The man and his children; Soyinka and the rest of us By U.K Umar. I remember the day the man died. My younger brother and I after a very long queue at the Bida Saw-Mill came home around 7:30pm with two big sacks of sawdust to be used for the popular Abacha Stove necessitated by acute lack of kerosene and many more necessities of life. Things were really messy then. Mum and my sis(she have 2 Kids now) were peeling cassava outside. Dad and one of his friends I didnt like that much then were watching TV in the sitting room. That his friend can send somebody ehn. His eyes no dey see small pikin. He must create message instantly to send am. We used to call him Yagimba Tuntungi roughly translated as Yagimba Send-send. As soon as we entered, mum stopped what she was doing and gave me(as pa senior) a serious tongue-lashing asking questions like why did we stay that late? Didnt we know that soldiers steal and kill people now? Well, whatever that meant, I kept praying fervently silently that dad shouldnt hear her voice. E for baaaad gan! Thank God he didnt. As a teachers child, I grew up with reading anything in print as a way of life. Listening to radio was an addition much later when dad could afford to buy a transistor radio. TV featured in my life very much much later. Dad got a loan then and got himself one box with a screen that shows moving black and white talking people. Thats our first family TV ever! It was this TV that dad and Yagimba Tuntungi were glued to. I joined them later when mum was done with us. As usual, before I could even finish greeting, Mr. Send-send cut me short, Ndakatun(a name they call me at home), go and get me a cup of water. Grudgingly, I went, came back and sat to watch TV too. I cant remember what we were watching but I can remember that it was something of great interest to dad and his friend. All I wanted to watch was Tales By Moonlight or The Rich Also Cry. I was almost dozing off when dad and his friend went in to a sort of frenzy shouting, jumping and clapping hands. At first, I thought it was a football match. But whats on the screen wasnt anything like that. Then I listened carefully as the newscaster repeated the gladdening news that the head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha was dead. Ah ah! Even as a kid, though I couldnt wrap my head around why dad and his friend were happy at the death of the man, I could remember how dad frequently associated the man with virtually every woe we were experiencing from lack of water, food, money to freedom of movement. There was a day I came back from hawking akamu for mum in the morning. I was running late for school, dad was furious with mum. But he realised again that she was only trying her best to make ends meet. Times were hard. When he came back later in the evening, he was discussing with her saying if not for this man, these children shouldnt be hawking. Gen. Abacha was simply called the man or this man by dad. Years later, I realised why dad and his friend were joyous. The mans death meant different things to different people. But to majority of Nigerians, the signs of new era, new life and a brighter future was evident. With Abachas death at least, the dark days were over. For my brother and I, going to queue at Bida-Saw Mill to fetch sawdust for Abacha Stove was over. When sometimes last week, the inept men and women running the affairs of this country back to Abacha days decided to award people they felt have contributed to bring us to where we are today in celebration of 100 years of our countryhood, one wasnt surprised to see my dads the man on the list of awardees. I knew what he was going to say but I called my dad to ask him his opinion on Abachas presence on the list anyway. I was shocked when he said he would have protested if the man didnt make the list. To him, Abacha, for good or bad, had paid his own dues to bring us here. And if the awards are for those who brought us here, then Abacha deserves double honours for quickening our steps down the path of lawlessness, terror, intimidation, monumental national looting, devaluation of naira and human life, impunity, and prostitution! Now I understand. My dad can be sarcastic to that point. He is good at it. Come to think of it, it helps one to make sense out of nonsense. So to Abachas children, your riposte to Prof. Wole Soyinka because he poked his long finger in the nose of your late father is in order. You are only proving to the world that you are true children of the dead man. In fact, to expect you to do otherwise is unafrican. A child must stand by his father no matter what! Kudos. But the fact that your father was a dread to many a fellow country men and women cant be eroded by even the best written open letter. You all must appreciate Nigerians for their patience and ability to suffer and smile. You owe God and humanity thanks that Nigerians are not like the Iraqis, Libyans, Egyptians or Tunisians. Else, you all would have been lined up close to your father in ignominy and disgrace(your fathers words actually). In Nigeria, we do not visit the sins of the father on the children. But please do not over stretch that rope of generosity. For the rest of us, we must, as Prof. Wole Soyinka did, not wait for the lions leg to be broken or till the lion is dead before we go asking for the debt hes owing us. During the peak of the Abacha dark days, Wole stood out as a voice. We read of the activities of the Radio Kudirat. We read of how the man had to disguise to escape the Abacha-bred killer dogs like Almustapha, Sergeant Rogers and co. Standing up to Abacha even in the hidden was the most daring thing to do at that time. But Prof. Wole did. So to me, hes earned the right to reject his own share of the national embarrassment called Centenary Awards fairly and squarely albeit giving us the reasons why. Finally, I call on those who have the facts to furnish us with them. So that we can, in time, begin to, in no particular order, ask for the return of Gowon Loots, Shagari Loots, Shonekan Loots, Obasanjo Loots, Buhari Loots, IBB Loots, Abdusalam Loots, Atiku Loots, T.Y Danjuma Loots, and all other obscene loots too many to mention.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 16:44:30 +0000
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