ABACHA’S GHOST STEALS WOLE SOYINKA CENTENARY AWARD Professor Wole Soyinka Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate wrote an article titled the canonization of terror to protest the centenary award conferred on Late Military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, and boycotted the awards after labeling the gesture a national insult. Sadiq Abacha, the general’s son, tried to defend his father with an interesting if not provocative open letter to Prof. Wole Soyinka. Most Nigerians understandably were livid with rage at his audacity, and some well meaning Nigerians like Ayo Sogunro and Okechukwu Ofili took pains to lecture Sadiq Abacha about how evil his father was. To add salt to injury, the insensitivity of President Goodluck Jonathan in insisting on honouring such an evil man with the Centenary awards despite protests from NGOs like SERAP remained mind boggling to everyone. Especially as Abacha’s ghost wakes up from the grave to terrorize Nigerians with Boko haram and every other problem Nigerians are facing right now, whenever President Goodluck Jonathan goes on break from his own brand of terrorism. When I read the myriad of complaints from Nigerians against this evil thief Abacha, two things stood out: one, he killed a lot of people. Two, he stole a lot of money, thereby causing a lot of hardship and poverty in our oil rich country. I couldn’t help going down memory lane. Renowned bestselling author Late Professor Chinua Achebe published his memoir titled ‘There was a Country’ last year. The London Guardian published a review, and excerpts of the review singled out Chief Obafemi Awolowo for committing genocide against two million Biafran women and children. This excerpt led to a second Nigerian Civil War waged fiercely on the internet and across media platforms. It also drew comments from everyone from Chimamanda Adichie to Governor Raji Fashola(SAN) of Lagos (As guest speaker at the Achebe colloquium on Africa in the USA). They all tried to mediate the peace. Finally General Olusegun Obasanjo told everyone to forget about a war that happened so many years ago, everything is fine now, move on. He even almost pulled down his trousers to show everyone where the shrapnel of a grenade hit him very close to his groin, and the audience burst into fits of laughter. Obasanjo is a funny man. So I am going to give the same advice to all those insisting that Abacha does not deserve to be honoured with the centenary awards. Like our wise leaders have advised, forget about everything Abacha did, it’s almost twenty years now, leave the poor man’s ghost alone to rest in peace. Everything is fine now. Stop demonizing him and move on. A popular saying goes like this, “A people get the kind of leaders they deserve.” Leaders do not fall from heaven. They come out from among the people. Now if a genocide that killed at least two million people, not from the fighting but through a starvation policy, is of so little importance to our nation’s history that it should be swept right under the carpet, then why should any Nigerian complain about what Abacha did? Because whatever Abacha did, he did not kill two million people. If you’ve applauded the inhumane manner that war was prosecuted against your fellow countrymen, and you’ve accepted that everything was done in a just, necessary and fair manner, then you should accept Abacha as a good leader, and forgive and forget and move on. When people keep saying Abacha was so evil, he did this, he did that. I scratch my head and ask what exactly did Abacha do that every single past president and head of state (from Gowon to IBB to Obasanjo) not do? If Abacha does not deserve the centenary awards then no other person in that category on that list deserves it. Period. They all did the same thing. They all killed journalists, activists, and coupists. They all imprisoned people just for the fun of it and sent many others scampering into exile. They all impoverished the citizenry and made life generally difficult if not impossible for the citizens. Abacha did not kill as many people as IBB, Obasanjo, Murtala in Asaba, and Gowon killed. Every single one of them was terror personified. So if Professor Wole Soyinka can be friends with any of them, then he should be able to be friends with Abacha, because they are all one and the same people and served in each other’s kitchen cabinet (This explains why Danjuma is in the same category with ex-presidents on the list despite he was never a president). The truth is bitter but it must be told. I was in secondary school when my father was summarily retrenched from his banking job during Abacha’s regime and everything went downhill pretty fast. But let’s not forget that SAP (the Poverty Manufacturing Machine or should I say Poverty Manufacturing Factory) started in 1986 not 1996. The poverty we witnessed during Abacha’s regime is the end product of SAP. It is what Ronald Reagan the former president of the United States of America, likes to call trickledown economics or voodoo economics, which translates into a few billionaires and mass grinding poverty. The