MANY FACTUAL ERRORS FATAL TO ANALYSIS OF CONTRADICTIONS

By

Prof. Omo Omoruyi

 

I read Mohammed Haruna’s reaction to the interview I granted The Country of April 15-21 on line, a Nigerian newsmagazine. Mohammed Haruna’s comments appeared in www.gamji.com. It may have also appeared in other media.

 

What Mohammed called "The Too Many Contradictions" is full of factual errors borne out of laziness or ignorance or both and many assertions that cannot be demonstrated.

 

Finally Mohammed’s conclusions about my political career are part of the usual blame game and name calling that I am used to from the northern theoretician of permanent northern rule of Nigeria. Any southerner that worked with the northern political leaders in the past should forever keep his mouth shut even when the northern leaders are misbehaving. Mohammed caricatured Chief Richard Akinjide for daring to challenge the northern claim to power forever. He forgot that but for Chief Richard Akinjide, the legal machine of Chief Obafemi Awolowo would have overrun the NPN in 1979. Mohammed is not in a position to evaluate objectively the facts from documents or records about my various roles in Nigerian politics, even if I call his attention to them. I am not going to do so.

 

I do not want to reverse my decision not to join issues with anybody during this partisan political year in Nigeria, lest I be misunderstood by politicians as supporting this or that party or candidate. I will definitely endorse a candidate at the presidential level. It is not time. I shall at the appropriate time endorse one candidate after the nomination in all the political parties shall have been concluded.

 

MY CRITICAL ESSAYS IN THE PAST WERE TO MAKE OBASANJO DO BETTER

This is not the forum to respond to the various issues Mohammed raised about my attitude to President Obasanjo. There is no doubt that I did not like the way he emerged in 1998. Having emerged, my plan since 1999 has been to make him a politician and move him from the visionless and self-serving individuals who are claiming that they made him to adopt Nigerians in the north, south, east and west as the basis of governance. Could he have done better, of course yes!

 

By calling me the "probably President Obasanjo’s severest critic, bar Chief Gani Fawehinmi" is to drag me into the terrain of partisan politics. Gani’s company is a good one anyway. Criticism is no vice; it is the highest form of patriotism to paraphrase the saying of Senator J. William Fulbright of the US in the height of the Vietnam War in the US.

 

The basis of my critical assessment of President Obasanjo’s administration since 1999 is to make him do better for the country. If Mohammed were honest with his review of my essays, he would have found that there is no evaluation of Obasanjo administration that does not end with what he should do to move the country forward. They are not criticism for criticism sake and they are not borne out of pathological hatred for the person of the esteemed General who had performed three feats in his political life and in the life of Nigeria in 1970, 1979 and 1999. Do I need to elaborate on these feats? I am not talking of the number of roads built but how one has fundamentally and positively affected the political order. The Nigerian history books record for General Olusegun Obasanjo as follows:

1970 marked the end of the civil war with him as the General Officer Commanding 1 Marine Commando that put an end to the Secession of Biafra.

 

1979 marked the end of 13 years of military misrule of Nigeria and the installation of a democratic order by General Obasanjo.

 

1999 marked the end of another 13 years of military misrule of Nigeria with a credit to General Abubakar and guess who; the emergence of Chief Obasanjo as a "bridge" between the past and the future and the commencement of another democratic order.

 

MOHAMMED SHOULD TELL NIGERIANS HOME TRUTH

What do the Nigerian history books record of other political generals, Gowon, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, and Abubakar between 1966 and 1999? They happen to come from the north. What legacy even in the north did they leave behind? More destitute, more beggars, more people without hope, more people longing for hand out from government, more people who want to live on government?

 

Mohammed should assist these political generals who are the patrons of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and who are running down President Obasanjo everyday to tell Nigerians their place in Nigerian history. They should tell the north and not the south what they did for the north with the oil money from the south through out their many years of military misrule of Nigeria.

 

Mohammed in search of contradictions in Omoruyi can correct me; there is no Nigerian leader, civilian or military in the north or in the south, past or present who can be associated with one known feat of a national dimension as Chief (General) Olusegun Obasanjo in 1970, 1979 and 1999. One may have some question about his politics today, which in a democracy is normal. The fact of his place in Nigerian history cannot be glossed over or reduced to a footnote in Nigerian history. This is the subject we teach everyday. What will I tell my students? I will say that these political generals from the north did what? Maybe I should catalogue such negative contributions: that they put many people behind bars; that they denied the Nigerian people their democratic rights; that they denied the Nigerian people their right to human dignity; that they embarked on extra-judicial execution of minority rights advocate. Mohammed should help scholars rewrite Nigerian textbooks that would positively reflect the contributions of the political generals from the north.

