves, no bankers and no.revenue collectors
- and prepare to go to heaven. The point of departure to heaven was to be the Church. The members did
as they were told. They assembled on the night of December 31, sang, danced, prayed, and then lay
down and slept. They were shocked to wake up the following morning in the church for they had
expected to resume their life in heaven. The pastor, after rebuking them for their lack of faith, then
offered an explanation: the Lord had sent him a message, probably a letter, that the world would no
longer end on December 31, 1999, but a year later, on December 31, 2000. The congregation then
demanded to know how they would survive for one year, since they had parted with all they had. That
was where their problems - and those of their pastor and Church Elders - started. As the agitation for
the return of their properties gained in strength, the Church leaders - the direct beneficiaries of the
dispossession of the congregation - planned a series of actions aimed at liquidating
266

ueive members of the church in its four main branches.

After holding a Council ofTillers' Meeting, the church ieadersNp announced L1gt of Deliverance for
March 17, 2000, and instructed all church members, especially use who had donated their earthly
belongings to God, to attend. The leaders then went to town and bought large quantities of explosives
and incendiary chemicals and several boxes match. As the congregation assembled for the Night of
Deliverance, the leaders opened sive and sustained attack. They thereafter disappeared after ensuring
that all escape
es from the hall had been sealed. Similar attacks took place about the same time in all four branches of
the church. At first it was thought that this was a case of mass suicide, with further investigation it
became clear that what had happened was premeditated murder. As at the time of writing, more than
1,000 corpses had been recovered from locations belonging to the church and its leaders. It was after
this tragedy that the following essential facts about the doomsday pastor his church started to emerge
through public testimonies: he was a psychiatric patient on conditional discharge from government
psychiatric hospital, failed to report for -up; reports about his bizarre activities and mode of preaching
were regularly flied both the police and the government right up to the tragedy; several top people no
including police, judges, politicians and businessmen and women had belonged t cizurch which is now
openly referred to as a religious cult. My question is: if in this tragic story Uganda had been substituted
with Nigeria and had been substituted with a remote community in Nigeria, how many people would
have received the story with greater doubt than that with which they had the Ugandan story? Maybe
children and imbeciles. The truth is that every community-today harbours doomsday pastors and
bizarre religious cults. In every city, ainmunity in Nigeria there are religious cults with names more
grotesque than those movement. The names and practf_ces are mainly corruptions of the orthodox
names and practices. They feed on the poverty, ignorance and misery ofpeoT-:le: nse to mass poverty is
to ask poor people to donate the little they have to the

fast and engage in grotesque prayer sessions, and watch out for witches in their Mad neighbourhoods;
on ignorance, they are told that knowledge comes through ecl by stupor; and on loneliness and misery,
the pastors of doom assure their incransillut it is sufficient to be friendly with Jesus Christ. If luck were
to be removed from and if effect were to follow cause logically and in proportion, then the Uganda-dal,
and ought to be happening here in Nigeria everyday. 7111dings housing the doomsday churches range
in design from ultra-modem to tcon, _ ,771tive; the sizes range from palatial to ghetto-like. Their
names are more ':anda's Church for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, with such
words as "faith," "ministry," "revival," "restoration," "deliverance," aid triumphant" appearing in the
name of each of them. They all claim fr-'
Jesus Christ as focus of worship. They all use the Holy Bible and employ
sinein2 and dancing in worship. Each has a leader and founder called Pastor or both. Most of the
leaders are men. When a man is pastor, a woLiari 2 67

invariably his wife or concubine - is deputy pastor; where the leader is a woman, a man, called the
Elder, poses as an adviser; but he is the de-facto controller. The membership of the churches is heavily
dominated by women and children; there are normally two languages ofworship: English and
vernacular, each heavily corrupted; the churches operate continuously, with some worshippers
permanently or semi-permanently residing there. The churches of doom operate as healing centres with
the leader as chief healer: not healer of sickness alone, but of witchcraft, evil spirits, poverty, misery,
misfortune, functional illiteracy, etc. The patients pay for each act of"healing" through their noses. Each
has visioners and prophets; the organisation is simply the leader on the one hand, and the followers, on
the other; the leader is the chief executive, secretary, accountant, treasurer, cashier and security officer;
each gives centrality of place to donations and dues - indeed the most visible church activity is
donation or offering. In order to retain their captive members in stupefying ignorance, the pastors ban
politics, public affairs and scientific discourse from their churches. Although each of the churches has
politicians as leading members, they all denounce politics as evil; several of them are built near
primary and secondary schools which the church members regularly invade to preach. The authorities
and some teachers in many schools have turned the schools into doomsday churches, with the pupils
and students as forced members. As I was reflecting on the scourge of doomsday churches and their
long-term effect on society, my mind drifted again to the Sharia. It occurred to me that in their different
ways, both represent a huge historical degeneration, a throw-back in history, a significant backward
slide in humanity's march from savagery, superstition, primitivity and alienation. When we add to this
state of affairs the continuing social degeneration in the spheres of economy, politics and morality, we
begin to appreciate the real state of our society at the beginning of the millennium. It is not enough to
bemoan the tragedy in Uganda. You should rather look closely at your own community and wait
patiently for the Nigerian versions of the tragedy, or try to prevent them.
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87
Twenty Years of Zimbabwe: A Balance Sheet 30th March, 2000
1111 WENTY years ago, on April 18, 1980, the radical movement in Calabar - with students,
academics and workers as main components - organised a rally in the old African Club to celebrate one
ofthe most significant events, at least for our continent, .. the second half of2Oth century, namely, the
independence of former Southern Rhodesia. mg, marched and danced as Robert Mugabe, flanked by
his comrades and compatriots, ..ff-.. ...: zed from the underground to take his oath of office as Prime
Minister of the new 1,L--..can nation, Zimbabwe. Our jubilation was duplicated around the continent,
the black , : ra and revolutionary communities across the globe. The banner everywhere was: .. ,, -:.7 to
the people, land to landless!" That was 20 years ago. Today, Zimbabwe is again in the news. But there
is this big e::: r .7-1,-. ' In April 1980, in addition to the understandable jubilation in the revolutionary
ez.--,-.: al: the countries of the world, with South Africa as a possible exception, officially =d
congratulated Mugabe; political leaders from the world's geopolitical regions amiL IL,.;--olothcal
blocs, including the two opposing super powers (America and the Soviet iLimilic.- . saluted him, with
many making offers of economic, social, technical, administrative - an.: : , f.T. 7.11itary - assistance;
the world media, both electronic and print, carried screaming Imitcw.1,...:-,,ts and editorial comments
announcing the collapse of yet another colonial fortress in L1L February 2000, even the most
independent, self-respecting and objective ,:arlIV:, 71:,:::::: and political commentators in Nigeria
joined the Western media and the new innise,7L ,----- m calling Robert Mugabe a "tyrant" and a
"dictator". -: : do we understand, and then begin to explain this transformation or ammitman(.:17 - : _
Is ( of Mugabe or the world?) to the younger generation - especially students -mar , : . , an were
unborn, or were infants, in April 1980? Of course, history has ippoliullauct L - an :, p pular heroes and
heroines who later turned tyrannical and ended tragically. hgabe a true example, or instance of this?
The historical turn was dramatised it .4,11ifr...;1:. :: an: :acid in Zimbabwe in the second weekend of
February 2000, over a Draft .-. The country's Election Directorate announced that 697,754 people voted
..S:-,210 voted "yes". Robert Mugabe, who became president in, 19879 had kwa "yes" vote. In fact, he
said before the vote that a "no" vote would be a He and his ruling party, ZANU-PF, were therefore the
losers in the ithur.-.:.. L.-/iyaOlofficially and technically the contest was not fought along party
lines. ...,i, ...: i: I.,: a little more closely at the figures. The country has a population
269

conservatively estimated a 11 million. About 100,000 of these are white and another 100,000 are Asian
and mixed. The rest, constituting about 98 per cent of the population, are black. Assuming, again
conservatively, that half the population is of voting age, this would give a voting population of 5.5
million. Hence not more than 20 per cent of black voters actually voted. On the contrary, the white
population which constitutes a very small fraction ofthe total population but owns most ofthe land,
mobilised in full and voted in full. Those whites who had fled to South Africa in the wake of
Zimbabwe's independence suddenly returned to the country to vote. Here then is the irony: the blacks
whose very lives were in question and who had previously been very enthusiastic in electoral politics
recorded a very low turn-out while the white who had hitherto boycotted post-colonial elections even
crossed the borders to vote "no". The question is why? My provisional answer here is that the
Zimbabwean black population did not think that the question of land re-appropriation and redistribution should, or could be decided in a referendum, the type that took place last month where the
"international community" was in the vanguard of the campaign not only against Robert Mugabe, but
also against land redistribution to the landless Zimbabweans, including veterans of the war of liberation
and independence. Why, an honest, but simple-minded person, may ask, couldn't dispossessed Africans,
who constitute the overwhelming majority of both the population and electorate, come out in force to
vote for the constitution and hence for land re-distribution which was its main element? My provisional
answer is that it is both insensitive and cynical to ask thieves and their victims to decide whether the
stolen property should be returned. Personally I would not take part in such a question-and-answer. But
then, this is politics, not moral philosophy. Events since the referendum, including the upsurge
ofnationalist anger especially among the liberation war veterans, and forcible, but illegal, land
occupation by blacks, appear to bear me out. One may ask why so many black activists, including
"human rights" and "pro-democracy" campaigners, took part, very vigorously in the "no" campaign.
Well, there may be several explanations. Some opposition campaigners could have argued somewhat
like this: since one could only vote for the Constitution as a whole and not parts of it and since there
was no way of separating the land question from the other questions, including the presidency
ofMugabe and the governance of ZANU-PF, the safest thing to do was to vote "no". These people, for
some reasons, considered getting Robert Mugabe out more important than the planned redistribution of
land to their landless countrymen and women. Taking a long view of history I think they are wrong,
tragically wrong. Four other issues featured prominently in the referendum campaign. These were
Mugabe's long stay in office and power; the alleged dictatorial character ofhis regime and his personal
rule; his involvement in the civil and interventionist war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC);
and the alleged corruption of his government. A decade ago, the charges would have included the
"destruction of the economy through socialist policies and programmes". History has however,
temporarily, but mercifully, relieved the "Marxist" veteran of that charge: the "socialist" experiment in
Zimbabwe has since been abandoned. President Robert Mugabe definitely has a case to answer on the
charge of dictatorial
270

acts and tendencies. And it does not matter that most of his accusers are guilty of worse climes,
including treachery against the people of Zimbabwe. When someone is accused of thief, it is
illegitimate for him to answer: "What of you, you no be thief?" Political
IIIII
torship, unless sufficiently explained and mitigated by historical circumstances which people
themselves, and not just the leaders, understand and appreciate, is sufficient to a leader from office and
power. Mugabe also has a case to answer on the charge of oily-ement in the Congo war. But the case is

not that of involvement per se, but the loyment of state resources. Unless he can demonstrate that the
state and people of abwe were under threat as a result of the war, then he has a big explanation to make.
he ought to have done as a revolutionary and nationalist was either to mobilise his trymen and women
to move into the DRC, as volunteers, or if the situation was -ently serious and considered to be so, to
resign as president and go back to the bush guerilla fighter, but now for a new cause. On the question of
staying too long in office or power, Mugabe has no case to -en The equation of democracy with
governmental or leadership tenure and elections igany type is the most dangerous and cynical
ideological and psychological campaign of likeuew imperialism, the "international community," against
the peoples of the Third World. fact is that given a historical setting, several factors account for the rate
of change of Indership, and an honest researcher can uncover them. Finally, on the issue of land
stribution, it is Mugabe's opponents who have a case to answer before the landless, 11111EE7.f. Africa,
before history. And sooner or later, they will answer.
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88
History and Women of Valour 5th September, 2002
"F1R, OM the middle ofthe 1980s, the attention paid by the media and public institutions to women
and the women's question has been rising steadily. This is explained, in part, by the upsurge in women's
activism - which can be similarly dated - and, in part, by the steadily increasing proliferation ofnongovemmental organisations (NGOs) on whose platforms the greater part of this activism takes place. It
has to be stated as strongly as possible that the reason for this rising media and public service attention
to women is not a sudden revelation or insight into the nature and magnitude of women's role in social
reproduction and development. NGOs concerned with the women's question are increasing faster, both
in absolute and relative sense, than any segment ofthe NGO industry. Women's NGOs so to say,
dominate the industry. Beyond that, women play prominent roles in almost all NGOs especially the
community-based ones. They are not left behind even in those NGOs which claim to be concerned with
boys and men. These NGOs and their functionaries are newsmakers; and the media cannot, for long,
ignore newsmakers who also happen to be "media-friendly", to use a current popular slang. There is a
limit to social prejudice. And the media knows this as much as any other institution. But the activities
of women NGOs, and indeed all NGOs in which women play leading or prominent roles, are so called
civil-society activities concerned mainly with issues like violence and discrimination against women,
human rights of women, sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender and women's
"empowerment", children's rights, environment, population and development, poverty eradication, etc.
In these very important questions, women NGOs consider themselves in "partnership" with the
government, or complementary to the government. Neither the NGOs nor their leaders and members
consider themselves in opposition to the government or, more sp6cifically, to the state. In spite of the
increasingly high profile enjoyed by women and women NGOs in the media we have not been reading
of women who confront or challenge the state politically, either directly and explicitly, or by the logic

of their activities. By "challenge" and "confrontation" I do not mean simply bearing and using arms.
But I do not exclude the employment of arms by women. Afterall; women had borne arms in the past
and are still doing so - some in defence of the established order (e.g. America, Israel and Nigeria),
others in opposition to it (e.g. Palestine and Latin America). What I mean is radical criticism ofthe state
which in effect means an implicit or explicit advocacy of a different type of state: not the present state
doing different things or doing the same things differently, but a qualitatively different type of state
doing qualitatively different things and
272

loying qualitatively different methods and perspectives. Radical criticism, which also includes armed
criticism, is different in character from DIGOs' supplication, advocacy and attitudes to the state and to
government in power. I am by any means, condemning women NGOs and activists, or even criticising
them. How I? They are doing very useful work, and the world is better for it. What then am I trying sy?
Two things: First, that there is a gap in women's "empowerment", created by the rance of radical
criticism as defined above. And secondly, that my position has and justification in history. I shall go a
little back in history and give illustrations from countries: America, Nigeria, Greece andArgentina. ca. I
have just finished reading an extra-ordinary biography: Woman of Valour: t Sanger And The Birth
Control Movement in America. I got the title of this from this moving biography of Margaret Sanger
(1879-1967) written by Ellen Chesler. advocacy for more than 50 years was simply this: "Access to a
safe and reliable ofpreventing pregnancy is a necessary condition of women's liberation and, in turn,
progress". The advocacy has become a core feminist platform in our time: "women fiaidamental right
to control their own bodies". This advocacy according to Sanger's was a "deceptively simple
proposition". But for this she went to jail in 1917. jailed not for making this advocacy, but for acting on
it: she distributed contraceptives t women in New York. Until she died at the ripe age of 88 Margaret
Sanger
this principle, confronting men and women of power and courageously and single-aging all sorts
ofprejudices - at home and abroad. Today, many feminists do origin of the principle they take for
granted. Margaret did not bear arms, she remain a socialist for too long; but she articulated a demand
which cannot be apatriarchal and capitalist system. She was a revolutionary in the finest sense of
The following narrative is a tribute to Nina Emma Mba on whose book, ibmen Mobilised, it is based.
The specific story is in Chapter III: "Political Nigeria: The Women's War". There are, in fact, two
stories: the prelude before, the women's war (1925-1929); and the women's war itself (1929). in parts
of Igbo and Ibibio-speaking areas of colonial Nigeria. The `purification" movements by colonial
administrators, were essentially a of British colonialism and the new culture, "civilisation" and social it.
The women carried out their mobilisation and agitation right to the rulers and warrant chiefs, the
appointed representatives of the colonial The women's demands were wide: ranging from demand for
"a return to the system, particularly those aspects which had direct bearing on women" ,ofd new
coinage currency to opposition to native courts. According to ma the present Idemnili Local
Government Area of Anambra State, "the dbstrauctions on one of the main roads, burned the market,

and filled the with refuse". Women withdrew their children from school and stopped A military escort
was sent to Nnobi, among some other places, to The women's war took place in the last quarter of 1929
and covered
273

Owerri and Calabar provinces of colonial Nigeria. The core of the women's protest this time was antitaxation. Mba reports: "Until the end of December 1929, when troops restored order, ten native courts
were destroyed, a number of others damaged, houses of native personnel were attacked, factories were
looted and 59 women were killed". Put in historical context, the women's war together with the
skirmishes that preceded it, was revolutionary. Greece: Greece was one ofthe countries conquered and
occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. In the communist-led National Liberation Army of
Greece (ELAS) -the main fighting organisation for the liberation of Greece - was a Greek woman,
Electra Apostolu. On July 25, 1944 at the age of32, she was on a secret mission near Athens when she
was seized by the Nazis and taken to Crystal Hotel, which was then used by the occupation army for
"interrogation". No captive emerged from Nazi "interrogation" alive. The following dialogue took place
between Electra and her torturers: "Name!", her torturers shouted at her. "Greek woman", she replied.
"Address!", they shouted at her again. "Greece", she again replied defiantly. And to the question
"Occupation!", she shouted back: "serving the Greek people". Thereafter she remained silent. Electra
once said: "I am never afraid that I might let something out. The moment I am seized, I tell myself I
have no memory, no ears, no tongue, no past". She did exactly that as she was tortured to death. She
was a communist revolutionary, first class. The Nazis killed her, but they did not obtain any
information about the location of her fighting unit. Three months later, on October 22, 1944, Electra's
unit entered Athens and cleared the last remnants of the occupation army. Argentina: In 1976, a military
junta seized power from President Isabel Peron of Argentina. During its six-year rule, the junta
kidnapped and murdered hundreds of people, including over 30,000 young people, children and babies.
In 1977, a group ofArgentina women decided to break the silence of death, thereby defying the junta.
They formed the Mothers of the Maza de Mayo, or May Square Mothers. Every Thursday, the Mothers
gathered in the square located close to the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, the capital, with banner:
"Return our Children Alive". In her book, Out of the Shadows: Women, Resistance and Politics in
South America, Jo Fisher wrote of the Mothers: "Outside Argentina, their courageous struggle became
a symbol for the human rights movement in Latin America and a source of inspiration for women
throughout the continent in the fight for democracy". The struggle of the Mothers contributed
immensely to the discovery ofthe full extent of the junta's atrocities, the prevention or termination of
other atrocities, the eventual removal ofthe junta and installation of democratic governance
inArgentina, and the trial of the leaders of the junta. The Mothers were a revolutionary movement.
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89
America and the United Nations 10th April, 2003
'N 1918, towards the conclusion of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson of the States of America
presented a plan to the victorious Allied Powers for an international association of nations. Wilson's
plan later became the basis of the Covenant League of Nations. The League, ostensibly designed as an
"international alliance for 7,i-ervation of peace", with headquarters at Geneva, Switzerland, existed
from 1920 1,,16., and was superseded by the United Nations. In spite of the role played by the resident
in producing the Covenant, the United States ofAmerica did not become cer f the League. Why?
Because the American Senate refused to ratify the Covenant. ' ,,'" or, Because the Senate was opposed
to one of the League's articles which enjoined it-7-states to "preserve the territorial independence of all
other members, even owns rulers ofAmerica wanted to be free to occupy, annex or colonise other states
:oposing an international alliance "for the preservation of peace". Indeed, as :1L-Nations was being
formed, America was occupying the whole of Dominican
1111111!1?1 ;:'17 2 -"art of Cuba, the whole of Philippines, the whole of Puerto Rico, etc. The
-:liewhich was admitted into the League in 1934 was expelled five years later, in 1114' 4 "`: *it attacked
Finland, another member of the League. American rulers did not gh such experience. When American
rulers could not guarantee that the save as instrument of their foreign policy or, at the very least, that it
would way of realising their colonial and hegemonistic objectives, they refused to tilt-22 designed.
They stayed out of the League and ensured that the international isaan::r ni-Cf realised its full
potential as a guarantor of international peace. It could
MiC111111 lyVar II (1939-1945). :-L.storians tell us that the United Nations was "designed to be the
successor eat but that "its immediate origin was the Atlantic Charter signed 111 mann: d the coast of
Newfoundland by American President Franklin D. Roosevelt LI-Aister, S it Winston Churchill, on
August 14, 1941". That was about 24 War IL. America, Britain, and France - dragging the peoples of
their mmHg!: no-7- were already in a de-facto military alliance known to history as Allied : w Socialist
Soviet Republics (USSR), or the Soviet Union, was soon !Milli:: 111 .". Axis Powers, made up of
Germany and Japan, in the main, and again, anAmerican president who initiated the idea of another
275

American rulers approached the conception and design of the United Nations with the same
hegemonistic objectives with which they had approached the formation of the League of Nations. With
the passage of time, which saw a sharp rise in the power of America over other nations, and with other
momentous global events that strengthened American imperialism, American rulers were in a stronger
position to initiate a new international organisation which they could lead and use, either alone or with
junior partners. This time, Atherican rulers succeeded. The structure of the United Nations, together
with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, has continued to play a critical role in the

domination, and use, of the United Nations by American rulers. In the Atlantic Charter, Roosevelt and
Churchill said they hope "to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of
dwelling safely within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all men in all lands
may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want". They advocated the establishment of what they
termed a "wider and permanent system of general security which would eliminate armaments ofnations
mat m9-17

aggression or breach of peace". No nation may attack another except when ordered by the Security
Council in the enforcement ofthe Council's resolution to apply force. The Secretary-General is
appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council. He or she is
responsible to the Security Council as an administrative assistant mandated, not to initiate actions, but
to carry out the instructions ofthe Security Council in Eriafters of war and peace. The General
Assembly ofthe United Nations, where every member-state has only lice vote, is a purely deliberative
organ which, in all substantive matters, including sanctions, ca.-i only make recommendations to the
Security Council. The structure ofthe United Nations, led with the domination of the world by capitalist
imperialism, allowed America, the er of global imperialism, to dominate the world body and use it with fierce resistance, first, from the Soviet Union and China. But with the collapse of the Soviet bloc
in the nd half of 1990s, American hegemony in the United Nations became stronger. The don has since
become worse. What we now have is a new United Nations which has presented with an ultimatum:
either serve as a foreign policy instrument ofAmerica or ored by the only super-power in existence. The
road to the present calamity visited on the people of Iraq and the Arab and world by American rulers
and their "allies" was a very short one. And it shows that weak and poor peoples and nations of the
world, the United Nations now offers protection nor security against barbarians and bloody predators if it ever did.
rulers, the initiators of the United Nations, wanted to invade and occupy Iraq to its oil resources and
remove the only real threat to their hegemony in the Middle They started a build-up of military forces unknown to history in brutal sophistication borders of the country. It was after this that they approached
the Security Council resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq. They failed to get one, not
amendments. Although France threatened to use its veto power if there was a the draft resolution would
obtain nine voters, American rulers could not get the more than three other members of the council.
abandoned the Council, gave it one-day ultimatum, followed by a 48-hour to President Saddam
Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq, and finally a one-day to foreigners and United Nations personnel to
leave Iraq. Two hours after the ultimatum to Iraq, American rulers attempted to eliminated Saddam
Hussein lieutenants. Shortly after this, and in spite of huge anti-war protests across ially in America and
Europe, American and British rulers launched a savage
while, neither the Security Council, nor the UN Secretary-General, did Le did nothing simply because
they could do nothing. The post-Cold War :7,as become irrelevant except as post-facto American
"undertakers". The hip has replaced it.
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90
From Vietnam to Saddam's Iraq 24th April, 2003
TBE recent bloody coup d' etat staged by American global dictatorship in Iraq (March 20, 2003 - April
10, 2003) brings back to mind an assessment which Howard Zinn made in his book, A People's
History of the United States: "From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the
history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat
a nationalist movement in a tiny peasant country" and failed. When the United States fought in Vietnam
it was organised modem technology versus organised human beings, and human beings won". Thirty
years later, history produced a reverse in Iraq. We may thenask: why did "organised modem
technology" fail to defeat "organised human beings" in Vietnam but did so in Iraq? Is it simply because
Iraq is not Vietnam? Or, because 1975 is not 2003? Or, because the resistance in Iraq was not a
"nationalist movement" or "organised human beings"? Or, because the military technology used against
Saddam Hussein's Iraq was more modem or more organised than the one used against Vietnam? These
questions will not interest the global dictatorship, and its ideologues, its partisans, its happy slaves and
its inspired media that violated all the ethics ofjoumalism in what they called a "war". But they must
interest all those who know, and value, true human freedom and true liberation. I commend Nigerian
political analysts and columnist who have described the global dictatorship's action in Iraq as a-coup d'
etat. I commend them for their thoughtfulness and perceptiveness. What happened was indeed a coup d'
etat. Although a coup d' etat is a form of war, and war itself is a continuation of politics, a coup d'etat
has the status of scientific category. It is specific. A coup d'etat is a "sudden and decisive action in
politics, especially one affecting a change of government illegally and by force". The global
dictatorship's action in Iraq had an essentially political objective: to remove a government and replace
it. It was achieved by force. It was illegal in the context of the United Nations. The overall strategic
objectives are to create a more favourable political condition for the flow of Gulf oil, to weaken or
destroy the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), to strengthen the hegemony of the
global dictatorship in the Middle East, and to protect the dictatorship's proxy in the Middle East,
namely, the state of Israel. On the contrary, American ruler's action in Vietnam, and indeed in the whole
of former Indo-China (comprising Vietnam. Cambodia and Laos), was to "contain" a dangerous type
o:- nationalism. American rulers have always considered nationalism in parts of the world as
278

o'l,h111
erous to their global interests. On this account alone, Vietnamese nationalism had to be =gained. But
then, Vietnamese nationalism was revolutionary (which meant a commitment to muss mobilisation and
radical change). It was also communist (which meant a commitment lb universal struggle against
capitalism and imperialism). Vietnam was therefore a most
erous enemy which could be defeated not simply by removing and replacing a regime, defeating a
movement. On the contrary, Iraq's nationalism, or more correctly, Saddam in's nationalism, was not
communist: it was in fact anti-communist; it was not nary, because it was not based on mass
mobilisation. Beyond this, Saddam Hussein's sm was severely compromised internally. It was not an
Iraq nationalism but an nationalism built onArab hegemony over other Iraq nationalities including, in
particular, c. It was not also an Islamic nationalism: Saddam Hussein's regime was a secular To make
matter worse, Saddam Hussein's regime could not manage, let alone reconcile, reships between the
various antagonistic Islamic sects in Iraq. Indeed, he seemed built his power partly on religious and
ethnic divisions in his country. Let us look at the highlights of the political history of modem Iraq. The
country, is coextensive with ancient Mesopotamia, was invaded and occupied during World 1(19141918) by Britain in its war against the Ottoman Empire. At the end of the war saw the defeat and
dissolution of the Empire, Iraqis demanded the withdrawal of administration. Britain rejected the
demand and, instead, nominally transferred the League of Nations as a mandate, while retaining full
control. Britain made m in 1921 and installed a monarch, King Faisal I. The League of Nations' ended
in 1932 and, with this, Iraq became nominally independent" but not before to sign a 25-year "alliance"
with Britain (1930-1955). From 1932 onwards, acquired a different type of contradictions and
turbulence which imperialists uilders have massively exploited. nz World War II (1939-1945) Britain
re-inforced its military presence in Iraq pops in Basra. Iraq experienced its first military coup in 1936.
This was lour other coups within five years. Each was a bloody affair. Iraq was bitterly opposed to the
state of Israel and for this reason, among others, it received the Soviet Union. But when the latter
extended support to Kurdish nationalism, severed relations with that super power in 1955. It was then
that American enemies of communist Soviet Union, turned to Iraq, first with "technical" ;mil later with
military assistance as well. On July 14, 1958, the Iraqi army etat, proclaimed a republic and declared.
Islam the national religion. From ofthe restored relations with the Soviet Union, the Iraqi state,
whatever the has been guided by an ideology standing on three main pillars: anti-Kurdish Anticommunism and pan-Arabism. 104 state had pursued its anti-Kurdish nationalism and anti-communism
with it could muster. It was under this ideology and on the platform of the that Saddam Hussein, an
Arab, came to power in Iraq on July 16, 1979. The a Pan-Arab Movement, had been formed in 1952 in
Syria, but had quickly
279

gained roots in Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and the Gulf states. Its mission was "Freedom. Unity, and
Socialism in One Arab nation with an eternal mission". We may now loo thetrajectory of the
Vietnamese nationalist resistance, do a comparison between it and that of Iraq, and then conclude.
France colonised Vietnam for about 80 years (1860-1940). At the start of World War II, Japan expelled
the French. In the course of the war, however, British forces displaced Japan from southern Vietnam;
but rather than grant freedom to the Vietnamese, Britain turned over the territory it had occupied to

France, the expelled and humiliated colonial power. Nationalist China which had occupied northern
Vietnam was persuaded byAmerican rulers to hand over the territory to France. Thus Vietnam was recolonised by France on the authority of the Allied Powers which had fought and won the war in the
name of freedom. The Vietnamese pleaded with President Truman ofArnerica to extend to them the
benefits of the global victory over Hitler. Truman referred them to the colonial power, France. The
latter rejected their plea. The Vietnamese people, organised under Vietmihn, with Ho Minh as leader,
then confronted the French colonialists and, with an essentially peasant army, defeated the French after
eight years of fighting (1946-1954). America intervened and replaced France as the new colonial
power. The Vietnamese did not go for any compromise: they confronted the new colonialists and after
about 20 years of heroic struggle, expelled the Americans, unified their country and proclaimed real
freedom in 1975. An attempt may now be made to pull the various strands of this piece together for an
answer to my main question: Why was Vietnam victorious, and Iraq defeated? There were several
factors. In the first place, the Ba' ath Party was not a revolutionary movement. In the second place, the
party was neither anti-imperialist nor anti-capitalist. And yet sought to mobilise the people. Against
what, and for what? In the third place, unlike Vietnamese nationalism which was genuinely national,
Iraqi nationalism under the Ba' ath Party and Saddam Hussein was tribalistic and sectarian. In the
fourth place, Saddam Hussein was not Ho Chi Minh: the latter was not living in palaces and wearing
starched military uniforms for television cameras. In the fifth place Ho Chi Minh was not blowing hot
and cold towards imperialism and fighting his neighbours for reasons that were neither principled nor
historically and universally progressive. In the sixth place Ho Chi Minh did not, and could not,
exaggerate his military strength to his people. He did not because he was a communist revolutionary;
and he could not because the whole population was militar mr)bilised. In the seventh place during the
Vietnamese resistance the Soviet Union existed as a super power and nuclear power; China also existed
as a revolutionary, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist country. The two giants served as a counter-force
to American rulers in world politics. When American rulers took on Iraq in March 2003, there was no
counter-force.
280

91
Notes on American Media 13th November, 2003
NE of the presents I received on a recent birthday was a fat book with a heavy title: Manufacturing
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The presentation was made by an American friend
who was very clear on what .11deological and political views were but never expressed any opinion on
them. She me that I would enjoy reading the "intellectual production". I did not read the book -~ately,
but I knew that a need would arise some day to force it out. The need came last month after I had read
two articles: "The 'Left Wing' Media?" '2'rt W. McChesney and John Bellamy Foster (Monthly Review,
June 2003), and Sinner' and 'Accuser', by Okey Ndibe (The Guardian, October 23, 2003), anmat own
partly published article, "In defence of History: Why and How" (1998). iltimprtsz::: article is a
summary presentation of the book and the three articles cited above. Ight :.-oductions are mutually reenforcing. The opening thesis advanced by McChesney and Foster, both editors of the Monthly
7:zzazine, that the rulers ofAmerica have learnt to make ideological warfare "as iiimporz--. -.7. its
operations as military and economic warfare". The case study provided by
1,11111,6
- for this conclusion is the war on Iraq and its subsequent occupation and ionina:.':. n by America.
The ideological warfare is conducted by two means. The first is :lies, or rather, the raising of the
propaganda content of official accounts of the 3y the way, has now entered the guerrilla stage. The
second means adopted by -fAmerica in their ideological offensive is a sustained, vicious attack on the

for its alleged left-wing shift. The media is also accused of hostility to the and its war efforts, and lack
of patriotism" a terrible charge in America. according to McChesney and Foster, "have already
influenced media Rm.. ournalists to be less critical of right-wing politics. The result has been to
'Dorporate and rightist bias already built into the media system". McChesney Fester re-articulated the
"professional code" which is alleged to have guided the ..7scan journalism for many decades. The
"code" is reduced to nine principles" maui::.:izai's first obligation is to the truth; its first loyalty is to
citizens; its essence is a iiiiifivrification; its practitioners must maintain an independence from those
they .: as an independent monitor of power; it must provide a forum for public - 7:promise; it must
strive to make the significant interesting and relevant; it rikettr . ...,e vs comprehensive and
proportional; its practitioners must be allowed to
281

exercise their personal conscience". The authors advanced two propositions here: First, that the
professional code is an ideal which is impossible to attain, or even approximate, because of the "biases"
which the "media owners and the owing class in general" have imposed on the practice of journalism.
The strongest of these biases relates to the media's attitude to the government, namely, that
"government officials and powerful individuals are the primal), legitimate sources for news". The
second proposition is that the range of legitimate debate in American journalism has been, and is still,
the range of debate among the American elite who are essentially conservative, and, on some issues,
actually reactionary. In other wqrcls, politically, the American media tails behind the American elite.
The authors pick init two areas: foreign policy and militarism. They supplied an illustration: The right
of the rulers ofAmeljato "invade any nations it wishes for any reason is never challenged in the press
because, to our_ elites, this is a cardinal right of empire. Likewise, the US equation of capitalism with
democracy, or, more specifically, US dominated capitalism with democracy, is also a given among our
elites and therefore in professional journalism". It would be both "partisan" and "unprofessional" for
any journalist to question this creed. In other words, to be "objective" and "patriotic" in American
journalism is to be conservative and imperialistic. "Objective journalism would almost certainly present
the world exactly as seen by contemporary US conservatives", concluded McChesney and Foster. Okey
Ndibe's piece, "The US Media: 'Sinner' and 'Accuser' (The Guardian, October 23, 2003); was a piece of
righteous indignation. It started with an evaluation of President George W. Bush's image. Ndibe's
verdict was that, from the time ofAmerican invasion of Iraq in March 2003, to October 2003, Bush "It
has gone from the brave vanquisher of terrorists to one of zealous war monger"; from 80 per cent
public rating to 50 per cent. The reason for this sharp drop, says Ndibe, is not far-fetched. President
Bush has been telling lies about the entire American campaign in Iraq. He has been shifting, editing and
revising the originally fraudulent charges against Saddam Hussein. Ndibe separated th charges into
sets: "The first had to do with whether Saddam Hussein had a treasure trove of weapons of mass
destruction", and the second had to do with "whether Saddam Hussein had sponsored terrorists eager to
harm America citizens or interests, or was likely to do so". Before the war, President Bush had
answered these two questions in the affirmative; even now, he continues to answer in the affirmative.
But says Ndibe: "Since the end of the war, those answers look increasingly misconceived, if not
deceptive". That was one of Ndibe's two central propositions. Ndibe's other central proposition was that
the mainstreamAmerican media has been echoing President Bush's lies: "The British media have shown
more guts in querying Prime Minister Tony Blair's Iraqi intelligence than the American media have
mustered in questioning Bush. Instead, the US media's efforts to unmask Bush's seemingly hanky
panky have been tepid. This is hardly surprising. Given the US media's role in helping Bush sell
hysteria to the American public, one can expect no serious effort to expose tht administration's

fraudulent manipulation of intelligence". Ndibe's observations thus re-inforce the Monthly Review
editors' theses.
282

My 1998 article, In defence of history: Why and How, was concerned with the tiveness usually
exhibited by mainstream American media in reporting political struggles Third World. This media
selectiveness, in form ofhalf-truths and eclecticism, is inspired American rulers' imperialist interests.
My main case study was the manner American Ea treated the announcement of the death of Pol Pot,
Cambodia's former leader, in 1998. The American media denounced the dead man as a "monster" who
caused the taidi of more than two million of his country men and women between 1975 and 1978 *om
he was in power. e media was completely silent on the friendly relationship between Pol Pot and
uedingAmerican administrations. In particular, the media "did not report that American s llstained Pol
Pot for 20 years after he was overthrown by the Vietnamese in 1978, lat those in power in Cambodia
today, through the help ofAmerican rulers, were all rators of Poi Pot". The governing idea in
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the fedia, by Edward S. Herman and Noam
Chomsky, is this (and here I am assuming , N41bility of simplifying these frontline American
intellectuals): The term "American has two meanings, that is, it refers to two entities, A and B, where
the latter is EOM the former by a process of"filtering" or distillation. When the term, American sed in
sense A, it literally means what it says: the American media, taken as a *um when the term is used in
sense B, it means the dominant section of theAmerican T. obtained from the latter through filtering or
distillation. This filtered and dominant Aux;:::llpLso called the mainstream media, or simply, the
media. It is this filtered, or distilled, csee. media - which, because of its dominance, often assumes the
status oftheAmerican than American media system as a whole, that McChesney, Foster and Ndibe in
their articles referred to above. It is also what I was criticising in "In defence 117' -=,22. and Chomsky
articulated five "filters" through which the dominant media is nut: m the media system as a whole.
The first filter is the fact that it requires a very
I
?,?;"111111i
14i
111
11144
. money to establish a media outfit, which is largeenough to make a minimum lliiitit:: irriet. This
"filter" is a very effective check on the representation of radical ideas in Fritern. The second filter is.
advertising. The fact is simple: A media outfit needs a level of patronage by advertisers to remain in
business as a media outfit. s the fact that in American journalism, government sources are regarded as
sources, and in several areas, the only credible sources. And you know sources are. The fourth filter is
provided by an informal, but nonetheless team of well-paid right-wing "media watchers" who can
literally run a media Ill4, "Isigsness through damaging criticism and costly litigations. ' fi filter is the
"ideology and religion of anti-communism". In mainstream I, 14 the legitimate" contest is between
"conservatives" and "liberals" The
111111HII
444441

ft.
11111 44! i4lIl .40,1r I I
,zigeably with "left-wing". Any media outfit espousing vizws ofthe z.."- is taken as "communist". And
the American system knows how to dealt
283

92
As the Cuban Revolution Clocks 45 26th February, 2004
January 2004, the Cuban Revoltition clocked 45 years. We may start this celebratory piece with a basic
reminder, and then proceed as simply as possible. Simply, because the event that is being
commemorated took place when the majority of my potential readers were not born. The key event in
the Cuban Revolution, according to one ofits early chroniclers, was "the capture of state power through
an armed struggle by the people led by honest, resolute revolutionaries". All other developments, he
continued, "flow from this singular act and Cubas situation" The Revolution dislodged two groups
ofpeople or, rather, two social forces, from power: the dominant and the subservient. The dominant set
was constituted by the American imperialists who colonised the island nation, appropriated its
resources and enslaved its people in their own land. The subservient set was made up of Cuban
capitalists, representatives of foreign enterprises and the military regime which, while maintaining "law
and order", was also having its own share of the loot. The literature on the Cuban Revolution is a
massive one, thanks, first of all, to the heroic efforts of the Cuban people to liberate and transform
themselves and their country in every sphere - education, health, housing, industry, agriculture, popular
power and defence, etc. The people of Cuba liberated themselves, and engaged the task of abolishing
exploitation and poverty, and restoring their human dignity. Their historic examples and equally
historic achievements have pointed the way to other poor and exploited nations that have been held
down for ages in imperialist slave camps supervised by subservient native tyrants who call themselves
leaders. The massiveness of materials on revolutionary Cuba also derives from the practice of genuine
and selfless revolutionary internationalism continuously displayed by the Cuban leadership. And
beyond all this is the attraction which the Cuban story has had for intellectuals, writers, artists and
activists all over the world. In January, 1988, Ambassador Oladapo Fafowora of Nigeria contributed a
piece in The Guardian titled, 29, Years of the Cuban Revolution in which he testified: "It is generally
acknowledged, even by Castro's worst critics, that phenomenal economic and social reforms have been
successfully brought about in Cuba under Castro's leadership. Unemployment has been virtually wiped
out. Rents have been all but eliminated, and illiteraQ, wiped out. There is no doubt that the conditions
of the Cuban people have improved dramatically There is social justice and equity in today's Cuba. No
wonder Fidel Castro is revered and respected in Cuba as a national hero. Fidel Castro has no personal
wealth. does not own villas abr ad, and has no personal account. Through the force of his own
284

71e he has virtually wiped out corruption in the public life of Cuba. There are no shady s..nd contracts.
Health, income levels, and education have gown substantially. There beczgars in the streets of Cuba".
That was 16 years ago. Today, the only footnotes that can be added to this testimony .. -1"-e serious
challenges that the Cuban people and leadership now face, this on account " escalation of economic

aggession, diplomatic harassment and military threats from 11111L -J s ofArrierica. The economic
embargo imposed on Cuba by American rulers is in its anTsure that as the Cuban people celebrate the
45th anniversary of the revolution, - dictators, based 90 miles offtheircoast, are putting finishing
touches to their plan -lzhanistan or "Iraq" to this 45 Years old "thorn" in their flesh. An American
s_z_-,.man, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, called the Cuban question a "vicious circle", vowing -\vere going to
break it". Responding to this "enigmatic statement", in his May ,ari, :4.410 speech, Fidel Castro asked:
"What methods are they considering to deal with E :-.:S circle? Physically eliminating me with the
sophisticated modern means they have as Mr. Bush promised them in Texas before the elections? Or
attacking Cuba c . attacked Iraq?" :: ,,se are two scenarios. But there are others. The third scenario is
the promotion ---_-iocracy" mobs in the streets of Havana to overawe the revolutionary movement f
Cuba and present them with a moral and political dilemma: how to deal with fourth scenario is the
intensification of the economic embargo imposed on )1I. -..--rican rulers since 1962, and re-inforced
30 years later with the so-called --i :racy Act" or Torricelli Law. According to the January 2004 issue of
the -.11gazine, this law was aimed at "strictly limiting the transfers of foreign Cuban families living in
America banning from US harbours for six months all :11c:hared in a Cuban port; and imposing
sanctions against firms doing commerce Jr: if under the jurisdiction of a third state". In March 1996,
the American -4. ther provocative anti-Cuban Law, the so-called "Cuban Liberty and darity Act", or the
Ilelms-Burton Law. Its aim was to mobilise the -2mmunity" to support and intensify the bestially cruel
embargo. j Lr., rulers arc pursuing this murderous agenda in contemptuous disregard of ollec General
Assembly which, every year, passes a resolution asking that the
t:;? Cuba has survived the embargo. But should the global dictators decide zr_omic embargo and try the
Iraq solution to Cuba, Fidel Castro warned, would not merely be facing an army, but rather thousands
of armies that repro duce themselves and make the enemy pay such a high cost in Luz _A far exceed
the cost inlives of its sons and daughters that the American to pay for the adventures and ideas of
President Bush". ?N other forms of provocation: raising false alarms and making false iim ,.. la
provide the justification and create the atmosphere for an attack on into taking a precipitate and wrong
action whose consequences .4111 now seize and act upon. American imperialists have applied all :;;::in combination since their abortive "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba
711itri,
285
in April 19'61 Sometime in 2003 the American State Department summoned the hea4 of Cuba's Interest
Section n Washington and informed him that the American government conside'red the continued
hijackings of planes from Cuba a serious threat to America's national security The State Department
then "requested" the Cuban government to adopt "all necessary measures to prevent such acts". This
was a clear case o f provocation. For everyone knows that American imperialists are the ones "who
provide and encourage these hijackings, and we are the ones who have been adopting drastic measures
to prevent them". said Castro in anger, but not in frustration. Yet, another provocation: In the second
week ofJanuary, 2004, President George Bush told a meeting ofLatin American rulers in Monterey,
Mexico: "Through our democratic example, we must continue to stand with the brave people of Cuba
who, for nearly half a century, have endured tyrannies and repression. We must all work for a rapid,
peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba". These were the words of a man who had ordered the
bombing ofthousands ofwomen, children and non-combatants in unjust wars in far-away Afghanistan,
Iraq and Yugoslavia; a man who bestially declared that Saddam Hussein deserved to die even when his
countrymen and women now know that he deceived them in his reasons for attacking Iraq, who now
know that Saddam Hussein was innocent of the "char es" he brought against him, namely, that of
possessing weapons of mass destruction. I am sure, the Cuban people and their leadership, especially
Fidel Castro, have drawn the necessary lessons from what is happening in Libya. A strategic shift has

taken place in that NorthAfrican country. What is not very clear is whether Muammar Gaddafi is at the
head of that shift, or it is against him, with him remaining a figurehead to preserve appearances. Things
will become clearer later. But the reactions from Palestine, Iran and North Korea, the continuing
guerrilla war in Iraq, and the intensification ofpopular struggles in the Middle East are sufficient to
convince the global dictators that they are not winning the "war against terror" or the proliferation of
weapons of"mass destruction". Fidel Castro is a master of revolutionary realism. He is acutely aware of
the changes that have taken place in the world. Five years ago he said: "Tremendously strong mass
movements are emerging, and I think that these movements will play a fundamental role in future
struggles. There will be new tactics: not the Bolshevik style and not even our own style, because these
belonged to a different world. This should not discourage anyone. We need to see and analyse, with the
greatest possible objectivity, the current setting in which the struggle will have to unfold, under the
unipolar dominance of a super power, the United States. There will be other roads and other ways by
which the conditions will be created for transforming this world into another one'. I invite those waiting
for Castro's "departure" to read these lines again.

93
A War that Can Never Be Won 1st April, 2004
N Thursday, March 11, 2004, exactly 30 months after the September 11, 2001 massacres in New York
and Washington, hell descended on Madrid, the capital of Spain. The time was 7.30 a.m, during the
morning rush hour. Ten powerful to quote The Guardian, "tore through" trains and stations along a rail
line. The explosions killed 200 people and wounded 1,400, at first count. It was a and within minutes
the news had spread all over the world - thanks to the current an in information technology [a
revolution can be employed for good and for ill, by rs and by liberators, by the sane and by the insane]
Do I need to add that the Wti b Ch exacted such human and material toll in Madrid had exactly the
same effects beings and material things as the bombs whichAmerican rulers have been dropping 1991?
Employing the same information technology available to imperialists
dictators, a group claiming to belong to Al-Qaeda immediately dispatched a i? a London newspaper
announcing that it was responsible for the bomb attacks, more attacks would follow. But the Spanish
government which had supported invasion of Iraq a year ago, and which was facing a general election
that weekend, message. The government rather put the blame on ETA, the freedom fighters in Region,
Spain's internal colony. The Prime Minister, who had since been thrown vowed to hunt down the
attackers: "No negotiation is possible or desirable ". His Interior Minister went further to give "details"
ofETAinvolvement, his master, that "those responsible for this tragedy will be arrested and they will v
for this". Spanish government then went on to bribe and deceive the media to promote 7:-A
connection.. It was thus possible for the government to turn the anguish of into anger against ETA,
millions of people came out across Spanish cities to against ETA. But the disinformation lasted for only
24 hours. Then came a from Al-Qaeda. Unlike the one before it, the latest message could not be se
many journalists had known about it. The message was addressed to vernment and it said: "We declare
our responsibility for what happened in two-and-a half years after the attacks on New York and
Washington. It is your collaboration with the criminal Bush and his allies. This is a response to you
have caused in the world, and specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if God wills it. You love life and
we love death, which gives an example
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of what Prophet Mohammed said. If you don't stop your injustices more and more blood will flow and
these attacks will seem very small compared to what can occur in what you call terrorism. This is a
statement by the military spokesman for Al-Qaeda in Europe, Abu Duj an al-Afghani". The reactions of
European media "analysts", "intelligence chiefs" and anti-terrorism "experts" to this statement were
predictable. While some summarily dismissed it as a fabrication, others concerned themselves with the
form of the statement, completely ignoring the content. One "analyst" dismissed the statement because
it came out too soon after the attacks. He reasoned: "Al-Qaeda is normally slow - sometimes taking
months, as over the September 11 attacks - to claim responsibility, and sometimes does not claim
responsibility at all". Spanish Interior Minister said that since his government had not been able to
identify the person who voiced the statement, their "reservations" remained. British "intelligence
sources" based their doubt on the claim of the man who made the announcement that he was the
"military spokesman" ofAl-Qaeda in Europe. To them that title contradicted what they thought they
knew about Al-Qaeda, namely, that the organisation is not a hierarchical one.
These were the inane opinions of "security experts" and "intelligence chiefs" of the global dictatorship,
which wants to re-colonise the Third World. No wonder they required the betrayal of family members
to be able both to locate and murder Saddam Hussein's sons and to "capture" the man himself after
eight months. This is what Hegel would have called the "cunning of history" giving some people the
technological and military power to exploit and dominate others, but denying them the basic
knowledge ofhuman dignity, human honour and human pride, and making unavailable to them the
means of acquiring this knowledge. The imperialists and global enslavers understand only two
languages - that of dollar and that of arms. If they cannot bribe you to sell your dignity and soul, and
betray your people, then they kill you. They cannot understand how a qualified professional who, if
chooses, can live a comfortable life even in America or Europe, would choose to declare.: You love life,
and we love death", and act on the declaration. They cannot understand an 18-year old girl, beautiful
and educated, would choose to die a horrible death through suicide-bombing. The oppressor's blindness
is the power of those they call terrorists. The reactions of the Spanish people to the statement of
responsibility were also predictable. Angry that the government which lied to them over Iraq had lied
again, they went on massive demonstrations and then voted the government out of office on Sunda:
March 14, 2004. The American-led invasion of Iraq was overwhelmingly opposed in Spambut the
defeated government dragged the country into it. The Spanish people said the voted the government out
of office because it provoked the Madrid attacks by supportir an unjust war in Iraq and for
"withholding information on the subsequent investigation". wasn't planning to vote", said a voter in the
city of Barcelona, "but I am here today becaus-this government is responsible for murders here and in
Iraq". And the new Prime Ministe7 added: "Mr Blair and Mr. Bush must do some reflection; you
cannot organise a war wit: lies".
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Reacting to the defeat of the ruling party in Spain, the head of the European People's ?any, a network of
conservative parties in Europe, commented: "Sunday, March 14, 2004 culd go down in history as the
day when Islamist fundamentalism was seen as dictating outcome of a European election". My own
view is that if the "war on terror" continues way it is going, with the same assumptions, and the same
objectives, while the root ,..es of terrorism are ignored, the day will come when "fundamentalism",

Islamist or vise, will cause not just a civil war, but a chain of civil wars in Europe and America. The
recent murder of the Spiritual Leader of Palestinian Hamas by Israeli occupation has merely fuelled the
engine of terrorism across the globe. The violence in Iraq has diminished even with the capture of
Saddam Hussein. American rulers can ignore the (m7.-znent of Pakistan and the puppet regime in
Afghanistan and launch a massive hunt for bin Laden and Mullah Omar in the two countries. They will
again be shocked when ca...7mre of these two men fails to reduce their organisations' activities and
global reach. an unlucky world, ruled by a bunch of profoundly ignorant people! One of the first
reactions ofAmerican rulers to the bombings was to reinforce their bases in Africa. If tomorrow there is
an explosion in any African country, or some take revenge in Europe or America for what their rulers
are doing in Africa, the .dictators will again assemble "experts" to tell them how what happened could
have and how to prevent a recurrence. The "war against global terrorism", designed and justified by the
new imperialism dictatorship and led by President George Bush ofAmerica and Prime Minister
of Britain, cannot be won. I am not in support of terrorism. But then, this is not of supporting or not
supporting terrorism. My refrain is: "Weep not, laugh not, d". To hope that the "war against terrorism"
can be won on the prosecutors' us to hope that the oppressed, the exploited, the expropriated, the
disposed, the and the despised of this world will, one day either unilaterally cease their struggles -e
their fates, to find themselves denied of all means and weapons of struggles. ls an insane wish. Why?
Because "terrorists" are an organic and inseparable sz-,.,,,21ing peoples of the world. The former are
generated and nourished by the a-Ists" draw from the same arsenal of humanity's scientific and
technological as state terrorists and global dictators. Beyond that, terrorists understand history soczety,
but their enemies do not. We are dealing here with dialectics. To hope one side of a contradiction,
leaving the other side unchanged, is madness. The prism" can never be won. But the root cause of
terrorism can be exhausted not until, to borrow from Taylor Caldwell, "the cheater yields up his loot to
"-the waters return to the bills where they started".
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94
Imperialism's Selective Celebration 8th July, 2004
ON June 6, 2004, the global dictatorship celebrated the 60th anniversary ofAllied Powers landing in
Normandy, North-West France, to begin the campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi Germany's
occupation. That was during World War II. The celebrants, of course, had reasons to celebrate. Victors
can celebrate. Why not? The point is that the historical accounts rendered to justify these celebrations
are selective. At best, they are half-truths and, at worst, they are an elaborate exercise in sanitisation
and distortion. They are modem instances of the re-writing of history by victors not only to explain, but
also to justify, the current reality. We have the duty to say what the celebrants had reasons to omit and
to remember what they found convenient to forget. World War II is properly so called because although
it was initiated and conducted essentially by two coalitions of states, called the Allied and Axis Powers,
the war was fought in most of the regions of the world, with the resources of the world. The war
affected all the people of the world. Moreover, because the chief combatants were colonial and
imperialist powers, they brought in their colonial subjects as foot-soldiers and as victims. Every
brilliant, but young, student of world history will tell you that World War II started on September 1,
1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. But that is not the case. It is however
convenient for the present global dictators " the rulers ofAmerica, Britain and France, in particular " to

perpetuate this error. World War II started at least 18 months before the invasion of Poland. In March
1938, Nazi Germany overran and annexed Austria, its southeastern neighbour. Having done this with
little protests fromAmerica, Britain and France, AdolfHitler turned his attention to Czechoslovakia in
the east. Hitler demanded that a region of Czechoslovakia, which, according to him, held a large
population of ethnic Germans, be ceded to Germany. Not only did the then "international community"
not do anything about Hitler's threatening demand, it lent its support to the Nazi state. It was a high
point in the policy of "appeasement" adopted towards Nazi Germany by the then "international
community". Hitler was determined to take his advantage to the limit. In September 1938
representatives of Germany, Britain, France and Italy met in the German city of Munich and signed a
treaty known to history as the Munich Pact. The pact essentially provided for the dissolution of the
state of Czechoslovakia. Six months later, in March 1939, Nazi Germany acted on this pact, destroyed
the state of Czechoslovakia, split the country into bits, annexing some, colonising some, proclaiming
some as
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limade-7,:-.:,:!ent" states, and donating others to Hungary. Neither Nazi Germany nor its Hungary was
challenged by the "great powers". However, two of the powers " lbsaL France " signed a treaty of
mutual assistance with Poland the following month, 41cr. 9, in response to Poland's apprehension over
Nazi Germany's pressure on it to s of the territory. The Polish leaders' rejection of this demand, though
patriotic and courageous, was ge part, on the hope that the policy of "appeasement" would continue to
work, Ger would not attack Poland, and that if it did, then Britain and France would Heir obligation
to Poland under the treaty of mutual assistance. What a tragic more tragic by the fact that polish leaders
were prevailed upon by the British t not to order a general mobilisation for national defence in order
not to anger In other words, Poland was disarmed by its own "allies" before its armed Germany. dawn
on Friday, September 1, 1939, Hitler's Germany invaded Poland. A little :SI is necessary here.
Throughout August 1939, the Soviet Union, equally hated by
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v and the "international community", tried to do a "balancing act" to buy time - conflict which it was
sure was inevitable. It tried to enter an alliance with l7:-ance. When this did not materialise, a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany Hitler employed the pact within days. A liberal historian has
described the
as "one of the most violent and brutal in history". -7, as a horrendous massacre, the type the world had
never seen and has never _7asked Poland with a force of more than one million troops organised in 58
:is, 14 of them armoured and motorised, and supported by 1,400 fighters. heroism the resistance of the
Polish Armed Forces and partisans collapsed ,(cital,rs Ten days earlier, on September 17, 1939, the
Soviet army had crossed into fro az east. On September 28, the day after Warsaw fell, a treaty was
signed lion of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union, as agreed upon in ame- above. ..-AsiLdy
should, no doubt, be celebrated. All I am saying is that there are several fnisodes, victories, betrayals,
acts of heroism and bravery, etc, that should d, or remembered. The tragedy. narrated above is one of

them. Others an invasion of the Soviet Union, code-named "Operation Barbarossa" _ . June 22, 1941;
the liberation of the Soviet city of Stalingrad from German 17,7uary 1943 (an act of extreme heroism
which many historians regard as the world War II, the beginning of German defeat); the Warsaw
Uprising of 10 October 2; 1944 (another act of extreme heroism by the people of once again, betrayed
by their "allies", today's celebrants); the dropping
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mcs c.,y America on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and
9.. 1945) when the war had virtually ended in defeat for Germany and ,,11,7:73rArnerica, Britain,
the Soviet Union and China; the surrender of Germany ?. and that of Japan (September 2, 1945). I shall
touch briefly on some
law
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You cannot remember Normandy without remembering the Warsaw Uprising. Here is a liberal
historian's account: "On August 1, 1944, the people of Warsaw rose agains-. their Nazi oppressors.
With an almost unbelievable courage, the ill-equipped Polish Secre: Army held out for 63 days and
nights under a relentless barrage from German artillery planes and tanks". The British and American
troops " Poland's "allies" who had landed in Norman_dy two months earlier did nothing to help. Once
again, the Polish people were crushed. Nazi Germany attacked the Soyie-. Union with 3 million troops,
about 15,000 tanks and over 2,700 planes. These were organised in 150 divisions, including 19
armoured and 12 motorised divisions. The attack was opened on a front stretching 2000 miles. With
this overwhelming force, German advances were rapid and devastating and were halted only when the
Germans got to the city o: Stalingrad. Soviet forces re-took the city on January 31, 1943. According to
one historian; "The Battle of Stalingrad is regarded as the turning point of World War II. Not only was
it the most terrible disaster ever inflicted on a German army in a single operation, the battle for
Stalingrad was the high-water mark of the tide of German military- conquest, and the beginning ofthat
long series ofAllied offensives in Europe that was to culminate in the total defeat of the Axis powers".
America and Britain started the offensive to liberate Western Europe only after the tide had turned
against Germany in the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders accused their allies " America and Britain " of
waiting to see Germany and the Soviet Union mutually exhaust themselves before opening the West
European front. The Soviet army killed 175,000 German troops in the battle for Stalingrad and
captured 137,650 others. The remaining German forces, consisting of several army divisions.
surrendered. Soviet victories over Germany made the Allied offensive in Western Europe much easier.
The celebration of Normandy ought to acknowledge this historical fact. Midway into the war, the rulers
ofAmerica gave secret orders for the development of the atomic bomb. Because of the timing of its use
" at the very end of the war, when America had won " it would appear that a decision had been taken to
employ the bomb in the war whatever happened. The bomb must be tested for future use! On August 6,
1945. the atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city, of Hiroshima. Dropped from a B-29 bomber,
the bomb had "more power than 20,000 tons of TNT, and more than 2,000 times the power of the
largest bomb previously used in warfare". About 60 per cent of the city was destroyed, an area of about
2.5 miles in diameter was completely flattened, and about 130,000 people were killed. Three days later,
on August 9, a similar bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. It caused comparable, though less,
damage than the one dropped on Hiroshima. The point is that America dropped atomic bombs on Japan

not at the height of the war, but a whole three months after the death ofAdolf Hitler, three months after
the capture of Berlin, the German capital by the Allied Powers, and three months after the German
surrender in World War II.
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95
Reagan and the End of 'Communism' 15th July, 2004
. - ONALD Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States ofAmerica, died R on June 5, 2004
at the age of 93. He became president in 1981 when he was 70, ruled for eight consecutive years, and
lived in retirement for 15 years. In limilu:.??...:.... _:--.: Reagan, The Economist told us that the late
president was "the first president to Iffee,::::::: , -.:- a fall presidential funeral in the past 30 years, and
became the 10th president to lie si ::L,:L_.::- zider the Capitol rotunda". The eulogy continued: "There
is a growing consensus thin tne ..,;;,, as one of the most consequential presidents of the 20th century".
The Guardian, in lit ...,-__: -.. :-'.al of June 11, 2004, the day Reagan was buried, agreed essentially
with The iiii!!':::)0, .. The Guardian concluded: "Ronald Wilson Reagan was good. He lived a 'mart :. -:
purposeful life". I beg to disagree. Ronald Reagan was a disaster for the peoples lok-, including the
oppressed ofAmerica. k is necessary to put before us the time scales involved in the subject of
this ,-.. :Ronald Reagan became American president in 1981, that is, before my daughter ...1.--:,-. left
office in January 1989, when the girl was less than seven years old. The liiii ,;:ii,..u::.7._:. :nis now in
the final year of her degree programme, a couple of months from .:1,Fillii:::L..ation, This means that a
substantial fraction of those who are going to read this vii:::r.'. : .her not born, or were infants, when
Reagan assumed office and were in N.77-i,: . ,s or lower classes of secondary education when he left
office. And because isairlr::,:a : --fat's activities were severely limited by illness throughout his
retirement (1990-1,, ,ii zar.1 -,: --.=ber ofpotential readers ofthis piece knew little or nothing about the
man ticz-L.-Jouncement ofhis death. :"..---.:::::. ent Ronald Reagan ofAmerica and Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher of is viitn. :a office about the same period: They were both in office when Britain
fought ikon:: i .:-Denthia over Malvinas (Falkland) Island in 1982; and when America invaded :Hz H-:: . they were both in office when America bombed Libyan cities of Tripoli ii ,iliiiiz': ' 7 "S6. The
people ofthe world were unlucky to have that type of combination. iicared in revolutionary circles in
Nigeria, Africa and the world that Reagan . liter ;,,,, -_: ..," d lead the world to another war. They were
not just arch-conservatives mi.-:::::: )---._-.-.rousts, they were imperialist of the worst type, imperial
rulers who i 4.-it:'..7 ...,. , .,;s,:in the worst regimes and terrorist organisations that the world c;:: ::!!!itt
17. ....-...11,eid regime in South Africa, Mobutu's regime in Zaire (now 'Aieriur. 'Como), Joseph
Savimbi's UNITA in Angola, and the "contras" in
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The Economist in its tribute titled: The man who beat communism", asserted Reagan's presidency
"changed the face of the world". The Guardian was more specifl "Reagan", the paper claimed in its
editorial, "was a strong personality with the commatouch, whose life coincided with the greatest events
of the 20th century, and he woui always be remembered as the principal architect of one of those

events: the end of the Co c_ War". The Economist conceded that Reagan was no intellectual, and was
fond of a "nap But oddly enough, according to the paper, Reagan had what it took to beat
"communism" Hear the paper: "The North Vietnamese army had helped its local friends to impose a
one - party communist dictatorship on a South Vietnam most of who did not want it. The Russian 5
were busily constructing a network of alliances in the Middle East and Africa. The Co War, it seemed,
might roll on forever". The paper then added, triumphantly: "Reagan wouLL have none of this". On
reading these tributes, I heard myself exclaiming: "Reagan, the superman!". Bul he was no superman. I
think The Guardian is guilty of forgetfulness and reading the pad through the present realities. But you
cannot cleanup, much less justify, the sufferings Reaganz and Thatcher brought to the toiling people of
their own countries and of the world because of the current triumph of capaitalist globalism and global
dictatorship. On the other hand. The Economist has simply treated us to tissues of shameless
falsifications and grotesque exaggerations. Compare what the newsmagazine said on the Vietnamese
liberation struggle with the verdict of Howard Zinn, an American professor: "From 1964 to 1972, the
wealthiest and most powerful nation in history of the world made a maximum military effort, with
everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny. peasant
country - and failed. When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organised modem technology
versus organised human beings, and the human beings won". The Economist said that Reagan was not
an intellectual but that he had what it took to beat "communism". A similar line can be written forAdolf
Hitler who was neither an intellectual nor a skilled worker of any type. But the capitalist and imperialist
ruling classes in Germany found sufficient reasons to put power in his hands when economic problems,
internal divisions, and working class pressure threatened their class power. A similar thing happened in
the case of Ronald Reagan. Normally, when a ruling bloc, in grave danger. hands power to a "strong
man" from outside the bloc, it has mechanisms for reclaiming or terminating that power, if not
eliminating the "saviour" when this becomes necessary. But the Hitler case got out of hand. The same
almost happened in the case of Reagan. Ronald Reagan did not defeat communism. In fact, neither that
man, nor any other man, nor any other person, could have defeated communism. Historical movements
and struggles should not be construed or presented as a football match which one side wins, and the
other loses. It is not that capitalism and communism suddenly emerged on the historical scene -perhaps
simultaneously - and went into competition from which capitalism came out victorious, and
communism defeated. In the modern sense, and in the sense attached to the term in political science
and modem history, communism - which may mean communist ideology, communist social system, or
communist movement - emerged as a response, and in opposition, to capitalism. If we equate the birth
of communism to the second half of Karl
294

's life, it can be said that the births of capitalism and communism were separated by at five centuries.
The point is this: communism was created by the contradictions of land, in a couple of decades, had
succeeded in developing a coherent and powerful ideology, a world-wide political movement and a
social system, not to mention an 1 culture that was at once powerful, popular and sophisticated. In
1871, the workers of Paris, fighting under the banner of communist ideology, pular uprising and seized
power from the competing bourgeois, petit-bourgeois list political factions. That was the first time the
communist movement or apolitical isting under the communist ideology, came to power. But the Paris
workers, under The Paris Commune, could not retain power. The next attempt was in 1917 when
Bolsheviks led workers, peasants and soldiers in a popular and successful :n the following year, 1918,
German workers, fighting under the banner of attempted a revolution and failed. Between then and
now, thousands of attempts ade across the globe. of the Allied Powers in World War II led to several
geopolitical shifts, one of the coming to power of communist and workers parties in countries of

Eastern the communist movement came to power in China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, 7,.med in the twoyear period (1989-1991) was that the communist movement in the Soviet Union and Eastern European
countries. But the movement remain. The Soviet Union and the other socialist countries needed
political doe pressure came not from Reagan, but from the political forces in the countries. g, the
founder of the Communist Party of Germany, called for political as 1918; from 1924 till his death in
1940, the struggle for political reform
our. 7: on became the key political platform of Leon Trotsky, Lenin's deputy. Communist Party ofthe
Soviet Union and East European countries lost :e reform programmes they belatedly introduced under
Mikhail Gorbachev :dated and even more poorly executed. The workers and masses of those :old
Reagan, overthrew the parties. Under the conditions in these countries es could have been overthrown
whatever president was in the White Carter, or Ford. But, although the ruling Communist Parties lost
power, remained and are functioning. There is hardly any country in the world movement does not
exist. On June 29, 2004, The Guardian carried, a picture of members of the Iraqi Communist Party
celebrating the partial, occupation. That is a party which Saddam Hussein's Ba' ath Party, imperialism,
thought it had liquidated. The global dictatorship may Reagan. but definitely not for defeating
communism.
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96
Saddam Hussein in the Dock 22nd July, 2004
ON Thursday July 1, 2004, Saddam Hussein, the former President of Iraq, appearec' before a court in
Baghdad charged with seven offences ranging from via: crimes and genocide to crimes against
humanity. The court was said to be a: "Iraqi court" and the charges were termed "preliminary charges",
implying that the rea, charges were yet to come. Saddam Hussein was flown to one of his presidential
lodges, where the court WaS set up, in anAmerican helicopter, and was then brought to the courtroom
in an Americ a: armoured bus, escorted by four American military vehicles and an American militar:.
ambulance. Nonetheless, the court was an "Iraqi court". To further demonstrate this point. two men
dressed in Iraqi prison yard uniform escorted the prisoner-of-war into the courtroom. And to convince
the world that the prisoner had been transferred from American custody to an Iraqi one, his Americandesigned handcuffs, attached to a chain around his wai s -.. were removed at the door to the courtroom.
The judge himself was an Iraqi citizen, the faz: that his security was provided by American marines and
secret-servicemen notwithstandinz. It is necessary to sketch the road that the former Iraqi "strongman"
and "tyranf-took to the special tribunal set up in the Iraqi capital by President George W. Bush of
America. InAugust 1990, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq ordered the invasion of Kuwait, Iraqi's
neighbour. Saddam did not end with invasion; he followed this with the annexation of the country,
calling Kuwait the "19th province of Iraq". It was a double-act of madness, the second step being
crazier than the first. The two Arab nations, or rather their regimes, had been disputing a piece of oilrich territory on their border. And Saddam thought that the way to end the dispute p6rmanently was to
swallow his neighbour with the "explanation that Kuwait was, at a tithe, part of Iraq. That was at a time
the state of Iraq did not ever exist, or existed as the ancient kingdom of Mesopotamia. The whole
world, including Americz. reacted, calling on Saddam Hussein to pull out of Kuwait. American leaders
remincle,,:. Saddam that although they had been his friends, supporters and protectors, especially
dun'',_ his long war with Iran, which was then being concluded, they were also the friends, supports
and protectors of the rulers of Kuwait. America needed Iraq and Kuwait for the sam -,;. reason, namely,

oil, whose steady flow requires "stability" in the region. When Saddam refused to vacate his newly
acquired "19th province", the Unite,Nations stepped in, and, under pressure from American rulers,
authorised the use of a. means, including force, to restore the territorial integrity and independence of
Kuwait. Sine:
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ed Nations has no standing army, it was left to its member countries to enforce the on on the use of
force. America built up a formidable force in the region and invited and clients across the globe,
including some Arab nations, to join the battle for n. The war was swift and devastating for it gave
American rulers the opportunity to
111
latest weapons of destruction and death. But they stopped short of capturing Baghdad and deposing
Saddam. The most le reason for this stay-of-action was that America could not, at that time, gauge the effect of Saddam's overthrow in the region. American rulers had not decided
:=stall in place of Saddam. America and Britain effectively split Iraq into three. The the North were
declared "no-fly zones" where Iraqi sovereignty was severely Saddam was allowed to manage the
central zone, which included the Iraqi capital
As American and British forces were settling accounts on the ground with Saddam's Tnited Nations
Security Council was considering resolutions sponsored and to it by the two countries. The resolutions,
as passed by the council, imposed Ions on Iraq - economic, diplomatic and military. Although the
Council did not czedierse the creation of the "no-fly zones", it did not oppose it. Again, since the had
no means of enforcement, it was left forAmerica and Britain to enforce tbrmal resolutions of the
Security Council and the punitive decisions unilaterally The running battle between Saddam's Iraq on
the other hand, and America, ijnited Nations, on the other, continued until September 11, 2001, when
'Washington were attacked by suicide-bombers using hijacked planes. The 4:71CP41-1. It was then
thatAmerican leaders decided that Saddam Hussein must - whether or not he knew anything about the
attacks, whether or not he had :mass destruction". regime of sanctions left Iraq devastated. The quality
of life of ordinary .7-3ded by more than 50 per cent. Children were the most affected as there to treat
even the commonest diseases. Hunger and malnourishment Iraqis were dying at an alarming rate, and
the conscience of the world Silmehow. Saddam Hussein retained power. His military power became as
of life of the citizens. bilf September 11, 2001, Saddam clearly had no power to wage an external .
st=f:rica and Britain insisted that he still had that power and, beyond that, Ins arsenal of weapons of
mass destruction and was preparing to use on -American interests" across the globe. They also hinted
that he g of September 11, or, in any case, that he had links with those out the bomb attacks, enemies of
"democracy" who were then attacks. These were all lies; but the leaders of the "international 1,7+C
weapons inspectors, they overruled the UN Security Council, cum security agencies; they overruled
millions of people across the 2...zainst another Gulf War. They launched a war on Iraq in March
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297

The objectives of the Second Gulf War were to depose the regime of Sad Hussein, replace the regime
with one acceptable to the American rulers, secure Iraqi and convince those in Western Europe who
still thought that they were world powers America is the only real power in the world. "Those who are
not for us are against President George Bush told the European allies, the "Old Europe". Iraq was
conquered and occupied, the Iraqi Armed Forces were destroyed. of thousands of Iraqis and Saddam's
two sons were killed, and the man himself betrayed, captured, humiliated and detained in December
2003. Having accomplished objectives, internal resistance notwithstanding, American rulers handed
over "soverei to their appointed Interim Government on June 28, 2004. Three days later, Saddam H was
brought to court. This was not the first time in modem history that victors in a war brought vanquished
to trial. The Allied Powers, victors in World War II, made up principall:, America, Britain, the Soviet
Union and France, set up military tribunals in Germany Japan. The most spectacular of these trials were
the ones held in Nuremberg, Germ between October 1945 and October 1946, and in Tokyo, Japan,
between May 1946 and November 1948. The defendants " mainly Germans and Japanese " were
charged various offences including deliberate instigation of aggressive wars, extermination ofrac lad
and religious groups, murder and mistreatment of prisoners of war, and the murc.' fz., mistreatment,
and deportation ofthousands of inhabitants of countries occupied by Gerrnz-v and Japan during the war.
In short, crimes against humanity. The victors ran the shows a-li?lr imposed sentences, including
hanging and imprisonment. The United Nations later legalise..!dl the trials and appropriated the laws
under which they were held. Similar charges are being brought against Saddam Hussein and surviving
sem Dr members of his regime. The only difference between Saddam's trial and those of WC War II and it is a big difference - is that in Saddam's case the victors are not conduct the trials directly, but are
using national proxies. The reason is that in this particular waz-was George Bush and Tony Blair (the
victors), not Saddam (the vanquished), who initiat.td "aggressive wars" and committed "crimes against
humanity". In any case, the United Natio7s Security Council has given its endorsement. Saddam
Hussein, like Slobodan Milosevic ofYugoslavia before him, has rejec the legality and authority of the
court trying him, insisting that George Bush is the "real, criminal". He asked the judge under what laws
he was being tried, whether they were Ira:, laws or the laws of the occupying powers. When the judge
replied that they were Iraz. laws, Saddam told him that he, Saddam Hussein, must have promulgated
them since tiirf "interim government" has promulgated no laws. In the immediate sense all his
argpmer.-:, are in vain for his enemies are the jailers. The prosecufors and the judges. They will execute
the sentences to be handec, down. In fact, they are right now debating the sentence having concluded
ab initio that he 1S guilty. Saddam Hussein's arguments are only of importance to history. And that is
sufficient for now.
298

97
The Guantanamo Bay 7th July, 2005

ACOUPLE of weeks ago, the Newsweek magazine carried a report of the bestial treatment being meted
out to the captured al-Qaeda fighters at the American naval base detention camp in Guantanamo Bay in
Cuba. The report included, in particular, revelation that, to further humiliate and dehumanise the mostly
Moslem detainees, copies Qu'ran were being flushed down the toilet by the camp commanders,
interrogators torturers. This report sparked off violent demonstrations across the Moslem world, ially in
Pakistan. Many casualties were recorded. Alarmed, and under powerful essure, the magazine retracted
its story, apologised, and pledged to double-check its sellzces in the future. Not many people believed
the denials offered by the American government or the tion made by the newsmagazine. However, the
demonstrations stopped. Less than months later, on June 20, 2005 to be precise, the Time magazine
carried a report that be regarded as a substantiation ofthe Newsweek story. Titled "Inside the
Interrogation tainee 063", the report detailed some of the methods being used by American gators to
obtain information from detainees. The magazine focused on Detainee 063 buiIt its story from an 84page secret interrogation diary that it obtained - from "sources" to the camp, of course. ee 063 is
Mohammed al-Qahtani, believed by the rulers ofAmerica to be the 20th er in the September 11, 2001
bombings: the hijacker who did not, or could not, it to the fourth plane. A citizen of Saudi Arabia - that
is, if he had not been stripped of enship - Mohammed al-Qahtani was captured by American troops
inAfghanistan in - 1 during the invasion of that country in search of Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban
and supporters. The man was thereafter flown to Guantanamo Bay, along with hundreds "unlawful
combatants". Since the origin and history ofthe bay are as significant as Imo., :iv itie s now taking place
there, a sketch of the historical background is necessary at point. I shall thereafter return to the story of
al-Qahtani. The last phase ofthe national liberation war in Cuba took place in the last quarter of II19th
century. Spain was the colonial power, but America had substantial investments other interests in the
colonial territory, an island which is separated from mainland 'ca by only 180 kilometres of water. The
liberation war was bloody. The Spanish s. met the heroism of the colonised people with destruction and
savagery. The rulers of 'cot had sufficient economic reasons to intervene in the war, and they did. Spain
I! ''
299

surrendered to America in December 1898. By the terms of the peace treaty signed in P on December
10, 1898, Spain surrendered Cuba to America. But that was not all: Spa also surrendered three other
colonial territories to America: Phillipines, Peurto Rico and the Island of Guam. As a result of the
Spanish-American war, according to one historian, "the United States ofAmerica became a world
power". Spain withdrew from Cuba, and America entered. In 1901 the rulers ofAmerica approved a
"constitution" for "independent" Cuba. A Republic of Cuba was proclaimed, but American troops
remained on the island till 19C): To consolidate American gains, the troops came back in 1906, and
remained there t:.: 1909. Two years after independence in 1903, the new goverment of Cuba was
reportec to have "leased" a strategic portion of its territory, the Guantanamo Bay to America for fee of
$2,000 a year. The story continues: "The two nations signed a treaty giving America the right to
establish a naval base on the bay. This treaty was renewed in 1934. It can be cancelled only by mutual
agreement or by voluntary American withdrawal". Of course. there has neither been a "mutual
agreement", nor a "voluntary withdrawal". The Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959. In 1962, the
Cuban leader, Fidel Castro demanded America's withdrawal. The rulers of America, under President
John Kennedy replied by further militarising the bay. Cuba has rejected lease payment from America at
least since 1962. The Guantanamo Bay is on the southeast coast of Cuba. It is about 14 kilometres
south-east of Guantanamo City, the capital of a Cuban province of the same name. The city, the fifth

largest in Cuba, is under Cuban control, but the bay is not. Guantanamo Bay is said to be one ofthe
largest bays in the world: about 20 kilometres long and eight kilometres wide. The American naval base
at Guantanamo covers a total area of28,000 acres and has airfields and "extensive supply, repair and
training facilities". It is the chiefAmerican naval base in the.West Indies, and "its proximity to the
Panama Canal makes it strategically important". The base is less than 50 kilometres from Santiago de
Cuba. You remember the city? It is revolutionary Cuba's most important city, after Havana. Today
Guantanamo Bay is the site of a hell on earth, a concentration camp, a centre that millions of people
across the globe and many Americans, including a former president, Jimmy Carter had denounced.
Time magazine reports that President George W. Bush, the born-again Christian and the creator of the
detention camp, told Fox News recently that his administration was exploring "alternatives to the
detention centre". Back to al-Qahtani, the prisoner simply known as Detainee 063 at Guantanamo Bay.
Four planes were involved in the September 11 attacks on America. Each of the first three planes had
five hijackers on board, but the fourth had only four. American investigators reasoned that.there must
have been a hijacker who, for some reasons, could not board the fourth plane. They then set out to find
the missing person, probably a man. In the war on Afghanistan in late 2001, many Afghan fighters and
foreign volunteers were captured and flown to Guantanamo concentration camp. In the course of
interrogation, al-Qahtani was suspected to be the missing hijacker on the grounds that his finger-prints
matched those of a Saudi young man who was refused entry into America in August 2001. So,
Qahtani's interrogation was re-directed along that line.
300

Time magazine reports that "more than a year after al-Qahtani had been captured inAfghanistan and
transferred to Gitmo's Camp X-Ray, his interrogation was going nowhere". So, the interrogators,
having obtained the necessary approval from the American Defence Secretary, "switched gears" and
descended on Qahtani with Nazi-type bestiality. The bestiality interrogation methods applied on the
man and some other detainees were physical and psychological. I shall skip the physical methods which included being chained to the floor, being denied of sleep for several days at a stretch, being kept
in cages like animals, being attacked by dogs, being shaved and stripped naked, etc. I shall rather give
excerpts from the diary kept by the camp commanders. December 5, 2002: "Interrogator began reading
from a book of Koranic prayers to al-Qahtani who was chained to the floor). Detainee became agitated
and yelled for Allah". December 11, 2002: "Detainee was reminded that no one loved, cared or 172membered him. He was reminded that he was less than human and that animals had more -eedom and
love than he does. He was taken outside to see a family of banana rats. The banana rats were moving
around freely, playing, eating, showing concern for one another. Detainee was compared to the family
of banana rats and reinforced that they had more kve., freedom, and concern than he had. Detainee
began to cry during this comparison". December 13, 2002: "Mask was made from an MRE box with a
smiley face on it ar_j_. placed on the detainee's head for a few moments. A latex glove was inflated and
Ihalinrz-Iled the 'sissy slap' globe. While wearing the mask, the team began dance instruction w-t-. the
detainee. The detainee became agitated and began shouting". December 16, 2002: '""f,,,:-T_Lnee was
instructed to clean room. Interrogator told detainee that he will not be allowed i)c!..;;:.-,:e trash all
around and live like the pig that he is. He picked up all the trash frOm the cr. ?tile hands were still
cuffed in front of him and interrogator swept the trash towards
111(0
11;1
Iininnn
December 20, 2002: "Interrogator told detainee that a dog is held in higher esteem z - dogs know right
from wrong and know how to protect innocent people from bad

?e. Interrogator began teaching the detainee lessons such as stay, come and bark to 4ite his social status
to that of a dog". December 21, 2002: "Detainee was laid out on
or, so I(the interrogator) straddled him without putting my weight on him. He would t to move me off
of him by bending his legs in order to lift me off but this failed the MPs were holding his legs down
with their hands. The detainee began to pray 11. this did not stop me from finishing informing the
detainee about the al-Qaeda Salim, that was killed by the CIA". We recall that the Geneva Convention
on the treatment ofprisoners-of-war forbids
11111
I1
_ient that constitutes "outrage on personal dignity." An American constitutional ,commented: "If the
techniques described in this interrogation diary are not outrages dignity, then words have no meaning."
301

98
Reactions to Terror 4th August, 2005
11 HE war on terror, the global confrontation with "enemies of democracy and civilisation" will soon
celebrate its fourth birthday. It was initiated by President George Bush ofAmerica shortly after the
attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Today, terrorism is less understood than
ever before; and the war against it is less certain of being won on the terms in which it is being fought
by the "international community". I was strengthened in this conclusion by the reactions of the rulers of
the "international community" to the terror visited on London on Thursday, July 7, 2005, with a largely
abortive repeat performance exactly two weeks later, on Thursday, July 21, 2005. Let me first offer a
caveat. For me, and for most of humankind, the question of "support" for terrorism does not arise. What
happened in London was an act of barbarism: frightening, painful and distressing. All I am saying is
that it is only one side ofthe barbarism that rules the world today. The other side is perpetrated by the
rulers of the "international community". And the future of humankind, literally speaking, depends on
the defeat of this two-sided barbarism. It was the day the rulers ofthe group ofthe seven richest and
most industrialised capitalist countries (with President Putin of Russia as a convenient appendage)
began their yearly summit, in Scotland, United Kingdom. It was also the day after the day London was
announced as venue ofthe 2012 Olympics. About 9.00 a.m, London time, four powerful and deadly
explosions occurred in the transport system - three in underground train coaches and one in an aboveground double-decker bus. It was during the morning rush-hour. At last count, 57 people had been
confirmed dead with between 700 and 1000 injured, a few quite seriously. Rescue operations started
immediately. The London Metropolitan Police announced the sealing up of several parts of London and
a massive "manhunt" began. Islamic schools, mosques, homes and businesses belonging to prominent
Moslems and Arab-looking people were put on surveillance. One ofthe first reactions was a statement
from an organisation that called itself the Secret Organisation of al-Qaeda in Europe. The statement,
announcing the responsibility for the bombings, was posted on the Internet. This is lesson Number
One: The operators of terror are employing the same advances in science, technology (including
information technology) and means of war, (including "weapons of mass destructions") being used by
the global dictators and the leaders ofthe "international community". Both sides are drawing from the
same pool and hungrily searching for ever more effective instruments of annihilation.
302

It is a global village, they say. Those who pray that nuclear weapons would not come into The hands of
today's terrorists should also pray and work for the emergence of a world where social relations would
be less exploitative, less oppressive, less humiliating, less unequal and more humane - a world that
would have no place for terrorism, or be able to sustain In the statement translated from the original in
Arabic, the Secret Organisation ed the "Islamic nation" and the "Arab world" to rejoice over the act of
vengeance al against the "Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres
committed in Iraq and Afghanistan". The statement continued: "The heroic ahedeen carried out a
blessed attack in London, and now Britain is burning with fear _ :error, from north to south, east to
west. We warned the British government and the ,-- .5h people repeatedly. We have carried out our
promise and carried out a military attack r 3tita.',n after great efforts by the heroic Mujahedeen over a
long period to ensure attacks :a " nd and those in London. The reported statements sound much like
those which had lety associated with Arab nationalists and Islamist militants. The statement zitar fr-
the same message: "Continue your attacks on, and humiliation of Moslems and d we shall continue to
visit you with this type of vengeance. You love life, but we Ione .1-1 Three countries are currently
being singled out by the militants for special igititaca: Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. facting to the
bombings, Prime Minister Tony Blair ofBritain declared that terrorists force British people to change
their "ways of life". Queen Elizabeth II said the c. 'En almost the same words. I ask: Is going to war
against the British public opinion the British people part ofthe British "ways of life"? Blair said that the
terrorists " :~4.7ect for human life". This would appear to be so. But I ask: Do American and S in Iraq
have respect for human life? President George Bush ofAmerica f will find them, we will bring them to
justice". The terrorists also vowed, and
,11.11111
ler=
01111111
11111111
Ls made two weeks later to repeat the carnage. Bush added that "we will
. .2 -2ology of hope and compassion and its success". The al-Qaeda cell then continue to warn the
governments of Denmark and Italy and all crusader leis. LE I:.37: they will receive the same
punishment if they do not withdraw their troops .L..f.thanistan".
'witiL::11,-.:=-day terrorists are stateless. They are "illegal combatants", as the American car them.
They are "outlaws", nationally and internationally. So, their taL, '6, -,:rilbody their case, are not
admissible in any political institution, court or I.Anii" n. They are addressed to the world and, beyond
that, to the court of Mika humanists are saying is that the terrorists' statements must be considered
credible non-kangaroo court studies the defence of someone accused or yst sure of execution.
-j" L. -,vo days after the Madrid train bombings in March 2004, in which killed, a group, going by the
same name as the present one, . it claimed responsibility for the attacks. In 2004 it was a vide
utivrailEin a mosque, in 2005 it was the Internet.
303

