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A reading of Bola Ige By
I have met Chief Ige only once. It was in July 1994 when we assembled to pay our last respect to Comrade Dapo Fatogun at the Lagos Headquarters of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). We took our turns in testifying to the exemplary revolutionary career of Fatogun whose remains lay in front of us in a simple casket. As Ige delivered his own oration, I asked myself: "Why is this man not one of us?" "Why is he not a member of the marxist socialist movement from which Fatogun has just taken a final exit?" Bola Ige said what others had said ñ and even more; but his delivery as so eloquent, combining a refreshing historical sweep, philosphy and bold political judgement on the movement. He spoke without notes and without quotations; but he spoke with passion not the type of contrived passion that is common at funerals. Bola Ige's passion was a pure form that enveloped patriotism, nationalism and deep commitment to the striving of the "wretched of the earth". Since that day I have paid close attention to what Bola Ige does, says and writes, as well what people say about him and do to him. I have, in particular, followed his political career since he was appointed into the cabinet of President Olusegun Obasanjo. It is Bola Ige's current "tribulations" that have prompted my present intervention. And for this, I thank Reuben Abati for brilliantly articulating these "tribulations", and detailing what several people thought about them, in his article: 'Ige's darkest moments' (The Guardian, March 16, 2001).
Bola Ige has been charged with six offences: five specific and one general. The specific offences are that he is disloyal to Afenifere, the Yoruba ethnic organisation of which he is deputy leader; that he swayed the Alliance for Democracy (AD) away from the wishes of Afenifere and towards President Obasanjo; that he is openly contemptuous and hostile to the People's Democratic Party (PDP), a party in whose government he occupies a prominent position; that he is no longer committed to the call for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), alleged to be ideals of true federalism. The general "offence", is that he has failed to live up to what was expected of a leading Awoist like himself. This general "offence" arose, in particular, from his recourse to the Supreme Court for the determination of the resource control controversy a question on which the AD and the southern geo-political zones have taken a clear political position. According to Abati, if Chief Obafemi Awolowo, that great Nigerian, had been asked to take such a case to court, he would have called a press conference to renounce the instruction, and thereafter would have resigned his appointment. I shall come back to this after examining the specific charges.
The root of all the charges against Bola Ige is his membership in Obasanjo's government. On this membership, Ige simply explained: "I was invited by President Obasanjo to join his government, and through it, serve the people; and I accepted" . This was a clear and precise statement, a type of statement that I enjoy reading. It is clear and precise because it is limited in three directions. First, Ige did not mention PDP. This party, we recall, fought and brought Obasanjo into its ranks; and on its platform the newly-released prisoner contested the presidential election and won. PDP is therefore the party theoretically and morally in power at the centre. Secondly, Ige did not mention AD, a party he played a leading role in forming, in whose leadership he is and on whose platform he is participating in the politics of the Fourth Republic. Thirdly, he did not mention Afenifere whose Deputy Leader he is. He simply said he was invited by President Obasanjo and he accepted. Several conclusions issue from this simple statement if we put it against the background of our knowledge of Ige and the political history of Nigeria in general and that of Yorubaland in particular.
Bola Ige made a distinction between Olusegun Obasanjo and the PDP. Ige's distinction is not, however, the popular, but largely false one that is usually made, in an executive presidential system, between the Executive President, the ruling Party, and the Legislature. In this system we are taught the president, once elected and installed, is expected to be non-partisan in his or her governance; the president is expected to be the "father" "mother" of all; the president relates with the party in the background in the sphere of broad policies, and the relationship is expected to be that of mutual respect. That is what the text book says. But the distinction that Ige makes between President Obasanjo and the PDP is not of this formal type. Ige thinks that Obasanjo and the PDP are two different entities. He has deep respect for the former, but contempt for the latter, Ige critics should, please, find out and examine the basis of Ige's "unorthodox" distinction between the president and his party, and why the man is largely correct in making this distinction. Whether he is correct in acting on the distinction the way he is doing is a question in tactics which cannot be answered unless one knows where the man is heading, what his overall political strategy and vision for the country are. Anyone who succeeds in compelling Ige to make a general and categorical statement on this would be lifting the level of this debate.
Ige boasts that in his home-town, Esa-Oke, in Osun State, not even one vote was cast for the PDP in the 1998/99 elections. Consequently Ige does not think he offends Obasanjo by being openly contemptuous of his party; he believes that only two people can determine his tenure in Obasanjo's government; he Ige, and Obasanjo, and of course, God. He does not owe his position to the PDP. Bola Ige is loyal to the AD and Afenifere, but his perception of this loyalty is not hypocritical, not mythical. His loyalty is informed and limited, by history circumstances. Put more concretely, although Ige respects these two organisations, he believes that at this stage of the nation's history and the organisations' development, and given recent political experiences, it will be disastrous at personal and political levels to permit them to dictate all his (Ige's) political decisions and actions. Consequently, Ige did not think that it was a mark of disloyalty not to seek the mandate of Afenifere or AD before accepting Obasanjo's ministerial offer. Ige critics should pin him down on this matter and force him to confirm or deny. If the former, he should then elaborate.
Bola Ige's current position on the Sovereign National Conference (SNC) is as follows: He says that those who participated in the 1998/99 transition politics and elections have no moral right to continue to demand the convocation of an SNC; that such people and organisations, including his own AD, have forfeited the right to campaign for SNC by agreeing to participate in the elections that produced the present "sovereign government". He did not say that the call for SNC was no longer legitimate nor popular. He says that it is hypocritical for certain persons and groups to continue to call for it. Bola Ige is challenging his compatriots on the question of consistency; he is opposing opportunism disguised as tactics. On resource control: Having accepted to serve in Obasanjo's government, under the 1999 Constitution, Ige does not see why he should resign as Attorney-General and Justice Minister merely because he was asked by this same government to seek an interpretation of a constitutional provision in the Supreme Court. Ige is, perhaps, aware, as I am, that resource control in Nigeria is not a constitutional matter, but a political and revolutionary one. It cannot be finally settled, one way or another, in the court. It has to be settled politically and the settlement enshrined in a new constitution. Remember Isaac Boro; remember Saro Wiwa.
Finally, I think that the current invocation of the name of Chief Obafemi Awolowo is cheap. A distinction has to be made between Awolowo, a political genius, but nonetheless, a mortal, who died in 1987 and Awoism, a political philosophy which has to continue to develop. To invoke what Awolowo would have done if put in Ige's position in 2001 is mystical, unscientific and unpolitical. What we can invoke is Awoist position on Ige's conduct. But you cannot do this unless Awo's followers have laboured to develop the political philosophy of Awoism beyond 1987.
April 2001
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