 

When I write my critic of Obasanjo’s administration, I wanted to move him to perform the fourth feat of establishing a sound political order during his first term. That has been the basis of my critical essays between 1999 and 2002 numbering about 50 or more. I will have basis to compare him with any candidate soon.

 

PATHOLOGICAL HATRED FOR SOUTHERNERS, MOHAMMED STYLE.

When I read his article, I wanted to adopt the same attitude I learnt to adopt in the past whenever he wrote something about me or about a southerner. I certainly did not want to dignify Mohammed who had never seen anything good in a Southerner including me since I knew him.

 

I still recall how he who claimed to be my friend visited me or sent reporters to gather lies from northern officials under me and went away with undigested facts about the operation of the Centre. I woke up one morning to find an orchestrated campaign against me and the Centre under me using what he purported to have gathered from me in his Kaduna magazine and in the Kaduna newspapers. He did not end there. One, he failed to carry my rejoinder and two, in order to drive home his point, he organized petition campaign from known and unknown names from the north about the need to remove me from the Centre. I still have the minutes of the meeting the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (Late Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed) held with my Directors and me when he faced me with all these Mohammed-inspired petitions against me. Mohammed your plan in the past is to denigrate me personally because of where I came from and undermine the Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS) and its contributions when I was the Director General of CDS. Mohammed you based your action on the erroneous belief that from what you claimed to know about me as my past as anti-Sharia and anti-north, the northern interest, which you rightly declared as your mission in life as a journalist when you were the editor of New Nigeria would not be served by the CDS.

 

THE CLIQUE BELIEVED I MISLED IBB

Mohammed as the theoretician of permanent northern rule of Nigeria you told Nigerians in the north that General Babangida should not be blamed for the political crisis in Nigeria arising from the June 12 1993 but Omo Omoruyi. This was also well put by another theoretician, Alhaji Uba Ahmed in his highly provocative article in The Sentinel December 19, 1994 that the north should blame me for the crisis arising from the annulment. Mohammed’s article is still in this vein. Since when does an adviser take responsibility for the advice he gave? There was nothing I forced on IBB that he did not believe in. The sum total of what I forced on him right from the day I became aware of his plan to take over the government was that he should make history by returning power to the people of Nigeria based on the "interplay of democratic forces". Mohammed, this has always been my belief since you knew me; I could not have changed under IBB because there was no reason to do so. In all IBB’a political travails, which were many, I never saw a northerner around him. But during the time of sharing the spoils of office they were plentiful. I did not join him to participate in the spoils of office. I wanted him to make history and in the end I was the object of assassination threat organized by pathological southern haters like Mohammed. They eventually misled their man and made him turn away from his commitment to a government based on the "will of the people" that he strongly articulated before the OAU Heads of State and Government in June 1991 and before the UN in November 1991.

 

MOHAMMED AND OTHERS WANTED IBB TO RULE FOREVER

I know that Mohammed did not like my advice to President Babangida during the period after the election to the National Assembly and the crisis over the nomination of presidential candidates. Yes, there were all sorts of advice to the President on what to do with the National Assembly, especially after the botched presidential primaries. Mohammed, you will recall you misrepresented my advice to General Babangida on the editorial page of your magazine during this period when I single-handedly stopped the plan of certain elements in the north to foist on the country a dangerous and anti-democratic contrivance never anticipated or provided for in the transition program called "diarchy". Under this system, the military President, General Babangida, unelected and in uniform would be made to work with the elected State Governors and the elected National Assembly. Mohammed there are documents on this plot and on what I did to stop them. I knew I was stepping on dangerous soil; that power should be returned to the Nigerian people was the basis of responding to the invitation of my friend to leave the University and join him in 1989.