I ask: Where is the American rulers' "ideology of hope and compassion" in Ir-Afghanistan and
Palestine? The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said that the terrorattack was not against "the
mighty or the powerful", or against "prime ministers an presidents", but against "ordinary workingclass Londoners". I ask: Did the British prin-. minister and the American president respect the opinions
of "ordinary working-clas? Londoners" in going to war? Who were the people killed in their thousands
in Iraq and Afghanistan by American and American troops? In an opening statement he made on behalf

of the Jury of Conscience of the World Tribunal on Iraq, Amadhati Royh said that the war on Iraq was
"one of the most cowardly wars ever fought in history, a war in which international institutions were
used to force a country to disarm and then stood by while was attacked with a greater array of weapons
that has never been used in the history c war".
President Olusegun Obasanjo was in Britain to observe the G8 summit when the London blasts
occurred. As expected, he issued a statement on behalf of himself, his government, the African Union
(AU) and the people of Nigeria. It was a four-point statemen: condemnation of the attacks - coming at a
time when Tony Blair was spearheading globa: efforts to "eradicate poverty in Africa; sympathy with
the government and people of Britain, condolences to the families of the victims; and pledge to
continue to support the war against terror". The Guardian, in its editorial of Thursday, July 21, 2005,
broadly echoed Obasanjo*s statement, but in a more well-informed and robust language. It then went
beyond the President. It said: "Without detracting from the horrendous nature and effect of terrorism_
we all must recognise that there are individuals and groups within our human community who hold
grievances that yearn for redress". And in the next paragraph: "Terrorism, the actual or threatened use
of violence to achieve political or religious goal is, like warfare - a more structured and bigger form of
it - an indication of (hu)mankind's inability to resolve its disagreement, without destruction". Two
powerful theses. About 20 years ago, President Fidel Castro of Cuba declared that the huge debts said
to be owed the leading capitalists imperialist states by Third World countries were not only
"unpayable", but also "uncollectable". That is, the debtors wouldnot be able to pay the debts, and the
creditors would not be able to collect them. Many imperialist stooges laughed at him. But, today, some
rulers in the Third World are building their popularity on their "success" in the debt-forgiveness
crusade. Following Castro, courageous people should, today, be able to say that the war against global
terror is unwinnable until exploitation, oppression, big-power violence, humiliation, impoverisation and
gross inequality - the root causes of terrorism - are banished from the face of the earth. The fowl that
perches on a clothline will know no peace, nor will the clothline. Barbarism begets barbarism. What we
are witnessing is a clash ofbarbarisms, as one writer has put it.
304

11 1111 ? iiimoIC
From Ivory Coast to Bakassi 31st October, 2002
STORY has recently issued a series of warnings, through developments in Ivory Coast and Bakassi, to
the Nigerian people and the Nigerian state. Whether they will listen to the warnings, or take them
seriously, I do not know. What I is that there are enough historical lessons, accessible to every
generation, to help qty and every segment of it avoid, or mitigate, serious disasters. Less than a decade
ago, Ivory Coast was held up, by those who decide these as a model of democracy, political stability,
social-economic development and ciiimicsation in Africa. Today the country would occupy the bottom
of this hierarchy. About a ago, Bakassi was like Koma in the former Gongola state of Nigeria: totally
unknown to their immediate neighbours. Today, Bakassi is the best known piece ofNigerian not for
good reason, but for bad. Both transformations - in Ivory Coast and s: - tell us what can happen sooner
than later in our country. But they can be avoided. se this article would not have been necessary. During
the crisis of the First Republic our intellectual and political elites agreed that etat could not take place
in Nigeria, why? Because, they argued, Nigeria was too for a coup to succeed. Perhaps they did not
know then - as we all now know - unsuccessful coup could lead to a greater calamity than a successful
one. We owe isdom to what happened on January 15, 1966 and what is now happening in Ivory A ,gain,
many Nigerians who claim to "know book" now tell us that no country can

e civil wars. Therefore? No civil war can occur in Nigeria again. Two fallacies 'committed here. In the
first place, the issue is not whether Nigeria can survive another ar but whether another civil war can
break out. To innocent people, the main victims uusr! ginned conflict, a civil war has the same effects
as an armed rebellion, or even a
coup d'etat inspired by mass hatred. In the second place what is Colombia or passing through? A civil
war? Or a series of civil wars linked by a chain? Can we see a c*:ain in Nigeria? Coming nearer home,
Lake Chad region and Bakassi are classic zrirninal neglect of a people by a state that claims their
allegiance and controls their Niczerian state may have a case with Cameroon before the World Court.
But the of Bakassi and Lake Chad region have a case with the Nigerian state before the ofHistory.
Coast \\ as the de-facto headquarters of the nationalist struggle against French .am in West Africa. It
was the Ivorian nationalist leader, later to become the first
305

president of independent Ivory Coast, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who, in 1946, inspired the formation of
the African Democratic Assembly, a pan-African nationalist movement with branches or sections in
several territories of French colonial West Africa. When Ivory Coast became independent of its creator
- the French - in 1960, Felix Houphouet-Boigny became its first president. Ivory Coast carried into
independence huge problems including the arbitrariness of colonial boundaries. Of the 13.5 million
people recorded as inhabitants of Ivory Coast in 1992, not less than two million originally came from
other French colonial territories. This figure did not include "foreign" Africans - mainly from Burkina
Faso (former Upper Volta), Mali, Ghana and Nigeria - who had, since independence, come to Ivory
Coast as traders or labourers in the (cocoa) plantations. Today, foreigners - of various rxes, but mainly
African - constitute about one-third of the country's population. These people were not infiltrators, they
were not invaders. They were legitimate aliens who had legitimately come to Ivory Coast and
legitimately inserted themselves in the economy. The country is inhabited by more than 60 ethnic
groups who are citizens of the country. Of the modem religions, Christianity predominates in the South
while Islam predominates in the North. Felix Houphouet-Boigny managed to maintain "political
stability" and steady economic development during his long tenure as president. The various social
contradictions were contained by the huge stature of Boigny. Then came the "democratic wind" which
started to blow overAfrica from the late 1980s. The "wind" produced Chiluba in Zambia, Soglo in
Benin Republic, civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, etc. The wind was accompanied, as many
people will remember, by IMF-inspired economic programmes. Still, Ivory Coast held out: a "multiparty" presidential and parliamentary election was held and Boigny was returned, after more than 30
years in office, by 82 per cent of the vote, defeating the only opposition candidate, Laurent Gbagbo,
who is now president. In the parliamentary election, Boigny's party won 163 of the 175 seats contested.
If the "democratic wind" did not shake Ivory Coast and its Ivorian strongman, the IMF-inspired
structural adjustment programme (SAP) did. Hunger and desperation descended on the land, and the
opposition - expectedly -exploited it. In the last years Of his life, President Boigny had to resort to the
standard African methods ofrule: intimidation, repression, tribalism and religious politics - although I
am not sure how far the last two vices were developed before the grand old man died. But as soon as he
left the scene, and his successors did not knoWIRVX to manaQe the economic crisis, tribalism and
religious politics became the dominant contradictions in No Coast. Why? Perhaps because, as my
father used to say, when a tragedy strikes, everyone reverts to his or her mother tongue. It may sound
simplistic; but it is not. My father was right. When economic crisis and mass poverty descended on

Ivory Coast - with no towering political or spiritual figure to maintain stability (which can, in any case
succeed only for a while) people began to seek explanations and scapegoats in ethnic groups and
religions other than theirs. Alassane D. Quattara, who had been prime minister of the country, suddenly
became an alien, a native

ofBurkina Faso, and banned from contesting presidential election. We recall that a couple of rears ago,
Kenneth Kaunda, pre-eminent African nationalist leader and first president of Zambia, suddenly
became an alien in Zambia. He was alleged to belong to Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet all African
countries - including Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Zambia Mk!. DRC - were the creations of "super
aliens", the European invaders. A few years after death ofBoigny, Ivory Coast fell in line with the
African pattern. ioliers staged a mutiny which wr,- upgraded to a coup d' etat. A retired army general
"invited" to assume power. The army general decided to perpetuate his rule again, in with the African
"tradition", through an "election". He adopted tribalism as platform. He defeated both in the election
and in the street fights that followed. Laurent Gbagbo, the 1 underdog, became president on the basis of
an election from which a very popular te, Alassane Quattara, was excluded and which was boycotted in
many parts of the I understand Gbagbo is a socialist! There are many like him here. A correspondent of
Time magazine filed this report: "Gbagbo, like his predecessors, " lamed racial tensions by pushing an
Ivoirite policy, which favoured natives and left foreip-born residents few rights" President Gbagbo, the
"socialist", tried to introduce brand of apartheid in Ivory Coast. New national identity cards were
introduced. In to, including digital finger-prints and photographs, the identity cards came in different depending on the bearer's ethnic origin! Finally, Gbagbo decided to demobilise ns of the army. He
targeted soldiers from particular parts of the country. Before he carry out his plan, the soldiers
mutinied. The rebels targeted "leading proponents of isive concept", including the interior Minister,
Boga Doudou, who introduced the national identity card. The minister was killed. Also killed, perhaps
by government were General Robert Guei, former military Head of State, and his wife. Defeated an, the
rebels fled north and dug in. As you read this, the country has virtually been Hypocrites calling
themselves West African leaders may continue to arrange that do not address the fundamental issues
involved. Now to Lake Chad and Bakassi. No Nigerian should be allowed to become a on the Lake
Chad and Bakassi question: Not the Nigerian government's lawyers id Court, not the Federal AttorneyGeneral. Those who bear the responsibility Successive Nigerian governments since independence and
particularly starting 's military dictatorship (1966-1975). The Lake Chad region, and particularly
Peninsula, were neglected by the Nigerian state because they believed they Therefore, they did not
mind trading them away with Cameroun, or allowing over the area to slip away - both of which amount
to the same thing. When had been done, when it was already too late, the Nigerian state suddenly its
authority. Why? Because Bakassi was suddenly discovered to harbour state has a case to answer in the
Court of History.
307

10
Echoes from Southern Africa 28th March, 2002
HE echoes are from the entire region; but they originated in Angola and Zimbabwe, In Angola, Jonas
Malheiro Savimbi, educated in several European universities, foreign minister in the pre-independence
Revolutionary Government ofAngola-in-Exile, founder and president of the National Union for the
Total Independence of.Aingola (I NITA), rebel guerrilla leader. first against the Portuguese colonialists

and, later against the MPLA Government ofindependent Anzola, died in a military ambush inAngola in
the third week of February 2002. In Zimbabwe, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, also widely educated at home
and abroad, former college teacher in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia), Zambia (then Northern
Rhodesia), and Ghana; a graduate o f long colonial incarceration, fonner publicity secretary ofNational
Democratic Party (NTDP), forrner publicity secretary, Zimbabwe Africa People's Union (ZAPU),
former secretary-general, Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), former co-founder and jointleader, Patriotic Front ofZimbabwe (PF), former Commander-in-Chief of Zimbabwe African National
Liberation Army (ZANLA), former elected Prime Minister ofindependent Zimbabwe, President
ofZANU-PF and President of7imbabwe since 1987, was re-elected the country's president in early
March 2001, These long citations are necessary for precisely one reason: the global dictators, the new
imperialists - with their complete domination of the world media and other forms of communication
and information - now strenuously try to cut off the head of our history and distort the trunk.
Unfortunately, some of our "own people have become intellectual and ideological defenders of thi s
monumental crime against Africa and its peoples. It is our nationalist duty to protect our true history
however ugly this history may be. We may start with Jonas Savimbi and devote more space to him
since his case is more complicated and less understood here. Savimbi died a widely hated and abused
man: around the globe, in Africa. and in his country, Angola. Many of those who abused and hated him
were sincere; some others not so sincere, and yet others clearly hypocritical and cynical. I hated him
too, especially for his alliance, from early 1970s to early 1990s, with imperialism and apartheid South
Africa. I hated him intensely. But Savimbi had not always been a reactionary, a counter-revolutionary
or an imperialist agent. Although his opposition to imperialism was ambiguous, although he was nonMarxist. it would appear, nonetheless, that he was, at first, a genuine fighter for the liberation oftti s
country from Portuguese rule. Later, however "tribalism" coupled with the infiltration of Portuguese
secret agents into the
308

liberation movement and the impact cif "cold war' rivalries in Africa resulted in Savimbi and his
UNITA moving farther and farther away from what his movement proclaimed: Total Independence for
Angola. The anti-colonial struggle in Angola entered the armed stage in 1961. And it was, expected,
directed from abroad. There were several nationalist groups: some were ::-g-anised on ideological
bases, some others along tribal lines, and yet others combining oth trends. By April 1974 when the
Armed Forces seized power in Portugal and accepted inevitability ofAngola's independerce, three
nationalist movements were on the ground in Angola: the Popular Movement ior the Liberation
ofAngola (MPLA) led by Agostihno "veto; the National Front for the Liberation ofAngola (FNLA), led
by Holden Roberto; and the National Union for the Total Independence ofAngola (UNITA), led by
Jonas Savimbi. The Liberation Committee of the Organisation ofAfrican Unity (OAU) had gnised
FLNA as the legitimate government-in-exile and representative of the Angola eople; but compelled by
the fact that MPLA was courageously and effectively confronting tie colonial government with arms,
the committee had also extended political support to PL A. Furthermore, MPLA received assistance, in
materials and training, from the Soviet
and other socialist countries ofEastern Europe and radical sections ofAfrica's political
hip; FNLA received assistance from some European countries, the United States of ca and conservative
forces in Africa; and UNITA received support - necessarily 'en - from Portugal and apartheid South
Africa. The assumption of power in Portugal by army officers in September 1974, accelerated Angola's
movement towards L'nce. The junta called a conference o f the three movements and set up a
Transitional er.-=ent. But instead of running the country and preparing the nation for independence,
armed movements initiated a civil war in which the armed forces of apartheid. 1- 1..7:7-lea and agents

ofAmerican Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were openly involved -??tdlh????e of FNLA and
UNITA. Then the MPLA called upon Fidel Castro and the s: Party of Cuba for assistance. They
responded quickly and halted the advance mar:- forces, which had invaded Angola through Namibia.
November 10, 1975, the colonial administration proclaimed, in Luanda, the o1a, the independence of
the country from midnight that day. In the absence of ::-nment to which to hand over power, Portugal
simply gave independence "to Angola" and left the country. The following day, November 11, 1975
two nvo governments were announced in Angola: one by MPLA, and the other A. ir_ThCiTA. The civil
war has lasted 27 years, and i.t is still on. But between the end (ps...-ifid the beginning of the 1990s,
three developments combined to remove the tic," political basis of the civil war. The first was the
sudden collapse of the 112iittior- its allies in Eastern Europe; the second was the de-radicalisation of
MPLA and their accommodation with the West, with America in particular; and - ndependence of
Namibia, followed by the defeat of apartheid in South 2' developments, what remained as bases and
motivations for the war were personal political ambition for power, struggle for control of aces. and
"tribalism". And with this shift in basis it required the personality of
309

Jonas Savimbi to hold UNITA together as a fighting force. Although it is correct to say - many people
now do - that the death of Savimbi has created the condition to brin2r Angolan Civil War to and end, it
is also necessary to add that what is meant by this is th,_ end ofthe Angolan civil war in the particular
form of UNITA versus MPLA. The war ma2 continue in other forms including ethnic separatist
struggles. Now, to Robert Mugabe. He and his party, ZANU-PF, have been accused o :- deviating from
"democratic" principles, using violence against the opposition, intimidatim: journalists, seizing whiteowned farms by force, causing racial disharmony, ruining the economy, rigging elections, banning
foreign election monitors, being too old and staying ii y office for too long, etc. A Nigerian even called
him "President Abacha ofZimbabwe". In the main, his accusers can be grouped into four, namely: the
global dictatorship or what is sold to us as "international community"; the Zimbabwean opposition
party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its allied non-government organisations (NGOs);
the white fami owners and the remnants ofthe white supremacist regime in Southern Rhodesia
Zimbabwe); and the Pro-America governments and unhistorical and brainwash "democrats" in Africa.
The first three are in alliance, liberally endowed with money a:: served immensely by the world media
and means of communications dominated by Americ These allegations are at best half-truths, They do
not tell the whole story, they do not cr,i% the full picture of what is going on in Zimbabwe; the
allegations are removed from t:it context of Zimbabwean history, from the context of contemporary
forces trying to rob fhf: people the fruit of their victory over white supremacy, and from the context of
capitalis: globalisation and global dictatorship. The truth about Zimbabwe can be simply stated. The
state of Zimbabwe is one of the states which are yet to fall "in line" with the design ofthe global
dictatorship" the modem enslavers" for the world. The others include Cuba, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran,
North Korea, Russia and China. These states must be destroyed" by all means possible, includin,
falsehood, media campaigns, disinformation, vile propaganda, sabotage, and armed attack .5 They are
to be replaced with "America-friendly" states. But the targeted states are resistir:, My advice to
Mugabe, ZANU-PF and the veterans of the liberation struggle is tli Complete, in record time, the
redistribution of the land of Zimbabwe to landle Zimbabweans. And make the change irreversible. In
other words, execute the task in suc:. a way that no future Zimbabwean government, however,
conservative or imperialist-inspire can return this patrimony to racist thieves, their heirs or their
children. Thereafter, Rob Mugabe should retire from his state and party positions and hand over to his
deputies. he should not throw away his military fatigues in case it becomes necessary, even in retireme

and in his old age, to go back to the bush.

310

The Irtvrc,Lakt Encounter 8th April, 2002

N \)Vednesday, March 21, 2002, Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, president of the Republic of Cuba, addressed the
International Conference on Financing for Development holding in Monterrey, Mexico. Organised by
the United Nations, conference, which had many Heads of State in attendance, was another in a series
of UN-sponsored meetings aimed at appealing to the rich nations of the world to increase 'Financial
assistance to the poor ones. The conference, as expected, achieved nothing. Why? !Because America,
the undisputed ruler of the world, would do nothing beyond lecturing the r nations on "democracy",
"war on terrorism" and, in the case of South America, "war inst drugs." President Castro's speech was
short by the man's record. But not only it strong, it effectively telescoped the grossly unjust social and
economic order that has imposed on the world. Castro started by regretting that "not everyone here will
share thoughts," but insisted that he would "respectfully" say what he thought. And he said it: existing
world economic order constitutes a system ofplundering and exploitation like other in history." As he
said this, several participants closed their files. These included who, through sheer ignorance, arising
from American leaders' relentless disinformation 7ropaganda, look at Castro with fear and hatred, and
those who helplessly look on erica for the very survival of their people. But Castro, as expected, went
on to ni=trate his charge, and invited opponents to refute it. "The world economy is today a huge
casino," he said. Why? Because, according "'recent analyses indicate that for every dollar that goes into
trade, one hundred end speculati ve operations completely disconnected from the real economy." The
world ion was estimated at 6 billion in the year 2000. Of this number, 75 per cent or 4.5 people, live in
underdevelopment; 1.2 billion people in the Third World live in extreme . The income of the richest
nations of the world (that is, the G-8) which was 37 lamer than that of the poorest nations in 1960 is
now 74 times larger. In other words, has doubled. The assets of the three wealthiest persons in the
world amount to the Domestic Product (GDP) of the poorest countries combined. To conclude Castro's
statistics: In the year 2001, more than 826 million people were actually starving; are -S54 million
illiterate adults; 325 million children do not attend school, 2 billion C no access to low cost medications
and 2.4 billion people lack the basic sanitation . Not less than 11 million children under age of5perish
every year from preventable while half a million go blind for lack of vitamin A; the life span of the
population in d world is 30 years higher than that of the people living in Sub-Saharan Africa.- 311

This, according to Castro, is genocide. Perhaps, there is nothing really new in these figures: they are
contained, you woul,L: say, in the publications ofthe World Bank. But summarised and presented to a
conference on economic assistance by Fidel Castro in his usually powerful and "combative" manner.
they raised a stir, to say the least. Many participants became visibly uncomfortable; many others were
embarrassed; not a few were sad. But several were angry, very angry. Among them, President George
W. Bush who was not, at the time, in attendance. His plane was about to land at Monterrey Airport as
Castro was concluding his speech. Suddenly strange movements began in the conference room;
officials talked in whispers; some others removed their earphones and replaced them with cell phones
into which they whispered. The Mexican hosts went out by one door and re-entered through another.
They whispered to Cuban delegates who, in turn, whispered to Castro. Everyone knew that something
was wrong. But what? At last Castro stood up to end the suspense: "I beg you all to excuse me, since I

am not able to continue in your company due to a special situation created by my participation in this
summit and I am obliged to return immediately to my country". He announcethhat Ricardo Alarcon, the
president of Cuba's National Assembly, would now lead the Cuban delegation and requested the
summit not to prevent Alarcon from continuing as his replacement. After this, Castro withdrew from
the conference, drove to the airport and flew back to Havana. Close to the airport, Castro's motorcade
crossed that of President Bush. Castro out, Bush in! It was an invisible encounter between a defender
ofthe wretched of the earth and the leader of the global dictatorship, the modem enslavers. What
actually happened? Why did President Fidel Castro hurriedly leave Mexico after his speech? Simple.
President Bush had demanded the withdrawal of Castro as a condition for his even stepping on
Mexican soil. The hosts must have thought it was a mere diplomatic statement not meant to be taken
literally. But when Bush threatened from Monterrey Airport to fly back to Washington, the Mexicans
pleaded, not with Bush, but with Castro. And the latter agreed to withdraw. President George W. Bush
did not want to meet, or even see, Castro. What a hatred! It even surpasses the man's hatred for Osama
bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. To George W. Bush, Fidel Castro is Satan himself. But why did
President Castro agree to withdraw from the Monterrey conference? Why did he not ignore the
Mexican pleas and stay put? Aftem all, both he and his -country-were officially invited to the
conference. Several reasons can be suggested. In the first place, he did not want to disrupt the
conference: for it was clear that had he resisted the subtle pressures mounted on him, President Bush
would have boycotted the conference. And the gathering would have ended abruptly, going by the hold
America has on most of the participating countries including, unfortunately, Mexico. Neither Castro,
nor Cuba, nor indeed their admirers across the globe would have gained anything by allowing
American president's pathological hatred for the truth to disrupt an international conference. In the
second place, Castro has a sentimental attachment to Mexico: it was, after all, from this same country
that Castro and his comrades-in-arms set sail in 1956 to engage the American-backed dictatorship in
Cuba. The relation between the two LatinAmerican countries had remained very warm until recently
when Mexico started to move "closer economically and
312

cally to the United States." In the third place Castro did not want to descend to the y terroristic and
thoroughly cowboyish and barbaric level of President Bush. This have disappointed millions of
exploited and starving people across the globe for Castro had just spoken. Beyond this, Castro would
have played into the hands of dictators who use any pretext to destroy and commit murder and then use
their e control of the media to lie and disinfonn. Finally, I believe Castro withdrew from ey because he
had, in any case, delivered his speech which - before the demand withdrawal - was the only
newsworthy event at the summit. I would like to end this piece with two other statements from
Monterrey, one made ent Castro, the other by Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly.
the speech earlier referred to, Castro said: "In the face of the present deep crisis, a e future is offered
where the economic, social and ecological tragedy of an gly ungovernable world would never be
resolved and where the number of the the starving would grow higher, as if a larger part of humanity
were doomed. As .said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the and
the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot e, poverty and hunger. It
should definitely be said: farewell to arms. Something done to save humanity; a better world is
possible." And asked by reporters to on the sudden departure of his president, Alarcon said: "Bush had
made it clear want to meet Castro. It is his problem and it is up to his psychiatrist to help him As the
Monterrey drama was playing itself out, Jimmy Carter, a former American was applying to Bush for
permission to visit Cuba. Fidel Castro welcomed the want him to see our country," he said, "not so that
he supports us or anything "indeed so that he may make all the criticisms he wants. If he wants, we'll

fill Square so they can criticise as much as they want, because we are so convinced ethical, ideological,
political and human strength of our revolution". Let the between the two men: George Bush and Fidel
Castro.
313
Democracy and Popular Power 2nd May, 2002
--1-N mid-April, 2002, two political waves shook the SouthAmerican state of Venezuela: the first from
the right and the second from the left. The latter dramatically neutralisec: the former and restored the
status quo ante. We recall the sequence of events. On Thursday, April 11, there was a demonstration in
Caracas, capital ofVenezuela. against the economic policies of President Hugo Chavez's government.
The demonstration was organised by the leadership of the country's central labour union and the private
sector operators. They were tacitly supported by the Roman Catholic Church. At a point during the
confusion, shots were fired into the crowd, resulting in the death of12 demonstrators. It was not known
who did the shooting or who ordered it. The following day, Friday, April 12, a number of senior
military officers, led by the Inspector-General of the Armed Forces. Lucas Rincon Romero, arrested the
president and ordered him to resign. He was then taken to the general headquarters of the Armed
Forces, and detained. Thereafter, General Romero announced the "resignation" of President Chavez.
Bypassing the constitutio-nZ:. elected Vice-President who should have assumed office in the event of
the president ' resignation, the Armed Forces swore in Pedro Carmona Estanga, the President of t1:-.1
Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Venezuela's largest business association. as interim
president. The American government immediately recognised the new Venezuela:: government,
accusing the "former" president of "human rights violations" and expressin_:: "solidarity with the
Venezuelan people". The American government added: "We look forwarc_ to working with all
democratic forces in Venezuela to ensure respect for the peacefl.: . expression of political opinion". In
all this, nothing was heard from the ousted president. The first act of the businessman - interim
president was to dissolve the democratica::: elected National Assembly. His second act was to repeal 49
laws signed in November 2001 by Hugo Chavez redistributing land to landless peasants and expanding
welfare programmes to the poor. It was then clear to the Venezuelan masses and the world wha: forces
had engineered the coup d'etat. The Chief of the Armed Forces, General Efra',,::. Vasquez, reacted,
threatening that he would withdraw his support for the interim presider unless he restored the National
Assembly. The impostor-president agreed and restored t1:-.:. National Assembly, but did nothing about
the popular laws he repealed. It was at this stage that Venezuelan masses, dubbed "Hugo's supporters",
regrouped and reacted. They took over the presidential palace and seized the streets of Caracas. The
interim president looke,: round for his military sponsors, but they were nowhere to be found: they were
protecting..:
314

demonstrators demanding Hugo Chavez's return! In panic, he resigned - less than 24 after assuming
office. Diosdado Cabello, Hugo's deputy, who ought to have assumed ifthe president had properly
resided, was then sworn in as president. But immediately taking the oath of office, he announced that
he was merely "waiting to return the to President Chavez" who had already been flown by the military
to an island on camp. The coup had failed! Two days after being unconstitutionally removed ioffice,
Hugo Chavez was back in Caracas, and in the presidential palace, as president. was popular power. To
really appreciate the momentous events that took place in Venezuela between April 11 and Sunday,
April 14, 2002, we have to take a few steps back. Venezuela, Spanish colony, situated at the northern
coast of South America, has been formally ent for 180 years. It has a total population of about 23

million, made up of mestizos white, Indian and Black races: 57 per cent), white 21 per cent, black 10
per cent -12 per cent. About 96 per cent of the population claim to be Roman Catholic, 2 Protestants
and others 2 per cent. The country is the fourth largest oil producer in (Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries), with the bulk of its oil exports .the United States ofAmerica. This very fact and
the fact of its physical location in .ca, - sharing borders with Colombia and Brazil - make the country
strategically to the rulers of the United States. The oil sector is relatively developed and state-The rulers
of America, for obvious reasons, do not like the latter attribute of
's oil industry; they don't mind the first attribute provided they are in charge of the After a long period
of military and military-backed dictatorships, a combined movement of young military officers, urban
workers, peasants and students :he Democratic Action Group, came to power in 1945 and wrote the
first truly ca:stitution for Venezuela. Ironically segments of this movement have long ceased nary,
popular, or democratic. During the following 50 years, Venezuela battled
instability, military adventurism, brief dictatorships and, above all, mass poverty. system and a modest
range of fundamental freedoms appear to have been Then, in 1998, Hugo Chavez was elected
president. Chavez is a populist in the Latin American tradition. He is extremely popular the
dispossessed and the marginalised. He also has the advantage of being a speaker, a man who could
raise passions in hungry and desperate masses. He ;residential election and that of 2000 "by the largest
majority in 40 years", -al records. Since coming to power he has fought "to shift the great wealth
ncipally from its oil, towards the 80 per cent of his people who live in -ular, as earlier stated, his
government, backed by the National Assembly, pro giamme of land redistribution. Beyond that,
President Chavez initiated
tee the rights of Venezuela's indigenous people and those of women. It en that, taking a long view of
history, the indigenous people, who are so the country and who are now said to constitute only 2 per
cent of the ibe original owners of Venezuela. The other 98 per cent are descendants immigrants and
slaves. Chavez's government has also initiated a
315

programme of free heath-care and education up to university level. This type ofpo clearly unacceptable
to the rulers ofAmerica, the International Monetary Fund (n, the business "oligarchies" in Venezuela. It
runs counter to the dictates and logic of c a: globalism of free-market" democracy. What are Hugo
Chavez' other crimes - in addition to his "undue populism ignoring American rulers' objections, he has
been selling oil to Cuba, America's desi "satan island". Secondly, he has refused "overflying rights" to
American military al:- conducting a campaign in Colombia "in support of the murderous regime" there.
T?:"Ii (and some say this is his worst "crime"), "although he condemned the attacks of Sep-Le-771i 11,
he questioned the right of the United States to fight terrorism with terrorism". For 1:11154. American
rulers regard Chavez as a terrorist or a supporter of terrorism - which is the S.L.7.1te thing! "You are
either for us or against us", says President George W. Bush, the leap international community. Does
Hugo Chavez have no faults at all? Is he an angel? No, he is not an angel has faults - but not the ones
listed by the international community, the Venezuelan business oligarchies, the right-wing labour
confederacy, the oligarchy-owned and American-inspil media and the conservative leadership of the
Catholic Church. According to some do s& but unbiased, observers, "while Chavez truly believes in
participatory democracy, evidenced in his efforts to democratise the Venezuelan constitution, his
instincts are those :7 an autocrat. This has led to a serious neglect of his natural base which is the

progressive grassroots civil society". In other words, rather than basing himself on, and expanding,
already existing organisations of "progressive and grassroots civil society" - which are his for the
asking - he chose to construct parallel "neighbourhood" groups to mobilise the masses and defend the
revolution. This is, at best, unnecessary, and worst, counter-productive, anarchistic, voluntaristic and
may ultimately become counter-revolutionary. His second major error was that, in dealing with his
opponents, he replaced radical, bu: constructive criticism with abuses; and in mobilising his supporters
he replaced popular education and inspiration with what has been described as "inflammatory
rhetorics" - an unfortunate misuse of his oratorical powers. It is to be expected that he would draw the
correct lessons from the events of April 11-14, 2002. What are the lessons for Venezuela and the
world? Simple. Popular power is the ultimate guarantor of democracy. In other words, in the final
analysis, the defence of democracy cannot be left entirely to the courts (which can be subverted or
corrupted), or state institutions (which can be bought over), or the military (which can be taken over by
anti-democratic forces, national and international), or even the constitution (which powerful forces can
ignore). The ultimate defenders and guarantors of democracy are the masses.
316

nationalistic, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist protest, as history records, accelerated 1:7,it formation
of the National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS), the first nation-wf organization of Nigerian
students in higher institutions of learning. Today, all sorts ofpec7I:. carrying, messages and diktats of
domination, enslavement and national humiliation \-:s Nigeria and are treated to honours and
veneration. In 1960, as we again recall, nationalists, patriots, workers and students organized and
marched to the Federal Parliani in Lagos to protest against the proposed Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact.
The pact w aborted, at least the visible aspects of it. But a couple of months ago, there was only
miserably feeble opposition to what amounted to a military pact between Nigeria and th United States
ofAmerica. Ironically, this opposition was led by a thoroughly conservati\ and cynical army chief Also
ironically, the man's conservatism could not save him: he was retired. Patrice Lumumba, the fiercely
anti-imperialist prime minister of independent Com:: was murdered in January or February 1961. The
murderers were the pro-imperialist forces of Moise Tshombe under the direction of Belgian
mercenaries and America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Marches, lectures and other protest
activities were organise cl across the country; there were workers' strikes, and student boycott of
classes and lectures. This nationalist anger was captured in songs. One particular Nigerian musician,
ofYoruba Ijesha ethnic extraction, I. K. Dairo, who was virtually illiterate in the English language.
composed a song for Lumumba in Ijesha dialect. I listen to that song everyday. I am now unable to say
if the surviving leaders ofthe pro-Lumumba demonstration in Nigeria have been able to observe that
after 40 years of dictatorship, civil wars, imperialist aggression and multiple foreign invasions, during
which the name of this unfortunate Central African country changed from Belgian Congo to CongoLeopoldville, Congo-Kinshasa, Zaire, etc. the country has simply returned to the name which
Lumumba gave to it: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Coming after the Congolese conflict,
the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970, further taught Nigerians, on both sides, about imperialism and its
roles in global and regional conflicts. I remember that I got my earliest introduction to socialism and
Marxism from the slogans, news talks, analyses, statements and broadcasts of the Civil War. The
brutalisation of the Palestinian people by Israeli occupationists were regularly protested in Nigeria. I
recall that the illegal occupation of East Timor by Indonesia in 1975 was the subject of a resolution
passed by our group, the Anti-Poverty Movement of Nigeria (APMON), in our National Congress of
December 25, 1975. Less than two months later, on February 13, 1976, Nigerian youths and students,

in spontaneous nationalist revolt, stormed the American and BT-itish Embassies in Lagos for their
suspected complicity in the attempted coup which claimed several lives including that of General
Murtala Mohammed, the Head of State. On of the major anti-imperialist struggles waged by Nigerians
in the 1960s and early 197(s was against the testing of atomic bombs in the Sahara Desert by France. In
1961, ou: militants denounced the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by American-sponsored
Cuban dissidents. We protested the British invasion of Falkland (Malvinas) in 1982 and the
318

American invasion of Grenada in 1984. All these were before the "democratic wind" started to blow
over our country. The few voices ofprotest against the Gulf War (1991) and the Kosovo War (1999) and
their aftermaths have come from the-northern parts of our country. That is what my friend and I are
lamenting. Anti-imperialism, in one form or another, had featured in the programmes of virtually ail
Nigerian political parties, from 1945 until the "democratic" wind. You can check this out. You may then
argue that political parties under colonialism, that is, before independence in 960, were compelled, by
the very fact that the country was under foreign rule, to be anti-::::7erialist. This is correct. But after
independence even the most conservative parties had d.,:opted forms of anti-imperialism, however
superficial. The Action Group (AG) adopted `-. mocratic socialism". Even if we dismiss these claims as
hypocritical, it is still the case tut a substantial part of our political space was occupied by genuinely
anti-imperialist litical parties and movements. In the First Republic we had the Northern Elements
ogressive Union (NEPU), the Socialist Workers and Farmers Party (SWAFP), the Nigerian Youth
Congress (NYC), the Labour Party, the Revolutionary Labour Party and tkrics of smaller groups. In the
Second Republic, we had the People's Redemption Party the Socialist Working Peoples' Party (SWPP),
the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) :-.. _mdreds of socialist and Marxist political groupings and
platforms. Even the political pm- .:5 that were not anti-imperialist harboured anti-imperialist tendencies
and factions. ame the "democratic" wind and with it, the disappearance of political anti-imperialism the
platforms of Gani Fawehinmi's National Conscience Party (NCP), and the groups which trace their
origins to NEPU and PRP, and, of course, the Sharia otr."-.Z-71t. f we wish to date and study this neardisappearance of anti-imperialism from the of the Nigerian state and the civil society, then I suggest
that Babangida's transition annulment of the 1993 presidential election, the regime of General Abacha,
Abubakar's transition and the present Obasanjo's Republic be put in you are embarrassed or angered by
what I have written, then check out the
11111
of our existing political parties, socio-political movements, pro-democracy and is organizations and, of
course, the pronouncements of individuals who are by the press as leaders and spokespersons of
democracy and human rights in What we see is the struggle by prisoners for favoured positions within
the prison minds me of the appointment of Jewish capos in the concentration camps of Euz.-2:)e during
World War IL From being in the vanguard of anti-imperialism in :J\ intry is now the chief client of the
global dictatorship. There is obviously a lien?. But this cannot be removed by anger.
319

Looking Back at the Soviet Union 6th September, 2001

OLITICAL historians would link the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Social :--;;; Republics,
otherwise known as USSR or the Soviet Union, at the end of 199._ the abortive coup staged four

months earlier to remove President Mikhail Gorbach.. from office. That is correct: there was a link, but
just a link. The abortive coup acceleraill the dissolution and perhaps made it inevitable. But the
abortive coup was not the cause. or even the main cause of the dissolution. In other words, even if a
coup had not been attempted, the Soviet Union would still have broken up if Mikhail Gorbachev had
continued in office:. The Soviet Union was dissolving right under him. The only thing that could
possibly ha halted the process, and reversed it, was a bold and radical intervention, the type that bru
Soviet power into existence on November 7, 1917. Perhaps that was what the clowns called themselves
coup leaders attempted to do on Monday, August 19, 1991 in. Moscow.. Four good cow boys with toy
guns, a loud speaker and a car could have accomplish what Boris Yeltsin did: aborting the coup. Hence,
Boris Yeltsin, who embodied the decay Soviet power, rather than the rise of "democracy", merely filled
a vacuum, which fc cowboys could have filled. I do not intend to mourn the Soviet Union, but to
introduce it to the younger generations, especially students, who were likely to have been in their
infancy when ti super power started on its decline, and eventually disappeared. Believing that the rise a:
fall of Soviet power is an important subject of research for political historians, I also want to indicate
some lines of intellectual enquiry. Incidentally, while researching this piece, I c upon several editorial
commentaries carried by The Guardian, as well as articles writt by me for the newspaper before and
after the abortive coup. What follows draws vek heavily from those commentaries and articles:
Research direction 1: One of the most prominent attributes of the Soviet Union v, its sheer size. It was a
very large country: not only very large in surface area, but venir complex in composition and structure.
It was the largest country in the world. Stretching from Eastern Europe, across North Asia to the Pacific
Ocean the country occupies half o Europe, and one-third ofAsia, and had 11 of the world's 24 time
zones. It stretched for 5,000 kilometres from north to south and 10,000 kilometres from east to west. Its
perimeter was 60,000 kilometres. With a land area of 22.4 million square kilometres the USSR was
three and a half times the size of Europe and 25 times the size of Nigeria. It covered one-sixth of the
land surface of the globe and shared borders with 12 countries. The last census before dissolution put
the population of the USSR at 287 million. The country had more.:
320

than 100 nations and ethnic groups of varying sizes. The country was a Federal Republic, made up of
15 Union Republics, 20 Autonomous Republics, 8 Autonomous Regions and 10 Autonomous Areas.
The largest -Union Republic, the Russian Federation, had a population Df145.3 million, while the
smallest, Estonia was only 1.6 million strong. To what extent did sheer size and complexity of state
structure contribute to the collapse? Research direction 2: The USSR was proclaimed in December
1922 five years after the Bolshevik revolution. The proclamation took this long mainly because the
young ration was fighting for its very survival. The principle of self-determination - up to, and
mcluding the right to political secession - was enshrined in the 1924 Constitution. Vladimir Lenin, the
leader of the revolution, had insisted on the inclusion of that provision. But unfortunately, the exact
mechanism for exercising the maximum option of secession was not L'71C luded in the Constitution.
Each of the Union Republics shared borders with at least one t7: reign country; an act deliberately
designed to make secession practicable. The Union ublics were constituted not at once but over a
period of 23 years: between November 11119 - and September 1940. These constituent Republics
joined the USSR, also not all at but over a period of 18 years: from December 1922 to September 1940.
Everything to go well until the beginning of World War II (1939). In the general preparation
mobilisation for that war, the Soviet state, then completely isolated and threatened, e. into a secret
agreement on borders and "spheres of interests" with Nazi Germany. ith this agreement the Soviet state
initiated a process of reconstituting its border It incorporated the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and
Estonia - whose e'enclence it had recognised after the 1917 revolution - into the Soviet Union. And

simultaneously, a part of Romania was annexed and merged with Bessarabia to Union Republic of
Moldavia. The war itself led to further territorial expansions. To Caent did the manner of constitution
lead to dissolution? Research direction 3: World War II ended with the defeat ofNazi Germany by the
roes including the Soviet Union. It was a victory for mankind. But the specific =rutted on the nations of
Eastern and Central Europe by the Soviet Union remained ...7.1kiressed until the emergence ofMikhail
Gorbachev in 1985 as General Secretary g Communist Party and President of the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet namr.,.-..nt). Gorbachev's perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) let loose
lizsces which were bent not only on redressing the wrongs of the past, but also on
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some agreements that were voluntarily entered into. By the end of 1990, virtually
Union Republics, including those that founded the Soviet Union in 1922, wanted dent of the Soviet
state. Several of them, including the three Baltic states, had, declared themselves independent. With the
elimination of the leading role of .-3,31-t-y, the Soviet government became so weak, morally and
politically, to resist rz. :1:7 independence. The attempted coup ofAugust 19, 1991 sealed the hope of
rzie Scviet Union as a single country. Was the Soviet Union already unreformable
-Gorbachev came to power? IlLesta:ch direction 4: What universal lessons can be drawn from the
collapse of the !In the first place, for better or for worse, nationalism showed, even at that
11111111 I "
321

time, that it was still a very powerful social force. In the second place the collapse prov: that there are
universal democratic principles which no social system - whatever philosophical underpinnings and
whatever its humanistic hopes - can ignore or delay -61: 31 latter date. In the third place, if a nation
refuses to come to terms with its real problem - including the historical wrongs it committed in the act
of its creation - and strive to sol-, them, the problems will sooner or later explode. No state is
undissolvable. And when thi happens other nations, with less than altruistic motives, will intervene.
Contemporary histori has taught the world the only effective way by which a country can guard its
independence, unity and territorial integrity is to pursue, relentlessly, the cause of social justice within
its boundaries. Finally, no country can, forever, live on its past glories or on the heroism of its founders.
Rather, every generation must try to improve on its heritage. For every new stage ofhi story creates new
needs which may not be met by inherited structures and visions. Research direction 5: Between the
second half of 1989 and the end of 1991, three significant events of world-historic proportions took
place in East and Central Europe. First, the Warsaw Pact uniting countries that claimed to be socialist
was dissolved, freeinz the smaller countries from the domination of the Soviet Union. Second, the
Communist Party governments in the smaller countries were overthrown by popular uprisings. Third.
the Soviet Union dissolved, yielding place to 15 sovereign states under the control of nationalist and
anti-Communist governments. These three events which, for better or for worse, significantly changed

the course of world history, were both counter-revolutionary and progressive: counter-revolutionary in
the sense that they reversed the social and economic gains of socialism and progressive in the sense
that they freed the peoples of this region from political superstructures under which they could no
longer develop. Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx would have regarded these events as contradictions of
progress.
322

105
Is Anything Wrong with September 11? 20th September, 2004
N my personal political archive, I keep a special notebook, afid a diary. In the former record and
summarise political events which, in my opinion, have taught the world smificant lessons and have
made significant impacts on the course ofworld history or h. objectively, significant or not, I feel
strongly about. In the latter, I record future that I reckon would be objectively significant or of
sentimental value to me. I insert records in red, black or blue, according to the seriousness of the
particular event. I - 7: anginal comments in pencil. I cannot now remember the origin of this choice of
But it has come to stay. Every morning, provided nothing happens early enough to the day, I first check
the notebook, and then the diary. In this historical period r ends and colleagues are abandoning their
long held ideological views without this early-morning ritual, in part, prepares me for the day which,
inmost cases, in ideological and political loneliness. And so it happened that I woke up at about in the
morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to perform this ritual of n and re-dedication. As soon as I
opened the page of September 11 I knew the day would be a very for me. For, recorded in red, was an
event which shook the world exactly 28 years September 11, 1973: the killing, in a bloody military
coup d' etat, of Salvador fns, the Marxist socialist president of Chile, democratically elected three years
I ection conducted under a constitution promulgated by his non-Marxist, and Lnist, predecessors in
office. Allende's election in October 1970 made him., F.n1( and Wagnall Encyclopaedia, "the first
president elected on a Marxist-:77..Tamme in a non-Communist country of the Western Hemisphere".
I think he Allende was the candidate of a leftist coalition, the Popular Unity Party, platform included
full nationalisation of basic industries, banks and as well as land reform and welfare programme.
(74iZzerim time) I suspended my review of the Chilean tragedy to carry out some There was nothing,
at this stage, to tell me that before the end of that day I Moth e r red entry against September 11. There
was nothing to warn me that in -.. and about the same time of the day as the coup in Chile was
unfolding before. an event of bloodier dimension would take place. I mean the ,r. America which
claimed thousands of human lives. So, I continued my about the house in impotent rage, warning
young members of the
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16, zt-e not even born when Allende and his compatriots were killed, to go
323

about their duties quietly, or go back to bed. To return to the coup story, At 1.00am on September 11,
1973, Allende, whc .' in his private home in the capital Santiago, received a report of troop movement.
He phi the commander ofthe garrison, but he denied the report. At 5.00 a.m he learnt that the n had
"mutinied". He asked the navy commander, but he denied the report. At 6.00 rallied his personal guards
and supporters and headed for the presidential palace. By the palace guard had been replaced by enemy
troops; but Allende managed to get int,J palace with a column of his supporters. At 7.00 a.m. the coup
leaders gave Presid Allende up to mid-day to resign. He rejected the ultimatum; and at exactly 12.00
noon_ presidential palace came under fire from the air force and the tank division of the arr-n Allende
broadcast his last message to the nation and the world, vowing never to surre his mandate. He then
evacuated civilians, grabbed a machine gun and, with the help loyalists, confronted the generals. He
died fighting. So did thousands of his support z7.,, including workers, students and women. Many
more were to die in the following two we Eventually, as the world knows, General Augusto Pinochet
Ugarte consolidated his j-LI! and ruled effectively for about two decades. By the way, Allende, then
aged 65, was not soldier. He was a civilian and a trained physician. He was a democrat; beyond that, he
\\ a constitutionalist. He was, throughout his political career, in the "mainstream" of Chile:: politics,
never a "rebel". He helped to establish the Chilean Socialist Party, an official recognised party, in 1933;
he was a Socialist Deputy in Chile's National Assembly (193 1945); Minister of Health (1939); Senator
(1945 - 1970); and President of the Sena:. (1965 - 1969). Allende contested the presidential elections of
1952, 1958 and 1964. He lost on the three consecutive occasions. Finally, in 1970, he won. Why was
Allende liquidated on September 11, 1973, together with his compatriots. and his government?
According to the Interim Report of the United States of America Senate Select Committee on "Alleged
Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders published in November 1975, President Richard Nixon
had, on September 15, 1970, 1 days after Allende's election but a month before his inauguration,
informed Richard Helms r the Director of America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that "an
Allende regime Chile would not be acceptable to the United States". The CIA, according to the Report.
"was instructed by President Nixon to play a direct role in organising a military coup d' eta: in Chile to
prevent Allende's accession to the presidency. The coup ordered by Nixon was actually attempted. But
somehow, it failed. The plan was however kept alive, and sometimes rehearsed. Three years later, with
Nixon still in the White House, the coup succeeded. The American president, the CIA, the International
Telephone and Telegraphy (ITT), American-owned companies, and of course, the Chilean military were
involved, in varying degrees, iii the bloody coup. The world was shocked; and many Americans were
so embarrassed that the Senate was compelled to set up a Commission of Investigation whose report is
summarized above. After my reflection on the Chilean tragedy, I left for work. On my way, I
remembered Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of Democratic Republic of Congo murdered an
unholy international alliance in 1961; I remembered Thomas Sankara, the young
324

N
nary leader of Burkina Faso (former Upper Volta) who was assassinate1 in a
$
kW
ItA LZ4cNc' 7)AcASIS., &ss2,ss-'ma-kt.i ii94% ivazynlocat- ROS2t urg executed in Germany in
1919. I remembered the Nigerian coups and mass
of 1966, the Civil War of (1967 - 1970) and the assassination of General Murtala ed on February 13,

1976. At work, I continued my musings on Salvador Allende y co-workers if they knew of the
significance of September 11. They said no '[ them and walked off Ironically, about that time, but
unknown to us, a tragedy of proportions was unfolding in America.
I IF
To say I was shocked by what happened in America on Tuesday, September I,1, that I mourn the
victims and sympathised with the bereaved would be an ent. Words cannot adequately capture my
feelings. I am sad, very sad. But my is: Why and how did it happen? What level of anger, frustration
and desperation e led human beings, who were well trained and could live well as individuals, to
themselves to death, and then sentence others? Why is the world celebrating sal advances when this
same technology can be used to destroy the planet Earth, 3ecurity notwithstanding? Why are there no
parallel developments in humanist and history and social sciences of freedom and peace based on
justice and is there so much oppression, exploitation and disaffection in the world? 12 fingers are
being pointed at individuals, institutions and even governments in - East, I ask: why are Palestinians
still refugees S3 years after the creation of tz.eir expulsion from their homes? My conclusion is this,
and it has been made people who have the means and the power to redress the injustices of this
world ,do so, disaffected, but powerless, people will use precisely that power which from
powerlessness and desperation. And the result is sometimes catastrophir% ist. even pacifist, I mourn
and grieve. But to secure the future which we now stale. however powerful, can guarantee on its own
terms, the correct -,,lestions Wed. And correct and enduring answers must be found.
1110.: I

106
m Global Dict 4th October, 2001
'NIGERIAN government would do anything within its means to support the cunel-. efforts to destroy
terrorism once and for all in the world", so declared Chief Dube: Onyia, Nigeria's Minister of State for
Foreign Affairs. To this self-serving and inar declaration I respond, paraphrasing Ernest Mandel, the
late Belgian Marxist: "Nigeria: people, especially the youths of today and tomorrow, will do everything
within their meali, to support the definitive banishment from the planet, earth, of exploitation and
oppression. injustice and social inequality, violence and terrorism whether inflicted by the state or by
members and organisations of the civil society, whether the victim is a single individual, like Dde Giwa
killed in Lagos on October 19, 1986 or a multitude like those liquidated c-wounded in New York and
Washington on September 11, 2001," The above should, in fact, be my conclusion; but I have been
forced to make this leap by someone who is expected to be one ()four "commanders" in the global war
agains, terrorism. 'Having said this, I think every sane person, anywhere in the world must deeply
touched and saddened by the massacre in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. I believe
that if a widely respected secular figure such as Nelson Mandela requests humanity to observe a oneminute silence in honour of those who lost their lives in those bloody events, the request would be
carried out world-wide. I have used the words "mourn", "saddened", "touched", "alarmed", etc. Why
have I avoided the word "condemn?" I do not use the word "condemn", because it is not useful in the
present problem. A useful refrain should be: "Cry not, laugh not, but understand". An event which
showed us very clearly thal the planet Earth can be destroyed, not only by an "act of God", but also by
a deliberate. human action carried out by sane people, not acting on the spur of the moment, but going
through months or years of training and preparation, is beyond what you visit with condemnation
which is usually a hypocritical invocation. What is required is soberness and understanding. If state
functionaries like Dubem Onyia reject my position, I would ask whether the 1999 6esti-lic-tion oilhe
'town of Oi aTnounetoieuonsm. They othpTo1oa1o1y say L: Pressed further, they would perhaps
concede, but would argue that the bloody action was provoked. Suppose you play a' devil's advocate

and suggest that the September 11 massacre must also have been provoked, Dubem Onyia would lose
his temper and argue that the Odi operation was a state operation, but that of New York and Washington
was carried out by criminals. This will bring us not only to the essence of terrorism as the use of
violence to achieve political objectives, but also to the distinction between state terrorism and civil326

society terrorism. The debate would end there, because a fIrther step would expose the tpocrisy of key
reactions to the sad events of September 11 and may lead us, inadvertently, injuring mass feelings.
There is no state in the world without designated terrorists, enemies of the state that uld be liquidated.
Russia, the successor-state to the defunct Soviet Union, regards its Chechnya, as a terrorist territory.
The mighty Russian AnTky has not been able to eat the terrorists who have also been blamed for
several assassinations and bomb attacks se-r. eral Russian cities including Moscow. Germany has been
a home of terrorism even
e the rise of Hitlerite fascf_sm, but especially since then. it has proved undefeatable. France and Spain
have their fair share of terrorism. The. latter, in 7)articular, harbours - =The most resilient terrorist
groups in the world: ETA, located in the Basque, Region. Republican Army (IRA) is the "mother"
ofterrorisms in Europe. The Kurds, that .mate ethnic group, are regarded as terrorists by Turkey, Syria,
Trao and Iran. Every -die Middle East is actively engaged in fighting terrorism. The territory under the
the Palestinian Authority, whether we recognise it as a state or not, is at present - e:td-death struggle
against those it designates as ten-orists The whole of A erican :rms. North, Central and South), the
Caribbean and the Pacific are sites of permanent Algeria, Sudan, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger,
Sierra Leone, Therm, Burundi,
Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), etc are among African states with terrorism. Both
India and Pakistan have been battling the terrorism that developed spute over Kashmir. Sri, Lanka has
its Tamil Tigers, the Philippines is fighting er-rorists; Indonesian terrorists are particularly bloodthirsty: they measure the - ray operation by the number of human heads they have cut off In historical
soese terrorists are late entrants into the business of modem terrorism. But they = their mark as a social
force. At home, in Nigeria, we are quite familiar with ancient and modem. :-..ven this global
pervasiveness of terrorism, it should be possible to cons zuct a - -e of states which can credibly aim at
eliminating state-designated terrorism. ern arises from the simple fact that every subscribing member
enters the fighting )11 a pure agenda of anti-terrorism, but with a unique mix of political, economic,
7al, goals or at least anticipations. Let us take a few examples. America's op bring both vengeance and
justice to those designated as perpetrators of Iter Ii massacre; to destroy the capacity of its perceived
terrorist enemies to
'terrorism; to expand America's global dictatorship through the construction ar :1', cynics will add, to
see America's accumulated arms, test its new weapons me case for ,further development of its arms
industry. President Bush has o choose between supporting America in its war against terrorism or be
gone over to the terrorists. To this Fidel Castro has already replied not fer all of us: We stand against
both terrorism and global dictatorship. calls the American-led war against terrorism as the "first war of
the 21st
other conflicts; including those initiated by America and those in
of non-American casualties. Although nations ofWestern Europe 327

more or less share America's goals and are prepared to fight behind the super power, non European
nations have mixed agendas. Russia would want its terrorists based in the fonner Soviet Republics and
Afghanistan to be eliminated once and for all. Pakistan is struggling for its very survival as a state.
Small and poor countries like Nigeria may hope that their plea for debt forgiveness may, at last, catch a
receptive ear. So, a coalition may in fact come into being but it is bound to be torn by contradictions
very quickly. But whether the coalition breaks down or not, the war against terrorism, as articulated by
America, carries immense dangers for humanity. For it could turn out to be, not the first war of 21 st
century, but a major test of the capacity of terrorists and global dictators to destroy our common planet.
For, as William Shirer warned in the foreword to his voluminous study of Hitler's Germany, The Rise
and Fall of the Third Reich: "In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly
the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen
pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be
no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet".
Anyone who is tempted to say that this is not possible should please look back at September 11 and try
to recapture, in slow motion, how the greatest power on earth was taken by surprise and humbled, not
by outcasts, but by normal people, professionals that were well trained, young men who could mix with
elite, who could check into five-star hotels, who could be saluted by airport and airline officials and
smiled at by airline hostesses. People who could bribe (yes, bribe) their way through guarded gates.
Such people could even be found among the very small circles that have access to nuclear weapons!
The mighty and the powerful should stop and think.

November 7 in History 24th November, 2005

BOUT seven years ago, a young colleague of mine, a teenage girl, told me that she would like me to be
present at her impending birthday party, and preside over the event, if I would not mind. As I could not
immediately determine if she was serious the two requests I adopted a dilatory tactic: I asked for the
date. She said it was r 7. I think she was slightly embarrassed by my smile. My response, a little
delayed, would consider her verbal invitation very seriously if she could tell me, before that ,e day was
over, the world-historic event that took place on November 7 many
girl's protest - which was quick and loud - was over the indeterminate range of
it I countered by insisting that what I was referring to was not an ordinary event, stood out in the list of
major events in world history, indeed, one that changed f history in a way that none other had done before it, or indeed, thereafter.
_ipw a small crowd had gathered. I told the girl that as a person who worked :L. research institution,
she ought to be able to answer my question. To cut a long the young lady did not quite succeed, but my
challenge made her do some a71-.. That was satisfactory to me, and I discussed her invitation seriously
- that 1-i,z argument for exemption from physical presence. Thereafter, I told her that in mind was the
Russian Revolution of November 7, 1917, or more correctly, - = the Russian Revolution of 1917. That
climax was the proclamation of the the old social order and the coming to power of the working
peoples of
before my encounter with the young lady, nor after, had I been made aware coincidence, until a couple
of weeks ago, when I learn that the birthday of the Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Guardian, is
November 7. I
for about 15 years, from the time he came to the organisation in 1990, or orked closely together as
colleagues in the Editorial Board, until Sani
- - newspaper and dispersed us in August 1994. (Abati returned to The paper was re-opened the

following year. But I retired voluntarily). I ank oung,- man's papers when he was applying to join The
Guardian. Beyond e my very close friend when he joined The Guardian family. I shared I met his friend
and fiancee. Abati helped edit one of my manuscripts. I am which puts me directly under him. Why
then did it take me such a long time coincidence of his birthday and the anniversary of the Russian
Revolution?
329

The confession I have to make here is that I have never really seriously that any event - however
significant - could share a birthday with the Russian Lai Even taking the entire month- ofNovember,
there is no remembrance that has. c 77,z; effect as powerful as that of the Russian Revolution. I say this
with consciousness that my mother - the first of the first three human beings, who also happen to be '7
who have had the greatest influence on my life - died in November, and also the consc of the fact that
my revolutionary idealism reached its apogee in a November eve::: saw me recklessly put my life on
the line - unknown to, and very far away from :if.' people who would bear the immediate consequences
of my action. With this confession, I greet all my comrades, friends and colleagues tha: s;L. their
birthday with the Russian Revolution of November 7, 1917. And beyor,LL-. - acknowledge that other
events of significance must have taken place, and may place on that date. It is to the "main" event, the
Russian Revolution, that I now turn att And what I intend to do is merely sketch the background and
recall some highlio-Wednesday, November 7, 1917. On the eve of the revolution, Russia was the
largest country in the world, area. I extracted the following figures from the notes I took several years
ago: the co stretched from Eastern Europe, across South Asia, to the Pacific Ocean. It occupied ha;
Europe, and one-third ofAsia; it had 11 of the world's 24 time zones. It stretched for 5. kilometres from
north to south, and 10,000 kilometres from east to west. Its perimeter w 60,000 kilometres. With a land
area of 22.4 million square kilometres, Russia was tw and-a-half times the size of the United States
ofAmerica, three and a half times the size -. Europe, and 25 times the size of Nigeria. It covered onesixth of the land surface oft globe and shared borders with 12 countries. It had about 100 ethnic
nationalities, the largest being the Russian ethnic nationality, accounting for about 50 per cent of the
population.. That was the country a few audacious men and women announced, from a room in a giffs
school, that the masses had taken over. At the time of the revolution, the capital of Russia was
Petrograd. Before then tlif. city was Saint Petersburg. The revolutionaries changed the name from
Petrograd to Leningrad in honour of Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the revolution. When the Soviet
Union disintegrated in 1991, the name was.changed back to St. Petersburg which the pre-revolutionary
Tsarist government had rejected because it sounded too German. The date we are referring to is
November 7. But before February 1, 1918, it was October 25_, 13 days behitd.Navexth.e.,c 7. The
change in the date of the Russian Revolution came as a result of the revolutionary regime changing
from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian version on February 1, 1918. So, when you see books and
documents bearing "The Great October Socialist Revolution". you should understand. In March 1917,
at the height of World War I, in which the Russian Empire was fully involved, Emperor Nicolas II was
overthrown in a popular uprising staged by workers. peasants and soldiers. Aprovisional government in
which all the virile political forces in the country - from the conservative to the revolutionary
communist - were represented, was
330

up . gads o-pup\A(a-i -pkniN ta\\ z6 Stivizscd.'SSMA\AZS) 01V oikers, peasalls' wirei soldiers'
deputies were set up across the country, especially in the industrial and militarised towns. There was
also the All-Russia Soviet. The existence of the Soviets, side by side with :m0-..ans of government,
constituted what became known as "dual power". The Bolshevik (Communist) Party was, by far, the
most determined faction of the entire revolutionary movement. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin,
maintained that the provisional government Represented aspects of the despotic capitalist social order
that ought to be completely erthrown. The Bolsheviks controlled the Petrograd Soviet, by far the most
important and egically placed organ of popular power. They also controlled the Military Revolutionary
rnittee which acted as organ ofboth the Petrograd Soviet and the All-Russia Soviet. Trotsky, Lenin's de
facto deputy, was the Chairman of the Military Revolutionary ittee and the most influential member of
the Petrograd Soviet. It was in his capacity rman of the Military Revolutionary Committee that Trotsky
proclaimed the fall of visional government of Russia at 10.00 a.m on Wednesday, November 7, 1917.
Between March 1917, when the Czar was overthrown, and July 1917, many exiled nary leaders,
including Lenin and Trotsky, returned to the country. Those who :-e country, but underground, such as
Joseph Stalin, came to the open. Twice -1:3 period, the Bolsheviks tried unsuccessfully to seize power
from the provisional t. The second attempt, in July 1917, drove Lenin underground from where he
zuised, into Petrograd to attend party meetings devoted to arguing the case for cizure of power. The
Bolsheviks demonstrated dual power in the capital city,
n the weeks before November 7, 1917. They set up their headquarters at the -dte, a school for the
daughters of the nobility which had been evacuated when too high in the city. From here, the
Bolsheviks struggled to wrest the control ....my garrisons and the battleship, Aurora, from the
provisional government. sly, Kerensky, the Head of the Provisional Government, left the capital on ber
6, 1917, to mobilise troops to neutralise the wavering army detachments He never returned.
Coincidentally, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik unanimously, for the first time, to initiate and
lead an uprising against the It also elected a Political Bureau as a standing committee of the Central
IIVE:e Lenin, partially underground, headed both the Central Committee and -.1. Leon Trotsky was
practically, in political and military sense, the general
.II It
2- the revolution. He proclaimed the fall of the provisional government as e fear that, taken together,
the forces supporting the Bolsheviks, and neutral, had become superior to the forces which had pledged
allegiance Government.
331
10
For Alex Ibru and The Guardian 15th February, 2001
ENERAL Sani Abacha should be given a posthumo'us national award, specially created for him. Why?
Because more than any other regime in Nigerian history, Sani Abacha's junta brought out in bold relief
the type of state that Nigerians must terminate. I mean dismantle and terminate, whatever political
structure is adopted :entry in the future: confederal, federal, unitary, ethnic, or whatever. Abacha is a - i7or state terrorism in the periphery orintemational community". But neither General mi Abubakar who
succeeded Abacha, nor Olusegun Obasanjo, Abubakar's --:atic" successor has, in practice, renounced
the Abacha state. Abubakar did not -once it in words. :-.nake two propositions in these prefatory notes
to my tribute. First, there were iccniinuities, not in the trite sense of administrative continuity, but in the
strategic f5t2te terrorism between the Abacha regime and Abubakar's transitional government ec.-z-cled it; and between the latter and Obasanjo's "democratic" government; and A,:lacha and Obasanjo
directly and as mediated by Abubakar. But there is a cling that we have transcended the Abacha state
and are now engaged in the :) move forward. But this is not the case. Secondly: the Abacha state, the
state ebruary 2, 1996 attempted to kill Alex Uruemu Ibru and which succeeded in .ark maiming many

Nigerians including Ken-Sam Wiwa, Alfred Rewane, Kudirat tat4 Musa Yar'Adua, Moshood Abiola,
etc, is yet to be dismantled organically, and psychologically. Please, refer to the Oputa Panel and note E
tried to kill Ibru and actually killed Kudirat were given heavy cash gifts by muffin!! 1.7 :hat the army
commander who carried out genocide in Ogoniland is still in :he officer who announced the decision to
execute Ken Saro-Wiwa is now the - z:erian army. The Abacha state is alive and well. It has not been
dismantled. Mass a:: J. until this is done, no genuine forward movement can be claimed for the ent of
democracy can be celebrated. Ibru, a Lagos-based businessman and publisher, was going about his 4uiet way when General Sani Abacha staged his coup on November 17, ; 1,112 desperately for
legitimacy Abacha sent some ofhis colleagues in the junta the new military government he was setting
up. The junta's delegation to ,caz .Ily chosen; it was made up of the publisher's personal friends and
those 7ublic records. The delegates found Ibru and pressed for an immediate a tentative one while
searching for advice. He rushed to The Guardian
335

where, coincidentally, the Editorial Board, of which he was an informal member, was meeting_ We
listened to him and advised him. As he was leaving he signalled to me, indicating he would like to meet
with me later in a private capacity. I met with him later that day in a different setting where I was a
guest and he the host. We chatted. Before we bade one another goodnight, we agreed that the weight of
advice was in favour of his accepting. Abacha's invitation to join the government as Minister of Internal
Affairs and member. Provisional Ruling Council (PRC), but that neither his integrity nor that of The
Guardian of which he was publisher and chairman, was to be undermined. For we all knew that Alex
Ibru was invited not as a member of the Ibru Family and Organisation and not because he was a
successful businessman, philanthropist and religious person. We all knew that he was invited because
he was Alex Ibru, the publisher of The Guardian. I cannot now describe the amount and nature of the
pressure to which Alex Ibru was subjected while he was serving in Abacha's government. But I guess it
must have been as complex as it was substantial. I can also not remember whether I set my eyes on him
throughout his tenure. If I did, it must have been from a distance And since I have not seen him since I
left Lagos in September 1994, it may, in fact, be the case that I have not seen Ibru since that private
visit in November, 1993. But I had a number of telephone discussions with him while he was at Abuja.
The discussions centred on the state of The Guardian organisation and our welfare, But occasionally
Ibru would express an opinion on an editorial or opinion article we had carried in The Guardian. He
would ask for clarifications and then express his opinion. Sometimes an argument ensued; but
eventually Ibru would give up: "Well, you are the experts; I am only a businessman", he would say. We
would then wind down the conversation with mutual respect. Apart from asking: "how are you, sir"?
"How is the place, sir?, to which he would reply: "Well, it is okay", I always tried to ask no questions
and make no comments about the administration of which he was a part. But on each occasion, I came
away with the strange feeling that whatever problems the man was having in Abuja had been caused by
those on the editorial staff of The Guardian, that is, those who were charged with the responsibility of
producing or authorising news reports, features, opinions articles, letters to the editor and in particular
the editorials. This feeling became stronger when an attempt was made to kill him on February 2, 1996.
It has remained so. To put the point more clearly, I feel that next to Abacha and his agents we should be
the next set of persons to be docked but for moral responsibility. For in the first half of 1990s we waged
the battle for Nigeria, using The Guardian, like a crusade. We knew there would be repercussions but
we did not know how and when they could come; what forms they would take and what targets would
be chosen by the enemy. It never occurred to us that the target could be Ibru who never interfered with
our interpretations of our patriotic obligations as contained in the editorial policy of The Guardian. I
have never communicated this feeling of guilt to anyone not even my wife who is my closest comrade.

But she must have wondered why I alwar parry the frequent suggestions by her that we should visit
Ibru. I have come to terms with my feeling and can explain it to myself honestly, philosophically and
dialectically. It is no: however easy to explain the feeling to others or convince others that it is a healthy
feeling.,
336

- ' Ibru was an employer, a businessman and a wealthy man. He could fire us if lie did our views. To
make myself a bit clearer, I should perhaps go back a little in time. I joined The Guardian in February
1985 as member of the Editorial Board. I was sed that the process of employing me took such a long
time since I applied to the house through the agency of my academic and intellectual colleagues and
friends were close to the organisation. Several years later I learnt of the reason for the 1985 some of the
friends and colleagues, through whom I sought employment in The an were not too eager to have me
because, as they claimed, I was ideologically too temperamentally too difficult to work with. It was
Ibru and one other The Guardian onary - two persons on the other (capitalist) side of the ideological
divide - who for my employment. To the best of my knowledge, I was the only member of the 1 Board
to be interviewed by the Publisher and Board of Directors of The Guardian. er Ibru and other directors
were curious about the man whose friends were not have in their midst. They wanted to meet him. We
met and the interview lasted less -e minutes. Apart from the 12-month period between 1987 and 1988
when I acted as Editorial tor, I never held an executive position in The Guardian. The highest
forrnalposition was that of Senior Member of the Editorial Board and Deputy Editorial Page But with
deep humility I testify that I wielded substantial moral authority in The and enjoyed non-material
concessions, considerations and respect far beyond I position. Alex Uruemu Ibru was personally
responsible for this. I salute him. elude from where I began. The Abacha state, the state which nearly
terminated -s life, the state which The Guardian battled with single-mindedness, is alive. This to be
dismantled as a tribute to Alex Ibru, to The Guardian and to other individuals, and organisations that
made heroic sacrifices during the dark days of Sani Abacha.
337

To Remember and to Honour 27th June, 2002

OF all the contemporary social developments that currently sadden me, one most painful is the
disconnection of Nigerians, especially the younger ones -f;r3 their own history, including the history
of their own immediate environments. put my finger on a number of interconnected factors responsible
for this his-, disconnection. Our educational system pays little attention to our history. Most of the c
___ generation of teachers are products and carriers of this deficiency, so what do you ,:-....,.1( fin the
new products? Our media, print and electronic, from time to time, put out his: :,,-i materials and
programmes. But many of them are disgustingly eclectic, distorted and LI errors of fact and sequence.
Our post-independence history is short, just 43 years. Bu: -.,'::11 are asking for a heart attack if you
dare ask any final year undergraduate or young poli': i to name, in historical sequence, the regimes that
this country has had since indepenclz-c Our young intellectuals and political activists have heard of the
leading pol_ players of the First Republic: Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, Alhaji TalBalewa, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Malam Aminu Kano, etc. They have heard of, or ,..2; or even
interacted with, recent and contemporary rulers: Generals Muhammadu Bu..: Ibrahim Babangida, Sani
Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar. They know Olusegun Ob as current President of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria, but cannot connect him wit.T7 General Obasanjo who succeeded General Murtala
Mohammed in 1976 as military of State. Gowon and Ojukwu, they have been told, once had a fight;

but they are n if the fight was a boxing match or a war. Considering the abysmal state of our selfknowledge, I have decided to periods as introduce some of our heroes and heroines, especially those
who have not been i7 media of recent. I shall be starting with a giant among Nigerian nationalists and
patri,:cs, hero and partisan of the masses. Peter Ayodele Curtis Joseph was born of Benin City parents
in Ware on Nave:711 8, 1920. He will be 82 years old in about four months. He is well, and lives in
retire Lagos. He is a self-educated and self-made man, by which I mean that his parents p only a brief,
though critical role in his education and exercised only a moral influence development of his career. By
the time he emerged from his teens, the young Curtis J was "on his own", as the saying goes. Nigeria
and the world have benefited from this independence. A fter his primary education, Curtis Joseph was
employed by the 11-711 Africa Company (UAC), the leading European trading company in colonial
Nigeria.
338

g this period that he became a militant nationalist and later, a Marxist, Socialist and unist. In 1947, he
was with the UAC at Okitipupa when Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe led a ation of National Council ofNigeria
and Cameroons (NCNC) into the town in the ofthe nationalist party's 12-month country-wide tour to
mobilise nationalist opposition colonial constitution. The other members ofthe delegation were Michael
Imoudu and Macaulay, the son of Herbert Macaulay. It was Curtis Joseph, even as a staff of that
piloted the delegation into Okitipupa. Predictably, that action created problems but he managed to
remain with the company until 1951 when he resigned and went time leftist politics, journalism,
publishing and business. On May 1, 1961, Curtis Joseph, together with Gogo Chu Nzeribe, Tanko
Yakassai, Johnson and J.B.K. Thomas founded the Nigerian People's Party (NPP), a Marxist-St Party
formed, in his own words, "to lead the peoples ofNigeria in their just struggle e, friendship, national
reconstruction, a better future and the triumph of socialism". moment on, Curtis Joseph has remained a
prominent and leading Nigerian Marxist unist. Between 1966 and 1969, during the Civil War, he
published and edited the brid, a Marxist-Leninist magazine that was as lively, entertaining as it was
political ative. Curtis Joseph was the Founder and President ofNigeria Council for Peace. capacity he
was elected member of the Presidential Committee ofthe World Peace He voluntarily withdrew from
the Council in a Berlin conference in 1969 following in the Nigerian delegation to the conference. The
split was caused by the Civil War at home. He withdrew from the conference although he was
recognised as the leader ofthe Nigerian delegation. He was awarded the Golden Medal and Ribbon by
the Czechoslovak society for Foreign Relations. The following year, in 1966, he ed the International
Lenin Prize. He was a member of Royal Commonwealth but resigned in 1986 "in protest against UK
government's policy on South Africa". s virtually collapsed in 1983 following an accident, and has now
"settled down e research and writing on human problems - individual, national and international".
-orcee, although he has eight children. I first came across Curtis Joseph in the second half of the 1970s
through my study erian Socialist Movement in the period between the formation of NCNC (1944) st
Movement (1946), and the end of the Civil War (1970). He struck me as a Nigerian patriot and
nationalist and as an internationalist and non-sectarian both ideological and political sense. My
tentative impressions were confirmed by es who knew him in person and had worked with him. But I
did not have the h him out although I knew he lived in Lagos. Then in 1988, when I was serving tonal
Page Editor of The Guardian, I processed some of his letters to the nev.-spaper. Although it was taken
for granted that a Nigerian Marxist must be I noted that Curtis Joseph must be a particularly detribalised Nigerian Marxist. toot search him out. Then, in April 19881 wrote a piece in my Thursday
column an leftists and the lessons of history. There I criticised the Nigerian leftists for into factions
behind the war-lords during the Civil War. I argued that they ought to -_-ed a nationalist third force, the
type Wole Soyinka attempted to develop and

339

for which he was detained for a greater part a, that war. Late Comrade Ola Oni att_.: my position,
insisting that Nigerian Marxists had the duty to oppose the "imperialist- to divide the country. Comrade
Ola Oni justified the support given to General Go',' war efforts by a faction of the Socialist Movement.
Then Comrade Curtis Joseph intervened in a letter-to-the-editor, endorsin: position and supplying more
information including the fact that he had played a leadin in the efforts at creating a united front
ofNigerian Marxist, Socialist and nationalists ag. the war. It was then I decided to search him out. But
before I did so, he came to me a: Tie Guardian. He was then 68. We remained constantly in touch until
I left Lagos an The Guardian in 1994. Every encounter with Curtis Joseph was, for me, like going bac
to) school. I felt the same way I used to feel after meeting with ChiefAnthony Enahoro. ate Mokwugo
Okoye and late Samuel Ikoku. But being a convinced, committed, and well-travelled Marxist, and
communist, Curtis Joseph had a stronger effect on still does, through his writings and private
communications. About a year ago, I sent Curtis Joseph a long questionnaire. In question Nu::17,1
asked him to name his "most admired or respected persons". This was his responsic::: ;sus Christ as a
son of Joseph and Mary, as philosopher, physician, revolutionary-z-lid! communist; William
Wilberforce (anti-slavery); Herbert Macaulay; Nnamdi Azikiwe; Airiu Kano; Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome
Kuti; Mrs. Margaret Ekpo; Karl Marx; Vladimir and Robert Mugabe." To the question, "what is your
guiding principle?", he replied: continue acquiring knowledge till I die and desire for peace, through
justice and equa: among all peoples." When I asked him, through the same questionnaire, to mention
the most memora things that had happened to him, he mentioned three: completing reading the Bible at
15: Nigeria's independence in 1960; and membership of the Presidential Committee o World Council of
Peace. I was embarrassed, and then humbled, when, to the questio:. the person or persons he would like
to meet, he replied: "Edwin Madunagu, for extens discussions on politics, Marxism-Leninism, AngloAmerican current alliances, my generally, and handing over my remaining books and files". He had
shortly beforell-donated to me his entire library consisting of more than 7,000 books, 10,000 newspap
C-7 4,000 magazines and many files containing newspaper cuttings, documents, articles a7, essays.
These materials now take up the entire Library 2 of the free Research Library I in Calabar. Please, join
me in saluting PeterAyodele Curtis Joseph.
340
770
Yasser Arafat 9th May, 2002
HE average, non-Arab, non-Moslem American hates "YasserArafat" or rather the person who bears that
name. You may be impatient with me and say that "Yasser Arafat" and "the person who bears the
name" mean the same thing. I don't intend an..rt.ie this point, it is sufficient to explain why I have
deliberately adopted this formulation. The average American is very ignorant of the world outside
America, having been made to lthl: eve that America is the real world; that the other white nations in
Europe, Australia and , ex Zealand are poor imitations of this reality and should be led by Americans;
but that en-white peoples who are said to live in some distant places across the seas are an fferentiated
mass of sub-human species who behave as such, and should be treated as by Americans who have
reasons to go there. Those lucky members of the 'fferentiated mass" who manage to be in, or come to,
America, including descendants ..ayes are to be educated or forced to grow out of their "subhumanness." That is how average American sees the world. And I may add that the average and nottoo-average can knows very little about the American system itself. I had a very unpleasant task, ether

day, of educating a highly educated visiting American on how anAmerican president iected. But this is
a different matter entirely. Yasser Arafat, 73, is considered by the average American to be more
dangerous Osama bin Laden, and Mullah Omar, leader ofAfghanistan's Taliban, put together. He only a
terrorist, but also the most dangerous terrorist in the world, the friend of Omar, Saddam Hussein and
Muammar Gadaffi; a man who started his terrorism Osama was born. Arafat is presented not only as
godfather of world terrorism, but uandfather, having entered the business more than 50 years ago. He is
the inspirer, the leader, of those who, on September 11, 2001 plane-bombed the World Trade in New
York and the Pentagon in Washington killing a large number of people, Americans. The greatest
problem that the rulers ofAmerica had to confront when to send Colin Powell to the Middle East was
how to manage his possible meeting asser Arafat, the "arch-terrorist" and 'butcher of Israeli Jews".
They asked how people would feel were they to see their secretary of state shaking hands with the halfbeast, half-human who sends Palestinian children to their deaths in order to ws. The current fascist
leaders of Israel see themselves as vanguard in the "war ::error" declared by President George W. Bush.
They tell the world that the September is nothing compared to the one they are facing; that Al Qaeda
and Taliban are like
341

unarmed boys' scouts compared to the Palestinian murderous terror machine; bin Laden is like a
monkey compared to a lion (Arafat). Israelis should therefore ..111 encouraged and supported in their
war of survival against a man who wants to see a. Jews dead. That is the message of the fascist
murderers who now head the state c on a lighter mood, I admit, at once, that the physical appearance
ofAraat not help matters: his small height (5ft, 3 ins), his headgear (the Kafeeyan) woven arc head and
flowing down his shoulders in the shape of Palestine, his military unif: 771 1 pistol he used to wear on
his belt together with the six live bullets strung above it. h eyes and rough beard, etc. all combine to
strike fear in the beholder. But Yasser not, and is no way near what American and Israeli rulers, with
varying degrees of s try to portray him to be. He is simply a freedom fighter with dogged commitm
determination. The man's true story, verified and verified again, sounds unbelievz has been in the
frontline of all the battles fought against the state ofisrael since the prod ofthe Jewish State 54 years
ago. He has escaped death by armed ambush several ti has escape direct military assault openly aimed
at killing him; he has escaped assassination attempts; he survived a plane crash over the Sahara Desert
and was and evacuated only several days later. Arafat has managed to maintain immense mk 7a,.L
political authority within the Palestine Liberation Movement and among Palestinian He has managed to
retain the support and respect of most Arab rulers who are o each others throats, but without whose
supports, in various forms, Arafat and the could not survive even for a month. He had prevented a
number of wars that would broken out betweenArab nations; he had, several times, acted as a selfappointed m and peace-maker, succeeding in some, failing in others. Yasser Arafat was born in
Jerusalem in 1929. The geopolitical territory in vis Jerusalem was then located was called Palestine
which at that time included the N) the present state of Israel, the Israeli occupied West Bank and Gaza
Strip. The main in Palestine were Arabs, Jews and Christians. But the Arabs were in overwhelming
rnaiL.. In 1947, the United Nations decided to resolve the conflict between PalestinianArabs Jews by
partitioning the territory into two: one for the Arabs, the other for the Jews. Jews accepted the partition;
the Arabs rejected it. on May 15, 1948, the Jewsprocla' the state of Israel and war broke out. The Israeli
army turned Palestinian Arabs into refuz Later, the state of Israel occupied even the territory they left
for the Palestinian Ar Palestinian Arabs are still refugees and the war is still on. The Palestine Lib era
(PLO) was formed in 1964 as an umbrella organisation for the v Palestinian groups fighting against
Israel to regain their territory. The main PLC include Fatah, led by Yasser Arafat alias Abu Amu. While

some of the PLO groups. as the Communist Party and Fatah now support the two-state solution (the
state of I and the Palestinian State), others are committed to the creation of a single multi-natk (Arabs
and Jews) Palestinian State. But PLO, as an organisation, has, since 1988, su the two-state structure
and, ipso facto, the recognition of the state of Israel. Yasser Arafat, PLO Chairman, for about 30 years,
has managed to balanc nu diverse strategies, perspectives and aspirations within the organisation, with
his autlic,-,-riv
342

-j-riving from one factor: he has remained committed to the liberation of his ::-ation of an independent
Palestinian State" Liberation from Israel control of other Arab states. His total commitment, courage
and incorruptibility 157:;,11- His acceptability in the Arab world in general and among Palestinians - in
camps, inArab countries and under Israel occupation - is legendary. While " _,rael was created with
terror and has remained a terrorist state, the PLO has -Torism. But as long as Israel and its American
backers pursue the line of arc -.-:mipulation and put obstacles in the way of the realisation of PLO's
aspiration, -:-- -.'stinians to violence and humiliation, so long will some groups within the fment have
reasons to pursue the terrorist line. But as history has taught us, f, free and independent, will eventually
come into being. Yes. Palestinians or without Yasser Arafat whom Israel fascists want to kill or
permanently
nut. Friday, as the sun rose over Palestine, Israeli forces made up of 100 nif--;,-rmel carriers, 60 tanks
and 2,500 soldiers, and supported by dozens of 1.,.!:.:77.EDS, entered Ramallah, a Palestinian town
north of Jerusalem. They headed Palestinian Authority headquarters where Yasser Arafat lives and has
his Miltr, itf.T-zoyed most of the buildings in the compound, leaving only the apartment ...::,-es. By
noon time, many Palestinians had been killed and every material be destroyed had been destroyed. The
invading Israelis arrested more than moms. beat and humiliated them, tied their hands behind their
backs and marched t :itfr.imaif on. As the invaders placed tanks at the entrance to A...rafat's apartinem,.
Minister told reporters: "The only commitment we have made is not to Id with the destruction that had
been visited on Arafat's headquarters, an ISM f'.. : ' He won't be able to go to toilet without us knowing
about it." Elsewli c.77 arc other designated Palestinian 'areas" in the West Bank, including Jenin. Ina: ?
orse. The crimes committed there by Israeli forces amounted to genocic:-;::. her. you to understand why
a 16-year old beautiful Palestinian girl would 1111" t for a revenge, or why Palestinian youths would
confront tanks wiLl fore: Ultimately, Palestinian shall be free.

