Oputa As Democracy Dividend

I suppose that in a material world, such as we live in, it is no surprise that we view almost every event through the prism of materialism. Even before James Brown and Madonna ventured into sociology and economics with It's a Man's World and Material Girl, respectively, Karl Marx and Fred Engel had fought a decades old war against materialism. They finally lost that battle posthumously just before the turn of this century with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the last true bastion of dialectical socialism.

So, if sometimes you wonder why Nigerians assess the dividends of their new democracy almost exclusively in terms of material gains, you may excuse them for travelling a path very well trodden by capitalist America, Western Europe and, today, even the former Soviet Union.

Except, of course, that in matters political, not all benefits or dividends are counted in material terms, even in the above named societies. Consider that in many constitutions, especially the American one, free speech is accorded so sacrosanct a priority that you are permitted to think that all other freedoms depend on it, which they probably do because the concomitant freedoms of association, free press and free enterprise are symbiotic relatives of the fundamental freedom of expression.

Indeed the very first time the Americans amended their constitution, it was to strengthen the people's right to freedom of expression.

It is these essential liberties that give meaning to the fundamental human rights which underpin a free society, and without which democracy becomes nothing more than a political slogan.

Indeed we can recall, and recoil in horror, that it is the denial of these freedoms, especially freedom of expression, which characterized, in its most vile form, the dictatorship of the military which traduced Nigerian society for a cumulative thirty years.

In today's free and democratic Nigeria, therefore, I am inclined to submit that the return of these essential freedoms must count as one of the very priceless dividends of the past two years. We must not marginalize the import of the freedom we now enjoy merely because they do not have immediate, "materially" quantifiable benefits. If we do not see them right away, it is because these values are, by their nature, intrinsic. At the same time we must ponder that without them, the very material dividends we quite rightly strive for would be meaningless. For as Kwame Nkrumah said, obviously paraphrasing the Bible, "Seek you political freedom first and all other freedoms would be added to it."

It is important that, in the pursuit of the big game, we do not overlook the small, but tasty grass-cutter. Recently on the Radio Nigeria programme, The President Explains, a caller who got through to the President was so thrilled that she described the opportunity a her own "democracy dividend".

On further consideration, I realized that the dividend was not so much the chance to speak with the Nation's number one citizen, as the fact that the nation's number one citizen voluntered to give account of his stewardship to a woman who was only a name on the telephone, but nevertheless, a citizen. Then I asked myself: could this have been possible under military rule? Can we imagine a Sani Abacha or an Ibrahim Babangida accounting to anyone for his action?

This is, of course, only one way of looking at it. The more immediate and even piquant dimension to this is to examine the dividends of the Oputa panel in relation to a free society. In this context, the question that springs readily to mind is: Who would have thought? Who would have imagined, just two years ago, that the Nigerian peoples would be opportuned to learn the astonishing details of some of the heinous crimes committed against them over the past thirty years? Who would have thought that those who had once held the life of the people in the palm of one hand, with a gun in the other hand held to the head of the people, could be called to account? That people who played Russian roulette with the fate and fortunes of Nigeria and her peoples would be facing the people in the dock of Oputa? Remember that these were the same people who rode to power in an armoured car, surrounded themselves with military tanks and grenade launchers, and spoke their decrees through the barrels of assault rifles.

There are even more dividends for the ordinary people in the reversal of fortunes of once maximum rulers running away from a panel that does not even have the power to penalize them; just a mere requirement for them to tell us their own side of the events over which they presided. To tell us why the sum of a great Black power like Nigeria went down at high noon. And why our riches and bounties from God were squandered while the people went hungry.

Recall with delight, dear countrymen, those who once promised to give us their today for our tomorrow. Our tomorrow is today and there is no sight of them as they are fiercely pursued by their own shadows.

Dividends? What dividends can be greater than the once inconceivable sight of the great hunters of yesterday being now haunted by their own memories of what they did to their citizens. And who would have imagined the possibility of Colonels and Brigadier Generals giving evidence against Lieutenant Generals as the omerta of silence and secrecy was cracked on the anvil of the people's right to know. It is hard to put a price on the value of the Oputa Panel if we are to appreciate true democracy.

Of course there have been moments when the Tokoyas and their ilk threatened to devalue this people's court with their courtroom bravado and nauseating antics. But those were no more than momentary distractions that did not and cannot divert this momentous event. I also recognize those who wonder whether Oputa can produce both truth and reconciliation in the manner that the Desmond Tutu Commission was mandated to do in post apartheid South Africa.

These are very valid issues raised by people who are no less patriotic than those who set up Oputa. All I am saying is that the mere fact of Oputa, something totally unthinkable for thirty nine of Nigeria's forty one years of independence, must be acknowledged as a very important fruit of democracy. Above all, it will be a reminder to anyone who tries to violate the rights of the people anytime in future that a day of reckoning is possible.

For if these people ever thought in their time that there would even be an Oputa Panel, they would certainly have acted with greater respect for the rights of the Nigerian people.

For me, the greatest dividend, on being appointed chief steward of FRCN, was to confront the armoured car unit still stationed outside Broadcasting House, Ikoyi, and tell them that the dawn of democracy was here, in case they hadn't heard, and that it was time for them to pack up and leave. Within two weeks they were gone. A mere three months before, I would have walked past them with my tail between my legs, afraid to look in their direction lest they accused me of giving them a bad eye. Now try counting that in Naira and Kobo.

I am by no stretch suggesting that democracy is about. I am quite simply saying that these are not gains to be sneeze at. And their import must be placed in their proper perspective even as we quest for the material dividends that we are entitled to. For I believe that Oputa is the kind of soul searching which, whether it eventually leads to a cleansing or not, which will help our democracy to survive and make its future secure.

Oputa might not carry a death penalty or even prison sentence, as many would wish it did, but we must bear in mind that the atrocities being unearthed at the panel were committed by people who never once thought that it would be brought to light, let alone for them to be called to account; any more than Slobodan Milosovic imagined at the prime of his power in Yugoslavia.

Eddie Iroh is the Director-General and CEO of FRCN.