 

Would Mohammed still recall his diatribe about my advice in his magazine that only the majority party should be allowed to nominate the leaders of the two Chambers and the Committees of the National Assembly to be voted for the whole House? To Mohammed and the "diarchists" the leadership of the National Assembly could come from the minority party or from the majority party nominated by the minority party in the National Assembly. The events leading to the annulment commenced with this episode. The "diarchist" genuinely thought that the minority party (NRC) could take over the National Assembly from the majority party (SDP) in the National Assembly. How I stopped the minority from reversing the verdict of the Nigerian people after the July 4, 1992 election to the National Assembly was another source of danger for me and I knew it. Whenever I read this editorial, which is still in my possession, I became convinced that everything should be done to push for political education. It is only political education that can liberate the people from cheap pro-north and anti-south campaign of people like Mohammed.

 

ONLY FACTUAL ERRORS WILL BE ANSWERED FOR RECORD PURPOSE.

What I shall be doing in this paper is to respond to some of the factual errors in Mohammed’s article for the record. I shall leave the mischaracterization and distortions of my political career, his display of ignorance of the transition program and the nature of my relationship with the former military President, General Babangida to another occasion or to time when he shall have had the opportunity to read my books.

 

The obvious factual errors in Mohammed’s article are too glaring to be glossed over. These are avoidable errors; these are unexpected factual errors of a veritable journalist. Maybe Mohammed no longer has access to the library having become a political shot in Nigeria. I would have expected him to avoid them as a distinguished journalist intent on educating the Nigerian public and the international community about Nigerian politics. I thought that this is one of the responsibilities of journalists.

 

Mohammed would recall that in my relationship with him dating back to 1977, I had reason and occasion to complain to him in the past that his unprincipled defense of the north and his pathological diatribe against the south was doing him a lot of damage as a well educated journalist. If he does not know this is why a newspaper owned, edited and published with too much hatred against other Nigerians could hardly become a national newspaper. Mohammed, you are one of the best trained journalist with a social science background from ABU and a Graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University to cap it and yet, beside the usual patronage from government and political patron in the north, you have not been able to organize a thriving national newspaper. I recall the lamentation of the former President of Nigeria Alhaji Shehu Shagari when I paid him a visit after his release from detention that "there is no newspaper with a national flavor from the north".

 

FACTUAL ERRORS

For his record and for the information of those who read him and in order to do justice to Gamji, a reputable website that I have occasion to visit from time to time, let me state Mohammed’s factual errors and attempt to correct them.

 

EMINENT NIGERIANS FROM THE NORTH TOLD US THEY MADE OBASABJO

I never used the term "northern stooge" to describe President Obasanjo. If Mohammed wants to call the President that name, he should do so as other eminent Nigerians from the north had done in the past. He should not attribute it to me.

 

He should have responded to the claims of many known northern political leaders like President Shehu Shagari, Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim and Dr. Datti Ahmed to confirm the origin of the idea of Chief Obasanjo as "a candidate of the north". Mohammed, you should understand the basis of this assertion. These eminent Nigerians from the north told Nigerians and the international community that they in the north decided in the national interest of the north at that time in 1998 after the death of their icon General Abacha to make Chief Obasanjo the President of Nigeria under the platform of the PDP. All these eminent Nigerians from the north had at various occasions told Nigerians in various words that they in the north made President Obasanjo the President to champion the Nigerian interest in the name of the north and not the Nigerian national interest as he sees it. Mohammed you know that they patronize the BBC Hausa Service to lambaste President Obasanjo for "betraying the north" or "marginalizing the north". Mohammed would recall the many occasions these eminent Nigerians from the north had to remind the President Obasanjo that "we (north) made him President" and that "his people rejected him from his past". Mohammed would also recall the many instances when the President was accused of working for those who did not vote for him in 1999 and against those who voted for him in 1999. All these eminent Nigerians from the north never told Nigerians that other parts of the country including my people of the south-south were involved in the making of President Obasanjo.

 

Is Chief Tony Anenih from the north? Where was the Presidential Campaign Headquarters of Candidate Obasanjo in 1999? I know it was not in the north and certainly it was not in the southwest for obvious reasons.

 

Do these eminent Nigerians from the north speak for General TY Danjuma and Chief SD Lar? Knowing these Nigerian leaders as I do from 1977, they do not share the same political platform of the Arewa Consultative Forum.