711
Women's Freedom Charter 20th June, 2002
IWAS planning to write an ordinary commemorative article in April 2002 to mark -...,:r 21st
anniversary of the murder of Ingrid Essien-Obot in Calabar on Tuesday, April 2 . 1981 when a mere
casual re-acquaintance with my tribute to her forced me to suspen the exercise. Before looking at what
halted the article I was writing two months ago. -,,,,, may briefly introduce the remarkable woman. Our
subject was born a German in July 1944 and named Ingrid Rohrbacher. Hai: she lived she would be
approaching her 58th birthday now. Radicalised at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, where she
read psychology, she became a leftist, feminist, militate,,, socialist anda passionate activist. She married
a Nigerian and together they moved to the. University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1972 as lecturers. From
Nsukka they transferred the 17 services to the newly-established University of Calabar in 1976. But the
appointment c Ingrid's husband with the University of Calabar could not be sustained. So, while Ingr:

was in the University, her husband was outside, in business and politics. Ingrid carried he7 militant
feminism and socialist activism from Germany to Nsukka, and then Calabar. Mon .2... the line, a new
revolutionary tendency-pacifist humanism - blossomed in her. This rar .:- combination, unique and
enviable, was however to cost us her life. ByApril 21, 1981 when Ingrid was murdered in her campus
residence, the couple had five children: a girl and four boys, the last boy born in 1978. Between her
arrival in Calabar in 1976 and August 1978, Ingrid carried on her revolutionary activities virtually as an
isolated figure. The fact of being a white, a woman and a wife initially constrained her revolutionary
impulses. So, she restricted herself to contributing radical articles to local newspapers and magazines
and speaking on radio and TV programmes. She shocked her readers and listeners and, at times,
embarrassed her families in Germany and Nigeria, with her radically unorthodox views on women's
rights, workers' struggle, capitalist exploitation and imperialism. Her views on depression, self-doubt,
beliefs in witchcraft, superstition, etc,. were, to say the least, not only against the current, but explosive.
In addition to teaching her courses in the Department of Sociology, she organised extra lessons for her
students and other students who were not taking her courses. She organised counselling sessions with
students and non-students. She also took active part in the University of Calabar branch of the
Academic StaffUnion of Universities (ASUU-UC). She was serving as Secretary of the Union when
death was visited on her. In September 1 978, Ingrid "stepped out", by which I mean she became
involved in explicitly political activities. She wanted to know why the military dictatorship which, a
few 344

months earlier, had gunned down several university students who were protesting the increases in
school fees shouldnow order the rustication of many more students and the dismissal of several
University teachers and administrators across the country, including the University of Calabar. She not
only asked the question; she acted it. Having stepped out into practical politics, Ingrid refused to step
back, not even for one moment, not even when her husband became a state commissioner, until her life
was terminated by combined evil forces, far and near. Twenty-one years later, nothing definitive has
been said by police authorities in a murder case that appeared to us all to be very clear. Now, why did I
not complete this article for publication two months ago? As I said earlier, I made a casual reacquaintance with the two-part tribute fwrote on this subject ,t1,...ven years ago: For Ingrid EssienObot (The Guardian, April 18, 1991) and Idealism Revolution (The Guardian, April 25, 1991). I was
running my eyes through these auriIles when my eyes caught a certain passage which I had quoted
from Ingrid's writings: "'Freedom for a woman is meaningful if it includes the freedom to associate
with whom I to spend my money on what I please, to choose the topic and ways of communication,
-cide on my own life - plans and follow them, to decide what I talk about and with m, to go and come
as I like and go where I like, to choose the type ofrelationship I like decide whether it should include
sex or not. Women are not free to do these things, but ider them human rights. Women have a right of
existence when they are owned by A woman not owned is made use of in the filthiest way, and in the
most degrading We must bear their (men's) children. We must yield to their sexual whimses but our
sexual needs are immoral." When I came to this passage, I halted and wondered if in 1991, much less in
1980 was written, I had understood the full import of this freedom charter which was o.:--om one of
Ingrid's semi-private communications. I wonder if I understood the full and implications now. I decided
it would be hypocritical to continue with the tribute until I had answered the question. I called my
daughter, a 20-year old second-year smdent in the university, and asked her to copy out this passage,
read it carefully ,..o me back to me with her comments. My daughter is a feminist, by which I mean
woman or man) who believes that women suffer specific oppression in society as that this oppression is

largely structural and that action is required by women and empathise with them to change these
structures. My daughter eventually came as I expected, she said she agreed with all the components of
Ingrid's freedom cot the one dealing with freedom to decide whether a relationship should involve
decided not to argue with her, not to agree or disagree with her or Ingrid. I inzyself to making two
explanatory points. The first point was that the component s freedom charter to which she (my
daughter) objected was the high point, the al conclusion, of that charter. Remove it and the rest hang in
the air. My second you removed the "offensive" component, then all other components would -suable
to all the radical feminists of Ingrid's time and perhaps my daughter's -11a. was (and perhaps, is) new
and significant, therefore, is the "offensive" TheSri made some movements which I took to mean she
agreed with my logic
o 41
,i11,11,
1,m11111
.1111111
11'11,1'
111
:
1U, it
345

but not with where she thought I was going. But I was going nowhere. I adopted Ingrid method of
always posing questions, but rarely making conclusions. In a marginal note she wrote while reading the
book, The Liberation of Wonier, A Study of Patriarchy and Capitalism, Ingrid said: "Women must
liberate their sexualit:, Sexual satisfaction has a physical component which women neglect; men
neglect the mart a component"; "women's life is determined by their men's status"; "men define their
rolt women live it; when will women live and define their own lives?"; "the experience of thf oppressed
is the relevant:experience and should be the basis of analysis"; "it is wrong fe: feminist analysis to start
from *logical differences. Every analysis, including the feminisl analysis, should start offfrom the
experience of oppression"; etc. And turning to her male comrades Ingrid asked: "Do you want to say
that a woman who does not see her oppression as part of the capitalist oppression has no right to protest
it? Do you want to say that a woman who is beaten by her husband, and when she runs to her family
beaten because of running away, and when she returns beaten for having run away, has no right to join
a movement which aims at protecting her, without realising the economic cause of her being
mistreated? Do you want to argue that a woman who is part of, or active in, a purel:, feminist
movement has no right to join a revolutionary socialist movement?" Ingrid was, above all, a humanist
pacifist. She would not hurt a fly. Though endowed with imposing physical build and unusual strength
and energy, though she was frequently an object of provocation, Ingrid would not be drawn to violence,
not even in self-defence' She would never quarrel with a woman because she saw herself in every
woman. She was not only generous (to a fault one would say) but had contempt for material
accumulation. Her passion for justice was immeasurable. In a 1982 tribute, Professor Biodun Jeyifo
had written: "To Ingrid: Courageous, indomitable, and irrepressible in life; in death remembered now
and always by the comrades and the oppressed whose cause she totally and militantly, made her own,
and to whom her exemplary devotion and selflessness remain sources of rededication to the great cause
of socialist humanism". We shall never forget you, Comrade Star.
346

112
Laurent Desire Kabila 22nd February, 2001
HE death of Laurent Desire Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was a tragic and sad
event. Tragic and sad not because he was murdered or assassinated: many leaders have been
assassinated and many more will be asassinated as long as power is what it is - simultaneously the
cause and effect of conflicts and social contradictions continue to produce madness-driven people
who commit murder. lila was killed by his own bodyguard, a man who was employed and paid to
protect bin But, then, Prime Minister Indira Ghandi of India died in similar circumstances in 1984.
labila and Ghandi were political leaders who should have known that such fates could 1 them. But
again I have read credible reports of assassinations of religious leaders by employed to shield them
from evil. Kabila's death was tragic and sad not because it a product and final act of high-level
conspiracy. We remember Mahatma Ghandi (India, 7); Patrice Lumumba, (Congo, 1961); John F.
Kennedy (America, 1963); Malcolm X ((America, 1965); Martin Luther King (America, 1968);
Amilcar Cabral (Guinea-Bissau, "73). Eduardo Mondlane and Ruth First (Mozambique), etc. etc.
Lumumba, Cabral,
Mane, and Ruth First were murdered because they were fighting against national ement, specifically
against colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism and their local and agents; Malcolm X and
Luther King died because they were fighting against tionalised racism in America; John Kennedy died
because he was becoming too dent for the ruling bloc in America; Mahatma Ghandi was a victim of his
own phy ofnon-violene. But why did Laurent Kabila die? Why was he killed? Kabila's was tragic and
sad because, even now, several weeks after his death, it is not clear
was killed. And the man was an African, a revolutionary combatant and a Marxist thir about 40 years
(1961-2001). Was Laurent Kabila fighting for the unity of DRC, the Congo of Patrice Lumumba? he
fighting against external aggression? Was he fighting against external domination, and threatened? Was
he fighting against neo-imperialist designs, the plans of the tonal community for the DRC? Was he
fighting for regional political hegemony or it? Was he fighting for popular, but revolutionary,
transformation of the Congo? Or dust fighting for power and wealth ala Mobutu Sese Seko? Was he
doing all of the answer to any of these questions is in the affirmative, we may then inquire how tegy
relates to the way became to power and his political tactic from then up to the is assassination. It may
also be useful to inquire why Laurent Kabila fell out with
347

Nelson Mandela up to the point of openly exchanging abuses with him. Several writers an:
commentators, including conservatives and those pathologically opposed to anything radio socialist or
Marxist, have, of recent taken it upon themselves to write off Kabila as revolutionary. It is as if these
people were performing a syndicated assignment. This unfaassessment, borne out more by
ideological prejudice than anything else, is based on a hars:- remark which Che Guevara, the legendary
Marxist revolutionary, is reported to have made about Kabila in 1964 or 1965. We may pause here to
re-visit the circumstances of Che's assessment. Che Guevara. an Argentine by birth, guerrilla fighter
and theorist, medical doctor and economist, was a hero of the armed struggle (1956-1959) that
transformed Cuba from an American neo - colony to a fiercely independent socialist state. After
wielding power in Cuba for five years. during which this tiny island off the coast ofAmerica shook the
world, Che resigned his party and government position, renounced his Cuban citizenship, freed Castro

and the Cuban Government from political and moral responsibility for his actions and set off as an
international rebel, .a revolutionary at large, a fighter without frontiers. He first travelled to Algeria,
then to Benin Republic (then called Dahomey). He jumped over Nigeria ofAzikiwe and Balewa and
moved to the jungle of the present Democratic Republic of Congo where pro-Lumumba revolutionary
forces were fighting Belgian mercenaries and neo-colonial puppets. There he met Laurent Desire
Kabila, a young fighter of24 or 25 who had probably joined the armed pro-Lumumba movement in
1961 when Lumumba was killed. Che himself was 36.
After a series of engagements with the Congolese rebels, Che wrote his evaluation of the rebel
movement and some of its leaders and cadres. Che's assessment was harsh and this was not surprising
given his antecedents and the inexperience of the Congolese revolutionary movement at that time. Che
dismissed Kabila as an unserious revolutionary, a womaniser.and playboy_ He was said to have
concluded that an authentic revolutionary movement and leadership were yet to emerge in the Congo.
Che then mw.Ted on to another revolutionary theatre on the other side of the Atlantic. That was 36
years ago. And it is to this event that the anti-Kabila commentators are referring. Although we cannot
dismiss Che Guevara's assessment of36 years ago, it will be silly to use it exclusively, or even as a
major ingredient, in understanding the tragedy embodied in Kabila of (1995 -2001). Some historical
facts may be necessary (but not sufficient) to answer the questions I had earlier posed. One: The
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the name given to the country by Lumumba, its first Prime
Minister, is a vast country. It is almost three times the size ofNigeria. It shares borders with nine
countries: Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Central African Republic, Zambia, Congo-Brazzaville.
and Sudan. Two: The population is about 52 million, shared between more than 200 ethnic groups, four
of which are dominant, together accounting for about 35 per cent ofthe total population. Three: The
Tutsis, a small ethnic group whose ruling classes have a long history of expansionist and imperialistic
pursuits, share its population between DRC and three other countries; Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.
Four: Initially as army commander, then as president, Mobutu dominated the politics of DRC (which he
later renamed Zaire) from independence in 1960 till he was driven out by
348
K.2. 1a forces in May 1997. Five: The rebel forces which expelled Mobutu from power and E- cm the
country had two components: Congolese guerrillas and Rwandan and Ugandan :titers, most of whom
were Tutsis embittered over the support and sanctuary which Vic,butu's regime was alleged to have
given to Rwandan Hutus who committed genocide on Rwandan Tutsis in 1994. Six: The foreign
fighters nominally under the command of Laurent Kabila, were not mere guerrillas or volunteers; they
were regular soldiers, (dead ments of the armies of Rwanda and Ugadan, specifically and officially sent
into DRC ,remove Mobutu. They dominated the Kabila forces in number, in command positions, in
experience and training, and in weaponry. It was inevitable that this hastily constructed military
alliance would break up as soon as the common objective - the removal of Mobutu was achieved. And
this was what happened. Four developments in the first few months ofKabila's regime combined to set
the e for the tragedy we have witnessed. First, a disagreement arose between Kabila and regime, on the
one hand, and the external forces that supported him on the other. The z-eement covered several areas
ofpolicy: The place and role of foreign soldiers; official :odes towards the Hutu refugees to whom the
foreign troops were hostile; attitudes ti.ar is DRC's Tutsi population to whom the foreign troops were
sympathetic; economic -:its to Uganda and Rwanda; and the structure of the new regime and the roles
of dan and Rwandan "patrons" in it. Secondly, the alliance put together by the Congolese elves to fight
Mobutu broke up in violence expectedly one would say. Thirdly, Kabila id to have anything to do with
any Congolese who was tainted with "Mobutuism." hly and finally, the "international community"
received Kabila with considerable cion and prejudice. The first development was a difficult one which
needed an tional revolutionary leader to handle successfully. Kabila failed woefully in this. onsldering

the historical background sketched above, one would be justified in saying Kabila handled the second
and third developments very foolishly. And that set him on d to defeat. The "international community"
exploited the objective difficulties inherited -abila as well as the man's mistakes to seal his fate and that
of his regime. And ,equential bodyguard merely executed the verdict already passed by history.
i
349

113
Babangida and the Verdict of History 3rd August, 2000
THERE are two living Nigerians whose memoirs I eagerly await to fill some of ti: serious gaps in my
study of post-independence Nigeria. The first personage. chrological and logical order, is
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Colonel the Nigerian Army; Commander, Fifth battalion of the
Nigerian Army, Kano; Milita:-, Governor, Eastern Region of Nigeria; General of the Biafran Army;
Head of State Commander-in-Chief ofBiafranArmed Forces. I require Ojukwu's memoirs as they cove:
only six-year period (1964-1970). The second is Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Gener,,,. of the
Nigerian Army; Chief ofArmy Staff; Nigerian Military President, Commander-in-Chief ofNigerian
Armed Forces. I need Babangida's memoirs as they relate the eight-year period (1985-1993). My
present concern is with the second subject. I need Babangida's memoirs not to answer questions about
"debt buy-back" or GulfWar windfall, or any o similar financial allegations, or even indictments. The
issue of corruption at the level of the state makes sense and deserves to be discussed only in the context
of state robbery generally and for the tenure of bourgeois rule in Nigeria that is, from about 1960 or, at
the latest, 1970. Even in this case, the state cannot be narrowed to a single individual. Babangida's
memoirs are needed to answer several related political and strategic questions: How was he able to
enlist the support, genuine admiration and personal friendship of many Nigerian elite, including highly
respected statesmen and women, politicians, intellectuals of the left, right and centre, radicals,
professionals, trade unionists, journalists, etc.? How was he able to call many patriotic Nigerians to the
service ofhis government? At what point, really, did he begin to lose this support and was he aware of
this turn? What type of society was he trying to build, and what attracted our intellectuals to this
vision? Was the annulment of the 1993 presidential election (June 12) a coup d'etat? Was his "steppingaside" ofAugust 26, 1993 a coup d'etat? How related were the two events? A young army officer once
said that he would follow Babangida into battle blind-folded. I testify that many civilians elite made
similar declarations and, in fact, acted on them. The question is why? While waiting for the answers
these questions, and several others, from the "horse's mouth" I make do with what I have, and what I
can obtain: I read everything that is said or written by Babangida, and about Babangida, that comes my
way. And so I came upon the interview the general granted Newswatch ni,wsmagazine and published in
its July 20, 2000 edition. The interview, conducted in Minna, Babangida's country home, covered a
very
350

. too v, ide, one may say. It was as if the interviewing team did not hope to get nullity for a very long

time. Questions included those on Abacha, June 12, the angida's longtransition proqamme: his
"stqpp_iing--asickaINNO:skcgoli, of corruption, the formation in 1989 ofNational Republican
Convention (NRC) al Democratic Party (SDP), the various pressures to which he was subjected office,
the murder of Dele Giwa, the Sharia, the unity of the country, Southern y, etc; etc. first reading, it
appeared there was not much in this lengthy interview that was Where Babangida was not evasive - and
he was evasive in most of his answers-little that was of historical value in form of "bombshell." In
particular, he did not tiVe answwers to a c\xes-nas'V4q,A. ol t-iis attic\ e. 'Orr reading, however, I was
arrested at the 12th page of the interview by the answer 1 gave to one of the series of questions he was
asked on June 12 annulment. Allowing for minor editing this was what Babangida said: "You see,
history is a on of events that happened over a period of time. So, my hope is that when you e me, you
will not judge the administration only on June 12. So, I still maintain that somehow, somewhere along
the line...a time will come, perhaps, in the next there will be people who will look at these things and
give it a different interpretation
er. This is, by far, the most profound - if not the only profound - statement in the entire iew, and if I was
reporting the interview, I would have used it as caption. Babangida e asking his critics not to reduce his
eight years tenure to a single event, June 12. But Id they choose to do so, he hoped that a time would
come, perhaps in 50 years, when trdict on June 12 would be different. What is the merit of this plea?
Let us examine it. se Babangida, had not annulled the 1993 presidential election and had allowed Chief
O. Abiola to be declared the winner and sworn in as president. Most of Babangida's t critics say that
had this happened, the General would have become a hero. In other had Babangida surrendered power
to Abiola and retired, all his eight-year "sin" have sufficiently atoned for. And beyond this, he would
have become a hero. I disagree. I submit that, even if Babangida had allowed ChiefAbiola to become t
as winner of the election he organised, I would still not have "forgiven" the military t and the "political
class" and animated intellectual elite with whom he conducted us transition programme almost up to
his last day in office. ForAbiola would have President of a country where within a space of eight years,
the common people organisations, including the labour movement, had been dispossessed
economically, ered politically and dissolved ideologically, where the foundations ofneo-fascist p had
been firmly laid with the formation of a multiplicity of murderous security thesation of desperate
sections, the middle classes. As a Nigerian patriot, and an unlisted participant in Abiola's campaign, I
would have celebrated the s inauguration as president; but I would have, in spite of this, or because of
this, a struggle that same day, to undermine and dismantle the neo-fascist c and structures that had been
laid and which no-one, and certainly not Abiola,
351

would have been able to wish away. And in that new struggle the dividing line would 7. )11 have been
the beneficiaries and supporters of Babangida-created neo-fascist order, on w--)it one hand, and the
victims and opponents on the other. In other words, the political line- .,.17 on the eve of June 12 would
have been completely transformed within months ofAbic inauguration. Finally: I would have
celebrated Abiola's ascendancy, but I would also ha joined or initiated the campaign to try Babangida
for dissolving the political parties fon:: by the people themselves and imposing his own parties on the
nation-the fact that candidates had become president on the basis of this imposition, notwithstanding.
see a contradiction here -as I see it- then you should realise that contradictions are -.3e, content of
history. Those who abstract only one side of a situation and call it the -whole: situation are enemies of
history. The point I am raising here has receded into the background -as it should. In politi struggles,

indeed in all human struggles, distant antecedents and historical connections forgotten and questions
are fought as they are posed in accordance with prevailing feelin and emotions. But with the passage of
time, when particular feelings and passions ha-died, the forgotten facts, antecedents and connections reemerge. This recovery ofmenic7,, together with entirely new facts that normally emerge with time,
usually leads to changes - historical verdicts. So, I agree with General Babangida that history will not
judge his regime by June 12 alone and that, with time, the verdict on June 12 itself may change. But
that is fc-the distant future when perhaps he and his critics including myself, will no longer be there.
the meantime, however, he faces only those questions that are of immediate interest ar: relevance to
contemporary political forces. He should not grumble. He signed for this fa-by seizing power first, with
one leg in December 31,1983, and then with both legs cn August 27, 1985.
352

114
For Fawehinmi and Umar 30th November, 2000
HE has said so several times: that Gani Fawehinmi and Abubakar Umar are the only "geninue" prodemocracy activists in Nigeria. In particular, he has insisted that these two Nigerians - one from the
South, the other from the North - were tile only honest and consistent fighters for the de-annulment of
the election of Moshood ola as the country's President on June 12, 1993. When General Ibrahim
Babangida first ed this statement, or rather when I first read it, I was irritated: how can you pick out
canonise just two people out of hundreds of thousands, and then declare the others terfeit? When he
said so again, I decided not to read Babangida literally but to regard use of"Fawehinmi" and "Umar" as
metaphors; this will then modify the former military -dent's testimony as follows: "the only genuine
pro-democracy activists and June 12 ers in Nigeria are people like Gani Fawehinmi and Ababakar
Umar". Put in this way a us and illuminating debate can take place. That was how I solved the problem
for sc. _:-.- However, when Babangida made this assessment the third time I decided to forget eral and
look again at Fawehinmi and Umar. I shall start with the latter. Abubakar Umar, whom I reckon to be in
his mid-40s, is a retired colonel of the an Army, and a former military governor of the old Kaduna State
(before Katsina % as excised from it). During the relatively brief period he spent in the army, he
occupied command and staff positions. Some of these positions, like the last one in Bauchi fore his
retirement, were quite sensitive and strategic. Abubakar is of royal blood, a to may one day become an
Emir in an old or new Emirate; he is a well-educated sing attended a well-established university and
graduated in social sciences, and Later attended advanced military institutions where he must have
studied military ,s_y, strategy and tactics, as well as military politics. In school, Abubakar was a in the
only sense attached to the term two decades ago, namely, that he sought the amelioration of the
condition of the exploited and oppressed masses: amelioration sq-,plication, collaboration, or selfserving compromise, but by confronting the and exploiters and the roots of their power and privileges.
Carrying his radicalism Nigerian army, Umar met Ibrahim Babangida who, we must not forget, had the
;,4ig III I
ability to command the devotion of his subordinates. August 1985, Umar, then a major, became one of
the young army officers who the regime of Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon and
proclaimed Nigeria's military President. Ordinarily, overthrowing a military regime is a serious
ertaking, it is even more so when that regime is a fanatically messianic one
353

headed by self-righteous officers like Buhari and Idiagbon. The young Umar took the rig H and put
Babangida in power on August 27, 1985, believing, of course, that his action W.15 a radical political
intervention which was both patriotic and necessary. What was importar.- in this intervention was that
he was bold and open about it: against the rigid rules governir.,, political statements by army officers,
Abubakar Umar openly justified Babangida's cot: d' etat and his participation in it. Later, he declared,
in a well-published interview, that undt-the command of General Babangida he would go into battle
blind-folded. It is necessary t pause here and look at Umar's declaration more closely. What Colonel
Umar was saying in effect was that he could go into battle under tly command of General Babangida
without minding the physical dangers to himself and withou: being morally perturbed by the virtues of
the enemy. That is what going into battle "blind-folded" means. This was an extreme statement,
quotable and significant, the type ofstatemer.: that could come only out of deep conviction and faith. I
am here not concerned with the question of whether Babangida deserved this type of faith. What I want
to underline is the character ofAbubakar Umar, rather than that of Babangida. I should perhaps testify
that Umar's type of faith was not peculiar to him. What wa., peculiar was his fortrightness and
boldness. Many Nigerians, civilian and military, male anc female, from the North and from the South,
from the East and from the West, intellectuals. academics, professionals, politicians and students,
including those of leftist inclination, deeply trusted Babangida in those days. I recall that one of the
most turbulent sessions of the 17-member Political Bureau (of which I was a member) was the one in
which I questioned the wisdom in some ofmy colleagues trusting General Babangida almost absolutely.
Aparticular member of the Bureau was so offended by my remarks that the sessions had to adjourn to
allow him recover. I had myself been embarrassed by being the cause of pain to an elderly,
knowledgeable and well-respected academic. He had been offended (according to him) by my implied
suggestion that at his age, he could be so easily deceived or bought. How I wish my senior colleague
had been as fort-right as Abubakar Umar. That was Umar 10 years ago. What he is today deserves a
separate assessment. I first met Gani Fawehinmi in March 1975. Before then, I had heard and read
about him for about two years. The scene of this first encounter was the Lagos High Court. Ikoyi. I had
just been brought, by road, from Sokoto Prison on the orders of the court. The order was made upon a
motion filed by Fawehinmi on behalf of the Students' Union ofthe University of Lagos where, six
months earlier, I had been appointed Lecturer in Mathematics. According to the order ofmy detention,
presumably for attempting to overthrow the military government of General Yabuku Gowon, I was to
be held in Sokoto Prison. But the military government decided to keep me and ply three comrades in
Dodan Barracks. How Fawehinmi learnt of this, and the people who assisted him in uncovering this
state deception, is for him to reveal in his memoirs. Some of these people are already dead; some are in
retirement; others are still in the servi ceof the Nigerian state. When the order to produce me in court
was made, the authorities decided, as a cover-up. to rush me to Sokoto Prison. The story of my journey
from Lagos to Sokoto, the attempted interception at Ilorin, my five-day stay in Sokoto Prison and my
journey back to Lagos, will be sweeter in Gani's mouth. It is
354

7cient for me to say that Gani Fawehinmi knew all this and brought his knowledge to :he brilliant and
fearless motion he brought before the court. Gani had never met me Not only did he charge no fees, he
radically and absolutely supported my
(now my wife), friends and comrades, in cash and in kind, against members ofmy fami ly who
preferred a policy of"gradualism- and appeasement. Gani's attempt to free me, of course, failed. But
back in detention, after my brief ance, I read in newspaper smuggled to me by my Hausa guard, Gani 's
angry iation of the judge's capitulation to the pressure mounted by the government. He vith the words,
"I am sorry for your soul, my Lord". Even in captivity I was afraid G.H., When eventually we were
released after the overthrow of Gowon, Gani, at his L. organised a welcome party for us at his Surulere
home and chambers. He did not to recruit me for his "cause". He could not recruit me not because I was
not recruitable because his cause was universal liberation which defied political, ideological and lional
boundaries. That was over 25 years ago. Gani Fawehinmi has remained essentially the same, except for
changes in tactics s.;..a'd by changes in circumstances. In the struggle for democracy, human rights and
Gani Fawehinrni is an exceptional being. He is in a class of his own. in political ri could be called a
revolutionary democrat. In the history of philosophy. he could 3. humanist or an existentialist, or
perhaps both. Fidel Castro once remarked that .L_,-vara, his late comrade-in-arms, had been a Catholic,
he would have been made xould say the same of Gani Fawehinmi only that saints are made after their
death.
355

115
Tayo Akpata and Nigerian History 14th September, 2000
ONE of the sources of my political frustration at this time is the alienation of educe..:::!.::: young
Nigerians from the history of their own country and their lack ofinforma::: :.ilr and interest in their
country's historical relationship with the rest of the we 7 . Many of our educated youths, including
university students and their teachers whom I ha-, .. the fortune or misfortune to meet everyday in the
Research Centre I head sometimes car2-,:,, say whether the Nigerian Civil War took place before or
after independence; and if -,:- '.. latter whether it took place in the 1960s or 1970s; they take Moshood
Abiola for Obafe:-._ Awolowo ; they take Ahmadu Bello as leader of the 19th century jihad; to them
Nnani a. Azikiwe was Head of State of Biafra and Chukwuemeka Odumegu-Ojukwu his fearies
military commander; they have never heard of Michael Imoudu or Arninu Kano. I ova...: therefore
immensely pleased, and challenged, when I came upon a new book, In Pursz,: of Nationhood: Selected
Writings on Politics in Nigeria written by Tayo Akpata, an published by Malthouse Press. With every
sense of responsibility I would advise teacher; of History and Politics in our institutions of higher
learning to complement the handouts the;, sell to students with books like this. Tayo Akpata's book is
an important contribution to the political history ofNigeria and a fresh and appropriate intervention in
the on-going political discussion in our country. By contemporary Nigerian standards, In Pursuit of
Nationhood, is a big book. about 350 pages in length with an average of 450 words in a page. It is what
I understand as an anthology: a set of essays on the same subject or different but connected subjects,
written by one person or several persons, at a particular time or over a period of time. Tayo Akpata's
book is an anthology written by Akpata and made up of a set of essays, about 66 of them, written over a
period of 35 year's (195 9-1994). The essays are organised into 11 sections: Students' unionism;
National unity; Parliamentary democracy; Inside the Mid-West; The First Republic; The Second
Republic; Educational development; The press and intelligentsia; Military rule; Civil War; and
Tributes. It covers the entire post-independence period. The oldest essay, which was a presidential

address delivered by the author to the Nigerian Union of Great Britain, was written in 1959 when Tayo
Akpata was a little less than 26 years old. The youngest article, a tribute, was written in 1994 when he
was 61. In Pursuit ofNationhood can be assessed on five planes, among others: its status as apolitical
history ofNigeria (its depth, authenticity and credibility); the author's views and positions on critical
issues raised in the book; the hook's academic status; the professional skill embodied in its production;
the value of the book to the general reader who may not be
356

a Nigerian, a political person, a student or an academic. No fair-minded reader of this hook, whatever
his or her political, ideological or academic orientation, will quarrel with my scoring the book above
the credit level on the third, fourth and f 1th planes. The problem T\-1-iich I expect from the first and
second planes is an old one: the credibility of a partisan activist as a political historian. Or, put
differently, how should a political activist balance objectivity and partisanship to produce a work of
lasting value? For Tayo Akpata was not, at least not in the periods (1963-1979) and (1979-1984) when
he wrote the most critical essays in this anthology, a passive or detached intellectual or writer: he was
not a political commentator in the mould of alienated ivory-tower pontificators; he was not an
opportunistic fence-sitter. He was a political activist and beyond that, he was a partisan at difficult
moments in the country's history. Tayo Akpata's book is an impressive combination of obj ectivity and
partisanship. How the author managed to do this will be seen by the reader; I shall, however, provide an
insight. Tayo Akpata is from Benin in the present Edo State. In Pursuit of Nationhood shows that
&wing the CiNil Wax he was an unambiguous partisan of the Federal cause. He was against Biafra's
secession; he held Ojukwu largely responsible for the secession and the subsequent Civil War. I
disagree withAkpata, but I respect the integrity of his account. He was, in the period preceding the war
and throughout the war, consistently opposed to tribalism and ethnic or linguistic federalism as
advocated by Obafemi Awolowo. He did not modify or moderate his views during the bitter civil war.
He was-not intimidated by the fact that Obafemi Awolowo, his most powerful opponent on this issue,
was objectively his war ally, the vice-chairman of the Federal Executive Council, the de-facto
coordinator of the War Cabinet, the Minister of Finance and Leader of the Yorubas. In other words,
throughout war he was bitterly, and in clear terms, opposed both to the Biafran secessionists and
leaders and partisans of the Federal cause who advocated loose federation or :-.-federation or any type
of arrangement along linguistic or ethnic lines. He stated the case cfr..:;s opponents and targets very
clearly before attacking them; he did not distort the views of others in order to, more effectively, attack
them. That is one important ingredient in his (combination of obj ectivity and partisanship. I shall now
present some of the numerous passages I enjoyed in this book: "When ption is exposed, it is used as a
weapon of political vendetta against opponents rather as an evil by itself ' (The strike in restropect;
page 19; written in 1964); "there is a need to recognise and accept that all the resources of this nation,
be it mineral,
l resources, job opportunities, etc., ought to be deployed for the development of the :re country without
discrimination whatsoever against any Nigerian in any part of the try merely on the grounds of his
ethnic or state of origin (Oil revenue and politics of iency; page 27; written in 1970). "The danger of
separation and consequent itetIrration of the country are some ofthe obvious implications ofthe
application ofthe principle. But there are other equally significant implications. On achieving
separation, nationalists are invariably intolerant ofthe demand ofminority groups within their
I

111n Cii011 Who on the same principle demand separation with a view to forming a different
_ their own. Notes on nationalism: politics of separation; page 34; written in 1967). 357

Tayo Akpata seems to be addressing contemporary political actors; but he wrote these words more than
30 years ago. Many people, including myselfhave often wondered how people like Tayo Akpata.
Anthony Enahoro and S. U Ikoku who were radicals and leftists could belong to an acclaimed
conservative party, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the Second Republic (1979-1983). Tayo
Akpata supplies an answer in his book: "In the past, a party of national integration embracing all
political and economic tendencies in the country was advocated. This was uncharitably misunderstood
by some. It seems obvious that fiercely antagonistic parties divided by policy rhetorics rather than by
meaty substance of policy alternatives can only mean continuing instability and unhealthy strife for the
country. Hence, a broadly based. consensual national party, embracing all political tendencies and led
by the most broadly acceptable person to all the diverse interest groups, urban and rural, modem and
traditional, in the country, appears to be a possible answer to a quest for a viable solution to nationbuilding (The elite and national unity page 48; written in 1979). I have a serious reservation on
Akpata's thesis; but I respect the clarity of his presentation. Now, to my critique of this book; and this is
intended to strengthen its second edition which I hope will be due for appearance within a year.
Although a patient reader will understand the backgrounds and contexts of the essays as he or she reads
on, it would still have been very valuable if each essay had been prefaced with a brief historical and
political background and context; there ought to have been footnotes or endnotes explaining some
difficult terms, local and foreign; a longer biography of the author ought to have been given - at least
for the pleasure of the general reader. For the student or academic, the thematic arrangement of the
contents of the book is okay, but for a general reader, like myself, who has no academic paper or
examination to write, a chronological arrangement would have been better - to allow us see how the
views of the author developed on all issues from the age of 26 to the age of 61. On a personal level,
Tayo Akpata's In Pursuit ofNationhood is a challenge, and a call to me to revisit the possibility of
putting in a book form, a selection of my commentaries on Nigerian history and politics. For this I
thank Tayo Akpata, the Ogiesoba of Benin.
358

116
The Universe of Democracy 11th May, 2000
IRECALL, once again, the fresh voice which ChiefAnthony Enahoro brought home with him to the
present political debate in Nigeria. Before the veteran nationalist's return, the debate was becoming a
dialogue of the deaf, as I had lamented. Enahoro's helped to rescue it from that frustrating state. For a
re-statement and summary of Enahoro's views on what we may now call the question of democracy and
political :-2structuring in Nigeria, I refer the reader to his interview with The Guardian newspaper .Lst
before he left the United States ofAmerica for home, (The Guardian, April 11, 2000). 1-7:-_e same
issue of the newspaper carried the reports of his arrival in Lagos the previous day, Reading through the
interview and the reports is like surveying the universe of democracy. We start with samples of
Enahoro's freshness. We have a general idea of the old tizh:er's proposition on political restructuring

along ethnic or nationality lines. First, asked interviewer whether his proposition on this broad theme
does not amount to a support r nfederation, Enahoro replied by means of general advice: leave names
(of structures) 2 and concentrate on content; when an agreement has been reached, political scientists
can *31.en find a name for the structure agreed upon. Secondly, the chief elaborated on the equitocracy.
This is not a new idea. It is central to leftist conception of democracy. 111E=Lic)ro only revived it and
gave it a new name and concrete illustrations. In particular, he :strated how relevant it is in his
perception of the Nigerian situation. Equitocracy, in 27.2.-.ed sense in which Enahoro used the term, is
a statement that electoral democracy is ii=71y a question of ``one-citizen-one vote," that is, the political
equality of all citizens. s that in a multi-national polity such as Nigeria there are spheres of national
cr-.3 p s where the basic human unit or aggregate is not the individual but the nationality; -,where all
nationalities are equal, have equal rights and powers and are treated 7,-hatever their sizes and levels
ofdevelopment. I agree completely, but would add concept ought to be extended to other spheres so that
we have, for instance, equitocracy, class equitocracy, religious equitocracy, generational equitocracy,
etc. Enahoro re-stated the simple and elementary democratic principle - but a te. oh Nigeria's political
class is yet to imbibe - that it is not the business ofgovemment or limit the number of political parties.
He wondered how the politicians in. Abubakar's transition programme, including many of his political
associates,
1?I
Ill accepted the party registration condition. Fourtly, he simplified the question Sc freign National
Conference (SNC) to that of deciding what the nationalities ),separately and what they can, and should,
do together. Providing an insight he said,
359

for example, that it is not the business of some government institution at Abuja ci -TA other remote
administrative centre to decide who should be the traditional ruler oft* Enahoro called on the Nigerian
nationalities, political groups and individuals to coins t? a debate on the content apolitical restructuring
and the sovereign national confer where the issue will be discussed. He mildly rebuked those advocates
of a soverei conference who are waiting on the government to organise such a gathering for them
Lastly, Chief Enahoro reminded, or rather advised Nigerians that the count:, not arrived at democracy.
But I see this as an understatement. My opinion, which I reflects the fact, is that Nigeria is not just a
democracy; the present class ofprofessic politicians and political leaders is not democratic in beliefs
and attitudes and is not becorrine democratic. To put the matter differently, the country's democratic
culture is still very 1 and the institutional foundations for democracy have not been laid. If I am
challengeci make a substantiation, I would cite, first, the content and form of the various
disagreemer_1,, since the return to civil rule, between the Presidency and the National Assembly;
betwe the chief executives and the legislatures at the state level; and between the chairpersons ar
councillors at local government level. The issue is not that these disagreements arose 17 _ that the way
they were prosecuted was thoroughly undemocratic and backward. I woui also cite the prosecution of
the Senator Waku affair; the Sharia civil war; and Senat,;_- Arthur Nzeribe impeachment comedy.
Whenever a disagreement appears our "democratic politicians and rulers throw overboard the few
"democratic" pretences they carry abo-s. and openly embrace political babarity and fascism. So, a
Nigerian politician is democratic when everything is alright and in his or her favour. The destruction of
the town of Odi in Bayelsa State, the continuation of colonialist policy towards the Ogoni people, the
different attitudes towards the various political blocs, the invasion of media houses and harassment of
media practitioners, etc, are all indicators of the level of Nigeria's political culture. Nigeria's "political
class," that is, the group ofprofessional politicians and political oflice-holders, are incapable of

surveying the universe of democracy, or going into concrete details when speaking about democracy,
"true federalism," resource control, principle of derivation, restructuring and sovereign national
conference, etc, because they are not democrats in any deep sense and do not believe in democracy as a
mode of social development. Enahoro is challenging his political associates to debate the universe of
democracy, that is, to debate concretely what they mean by democracy, secularity, federalism, true
federalism, fiscal federalism, confederalism, union of federations, federation of federations,
confederation of federations, etc. I shall confine myself here to general, but provisional, propositions.
In considering "forms of political association," as our politicians now put it, it is more practical to start
with federalism and see how concretely unitarism on the one hand and confederation on the other hand,
deviate from it. In this regard it will be helpful to recall K.C. Wheare's principle of federalism: "What is
necessary for the federal principle is not merely that the Federal Government, like the state
government. should operate directly upon the people, but further that each level of government should
be limited to its own sphere and, within that sphere, should be independent of the other level.
360

this general principle emerges three strategic differences between federalism hand and unitarism and
confederalism, on the other. In the first place, a federal acts on the people directly; but a confederal
government acts on the people ugh state (and local) governments. In the second place, whereas in a
federal
eral and state governments are autonomous within their respective "spheres," er no such autonomy in a
unitary system or the autonomy is so heavily as to render it merely academic. In the third place,
whereas a Federal is constituted directly by the people, through elections or otherwise, a confederal is
constituted by the states through electoral colleges or otherwise. Also important on is the question
ofparliamentarianism or presidentialism or their admixture.
III is the question of collective presidency with rotational chairpersonship. ChiefAnthony Enahoro
suggests is a Union ofFederations ofNigerian Ethnic llIuen:es. There will be eight such federations, and
an undetermined number of .zs in each federation, except two; namely, the Yoruba federation in the
South-litho federation in the South-East, both ofwhich will be ethnically homogeneous. "s structure, the
nationality government will be comparable to the present state in power and functions; the principle of
derivation in revenue allocation will be nationality; the functions and power of federation will be
somewhere between seH. present state government and those of the present federal government. The
7iment will essentially be a confederal goverment. The nationalities will be equal '.-L.tions, and the
federations will be equal in the Union. He leaves the allocation of to the various levels of government
to a Sovereign National Conference. Enahoro a 7arliamentary system of government and collective
presidency, but he leaves the open. Although I disagree fundamentally with the nationality statehood, I
think 5 framework is a very good reference for a national debate.
361

From trot Abasi, with Tears 8th August, 2002

ALABAR: Friday, July 12, 2002;12.00 noon. I was standing on the bal,: the first floor of the Goldie

Street building where our organisation is loc share the floor with The Guardian. The balcony is always
busy, thanks to
journalists, comrades and friends, tired library users and escapees from work. S-11,, regard this balcony
as part of my office, and others acknowledge this choice, no one regard my presence there that early
afternoon as loitering. Suddenly, a motorcycle called "alalok" in these parts, stopped just below my
eyes. Alalok drivers are, as a very rough; but this particular one attracted attention by the way he
suddenly sto almost throwing offthe girl-passenger he was carrying. The girl, dark and not more till:::
alighted, paid the alalok man and started moving hurriedly towards the building. Ash; moved, her eyes
were trained on me as if to indicate that she had seen me or afraid *a would disappear if she removed
her eyes. She was holding a small polythene bag. As not recognise her, I waited for her to climb up and
explain herself But then she disap towards the pharmacy, and I forgot what I regarded then an
unwarranted interruption speculation. I re-directed my eyes to the road. About 15 minutes later, a staff
cane announce that "someone" wanted to see me. "Who is someone?", I asked. But beforashe could
answer I inquired if the "someone" was a dark girl. She nodded, and added: 'Tr= IkotAbasi". Awave of
recognition, then apprehension, swept over me. "What is her nanx I asked, just for confirmation. I got
the confirmation. The visitor is the last child of Comrade U. Available documents show that Conitaie.
U, a male, was born on March 4 1934 at Ikot Abasi. He was one of the 10 children in thE family. At the
time of Comrade U's birth, Ikot Abasi was in Opobo Division of Rive-7s Province of Southern Nigeria.
His early life was an ordinary one: He had colonial primar-, education, and spent a couple of years in a
junior secondary school. His family was n known to be a wealthy one. In fact what I have so far
gathered indicate that it was poor. Between the end of his secondary education and the beginning of the
Civil War in 196- Comrade U did all sorts of things: teaching, tailoring and working in Opobo Boat
Yard. It was in the latter that he became a trade unionist, organising and leading the lowest echelons of
daily paid labourers. He was as wretched as "the wretched of the earth" he was leadinz. The Opobo
area was taken by federal forces early in the war, and re-united with Niger, Comrade U continued with
his grassroot trade unionism. Shortly after the end of the he went to Bulgaria for a short course in trade
unionism. He thereafter moved to Lagos a:: from Lagos, he was posted to Calabar, capital of Cross
River State (then South Easte7
362

State). It was here that I met Comrade U when I moved, full time, to Calabar in June 1977. At the time
we met, the Comrade's material condition was, to say the least, harsh. He had lost some ofhis unions;
he had just married at the age of43 and his wife was expecting their first baby in a matter ofweeks. The
six-month period preceding February 1978 was a period of intense activity in the Nigerian Labour
Movement. General Murtala Mohammed's and General Olusegun Obasanjo's governments had
abrogated the autonomy of the movement, dissolved the labour centres, banned prominent labour
leaders, appointed an administrator for the movement and set out "rationalising" and re-grouping the
labour unions along industrial lines. In theprocess, the union to which Comrade U belonged was
completely swallowed up by larger unions in the new industrial union into which it was thrown.
Comrade U, who had been very militant in the labour movement in the preceding eight years, was
"rationalised" out ofthe new union. He was advised to be patient, that in God's time he would be
absorbed. In the meantime, to avoid outright starvation, he should accept a menial job, with a menial y
in a labour union office in Calabar. Between the time I met him and early 1981, Comrade and his
family which had since 1977 been expanded by the arrival of four children, lived N abject poverty. But
it was precisely in this period that he impressed the labour and socialist movement in Calabar with his
deep proletarian outlook, faith, and fearless commitment to workers' cause. Comrade U moved from
one construction site to another, organising workers and ing them in engaging, and sometimes,

confronting their employers - mainly expatriate ruction companies. Flq was reputed not to be in the
habit of taking bribes from employers. organisation cross-checked, and found this to be true. But then,
in those days, any big Alai' T :r leader who refused to take bribes might be moderately comfortable,
materially, but would not be rich; but any small labour leader, like Comrade U, who indulged in this
,logical and moral puritanism would simply be wretched: for, in addition to not being to earn much
from the poor workers whom he led, he would also have to spend much little he was able to earn
bringing himself and members ofhis union out ofpolice cells li?uiv, ere their second homes in those
days. Comrade U was such a labour leader. Then, f: beginning of1981, Comrade U's conditions
suddenly improved: an acting position J. in the leadership of the Cross River State branch of a fraternal
union. He was the position. This "liberation" lasted for barely three years. By early 1984, the River
State office ofthe union was rationalised out of existence and Comrade U lost With a wife and five
children, poverty descended on him almost immediately. He to go back to his village in Ikot Abasi in
the present Akwa Ibom State. For eight between 1984 and July 1992, when he died, he and family
experienced real poverty. ion was so bad that when Comrade U died on July 17, 1992, on his return
from service, his spouse had to bury him immediately in the compound without a coffin. I w as a year
later that we learnt of the passing away of Comrade U. An immigration ho used to be a comrade passed
the information to another comrade at a road e organised a visit. As it turned out we were the first set of
comrades to pay a visit to the family. We saw and confirmed the real poverty under which Comrade
IINi
363

U and his family had lived but from which the former had involuntarily exited. But the situation had
predictably become worse and quite desperate. Since 1993 we have organised yearly solidarity visits to
the family - usually at Christmas. Then, late in June 2002, I received a letter from Comrade U's
youngest daughter whom I had not been fortunate to meet for several years. The letter which had spent
nearly two months on its journey from Ikot Abasi. carried a passionate appeal for urgent assistance to
buy some books for her impending S SCE examination. The letter came too late for any assistance to
be organised to reach her before the end of the examination. We decided, however, to send a team on
Saturday, July 13, 2002 to Ikot Abasi to assess the situation. The girl arrived the day before, as narrated
above.
After embracing and welcoming her and asking after the other members of the family, I asked her to
wait for the person who would soon arrive to take her to our house. The escort soon arrived and they
departed for home. It was then that one of our staff narrated how the visitor had wept when I left her.
The weeping was so deep, according to the stag that she joined involuntarily. I asked if she knew why
the visitor was weeping, she said she did not know. I was deeply moved; but a more devastating
experience awaited me. I came back home quite late that day. Everybody was alright, including the
visitor, I was told. Later that night, I was alone in the sitting room, reading a newspaper, when I heard a
gentle knock. I turned. The visiting girl was standing at the door. I beckoned to her to come in. She
came in, shut the door behind her and knelt before me. "Daddy", she called. I answered. "Daddy", she
repeated, "we have no food to eat at home". If she had looked at me she would have noticed that I was
on the verge of crying. I lifted her up and assured her that all the problems would be taken care of in
the morning. With this I piloted her to her room, and went to our own bedroom to narrate my
experience to my wife. It was one of my saddest moments in recent times: the family of Comrade U who served this country and its toiling people totally and selflessly and with unusual energy and
commitment - having no food to eat!
364

11
Oyo Orok Oyo at 80 15th August, 2002
N less than two weeks, precisely on Tuesday, August 27, 2002, Oyo Orok Oyo will be 80. In the
celebration ofthis event he will receive first-class citations in four areas of his odyssey: militant
nationalism and trade unioriism, football administration; humanistic onships; and community service.
The second is well-known; the third and the fourth .Orly known, especially among his friends, close
associates, family and the Efik community; Ill at first is almost unknown, or forgotten, except within
the ranks of liberal historians and valthcal students of our continent's independence struggle. But then I
know this great :afze as Comrade Chairman Oyo Orok Oyo: comrade because he is a comrade in sense
of leftism; and chairman because he headed one ofthe lefitst groups we had Mizens for Change (CFC).
This does not, in any way, diminish Oyo's stature as Mr. iir.:7;:::(as he is known nationally and
internationally), Etubom (as he is known in Efikland), Good Man (as many people would testify). Mine
is a celebration of an unusually L'ied, integrated, and, above all, dignified, human existence. Oyo Orok
Oyo was born on August 27, 1922, into an Efik Royal House. From 1935, he attended Duke Town
School, in Calabar; and from 1936 to 1938, he )..J.ce Town Secondary School, also in Calabar.
Between 1939 and 1941 Oyo was Df Hope Waddell Institute, the elite secondary school of colonial
Nigeria. In an I had with him seven years ago, Oyo Orok Oyo told me that he repeated a class again in
1940. When I asked him why, he said he was "too playful". He left ell Institute in December 1941 with
a school certificate. On August 6, 1942,
;,_.z to his 20th birthday, Oyo left Calabar by boat, embarking on a life "adventure" ast more than 40
years. From Calabar, he sailed to Oron; from Oron to Port . from Port Harcourt to Lagos. A week later,
on August 13, 1942, Oyo Orok ter the Railway Traffic Training School, Lagos. On passing out in
January 1943, --alployed in the Railway Corporation. Between then and September 1960 when
voluntarily, he served inAgana, Imo River, Gerd, Enugu, Oturkpo, Port Harcourt D-Zing that glorious
period his life was defined by militant nationalism andonism. Mims 7,c nod of Oyo' s life, I insist, must
be underlined and highlighted. He joined the
wer.-Je::. the pre-eminent organisation of militant nationalism in Nigeria, in 1946, as formed. He
became a Zikist while serving the Railways in Port Harcourt. hen the Zikists organised, in Lagos, the
historic lecture, "A Call to "" by Anthony Enahoro and delivered by Osita Agwuna - Oyo Orok was
365

servimi as Secretary of Enugu Branch of the movement as well as Secretary of

D PT, .1 .:".;
Lag osos- =
- _T. 7 _ _ -
S 11 I ant r 777 - a 7,7 erki
CI 551/I 110/ 5:50515 151 /05 5/55/051. 51510 II sos os so 515.051155

_) with governance. Although Oyo is intolerant of indecency, inconsistency and corruption, is known to

have a very large heart, incapable of harbouring prejudice or vengeance. He is also known to be very
generous to all, and fiercely loyal to his friends and compatriots from whom he can hardly separate whatever the level of disagreement. Our subject is today an Etubom, that is, Head of an Efik Ruling
House. In this aeity, he daily dispenses justice and advice to the community. Oyo Orok Oyo's family fie
can be described by an outsider as turbulent up to 1979 when he met his present wife, lo. He had his
first child, a male in mid-1946 when he was not yet 24 years old. He ihereafter married his first wife in
1948. He separated from her in 1953 and remained single 10 years. During this period he had his sixth
and last child, a male, "out of wedlock", rding to him. He married again in 1963, but the marriage
lasted only two years. He led to bachelorhood, and stayed there for 15 years. Then he married his
present wife, o Orok Oyo, whom I proclaimed his "last bust stop". My speculation is that the nature
career and his temperament are partly responsible for this turbulence. He is a humanist, gh not
particularly attracted to feminism. In a recent private discussion, Iniko told me that one of her happiest
moments in the she shares with her husband was when they agreed, in l 979 to be together. Another was
Oyo was elected Vice-President of CAF in Algiers, in February 1990, in spite of his g health. Her
saddest moment was when Oyo's health took a critical turn in March We observe that apart from the
day they agreed to come together, the woman's est moment as well as the saddest ones had to do with
the fate of her husband. I did esent this conclusion to her. Our subject is not a rich man. Nor could he
have been, given on the one hand his promising attitude to corruption, immorality and dishonesty, and
on the other, his ity. He has only one house where he lives in Calabar, and my investigations have not
any other landed property anywhere. He is not employed, and he is not engaged sort ofbusiness. He
earns a two hundred naira monthly pension from the Nigerian and nothing else from the Nigerian state.
He lives essentially on the daily maintenance e given him by CAF whenever he travels for a meeting.
From time to time his .1,-n-vene, unsolicited and modestly. But he does not complain. He remains a
contented e , join me in saluting Oyo Orok Oyo: Our Comrade, our Chairman.
367

119
Stronger than Death 22nd August, 2002
EABLY this year, I planned to remember Leon Trotsky who was murdered "u in August 1940. The last
time I wrote on Leon Trotsky was about 10 under the title "Leon Trotsky's postulates revisited". Five
years earlier, I "Remembering Leon Trotsky". This time, I told myself, both the title and the theme
different. I considered and abandoned several titles until I came to this one: "Leon Stronger than
Death". I stopped, fairly satisfied that I had got an appropriate title. struck me that we have a book
bearing that title in our library. I retrieved it. Tli. . ownership on the 533-page book showed that I
bought it in Lagos on December 2S , A further examination suggested that I had read less than 20 pages
of it. The book, Stronger than Death, was compiled by a group of Soviet acaL' trim! and published in
Moscow in 1974. It was dedicated to revolutionaries who died serr iv people and the cause of socialist
revolution in the preceding 50 years or so. "Sentei ,,,, death, they accused their executioners", the
authors said of the 20 women and men se for remembrance in the book. The testimony continued: "Till
their dying breath they con to serve their cause and instil faith in their people. They died for the
happiness of people, and they will never be forgotten. Their whole life was a feat, and death is power
against it". The authors quoted a poem by Nazym Hikmat: "But if I do not bum like a ter'i And if you

do not bum like a torch/ And we do not bum like a torch/ Who, then, will dis the gloom?". It was a
moving testimony. Why, then, I asked, did I abandon the book fo:- s long? It did not take long for me to
remember: I abandoned the book because the auth could not find a space for Leon Trotsky who was
assassinated on August 20, 194 i_ ni Mexico by an agent of the Soviet state under Joseph Stalin.
Trotsky was omitted bec aL.,,,t he spent the last quarter of his life criticising the betrayal of the Russian
revolution by usurp -,:.ii, who literally seized power in the country at the death of Vladimir Lenin in
1924. For this was persecuted and pursued relentlessly and finally murdered in far-away Mexico.
Trotswas synonymous with revolutionary Marxist critique of the Soviet syste . That was why 1-_ was
killed; that was why soviet writers could not include him in the list martyrs; and fr._ is why his ideas
are stronger than death. I prepared for the rest of this article in two stages. First, I went through my
nok-and previous articles on Leon Trotsky. I then took leave of these materials and went over I T "other
sources", including ideologically hostile ones: biographies, encyclopaedias, dictionari .. 2 of history,
philosophy and politics, and textbooks on these subjects. My conclusion at th,
368

119
Stronger than Death 22nd August, 2002
EABLY this year, I planned to remember Leon Trotsky who was murdered "u in August 1940. The last
time I wrote on Leon Trotsky was about 10 under the title "Leon Trotsky's postulates revisited". Five
years earlier, I "Remembering Leon Trotsky". This time, I told myself, both the title and the theme
different. I considered and abandoned several titles until I came to this one: "Leon Stronger than
Death". I stopped, fairly satisfied that I had got an appropriate title. struck me that we have a book
bearing that title in our library. I retrieved it. Tli. . ownership on the 533-page book showed that I
bought it in Lagos on December 2S , A further examination suggested that I had read less than 20 pages
of it. The book, Stronger than Death, was compiled by a group of Soviet acaL' trim! and published in
Moscow in 1974. It was dedicated to revolutionaries who died serr iv people and the cause of socialist
revolution in the preceding 50 years or so. "Sentei ,,,, death, they accused their executioners", the
authors said of the 20 women and men se for remembrance in the book. The testimony continued: "Till
their dying breath they con to serve their cause and instil faith in their people. They died for the
happiness of people, and they will never be forgotten. Their whole life was a feat, and death is power
against it". The authors quoted a poem by Nazym Hikmat: "But if I do not bum like a ter'i And if you
do not bum like a torch/ And we do not bum like a torch/ Who, then, will dis the gloom?". It was a
moving testimony. Why, then, I asked, did I abandon the book fo:- s long? It did not take long for me to
remember: I abandoned the book because the auth could not find a space for Leon Trotsky who was
assassinated on August 20, 194 i_ ni Mexico by an agent of the Soviet state under Joseph Stalin.
Trotsky was omitted bec aL.,,,t he spent the last quarter of his life criticising the betrayal of the Russian
revolution by usurp -,:.ii, who literally seized power in the country at the death of Vladimir Lenin in
1924. For this was persecuted and pursued relentlessly and finally murdered in far-away Mexico.
Trotswas synonymous with revolutionary Marxist critique of the Soviet syste . That was why 1-_ was
killed; that was why soviet writers could not include him in the list martyrs; and fr._ is why his ideas
are stronger than death. I prepared for the rest of this article in two stages. First, I went through my
nok-and previous articles on Leon Trotsky. I then took leave of these materials and went over I T "other
sources", including ideologically hostile ones: biographies, encyclopaedias, dictionari .. 2 of history,
philosophy and politics, and textbooks on these subjects. My conclusion at th,
368

_ the exercise was that in assessing the life and career of Leon Trotsky it is possible to partisanship
with objectivity" a thesis once advanced by Trotsky himself, but in to the Russian Revolution on which
he wrote a three-volume book in 1932. Put - it is possible for an intellectually honest and truthful
political historian, who also .s to be an ardent supporter ofLeon Trotsky, not to suffer any internal
conflict (between 1:vity and partisanship) in assessing his life. The reason lies in the testimony
common of the great historians of the period and eminent scholars since then, namely: that ry was a
profoundly "independent" and "original" thinker. By this is meant that although Trotsky was an
uncompromising Marxist intellectual toornmunist revolutionary standing pre-eminently in the
leadership of a revolutionary _ent and dispensing strict party discipline, there were substantive
revolutionary Ives peculiar to him. Trotsky was intellectually bold and uniquely capable of wide
etrating historical sweeps. His knowledge and experience were not only wide, but eti These traits
inevitably brought him into conflict with several comrades, especially fists, sycophants and careerists.
Same with Rosa Luxemburg, the founder of the ist Party of Germany who was murdered by German
soldiers on January 15, ause Luxemburg was a critic ofthe soviet system, her name was also omitted by
rs of Stronger than Death. In a different context, what I have said about Trotsky said of Bola Ige of
Nigeria. Ernest Mandel, one of the most brilliant and committed "followers" of Trotsky for described
him as "creator ofthe theory of the permanent revolution, organiser of the insurrection, founder of the
Red Army, the tireless fighter who strove to wrest the f con rnunism from the bureaucratic usurpers,
founder of the Fourth international, ed by an agent of Stalin". He said that Trotsky symbolised "our
entire epoch". wealthy Jewish parents in present-day Ukraine in 1879, Trotsky became a full- moist
revolutionary by the age of20. He was arrested and exiled to Siberia at the ...Four years later, he
escaped to Western Europe where he joined Vladimir Lenin. to Russia in 1905 and headed the Workers'
Soviet (or congress) in the abortive of that year. Arrested and exiled, he again escaped. He settled in
Vienna in Austria. When World War I broke out in 1914, he moved to Switzerland; rrrucce Cu Trance,
cpain and6haffy Kew York City. It was from New York ,ed to Russia after the overthrow of the Czar in
March 1917. - was the de-facto deputy to Lenin in the socialist revolution of November During that
revolution, he was, in fact, not only the Chairman of Petrograd h was the workers' government-inwaiting, but also the Chairman of the Military Committee that proclaimed the fall of the provisional
Government to power of the revolutionary forces of workers, peasants and soldiers ish-vik Party. He
became the Commissar (Minister) ofForeignAffairs. In this ne2ctiated the withdrawal of Russia from
World War I. From 1918 to 1921, he War Commissar. Under him, the Red Army, the foundation of the
Soviet tormed. That was the high point of Trotsky's career in the Soviet Union.
369

Differences began to appear between Trotsky and Lenin in the ne Russia's participation in World War I.
The differences became fairly serious 1921 until Lenin's death in January 1924. But the differences
were the type
1111111'

,'ills iR
occur between two committed and selfless giants of a revolution which seek :a historical course for
humanity, or a fraction of it. They were contained, because objective was the same. Trotsky was not
only a revolutionary, but also a 7:: 7:- according to Lenin, "attracted by the theoretical side of a
problem". But after L and the ascension of Joseph Stalin to the leadership of state and party, thzbetween Trotsky and his colleagues became quite serious. , This was how a neutral historian described
the differences between 77:11 Stalin: "After the death of Lenin in 1924, the rivalry between Stalin and
Trotsk:, open conflict. Trotsky favoured spreading the socialist revolution throughou: ? while Stalin
favoured increasing the strength of the Soviet Union. Stalin gained the sc and assumed dictatorial
powers". Although the historian grossly simplified the e71,:. Trotsky conflict, his analysis is sufficient
for non-Marxist students of world his:: -.- however add that Stalin also favoured the subjection of the
policies of fraternal parties to the interest of the Soviet Union. To Leon Trotsky, the primary duty of
parties was to make socialist revolution in their own countries. In 1925, Trotsky was dismissed as War
Commissar: in 1926 he was expelhq the Politburo, the ruling council of the Party; in 1927, he was
expelled from the 1928, he was exiled to Alma-Ata (in present-day Kazakhstan); and in 1929 he was
from the Soviet Union. He moved to Turkey; from Turkey to France; from Fr-Norway; and from there
to Mexico City. On August 20, 1940 he was assassinst someone identified by the Mexican police as
Spanish-born, but bearing, at various
1:11111
1111,
11(0111
$
1111411:;,
and in various places, the names Mercarder del Rio, Frank Jackson, Jacques Mor-r-Jacques van den
Dreschd, etc. On release from jail in 1960, the assassin moved to the Soviet Union use. iz
Czechoslovak passport. End of story. But Trotsky's ideas have survived not only his death, but also the
death of the Soviet Union. Rosa Luxemburg had, 22 years denounced the manner Bolsheviks raised a
purely temporary necessity (the suppression, enemies of the revolution) into a permanent theory of
class struggle. She argued that fr was essentially freedom for opponents. Why? Because supporters
alrea y had it. Rs Luxemburg's ideas have also proved stronger than her death.
111111111i
370
120
More Echoes from the Civil War 17th October, 2002
'TIL the intervention ofA Break in Silence: Lt. Col. Victor Adebuktino; the 127-page re-appraisal of
late Victor Banjo written by the subject's sister., Professor (Mrs) Felicia Adetowun Ogunsheye, my
understanding of the sezmcmt Nigerian Crisis and Civil War from January 1966 up to the execution of
actor tuber 1967 can be summarised as follows: On January 15, 1966, a group of in the NigerianArmy
attempted to overthrow the civilian government of the F of Nigeria. Although the attempt was very
bloody, it failed to achieve its stated the installation of a radical nationalist regime. What happened was
that emment and the military rebellion collapsed and theArmy High Command Dew government. The
rebels were arrested and detained in several prisons across the coun:72. T a Lt. Col. Victor Banjo who,
apparently, was not involved in the coup anz see the new military Head of State, but was arrested and
detained. He was azkz arms while seeking audience with the Head of State, his Commander-in-and as
later to be upgraded to an assassination attempt. On July 29. a b cow) took place. The operation was
successful at the federal level. here a now Gov ernment was installed, and in three regions" West, MidWest and IssTordi East For 10 months various attempts were made, within and outside the the East with

the federal authorities. All the attempts failed, and on May 3?, was proclaimed an independent and
sovereign state: the Republic o the declaration ofBiafra, the January 1966 army rebels and VictorBacipof them who were detained in the East - were released, but wow riven any commission in the new B
iafran Armed Forces. They were allowilla an Biafra, but under close watch. War broke out on July 6,
196 b,-? e-,:weom ofNigeria and the Republic of Biafra. Still, the January bob s given commissions.
But some of them commissioned thems elves arc =we
..?
411111111 ;
-on the side ofBiafra, of course. In the second week ofAugust 19-", as badly for Biafra, the Biafran
Military High Command decided to (=Mod through the Mid-West. A Liberation Army was constituted
out ofthe se. The plan was that the Liberation Army would cross the tit Mid-West within 24 hours.
From the Mid-West the Liberation La.,:os through Ibadan.
11111
371

Victor Banjo was commissioned as Brigadier in the Biafran Army and may Commander of the
Liberation Anny. Several of the January boys were also commis s: and sent along with Banjo. The
Liberation Anny took the Mid-West as planned. It s for Lagos, also as planned. But it suddenly stopped
its advance at the military stra-,:-..ze. town of Ore. The Liberation Army troops were still at Ore when
the Nigerian forces Ir.:, :at contact with them and systematically drove them out of the Mid-West, back
to Biafra _..mit the last week of September 1967, Victor Banjo and three others were tried and exec
ry.:2{dil at Enugu - for treason against the Republic of Biafra. That is the sketch of my prey: Jai
understanding, a bare sketch made even more sketchy by the deliberate exclusion of =nits except that
of the subject, Victor Banjo. Now, with the appearance of Professor Ogunslic:,,,,t-s, book and its
presentation in The Guardian 's issue of September 28, 2002, I have to revlsttm my earlier conclusions.
I was at Ibadan throughout August and September 1967 and escaped sumir_L-i, execution only because
I confused the soldiers that, on information, came to arrest me ,o house in Agbowo, opposite the
University of Ibadan. I confused them because not only LI I speak fluent Ijesha (a Yoruba dialect), but
spoke English with Ijesha accent. I wen: name Tony Harrison or Segun George, depending on where I
was. Two months be invasion of the Mid-West I had secretly left Ibadan, passed through the Mid-Wes-.
the River Niger, landed in Onitsha and went to Ogidi, a couple of kilometres to the north the strategic
town. Three days later, I returned to Onitsba and mov ec sollkin to 01\1'1 I again spent three days.
From Oba I returned to Ibadan taking the same route, my identity as circumstances demanded. Neither
my brother, who was at the University o:' Ibadan with me, nor my mother who was at Ilesha, knew that
I left Ibadan, let alone going to Biafra. I was 21 years old then. My mother has since gone to see her
Maker and m) brother, if he reads this article, will be knowing this fact for the first time. I therefore
agree with Professor Ogunsheye that in the mi die ofAugust 1967 Ibadan was quiet but tense, very
tense. I would only add that not on y Ibadan was tense. The whole of Southern Nigeria was tense and
expectant. The Liberate n Army was being awaited in Ibadan. Had that Army stepped into Ibadan under
Victor Banjo, or Emmanuel Ifeajuna, or Wale Ademoyega, or any of the January boys (Major Nzeogwu
had been killed by then) its ranks would have been swollen beyond the commanders' expectations,
Suddenly, the tide turned. All those who were waiting, including many potential recruits. believed that
the revolution must have been betrayed. Of course, I knew then that the civilian leaders in the West

had, at the very last moment, opposed the entry of the Liberation. Army into the West. But I did not
know that this change of mind could influence Victo: Banjo; nor did I know, as reported by Ogunsheye
in her book, that the Commander of thc. Liberation Army "did not want to fight my way through
(Ibadan)", that he "did not want m:, homeland, Yorubaland, to become the theatre of war''. I had
thought that Victor Banjo determined to fight his way through Ibadan and take Lagos, and was only
betra:, renegade elements in his own army. When Banjo halted his advance at Ore, he was called back
to Enugu for de omflii detained for a few days and sent back to Benin, the headquarters of the
Liberation.
372

- met a demoralised army not only in retreat, but also in disarray, with the Federal troops t purse. It was
the Mid-West tragedy, coupled with the rapidly deteriorating military - humanitarian situation in Biafra,
that forced Banjo to come to the conclusion which he ealed at his trial, namely, that: "In my opinion,
the minimum conditions for the continued essful prosecution ofthe war have ceased to exist. We are
slowly losing grounds on all and I have been personal witness to the horrible brutality on Inc local
population lv accompanying the presence of Nigerian troops". He therefore decided that Ojukwu. Head
of State ofBiafra, should be persuaded to agree to a negotiated settlement within cntext of One Nigeria
On a visit to Enugu to discuss this with Ojukwu, he was arrested. defence, in my view, is in the ranks of
revolutionary classics: heroic, courageous, brilliant. it could not save him, and he knew it. He was
recording a statement for history. My reconsideration of this tragedy - in the light of new information has throw: T. new, necessarily provisional, conclusions; it has also led to the reformulation of some
Victor Banjo was not trusted by General Aguiyi-Ironsi, Nigeria's first military Head e. His arrest and
detention proved this. He was not completely trusted by the January perhaps, because he was a senior
officer or was considered too close to Ironsi; he not trusted by Ojukwu, because he was too radical and
was thought to be close to he oys; he was not trusted by the leaders of the civilian government which
was n; even if General Gowon who succeeded Ironsi had trusted him, that trust woui vanished with the
letters Banjo wrote to Ironsi from prison and the fact that he played an important role in checking
federal advance into Biafra and humiliating federal forces !id-West; Yoruba officers in the federal army
did not trust him because his revolution e_minate or eclipse them if he marched to the West; most of
the civilian leaders in the nottrust him for the same reasons; Igbo officers and sections of the Igbo
people
ilihiut4;ait. mist him because of his Yorubaness.
We can therefore see that Victor Banjo cannot be described as patriot, or saint, or hero. He was simply a
revolutionary officer; brilliant, courageous and nationalist, st officer who was tragically caught up in a
tissue of contradictions which could not ed and from which it was impossible to escape. In such
circumstances the best was to choose a line of action and pursue it to the end, often a tragic end. Banjo
did that. But I think he made a mistake: Instead of going to Enugu to persuade Ojukwu, to have
continued his march to Lagos, via Madan.
373

121
Dele Giwa's Last Days 16th November, 2003
HAVE gone over this story several times in the last 17 years to see what aspects :,fi I could present
insurmountable problems to truthful investigators. I have found :-. :- Today, I go over the story again,
but now with the readers, including those Niger HI who were either not born or were babies, at the time
of the incident. This exercise is in faL. for the particular benefit of these young Nigerians. My main
source is the Newswatch magazine. At 6.00 p.m on Thursday, Oct: '1"it., 16, 1986, an officer ofthe
Nigerian State Security Service (SSS) delivered a verbal invit- - - iri to Dele Giwa to the effect that he,
Giwa, should meet with a senior officer of the seciL.-- agency at the latter's headquarters, 15 Awolowo
Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, the following L. - Giwa, aged 39 years, was then the Editor-in-Chief and Chief
Executive of the Newslt.,-,: magazine. The verbal invitation was delivered at the corporate office ofthe
magazine loc a; :;'!...: at No. 62 Oregun Road, Ikej a, Lagos. The following day, Friday, October 17,
1986, Dele iwa, accompanied by l- deputy, Ray Ekpu, honoured the security agency's invitation,
arriving there at 10.00 a. _ Ekpu was asked to wait outside while Giwa was led into the office of the
senior securi operative for the scheduled meeting. At the meeting were the senior operative, anoth
security officer, a female, and Giwa himself. In the meeting, which lasted an hour, the seni operative
confronted Giwa with four allegations. Allegation No. 1, that the Ncwsiva magazine of which Dele
Giwa was Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive was planning a follow-up story on the removal, early
October 1986, of Navy Commodore Ebitu Uki\\ .1 from the position of Chief of General Staff (CGS),
and his replacement by Navy AdmirL, Augustus Aikhomu. The magazine had, a week before, carried a
cover story titled "Powc-Games: Ukiwe loses out". The security operative alleged that the follow-up
story being planned by the Newswatch would be more devastating than the earlier story as it would be
based on discussions with Ukiwe's very associates. Allegation No.2, that Dele Giwa had told some
people that he would "take on the mantle ofthe battle for Alozie Ogubuaj a, the Police Public Relations
Officer now having problems with his employers" and that he, Dele Giwa, would employ the young
radica' police officer "if he was fired-. Ogubuaja had been suspended following his far-reaching
testimony before the Akanbi panel probing the May 1986 students' protest". Allegation No.3, that Dele
Giwa had been holding discussions with radical elements of the society, including the Nigeria Labour
Congress (NLC), the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and Nigerian Students "with a
view to destabilising the country and 374

1.7:aging about the birth of a socialist revolution". Allegation No.4, that Dele Giwa was -holding talks,
in pursuance of allegation number three, with some people on the possibility ,S importing arms into the
country". According to the Newswatch (November 3, 1986), the security operative "did not expatiate
on his allegations. Giwa was not told when he was alleged to have held the meetings, where and with
whom; he was also not given details about the purported arms deal". Giwa vigorously denied the
charges and was allowed to home. He told Ekpu: "If they can think this of me, then I am not safe. They
are only trying give a dog a bad name in order to hang it". That was Friday, October 17, 1986, 11.00
' On leaving the SSS headquarters, Giwa called on Tony Momoh, then Federal Minister of Information,
to lodge a complaint on the matter. The Minister, who was a good lend of Giwa thought it was all a
joke. "They just want to rattle you", he was reported to -H-e told the agitated, and frightened senior
journalist. The minister however promised to look into the matter". From here Giwa went to the
chambers ofhis lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi, .astAnthony Village, Lagos. (7.7.a7L: was shocked by the
security agent's allegations. Acting on instinct and experience the cal lawyer asked Giwa to make an
official report of the matter to him. Giwa then net=ed to his office, prepared a letter for Gani detailing
his encounter with the SSS earlier day. The letter which was dispatched, and received, that same

afternoon ended in tillikse. words: "I am sure you agree with me, as my lawyer, that these are grave
accusations or Liegations of which I must do all things possible to disabuse the mind of the authority...
you, in the name of God, to take up the concern expressed above with the SSS and Federal Mili ry
Government." The foll wing day, Saturday, October 18, 1986, Dele Giwa attended a luncheon ny a
Lagos banker for media executives in Victoria Island, Lagos. He narrated the us day's experience to his
colleagues. After the luncheon, the media executives went see the newly appointed Chief of General
Staff, Admiral Aikhomu. Giwa, again, told his . Aikhomu said he was already aware of the case. He
asked Giwa not to worry. Giwa e the vote of thanks at the end of the meeting with Aikhomu. When
Giwa returned home amt from his wife that the Director of Military Intelligence (DMI) had telephoned
the n,vice, seeking to speak with him. On his second call, the director had asked for the address, and the
direction to it. Dele's wife obliged, but not before asking, out of why he needed the information. The
military director told her that the ADC had. thing to deliver to her husband. Dele Giwa understood
ADC to mean the aide-de-:o the military President, General Ibrahim Babangida. Sunday, October 19,
1986: About 11.00 a.m. Dele Giwa was having breakfast at his study with his guest, Kayode Soyinka,
Newswatch 's London bureau chief At Giwa telephoned the director ofmilitary intelligence and asked
the reasons for the f: :t calls of the previous day". The military man replied that he only phoned "to that
he should not worry about the allegations levelled against him by the . replied that he would worry and
had, in fact, written to his lawyer about the
11111111"
nr Mil
375

matter. The military man then told Giwa that the matter at hand was not for lawyers and :Ts it had, in
any case, been settled. The telephone conversation ended and the two frie-_-_ ,!i continued their
breakfast. At about 11.40 a.m, Giwa's son, aged 19 years, came into study and handed a parcel to his
father. Giwa asked who brought the parcel and the s replied that it was brought in by the security
guard. The light brown envelope was address...t:.: to "Chief Dele Giwa". On it were two written
messages. One, that the parcel came from -.?,,T office of C-in-C, that is, Commander-in-CI-lief; and
two, that "nobody except the address :.z.it should open it". Remarking that "this must be from the
president", Giwa opened the parc -... Then a mighty explosion which decimated the lower half of
Giwa's body. Death came .40 minutes later at First Foundation Medical Centre, Ikej a. But before he
died, Giwa sp C P twice: First to his wife: "Nwon ti pami" meaning, "They have killed me"; and later
to h..: doctor friend at the medical centre: "They have got me". The event shook the whole nation... and
parts ofthe world. Suspicions fell on the military government and its myriad of securT. agencies. At
4.50 p.m. the following day, Monday, October 20, 1986, the Chief of Gene:-, Staff held a meeting with
media executives at Dodan Barracks, the headquarters of I': military government. Before the meeting
started, the Chief Press Secretary to the milita7i president quarrelled with some State House
correspondentsr their "irresponsible ar.: eo libellous" reporting of the Giwa assassination. Present at th
meeting from which pre s.,,, photographers, foreign media people and Nigerian journalists representing
foreign mecL - organisations were excluded, were the Chief of General Staff, the Inspector-General
c ...' Police, the director ofmilitary intelligence, the director of SSS, as well as the media executives
themselves. The Chief of General Staff introduced the SSS director and asked him to speaL The
director said that, the organisation had been "interviewing" Giwa on some allegations, including "gunrunning". The director ofmilitary intelligence, on his part, confirmed that "he had telephoned Giwa's
house, and asked for and obtained the residential address from Giwa's wife a day before the tragedy.

And on the day Giwa died, he had talked to hirr about 10 minutes. He said that he and Giwa had
become friends and exchanged phone numbers after their quarrel on earlier "offensive" stories carried
in Newswatch. He said that he had tried his best to "calm down Giwa" after the latter became agitated
over the allegations levelled against him by the SSS. Finally, the director denied any involvement in the
assassination. This is a summary of some of the already verified and easily verifiable events in the Dele
Giwa case, taken sequentially, between Thursday, October 16, 1986 and Monday October 20, 1986.
Dele Giwa was a gifted and brilliant journalist, a very lively youn, professional. His assassination
remains the first, and so far the only, high profile elimination by letter bomb in post-independence
Nigeria. Despite the 17-year spirited and dangerou, exertions by Chief Gani Fawehinmi, and (I
believe), the Newswatch family, the Dele Giv, _ Case has remained unsolved.
376

122
Celebration of Che Guevara 6th November, 2003
OLIVIA is a painful subject for me, and it has been so for a long time. For this reason, I listen to, or
read, reports on this poor and land-locked South American country only if it is absolutely necessary for
my work. In other words, I don't the subject for pleasure, or for general education. The reason for this
seemingly emei,:usable alienation is that it was here on Monday October 9, 1967, that Ernesto Che Gan
ara, "the most important exponent of guerrilla warfare since Mao and Giap, the most
revolutionary figure since Leon Trotsky, and perhaps the greatest LatinAmerican e Bolivar", was
executed by an ordinary segeant in the Bolivian Army. Argentinian by mizen of the world by choice,
"doctor and economist, revolutionary fighter and banker, theoretician and ambassador, deep political
thinker and popular agitator, able to ne pen and the machine gun with equal skill" had been leading a
guerrilla war in the s of Bolivia, after voluntarily relinquishing power in revolutionary Cuba. Che
Guevara, aged 39 years, was captured, together with some of his comrades, before, on Sunday, October
8, 1967, by a contingent of Bolivian soldiers trained
cc Timande by American General Forces Personnel and agents ofAmerica's Central
iLzfnce Ag ncy (CIA). Although he was captured alive he was executed on the direct
Bolivia's President and Head of the Armed Forces as soon as his identity was He was then butchered,
loaded into a container and flown away. His remains -overed and exhumed 30 years later. He was
reburied in Cuba where he remains popular revolutionary hero. You may appreciate the root of my
alienation. For an entirely different reason - some would say, opposite reason - I experience ter with
Romania as "hard labour". My pain in this case comes from the fate of Ceausescu, the former president
of the country who was executed on Christmas The man had risen from obscurity to become a national
revolutionary hero in against Hitler, and from there to the presidency of his country. He then fell, to be
a common criminal, with no one to defend him. But my pain over Bolivia and from that country are
much stronger, and much older, than those of Romania. however, something happens to momentarily
knock off my alienation. That was ,ed a couple of weeks ago. le accidentally, I would say. I witnessed a
jubilation over the spread of the anti--. s:ruggle. That was about the second week of October, 2003, in
my office in I asked of the political theatre this time I was told it was Bolivia. I told the
377

jubilating friends that I was not interested, that Bolivian workers should go and E- _ ig monument for
Ernesto Che Guevara. Their response was that what was happening in S: 1:ti was more than a
monument for Che. It was then I recalled the newspaper headlines had seen and ignored. I went back to
them, and thereafter followed the MOMe7.:1 developments in that country. The highlight of the story
is that after weeks of trials of s-n-:- and the loss of about 100 lives in the capital city, La Paz, the
Bolivian President, Go:- - Sanchez de Lozada, was driven from power by a combined force of
indigenous Inc miners, industrial workers, students and professionals. He was replaced by his der :' '
Carlos Mesa. According to a newspaper report of the event, "Sanchez de Lozada yva5 :: fourth South
American President to have been forced out of power by popular pro -.2 since 2000, joining former
leaders of Ecuador, Argentina and Peru". To appreciate the current events in Bolivia and how it is a
celebration of E-7-.2 Che Guevara, we need to take a few steps back. Bolivia, a landlocked country in S
America, shares boundaries with Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile and Pent. The pope is about 8.3
million of which ethnic Indians, that is descendants ofpre-colonial indic: .'7-J,L peoples, constitute
about 70 per cent. Europeans and peoples of mixed birth make 117 rest. Spanish adventurers, in the
service of their monarch, and for themselves, congt."7' and occupied the area that today includes
Bolivia in the first half of th 16th century FT' that time, till now, that is, for about five centuries, and in
spite of Bolivia's nasal independ,, from Spain in 1825, the country has remained under massive and
mercil ss exploitation predators and capitalist imperialists, at first mainly Europeans, but now mainly
Nc: Americans. The attraction has remained Bolivia's mineral resources, including tin, oil natural gas,
and of course, abundant human resources. It has been estimated that at-' eight million indigenous
Indians and imported slaves died in Bolivia during the long Spa: colonial rule. Within a century of the
country becoming independent, it lost a large fract* of its original territory to its neighbours. In
particular it lost its access to the sea to Chile_ Records show that Bolivia has had about 190 coups since
it became independ that is, an average of more than one coup a year. The country is said to be the
poorest LatinAmerica with more than 60 per cent of the population living below the absolute poi- line.
Life expectancy at birth is 63 years, the lowest in Latin America. That of Cuba in ' years, and that of
Nigeria is 52 years. At the lowest rungs of the social formation are Indi peasants and miners and at the
highest are landowners and capitalists of European extractions.. In 1952 there was a "revolution"
initiated by a middle-class movement which sought :: improve the conditions of the peasants and
institute some basic rights. But the gains of ti'-.. government were quickly absorbed and neutralised,
returning the country to the status cil: : ante. It was at this stage and under these circumstances, that, in
December 1966, Ernest,: Che Guevara entered the scene to join the popular struggle already going on
in the count:, The Guevara-led guerrilla "episode" of 1967 has been described as a "deliberate attempt
to begin a continental revolution", that is, a revolution that takes the entire region c :- South America as
its immediate theatre. Haifa century before that, the Bolsheviks led b:, Vladimir Lenin thought that the
revolution begun in Russia would quickly spread over the continent of Europe or, at the very least, to
the most developed European nations, including
378

Before then, and acting as inspiration, Karl Marx had theorised about this type of a revolution which
moves from country to country, from stage to stage. Leon bad integrated the process of a continental
revolution into his theory ofpermanent
-Following the triumph ofthe Cuban revolution in January 1959, discussions began carry the revolution
to South America. Che Guevara only chose to be physically He did not act unilaterally, as some
historians would make us believe. It was with the active participation of revolutionaries across the
continent. Guevara had restless after just a couple of years of exercising power in Cuba. He moved on
to e in the struggle in Vietnam. From there he moved to the Congo in Africa. He Trained many young
followers ofthe martyred Patrice Lumumba, including late K-Ibila. From Africa, he went on to Bolivia
to raise the level of the armed struggle, he believed could be a"catalyst" to the continental revolution,
rather than the revolution thought it was now time to attempt to expand the frontiers of world
revolution concentrating in administering liberated territories. Bolivia "catalyst" failed, but in its
failure, it created a mystique. This was how a Vim revolutionary described the failure: "One thing is
certain, irrefutable: 50 an entire nation, rocked a government, deprived the imperialists and their
servants focused the attention of the whole world upon them. These men paid for their with their lives.
Think what will happen if the whole country advances along the olution!" 36 years after the failure of
Che Guevara's "catalyst", in September 2003, the poor and the wretched of the Bolivian capital La Paz,
and its sub-rose in rebellion against the central government and succeeded in literally president from
office. But the popular masses could not seize power. Why? use they were not organised to seize power.
Che Guevara knew this and that he organised an armed detachment, to act as a catalyst, and support, for
unarmed wer. One day the two factors will converge and this will be the final vindication, and
rehabilitation of Che Guevara. the full potential of this convergence will not be realised if Bolivians
permit 2's to forget what two of their friends said more than three decades ago: "Unless the two ruling
capitalists - the foreign and domestic capitalists - are forced to give wer, property and privilege, unless
the economic and social structures of these are radically altered, nothing fundamental will change. The
people will remain Bolivia 2003 was a counter-example ofhow to liberate the people from oppressors,
and enslavers: Counter to coups, counter to mutual slaughter, counter to imperialistresolutions of conflicts, and counter to fraudulent elections as solutions to fraudulent
379

123
Benson in Defence of History 20th November, 2003
CHIEF T.O.S. Benson has continuously been in the political news as long as remember. He is a
reporter's delight. He also make news through his inforni.i:.' and educative journalistic writings. Since
his method is polemical, lively and f:-, editors find his writings publishable. Beyond that, ChiefBenson
takes you several dec back and gives you details that only bold eye-witnesses can give. Most of the
published articles and statements of this frontline veteran ofNi..-:-.:--- politics have been in response to
attacks on him, or aimed at provoking debates L. invariably, attacks. The subject has always been
Nigerian politics, or Nigerian pohl history, and his role and those ofhis associates, and of course,
opponents, in it. One c latest is the two-part article published in The Guardian of October 28 and 29,
200.7 titled: "History, Awo and Zik." In that polemical article, ChiefBenson dealt with several events
spanning the per ofdecolonisation, First Republic and Second Republic. From these I pick out the
follow Why Benson joined the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), rather than Action
Group; why and how Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe shifted his political base from Lagos Western Region to
Eastern Region; the personal and political relationship and differen::: between Benson and Chief

Obafemi Awolowo, and what impacts these had on the poi: of Nigeria; the unstable relationship
between Azikiwe and Awolowo; why Benson le. NCNC in December 1964; and how he tried, and
failed, in 1982, to forge an auto, alliance between the Unity Party of Nigeria (LPN), and his party, the
Nigerian Peo7 Party (NPP) and, ipso facto, a working agreement between Awolowo and Azikiwe. .._.
leaders of these parties; and, lest I forget, the shifting relationship between traditional r',.:. in Western
Region and succeeding regional governments. Benson's accounts, even when offered as jokes, go a
long way in enriching knowledge of the past. The points made by him in response to specific attacks go
be:, .71 his adversaries and shed light on some important, controversial or obscure events ii: II
chequered history. The historical contexts ofBenson's polemical statements and art: . are more
important than the specific clarifications he makes. It is these contexts, more than his defence and
clarifications, that concern me here. -_-"' present piece is however not an attempt to tell the Benson
story. The veteran nationi.., politician, now 86 years old, can tell his own story, and is in fact telling it,
better than an\ else. My aim here is to provide some background information and suggest a cortex:
appreciating the story, and, hopefully, to assist researchers to arrive at more objec: , t,
380

ccnclusions and assessments. Benson said that he was the first person that Awolowo gave a copy of his
book, Path to Nigerian Freedom, "as his friend in London". The book, in which Awolowo ac-, aced,
among other things, the structuring of Nigeria along ethno-linguistic lines, was \\W'' 7 ,2n in 1945. That
was shortly after the NCNC was formed in Nigeria (1944), about the 1111111117it f the first highly
successful general strike in Nigeria (1945), about the time obnoxious
sals for major constitutional reforms in colonial Nigeria were being made by the
ilicrjal rulers (1945), and at the time of Egbe Omo Yoruba was formed. But the book
ed before the formation of the Zikist Movement (1946), before the formation of cr_ Group (1951), and
about a decade after Azikiwe started his pan-Nigeria nationalist :stic crusade in Nigeria through his
chain of newspapers. It is within this historical context that one should read what Benson had to say eft
sdecision not to join "a tribal party" and his declaration. "The political deference tee. and I on matter of
principle then was that he believed in Yorubaism and I 'tar 2.compromising belief in Nigeria as one
united country". The last pre-independence federal elections which took place in December 1959 fleda
federal government controlled by the Northern People's Congress (NPC) and , the latter being a junior
coalition partner. The NPC controlled the government :Ili; the AG that of the West, and the NCNC that
of the East. 7:-e Action Group became the official opposition in the Federal House of mu. 'yes, and the
party's leader, ChiefAwolowo, was named Leader of Opposition
Between the elections and the emergence of the new government, strenuous, mrna-.f':v fruitless,
attempts were made to forge a coalition between the NCNC and tor -:7, ..)up with the aim ofproducing
the federal government and pushing the NPC, fa, the largest party in the House, into the opposition.
Those members of the NCNC sed in these efforts were, in their own words, inspired by two needs: the
need unity of the South and the need to ensure the emergence of a "progressive" which they believed a
coalition between the NCNC and Action Group was in .m,L,Ltion to provide. The efforts collapsed
because some leaders of the NCNC car: against an AG-NCNC alliance, citing the "treachery" of
1951/52 through 'CC was denied the control of the Western regional government andAzikiwe
of the House of Representatives. I am yet to confirm Benson's role in this The ghost of 1951/52 did not
disappear throughout the life times of 12 Azikiwe. (idle of 1962, the crisis which had been brewing in
the Action Group, the in the West, came to the open at the Jos Conference of the party. The :: factions
with ChiefAwolowo leading the radical faction and Chief Ladoke '11V.''''71(: 7.77. _A:NO lowo had
relinquished the premiership of the West on his movement of Representatives, leading the conservative

faction. The NPC-NCNC 7,17- seized the opportunity to deal with the Action Group and its leader,
supported Akintola and ensured that he retained the premiership of
381

the West after a six-month emergency period administered by the federal goverrur govern the West,
Akintola formed the United Peoples Party (UPP) and went into a with the Western wing of the NCNC.
Shortly after this, Awolowo and his key sup while still in detention imposed by the federal governmentappointed administrator West - were arrested and charged with treasonable felony and given long
prison sen
In the fourth quarter of 1963, the UPP and several leaders of Western NCNC fo new party, the Nigerian
National Democratic Party (NNDP). The NCNC then re-grouped in the West, and nationally, and went
into with the Action Group. The alliance was called the United Progressive Grand AI 2311 (UPGA). It
became the opposition in the West. Chief TOS Benson, the third nation a.. president of the NCNC,
remained in the party. He became one of the leaders of "Pi whose key electoral platform was the release
of ChiefAwolowo and his supportci prison. By this time electoral politics in Nigeria had become
thoroughly ethnicised. Then came the 1964 federal elections which UPGAhoped to win. Ordir=y,
according to the political practice at the time, Chief Benson was expected to e by his party, the
NCNC, to re-contest the Lagos seat he occupied in he He -L5ite Representatives. But suddenly, the
nation was told that Benson would h e to nomination with one of his campaign secretaries, a man who
happened to be o extraction. Benson refused to go into the nomination exercise. But rather than NNDP,
as many people expected or feared, he decided to contest the election independent candidate. He won,
and retained his seat in the House ofRepresentati aftermath of that election is well-known: crisis,
military coup d' etat, civil war, etc. Nigeria returned to civil rule on the inauguration of the Second
Republic on 1, 1979. Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was declared after
beating (as it was officially announced) four other candidates including Dr, N Azikiwe of the Nigerian
Peoples Party (NPP) and Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the Party of Nigeria (UPN). Chief Benson was a
leading member ofl\IPP. After a well-orchestrated attempt to forge an opposition alliance betweem
parties, including NPP and UPN, the former split off and joined the victorious NPN coalition
government at the federal level. But less than halfway through the goven-L, four-year tenure, the NPN
turned on the NPP and forced the latter to quit the fz-, government. The party then re-joined the UPN,
which it had abandoned in the oppos History had been repeated! After the 1959 federal election, efforts
were forge an alliance between the NCNC and AG. The efforts collapsed and the NCNC into a
coalition government with the NPC. When the NPC took on the UPN, the must have rejoiced. But
shortly after, the heat was turned on the NCNC. The la, back to the AG to form an alliance, the UPGA.
Now, change NPC to NPN, N NPP, AG to UPN and UPGA to PPA (Progressive Parties Alliance) and
you have
the same story two decades later. In 1982, as another general election was appr Chief Benson and some
of his compatriots tried again to bring Azikiwe and Awolo their respective parties together to present a
"Southern Front". The effort collapsed before it got off the ground. The ghost of 1951/52 again!
382

124 Rosa Luxemburg 29th April, 2004

was endowed with those attributes that drew intense and sustained prejudice's virtually all the segments

of the elite of her time. She was a Jew, a foreigner, a olutionary Marxist, an original thinker, a brilliant
intellectual and an audacious st. And, of course, she was a woman. She took all the prejudices in her
stride as the great battles of her life. And her life was a life of battles. She battled revisionist and
degenerate Marxists who were betraying the working the name of"Marxism". She battled conceited
bourgeois academics who believed the last words in any field of knowledge. She battled national
chauvinists and feminists. From prison, she battled the leaders of the Russian Revolution on the
ofnational self-determination, democracy and dictatorship. She battled the German ruling classes and
their armed thugs. She won or drew all her battles, except one. battle she lost was the one in which she
lost her life. But for history, it was a victory
Rosa Luxemburg was born to a Jewish couple in the Russian-occupied part of on March 5,1871. She
started her education in Warsaw where she joined the 7:ary workers' movement as a teenager. She
became very active in Proletariat, a group. When the group was crushed by government forces in 1889,
Luxemburg, a target, was smuggled out of Poland. From 1889 to 1897 she attended the University and
came out with a doctorate degree in Political Economy. Her doctoral was titled "The Industrial
Development ofPoland". Coincidentally, Vladimir e leader of the Russian Socialist Revolution, who
was just a year older than g, was about the same time writing his seminal book, The Development of in
Russia. It would appear that revolutionaries of that time started their careers a the history of the
terrains. Luxemburg's revolutionary activities in Switzerland during her student days established her
political independence and theoretical ess "for which she later became renowned". It was in Zurich, in
1890, according to the newly published book, The Rosa rg Reader, that Luxemburg met the Polish
revolutionary, Leo Jogiches, "who her comrade and lover for the next 17 years, and remained a close
colleague until of her life". Jogiches was an "outstanding strategist and organiser", an original `.vho,
according to Clara Zetkin, Luxemburg's close friend and comrade, "was 2se very masculine
personalities " an extremely rare phenomenon these days " tolerate a great female personality". Her
biographers testified: "The passionate
383

and ston-ny relationship between Luxemburg and Jogiches, both during and after their of intimacy,
reveals much about Luxemburg as a woman, as thither, and as revolutio The biographers recalled what
Luxemburg once said: "I cleave to t e idea that a wo character doesn't show itself when love begins, but
when it ends". A researcher into private life ofRosa Luxemburg and how this moulded her political lif
and conversely benefit from "The letters ofRosa Luxemburg", published in 1978. In 1896, Rosa
Luxemburg migrated to Germany and joined the German S Democratic Party which was then the oldest
and largest workers' party in the world. \\- World War 1 broke out, she opposed and denounced it as "an
imperialist conflict". Bu: did not stop at ideological opposition. She and others in the party who felt like
her, orgar within it, a revolutionary anti-war faction, the Spartacists. In September 1914, Luxem copublished a pamphlet against the war, and four months later, in February 1915, she arrested. She was in
jail for most of the period between then and November 1918 IA she was finally released. On her
release, she linked up again with the Spartacists, whom had continued to inspire and teach from behind
bars through her numerous articles, le and books smuggled out by committed prison officials. She was
killed two months after release. Rosa Luxemburg was, above everything else, a revolutionary socialist
comrn: to the struggle to build a classless society through the political victory of the popular mas Every
other thing she was, or did, flowed from this singular commitment. As an intellec7 she followed the

tradition of Karl Marx. She is regarded by those who are in the position make such pronouncements, as
one of the greatest Marxist economists that have lived. Her classical work, The Accumulation of
Capital, published in 1913, stands today, as one of the most comprehensive, brilliant and rigorous
critiques of capitalism Lo published since Marx's Capital. The invitation she received to teach in the
party sch Berlin in 1907 gave her an opportunity to start work on another book, Introductia.in Political
Economy, a theoretical analysis of "ramifications of imperialism". By the s half of 1916, two chapters
of the 10-chapter book were ready for publication. One of was the first chapter, the highly polemical,
"What is Economics?" The others, which \\- draft, were found after her death. Karl Kautsky and Eduard
Bernstein were prominent leaders of the German So Democratic Party (SDP). They were so
knowledgeable, authoritative and influential it: international socialist movement that the latter was
named by Engels as his literary exec. while the former was known in the movement as the "Pope of
Marxism". But R Luxemburg crossed swords with these male giants: With Bernstein in 1899 in her
Reform or Revolution and with Kautsky in 1910 in her essay, Theory and Practice. \\-,, accusing
Bernstein of openly trying "to revise Marxism by bringing theory into line reformist practice," she
charged that while Kautsky continued to claim adherent revolutionary Marxism, he was in factleading
the party "down a reformist path". Wrinn the Russian Revolution, she said: "Unless the entire mass of
the people is engaged, polin c and economically, socialism will be introduced by a decree granted to
them by
to
384

e I lectuals, sitting around a green table. The result will be the creation not of a socialist cty, but a
bourgeois society turned upside down or in reverse. Then a new revolution become both necessary and
inevitable!" How prophetic! Conservative and bourgeois feminists accused Luxemburg of paying "little
or no to the concerns of women", of "not spending a great deal of time involved in visa work on behalf
of women's rights", of being in the category of "masculine women had to deny their femininity and
confonn to the masculine world in order to achieve s". All these were falsifications and slanders. The
truth is that Luxemburg wrote a lot, acted a lot, on women's struggle. She was as passionate on the
women's question as was on other revolutionary questions of her time. Among her surviving works on
the en's question are: A Tactical Question; Address to the International Socialist en's Conference;
Women's Suffrage and Class Struggle; and The Proletarian
an
Luxemburg waged an uncompromising war against revisionism and falsification of Marxist doctrine
and for socialist democracy. It was a long and bitter war, terminated by her death. She sought to reestablish the crucial link between reform and revolution, which revisionists sought to break. Her
position on reformism was that "between reforms and revolution there exists an indissoluble tie: The
struggle for reforms is its the social revolution, its aims". She stood resolutely for freedom and political
pluralism: om only for the supporters of government, only for the members of one party - no how high
its membership - is no freedom. Freedom is always freedom for dissenters". A few words on the last
days of this exceptional woman. She was released from on November 8, 1918, a month after Germany
definitely lost World War I. The country was in a revolutionary situation and German workers were up
in arms. burg immediately jumped into the struggle, her poor health notwithstanding. The unist Party of
Germany was formed on December 31, 1918. On January 6, 1919 a million workers marched in Berlin.

