President Obasanjo in Cross River State
By
IN the last quarter of November 2001, exactly 10 years after military president, General Ibrahim Babangida paid an official visit to Cross River State, a civilian president, General Olusegun Obasanjo, did the same. Babangida's visit was well reported in the press, as expected. He exhibited his own brand of warmth and charisma, dazing everyone with whom he came in contact and every audience he faced. He visited a cross-section of the state, opening or commissioning one project after another. Finally, he went to Obudu Ranch, located in the northern fringes of the state. Unfortunately, on his journey back to Calabar, a tragedy struck; one of the helicopters which conveyed some state officials accompanying him, crashed into the marshes defining the final approaches to Calabar. The tragedy of the crash was not simply that all those on board lost their lives. Part of the tragedy (or was it the main part?) was that if the helicopter had been in a better condition and if a system of search and rescue had existed, even in a modest form, many of the lost lives would have been saved.
In any case, General Babangida landed safely in Calabar and bade his hosts and hostesses farewell. But why am I recalling this tragic event when President Obasanjo's visit apparently went so well? His wife arrived Calabar a day ahead of him to commission some NGO projects; he himself arrived in his flamboyant manner threw humour at everyone and at every gathering; he was accorded a state-organised civil reception; he was given a chieftaincy award which admitted him into the council of traditional rulership in Calabar; he brilliantly scored a political goal by re-naming Calabar International Airport the Margaret Ekpo International Airport; he opened the Calabar Free Trade Zone (CFTZ), thus giving a presidential endorsement to the upgrading of the zone from a mere Export Processing Zone (EPZ) whose foundation stone was laid by President Babangida 10 years earlier; he met and discussed with what was officially described as the "common people" of the state; he commissioned several projects in the central and northern parts of the state and, finally, he opened the Bebi Airstrip which is to serve the rehabilitated Obudu Ranch.
It was indeed a crowded programme for a four-day visit. But then, even if I cannot immediately recall all the General Babangida did during his own visit 10 years ago (his biographers will give you a long list any day), I know that the visit was both a dazzling and as "significant" in content and form as that of Obasanjo. The only difference is that Babangida's visit ended in an accident. Most people will today remember Babangida's visit to Cross River State in 1991 only by that accident. You can now see the role of accident (or its polar opposite, luck) in history. By renaming the Calabar International Airport after her, Margaret Ekpo has been honoured and immortalised in her lifetime, so the Nigerian media reported. The dogged fighter for national independence, democratic governance, national unity based on justice, and women's emancipation is, in addition to her other attributes, a lucky woman.
I rejoice with her and with all other Nigerians, particularly those from her part of the country, who felt this honour. I would, however, argue that President Obasanjo's proclamation was more of a political campaign than the bestowal of honour. Nnamdi Azikiwe, nationalist first President of Nigeria, had a university and an airport and some other smaller monuments named after him; Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the first and last Prime Minister of Nigeria had a university and other monuments named after him; Ahmadu Bello, the late Sardauna of Sokoto and the first and last Premier of Northern Nigeria and, by far, the most powerful Nigerian politician in his days, had a university named after him in his lifetime; Obafemi Awolowo, the first Premier of Western Region also had a university named after him. Similar honours had been bestowed on Samuel Ladoke Akintola, Murtala Mohammed, Aminu Kano, Ibrahim Babangida (College of Agriculture, Obubra, Cross River State), Sani Abacha (Specialist Hospital, Uyo, recently re-named, I understand); M.K.O Abiola, Simbiat Akintola, Alvan Ikoku, Michael Okpara and several others all establishment personages and men and women of timber and calibre.
But no honours for the sorts of Ken Saro-Wiwa who courageously, brilliantly, and vigorously re-started the campaign for social justice for minority ethnic group in Nigeria in the last quarter of last century ñ campaigns which others are now merely popularising, or elaborating, or revisiting downwards, or openly denouncing in practice, if not in words. But, then, the primary makers of history if we must go individual ñ are those who initiate the struggle for change! But returning to Margaret Ekpo, how I wish she had been honoured by the proclamation of the actual realisation of just one ideal for which she fought. As I had earlier said, I rejoice with her. And I hope she will regard her honour as not belonging to her alone, but to all her compatriots, dead and alive, with whom she waged her life's battles. She should merely regard herself as holding the flag. She should, in particular, remember Gambo Sawaba and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. On the second day of his visit, President Obasanjo met with the "common people". Regarding himself as a "common man", a senior lecturer at the University of Calabar who had once served as a commissioner in the government of Cross River State, attended the gathering. I would myself not have attended, not because I don't regard myself as a "common man" a thoroughly meaningless term but because I would have known what would happen there, given my fair knowledge of President Obasanjo.
That was the lecturer's first mistake: attending the meeting at all. But his second mistake was more serious; he raised his hand to be allowed to speak. He was recognised. And he spoke. Were I in the lecturer's shoes, even if I had been persuaded by some strange force to attend, I would have remained silent and, if possible, inconspicuous, recording the proceedings, as much as I could, in my brain. Even if I had been called upon to speak without my signaling my intention to do so, I would have replied with a hand signal that I had very bad sore throat. But the man spoke. And he got his answers from the president. The lecturer had complained generally about the situation in the country's university system. The president replied him with intimidation, abuses and embarrassment. Obasanjo asked the man what his current salary is compared to what he was earning a couple of years ago.
The man replied. More abuses. Having finished with the lecturer, the president then descended on university teachers generally and their union, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), in particular. He called them every bad name imaginable, concluding with the declaration that Nigerian university teachers not only have not contributed to the development of the country, but have not even contributed to the development of university education and the university system. My lecturer friend committed a third mistake: agreeing to answer all the questions posed to him by the president. He ought to have refused to answer some questions and, better still he ought to have made a political statement directly to the audience. The consequence could not have been worse than the humiliation he accepted for himself and for his compatriots. I have always insisted that university teachers should be political. Radical, but patriotic and progressive, national political engagement has been a key platform of ASUU since the 1980 leadership of Biodun Jeyifous.
It should remain so, or rather, go back to it. I understand that the next speaker, that is, next to the embattled lecturer, was a female university student who spoke of the really terrible conditions under which she and her colleagues were assumed to be acquiring specialised knowledge. The president, now becoming more political than ever, sympathised with the students, accusing university teachers of being partly responsible through insatiable demands for wage increases for the plight of their students. This is a well-known political tactic; pitching the disaffected against the exploited, the exploited against the marginalised, and finally the marginalised against the dispossessed. Those who address President Obasanjo as "Chief" are just playing politics. And they know it. The fact is that our president is a General of the Nigerian Army, not retired, because generals really do not retire.
The president's Defence Minister is a general; his National Security Adviser is a general, and the Chief of Staff in his presidency is a general. Although most of the other members of President Obasanjo's government are not army officers, each of them, more or less, behaves like one. I have said it before, and I repeat it here: If President Obasanjo is to be remembered in history, it will not be on account of his installing a civilian president in 1979 or becoming a civilian president 20 years later. He will be remembered in history as the army officer who received Biafra's surrender in the field in January 1979 and, next to that, as the man who integrated Nigerian more firmly than any other ruler in our post-independence history into the new imperialism, the global dictatorship.
December 2001