 

Mohammed would recall that in the Vanguard essay he referred to, I was just reacting to the assertion of Alhaji Lawal Kaita on the subject that the north made General Obasanjo voluntarily in 1999 and that the north would take the Presidency back to the north at the appropriate time. I wish Mohammed would read my essay again.

 

Yes, I did say in response to Lawal Kaita that the south would keep the Presidency for thirty years. The South-South and the Southeast would take turns after President Obasanjo. Mohammed does not want to know that understandably.

 

I ONLY SOUGHT NOMINATION UNDER NPP

Mohammed, I did not seek the Gubernatorial nomination in Bendel State under the National Peoples Party (NPP) as there was nothing called that during the 2nd Republic to my knowledge. I only sought the nomination of the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP).

 

I WAS VALIDIDLY NOMINATED TO NIPSS

Mohammed, I did not retreat back to the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS); I was only validly nominated by the National Universities Commission to fill the quota for the Universities. I still pride myself as the first Professor in the Institute’s history that ever participated in the program of the Institute. General Obasanjo did not anticipate succession of military government when he founded the National Institute in 1979. The political generals destroyed everything the Institute stood for.

 

GENERAL BABANGIDA WAS NEVER MY STUDENT

Mohammed, I did not meet the then Brigadier Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida at the National Institute as my student. He was never my student. For Mohammed’s record and for the information of his readers, we met there as Course mates in 1979/80. From there we cultivated a relationship which was based on mutual respect and which influenced my decision to "see him into power" and "see him out of power". Mohammed called this an exaggeration. He is not in a position to know my relationship with IBB.

 

Mohammed would recall who the late Alhaji Bawa Bwari was to General Babangida. If he wants to know, he played host to me when I came to Minna before August 1985 to "see IBB into power"; this could not be an exaggeration. Of course, during the last days of IBB in August 1993, when I was "seeing IBB out of power", where were people like Mohammed? Who is Mohammed Haruna to accuse me of exaggerating my relationship with IBB?

 

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS IN 1993; ANNULMENT WAS JUNE 1993

Mohammed, the Presidential Election was not in June 1992, as this error of the year occurred in many sections of Mohammed’s piece. For Mohammed’s information the election was on June 12, 1993. Mohammed, you are wrong for writing that "political engineering collapsed in "July" 1993. There was nothing significant in July 1993 after the annulment in the night of June 22/23 1993. It is my plan to make sure that June 12, 1993 should not be a footnote in history and that Chief MKO Abiola’s death was not in vain. I hope President Obasanjo would make sure it is not.

 

MY CONTRIBUTION IN THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY IS A MATTER OF RECORD

Mohammed, there was nothing called "Section 277 of the Draft Constitution". Maybe he meant Section 207(2) of the Draft Constitution. The action I took in the Constituent Assembly and the widespread support it generated from all sections of Nigeria was unique. For his information, my motion was eventually passed in the Constituent Assembly with an overwhelming majority of 121 to 16. Mohammed should check the official minutes of the Constituent Assembly, which should be available in major libraries in Nigeria to study the ethnic, geographical and religious composition of those who voted for the motion that in the end Omo Omoruyi was able to rally Nigerians behind a measure. Tell me when that act ever happened in Nigeria that one measure could command the support across the known divide in Nigeria?

 

I wish Mohammed had read the Volume Three of the Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly 1977/78 for the two days agonizing debates on my motion in the Constituent Assembly. Even the debate over Sharia and the Presidential System, which people knew about before we came to the Constituent Assembly did not take the number of speeches or arouse such acrimonious debates as the debate over the Section 207(2) in the Constituent Assembly. I was proud of my effort. At no point in the debate was the name of Chief Obafemi Awolowo mentioned.

 

Mohammed’s reference to the action taken by General Obasanjo to delete the amendment ought to have been analyzed within the communications between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and General Obasanjo on the subject after General Obasanjo left office in 1979.

 

Mohammed did not consider my various press explanations of the motives for my action that I offered for the action in Ibadan before distinguished Yoruba newspaper editors in 1978. I am glad that Chief Awolowo and I had occasion to dwell on the matter in 1982 in the presence of his Governors.