It was the "largest working-class demonstration story of Germany". Luxemburg addressed the workers
calling for the "occupation itions of power", and declaring that workers' seizure of power was a
"necessary But the workers could not sustain the battle for more than a week. Government on went on
counter-offensive. Luxemburg was advised to leave Berlin, but she On January 15, 1919 she was
captured and brutally murdered by a special death a de up of right-wing troops. Her mutilated body was
not discovered for several
Eighty-three years later, on January 12, 2003, Rosa Luxemburg was remembered city of Berlin where
she was murdered. Over 100,000 people attended a tive rally in her honour. As a writer remarked a
couple of years ago, although it burg enemies who murdered her, it was her friends and "comrades",
driven by who almost consigned her to oblivion. But she is now being rehabilitated by itself. As
exploited and oppressed peoples of the world today resist capitalist L the new imperialism, and the
global dictatorship, I remember Rosa Luxemburg, Inspirer in the struggle to humanise the planet Earth.
385

125
Yasser Arafat and The Economist 2nd December, 2004
THE Economist is one of nV7favourite international newsmagazines. A leading or.,:m of imperialism
and global capitalism, the paper is a highly informed a:-.:.i sophisticated defender ofthe "free market"
economy and the political philosop: and social order that serve it. I like the weekly newsmagazine
because it trie to uphoic: i core dictum of journalism: "facts are sacred, but opinions are free". The r suit
is -ti-,..:... proceeding from the facts offered by The Economist in a given account, and invoki:: other
background facts, one can reach conclusions different from those ofthe magazine. I tries not to present
facts in such a way that they can only fit a preconceived ideology conclusion. A recent case is the
death, on November 11, 2004, ofYasserArafat, knowrl :, Palestinians as Abu Amar. As expected, The
Economist carried the news of the passing away of Yasser Arafat as cover story in its edition of
November 13-19, 2004. You can see the interplay c "sacred facts" and "free opinions" in the three
articles the paper carried on this sad eve:: :. Yasser Arafat: Awell-timed exit (editorial opinion, page
11); Palestine and Israel: After one old man has died (news, page 48); Yasser Arafat: Leader of
Palestinians (obituary, page 97). In the editorial opinion, The Economist said that "there are two
reasons for thinkir:g that Mr. Arafat could hardly have timed his exit better". I hope it would not
amount tc a distortion of the paper's view if I read "Arafat could not have timed his exit better'. a.5
"Arafat's death could not have been timed". The implication is clear. The first reason offered by The
Economist is that "Arafat's exit coincides with f::.: re-entrance of Mr. Bush, at a time when Europeans
and Arabs alike are imploring h1:' (Bush) to deliver in his second terra the statehood he promised the
Palestinians in his firs:' In other words, the death ofArafat a few days after the re-election of President
Georgf Bush ofAmerica has improved the prospects of the emergence of the Palestinian st:,- L within
four years, through the sole agency of the American presidency. In other wore: ..=.. again, Yasser Arafat
had been the main "obstacle" on the road to Palestinian statehooJ_ The Economist was careful in
naming the global supplicants, those imploring the "almighty. - George Bush to create the Palestinian
State. The supplicants are the Europeans and :::t2 Arabs. Not Palestinian Arabs who are fighting for the
state, but Arabs in general " includir.z America's Arab "allies", "willing coalition partners" and
"protectorates". The other reason why Arafat's death could not have been better timed, accordir_ to The
Economist, is that Arafat died "at a time of extraordinary political turmoil insi,:....' Israel". My reading

of this statement, when put in context, is that with the "well-timed ex w""
386

otrYassser Arafat, it is now possible to resolve the current "political turmoil" in Israel with the -ita2-e of
the struggle for Palestinian statehood. If you remove the sole stumbling block road to peace and lasting
settlement, and the sole cause of the political turmoil in - and in Palestine and between Jews and
Palestinians, why will Palestinian dream not realised immediately. The Economist concluded the
obituary segment of its Arafat Report with the R. wing question: "So why, if Mr. Arafat was so bad at
running things, taking his people genitally to catastrophe, was he still so honoured as a leader?" The
magazine answered its awn question: "The answer is that he, and he alone, stood for the courage and
perseverance the Palestinians show in their long, unfinished war with Israel". I leave it to readers to out how someone who was "so bad at running things", and who took his people to ophe", could, for so
long " about 35 years " stand (virtually alone!) for his people's ge and perseverance. We can see a
contradiction between "sacred facts" and "free n". In The Economist the latter sometimes borders on
pure prejudice, a clear break een facts and opinions. But the paper always tries -'though not always
successfully - to e its two commitments: promotion and defence of imperialism, global capitalism and
et economy, on the one hand, and respect for facts, on the other. This "balancing act" between fact and
opinion, between truth, belief and wish, can in the opening paragraph of the obituary: "In his dying, as
in his life, Yasser Arafat both dogged and indecisive. To the Palestinians, the people he led for so long,
Mr. t s flaws of character and leadership had been plain for years, yet were irrelevant. mattered was that
he personified their fight for freedom, kept their hopes and defied enemies". Again, I leave it to readers
to work out how Yasser Arafat came, or could come, to personify his people's fight for freedom, kept
their hopes, and defied their es, even when his "flaws of character and leadership" had been "plain for
years". can we say of a leader, or a leadership, whose "flaws of character and leadership" clear, but are
considered irrelevant by his or her people? Put differently, what status ascribe to a leader's "flaws of
character and leadership" when these are considered ant by his people? Why was The Economist
unable to say " unambiguously, without one hand. On the other hand" ` that Yasser Arafat was a great
leader of his people? Yasser Arafat was not a god; he was not a saint. The type of struggle he led
required a god nor a saint. All it required were good human beings, and beyond that, trnent, courage,
selflessness and faith in the people, and honesty in dealing with them. Economist confirmed, Arafat's
career as "Mr. Palestine" began in 1953, at the age ars "when, as a student in Egypt, he wrote "Don't
forget Palestine" in blood and d the petition to General Neguib, Egypt's military leader". That was five
years after o of the state of Israel and the forcible uprooting of Palestinians from their homeland. did
not explicitly say that the blood with which Arafat's petition was written was own blood. But that was
the case. Five years later, inKuwait, "disenchanted with world's inability to do anything about Israel's
1948 conquest, he and close comrades the Fatah movement". The Economist testified: "From that
moment, he was, in the leader of Palestinian resistance".
387

otrYassser Arafat, it is now possible to resolve the current "political turmoil" in Israel with the -ita2-e of
the struggle for Palestinian statehood. If you remove the sole stumbling block road to peace and lasting
settlement, and the sole cause of the political turmoil in - and in Palestine and between Jews and
Palestinians, why will Palestinian dream not realised immediately. The Economist concluded the
obituary segment of its Arafat Report with the R. wing question: "So why, if Mr. Arafat was so bad at
running things, taking his people genitally to catastrophe, was he still so honoured as a leader?" The
magazine answered its awn question: "The answer is that he, and he alone, stood for the courage and
perseverance the Palestinians show in their long, unfinished war with Israel". I leave it to readers to out how someone who was "so bad at running things", and who took his people to ophe", could, for so
long " about 35 years " stand (virtually alone!) for his people's ge and perseverance. We can see a
contradiction between "sacred facts" and "free n". In The Economist the latter sometimes borders on
pure prejudice, a clear break een facts and opinions. But the paper always tries -'though not always
successfully - to e its two commitments: promotion and defence of imperialism, global capitalism and
et economy, on the one hand, and respect for facts, on the other. This "balancing act" between fact and
opinion, between truth, belief and wish, can in the opening paragraph of the obituary: "In his dying, as
in his life, Yasser Arafat both dogged and indecisive. To the Palestinians, the people he led for so long,
Mr. t s flaws of character and leadership had been plain for years, yet were irrelevant. mattered was that
he personified their fight for freedom, kept their hopes and defied enemies". Again, I leave it to readers
to work out how Yasser Arafat came, or could come, to personify his people's fight for freedom, kept
their hopes, and defied their es, even when his "flaws of character and leadership" had been "plain for
years". can we say of a leader, or a leadership, whose "flaws of character and leadership" clear, but are
considered irrelevant by his or her people? Put differently, what status ascribe to a leader's "flaws of
character and leadership" when these are considered ant by his people? Why was The Economist
unable to say " unambiguously, without one hand. On the other hand" ` that Yasser Arafat was a great
leader of his people? Yasser Arafat was not a god; he was not a saint. The type of struggle he led
required a god nor a saint. All it required were good human beings, and beyond that, trnent, courage,
selflessness and faith in the people, and honesty in dealing with them. Economist confirmed, Arafat's
career as "Mr. Palestine" began in 1953, at the age ars "when, as a student in Egypt, he wrote "Don't
forget Palestine" in blood and d the petition to General Neguib, Egypt's military leader". That was five
years after o of the state of Israel and the forcible uprooting of Palestinians from their homeland. did
not explicitly say that the blood with which Arafat's petition was written was own blood. But that was
the case. Five years later, inKuwait, "disenchanted with world's inability to do anything about Israel's
1948 conquest, he and close comrades the Fatah movement". The Economist testified: "From that
moment, he was, in the leader of Palestinian resistance".
387

Remembering Antonio Gramsci 13th January, 2005

IKE many Nigerians of my own generation, I came to Marxist ideology through the agency of older
Nigerian Marxist intellectuals and labour leaders. And we got introduced to the Marxist theory through
the writings of Karl Marx, Frederich Enzels, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Ze Dung, Ho Chi
Minh, Kim II Sung and other NAL,xist revolutionaries of East European and Asian extractions. They
were all males, as ii_ ,:an see. It was later that we were exposed to the works of female Marxist
revolutionary
-ers and activists like Rosa Luxemburg and Alexandra Kollontai. Although some Nigerian is

st intellectuals would rank among the brightest in the world, we did not start reading Igor: seriously
until much later. It was also later, much later, that we expanded our knowledge
I,1111111,
'!1111 NI
1,1111 11
oh the reading of the works of Marxists from America, Western Europe, LatinAmerica, 7.2 "black
world". These latter additions to our theoretical arsenal - outside Nigeria -I1 '2: Frantz Fanon, Amiliar
Cabral, Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara, Regis Debray, _klthusser, Ernest Mandel, Walter Rodney,
CRL James, Nicos Poulantzas, Paul Sweezy tea Monthly Review Group, Ralph Miliband, andAntonio
Gramsci, an Italian Marxist ad inAugust 1937 shortly after being released from an 11-year detention.
We inherited a Marxist theory, or a version of the Marxist theory, whose treatment ate was not robust
enough. And yet the state is central in Marxist political theory. cic,,,:tr:ive functions of the state were
emphasised quite correctly. But not much was said
1'11 1
111111
'01111
2,gative (ideological and economic) functions. Now, although the state's coercive were decisive, we
were later able to see that the society would be in a permanent 'of war if coercion were the state's only
weapon. The state performs its integrative-ough its involvement in the economy and the production and
diffusion of the ariL dominant ideology - a task in which intellectuals play pre-eminent roles. Antonio and before him, George Lukacs, and after him, Louis Althusser - made important 47::-..ai contributions
to this area of the Marxist theory. Esc ism came to power in Italy in 1922. It is generally agreed that
Benito Mussolini's 1,5 the world's first fascists regime.- to be followed a decade later by Germany. to
remind ourselve and the younger generations that for this statement to be has to be restated, for the
avoidance of doubt, that fascism is a political regime economic foundations and is defined in relation to
the capitalist economic r words not all "strong" or "dictatorial" or "regimented" or "totalitarian" or
1111!!!.
11111::
11 11
.11111
1111
regime is a fascist regime.
ar years (1922-1926) Italy's political left and socialists across Europe argued 389

on the character of the new regime. In particular, the Italian Communist Party labour give a definition
to the new state-fonm Leon Trotsky's definition of fa cism as a regil-- "petit-bourgeois despair" was yet
to come. Many socialists and commui ts, in fact, be._ that the regime was a passing phase ofthe crisis
of post-war Italy and that the cc would soon return to "social democracy" considered to be the "best"
form of politic under capitalism. The Italian left and th.eircomrades abroad and indeed the whole were
mistaken, tragically in en-or. And humanity Was to pay dearly for this. In 19264 B, Mussolini threw out
all pretences and mounted a wave of terror across the land - osl excuse that there was a conspiracy to
kill him. Socialists, communists, trade union acii, and leftist intellectuals were fascism's main targets.
Antonio Gramsci, a member o Italian Parliament and General Secretary of the Communist Party of
Italy, was one c communist leaders arrested. The prosecutor demanded that Gra.msci's brain be sto7-

71edl from working for 20 years. In the event he was held in prison for 11 years; but his brat:-. not stop
working. When he was eventually released on August 21, 1937, he was too ' leave for home.
Transferred to a prison clinic , Gramsci died less than a week later. Antonio Gramsci was born in 1891
in Sardina, an island part all* At about age of three years, he had a spinal chord accident which left him
stunted in grow-tii correct this, the doctors embarked on a course oftreatment which included
suspendinz from the ceiling with a rope. This strange therapy complicated the boy's conditions. Gra:7sremained deformed and in poor health for the greater part ofthe 46 years he lived. hunch-backed and
and barely five feet tall. He garnered enough formal and informal dcluca. and revolutionary struggle to
become one ofthe most profound and original Marxist think after Marx. According to one of his
biographers, Grarnsci absorbed more history tha:-. other Marxist thinker. Gramsci's life and thought
can be divided into four periods: "Until 1918, he developing his own critique of traditional Marxism as
a member of the Italian Soc:.J. Party. During the two 'red years' of 1919-1920, he was the main
inspiration behin movement for factory:councils in Turin and editor of its newspaper OrdineNtiovo.
1921 to 1926, after the foundation ofthe Communist Party of Italy (PCI), Gramsci, as :in ofits leaders,
was involved in formulatirT its policies and conducting negotiations with Communist International.
Finally, while a prisoner from 1926 until 1937, he producec:1 major theoretical work, The Prison
Notebooks. Running through theseperiods, {Gran:ideas on the revolutionary process in advanced
capitalism represent some sort of continua - The Prison Notebooks were written between 1927 and
1936. There wen: notebooks which altogether furnished 2,848 pages of handwritten notes. Frogmen:
sometimes obscure, the notes were not meant for publication - at least not in the form were written.
"Being written in prison", says his biographer, "the notes are often intentic: !II vague and allusive in
order to get past the censorship". Beyond that, the notes you self-education will be different from those
written for publication. But the notes had T.: smuggled out of Gramsci 's cell when he was moved to a
clinic at the end of his prison The two most prominent themes in the notes - and for which he is widely
known Coda twe sexdended asigned to intellectuals" and the prominence given to the concel-On

-hegemony". Flowing from these were what Gramsi saw as the "differential strategies for revolution in
the East and in the West". In praise, or in criticism, Antonio Gramsci is generally acknowledged as the
-theoretician of the superstructure' clyotd-- more time, energy and space to superstructural issues (the
role of intellefOtuAl$, 1-10gemony, culture, the arts, etc) than he devoted to the substructure, thatis,
political economy andmaterial foundation of society.
Gramsci'sc6iisoi+:qfite.11attiftrg'f'sAiintiTe2t.iZaiFafkl-it4orward: All human beings are intellectuals in so far__.iv..e 41, sim49.70-1-letal activity. But not all of us are in the social division of labour, in the
work we are employed, or we employ Is ._, dFsbcciati1iations:17M-4W WclOaf-hift, from
thatstial digtifittionbetiveenintd4ctualj!i nomintellectti1l iccotdirrg towhethr bileista*gettirotthital
ormaiwapabdlit.v - - Thery itte-Mitate efiiiitell&Vals,Iatcordingto_Gramseirddfinitio-ktitraditionall
listdii6a1 intellettfialS: and drgahicititelleetualS:Theforma aroittellextuals.f*tho-inistakenlyi riidef6d
thiselves to lleautonomous ofocialclasss and who appeared to ;embody, ; ,botitirillityaboV:e and bdy
Stieloijoliti6a1 chatig6::,Exanyles are writers,:artist& osbf,hers, thd especially, pnests They We're- th
'Ott mtellectua1whc survived the tippis& theiii8d6 6f i-ii'difetibrfthdt gait' e thdribitttiiith6'contia' 'o'rgAriiic iotellectuali 'are;) 'sotial bldg. ;ektetiftd:W ititalectual miasiorganic ; measured by the
closeness of the connection of the organisation of which he wagai bet tothe CIk Which' that
OligaiiiatidtTeprestiltedn: The, political party is the *,satibri of intelleditalS Mdstlifikedidits claS. It
was the collectivelitite:Ile6titalr,.' Thel 1 function of organic intellectuals is to articulate "the
toll&tiveconsciouness of their in the Political; social -and e6onOmiopheres". 'Each social wrote

creates, together With itSelforganically,,oheior strata of intellectuals which giveithom-ogentity and an

awareness ofits .Own function the'economi&,' but alsdriti the -0-cial'id Witical Spheres": Hesaid that
"onebf importait chaia ottiiticofthiy group that is developing towards,dominance to as
iltedcdhi1i.idebIoi1iy, thetraditional ihtellectuals". flowever-Ai latiorij'aild 'conquest "is iiiade'4ttioket aridmore efficaciottsthe more the -groupiii succeeds in simultaneously daboratingitsio*n
organic intellectuals". He concluded:, of the thin function'of th6ri additiottto ensuring the economic
fiOri:afid-political power of their class, was to preserve the hegemony of their clad
ety as a ',,k/hole bynieans of alustifieattiry ideolo-gy of which they were the agents": as the bourg6oisie
eontinuedld exettieideolOgital hegemony in society,' said . a socialist revolution - notjuk capture Of
power by socialists or a coup d'etat4 ssible; at least estern s-,
:1!
-311
,

127
Message from Bala Usman 10th February, 2005 N Monday, January 24, 2005, a'parcel of publications
from Yusufu Bala I; was delivered to me. It was addressed to my spouse and me. I was happy to receive
the publications and I said so in my e-mail to Bala. Even I examined the six books, six magazines and a
typed public lecture, I could guess why would send such a heavy new year present to us: He wanted
me, in particular, to apps once again, his views on "The future ofthe Nigerian Federation", especially
the can for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) and the demand for the restructuring ofi.c, along
ethnic nationality lines. These two issues have dealt a devastating blow on the siell confidence, unity
and credibility ofthe Nigerian Left, a blow more powerful than flaa. by the crisis in the global socialist
movement culminating in the dissolution of the Union. Bala Usman needs no introduction in academic,
intellectual and political circ. Nigeria. But for those outside these circles, and the younger generations,
in particu briefpolitical introduction is necessary. Since the end of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970),
that is for about three half decades, Bala has been in the fore-front of radical politics and radical
political discc, in Nigeria. He is a radical historian and a radical teacher of history. In 1975, he and
Osoba (the academic, not the former governor) were appointed into the 49-me:- Constitution Drafting
Committee (CDC) that produced the first draft of the Constitution. The two leftist academics disagreed
with their colleagues and came out v, dissenting report and a popular-democratic draft constitution.
These two documents occupy a central position when a true pot-Civil. War history of Nigeria is written.
Then came the Second Republic (1979-1983). Bala Usman joined the People's Redemption Party
(PRP) and became Secretary to the Kaduna State Gover.- elected on the platform of the party. Balarabe
Musa was Governor. Bala stood '- governor and helped ensure that he was not forced to enter into any
unprincipled comps,, with conservative bourgeois forces - just to remain in office. Rather than do thl.s.
revolutionary governor accepted impeachment. The leftist and socialist movement cele Balarabe Musa
and Bala Usman - the latter, for the second time in five years. Bala Usman is very bright, persuasive,
incisive and, above all, very polemicl., can be rude, and even abusive. But this trait is not unique to
Bala: it was a character radical leftist politics and discourse in Nigeria. It is well-known, among the
older gencrL.21 that while it was vibrant, the Nigerian leftists and socialist movement was noto.:-i
392

onalised. Some dividing lines were objective, others were subjective; some were kcal and political,
others were personal. While some socialists were Marxists, others either non-Marxists or anti-Marxists.
Many Marxian socialists were not communists. bourgeois liberals and social democrats called
themselves socialists, even Marxists. -socialists" were, in fact, neither anti-capitalist nor antiimperialist. At the level of programmes and plat forms, there were differences on the critical n
oftransition to socialism, that, the problem of intermediate economic, social and al regime, or put
differently, the question of acceptable and supportable reform Ile under bourgeois rule and hegemony,
or still, the dialectical link between reform olution. To this was linked the question of alliances with
non-socialist and, in some explicitly anti-socialists and Marxists who were politically active, and even
many intellectuals, were operating under varying degrees of influence and pressure from
is, feudal, ethnic and religious forces. We identified these forces as hostile. Bala Usman was a member
of that factionalised leftist and socialist movement. So L He is a member of the successor movement
which has become so weakened by ns, moral collapse, disillusionment, opportunism, corruption,
despair and co-optation e may only grace it with the name "community". So I am. If two decades ago
our
- differences were measured in metres, today they are measured in quantums of 100 ties. In open
debates on national issues the disagreements between us are more t and more bitterly fought than the
disagreements between us, on the one hand, class opponents on the other. The words and terms some
comrades employ against ades who are fighting ethnicity and religious bigotry "incorrectly" are harsher
e they employ against the ethnic and religious bigots themselves. Some comrades ply appropriated the
rulership arrogance of the power bloc. Sometimes they see s and class foes as either the same or almost
indistinguishable. Alas, when I look around, I see some (but not sufficient) grounds for such extreme
Dns. And when I turn again, I see that a similar charge can be made - on a similar = f evidence - against
the accusers. What a tragic mess. Can you imagine the pain a Nigerian leftist would feel on learning of
the disagreement which had paralysed a prominent, leftist-dominated human rights organisation for a
very long time? Instead ;lists within this organisation - that is, those who actually formed the
organisation - tioL4ether to save the organisation, if it still had revolutionary potentials, or consciously
- . if it had none left, what we see are fighting factions each led, ideologically and by leftists. The legal
front has been handed over to lawyers and courts; and etrinic militia have been invited to assume
enforcement roles in the organisation. tragic mess. And yet this matter can be resolved in a three-hour
meeting of genuine and leftists. The leftist and socialist movement is reaping the bitter fruits of its
tragic omissions. ofour ideological and political claims and postures, and brief moments of heroic we
woa measure of credibility and trust from the Nigerian masses. But these ir-N.4 -7esponsibl bused
and wasted. The masses are now paying the price of our .,- - - - opportunities we had. In 1969, from his
prison cell in Bolivia, Regis Debray 393

sent out a message: "The near-silence of European Marxists on the question ofnat: : will one day be
seen as the most costly and ruinous of all historical omissions-. HOW pr,: He could also have been
addressing Nigerian leftists. In early 1989 when we were a draft manifesto for a party we thought
would be a real Labour Party, I almost c, blows with a comrade when I suggested that our perception of
and response to, the question ("ethnicity and religious bigotry") be inserted as a substantive item in .
body of the platform, and not offered as an appendix or after-thought. The co position was that
"proletarian democracy" would deal with the problem. Less than years later, the comrade was in the

vanguard of an ethnic militia. This same comrade bitterly opposed my criticism ofthe roles of Nigerian
socialists and Marxists in the Ni Civil War - being nothing more than personal assistants, errand boys
and girls and writers for warlords on both sides of the line. And yet, this comrade, who had since pas.
on, remains one of the heroes of the Nigerian Socialist Movement. Many comrade's died out of
frustration with the corruption ofthe movement they had spent their lives buil and the cooptation, by
reactionary bourgeois forces, of the cadres they had raised nourished. But we cannot give up either on
popular democracy and socialism or on the and socialist movement as a platform for the struggle to
realise them. And we carne: up on genuine national unity. For us, the two projects - that is, popular
democrat: national unity - are linked. The latter can only be achieved definitively under the form jgrr in
the process of real combat for the former. So, the debate must continue - among socia_ and leftists, and
in the polity as a whole. But it has to be more and more intelligible, 7"..ici language may continue to be
harsh and abusive, if that is inevitable. But each contrib-,,:. , Dinnt must respond to concrete issues
raised; the debate must not remain a parliament deaf. It is in this context that I present, with some
running comments, my understandi7, Bala Usman's core positions on the campaign for a Sovereign
National Conference (S'_\,- 71)1 and geopolitical restructuring ofthe country. Yusufu Bala Usman is
categorically opposed to SNC and restructuring, and consistently maintained this position for long. His
categorical opposition issues from he sees as the essence of the campaign, and it is as follows: "A
national conferenc delegates, exercising sovereign powers, drawn somehow from the ethnic
nationalities Nigeria, to decide on whether or not to dismember the Federal Republic of Nigeria- 11
indeed, this is the essence ofthe current campaign then it is fundamentally different frog way we
articulated it in the early 1990s and I am categorically opposed to it. I want le campaigners for SNC
and geo-political restructuring to state whether, or not, this is understanding of the campaign. They
should state whether representatives of eth:- c nationalities, sitting alone, should have even the power
to restructure Nigeria. For me, the Sovereign National Conference (SNC) cannot be a conferenc-,:
ethnic nationalities. Representatives of ethnic nationalities cannot even constitute a majc 7 s"V in the
SNC. But they must be substantively represented. And the national question \\T.._ le one of the core
items on the agenda of the SNC, alongside issues of popular and grassrJi: democracy and clear
principles of the federalism we desire. And these principles, I ins
394

be linked to the question of popular and grassroots democracy and popular - not just I or ethnic control of power and resources. But for the avoidance of doubt I state Quit,: Trically that I hold that
what we have now is neither a democracy nor a federation. iltk;"- it:: ve have is a unitary dictatorship.
When an authentic national conference emerges, and the nation recognises it as !sr:- . - :its, socialists,
progressives and genuine democrats must not allow bogus and fake "ma 1-iterest" sentiments to
prevail. They must combat bonarpartist, supra-class, Every item must be seen through "class" and
"gender", in addition to "national", or "religion" or whatever other perspectives other Nigerians may
like to introduce. ',Viiat I am saying in effect, is that to exclude representatives of ethnic nationalities,
them a mere tokenist representation, is to close one's eyes to powerful and, in yes, popular struggles
currently going on in Nigeria. On the other hand, to surrender 7 to the representatives of ethnic
nationalities is to invite, not the Soviet experience, L-72,:neriences of Chechenya, Yugoslavia, Rwanda
and Darfur. Leftists and socialists ma: w what I am talking about. I am talking about dialectics and
critical alliances.
1111, 11111
II IL ',Marl talked about the dismemberment of the country. When I read this, I chuckled. _ erment of
the country cannot be decided upon in a conference. Dismemberment e on the ground and

representatives of factions - some fake, some genuine and ortunistic - meet in a conference to negotiate
a ceasefire and compromises.,. = not the issue of dismemberment is on the SNC agenda, a fight will
start in that :e hall as soon as such a motion is passed, or even seriously tabled. The fight will nhe
country. Nigeria cannot break up peacefully; and it is impossible to restructure along, ethnic nationality
lines. and how many ethnic nationalities? But the ethnic nationality question, including of unequal and
unfair control and distribution of power and resources, must be addressed in an SNC. And by
distribution I mean distribution both across regions class and gender lines. Some form of geopolitical
restructuring, among other and popular measures, will necessarily emerge from such a discussion. This
is ... 5t5 and socialists must stand tall, and provide a solution. They are the only ones 7 -Dvide a
solution. And they cannot do this if they line up behind their ethnic
111
outlined my own position on the question of geo-political restructuring several 992. Briefly put, it is:
The federation should remain; the present states should states should be grouped into eight regions; the
regions could be obtained :Ividing the present North-Central and South-South zones into two each; the
zovernment areas should remain and a few more created to solve some known kr:7 below the local
government area there should be the "community" which you take as the present local government
council ward. - ffect, I have been proposing a five-tier political structure. With the benefit of on, and in
view of some unacceptable attributes which the campaign for geo-_cturing has since acquired, I think
the states, and not the regions, should be 7 units. The regions will have only coordinating functions,
and be the basis for
395

siting economic and social "commanding heights". The communities will be the local government. The
objective of all this is popular and grassroots demo ito with "balanced" federalism. Not the carving out
of spheres of influence for .3q1111 Bala details what he regards as "invalid premises" on which the
current dern,-..:. and restructuring is based. He listed three of them in the open lecture he delivered Lion July 15, 2004 titled "The Future of the Nigerian Federation; Public the Rule of Law". I shall state
them, and vote on them. First: "The basic premise that the Federal Republic ofNigeria has beet . by the
coming together of the various ethnic nationalities that are now found false". I subscribe to the view
that the premise is false. Secondly: "The premise that the Federal Republic ofNigeria is made u7
citizens, who, as ethnic citizens, share common political and economic interests ti-validly represented
at a national conference is false". I accept that this premise is also and anyone subscribing to it cannot
be a socialist, or a leftist, or even an honest scientist. Thirdly: "The premise that building a polity on the
foundations of institutiamii ethnic, racial and religious differences can lead to democracy, peace and
harmo economic development, is false". I vote against the premise. Now, Bala has attribu:ed three
premises to the current campaigners for SNC and geo-political restructurinz_ voted against the
premises as rendered by YusufuBala Usman. The campaigners respond as precisely and clearly as Bala
has put his case. If their premises have distorted, they should say so; if they have been quoted out of
context, they should Thereafter, they should clearly present or restate, their premises. Bala gave a
number of instances of ethnic nationality formation in Nigeria to his "invalidity" charges. His main
argument is that Nigerian ethnic nationalities as the:, today, were formed in Nigeria, that is, after
Nigeria had been created through British cc and not before. He gave, as examples, the formation of the
Igbo ethnic national:- Yoruba ethnic nationality, the Hausa ethnic nationality, the Fulbe ethnic
nationality, the ethnic nationality, etc. And if that is the case, then these ethnic nationalities could no: : 'come together to "agree" to form, or belong to, Nigeria. Hence this could not be a VW premise for

demanding a restructuring ofNigeria in 2004 along ethnic nationality lines. After detailing the "invalid
premises" of the SNC campaign Bala went o stating the premise of his "United Nigeria" advocacy. I
summarise it: The British conq the polities they met in these parts and destroyed their sovereignties.
The sovereig "which were lost to the British, were not recovered by any of the successor entities of::
pre-colonial sovereign polities, or, by the new ethnic nationalities which have come to with them". He
then made a submission that carries a strategic implication: "Soverei 1. was fought for and recovered
by organisations and movements whose identities -11 aspirations were pan-Nigerian and pan-African".
Bala insistently reminds us that these pan-Nigerian and pan-African organisa-ri and movements
included -the Universal Negro improvement Association and the Nt,_ World of Marcus Garvey; The
West African Pilot of the great Zik ofAfrica; and the V,
396

128
For Albert Einstein 16th June, 2005
1FTY years ago, on April 18, 1955, Albert Einstein died inAmerica at the age c -."..116) fl Fifty years
earlier, at the age of 26, he had made scientific discoveries which. :._ Ni words of a biographer,
"transformed the study of physics", and, I dare sa-: . iiiii,., physical world, forever. One of his 1905
papers - the one on "photoelectric effect", w Einstein regarded as a minor achievement, later earned
him the Nobel prize in physl: 1921. Einstein is universally recognised as one ofthe greatest physicists
of all time n-..12:1 but not exclusively for by formulation ofthe Theory of Relativity. Until the end
ofhis lif.: genius continued to work and publish, not only in physics but also in politics. This side" of
Einstein - his political activism - is not known to many ofhis present-day ad r= When, at the end of
1999, the Time magazine named Einstein the "Person c :- Century", the President of an American
university testified that the great man "emb ,:-, Li the power of scientific imagination and genius,
stimulating a century of the most remar . ail research and discovery in human history". The tribute
continued: "He came to exem7 special conception of heroism in which intellectual brilliance and
immense creativit:, ,, '.., fused with human values dedicated to the unwavering pursuit of peace". This
is true. is also an understatement. Einstein was a radicad a socialist, in addition to be,, genuine and
passionate humanist and pacifist. He described himself as a "revolution and a "fire-belching vesuvius",
that is, a "volcano". My present piece is, therefore, as for Albert Einstein (the centenary of his
emergence and the golden jubilee ofhis dea for us who should know more about him, especially his
"other half'. Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879. The German family into wh-.:. ti was born
was Jewish, liberal, secular and bourgeois, that is, middle-class, He renol:nz. his German citizenship in
1895, at the age of 16, and moved to Switzerland. The reason for this action, according to one ofhis
numerous biographers, was to avoid mil service and to complete his education at Zurich's Polytechnic
Institute (1896-1900). obtained his doctorate degree from the University of Zurich in 1905 "in a climate
relati free of the anti-Semitism that pervaded German and Austrian universities". Before moll to
Switzerland, Einstein, at the age of 15, had taught himself calculus and other "advan - subjects". The
teenage genius must have benefited intellectually from the electrical bus'z.),,.. which his father ran for
some time. For financial reasons, Einstein was working to suppi his schooling: while in the
Polytechnic, he worked as a teacher; and he was a patent exam-with the Swiss Patent Office in Bern
while studying for his doctorate.

39R

In Zurich, Einstein interacted with exiled Russian revolutionaries including Alexandra $ and Leon
Trotsky. What a coincidence that Einstein and Trotsky were born the 1879; they were both Jews; and
they developed their main theories about the "ear 1905. While Einstein developed the theory of Special
Relativity, Trotsky that ofPen-nanent Revolution. Einstein was appointed an "adjunct" professor at ity
of Zurich in 1909. He resigned a year later to become a full Professor at the University in Prague; and
in 1912 he became the chair of theoretical physics at the Institute of Technology, Zurich. In 1914 he
accepted the dual position of "titular" of physics and director of theoretical physics at the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute, Sitereby resuming his German citizenship which he had earlier renounced. It was
Einstein developed the general theory of relativity in 1915. From Germany, Einstein embarked on
lecture tours of Britain, the Netherlands and countries in Europe. He was also appointed a visiting
professor at the California ,of Technology. All this changed when the Nazis, underAdolf Hitler, came to
power v on January 30, 1933. In 1934 Einstein's property was confiscated by the hooks were burnt, and
his German citizenship was cancelled. All because he was the effect, the Nazis denounced Einstein's
relativity theory as "Jewish science" perversion". Having previously accepted a position at the Institute
forAdvanced
ceton, New Jersey, in America, he moved there with his family. He became an citizen in 1940 and an
emeritus professor five years later. An ordinary, non-technical, understanding of Einstein's special
theory of relativity ted like this: "There is no universal quantity called time that all clocks measure.
IcaTeryone would have his or her own time. The clocks of two people would agree at rest with respect
to each other but not if they were moving". Furthermore, through a vacuum at a constant speed to any
observer, no matter the observer's and, in particular, "the speed of light is the limiting speed of all
bodies having lly, "mass and energy are equivalent". This last postulate led to his famous C2 which
theorised that "converting a small amount of mass would release an .r"c\-owstwa. &-mons'ua`teMpy in
The and use, ofthe atom bomb. Einstein was not involved in the development of the . He was, in fact,
devastated when he heard that the atom bomb had been Japan. general theory of relativity, on the other
hand, was the broadening of the special tivity to include gravity. According to the general theory,
gravity is not a force, _am of time and space that happens in the presence of mass". Einstein's works "
sed physics and eminently contributed to the foundation of the phenomenal t of technology that
characterised the 20th century. ate here to divide what I called Albert Einstein's "other half:, that is, his
political Hfe into eight parts. I list them as struggles: against anti-semitism in Germany and against
Nazism and fascism in Germany; against war and for peace; against the against racism in America;
against Communist witch-hunt in America and for
399

socialism; in support of the poor and the marginalised in Germany and America; and elitist

intellectualism in Germany and America. These are recorded in all Einstein's biog.: that I have seen.
Interpretations, of course, differ. What I wish to do here is point out s: of the contradictions in
Einstein's social and political struggles, and offer a briefexplana-aon. The bottom-line is that there were
contradictions in the social and political reali-L-.1.1, which Einstein intervened. These contradictions
were reflected in his actions, even tried to wade through them, or resolve them. Einstein was a victim
ofvirulent anti-Sem:2Am., He had to defend himself and other Jews, while at the same time affirming
the rights humanity, including those of his tormentors. In 1952, he was offered the office of Pre of the
state of Israel, but he turned it down. He was opposed to the development atom bomb. But if the
development was inevitable, he did not want fascist Gerrn,:, develop it before America. I believe that
Einstein wanted the development of the ia.".?01 bomb by America during World War II to serve merely
as a deterrent. Einstein Iv humanist, a democrat, and a pacifist; but many biographers have recorded his
"cavalier. attitude to women, especially his two wives. (He was not polygamist, but married the second.
after the divorce from the first). "Cavalier" attitude to women appeared to characterise :Inc private lives
of most great men of his time, and even now. Writing for the first issue of the Monthly Review in 1949,
under the title Why Socialic=7) Einstein said: "I am convinced that there is only one way to eliminate
the grave evils capitalism, namely, through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by
educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy :Lir,. means of
production are owned by society itself and are utilised in a planned fashion. planned economy, which
adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute, the work to be done among all
those able to work and would guarantee a livelihoo 7D? every man, woman and child". Nevertheless,
he warned: "It is necessary to remember -z-iaat a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned
economy as such may be accompan by the complete enslavement of the individual". Einstein then
posed the problem: "Ho the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic
counterweight to power of bureaucracy be assured?" Shortly before he died, Albert Einstein and
Bertrand Russel, the philosepl-- mathematician, issued a manifesto on the threat of atomic annihilation
of the planet EIhu "There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and
wisd Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal human beings
to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can so, the way lies open to a
new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk universal death".
:_;31111
400
The Story of Nikolai Bukharin 25th August, 2005 0 study the p'olitical career of Nikolai Ivanovich
Bukharin is to study the 'Russian Socialist Revolution of 1917. Of course, one can say this of at least
five other personages, including Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. But the story of Bukharin stands - out in
tragic and ironic profundity. The recent publication, in English, of an extended onlosophical essay
which Bukharin wrote in 1937 in his prison cell in Moscow's Lubyanka Prison while awaiting trial and
certain execution has, once again, made his story a relevant ect of reflection. This is not only for
historical reasons, to set the records straight (as the .ssirjang goes), but also for the contemporary
political lessons it offers. I would not have arked on this piece had I not known of similar stories in the
political history of Nigeria Africa, right and left, published and unpublished. In his last Political
Testament written between 1922 and early 1923, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution and
of the Bolshevik (Communist) Party which led that lution, the man whom non-Marxist historians, with
some justification refer to as the er of the Soviet Union", described Nikolai Bukharin as the most
brilliant theoretician Party. But Lenin added that he did not think that Bukharin understood dialectics
and ted if he ever would. We may ask: How would a man who did not understand dialectics Marxistinspired socialist revolution be considered the most brilliant theoretician by a -historic genius like
Lenin? The apprehension of that contradiction may help poraries understand much better, the Russian
Revolution, the idealism and passion inspired it, the movement that led it, and the tragic end of most of

its makers, including

Again, Bukharin's father, a teacher of mathematics, while acknowledging the of his son and his
undivided devotion to a popular revolution, described him as "a .practical person in daily life". Yet,
again, a lady who met Bukharin in exile around illen he was only 25, testified in an unpublished
memoir: "There was in his appearance .7, Z of a saint, rather than a rebel or a thinker. The image of
Count Myshinkin of
-sky's The Idiot involuntarily sprang to mind, at least the way the Russian actors may him. Perhaps this
made me detect at once the mainly humanitarian aspect of lman".
Nikolai Bukharin was born in Moscow in the last quarter of 1888. He was thus 18 der than Lenin, his
"political godfather", and Rosa Luxembourg, with whom he ords in 1924, five years after
Luxembourg's martydom, on the question of and the Accumulation of Capital. He was nine years
younger than both Joseph
401

Stalin who liquidated him in 1937, and Leon Trotsky who, for reasons that will app below, held
Bukharin in contempt, despite the latter's brilliance. Bukharin was the yoting. es: in the leadership of
the Russian Revolution. He had his tertiary education at the Unive 7S,It.F1 of Moscow and, while still
a student, joined the Bolshevik (Communist) faction -dnue revolutionary movement at the age of 18.
He was very active as a youth and was fregLencilky# arrested and jailed by the Czarist authorities. In
1911 he went into exile. Bukharin met Lenin for the first time in Cracow, Poland in 1912. This vid as
All beginning, according to a biographer, "of a long and fruitful collaboration between men, even if it
was not always without friction". Lenin felt that Bukharin's philosophy not dialectical enough. After
suffering several arrests and deportations in Western E
1'1111 1,
Bukharin finally arrived in New York City where, in collaboration with Leon Trotsk7y. edited Novy
Mir (New World), a radical newspaper. He returned to Russia via Ja.7 March 1917 when the first
skirmishes of the revolution broke out. He was elected a me:7i of the party's Central Committee and
candidate member (that is, alternate member) of Politburo, which was the de facto Executive
Committee (or Standing Committee) of
Central Committee. Between 1917 and 1929, Bukharin was editor of the official newspaper, Pravda
(Truth). He never held a government post throughout his political It is important to take note of this.
Lenin died in January 1924 after suffering his third stroke. The struggle for suc which had been
summering since 1922 when Joseph Stalin was made the General S of the party, came violently to the
open. A similar thing happened - with similar results China in 1976 when Mao Tse-Tung died.
Bukharin, the detached theoretician and v4 the "prophet without arms", first allied with the troika of
Stalin, Kamanev and Zi against Trotsky. The troika became victorious and Bukharin became a full
member Politburo. When Kamanev and Zinoviev broke with Stalin in 1926, Bukharin contin support
the victorious Stalin. Preoccupied with the task of analysing a gigantic develo a massive social
transformation, an over-turning of everything that had existed bef event that had no parallel or model
in history, Bukharin did not see the "practic: _ perhaps, "mundane" battle going on to control and direct
this movement of which the "most able theoretician". The main question before the Soviet regime after
it had won the long and bitter revolution civil war and consolidated its power was the direction in
which the ec.:.-A should move. Bukharin took the position that "the Soviet economy could only adv the
pace dictated by the predominantly peasant sector". As the, peasants grew prosperous, he said, "they
would encourage the growth of light industry; this, in turn. stimulate the development of heavy
industry". A counter-position advocated by the j.e. faction was based on the theory of "primitive

socialist accumulation." This non-state sectors of the economy would have to contribute to the
development c_ industry over and above what they would do through the working of the market". was
quoted as saying that the country would "ride to socialism drawn by the p nag".
402
tiq
? 1111u
III
" II "'
M'f111
1111111'

The ruling faction led by Stalin supported the "snail's speed" theory of Bukhan:n and crushed the
opposition. But when the theory failed to "deliver the goods", when peasants refused to deliver
agricultural products to the market because there were few industrial goods to exchange for them at
accmable prices, Stalin's ruling group abandoned the policy and moved straight to the opposite policy,
namely, forced collectivisation and rapid ondustrialisation: a grotesque distortion of the opposition's
platform. Stalin then turned against ukharin, his ally in earlier stages of the battle to control party and
state. He was accused of "rightistdeviationism". Bukharin, the theoretician, was at that time, that is,
about 1929, at tie "zenith ofhis power and influence" occupying the positions of Chainnan ofthe
Communist ernational and Chairman of the Moscow Regional ?arty Committee. Bukharin and other
members of the "Right Opposition" chose not to fight Stalin's tion openly. They preferred to seek
compromises, admitting "mistakes" and "en err' did not commit. But this did not satisfy his adversaries.
He was stripped of most of his :tions and in 1929, expelled from the party. He capitulated, and was readmitted into party. He was briefly made editor offrvestia (News), the official government
newspaper. .arin did not see the handwriting on the wall. The fateful 17th Party Congress was held in
1934. Shortly after this, Stalin embarked e liquidation of the remaining leaders of the 1917 revolution.
In three 'spectacular trials" or "show trials", as many historians call it, in Moscow, "the whole original
adieus of the party, with the exception of Lenin and Stalin, were represented as involved in stic
conspiracy to assassinate party leaders (including Lenin who died in 1924), to industry, to foment
peasant uprisings, to spy for foreign powers, to over-111-2rovki to rbsm and to restore capitalism"! On
February 27, 1937, Bukharin proceeded to a unsof the Central Committee. There, he was first
ritualistically expelled from the party second time. He was then arrested and charged with treason in the
language above. He was in prison for 13 months, before his "trial" and execution. In prison, he four
books. He negotiated to admit to "lesser" crimes, which he did not commit, on 41 'se by his
executioners that these books, as well as his letters from prison, would hed. He also considered the fate
of his family. Of course, his executioners did not the 'agreement". The manuscripts were released 54
years later, in 1991, by Mikhail hrs who, three years earlier, had rehabilitated Bukharin and restored his
party :'se p. But the party and the Soviet Union itself died shortly after.
Cr March 2, 1938, Bukharin was put on trial, together with two prominent -kob.sYa aoda and
Krestinky. After an :1 day "trial", during which Bukharin resolutely :ng to assassinate Lenin and
conspiring to restore capitalism, the three defendants cadity and executed. Bukharin - the able
theoretician, the non-dialectical thinker, unpractical man - embarked on the tragic "road of no return"
not when he himself with being a "prophet without arms", but when he used his intellect to ideas of
Stalin's opponents, thus paving the way for their liquidation. The lesson Do r ary one.
403

For Comrade John Garang 8th September, 2005

HREE political events of great significance took place in the northern part ofAir2e. between early July
and early August 2005. The first was a victory for commitn-L.:71t and tenacity; the second a tragedy
occasioned, perhaps, by a betrayal and sabota and the third, a refutation of a proclaimed "law" of
history. On July 9, 2005, Colonel John Garang, President of Sudan People's Liberation Movement
(SPLM) and its milit wing, Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), was sworn in, after 22 years of
a77. struggle, as Sudan's First Vice-President. Exactly three weeks later, on July 9, 2005, Ga., died in a
helicopter crash on his return journey to Sudan from Uganda. And, on Wednesim/ August 3, 2005, the
government of the Islamic Republic ofMauritania was overthrow:-. the country's armed forces. I shall,
in this piece, be looking at the first event, leaving two for future examination in this column. The peace
agreement which led to Garang's appointment as First Vice-Pres: of Sudan was hailed by the
"international community" led by America. The man's c:c,' was also regretted by the rulers ofAmerica
who were apprehensive of the consequf.:-.: They were quick to announce that the crash had been an
accident - obviously to pr:. the escalation of the violence which had erupted when Garang's death was
anne: This violence, ifit had escalated, could have jeopardised the historic Sudanese agref---ifin an
eventuality that the "international community" would do anything to prevent.- irony! Other countries,
following America's lead, also pronounced the crash an ac The fact that the SPLM/SPLA and its leader,
John Garang, had achieved their old through the "barrel of the gun" was underplayed, if not erased.
Perhaps, history c2:-_ a light on this irony. Colonial rule and decolonisation in several parts ofAfrica
had followed a known general trajectory which, in historical accounts, are highly simplified. A rel
thread in the usual account is as follows: Two different ethnic or racial common 1": territories, had
been merged to form a country; one region dominated, or was allow,
CO,
14'11
assisted, to dominate the other, and power had been handed, at independentf-. t
privileged region. Sudan presented a model of this account: Arabs of the North do:7 Black Africans of
the South, The account is not entirely false, but it is highly simp:::- Garang and his movement
consistently insisted in theory and in practice. Culturally, Northern Sudan is predominantly Moslem,
while the South is pretio
Christian and animist. On January 1, 1956, Britain and Egypt ended their joint tole lli
- called codominion - in Sudan. But four months before then, inAugust 1955, ther-e
404

ilin the South, an armed rebellion against Northern domination of the pre-independence ministration,
the bureaucracy, the economy and the officer corps of the armed forces. The civil war lasted 17 years
and ended in 1972 with an agreement signed in Addis Ababa, Ei in iopia. By the agreement, the South
was granted a measure of political autonomy in internal matters. Employment opportunities for
Southerners in the public services were also cEpanded. The agreement was signed under the military
regime of Gaafar el-Nimeri who came to power in 1969, with "socialist" pretensions. As many students

of Sudan's politics have remarked, the 1972 Addis Ababa accord 1111735 aimed, by both sides, at
correcting imbalances in middle-class employment, not at axial transformation which, among other
things, would begin to address the uneven ,drvelopment between the North and the South. By 1983,
social discontent in the South l'tzad begun to threaten another civil war, or rather, the resumption of the
civil war which was nded in 1972. Nimeri, who had meanwhile abandoned his "socialist" pretensions,
this time to introduce the Islamic Sharia Law in the South and appoint Northern es to administer it.
With these also came a redivision of the South into three weak ces. Armed rebellions and army
mutinies broke out in the region. Soldiers were sent ore order. At a point, the expeditionary force
decided to join the mutineers. Sudan's civil war had started. The struggle this time was led by the
SPLM and SPLA under
; 401
co and of John Garang. We may briefly peep into the rebel movement's perspectives. Chapter 9 of
SPLM's manifesto published on July 31, 1983 - copies of which were received here by our ent with
jubilation - was titled: Real and Potential Enemies of SPLA/SPLM. Here vement divided its enemies
into two broad groups: Internal real and potential enemies; _e-mal real and potential enemies. Under
the internal-enemy category were: Southern bourgeoisified and bureaucratic elite; Religious
fundamentalism; and Reactionary rebel commanders. Under external-enemy category, the SPLM listed
African reactionary countries; and Imperialism. On its socialist platform, the rebel movement
'"''""he SPLA/SPLM is convinced of the correctness of its socialist orientation. The SPLM programme
is based on objective realities of the Sudan and provides a correct to the nationality and religious
questions within the context of a United Socialist Liereby preventing the country from an otherwise
inevitable disintegration". On religion, the SPLM said; "Religious fundamentalism, like the nationality
question, ue to be used by the Sudanese ruling clique in both North and South as a tool to and divide
the people in order to perpetuate their rule and exploitation. The SPLM a correct and consistent policy
on religion. Under SPLM Government there shall on of State and Mosque and Church. All religious
faiths in the country shall have freedom to practise without hindrance or intimidation provided that this
freedom d and used for political purposes. Sunday shall therefore remain a holiday and -orship in the
South, while Friday shall continue to be a holiday and a day of Northern Sudan". hn Garang was an allround personage: a rebel, a career soldier, an academic
I htsii;;,
11111i, I I I hill:
405

and a revolutionary leader. He was born on June 23, 1945, in Southern Sudan. Becausf. the first Civil
War, Garang attended his Secondary School in Tanzania. In 1962, at the 2.L.,z 17, he joined the first
Sudanese civil war. But because of his age, he and other youths v, frT encouraged by the rebel
movement to advance their education abroad. He got a scholars:and went to America where he obtained
a bachelor's degree in Economic's in 1969. then returned to Southern Sudan and re-joined the fighting.
Like many other rebels, G was absorbed into the Sudanese Army in 1972. By 1983, he had risen to the
rank Colonel and obtained a doctorate degree in Agricultural Economics from the Iowa St University in
America. When the second Civil War broke out in 1983 Garang deserted -..1H,f Sudanese Army and
joined in re-organising the SPLM and SPLAwhich he led until :-.A3 death on Saturday, July 30, 2005.
The war lasted 22 years and cost over two million civilian lives in Southern SuL:.,. In addition to about
half a million people who iledt-it tount-u,-c_cnr alation Southern Sudanese were internally displaced.

OITICithy .,-\.&4._QKdaniaary 2005,with an agreem milt (signed in Nairobi, Kenya) whose main
provisions were: One: the rebel movement \\-:I incorporated into the central government with the rebel
leader appointed the First President ofthe Republic of Sudan. Two: the rebel movement will form the
governmf7 Jlir Southern Sudan, with the rebel leader as regional President. Three: the South will 1-..1
autonomy for six years, followed by a referendum on secession. Four: the rebel move:71,o= will retain
its armed forces during the transition period of six years. Furthermore, Five: the armed forces of the
central government and those of rebel movement will be merged into a 39,000 - strong national army
after the transi:.::nnn period if the Southern Sudanese people decide against secession. Six: income
from : mainly obtained from the South - will be shared equally between the Centre and the Scy Seven:
the rebel movement will fill 30 per cent of the job positions in the central service and 45 per cent of the
positions in the South. Eight: while the Sharia vAc' continue to operate in the North, its extension to the
South will be decided in a referent Why and how were the Sudanese rebels able to extract, from the
central gove= the agreement detailed above, and why did the "international community" encoura,..
welcome it? Four reasons can be advanced. One: the issue at stake was clear enc..: SE:
struggle against ethnic and religious enslavement by a bankrupt clique. Two: The pro r of the
liberation movement was clear and unambiguous: the liberation of the whole of and the unity of all its
people under a popular-democratic state. Three: The clay:- commitment of the leadership of the rebel
movement. Four: The war against terroris7-. fought by the "international community" led by the rulers
ofAmnerica. In this war, thc-government of Sudan was an enemy. In fact, the American government's
Sudan P of 2002 accused the Sudanese government of genocide "for killing more than two civilians
since the civil war began in 1983". Four factors. But the greatest were F Two and Three. A salute to
Comrade John Garang de Mabior (1945-2005).
406

131
As We Mourn Departed Comrades 6th October, 2005
ITHIN three days in the fourth week of September 2005, the Nigerian Left lost two stars: Chima. Ubani
and Yusufu Bala Usman. As I was drafting this piece, I learnt of the death of a third star: Alao AkaBashorun. This new loss further worsened the picture I shall be trying to describe. The accident in
which Ubani a_E-0 claimed the life of a Nigerian patriot, Tunji Oyeleru, a photo-journalist. The two
the course of a nation-wide popular-democratic protest. They died far away from normal operational
bases. Under the Nigerian condition, their trip was a risky ent politically and physically. And Ubani and
Oyeleru knew it. This made them of the Revolution of the Nigerian People. Bala Usman was said to
have died of "heart failure", that is, his heart suddenly working. I have no reasons to doubt the technical
reasons given for the man's all I know is that, below the medical technicality, is the historical fact that
Bala over-used his brain and his body in his struggle to understand and analyse Nigeria. "- is with
singular dedication and selflessness. The degree of your agreement with c=:-.aterial at that level. He is,
thus, a martyr of the Revolution of the Nigerian people. A*: the time Bala Usman and Chima Ubani
died, final preparations were being the burial of Nigeria's legendary Labour Leader Number One,
Michael Imoudu, a couple of months earlier at the age of 102. On account of Imoudu's longevity, t
mourn him - in the strict sense of the term. Rather, we celebrated him. He had eti a hero of the
Revolution of the Nigerian People even before I was born. And
last 13 years the Nigerian Left has lost a frightening number of Marxist and ers: Wahab Goodluck,
Dapo Fatogun, M.E. Kolagbodi, Jonas Abam, Ola go Okoye, S.G. Ikoku, Abdulraman Black, Chris

Abashi, Bala Jubril Ntiem Kungwai, Bade Onimode, Claude Ake, Tony Engurube, Iwok UdoFadahunsi. And now Chima Ubani, Bala Usman and Alao Aka-Bashorun. 31partial list, the list ofsome
of those with whom I closely worked for some There are many more. tn. ...7.-iulative loss is, indeed, a
great tragedy for the Nigerian Left, the only truly sac :o-political current that exists in the country. But
there is a second tragedy. het- put very mildly, I would say - in this way by Comrade Tony Iyare in his
407

tribute: Chima Ubani: "Death, Where's Thy Sting? "My greatest worry is that in the last f:, years the
nation has lost some of its most forthright radical activists while the process : replenishment of
comrades largely produced in the traditions of the 1970s and 80s is eif,-:7 slow or absent" (The
Guardian, 26/9/2005). Comrade Iyare's insight is reflected in the phrase "in the tradition of the 1970s
anti 80s". Considering Goodluck, Fatogun, Ola Oni, Aka Bashorun, and even Tony Engurube. I would
have expanded Iyare's range to include the 1950 and the 1960s. I would furth:- modify Iyare to read
that although Leftists are being produced, continually, by the mater -la: and non-material conditions in
the country, this production is not in the tradition of 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. There are two
aspects of this tragedy. The first is th.3.: today Nigerian leftism and Leftists are not consciously and
explicitly anti-capitalist. And :Tr the globalisation we bemoan is capitalist globalisation. The neoliberalism we hate is capita:is:, neo-liberalism. And the imperialism we rally against is capitalist
imperialism. To put it difierer and, perhaps, more strongly: For a leftist, or radical, or socialist, to say
that he or she is anti-neoliberalist, or anti-globalist, or anti-imperialist, without being fundamentally,
consciously, and explicitly anti-capitalist is to bark at the moon. Is it not elementary, or even trite, to
say that the economic, social and politic programmes and policies of President Olusegun Obasanjo's
regime - programmes a: policies that continue to destroy the lives of Nigerian masses and decimate our
ranks in ther consequences, and which we rightly denounce as anti-people - are products of glob
capitalism, reproduced here? What has changed since the active days oflmoudu, Goodluct Kolagbodi,
Ola-Oni heroes we rightly revere - except in form and degree of barbarity'. Against what social forces
are we defending our human rights and promoting our democracy if not capitalist farces? Who fixes the
price regimes of petroleum products in Nigeria! International community. Who articulated the
"reliefpackage", the air that is blown on oar. fresh wounds? International community. Is President
Obasanjo free to accede to popular demands? No. With the national and international forces that put
him in power, and maim= him in power, he has two choices: leave office, or continue to enforce neoliberal capi Ill policies. I should not be misunderstood, or misrepresented. I cannot be saying that all we
have to do is to struggle to understand the basic - capitalist - character of our naticTiall. situation. But I
may be quoted as saying that for Nigerian Leftists of Marxist and socia... orientations, this
understanding is the "beginning of wisdom". For it is this understand that will produce appropriate
organising and interventionist principles and inform our sic and advocacies. This understanding will be
a powerful weapon in the choice or selectic allies, and the role to play in mass and popular-democratic
actions. This brings us to the second aspect of the tragedy Comrade Iyare bemoaned " this is the neardisappearance of explicitly socialist or Marxist groups or centres. B the well-known objection is raised,
let me say that there is nothing sectarian or dog-.-.11 about this. As a leftist or radical, you can engage
in popular-democratic and human mass activity as an individual, or as an individual bureaucratically
serviced by some persc: or as a member of an ideologically-oriented political group. All I am saying is
that if y
.11
408

Marxist, unless you are just doing your "job", the aspiration should be towards the latter ift-Jr the good
of the mass action, and for the good ofthe socialist alternative which, at this lime. may not mean much
more than retaining the focus. What I have called the Nigerian Left is, today, with some important
exceptions, st entirely subsumed in what is popularly known as the Civil Society Movement, or Rights
and Pro-Democracy Movement. The latter is, in turn, enveloped in the NGO vement. Two observations
can, at least, be made here. In the first place, of all the nents of the movement which have concrete or
determinate existence, the Labour , organised in the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC),appears to occupy
the farthest ing position. Secondly, there is hardly anything anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist in the ent's
platform as can be articulated from its activities and pronouncements. In place italism we hear
"globalisation" or "market-oriented", and in place of imperialism we -Western". The most prominent
human rights and pro-democracy groups in the country are led sts, some of whom are associated with
socialism and Marxism. But in broad popular-tic formations and actions, where they also appear as
prominent leaders, they act icluals. The point deserves a re-statement: The platform ofthe Civil Society
Movement s of defence of human rights and democracy, promotion of transparency and good ce; true
federalism and ethnic self-determination. Good enough. But, no categorical lainst that is, no opposition,
in principle, to the pillars ofneo-liberalism, such as ation or deregulation, or indeed, "market economy".
I have used the terms 'Nigerian Left" and 'Nigerian Leftists" in the original anti--st, anti-imperialist,
popular-democratic sense: before the series of events which 1.27 ism has tried to convince us marked
not only the defeat of socialism, but its death. is included the surrender of Mikhail Gorbachev to
imperialism in the last quarter of Tiannanmen Square massacre of June 1989, the overthrow ofthe East
European and the collapse of the Berlin Wall in the second half of t9&9 ,tE.Q.iszAtszvzkiti-noi
tnnetUrlion in 1991, globalisation, and the appearance ofAmerica as the world's only er. I am assuming,
or perhaps hoping, that Nigerian leftists know that these events ill socialism, that what imperialists
danced around was an empty grave. I shall conclude with what I consider will be a proper collective
tribute to our fallen First, in the words of a comrade: "Those of us who are serious about wanting are
for humanity should say openly and frankly that it cannot be achieved under In other words, it is time
to revive and renew the historic legacy of socialism as realistic and realisable alternative to capitalism."
Secondly, we should work for a acrti-c apitalist organisation whose banner will have a space for the
inscription ofthe our fallen heroes and heroines. Beyond this, we need a new manifesto which, in of
another comrade, will not be a blueprint, and not a detailed programme, but a the vision of a different
society, the proof that history has not come to an end, that future beyond capitalism".
409
132
Comrade Ita Ekeng Henshaw 1st ,itliv, 2005 r his is the story of the last phase of the life of Comrade Ita
Ekeng Henshaw, form .-:- Senior Assistant General Secretary of the Nigerian Ports Authority Workers'
r Union, former Chaimian, Cross River State Council ofthe Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and until
his death, a member ofthe radical socialist community. It is also, in a ve:-: painful sense, part ofthe
history of the socialist movement with which Comrade Ita Hensha-,., identified for about 27 years. It is
a sad story of abandonment by the Nigerian state, t1-. Labour Movement and the Socialist Community
at a time he desperately needed life-savi-..z. solidarity The family of Comrade Ita Henshaw was to meet
with me on Tuesday, June : 2004, to discuss the latest development in the Comrade's long illness. The
developme:-.: was that of "making trouble", or "raving", as a relation later called it. The charge
of"talki:--, too much"; was a frequent one against Comrade Henshaw during this period. So, I was not
particularly alarmed. Nor was I worried by the hint that the Comrade was beginning : .: lose his head.
"I have heard all this before, maybe the Comrade is beginning to s a: embarrassing things", I said to
myself, and later to some people around me. In nonr.L, circumstances, a revolutionary often talks and

behaves "abnormally"; how much more abnormal circumstances? So, when the family did not keep the
appointment, I conclud the matter was not too serious after all. But my respite lasted for less than a day.
At about noon on Wednesday, June 2, 2004, I was told by phone that Comra Ita Henshaw was, earlier
that morning, rushed to the hospital when his condition sudder deteriorated. The rapid deterioration in
the Comrade's condition began the previous da and that was why the family could not keep 1 the
appointment with me. I was told that preliminary report had indicated that the Comrade had suffered a
"stroke" and w, .,z, ficonscL. The fmiii lv member who spoke to me said she would soon come down
to s .:11T:
me.
When, at about 5.00pm, I had not seen anyone, I dispatched two younger colleag:.: ofmine to the
hospital to see what was happening. A few minutes after they left I got M 7e: information on what had
happened the previous day. The Comrade had, on Tuesday, June 1, 2004, been "shouting" and "making
trouble", and young people around had trieci 3 "quitening" him. Later, older people took over the effort
at "quitening" him - perhaps humanely and more successfully. And, perhaps, for the same reason he
had been taking treatment at home, the comrade was not rushed to the hospital, as many people would
ha expected. When I insisted on knowing what the Comrade was actually saying, the response
410

showed that it was the same complaint he was making when he was hale and healthy; namely that
ofbetrayal and abandonment. The story continued: At about 1.00am on Wednesday, June 2, 2004 the
Comrade's condition became critical. Blood was noticed in his mouth. Aneighbour, later described to
me as a relation, was contacted to help convey the Comrade to the hospital; but he said he would not be
able to move until 4.00pm. The Comrade therefore remained on his sick bed r three more hours. By the
time the journey to the hospital began, the Comrade's condition had become really bad. Eventually he
got to the General Hospital, Calabar, and doctor who saw him announced that he had suffered a
"stroke". I was amazed that he taken to the General Hospital, and not the University of Calabar
Teaching Hospital, as y people would have expected. Again, the reason might be the same as the reason
for taking his treatment at home. As I was listening to this story, the people I sent to the hospital to see
the Comrade back. The emissaries reported that my Comrade was in a "coma". I asked if it was or a
stroke, or both. The younger member of the delegation, a female, replied two were the same. He was
said to be breathing heavily, and his eyes were closed. not stir throughout the period they were by his
bedside. The young girl doubted if de would come out of his "coma". At the time they left the hospital,
that is, about after admission, my comrade had not been placed under any treatment regime, being put
on drip. I agreed with the family that arrangements must be made to my Comrade immediately to the
University of Calabar Teaching Hospital. I heard until the afternoon of the following day, Thursday,
June 3, 2004 when I learnt, hone call, that my Comrade died at about 10.00pm the previous night. I
asked Comrade died: in the General Hospital or in the Teaching Hospital. I was told it Lzz- latter, and
that his corpse had since been deposited in that hospital's mortuary.
I, II
the story as far as Comrade Henshaw was concerned. Thereafter, anything for the gratification of the
living, including those who failed to discharge their responsibilities to the comrade when he was alive.
met Comrade Ita Henshaw inAugust 1977 when we were recruiting members -ly - formed Calabar
Group of Socialists (CGS). He became one of the eight members of that organization. The reorganisation of the Nigerian Labour its ated by the military regime was nearing completion, and
Comrade Henshaw, er trade unionists who were uprooted by the re- organization, was yet to be But he
was eventually absorbed into the Nigerian Ports Authority Workers' deployed in Calabar. Comrade
Henshaw rose to become a Senior Assistant nary of the union, as well as Chairman, Cross River State

Council of the
Ili
Congress.(NLC). He vacated both positions in the late 1990s under the e mounted by the Abacha
regime. I assisted Comrade Henshaw in the ately -frustrating and fruitless, efforts to regain his union
position. n to our political and revolutionary relationships, Comrade Henshaw and nai relationship over
which, he was very emotional. It was forged in a which he never forgot and which he seized every
public opportunity to
411

recount. Sometime in 1978 or 1979 a plenary session of the Calabar Group of Social was to hold in
Comrade Henshaw's residence. On getting there we met our con:raite sitting on the floor, weeping
beside the corpse of his grandmother who brought him u7 did not have even a kobo to begin the
preparation for the burial. I consulted with co= and then moved a motion that the meeting be converted
into a burial committee. ".. motion was passed, and we took over the burial. Comrade Ita Henshaw
never forgo: act ofrevolutionary solidarity. Comrade Ita Henshaw's autobiography shows that he was
born in Calabar in AI: 1946 to a Qua mother and an Efik father. He had his primary education in
Calabar secondary education in Lagos. He was married, and had children. He had his trade ur:
education in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Nigeria. As a young man he triec: hands on many
things, including boxing and music. He was patron and adviser to sever cultural groups in Calabar. He
worked in the Federal Ministry of Establishment, the Natio Provident Fund and the Ports Authority.
Comrade Ita Henshaw participated active revolutionary politics in Nigeria. And when we ventured into
what we called "bourg politics" via the Labour party, and later, the Social Democratic party (SDP),
Contr,a Henshaw was in the forefront. I testify - and it is with humility and a deep sells responsibility
that I say that I am in a position to do this - that in labour struggles., revolutionary engagements and in
radical socialist politics Comrade Henshaw dischar his responsibilities creditably. Comrade Ita
Henshaw did not die in an accident, or of an accident. He died af. what is called "protracted illness". It
is with pain that I declare that he would, perhaps, lived longer had he obtained from the Nigerian state,
the Nigerian society and the soci community, the sort of solidarity dictated by his long and selfless
striving in defence o: Nigerian working class, the Nigerian people and the Nigerian nation. In our
histon circumstances, a true revolutionary and patriot turns his or her back on ethnic chauvini religious
bigotry, political conservatism and, in some cases, on community and faL chauvinism as well. The
vacuum created by this radical disengagement is expected tc.) filled by the revolutionary movement.
But not so in our society, not so in Nigeria. Having also turned his or her back on material
accumulation, it is simply tragic a Nigerian revolutionary in distress returns, or is returned, to the same
forces that he or -.II had spent all his or her life fighting. The result is humiliation, false charity and
reaction preachment. That was the fate of Comrade Ita Henshaw and many revolutionaries bef_ him.
And this may still be the fate of many revolutionaries after Comrade Henshaw. heritage should be
rejected and terminated. That should be our resolution as we hon :1 and bury Comrade Ita Henshaw.
412

33
Who Replaces Bade Onimode? 27th December, 2001
WAS pained and confused by the death of Professor Bade Onimode, one of the most prominent Marxist

political economists to emerge in the continent ofAfrica in the 1970s. Pained and confused. Yes, but I
was not paralysed. For I was still able to sass the tragedy with a comrade who communicated the sad
news to me over the hone. I was able to voice an immediate tribute to one of the best in our ranks.
What II paralysis to my sadness and confusion was a section of The Guardian's report of sad event.
(The Guardian,) Thursday, December 4, 2001, back page). A member of
.se's family was reported to have said: "He was known to be a radical economist. ever, in his last days,
he drew close to God." If this statement had been broken into its two parts, namely, "He was known as
a Political economist" and "In his last days, he drew closer to God," I would have regarded it as a
recollection of aspects of the life and career of this prominent 2.al. But when the two parts are joined
with a "however", the tribute lends itself to nterpretations. To my mind, if Onimode was not "closer to
God" in his active
e - was not because he was a radical political economist; and if in his "last days" he 5er to God" this did
not represent a re-evaluation of his distinguished career as a litical economist, or an "atonement" for his
radical perspectives. This type of s. another illustration of the misunderstanding of leftists' attitude to
religion. Nigerian a: least those of my generation to which Onimode belonged, are critical of the
imitazon of religion by the ruling classes. Our generation's attitude to religion is non-non-hypocritical.
It is not the attitude of"Pharisees" who live by grotesque ..f-nt of their religious deeds. They regard
religion as a very private and personal se attitudes, taken together, that many conservatives distort,
sometimes rest the issue there. end all this, however, is the fact that I can now almost see the "last days"
of ode. In spite of his mass-oriented career and the presence in his last day of
close to him, Onimode died a lonely man. This is not peculiar to our departed .11 Is the most
frightening attribute of dying: its absolute loneliness, unaffected by friends or foes. In this final hour, in
this state of oblivion, the utterances of the dying cannot be easily understood, let alone explained.
Why? Because s or her existence has been removed. But I agree that human solidarity can atanoiri. f
the last days, for the dying and for their loved ones. That, I believe, was enezer Babatope was referring
to in his tribute. I shall come back to it.
413

Comrade Ebenezer Babatope's tribute to Onimode (The Guardian, Decem 2001) frightened me.
Babatope reminded his compatriots "we are dying; slowly and the left ranks are getting diminished
everyday." Yes "we are dying." In the last d (1991-2001) the Nigerian Left has lost many of its
prominent leaders: M.E. Ko Wahab Goodluck, Dapo Fatogun, Tony Engurube, Ernest Etim-Bassey,
Iwok Udo-C Comrade Ola Oni, Jonas Abam, Kanmi Isola-Osobu, Armstrong Ogbonna, G
Sawaba, etc. And now Bade Onimode. What I read in Babatope's tribute was tha.', are dying without
being replaced. By "we" I mean those sections of the Nigerian L are anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist
and see the liberation of the popular masses, 11 working and toiling people, the wretched of the "earth"
as the essence of their exertions and practical politics. From about 1950, the funks of this particular
segment the Nigerian Left grew continuously which means that those departing were being repl by
more than 100 per cent. Replaced, not just in absolute terms, but also sector by secs, ranks of
revolutionary political scientists, political economists, patriots, orators, philosop-;:r-labour leaders,
organisers, ideologists, journalists, teachers, polemicists, etc, continuf grow. This growth stopped, and a
rapid decline set in a little over a decade ago. We an.' longer being replaced. Who is to replace Bade
Onimode? I first met Bade Onimode late in 1975 or early 1976. The location was the Univer of Ibadan.
A student group, I think the Students' Union itself, had organised a symposi and Bade Onimode and I
were to be among the few speakers. I was then teach Mathematics at the University of Lagos, and
Onimode was teaching Economics at lb a'Lam.. I had just been released from detention during which,
thanks to the radical lawyer, G -4"

Fawehinmi, I became very popular in university students community across the county therefore had to
prepare very well for every appearance. Onimode was to speak firs: 7 was to speak after him. By the
time Onimode had, perhaps, gone half way with presentation (I think the topic was The University) I
knew that I would not "steal the shoi.,, as I had expected unless I switched from analysis to agitation.
He dealt with all the phenom I had intended to touch upon but he analysed each phenomenon clinically,
so to say, the method of political economy; he did not stop at description and denunciation of ephenomenon, but went brilliantly, and almost effortlessly, to its roots, to it political econoi He received
a standing ovation. Of course, I received my own ovation but only by switch_ from analysis to
agitation. I could not have matched him in analysis. I was later to learn .L-.1 Onimode belonged to a
small group of dedicated Marxist revolutionary intellectuals bas in the University of Ibadan and led by
late Comrade Ola Oni. Before then I had C encountered Ola Oni. I drew closer to the group, but not too
close because at that tiny r. belonged to a leftist formation that many on the left considered as extremist
and voluntz- ;;;, and even anarchistic. I was to meet Bade Onimode again in the epic university battle
of 1978 knownti "Ali Must Go." Comrade Babatope has written so much about it. Onimode was in ft.:::
leadership, moving (or rather, racing) from Ibadan to Lagos, Ife, Calabar and Zaria, main centres of the
struggit, against the military dictatorship. The "declaration of war" made in Calabar inApril 1978 at an
extraordinary meeting of the National Union ofNigeriL41 4

Situ1/41 ants (NUNS), then led by Segun Okeowo. We were all "around" but not in the meeting rsince
vc, e were dismissed. In August 1978, 11 university teachers and one journalist and ,f-al students were
dismissed: In Lagos, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Ade Ajayi, Ebenezer .17ope and the medical director
were sacked; at Ibadan, Onimode, together with Ola Or Akin Ojo, Onoge and Sanda (teaching at the
polytechnic) were removed; in Calabar Madunagu and I were sacked; and in Zaria, the ViceChancellor, Professor Iya 1: akar was removed. The only non-university personnel affected was Bassey
Ekpo sev. then Political Editor of the Chronicle newspaper owned by Cross River State emment. This is
now history; but I recall it as a tribute to Professor Bade Onimode, that t. hard-working and dedicated
Marxist political economist. In his tribute, Comrade Ebenezer Babatope passionately called for the
unity of the members of that generation ofNigeria's radical patriots. He pleaded that we re-h contact
and ''keep close to ourselves" in this particular difficult period, politically ple7,3orially. I was moved
and inspired by his passion. I am aware that some individuals working in that direction. But I am also
painfully aware of aspects of the problem. :bat generation were not just friends. We were comrades-incombat, united in ::unary Marxist politics. But with the decline of the movement nationally and Dnally,
with the triumph of the capitalist global dictatorship, the uniting force appears disappeared. I agree with
Babatope: we must maintain contacts and support one But beyond that, our movement has to be
rediscovered and re-built for the sake of 1:7112.7,:y and its millions of exploited, oppressed,
marginalised and dispossessed masses. -itable resurgence will then print, in letters of gold, the names of
our departed =eluding the latest, Comrade Professor Bade Onimode.
415

Malcolm X and Abdul Rahman Babu 6th June, 2002

IHAVE many teachers. Among them, Abdul Rahman Muhammad Babu, who p away a couple of years
ago, but whose words and deeds live on. Cu developments in imperialism have brought back to me the
memories ofthis outs African personage. I met Babu, a Tanzanian revolutionary, in New York in
Novern 1990. I had been invited to New York to attend an international conference on "Malco X:

