Don’t urinate on their graves!, By Wole Olaoye

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Peaceful repose to Abiola, his wife Kudirat and all those who were cut down during the June 12 struggle. It is because of their collective sacrifices that the rest of us are still able to face the challenges of nation building together today. But let no one urinate on their graves.

All animals are not equal. If you doubt it, attempt to replicate General Ibrahim Babangida’s actions and inactions over the years — and see where you’ll end up. 

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First shoot your way into power. Confront civil society with both an iron fist and a toothy smile. Be a military Janus — on one side Santa Claus, on the other Belgium’s Leopold II. Then, seeing the prodigious talent and charisma Providence has bestowed on you, lock yourself up in a social laboratory and, like the scientist Frankenstein, create a new serpentine democracy which crawls a little to the right and a little to the left, eventually threatening to swallow you. 

The June 12 monster! In what book is it written that a date could swallow an emperor? Run! As a  cat with so many lives, you call it a day and retire into comfort. Didn’t God Himself rest on the seventh day?

Your coterie of eulogists and beneficiaries add salt to the society’s injury: They canonise you. “Saint Ibrahim invented the new Nigeria! It’s just unfortunate that negative forces did not allow him to conclude the good work he had started”. In the pantheon of Nigeria’s carpetbaggers who watered the tree of autocracy with the blood of fellow citizens, they say, “Saint Ibrahim is better than the other goggle-wearing gnome. We can confirm that Ibrahim doesn’t eat infants”.  

In your hibernation, you continue to enjoy the status of a major shareholder in Naija Turn-By-Turn Plc. Your castle is a Mecca to which every political pilgrim journeys. And then, 32 years after the crime of June 12, you re-emerge to take responsibility for everything that happened under your watch. Except that it still wasn’t your fault but the machination of that goggled one!

Forgivable?

So, you knew all these years that MKO Abiola was the winner of the 12 June, 1993 presidential election and you waited for 32 years, after social strife, a near civil war, death of thousands of fellow citizens, destruction of careers, social polarisation and — tellingly— the death of the goggled one you fingered? 

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Now who is going to defend Afajápemó (he who owns dogs that hunt down rabbits for him)?

I believe in forgiveness. But a penitent person at confession shouldn’t be dribbling the priest. If a sinner says, “It was my hand, not me, that slapped the complainant”, who shall we hold responsible? Can forgiveness be possible or efficacious unless the compunction is heartfelt? 

“To die for a people devoid of memory, is to be killed over and over, again and again. In a place inhabited by the conscious, IBB would not dare to show his face in public. But in the crime scene that doubles as our country, having been succeeded by even more villainous ruiners, Badamasi is installed in the seat of the statesman.”

And in this case, what is the equivalent of restitution? Resurrection of the president-elect whose mandate was embezzled by a few gangsters? Saying sorry to the Abiola family and the relatives of General Yar’Adua, Chief Alfred Rewane, Alhaja Suliat Adedeji, Bagauda Kaltho and thousands of others sent to their untimely graves between 1993 and 1998? Repairing, through some  social alchemy, the bridges of ethnic amity destroyed by the whole saga? Recall of military officers who lost their commission because they chose to stand by the truth?

I confess that I do not have the answers. Perhaps, this poet does:

Grab a plate and throw it on the floor. 
Okay, done!! 
Did it break? 
Yes it did. 
Now say sorry to it.
Sorry! 
Did it go back to how it was before? 
Sometimes, sorry can’t fix everything. 
Some broken lives cannot be the same again. 

Broken Lives 

And, thanks to the unnamed compatriot who Nigerianised the verse after babangida launched his much awaited book, A Journey In Service (thanks for sharing, Professor Akin Onigbinde).

The lives you tore with your blatant lies, wrong accusations, negative criticisms and Gossips of hatred for no just reason might not be the same again. 
Mind how you treat people. 
The Life you didn’t Create. 
Don’t be the one to destroy it.
… Apologies alone, and then a haulage of over 30 billion Naira to Minna?
For Library of Infamy?
How fair? How just ?

Indeed, all animals are not equal. In normal life, a capo doesn’t return to the crime scene to hug the klieg lights and rake in billions of naira. If you’re not in their exclusive club, don’t delude yourself. Lesson: Some men are above the law. Sad. But true. Onlookers can only throw bricks or flowers.

Human rights lawyer Dele Farotimi, in a  lamentation titled, “MKO on my mind” published on his X handle reacted thus:  

“To die for a people devoid of memory, is to be killed over and over, again and again. In a place inhabited by the conscious, IBB would not dare to show his face in public. But in the crime scene that doubles as our country, having been succeeded by even more villainous ruiners, Badamasi is installed in the seat of the statesman.”

Peaceful repose to Abiola, his wife Kudirat and all those who were cut down during the June 12 struggle. It is because of their collective sacrifices that the rest of us are still able to face the challenges of nation building together today. But let no one urinate on their graves.

With the demise of Chief Clark, the challenge ahead of the people of the Niger Delta region is how to replace the trusted warhorse with another accomplished activist who would take the struggle of his people as his life’s work. The fact that Clark’s life will always be used as the benchmark of leadership will not make finding his replacement any easier.  

Pa Edwin Clark Exits 

It was as if the two most vocal grand old men of Nigerian politics conspired to take their departure flights to eternity within the same week. The death of Pa Edwin Clark shortly after that of his bosom friend and fellow political gladiator, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, sent shock waves round the country. If the Lord had tarried awhile, Clark would have clocked 100 years on 25 May, 2027.

Clark devoted his life to the struggle of the people of the Niger Delta and the cause of his Ijaw ethnic nationality. Although he fiercely manned his corner and disparaged all those milking his native land at the expense of the environment, he was at heart a pan-Nigerian nationalist. His political consciousness had been sharpened in the 50s when he joined the Zikist movement and built a persona etched in solid courage.

If Chief Clark had not existed, the dehumanising situation in the Niger Delta would have invented him because his people were in a dire need of his kind of leadership when he showed up combining his skill as a lawyer with his experiences as a civil servant and local activist.

He always believed that he was a child of destiny: “I remember that after primary education, I wanted to go to Government College Ughelli as far back as 1945. When I went for the interview, I was told that I was too old and was advised to go to the Government Teachers Training College, Abraka. When I got there, they said I was too young!” 

But the three Clark brothers made a success of their different callings — one as a civil servant, later permanent secretary and minister of Foreign Affairs. Another became a world famous professor of English while he, a lawyer, went on to serve as a state commissioner and later as a federal minister.

With the demise of Chief Clark, the challenge ahead of the people of the Niger Delta region is how to replace the trusted warhorse with another accomplished activist who would take the struggle of his people as his life’s work. The fact that Clark’s life will always be used as the benchmark of leadership will not make finding his replacement any easier.  

Wole Olaoye is a public relations consultant and veteran journalist. He can be reached on [email protected], Twitter: @wole_olaoye; Instagram: woleola2021.