money then trickles down from the few billionaires to the poor masses (if they are lucky to have benevolent billionaires). Abacha did not start the manufacture of poverty in Nigeria, neither did President Goodluck Jonathan. In fact it was Obasanjo that collected the first ever IMF loan in 1978. Shagari left a foreign debt of 18 billion dollars when he left office in 1983. Buhari did not borrow anything but repaid half of Shagari’s debt by 1985. IBB left a debt of 35billion dollars when he left office in 1993 (apart from the missing 12 billion dollar Gulf oil windfall). Abacha did not take any IMF loan; rather he reduced IBB’s debt from 35billion dollars to 27 billion dollars by 1998. As of 2004 during Obasanjo’s tenure, the foreign debt had gone up to 35billion dollars again. But Obasanjo succeeded in obtaining a debt relief from the Paris club to the tune of 18 billion dollars. And Jonathan, well we have to wait till the end of his tenure to see how much debt he will leave for us to repay at the rate at which he is going. So tell me who is the bigger thief? I hope you know that those IMF loans accumulate obscene interests by the year, and as long as those debts remain outstanding there will be little or nothing left to run the country. I hope you realize that the continuous increase in fuel prices which always results in all round astronomical inflation (increase in the price of everything from garri to transport fare), and the devaluation of the naira from 22 naira to a dollar in Abacha’s regime to 150 naira a dollar by the time Obasanjo was done, all go into the servicing those foreign loans. I hope you understand that unless the whole foreign debt is cleared, the government cannot spend much on generating employment, education, health, electricity or anything that the citizens actually need. So do the math. Abacha’s loot is not even up to a fraction of what IBB and Obasanjo and their partners stole. African Legend and king of Afrobeat Late Fela Anikulapo Kuti, in one of his songs described the Nigerian as suffering and smiling, but our citizens seems to be smitten with a certain stealing and smiling syndrome. Under this syndrome, the more he smiles, the less evil he is, and the more he frowns, the more evil he is. We know IBB retired with the biggest loots in history, but because he was generous with his beautiful smile and Greek gifts, we automatically pardon him. We even gave him nice nicknames like the gap-toothed general. But because Abacha was not smiling when he was stealing, that automatically makes him a bigger thief, an evil unpardonable one at that. My dear fellow Nigerians, let reason prevail over emotions. For the record, I am not on anybody’s side. I do not support and I am definitely not justifying all the wrongs that Abacha did. I just had to speak up because singling out only one person to demonize when there are thousands who did far worse things is manifestly unjust. Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to have been done. Therefore I make bold to say that Abacha deserved that centenary award more than some other people on that list. What I am saying in effect to Nigerians, especially the Nigerian youth is that you need to know the real truth for your own sake. There is a difference between the real truth and the popular truth. And nobody will tell you the real truth especially anyone that has drunk from the well of Nigerian politics. Even your father can lie to you if it suits him. You need to find out the real truth by yourself by reading and researching extensively about this country; its past, present and future (Because if you do not know where you are coming from, you are going nowhere). While you are on it, please keep an open mind, have a mind of your own, and don’t be afraid to arrive at your own independent opinions based on the facts. But if you are too lazy to do that, or just too busy, or you simply don’t care enough for your country, then stop complaining and blaming your leaders for your predicament. They can’t do your part for you. They cannot be the leader and the follower all by themselves. I know most of us are too busy to read but you have a right, no, a duty, a responsibility as citizens to know what is really going on, because one way or the other it affects you. Insist on finding out the facts and not the propaganda fuelled by rumours and Chinese whispers. When you understand what you came across during your extensive reading, research and analysis of the Nigerian situation. You will from within you discover and become part of the solution this country needs instead of being part of the problem. Power resides in the people. It is only us that can affect the change that we need. So let’s stop shooting aimlessly in the dark, while the real problem is right behind us laughing and watching us as if we are some entertaining reality show. Stop wasting bullets. Do your homework first so that when you shoot, you aim at the right targets. That is only when Nigeria’s problems will mysteriously varnish. Nneoma Igwegbe
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 21:16:15 +0000