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The continuing significance of Moshudi
 

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 Friday, July 7, 2000
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 Reuben Abati
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Two years ago, General Abdulsalami Abubakar was in office and power as Nigeria's Head of State, following the death, a month earlier of that fellow called Sani, and we were all in our offices or on the road, or nowhere exactly, battling with the changing realities of our existence when the news arrived that Chief M.K.O Abiola, Bashorun Moshudi, holder of a thousand chieftancy titles, husband of multitudes, philanthropist, business mogul, man of action and history, supporter of sports, education and many other worthy causes etc, etc. had died suddenly in state custody in Abuja. It was the last piece of news that the Nigerian public was expecting to hear at the time. Sani Abacha had died most conveniently, and the people had praised the Living God for releasing them from the clutches of evil. M.K.O. Abiola's supporters were looking forward to his eventual release, and the Abubakar government was indeed beginning to do body language in that direction. M.K.O Abiola's significance by that time had already been well-established. His place in Nigeria's history derived not from the countless amount of money within his reach, or his various companies, and status as a socialite, but simply from his fatalistic emergence as the symbol and hero of democratic struggle in Nigeria in the last moments of the 20th Century. The annulment of the Presidential election of June 12, 1993, which Abiola had won to all intents and purposes transfigured him into a national icon for the expression of grievances and rebellion against the excesses of the military elite, and even more importantly, the limitations and disconnections at the heart of the Nigerian state. M.K.O. Abiola became at that moment, the hero of the masses.

It was a task in retrospect, for which he was hardly prepared, but he found in the task a challenge which he willingly embraced. If Abiola had wished, he could have abandoned the struggle, but he had become hostage to the popular will, to the very mandate which he insisted upon and he found himself on a lonely road where every indicator pointed in only one direction. Herein lay the substance of his heroism: His resolve that is, to turn himself into a sacrificial lamb, and thereby atone for whatever may have been his own personal excesses.

GOLDEN NUGGET
With Abiola as symbol and icon, the people wanted change. They don't have change yet, but they have democracy. We have seen in the last year, how democracy has enriched and settled the lives of many of the people who supported the June 12 struggle and how the military apologists have also managed to re-position themselves. The elite, within this bracket has built more houses and acquired more influence since Abiola died. With this elite, Abiola looks in comparison and in their eyes, as someone who did not exactly understand Nigeria, and thereby got his fingers burnt (he lost his life) because he fished in troubled waters and asked for luck.
 
Heroism may not always acquire popular recognition. A hero emerges only when the public confers a toga of corresponding significance. M.K.O Abiola was in this regard, lucky, and this was so, largely because in celebrating Abiola's lost mandate, his death, or the politics of June 12, the progressive camp re-echoes certain values that are sacred in their view, to the making of a nation-state.

The human being then, the hero that is, becomes, only a vehicle, an instrument ultimately in the hands of historical constructionists. Which was why when Abiola's death two years ago, became public knowledge, angry youths took to the streets in Lagos, Abeokuta, Ibadan and elsewhere. They damaged vehicles and buildings in a fit of anger. And it was clear that the people wanted an explanation. Abiola was said to have taken a cup of tea: "Was he poisoned,?" the people asked. Was he deliberately eliminated by hawks in high places who must have considered his continued existence, a threat to the Nigerian state, and politics? The Abubakar government offered an explanation by the way of an internationally organised autopsy which allayed public fears. Two years later, however, Abiola's physician is raising queries about the quality of medical attention which his patient received from his jailers. If Abiola had lived, if he had been released, he probably would not have realised his dream of ruling Nigeria still, but all future political arrangements would have had to take the Abiola factor into account. Those who would have suffered on that score must be pleased that the man died.

But his death has turned out to be a different kind of death. MKO Abiola intervened in Nigerian politics, innocently perhaps, at a turning point in our history, and he has emerged at the end of the tunnel, as a child of destiny. I insist that what may be called the Abiola legacy resides not in the man's personal life which was rather eventful, but in the values that his name would continue to throw up. Two years later, it is possible to argue that those values are still alive in the Nigerian society and certain recent events have only shown how determined the people are, to insist on the same basic minimums that were defined as the platforms of June 12, action.