 

POLITICAL ACTIVITIES NOW IN A BOOK, THANK GOODNESS

Mohammed, some of the issues that he raised about my political life in 1977-79 are episodes that formed the basis of my new book, Beyond the Tripod in Nigerian Politics due to be launched soon in Nigeria. There will therefore be no point for me to rehash on what is already in print. For his information the book is dedicated to General TY Danjuma, Chief SD Lar and others who contributed to the issues beyond the tripod in Nigerian politics in the past. I would like to direct Mohammed’s attention to the relevant sections of the book. I AM WORKING ON A MANUSCRIPT ON MY ACTIVITIES UNDER IBB.

 

Mohammed, please be patient, on other matters, such as (a) my relationship with General Babangida, (b) the design of the transition program, (c) the two party system, (d) the role of the Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS), (e) the recreation of a new political class and (f) my various roles under President Babangida still need further elucidation and I know so. I cannot do this in a newspaper essay. Mohammed cannot therefore provoke me to respond to some distortions in his article. I shall do this soon in a book length account. Mohammed should wait for the book to dispute my claims.

 

Mohammed should not liken me to the three Professors (Oyevbaire, Olagunju and Jinadu) who wrote a book called Transition to Democracy in Nigeria 1985-1993 and never remembered to talk about the roles of others except of themselves as the "regime intellectuals".

 

Of course, I had occasions in the past to own up what I made President do in the public interest. I refer to the various essays and interviews in the immediate past. I shall continue in this vein soon in a book length rendition of my role in the Transition Program. That will be an opportunity for me to state what I made IBB to do in detail. There was logic in what I made him to do, which was to return power to the people on the basis of one person one vote.

 

What I made IBB to do was borne out of my overriding commitment to make him make history. General Babangida is the proper person and not Mohammed Haruna to tell Nigerians in his own words where and when I misled him on the crucial issue of returning power to the people based on one person one vote. I am waiting for that day.

 

OPTION A4 IS STILL VALID TODAY

Mohammed is guilty of misrepresenting what Option A4 means. I am tempted to state what Option A4 was and what it was not. It was an option out of other options that was articulated for President Babangida in 1992 in response to the fears expressed by various sections in the country about the nomination system based on the open primaries.

 

Mohammed should read Chapter 3 of my book, The Tale of June 12. It deals with the genesis of the innovation worked out for the President to be used by the two political parties. That innovation made all communities to participate in throwing up the presidential candidates in 1993. Those who could not gain "grassroots endorsement", like the revered General Yakubu Gowon fell by the way side.

 

One could recall that General Gowon had three sources of strength to his credit. He had (a) a national name recognition, (b) the endorsement of the Northern Elders Forum and (c) the tacit encouragement of the military President who authorized his clearance even though he did not meet the rules of the party (NRC). All these could not be a substitute for a "grassroots endorsement" and General Gowon knew it and it was too late to make an adjustment. If he had known he would have commenced his presidential run from Pankshin in Plateau State his ancestral home and not from Wusasa, Zaria where his father went to work as a Cathechist.

 

I hope Nigerians would read Chapter 3 of the book, The Tale of June 12, for the emergence of the two presidential candidates of the two parties in 1993, Chief MKO Abiola and Alhaji Bashir Tofa.

 

The PDP National Chairman knew what he was talking about when he planned to adopt this system. I commend it to all other parties at all levels. Mohammed is confusing Option A4 with the Modified Open Ballot System (MOBS). It is a pity!

 

THERE IS A POLITICAL "CLIQUE" IN THE NORTH

Finally on the issue of clique, there is no reason to dispute this fact of Nigerian politics. I wish Mohammed would read the account of General Tunji Olurin called "The Terror Gang" referring to the "clique", the "caucus" etc. in This Day of November 15, 1998. Mohammed should read Col. Yohana Madaki reference to the same phenomenon as the "Criminal Clique" in the north "who held on to power since independence and still thinks that it is God-given right to rule Nigeria" in The Tell November 9, 1998. I wonder what he would say to the account of the same phenomenon in the book by General Chris M. Alli title, The Federal Republic of Nigerian Army. I hope Mohammed would read these assessment of the phenomenon and come to the conclusion as to the nature of the two arms (political and military) of the Northern Clique, which in my previous writings I call the geo-ethno-military-ruling-clique. It would have been pretentious of me to claim membership of the clique. It was in this context I told the reporter when asked whether I was a member of the clique that I was not and that I was his friend who came to the service of the military administration through him. That still remains my position.

Professor Omo Omoruyi

May 2002