Season of revision

Q: Evidently, the route to power, via the ballot box, had been stalled. And when the ballot fails, the bullet takes over.

The month of January did not disappoint. As in previous years, it was a month to remember the momentous events of January 15, 1966. This time around however, January 15, 1966 was something of a milestone – 50 years! All through the month however, I was very uncomfortable. This uneasiness stems from the distortions and malformation of issues in the course of the month.

It is probably possible to understand the self-serving narratives of blood relatives. But what I could hardly fathom was the grand silence on the part of the rest of us. It was as if history was being turned on its head. Probably, and just probably, this selective amnesia and disposition for distorting the past may well be of one of the most serious problems that we have as a people and as a society. This is because; any society that cannot face the past accurately is doomed. And in using the word doomed, I am not being careless here. Rather, my diction is shot through with a great deal of consciousness and pain.

As a people, we are entitled to our various forms of grandeur. But then such delusions should not blind us to our current realities and predicament- a situation that was largely spawned by our chequered past.

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And talking of the past brings up again the cataclysmic events of January 15, 1966 which have continued to define or better still, undefine us as a nation. My major worry here is that such is our success as far as historical distortions go that our youth, who were not primary witnesses to the run-up to January 15, 1966 and the date itself, are likely to be confused. However, I make bold to say here that I was not one of those young Nigerians. At the age of 13, I read, saw and observed the political convulsions that my country was going through. Three sources were paramount here. The wooden rediffusion box in my grandfather’s sitting room, the Daily Times Newspapers, and of course heated arguments in the same household as regards the direction or non direction of the country. Of course, since then and in consonance with my calling as a teacher and researcher, I have in the course of my career, read and written books on the social formation called Nigeria.

In view of much of the foregoing, I am amazed about some of the simplistic and self serving versions as regards what or what did not happen on January 15, 1966. Even then, for those who care to know, that date was a mere high point. Prior to the date, all the signs were there that the foundations of the Nigerian nation state were very weak. It was so weak that at one point or the other, virtually all the major ethnic group had fiddled with the card of secession. Even then, the British or if you like, the perfidious Albion had managed to patch things up, and to that extent (in) dependence was born.

However, such was our luck, a perverse one if you like, that there was an early warning signal that the new nation was beset with dangers. Specifically, this was in the form of that grim and prescient play by Wole Soyinka: The Dance of the Forests. Yet we lurched on. By 1962, there was the Action Group Crisis and probably from that moment, events assumed a momentum of their own. This is because 1962 eventually gave birth to the Crisis in the Western House of Assembly and the pandemonium in turn, gave rise to the declaration of a state of emergency in the entire Western Region. After the state of emergency, Akintola was restored as the premier of the Western region. But did he have legitimacy? Passions ran very deep in the region that he was in office largely at the behest of the federal might, whose foundation was in the North. The combustible pot was made more so by other catalysts like the massively rigged census figures and the Federal elections of 1964.

These events did not happen on their own. There were Human agents at the centre of these sub-enterprises. And of course, for those who can remember, the opposition leader, having been incarcerated, had been shut out of the scheme of events. We may as well turn to popular culture here to appreciate the darkness that was gradually enveloping the nation then. Hubert Ogunde comes up for mention here. Among other things the playwright featured sub-themes of perfidy and faithlessness on the part of our political actors. Nothing was sacred. Traditional Rulers, ie Oba’s whose allegiances were suspect, were paid one kobo a year! And yet the people, the ultimate deciders in a democracy, waited. 1965 was around the corner. The stage-managed restoration of Akintola would be tested at the polls. The test did take place, But it was malformed; and in response arson, violence, and the famed ‘weti e, i.e. burn him alive started.

Evidently, the route to power, via the ballot box, had been stalled. And when the ballot fails, the bullet takes over. Even then, prior to this, there was the glaring contradiction that, while the post-election violence of 1965 called for the declaration of a state of emergency, the Federal authorities said No – a clear contrast to what, as pointed out earlier readily obtained in 1962. Meanwhile, as these events unfolded, soldiers being also part of society witnessed all of these. The gridlock spawned by conscienceless politicians had to be broken, and thus it was that the coupists of January stepped in, to contain the situation.

But the outcome, as in most things Nigerian, had a sectional slant or was seemed to be so. In all of these, there were heroes and villains and any attempts at self-serving revision will only deepen Nigeria’s woes in its quest for fulfillment. And here, I must give the last words to another writer Achebe, who said: we must learn to know where the rain started to beat us, or else……For, if history is allowed to repeat itself, it pushes the price up.

Kayode Soremekun