Radical Tradition and a Legacy of Struggle", initiated and organised by the New Ycir based Malcolm X
Work Group. The four-day conference (November 2 to 4) ran thro ,, 25 sessions. Babu and I spoke on
November 3, at the 11th session. It was at this ses that Babu gave me the lesson on the theory and
practice of global political villainy, or i-J,-_ imperialist designation of global political villains. But
before going into this, let us qui,: introduce Malcolm X, the subject ofthe conference and Babu, my
teacher at the conferrt . Malcolm X (1925-1965), was an African-American, that is to say, an Amen
citizen ofAfrican slave descent. He was named Malcolm Little at birth; but he later rej the surname
because he argued that no one actually knew the real or original name o ancestor who was taken from
Africa to America in chains as a slave. America-bound sla we may recall, lost both their identities and
their humanness on being sold. In place ofL:7 which wrongly carried the impression that that was the
name of his ancestor, Mal chose the letter X which, in mathematical science, is used to designate an
unknown. Mali. I ' X served a jail term early in life, an experience that was normal in those days for b
youths in racist America. In prison, he was radicalised and became politically consci' through the
medium ofBlack Muslim. Nationalism. On his release, he graduated from ri-L.... islamism, adopting
the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, to the advocacy of a sort of ' separation and finally to social
revolution involving blacks and whites. He became v popular at home and abroad. By the time he was
shot and killed in a public auditori New York in February 1965 by state agents disguised as rival black
Muslims, he co 1.11 described as a revolutionary democrat, a socialist, and even a Marxist. During
fr_f_ years of his life he toured Africa and the Middle East, attending radical conferenc meeting
nationalist and militant students. In Nigeria he was given the name Omow ..: Yoruba name meaning
"the child has come home". Abdul Rahman Muhammad Babu was born in Zanzibar, a small Island off
the of East Africa. Until 1964, the Island's population was made up of various races - A Arab, Indian,
Chinese, etc - but with Africans predominating. It was ruled by a Sul:
416

whom British colonialists accorded flag of independence in 1963 after centuries of colonial rule. In
1964, the sultanate was overthrown in a popular leftist revolution which ended with the merger of the
island with the mainland Republic of Tanganyika. Thus emerged the United Republic of Tanzania
under the presidency of Julius Nyerere. Babu was a product of that rolution. He later became Tanzania's
Minister of Economic Development. But as we may ember, if we are old enough, or would have read in
books, if we are young, the re-lisation ofAfrican politics after independence had, as one of its results,
the forcing out
st revolutionary leaders, and militant nationalists from power and office and, sometimes, circulation or
even from life itself Abdul Rahman Muhammad Babu suffered that fate, ',vas lucky to be alive to
become an international revolutionary or revolutionary-at-He chose London as his base, from where he
literally roamed the world, writing and g. In 1981, he published a very useful book, African Socialism
or Socialist Africa? , the author said was addressed to "the emerging workers and youths to arouse their
t in the real problems which face them in their daily lives. It is a down-to-earth 1 manifesto". The book
argued against African Socialism and for Socialist Africa. I privilege ofreviewing the book in the
August 1983 issue of Nigerian Democratic INDR). Comrades Babu and Malcolm X met in Cairo in
July 1964 at the second Summit of ly-formed Organisation ofAfrican Unity (OAU) which was
followed by a Summit Non-aligned Movement. As the two revolutionaries were meeting, Malcolm
X's .ty, Harlem, New York, was burning. The black youths, who were up in arms, colm X to come back
and lead them. Malcolm was confused. He did not know rush back home or continue with these

important meetings. Babu helped Malcolm the two objectives: meeting and discussing with antiimperialist leaders (including Julius Nyerere) of the Third World and heading home to lead his people
in battle. some of the testimonies of young African-Americans after his assassination: X. more than any
other individual helped the Negro race raise the image of itself. than any other, helped the Negro show
more pride in being a Negro", Malcolm to me because he stood up like a man and fought so strongly
for his beliefs. did not run over anybody to get him to believe as he did. He simply talked and t ed to
believe him did so. Malcolm X fought for what he believed in. It is ,n to fight for his beliefs". But the
man is hardly remembered in the American Why? Because he advocated a fundamental change, from
the roots up, al methods, including methods of the oppressors. This was different from :Lng's advocacy
of what amounted to supplication. (2.- to the Malcolm X Conference: Babu and I spoke on the general
sub-7,-.ration and Social Revolution". In his contribution, Babu made the following had the vision to
see the threat that a united Third World countries ? 7.7eriali sm. That threat has been expressed
continuously since the end of War. For instance, althoughAmerican imperialism was fighting
communism, 't this period, you would find that American presidents - everyAmerican
417

prd1thtQhave a Third (3,ct 1Pader 4s a villain. They never fought,the, Rus T1fith_ Kiln II Sung, thc 1:1
91-e4ne4der, -as the villairxpnd hepobilieCALm forpqs and internationalforces to 4,4this villain
Tisenhower had Mao Tse Tung as Russians,, hut, a _ -ennedy 4adiCpstro, ,no-astro. Paen4ilip .
1113,44t1IP'v,i4ni NiNg114 4ifYillaill was Silw,Q ' ctiq,! p ha4tqsilp-,s,. spy Vag po4AtFy ipr4r
prpyp-Sillogo,41( was Rpnic fr.44 wasffolloNcdtby,gpagan Lof, ya.,7,AnAppwwQ-114-yp Auo-i
fathowttiii.-orTieop_Nsjdpinl.--witiv54.44Auliti. Comrade Babu spok ibPe words i,4New Yr tvo 01
FrAmenL prgaidept:s Ilayq S C.414911444:cip9rge, -4s ,43,,r, ,.,.,e?ptc4r4oq: erited
ytilaimalgtalekais,precle.PPWs-4011,t:a149,4 a new onejwho became his,p SiOcKialknipsevicf
flother(th4neal-1 Ellis predecessors .12y inberiting ,creafjp.ggyqal nywi ero,.anyillain is no loner in
office, or has died (w1-1 as Y,.49rpeirli ofIppAnFt 1,11. SURgaiNCirth Korea), he (1,1
gclA1101'SuCCes915--Inorder t9-1:?Q-akig tq.qlPr4)j-s,-4rla divert attention from, or rather bury, the
fact that he did not actually will:the:Ai:,n pre,sidotialelection; President, Geo,rgo. W Ii4sh:igiioxqc1lhe
warnings organisations that a terrorist-4tta4 prOgrcrica w4:ript, ply JAcely 1214i1:n1*n; prg. 149
wal: forzbgiteMtists, whose realsponspr, Argstiltuanowloo prcyvia Oith thQ:)rcuse designaeglobal
villains."And theydiA ;ct. Today, the list ofimpedalistrdesigia* "villains". is enclless,...the leaders ofAlQ Talibart,,Clib,4, Palestine, Syria, Iran, NortfkKoreA, Venezu0a, Libya and, above all, Jr They are
41,1 from the Third Worldjbat. was what Babu,a,ncl,Malcolm X were ayin2. mobiliwthp!
`international community', or Alprpopratic for:his campaign against `` terror", President Bush
hastcedEuropeian leaders to qarne their own yillains and 1 them included in the list. Many: ofthem
compliebut some are sti,11.quesiopinc.-. AmerioanlistAnd, in particmlari American plans to deal with
the villains, especially Sac,' Hussein ofiraq. Even ifPresid.entBush. is finally Nrskiraded to postpone
hisplanncd ava._ of Ir4q;,Which many people, across the gloke. believe will be:c*astrqphic, tliere as
bour. be,.!soOnet than later, an explosion within the ranks of hisr!`anti-terrorjsf,' coalition. wortd is
waiting. rfi.(itt
1'efj) !?","'
1
;
418

AwN.N7Einil
opponent's "territory" to rig was not only more criminal but also subversive 4 f class interests. Let me
explain: If candidates rigged only in their geopolitical tern would have been an equalisation of rigging
opportunity and there would have bee: possibility of the result being generally acceptable if the
candidates were, othenvLst., people. Those who would protest would be the "unserious" candidates and
they ignored by the party leaders, the electoral authorities and the government. What
anger Nzeribe most was the fact that some SDP candidates. crossed Rivers Benue to rig. This greedy
action, in his view, subverted the cohesion of the poli 00:11 Senator Nzeribe and his colleagues in the
National Assembly swore to uthicil defend the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic ofNigeria.
What this :1: the National Assemblymen and women swore that their activities would be letters and
spirit of that constitution. That constitution contains the provisic.- impeachment of the president and
state governors. Nzeribe studied these cor provisions, and mastered them. He then started to watch the
actions of the pr his ministers and assistants. When he was satisfied that he had got sufficient inf.executive "misconduct" and "abuse of office" he prepared an impeachment the president and tabled this
before the senate. Then all hell broke loose. His c:.. from the three parties - descended on him. It was,
for them, immaterial whether the constitutional procedure or not, it was immaterial whether the or
lacked merit. His crime was that by tabling an impeachment notice against the was embarking on a
mission to destroy the "nascent democracy". The seri, :---- who permitted the notice to be tabled was
never forgiven. What Nzeribe demonstrated was that the impeachment provision, like many other
provisior. - =lc Constitution, was not meant to be taken seriously, the swearing of the Senate: and
defend the constitution notwithstanding. Nzeribe practically demonstratedt:i *- Arthur Nzeribe says that
the most critical national assignment for organisation, the Movement for National Accommodation and
Consensus Odi to persuade the registered political parties to adopt President Olusegur. (7: consensus
presidential candidate in the 2003 elections. His argument on the ; of the scheme goes somewhat like
this: "The leadership of Obasanjo's part:, Democratic Party. (PDP), has emphasised several times that
Obasanjo woule be candidate for the 2003 presidential election; the governors of the Alliance for (AD)
are more pro-Obasanjo than the PDP; if my party, the All Peoples Pam: unable to produce a presidential
candidate in the 1999 presidential elect:c 7. political situation was more favourable - what are the
prospects of its being attic a candidate in 2003? So, you see that, objectively, the three political parties
to adopting President Obasanjo for the 2003 presidential election. All that ) doing is to make the
adoption process a smooth one by making it more self-: convincing the pockets of opposition that still
exists." Nzeribe recalls what happened under General Sani Abacha to sh:_- the idea of consensus
candidate is not a strange one, but also that it has a cc,: precedent. He reminds his interviewers and,
through them, the Nigerian plf:- .. rnilll 420 rr ;:111 h;.: Ill

political parties inAbacha's transition programme adopted the General as presidential to for the election
fixed for the second half of1998. If consensus could be achieved five political parties, why should it not
be achievable with three parties that are alrealy_ ctivelv.movininth2tAiri5m-?-Pitich-Nzeribe ancalls
interviewers know that those played the leading roles in the adoption ofAbacha as consensus candidate
are in positions in Obasanjo's Republic, its institutions and parties. So the issue ofpolitical is not
seriously raised. And if it is not raised, Nzeribe will not answer it. Asked why jo should be adopted as a
consensus candidate when everyone knows that the man performed", Nzeribe replies that the question
of "performance" does not arise. e is to make peace between the factions of the political class and

preserve their power. Like all the other members of the political class, Nzeribe is openly and formally
to corruption. But unlike many of his compatriots, he knows and would admit that n takes place in the
institutions of state, including the senate. His position: when charged by the competent authority,
honestly or hypocritically, you must submit investigation and, if found guilty, you must accept the
sanctions officially prescribed. In electoral politics, Nzeribe is not, in principle, opposed to giving
"mobilisation", and "materials". But he would expect that in strategic or caucus discussions 25 should
be called their real name, money, so as to avoid costly misunderstanding. -ords, there is a limit to the
use ofmetaphors. Furthermore in offering and distributing materials," party leaders and workers should
be sensitive to the public positions ions ofthe recipients. Illustration: while some supporters can be
given "materials" ard in the day, others can only be given secretly and at night; and while some come to
collect theirs, others have theirs brought to them. Nzeribe is not opposed but he expects a serious
politician to know its limit. Illustration: However senator may be in the country, the question of his or
her suspension from the be decided not by the millions of his or her supporters and admirers, but by the
the Federal Republic of Nigeria and they are just about a hundred. love Nzeribe.
421

136
Anthony Enahoro Speaks Again 14th March, 2002
CHIEF Anthony Enahoro, the veteran political thinker, nationalist politic 1M.... democrat, pre-eminent
member of his generation of the Nigerian - -, class, courageous fighter and dialectician in political
tactics, has spoken a his country and the world. As has been the case since the early 1990s, he spoke.
-.-,. individual, but through the political movement he formed 10 years ago: the Move::-..,- National
Reformation (MNR). In a statement reported in The Guardian of Feb:-..:..:.-7, 2002, he returned, once
again, to his core political concern in this historical period: -:?,,:-. political restructuring ofNigeria. It is
not that Enahoro is concerned only with.geo-7,: .11 restructuring; it is that he sees ethno-linguistic
autonomy and self-determination wi -2 federation ofNigeria, and hence, the geo-political restructuring
ofthe country alma` fir" s" linguistic lines as the dominant political question at this time. My study
ofthe dogged convinces me that he is also concerned - and genuinely so - with constitutional s t:,..,
democracy, the rule of law, human rights, social welfarism and egalitarianism, full emplc,:, . peaceful
co-existence, governmental transparency and accountability, decency in 7 affairs and modernisation. As
Saint Paul put it in relation to love, Enahoro is telling us that without thz- 7, political restructuring
ofNigeria along ethno-linguistic lines, carried out through a SOVf7-1 National Conference (SNC), we
cannot achieve the other desirables listed above, 'V. Nigerians may not agree with him for various
reasons - altruistic and not so altruistic . doubt that any open-minded and historically-informecl
Nigerian will fail to admire and rc: Kir the categorical and insistent character of his proposal, and the
brilliant, serious, rigor:1i" passionate and thoughtful manner he has put it across in the last 10 years. I
respect hii.:i his proposition. Although I have my own doubts, reservations and fears, if a referenda
today ordered for a choice between his proposition and those of other professional politicL, I would not
only vote for him, but would also abandon my job to mobilise others to dc iii? But that is not the end of
the matter, but the beginning. We must look deeply, and equ.].,_ thoughtfully, into his submissions. At
the start of MNR's current campaign, in 1992, Enahoro proposed restructuring ofNigeria into eight
regions or federations - four in the North and four= in -:1 South. Nigeria will then be a federation of
federations. A fundamental premise of this prop:- A is that there are, at most, 70 ethnic groups in
Nigeria. He actually went ahead and lie them, not just in a single document, but in a series of them. If
you challenge or reject 1.._1:,,, premise, or regard as ethnic groups what Enahoro classifies as sub-

ethnic groups, or ir., :F,;11

422

that what Enahoro calls dialects of a language are distinct languages, then you are logically bound to
reject his eight-region structure. But let us follow his thinking and argument. In one ofthe position
papers issued by MNR in 1992, the movement offered 'Mc) wasons for their demand for the
TesiTucturing of the Nigerian polity. The first is the need to resolve "the nationalities question in
Nigeria." The second is the need "to restore genuine federalism as envisaged by the country's founding
fathers, by the creation of units large enough to perform the functions originally reserved for the
regions but which have been progressively eroded by the Federal Government, by reason, among other
causes, of the diminutiveness and impecuniousness of the present states." I would love to hear any
Nigerian refute these two submissions, for I cannot. Proceeding from here, Enahoro's movement
proposed the following eight-region federal structure, where each region is itself a federation: Western
Federation, comprising os, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ondo states and any additional states created
therefrom State has since been created from Ondo State); South Central Federation comprising
es made up of each of the nationalities, or group of nationalities, in Edo and Delta states; Central
Federation, comprisingAnambra, Enugu, Abia and Imo states and any additional created therefrom
(Ebonyi State); South Eastern Federation, comprising states made ef each of the nationalities or group
of nationalities in Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross states (and we may now add Bayelsa State); Central
Federation, comprising states up of each of nationalities or group of nationalities in Benue, Plateau,
Bauchi and a states (and we may now add Gombe and Nasarawa states); North Eastern ion, comprising
states made up of each of the nationalities or group of nationalities a, Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states;
Northern Federation, comprising Kebbi, Katsina, Kano and Jigawa states and any additional states
created therefrom (and now add Zamfara State); and finally, West Central Federation, comprising states
of each of the nationalities or group of nationalities in Niger, Kwara and Kogi a. I 2 zreed completely
with this proposal in 1992 and, on the basis of this agreement, a one-man alliance with Chief Enahoro.
I called the eight-region structure the 'le of triple balancing: balance between the North and the South,
balance between and the West, and balance between the majority ethnic groups and the minority
Ten years later, in February 2002, Chief Enahoro and the MNR radically modified
sed political restructuring. They now propose an 18-region structure, inspired e ethnic selfdetermination considerations cited above. In their new proposal in part, from the pre-independence
Constitution of 1951, also, in part, they used viability" and population as criteria. Twelve of the regions
or federations, according . are mono-nationalities:" Ibibio, Ijaw, Igbo, Urhobo, Edo, Yoruba, Nupe,
Tiv, zvi, Hausa and Kanuri. Six of the 12 federations are in the South and six are in .1 am very familiar
with these names, except Gbagyi - that is, if the media got it I can see with my mind's eyes where they
are located and who their neighbours ning six regions or federations are designated "multinationalities," that is,
423

each of them is a grouping of "small" nationalities, including in particular, 0 g1/4-: Ikwerre, Annang
and Oron (I know them very well) whose political leaders claim ne, full-fledged nations, of equal status
and equal stake, with the "big" nationalities in. Again, the multi-nationality federations are divided
equally between the the South: three each. The Middle Belt claims the three multi-nationality federa-L.
wu North; in the South, the East has two and the West has one. (For geo-political deter.= of the ten-ns
North, East and West, please refer to the 1951 Constitution; and -17: refer to the administration of

colonial Nigeria before the Richards Constitution . As we can see, the principle of triple balancing does
not hold in the 18-region Even then I agree with, and tail behind, Chief Enahoro and the MNR. Why?
Sec' given Enahoro's fundamental concern - which I share - the new structure transc former one, that is,
absorbs it and goes beyond it in the direction of the ideal: ethnic determination and popular and
grassroots democracy. But this agreement is itselfbas-the inviolability of Enahoro's overall ideological
framework detailed earlier. 7.-1:io constitutional secular democracy, the rule of law, human rights,
social welfarl.saii, egalitarianism, full employment, governmental transparency and accountability,
public affairs, peaceful co-existence and modernisation (and I may now add, genuine 7 independence).
With this proviso I agree with them because their proposal is a z_:angt:
II
VIII ,:t?.I1
1111u
III 14;
HI 1
towards popular and grassroots democracy. I also agree with the retention of the Language as national
language, simultaneously with the promotion of local law_ local use. But problems still exist. First,
Southern politicians and political activists will still insist on resource co, fiscal federalism and the
establishment of state police. Many Northern politicians will with these and even with the 18-region
structure. Secondly, whereas Chris Akiti nationalist, will be happy, the followers of Ken Saro-Wiwa in
Ogoniland. counterparts in Efildand, Annang "nation," Oron "nation" and the "Atams" in nort,.- River
State, just to mention a few, are likely to express reservations. Thirdly, belong to the Nigerian nation as
an entity? How will assets be shared? I can see for the ownership of several towns and cities leading to
civil wars - u la Yugos; will the restructuring affect national institutions such as the Armed Forces and
the Police? To be fair to Chief Anthony Enahoro and the MNR, they have dealt .%;41 issues, and
several others, in several policy statements since 1992. But I do u'DE people will still recall them. What
is now required of the leadership of MNR is a and publication of these policy statements as a single
document, a definite ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), less interest in the 2003 elections, al:.
popular-democratic organisations, and invigorated campaign for a Sovereign Conference.
1111, i+
1411'111
411111111
424
IIV 110111 ,

Marxists on Resource Control 3rd May, 2001

F. GG. Darah is my long-distance teacher in the application of Marxism to the ethnic question in the
epoch of "globalization" and "postmodernism". His most recent pamphlets include: "No Retreat on
Resource Control" and "Resource - is Divine Law". Although I have known Comrade Darah as a bright
Marxist IIIi1ii. Lai for a long time, somewhere between 20 and 25 years, he has not always been her in
the sense in which I now use the term. As a member of the Radical Left Darah had, for about a decade
(from late 1970s to late 1980s) distinguished 3s a very conscious activist, always prescribing and
defending the correct Marxist it :le saw it - honestly, selflessly and with all the energy and intellect
he could muster. tuna- closest ally in this self-imposed mission was the late Comrade Qla Oni. Beyond

11,.. I:zah distinguished himself in the movement as an expert in the production of ir ....7._ques from
usually stormy meetings and conferences. (We recall that meetings of -,vere usually stormy). He would,
even before delegates had finished packing their a draft statement that would satisfy the largest fraction
of the participants. opted Comrade Darah as a teacher for two interconnected reasons. First, he
mr-,.._1:12d a Marxist even while dealing passionately with the ethnic and social minority Secondly,
he is from the Niger Delta. Let me explain the connection between -.o criteria. I would simply have
listened to Darah with sympathy if he was not a Efhis only attribute had been that he is from the Niger
Delta. On the other hand, if been only a Marxist interested in the ethnic question, I would have paid
close miL,L what he writes, but would not have adopted him as a teacher. Darah is the rnufli :::frian
Marxist ofmy own generation from the Niger Delta whose passion on the - ::::stion has deeply
impressed me. The first was Anthony Engurube, a Nigerian of n;::::on who collapsed and died in
Lagos a few years ago while arguing the fate of Delta with his insensitive neighbours. I met Comrade
Tony at the University of cap') er 1973 at the height of the Arab-Israeli war. I was then a graduate
student .tics in the university while Tony was an itinerant Marxist agitator. Before my ouni ? di Tony,
although I regarded myself as a radical socialist, I was on the side of .. loody war. How I found myself
on Israeli side I cannot clearly remember _ wever guess that my support was an expression of a
resilient strand of my luar msciousness. _-_,:ounter with Tony, inevitably, I can now say, transferred my
sympathy to the an side. But beyond that, I learnt that the Marxist social theory and methodology
425

can be applied not only to relations between social classes but also, and with equal for relations
between races, nations, nationalities and other social categories. This NI landmark in my development.
The irony of the matter, however, is that although 1 Engurube's application of Marxism to imperialism
and the national question played a role in transforming me to a Marxist, for a long time thereafter I
virtually neglected national question and Tony's passionate attitude to it. And yet Tony remained very c
I c sit me, politically, emotionally and physically from 1973 until 1994 when I left Lagos. I no] or could
not, fully appreciate Tony Engurube, this exceptional revolutionary Marxist, soc: humanist, nationalist
and internationalist, until he passed away, destroyed by the corn': force of the iniquity perpetrated on
the people of the Niger Delta and the failure comrade and compatriots to appreciate the reality,
specificity and enormity of c: oppression and exploitation in Nigeria. G.G Darah is another opportunity
offered history to appreciate the Niger Delta question from a Marxist and native source. Resource
control is a non-Marxist term. But we know what those who coine.. term and have now popularized it
mean by it. Resource control is an aspect of the e-11.711i question, ultimately the core aspect. What
GG Darah has been saying and what, h him, Tony Engurube was saying, can be summarized as
follows; "Since crude o:: discovered in commercial quantity in the Niger Delta about half a century
ago, this na resource has been exploited for the benefit of areas ofNigeria other than the Niger it and
Nigerians other than the people of the Niger Delta: Indeed, the more the Niger Dell produces, the
deeper its destitution. This massive and continuous exploitation has 1,- sustained by the structure of
power in Nigeria which has been weighted against the pit. of the Niger Delta from the last phase of
decolonisation to the present. To arrest this sip.: gait and then reverse it, the Niger Delta must control
its resources within the context ofrenegc: and restructured Nigeria, that is, a truly federal and genuinely
democratic Nigeria. summary is mine, but I am convinced it captures.their advocacy. The summary is
the case of the Niger Delta. That is how a Niger Delta natior would summarize the case. That is how
Darah, and Engurube, before him, would sung, it. It is the detailed argument that will reveal differences
in ideological orientation and poi persuasion. It is in these details that class analysis (national,

international and local explanatory notes will come in. My question is whether, before the detailed
argumen even in the absence of it, this summary should be acceptable to a Nigerian Marxist answer is
yes: first, because it is correct at the general, that is, macro level; and seco: because that is how the
masses of the Niger Delta now apprehend the matter, any fighting it out. Some of our Marxist
compatriots will not accept this summary stater even with explanation. And in doing this, they would
not care discrediting Marxisi denying what everyone else sees. The irony here is that these compatriots
would cla. be the real Marxists; others are denounced as tribalists. But the real tragedy is that f very
long-time these Marxists who deny reality were treated in the movement with and, sometimes, even
reverence. My categorical position now is that anyone who de: the Niger Delta case, even as
summarized, cannot be a Marxist or a socialist or a Ni nationalist. But since I am committed to
Nigerian unity, and in particular the
426

leftist forces within the country, I shall, for political reasons, reduce my saying that they are Marxists of
a strange type. :o which I had made reference include the following: that the exploitation :s carried out
by the alliance of the Nigerian ruling classes and imperialism; imperialism exercises a hegemony;
that within the Nigerian ruling classes,
Niger Delta is a miserable minority in numerical strength, in wealth and rn I ority status is both the
cause and effect of the exploitation of the Niger within the Nigerian state; that the dominant fractions of
the Nigerian ruling the wealth they loot from the Niger Delta for the benefit of "their people" poor
people whose names are invoked in vain are often mobilized to fight nun 77_ -,-;:nies on the "other
side;" that there are many privileged, comfortable and le in the Niger Delta, some of who are
collaborators in the massive moiltielr people"; that at several levels the material conditions of the
Nigerian across the land; and that the best revolutionary strategy of liberation is to s sed and
dispossessed across the land. some of the points a Marxist is expected to make in the argument of the
or presented. And it is these facts that will inform a Marxist formation both - other radical political
groups and in its participation in the mass political m the problem. But a Marxist is not permitted to use
this class analysis to the Niger Delta question as earlier summarized.
'1111
427

138
A Reading of Bola Ige 5th April, 2001
I HAVE met Chief Ige only once. It was in July 1994 when we assembled -tc -nr last respect to
Comrade Napo Fatogun at the Lagos Headquarters of the Niii; v" Labour Congress (NLC). We took
our turns in testifying to the exemplary revc 1...6.(d career of Fatogun whose remains lay in front of us
in a simple casket. As Ige deli-, own oration, I asked myself: "Why is this man not one ofus?" "Why is
he not a m the Marxist socialist movement from which Fatogun has just taken a final exit?.' said what
others had said and even more; but his delivery was so eloquent, eon: refreshing historical sweep,
philosphy and bold political judgement on the mov spoke without notes and without quotations; but he
spoke with passion not the contrived passion that is common at funerals. Bola Ige's passion was a pure
fl ii, enveloped patriotism, nationalism and deep commitment to the striving of the the earth". Since
that day I have paid close attention to what Bola Ige does, sa writes, as well as what people say about

him and do to him. I have, in particular, f. Ali his political career since he was appointed into the
cabinet of President Olusegun Or It is Bola Ige's current "tribulations" that have prompted my present
intervention.. _ this, I thank Reuben Abati for brilliantly articulating these "tribulations", and detail::-.,g
several people thought about them, in his article: "Ige's Darkest Moments" (The G: March 16, 2001).
Bola Ige has been charged with six offences: five specific and one Qer.;'.--ral. specific offences are that
he is disloyal to Afenifere, the Yoruba ethnic organ,z, which he is deputy leader; that he swayed the
Alliance for Democracy (AD) awa:, '.... wishes ofAfenifere and towards President Obasanjo; that he is
openly contemp.,11:-),, hostile to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a party in whose government he
Di a prominent position; that he is no longer committed to the call for a Sovereign ., Conference
(SNC), alleged to be ideals of true federalism. The general "offence-has failed to live up to what was
expected of a leading Awoist like himself. This "offence" arose, in particular, from his recourse to the
Supreme Court for the det,_ of the resource control controversy a question on which the AD and the
sou political zones have taken a clear political position. According to Abati, if Chief Awolowo, that
great Nigerian, had been asked to take such a case to court, he w called a press conference to renounce
the instruction, and thereafter would ha\ e his appointment. I shall come back to this after examining
the specific charges.
428

f all the charges against Bola Ige is his membership in Obasanjo's membership, Ige simply explained:
"I was invited by President Obasanjo
Ti\i'f71:1ent, and through it, serve the people; and I accepted." This was a clear a type of statement that
I enjoy reading. It is clear and precise 5 _ in three directions. First, Ige did not mention PDP. This party,
we recall, jit Obasanjo into its ranks; and on its platform the newly-released prisoner Aential election
and won. PDP is therefore the party theoretically and ini at the centre. Secondly, Ige did not mention
AD, a party he played a ming, in whose leadership he is and on whose platform he is participating
initc::!:: fthe Fourth Republic. Thirdly, he did not mention Afenifere whose Deputy '-ie simply said he
was invited by President Obasanjo and he accepted. ins issue from this simple statement if we put it
against the background of 7 77 Ige and the political history ofNigeria in general and that ofYorubaland
made a distinction between Olusegun Obasanjo and the PDP. Ige's however, the popular, but largely
false one that is usually made, in an al system, between the Executive President, the ruling Party, and
the system we are taught the president, once elected and installed, is expected ,17,1;;a:- an in his or her
governance; the president is expected to be the "father" president relates with the party in the
background in the sphere of broad 1 ationship is expected to be that of mutual respect. That is what the
text distinction that Ige makes between President Obasanjo and the PDP is type. Ige thinks that
Obasanjo and the PDP are two different entities. He for the former, but contempt for the latter. Ige
critics should, please, find the basis of Ige's "unorthodox" distinction between the president and his the
man is largely correct in making this distinction. Whether he is correct in the distinction the way he is
doing is a questiori mAadics carintha-ea. kinows where the man is heading, what his overall political
strategy and vision for are. Anyone who succeeds in compelling Ige to make a general and categorical
on this would be lifting the level of this debate. ZT boasts that in his home-town, Esa-Oke, in Osun
State, not even one vote was i---)DP in the 1998/99 elections. Consequently Ige does not think he
offends being openly contemptuous of his party; he believes that only two people can
c mm tms custarcaratir 4ilinfter he' is curreta:Tir- " T loing is a questiori mAadics1/1%:thl cann-ObJeam-tt, ading, what his overall political strategy and vision for s in compelling Ige to make a general and
categorical level of this debate. awn, Esa-Oke, in Osun State, not even one vote was aions.
Consequently Ige does not think he offends lows of his party; he believes that only two people can

government; he Ige, and Obasanjo, and of course, ) the PDP. Bola Ige is loyal to the AD and Afenifere,
-4. _4 41-.; 1 T-T;c ltywoltxf ic infnrmed and
and nf rouyse. the man is largely con ,nle distinction the way he is knows where the man is h are.
Anyone who succe on this would be lifting th boasts that in his home-PDP in the 1998/99 el, ge, by
being openly contemp his tenure in Obasanjo does not owe his position

down on this matter and force him to confirm or deny. If the former, he should the:- Bola Ige's current
position on the Sovereign National Conference follows: He says that those who participated in the
1998/99 transition politics aria have no moral right to continue to demand the convocation of an SNC;
that s
and organisations, including his own AD, have forfeited the right to campaign for agreeing to
participate in the elections that produced the present "sovereign gov He did not say that the call for
SNC was no longer legitimate nor popular. He sa:, hypocritical for certain persons and groups to
continue to call for it. Bola Ige is his compatriots on the question of consistency; he is opposing
opportunism dis tactics. On resource control: Having accepted to serve in Obasanjo's governmer_l_ the
1999 Constitution, Ige does not see why he should resign as Attorney-Ge:-,-_-7 Justice Minister merely
because he was asked by this same government to s, interpretation of a constitutional provision in the
Supreme Court. Ige is, perhaps, I am, that resource control in Nigeria is not a constitutional matter, but
a politi revolutionary one. It cannot be finally settled, one way or another, in the court. It has settled
politically and the settlement enshrined in a new constitution. Remember Isaac remember Sara Wiwa.
Finally, I think that the current invocation of the name of Chief Obafemi A\ \ is cheap. A distinction has
to be made between Awolowo, a political genius, but none-2-J. a mortal, who died in 1987 and
Awoism, a political philosophy which has to cony: develop. To invoke what Awolowo would have done
if put in Ige's position in 2,2)0 mystical, unscientific and unpolitical. What we can invoke is Awoist
position on Ige's co But you cannot do this unless Awo's followers have laboured to develop the p& _
philosophy ofAwoism beyond 1987.
430
13
Colonel Abubakar Umar 19th February, 2004
T heard ofAbubakar Umar, then a major in the Nigerian army, in 1985. He was - I hope remember
correctly - the military personnel in control of the Federal using Estate, Lagos. His revolutionary
language sounded so out of place in the army that I asked who the young army officer was, and I was
told that he had ical student activist before joining the Nigerian army. Later that year, on August 27,
1985, he was featured as one of the young army who overthrew the military government of General
Muhammadu Buhari and installed Ibrahim Babangida in power. This group of army officers became
known in the press as "Babangida boys". They were reputed to be fiercely loyal to Babangida. -rmed
this several times. On one occasion he told the press that he could go to side of General Babangida,
"blindfolded". This was a clear statement of absolute oning loyalty. 1986, I met Umar in Kaduna when
I led a delegation of the Political Bureau to the a state. In our discussion, he appeared to me and, I
would say, to other members gation, as a progressive army officer in addition to being radical - for
history has that one can be radical in a direction different from the progressive one. He tried
us that the Babangida regime, which he helped install, and of which he was now a -ened in governance

in order to stop the decay of the polity and lay a foundation democratic and progressive nation. I did
not doubt his sentiments and inclinations, the limitations of a single combatant who was so loyal to a
commander with mi,ght not share the same vision. Before then at the inauguration of the Bureau in
Abuj a on Monday, January 13, lort..:-.-ssed the closeness between Umar and General Babangida. At
the end of the which followed the inauguration, I had cornered Umar for one or two questions. to his
car, Babangida discovered that Umar, with whom he rode in the same car, with him. The general came
back and literally dragged Umar away. "Come on, s overnor", the general said with his usual smile.
They walked away, hand in hand, ' Laughed. hat I have tried to confirm in the preceding paragraphs is
two-fold: First, that Abubakar Umar (rtd) was a radical and progressive army officer; and secondly,
N'izerian army officer, he was fiercely loyal to General Babangida and his leadership; onally, he is
close to the general. This held true at least up to the end of the as military president on August 26,
1993.
431

We now come to the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential electic: Chief Moslaood Abiola won.
What we knew then was that the military regime. hGeneral Babangida, as president, annulled the
election, or rather, the electic Subsequent events, media scoops and rumours were to lead us to a
number air:2'7.1F guesses. First, that the brutal manner General Sani Abacha, as second-in-coi::77.General Babangida in the military hierarchy, dealt with the anti-annulment protests suggested that
Abacha played a very prominent and critical role in the annulment. Secondly, we suspected that the
military regime was divided both on the of annulment and what should happen thereafter. It would
appear that the disengage-7J, General Babangida, together with his replacement by the Interim National
Gove (ING) which was inaugurated on August 25, 1993 and headed by Chief Ernest She was a
compromise solution. Thirdly, it would appear that the coup of November which put an end to the ING
and brought General Abacha to power was a repudi-- DIM that compromise. And fourthly, that Colonel
Abubakar Umar was opposed to the -:'",7111111 chain of events: from the annulment, through the
disengagement ofBabangida, throu ING, to the Abacha coup. One can guess that the gradual ascension
of power by General Abacha from the ann-up to his coup ofNovember 1993 was an agreement between
him and General Baba._ But, then, an agreement is not always a statement of equality. There can be an
age= between the weak and the strong, between the vanquished and the victor. If B ab zat was the weak
and the vanquished in the Babangida-Abacha agreement, we can guess Umar, with his fierce loyalty to
Babangida, was also in the agreement, and in a vanquished position. We can also guess that the safety
and well-being ofboth General Babangicyw. Colonel Umar were part of that agreement with General
Abacha. And ifAbacha break that agreement in spite of "provocations" from Umar it must have been
beci..11::(,,. Abacha, though strong, was not strong enough to break the agreement. One can pro:,,7
three reasons why Umar has so far not openly criticised Babangida for the annulment: loyalty; the fact
that Umar knows what actually happened; and the fact that Babangida said very little about the event beyond accepting responsibility as Head of State at
II I11111111
II uu
time.
Colonel Abubakar Umar supported General Olusegun Obasanjo in the latt struggle to become an
elected president in 1999. Just as Babangida did. The Colonel also have played a part in the decision to
release General Obasanjo from pris Abacha died the year before. Just as Babangida definitely did. I
hope I shall not when I say that the relationship between President Obasanjo and General Babanc.z the

latter came to office on May 29, 1999 has been, to say the least, complica..:.21 confusing and,
therefore, unclear. They are friends; and they are enemies. Babangida is generally seen as Obasanjo's
strong supporter, but the form portrayed as the latter's bitterest opponent. Babangida plans to supplant
Obasanjc elections in 2007. In this plan, Obasanjo is portrayed as Babangida's strongest si but he is also
portrayed as Babangida's strongest demobiliser. In all this, they si
432

:_erectly but through their associates, friends, supporters and personal staff. Recently, fr. two
"gladiators" - one for Babangida, the other for Obasanjo - came to the open: mar Umar and Femi FaniKayode. The difference between them is that whereas least on this occasion, spoke for himself, FaniKayode spoke directly and officially _gent Obasanjo as the latter's Special Assistant. Umar can easily
insist that he is for himself, but Fani-Kayode cannot make such a claim.' The language and words
employed by Umar in his open letter to President Obasanjo proper understanding of the Lord" and
published in The Guardian, January Cu :2- and the first part of Fani-Kayode's response, titled "The
government has been Abubakar Umar" and published in The Guardian, February 2, 2004, were similar:
and harsh. I am, by no means, a hater of harshness in political criticism, debates, and s. But I have
always admonished that a political polemicist should not allow an ve reader to begin to guess what his
or her motives are. Make them clear. If someone cu a thief, do not respond by saying: "you nko, you no
be thief?". Answer the charge and convincingly as possible; after this, you can make your own charge,
in a stronger if you like. doubt if an argument gains anything by personal abuses. Purged of its
language, it.:=ar was saying is what many people have been saying of President Obasanjo's ent,
namely, that it is dictatorial, intolerant, unresponsive to people's real needs o-messianic. Umar could
have added to the literature by citing his personal , if any. Do not clothe your personal experiences in
generalities, although, with it is legitimate to generalise from personal experiences. semi Fani-Kayode's
response did not confront lima'. 's charges, or the Colonel's -id "warnings". Rather, he concentrated on
suggesting what could have been the mar's bitterness: failure to get all he wanted from the present
government. He on to reveal the sum of money he claimed Babangida gave to Umar to start an e He
also cited other forms of assistance Umar had received and the involvement 1: in lucrative sectors of
the Nigerian economy. Fani-Kayode also cast doubts on tipro-June 12 claims and commitment. I don't
know how wiser we are with this type tions". With changes in names and dates what Fani-Kayode said
of Umar and can be said of almost all Nigerian rulers, past and present. Fani-Kayode ended with what I
consider the high point of his response: "Again, he His a man who is desperately seeking relevance and
who cannot get over the fact that group that he holds brief for will never smell power in Nigeria again".
This 7,7uointer to what is to come. Be prepared!
433

140
Awolowo's People's Republic 28th November, 2002
0 UR youths are so alienated, disoriented and disconnected from the natio:- !I that I may need to start
this piece by introducing the main subject. Obafemi Awolowo. Born in 1909 at Ikenne, in present day
Ogun State c died 78 years later in the same town, Obafemi Awolowo was one of the three to British
government handed over Nigeria on October 1, 1960, one of the other two of the troika was Dr Nnamdi

Azikiwe who was the leader of the National C Nigeria and Camerouns (NCNC), Premier of Eastern
Region, President of: .-. . after the 1959 Federal Elections and Governor-General of Nigeria after ind,::--,(::i
The other was Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, who was the lea,: Northern Peoples
Congress (NPC) and Premier of Northern Region. ChiefAwoknv the leader of the Action Group (AG)
and leader of Opposition in the Federal H :,1 Representatives. There were, of course, other
constitutional leaders, including, ir, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister of the Federation; but Ahn-i _ Azikiwe
andAwolowo constituted the first circle of the constitutional leadership British handed over power as
they departed. Awolowo was the de-facto leader of Opposition in the Federal 7.. Representatives for
only about 18 months, from January 1960 to about June 1 that month he lost his freedom and did not
regain it until early August 1966. H last 33 months of his incarceration in Calabar prison. Awolowo was
releas bloody counter-coup that produced General Yakubu Gowon. After an unsuccessf_ as a peacemaker, Awolowo became a partisan of the Federal Government in the Biafra War, otherwise known as
the Nigerian Civil War. He contested the 1979 PTT-.4:S. election under the party he formed, the Unity
Party of Nigeria (IAN. He lost. He cc again in 1983. And again, he lost. The army seized power at the
end of that year. ,,11\ died in May 1987, 41 months after the army seized power. General Olusegun 0;7
as'
an elected president, assumed office in Nigeria in May 1999, 16 years after Shagari, the first Executive
President of Nigeria, was removed by an army jur.: General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim
Babangida, Brigadier Tunde Idia.: Brigadier Sani Abacha. But why this sudden remembrance of Chief
Obafemi Awolowo? I remembering his birth; nor his death; nor any particular event associated with
him, - in death. So, why Awolowo in November 2002? My answer will be to n circumstances under
which the name presented itself to me. I had a reason, in 1 a survey of post-primary schools in Calabar.
One of my findings was that goy 434
um I II!

schools, although quite small in number, together accounted for more than 80 per Df secondary school
student population in the municipality. The largest of these state st-..iltions included: Holy Child
Secondary School (girls only); Duke Town Secondary Hope Waddel Training Institution, West African
People's Institution (WAPI) and ,Patrick's College. The population of the first school was over 2000,
with a teaching staff of over 100. then, the school was still considered understaffed. Today, the student
population has reduced to less than half of the 1996 level. In relative terms, the staff situation has to
less than half of what it was in 1996. In other words, if there was a teacher to x is in 1996, there is now
a teacher to more than 2x students. What has happened? Mate government decided at the end of last
school session to hand over many of its Is to their "former owners" that is Christian Missions. The
immediate result ofthis was ithdrawal of students whose parents could not pay the new school fees, in
some cases four times the previous fees, and the disengagement of teachers of other religious . A
similar calamity has befallen all the other schools cited above and several others in iicipality and the
state. The same situation, I have been informed, obtains across states of the country, especially east of
the Niger. I was reflecting on this sad situation and the obvious satisfaction of the Cross River -emment
with its "achievement" when my mind drifted , and then settled on Obafemi -o who, during his (1963-

1966) incarceration in Calabar Prisons, worked so hard question of free education not only as a social
imperative, but as a fundamental right. Awolowo, a pre-eminent social thinker, a foremost philosopher
of education istent advocate of universal and free education, who had put his ideas into practice was
Premier of Western Region (1952-1959), planned and then made the first fthree books while in Prison
in Calabar: Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution
,,
The People's Republic (1968); and The Strategy and Tactics of the Peoples kgeria (1970). The trilogy
was a critical reflection on the general problem of Nigeria, a democratic, truly united, welfarist and
economically self-reliant nation ed the People's Republic. In particular, it was a review ofthe
experiences of ublic (1960-1965) more than half of which he had spent in one type of . or another.
Awolowo's trilogy, a landmark work of permanent significance, I pick just of immediate relevance
here: social objectives and geopolitical restructuring.
A'
(II)
IIIIL I
llo: o listed seven social objectives. These were: free education at the post-at-w el; free education at
the post-primary level; free and compulsory primary free and compulsory education for adults; free
preventive and curative health :. a "comprehensive and compulsory social insurance scheme for all
Nigerian
"schemes for the care and rehabilitation of orphans, the infirm, the disabled y deficient or deranged",
and "the studied encouragement of art and culture, and athletics throughout the length and breadth of
the country". id also add here the objective of full employment whichAwolowo included c objectives.
The point I would wish to make here is that Awolowo did not
4, 111(11 111
just proclaim these objectives from prison inspiration. He based his propositions of concrete data and
statistics published officially, and responsible and carefu: based on published growth rates in the
economic and social sectors. He was that all the objectives listed under education could be realised
within five years. like to put on record the pre-eminent roles which Tai Solarin (now late) and Gaul F21
have played in the campaign for free universal education in Nigeria. On geo-political restructuring,
Awolowo proposed the division ofNi f7" :" states, 11 of which were to be based on language and the
remaining seven " bases. He listed the composition of each state, its population and indigenous
languages. Of particular interest here is the fact that Awolowo listed Edo and Dt: that were created in
1991, that is 25 years after he made the proposal. But his. state was exclusively Urhobo. The Igbo
speaking areas of the present Delta state :-yt with the ijaw-speaking areas of the present Delta State
with a Delta state which is el, - Ijaw from both sides ofRiver Niger. ChiefAnthony Enahoro has since
refined an, Awolowo's proposals - showing, perhaps, a common origin of their socia:-.noilli
philosophies. When Awolowo's books were released in early 1970s, they were attac the right as well as
the left of the political spectrum. The conservatives accusf:,:_f advocating a lowering of the quality of
education. Their view, in essence, was that is free and is capable of possession by all, must, of
necessity, be of low qua_ ofhigh quality, they claimed, education must be for those who can pay the
fees w continue to rise. In any case, the opponents of universal free education argued proposal was
unrealisable even if it was desirable - which they doubted. Awolowo and exhaustively answered these
objections both in the trilogy and in his subsequent writings and manifestoes. From the left came the
familiar criticism of social welfarsra::! is a mid-way house which at best serves none of the opposing
camps and at worst, itself for appropriation, distortion, and integration into an anti-people prog=rme.
Awolowo insisted that universal free education was socially desirable, feasible In and realisable in
practice, in Nigeria. Beyond that, he argued that universal free was neither capitalist nor socialist: it is a
social objective which every country, system, must pursue, as a priority, if it must develop into an

egalitarian and truly do society of contended and enlightened citizens. The handing over of schools to
the]: owners is a movement in the opposite direction.
436

For Comrade Tony Engurube 3rd November, 2005

today, about 32 years after I first met him, and almost nine years after his I cannot say, with certainty,
where in the Niger Delta of Nigeria Comrade Engurube came from, who his parents and siblings are or
were, what his early :ion looked like or whether he was ever married, or had children. All I can 1. and
testify to without reference or research, was his total and unequalled
.7.k1 passion for, human liberation in Nigeria, in the African continent, and in
aurube was a revolutionary communist, a Marxist, a socialist, a passionate a popular-democrat.
Although - as I have said in relation to few other it is possible to deduce, by logical and dialectical
method of reasoning, that :. these attributes should imply the last three, it is important, in the case of
ube, to list all of them. Tony collapsed and died in Lagos in December onately arguing the need for
self-determination for peoples of the Niger was not a tribalist, and could not have been. Tony Engurube
must have left Nigeria for Europe in the early 1960s to priest. Abandoning the enterprise, he switched
over to other academic was in Europe during the Nigerian Civil War (1966-1970), and for I cannot say,
for certain, whether he returned to Nigeria and then left t L.71 or was in Europe continuously from
early 1960s to early 1970s. It was d that Engurube became a revolutionary Marxist and an antiimperialist a he joined some other Nigerians in diaspora in demonstrations during the - platforms were
transnational and internationalist. e Engurube was arrested, detained, and jailed several times in Europe
erialist and anti-racist struggles. He was also battered, some of the physical with him throughout his
life. Tony could speak and write in at least five usinz:-.2es, English, German, French, Swedish and
Spanish. He could also speak 1111111 all: four Nigerian languages: Yoruba, Ij aw, Hausa and one other
language I au the Niger Delta. I believe he was most fluent in Yoruba. He was an orator ivari and a
voice that commanded attention. : **proletarian" is frequently used in Marxist sociology and politics.
The meaning of proletariat is "a member of the proletarian", where proletariat :u ti :; _.0west social or
economic class of a community; the labouring class, dass of industrial workers who lack their own
means of production and
.01411
437

hence sell their labour to live". Comrade Tony was a proletarian fighter par exceller_.: Nigerian
Socialist Movement has produced very few of his kind in its entire his: c , revolutionary base was
Lagos, among industrial workers, students, youths, artis poor, the despised, the "wretched of the earth",
the unemployed, and the groups collectively referred to as the "lumpen proletariat". The lumpen
proletariat is defined ordinarily as "degraded section of the pro dispossessed and uprooted individuals
cut off from the economic and social 'VAQ which they might normally be identified". If the proletariat
is poor, the lumpen prolc:an simply wretched. In Nigeria today, beggars, destitutes, area boys and area

girls more visible members of the lumpen proletariat. All these constituted Comrade political,
educational, agitational and organisational base and primary constituenc:ii Comrade Tony Engurube
lived in Lagos - if it would not amount to arl win language to use the word "live" in the description of
the reproduction of his lire _1 1972, when I think he returned to Nigeria, and 1996 when he died. His
abode \vas room in a proletarian part of the city. He was an "itinerant revolutionary", but one solid
organisational point of reference. At one time, Tony was the National Ch the Anti-Poverty Movement
ofNigeria (APMON) which I also served, at various National Spokeperson, Acting Editor and National
Secretary. It was on the platf 4 organisation that we confronted the regime of General Yakubu Gowon
and later Generals Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo. Engurube and three other ofAPMON,
including myself, were detained for several months in 1975. I Gani Fawehinmi for our eventual release
from detention. I have told the story of my first encounter with Comrade Engurube seve:-L Nonetheless
I believe that the story properly belongs to this piece. In October 1:- Israelis and the Arabs fought their
fourth full-scale war since the creation of the S Israel in 1948. The war generated a lot of interest
among politically conscious students at the University of Lagos. Every evening we would gather in
front of th7-.-- Cafeteria, or the Library or Mariere residential hall, to discuss the event. During one
discussions someone from the gathering, a proletarian-looking man, a little older average student, a
man we had taken to be a junior worker on the campus ( cleaner or a gardener) shouted: "Excuse me,
please!" We turned towards him, moved to the centre of the gathering. He looked and sounded very
angry at firs:. '- relaxed as he started his "lecture". The man spoke for about an hour, taking us through
the history of Palestine, the er Israel, the previous Arab-Israeli wars, the conditions of Palestinian
refugees, the and role of imperialism in the conflict. He compared the conditions of Palestinians to
blacks in South Africa. He then took us through the history of slavery, colonial imperialism - ending
with a description of how slavish the Nigerian rulers were. V,7e: so many questions and he answered
them patiently. To cut a long story short:a:, Init the man ended his lecture the gathering had been
transformed. I was one of the tr participants. From being uncritical supporters of the State of Israel
most of us _a! advanced to a position where we could objectively appreciate what was going c:
Mil
1111:41,
11111
Mai
'
1
438
t. Some had even turned 180 degree moving from anti-Arab to pro-Arab ... I was, personally, not antiArab; but I had a lot of sympathy for the Jews for what. .iffered over the ages. I left the "workshop"
,Nith a greater appreciation of the pestion. soon as the "workshop" ended, I linked up with the man and
there began a whichlasted 23 years and only ended with Tony's death in December 1996. urube was a
full-time professional revolutionary. He thus gave continuity to and activities of the groups to which he
belonged. He had no other job, ittoc:fi, for no other job. He was supported by friends and comrades,
sometimes as iuio:s- and sometimes as groups. But Tony's needs were meagre. To the best of my Tony
drank no alcohol, smoked no cigarettes and took no hard drugs. His only 1,. 1:71t from occasional bad
eyesight, was stomach ulcer in response to which he often, "but a little at a time". By the latter he
meant something like a big loaf balls of "akara" and four mugs of tea or coffee as early breakfast. But if
breakfast Tony had nothing for three subsequent days he would not complain, _ , -____."Lekv_K_Q_L,ektit.h.usiasal__,hititrtour and. warmth. Most of the time Comrade Tony Engurube
trekked. He could start the day's from Aguda and head for the University ofLagos,Akoka; from there to
Ikeja; *77: there to Lagos Island; and from there to Ebute-Metta where he would pass the night lin a
:omrade's house. Tony adopted this mode of transport for a very straightforward He did not want to

miss any opportunity to engage in struggle: mobilising and ising striking workers, addressing students,
confronting fake itinerant preachers and atilnatz merchants, settling disputes among the oppressed, but
intervening on the part of the L and the exploited where this division was clear. Tony was a practical
man. He hated called "intellectual masturbation". But he was not anti-intellectual. Nine years after he
died arguing the case of the people of the Niger Delta, I think it state categorically that Comrade Tony
Engurube believed in the ultimate weapon
struggle for popular liberation. And I think that in the last phase of his revolutionary at the rise of ethnic
nationality militancy across the southern part of the country, he Ens-fated this conviction practically.
Tony preferred to remain in the background, allowing fact, assisting others to become famous. He
loved the masses and his comrades in ,,the!,::-Tst sense attached to the word "love". From our meeting
in October 1973 to my )sr from Lagos in 1994, Tony regarded me as someone who should be protected
snemy, and he gave this protection. In the fullness of time monuments for Tony isr.-if will be erected in
at least three Nigerian cities: Lagos, Port Harcourt and Yenagoa.
439

12
Remembrance and Re-dedication 10th November, 2005
PERHAPS I developed this habit of remembrance and re-dedication possession of a revolutionary diary
which I cherished so much but lost to the police during one of their regular searches of our home in
those days. Per" practice originated, even earlier, from religious influences, and the diary merely ,, _
the "ritual". In any case, the diary had, for each day, entries of events in rec erl: ., which, in the
judgement ofthe authors, were sufficiently significant to be remen-. :-,,, that day. The police officer in
charge ofmy "case" had asked me to comeback the f: t week for the diary and other seized items. But it
did not take me time to decide : .:
(111111',
:11
them.
The loss ofthe diary pained me, but I solved the problem by developing a per?' diary of events of great
historical significance. For several years now, through occ. updating, the richest month, in terms of
number and quality of entries, has rem month of October. At the beginning of every month, I check my
special diar.\,, 1: would feel like remembering any event and, on the basis of this, make a rededicaL at
least, a gesture at defending history. I feel a particularly strong need to dialogue ifneed be, confront
falsifiers of history in this period. A check at the beginning of October 2005 presented me with four
names:: Engurube and Dele Giwa of Nigeria; Ernesto Che Guevara of Cuba this adopted c a and
Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso. Whereas I put Dele Giwa, Guevara and under October because that
was the month they were martyred, I put Engurube October because that was the month he made a
sharp entry into the political consci of several Nigerians ofmy own generation. I have recently defended
Tony Engur Guardian, November 3, 2005). I am today, defending the remaining three; and will enter
such defences in this column in the months to come. Every October 19, since he was assassinated on
that day 19 years ago, via a bomb, Dele Giwa had been remembered as a martyr and hero of the
journalism pro in Nigeria. I join this remembrance. To the best ofmy knowledge, no one has been
questioned over this crime. And, yet, of all the high-profile murders - resolved and ur_re - that have
taken place in Nigeria since 1986, that of Dele Giwa presents the accusatory pointers. Even if you call
these pointers circumstantial, we know the ,k.-.14,( "circumstantial evidence" in law and politics. I
would ask that we do not forget the fo passage from a letter which Dele Giwa wrote to his lawyer, Gani
Fawehinmi, less hours before he was assassinated: I ask you, in the name of God, to take up the a

111,111:::J
IN
I
440
1111111_
ulluu

e with the SSS and the Federal Military Government". Giwa's "concern" -ave allegations, bordering on
the "security of the state", which were rail_ - si him by a senior functionary of the SSS a few hours
earlier. We should also Giwa said as the bomb exploded: "They have killed me"; and later to his latr :Aore he died: "They have got me". Or.a 19th anniversary of the murder of Dele Giwa, co-founder and
founding Ch.:,:,f the Newswatch magazine, a fine human being and journalist, all I can say The
assassination ofDele Giwa was a primary state assassination. It has rring the murderers to book because
the character and basic interests of :ate have remained the same since October 19, 1986, regime
changes ;- The hope is strong that ifpublic interest in uncovering this crime is sustained, will be
uncovered when the character of the Nigerian state changes in essence, cL maybe, not until then. This
nation should be grateful to Gani Fawehinmi, the Newswatch organisation, the Nigeria Union of
Journalists, the Lagos and other groups, institutions and individuals that have refused to abandon
)ber 8, 1987, Captain Thomas Sankara, a 37-year old army officer who ice rower in Burkina Faso four
years earlier, delivered a speech in the capital in a ceremony organised to honour the life of the Cuban
revolutionary hero, hie _.evara, who was murdered on October 8, 1967. The ceremony was held at a
street which had been renamed after Che Guevara. Attending the event _ 7_ to thousands of Burkinabe
people - delegations from several foreign tag Cuba. And in the Cuban delegation was Camilo Guevara
Mardi, Che that speech, Sankara said: "We wish to tell the whole world today that, .'H-ara is not dead.
For throughout the world there exist centres where people r more freedom, more dignity, more justice,
more happiness. Everywhere :e are fighting against oppression and domination, against colonialism,
urd imperialism, and against class exploitation. Che wanted to light the fires here in the world; but he
was cut down by bullets, imperialist bullets, :les. And we say that for us, Che Guevara is not dead".
Sankara ended Yu cannot kill ideas". week after this speech, on October 15, 1987, Sankara was killed
in a atm ..--:1sed and led by his deputy, friend and compatriot, Captain Blaise CCU*3 took place in
Ouagadougou, in broad daylight, during a meeting of 77 There were reports that Sankara was
personally shot by Compaore assumed power. I don't know how many people can recall that there Dille
African rulers and capitalist compradors were involved in this elimination. Some readers may also
remember that there were rumours : s were used in organising and facilitating the coup in Chile in
November -noted invasion of Ghana, under Jerry Rawlings, in January 1982. The Ii Compaore who is
still in power in Burkina Faso today was quickly
441

recognised by regimes in Africa which saw a danger in Sankara's example. Four before his overthrow
and assassination, Thomas Sankara visited Nigeria and was by large crowds wherever he went in
Abuja. It is fashionable today, in Nigeria and elsewhere to condemn military cour in general. it is not
that iriilitar coups are "things of the past" but that no coup h; right or justifiable. To compatriots who
subscribe to this position, because of c. consciousness, or the positions they now find themselves or the
roles they are nov, I say, please, do not allow the global "victors" to wipe out your own past. Do n:
them to re-write your own history. And I challenge historians and intellectuals who s-, to the position to
attempt to sketch and evaluate the post-independence history of Asia or Latin America with the thesis
that all coups are the same, in character, essence' import are and equally condemnable. They should
also say whether there are cliff between armed, but popular insurrections and military coups d' etat.
Finally. fie. apply their conclusions - whatever they may be - to two case studies: Abdel Nass in Egypt
in 1952 and Augusto Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973. I shall leave the matter there, but not before
proposing that the coup Sankara to power in August 1983 was essentially different from the one "
Compaore to power in 1987, and that the programmes, perspectives and actual 7-- the two regimes
were even more different. We know what Compaore is nov Burkina Faso: donating his country and
people to globalist enslavers, and happy to a head-slave. On the contrary, Sankara, who changed the
name of his country in 19 Upper Volta (given by the colonial rulers) to Burkina Faso (roughly
translated as " upright people"), pursued a revolutionary programme of transformation in educat :-and
informal), housing, water supply, health, etc. The following description o f Ernesto Che Guevara who,
among other., influenced Sankara, is adequate here: "The most important exponent of guerilla since
Mao and Giap, the most romantic revolutionary figure since Leon Trotsky, and the greatest
LatinAmerican since Bolivia". He was born an Argentine, trained as doctor, briefly held a
governmental position in Argentina, but abandoned it, and oined Fidel Castro of Cuba in an armed
struggle to liberate Cuba and initiate a co wide struggle against imperialism. Cuba was successfully
liberated (1950), Gue-, came to Africa (1964-1965), and from there to Bolivia where he was captured .e
executed on October 8, 1967. He was then 39 years old. In one of his last messages from the jungle of
Bolivia, 'Guevara said: "Or action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the people's
unity az great enemy of humankind: American imperialism. Wherever death may surprise us welcome,
provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive another hand may be extended to
wield our weapons". History net his wishes.
442

143
Re-reading "The Man Died" 18th November, 2004 70th birthday a couple of months ago was a review
of The Man Died,, the prison notes published bys the famous writer in 1972. Well, the essay in question
not exactly a review; it was more of a review of reactions to the appearance of The Died. The reviewer
remembered that I was critical of the book, considering it "non-gical". I stretched my memory to recall
when exactly I said so, and in what context. conclusion was that I must have made the remark in mid1975 shortly after I was from detention to which I was sent by the same military juilta which had
incarcerated a for almost the entire duration of the Nigerian Civil War (July 1967-January 1970). d not
recall the context. However, instead of responding to a review of reviews, I ed on a more useful
response: looking at the book once again. I am acutely aware of the unflattering remarks Soyinka was
said to have made Marxists, Communists and Socialists. In fact some people often tease me with this.
mments, except to say that Soyinka appears to have problems with "barracks" m, just as I had, and still
have. The only difference is that I am attacking "barracks" from a position different from that of

Soyinka. The Man Died, written by a young man who, even at that time, had become a ed writer and
social activist, was regarded a subversive publication by Gowon's junta. The first copy Tread was
literally smuggled into the country without covers. It d from hand to hand at the University of Lagos
where I was a graduate student. a long time ago. We now have two copies of the book: one, hard-cover,
published Collings in 1972; and the other, paper-back, published by Penguin Books in 1975. ot been
able to see the newest edition published about a decade ago. The two we have show signs of "heavy"
reading by my spouse and me. The areas we show that while my spouse was angry at the crudity of
Soyinka's interrogators, I furious with the military junta and the politicians and intellectuals who
voluntarily inspired and encouraged the murderous gang. Except for two brief entries, which are in Rex
Collings edition, but missing in the ecl:Iion, the two copies I have with me have the same content. The
"omissions" are historically. The first one is titled Tailpiece, and it appears between the last page text
and the Appendices. It is a report o f a brief encounter between the military e. General Yakubu Gown
and Bola Ige at Ibadan shortly after the end of the
443

war. The latter was then a Commissioner in the government of Western State. "How friend?", Gowon
asked Ige. The latter replied: "Who?" Gowon: "Wole. How is replied that Soyinka was "alright",
whereupon Gowon sent this message: "Tell hi Bygones is bygones. Right? Use my exact words Bygone is bygones". This dialo place not later than 1972, that is, 32 years ago. In the second omission,
a postscript, titled Appendix C (suspended) Sov,:-.1.2:1 the readers that the last section of the book had
been removed. This he did, so further inflame passions - as he was convinced that "it will take a long
time, p :uss generations before passions completely die out over the Nigerian CivilWar". Soyink a postwar publication, "Nigeria - A decade of crises in pictures", to show that pass were still high as late as
1972, the third year of reconciliation. The removed entry "checked and verified details of the activities
of federal troops in the Mid-West after The activities were "systematic executions". Having sorted out
the omissions, my references from now are to the Rex Edition. The Man Died is divided into three
main parts: Part I: Ibadan -Lagos (sei 15); Part II Kaduna, 1968: (sections 16-28); and Part III Kaduna,
1969: (sections 41). In addition to these the book contains: an acknowledgement titled
unacknowledged", A letter to compatriots which takes up section I; Appendices dedication to "Laide,
who rejected compromise and demanded justice". The 105.0 word book covers 320 pages.
Soyinka divided his book into three parts - according to space and Thematically, however, the content
of The Man Died can be distilled into at lt separate, but connected parts. My understanding of the
loaded book was enhanced 6,2 separation. The first is an account ofWole Soyinka's arrest, detention,
interrogation to frame and, perhaps, liquidate him while in detention, his experiences and, of course.
survival. The second is a story of the Nigerian crisis from the assumption of off - General Aguiyi-Ironsi
in January 1966 to Soyinka's arrest in September 1967; and Soyinka and some other radical
intellectuals and Nigerian patriots did to end the c prevent a civil war and, once the war had started, to
end it. The third part is denunciation, with documentary substantiation, of the military dictatorship and
its "( methods which he regarded as fascist: a fascist dictatorship which continued after the war.
I
The fourth part is a moving reflection on power: what happens when it is co=.,_ and the continuous
struggle between power and its victims. Here Soyinka awarded hi considerable literary licence - in
terms of language, style and references. The four as I said, are interwoven. If, for any reason, you want
to understand this book, hen have to read it at least twice: the first time to appreciate its general flow
and range anc: second time, to understand the various themes. If you do this - bearing in mind thal
study Soyinka, not just read him - you are likely to see the book as an intellectual tre as otherwise, you

may end up complaining, like many of us do, that Soyinka is "too diffic
444

Every appreciation of the book, The Man Died, however short, must include an = lint of how this title
came about, and other decisions accompanying the choice of title. " the very last moment the title was
to be A Slow Lynching. Then Soyinka received a with the single message The man died. Behind the
message is the tribulation of a ring Nigerian journalist who was a victim of a military governor's
sadistic abuse of Per The journalist had been sent, along with his colleagues, to cover a party which the
error and his wife attended. The press was invited by the organiser and host of the v: and the journalist
was officially assigned to join the press crew. However, the or's wife complained about the "rudeness"
of the journalists; whereupon, on the or's orders, the journalists were rounded up, detained, shaved,
brutally beaten and dismissed from their jobs. The condition of one of the victims became so bad that
he taken abroad and amputated. He lost a three-year battle for his life. He was flown to Nigeria where
he died within six weeks. On receiving this message, Soyinka decided not only to change the title of his
book Man Died, but to overcome his hesitations concerning what to include in the book, to exclude and
when to publish it. He said: "I recognised also that I moved long ago nd compromise, that this book is
now, and that only such things should be left out might imperil those on whom the true revolution
within the country depends..." Soyinka the words "revolution" and "comrade" in a genuine and
convincing manner. I \\ledge that these words are not exclusive to the Marxist political lexicon.
Soyinka -ed in this book as a revolutionary democrat. It is sad for me comparing his activities the crisis
with what the majority of Nigerian Marxists and communists were doing: ly running errands for
Gowan and Ojukwu. Did Soyinka ever encounter P.A. Curtis-one of the few Nigerian leftists who took
a similar stand: opposition to genocide, ::ion to secession and opposition to war. Though a story of a
tragedy, The Man Died is not uniformly "dry" and "hard-. There are moments when you find yourself
laughing: situations that can be described :ba with the phrase "oro buruku pelu erin" " laughing over a
tragic story." Soyinka's ters with prison warders and superintendents account for most of the laughing
ts. I laugh any time I recall the address -0 detainees in Kirikiri Prison, Lagos, delivered qpirison
governor early in Soyinka's long detention. It is the worst assault on English _e I have ever read. The
comedian, Zebrudaya, must have studied English under the governor. It was from governor that I learnt
that the correct name for an enemy of is "sabotagist", and not "saboteur"; and that a dead person could
be summoned to as witness. I was also embarrassed to hear myself laughing while reading a lecture on
It.on (by hanging) delivered to Soyinka by a prison warder in Kaduna Prison.
445

144
Boro-Saro Wiwa-Dokubo 21st October, 2004
S if preparing for a degree examination, I have closely followed the stor-; Mujahid Dokubo Asari. I
have followed events as they appear and as they are presented. I have read interviews, claims, counter-c
rationalisations. Of course, I have also sought after, and listened to, rumours_ have read media analyses

and listened to oral pontifications. Although there is lesson offered I am nonetheless wiser. My specific
interest in this piece is historical. It can be introduced with what Dok-L'Ile answer to a question posed
to him at his interview with the Newswatch newsmag, edition of September 20, 2004. The "warlord"
had been asked: "So, this fight is net territory, it is not about economic fortunes. What is it all about?"
And Dokubo had "Then, you go and ask Boro in his grave. You go and ask Ken Saro-Wiwa in his
Then, when you have finished asking, you then come back and ask this little Alhaji Asari". The Niger
Delta militia commander was therefore referring us to history saying that his struggle is a continuation
of the emancipatory struggle which threw Boro and Saro-Wiwa in the 1960s. It was in this struggle, as
they separately saw former died in 1968 and the latter 27 years later. Isaac Adaka Boro was a native of,
and was born in Kaiama, an arc :flit. settlement in the present Bayelsa State of Nigeria. He lived for
only 30 years (193 '_,.- In December 1998, 30 years after Boro's death, an Ijaw Liberation Charter was
a
in his home-town Kaiama. The charter was called the Kaiama Declaration. At the Boro's birth, the
eastern flank of the Niger Delta had just become an oil-rich province of Eastern Region of colonial
Nigeria. Less than two decades later, the gold" had started gushing out in commercial quantity in the
Niger Delta. The ind constitutional conference, dominated by British officials and Nigeria's big-tribe r
politicians, failed to agree on the creation of more states before independence. But managed to insert
into the constitution the designation ofNiger Delta as a special deve area. ANiger Delta Development
Board was established to undertake the develop
this "special area". But the board was virtually controlled by the government pa:7 region, the National
Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) through its members. board. In this circumstance, the board
achieved very little. The demand of the Niger Delta nationalists at this time was straight-forv, creation
of a Niger Delta region (or state). With the economic derivation principie
446

77. shrined in the constitution, a Niger Delta region would control the bulk of the revenues ,71-erived
from the oil produced in the area. The Tailing party and government of the Eastern Region were, to put
it mildly, not interested in the creation of the new region. The Niger Delta nationalists then went into
alliance with the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) which rntrolied the government of Northern
Region and was the senior partner in the Federal Ciovemment. The nationalists reasoned, correctly, I
would say,. that given the balance of vower in the country, this alliance offered the best, if not the only
hope for a peaceful and zonstitutional creation of the Niger Delta region. It was in this historical and
political context hat Isaac Boro became conscious as an Ijaw nationalist. For sometime, he went along
with elders who hoped that a determined pursuit of the constitutional option would yield the fired
result. Isaac Boro recognised that there were ethnic groups other than the Ij aws, in the zer Delta.
Nonetheless, he regarded the proposed region as the Ijaw nation - just as my Igbo elites regarded the
whole of Eastern Region as theirs. Boro, a former police cer, a graduate of Chemistry from the
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and a former ident of the institution's Students Union, committed
himself to the liberation of the Ijaw on through the creation of the Niger Delta region. Inspired, in his
own words, by the niro-led revolution in Cuba, he was still considering the option of armed struggle
when ii military coup of January 1966 took place. With the overthrow of his main political ally, te
NPC-led Federal Government, Boro settled for armed struggle. He told his young r-_-_:-_,atriots: "Our
Prime Minister has been killed. There is now no alternative to liberating F aw nation by force".
.111 afir.

le11$
The armed struggle was initiated on February 23, 1966, less than six weeks into administration of
General Aguiyi-fronsi. The insurgents held out in the Niger Delta for vs. Eventually they surrendered to
Ironsi's superior federal troops. That was on March 6. On March 23, 1966 Bore and two of his
commanders, Samuel Owonaru and gham Dick, were charged with treason. Three months later, on June
21, 1966, they condemned to death by a tribunal. They were in the "death cell" when Ironsi was own
and killed on July 29, 1966, and Colonel Yakabu Gowon took over. Even .Heir death sentence was
confirmed by the Supreme Court on December 5, 1966. sentence was not carried out. On May 27,
1967, General Gowon restructured Nigeria into 12 states. One of the 'vas the Rivers State. Boro
jubilated. From his cell he sent a telegram to Yakubu :1; "Congratulations on your God-riuided, Gadprotected actions. Long live Nigeria te: Head of State. Long live Ijaw and Northern Nigeria solidarity".
Three days later, 30, 1967, the state ofBiafra was declared by Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegyvu-the
military governor of Eastern Region. The death sentences passed on Boro and 3.4:riots were, at this
point, commuted to life imprisonment. The Civil War broke 6, 1967. Amonth later, onAupst 4, 1967,
four weeks after the start of the Civil r and his compatriots were pardoned and released from jail. Boro
then j oined the in army, rose to the rank of Major and was killed in combat on the federal side in
411
447

1968.
(
Ken Saro-Wiwa was born in Ogoniland on October 10, 1941. Ogoi-_: "minority in a minority' in the
former Rivers State that included the present Baye:sa is still a "minority in a minority" in the present
Rivers State that excludes BayIsz, Three years younger than Boro, Saro-Wiwa came to ethnic
consciousness aboi;.-. time as Boro. He supported the federal side during the Civil War and became the
Administrator of Bonny at the age of26. But increasingly he realised that the liber Ogoniland, a nonIjaw ethnic group in the Niger Delta, could not be achieved thr: Nigerian mechanism of state creation.
The area has a population estimated at half:: By their mechanical conception of self-determination and
grassroots democracy power blocs in Nigeria could not consider creating a state for the Ogonis unless
t prepared to create more than 100 new states. Saro-Wiwa, an intellectual, thi:- writer, thus settled for
the self-determination fall ethnic nationalities, including the S At the time he was judicially murdered
by General Sani Abacha on Nove fp 1995, Sawo-Wiwa was the President of the Ethnic Minority Rights
Organisation of (EMIROAF) as well as President of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni
(MOSOP). He was also the immediate past President ofthe Association of Nigerian (ANA). He was an
apostle of non-violence. His main weapons were his brain, his 7, mouth, his faith and commitment,
and his energy. But Sani Abacha's military decided that he must die - for his ideas - and only waited for
the opportunity to carr:, death sentence. And it came with the murder of four prominent Ogoni
indigenes Saro-Wiwa, an innocent man, and eight of his compatriots were accused of the and were
hanged in the Port Harcourt prison on November 10, 1995. I shall end with two general comments.
First, the old political lesson that has demonstrated here is that war is the continuation of politics "by
some other means." is a political act, that ultimately political power issues from the "barrel of the
i2:1,17" guaranteed by the "barrel of the gun". These maxims have been demonstrated s":.. enough in
the latest phase of the Niger Delta struggle, a phase in which Dokub: appears as a pre-eminent
character. For more on these maxims, especially their you may wish to refer to the works of Karl von
Clausewitz, a German soldier and theorist, and Mao Zedung, the founder of the People's Republic of
China. My second comment is a historical irony. Three young men, among many( had in the last 40

years, been thrown up to prominence in the Niger Delta self-dete struggle: Isaac Boro, Ken Saro-Wiwa
and Dokubo Asari. The first and the third led struggles against the Nigerian state. They escaped with
their lives and were later with the state. The second, an intellectual, preached and practiced non-violent
he lost his life in the hands of the state. I remember what Nicolo Machiavelli armed prophets have
conquered; and all unarmed prophets have been destroyer.
448

Part Five: Theory I Reflections

145
Settling Accounts with SNC 19th April, 2001
--ie. to settle accounts with the Sovereign National Conference, or SNC, a
we articulated about a decade ago with much rigour and faith but which, since Olusegun Obasanjo
came to office in 1992, has been systematically subjected revisions, abuses and opportunistic
appropriation. While admitting my own to this unfortunate situation, namely, that I did not vigorously
oppose certain
to the concept when they were made, I have to also state that I have waited for a and with increasing
embarrassment for the signal, that is, the ripe situation, to tal review. The signal came via Odia
Ofeimun's four-part article: "Bola Ige, 'the Game" (Me Guardian, March 29, March 30, April 2, April
3). Odia managed the very concept of SNC. I was embarrassed and angry. But then, the man was be
angry with myself for failing to settle this question, at least for myself,
zmcnmts-w--& Nc, Ss mtt t s vt4a-1, toncep1 and development, . as my views and positions on the
subject over time. The final act, of course, is the Hon of a balance sheet, that is, the articulation of a
new position. That is what I ought - -1with the turbulence called Nigeria, and its reflection in our
brains, I doubt if I can -eed. take readers back to June 1992: that is, a little less than nine years ago, 14
months ,_neral Ibrahim Babangida "stepped out" of office, 17 months before General Sani ta :Lame to
power and about two years before the formation of the National Democratic NADECO). That was
when I wrote a three-part article on the Sovereign National cc (SNC): For a Sovereign National
Conference (SNC) (The Guardian, June 25, C and flashpoints of discontent, (The Guardian, July 2,
1992; and Organising e Guardian, July 9, 1992). This dating is very important because many people
-:Tetend that the call for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) was started by under the regime of
Sani Abacha. The campaign started in the first half of 1990 71 to two political events: the retirement
and humiliation of General Domkat Bali abangida and the armed uprising led by Major Gideon Orka.
When the as started most of the current advocates of SNC preferred the call for "power ar " ..:,hem
president". When it was clearAbacha would frustrate the latter campaign the campaigners joined the
campaign for SNC; but the death ofAbacha re-m campaign for "power shift". When the realisation of

the latter through as not satisfactory, the campaigners returned one leg to SNC.
451

In the first of the 1992 articles cited above, I defined the historical conjunc-..zei a sovereign national
conference: "A Sovereign National Conference" becomes viable historical option, not at all times, but
precisely at those points in a nation's when a crisis, signifying the bankruptcy of a social order or an
existing political cannot be resolved by either the existing state or by any other partial coalition of f: This formulation still reflects my view, although I would, today, introduce some other and illustrations
to make it clearer and more robust. The point I was trying to make A Sovereign National Conference
(SNC) emerges seriously and legitimately in a ii:..7F] political agenda when the incumbent regime is
no longer able to govern the way it ha, doing, and is unable or unwilling to change course; when the
opposition is unwilling, te - the regime to continue to govern the way it had been doing; and when
neither of - sides is able to destroy or supplant the other. If any of these three elements is abs political
conjuncture, then any talk of a sovereign national conference is either a huh or a grand deception. You
cannot continue to support and sustain an existing political and social enjoying privileges and
concessions therefrom, planning to enhance your positions in ex future elections within that order and
then expect people to take your call for a sove-7 national conference seriously. A sovereign national
conference is a product of serious nal-, crisis, it is a serious political stalemate. It is not something you
proclaim on waking up a peaceful slumber or after an orgy of drinking. It is not a subject of a routine
departn: seminar, or a big lecture by a big individual on a big occasion. One test of the ripeness
sovereign national conference is the alternative to such a conference. Put different:, choice is not
between a sovereign national conference and a national conference that is sovereign. The choice is
between a sovereign national conference and disintegration (Se Union or Yugoslavia) or anarchy
(Somalia or Liberia). Put differently, again, if it is practo possible to decide between a sovereign
conference and a national conference that is sovereign, then the call for the former should be
considered a joke. What, in fact, does the word sovereign connote in the concept of sovereign nati:
conference? To answer this question, let me paraphrase the relevant section of my 1, article: A
Sovereign National Conference (SNC) must not be confused with a Constit: Assembly. The latter is
normally put in place by an incumbent government under its c rules. On the contrary, a Sovereign
National Conference is self-constituted and, whi: lasts, it is superior to any other political institution in
the land, including the incumb fog', government. I may now ask: If a Sovereign National Conference is
superior to the incumbent. government, how can its decisions be edited or revised by the incumbent
governme: Indeed, one of the necessary products of a Sovereign National Conference is a government.
This makes sense because a Sovereign National Conference is a statement the contradictory positions
occupied by both the incumbent government and the opposit::,::::. The incumbent government says: "I
can no longer govern but I shall not vacate office for opposition", while the opposition says: "I cannot
allow you to continue to rule the way have been doing; but unfortunately I am unable to overthrow
you". And both sides say: t.f.,,t us sit down and talk".
U)) HI
MIR
452

-ereigi National Conference (SNC), as originally conceived in NigeTiE, is not of Nationalities (CN). It
is a conference of Nigerians, first, as Nigerians and tatives of social groups of which ethnic

nationalities constitute a very strategic is SNC not reducible to CN? Because Nigeria is today not a
union of ethnic if it was in the past, which I doubt. Apart from the impossibility ofresolving
wiDulation into ethnic components - acceptable to all - there are thousands of uuons which, being truly
national, cannot be separated ethnically. Where then these institutions in a Conference ofNationalities
which, if sovereign, will fate of all including the national institutions? It pains me that many of my the
Marxist movement are involved in this reduction of Sovereign National to a Conference of
Nationalities. For the avoidance of doubt I am not saying --- nee of Nationalities is not desirable although I shall not attend if it is I am saying is that there is a world of difference between the two and
that a Nationalities cannot be Sovereign for a simple reason: it cuts off kd big section
:rrri; the Nigerian institutions. Other questions connected with SNC, such as organisation and structure,
mode 01 cation and mechanism of composition, agenda and tenure, etc., do not concern us are
concerned in this article only with the fundamental question, namely, the status -ereign National
Conference, and hence its location in the balance of power. if you This article as unrealistic, then forget
about a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) ue with routine and more "realistic" issues, such as, the
politics of re-election and national conference" being proposed by the federal government.
453

111
1111.1,1011.
t a partial explanation. The American Constitution was a product of a revolution. It was the will of the
-ous forces in the American Revolution. The Chinese Constitution was the product of
world historic revolution, the will of victorious revolutionary forces (1949); the South
Constitution (1996) was the product of a grand compromise between the apartheid the international
community and the revolutionary forces under the leadership of the an National Congress (ANC). The
1960 Constitution of the Federation of Nigeria a compromise between the British colonial power and
the ruling blocs which emerged colonialism. The present constitution is a continuationofthat
compromise, but with the tional community replacing the colonial power. It would appear, therefore,
that major tions with definitive conclusions produce concise constitutions and that compromises y
alliances produce verbose constitutions. The type and degree of verbosity depend type of compromise.
The Nigerian Constitution, one of the most voluminous in the depicts a particularly bad type of
wordiness: it is, in many parts, vacuous. I shall to this. One other explanation for the verbosity of the
Nigerian Constitution is that it
document by which, in my opinion, the authors did not intend to be guided. It could fore contain all
views and opinions in any form of juxtaposition. My suggestion to an rulers is that the volume ofthe
present Nigerian Constitution can be reduced by 80 t without losing anything. Another prominent
feature ofthe Nigerian Constitution is its tediousness. It is one most difficult documents I have ever
read. It is not simply that the document is bulky, tions too long, and the sentences often too
complicated. It is that at the end of it all, a well-educated person finds it difficult to determine what the
constitution is saying in 1 places. The explanation often provided, namely, that the constitution is a
legal ent whose language necessarily has to be legal and technical - providing the task of i.:-etation to
legal experts, lawyers and the courts - is an attempt at mystification. If a 7,ition is a basic document by
which the citizens are to be ruled, then its language has popular in the sense of mass accessibility. All
the national constitutions cited at the g of this article bear out this opinion. Reading the SouthAfrican
Constitution is a able exercise in self-education in history, political science, philosophy, public station

and sociology; a reader emerges from the exercise able to educate the next on what the document says.
But reading the Nigerian Constitution is an effective et-inviting headache and dizziness. My suggestion
here to the rulers ofNigeria is that in popular or basic education - not just constitutional and legal
experts - are required -12,- together the final draft of a constitution, once the basics have been agreed
upon. The preamble to a national constitution ought to indicate where the people (or Ine victorious
ruling blocs) are coming from, where they are committed to going and they intend to get there. The less
ambiguous the preamble, the more concrete and rical it is, the more serious the ruling blocs should be
taken. The preamble to the African Constitution speaks of commitment to "heal the divisions of the past
and h a society based on democratic values, social ustice and.fm_dammkz\.\\\-\-, foundations for a
democratic and open society in which government is based on the
*in
M, a, 4,
,,i1111441
11 11111 II
111;;,',4
1 I IN'
1111,0
.,11111'
:A11.111111
11141
11111111
455

will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by the law; improve tht ,.a life of all citizens
and free the potential of each person; and build a united and _..-1-71[ South Africa able to take its
rightful place as a sovereign state in a family of natic that the new nation is founded on human dignity,
non-racialism and non-sexism. 7- .11111 democracy, etc, etc.. This is a precise and categorical
statement, reflecting the heroic history of the country. There is nothing like that in the preamble to the
Cons 7,1 Nigeria, a country whose peoples have suffered so much to build a nation. R3. preamble
speaks generally about living in "unity and harmony" and promoting " government". Nothing about
democracy, nothing about non-sexism. Please, y. to the Charter of the United Nations, and you will
better appreciate the p labouring to make. The heart_of every national constitution is, and should be,
the body ofrig::-..-.3, the citizens should enjoy. Many constitutions including those of the. United
States of (USA) and the Republic of SouthAfiica (SA) refer to this as the Bill ofRights. The IN
Constitution calls it fundamental. rights. A student recently requested me to con-L-3 section 39 which
deals with the right to freedom of expression and the press. I told the section says so much but in the
end gives little or nothing: what it gives under sub.-5 1, it takes away under sub-sections 2 and 3 with
"without prejudice to", "provided "nothing in this section shall", etc. It is like telling someone detained
in a well-fortifiec:. that he or she is free to go home; or barring a wrestler from holding any part ofthe
opp: body, except the legs. Verbosity, tediousness, vacuousness, lack of focus, ...these features of the
Nigerian Constitution that any serious review must, first of all, remo456

147
Back to First Principles? 22nd March, 2001
HEN on November 7, 1917, the Bolsheviks proclaimed the victory of the proletarian socialist
revolution in the old Russian Empire, they were in control of only a small fraction of the capital,
Petrograd. The rest ofthe empire was in of the Russian old guard which was then waging World War I
against Germany. the change of government in Russia, the German forces increased their pressure,
ing the young revoslutionary government to make concession after concession. Leon -,. the de-facto
second-in-command to Vladimir Lenin, was, as Commissar for Foreign the Chief Negotiator with the
German invaders. At a point Trotsky refused to make concessions to the enemy which was now in an
objective alliance with the old order ad just been overthrown. The Germans gave an ultimatum and
threatened to march ital. It would have been a triple defeat for the Russian revolutionaries: the
overthrow government, the occupation of their country and the eventual restoration of the old The
threat was real. What was to be done? Trotsky replied that should the German threat materialise should
the Germans in taking the capital, in spite ofthe sacrifices ofthe workers and peasants and their ,ovary
leaders, this would be a proof the Bolshevik capture of state power, was -e: in that case the Bolsheviks
would go back to the first principles, to the "bush", and re-launch the struggle, rather than accept the
humiliation of further concessions g concessions which would, at a point, render their position as a
government le, and unprincipled amounting to state power for its own sake. But Lenin said revolution
must be saved". Further concessions were made and the revolution ed. Trotsky lost his post, but did not
go back to the bush, did not go back to the ciples. He was to do so a decade later - driven, not by the
Germans, but by his comrades-in-arms. The issue was the same; the untenability of abandoning key for
the sake of power. Taking a long view of history, I would today suggest that evik seizure ofpower in
1917 was justified but premature. Sometime in the last week of March 1965, Ernesto Che Guevara
vanished from c. He had been a senior functionary ofthe state. and government of Cuba since the fthat
tiny island's anti-imperialist and socialist revolution on January 1, 1959. On at the age of 30, Che had
led the first column of the Rebel Army into Havana. end of that year he had become a celebrated figure
in Latin America. And by the fished six years and three months after the revolution, he had become an
idol of .ary youths across the globe. Early in December 1964 Che left Havana to New --e he attended a
session of the United Nations General Assembly. From New 457

York he went to Algeria via Canada and Ireland. From there he travelled to NIL Guinea, Ghana and
Dahomey (now Benin) in that order. From Dahomey he Algeria, and from here he went, via Paris, to
Tanzania; from Tanzania he we::: From Cairo he returned to Algeria and then again to Cairo. It was
from Cair: returned to Havana, Cuba on March 14, 1965, having been absent from his minis-. ,11 for
more than three months. He was welcomed at the airport by a large crowd Fidel Castro, the Head of
State. As it turned out, Che returned to Cuba only to say bye" to his comrades: he disappeared a few
days after this. He left behind several including the one to Fidel Castro. In his letter to Castro he said:
"I officially resign in the party leadership, my post as minister, my rank as major. I give up my Cuban
ci My small services are needed in other parts of the world". Six months later, Castro publicly delivered

Che's hand-written and undz:t:f to the owners. He admitted that Che had left Cuba, but refused to
disclose where. The only answer Castro was prepared to give to the numerous questions
"disappearance" was that wherever Che might be, he was fighting against imperial the liberation of the
exploited and oppressed of the world. Sixteen months later, Argentine by birth, was sighted in the
jungles ofBolivia with peasants, teaching and It was rumoured that he had spent the intervening period
fighting in Africa. Why di ci back to the bush? Why did he abandon his ministerial appointment, his
"comforta.E and his family and replace them with a life in the bush? To answer this question we :7:12
go back to what he saw when he toured the revolutionary theatres of the world a. experiences in Cuba
while exercising state power. We may isolate just a few c: experiences. In March 1959, three months
after the victory of the revolution, Che su:: very severe attack of asthma, his ailment since childhood.
He was ordered to take a 7 a villa vacated by a former government functionary. Critics descended on
Che for such a "preferential" treatment. Che promptly responded through a letter publis:Tt government
newspaper. Explaining the circumstances under which he occupied the promised to vacate the building
as soon as he got better. This he did. Not long aflt episode, food rationing cards were introduced in
Cuba whose economy had been sc? disrup4,cd. Che was pained to con fima that, as a senior
government official, his family a higher quota, as someone had cynically alleged. He restored his
family's quota to -L-It-of that of a worker. As minister of Industries and Director of the National Bank
of Cuba, Ch passionately insisted on the superiority of moral incentives over economic incentives
boosting productivity. He lost the debate and must have been pained and depressed did not like the antirevolutionary bureaucratisation of the Soviet State and the s "Peoples' Democracies" in Eastern Europe
and parts ofAsia and Africa. He feared such a fate might soon befall Cuba. He agonised over the
suffering ofthe Vietnames American bombardment; he empathised with Latin American peoples
labourin imperialism. He knew how serious the "Bay ofPigs" attempted invasion ofCuba by Arntin
agents was. He feared that another attempt might be successful. He was acutely
458

17: 4 nolitically Cuba was dangerously isolated. He knew that globally, the al forces was
overwhelmingly in favour of capitalism, colonialism, neo-art - erialism. He concluded that it was, prhaps.,Rrematif_a,,sc_ckR_Nz-- --impenahsts and socialists to exercise state power. He went back to the
"bush", to the principles. Going back to the first principles? Yes. Here in Nigeria, the victory of
imperialism, alobalism, is complete. American soldiers, said to be in "partnership" with the Nigerian ed
Forces, have scaled up a section of a prominent hotel in the nation's capital, making the area a part of
American state within the "sovereign" state of Nigeria; American and tish army officers are seated in
our Defence Headquarters. Officials of the World Bank amt -,he International Monetary Fund (IMF)
are seated where strategic decisions are taken Nfgeria's economy. There are rumours that the tenure of
the present administration has dy been decided through a pact witnessed and guaranteed by the
international unity. Anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism, in all their forms, have disappeared from
7ation's political discourse. Mass poverty and powerlessness, unemployment and chment, corruption
and state terrorism, marginalisation and internal colonialism, leum crisis and irregularity of power
supply etc, are all explained and denounced as :olicies, or results of bad policies, unrelated to primitive
accumulation, capitalism, -alism and the "international community". Political parties speak the same
language on ,ess,-mtial issues. Most of our non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are restricted to .
2v,-ennent" where this means, in practice, the spread and re-inforcement of the
, 1141
ectives of global capitalism and the new imperialism among the people. In this historical on, should we

not consider going back to the "bush", to the first principles, to something - in organisation and
objectives, strategy and programmes, ideological education
pc :ideal practice - to the militant nationalist movement of (1946-1950)?
459

8
A Collective Assessment of the Present 15th June, 2000
FTER a coma lasting several yea'rs, intellectual life is gradually being rev':., 2:6 University of Calabar.
As the Nigerian government - at all levels - ::_-72, elaborately, to celebrate its one year in office, a twoday international 5, coincidentally titled: Civil Society and the Consolidation ofDemocracy in Nigeria
'tin,' at the New Arts Theatre of the university between May 25 and 26, 2000. Organised
university's Institute of Public Policy and Administration (IPPA) under the lead Okon Uya, a professor
of History and former ambassador, the seminar brought retired and serving university teachers and
administrators, students, legal and political professionals, politicians, government functionaries and
consultants and, of course.
and representatives ofnon-governmental organisations (NGOs), - which at pres.nr. most, if not the only,
flourishing sector of the "civil society". Altogether, about 4t-: papers were presented in the six sessions
into which the seminar was organised. a add the unlisted, but substantial presentations interjected
during the sessions we not less than 100 submissions covering several aspects of the present dispensan,
ethnic question, civil society and democracy, human rights, political parties and governmental
organisations, the military, women, the labour movement, poverty allev environmental degradation,
traditional rulership, multinational corporations, etc. I the seminar and made a presentation on Political
Parties and Non-governmental Or, in the transition from Obasanjo's Republic. I must say that I
benefited immensely collective effort at appreciating the situation in the country. The first problem the
gathering encountered and confronted was the the: seminar itself: Civil Society and the Consolidation
of Democracy in Nigeria. Al-jy.11 would not be wrong to say that there was a near-unanimous opinion
that Nigeria .F not yet) a democracy, many of the participants appeared to have been compelled
themselves with the position by the argument of those whose attitudes in this ma._ uncompromising.
The general position was that unless democracy is equated to of elections - in which only very wealthy
pro-business political parties and r participate and where there are no serious campaign issues and no
serious dis.=.tt between the parties on programmes, where there is a general voter apathy and few who
vote are literally bought, where elected and appointed state officials re2;a:. 711(i as a matter of
investm ent and revenue profit and loss - then Nigeria is not a Li,: And ifNigeria is not a democracy the
question of consolidating democracy in ..;:ial not arise. "Ids was the general position at the seminar.
It is, however instructive 460

tations carried the assumption that Nigeria became a democracy, or was restored c,cracy, on May 29,
1999. However, the second agreement, in a sense, mitigated e tone ofthe first: the chances ofNigeria
moving to a democracy were considered agreement here was that Nigeria is on the road to democracy
and will become c if certain dangers and negative trends can be apprehended and eliminated.