First, is the issue of heroism. This is a nation in need of heroes. Before June 12, 1993, and the aftermath, Nigerians already had a conception of heroism and its different complexions. Herbert Macaulay, Queen Amina, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, the Sardana, Isaac Adaka Boro etc. But since Abiola's example galvanised the people into collective heroism, for in the end, it was the people that won the battle, there has been a stronger determination in civil society to insist on personal and collective freedom. The experience of June 12, and the tyranny of Abacha's rule, reduced the scope of the average man's patience in the face of injustice. Which is why at every opportunity, the people in different parts of the country, take up arms to defend that which they think is theirs. More people today, are willing to die for a cause if only to prove a point that there is a lot that is wrong with our society. The true danger, however, is that with so many people insisting on heroism, oftentimes, without a cause, there are too many suicide cases on our streets. Not everyone that is seeking heroism is well-meaning: They cite historical examples, but what they really want is to die and escape the rot in their lives. This is a dangerous thing for society. The challenge is not one of empty protests, but in cultivating more persons in this society who are more interested in transformative values.

Second, it seems to me that the crisis over M.K.O, as it were, further drew attention to the limitations of the Nigerian State. The election of June 12 was annulled by individuals using the state as shield. Persons were detained, murdered and brutalised as enemies not of the people, but of the state and its protectors. Abiola died in state custody.

The character of the Nigerian state is thus so disturbing. It is to save words, a failed state: A state that is structured against the individual, and operationalised for failure. Abiola as Presidential candidate had used the old NPN slogan about the creation of wealth for the majority. "M.K.O is our man oh!," so they said. The people wanted a state that would spread happiness. Abiola as President may not have been able to make any difference, but that is now altogether beside the point. What is certain is that two years after, and one year into democracy, the walls of the state have thickened, they have become more impregnable, and the distance between the state and the people has increase. The sense of alarm and anxiety in the land is so real it can be tapped for the supply of electricity.

I exaggerate. But the third realisation here, is that with Abiola as symbol and icon, the people wanted change. They don't have change yet, but they have democracy. We have seen in the last year, how democracy has enriched and settled the lives of many of the people who supported the June 12 struggle and how the military apologists have also managed to re-position themselves. The elite, within this bracket has built more houses and acquired more influence since Abiola died. With this elite, Abiola looks in comparison and in their eyes, as someone who did not exactly understand Nigeria, and thereby got his fingers burnt (he lost his life) because he fished in troubled waters and asked for luck. The losers then, are the ordinary people for whom democracy brought only a psychological relief, a kind of psychic dividend. With the country now haemorrhaging on all fronts, even this dividend has been lost. The people have democracy but they have nothing in their hands. And they cannot understand why democracy is so slow-witted. The problem of course, is not democracy: but the nature of our political system, the configuration of state at all levels, and the quality of leadership.

It is fine, I suspect, to celebrate Abiola, always, and to remind the public of the symbolism of his death, in the same sense in which we ought to do the same for Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the Sardauna, Aminu Kano, Murtala Mohammed, and Ken Saro-Wiwa. But in Abiola's case, I am afraid that a certain opportunism may soon creep in. Every attention-seeker who is looking for media coverage no longer needs to search far afield. Just organise a trip to Abiola's graveside and proclaim yourself a democrat. The way this fetishism is being organised and tolerated, one of these days, a group of businessmen, among whose ranks may be some 419ers may also seek to visit Abiola's graveside. I can bet that it is not everyone that visited that grave in the last two years that Abiola would have approved of. If the dead could argue, he would have raised a voice of protest from the grave. But the dead is dead: What can they do? My fear however, is that the M.K.O. Abiola family may not exactly recognise the potential of the Abiola persona that is in their custody. Its very management is an important responsibility that ought to be elevated, beyond the present emerging tradition of Photo-Ops at the man's grave by all kinds of angle shooters and anti-reparation crusaders. Otherwise, if at any time, I also feel that I need public attention, I may be tempted to organise a visit to Abiola's graveside and proclaim him as my source of inspiration (!) It is possible, not so?

A more serious way of expressing this point is to declare that the Abiola family must construct a more befitting and lasting structure for the observation of Abiola's place in Nigerian history, beyond the Mowambe-isation of the man's memory. What are Abiola's ideas about political organisation? What was his political manifesto? What did he say, or not say about the making of the Nigerian state? These are the questions that future generations shall be interested in, otherwise, they could take a look at those nice photographs of rallies beside Abiola's graveside and ask a strange question: Who is he? Who is that man? It happens. And it can happen.

Reuben Abati




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