“Have you heard how they catch monkeys in
Brazil, Julie?
Let me tell you. They put a nut in a bottle, and
tie the bottle to a tree.
The monkey grasps the nut, but the neck of the
bottle is too narrow for the monkey
to withdraw its paw and the nut.
You would think the monkey would let go of the
nut and escape, wouldn’t you?
But it never does. It is so greedy it never
releases the nut and is always captured.
Remember that story, Julie. Greed is a
dangerous thing. If you give way to it, sooner or
later you will be caught.”
Fellow Nigerians, the above is one of my
favourite quotes and I even know it fully by
hand. It is taken straight from the early pages of
a James Hadley Chase novel titled THE PAW IN
THE BOTTLE. I’ve quoted it in countless
conversations and political discourses in
particular. The reason should be obvious. It
sums up the intractable problem of greed that
has virtually ruined our nation. The power-
grabbers of Nigeria all have one thing in
common, pure and unadulterated greed.
I’m under no illusion that any nation is governed
by saints. But the greatest countries in the world
are usually led by aspiring Angels, those who
wish to be close to God even if they let him
down occasionally like we all do. The
avariciousness of our leaders is uncommon as it
is unsurpassed. I wish to link this to the crisis of
confidence bedevilling our electoral process and
democratic progression today. The linkage is
simply to establish that unbridled greed is largely
responsible for the way simple elections have
been turned into total warfare in Nigeria. We
have become one of the worst examples of
Barbarians who just find it impossible to choose
candidates and elect leaders in an atmosphere
devoid of bitter and bitchy acrimony.
This greed didn’t start today. It has been with
us since we gained independence and we started
putting our own people in positions of authority.
Ordinarily, leadership positions should have been
an opportunity to serve and do so meritoriously.
But this madness called greed must have crept
in us discreetly like a thief in the night. It is very
difficult to remember exactly when and how it
did. All I know is that we were caught unawares
until it penetrated us mercilessly. I was old
enough in 1979 (19 to be precise) to vote and to
understand the rudiments of politics in a country
that managed to end a civil war within that
decade. The period leading to that election had
been preceded by military intervention that
terminated the brilliant career of Head of State
General Yakubu Gowon as well as a bloody coup
that killed General Murtala Ramat Muhammed
and his promising regime. This catapulted
Olusegun Obasanjo to power.
The election of 1979 was midwifed by Generals
Olusegun Obasanjo and his second in command,
Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. It was a straight fight
between Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s NPN, Chief
Obafemi Awolowo’s UPN And Owelle Nnamdi
Azikiwe’s NPP. The controversy surrounding the
manner General Obasanjo hurriedly handed power
to Shagari after the hullaballoo that followed
that election was nothing compared to the
profligacy that NPN later perpetrated. If the 1979
election was bad that of 1983 was abysmal. The
greed of the NPN apparatchik went overboard.
They simply went berserk and grabbed not just
money but votes from every direction.
Those critics like Wole Soyinka who challenged
the on-going nonsense were easily dismissed as
alarmists and prophets of doom. It was obvious
even to the blind that NPN was headed in the
wrong direction leading only to perdition, but the
arrogant politicians of the day said nothing
would happen. They were firmly in control of
heaven and earth. They declared very erratic
results in staccato fashion. What they did was
tantamount to stealing the wind and trying to
hold the atmosphere in the palm. I was 23 then
and was in the middle of the conflagration that
consumed the Old Ondo State. My boss then,
Chief Akin Omoboriowo, had been declared
winner in a contest against the iconic Pa
Adekunle Ajasin. My boss was one of Chief
Awolowo’s fanatical supporters. But everything
scattered after the riotous UPN primaries. I
witnessed as ambitious politicians gathered day
and night in our Ijapo estate situation office to
plot all manner of moves. My boss was a man of
frugal existence but the politicians were able to
persuade him to move 360 degrees from UPN to
NPN.
I felt the sharp pain that went through Chief
Omoboriowo’s heart and realised how easy it
was to capitulate to the whims and caprices of
politicians who assured us everything was under
control. For example, we knew the police would
readily connive with the ruling party to do
whatever was needed. The NPN had invested
heavily in military hardware and over-militarised
the police. They rolled out ferocious armoured
tanks capable of stultifying the dreams of would-
be troublemakers. A most powerful Inspector
General of Police, Mr Sunday Adewusi, was in
charge. I doubt if any other IG would ever be
that influential. The fear of Sunday Adewusi was
the beginning of wisdom.
As young as I was, I knew there was going to be
repercussions to this atrocious madness but I
didn’t envisage the magnitude. NPN won
landslide almost everywhere and at the height of
its giddiness described their victory as moon-
slide. It was the first time I heard that term and
added it to my modest vocabulary. Barely three
months after that abracadabra, the military
struck and hit the reckless politicians like
thunderbolt. That coup gave birth to the
draconian and much-dreaded regime of
Muhammadu Buhari after an announcement by a
young officer who introduced himself as Sani
Abacha.
It was such a miserable New Year gift on New
Year’s Eve, December 31, 1983. Politicians were
promptly picked up and hauled like sacks of
potatoes into different cells or house arrests
across the nation. They all went in without as
much as a whimper. The most rambunctious
amongst them, Alhaji Umaru Dikko, bolted into
rarefied air and landed in the United Kingdom.
One would have expected him to put up a
kamikaze stunt at home by fighting Buhari and
Babatunde Idiagbon like the quintessential King
Kong that he was. That was when I first learnt
the truism that bullies are often cowardly.