Inevitably, the question of definition arose: What is democracy? What should y be? Every contributor
ritualistically prefaced his or her presentation with of civil society and democracy - the two central
concepts in the theme. Everyone t the concept of civil society is an obscure one, buried in the
nineteenth century of history; and that the dividing line between civil society and the state is, at best,
For instance, Friedrich Hegel, a 19th Century German philosopher of history, the police and the justice
system under the civil society whereas in radical theory these institutions are taken as critical and
fundamental apparatuses of the state. to on this subject was quite lively. At a point in the debate Eskor
Toyo, the veteran professor of Economics, intervened in his usual angry and arrogant, but nonetheless g
and challenging manner. He said that if there was today a separation or dichotomy the state and civil
society this was one of the consequences of the irresponsibility e. My immediate interpretation of this
thesis is that if the state had been more ale" then the state and the civil society would have either fused
or, at least, would me inseparable. I have not ceased reflecting on this thesis and its implications for
understanding of the concept of civil society as it is currently being used and sed by the new
imperialism and apostles of globalisation. Professor Eskor Toyo's on once again confirmed my
experience that every encounter with this tireless is like going back to school. On democracy, all the
participants accepted the general definition provided by Lincoln, namely, government of the people, by
the people and for the people. It ed that the present Nigerian government failed this test. But if the
Nigerian ent is not a democratic one, what is it? Again, Eskor Toyo offered an answer. He that what
existed in Nigeria - and indeed in all the self- proclaimed "democracies", democracy but electocratic
plutocracy, that is, government of the rich, for the rich the rich; a government that has been produced
by "some forms of election" or, I ,add, a semblance of election. The participants laughed: The students
shouted "prof l or Toyo took time to remind us all that the Greeks who coined the term democracy ent
of the people) did not do so in isolation: They did so in the course.of their tion of different types of
government. In particular, the Greeks identified plutocracy, ent ofthe rich. All he had done was to
qualify this form of government with electocratic a:e that it was not self-imposed, but came into being
through some processes which the name election. One of the participants submitted that democr.acy
cannot be "democracy is democracy", he said. My own position is that democracy can be that
democracy, like "human being" or "yam" is a generic term. What we desire is democracy, a democracy
that involves popular participation, that does not limit periodic choice between very wealthy political
parties and politicians, and does not
461

limit itselftapolitical rights, but extends to economic, social and cultural rights. In as Eskor Toyo
pointed out, the world has since gone beyond the Greeks and . Lincoln, and there is no model of
democracy anywhere that Nigeria can copy Th now is, what does democracy mean, or should mean, in
Nigeria of the 21st Cer_727. the answer is popular democracy. One other question which bothered me,
and some ofthe participants, at s was the historical designation ofthis period in Nigeria: Is it the Third
Republic or Intl, Fn Republic? Some political analysts had already challenged the designation of which
opened on May 29, 1999 as the Fourth Republic. Their argument is tha, 7.)1 December 31, 1983 when
the Second Republic was terminated and May 29, :1'i'440 . General Olusegun Obasanjo assumed the
Presidency, there was no Republic The political dispensation between January 1992 and November
1993 when elect governors and local councils appeared to govern their respective spheres cannot a
republic, not because the Federal Government was military (a republic can be the military) but because
there was no constitution. A republic should at least constitution. I think the present period should be
called the Third Republic. But while for a consensus, I shall provisionally designate it as Obasanjo's

Republic. There was a general agreement that state-sponsored individual violence -7101 torture, arson,
harassment, detention, assassinations and bombings, has declined in the last 12 months - indeed, since
General Sani Abacha died in June 1998. But this positive gain in the area of violence, there has been an
exponential rise in the state violence on the population (the Niger Delta) and communal violence: IfeMo Kaduna, the Middle Belt and the Niger Delta - and to a lesser degree - parts o Abia, Imo, Cross
River/Akwa Thom states. It was also agreed that although promises of "better life" for the masses,
including those embodied in the Poverty Programme, Basic Education Programme, and new Minimum
Wage, the quality of life has actually not improved. Finally, and by way of contrast, what we have
heard, and illegal appropriations by politicians, political functionaries and state officiak indication that
life has improved tremendously for those who rule over us, their backers and beneficiaries.
462

een Machiavelli and Political Hypocrites 23rd March, 2000

NIILCAR Cabral, the founder of modern Guinea-Bissau, once recalled that the very mention of the
word, culture, had caused Goebbels, the chief propagandist of Nazi Germany, to pull his gun. His
explanation of this seemingly irrational ur was that the German fascists were painfully aware of the role
of culture, or consciousness, in resisting aggression, domination and enslavement. In the same mention
of the name Machiavelli would, today and at all time, pull hypocrites y hypocritical politicians, from
their seats. Why? Because Machiavelli is a mirror oppressors and despots everywhere, including
Nigeria; and what these enemies of le see - which is actually themselves - is in ugly opposition to what
they say and to be. Nigerian politics is irritatingly characterised by crude Machiavellianism on hand
and anti-Machiavelli hypocrisy on the other. There are very few genuine ofMachiavellianism. Who
then was Machiavelli and what did he say? I proceed, a certain possible misconception has to be
removed. I am not here to Machiavelli motives. I am also not concerned with his character. This is, in
fact, levant than motive. But if you press me I would say that Machiavelli would not be nal friend
because I believe that if the man had been in power he would have been story's most cynical dictators.
But this is besides the point. Machiavelli spoke toold, whether we like it or not, what he said good or
bad, has remained a political 7-..fusing to die despite the passage of almost five centuries. In any case
the man has 'modern followers in our land. What I am saying here is that it is necessary to avoid inem
method of argumentation which, according to the Webster Dictionary, is d at or appealing to one's
hearer's or reader's personal fellings or prejudices rather intellect and reason" or "marked by attack on
an opponent's character rather than er to his contentions". Nicolo Machiavelli (1469.-1527) was an
Italian, born in Florence. He was a public a diplomat and apolitical philosopher. He was also a military
strategist. Machiavelli een observer and student of history and politics or, more specifically of state
power. his years of service in the Italian Republic of Florence, he accumulated a huge of information,
through a meticulous system of recording facts, events, actions and es. To the records of the present he
added records from the past. Like Aristotle, A-elli had a passion for classification: types of states and
governmental institutions, frulers, types of political and military strategies, etc.
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Machiavelli wrote on many subjects and tried his hands on several literz-i, biographies, poems, plays,
etc., in addition to historical and political texts, tE. known being The Prince and Discourses, both
written in I 513. However, people who have heard of Machiavelli associate him with just one book, The
Pr.: book not larger than a chapter of a standard political science textbook. The his -t political question
which engaged Machiavelli and which he tried to answer in 21e.' can be summarised as follows: How
do states rise and fall and how can state pc-A, acquired, be retained? He did not concern himself with
morality or religion. All': s this: If youwant to retain power, this is what you must do because that is
what :i. current experiences teach. Let us isolate some of the most "embarrassing" and prescriptions
with which Machiavelli is generally associated. They are taken from _ The Prince was an open letter to
an Italian prince. Machiavelli offered the of the letter as a form of advice from a loyal citizen to
someone who was embar. hazardous enterprise of controlling and ruling other human beings. He started
by prince that although it was customary for citizens who desired to gain favour \la offer him or her
precious, but material gifts like horses, arms, clothes and gold he unable to find in his possession
"anything which I hold so dear or esteem so c. knowledge "of the deeds of great men" which he had
acquired "through a long of modem events and a constant study of the past". This introduction which
exude self-confidence must have created tremendous impression on the prince for was telling him that
his advice was based on knowledge and was more valuab7 or horses which other people offered.
Machiavelli observed that only those prophets who were armed had that unarmed prophets had come to
ruin. By "prophets" Machiavelli meant in campaigning for, or bringing about, new social orders or new
order of things. of a prophet was necessary, according to him, for self-defence, if for nothing e* a long
list of historical examples. Still on this subject, Machiavelli observed foundations of all states, whether
new, old or mixed are good laws and good by "good arms" Machiavelli meant effective military
machine or institution coercion. His argument here is as follows: Since there cannot be "good laws" if
"good arms" and since where there are "good arms" there must be "good sufficient to discuss arms and
leave laws alone. And that was what he did. advised against the employment of mercenaries in
organising and executing nat.: He considers mercenaries useless and dangerous: "they are disunited,
ambito discipline, faithless, bold among friends, cowardly among enemies, they b God and keep no
faith with men". His conclusion was that any ruler w *no mercenaries will ultimately come to ruin. The
author of The Prince advised that a ruler should aspire to be obeyed voluntarily, that is, without the use
of coercion. He however. w where this is the case, a ruler should still be armed so that "when the
believe, they can be made to believe by force". He then considered the re of love, hatred and fear in the
relationships between the ruler and ruled. His
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even if a ruler is not loved_he d-4,%.--3*-loYi.opellated or despised by his He affirmed, however, that
there was nothing wrong in being feared. According to ruer should depend more on the power of the
fear which he generated than in the :11 his subject generates. Machiavelli's argument here was that in
questions of er can only be sure of what he controls (fear): he cannot always be sure of what led by
others (love). Hear Machiavelli: "A man who wishes to make a profession in everything must
necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. e. it is necessary for a prince, who wishes
to maintain himself, to learn how not to and to use his knowledge and not use it, according to the
necessity of the case". d rulers who come to power in difficult situations and who must kill to do so
once, beginning, rather than making state murder a permanent feature of governance. He
ed rulers that mass murders are easier to forgive and forget than individual ations. He warned rulers
against stealing citizens' possessions or wives and taking en's life unless there is "a proper justification

and manifest reason for it". He however, his observation that "men forget more easily the death of their
father than the loss of
property". Here then are some Machiavellian prescriptions for the retention of political power for its
own sake and for the benefits of the power holders. Machiavelli wrote against
ground of the Italian society of the 15th and 16th centuries and the knowledge that ed from his
diplomatic contact in Europe and his reading of history. A lot has, of changed over the past 500 years,
but the central ideas remain in full force. There hiavellians among today's power wielders of the world.
There are Machiavellians many ofthem. There are also opponents ofMachiavellianism, but most of
them rites: they are appalled by Machiavelli's prescription but only because these ideas arrassingly
close to their own practices and their inner beliefs. What the world what Nigeria needs, is real
opposition to Machiavelliani sm. In Machiavelli's scheme, le are mere means to an end; but in the
negation of Machiavelli the people appear end.
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50
Between Poverty and State Robbery 29th June, 2000
VVI-IA T exactly is the link between poverty and state robbery? I do not rn, link between poverty and
the present socio-economic system, the c system. The latter question is an old one, simple and
straightforward. The is also uncomplicated: The present social and economic system, in the view
ofmany is the root cause ofpoverty. But the question that interests me here is the connection mass
poverty on the one hand and the practice which the Nigerian law declares as and criminal and which
the dominant moral and religious philosophy declares as The present socio-economic system, we may
remind ourselves, has been sanctified although this status does not make it more human, humane or
even rational. But the of the system agree that far from being sanctified, state robbery is, in fact, both
crier immoral. So, are there links between state robber and poverty? To many poor Nigerians,
especially those who are literate in the language oi communication and have some access to public
information, the answer to this qu in the affirmative. More specifically, the popular attitude to any
reports of a ma= robbery is to estimate or imagine how far what is reported stolen could have been
`alleviate' poverty or make a specific social or economic policy - such as increase prices of petroleum
products - unnecessary. For instance, I have heard many people gee.. and honestly ask why the money
that General Sani Abacha was alleged to have could not have been used to pay for the so-called fuel
subsidies. Someone even sly\ C: 7'4" a mere fraction of the stolen money could be used to return the
price of petrol to N litre. The response of the educated elite varies from the negative (that is, that there
a. links) to heavily qualified positive (that is: yes, but ....) to condescending submissio7LF the matter is
not as simple as popularly presented and would require considerable education (not general education,
but a specialist one) to app The popular attitudes are dismissed variously as unscientific, uneducated,
uninfo_ sentimental, simplistic. Yet, it is these popular attitudes that should interest us be,:, ultimately,
it is they that will decide - just as they decided in the recent fuel price whether or not there is a way
out of our collective calamity. What is state robbery? State robbery is robbery committed through the
manipulation of the power acquired through the control of the state or one or more institutions. Or more
briefly, state robbery is robbery by the state (as state, and no as: other entity). Robbery is an unequal
social relation, and can be defined both lega.,_1\, sociologically. We know what the law says; but
sociologically, robbery is the appropr,
466

longs to B without the latter's permission or consent; and this can happen A has the means to do so; and
this "means" can be raw power or mere or - as is frequently the case - a combination of the two. The
"means" e robbery reduces to raw power because the "circumstance" that may cited are, in the case of
state robbery, products of power. In "ordinary" may exploit the circumstances of his or her neighbour's
absence from a robbery. The robber ma', given the circumstances, be successful even n fact, weaker
than the victim physically and materially In state robbery, " \veaker" does not arise. The state robber
has both the power to rob and
power to create the circumstances to rob. ry has various forms. Theoretically, the types and forms are
infinite (that never complete the counting, given the omnipotence of the state in the ). But the dominant
forms practised in a given historical setting (time and on the dominant culture, historical experience
and the type ofpolitical economy own setting, the dominant forms include: appropriation of "security"
votes; of contracts with a view to appropriating the surpluses from the contractors; through budgetary
and non-budgetary, but nonetheless lawful allocations; priation ofbribes, incentives and commissions
from beneficiaries (national
ofstate concessions, privileges, appointments and preferments asweiL 111C" C iiciesinfhe economic
sphere; ambush and subsequent appropriation of revenues 111;:: :_aer payments due to the state; direct
removal of cash from state coffers; forgery and Etc; _LT :ation ofrecords; open and legal confiscation
ofpublic or private property, followed , vate appropriation; and what I may call the "robbery of
robbery", that is, stealing 'is being recovered from robbers. According to Nigerian law, all these forms
of state robbery, and others, are criminal biii1111111;:: They are also declared morally reprehensible by
everyone, including the lasses and elites, the main perpetrators and beneficiaries. In other words, we
condemn z.,.,rian social system as unjust from the roots up and as being primarily responsible for
robbery Now, let us allow ourselves to be charitable to the limit that sanity permits. the managers and
beneficiaries by their word, assuming they are sincere in their sympathy for the poor, the wretched of
the Nigerian earth, accepting their alibi 1111111 y would have alleviated mass poverty if they had more
money and if the economy alE aaithier, we may take a glimpse at what could have been done in the last
five years if minant forms of state robbery had been blocked - by whatever means, including .....e
intervention. There is no point mentioning names here, for our concern is with the Nigerian state
samit:: 3ot individual state functionaries. We know that generally, the music of state robbery
ozniirrf7ues, changes in state personnel notwithstanding. I shall pick only two groups of state ries.
According to the current managers of the Nigerian public affairs, a total sum of S4.3 billion was lost
through various forms of state robberies perpetrated in the liartTchelons of the state between 1996 and
1998. My rough, but conservative estimate Gm" 7i at managers of state governments appropriated
through state robbery in the two
467

years preceeding Obasanjo's assumption of office - an estimate based c ?I11111 admissions and the
undertaking to make repayments - is about N1.5 billion. dig the latter group, for it is insignificant

compared to the former. Taking an exch N100 to the dollar, what we have is a total of N430 billion.
Now, I have it on authority that, by direct labour, it would cost under construct a borehole with a water
tank. By a simple calculation, we would need N3.2 billion to construct 20 boreholes in each of the
under 800 local councils in Encouraged by the result of this calculation we can be more ambitious: It
wou than N80 billion to construct 20 boreholes in each of 25 wards in each local area in the country. I
also have it on authority that it would take about N3 million to the building of a modest clinic by direct
labour. This adds up to N60 billion for the c of a clinic in each ward of each local government area of
the country. Finally, it NA, about the same amount, that is, N60 billion to construct two small primary
so ward of every local government area in the country. This brings our estimates billion for a
programme ofliterally covering the country with boreholes, clinics schools. We are still left with N230
billion which can be used for equipment, in fr maintenance and personnel for several years. No
conclusion is necessary here. Heave that to the reader. But don't for that we have taken only a group of
state robberies, out of millions and for a br'.e. period and secondly, that even as you read this article
state robbery is continui:-.
Ni;
468

15
Clarifications on Ethnic Politics 21st December, 2000
, ' AMIDO Sanusi's two-part article, "The Yoruba, Maduriagu and Abati" (The .1.. j Guardian,
November 20 and 21, 2000) was stimulating. Written as a response to my own article "Nigeria's Ethnic
Militias" (The Guardian, November 2), Reuben a:Cs article, "The Troubled house of Oduduwa"(The
Guardian, November 3), a Sunday ilianzuard's article, "How Afonj a Lost the Throne" (Vanguard, April
22) and the alleged
erence to some Nigerians as "cattle and goats," Sanusi's article was clear, historical and
.cative; it was also non-subjective. As angry as he was, Sanusi did not attack my person; mor did he
make insinuations about my motive, or the influences of my ethnic or religious commitments and
prejudices. Had he done so, the fact that I am, by choice, a "non-ethnic" bizerian (that is, belonging to
no ethnic group) and claim no religious affiliation could, 'perhaps, not have saved me. Sanusi
proceeded from what appeared in print under my name and the names of alters, including The
Guardian's Reuben Abati, a Sunday Vanguard's writer, and historians LIF A. Ajayi, S.A. Akintoye and
Obaro Ikime. However, I have to complain that Sanusi imbed my article more as a peg (that is, point
ofdeparture) than as a case study or substantive - lion. Implicitly, ifnot explicitly, he criticised me for
views expressed by others thereby ascrbing these other views to me. This happened because, in spite of
his strenuous efforts, Illhe unfortunately did not quite succeed in separating the various sets of views he
set out to
tcise.
i I I III
In my article under reference I had isolated, for examination, three ethnic militias: Oodua Peoples

Congress (OPC), the Bakassi Boys and the cluster of armed groups in Niger Delta. It would appear that
my analyses of the Bakassi Boys and Niger Delta L:os were either irrelevant, inconsequential or
acceptable for Sanusi did not refer to them s rejoinder. His anger was directed at what I said about the
OPC. I shall therefore w him and summarise what I said about the ethnic militia. First, I said that "the
OPC sees itself as an armed vanguard of the Yoruba nation in 17:ve for self-determination and struggle
to reclaim lost or stolen territories and Iltmr.,.-,m".Second, I said that, partly because of its nationalist
ideological posture - a posture at as so far not been challenged by those who can credibly and
legitimately do so, el the South-West political bloc - the OPC cannot be banned. However, (and this is :
1-:ird thesis), the demands of the OPC can be exhausted or neutralised politically. In '7 words, you can
neutralise the OPC by denying it social and political nourishment. our. I said that the longer it takes to
exhaust or neutralise OPC's demands, "the greater
VIII 11
469

the danger of emergence of other politically-inspired ethnic militias to compound the pri Each of the
more than 300 ethnic groups in Nigeria is capable of raising an armed 171 ill My fifth thesis on OPC
must have been responsible for Sanusi's anger, ar_ "The Ilorin and Lagos battles were waged in
pursuance of a single strategic obi however ill-defined. The OPC believes that the Yoruba ethnic group
has been an opp7 nationality within the Nigerian state. And it has to be liberated. Liberation invoh e,
liberation of all Yoruba communities from internal colonialism. The OPC perceives Il Kwara State as a
Yoruba community under Fulani colonialism. Lagos is perceived Yoruba commercial capital; Ibadan is
the political capital". I suspect that Sanusi took my articulation of what the OPC is saying and a
support, by me, of the OPC position. In the case, he mis-read me. I did not set support or condemn.
Supporting the type of ethnic carnage we have so far witnc year in Nigeria is more than irresponsibility.
It is madness. My self-appointed tas articulate the OPC position, trace its linkages, antecedents and
sources of nourish. suggest the conditions for its transcendence. I believe that every Nigerian political
or student of Nigerian politics, should be interested in this type of questions. Po especially those of the
two power -blocs should, as of necessity, be interested in t' also in the interest of the Nigerian state and
government to inquire into such matters general, states and governments never do so until it is too late.
By the way, I articu:Li OPC position not from my head, but from the writings and speeches of their int
leaders, inspirers, and ideologues. The story of traditional rulership in florin, ably summarised and
annotated by is straight-forward. The story can be simplified for the benefit of the younger genera
Nigerians and non-academics. It goes somewhat like this: More than 200 years a t-was aYoruba State
called the Oyo Empire. It was located in South-Western part o: day Nigeria: extending up to the present
Ilorin, Oyo State and parts of coastal n the present Benin Republic. The capital of the empire was Oyo
and the ruler was Oyo. Ilorin was either a colony or a semi-autonomous region of Oyo empire. In Ilorin
was administered by a military governor appointed by, and representing, ti-h It was a period of social
and political ferment in the history ofYoruba - a period char by wars, rebellions, mutinies, treachery,
betrayals, etc. Ahigh point of this turbulei plot by the Yoruba military governor of florin - who also
happened to be the Chie of the Alaafin's Army - to overthrow the Alaafin or, at least, to secure the

indepen Ilorin under the governor's rulership. To execute this plot, the military governor' alliance with
an armed Islamic group resident in Ilorin. The group happened to be whose political and religious
allegiance was to the Sultan of Sokoto. The battle was Cr''' but in stages: the first stage ended with the
separation of Ilorin from the Oyo En second stage as the overthrow and execution of the military
governor hirnselfby his allies. A counter-attack by the slain governor's forces was decisively defeated.
The of the Islamic group thereafter became the Emir of Ilorin. His descendants have ml ever since, that
is, for about 180 years. Stories similar to the above, in essence if not in form, can, today, be rep
470

7-nunities in Nigeria: stories ofminon or "alien" groups who acquired positions e in traditional
rulership, politics, economy or culture either before the constitution to a country, or as a result of
British colonial policy of indirect rule (or :-_-1) in Nigeria; or as a result ofthe hegemonistic policies
ofthe tripod represented qlu_ the defunct National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), the Northern
C,7:-.zress (NPC) and the Action Group (AG). There is no part of contemporary 7:11 or South, East or
West, Middle-Belt or South-South, where instances of ca: phenomenon cannot be found. In some areas,
minority or "alien" groups still dominance acquired long ago. In other areas, the dominance had
disappeared. however two peculiarities in the case of Ilorin. The first is that the two power-(the
Northern and South-Western) are involved; the second is that there is of ethnic radicalisation in
Yorubaland - a type ofradicalisation hitherto associated minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, and, of
course, the Igbos during the (1967-70) But the Ilorin question is essentially the same as others, and the
solution has to opolitical principles of national-democratic development of Nigeria: the first is ility of
dividing or restructuring Nigeria along ethnic lines; and the second is the ritability of abolishing
traditional rulership in Nigeria. Traditional rulership is le with democracy and republicanism.
111

152
Confirniing the Nature of the State 7th December, 2000
WHEN Hamza Al-Mustapha alleged that Moshood Abiola did not die a death, but was murdered, some
politicians retorted that the security revelation was something that they had suspected all along. But
woe politiciansalso claim that they had suspected all along that the conspiracy and commit the murder,
and the actual murder itself, were carried out not by Sani Abac!la he was already dead) but by leading
post-Abacha functionaries of the Nigerian S t 2..7:z.,. of whom were close to the politicians - in private,
if not in public? If the answer
question is in the affirmative, I would then ask the politicians if they had then deduction that the official
autopsy (national and international) conducted or have been forged and that this forgery must have
been carried out by those AA in power, that is, the successors of Sani Abacha many of whom were no s
tr. politicians? Finally, if they knew, or suspected, all these, how were they knowledge in their
pronouncements and actions during AbdulsalaniiAbuba Do we have evidence or reasons to suspect
hypocrisy and divided interest Get those struggling to free Abiola and institute democracy and human
rights in I ask these questions to show my own line of interest in the Oputa Panel Rights Violation. I am
not interested in the sensational revelation of the atrocit]es, against humanity by General Sani Abacha, I
am not interested in the vindication held against past military regimes by opposition forces; I am not
interested in the of human rights violators; I am not interested in mechanical and laughable

reconciliation between torturers and their victims. On the contrary, I am inter_ iv, concrete history,
embodied in current revelations, confirm or teach about the human institutions called the state; I am
interested in knowing more about State, and its murderous apparatus in particular; I am interested in
knowing 1. relationship between the Nigerian State on one hand and members of the power-blocs on
the other. This last point can be put differently. I am interes:ed that current revelations point to the
conclusion that not only is the state evil hut wide range of people and institutions secretly participate in
the State's e hypocritically and selfishly exploit the state's evil nature and derive benefits massive
powers ofprefemient, endowment, denial and punishment. The:, this and still pretend to be democrats
and humanists because the state is, b7, 7 institution.
472

Why am I possessed ofthis type of interest? Because the historical task before the nation is to construct
a Nigerian State where the atrocities, treachery and hypocrisy and of course the present will not be
continued, or, at least, will be reduced to um. Self-righteous people may retort that some of the
sensational revelations Al-Mustapha have been refuted by the people he mentioned. My answer is that
all got by way of refutation is that certain people did not play certain roles ascribed to But the fact that
certain evil roles were played, and that the conditions, possibilities Ir,.,ations existed for these roles to
be played, have not been refuted. I am interested u;,, not only who played which roles but also the roles
themselves and the ces under which the roles were played. I submit that there has never been a in the
Nigerian State since General Gowan came to power in July 1966. In other the iniquities that took place
under Abacha could be found in the regimes of Gowan, Mohammed, General Obasanjo, Shehu Shagari,
Buhari, Babangida, Shonekan, and President Obasanjo. Al-Mustapha alleged that he was the first
person to know that General Abacha had .-ond that, he said that he kept his knowledge to himselfenough to summon General s official lieutenants (army gnerals\ to the State House. TU.
QtLesa.t.t.m.Q.7,d..t.Q. e House, summoned by a young army major, not knowing why they were
summoned. they had assembled, the major ordered the gates to be locked. He then broke the 5 them
and asked them to choose a successor, which they did. Shortly before this, or '.vas going on, some
important personalities in the civil society and the state - including nerals and traditional rulers - urged
the major to seize power and proclaim himself inte-A Head of State. He declined. We may halt the
narrative here, and recall that critical of Hamza's story were known in the first few days after Abacha's
death. The only that is new, at least to me, is that Hamza himself was urged to be a contender in the
ession struggle. But then, is it inconceivable that a man in Hamza's position, who was oral hours in
effective control of power - armed, as he was, with superior knowledge wish, or be urged, to proclaim
himselfHead of State? Is it inconceivable, given the on in Nigeria then, that some generals and
important personages in the civil society prefer Hamza to some other generals? The answer to both
questions is no. At least two lessons on the nature of the state are confirmed here. First: in the re of the
state, there is a world of difference between office and power. Office are often noise makers; power
wielders are silent operators. The army generals ing public peace with sirens and armed escorts were in
office; Hamza and his men in power. The difference is revealed to the public not in peace time, but in
crisis. Going briefly in time, General Oladipo Diya was in office, but those whose public duty it was
Lite him were the ones in power. But Diya appeared to enjoy it. That is the irony of office holders
appear to enjoy their positions more than power wielders do. President jo, having once been in office
but not in power (1976- 1979) now aspires to be in office and in power. Second: Several interests are
balanced in the constitution and lure of the state, and the latter is itself a site of struggle, between
classes and within . In other words, the state is neither an impenetrable fortress which no outsider can
473

enter, nor a market place into which everyone can stroll. You may doubt the Hamza that "outsiders"
tried to urge him to seize power; but please, recall the wic: people and forces that were involved in the
plan (or is it "consultation") of November 17, 1993. Proceedings at the Oputa Panel have confirmed
that the state is, in a largest organisation of the ruling classes and blocs. In this particular sense, the
stagy.- (that is, contains within itself) other organisations and institutions including, in L~ 1 political
parties; administrative institutions, military institutions for the maintenance
order and justice"; the press, religious, educational, traditional and cultural insti But although the state
has coercive as well as administrative and ideological fun frequently reduced to its coercive functions.
This is understandable because the S into being to meet the needs of maintaining and reproducing
existing social fo hierarchy ofpowers and privileges. This function is carried out essentially by fe, state
is institutionalised violence. The Nigerian State is no exception as the Oputa revealed. The Nigerian
State is violence: from colonial days, through the First Rep crisis and Civil War, Second Republic, the
regimes ofBuhariddiagbon, Babangida. Abacha, Abubakar, and to Obasanjo. It has been the same. The
only difference: today, political contradictions have thrown up an official confirmation ofthe pro
Finally, the Oputa panel has confirmed that the state is an impersonal insi this, I mean that the state
continues to function even when its key functionaries are te:: immobilised or when weaklings and
imbeciles are put in powerful positions. There is a sic!" that for three years, the citizens of a Caribbean
country did not know that their presidf.nt was blind. But everyday tough actions, including executions,
were carried out in his name.. Do not judge the strength of the state by the personal strength of its
functionaries. Gene 11 Abacha was at times too ill to know of the atrocities committed in his name.
Some stale governors in Obasanjo's Republic cannot, on their own, be competent senior prefects .111
good secondary schools. But tough and brutal measures regularly proceed from them.
474

53
Notes on the Evolution of States 24th February, 2000
IRECALL one of my late father's favourite proverbs rendered, of course, in the Igbo occurs, everyone
reverts to his or her mother tongue". It is strange that as simple as it Language. The closet translation
which I can give to the pro-T:7;th is: "when an accident : : 'an is, I have not heard this proverb from any
other person. It meant nothing to me then, 7thereafter, until very recently when I started reflecting on
the current upsurge of ethnic Lationalism in several parts ofthe world, including Nigeria. Unfortunately
forme, not for my father, it is no longer possible to explore his perspectives on this proverb: the man
has since cared his proverbs to meet his maker. But I have no difficulty in agreeing with him, at least
-. a general level: When a crisis occurs, a strong instinct (not the only instinct, or always the .- n mgest
one) is to give expression to it in one's mother tongue and seek refuge therein. A . 7 -sis occurred in the
Soviet Union, the country split up into its constituent elements; a crisis lured in Czechoslovakia, both
the territory and the name were cut into two. In Yugoslavia, -.f process of division and sub-division
engineered by crisis is still going on. In Nigeria, the ----.:in elite response to the latest phase of our
national crisis is to advocate restructuring ..,. : ng ethnic lines. The clearest argument or proposition on
what is now called the crisis ofthe nation-.1.-e (but which I consider the dialectics of evolution of
peoples and states) can be .. Timarised as follows: There are two real social entities, the state and the
nation, whatever -i..---nitions are attached to them. A third entity, the nation-state, came into being

about three , : :-._ liries ago in Europe as a result of efforts by the new (and rising) ruling classes, the
~,-_ rgeoisie, to align the state and the nation geographically and politically. These efforts, _,:[-i were
further inspired by the declaration of the American Revolution (Declaration of pendence, 1776) and the
French Revolution (Universal Declaration of the Rights of _:, 1789), were later extended to Africa and
several other parts of the world through nialism. The efforts have not been completely successful - even
after several wars and 2 lutions - as, today, we have instances of several nations under one state (giving
rise, in ., nc places, to agitations for separation) and instances of a nation divided into several (often
giving rise to agitations for a union).
It is furthermore argued that the nation-state, or rather the emergence of the nation-is the origin of the
ethnic minority problem as we now know it: "It is only fin recent ;, with the rigid definitions of
political boundaries and the advent of centralised =Tient within those political boundaries, that
'minority peoples' have become the political 7,3r Aems we know today", as Gerard Chaliand put it in
his contribution to the book
475

Minority Peoples in the Age ofNation-State. He claimed that before the em the nation-state,
"centralised authority had difficulty in holding onto power and ;a over long distances"; "political
boundaries tended to be fluid"; "minorities eyes only as religious minorities"; etc. I hope I have
adequately captured the liberal 77t, ofthe problem. It is sufficiently objective as a starting-point for a
discussion. Now, let us look one century back at the political map of the wori, striking thing we
notice, in comparison to the political map of today, is the - configuration of states with fixed
boundaries. A high school student shown the 1900 map of Europe and that of today would find it
difficult to believe that both refer to the - ,40,1 continent. Just as there is no Soviet Union in Europe,
today there was also no Soviet in 1900. Of course, there was Russia but it was much larger than today's
Russia. There. no Yugoslavia; no Czechoslovakia. There was something like Poland, but the boun were
unclear; in any case, the country was much smaller than what it is today. In the East, there was no
Israel; there was Palestine and there was Transjordan, in additic 7. 1 small number of colonial and
semi-colonial states with funny names and furmierboun In Asia, there was no Pakistan and no
Bangladesh. In Central America there no country called Panama. In West Africa, there was no Togo,
although there was an speaking area shared between the French and British colonialists. There was no
its place there were three colonial territories, one called by that name and the other called protectorates,
but none having clear boundaries. It will be very instructive to the administrative maps ofthe three
territories in 1900, then in 1914 when they becarnf. country, Nigeria, and in 1960 when the country
became independent. Comparin with a 1999 map of Nigeria one will marvel at the evolution of the
Nigerian people Nigerian state over just a century. No other century in history, in my view, has seen
anything near the massive evc of humanity and its environment witnessed in the 20th century. In 1900
only two co in Africa were independent: Liberia and Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia). The rest
continent consisted ofparches of colonial territories. Today there are over 50 indep countries. More may
still come. The evolution is continuing, and will of course, col: forever. Modem ethnic nationalism or
its equivalent in the distant past - an answer to minority problems - is part and parcel of human
evolution. But the current upsurl, associated with the present global economic crisis which affected the
newly indep and former socialist countries more than other countries. My reflections on this question,
not as posed above (which is quite perceptiv more generally, have led me to a number of preliminary,
or provisional, conclusions: One is correct to say that the nation-state is today in crisis, a crisis serious
and general cri for it to be called a global crisis. No honest person, whether an ideologue or not, deny
this historical fact. Two: This crisis is located, dominantly, in the newly-forma', 7 states, where by

"newly-formed" I mean states formed in the last 100 years, or so. 7. states happen to be former socialist
countries and former colonial territories global economic crisis has been severest. Three: a distinction
has to be made 72i,:?7,4 nation-state in Eufope where this form of political organisation develop
nl 14,1L,
Wow

11
11111,
41,
r' I{
NIA
III
476
II

combination of historical factors including industrialisation, social-cultural development, -1-:glous

protests, political struggles and, of course, military contests, and the nation-state in L.1E-lea which was
the will of colonialism. Four: there is hardly any country in the world that is free from the ethnic
minority 'Diem; and in more than half of these countries, the problem is fought out with arms. Five: me
policy of the new imperialism (alias "international community") on each ethnic crisis has ix-en guided
strictly by the former's global strategy namely: the destruction of"communisin", promotion of
globalisation and neo-liberal and market democracy; and the expansion and strengthening of its global
dictatorship. Six: there is no pure nation-state, (that is, a coincidence of state and nation) anywhere in
the world. In other words, there is no ethnically homogeneous state anywhere in the world. Seven: a
nation is not a natural or spontaneous development. A nation is, above all, the product of economic,
political and social developments. Just as a new nation can develop within a state, the establishment of
a state can weld the territories under it into a nation. The eighth and fmal provisional conclusion has to
be isolated and underlined. There can be no general solution to the crisis generated by ethnic
oppression and ethnic nationalism. Each case has to be examined in its historical context. In particular,
there are solutions, such disintegration, that are unattainable in certain contexts except through mutual
destruction general historical regression. The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia were able to ntegrate
relatively peacefully, but Yugoslavia had to pass through bloody civil and
entionist wars that are stili ragipg jirea separated from Ethic,m_ihu2zi, tie emergence of Bangladesh
from Pakistan, though bloody would have been for the latter's war with India. The possibility or
impossibility in each case is history, contemporary circumstances, and - above all - the balance of
forces on
477

15
For Those in Search of Analogies 16th November, 2000
rrIW month of October 2000 has registered itself across the globe as a monti 31 mass fury. From Serbia
to Cote d'Ivoire, from Sri Lanka to Zimbabwe, fr,J mil Colombia to Palestine, from Spain to Nigeria,

angry mobs rose to confront Inc; state, or one another, or both. The fury came mainly from people who
did not see, or. ,d1 not have any other means of registering their opposition to what was happening to
them.. these events were going on, I was drawn into discussions with people around me. I a . so,
listened to, and read media reports on these bloody events. I was struck by some analoz: f,S that were
being made between events and personalities in the news: Zimbabwe looked I .__,, .t a faint copy of
Palestine; the events in Serbia, leading to the fall of Slobodan Milos c---, i,a seemed to be replayed in
Cote d'Ivoire with Robert Guei becoming Cote d'Ivoire_ Milosevic. President Robert Mugabe, facing
food riots, was first compared to Milose',',,L, and then to General Robert Guei; the disqualifications of
presidential candidates by Gian looked very much like what Babangida did in Nigeria in 1992; one side
of Guei looked _;_iiir Babangida, the other side like Abacha. The emergence of Laurent Gbagbo looked
like 11-2.1 ofMoshoodAbiola; the manipulation of election result by Guei seemed to follow the sc:711
written by Babangida in 1993 and revised by Milosevic seven years later; the ethnic ait religious
dimensions ofthe post-election violence in Abidj an made the violence look like -lir carnage in Lagos a
week earlier. Generals Paleneo and Coulibaly whom Guei all! eliminated, looked like Generals Diya
and Adisa who narrowly escaped Abacha's d trap.
These similarities look very strong. But if we are to draw useful lessons from :le bloody events of
October, then a closer look is mandatory, for analysis - any type Dir analysis - consists not only in
seeing similarities, but also in apprehending differences. C way of doing this is first to note, very
carefully, the critical elements of a story - that is. Int elements that make it a story - and then note their
sequence, isolating causes and effe.,-..-a, This methodology will bring out not only the similarities
between story A and story B also their dissimilarities. We may now apply this methodology to the
description of everiE two theatres of dictatorship and mass violence: Palestine and Cote d'Ivoire.
Palestine has existed in the area where it now exists since antiquity. We read of:. secular history, in the
Bible and in the Koran. Jerusalem which, on and off, for thousand years, has been the capital of
Palestine, is even more known than Palestine. Jerusalem 1:: most sacred place for three of the world's
leading religions: Judaism, Christianity and ISIL7,, We read in history that the closest contact ofJews
with God and the latter's firmest assure:-,,::::t
478

Jews were the chosen people were made in Jerusalem; Jesus Christ had his last ation, before the actual
execution, in Jerusalem; Prophet Mohammed ascended to from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is also an
important city historically and politically, being if :31-.)ital of several empires, kingdoms and colonial
states. This is the historical Palestine. story of Modern Palestine began at the close of World War 1
when the colonial er in the territory, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, was defeated. The territory, which
then anciided the present kingdom of Jordan, was taken over by the League of Nations (later L =led
Nations) and handed over to Britain as a Mandate. There were two main communities in Palestine,
Jews and Arabs - with the latter ying significant degree of superiority in population. When Jordan was
excised and 7ituted into an independent state, Arabs still outnumbered Jews in what remained of the
znal Palestine. With the British Mandate in Palestine drawing to an end, the long history stility between
Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews came to a decisive moment. Jews - whose numbers had been
substantially increased with the influx of refugees 2 the Nazi Holocaust - wanted an independent
Jewish state. In practical terms, this t a demand for the partition of Palestine. The Jewish demand,
which became more with time, must have been informed_ by their tribulations over several centuries:
tribulations h saw them scattered all over the world. The Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, did want
partition; they wanted a united Palestinian state. The Arab position was informed fact that they had

been the dominant population in Palestine for centuries and the fact
this population was almost evenly distributed throughout Palestine. Any partition, they ned, would turn
millions ofArabs into colonised people, slaves or refugees. They proved right. The United Nations
Security Council, which was the overall colonial rity in Palestine, supported partition. United Nations'
decision made an open war able. On May 15, 1948, with Palestinian Arabs still protesting against
partition, Palestinian -s unilaterally enforced the United Nations' partition plan and declared the
independent of Israel in the portion they believed was theirs. As expected, they took more than the.:
were given. Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq immediately 'attic fared war on the
Jewish state. And they were naturally joined by Palestinian Arabs who, .ght, became aliens in their own
territory. The war has continued, with no general ceasefire, for more than 52 years. Starting 1948, each
successive war between Jews and Arabs has left the Palestinian Arabs e off, but more determined. In
the 1948 war Jordan seized a part of Jerusalem; but lions of Palestinians were forced out of Israel and
became refugees in Palestine and ziabouring Arab countries. In the 1956 battle over the Suez Canal, the
Arabs lost more 'tory; more Palestinians became refugees. The 1967 battle was the most devastating of
the wars. Israel seized Golan Heights from Syria, Gaza Strip and Sinai from Egypt, the Bank of River
Jordan and East Jerusalem from Jordan. Mediation by world powers ntemational organisations has also
been going on since 1948. Palestinian Arabs have e dropped the demand for the return to status quo,
that is, the elimination of the state of 1. They now want an independent Palestinian state with
Jerusalem, or part of it, as
479

capital. Israel says Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel until God takes it bac them. Today,
Palestinians have the sympathy of the world, especially the enslaved it; but Israel has the concrete
material support ofAmerica, the only super-power - today controls the whole of Palestine; Palestinian
Arabs are colonised peoples. Oveto those in search of analogies. Cote d'Ivoire: Sometime in December
1999, Robert Guei, a retired Ivoirien general, was brought from his village to Abidjan and installed
President of Cote d'Iv mutinous Ivoirien soldiers who had earlier driven the elected President, Ronan
Bedie, exile. Following the footsteps of his predecessors in West Africa (Benin, Togo, G Mali, Niger,
Chad, etc.), Guei initiated a transition programme in which he was to presidential candidate. Following
the example of Sani Abacha of Nigeria, the iv N " strongman refused to form a party of his own,
presenting himself as a non-partisan can of national survival and unity. And going slightly beyond
Abacha and playing an o: ethnic and religious game, Guei banned all those who were likely either to
defeat him polls or insist on their victory if they were rigged out of it. The banned candidates inc. the
main candidate from the northern part of the country, Alassane Quattarra. L a Gbagbo, who
subsequently contested against Guei, was a beneficiary of the ban. Gufl Gbagbo are both southerners
and Christians; Quattarra is a northerner and a Moslem n.. point to note here is that Gbagbo was a
beneficiary of Guei's undemocratic polit: its exclusion. He was a beneficiary of injustice. Just before
the election, Guei set a trap fall Ivoirien senior army officers, and they fell into it. They were eventually
eliminated fi-military government, from the armed forces and from circulation. Guei tried to Milosevic,
but like Milosevic, he failed. Gbagbo became President and immediately the infamous decision, made
by Guei, that Quattarra is not a citizen of Cote d'Ivoire. now to the seekers of analogies.
480

Globalisation and Human Progress 13th April, 2000

FTER heated argument on the current promotion ofprivatisation in the state media, I went to bed.
Barely three hours later I woke up with the question: Taking a long and sober view of history, can
globalisation be regarded as human rogress, a historical advance for humanity as a whole, an advance
which transcends the particular contradictions, oppression, exploitation and violence of the present
age? I knew immediately tat the question was directed at myselfby no one else but myself. This is what
we call self-re-examination; and it reminded me of a 1988 encounter with a professional colleague
who, after a particularly bitter argument over Babangida's policies, asked, in frustration, if I saw
nothing good in the general. I had replied in the negative. My relationship with the colleague has not
recovered from the disappointment he suffered. That was over 11 years ago. Since I am much older
now and expected to be more mature I decided to proceed soberly on the present question on
globalisation. If the answer is "yes," that is, if the answer is that globalisation is human progress, as
would be affirmed by almost everyone around me, what are the practical political implications for an
activist, a mass educator or a social mobiliser who stands with the :xploited and dispossessed of this
earth and sees and, perhaps also feels, their present arsh material situation? And if the answer is "no,"
an answer against the dominant intellectual ...:_i political opinion of the time, what can one do beyond
moral denunciation in view of the .:_,:t that globalisation is not only "the core of the new world
economic order," according to _ 7 ,cent newspaper editorial, but now appears as real, powerful and
invincible as a volcano? -hat can one say to the widely held opinion that criticising globalisation is like
preventing . -_-,2..'s people from boarding the only vehicle moving on a one-way road to civilisation
and . :demisation? I have often advised my young friends never to dodge a question however difficult,
--ibarrassing or provocaive. The widest degree of freedom you may permit yourself if you - -.tnd to
retain your credibility and moral authority is to deflect the question or expand it: you must answer it.
Although this globalisation question, as posed, was a difficult one me, I tried to follow my own advice
and decided to deflect the questioh to avoid the :, es" or "no" answer. In what sense or in what ways can
globalisation be regarded as . _man progress? The question then boils down to a re-examination of the
concepts of ".man progress and globalisation and indicating what aspects of the former, if any, can be
- : .-2n in the latter.
481

Globalisation as the term is now popularly understood, (and not necessan:::, original meaning) is a very
visible process: it means the rapid expansion of capitalism, cap: economic relations and the capitalist
market across the globe - particularly to areas Ix they had hitherto been absent, marginal or weak.
Dating back to 1980, in the earliest process is characterised and promoted by a phenomenal
development of technolo transportation and telecommunication and massive and rapid movement
ofhuman b e-goods, services and information across countries and continents. Human progress, on the
other hand, can be defined by means of a question pc, by Goo= Novack: "Has humanity augmented its
powers, it its conditions, enlaz-7 its freedoms, chances and possibilities of development over the ages?"
The answer, is of course. Over the ages humanity has, on the one hand, increased its knowledge of nay
compelling the latter to serve its needs more and more; on the other hand humanity ' reduced the power
which some sections of the human race wield over the others. Y human progress is a reality; we know
its main contents: expansion of"natural" freedom social freedom. but this definition is too abstract and
too general. A concrete questi whether human progress is measurable, and how it can be measured.

Three points have to be made before proceeding. In the first place, human pro is not a free historical
award. As several philosophers of history have observed, huma,. has had to pay a price, sometimes a
very heavy one, for every historical advance. I industrial revolution in England was a historical
advance, the price was the ruination of Irt segments ofthe peasantry. If the white invasion of the
American continent was a prelucl,..:i a historical advance (the rise of capitalism), the price was the
enslavement of millic African people and the destruction of the native Indians as a people. In the
second plat,historical advance may, in the short run, not be an advance for humanity as a whole, bu:
only a section of it; and when it is a sectional advance, human progress often bears character,
constraints and limitations of the beneficiaries. What this suggests is that h progress can be categorised
into two types: human progress in the narrow sense (sec benefit) and human progress in the broad sense
(benefit to humanity as a whole). In third place a hi qnrical advance does not usually come the way it is
consciously planned human agencies. In most cases an advance is the product of conflict of forces,
unanticip by the forces involved. In his foreword to my book Human Progress and its Enemies, Biodun
Je asserted that human progress is measurable, but "not in abstract statistical terms but in degree to
which the exploited, marginalised groups and classes in society liberate themsei-from poverty and
degradation and, in so doing, simultaneously liberate their vast produ.,=, and creative capacities from
the exploitation and manipulation of their oppressors, so general advance of society toward a
disalienated, fully humanised society is enhanced". What Professor Jeyifo is saying here is that the
motor for human proEr:-.:ss, any point in history is the oppressed, the marginalised, the dispossessed,
and the excl....a I may generalise this by saying that some sectional advances can be the conditions f_.
general advance of humanity.
482

Who would say that globalisation is not human progress, a historical advance? No 12: at least not me!
Now, anyone in Calabar can buy any Euro-American product provided Dr she has the money, even in
our local currency; a message can be sent to the remotest __age in America or Europe or Japan by
telephone, fax or e-mail, and the reply received iiiin minutes. I was in a friend's office the other day and
he was conducting a telephone feting involving collaborators in London, Pretoria, New York and Lima
(Peru). This article 11 be read in new York through the Internet before a copy of The Guardian gets to
me in :abar by road from Lagos; typewriters are almost out of fashion, replaced by computers
rhperfom an ever-increasing range of other activities that human beings used to perform s rapidly and
efficiently; one can sit in his or her bedroom and watch the bombing of :,:t bia and the war in
Chechenya; one can travel all over the world in a week provided he she has the money. globalisation is
human progress in the narrow sense of the word, a historical advance em which the vast majority of
mankind are excluded. Who are the beneficiaries of this zt.I'vance in Nigeria? Who are the excluded?
And who are the outright victims? The direct ,f:.eficiaries include politicians and state functionaries,
agents of huge transnational and itinational corporations that manufacture and distribute "globalised"
goods and services sinessmen and women, contractors, licence holders and consultants in the oil
industry, importers and exporters, those whose incomes are denominated in Euro-American currencies
state robbers. All the beneficiaries in Nigeria will number, at most, one half of one pes ofthe
population. The remaining 99.5 per cent are the left-outs and outright victims who are these outright
victims? They are concrete, not theoretical. According to the eria Labour Congress (NLC) "not less
than 500,000 jobs have been destroyed in recent times as a result of trade liberalisation associated with
globalisation". These are just 'Mae group, out of thousands of groups of victims. To these victims who
include women, children, and small-scale commodity mriNclucers, the destitute and the unemployed,
globalisation appears as a curse. Inflation, meiaasive devaluation of the currency, increasing poverty,

virtual cancellation of subsidies

L-0- 1 _C-i231L-1.1Y' _r_o_mmPrrialic_2_61-1n JP ViP_c arciJJnr jjtc11 r ;/-1TJTm jr ofhumanists,
radical politicians and human rights activists is two-fold: first, to r de cause of those who are excluded
from the benefits of globalisation or who are tims; and secondly to insist that the root cause of this
exclusion be removed. irnrs globalisation will assume as a result of this global struggle lie in the
bowels of
483

15
May 29, History and the Law 8th June, 2000
Y immediate feeling on learning that Mar29 had been named "Denny Day" and declared a public
holiday was that of shock. I was shocked Th.1.1 ederal Government of Nigeria at this particular trying
period of our nai. life could do what was clearly an arbitrary, insensitive and arrogant abuse of state pc
My shock was quickly replaced by fury, or rather, impotent fury. But I soon became s as I told myself
what I have often repeated to my younger friends - always, of course. due regard for their religious
sensibilities. The refrain can be put in this way: In the tee world, in the world in which we live and
reproduce our lives, in this world of living. and living social relations, state power is a god - not God in
the sense of omnipr (present everywhere), not God in the sense of omniscience (all-knowing), but
Gc'.."1,,I sense of omnipotence (all-powerful). For although many states are alienated and icz-a
powerless state or a state that is less powerful than any other institution in the land
a state. The Federal Government of Nigeria has endorsed this thesis through its "Den_ Day"
declaration. The government was able to declare May 29 a public holiday and public institutions in the
land to close down, compelling Nigerian embassies abroacl its gates and employing our resources in a
celebration because it had the power - no power as conferred by the law or constitution, but raw power
and material contrth ollric State CO111. I did not, at first, consider what the 1999 Nigerian Constitution
says on the of declaration of public holidays including which level of arm of government has the to do
so and which one does not. To me, this is not a question of constitution or the that of history and of
course, politics. I was pleased to note that Wole Soyinka, in reaction to the declaration published by
The Guardian of May 30, 2000, did not the Nigerian Constitution, but to history (June 12) and politics
("patriotic comp Am I, therefore, underrating, the Nigerian Constitution and the Nigerian Law as "17az., resolving constitutional, legal and political disputations and contradictions?1\4:\, a:Ls, No, I am
not in general underrating the constitution and the law. But in this par-,1,: the constitution and the law
are irrelevant or, at best, inappropriate. Let me means of history and politics. Ken Saro-Wiwa was
executed on November 10, 1995 under a duly ena.,_ The decree under which he was tried and executed
was promulgated by the Pr: 'v Ruling Council (PRC) - as prescribed by law - and signed by the
Council's C..-,21 General Sant Abacha - as required by the law. The trial followed the process rc:
484

w (not necessarily the process required by "civilisation" or "human rights," etc.). The and the sentences
were reviewed by the PRC and confirmed - according to the law. army officer who announced the
confirmation is, today, leading commander ofNigeria's ed Forces. In short, althoughAbacha's
government definitely violated some other laws ,her laws in the arrest, trial and execution of our

beloved Ken Saro-Wiwa and his patriots, it did not violate the Nigerian Law and what legally stood for
the Nigerian -tution at the time. My question now is: Is it legitimate to base our appreciation ofthe on of
Saro-Wiwa and his compatriots on the Nigerian Law? What of Chief Moshood la? He proclaimed
himself president, thereby clearly committing treason under the an Law. He was arrested and detained
under the powers possessed and exercisable general Sani Abacha under the Nigerian Law. He was even
charged to court, a properly
muted court of law in Nigeria. He died in lawful detention. My suspicion that he was ered has no basis
in law. Is it not clear, therefore, that in discussing certain subjects at times and at certain levels it is
unhelpful to cite the constitution and the law, that other rical or political principles may be higher, or
more appropriate? It follows that the ents between the Presidency and the National Assembly on the
one hand and between Presidency and the Lagos State Government on the other hand over the
"Democracy are, at best, superficial. When I settled down to consider this "Democracy Day"
declaration, my first fusion was that the declaration was intended to defuse (or is it diffuse?) the threat
by the plan of some Igbo youths to "actualise" the state of Biafra on May 27, 2000. explicitly I thought
the Federal Executive Council's declaration was meant either to the nation's attention from May 27 or
to provide a counter-weight to it in case the s plan became successful. This thought was quickly
succeeded by another one, namely, the declaration was perhaps, meant to be a challenge to June 12
which (many Nigerians y from the West and Lagos) regard as the authentic Democracy Day. Or was the
ation meant as a cynical reminder that military arbitrariness is still with us? The National Assembly
(the Senate and the House of Representatives) through its rship (Chuba Okadigbo, Ghali Umar Na'
Abba, and others) officially boycotted the
iernocracy Day celebration on the grounds that the declaration was unconstitutional "as
declaration ought to have had the approval of the National Assembly." The Presidency ed that it had the
power to declare a public holiday. They both cited the 1999 Constitution t:he laws of Nigeria. Later, in
response to Lagos State governor's declaration of June as Democracy Day and public holiday, the
Federal Attorney-General said that only the sIdent of the Federal Republic not the National Assembly,
not the state governors had ever to declare a public holiday. Olaleye Adebiyi, in a letter to The
Guardian Editor ie 1, 2000), said that under Section 2 of the Public Holidays Act of 1990, the president
inmudi state governors (and not the legislatures, federal or state) had the power to declare put holidays
in their respective spheres of authority. The law cited was made by General 111111mahim Babangida at
the height of his fascist rule in Nigeria and the Constitution being aplier.fd was General Abdulsalami
Abubakar's parting -gift" to Nigeria. Both were military iimrpcsitions. You can see now why I am not
interested in this constitutional debate.
485

The point that should be made is that, historically, for Nigeria as a nation; May is not as important
positively or negatively as June 12 or June 8 or June 7 or May 2-. May 30 or July 6 or July 29 or
January 15. None of these days has been declared a pu': holiday. I request our young political activists
to try to fix the correct events against tht dates cited. I may quickly say here that a day is remembered
not necessarily because something positive happened on that day, but because it is a landmark or a
historical turnir. :- point, positive or negative. Anation can, for instance, remember the day of its defeat
in or the assassination of its hero by declaring it a public holiday. 600 years after the ever.: Serbians
still remember their 1398 defeat by the Turks in the battle of Kosovo. Having said this, we must also
say that a segment of the national population, a nationality, a political movement, a religious group,
etc., can set aside a day to be remembered by its members, for one reason or the other, partisan or not.

But such sectarian observance should not be foisted on the nation in form of a public-funded
celebration or public holiday. Presider.: Obasanjo and his supporters and, perhaps, the leaderships of
the three political parties = power have sufficient reasons to remember and observe May 29 as
"Democracy Day- Cr" something else. But it is a gross abuse of state power to foist that declaration on
the nation.
486

157
Ideology and the Ethnic Question 6th July, 2000
I were called upon to define ideology for beginners in sociology or political science, the students
grapple with this definition, I would add that ideological representations I would simply say that an
ideology is the representation of the part as the whole. As 4c f part) are of varying degrees of distances
from the whole, or approximations to the whole. Ideological representations are products of human
consciousness and the latter is always partial. The limitation of individual and collective human
experience, knowledge, ysical capacity, exposure, mental attributes, conditions of material reproduction
of life, :. accounts for the partial and uneven nature of human consciousness and the ideological
nesentations it produces. However - and this is the main point here - even when human beings are
conscious the limitations oftheir experience and knowledge, they would still want to paint a complete
:tore of the world, that is, the world as it is in its fullness and completeness. This appears be one of the
distinctive attributes of the human species: The claim to know everything arid the desire to pronounce
on everything that exists. From antiquity, individuals and groups lialA-C tended to regard their
locations as centres of the universe, as centres of collective human experience. The little they see or
know is generalised and taken to be the whole lity, the only reality. Their feelings are the authentic
human feelings, their needs are the oily truly human needs. This human attribute of ideological claim
and pretensions is a condition of human e k.istence and, as some people may say, "there is nothing we
can do about it". In many zi,.. heres ofprivate and public life, this does not do much damage. But there
are exceptions, z-azic exceptions. The greatest impact and most tragic consequences ofthis human
attribute _ ,? cur in the political sphere where rival peoples and groups who desire to rule over a c,.:
immunity - or merely represent their community in a larger polity - are compelled to proclaim that their
programme - which is necessarily partial, partisan and uneven - is the ,L, ly authentic representation
ofwhat exists, what should be, and the interest ofthe people. 71...is is the root of self-righteous
messianism and all forms ofdictatorship. For Machiavellians 'a, rose concern is how to win and retain
state power, there is nothing to regret about ideological Caims and pretensions. But for those whd are
committed to popular liberation, those who ,.. desire to change aspects of our life in the interest of the
prime victims of ideology - the poor, rrf. exploited, the dominated, the dispossessed, the humiliated, the
marginalised - there is 5 -iply no alternative to striving, continuously, to overcome the limitations
oftheir particular ic.z-ologies. This was the concern of the Sun Yat-Sen, one of the earliest and best
110,
487

representatives of Chinese nationalism. And how I wish it was also the concern ofA Ademuyiwa in his
article "Between Class and Leadership" (The Guardian, 15/6 .2 Sun Yat-Sen (1867 - 1925) was the

founder, in 1911, of the Kuominta Chinese nationalist party which was in power in China and, after the
revolution of 1 Taiwan, until last year. I shall isolate two ideas from Sun's contributions to the subject
discussion. He was barely 31 when he proclaimed nationalism, democracy and so c. as the ideological
basis ofthe political struggle of the Chinese people. Sun later inco the "three great principles of the
time" into the programme of Kuomintang. He three movements as aspects of the desirable general
movement. There were hi obstacles of course; but the critical point is that Sun was conscious ofthe
limitation of of the three ideological currents (as they were then presented) without the others,
deliberately sought to integrate them. If the Chinese nationalist were alive today, I an: he would have
added "feminism" and "human rights" to his list of "great mover Secondly, "loyalty to the nation",
according to Sun, "does not take precedence over le:,411 to the family and the clan - the three loyalties
are desirable." Sun's second print shared in Nigeria - perhaps not as strongly - by the political
movement associated Chief Obafemi. Awolowo and ChiefAnthony Enahoro. Ademuyiwa tried to make
the in his article. Although I disagree with this idea, I appreciate the liberationist basis emergence at the
time it did. It is an irony that it was one of the articles in which I celebrated the return of Anthony
Enahoro and the freshness he brought to current national political debate made Ademuyiwa very angry.
I had, in that article entitled, "Political Zones and Blocs", (The Guardian 27/4/2000), praised the
"respected nationalist and democra: his "well-informed, patriotic and brilliant intervention" in the
nationality question, a however, that this intervention had forced me to return to the "fundamentals" of
this qu I then posed two questions: First: "Assuming that there is a new wave of ethnic or natio
consciousness around the globe, is the demand carried by this wave (namely, incr. political and cultural
autonomy and resource control) realisable everywhere only thro restructuring along ethnic lines? The
Movement for National Reformation (MNR) to say yes, but I say no. Second: "Why should the MNR's
position ignore or underpi class question - inits national or international dimensions - when we know
that ifthe natk whistle is blown today the leaderships that will be produced in and for all the ethnic
natioi in Nigeria will be class (as opposed to people's) leadership.?" Ademuyiwa in the article earlier
cited answered the first question implicitly second explicitly. His answer to the first question was "yes".
In answering the question, he claimed that the MNR does not ignore or underplay the class question
challenged the thesis that, in the context ofcontemporary ethnic nationality politics, al.l nationalities in
Nigeria will produce class leaderships (as opposed to people's leaders. He claimed that in at least three
nationalities, Yoruba, Bini and Tiv, my thesis is false. response, Ademuyiwa took us to school and for
which we should be grateful. But bey this, he also threw some abuses at me and my "likes". He also
made some insinuatic shall briefly restate my position on the question under discussion. I shall ignore
the
488

Itie ways done - of recent, you may say the MNR programme because I have studied it and have been a
student of and ideological current represented by Awolowo and Enahoro. Beyond that, I ED
ChiefAwolowo in one-on-one discussion (1978); and between 1991 and ivlarly net with Chief Enahoro
to discuss several political issues, but particularly IE Kay quesii.on. I en6o-rse my pothl,ion_ as txpftsstd2icovo. hgn,a Si.Tafraka 1111111:: .he lines is both impossible arid undesirable. But freedom from
ethnic oppression ' domination is desirable and possible. In relation to the class question, I pose the
third ..fstion. What is the MNR position on globalisation, privatisation, corm-nercialisation and
22-,ulation? Ademuyiwa"s insinuation that my Dosition on the nationality question is driven by cioeconomic reason" ofmy own section of the country" is unnecessary for it does not f.'ngthen his
argument Whatever it is worth, let me offer this information. I was born in rebaland by Igbo parents. I
had my primary, secondary and university educations in rebaland. I started my political and working

life in Yorubaland and had my 12-month emship with the peasant in Yorubaland, in a location a few
kilometres from Osogbo. My fr was born ofAnnang (Akwa Thom) parents, and my family has lived
in Efikland since 6. Today, by choice, I have no ethnic or religious affiliation. I hope I shall never, for
the ,or:s filly life, be compelled to declare, orally or in writing, what my religion or ethnic group I am
a Nigerian and a humanist. Simple. Good or bad, that is my choice
489

15
Political Zones and Power Blocs 27th April, 2000
'S I was reflecting on President Olusegun Obasanjo's attitudes to Nigeria's politic a zones,
ChiefAnthony Enahoro returned to the country and gave my thought eap. He brought with him a fresh
and illuminating statement, or rather restateme:-. of theriationality question in Nigeria. We must thank
the respected nationalist and democr for his well-informed, patriotic and brilliant intervention. But an
intervention such as till does not conclude a debate; it rather calls for a critical re-examination of one's
earlit position on the subject in light of the intervention; and, hence, a return to the fundamentals And
that is what I intend to do. In the weeks following the Sharia "civil war", the president had reasons to r
to the issues raised by politicians of the various political zones created for the country professional
politicians. Prominent among the issues were restructuring, Sovereign N Conference (SNC), revenue
allocation, confederation, and the Sharia. To the no zones where the Sharia question was pushed to the
possible limit, he adopted the m of quiet diplomacy and unadvertised appeasement; to the Eastern zone
where the qu of confederation was raised, the president's method was that of disdain; to the S South
zone which re-stated its demand for "true federalism" and greater resource c he adopted the method of
pressurisation. It was reported at the time that the presi prevented a proposed joint meeting of
governors of South-East and South-South Although the report, carried by all the major newspapers in
the country, was denied presidency, many people, including myself, believed it. To the Western zone
with its consistent demand for a Sovereign N Conference, the president restated the
"unconstitutionality" of such'a conference; the Middle-Belt zone with its support for "one Nigeria" that
is secular and dery president responded with applause. To unrecognised political zones represented by
rights, non-governmental and pro-democracy movements and "civil society orgams the president
responded with silence. By the way, it is to these unrecognised zor. v..:LF belong. It is national; it is
popular. And I hope it will become anti-imperialist an2. 3,64, more critical attitude to globalisation, or
"global capitalism" as some activists ::31111 shall return to this point and its meaning in the context of
the current debate. If my observations are correct then one will be tempted to conclude that thf. -pas of
the Middle-Belt zone approximates that of the president. But this hardly explaiiii president adopted
different strategies in his responses to different political zones ix the professional politician (or political
class) have divided the country. The expl
490

presiderir's'Erferent strRike-i' can be found in the difference between political zones power blocs. To
the power-bloc political zones the president adopted a cautious strategy; t to the non-power bloc
political zones the president replied with arrogance and disdain,. d to the unrecognised non-power bloc
political zones, Obasanjo merely showed some "tation. Then Chi efAnthony Enahoro returned. And
implicitly called, or rather joined the L for the dissolution of power-blocs within the context of a single
Nigerian polity. Enahoro's position which was worked out about eight years ago by the Movement

:-National Refonnation (MNR) under his, and Mokwugo Okoye's, leadership is clear. In ate
movement's perspective and opinion, the nationality should become the basic political administrative
unit of Nigeria. Any structure within or below the nationality, such as cal government, will not be
autonomous in the context of the restructured polity and I} ence will not be basic in the political sense.
On his return to the country the nationalist rezrefted theinability ofpre-independence political
leadership to properly recognise and anslst on this; but according to Enahoro, the nationality
proposition is an idea whose time JILL.; arrived, matured and almost irresistible, not only in Nigeria
but also globally: If you won't recognise it, it will force itself on you. He praised the Yoruba nationality
for its struggle d urged the Edo nationality to which he belongs not to be left behind. Looking beyond
our borders for illustration he pointed at Kosovo (in Serbia/Yugoslavia) and Chechenya ( Russian
Federation) as examples of nationalities that were on the way to freedom. In the (:),T:nion of Chief
Enahoro's movement there are at most 70 nationalities in Nigeria. These nationalities which will
replace the present states in the proposed political structure will be 47:uped into eight federations, four
in the North and four in the South. The federations will liter. be brought together in a Union of
Federations of Nigerian Nationalities. The status, stncture and number of local governments will be the
prerogative of each nationality/state. Election into the nationality/state and federal political institutions
will be direct, but the union Ins:itutions will be constituted by the federal assemblies acting as electoral
colleges. The f'.....-_ctions and powers of the various levels of government will be negotiated but it is
clear tin that structure political power lies with the nationalities and their federations. When I read
MNR's proposition in the early 1990s I was excited for it coincided, in part, with the position I had
earlier worked out in my column in The Guardian. The al coincidence relates to the eight zonal or
regional structure and collective presidency o se chairpersonship will be rotational. I had at that time
proposed the restructuring of country into eight regions, constituted as follows: four in the North and
four in the South; in the West and two in the East; four in the areas dominated by the majority ethnic
7,;L:lonalities and four in the areas dominated by the minority ethnic nationalities. I called the rDposition the principle of triple balancing. The principle accommodates the resolution of e national
question up to the limit compatible with national unity; but it goes beyond it: the itrple balancing takes
into account the history and process ofNigeria's integration and what as the impossibility of separation
along ethnic lines. The principle is also informed by need to enhance the conditions for popular
democracy and the exercise of popular
1,111)
74_ ,Ver.
491

The MNR's position is creative and challenging. But that is exactly the r have problems with it. An
inane proposition does not create any problem. My problem 1VINR's positions is this: Assuming that
there is a new wave of ethnic or natio consciousness around the globe, is the demand carried by this
wave (namely, incriio political and cultural autonomy and resource control) realisable everywhere only
tire restructuring or separation along ethnic lines? MNR appears to say "yes", but I say Furthermore,
why should the MNR position ignore or underplay the class question - national and international
dimensions - when we know that ifthe nationality whistle is today the leaderships that will be produced,
in and for, all the ethnic nationalities in NI will be class (as opposed to people's) leaderships? I shall
Conclude by returning to the seventh political zone, the unrecognised c which I belong. This zone
covers the whole country and rejects the claim that it is encroac. on the territories of other zones. The
seventh zone recognised the existence of ethrri religious minorities; it recognises the fact that there is

exploitation and oppression c: basis of ethnicity and religion; it recognises the rise in ethnic
consciousness and the deg for autonomy or separation carried by this consciousness. But the zone also
recognise reality of class oppression and exploitation, that is oppression and exploitation in the sp.Titirc
of material reproduction of life. This latter phenomenon is national. The seventh zone sup the
restructuring of the Nigerian polity to enhance the possibility of establishing pop democracy in Nigeria
and eliminating or radically reducing ethnic and religious exploi in Nigeria; but the zone insists that
this cannot be done purely along ethnic or nation lines for several reasons, including the fact that given
the present level of national integra and development of national institutions pure ethnic restructuring
cannot be done ei through dialogue or through war.
492

159
Reflections on the Women's Question 20th July, 2000 IAM embarrassed to confess that the subject I
find most difficult to write on is the oppression of women. I am embarrassed not only because the
phenomenon of women's oppressionis,so,real, so pervasive and ever-present, but also because, as a
Marxist d humanist, and one engaged in conscientising men against sexist prejudices, I should' really
not find the subject of oppression ofhalfofhumanity difficult to engage. I think there arz three main
factors - among several others - responsible for this personal problem which, T am sure, several other
people - or more specifically, other men - share with me. The first iis that marxist politics, in particular,
and leftist politics, in general, have really not paid equate attention to women's oppression. We
inherited a revolutionary tradition that qessentially ignored the problem in practice and had been
abstract in its theoretical appreciation analysis. Marxist politics is today paying dearly for this historical
neglect as it is paying its near-neglect of the forces of religion and ethnic nationalism. The second
reason for this embarrassing difficulty is that the oppression of women integrated into our daily lives,
so internalised, that most human beings - male and ale, radical and conservative, rightist and leftist regard it as natural, as normal. I recall strange behaviour of a Romanian professor of Mathematics who
was one of my teachers I was a graduate student in Lagos University in the early 1970s. I observed that
from e to time the professor would step back from the blackboard to the other end of the sroom to read
the mathematical argument he had written. One day I asked him if this -ard and backward movement
was part of the demonstration of the argument. I was ked when he said "yes", adding, in the little
English he knew, that one cannot see well le standing close to the blackboard. A teacher, he said, has to
move back from time to to see and reason well. I have never really forgotten the professor's statement;
and I ber it particularly now that I am discussing the question ofwomen's oppression: you 't see the
oppression of women and cannot reflect well on it because the phenomenon. close. Unfortunately, there
is no way of "stepping back" to look at it, or think of it, --Ise you always carry it with you. When
radicals and revolutionaries are accused of perpetrating sexist oppression, rnination or prejudice, they
run into angry and vociferous self-defence. But very often w-ery denials confirm the charge. This
reminds me of an encounter I had several years with a female comrade. When she raised the question of
male Marxists, including !f oppressing their wives, girl-friends, concubines, daughters, colleagues,
subordinates,
493

mothers and even female comrades, I went into a rage. I told her that in my ov, took part in domestic
work, including cooking, washing and cleaning. To nail th and put the comrade on the defensive, I
announced - truthfully, I may add - that I s washed my female domestic assistant's clothes. The
comrade looked at me with 7.-te
like a mixture of pity and condescension, and then replied: "Comrade, whenever part in domestic work,
or wash your domestic assistant's clothes, you do it bee, feel like doing it On the contrary, your wife
and domestic assistant do domestic w wash your clothes, not because they feel like or want to do so,
but because compelled to do so. That is the essence of women's situation, my situation and your wife's
situation." I felt deflated, humbled and humiliated. The third factor is a more personal one. I happen to
have a wife whose ra occupation, mental and physical, in the last one decade, has been the women's the
human rights of women; violence and discrimination against women; empowerment, women and the
democratic transformation; etc. As this spouse knowledgeable than me on this question and as she is
also my friend and spouse is not always and everywhere a friend or comrade, mind you!) she has :fill
relieve me of much of the duty I owe the women's question in writing and public Fr-ii I have also
almost been relieved of the responsibility of thought and reflection on this In an article published about
20 years ago in Marxism Today, a European feminist, Vickki Seddon, articulate three mechanisms "that
maintain the power of women." These are the financial dependence of women on men; men's control
ofw sexuality and fertility; and violence, and fear ofviolence exerted on women by men., completely
with Seddon on the roots of women's oppression, although one c ar. some other roots of this age-long
phenomenon, the oldest form of oppression of humanity by another. To solve a problem, you must
formulate it correctly; and to f it correctly you must uncover its roots, and, of course, its history. But
this is hove prepared to go on the question of r. causes, history, description and patterns of vt
oppression. Why? Because there is nothing new in this general analysis. There is also new in the
prescription for solution or struggle for solution. They are centuries olti no point repeating what others
have already articulated and analysed more knov, and hnitiantiv than I can do. While I move on I
commend Seddon's statement to I turn my attention to the family system since the family is the site
ofthe of discrimination and violence against women. The modern family system - across races, nations
and cultures - has been described as patriarchal where institutions are defined as "systems of social
relations by which the old dominate men dominate women, and those at the centre of male descent
lines dominate
who marry or are adopted into the lineage." The essence of patriarchy, this continues, is that "girls and
women have little control over the circumstances u they work, the returns for their labour, their
sexuality and the timing and number children." Then the insightful statement: "But patriarchal
institutions interact with of caste, class, and ethnicity within historically specific settings to produce
divers of productive and reproductive behaviour." I also commend this statement to tht
494

writers are women. From what has been said so far two broad strategies emerge for the struggle against
Ix oppression of women. The first is the intensification ofthe current national and international ogle by
women's groups and feminist organisations for the human rights of women, for :-determination and for
personal freedom and the conditions for personal freedom. This the categorical imperative, the
permanent and unnegotiable human responsibility: to struggle all conditions under which humanity or
fractions of it are oppressed, cheated or Although women, as victims, will have to be in the forefront,
this is a struggle for -.._imanity as has been argued for ages. As such, men, the state and traditional

institutions - more and more, be educated and persuaded to join; men, in particular, should be Je to see
that the paradise they dream about cannot come to pass so long as they hold half of humankind. The
second strategy is a long-term one. It is the intensification of ._iialysis and criticism of patriarchy
under which women and children are exploited and a: tar under which a woman, or a group of
women, and their children are enslaved to called "husband," "father," and "head of family," however
inhuman or stupid he may
I must quickly draw attention to the difference in the modes of engagement advocated 11111 first
(minimum and permanent) strategy and the second (maximum and long-term) Itra:f{zy. The first is the
intensification of the struggle against all forms of discrimination and f:nce against women. This
struggle is categorical, non-negotiable and permanent; but end is intensified analysis and criticism of
patriarchy as a means of revealing and lln1((:Le:and1ng its oppressive ideologies, contents and
structures. No humanistic transformation Itir place without this understanding.
495

16
The Fall and Rise of the Natives 13th July, 2000
SOMETIME in May 2000, a group of armed native Fijians forced their way ir: : III compound housing
the island nation's parliament and took it over. All the p f-oir,11 within the compound at the time of the
take-over - including the country's f -z-zi Indian Prime Minister and several of his ministers and
officials - were taken hostazz:: 7 incident was reported as an attempted coup d' etat. What were the
natives demandinz," general, they were demanding a greater say (or is it dominant say?) in the affairs
South Pacific nation called Fiji and in particular, they were asking for the nullification existing national
constitution which has made this enhanced political and eco: _,y participation, or dominance, difficult
or impossible. A similar uprising had taken place L.-. in 1987. Then, it was led by a military officer, Lt.
Col. Sitiveni Rabuka. The May replay was led by a civilian, George Speight. We shall return to Fiji; but
let us take a beyond this focal point. A few days after the ethnic eruption in Fiji, another group of
islands in the Pacific, the Solomon Islands, took its turn: Armed men invaded the residence of the
Minister - the main target-prisoner. The insurgents were, however, challenged by private army, creating
a near-civil war situation. Both Fiji and the Solomon Islands ..,,;( British colonies and the problem,
namely, ethnic balance in politics and economy, is a fa:7i ., one in almost all the countries formerly
colonised by Britain. But the particular aspect v 7 problem, the one with which we are presently
concerned, is what is called internal coloni The term is provocative and emotive, but it is largely
correct. In "classical" colonialis:-...... colonising power originates from and is located, outside the
colony; the colony sovereign; the colonial administrators are appointees of the colonial power whose
c-.-.. they are, in essence. But in internal colonialism, the colonising power is located witilzy colony
and claims that its authority and legitimacy originate from the colonised peopif colony is a sovereign
state orpart of a sovereign state; the colonial rulers and adminis:7 are citizens of the state. But in both
types ofcolonialism, the experience of the people i same: Dispossession, domination and humiliation.
The world woke up on New Year day in 1994, to learn of a massive armed tri:, in the South American
nation of Mexico; the native Indians, led by their compatriots mtm Southern state of Chiapas, were
again up in arms against their internal coloners. Th:.s not the first time and definitely not the last. Early
this year, native Indians in Ecuador. zi South American country, rose in revolt in the capital itself After
several days of anarc H., ,
496

y stepped in on a mission that was at best dubious. In any case, the new imperialism or "international
community" soon intervened and restored the status-quo. The President eni. Alberto Fijamon, migrated
from .farlafr, bat he has a name tha( sounds native a face that appears to match the name. Ten years
ago, he won the presidential wing, this double coincidence which he has also employed in the battle
against the Ilion of the native Indian peoples of his country. But today, the native Indians ed their
struggle, having recovered from the stupor created by racial appearances. Zimbabwe became
independent in April 1980 after a bitter civil war with internal instituted by renegade British
colonialists, that is, colonialists who refused to formal power when the British government said it was
time to go. Twenty years 000 whites who_ constitute less than two per cent of the population own more
cent of the cultivated land. Early this year, the dispossessed natives, tired of the fruit of independence
started to invade, with the aim of eventually taking over ch the whites had earlier taken over from their
grand parents not peacefully, but by force of arms. In other words, the natives, led by the war veterans,
decided to historical wrong directly, having waited in vain for 20 years. The rest of the One can only
add that this second liberation will not end -whoever is in the country until the dispossessed receive
justice or appropriate justice. In 1999, twenty-four years after Portuguese colonialists abandoned East
Timor, way for the military dictatorship in neighbouring Indonesia to seize the territory, Timorese
natives won their independence from Indonesia's internal colonialism ed struggle. We recall that
twenty-five years ago, the Portuguese also abandoned ch was subsequently plunged into a bloody civil
war; about the same time, the also abandoned Western Sahara. The latter was seized and carved up by
Morocco a. The latter eventually renounced its own share of the territorial booty. The for independence
from Morocco's internal colonialism is still going on in Western The war of independence of the black
population from internal colonialism has -rig, on in Sudan since 1956, although the present phase of the
struggle opened o decades ago. In Mali, Niger and Chad, the Tuaregs are up in arms; similar tints are
taking place in Senegal, Mauritania, Egypt and Algeria. After about five of fighting, Eritrea, a former
Italian colony, won its independence from Ethiopia's colonialism in 1993. The recent war between the
two countries was the concluding 'the war of independence. In the last one decade, native peoples in the
United America, Puerto Rico, Canada, Australia, NeW Zealand, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, etc.,
who had long been conquered, massacred, dispossessed and enslaved, have recaptured the spirit of their
past struggle and resistance. One uprising, or not, inspires another which, in turn, inspires another. The
decade has, in reality, decade of the native kkm\4\ttkh):\\z&Nranns. We may now return to Fiji, our
case study. Geography, history and politics tell us t Fiji is made up of more than 300 islands, two-thirds
of which are not inhabited by man beings. It was annexed by Britain relatively recently, 1874. Between
the last two

decades of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century, the power brought in large
numbers of labourers from India to work on its sugar Fiji. The Indians came into Fiji as semi-slaves,
but in the patrimonial system v, colonialists established in the colony, they were higher up the social
ladder than t,1": Fijians. The imported Indians were slaves, but the native Fijians were slaves of course,
the British withdrew in 1970 leaving Fiji with a time-bomb. Today, native F account for between 46 per
cent and 51 per cent of the population, while Indians estimated to be between 40 per cent and 49 per
cent. Chinese, Europeans and P Islanders make up the rest. The total population itself is a small one,

about 0.82 Although Fiji land is firmly in the hands of native Fijians, ethnic Indians own the:
plantations which constitute the backbone of the economy. The argument of the Fiji rebels as reported
in the media, especially The G is interesting and deserves to be noted and reflected upon. First, they
said that th democratic, believed in democracy and accepted that democracy is the best political for Fiji.
But if the working ofFiji's democracy system systematically leads to the f of governments that oppress
ethnic Fijians, then that democratic system is faulty and be changed. That was their argument.
Secondly, they argued that Fiji's ethnic Indi= ancestors and great grand parents were brought to Fiji
about a hundred years "long-term guests" and should either "assimilate" (that is become native Fijians!)
or to be treated as second-class citizens in Fiji. Thirdly, they said they did not care outsiders' attitudes
are to their demands. Extremist and provocative, isn't it? Yes, it this way of posing social problems sharp, maximalist and historical - is more finding a just and lasting solution than the cynical, superficial
and obfuscatory me employed by oppressors and opportunists. Remember Isaac Boro and Ken Sam498

