- PROLOGUE: “MAN PROPOSES…….”
A few days ago, a young Nigerian student came to my office, and I casually asked him whether he knew about the Ikeja explosions. He had not heard. I gave him a copy of NDM’s Red Cross advert. “Ehn - are those dead bodies?”, he asked on looking at the picture.
I instantly envied him, for here was a Nigerian who was blissfully ignorant of the nature of his country’s afflictions.
Honestly, it is tough, very tough, to be a feeling, thinking, reading Nigerian, because it is one thing after another. These days, I even find it more and more difficult to talk about Nigeria around my children: it is one bad news after another, one hell of a country!
Now that Chief James Idowu Ajibola Ige, the Cicero and Asiwaju of Esa-Oke, the Jagunmolu of Ijeshaland, former Governor of Oyo State and most recently the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Federal Republic was dead and buried, I had thought that it was time for me to make a public reflection of the short encounters that I had with him and get it over with.
So I had originally planned to release this Quarter-backing two Mondays ago, but decided to hold off until last Monday, January 28 to enable my friend Sola Adeyeye to review it for accuracy and appropriateness. Then the devastating Ikeja explosions intruded on Sunday January 27, and it became clear to me that it would be INAPPROPRIATE to unveil the essay the following day.
“Man proposes, but God disposes…”
However, a few disclosures since Ige’s burial, and more recent happenings in the country, have now shown that Ige’s death most likely fits a pattern of deliberate security breaches in the country:
- According to reports from the Minister of Police Affairs himself, Mr. Steven Akiga, since November/December 2001, some police rank-and-file members had been circulating some messages around the country that they were planning to go on strike because they were dissatisfied with their work conditions: salaries (both of current workers and of the pensioned); living arrangements (as in police barracks) and lack of promotion opportunities. Government felt that the threat was a bluff, yet this past Thursday (January 31, 2002), Nigerian Police Force (NPF) members in at least six states did precisely that - “mutiny” the government called it, as it asked the military to take over police duties in the affected states. The government also HURRIEDLY approved N1 billion to assuage them, while threatening (I believe unfairly) to dismiss participants in a strike reasons for which the government itself considers legitimate.
Where does Ige fit in all of this? We are of course aware that all the four or so policemen guarding Chief Ige on the fateful day of his assassination (December 23) all “went to eat” at the same time during his death, storing their guns under some chairs in the interim. They returned (or pretending to be?) blissfully unaware that their ward was dead. Following their arrest, it has since been reported that they have CLAMMED UP rather than assist the criminal investigation.
Police refusing to assist police investigation? Amazing? Of course not!
We recall the initial police investigations which revealed that the first self-confessed suspect of the Ige killing turned out to be Aro-crazy. The saner Ekiti Awe (sigh!) Adebayo (“Fr(a)yo”), with Lawyer Festus Keyamo in tow, next spun a fantastically believable story of his involvement in the matter, citing “Chisore” Iyiola Omisore (Deputy Governor of Osun State). Frayo has since developed a liver problem in police custody while at the same time claiming that Keyamo kidnapped and over-coached him. Over-coached him not to implicate himself? That sounds palpably unreasonable. Even Nobel laureate and playwright Wole Soyinka has muddied the waters in an unbelievably unnecessary fashion, blaming Keyamo for holding Fryo for too long while deposing him. (How long is too long, Prof, for a man accused of killing someone? What is Keyamo’s “ebi” (blame) in all of this, Prof?)
So we are all left scratching our heads: what the heck is going on here? Who is writing this script here?
- in December 2001, a Nigerian military journal had been circulating a signal alert alleging that some military (Navy) installations would be attacked by Islamic ulamas. No one knew whether they were of the Nigerian or Al-Qaeda variety. This is according to a report published in the little-read, Kaduna-based, Gamji.com-published Weekly Trust of Friday January 25, 2002, two days BEFORE the Ikeja explosions. In fact, extensive denials by some Nigerian “mullahs” (including Dr. Lateef Adegbite and Dr. Datti Ahmed) were part of the Weekly Trust write-up, all alleging blackmail of Islam in Nigeria. Then on Sunday, January 27 Ikeja Military Cantonment goes up in flames, generating fears of a coup and causing millions of Nigerians both near and far from the scene to panic. As many as possibly one thousand people end up dead jumping into environmentally-unprotected Oke Afa and Pako Canals, thinking (we hear) that either the world was coming to an end; or that the US and/or Al-Qaeda - both apparently enemies of the same Nigeria, despite being enemies of each other - were attacking Nigeria.
Such morbid, fatal panic is a metaphor for an afflicted nation, a confused country.
So can all of these be accidental - Ige, strike, Ikeja?
