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The impossible we do immediately By
There must be something inherently wrong with a country where the impossible is done immediately but the possible is never achieve-able. How did we arrive at this situation? IF we look at each of the critical moments in the history of Nija, we do see that somehow the country is able to put its right foot forward and get done what needs to be done. The civil war was the first critical challenge to the collective existence of the country. Some Nijarians felt hurt enough to want out of the federation and when they were not allowed, they went to war to enforce their desire to abandon the federation and let those who would go along stay there. Looking back now, it is possible that perhaps they did not really want to go but wanted to force some re-consideration of the nature of the federation as it was then. Unfortunately, this behind the scene intention was not communicated to others who would have loved to have the conditionalities of the federation looked at and so, those who should have been on the side of Biafra were lined up against it. At the end of that exercise, Biafra lost but Nija did not win. As the civil war leader said at the end of the war there were no victors and no vanquished. This was pure verbal dexterity. There might have been no victors but there was definitely a vanquished and it was the idea of Nija as a federation. So, in a devious manner, Biafra achieved part of its aim which was to destroy Nija. It failed to achieve its other aim which was to set itself up as the new country of Nija. The impossible that was achieved by the civil war had to do with the reconciliation that took place after that war in that the Biafrans willingly came back to the already deformed federation. The possible which was not achieve-able was the creation of ordinary satisfactory life for all Nijarians.
Another critical point in the history of the country had to do with the second term of Shehu Shagari. The country had money. It had plans. It looked to the future with extraordinary optimism. A move from Lagos to Abuja was planned to take 15 years in a process of orderliness. The possible again eluded the country. I have documented somewhere else the amount and the rampant nature of corruption under Shehu Shagari. When a proper history of Abuja gets to be written, we will discover the depth to which Nijarian politicians descended under Shagari to ruin their country. Is anybody writing that story of Abuja? The miracle that was achieved here was to present the move to Abuja as a national necessity, almost as a nationalistic responsibility of Nijarians. Yet, Abuja was the response of the northern political elite to their discomfort in coming to and living in Lagos. One of the most poignant incidents for the northern political elite has to do with the response of the southern masses to the refusal of the northern elite to accede to the demand for independence made by now elder statesman Anthony Enahoro in 1954. Look into the autobiography of Ahmadu Bello and you will see the documentation of that response. But, all the same, southerners were used to make the idea acceptable and the process put on course. True, the Obasanjo-Murtala Mohammed government has detailed the orderly process that this would take, Shagari's political party hacks fast-forwarded the whole thing and before you knew what was happening Abuja as far as all the contracts to build it were concerned had been completed! How much money was sunk into this project? How much did our moral capability sink because of this Abuja project? Will we ever be able to measure these two items?
For no particular reason, the leadership of Shagari's party began to boast, their eyes began to burn and they began to prophesy that they would rule Nija for ever! Part of the delight of the masses, especially in the south had to do with this inordinate claim. It led to an imitation of the advertising message about how fast bullets drive out governments just as fast as some balm drives out body weariness! The possible that should have been possible would have been to have the masses of Nijarians out fighting the soldiers to ensure the survival of the civilian government. It was a possible action that was impossible to achieve.
The last example of these critical points in our history is the annulment of the June 12 1993 national election after a group of soldiers, tired and retired, had decided that they could not accept Bashorun Abiola as their commander in chief. They had then told Babangida to go and with their decision what he liked. Because Babangida had been used to soothing many babies with the same toy (power has to do with giving and taking away of adult toys!) had no idea how to carry out this order of his constituency. The impossible thing was that all the institutions of government immediately accepted that the elections were null and void without any official documentation to say so. Is this part of the consequence of ours being largely a society dependent of orality for the dissemination of information? Simply by saying it, it was accepted. In an other society, such a thing would not be allowed. The possible consequence would be that a politician responsible for such a disaster would go somewhere, sit down and write down what happened for the benefit of posterity and for the cleansing of his soul. Is that possible in Nija? Of course not. Not only is the politician responsible for that monumental calamity not bothered to sit down and publish for the good of the country what really happened when he did his side-stepping like a good dribbler but he is preparing to come back as an elected head of Nija. His supporters are already threatening to perform all sorts of impossible tasks to make this possible. Knowing how the impossible is what we do so easily, who can doubt the second on-coming of Babangida? January 2002
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