Dear Sir, Step Aside: An Open letter to General Abacha 

By

Colonel Abubakar Umar, Rtd.

 

 I write this open letter to you not out of choice, but as a matter of necessity. I would willingly have come personally to you to present the humble suggestions, which I make here. But I can imagine the deliberate distortions of the import of such a visit by some of your adviser who see in our national's unfortunate political crisis an opportunity to feather their own nests. They have consistently perverted every move, by anybody other than themselves to proffer solutions to that crisis no matter how well intentioned. 

 

Given my publicly stated stand since the beginning of the crisis, such distortion is a foregone conclusion. A recent case in point is the chairman of your National Reconciliation Commission, NARECOM, Chief Alex Akinyele, who, in his ethnic cocoon and intellectual myopia, cannot imagine why I, a Fulani, should be fighting for Abiola and the Yorubas as if I were fighting for personalities instead of justice. 

 

The self-serving panacea of those advisers for the resolution of the crisis have evidently failed however, I consider it my duty to add my voice to others who have been calling on your to consider alternative strategies for its resolution. I will address you here basically in a military fashion using military imagery, because I know that your decision to take over power and lead Nigeria was taken largely with a military mindset, and your actions since that intervention have not deviated from that basic philosophy. A military officer makes his appreciation of the situation before embarking on any operation. The most important element in that process is to clearly define the aim of the operation. Having selected the aim, factors that pertain to its accomplishment which include the friendly and hostile forces that respectively support and oppose him, are objectively and dispassionately analysed to see the best way of accomplishing that aim. As you know, sir, the unpardonable sin which one can commit in such an exercise is to subjectively consider any factor and thus see it not as it objectively is but as one would wish it to be in order to make it justice a predetermined course of action.  I am afraid, sir, that the factors which surround our lingering national crisis have been so subjectively considered and its management has assumed such an alarming character that this open letter has become necessary. 

 

I write it purely out of my concern for the continued unity and progress of our beloved fatherland, Nigeria, which, regardless of the motives of the colonialists which brought it into existence has displayed the potential for stupendous greatness given mutual respect and tolerance amongst its heterogeneous components. Taking heed of my own counsel, therefore, I shall try as dispassionately as I can to review both your strategy for solving that crisis with its success and failures so far, and the alternative approach which I and a few others have been advocating all these years with its logical implications. When you took over the government of Nigeria on November 17, 1993, you clearly declared your aim to be "to save Nigerian from imminent disintegration." I had no doubt in my mind that in adopting that aim, you had had time to reflect on, and clearly understand, the factors which created the situation that you described during the take over. 

 

Your desire to save the country from disintegration was undeniably a laudable one, which every officer explicitly swears to ensure on his commission, albeit through constitutionally sanctioned ways. Nearly four years later, I am concerned that perhaps you did not read the situation correctly or that some forces (beyond your control?) have pushed you to operate disregarding that situation. I still recall the observation of a close friend of yours in welcoming your take-over, that if Nigeria were to be socially and politically sanitised it required a ruthless and uncompromising dictatorship at the helm. I shuddered then and prayed that such would not happen, given the prevailing realities, but has, with results that all can see regardless of the white washing by the professional sycophants - popular cynical perception of a return to the days of Generals Buhari and Idiagbon without the messianic credentials of thoroughness of the duo. I must reflect that you were a major participant in the last military administration as well as the short-lived Interim National Government, which replaced it. 

 

The claims of either your apologists or critics apart, only one of two logical alternatives can be valid in assessing your role in the regime of General Babangida. 