The Global Dictatorship 19th October, 2000

ripHOSE who created it and put it to use call it the international community, the political instrument of
globalization. I call it the new imperialism. However, in the last five years, this "world order" has
acquired other names and descriptions: "human iimpL.-_-:s imperialism", "boundless hegemony",
"sovereignty without territory", "imperialism ,a/T-:::out frontiers", etc. We now have an idea of the
phenomenon I am talking about. I shall leetn use the terms interchangeably. Before I proceed, let me
make one general point that f utmost importance in understanding the phenomenon. The global
dictatorship invests heavily in the inducement of collective or mass amnesia (the state of partial or total
_etfulness) because its strategy of world dominance relies so heavily on induced loss of memory about
oneself. We are induced to forget our past, even our very recent past, 011(4i a series of concentrated
misinformation and falsehood. And the new imperialism ,oys a near-monopoly of the ever-expanding
means to do this: communication. If the new imperialism finds it impossible to induce amnesia on a
particular aspect ima",:,ur past, then that aspect is atomised and the critical element is distorted and delinked lhocc?_ from the present and from the other elements of the past. The result is the same: We do
lac remember where the rain started to beat us, we do not know where we are coming 7n. How then can
we know where we are or where we are going? Since we don't know On -z.n if we pretend that we
know) it is left for the new imperialists to supply the knowledge arc. prescribe the programme
appropriate to where it says we are and should be going. ili?Ci-LH time, if everything remains as it is,
the new imperialism will begin to reconstruct our pats-:. This is just a general statement of caution. All
we have to do at every critical juncture at( : _r life is to remind,ourselves of the critical elements of our
past. Yugoslavia is an appropriate site for the study of the hegemonist and often bloody liar.: ,:s of the
global dictatorship. Incidentally, that geopolitical region of the world is also an ...alp: :opriate site for
the study of dignified responses to this dictatorship. Beyond this, I am iii nizerested in what is going on
in Yugoslavia because, in one scenario that embattled country prZ. ures Nigeria. Any Nigerian who is
too close or too involved in the Nigerian theatre to imma.,-,_,,-. sense of what is happening but
nonetheless disturbed and concerned about the country iaanc: its future, should study and closely
follow what is happening in the Balkans generally ,Ext ln Yugoslavia in particular. 1\tTku 7-iing in the
book, NATO in the Balkans, Sara Flounders reminds us of a policy statement me: _ ased by the
American Military Headquarters (called the Pentagon) and reproduced, in FL-:. in an article in New
York Times issue of March 8, 1992. This was only a few months
499

after the break-up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The statement was issu beginning of what is
called the Yugoslav Civil War, but which is actually the War of In x'277 Intervention and Civil War
rolled into one as mutual cause and effect. The Pentagon s proposed to the American rulers: "Our first
objective is to prevent the re-emerge new rival. First, the U.S. must show the leadership necessary to
establish and protect order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they are not
to to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate int We must account
sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to disc them from challenging our
leadership or seeking to overturn the established polity economic order. Finally, we must maintain the
mechanism for deterring potential com7mz from even aspiring to a large regional or global role. It is of
fundamental import preserve NATO as primary instrument of Western defence and security. The U.S
sho postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated." Floc._ reminds us
that this policy document was widely quoted in the press, and that the Am government neither denied
nor denounced it. Let us bear this in mind. Between 1919 when the country was created out of the ruins
of the A Hungarian Empire and June 1991, when parts of the country seceded, Yugoslavia socialist
federation of six constituent republics: Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bc.N Herzegovina, Croatia
and Slovenia. There were two autonomous regions, Kosov Vojvodina, both administered by Serbia. The
pre- 1991 Yugoslavia had a popul about 24 million with the Serbs constituting about 36.2 percent. The
dominant nation in pre-1991 Yugoslavia speak the same language, Serbo-Croatian. They are differ err
from one another and from the minority nationalities only by religion. The Slovenes Croats are Roman
Catholics; the Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians are Orthoc3c) "Greek") Catholics and one and
half million Bosnians are Moslems. The Communist ofYugoslavia was born in 1919 at the birth of the
country itself. It led the struggle fD. birth of the country and for its survival during World War 11.
Marshall Josip Broz Ti; post-war president ofYugoslavia was, with Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Adbdel
Nass? Egypt and Sukarno of Indonesia, the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement that is around. By
the way, Tito was a communist. The break-up of the Yugoslav Federation had been a strategic objecti
imperialism since the death of Tito in 1980. Imperialism wanted to incorporate "westernized" or
Europeanised" parts of Yugoslavia, namely, Slovenia and Croatia, weaken the eastern and southern
parts including Serbia, the political core ofYugosla' is no coincidence that the Soviet Union and
Yugoslavia broke up the same year, 19c 7. June of that year Slovenia and Croatia, and later Bosnia,
seceded from the federation proclaimed their independence. This led to the war that is still raging
despite the concl, of several battles in which the new imperialism, led by America, has been fully
invoiv Another battle has just ended: a new president has come to power in the new Yog Federation
made up of Serbia and Montenegro. Although what happened, and thewnii happened, reflected both the
strategy of the global dictatorship and the will of the Se m. people, it is clear that the outcome of that
battle was not exactly what the new imp eriL
500

. Going by its antecedents, the new imperialism would have preferred, first ofalt, - :ate execution of the
fonner president, his family. his government and party nior army officers, then an invitation by the new
president to NATO to send to help maintain "peace and security" and round-up the "war criminals- that

arraign them before the "international war-crime tribunal" at The Ha - it would have loved to see
Clinton, before leaving office next January, pay a one Gai, Belgrade, taking along his Secretary of
State, Madeiline Albright, and the 13:i Minister, Tony Blair. This would have marked the definitive
defeat of c ommu:-.1 last pillar in Europe Milosevic is regarded by the new imperialism to be. These
did not happen. Rather, what happened was a lesson in the ap71::-J ses to the global dictatorship. First,
the anti-Milosevic demonstrators, as repon Guardian, told the global dictatorship not to use them in
their fight against ly, the Yugoslav Army silently withdrew to the barracks during the demons aited.
Then after Milosevic himself had accepted the reality of anew re6.rn,e. L i.:.-ulated the new leader, the
army announced that all the "constitutional requireir: to establish relationship with the new political
leadership had been met. Milosevic a. ced that he was still in politics and would rebuild his Socialist
Party to play the 7 . -al opposition and prepare for the future. China did not congratulate the new
lilosevic had conceded victory to him. The new imperialism fears that President nica whom it regards
as a "Serb nationalist is not likely to send Milosevic to ihe ational War-Crime Tribunal set up by
America to try its enemies, and enemies ated by its allies. Indeed, although President Kostunica regards
Milosevic as a criminal. regards "those who bombed us last year" as criminals. The imperialist victory
in lavia is thus a mixed one. They should therefore prepare for the next round. We thank lavia for
teaching us in Nigeria how to respond to the global dictatorship.
501

1x= i2
Transition to Dictatorship? 28th September, 2000
ONE enduring issue raised in the recent Senate crisis was the charge that the p 7-,--.":31., civilian
dispensation is a transition to dictatorship. A specific charge here i the Senate probe was not an anticorruption probe, but an act in the transit! :::11,-Din ... dictatorship. The term "dictatorship" was not
defined, but we were referred to Issric 51 Sese Seko of Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) and President Eya of Togo. It does not matter that some of the persons raising the alarm may not
them s be democrats or lovers of democracy. They may even be conscious elements of this a.A.
transition to dictatorship, or its potential beneficiaries. The point is that the charge has made and that
even if it can be described as exaggerated, it cannot be described as bas-:-.., I am really worried at this
time by the possibility of transition to dictatorship in the se:-..sti Mobutu and Eyadema. On the
contrary, I am not worried by corruption because v, _..ait called corruption in Nigeria today is
essentially state robbery, and the latter is n aberration: It is Nigeria's political economy - class power
and dominant culture; the noun of state robbery and corruption - that worry me. I am also not
impressed by, or inter in the so-called anti-corruption campaign. Why? Because there is no agency in
Ni equipped, morally and politically, to fight corruption nationally. Why should I be interested in the
argument as to whether it was N25 millio- . not N37 million, that was approved for the furnishing of
Senate President's house? the reminder that this house has been furnished three times in nine months?
Or in the allei: that 23 cars, and not 17, were allocated to the Senate President? Or in the admission
each member of the National Assembly is entitled to 10 paid personal staff and that,, Minister/Special
Adviser is entitled to more? Or in the allegation, now generally admit::-.!,' that it was N5 million, rather
than N3.5 million, that was drawn by each senator as fu.nL allowance? Or in the informed declaration
that ministers claim more than that in kind, if in cash. Or in the estimate that N800 million was spent in
the long project to unseat Senate President, and that about double that would be needed to unseat the
Speaker of House of Representatives? I hope media practitioners and leaders of civil society
organisations - the la'n,:ili movement, the student movement, professional associations and NGOs -

who have sh,:. -41 much concern in this matter will look at the problem of corruption and state robbery
r-. Arm seriously and deeply and with wider perspectives. In particular, the anti-corruption camp:L. am
should be made more political and wider to include the following: campaign against s 121 robbery;
criticism of particular spheres of the political economy (such as contract s,,-,si502

security votes) that nourish corruption and state robbery; campaign against internal enisation; agitation
for decentralisation of control ofresources and power; anti-poven'y :,overty-alleviation campaign;
campaign for higher and more stable minimum wage; and .-npaign for popular democracy and human
rights in the broad sense (including the rights Tieans of sustaining life). Personally, I take the charge of
transition to dictatorship (in the sense of Mobutu Eyadema) as an invitation to revisit my
characterisation of the present regime. The . time was characterised as transitional even before it was
installed, and the characterisation Ls confirmed shortly after installation. I went further, at that early
stage, to indicate four ssible directions in which the regime could move: anarchy and civil war; neofascist _ tatorship; neo-liberal democracy; or popular democracy. We are concerned here with the
second possibility, that is, transition to neo-fascist dictatorship. I defined this dictatorship Tith reference
to Nigeria) during the military presidency of General Ibrahim Babangida as _ving "some features in
common with three state-forms which have appeared in modem -3:01y, namely, bonapartism, fascism
and populism." The essence of fascism is the destruction all centres ofpopular-democratic opposition;
that ofpopulism is the incorporation, into state, ofpopular-democratic organisations or their
leaderships; and that ofbonapartism presentation ofthe state as an institution standing above classes,
ethnic groups, power-- Des and other particular interests, but representing national interests. One may
wish to s ess the actions and tendencies ofthe present regime against aspects ofthe characterisation 4:
etched above; but my concern here is more general. These then are the features of neo-fascist
dictatorship: destruction of opposition; ,-,rporation of civil society organisations; and ideological
pretensions at class and ethnic _i:rality. With regard to the first feature, those who charge Obasanjo
with the tendency -ards dictatorship allege that he is not comfortable with opposition, and that only
when is making prepared speeches does he sound like a democrat; otherwise, in words, Js and
interactions, he is a dictator - an arrogant and insensitive one. He is also said to -unforgiving,
intolerant and contemptuous of powerless and less powerful people. .sn-ations include: Obasanjo's
relationship with the National Assembly; his attitude to the :land of minorities, his contempt for
Easterners generally; his delay in implementing the ,-DDC Law; the destruction of the town of Odi in
Bayelsa State a year ago; his rude -]:,-ude to other politicians, including elected ones; and his
contempt for his party and its _ership and structures. President Obasanjo has been accused of trying to
incorporate :ountry's labour and student movements into his regime, and building a cult ofpersonality
_lnd himself with materials drawn from thoroughly conservative forces around the country he sense
ofAbacha. One ofthe "proofs" Obasanjo's critics have produced is the tendency labour and student
groups to support the president in his confrontation with the National ssembly. Also cited are the
appointments of some labour leaders into some lucrative 'era], Government commissions and the highlevel rapport that exists between the president ,z1. the labour leadership in spite of appearances of
conflict. Obasanjo's ideological pretence oy)-11 s crises are not unique to'liim: every ruler inNigena or
anywhere is compelled to such pretensions. However, the president's pretences appear in bold relief
because
503

of the openly sectional and parochial regimes he succeeded. The point which the p critics are making is
that beyond his "nationalist" rhetorics is a deep commitmerili and regional interests, or power-bloc
interests (in more appropriate terms). These tendencies, when put together, are disturbing: they are
indicative of d: disposition. But they cannot themselves lead to neo-fascist dictatorship in the abother factors. Mobutu seized power in 1966 after being the "power behind the throne. five years. In
other words, he merely collected power. Throughout his long diet (1965 - 1998), Mobutu was backed
internally by the army and a cult of personal externally by imperialism, both directly and through its
clients in Africa. And "4 reciprocated by doing imperialism's dirty job in Africa. President Eyadema's
story is While I draw attention to the role of the army and security forces and the cult of peg in the
transition to neo-fascist dictatorship, my real fear is that President Obasanjo is: courted by the new
imperialism the same way Eyadema and Mobutu were courted old imperialism.
504

Collegiality or Collectivity? 1st August, 2002

rrHE title alone attracted me'to the article: "The Case for a Collegial Executive", by Dr. Anthony
Akinola (The Guardian, April 26, 2002). I have, for a long time, been attracted by the collegial exercise
of power and authority; and I have for long advocated it. I am not, however, unaware that to some
political philosophers, among them revolutionary leftists, the very idea of collegiality embodies
elements of romanticism and ioealism. In a sense, yes; but it is not utopian, it can be realised. I
expected Akinola's article Tic assist me in renewing my advocacy. It did, but not sufficiently. The first
thing that struck me after reading the article was that Akinola appears, like many people who have
written on this subject, to confuse collegial with collective. Whereas Ii . the context in which it is
employed, the former means "marked by power or authority weed equally in each of a number of
colleagues; characterised by equal sharing of authority", it,: latter means "denoting a number of persons
or things considered as one group or whole, irt-4 diving all members of a group as distinct from its
individuals". The latter is subsumed in dile former because two attributes are united in collegiality,
namely, collectivity and equality. Abody can be a collective with unequal members; but collegiality
eliminates this possibility. 'Whereas Akinola used the term "collegial executive" what he actually
proposed in this respect was weaker than "collective executive". I shall come back to this. Akinola took
off with a type of declaration that normally excites me: "Let me begin s article by attempting to drive a
final nail into the coffin of any suggestion that Nigeria ould ever revert to the parliamentary system of
government". Whether or not he succeeded doing what he attempted to do, I cannot say, but his
argument can be reconstructed as ;lows: The parliamentary system a"govemment and opposition is
most suitable in nearly it nations where people are divided into different political camps by the
principles of government". It is definitely unsuitable for multi-ethnic nations such as Nigeria For such
am-I:ions, the appropriate system is the presidential system. This is the system where executive rthority
is invested in apolitical office representing the whole nation and not the winning Fay; it is a system
where the legislature is not divided into "government" and "opposition", hit is involved collectively as
the le'gislative arm of government. Akinola submitted that the ;parliamentary system which was
inherited from British colonialists and practised in Nigeria ciLring decolonisation (1954-1960) and
First Republic (1960-1965) brought "the worst ,04.:t of inter-ethnic relations among the Nigerian
politicians," and revealed "the extent to \'41-.Lich political groups were prepared to subject the national

interest to parochial ethnic or party ambitions' In prescribing the presidential system for Nigeria,
however, Akinola advised
I,
II MI
II
505

that the "borrowed" system be modified "by adapting it to their unique circumstances was where
Akinola proposed the "collegial executive", a modified form ofthe system. Before examining the
specific form and content ofAkinola's proposition, I recall a meeting which I attended in Benin-City,
capital of Edo State, in September Our own faction ofthe socialist movement had come together in
Benin to put final nits to our plan to float a Marxist Socialist Party later that year. I think the meeting
took plac,f. a Saturday or Sunday. A little after midnight we opened the discussion on the struc:::. o the
party. Supported by Bassey Ekpo Bassey, I argued that, ideologically and politi Lis, there was a huge
difference between two concepts: "general secretary of the central comm Tem of the party" and general
secretary of the party". I wanted the meeting to subscribe is Int theoretical position to clear the way for
my invoking the political history of the NIL-- movement and the specific history ofthe Nigerian
fraction ofthe movement to argue fc_-_- adoption of the first concept. In the first perspective, the one
built around the general secrerary of the central committee ofthe party, executive authority is explicitly
vested in the cen committee in the name of the party; the central committee is a collegial body of eq
members, with the general secretary as its administrative officer. It did not matter that, 11, practice, the
concept was abused and corrupted in most of the parties which adopt;.--..f But in the perspective built
around the concept of general secretary ofthe party, the exec authority is vested in the general secretary
in the name ofthe party; the general secreILT, an authority different from, and higher than, the central
committee, and the central comm.:124 though theoretically collective, is not collegial. All the parties I
cited at the meeting ah and corrupted the latter concept in practice. The "elders" ofthe proposed party
refused to accept that there was a theoretical differf-c between the two concepts. Our position was
dismissed as anarchistic. On concrete his: we were advised to go back and study the history of the
movement and thereafter as elders questions if we had any. Knowing very well that our position was
suppc7 theoretically and by lessons of history, we threatened - by words and by actions - to disr the
meeting and frustrate the emergence of the party. When the elders saw that we serious, they played a
fast one: they urged us to shelve the issue and allow other uncontroversial issues to be settled;
thereafter, we would return to the "big question" of at that meeting or at the meeting scheduled for the
eve of the party launch. To cut a story short, the party came into being, but the matter was never reopened. We lc s: opportunity to deal with one of the great organisational questions of our movement..
elders knew what we were talking about, but they consciously made their choice. Event today I regard
the September 1978 Benin meeting as one of the most frustrating mom in my political life so far. I may
perhaps add that the corruption ofparty structure res in the usurpation of powers of the collective by the
individual partly explains why the Communist Parties of Eastern Europe fell so easily, one by one, in
the second half of 1 We may now go back to Akinola. The gentleman suggested that in place o classical
presidential system in which executive is represented by one person, called president - who then
delegates functions and powers to his or her appointees - we sh,)
506

e a federal council or a presidential council "in which each geo-political zone of the z_eri an federation
will have a representative by election. Members of this august body will if the pillars ofthe federation".
Elaborating on the status ofthe presidential council, Akinola st4:: zested: "Unlike appointed ministers,
they will hold the most important ministries in the 111ari in addition to their being recognised as
ministers in charge of the affairs of their zones. 'The president will be elected nationally for a single
ten-n of four or five years and the office have to be rotated among the geo-political zones". Therefore,
in Akinola's proposed stem, there will be a president, a presidential council made up of the president
and six ciected zonal representatives, and a council of ministers. The president will be in office for
awn-renewable term of four or five years. The presidential lot will then move to the next
-political zone where it will be filled; thereafter, a new presidential council will be nstituted. And so on.
I propose that this system is not only not collegial, it is even not ilective, because it is like what we
have now - the presidential council being essentially e a caucus ofthe council of ministers, or inner
cabinet. My own counterproposal is as follows: There will be a presidential council made o f a
representative from each of the geopolitical zones, and there will be eight of them. ecutive power will
be vested in the presidential council. The chairpersonship and vice-"rpersonship of the council will
rotate every six months between the eight members, so in a single term of four years each member
ofthe presidential council will be a chairperson Er a period of six months and a vice-chairperson for a
period of six months. Decisions of die council will be based on simple majority, two-thirds majority, or
consensus, depending the nature ofthe matter. As Akinola suggested, each member of the presidential
council in addition to his or her presidential duties, hold one ofkey ministries to be designated strategic.
The only power that a serving chairperson of the presidential council has over or her colleagues is that
in case of a tie, where a simple majority is required, he or she have an additional vote. Some state
functions will be performed by the council as a y; but in others the council will be represented by its
current chairperson. We should, of rse, know that if this system is not extended to the lower tiers of
governance or if the -deal economy is not consistent with the collegial philosophy then the entire restructuring be in vain.
507

164
Notes on the New Empire 19th December, 2002
EPORTS and books coming out of the United States ofArnerica suggest V I' John Bellamy Foster, an
editor of the Monthly Review magazine, describes..:,.: "rediscovery of imperialism" by mainstream
American intellectuals. This oper.__ sentence requires some explanatory notes. Monthly Review is a
New York-1)9- independent socialist magazine published monthly since 1949. Its maiden edition (I\
1949) carried an article, Why Socialism? written by Albert Einstein, the world-hissone physicist.
Anyone who wants to learn how not to do violence to one's intellect should 7'1 Einstein's case for
socialism written 53 years ago in America. Mainstream Amen intellectuals are American intellectuals
of American ruling classes, their capitalist ri:_:- a America and their hegemonic drives abroad.
America's mainstream intellectuals are,,, course, not homogeneous: they differ in knowledge,
fanaticism and shameless capaci distort and manipulate facts in the interest of "homeland security" and
American rulers on terrorism" and "civilizing missions" in the world. Against mainstream intellectuals
intellectuals of the people, defenders of truth and producers and disseminators of knowledge in support
ofhuman freedom. In America, Monthly Review editors and re,z-contributors to the magazines are

counted among the latter group of intellectuals. For the greater part of the 20th century,
mainstreamAmerican intellectuals aye: amill the word imperialism. Why? Because they saw the
objective historical links which exisri and still exist between imperialism and capitalism - opposition to
which Marxists, social,,, communists and national liberation fighters made a cornerstone of their
politics. Capi has always been, by nature, expansionist and imperialistic: it cannot be contained wi*
national boundaries. Rosa Luxemburg, the founder of the Communist Party of Gerrnar.:, . woman of
world-historic stature, a pre-eminent developer of Marxist theory and pc.:irazsi made this point at the
end of the 19th century. Her only mistake, I think, is to believe this logic would by itself lead to the
collapse of capitalism. Even non-Marxist social scien recognised the expansionist nature of capitalism
right from the emergence of this 111.0.1/4f.e production. The numerous wars fought between European
powers in Europe and in 11-yofiliri. overseas colonies at the beginning of the 20th century were wars
of capitalist expansic:- Imi 1902, John Hobson, a non-socialist critic ofthe war between Britain and the
Dutch see in South Africa, wrote a book, Imperialism: A Study in which he identified capital" sr: the
"economic taproot of imperialism". He came to this conclusion from an analysis o f Iv war his country
was fighting in far-away South Africa. Later, in 1916, Lenin, who v. is a year later to lead the Russian
socialist revolution, wrote the classic: Imperialism. The
508

hest State of Capitalism. Lenin's book, which drew heavily on Hobson's work, was inundated with data
and sties. The book remains a powerful handbook for Marxist economists, intellectuals, olutionaries,
and activists. Unable to refute Hobson's and Lenin's works and several written by Marxists since then,
mainstream American intellectuals of capitalism simply :'idoned the word imperialism. This ideological
problem was made more difficult by the :rete existence of states (e.g. Soviet Union, China, Cuba, etc)
and powerful political -ements across the globe built on opposition to capitalism-imperialism and the
links ..,,,21Eween them. But now, with the disappearance of the Soviet Union both as a socialist e and
as a super power, and the collapse of several other socialist and socialist-oriented ,:;L.:S, and the deradicalisation of the Marxist revolutionary movements, the embodiment lithe Marxist ideology, and
now globalisation, American intellectuals are no longer inhibited use of the term imperialism in
describing America's current global engagements vided no link is suggested between this new
imperialism and capitalism. They use the empire, that is, American empire, more freely, provided there
is no suggestion of a blance between this new empire and those that had appeared in history, especially
best known in recorded history: the Roman Empire. John Bellamy Foster concluded his article, "The
Rediscovery of Imperialism" onthly Review, November 2002) on the following optimistic note: "The
rediscovery of *alism within the mainstream only means that that processes are now being presented,
ially by ruling circles in the United States, as inevitable - a reality from which there is escape. The
revolt against this new phase of imperialism, however, has clearly just . Most of the populations of the
world knows what US pundits conveniently forget, US imperialism resembles the exploitative empires
of the past, and will likely suffer the e fate as past empires - growing revolt from within and
"barbarians" at the gates". I e Foster had the Roman Empire, in particular, in mind. But Michael Hardt
and Antonio who, in 2002, put out a fat book Empire, did not see any resemblance between the
American empire and other empires in history. To them, the new American empire has -ilising mission,
that is, the extension ofAmerica's "democratic" constitution to other of the world. Let us look at
Foster's statement more closely. An American reference book, Merriam-Wobster :s collegiate
Dictionary, Oth Dn, (1993), defines empire as "absolute authority, a major political unit having a
tenitory -eat extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority; ially: one

having an emperor as chief of state; the territory of such a political unit; thing resembling a political
empire, especially an extensive territory or enterprise under gle dominion or control; imperial
sovereignty, rule or dominion". The same dictionary es imperialism as "imperial government, authority,
or system; the policy, practice, or acy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by
direct territorial -.:'Isitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other
areas. .1,11y, the extension or imposition of power, authority, or influence". Historians tell us that very
little is known about the origin of the city which now !pars the name Rome. What they know is that its
history up to the collapse of the Roman
509

Empire around 476 A.D. can be divided into three broad periods: the legendary per: J, - the kings (753
B.0 to 510 B. C); the Republic (510 B.C. to 27 A.D.); and the Rc': Empire (27 A.D. to 476 A.D.).
During the first period, that is, the regal period, the inhabi-ofRome were divided into three social
groups: the patricians, "who alone possessed poll rights and constituted the populus, or the people";
next were the dependents ofthe "peopli known as plebs or clients who "originally had no political
existence". Then there were slaves who were not considered as human beings. The king, who held
office for life. ',it. chosen from the ranks of the patricians. The king was the Commander-in-Chief ofthe
Roman Arrny and personally led it in b There was a "council of elders" called the Senate. The king
consulted the Senate when considered it necessary; even then he was not bound by whatever advice he
was given. since the senators also held office for life and were in touch with the "people", they comma.,
great moral authority. The struggle between the patricians and the plebs, joined perhaps by some
slaves,,, brought the regal period to an end. The Roman Republic was established. In place of& king,
two rulers were chosen to run the Republic. But the slaves were still excluded. 1,01 time, as a result,
once again, of the struggle of the plebs, supported by the slaves. constitutional review was made
whereby one of the two rulers was a pleb. According mei one American historian, "these political
changes gave rise to a new autocracy, composed patricians and wealthy plebeian families, and
admission to the senate became almos: hereditary privilege of these families". It was during the
republican period that Rome bec a world power. But not yet an Empire. In 27 B.C. the Republic was
overthrown and an Empire proclaimed, withAu as the first Emperor ofthe Roman Empire. At its height,
about 117 A.D., the Roman E extended to Britain in the North, to Constantinople (later Istanbul) in the
East and a the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa in the South. Its strength was built on the mill and its
wealth on the sweat of slaves. As the empire became too large, with comp regional powers, endless
civil wars, slave revolts and the challenge of those outside empire - the "barbarians" - the Roman
Empire was divided into four: north, south, east west, each with a semi-autonomous ruler called Caesar.
But this did not solve the prob The agrarian economy collapsed partly as a result of slave revolts and
partly in consequ ofthe confiscation of lands from peasants for distribution to expeditionary troops poll
the empire. The Roman Empire collapsed. That was what John Bellamy Foster was refe to when he
compared the new American Empire with other empires in history, especi the Roman Empire. Friedrich
George Hegel once said that all great personages and events in hisury had occurred twice. But Karl
Marx added that the first appeared as a tragedy, the sec as a farce. John Bellamy Foster ought to have
added Hegel's observation and Marx commentary.
1111111
510
65

Humanist Resolutions in Crisis 9th January, 2003

WO weeks before last Christmas I received a telephone call from a former student of mine. He called
to wish me "Merry Christmas" and to ask for advice and favour on behalf of his son. I believe the latter
was the real purpose of his call. Shouting, "praise the Lord" down the phone, I asked the man at the
other end to send the boy down to me. But he deflected the subject of the conversation and expressed
happiness that I had now drawn "closer" to God. I asked what he meant and he replied that my "praise
the Lord" was a sign that I was now nearer to God, going by the radical ideals I held and espoused
when I was his teacher. I laughed and told him that all the ideas, beliefs and commitments I held while I
was a university teacher are not only intact but also stronger and more robust having been fed by more
knowledge, more experience and greater power of introspection. I asked how many people in Calabar
he had presented his boy's problem. He replied that I was the only one. I exclaimed, "not even your
pastor?" For the man and his family ardently wish to be seen as very religious; they literally worship
the pastor, and would do anything the "man of God" commands. He replied: "No; that is not the type of
problem I can take to him. We discuss only spiritual problems". I terminated the conversation but not
before I reminded him to send the boy to me. My response to my caller's problem was an instance of
what I call "automatic and unconditional solidarity" with the oppressed, the cheated, the needy and the
wretched of the earth. It had been one of my ideological canons for many years; and in the year 2002 I
made it one of my New Year resolutions. But the whole discussion with the man was depressing. I
refused, as I always do, to discuss my religious beliefs, if any. I discuss religious statements in secular
contexts. I did not tell my former student that I made and repeated the exhortation "Praise the Lord" to
bring out the hypocrisies and contradictions in his usually noisy profession of faith: Knowing where to
go to obtain maximum material assistance even ifthe source is, according to his doctrine, not a son or
daughter of God, and dancing round the town in religious processions shouting the need to be "born
again" and the promise of -deliverance from seductive, but evil forces". Here was a man who, without
notice, presented me with a case of injustice whose resolution would demand time, energy, tenacity,
material resources and above all, courage. Here was I automatically offering my assistance. And there
was the man, again appearing to rejoice at what he believed was a departure from the radical
orientation which made it possible for me to offer him automatic solidarity. Later that day, I decided to
go back to the
511

resolutions which appeared a year ago in this column under the caption "Three Hum Resolutions" (The
Guardian, January 17, 2002). They were: Love for all; uninhibited fearless criticism and self-criticism;
and automatic and unconditional solidarity with oppressed, the wretched of the earth, and victims of
injustice. On love, I quoted copiously from the thirteenth chapter ofApostle Paul's first 7. Pi:r to the
Christian Congregation in Corinth: "I may be able to speak the languages ofhu:7-_:aci beings and even
ofangels, but ifl have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gori a clanging bell. I may have the
gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge understand all secrets; I may have all the faith
needed to move mountains - but ifi have ac? love, I am nothing. I may give away everything I have,
and even give up my body to be burnt - but ifI have :le love, this does me no good... Love is patient and
kind; it is not jealous or conceited cr proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not
keep record ofwroLzs: love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up;
and its fay-.1% hope and patience never fail". There is nothing really to add to Saint Paul's exposition,
except to underline the fact that the apostle told us what love is as well as what it is not. And the critical
point is what it is not: for a good understanding ofwhat love is not will strengthen your understanding
what it is. In this regard, what strikes me most forcefully in this review is Paul's categorical. statement

that even if you give away everything you have, including your body, but have) love, your generosity is
nothing. But then, love is generous. What Paul intended by this maximalist statement is that although
generosity is an integral part of love, that alone does not constitute love. Put differently, even if I am
generous up to the limit that is humaril? possible there is still something I must possess to be able to
claim that I love. This links with my other two resolutions. Solidarity is unconditional when its
character and content are not shaped by the knowledzz of the character of the recipient. In other words
if someone who had treated you unjust] and unfairly, without apology, or whom you know not to be an
entirely kind, or generous, or fair, person becomes himself or herself a victim of injustice, you must
forget about the pasit and extend solidarity to him or her. Similarly, solidarity is said to be automatic if
a request cc need for it does not meet with the response, "Okay, I shall think about it"; rather, it follows
the maxim offered by an African leader about a decade ago: "if you see an injustice being done, you
must try to stop it; if you don't have the power to stop it, then speak against it:: you cannot even do that
then at least show your anger or dis-approval". In other words there is always something you can do,
even if it is merely symbolic, whenever and wherever you meet with a situation requiring solidarity.
My conception of automatic and unconditional solidarity is therefore consistent with love in the sense
of Saint Paul. But this conception is not only humanist; it is also Marxist and communist. My other
resolution which is also Marxist, communist and humanist, relates criticism and self-criticism. It is also
consistent with Saint Paul's maximalist conception love. Hear Saint Paul: "Love is not happy with evil,
but is happy with the truth; love ne-\, gives up' and its faith, hope and patience never fail". And Karl
Marx: "Since it is not for
NI II
512

- create a plan for the future that will hold for all time, all the most surely what we Dritemporaries have
to do is the uncompromising evaluation of all that exists, uncompromising :1 the sense that our
criticism fears neither its own results nor the conflict with the powers liat be". This is an aspect of what
Marx called the categorical imperative for humanists, -,amely, "the struggle to overcome all
circumstances in which the human being is Humiliated, enslaved, abandoned and despised". You
should compare what Saint Paul said about 2,000 ears ago and what Karl Marx said 1,800 years later.
In conclusion, I would ask all Christians to go back to the 13th chapter of Saint Paul's first letter to the
people of Corinth. And most ofmy friends, comrades and colleagues, as well as my extended families
and neighbours, are Christians. After reading Saint Paul, they should turn to The Gospel According to
Saint Matthew, Chapter 5 to 7. The three Chapters were a continuous public sermon delivered by Jesus
Christ. It is commonly referred to as The Sermon on the Mount. After absorbing these two passages,
Christians should reflect on the situation where a beneficiary of love (in the sense of Saint Paul) is
hostile to criticism, talk less of self-criticism; think of a situation where some actual or potential
beneficiaries of love believe it should be exclusive to them or their family or group; think of a situation
where a beneficiary of love believes that he or she deserves it, but is not obliged to extend same, even
in a modest form, to others; think of a situation where a beneficiary of love either sincerely believes, or
hypocritically claims, that even if you posses all the attributes of love ( in the sense of Saint Paul and
Karl Marx) you are destined for hell unless you joio a noisy religious gang or a mesmerised and docile
religious congregation; and conversely .7.-gards a member of such congregation as eminently qualified
for paradise even ifhe or she lacks all the attributes listed by Saint Paul and Karl Marx. But the test of a
resolution is in the crises its execution generates. In execution, the three humanist resolutions inevitably

generate crises. They should emerge from these crises stronger, not weaker, purer, not compromised.
513

Contradictions in the Empire 29th May, 2003

EMPLRE builders usually believe that their constructions will endure forever. Some expired empires
had, in fact, lasted that long. But the life-spans of empires ha-, t. decreased progressively over the ages
- thanks to empire builders always misreading history, regarding themselves as gods or direct
representatives of God, but unwittinaly fashioning the weapons of their eventual defeat. All these
factors can, following Hegel, be called the contradictions ofhistory. Tic American Empire, currently
under construction, will suffer the same fate. The same technologi on which American rulers depend in
imposing a global dictatorship will be a major factor the dismantling of their empire whose life-span
will be exceedingly short. The contradicti pas are slowly building up. We may look at some ofthese
contradictions, starting from Nigeria. Nigerian rulers believe, and expect, that as willing and loyal
subjects of the global empire, they will be assisted by their principals in America and Europe to
maintain their ho on Nigeria. In the given historical context, this is an explicable belief, an explicable
expectation.. But, alas, contradictions and accidents, which are seldom factored into plans, intervene
from time to time to produce unexpected results. This was what happened in the arrangemens between
the Nigerian rulers and the Euro-American elections monitors who were admitted into the country to
witness the recent elections. On Monday, May 5, 2003, barely 48 hours after the last set of elections,
th-..e. European Union Election Monitors issued an interim report on the exercise. The summa..--: of
the report was that the conduct of the May 3 polls was not an improvement on those of April 12 and 19,
which the. Monitors had earlier criticised severely. "The May 3 elections in a number of states", the
monitors said "were marred by serious electoral fraud, such as ballot box stuffing, multiple voting and
forgery of results". According to them, "the elections in these states lack credibility and the level of
fraud effectively disenfranchised a considerab!e number of voters". The view of the European Union
Monitors were echoed by two American Institutes: Nationa: Democratic Institute (NDI) and
International Republican Institute (IRI), and a Nigeria group, The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG).
The NDI, in its report, said it was "serious::: concerned about the legitimacy of the results in certain
constituencies", adding that it folza:: "ballot stuffing, rigging, voter intimidation, violence and fraud
particularly in the South-South and South-East". In its own report, according to Nigerian newspapers,
the IRI named some states where it had found "outright or attempted fraud". The American
government, through its State Department and its Embassy in Nigeria, also admitted that the elections
514

C aracteri s e d by rigging, but patronisingly asked aggrieved political parties and dates to channel their
objections to the election tribunals. As soon as the foreign monitors ended the presentation oftheir
preliminary reports, Independent National Electoral. Commission (INEC) issued a statement, through
its Lary, alleging that the foreign monitors were now a threat to national security. Some en monitors,
INEC alleged, have been approaching "unsuspecting citizens, including tional rulers and community
leader" with question meant to "discredit the elections and the basis to justify their earlier positions on
the issue". Alleging that the activities of the ign monitors run "contrary to the terms of their
accreditation". INEC called on the blic to "beware of the observers". It also called on both the security

agencies and 2,-ration service to "keep a tab of their activities". INEC was particularly angry that the
antign observers were working closely with "opponents" of the government. The following day the
foreign monitors started leaving the country. We may never Imow whether the departing monitors left
on their own or were asked to leave. But why uld the Nigerian state and its agencies as well as
government politicians be so offended the foreign monitors the government had invited and accredited?
Why should they quarrel? answer is that the foreign monitors did not do what they were expected to do:
legitimise tie general elections. Were the monitors to issue their reports through their home
governments or the European Union, the reports would be different. Criticisms would still have been
made, but they would have been milder; they would have been phrased in such a way that e integrity of
the election would not be challenged. Why? Because the rulers ofAmerica and the European Union had
taken a political decision that the status-quo in Nigeria would maintained. But the monitors are not
machines. They were obviously screened by their eovemments, but they could not be programmed like
missiles delivered from a warship to -t selected targets. Among the monitors would have been men and
women whose training in democracy, whose knowledge of democracy and whose democratic values
are higher an the American and European average. There would have been among them, men and IA
omen who have a fair knowledge of Nigerian society and culture, or did a thorough study ofAfrican
and Nigerian history and politics before boarding their planes to Nigeria. There would have been,
among them, men and women whose research methods are pro-people, who know exactly what to look
for, what questions to ask, and whom to ask. Beyond and all these, there would have been monitors
who love Nigeria and empathise with her suffering peoples. What we have seen in Nigeria is one set of
contradictions in the empire: contradictions betweenAmerican and European rulers and their imperial
agents and missions, between the latter and a government in the periphery, and between the latter and
the people. This type of contradictions is duplicated all over the global empire, and its development,
which no power can stop, will be a major factor in the collapse of the empire. American alers fought a
war in the Korean peninsula between 1950 and 1953. They wanted to contain the spread of
communism to South Korea and other parts ofAsi a. It was enough to have communism in China and
Indo-China. Fifty years after the war, American troops are
515

still in the peninsular, protecting the regime in the south. Now, North Korea has an 7 that it has nuclear
weapons. One may, of course, come to terms with the possibil regime collapsing under the weight of
several burdens, including American rulers l-and harassment. The two sides of the peninstilar may even
be re-united under Am military occupation. But the occupying power will not be ruling over a pliant
people To secure "peace" in Iraq, American rulers and their "coalition partners" \\-1:: to deal not only
with the Shiite population, the Kurds and Iraqi secular nationalists. b Iran, Jordan and Syria. Beyond
that, American rulers will have to take a position o future of Kurdistan: whether the Kurdish people will
have a state, or states, or condi] be slaves in Turkey, Iran and Iraq. American rulers have succeeded in
installing their p as Palestinian Prime Minister. But to make their so-called road map the plan for ape
settlement of the Israel occupation of the Palestine, they have to destroy Palestinian miii in general and
Yasser Arafat's Fatah Movement and Hamas in particular. To do this. have dealt with not only Iran,
Jordan and Syria, but also Lebanon and, indeed, the v.. Arab world. The world is waiting to see how
American rulers will deal with France, Ge and Belgium, which they have described as "Old Europe".
Let us see how American are going to regulate the relations between "Old Europe" and their newly
colonised n of eastern and central Europe. Having succeeded in admitting the former communist into

the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), let us see how the global dictators about assisting the
"new democrats" negotiate favourable positions in the European TL: And in case the "Old Europe"
decides to construct a European defence system indepen ofNATO and the "coalition ofthe willing", we
shall see how the global dictators will with this. Russia and China may no longer be communist, but
they are yet to fit into the _ empire - and many never do so. American rulers will have to take a
decision on Cuba: whether to do Iraq on continue to wait for Fidel Castro's death or his removal
through a coup d' etat. Vene must not be permitted to become another Cuba or Hugo Charvez another
Castro. \ will the global dictators do to the rebels in Colombia and the Philippines who are as Bang as
Al-Qaeda? How will the global dictators negotiate with Russian leaders on Chen "terrorists"? The
dictators will also have to decide how to keep the illusion called N Partnership for African
Development (NEPAD) alive as a way of delaying the emer2ence. of an alternative, but radical, path to
Africa's inevitable liberation. The agenda of the global dictatorship is, indeed, indefinite. And its
various sect will continue to develop. Expand and mutate. Until collapse, until the world is free.
6 dIgi

Leftists and Communists 9th October, 2003

HE term, left, in politics, is generally believed to have originated in the French National Assembly
during the first phase of the historic revolution (1789-1894) that put an end to feudal and absolutist
order in that country. In that assembly the term was used to identify the radicals who were seated to the
left of the presiding officer. Today, the left is generally used, not only in France, but all over the world,
to refer to the more radically progressive or socialistic wing in any legislative body, or party, or
political system; but it no longer has anything to do with seating positions. The term, radical, which
appears in this identification ofthe left, means exactly what we know it to mean: from the roots, when
used as an adjective. When it is used as a noun, it means someone who proceeds from the origin, who
approaches issues, questions and problems not superficially, but from the roots, from the fundamentals.
The term progressive can be defined this way: "Generally, those who believe in the possibility and
desirability of progress, identified here as the socio-economic and moral improvement of the human
condition, which predicates on high optimism about the human nature, could be regarded as
progressives". Pulling these various strands together, a reference book defined the left as "the complex
of individuals or organised groups advocating liberal reform, or radical or revolutionary change in the
social, political, or economic order usually on behalf of greater personal freedom or improved social
conditions". Leftism means the leftist ideology, philosophy or politics. Leftists are those who subscribe
to that ideology or philosophy and are guided by it in politics. We may now examine the horizon of
leftism, the range of human actors that can be called leftists. We begin with those who can, in a sense,
be called the "extremist" members ofthe leftist family, namely, the communists. In the most general
sense, communism is the system of social organisation in which property, including land and means
ofproduction, is held in common. The organisation ofwork, and the mode ofdistribution of social
wealth so produced depend, in the main, on the character of the collective ownership of property. In
this general sense, which is also the historical sense, communism has existed for a very long time, in
different parts of the world, including our own land here. Communism is older than Karl Marx's great
grand parents. Some early Christian communities were communist. Since the rise of capitalism, and the
work of Karl Marx, however, the term communism has been used to refer mainly to the movement
whose immediate central objective is the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist order with the longterm objective of establishing a classless society. The collective ownership ofthe means ofproduction
remains the pillar of this modem

517

communism whose foundation was laid by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel theoretically practically. But
1 would insist that the meaning ofcommunisrn still holds in the general seas To complete the first phase
of this self-clarification, I shall define capitalism al:L._ socialism, liberally borrowing, not from Karl
Marx or Vladimir Lenin, but from the Columb Encyclopaedia. Capitalism is the "economic system
based on private ownership of th means of production, in which personal profit can be acquired through
investment ofcapiTL and employment of labour". Socialism, on the other hand, is a "system of
collective e -governmental ownership and management of the means of production and distributio7
Because of the collective nature of socialism, it is to be contrasted to the doctrine of sanctity of private
property that characterises capitalism". The American-published referent book added: "where
capitalism stresses competition and profit, socialism calls for cooperatic - and social service". You may
observe that the general definitions of communism and socialis:: are almost the same, even when
offered by non-socialist intellectuals. This is not accident::. and I shall come back to it. Now, if I am
asked to define a communist - politically - from what I have said so far, that is, without making a great
leap, I would say that a communist is a leftist who believes in the desirability and possibility of creating
a classless society, and who is workinz towards the creation of such a society. What he or she does to
realise this objective deperiL partly on whether he or she is influenced by Karl Marx, or not, and partly
on the totality e his or her circumstances. And in what sense are the followers of Marx, that is Marxis.
different from other leftists and communists? They differ in the sense that Marxian communists insist
that the road to a classless society, to communism, passes through the elevation ofthe working people to
the position of the ruling class. But the point to be underlined is that a communist need not be a
follower of Marx, need not be a Marxist. For some time after Marx and Engels emerged on the
historical scene, the terms communist and socialist were used interchangeably. But Marx and his
followers soon started to show preference for the ten-n communist because ofthe emergence of all sorts
of politic trends calling themselves "socialist". In fact in the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Enge:...
in several places, joined the two terms, "Communists and socialists". We may now look more closely at
a Marxian communist who is also, ipso facto. leftist, a socialist and a revolutionary. Such a personage
is the most unenviable person -especially if he or she is living and operating in a "failed" or "arrested"
or "un-begun-capitalist state like Nigeria. At a certain level, that level that is most public and most
visible. he or she is a bundle of contradictions. The reason is simply that a Marxian communist is living
and reproducing his or her life in a society he or she is so passionate about changing. He or she is one
thing; but dreams of becoming another; fights to become another; and succeeds in becoming the two, or
a fraction of each of the two: an unenviable hybrid. .1. Marxian communist therefore has a foot in the
present and the other foot in the future \\Ili,: - he or she dreams about and fights for. He or she is, to
borrow from Marx, "in the socie::.. but not of the society". A Marxian communist is anti-feudalist, anticapitalist, anti-sexist, anti-patriarcn, ... and fiercely republican. But then ifhe or she is living and
reproducing his or her life under
518

capitalism or feudalism, or an admixture ofboth, he or she can only objectively and effectively reject
some attributes of capitalism and feudalism. He or she is compelled to live with, and manage, the other
aspects of the existing order unless he or she is planning to vacate the planet Earth. Being antifeudalist, he or she is expected to turn down chieftaincy conferments, but will have to do this as

politely as possible and with a convincing explanation that this is not an act of disrespect, but of
principle. A Marxian communist may be compelled to become an employer of labour. If such a tragedy
befalls him or her - for that is what it is - he or she must deal with all the contradictions without
opportunistic rationalisations, without lies. In particular, he or she must carry the cross of balancing the
capitalist law of exchange with the revolutionary democratic principle: "From each according to his or
her ability, and to each according to his or her work", and then with the communist principle: "From
each according to his or her ability; and to each according to his or her needs". A Marxian communist
in a given polity is different from all other leftists in that polity in two ways. First, as other leftists
legitimately emphasise the needs and rights of their "areas", a Marxian communist emphasises the
needs and rights of the people of the polity as a whole. Second, while not ignoring the needs of the
present, a Marxian communist also spends time thinking of, and planning for, the future. A Marxian
communist adopts a critical attitude to all cultural practices, traditions, and social institutions which
exploiters, oppressors and enslavers manipulate to keep the masses down. These include ethnicity,
religion, family, sexist traditions, ostentatious lifestyles, material accumulation, etc. The operational
words here are "critical attitude", and not "hatred" or "war". Personally, I shall be happy to be allowed,
in any official questionnaire, to enter "Nigerian" wherever I am required to identify my ethnic group;
and to write "personal" whenever my religion is demanded. I would love to be able to use, without
owning. In general, whatever circumstances a Marxian communist finds himself or herself, he or she
must strive to live by what I have called the three humanist resolutions. The first resolution is captured
by this passage: "Since it is not for us to create a plan for the future that will hold for all time, all the
more surely what we contemporaries have to do is the uncompromising critical evaluation of all that
exists, uncompromising in the sense that our criticism fears neither its own results nor conflict with the
powers that be". The second resolution is in two parts. The first part is the categorical imperative
of"struggle to overcome all circumstances in which the human being is humiliated, enslaved,
abandoned and despised:" and the second part is this: "If you see an injustice being done, you must try
to stop it; if you don't have the power to stop it, then speak against it; if you cannot even do that then at
least show your anger or displeasure". The third humanist resolution is the categorical imperative of
love: "I may have all the faith needed to move mountains, but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may
give away everything I have, even give my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, this does me no
good. These three things remain; faith, hope and love; and the greatest ofthem is love". From here
flows the categorical imperative of automatic and unconditional solidarity with the oppressed and the
"wretched of the earth". A Marxian communist does not aspire to be a saint, but aspires to be a better
human being, a person who can sacrifice every material possession, or position, just to see 519

one layer of burden lifted from the shoulders of the oppressed. This then is the "bundle( contradictions"
called a Marxian Communist. But the source of these contradictions is be found in the present order of
things which the Marxian communist is committ changing. You may form your own judgement, but do
not proceed from prejudices.
520
dill

16

The Ghosts of the Past 4th December, 2003

AFRIEND of mine, a well-known professor of liberal arts, was one of the people I sent complimentary
copies of my book, The Making and Unmaking ofNigeria. I sent him the book about two years ago.
Like several other friends of my own eration to whom I made the donation, the professor did not send
an acknowledgement. Then, about three months ago, I ran into him somewhere near my office. There
he belatedly acknowledged the receipt of the book, and apologised for the "delay". He then informed
me that he was still reading the book, very meticulously, and compiling notes as he went on. He would
send me his comments as soon as he finished, he poetised. I temporarily waived my disappointment at
the man's earlier behaviour and asked for his provisional assessment of the book. In response, he said
that I was not, in real life, as `conservative" as my book would portray me. I was taken aback because I
had thought I as a "radical". The only elaboration I was able to force out of him, before he entered his
car and drove away was that the "ideological authorities" I cited in the book vitiated the richness of the
book, rather than enhancing it; and that, to use my own words, I was ' appealing to the ghosts of the
past. Unknown to him, my professor friend had raised a question which had bothered me for more than
a decade, but very seriously in the last couple of years. Karl Marx called it the conjuring up ofthe
dead of world history", the summoning of the ghosts and spirits of the t to serve the needs of the
present. I decided to look at the problem once again, but now more systematically. I chose two case
studies: The Making and Unmaking ofNigeria, and my own personal experiences. The main body of
the book consists of four parts: "A efutation of Official History" (1960-1995); "The Nigerian Socialist
Movement: A Critical History"; "From Babangida to Abacha" (1985-1998); and "Obasanjo's
Transition" (1999-:J0). In addition to these, there are the Introductory Notes consisting of Dedication,
Roll of Honour, Motivation and Objectives, Introducing Nigeria, and Nigeria's political development in
maps. Distancing myself emotionally from my work, I combed the book to see what a liticallyconscious liberal professor could label "conservative" or the "summoning of the spirits of the dead". I
saw nothing beyond my references to Karl Marx and some of his !fllowers. The professor could not
have had these in mind when he spoke of conservatism and ghost-summoning. I concluded that he was
referring to the inspiration I drew from Marx and Marxists, and my general Marxist perspectives. But,
in case the professor was
!
II
521

actually referring to Marx and Marxists, I decided to draw up a list of 100 names - se-, ofthern his
inspirers - who could equally qualify as "ghosts". I left the matter there, and moved to my personal life
and experiences. It was that I found that I could be accused by an honest liberal, not of conservatism,
but ofmisap radical humanism; not of"summoning the spirit of the dead'', but of revolutionary nostal Of
course, I could mount a defence, and be free, but a no-case submission cannot made. By misapplied
radical humanism I mean not trying hard enough to apply hum strictly according to needs. In a
situation, like ours, where everything including time, ent,, and material resources is severely limited,
and where elementary honesty and charity caz-zirm. be easily invoked, this type of error can lead, and
in my own case, frequently leads, to go, distributive injustice in the sphere of revolutionary and
humanist solidarity. And brk' revolutionary nostalgia I mean behaving as if the radical movement is
what it was in itilr 1970s and 1980s, as if Nigeria is what it was, as if my comrades are what they were.
as if the relationships between us are what they used to be, and as if the new generation is ikte. what we
were. This is a very serious subjective problem which can lead, and in my crAmi case, frequently leads,

to deep frustration and depression. My repudiation of my professor friend's charges notwithstanding,

and in spite et my subsequent self-criticism, I think I should still touch upon the important formulation
Marx: "conjuring up of the dead of world history". First, the historical background. The French
Revolution is dated 1789 to 1799, although some historians affirm that the revolut n had run its full
course by July 1794 with the execution of Robespierre. Among the radial changes brought about by
that event was the creation of a new calendar, with new months: Thermidor (July 16 to August 17),
Bruimaire (October 21 to November 20), etc. The monarchy was abolished on September 21, 1792. On
November 9, 1799, (18th off Bruimaire, year 8, by the revolutionary calendar), Napoleon Bonaparte
staged a cc...37) d'etat and ruled France as dictator for 15 years. In December 1848, Napoleon Bonap
ane-s nephew, Louis Bonaparte, was elected President of the Second Republic. Three yam, later, on
December 2, 1851, Louis staged a coup d'etat and extended his powers. This was not a coup against the
government (he was President), but against the Freres Constitution. A year later, he made himself
Emperor. About 125 years later, President Bokasst of Central African Republic did exactly the same
thing in the former FrenchAfrican colony., thus "conjuring up the dead ofworld history". The coup
d'etat staged by President Louis Bonaparte coincided with the plan c,1 one of Karl Marx's friends,
Joseph Weydemeyer, to start a weekly political journal in Nora York. The journal was scheduled to start
its appearance on New Year Day, 1852. Marx was requested, in his own words, "to provide this weekly
with a history of the c d' etat". Marx submitted about six instalments of what was to be a long series of
articles; dealing with the French revolutionary history in general and Louis' coup in particular. He gave
the series the general title: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Unfortunately, Weydemeyer's
plan did not materialise and the journal died before its first appearance. In its place, the man started the
publication of a monthly magazine, Die Revolution, whose first issue, later in 1852, was devoted
entirely to Marx's six part-article.,
$ 111p)
522

The special issue, now a book, was given the title: Eighteenth Bruimaire. In this book, Marx gave the
name Eighteenth Bruimaire to Napoleon Bonaparte's coup of 1799, and called his nephew's coup of
December 2, 1851 the second edition of the Eighteenth Bruimaire. The Eighteenth Bruimaire was one
of Marx's most brilliant political tracts. It was an analysis of a concrete political development" a coup
d'etat and its aftermath - made as the event itself was still unfolding. The concrete historical material it
embodies does not go beyond February 1852. It was what, in journalism, is called a running
commentary. The style was popular, polemical and journalistic. What added to its popularity among
Marxists is the fact that the book was effectively summarised by Marx in the first two paragraphs,
taking up one page of a 95-page, heavily annotated book. I am ready to swear that most of those who
quote these paragraphs, especially the first one, have never gone beyond them: After the first page, you
feel that you have gotten all you needed. Although I have read the book, I will admit that the first page
appears self-contained and satisfying. And I am limiting myself to it here. In the opening paragraph of
Eighteenth Bruimaire Marx observed: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great
importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the
second as farce". He gave several illustrations, the last one being the subject of the book: "The nephew
for the uncle; and the same caricature occurs in the circumstances attending the second edition of the
Eighteenth Bruimaire". I have, myself, quoted this passage several times. In the second paragraph,
Marx made a remark which I have also quoted, and applied, several times: "Humanity makes its own
history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by

themselves; but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past".
Following this, Marx introduced and summarised the subject of the book, and my present article: "The
tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. And just when
they seem engaged in revolutionising themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet
existed, precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past
to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries and costumes in order to present the new
scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise and this borrowed language. Luther put on the
mask of the Apostle Paul; the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately as the Roman republic
and the Roman empire; and the revolution of 1848 knew no better than to parody 1789 and (17931795). In the same way, the beginner who has learnt a new language always re-translates it back into
his mother tongue". Well, Marx spoke to all, including myself Speaking for myself, I do not conjure up
the dead of world history. It is modem enslavers who do that. Here, "dead" is to be read, not
biologically, but philosophically, ideologically and politically. All I can admit, which is a esser offence,
is that I am yet to fully come to terms with (not assimilate) the "new world Drder" including its
language which has become dominant in public discourse.
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History and 'Fetish' Democracy 29th January, 2004

TrHE global dictatorship has decreed that "democracy" is the condition for recognitic,:-. as a legitimate
member of the "international community" of which the dictatorship founder and leader. As a quick
reminder, the "international community" is a nev, global formation aggregating the United Nations, its
affiliates and agencies, regional bodies.. the World Bank, the G7 Group of industralised nations, the
European Union (EU), the. International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organisation (WTO),
international creditor clubs, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), among other
groupings As for the global dictatorship, you may simply identify it with those who went to war with
Afghanistan and Iraq. The new global structure started to emerge with the collapse of the Soviet Union
about 12 years ago; it tested itself with the Kosovo war; and has now taken shape with the recolonisation of Iraq. The international community, just like a power-bloc, or a mafia, is not a formal
organisation; but it controls and acts through formorganisations, including those listed above, to realise
its objectives and protect its interests.. The decree on democracy was designed essentially for two
groups of countries:: the former communist ruled socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe,
including former Soviet Republics that became sovereign states with the break-up of the communist
super power; and "pro-Soviet" and openly non-aligned Third World countries. Most Acas rulers and
mainstream politicians took the decree seriously. Those who did not, like Kola Kaunda of Zambia, had
to face the might of the "international community". Kaunda WIN "voted" out of office in an election
which was literally between Kaunda and the "intemationzill community". By and large Nigeria's prodemocracy community accepts the decree, althougail many would deny that it came from the global
dictatorship. The first Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), led by Herbert Mac all'iay .. was
fomaed about 1922, that is, about 70 years before the "international community" relersegi the "wind of
democracy" over Africa. The African National Congress (ANC) and the Communist Party of
SouthAfrica are about the same age. These organisations, and severil others, were formed to fight for
democracy. The main force against which they fought was imperialism" in its colonial and neo-colonial
phases. And imperialism is historically the mos: anti-democratic political force that world history has
thrown up. The NNDP has disappeared but the ANC and SACP are right now engaged in a new phase

of the struggle they starled almost 90 years ago. It was these organisations, among others, that the antidemocratic. imperialist "international community" insulted with the introduction of the so-called
derma-

in 1990. And that was the year Nelson Mandela was released after serving 27 years of a life sentence
imposed by SouthAfrica's apartheid regime, a viciously anti-democratic outpost ofimperialism. In all
the diktats which have so far been issued by the global dictatorship nowhere has this "democracy in the
sense of imperialism" been defined. Someone may respond that we all know what democracy is and,
therefore, that there is no point attempting a definition. But then, if after 90 years of democratic
struggle, we are being introduced to democracy by historically anti-democratic and enslaving forces,
we may assume that what they are telling us is different from what we had known and for which
Nigerian leftists and democrats have been fighting over the years. Now, if you ask any fanatical
adherent of this democracy what its concrete features are, you are likely to receive a contemptuous look
or an inane description such as: "Democracy means that we are all equal. Are we not?" Although the
global dictatorship has not given us the definition of its democracy, it tells us which countries are not
democratic. Top on the list are the countries in the "axis of evil": North Korea, Iran and Saddam
Hussein's Iraq. Next are the "rogue states": Cuba, Libya, Syria, Zimbabwe, etc. Next comes Yasser
Arafat's Palestine which, if not checked, would become a "rogue state" or a member of the "axis of
evil". China, Russia, Burma and scores of countries of Eastern and Central Europe and of the Third
World are being pressured or assisted to become democratic, or more democratic. On the contrary,
members of the G7 and core members of the European Union are democratic. The criterion for
membership of the "democratic union" is determined by the degree of integration into the new
imperialism. it was in this sense that apartheid South Africa and Mobutu's Zaire were rated higher in
the scale of democratic, ascent than the Soviet Union (now Russia) and China. But ifthe global
dictatorship presents us with "fetish" democracy whose definition we do not know, whose character we
are not sure of, but which we are nonetheless asked, for our very survival on the planet earth to adopt just as helpless people are compelled to worship and idol - we know, and have all along known, what
genuine democracy is. And it Is by this knowledge that we ought to judge the "fetish democracy". We
may begin with the broadest definition, the one provided by Abraham Lincoln, namely, government of
the people, by the people and for the people. Any political regime that claims to be democratic but does
not accept this definition can be dismissed ab initio from consideration. Even Adolf Hitler and rulers of
apartheid South Africa would have accepted it. Eskor Toyo, a veteran of the democratic struggle in
Nigeria and a professor of Economics, said that "democracy is not like a pebble which we find on the
beach finished and rigid in shape and content and remaining the same apparently for eternity. It is
rather like a tree. It develops and its fruits depend on its species and state of development". Having
offered this caution, he went on to propose that political regimes which claim to be democratic and
accept the Lincolnian definition "differ in four basic ways". These he listed as: "the class location of
ultimate political power which cannot be divorced from economic power; the scope of definition of 'the
people'; the arrangement for the representation of the people'; and the rights of 'the people.'
525

The import of Eskor Toyo's two propositions can be split into three: First, that given a historical setting,
democracy is not static, that it grows and develops and can take sever forms, that at certain points in
history growth and development can actually be negative. Second, that you cannot plant a mango seed
and expect to harvest orange fruits. What sow, you reap. You are deceiving the people and perhaps
yourself if you pretend thai mango and an orange are the same or that "fruit na fruit". Third, that given
a histor: setting, there are criteria or benchmarks for measuring the development of democra:I.
Eskor Toyo said, and I agree completely: "Material power in society is in the hands of th who have its
decisive means of production and distribution. Where these means include' money or are purchasable
with money, material power includes money power. Where -..he people substantially lack this power,
the purport of democracy is moonshine." To conclude, let me extract from an opinion I offered in this
column about four years ago: Democracy is a secular, constitutional and republican political order
which, thou:, including electoral politics and elections, goes beyond them to the political self-gover=ent
of the people at all levels of social life, from the neighbourhood, community and villa levels upwards to
the national; where the conditions for forming and registering politicill parties and contesting elections
exclude monetary requirements; where elections are genuinet, free and fair. Democracy is apolitical
order where the wages and remunerations of elected officials compare with those ofpublic officers and
civil servants; where there is a system IF recall of elected representatives; where security apparatuses
are humane, law-abiding responsible to the people; where there is political accountability at all levels
ofgovemarKe. Democracy is a political order where human rights include political, economic., social,
citizenship and cultural rights - in particular, the right to work, the right to bass education and the right
to basic healthcare; where these rights are justiciable; and what there is a legally-binding and adequate
minimum wage; where there is a legally institL'irial system of social support for the unemployed and
destitutes; and where justice is affordabk and accessible to all citizens; where the powers of unelected
institutions (such as tradition& rulership institutions) are reduced to the minimum; where the rights of
women and chits are protected and advanced; which recognises the rights and needs of special areas
communities and takes steps to meet them. Finally, democracy is apolitical regime where crimes
against humanity are clearly defined' and include the crime of violence against women in private and
public spheres Ladi discrimination of any type on the bases of sex, ethnic origin, religion or age. This is
rail democracy, articulated from the material and human resources we now possess as a n It is different
from the imperialist" inspired "fetish" democracy which Nigerian rulers worshipping, or pretend to be
worshipping.
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7
Prefatory Notes on New 'Roads' 11th March, 2004
SEVERAL times I tried to draft this piece. But on each occasion I abandoned the attempt after only a
couple of sentences. None of the opening sentences had succeeded in conveying the ideas with which I
wanted to preface the piece. Then I saw Fidel Castro's statement which I quoted some weeks ago in this
column: "Tremendously strong mass movements are emerging, and I think that these movements will
play a fundamental role in future struggles. There will be new tactics: not the Bolshevik style and not
even Our own style, because these belonged to a different world. This should not discourage anyone.
We need to see and analyse, with the greatest possible objectivity, the current setting in which the
struggle will have to unfold, under the unipolar dominance of a super power, the United States. There
will be other roads and other ways by which the conditions will be created for transfoiming this world
into another one". That is a fair summary of the introduction to what I had wanted to say. Just a fair
summary and an introduction: new roads to a new world. A number of "lines of thought", some of them

overlapping, can be distilled from this statement. One is that the world in which the Russian
(Bolshevik) and Cuban revolutions took place was a different, or "another world from the present one.
A second line is that big and "tremendously strong" mass movements are emerging in the political
sphere, and these are beginning to adopt new tactics in trying to transform the present world. Then,
there is the thought that to prevent discouragement and despair in the current situation, and to be able to
construct a new road, objective analyses are necessary. It is not enough to be angry. One must also not
expect every heroic act to lead to liberation. Revolutionary zeal must be balanced with revolutionary
realism. In other words, one must try, as much as possible, not to view the present situation through the
prism of one's personal experiences. What is the "Bolshevik road"?, one may ask. At the beginning of
last century, Russia was a Trawling empire, a monstrously large expanse of land extending from
Eastern Europe to Asia, covering 11 time zones in a world divided into 24 zones. The empire was
called a "prison of nations" in view of the many minority nationalities it held in bondage.
Predominantly agrarian, Russia was, to put it mildly, a despotic or police state with the emperor
exercising absolute power. There was no constitution, properly so called. The emperor, called the Tsar,
hated the words, "freedom" and "progress". To him, and his court, democracy was anarchy. The notion
of human rights did not exist: what rights anyone had at any time depended on the wish and will of the
Tsar and these, at no time, included political rights.
527

However, this backward political economy produced what Hegel would have ca: a contradiction
ofhistory: Russia had a highly conscious, though small, working class. a crop of highly developed and
committed revolutionary socialists who understood clearly that Tsarist absolutism could be dismantled
only by an armed revolution in \\ workers and peasants would constitute the main force and which will
aim not at develop TIE capitalism, but at moving the country in the direction of socialism. The
Bolshevik P eventually led the revolution in November 1917. Weary Russian soldiers, returning fror:-.
the war fronts, joined the uprising chanting: "Land, Bread, Peace". This combination c forces produced
the result it produced - the overthrow of the Tsar and the institution c popular power - because the
Bolsheviks were clear-headed, courageous, credible anc: determined. That was the Bolshevik "road".
What parts of it have been closed by history - The "Cuban road" has featured several times in this
column since its inception and it was summarised just a fortnight ago: the key event along this road was
the "capture state power, through an armed struggle by the people of Cuba led by honest and resolute
revolutionaries". The client regime that was removed from power had simply closed all peaceful roads,
including the electoral one. The Rebel Army which had waged a guerrilla campaign in the jungle in the
preceding two years were joined in Havana by workers, students, peasants, artisans, professionals, the
jobless and the poor. We can similarly describe the "roads" taken by some other nations. What is
common to all these "roads" is that each was an armed confrontation for power between the common
people, the masses, led resolute and honest revolutionaries and a dictatorial regime administering a
sava2-e1; exploitative socio-economic system. In Russia the "resolute and honest revolutionarie were
organised organised in the Bolshevik Party; in Cuba, it was the Rebel Army; in South Africa_ was the
African National Congress (ANC); in China, Vietnam and Korea, it was the Communist Party;
inAlgeria it was the National Liberation Front (NLF); etc. Future struggles may not take the form of
direct armed confrontations between rebel forces and oppressive regimes. But the masses whose
intervention in each case was decisive, were not amorphous. They belonged to definite classes, groups
and segments of the society: workers, peasants. women, students, artisan, professionals, national
minorities, and, in some cases, even religious groups. Arevolution or transformation is not a magic. It is

simply a qualitative movement of historical forces. Sociologically, it is a re-organisation of society

around a new core. And it is this re-organisation that creates the conditions for social development
along a new direction. That is what we call a new society. Politically, a revolution is the overthow of
the power of a ruling class, or ruling bloc, by an array or coalition of rebel forces already in existence.
The social classes and groups that took part in past revolutions were not sudden creations_ They were
in existence on the eve of the revolutions. The political forces active or merel: present in the
revolutions were also there on the eve of the revolutions. Similarly, in the transformation of the present
world into a new one - a global agenda which, in several respects, resembles the agenda of the
colonised world at the end ofworlc war II - the presently dominated and exploited social classes, groups
and radical social forces will be involved, but they will play different roles from what they are now
playing
528

Social agents will not be transported from the planet Mars. The transformation will entail, s in the case
of previous epochal changes, the radical re-organisation of society around a :ew core, and the
establishment of a new class power. This is where the "tremendously strong" movements cited by
Castro come in. I can only add that without "honest and resolute" revolutionary forces these
-tremendously strong" movements will be neutralised and absorbed by deceptively reformist
movements continually created and recreated by exploiters and enslavers. Yesterday, the -honest and
resolute" revolutionary individuals and groups were Marxists, and were called the vanguard. Today,
they need not be Marxists and need not be called the vanguard. In fact, the very notion of vanguard is
being revised by history itself. But Marxists have a critical role to play in the transformation. You just
have to see through the contradictions, define your role, and then play it. The "tremendous" movements
should not be confused with, or reduced to, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are now
over-visible in the media. And NGO is an organisation funded by internal and external forces that, in
the main, are not interested in changing the existing power structure. In fact, the major donor
institutions implicitly prohibit the recipients of their grants from activities that challenge the power
structure. On the contrary, a social movement is an "aggregation of people and organisations with a
shared set of ideas that seeks to bring about social change consistent with a professed set of values",
says Jael Salliman, a woman, in the anthology Dangerous Intersections. In the present day, NGOs are
definitely part of social movements. The problem is that NGOs are not even minimally focused on the
question of power. It is the duty of those individuals and groups that believe in real change from
globalised capitalism, or capitalist dobalism, to develop the social movements and make them more and
more focused on power. These individuals and groups are in the position to do so given their prominent
positions in the NGOs. They should not see the NGOs, with their commitment to "proposals",
"projects" and "reports", as an end in themselves, but as a means to an end, a liberating end. About 23
years ago, the political group to which I belonged formulated the following thesis: "Human progress, in
the final analysis, is measurable, not in abstract statistical terms, not in the quantity of goods and
commodities consumed within a lopsided socio-economic system, but in the degree to which the
exploited, marginalised groups and classes in society liberate themselves from poverty and degradation
and in so doing simultaneously liberate their vast productive and creative capacities from the
exploitation and manipulation of their oppressors so that a general advance of society toward a dealienated, fully humanised society is thereby enhanced". This remains the central political question
before the oppressed masses of all nations.
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17
Politics and Coups in Nigeria 6th May, 2004
ryHE present intervention was inspired by recent political developments in Nigeria and the animated
public discussions they are still generating. Many of the positions I have so far read and heard have
proceeded from false historical and political premises, and I think these premises need to be reexamined. We proceed cautiously and slowly. The word, Coup, originally French, literally means a
blow. But generally it means a "highly successful stroke, act or move; a clever action or
accomplishment". The term coup d' etat, also French, literally means a "blow, or stroke, concerning the
state". But in politics it means a "sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one affecting a
change of government illegally or by force". In other words, a coup d' etat, as given in this definition. is
characterised by "suddenness", "decisiveness", "illegality" and "force". This is a basic definition. But
an author has added an important elaboration: a couT d'etat may also mean a "violent and unexpected
reformulation of state policy" or "unexpected and sudden measure of state often involving force or
threat of force". When actual force is used, it is usually "localised" or "concentrated", or both; and the
group involved in the exercise of the force is usually small. Another elaboration: a coup d' etat is a
"sudden change of government by force, brought about by those who already hold some governmental
C: military power". Then a clarification: a coup d' eta' "differs from a revolution in that it is effected
from above, while a revolution involves the participation of the masses". Eac-. clarification or
elaboration in this gradually developing definition is ofparamount importanc ct. both in polities and in
law. And, I may add, the defmition and its elaboration are not Marxis: they are orthodox ones approved
for teaching in our institutions. We can distill some statements from the foregoing. A coup d'etat is a
political ac: it is armed politics. A coup d'etat may be staged against a government or a state - and this
is the commonly known phenomenon. But it can also be staged by a state or government as represented
by the head of that government. For instance, if a government violates ti- constitution or its own basic
law or decree, and goes on to enforce this violation by Cir_ employment of any coercive apparatus of
state, then that government has staged a co: d'etat. It is in this sense that the following acts in the
political history of Nigeria can considered as coup d'etat: the dissolution of the Armed Forces Ruling
Council (AFRC) '- General Ibrahim Babangida in January 1990, and the constitution of a new one; the
annuli: :Tr of June 12, 1993 presidential election; and the military expedition sent by President
Oluse..:::530
Obasanjo to Odi in November 1999 without the approval ofthe Senate. A famous example from history
is the coup staged by President Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte of France. Elected president in
December 1848, he unilaterally extended his powers and then made himself Emperor two years later.
This was a coup against the state staged by the head of state. A government that declares a state of
emergency, effects changes in the composition, structure and operation of state institutions, and
enforces these measures by means outside the provisions of the constitution or basic law, has staged a
coup d' etat. It is, perhaps, not necessary to qualify a coup d' etat with the adjective "military" in so far
as every coup involves the deployment of organised material force. But if we must sometimes add
"military", then it should be understood that we mean military institution of state to differentiate it from
a military force organised outside the state. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was accused in 1962 of organising
such an "outside" force. Another point relates to the basic difference between a coup d'etat and a
revolution. We have already touched upon this, but then The World Book Encyclopaedia claims that
"famous coups in history include those carried out by Napoleon Bonaparte in France in 1799, by the

Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917, and by the communists in Czechoslovakia in 1948". I accept the first
example; I reject the second; and I submit that the third is debatable. Let me briefly explain my position
on the Bolshevik Revolution. Every successful revolution involves, at a certain stage, what the French
would call a coup de grace, a final assault on the state - an assault which bears some resemblance to a
coup d' etat. Even if the states dissolves or collapses before the final assault, the formal assumption of
power by the revolutionaries looks like a coup d' etat. But the critical point, as noted earlier, is the
involvement of the masses. For this reason, what happened in Russia in November 1917 was not a
coup, but a revolution. We may now pose a series of questions: Is a coup d'etat a single act or a
process? Can a failed coup d' etat, the one that does not lead to a change of government, be called a
coup d' etat, nonetheless? If a coup d' etat leads to a change of government, but the coupists or their
principals do not assume power, can it still be called a coup d' etat nonetheless? Is a coup which is still
in the planning stage a coup d' etat. My answer here is a limited and political one, and it is this: Just as
attempted murder s not murder, an attempted coup is not a coup; and just as conspiracy to commit
murder is different from attempted murder which in turn is different from murder, a conspiracy to stage
a coup d' etat is different from attempted coup d' etat and this in turn is different from coup d'etat. There
is no sophistry or semantics here: We know what murder is, what Lttempted murder is, and what
conspiracy to commit murder is. The three acts are in decreasing order of seriousness. Same with coup
d' etat. We know, however, that in the hand of the state, conspiracy to stage a coup d' etat is often faked;
and after being faked, it s then equated to attempted coup d' etat, and finally it is transformed to coup d'
etat itself. We can therefore classify the coups and "coup-related" incidents in Nigeria since
::idependence into five types_ namely: coups d'etat proper, that is, successful overthrow of overnment,
whether or not the group that initiated the action actually assumed power; coups by the state or
government against the basic law or the civil society; attempted coups etat where there were overt
actions, but the initiators failed in their bid to overthrow the
531

government; conspiracy to stage a coup d'etat, where there were only allegations by state that certain
people were planning, a coup d'etat; and political allegation of conspire to stage a coup d'etat, where the
allegation was made, not by the state, but by individt.L whose allegation was however not contradicted
by the state. This is a broad and classification, but I think it is good enough for the present exercise.
The successful coups, or coups proper, are well known. Identifying each by - year of occurrence and
the person who assumed power or office as Head of State afte: we have: January 1966 (General AguiyiIronsi); July 1966 (General Gowon); July 19- (General Mohammed); December 1983 (General Buhari);
August 1985 (General BabangiL and November 1993 (General Abacha). One of the more prominent
coups d' etat by state against the basic law and the civil society was the annulment by General
Babangici_ military regime of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Bashorun Moshoc.,j
Abiola. Identifying each of the attempted coups by year of occurrence and the pers - known or alleged
to have led it, we have: January 1966 (Major Nzeogwu); February lc,- (Lt. Col. Dimka); andApril 1990
(Major Orka). Conspiracies to stage a coup as allegec', - truthfully or falsely - and prosecuted by the
state would include: October 1962 (Chief Awolowo); September 1967 (Colonel Ifeajuna, Biafra); 1982
(Mandara); December 1985 (General Vatsa); March 1995 (no clear leader); and December 1997
(General Diya). Pollticll allegations of coup plans would include: January 1965 (no clear leader); and

June 199 Sw immediately after the death of General Abacha but before the emergence of Gene:-..A
Abdulsalami Abubakar (no clear leader). A philosopher once said that a central question in democracy
and the rule of IL was how the state was to be constructed so that "bad governments and rulers can be
rid of by a majority vote, without bloodshed, without violence and before they cause met harm".
Please, note the pillars of the question: "majority vote", "without violence", "withouut bloodshed", and
"before they (the rulers) cause much harm". I accept the formulation. In relation to our current
discussion this is the question of how the two major types of co d'etat can be eliminated: coups against
the state, and coups by the state. A one-side treatment oftlais question will be a dishonest exercise.
Since France, through the family al Napoleon Bonaparte, has offered the world a classic example of
each type of coup, also how to eliminate them, I would advise Nigerian politicians to consider a study
tour that country. In the alternative, they should support the convening of a Sovereign Natior.11
Conference (SNC), to discuss the question.
532

172
Speaking to Power 11th November, 2004
ON November 10, 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni indigenes were hanged in Port
Harcourt Prison on the orders of ,General Sani Abacha's ruling junta, using the judiciary. Today, nine
years after this massacre, I dedicate this column to the "Ogoni Nine" and all those who, at critical
moments of their lives, had the cause and the courage to look power in the eye and say: "Do your
worst". On May 22, 1994, Ken Saro-Wiwa and several Ogoni activists were arrested and detained allegedly in connection with the murder of four prominent Ogoni elders the previous day. More than
eight months later, on January 28, 1994, Ken and four of the detained activists were arraigned before a
Special Tribunal for murder. Altogether 15 Ogoni citizens were charged. Nine months later, on October
30, 1994, Ken and eight other defendants were convicted and sentenced to death. On November 8,
1995, General Abacha's ruling junta confirmed the death sentences. The "Ogoni Nine" were executed
two days later. The trial was bloody and farcical, as the world knows. In an address prepared for
presentation to the tribunal, but which was rejected by the miserable agents of judicial murder, Saro
Wiwa said: "I predict that the scene here will be played and replayed by generations yet unborn. I
predict that a denouement of the riddle of the Niger Delta will soon come. The agenda is being set at
this trial. Whether the peaceful ways favoured will prevail depends on what the oppressor decides, what
signals it sends out to the waiting public in my innocence of the false charges I face here, in my utter
conviction, I call upon the Ogoni people, the people of the Niger Delta, and the oppressed ethnic
minorities ofNigeria to stand up now and fight fearlessly and peacefully for their rights. History is on
their side. For the Holy Qur'an says in Sura 42, Verse 41: "All those who fight when oppressed incur no
guilt, but Allah shall punish the oppressor. Come the day". At the beginning of 1962, Chief Obafemi
Awolowo was the leader and National President of the Action Group (AG), the government party in the
Western Region ofNigeria. He was also the leader of Opposition in Federal House of Representatives.
By the end of that year the Action Group had lost power in the region and the leader was locked up in
prison awaiting trial in a Federal High Court, Lagos, for allegedly planning to overthrow the Federal
Government. It was a bad year, not only forAwolowo, but also for the country. On September 11, 1963,
the court convicted Awolowo and a number of his co-defendants. Before passing sentence on the
convicted prisoners, the trial judge allowed each of them to
3

make a statement, an "allocutus", they call it. Some asked for leniency, some kept quiet. b..z Awolowo
had something historic to say. The Action Group leader, a frontline nationalist, was also a frontline
lawyer. He h:L defended himself, having been denied the engagement of a lawyer of his choice. He told
flie judge: "I must say with respect, and this may have to be taken up with a higher tribunal, I do not
agree with your Lordship's verdict, and the premises on which it is based. personally welcome any
sentence you may impose upon me. At this moment my only coned is not for myself, but that my
imprisonment might do harm to Nigeria for three reasons...F Dr. sometime to come, the present twilight
of democracy, individual freedom and the rut : law, will change or might change into utter darkness.
But after darkness - and this commonplace - comes a glorious dawn". On November 7, 1962, Nelson
Mandela was sentenced to three years" imprisonment for incitement and two years for leaving
apartheid SouthAfrica "without aii travel documents". Eleven months into his servitude, on October 9,
1963, he was take from prison to stand trial for sabotage, or rather, for "campaigning to overthrow the
government by force". At the close of the first trial, Mandela had told the trial judge: "In its effort to
keep the African people in a position of perpetual subordination, the aparthe regime must and will fail.
I have done my duty to my people and to SouthAfrica. I have doubt that posterity will pronounce that I
was innocent and that the criminals that should have been brought before this court are members of the
Verwoerd government". In the second trial, Mandela a lawyer, refused to give evidence in his own
defere and he was therefore not cross-examined. He was his own defence lawyer. Judgement NA, given
on June 11, 1964: Mandela and seven of his comrades, including Walter Sisulu Govan Mbeki, were
imprisoned for life. Before judgment was passed, however, Mandela' told the judge: "I have cherished
the ideal of a democratic and free society in which aB persons live together in harmony and with equal
opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope ic) live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for
which I am prepared to die". On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro initiated and led an armed rebellion against
Batista military dictatorship in Cuba. The insurrection was defeated and Castro and seve:71,1 of his
surviving comrades-in arms were arrested and put on trial. His closing speech at -j-f: trial is known as
"History Will Absolve Me". He told the Court: "I now come to the close my defence plea but I will not
end it as lawyers usually do, asking that the accused be freez. I cannot ask freedom for myself while
my comrades are already suffering in prison. me there to join them and to share their fate. It is
understandable that honest men should dead or in prison in a Republic where the President is a criminal
and a thief." Castro thanked the judges for allowing him the freedom to express himself. I-7 however
regretted that it was the guilty that was putting the innocent on trial: "If all t weight of the law does not
fall upon the guilty, because of cowardice on the part of t1-.2 judiciary, and if then all the judges do not
resign, I regret the unprecedented shame that Iv:: fall upon the judiciary". Castro then concluded: "I do
not fear prison. Condemn me if y like. History will absolve me".
III'
oil
534

The Nigerian Civil War began on July 6, 1967. Thirty-four days later, on August 9, 1967, a detachment
ofBiafran forces crossed the River Niger into the Mid-West. I cannot now determine, where Wole
Soyinka was on July 6 and August 9, 1967. But the radical artist and academic, who was then 33 years
old, had been busy since the army majors' attempted coup ofJanuary 1966 - mobilising, internally and

externally, first against regression back to the pre-1966 era and disintegration and later against mass
killings and war. Closely watched by Gowon's junta, Soyinka continued his activities long after the war
started. My calculation shows that Wole Soyinka was at Enugu, capital of the new secessionist state of
Biafra about the second week of September, 1967. Gowon's secret police lay in wait for him at Ibadan
and Lagos. "My return from Enugu", Soyinka recounted, "was followed by a serious manhunt
organised by the Army Intelligence and the Gestapo from Lagos. I ensured that I fell into the hands of
neither, submitting finally to arrest at the hands of a uniformed policeman outside the gates of the
University fife".
Wole Soyinka was taken to Lagos and immediately put through an interrogation: "You say here that
you formed a committee to campaign internationally against the importation of arms to Nigeria 44 you
realise by the way that is a very disloyal thing todo?" "I do not accept that" "You do not think it helps
the rebels? How is a war to be fought without weapons?" "The rebels would use the same argument
with justice to prove my antagonism to their cause." "We are not particularly concerned with the views
of the rebels". "I am. I have declared already that this war is morally unjustified!" "Are you a pacifist?"
"Certainly not". 'You would accept some other wars?' "Depends. And always as a last resort." "What
kind of wars would you support for instance? "Any war in defence of libe ."
in October 27, 1948, the Zikists organised a public lecture, "A Call for Revolution", in Idagos.
Revolution, that is, against colonial rule. The lecture was chaired by Anthony Enahoro and delivered by
Osita Agwuna. Both Enahoro and Agwuna were arrested, charged with sedition and jailed. Undaunted,
the Zikists called a mass rally on November 7, 1948. The ?resident of the Movement, Raj i Abdallah
addressed the rally: "I am a free citizen of Nigeria, -olding no allegiance to any foreign government and
bound by no law other than Nigerian iative law and the law ofnations. We have passed the age of
petition. We have passed the of resolution. This is the age of action, plain, blunt and positive action".
More Zikists, :eluding Abdallah, were arrested and charged with sedition. In court Abdallah refused to
-71-ter a plea. He and his compatriots were jailed.
535

