15th January and 500 years of Nigeria’s history

In four days’ time it will be 15th January, 2015, fifty years after Nigeria’s first military coup d’etat, to be followed a few weeks later by 13th February, 2015, forty years after General Murtala Mohammed was assassinated by Lt-Colonel D. S. Dimka and his accomplices. It is no surprise that the major global media outlets, from CNN to Fox News, BBC, CBS, Al Jazeera, SKY News, as well as The Times, Financial Times, Sunday Times, Observer, The Independent, New York Times, Washington Post and the major radio stations are all on their way here to beam their searchlight on these two epochal tragedies in the life of our beloved nation.

Beyond that, eminent academics from Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Chicago, the Sorborne, Nottingham, London universities, etc have embarked on a project, “500 YEARS OF NIGERIA’S HISTORY”, which has turned out to be a blockbuster – film, documentary, special edition, Breaking News, etc. It looks as if it is going to be a major hit on HBO and The Discovery Channel.

Undoubtedly, it captures the grand sweep of our nation’s history in its entire majesty as well as melancholy and despair. The mélange of corruption, fear, anger and suspicion serve as a powerful reminder that our problems did not start today. On the contrary, they go back a long way and remain deep-seated roaring to emerge once the superficial layer is scratched or the hornet’s nest stirred. The product of intellectual curiosity by so many distinguished professors is a testimony to muscular scholarship and meticulousness. The exit poll has already delivered its verdict in favour of an enterprise that has turned out to be both seminal and cerebral.

It is in segments of one hundred years each. For now, let us confine ourselves to the last segment as regards which there are two distinct partitions of fifty years each without undermining the symmetry.

Nothing is lost by revealing that the legendary late Sir Samuel Layinka Ayodeji Manuwa (1903-1976), an Ilaje from Ondo Province Nigeria, is captured in a clip as the best graduating student in medicine at Edinburgh University where he won all the prizes in his final year (1934). Even more poignant was the comment by Sir Malcolm Cairns who had been conferred with numerous awards and honours including the Nobel Prize for Medicine. He was featured on BBC on his 85th birthday many years ago but he stunned the audience with his genuine and radiant humility: “I am humbled by my knighthood and the other awards. However, I must let you know that there was a Nigerian chap in my class who was much more brilliant than me. He was knighted ten years before me but nobody protested because he earned it entirely on merit. I cannot now remember his full name but we called him Samuel.”

It was at that point that a listener phoned in: “Do you mean Samuel Manuwa?” The old man promptly delivered confirmation: “Yes.  That is him indeed. Great chap. He was not just a surgeon, he subsequently became a physician and medical scholar in record time. I understand he was the pioneer president of the West African College of Surgeons as well as pro-chancellor and chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Ibadan when it was truly a first-class university.

There was also a footage on Sir Henry Carr, a devout Christian and a Lagosian who almost singlehandedly championed the drive to ensure that education was not confined to Christians in Lagos. He played a prominent role in founding Moslem schools and colleges such as Ahmaddiya College and Ansarudeen College in Lagos.

Equally riveting are the superlative academic prowess of the likes of Adelabu Adegoke (“Penkelemesi”) and Victor Omololu Olunloye of Government College, Ibadan. Adegoke till today remains by all accounts the most brilliant student ever produced by the college. He was given double promotion twice and still ended at the top of the class in his final year.

As for Olunloyo, he was not only the youngest boy in the class (in Form One) but the most playful. Suddenly, in Form Three, he took off like a meteor/rocket and never looked back. He went on to bag a first class degree followed with a PhD in Mathematics combined with Engineering from St. Andrews University, Scotland. His thesis for his post-graduate degree was on “The Numerical Determination of the Solutions of Eigenvalue Problems”. He eventually became the governor of Oyo State, in Western Nigeria, in 1983. Thankfully, the octogenarian is alive to tell his own story.

Also featured is Prof Jubril Aminu from Song, Adamawa State in North-East Nigeria. He was already nine years old before he set foot in a classroom for the first time but that did not stop him from winning academic laurels at the University of Ibadan where he studied medicine. He eventually became the executive secretary, National Universities Commission; vice-chancellor of the University of Maiduguri, and minister of petroleum resources (under General Ibrahim Babangida).

Perhaps the most fascinating segment is the list of “firsts” by the Igbo – in various spheres of human endeavour, particularly academics (mostly science). It is indeed a very long list and it is most intimidating, especially as most of the distinctions were earned at the international level – entirely on merit.

I owe Admiral Femi Olumide, former commissioner [minister] of works under General Olusegun Obasanjo a huge debt of gratitude for his graciousness and magnanimity. In his cameo appearance on CNN, he delivered the goods without any prompting from me. It was a pleasant surprise.

“It is most astonishing that virtually all the problems which J.K. Randle documented in his masterpiece, THE GODFATHER NEVER SLEEPS, are still very much with us forty years after the book was published. This is one book all our leaders must read.”

The tempo quickly shifted and the camera zoomed off to focus eventually on “Historical Flashback” (February 11 to March 3, 2015) with screaming headlines: “At 44 In 1984 Jim Nwobodo Jailed 242 Years; Ambrose Alli Got 136 Years; Olabisi Onabanjo Bagged 66 Years; Barkin Zuwo Bagged 113 Years; Solomon Lar Jailed 88 Years.”

By using a very clever switchback digital technique, the documentary was able to interject photographs of young and dashing Lieutenant-Colonel “Jack” Yakubu Gowon on his arrival at Ikeja airport on 14th January, 1966 after completing a course at the Staff College in the UK. He was booked to stay at Ikoyi Hotel where several other senior military officers were also booked ahead of a cocktail party being hosted by Major-General J. T. U. Aguyi-Ironsi who was the Army Chief of Staff. However, rather than stay at the hotel, Gowon zoomed off after the cocktail party to spend the night with his girlfriend Edith Ike (subsequently mother of Musa). That was how Gowon escaped being a victim of the coup d’etat of 15th January 1966 when the junior officers, mostly majors, led by Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu (1937 to 1967) in Kaduna and Major Emmanuel Ifejuana struck. It was a bloody affair which terminated the lives of the prime minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and the minister of finance, Festus Okotie-Eboh, in Lagos; S. L. Akintola, premier of the Western Region, in Ibadan; and Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sarduana of Sokoto and premier of the Northern Region, in Kaduna.

J.K Randle