 

There is no question regarding your disposition to the ING given that you were the one that sacked it. It is therefore either that you were loyal to the Babangida regime and logically must bear responsibility for its policies and thus lay yourself open to charges of playing the role of a Trojan horse. From what I know of you, sir, your were loyal and therefore share in IBB regime's praises for its social and economic engineering and responsibility for its political miscalculations and mistakes, the most monumental of which remains the issue of June 12. So, when you came into power, you were more privileged than any Nigerian to appreciate both the intricacies of that political blunder and ramifications. Many who facilely welcomed your intervention, including Chief Abiola himself, did so knowing that the Shonekan government would have collapsed anyway under its own contradictions and lack of legitimacy. They assumed that you had come to midwife the redressing of an injustice which was allegedly committed on behalf of the Nigerian Armed Forces.

 

It has not worked out that way, and Chief Abiola, himself has been in detention for more than three years without either his treason charge being disposed off nor Nigeria's political and economic crisis being resolved. Instead, a constitutional conference has been held, a transition programme has been drawn up and various agencies have been set up to see the programme through. However, the draft constitution has not only been handed over for review by an unelected body whose legitimacy is even hazier than that of the conference itself, but even the product of the latter body is yet to see the light of the day even as the programme itself is ostensibly in the process of being implemented. To compound matters, information filtering out to the public indicate that for all the time, resources and energy expended by the conference, the eventual constitution will differ from the 1989 constitution only in few minor areas, viz the entrenchment of zoning the multiple vice presidency. All other subordinate facets of these basic provisions have been implied all along in our constitutional history, especially the federal character issue and the devolution of power, until military intervention turned Nigeria into a unitary state in all but name. It can therefore be said that the constitutional conference has, in the final analysis, only served as a convenient delay tactics for this government. 

 

I next address the issue of the political parties, the speculation making the rounds on your possible self-succession together, because they seem to me to be interlinked. Chief Bola Ige correctly identified the five political parties as five fingers of a leprosy hand. It is difficult to see them otherwise considering their method of creation and lack of any ideological distinction. It is a fact that hitherto recognised community and national leaders were excluded from participation in the political process leading to their notable 'siddon look' posture with its ominous portents for the future political health of Nigeria. As ambassador Walter Carrington quite aptly observed, "It is ironic that the most politically dynamite country in Africa has nobody who is interested in contesting for the presidency." Given what had happened to Chief Etiebet, whom many had perceived as showing such an ambition and the strident heretical calls for self servers for you to succeed yourself, the sincerity of the entire transition programmes is called into question.

 

Fortunately, your own Chief of Army Staff, Major-General Ishaya Bamaiyi, a man of high moral courage, is quoted to have described those who call for your self-succession as dangerous elements. I take cheer in that, but then I remember that your minister for special duties, Alhaji Wada Nas, had delivered a similar message in the past to little or no effect. I am optimistic that this time the result will be different. 

 

I will now proceed, sir, to tell you what in my view are the obstacles which you would face personally if you attempt to succeed yourself, and those which your transition programme would equally face as it is now configured, in case (as many hope) you decide not to run for the next election. In the case of your self-succession, neither Nigerians nor the outside world would ever believe that the election which brought you into power would have been free and fair. Countries such as the UK and USA are already publicly stating their unwillingness to do business with a civilian government headed by you. Nigerians on their part would not give their loyalty. With all the powers of coercion at your disposal in this military regime, you are facing stiff internal opposition, so you can imagine, sir, what would happen when you operate a truly democratic disposition. I do not even see how many of the five political parties can present you as a candidate. A crisis of legitimacy would dog such a government throughout its lifespan and Nigeria would be the worse for it because we would continue with our perennial political wrangling instead of tackling our immense social and economic problems. 

 

If on the other hand, you decide not to contest but to leave the transition programme as it presently is to run its course, I confess that I fail to see how any eventual winner of the presidential election can rule, I cannot imagine any Western politician stepping forward for the presidency, unless he wished to commit political hara-kiri. Contrary to what some people may naively believe an Ibo president at this time would be too much for Nigerians to bear. Since the exercise of power largely deals with the control and allocation of resources, the interests of diverse entities which compete for them would soon destroy whatever consensus could be reached other than through manipulation from the top. 