173
Prefatory Notes on Auschwitz 3rd Marcy, 2005
ON Thursday, January 27, 2005, the rulers ofAmerica and their allies in Western and Eastern Europe
celebrated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp. Auschwitz is a
small town in Southern Poland. and the camp had been used by the Nazi German regime under Adolf
Hitler for the extermination of millions of Europeap Jews, gipsies, Soviet prisoners-of-war and other
"undesirables" or social "inferiors" during World War II (1939-1945). I have read a lot about what
Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime did to its victims, especially the European Jews and Soviet prisoners-of-war.
But the celebration of January 27, 2005, created doubts in my mind as to who actually liberated the
death-camp: American and British troops, or Soviet forces, that is the Russians, as the current falsifiers
of world history call them. I knew it was the Soviet troops who liberated Auschwitz; but the nonmention of this fact in the reports I read confused me. I searched through the various reference books
we have in the library. I did not get an answer. Perhaps, I was in a hurry. Finally, I requestee a young
colleague of mine to consult the internet. He came back with the answer: it was th Soviet troops that
liberated the Auschwitz extermination camp " the largest that the Germans built " on January 27, 2005.
I marvel at a journalism that would talk about "liberation" b z. completely omit any mention of"by
whom". I should start with a glcssary of terms, at least for the sake of young readers. Sol-7,z' features
of the Nazi state are still with us today, even in Nigeria. A gestapo is a "secret stare police organisation

employing underhand or terrorist methods against people suspected of disloyalty". The gestapo was one
of the key agencies of the Nazi state. The parallel her would be the State Security Services (SSS).
Schutzstaffel (or Schutz-staffel, for ease .2 f pronounciation), or SS for short, was a terrorist formation
in Hitler's Nazi Party'creatE..,::1 originally to serve as bodyguard to Adolf Hitler, and later expanded to
take charge : - intelligence, central security, policing action, and the mass extermination of those
th..:7-:, considered inferior or undesirable". The original meaning of holocaust is a sacrifice that is
offered by being thrown inuo fire, to be completely consumed. The meaning is now extended to include
any huge ak total destruction "involving extensive loss of life through fire". An example is nuclear
holocaust. When written with capital H, and qualified with the article "the", holocaust means the "rr,-_Iss, slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War If Hitler, a
dismissed army corporal, and a thug, started his political career in 1 Y _ 4 shortly after the murder of
Rosa Luxemburg. The party he joined had appropriated -LI-Itt
536
(It;

name German Workers' Party. He was the seventh registered member of the party. The evil genius soon
took over the party, presented a draft programme, and, more cynical than those he met there, changed
the name ofthe party to the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party. Point No. 4 of the
programme read: "Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one
who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the
race". And hence. if we stretch this bizarre logic, no Jew can be a German citizen. The last point in the
25 point-programme stated: "For modem society, a colossus with feet of clay, we shall create an
unprecedented centralisation which will unite all powers in the hands ofthe govermner.l. We shall
create a hierarchical constitution, which will mechanically govern all movements of individuals". The
Nazis envisaged a "united" Europe without Jews and without socialists or communists. AdolfHitler and
his thugs believed that Socialism and Communism were creaked by Jews. Wait a minute. Karl Marx,
Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, etc were Jews. And Vladimir Lenin had Jewish blood. Blaming all the
problems in Germany and in the working "Jewish socialism", Nazi mass murderers used this fact to
mobilise petit-bourgeois and de-classed German masses against Jews, socialists and communists. Hitler
shared the tasks of mass murder between his two special formations: the Gestapo and the SS. He gave
the task of eliminating all enemies of the Party and the "National State" to the Gestapo. Such "enemies"
were arrested and transported to concentration/extermination camps and delivered to the SS. The latter
divided the "deliveries", the human cargo into three: those to do slave labour; those to go immediat into
gas chambers and then to incinerators; and those to await their turns to labour camp, or gas and fire.
But it was a question of time: All of them were already condemned to death. The stui-mabteilungen or
"storm troops", abbreviated SA, was another armed tencynst formation of the Nazi Party. Its primary
function was to defend the meetings of the Nazi Party and disrupt those ofits enemies. Hitler came to
power on the platform of the Nazi Party, in 1933. He did not stage a coup d' etat, or lead a revolution.
His party won a general election and he, being the "eternal leader" ofthe party, was installed
Chancellor, the executive head of government the Republic of Germany. Shortly after coming to power,
Hitler enacted a law for kin/tit* or "protective custody". Lord Russell of Liverpool, in his introduction
to the book, Commandant ofAuschwitz wrote: "Under protective custody, anyone who showed any
signs of active opposition to the new regime could be kept under restraint or sup erv, and during the
next six years thousands of Germans were thrown into concentration camps for what was
euphemistically called 'treatment' . Many of them never regained their freCd0F11"1 Lord Russell made
the critical point: "The concentration camp system was in full swing within Germany long before the
outbreak of the Second World War, and its organisms had been perfected, and its methods tried out and

practised upon Germans in peace time-In a statement made after his capture, Rudolf Hess, the
Commandant ofAuschwilz from 1940 to 1943, confessed voluntarily, according to him: "I personally
arranged on orders received from Hirnmler in May 1941, the gassing of two million persons bewail!
537

June 1941 and the end of 1943, during which time I was Commandant o fAuschwitz_ said that about
half a million others died of various diseases - making a total of 2.5 ml But, many historians regard
Hess' figures as a "strict minimum". The real number of they say, is "unknown but probably much
higher, may be four million". In July or A 1941, Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi SS chief, or Reichfuhrer
SS, called Rudolf Hess Commandant ofAuschwitz concentration/extermination camp, to Berlin. "The
Fuhrer ordered that the Jewish question be solved once and for all, and that we, the SS_ are implement
that order", Himmler told his subordinate immediately on arrival. Auschwitz told him, had been chosen
as the site of this "final solution". As if the planned extermination needed any justification, Hoess' boss
told him: "The Jews are the s-, enemies of the German people and must be eradicated. Every Jew that
we can lay hands on is to be destroyed now during the war, without exception. If we cannot
obliterate the biological basis of Jewry, the Jews will one day destroy the German peo7 It was a secret
order, verbally transmitted from Hitler to Himmier, and from the lat:f7 to) Hess. Shortly after, another
senior SS officer, Adolf Eichman, came to Auschwitz to supe7m-se. the plans. The strategic plan was to
liquidate all European Jews, starting from Polish .L.Nivs, then those of Germany and Czechoslovakia,
then the Western Jews: from France, Bel and Holland. After this first phase, then Jews from Hungary,
whom Eichmann estimated three million, and those from Rumania, estimated at four million. Victims
were to be gas,_ to death and then thrown into pits and burnt. Later, incinerators or crematoria were
used., But before the bodies were burnt, gold teeth were extracted and body hair removed: former taken
to Berlin, the latter transported to factories for the production of some t:::, of clothing. The prosecutor
at the Nuremberg gave an idea of the number involved: "IV f-21Vir. million murders. Two-thirds of the
Jews in Europe exterminated, more than six million of them on the killer's own figures. Murder
conducted like some mass-production industry 1 the gas chambers and the ovens ofAuschwitz (and
other camps)". In a speech to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation ofAuschwitz, the curr German
Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, reminded Germans that anti-Semitism (the hatred of Jews) was still
significant in Germany: "That there is still anti-Semitism cannot be denielL'. It is the duty of all society
to fight against it". While admitting that the "overwhelming majority' of Germans living today do not
bear guilt for the Holocaust", they have a responsibility le be vigilant against a repeat experience. He
reminded his people that the "evil ofNazi ideok did not come from nowhere. There was definitely a
process that led up to the brutalisatice of thought and the loss of moral inhibitions. But above all, Nazi
ideology was wanted 11,3, humans and made by humans". We should not forget this.
538

174
Reflections on Human Rights 7th April, 2005 IFIRST came across the concept of human rights, not in
socialism - as many people would expect me to claim - but in the critique of socialism, especially its
Marxian and Soviet-type tendencies. That was long ago. The critics covered the entire ideological-

political spectrum: from conservatives, through liberals, to revolutionary leftists. That was my first
shock as a young Marxist, namely, that human rights-critics ofthe Soviet bloc included many Marxists,
communists and socialists. The human rights - critics accused Communist Party-ruled states, in
particular, of denying human rights and ipso facto, democracy, to their citizens. The grounds for this
accusation included, according to the critics, the "imposition" of one-party regimes, harassment and
detention of critics and political dissenters, "regimentation" of social, intellectual and cultural life,
suppression ofthe free-market economy - which they saw as the foundation of democracy, etc. I was so
impressed by the arguments of some of these critics that I spent time studying the responses of the
accused. At the end of the exercise, I came to three conclusions, namely: that the "political" human
rights regime in Soviet-type socialist states needed to be radically improved; that "economic" human
rights in these countries were much much deeper, just to say the least, than what obtained in central and
peripheral capitalist states, including Nigeria; and that the socialist revolution was made in the name of
universal freedom, and therefore, that the denial of any aspect of this to any segment of the population,
for any reason whatsoever - including war - can only be temporary, very temporary. That was as early
as 1976. My position has remained essentially the same. And this, very early in our political career,
sharply set us apart from the "mainstream" Marxian socialist tendencies in Nigeria and globally. When
we suggested that the improvement of the human rights situation in the Soviet bloc could be realised,
and the gains of socialism preserved, only through a political revolution, that is, through a "revolution
in revolution", we were called petit-bourgeois, romanticist and anarchist revolutionaries and even
counter-revolutionaries. Although we have since been vindicated by the tragic events ofthe last two
decades, our vindication did not bring us any joy - for our vindication was like that of a man or woman
who had warned his or her child of a serious danger, but had then lived to see what he or she had
warned aim. become a "self-fulfilling prophecy". What, then, are human rights? Strictly speaking, one
is not born with human rights, although one can be born into human rights. One acquires human rights
as human beings. Human rights are rights acquired over time through the strivings and struggles of
human 539

beings: struggles against the exploitations of some segments of humanity by other segments or the
impositions of some sections of humanity on other sections. Human rights are no: static in any society,
and are not uniform across national boundaries. Human rights ay.; historically determined. Although
human beings are not born with rights, at certain stages in their lives the: declare certain rights as theirs
- as products of their past struggles and development of the societies. They then initiate new struggles
to defend these rights. Declarations of human rights are made against organised powers - at various
levels - that seek to contain, regulate. restrict or deny them. From time to time these powers respond by
recognising sets of rights as human rights. The degree of sincerity in this recognition is measured, in
part, by th-z: language of formulation, concrete conditions for their realisation, enforceability and
otherwise. The state shows its recognition of human rights by having them enshrined in the
constitution. But the constitution is not, and has never been, an impartial or even-handed document: it
always and everywhere reflects the balance ofpower and class interests in the polity. For every human
right that a constitution recognises, it makes adequate provisions to contain its realisation. On balance,
the constitution, except in periods ofrevolutionar: upheaval, is implicitly a statement ofthe power ofthe
ruling classes and blocs, and, explicitly. a codification of the modes, methods and techniques of
perpetuation and reproduction c the existing social order. A constitution is hardly a "liberation charter"
for the oppressed, the exploited, the dominated or the marginalised. Even slaves are often given
constitutions embodying their "human" rights. Ruling class ideologues, and even liberals, often portray

human rights and the Constitutions embodying them as products of negotiations between the various
segments society. Hence the declaration: "We, the people...". Well, this is hardly the case. Ruling
classes and their fractions and factions negotiate the allocation of privileges and pow, among
themselves. They do not negotiate human rights with their subjects. But if you still inclined to use the
term negotiation, you should at least admit that the strong can st. "negotiate" with the weak, the
vanquisheds with the victor, the slave with the slave-own fr. In our time, human rights declarations, as
product of negotiation, refers essentially to the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights,
a land-mark declaration in tm.e history and politics of global emancipation struggle. No national ruling
class can now ignore it; no people struggling for human rights and genuine democracy can consciously
themselves the inspiration, vision and wisdom embodied in every sentence of that war: historic
declaration. On Friday, December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Natio:-.:, adopted and
proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In making proclamation, the Assembly called
on all countries of the world - within and outside the United Nations system - to "publicise the text of
the Declaration and cause it to he disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools
and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or
territories-. k enjoined all peoples of the world to familiarise themselves with these rights and help ter
promote and defend them". In other words, the Declaration was made for all peopleslll a n 540

all countries: big or small, rich or poor, white, black or coloured, free or in bondage, independent or
colonised, revolutionary or conservative, capitalist or socialist, developed or underdeveloped, industrial
or agrarian, etc. Representatives of about 51 countries attended the historic session. The countries
which endorsed the declaration of December 10, 1948 included the United States ofAmerica, Britain,
the Soviet Union, France, Nationalist China, Greece, Ethiopia, Egypt, Liberia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
Canada, Chile, Brazil, Cuba...spanning all continents ofthe world and the existing social orders and
regimes: capitalist, socialist, feudal, revolutionary, etc. The Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights has
since been complemented and strengthened by scores of other declarations - including those on the
human rights of women, children, minorities, the disadvantaged and the disabled; and the rights
ofpeople in war and war situations. These declarations and treaties, when taken together with the
Universal Declaration and the Charter of the United Nations, can be built into a powerful platform for
any anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, popular-democratic movement. The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights contains 30 articles, excluding the preamble. The document is less than half the length
of Chapter 4 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The chapter is titled
Fundamental Human Rights. But, whereas, the Universal Declaration is an exercise in clarity, lucidity,
precision, and comprehensiveness, and an embodiment ofhumanistic feeling, our Chapter 4 is
simultaneously verbose, vacuous and evasive. It looks like something drafted by people given the
instruction: "Just write something there". I present parts ofArticles 23, 25 and 26 of the Universal
Declaration. Article 23(i) says: "Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just
and favourable conditions ofwork and to protection against employment". ForArticle 23(3) follows
with: "Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and
his family an existence worthy of human dignity and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of
social protection". And Article 25(1) declares: "Everyone is entitled to a standard of living adequate for
the health and well-being of himself (or herself) and of his (or her) family, including food, clothing,
housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of

unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances
beyond his control". On Education, the General Assembly said: "Everyone has the right to education.
Education shall be free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall
be compulsory. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the
strengthening ofrespect for human rights and fundamental freedoms". I conclude with parts of the
Declaration's preamble: "Disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts
which have outraged the conscience of humankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings
shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the
highest aspiration of the common people". And this deserves to be underlined: It is essential, if a man
or woman is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and
oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law".
541

175
Theories of History Revisited 12th May, 2005
SINCE I became politically conscious, I have been fascinated by theories of. histo7i, It was this
attraction that led to the enlargement of my research and teaching engagements at the University of
Calabar in the late 1970s to include History and Philosophy of Science. It was also about the same time
(1977-1981) that I came across a number of books on theories of history which I now believe made a
substantial ideological impact an me, and helped shape and deepen my interest in Marxism. The books
in question included: The Varieties of History: From Voltaire to the Present, edited by Fritz Stem; What
is History?, by Edward Hallet Can; Understanding History (Marxist Essays), by George Novack; What
Happened in History?, by Gordon' Childe; and Karl Marx's Theory of History by GA. Cohen. My
spouse and I had cifx own copies of the first four, but the last one was always borrowed from the
University Library. And the book was my favourite, at the time. I lost access to this interesting
intellecr1 companion when my spouse and I were dismissed from the university in September 19- I
searched for Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History for almost 26 years. N : success. Then, a couple of
months ago, a friend and collaborator sent me a copy of the expanded edition of the book, published
five years ago. As a bonus she added two Otilf7 recent books by Cohen: Self-ownership, Freedom and
Equality and If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're so Rich? Interestingly, some aspects of the
subjcct-matter of the "main" book are taken up, elaborated, and simplified in the bonuses. I commend
the three books, published by the Oxford University Press, to readers. There would not have been any
need for the present article if the history bpok 1 received was just another copy of the book I lost. And
there would not have been any need for an article if the new book is a minimally revised edition of the
old. I would just have re-acquainted myself with the content - and left the matter there. I would also not
have four:: any need for this piece ifwhat I received was a revisionist exercise, abandonment ofMand
Sri. in the manner of some of my comrades who have suddenly seen the "truth" through fr.:::
"democracy" of the new imperialism, globalisation, neo-liberalism, post modernism ar,:: ethnic and
religious fundamentalism. . . What I saw was that the expanded edition of Karl Marx's Theory of
Histoly li: simultaneously a critical re-evaluation of the author's key propositions of Historic a .
Materialism (Marx' Theory of History) and, ipso facto, a re-evaluation ofhis own forme- understanding
of the theory embodied in the first edition of the book published 26 yea:` ago. The result is a stout
defence of the theory against opponents and vulgar supporter-_,
542

alike. Put differently, Cohen, in the new edition, defended Marx 's theory ofhistory against opponents
by criticising those "supporters" who advertise superficial understanding and mount vulgar defences.
He calls his method Analytical Marxism. That is the essence of the book, and that is the reason for this
piece. To appreciate Karl Marx Theoiy of _History, either in its original edition, or its expanded
version, you may need, at least, a summary of George Hegel's key propositions on history and
historical "progress". This is so because in Hegel you find the culmination and finest representative of
centuries ofEuropean ide list philosophies ofhistory. And Marx's theory ofhistory is, in a sense, a
critique ofHegelianism. We may paraphrase the key propositions of Hegel's (and Hegelian) philosophy
of history as follows: "All forward movement in history has been double-edged, since the creation of
the new inescapably entailed the destruction and transcendence of the old, its particular virtues
included; social progress has not followed a straight line, but a complicated path with many lapses and
detours; regress has mingled with progress, and a certain price, sometimes a very heavy one, has been
exacted for every advance; historical progress did not come about harmoniously or peacefully, but
through work, struggle, strife and opposition; humankind, the visible or apparent maker ofhistory, is a
mere instrument in the hands of the Absolute Idea, the motive force of history". George Novack, an
American Marxist thinker and writer, illustrated the above this way: "History is full of irony. Although
the Heads of States apply definite policies, and peoples and individuals consciously pursue their own
aims, historical actuality does not accord with their plan. The course and outcome ofhistory is
determined by internal necessities independent of the will and consciousness of any of its institutional
or personal agencies. Humankind proposes, the historical necessity of the idea disposes". I think
Novack's illustration, together with the propositions ofHegel's philosophy ofhistory outlined above is a
fair summary of idealist philosophy ofhistory at the Hegelian stage, that is, at the finest stage of its
development. All idealist philosophers after Hegel - including the brightest and most famous of them merely degenerated from the Hegelian height. I doubt if there is today any philosopher in the Hegelian
School. Now, a student of philosophy, coming in contact with historical materialism, that is, Marxist
theory of history, for the first time, may go away with.the conclusion that Karl Marx's theory was a
mere development of Hegelianism - since dialectics is at the core of both of them. Yes; dialectics is
central in Hegelianism and historical materialism. But the question is: Dialectics (movement)of what?
That is where the difference is, and it is a fundamental one. Karl Marx's clearest statement of his theory
ofhistory is embodied in his Preface to A Contribution to the critique ofPolitical EC0110111y which he
wrote in 1859. Because of its trenchant content, the preface became better known than the main book.
It is, arguably, the most quoted and cited passage in Marx's work, beating even the electrifying
passages in the Communist Manifesto. I am sure that most Marxists, including many acclaimed ones,
have not read, or even seen. the main text of Marx's book, which, itself, is a sort of introduction to
Marx's capital, his major work on Economics, or Political Economy, as he
543

preferred to call the discipline. Following GA. Cohen, the key propositions of historical materialism
can be lis The first four are taken together. One: the mode of production ofmateri al life conditions:T.,:
social, political and intellectual life process in general. Two: It is not the consciousness human beings
that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being deterrnin::!::: their consciousness.
Three: No social formation ever perishes before all the produce -. forces for which there is room in it
have developed. Four: New and higher relations production never appear before the material conditions
of their existence have matured it, the womb of the old society itself. The last two propositions can also

be taken together.. Five: Therefore, humankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since
"looki-Tz at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the task itself arises only when tIle
material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation Six: When
relations of production, from being catalysts for the development of forces production, become their
fetters, then the stage is set for a social revolution to transform these relations. These are well known
propositions. Revisiting them, I see no problems with :lc first two. And I don't think Cohen has any
problems with them either. The problem is v, the last four propositions, or rather with the way Marxists
have tended to interpret and defend them. Cohen raised a number of questions, and made some critical
comments I, here, take the liberty to paraphrase and simplify. Did the Russian socialist revolution .f"
1917 refute any ofthe four propositions, given that Russia, at the time ofthe revolution, an
underdeveloped capitalist country with room for further development of capitalisrnT Furthermore, in
his theses about productive forces, relations of production, sociaill transformation, etc was Karl Marx
referring to single countries or regions embracing sevfniill countries? Given propositions three and
four, if what took place in 1917 was a social :sic revolution would that not have been a refutation of
historical materialism and therefore Mil embarrassment of Marxists? On the other hand, if what took
place in 1917 was r. ; socialist revolution (because it was a deviation from some core proposition of
histor-. materialism) why did Marxists expect and hope (as many of them did) that the "social_ s:
experiment would succeed? Colaen's 442-page book is divided into 15 chapters, excluding the
Foreword t: the first edition, the introduction to the expanded edition, and two appendixes. I found tht
four sections not given the status of "chapter" to be as important as the chapters. 1.17. Foreword says
that the book "defends historical materialism by offering arguments in favour, but more by presenting
the theory in what I hope is an attractive form". In Chapte XV, titled "Marxism after the Collapse of the
Soviet Union", Cohen boldly argues that flit: "demise of the socialism that covered a large part ofthe
earth's surface when this book wa_, first published does not challenge historical materialism, but, if
anything, confirms it".
544

Democracy: In Search of Determination 30th June, 2005

EN I was reading the reports of the sixth anniversary of President Olusegun Obasanjo's democracy, I
suddenly remembered the story ofa c urt session in v a Nigerian town a fairly long time ago. A mithileaged man had been charged with felony, andthe prosecution had called on one of the investigating
security officers to step out and give his own partOf the evidence. The officer entered the witness box
and began every sentence of his icing evidence-in-chief with the phrase, "according to the evidence".
At a point the judge lbst his patience and asked the officer: "What is an evidence?" "Thank you, my
Lord", beamed the officer. He then cleared his throat and began: "An evidence is a man..." The
remaining part ofthe sentence was drowned in general laughter in which the judge himselfparticipated.
This outburst the officer mistook for applause. And this generated more laughter. Eventually, however,
the judge restored order in the courtroom and asked the officer to continue. This introduction would be
too long should I continue with my story beyond this point. I shall only say that in the less than 10
minutes the officer was led in evidence he committed more than 100 counts of what Americans call
"capital murder" on both the law and the English language. But the point here is that the officer
believed himself, and genuinely believed that he deserved the "applause" which he had received. I shall
not be surprised if to the question "What is democracy?" - a Nigerian politician or political activist
opens his submission with "democracy is a man..." Just a couple of weeks ago, a political activist,
seeing the photograph of ChiefAnthony Enahoro, General Muhammadu Buhari, and Dr. Beko
Ransome-Kuti on the front page of The Guardian, commented to me: "That is democracy, is not it?" I

thought he meant the public remembrance of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. But I was
mistaken. What the man was referring to was the mere fact of these prominent figures standing
together. To my friend the act of standing together to remember Bashorun Moshood Abiola was
democracy. This article is a contribution to the discussion on the determination of democracy in the era
ofmilitat.-A2 _ : 1 '' st globalisation. And by determination, in this context, we mean the "act
ofrendering a notion more precise by the addition of differentiating characteristics", or the "defmition
ofa concept in terms of its constituent elements". To complete this opening picture, I would say
::-_,_,..-: a 200d cl::-:'_Iiition is a short definition which captures the essence of the phenomenn in
question, a J.: .f. :inition which would be acceptable to almost everyone who uses the c oncer , Aiti. -_.
::-e same time. raising immediate questions through which elaborations and clarific..:.:,_ _ , ,.__:.. ' - - :I: , A zood definition is a heuristic definition.
54

A current, ordinary, definition - that is, dictionary definition - of democracy says that it is a government
by the people; a form of government in which supreme power :s vested in the people and exercised
directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system; a state having such a
government; a state of society characterised by formal equality of rights and privileges; political or
social equality; the common people c community as distinguished from any privileged class; the
common people with respect their political power". Two observations can be made here. First, this
ordinary definiti says "government by the people", and does not include "ofthe people, and for the
people." Second, it distinguishes the "common people ofthe community" from the "privileges class"
and associates the concept of Clemocracy with the former. By democracy, the ancient Greeks, who
developed the concept and gave it flit name, meant a government by the people "as distinct from
government by a single class, a single group or a single person". Ancient Greece was a slave society
and the power oftl state was based on military conquest. We should not be surprised, therefore, that
Grey .!,. philosophers naturally excluded slaves and aliens from the "people". And to a large degrewomen were also excluded. We note that what we have here, as before, is "government b;, the people",
and not "for" and "of'. These were to come later. Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest American
presidents, supplied the two othe.:- elements of the "trinity" when, in the 19th century, he defined
democracy as "government c :- the people, by the people, and for the people". Even here, the
immediate question st-i. remains: Who are the people? Political history records that answers to this
simple questic:-. have largely followed ideological lines, the pretensions and protestations of politic aphilosophers, political scientists and politicians notwithstanding. Professor Oluwole Adej are, in his
recent book, Democracy: Life, Liberties Property in Nigeria, said that "the people" is, or should mean,
"all the people". He further offered an elaboration ofthe Lincolnian definition from which emerges his
own definition: "Democracy is the government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people,
for the protection of each citizen's life, liberties and property". His inclusion ofthe word" property"
betrayed his ideological leaning which is made even more explicit by his assertion that "fret-- market,
not capitalism, is democracy's economic ideology". Two observations can be made here. First, the
market is as old as the emergenc of humankind from the state of subsistence economy where each
person produced just what he or she needed for survival. Beyond this point the market had been part of
every succeeding mode ofproduction. The market that we have today is the capitalist market. It does
not matter whether you qualify it with "free" or not. If Professor Adej are insists on his definition and
elaboration, then there is no democratic country on the planet Earth. In the second place, I think the
reference to "life", "liberties" and "property" has to do with liberalism and not democracy as such. As

Professor C.B. Macpherson pointed out, and I agree. liberalism developed in a Western Europe which
was not yet democratic. It was the liberalism of the upper classes. With the extension ofthe franchise to
the masses we had what is now known as "liberal democracy". The mode ofproduction in all the stages
of development of liberal democracy was capitalism under which the market became capitalist market.
546

From his definition of democracy as -goverment o fall the people, by all t,,le people and for all the
people, for the protection o f each citizen's life, liberties and p-roperty", Adej are went on to identify
three "primary types ofhuman government": theocracy, government by force, and democracy - as h had
defined it. To these correspond three types of power, namely, manipulation, force and persuasion. He
listed socialism under government by force. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Repubiic of: Nigeria,
he said, "is more socialist than he ocratic". All I can say here; in hen of a review, is that Professor Adej
are's book, covering more than 412 pages, with the American Declaration of Independence, United
States Bill f Rights, The Rights of Man and Citizens and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
as appendixes, is a very rich, lucidly written resource book on politics and governance. I strongly feel
that the research from which the book emerged was engaged with academic seriousness and discipline,
and from first principles. Beyond this, however, I would say that the bock is ideological, as borne out
by the professor's assertion that Nigeria's 1999 Constitution was "more socialist than democratic", just
because of the retention of the Land Use Act! In an article written about five years ago, Professor Eskor
Toyo, a renowned Nigerian-born economist and Marxist intellectual, gave what he called the "pillars of
democracy". There were 11 of them. Distribution of material power; the definition of "the people";
content of the rights of citizens; the spread of quality and education of the people; the rule of law and
access to the law; elections, the organisation of govemrnent; political parties; participation of the
people in government; opinion formation; and response of the government to public opinion. On the
first pillar, the strongest of the eleven, Toyo said: "Material power in society is in the hands of those
who have its decisive means ofproduction and distribution. Where these means include money or are
purchasable with money, material power includes money power. Where the people substantially lack
this power, the purport of democracy is moonshine". Both Adej are and Toyo are Nigerian professors.
In 1988, Karl Popper, a naturalised British philosopher of East European origin, a man who made his
name not only in philosophy of knowledge, but also in opposition to Marxism, tried to liberate humankind from the seemingly fruitless and frustrating efforts at determining democracy. He formulated a
question which, in his view, honest seekers after democracy should pursue. The question is: "How is
the state to be constituted so that bad governments and bad rulers can be got rid ofby a majority vote,
through the application of the rule of law - without bloodshed, and before they cause too much harm"?
What a task for theory and practice! A bloodless and lawful dismissal of a bad government or a bad
ruler whose methods may be lawless, violent and bloody!
547

177
Socialism Reviewed, and Renewed 27th October, 2005
11 HE M6nthly Review's double issue ofJuly-August 1990 carried the cover title, "The Future of
Socialism". It was a review of what had happened to, and in, the global socialist movement in the
preceding 12 months. And to refresh our memo:--: what happened included, in the main, the collapse of
the Communist-led regimes in EasTe7.7 Europe, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall (the physical

symbol of the Cold War), and crushing of the "pro-democracy" uprising in Beijing, China. All these
events product,,profound global consequences in the economic, political, diplomatic and ideological
spheres. The China "event" was regarded by the Chinese government and ruling Communist Party as
the crushing of a counter-revolution. "The Future of Socialism" runs through 11 pages. In addition to
the two shod prefaces, the publication carries five articles. The editor's preface, written by W.H. Locke
Anderson, is a presentation of the volume and a summary of the contributions. The sec preface is
adapted from Paul Sweezy's preface to the Japanese edition of his collection essays, PostRevolutionary Society. Sweezy's central thesis, summarised by the ech-tott., was that: "The form of
state formation that emerged from the Russian Revolution of I .=.. I and was imposed on Eastern
Europe in 1945 was, ultimately, a failed model for buildpe socialism". Sweezy explained himself:
"After a genuine socialist revolution, the Soviet Union itselfhad, in fact, become a new form of class
society by the middle of the 1930s, a high:authoritarian form, and it enforced this form on the states it
created to the west of its borders`._ This was a very strong view. It was genuinely disturbing to me at
the time coming, as it did. from a world-acclaimed socialist theoretician and activist and a profound
Marxist thinke:. The firs' t ofthe five main contributions was made by Samir Amin, a leading Africa:-.
Marxist thinker, under the same title as the cover, The Future of Socialism. The centra thesis here can,
again, be summarised: "Socialism cannot survive in Europe and Nc-: - America alone. Indeed,
socialists who insist on seeing their future in terms of a Norther agenda are unworthy of the name. If
socialism is to have a global future, therefore, it m ....2,- adopt a polycentric strategy and ethos". The
second contribution, by Peter Marcuse, A witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the
German Democratic Republic (East Germany) proposed that although the struggle for socialism had
suffered a "major setback" in Germany, it had not been crushed. The third contribution, written by John
Saul, was a celebration of the historic 2_77_ - apartheid victory in South Africa, dramatised by the
legalisation of the African Nationadi Congress (ANC) and other revolutionary political formations,
including the SouthAftican
548

Communist Party (SACP), and the release ofNeison Mandela. The victory was celebrated both for its
own sake, and on account ofthe promise it held for the black masses of southern Africa. John Saul saw
the inevitable development of a struggle within the nationalist anti-apartheid movement between the
socialist and capitalist wings. He said: "At stake is the well-being of those millions ofblack South
Africans who stand little chance of seeing their life situations bettered under an unalloyed and
unqualified capitalist system, even one of a post-apartheid variety." The fourth contribution,
titled"Prometheus Rebound?", was made by Daniel Singer. The piece was informed by the
"internationalist perspective of Rosa Luxembourg" and her tendency "to view revolution as a
worldwide phenomenon spread over a historical period, thus involving advances and retreats, victories
and defeats". The editor commented: "This ability to take 'the longer view' is vital to sustain the
struggle for socialism 'through its inevitable reversals". Ofthe events ofthe second halfof1989, Singer
wrote: "We were clearly watching the twilight of a reign, the end of an era, the collapse of regimes that
were the result of revolutions not only carried out from above, but imported from abroad. We were also
attending the final funeral of Stalinism as a system". Another strong view, also disturbing to me at the
time. The final contribution: Is socialism Still an Alternative for the Third World?, was made ' Carlos
M. Vilas. The central thesis, informed by the experience ofthe Nicaraguan Revolution, was that, for
Third World countries, the choice is "not socialist development or capitalist development. It is socialist
independence or capitalist peripheralisation. Socialism is then the only possible alternative for Third
World countries that are looking, not just for economic development, but for real and effective
democracy as well". That is the summary of "The Future of Socialism" as carried by the Monthly

Review in its July-August 1990 double issue. Later that same year, the Monthly Review Press came out
with a book which can be regarded as an expanded version of the earlier publication. Edited by William
K. Tabb, with the same title, but also with an indicative subtitle, Perspective from the Left, the new
book had 19 contributions including four from the shorter version. The central theme was the same:
review and critique. I can find no substantive thesis in the expanded book which was not included in
the shorter one. And these I have summarised. But there was a particular statement made by one ofthe
new contributors which I consider worth r`epro ducing. Joe Slovo. now late, was the General Secretary
of the Communist Party of South Africa (SACP), and later its President. He also served in the postapartheid government as Housing Minister. In the opening paragraph of his contribution, Has Socialism
Failed?, he said: "Socialism ; si.:7c!7tibte Th in the throes of a crisis greater than at any time since
1917 The last half of saN% tl amath collapse ofmost ofthe Communist Party governments of Eastern
Europe. The iownfa1 vas brought about through massive upsurges which had the support not on!c
die ::-..ajority of the working class but also a large slice of the membership of the -7-arties themselves.
These were popular revolts against unpopular regimes; if socialists a.- it. come to terms with this
reality, the future of socialism is indeed bleak".
549

Exactly 15 years after the appearance of "The Future of Socialism", the Month Review produced
another double-issue on the same subject. The July-August 2005 isst with the cover title "Socialism for
the 21st Century", may be regarded as the second volumt of"The Future of Socialism". The new
volume is concerned with the renewing of socialise: - It carries eight articles: "The Renewing of
Socialism", by John Bellamy Foster; "Approach:Socialism", by Harry Magdoff and Fred Magdoff;
"The Knowledge of a Better World'''. Michael A. Lebowitz; "What is Socialist Feminism"?, by Barbara
Ehrenreich; "The UtopL.-- Vision of the Future (then and now)", by Bertell Oilman; "Introducing
Singer Prize Essays by Percy Brazil; "What is the Soul of Socialism"?, byAndrew Blackman; and "The
Soul Socialism: Connecting with the People's Values", by Stephen J. Fortunato. These articles,
individually and collectively, provide answers to the question: socialism is still being advocated, in
spite of what has happened - as admitted by the Monthl:,. Review in "The Future of Socialism" - then,
what kind of socialism is it? Foster, iri 11.1 contribution said: "In joining this new struggle we need to
clarify the project of an altemati society, while avoiding the mistakes of the past - forever insisting that
socialism is the rri of a society of equals or it is nothing at all." More concretely: "Everyone must have
aces,:,, to the basic requirements of free existence; clean air and water, safe food, decent hou'iinz.
adequate healthcare, essential means of transport, and worthwhile and rewarding employment", etc.
Why did it take the Monthly Review such a long time to come out with what should be done, how to
re-engage the anti-capitalist struggle? The magazine answered: "After thf: fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union two years later it ti -as difficult to address the question of
socialism for at least two reasons: its almost compleTc;. identification in the popular mind with the
fallen Soviet system; and the triumphalist vision of capitalism that was paraded at the time". The
magazine continued: "Since these beliefs were more ofa product ofprevailing ideology than reality, we
concluded that history would soon begin to dissolve them and the question of socialism would agajh
come to the fore-, The Monthly Review believes that given "persistent problems of economic
stagnation the growth empire and war and the threat of ecological collapse", ii addition to increasing
pauperisation of ever-enlarging segments of humankind, "the 4nger to the world of nc countering the
mantra that 'there is no alternative' to capitalism is now too great". Anc: finally: "Moving away from
capitalism is not really a choice - the environmental constraints and the growth ofimmiseration will
force a change in the society. The future points to limitec:. possibilities - a turn to fascism (barbarism)

or the creation of a collective society that car provide the basic needs for all of humanity". I would like
to end this piece with this propositioin from one of the editors of tie magazine: "The greatest argument
against socialism had always been its impracticality. IY this objection could be erased capitalism's days
would be numbered". I agree completely.
550

178
Notes and Reflections on Terrorism 10th January, 2002
THE war against tenor, as articulated, designed and is being executed by America, has been firmly
established as a dominant subject in the global political agenda. Like the re-designed "democracy"
that is being sold to the world, war on terror has become a basis for imperialist preferments and denials,
for assigning positions to countries and peoples of the world. It is an instrument of imperialist
mobilisation and global dictatorship. With time it will be integrated into the neo-liberal ideology. We,
the peoples of the world, have to come to terms with this developing reality, and simultaneously follow
and anticipate it theoretically, ideologically and politically. I hasten to add, however, that "coming to
terms" with the ideology of and-terrorism, as it is being packaged, is not the same thing as accepting it.
All I am saying is that we must strive to understand terrorism and anti-terrorism as they are being
packaged and start from now to struggle against a situation where a Nigerian school teacher would ask
his or her pupils: "What is terrorism?" and get the answer: "Terrorism is Osama bin Laden." "Very
good, any other attempt?" "Yes, terrorism is Taliban." Or worse still, "terrorism are the people with
long beards, some of them blind in one eye." The first point to bear in mind is that terrorism is not a
new phenomenon. Terrorism was not created by Al-Qaeda, or Taliban, or Hamas or Islamic Jihad or the
Irish Republican Army or ETA. "Terrorism reaches back to ancient Greece and has occurred throughout
history," so says, Columbia Encyclopaedia (1993 edition). The second point has to do with the problem
of characterising terrorism in general. I have examined several definitions of terrorism, and have been
led back to the Encyclopaedia earlier quoted. The definition is inclusive and concise. Terrorism, the
Encyclopaedia says, is "the threat or use of violence, often against the civilian population, to achieve
political ends. Terrorism involves activities such as assassinations, bombings, random killing,
hijacking. It is used for political, not military, purposes and by groups too weak to mount open assaults.
It is a modem tool of the alienated..." Florence Elliot's A Dictionary of Politics (Penguin 1973) defines
a terrorist as "one who resorts to violence and terror to advance his political aims, which frequently
include the overthrow of the established order." Not completely satisfied with this definition as it
stands, Elliot continued_ "The word terrorism is often used by the supporters of a particular regime to
descrbe and vilify any of its opponents who resort to acts of violence. The opponents of a 7 ..'.: - ' _-- ,
''IONA. el er. would wish to be called partisans, nationalists or resistance workers? ra- '- - - -. -.an
terrorists.- When we distil the salient points from these definitions and a 4 .. ? ' - already know about
the subject and what happened
551
on September 11, 2001 and its aftermath, we may tentatively test our understanding 0:- terrorism by
characterizing it as follows: One: Terrorism is a very old social phenomenol. as old as human society
itself, as old as ordinary fights between neighbours. Two: Terrorism is violence or threat of violence.
Three: Terrorism is aimed at generating mass fear and the feeling of insecurity. Four: Terrorism is often
aimed at the population at large or sections the population. Five: the objective of terrorism is political

rather than military. In other words, it is aimed at forcing the enemy to make political concessions
rather than defeatir-its armed strength. Six: In the socio-political context where it takes place, terrorism
is adopted by the relatively weaker group or groups, where "weaker" is used in its wides-. sense to
include not only military weakness but also weakness in hegemonic or politica_ legitimacy, ideological
control, material endowment, mass based and political organisations, In this sense, the state may, in
fact, be the weaker group in a given historical and socio-political context. Examples include the
military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha (November 1993-June, 1998). In considering the types,
forms and variants of terrorism we may choose to start from its highest form, namely, state terrorism.
State terrorism is the type of terrorism organised and executed by the state or any of its agencies acting
in its name and authority. State terrorism, we say, is the highest form ofterrorism. Why? Because the
state has all that it takes to mount the most devastating forms ofterrorism. The state is much more
endowed, as a terror machine, than any other organisation. Relative to other organisations the state's
control of human resources, material resources, ideological resources and the law is literally limitless.
But the "pre-eminence" of state terrorism is not a theoretical matter, it is not a question of theoretical
capability. In the history of political struggles the state has been responsible not only for the bloodiest
acts of terrorism, but also for the most sustained, bestial and pervasive regimes of terrorism. Aregime
ofterrorism is called a reign of terror. Examples include the French Revolution, Russian Revolution,
Hitler's Germany. post-World Ward 11 Spain and Portugal, Idi Amin's Uganda, apartheid South Africa.
Argentina and Chile in the 1970s, and of course General Sani Abacha's regime in Nigeria. A group of
respected American citizens has declared that America is today the leading terrorist state. But we may
put that aside for now. We know other types and forms of terrorism and non-state terrorist organisations
and groups as well as states that, though not designated as terrorist, are said to be in support of
international terrorism. Why should isolated people or groups or states resort to terrorism? This is a
fundamental and humanistic question; but it is like asking why, in a fight between two men, one should
kick the other in the scrotum, or punch him in the eye, or bite him. Every normal human being will
consider these as "wicked", "heartless" and "inhuman" forms,of attack on a fellow human being. This is
terrorism at that level, and normal people will condemn it instinctively. Some of these normal people
may proceed to ask a deeper question: "why should these men fight at all? These people are, in effect,
condemning the fight in itself Others, especially liberal philosophers, religious leaders, humanists and
pacifists, may ask, perhaps in frustration: "Is there no other way (that is, other than fighting) these men
could have resolved their differences?" These other people are implicitly advocating the elimination of
fights between people and the construction of"peaceful", "non-violent", 552

means ofresolving differences and conflicts. These three questions are in increali-..: of depth and
generality. When we pass from the level of the individual to the sccia ancr organisational level, we
recognise the first question as an implicit moral condemnation of terrorism. But stopping at
condemnation is like barking at the moon for the terrorist may reply that he, being a weaker or in
disadvantaged position has no other way ofresponding to the attacks ofhis adversary. And unless we
decree that the man who kicks his adversary III the groin has no grievance at all moral condemnation in
itself does not provide any other means of fighting out his grievance. Ifwe are serious about eliminating
terrorism, we must not stop at asking "why terrorism?", but should go further to suggest "alternative
non-violent" means ofresolving conflicts - alternative means that are honest, fair, just and, above all,
realistic and acceptable to the adversaries. What I am saying, in effect, is that it is impossible to solve

the first problem without going into the second and the third. It is, of course, possible for the powerful
of the world to come together, or be forced together, to decree out the terrorism of the weak and the
disaffected and commit themselves to enforcing the decree. This, I insist, is futile - in the long run unless the why and the how are addressed. And this cannot be done without constructively, humanely
and democratically engaging and convincing the weak and the disaffected. If this type of engagement is
initiated by the powerful it will be possible to reach a general agreement that the elimination of
terrorism of all types and forms should proceed simultaneously with the elimination of the roots of
terrorism. But the weak, the oppressed, the dispossessed, the exploited, the marginalised and the
disaffected must see and be convinced of the concrete steps being taken and the seriousness and
sincerity of the powerful. Whatever the general agreement however, pockets of terrorism will remain
with us for a long time, since history teaches us that residues of a culture will remain long after its roots
have been removed. But these residues, being isolated and inorganic, will either wither away or be
easily eliminated by the collective efforts ofhumanity as a whole.

179
Election Dilemmas for Radicals 13th September, 2001
BOUT three years ago, in the general preparation for the return to civil rule, I pm out a small
publication, Manifesto of Popular Democracy. Essentially, the exercise was part ofmy self-training
exercise for my resumption ofjournalistic writing and popular political education, which I had
suspended for about four years to absorb the "death ofcommunism" triumphalism. The manifesto
itselfwas a revised edition of a contribution I made at a seminar in Calabar about a year earlier. As part
ofthis exercise, I had distributed copies of the pamphlet to my friends, comrades, journalists,
academics, working class activists, women, youths and the more political activists in non-governmental
organisations (NG0s) in Calabar. I was "testing the waters," as the saying goes: the reactions I would
receive were to help me assess my fitness to resume my work. As it turned out almost all the reactions I
got were from readers praising the publication. Most ofthem were young people who, I feared, hardly
appreciated the historical premises of my rejection of capitalist globalism and the new imperialism. I
did not reject electoral politics. Since the youthful reactions taught me very little, I decided to move out
to solicit for more "mature" reactions. I sent a short note to a (former) comrade ofmirie, an academic by
profession and a Marxist in politics. He sent a reply, promising to find time to see me for a discussion. I
responded, in a second note, that there was indeed much to discuss; but, in the interim, could he just
send me even a one-sentence appreciation of the publication I sent to him. My friend persisted, but now
promised to see me the following day. I waited. And he came. It was a painful and frustrating
discussion. My visitor went round and around as I relentlessly pursued him for a concrete comment on
my Manifesto ofPopular Democracy. After about two hours in his seemingly fruitless dialogue, my
friend suddenly went silent. When he "woke up," he called me: "Comrade." I answered him: "yes
comrade." He then gave it to me: "comrade, your manifesto is very correct. You did not disappoint me.
But my problem is your frequent use of the word struggle." It was an anti-climax for I had expected the
worst from him. Since he could not coherently or intelligibly explain his newly acquired opposition to
struggle, and since I was determined to get something concrete from him, I had to change tactics. I
asked whether the demands of the labour union in which-he was an activist could be regarded as
struggle. He replied in the affirmative, strong affirmative. But then he said: "A union demand is a
struggle; a strike is a struggle; but this is different from what you mean by struggle. As a Marxist I
know this." It was then I understood my friend: he had been "converted" to electoral politics; he upheld
the need for industrial and professional demands, even strikes; but he was no longer in support of
struggle in the sense ofMarxisr:"

554

His new position was for "tactical reasons," so that we would not be "crushed.' - Before we parted I
managed to remind him that I was not categorically opposed to electoral polilick, and had never been.
But I stood for a dialectical combination ofelectoral and non-electoral politics, not for "tactical
reasons," but for a strategic objective: popular democracy. It is non-electoral politics and its
combination with electoral politics that my friend was seriously advising against. That private
discussion has now become a public one, as several prominent activists in pro-democracy and human
rights movement and the legal profession announce their decision to enter electoral politics, not just as
participants, but as candidates. Included in this category are radical leftist politicians who took part in
previous political dispensations but who have now "marginalised" themselves or have been
"marginalised" for reasons of principle. There is therefore nothing more to settle privately between my
comrade and me. We are now obliged to integrate ourselves into the public debate, and try to settle the
matter there. I avow that the leftist activists who have announced their decision to participate in future
elections, as candidates, are among the most credible and eligible in Nigeria's political scene. Judged
by the criteria of humanism, sensitivity, patriotism and national consciousness, they are among the best
Nigerian politics can produce. Ordinarily, each of them should be able to defeat any non-radical
politician contesting against him or her for any position. There would only be a problem if more than
one radical vie for a position. In that case, again ordinarily, the competing radicals would be judged by
criteria higher than the Nigerian average. But the Nigerian situation is not ordinary or normal. A radical
politician aspiring to contest future elections in Nigeria faces several dilemmas. The question ofhow
radicals should prosecute electoral politics, once they decide on participation, is not new. When militant
nationalism was suppressed, through a series of punitive actions between 1948 and 1950, most of the
militants, mainly young Nigerians, decided to join the emergent political parties formed by the "native
heirs" to the colonial throne. They could not do otherwise. They simply did not have the material
means to form their own electoral parties capable of engaging the heirs on the grounds prepared by the
departing colonial rulers and their potential successors; they suffered immense official prejudice; they
were rejected by the traditional authorities in their communities - authorities largely created,
empowered, maintained and protected by the colonial state. In their new parties the militants suffered
additional disabilities; they discovered that the parties were "owned" by small groups ofmonied and
"well-connected" people against whom they could not successfully compete for party positions and
nominations; their militant credentials put them in the peripheries of the parties; even when nominated
they discovered that to win elections, or even compete credibly, they had t. comply with the unwritten
but decisive requireme:-Ls ofbnbery. thuagery. corrupt collusion with security and electoral institutions
and elegy g. Cor.:ornporary radicals largely suffer these disabilities including the last one w1-1 7 clst
serious moral, political and ideological dilemma. Beyond this, there is _2w generation of radicals: the
labour movement and popular organis :h historically have been the main base ofradical politics are now
7ci7-7 zfvinta institutional support to radicals in electoral
555

It is possible to draw some conclusions from what I have said so far. Although there canrot be a
categorical opposition to radicals' participation in electoral politics, radical participants ought to be able

to define their strategic objectives very clearly, and pursut them as they wade through the land mines,
conflicting pressures and "temptations." It necessary for radicals to study the history of election
rejection and boycotts in general and the Nigerian segment of this history in particular. Why do
politicians, especially radicals. reject or boycott elections? In particular why did Ken Saro-Wiwa
advocate the boycott of the 1993 presidential election? Why did the liberation fighters in East Timor
originally pledge not to seek political offices after victory? If radicals decide to participate in elections
conducted by their ideological foes it is imperative that they present those in their ranks most suited for
the battle. Financial capability and "connections" are not sufficient. Strength of character, staying
power, eloquence and "mass appeal" are among the required criteria. They should be people who are
capable of looking at a cold, hard situation and take a decision without trembling and without doubt.
Although radical politicians are bound to reflect as the battle goes on, overall evaluation can only take
place after the battle has been won or lost. If I may adapt one of the teachings of Jesus Christ: Anyone
who puts his or her hand on the plow of electoral politics and looks back is not fit for the political
kingdom we have set out to attain. Finally, and this is the point my friend rejected: The labour
movement, student's movements, non-elitist professional associations, women's movements and other
popular organisations and strata of the civil society are the base of radical politics, electoral and nonelectoral. Radical.politicians must maintain this link, against official prohibitions, and develop it.
556

Reviewing Socialism: Matters Arising 15th December, 2005

FTHE "matters arising" from my piece, Socialism Reviewed, and Renewed (October 27, 2005), are
some critical comments made, not by opponents of socialism, but by renowned socialists, on the 20th
century history of socialism. I shall first make an inventory of these comments, and then run my own
commentary on them. Writing in the July-August 1990 double-issue of the Monthly Review with the
cover-title "The Future of Socialism', Paul Sweezy, the co-founder and founding editor of the
independent socialist magazine said: "The form of state formation that emerged from the Russian
Revolution of1917 and was imposed on Eastern Europe in 1945 was, ultimately, a failed model for
building socialism". This was because according to him: "After a genuine socialist revolution the
Soviet Union had, in fact, become a new form of class society by the middle of the 1930s, a highly
authoritarian form, and it enforced this form on the states it created to the west of its borders". The
second opinion on the same subject, derived from the same perspective was that of Daniel Singer. He
was the European correspondent for The Nation and author of several Monthly Review Press books,
including, The Road to Gdansk (1982), Is Socialism Doomed? (1988), Whose Millennium: Theirs or
Ours? (1999). In his contribution to the subject, Singer said: "We were clearly watching the twilight of
a reign, the end of the era, the collapse of regimes that were the results of revolutions not only carried
out from above, but imported from abroad", adding by taking a long view of history, that "we were also
attending the final funeral of Stalinism as a system." Singer wrote under the optimistic title.
"Prometheus Rebound? The third opinion on the same subject written from a different perspective, but
compatible with the earlier two, was that of Joe Slovo: "The last half of 1989 saw the dramatic collapse
of most of the Communist Party regimes of Eastern Europe. Their downfall was brought about through
massive upsurges which had the support not only of the majority of the working class but also a large
slice o f the membership of the ruling parties themselves. These were popular revolts against unpopular
regimes; if socialists are unable to come to terms with this reality, the future of socialism is indeed
bleak". Joe Slovo, a naturalised South African of Lithuanian descent, was a member of the Communist
Party of South Africa and the African National Congress for all his adult life and served the

Cornmumig Party in several capacities including those of General Secretary and National Chairporsou_
He was the hus':,and of Ruth First, the author of The Barrel of the
557

Gun who was assassinated via a letter bomb in Mozambique. Joe Slovo's opinion was, very significant,
because many socialists outside South Africa regarded him as a "hardline-communist, a "stalinist". He
did not answer to any of the labels: he was a pre-eminent freedom fighter, a revolutionary democrat
who became the first post-apartheid Minister of Housing. The fourth opinion was embodied in the
piece, The renewing of Socialism. It was written by John Bellamy Foster, a Monthly Review editor. He
said: "In joining this new struggle for socialism, we need to clarify the project of an alternative society,
while avoiding the mistakes ofthe past - forever insisting that socialism is the making of a society of
equals or it is nothing". More concretely: "Everyone must have access to the basic requirements of free
existence: clean air and water, safe food, decent housing, adequate healthcare, essential means of
transport and worthwhile and rewarding employment". Foster said that much of his argument was
inspired by Paul Sweezy's article: "Socialism: Legacy and Renewal". The fifth idea was that of Hand
Magdoff and Fred Magdoff. The former is a Monthly Review editor, while the latter is a professor of
plant soil science in America. They made their contribution under the title, Approaching Socialism:
"Moving away from capitalism is not really a choice - the environmental constraints and the growth of
immiseration will force a change in society. The future points to limited possibilities - turn to fascism
(barbarism) or the creation of a collective society that can provide the basic need for all of humanity".
Now, my comments. Before 1989, those socialist and Marxists who held the type of views detailed
above on the character of the Soviet Union and the model of socialism practised in Eastern Europe
were called "Trotskyists" by their opponents in the Socialist Movement. And the latter were called
"Stalinists" by the former. The relationships between them were violent, nationally and internationally.
I think this debate, as to whether the Soviet Union was a class society, has been exhausted by history. I
have always believed that put in those terms, the question is unresolvable because it is too abstract.
What has now been generally accepted is that the Soviet Union, at the time of its collapse, and for a
long period before then, was not a socialist country, and was not evolving into socialism - in the sense
of Marx and Engels. But that is just one side of the picture. The other side is that neither the Soviet
Union nor any of the East European Communist-ruled countries was a capitalist country. I hold this
position for at least three reasons. First, state and collective property overwhelmingly dominated in the
means of production. Secondly, the range of "welfare" or "free" services - in education, health, housing,
employment, insurance, support in retirement - was too extensive to be borne by any national capitalist
economy, however welfarist. In the third place, however powerful and corrupt the state and party
leaders and bureaucrats must have been, they could not pass on their material possessions and
privileges to their children as inheritance. On the question of class character, I present the definition of
class as offered by Lenin, a definition that all disputants seemed to accept: "Classes are large groups of
people which differ from each other by the place they occupy in a hierarchically definite system of
social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in laws) to the means of
production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently by
558

the dimensions ofthe social wealth 'L1 at they obtain and their method of acquiring their share of it.

Classes are groups of people one of which may appropriate the labour of anothey. owing to the
different places they occupy in the definite system of social economy". One is free to reject this
definition, or modify it. But it is not fair to distort it in order to make a
point
Having cleared this point, let me say that no words can be too strong to describe the ideological
deviation and political corruption of the Communist Party regimes which collapsed, one after the other,
in Eastern Europe in the second half of1989. But I think that, to describe them as results of revolutions
executed from above and imported from abroad will be ahistoricai. I ask: What other results could the
liberation and occupation ofYugoslavia, Hvp,--,aTy, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland and
parts of Germany by Soviet troops L,:a World War II have produced? My answer is that, given the
strength of the Communist Parties in these countries before and during World War 11 (1939-1945). and
given the fact that these parties were in the forefront of the popular armed resistance against Nazi
occupation, and given the fact that the parties were allied to the Soviet Communist Party, it is difficult
to see how the post-liberation regime in any ofthe countries would not have been dominated by
Communists or how the latter would not have pushed for the capture of state power. What they did with
this power is a different question. By the way, what happened in the other half of Germany which the
Western allies of the Soviet Union captured? Joe Slovo's evaluation namely, that what happened in
Eastern Europe in the second half of 1989 were popular revolutions against unpopular regimes, should
actually be the, starting point of every serious review of these momentous events - whether the
reviewer is a socialist or not. Although this admission does not resolve anything, the question of the
future cannot be posed without ft One of the things that struck me as I went through the various
contributions to this subject was the near-absence of the role o f political parties in the renewed struggle
for socialism. This is obviously the result ofthe role played by the ruling Communist Parties in the
degeneration and collapse of both the regimes and the social order over which they presided. These
parties, to say the very least, were sources of great embarrassment to many socialists across the globe.
But then, can anyone seriously discuss the renewal of socialism as a practical project, and then omit the
need for an agency? I would like to end with these posers: Has capitalism been restored in the Peoples
Republic of China? Was socialism ever constructed in China? Is China today, a socialist country? For
me, the answer to the first question is "I don't know;" the answer to the second is yes; and the answer to
the third is no.

1 81
Nigerian Geopolitics 2th March, 2006
/UNDERSTAND that the term geopolitics, which is once again enjoying an intellectual boom - thanks
to the new wave of American militarism - was coined in 1899 by RudolfKj ellen, a Swedish political
scientist. According to John Bellamy Forster, writing in the January 2006 issue ofMonthly Review, of
which he is an editor, geopolitics is concerned with "how geographical factors including territory,
population, strategic location, and natural resource endowments, as modified by economics and
technology, affect the relations between states and the struggle for world domination." This is a clear
working definition. Now, if a concept like geopolitics is introduced in a social or historical void, or if
its emergence has not been strongly inspired by significant historical developments, it is unlikely to be
widely embraced. Even if it is initially embraced, maybe on account of the stature of the author, it will
not endure. The tenn geopolitics, emerging at the height of inter-imperialist struggle to carve out the
world into "spheres of influence" and domination, was quickly and widely embraced, except for the
Nazi period in Germany (1933-1945), when establishment intellectuals in other imperialist countries

were embarrassed to discuss or promote theoretically what AdolfHitler's Germany was pursuing in
practice - with horrifying results. But after Hitler's defeat, geopolitics once again became a very
popular area of study especially in military institutions and foreign relations department of imperialist
countries. I take the liberty to reconstruct two axioms of geopolitics cited in Bellamy Forster's article. I
think they are of relevance here. They are: "There is in this small planet sufficient space for only one
great state"; and "if any one power succeeded in organising the heartland and outer barriers (of Europe,
Asia and America) that power would be certain to control the world." What "heartlands" and "outer
barriers" does a power-bloc in Nigeria need to subdue in order to control the whole country? With some
extension, the concept of geopolitics can be employed in the study of the history and politics of
Nigeria. The Niger Delta alone makes this possible. I propose that at the heart ofNigerian geopolitics
are: the politics of oil ownership; the politics of state and local council creation; the politics of census;
ethno-regional alliances; zoning arrangements; quota system; true and fiscal federalism; revenue
allocation and "resource control." We may therefore attempt a definition following Bellamy Forster,
and say that Nigerian geopolitics is concerned with how geographical factors, including territory,
population, strategic location and natural resource endowments, affect the relations between fractions
of Nigerian power-blocs and ruling classes and between them and the popular masses and how, in
particular, geographical factors provide the motive force for intra-ruling
560

class struggle to control the central government. Nigeria became independent on October 1, 1960. The
system handed over tio the new rulers was called a federation. There were three powerful regions
(Northern Nigeria, Western Nigeria and Eastern Nigeria). There was also federal capital territory, Lagos
put together. The official population ofthe North was also higher than the combined population ofthe
other two regions put together, plus the population of Lagos. River Niger after which the colonialists
named Nigeria, separated the West from the East. The delta through which River Niger emptied into the
Atlantic Ocean, was divided between the West and the East. It was in the delta region, called the Niger
Delta that oil was discovered in commercial quantity about 1956, four years before independence.
There is no consensus on the number of ethnic groups or ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. Popular claims
range between 300 and 400. But recently, a rigorous research put the number of distinct ethnic
nationalities to about 70. Whatever method is adopted in identifying "distinct" ethnic groups and their
number, one fact remains invariant, namely, that population-wise, three ethnic nationalities, the HausaFulani, the Yorubas and the Igbos, have dominated the North, the West and the East respectively, and
that the three ethnic nationalities put together, outnumber the other ethnic nationalities put together.
These other ethnic nationalities are known as minorities. The Niger Delta is located in the minorities.
Furthermore, the Hausa-Fulani fraction ofthe new ruling class dominated the North politically. The
same applied to the Yoruba fraction in the West, and Igbo fraction in the East. In 1963, the minority
part of Western Region was made a separate region - the Midwest - bringing the number of regions to
four. A number of factors made this possible. First, the Action Group, the ruling party in the West, lost
power to the federal authorities the year before. And secondly, the people of the Midwest wanted the
new region. With the creation of the Midwest, oil resources in the country were now concentrated in
the East and the Midwest. The first military coup in Nigeria took place on January 1966. Immediately a
group of young militants demanding a separate region for the Niger Delta or outright independence,
initiated an armed rebellion in the creeks. The rebellion was crushed a couple of weeks later, and its
leaders put on trial for treason. A counter-coup on July 29, 1966, and massacres in several parts ofthe
country, especially the North, led to a series of events which culminated in the secession of Eastern

region on May 30, 1967. This was preceded three days earlier, by the re-division of the country into 12
states: six in the North and six in the South. There is an interpretation of the experience of this period to
which I largely but not completely subscribe. And this is that the coup, counter-coup, secession,
creation of 12 states, the civil war. Biafra's invasion of Midwest early in the war, and the federal
counter-attack to regain it, were battles in the struggle for the control of the areas bearing the country's
oil resources. This view on the motive force ofthe struggle was supported by the series ofmilitary
decrees issued during the war, and immediately after. The decrees were aimed at strengthening federal
hegemony over the oil sector of the Nigerian economy. Incidentally, thecadoithe civil War coincided
with a phenomenal rise both in the volume of oil exports and improcands iherefrom.
561
The war ended in January 1970. Throughout that conflict and after, in spite of the continual splitting of
the country into smaller components, now called states, rulers (both military and civilian) and
politicians continued to act as if the country was still a quasi-federation of three regions, ifnot of two
territories, the North and the South. Alliances of states and "common services" were formed and
promoted. Early in February 1976, the country was re-divided into 19 states. Shortly before that, Abuja
located at the centre of the country, was designated the new Federal Capital Territory. In 1987, the
number of states became 21, in 1991 it became 30 and in 1996 it became 36. In the report of the
Constitutional Conference set up by General Sani Abacha in 1994, a proposal was made for the
grouping of the component states of the federation into six zones. Although Abacha did not accept the
recommendation, that six-zone structure has since been unofficially adopted by the "political class" and
respected by the Nigerian state. In that structure, three zones were allocated to the North and three to
the South. In the North, one zone was allocated to the Northern minorities; and in the South, one zone
was carved out for the Southern minorities. As the country was being divided and re-divided into states
and local government areas, and as these were in turn, being re-grouped into zones, struggles for ethnic
self-determination intensified in the North and the South, especially in the latter. Full-scale minorities'
rebellion erupted in the North (e.g Zango Kataf, 1992) and in the Niger Delta. Ken Saro-Wiwa and
seven of his Ogoni compatriots were hanged in 1995 by General Abacha over this struggle. SaroWiwa's struggle was an early articulation of what is now known in Nigerian geopolitics as "resource
control." The coming to power in May 1999, of President Olusegun Obasanjo, inaugurated the present
armed phase of"resource control" struggle in the Niger Delta. It is clear that this question cannot be
resolved by the creation of more states and local councils, or by zoning formulas or by rotational
presidency. It cannot be resolved by a reversion to the parliamentary system of government or
perpetuation of the current "dictatorship of the presidency." In conclusion I offer the following
proposition on Nigerian geopolitics: Since the Nigerian state rests on oil resources which are
concentrated in the Niger Delta, the struggle to control this machine, a struggle which is currently
between the two existing power-blocs and an emergent one, reduces the struggle to control the Niger
Delta ("heartland") and the South-south and South-East geopolitical zones ("outer barriers").
Furthermore: All means, including invitation to Euro-American powers, will be employed by whatever
government is in power in Abuja to put down the rebellion in the Niger Delta and guarantee the flow of
the "black gold." Finally: The resolution of the Niger Delta question and the resolution of the Nigerian
question - in the short run - are indissolubly bound.
562

182
Legislature and Governance 27th November, 2003
ONE of the two initial problems I had in discussing this subject is reflected in the choice of its title. I

had, at first, adopted the working title: "Parliamentary and Presidential Systems" simply because I was
of the view that, if I respect academic political science, then that is the appropriate subject-matter
ofwhat I would be saying. But, then, I ran into difficulties on how to start - thanks, perhaps, to my
addiction to definitions. Beyond this, we have to bear in mind the level of political and historical
consciousness which has declined terribly in our country in the last two decades. The second problem I
had was an ideological one, namely: persuading myself that this was an important subject to discuss at
this time. I even asked myself whether it is important at any time. It was a scandalous thought, one
would say. But, then, it was not entirely baseless. The matter can be put like this: A patriotic and
knowledgeable group in Nigeria says that, to save the country from dictatorship, and for democracy,
one of the steps we have to urgently take is the reversion to the parliamentary system of government.
Another group argues that the urgent question to address is really not the governmental system
-parliamentary or presidential - but rather, the grave danger posed to the survival of our people by the
national and international class forces that are currently in power in Nigeria. These Nigerians argue that
these are hostile, insensitive, anti-people, obscurantist, arrogant, class forces which if not disengaged
from power, will impose fascist dictatorship on the country - whatever governmental system is written
into the constitution, presidential or parliamentary. I recall a political group meeting I attended many
years ago. When we came to discussing the constitution, an older comrade, who had been in a
particularly bad mood, could no longer contain his anger. He rose from his seat, moved to the platform
uninvited, and commanded attention with his moral authority. What he said, or rather, shouted, can be
reconstructed as follows: "Comrades, shut up! I say, shut up! Your problem is laziness - intellectual and
political laziness. If we are serious we can use the Shagari Constitution, even as anti-people as it is, to
battle the Nigerian bourgeois state to a stand still. As I see it, not even the most democratic constitution
can shake you from your self-imposed lethargy". He went back to his sear and the presiding officer,
who had unceremoniously abdicated his position, quietlyiesumed his fluid:ions_ On his way to his seat
the angry comrade admonished those -who wereimianactonly in intellectual debates to see how the
LatinAmerican dictators
563

had used the "monster" called the presidential system. Thus, in a space of one minute, the comrade
advanced two significant propositions on the subject. We are taught that Nigeria operated the
parliamentary system of government during the First Republic (1960-1965). Under it, the federal
government had the following political institutions: Head of State, called President; Prime Minister; a
Federal Legislature or Parliament, made up of a Senate and a House ofRepresentatives; and a Council
ofMinisters. In the Second Republic (1979-1983), when we were said to be operating the presidential
system, the country had the following political institutions at the federal level: a President; a VicePresident; a Federal Legislature, made up of a Senate and a House of Representatives; and a Council
ofMinisters or Executive Council. The same applies to the present Obasanjo's presidential system. This
similarity in nomenclature is bound to cause confusions if one starts with defmitions and appearances.
Furthermore, there are parliamentary systems with vice-presidents instead of, or in addition to, prime
ministers; and there are presidential systems with prime ministers in addition to vice-presidents. A
"practical" political activist, impatient with theories and theoreticians, can, on the basis of
nomenclature, dismiss the difference between the two systems as non-existent. Although I would
caution against that type of attitude and perhaps call it "philistine", I shall not drag the fellow to the
other extreme by pretending that there is a world of difference between them. When we speak of the
parliamentary system, we hold up the British political system as model. When the presidential system
is debated, the reference is to the American system. And when the parliamentary and presidential
systems are up for comparison, we make the British and American systems confront each other. Nigeria

parodied the British system in the First Republic with the claim that the parliamentary system was
being practised. In the present dispensation Nigeria's ruling classes are laying claim to the presidential
system when all they are doing is aping the American system. They did the same thing in the Second
Republic. Essentially, the differences between the parliamentary system and the presidential system and
their variants are the differences between the powers and responsibilities bestowed on their respective
legislatures. And this does not change the class character of the state. Once the big question of which
class or classes hold power is decided the small question of choice between the two systems reduces to
that of how to distribute roles in the small group that rules over the polity. I give five illustrations, and
leave the matter there. In the British system, the political executive governs with the consent of
parliament. It was this system that has been idealised and generalised and given the name parliamentary
system. But parliament does not govern; it is only that the political executive, or government, cannot
govern without the support of parliament. The government is formed by the party which commands the
largest number of seats in the House of Commons, the lower chamber
of parliament which is fully elected. The leader of that party is called upon by the British monarch,
acting as Head of State, to form a government. And the government governs in the name of monarch.
The Prime Minister and all the ministers are members of Parliament. This situation remains unless and
until there is a serious political crisis - when anything can happen. A vote in parliament expressing no
confidence in the government is a call on the
564

0-overnment oT the monarch to sack the government, if it fails to do so, The American preside-nt, on
the other hand, is not a member of the Conczre: na.me given to -carliamer.1 ilaAn-L%ica. Ministers are
appointed by the President and confin Jed by the Congress. But they are not members of the Congress.
The president is electec. by the whole country considered as a single constituency. Executive political
authority is vested in him or her. The president does not govern through, or with the consent of
Congress. And a vote of no confidence in Congress may have a moral force, but it does not require the
president to resign. The president can oniy be removed through impeachment. ii_srael, the Prime
Minister is elected by the whole country, taken m a constituency. This is a sharp departure from the
British system where the Prime Minister is elected as a member of the Hcucc C f Commons, like any
other member. There is an Israeli parliament called Knesset. The Israeli President, periodically elected
by Knesset, is a ceremonial Head of State. The president calls on the Prime Minister to form a
government which commands a majority support in Knesset. Because the prime minister has been
elected by the whole country he or she is given enough time to try to form a government. If, at any
time, the Prime Minister loses the support of Knesset he or she is again given enough time to organise a
new support, often through the formation of a new government. But, if at the end, the Prime Minister
cannot do this, new elections are called. I think this is the system advocated for Nigeria by Chief
Obafemi Awolowo, at least before the Second Republic. In France, the President of the Republic is
elected by the whole country, taken as a constituency There is a parliament called the National
Assembly. The leader of the party which controls the majority in the National Assembly forms the
government in which he or she is called Prime Minister. Executive political authority is shared between
the President and the Minister, and the latter exercises his or her own share of the authority through the
National Assembly. Just as in America, it is possible for the French President not to have a majority
support in the National Assembly or, to put it more clearly, for the President and the Prime Minister to
belong to different political parties. When this happens, the arrangement is called cohabitation. The
French system is currently being practised in Sri Lanka. And there is currently a cohabitation there.

When a cohabitation runs into a serious crisis it is usually resolved through the dissolution of
parliament and the setting up of a new National Assembly, through elections. In the old Soviet Union,
before Mikhail Gorbachev began his poorly articulated and recklessly executed reforms, there was a
parliament, called the Supreme Soviet. This parliament had a standing committee called the Presidium
of the Supreme Soviet. The chairperson ofthis standing, committe was called the President of the
Soviet Union by the Western press. There -0, as a Council of Ministers, appointed by the Supreme
Soviet. The chair 75011 ofthis ccuuhl was called Prime Minister by the Western press. But the Soviets
called him or be' fthe Council of Ministers. Political authority was held by the rL7 C.Y. C 7:1 Party of
Soviet Union, and it exercised this authority throud _ . Council of Ministers.
565

183
Back to Barbarism 3rd February, 2005
1 its December 2004 edition, Monthly Review, the New York-based monthly socialist magazine,
carried a lead article (Review of the Month) titled "Empire of Barbarism" with an opening declaration:
"Only the transcendence ofcapitalism, in the direction of socialism, offers the possibility to escape from
the current state of barbarism that is paving the way to new global holocausts and a worsening
ecological collapse". In 2002, the Monthly Review Press had put out a book, The Clash ofBarbarisms
with the sub-title: "September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder". The Article "Empire
ofBarbarism" was written by John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review editor, and Brett Clark, a graduate
student at the University of Oregon. Gilbert Achcar, who teaches politics at the University of Paris, is
the author of The Clash of Barbarisms. The present piece is an appreciation of these two publications.
Like many terms in political science and sociology, the word barbarism came down to us from Greek
and Latin. The Greek language has barbaros, while Latin has barbarus. Both mean foreign. For the
Greeks, an ancient European civilisation, the word barbaros, which became barbarism in English, was
used to refer to anyone who did not speak Greek. The Greeks, like all ancient civilisations, regarded
themselves as civilised and all other peoples as barbaric. This world-view was "confirmed" through
Greek successes in wars and battles of antiquity. Ifthe Greeks had lost these wars, especially the Persian
Wars, their world-view, or rather the world-view of their rulers, would have been "corrected" by the
victors
Several centuries later, the European conquerors and colonialists declared that Africans were, at best,
barbarians and at worst savages and sub-human beings:It was the victors, through their intellectuals
who named themselves as well as the defeated, and prescribed the treatment that the latter deserved
according to the names given to them. Thus, Plato, a Greek intellectual, was recorded to have
"presented a doctrine of natural slavery in which he took it for granted that it was right for Greeks
either to render death unto the barbarians or to enslave them". The imperialist intellectuals who today
condemn Plato for being an intellectual of tyranny would, of course, not admit that they are the
continuators of thalatonian doctrine ofusing power and conquest as the main criteria for designating

civilisation and barbarism. These criteria were successfully rejected in South Africa and they are now
being rejected - with arms - in Palestine and Iraq. The elaboration of the concepts of barbarism and
civilisation has since been taken over by socialists and Marxists. "The most developed version of the
distinction between
566

barbarism and civilisation introduced by the Greeks and Romans', wrote Foster a-. "was to be found in
the work of the Greek geographer Strabo". In his 17-volume book titled Geography, the Greek
intellectual articulated three criteria for separating barb a:-.:37TI from civilisation. The first two are
straightforward. The first was the level ofurbanisaIlorr "Insofar as civilisation means city-dweller,
barbarism meant non-city dweller, and particularl:, those living in the periphery". The second criterion
related to the level of culture and the status of the rule of law: Insofar as civilisation stood for the rule
of law and culture, barbarism stood for the lack of both and the dominance of brutality". Unlike the
"civilised" Roman army, wrote Strabo, barbarians were known for unconventional warfare: Confronted
by the organised Roman army, "the barbarians carried on a guerrilla warfare in swamps, in pathless
forests, and in deserts". The rulers ofAmerica and Western Europe are applying exactly the same
criteria today: The imperialists represent the pinnacle ofcivilisation, while "Islamic extremists" in the
Middle East are the most backward barbarians that human history has produced. Strabo's third
criterion related to the mode ofproduction and reproduction of life, which, again, he related to
geography: "Civilised people lived on the most fertile soils where settled agriculture was feasible.
Standing opposed to civilised, bread-eating peoples, who were principally city-dwellers (and farmers
who lived in close proximity to cities) were barbarians who were nomadic fighters living on meat and
dairy and permanently under arms".
Centuries later, Lewis Morgan made historic landmarks in his anthropological studies of savagery,
barbarism and civilisation. These were published in his famous treatise, Ancient Society. Marx and
Engels took over from here and transformed the concepts and their application by bringing in dialectics
and the analysis of imperialism and the capitalist mode ofproduction. They were particularly interested
in the relation ofbarbarism to civilisation. Marxists took over from the works ofthe masters. While not
denying the reality ofbarbarism, they see the link between it and civilisation. Karl Marx rejected the
notion that there was a rigid separation between barbarism and civilisation and that there was anything
like "pure barbarism" or "pure civilisation". For instance, he "saw exploitation as frequently occurring
under conditions that were barbaric, or that reflected the predatory nature of bourgeois civilisation".
Pursuing this theme, Marx referred to the "degradation and pollution of life that ensued with the rise of
capitalism". The crudest modes and instruments ofhuman labour, he said, "reappear under capitalism;
for example, the treadmill used by Roman slaves has become the mode ofproduction and mode of
existence of many English workers". Elsewhere, Marx observed: "Barbarism reappears, but created in
the lap of civilisation itself and belonging to it; hence leprous barbarism, barbarism as leprosy of
civilisation". In other places Marx spoke of barbarism "within civlfn3tion" and "a state of momentary
barbarism". F z Marx, Re Lt:,xemburp.-, developed the concept of "imperialistic barbarism-. c :iortly
before she was murdered, Rosa Luxemburg, founder of the Corn- num. . .ru: ferlared that the choice
before humankind was between socialis7. - Sr sail has become necessary not merely because
567

the proletariat is no longer willing to live under conditions imposed by the capitalist class but, rather,
because if the proletariat fails to fulfil its class duties, ifit fails to realise socialism, we shall crash down
together in common doom". She reiterated Marx's thesis that the so-called civilisation is created and
sustained by barbaric means: "The dominant classes throughout history all shed streams of blood, they
all marched over corpses, murder, and arson, instigated civil war and treason, in order to defend their
privileges and power". The Sri Lankan Marxist, de Silva, continued from where Luxemburg stopped. In
his book, The Alternatives: Socialism or Barbarism, he proposed that "capitalism did not necessarily
lead to socialism or socialism necessarily to communism. Rather, both capitalism and socialism could
degenerate into barbarism". He defined barbarism as a society "relying simultaneously on force;
ideological control on the scale of Orwell's 1984; the destruction of all countervailing power so that
economic interests can rule directly with a minimal state; induced consumption of useless products
designed to distract the population; and the extreme domination of nature in all of its aspects". Short of
a revolutionary change in the qualitative dimension of the global economy and an end to capitalist
exploitation of nature, warned de Silva, the spectre of barbarism would continue to haunt humanity. He
warned: "Barbarism in one or two powerful countries will overwhelm the rest of humanity". How
prophetic. Not too long ago, Arab and Moslem militants warned that "the gates of hell" would be
opened if the rulers ofAmerica invaded Iraq. The imperialist barbarians ignored the warning and
attacked Iraq. As predicted, the "gates of hell" opened. And they will remain open for long. This is
whatAchar calls "the clash ofbarbarisms", that is, barbarism against barbarism. The American rulers'
Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, appropriately named "the voice of the new barbarism" by
Monthly Review, recently declared that "at some point the Iraqis will get tired of being killed". Iraqi
militants replied: "You love life, and we love death". On Friday, January 14, 2004, an American soldier
serving in occupied Iraq, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by an American military court. The trial
was held at a central Texas military base. The soldier, whose last posting in Iraq was as a guard in the
notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, was accused of "abusing" Iraqi prisoners-of-war. The
abusive acts, documented in photographs which were circulated all over the world included "naked
prisoners staked into a pyramid and being forced to masturbate". Before he was moved to prison the
36-year old soldier-barbarian remarked: "Apparently I followed an illegal order", the order of
imperialist barbarians. The soldier was jailed not because the American rulers felt there was anything
wrong with what he and others did in Iraq, but because, according to the prosecutor. Major Michael
Holley, the soldier provided a propaganda weapon for the "enemy", that is, the Iraqis in their own
country. The prosecutor said: "the enemy needs rallying points, and the accused has provided so much
in that regard". But the accused merely smiled and insisted that he was following "orders from above".
The Iraqis, Palestinians and Islamic militants across the globe are replying in kind, also obeying "orders
from above: Barbarism against barbarism.
568

Taking a long view of history, I regard the present clash ofbarbarisms as a stalema:F_in the stru. e between socialism and capitalism.
569

Abacha, S, 8, 11, 95 Abiola, M., 14, 248 Abubakar, A., 14, 32 Aburi agreements, 36 Achebe, C., 98,
176 AD, 8, 66 AFRC, 210 Afenifere, 26, 126 Akintola, S., 32 ANC, 102 Annang, 104 Anti-corruption,
46, 232 Anti-democrats, 50 APGA, 8 APMON, 49, 317, 436 APP, 8, 228 April 22, 29, 41, 167
Aristotle, 101 Armed, uprising 12 Atams, 104, 125 ASUU, 107, 122 Awolowo, 0., 8, 66, 138, 230 Ayu,
I., 12 Azania, 264 Azikiwe, N., 9, 24, 67, 138 Babangida boys, - 429 Babangida, I., 12, 167 Babatope,
E., 11, 411 BaleWa, T., 35 Bali, D., 12, 29, 84 Bello, A., 35, 230 Berlin conference 53 Biafra, 111, 243,
559 Bill of rights, 454 Black liberation, 415 Bolivian revolutionary, 377 Bolshevik road, 525 Boro, I.,
37, 428 Bourgeois politics, 410
INDEX
Brown envelope, 48 Bruimaire 520 Buhari, M., 43. 84 Bush, G 57, 163 Calabar group of socialists, 409
Castro, E, 23, 102, 303, 311 , Categorical imperative, 214 Chavez, H., 313, 514 Chirac, J., 256
Chomsky, N., 282 Civil society movement, 407 Civil war, 10, 113, 237, 559 Citizen forum, 160
Collective presidency, 88, 220 Colony of Lagos, 17, 23 Communist, 59 Communist party, 256
Concerned mothers, 195 Consensus candidate, 115 Constitutional political parties, 199 Consultative
assembly, 111 Core north, 18 Coup d'etat, 277 Cuban democracy, 284 Cuban road, 526 Cunning of
history, 287 Debray, R., 60 Democracy day 240 Dictatorship of the proletariat,. 93 Dilatory tactic, 328
Diya, O., 13, 471 Dodan barracks, 41, 113 Eastern power-bloc, 99 Efik, 43,125 Ekpo, M., 245, 338
Ekwueme, A., 84 Electoral Act, 5, 162 Enahoro, A., 28, 103 Equitocratic democracy. 178
570

Essien. N. 24 Ethnic nationalities, 392 Ethno-regional movement, 88 Failed state, 86 Fascist ideology,
70 Fawehinrni, G., 61, 124 I.E,DECO, 150 Federal parliament, 74 Final solution, 119 Fiscal
federalism, 85, 358 Foundational principles 176 Fourth republic, 57, 170 Gaddaffi, M., 23, 263 General
theory of relativity, 397 Geneva Convention, 119, 300 Gestapo, 535 Global
capitalism, 44 dictatorship, 247, 383, 499 terrorism, 119 Globalisation 7 GNPP, 9, 65 Goodluck, W., 72
Gowon, Y., 36, 54 Gradualism, 353 Gramsci, A., 387 Guantanamo bay, 87 Guevera, C., 347, 455 Gulf
war windfall, 348 Hausa/Fulani, 18, 83, 559 Hidden agenda 228 Historical materialism, 540 Hitler, A.,
46, 102 Humanist resolutions, 517 Hussein. S. 23, 276 Ibibio, 104. 273 9 66 lobo 27, 83. 273 Tee,
R. . . a 212 Illegal cot- - ID 1
571
Industrial revolution, 480 INEC, 5, 513 guidelines, 7 materials and bureaucratic conditions, 7
International community, 7, 15, 32, 183 IMF, 37, 129 Ironsi, J. T., 35, 170, 236 Islamic nationalism,
278 Jakande, L., 12 January boys, 41, 369 Jesus Christ, 266, 511, 554 Jewish science, 397 June 12

movement, 13, 15 Kano, A., 966 Kurdish nationalism, 278 Labour movement, 46, 250, 361 Laden, 0.,
298, 311 Leader of opposition, 172 Left-wing, 282 Lenin, V., 189, 330 Liberation army, 370 Linguistic
groupings, 53 Literary embellishments, 74 Lugard north, 80 Macaulay, H., 24 Machiavellianism, 182,
463 Magna carta, 24 Marxist
conditioning, 257 politics, 120, 413 sociology, 435 theory, 387 Marx, K., 99, 200, 516 Martyrs of the
revolution, 405 MASSOB, 193 May Square mothers, 273 Middle belt, 17 Militant nationalism, 199
Militarised consciousness, 206 Minimum denim:lacy, 57 election, 57

MNR, 167, 489 Multi-party democracy, 134 Murtala, M., 13 Musa, B., 18, 101 NADECO, 11, 449
NANS, 109, 193 Nascent democracy, 192 National
appeal, 102 assembly, 42 political reform conference, 82, 90, 185 unity, 9, 184 NAZI, 102, 273 NCNC,
24, 89 Neo-liberalism, 7, 202 New imperialism, 97, 247 Niger Delta, 53 Nigeria Labour Congress 71,
131 Nigerian federalism, 164 left, 174, 407 passport, 40 NLP, 210 Non-leftists, 60 Northern powerbloc, 33, 249 NPN, 8, 65 NPP 9, 65 Nzeogwu, C., 35, 243 Obasanjo, 0., 7, 230, 243 Ogoni four, 99
Ohaneze, 26, 126, 187 Oil-producing states, 94 Ojukwu, E., 35, 110 Okadigbo, C., 31, 44 Okotie-Eboh,
F., 35 Okoye, M., 212 Ola Oni, 72, 212, 412 OPC, 467 Oputa panel, 14, 96 Orka, G, 29 Orthodox
Christian, 46 Osundare, N., 159
Otegbeye, T., 72 Ottoman empire, 278 Parliamentary politics, 256 PDP, 8, 32, 69 Plato, 564 Popular
democratic groups, 43 Political
association, 5 bureau, 118, 129 engineering, 129 impeachment, 50 messianism, 13 pacification, 182
space, 10
Popper, K., 56, 100, 545 Power of incumbency, 104 Power shift, 81, 449 Primitive accumulation, 69
Principle of triple balancing, 421 Privatisation, 38 professional revolutionary, 437 Protectorate of
northern Nigeria, 17 Quas, 104 Radical feminism, 214 Radical movement, 13 Radical perspectives, 411
Radical socialist community, 408 Regionalisation of political power, 199 Resource control, 27, 85
Revolution square, 312 Revolutionary engagements, 410 Revolutionary leftists, 67 Revolutionary
Marxists, 214 Rimi, A., 12, 150 Rotational presidency, 881 Russian Bolsheviks, 294 Russian
revolution, 328, 550 Sankara, T., 440 Saro-Wiwa, K., 16, 99, 333 SDP 13, 80, 228 Senate probe, 45
572

September 11. 57, 119. 325 Shagari, S., 12.43 Sharia civil war. 17 Shonekan, E., 12, 129 Sklar, R., 18
Socialism 68 Socialist community, 408 Socialist movement, 408 Solarin, T.., 65, 149 Sophism, 188
Southern forum, 190 president, 81 protectorate, 23, 77 Sovereign national conference, 17, 26, 64, 392
Soviet Union 60 Soyinka, W., 84, 150, 337 SWFP, 72, 318 Tahir, I., 19 The patriots, 112 Third Reich,
128 Third Republic, 170 Third term agenda, 184, 194 Totalitarianism, 68 Toyo; E., 28, 71, 212
Traditional institution, 118 Tripatite alliance, 32 Triumphalism, 239

Trotsky, L., 102. 238, 331. 366 True democrats, 56 Truth and reconciliation commission; 14 Ukiwe, E.,
12, 84 UMBC, 19 UNDP, 8 Undemocratic perpetuation, 184 United Nigeria 17, 394 University
autonomy bill, 109 University of Calabar teaching hospital, 409 UPN, 9 Urhobos, 104 US media, 281
Usman, B. 209 Vatsa, M., 12 Western power-bloc 11, 32, 96, 248 VTheare, K. C., 164, 358 Women's
movement, 43 World bank, 33 Workers - oriented political groups, 72 Yar'Adua, M., 114, 333 Yat-sen,
S,60 Yoruba, 27, 83 Yugoslavia, 55, 61 Yusuf, M. D., 101 ZANU-PF, 268, 307 Zikists, 9, 363, 533
Zimbabwe, 175
573