Hardly likely. I am personally aware that US officialdom has raised serious concern about safety and security issues in our country with its Nigerian counterpart. Such concerns have even been linked to deliberate attempts to seek a popular issue that would destabilize Obasanjo’s government. Lack of personal security was high on the list, and Ige’s assassination may have been the first “demonstration exercise”. Ikeja was another one which however went awry, because no one would have contemplated panicked Nigerians jumping into their watery deaths many miles away upon hearing explosions and seeing balls of fire headed their way.
Our country is truly in peril, and maybe now president Obasanjo will believe it. Maybe now, he will learn to be more charitable and less insulting to those who love the country as much as he does, but who do not necessarily run around saying that they are prepared to die for it. Maybe now he will listen to advice. Maybe now he will wake up and smell the stench of the advisers and securocrats surrounding him. What we need is a president that will LIVE for the country and know to do the right thing at the right time, not try to impress us by constantly saying that he is prepared to die for the country, not one that rushes money to strikers in February 2002 when it should have been done in February 2001.
But I digress. I am here to reflect on Ige, not to lament Nigerian insecurity. That is the topic of another symposium.
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- INTRODUCTION: AWARENESS IN DEATH AND ROADS (NOT) TRAVELLED
As a Christian, I believe in the Resurrection of the Dead, in the manner described in the Holy Book. Reflecting on Uncle Bola’s death, however, there are some things that still puzzle me about life and death, and which will remain puzzling, because I do not expect any one to return from death to unpuzzle me. In any case, I do not wish to speak with the dead in necromancy. It is Christian taboo.
However, I am aware that time makes sense to the Living, but does it make sense to the Dead? What is the STATE OF AWARENESS of the Dead in between physical death and resurrection?
For example, can Chief Ige read me now? Is he AWARE of all those people that trooped into Solemilia Court residence in Bodija to grieve and mourn with his family, disturbing Auntie Atinuke? If he is, could he see their hearts, to assess the genuineness of their grief, or its fakery? In the last second of his life, did he see the face of the person who shot him through the heart? That assumes that this cowardly person was not evenly more cowardly to wear a mask over his own face, cowardly persons who did not choose to gamely wrestle with or challenge the athletically-fit Ige to a sword contest or gun duel. Does the now spirit-transformed Ige have the option to let the world know who this person is, and who sent him? Were the killers or their backers among the mourners?
I ask the last question especially because I am persuaded that the world will MOST PROBABLY never know who the killer or killers of Ige are. This is notwithstanding the outstanding (non)confessions of “Frayo” Joseph Adebayo via lawyer Festus Keyamo, a confession that leads from Deputy-Governor Omisore all the way to the presidency and to PDP power politics in Osun State. Of course, the killers know themselves and those who sent them know themselves, but you and I may NEVER know.
This is because our Nigerian Police Force and its security apparatus are seriously compromised. To catch a criminal, a law enforcement agency has to be one step ahead of the criminal. Yet if the criminal has INSIDE information about his impending arrest, he will be able to stay ONE STEP ahead, and hence evade arrest. On the other hand, if and when the MOST LIKELY suspect or suspects are caught, they will be wasted, made dead long before we know it. The NPF is reputed NOT to WASTE TIME in bringing such persons before the law, simply to have them sprung from jail, or to have a judge release them for want of formal evidence. The NPF will simply send the suspect on “travel”, its term for wasting a suspect. This informs the reason for Frayo’s strange route to confession via Keyamo, to let the world know what he knows, before he probably “travels” permanently. It is a cry for public protection of his life for what he knows, some kind of self-defence.
After all, despite all confessions, Rewane’s killers still have not been found. Ditto Kudirat. So what else is new?
So let us not set our hopes too high: our incompetent and compromised Police Force will never be able to catch this bunch of criminals - or convince us that it has.
Another set of questions puzzle me. On the morning of his death, did Rosicrucian Uncle Bola know of his impending death ? If not, why not, despite his mystical Rosicrucianism? Of what value is that then, compared with pure, unadulterated, unmystical Christianity, to which I would have sorely wished he confined his Christian practice?
I truly wonder.
A third puzzle before I lunge into the purpose of this essay: what are the effects of choosing some roads to travell, leaving others untravelled? As you will read below I opposed Ige’s participation as a presidential candidate within Afenifere and the AD, and I told him so directly. I opposed his participation in president Obasanjo’s cabinet, and I told him so. I was however one of many who advised that he take the Power and Steel Ministry once it was clear that he was bent on being in Obasanjo’s cabinet.
I now find myself asking the questions: Suppose Ige had not gotten mixed up with D’Rovans. Would he be dead now? Suppose he did not take up the appointment with Obasanjo: Would he be dead now? Suppose, after his stint as Power Minister, he had resigned: would he be alive now? Is it even reasonable to ask these questions? Or is it my best attempt at asking the LIVING to think MORE CLOSELY about the consequences of the decisions that they make?