 

As for the minorities, some people had suspected that somebody from their ranks could emerge as a compromise candidate whether or not that would have worked has largely been rendered moot point now with Etiebet's experience. Therefore, even if somebody else were to emerge now he would not be perceived as a free agent but rather as a front. The end again would remain a lack of legitimacy particularly given the accepted fact that a very significant element of the political class is either in exile actively fighting this government and its transition programme, or within the country but denied active participation in the political process by the way the political parties were registered. We therefore come back full circle to June 12, I repeat, even at the risk of sounding monotonous that unless that issue is resolved we can get nowhere politically, socially or economically. It however appears that we have been so preoccupied with buying that phenomenon that we have failed to objectively address the issues raised by it. 

 

We can still allow reason to prevail and plot a way out of this logjam but first we have once more to ask ourselves the following questions: 

  a. Were both Chief Moshood Abiola and Alhaji Bashir Tofa duly cleared by the National Electoral Commission, NEC, to contest that election?

  b.  Was the election conducted based on laws governing it?

  c.  Was voting duly completed?

  d.  Did NEC collate the results and if it did, where are those results?

  e.  Why were the results not released by NEC?

  f.  What plausible reasons were given, then and now, to the electorate
for with holding them?

  g.  Why was Chief Abiola called for dialogue when you came to power on November 17, 1993, an event which the NTA found necessary to broadcast to its vaunted 30 million viewers?

  h.  Why did Abiola become an object of character assassination in the aftermath of the election while Tofa was left alone?

  i.  Lastly, why has Abiola not been tried for the treason charges against him over three years since he was arrested?

I continue to keep my promise to bring to light the details of our struggle to install the winner of that election.  This is so in spite of provocations of self serving distorted accounts of the struggle by people like Comrade Ebenezer Babatope.  That struggle has eventually cost me my commission and brought upon me other attendant deprivations.  No regrets - God giveth and God taketh.  You on the other hand gained worldly power, but I hope that having accepted that the annulment was a grave injustice not only to the winner but also to the entire Nigeria electorate, you owe it as both a moral and political obligation to redress such injustice in the interests of Nigeria.

You cannot achieve your stated objectives by burying June 12.  June 12 will remain indelible in the minds of Nigerians, no matter how long it takes for it to be fully addressed.  June 12 has dealt heavy blows on those, who contributed to efforts to frustrate its actualisation.  Those who gleefully trooped to bury June 12 for the own ends, have instead ended, to their chagrin, in their own political graves.  Some of them are now realising this fact rather belatedly and are making all sorts of quixotic efforts to wriggle out of their graves.  Some of these efforts are almost laughable in their asininity, such as the the warped logic of those who profess to believe in June 12 as a principle, but not in its main protagonist as a person.  Others simultaneously describe the annulment of June 12 as a coup while holding that the election itself was inconclusive.  In their intellectual acrobatics they blithely ignore the logical inconsistency in holding such conflicting positions.  Some say they will not stand up for justice because a certain ethnic group has formed the vanguard in the fight.  Yet others claim that Abiola is disqualified because he is owed money (about 2 billion naira) by the federal government and his first action as president will be the recovery  of that debt.  You ask, when was this debt issue discovered, why was he cleared to contest in the first place.  How much has this government spent in its efforts to stop Abiola from claiming and exercise his mandate?

I know that it has become very difficult if not impossible to fully actualise June 12 in the sense of swearing in Chief Abiola as the president, with Babagana Kingibe as his vice, and resuscitating the demolished political structures.  Realising as I keep repeating that without addressing June 12 there can be no progress, I make the following proposals, some of which have been made by others in the past for resolving the imbroglio:

(a)  Abiola should be released from detention unconditionally.

(b)  All political prisoners should be released. 

(c)  All those convicted and jailed by the Aziza panel should be released.  Generals Obasanjo and Yar'Adua should be pardoned and properly counselled to accept what they went through as the will of God and as part of the sacrifice that they had to pay for the political evolution of Nigeria.  These releases will help a lot both to reduce political tension in the country and save you the embarrassment and inconvenience that would definitely follow if someone else were to release them after October 1998. 