There was no doubt that the Buhari regime was
tough but what they won’t tell the young
generation of today is why Buhari and company
struck. The NPN had practically mortgaged the
future of Nigeria and Nigerians. Had Buhari not
come at that time I wonder what could have
happened to our country eventually. May be we
would have become a country of scavengers in
the hands of scoundrels. NPN was a
democratically elected government without any
semblance of democracy. Everything was helter-
skelter.
My boss was one of the multitude arrested and
he was kept in Owo prison and I laboured hard
as his private secretary to visit him every other
day from his house in Ijero-Ekiti which was my
base. I gained so much insight into how
politicians behaved and misbehaved. There was
ample evidence that innocent people were
punished alongside the patently guilty. But as I
would learn many years later from Flight
Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings such was the
nature of most revolutions. Buhari did not
execute past leaders like Rawlings did in Ghana.
In a marathon interview Rawlings granted
Ovation International in 2004, he revealed how
revolutions work. He said it was not a tea party
and while the leader takes the credit for whatever
success was achieved he must also take the flak
for the excesses and abuse of power and
privilege. He alone could not have compiled the
names of those who were jailed or killed. There
were instances when many officers smuggled in
names of their supposed enemies.
Asked why there was so much bloodshed in
Ghana, Rawlings thundered “It was an abnormal
situation… “ We probed him rigorously by asking
“what was the criteria used to select those you
killed? Was it that people were just bringing
accusations and you were acting on them?” His
answer was shocking and direct: “Subsequently
that was what happened. We only tried to
contain and prevent any further executions, so
the option was jail. As for the executions, it was
easier to pick from the top… It was not that I
wanted to kill but that was what the nation
needed at the time… I was trying to calm things
down but the situation as I said was such that
there was no command structure. Everything had
broken down… We were governing human rage,
justifiable rage… “
According to Jerry Rawlings, the government of
the day had perfected the art of divide and rule:
“I didn’t know that some people were experts in
divide and rule tactics. I saw it work and it was
brilliant during Liman’s regime… They had
poisoned the atmosphere. In those days, it was
believed that the government could not lie, so
they were telling all kinds of lies against me…
And the troops were like, ha, this is our great
hero who is being so demonised…”
Just like the case of Buhari, Jerry Rawlings
remains the most feared and the most popular
Ghanaian leader alive today. He’s treated like a
rock star everywhere he goes. While the elites
may harbour ill feelings towards him, the poor
see him as their saviour, the reason they called
him Junior Jesus while the elites called him
Junior Judas. There is a big lesson for Nigeria in
all of this. We have suffered for too long as a
people and this is attributable to our politicians’
greed and inability to learn from past mistakes.
The next time we conducted an election after
1983 was ten years after in 1993. As good as
that election was, politicians made sure it was
truncated again.
No military would have been able to annul that
election if the politicians had bonded together to
defend the mandate which was freely given by
Nigerians to Chief Moshood Abiola. The main
weapon used on this occasion was not an
automatic rifle but ethnicity. Politicians
deliberately reduced the June 12 victory to a
South West affair and therefore not worthy of
being defended by non-Yoruba. They selfishly
and studiously forgot all the amazing
contributions of Chief Abiola in every part and
cranny of Nigeria. The ubiquitous supporters of
any government in Nigeria were not bothered
that killing June 12 would send Nigeria
backwards by several decades. The compulsive
gamblers that they were, the nation can afford to
move on, without Abiola anyway. And so we did.
I won’t waste too much time on the Interim
government which was awkwardly packaged as
alternative to June 12 but examine the last
Abacha coup which finally buried June 12. From
1993-98, Abacha’s government concocted its
own endless experiments as our biggest
politicians fell over themselves to secure some
space and place in that fiasco of a government.
Abacha soon became the new idol and Nigerians
marched on the streets of Abuja begging him to
transform from military dictator to civilian
President. It was such an interesting spectacle
to behold. The man eventually died in power on
June 8, 1998 while Abiola died elsewhere in
detention on July 7, 1998.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar immediately
assumed power. Of course, the omnipresent
friends of men of power would not hear the
heresy being preached by General Abubakar who
pledged to stay only one year in power.
Sometimes I wonder if General Abubakar is from
another planet, he actually handed over power to
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, dead on time, on May
29, 1999, as promised. Obasanjo was in power
for the next eight years but not before some
smart dudes came up with the idea of an
unprecedented third term for him. When that
failed, Chief Obasanjo handed power to President
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and his Vice President, Dr
Goodluck Jonathan who would later complete his
boss’ term after the President took ill and died.
Dr Jonathan contested in 2011 for what was
expected to be for one term but he later changed
his mind and is set to contest again on February
14, 2015, if the INEC Chairman, Professor
Attahiru Jega, can withstand the blistering heat
from those desperately seeking a postponement
for reasons we all know. On the surface, there
would have been nothing wrong with it but the
main opposition is suspicious of the move like
many of us. Once again, we’ve boxed ourselves
into another tight corner.
My honest advice is always to Mr President.
Please, don’t listen to those saying you must
win this election by force. If you’re so destined,
it will surely happen. If you fail in the end kindly
thank God, knowing that you have done your
best. I admonish the candidates to whittle down
the war of advertorials going on in order to make
reconciliation much easier whenever the winner
is announced. Nigerians are looking for that
candidate among you who can proudly speak like
Rawlings:
“You know I was an embodiment of the people’s
quest for freedom and justice, so people did not
toy with me. By protecting me, they were
protecting their own freedom and justice. They
couldn’t afford to abandon me, and I cannot
afford to abandon my own principle…”
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Well the co u p saved us then.