(d) There is simply no basis for the continued detention of the deposed Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki.  The fact that our leaders are not seen to be calling for his release speaks volumes on the moral depravity in our society.  Even you, sir, are not safe in the kind of environment where virtually nobody of substance is ready to stand up against injustice and those that do are treated as outcasts. 

(e) You should enter into meaningful dialogue with Abiola.  I propose that he be appointed Head of a Government of National Unity, to rule till end of the year 2000, for a term of 3 years.  He would however have to resign if he decided to contest any election thereafter. Abiola must be free to choose his own deputy, who must be a non-Yoruba.  He should also be free to appoint his own cabinet which may include those persons in exile. 

(f)  An attempt should be made to accommodate some of the politicians who lost their offices as a result of the political crisis through appointments into boards of federal establishment and other patronages. 

(g)  All Nigerians in exile should be encouraged to return - president Shehu Shagari's magnanimity in pardoning Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu and recalling him from exile is instructive here, as that move also paid off handsomely for his party, the NPN.  We can also imagine here how Nigeria's civil war would have ended, if General Gowon had not pardoned Chief Awolowo and appointed him Minister of Finance and Vice-Chairman of the federal executive council. 

(h)  A council of elders composed of all former heads of state (including General Olusegun Obasanjo), respected elders like Mallam Yahaya Gusau, Chief Anthony Enahoro, Shettima Ali Monguno, Professor Adebayo Adedeji, Ahmed Talib, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, the Ikemba Nnewi Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu, Professor Tam David-West, Generals Ejoor, Danjuma and  Domkat Bali, Professor Ishaya Audu, Mrs. Kuforiji-Olubi, Ita-Giwa, Sarah Jubril , all retired chief justices of the federation etc. should be created to advise on our national policy issues. 

(i)  Meetings of regional elders should be stopped forthwith as they tend to encourage centrifugal tendencies. 

(j)  All extra-governmental bodies like the PTF, NARECOM, TIC, etc. should be scrapped.  All revenue accruing to the nation should go into the federation account and be disbursed in accordance with the accepted revenue allocation. 

(k)  Retired and serving senior military officers should meet and iron out their differences with a view to giving good guidance to their juniors and enhancing esprit de corps which is fast dying in the services. 

(l)  Government should continue to investigate cases of fraud and mete out appropriate punishments.  However tribunals must be de-emphasised and the regular courts encouraged to do their jobs, thus dispensing justice and enhancing our standing on human rights in the eyes of the international community. Arbitrary arrests and detention without trial should be stopped forthwith.

I know that my proposals will need harmonisation.  In particular, the basis of legitimacy of an Abiola-led government of National Unity without the democratic structures which preceded June 12 is likely to be questioned by people, some out of genuine concern, others out of pure
mischief.  I also know that what would happen in the states is another question.  But I advocate these proposals as the lesser of many evils, since as I earlier pointed out, the full actualisation of June 12 in all its ramifications has become difficult, while it is impossible to make any progress without addressing the same June 12.  I therefore envisage a meeting of the armed forces representatives, the proposed Committee of Elders and few other interested parties including NADECO to work out the details of such a government.  What I can safely say is that government would enjoy a fair measure of popular support and the loyalty of the armed forces, if only out of a sense of justice and fair play to give Nigeria a fair chance to move forward.

Once again, sir, I am satisfied that I have done God's will by advising you, the current ruler of our country, to do what I believe is right and just.  I have been guided and protected by Him particularly in this crisis time. I thank Him for His mercy, I pray to Him to also guide and bless you as you take your next decisions regarding the affairs of this great country. God bless Nigeria

Mr. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, a retired colonel, was a former military governor of Kaduna State, Nigeria.




Culled from SPECIAL FORUM:  TELL, October 6, 1997 Issue, Pages 46 - 48