Or does pre-destination tie our hands?
These then are questions that inquiring minds want to know, as I reflect on the nature of Ige’s state in his current presence with the Majority.
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- THE CALENDAR OF POLITICAL EVENTS INVOLVING CHIEF IGE
1998
Let us start on Saturday, May 2, 1998, when Chief Bola Ige was arrested for participating in an Ibadan May Day (May 1) protest against General Abacha that turned violent. According to the then funny Military Governor Colonel Ahmed Usman, Ige was one of several “prisoners of war” of the anti-Abacha NADECO “war” brigade that included present Oyo State Governer Lamidi Adesina. In the second week of May, a broad coalition of 34 eminent citizens known as G-34 (led by Dr. Alex Ekwueme and including detained Chief Bola Ige) released a public letter to General Abacha, urging him to decline his “sole” nomination by his “five fingers (POLITICAL PARTIES) of the same leprous hand (OF ABACHA)”. This was a graphic terminology coined earlier by Chief Ige. Several similar letters were released by various groups around the same time.
Suddenly, on Monday, June 8, 1998, General Abacha died reportedly in the embrace of unknown female hands, taking his troubles with him. Abdusalami Abubakar took over immediately as the new military dictator in town, and released Chief Ige from detention on Tuesday, June 16, together with pro-democracy Campaign for Democracy leader Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, newspaper publisher Mrs. Chris Anyanwu and ex-military-head of state Olusegun Obasanjo. The last three had been in prison since mid 1995, victims of a trumped-up coup charge. On Tuesday, July 7, 1998, June12-protagonist and president-elect Bashorun MKO Abiola, still a prisoner of the military, capitulated to death from tea drinking, victim of a further set of machinations. On Monday, July 20, General Abubakar dissolved all the “five leprous fingers” and the existing National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON), and promised to handover power to a civilian government on May 29, 1999, thereby blowing a whistle for a new political football game.
On Monday, August 28, the G-34 transformed into and launched the present ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). On Wednesday, September 2, the All Peoples Party (APP) presented itself to the public in Lagos. The press conference featured eminent politicians such as Mahmud Waziri, Bola Ige, Umaru Shinkafi, Dr. Sola Saraki, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, Chief Arthur Nzeribe, Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, Alhaji Isa Mohammed, Dr. Joseph Wayas, Dr. Edet Amana and Dr. Bode Olajumoke. Notice the name “Bola Ige” in the list. On Tuesday, September 8, the day the APP was supposed to present itself to the public in Abuja, Ige dramatically pulled People's Consultative Forum PCF (a.k.a Afenifere) from under the APP umbrella, protesting APP’s “Abachaite” membership, and picked up party registration forms for the Alliance for Democracy (AD).
On Saturday December 5, local government elections were held.On Monday, December 14, 1998, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), announced its full registration of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), All People's Party (APP) and Alliance for Democracy (AD), based on their performances in the just concluded local government council elections in the country. This full registration freed them to run in the remainder of the elections; state and federal, including the presidency.
1999
On Saturday January 9, 1999 the governorship/state house of assembly elections were held, again with the PDP winning big, followed by the APP and the AD in that order. On Tuesday, January 26, 1999, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All People's Party (APP) announced an agreement “to work together to actualise their political target of presenting joint candidates in the forthcoming presidential and national assembly elections” scheduled for February 27 and 20, 1999 respectively. On Wednesday, January 27, 1999 a select group of 23 Afenifere members, meeting at D’Rovans Hotel in Ibadan, elected Chief Olu Falae over Chief Bola Ige as their Yoruba choice to the Alliance for Democracy as flag-bearer for the upcoming presidential election.
On Monday, February 15, the APP selected Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu as its presidential candidate at a primary held in Kaduna, but in a deft political move quickly stepped down (?) for Falae due to the APP working agreement with the Alliance for Democracy to present Falae on the AP ticket. On that same day, at a convention in Jos, the PDP selected General Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd.) as its presidential candidate. On Wednesday, February 17, all the presidential and vice-presidential candidates for PDP (Obasanjo/Atiku) and AD/APP (Falae (AD)/Atiku (APP)) were cleared. On February 20, the National Assembly elections were held, with the PDP continuing its electoral victory romp. On Saturday, February 27, Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party “beat” Falae in the presidential contest by 16 million votes to 11 million votes. On Saturday, May 29, Obasanjo was installed president, and a new civilian administration began. In a letter dated June 4, 1999, Chief Ige was nominated as a Federal minister by President Obasanjo along with 48 others.
The curiosity here was that their actual offices were not assigned. On Wednesday, June 23, 1999, 42 of the ministers were cleared by the National Assembly, before who Ige had merely taken a bow a few days earlier before clearance, no questions asked. On Wednesday June 30, he was formally sworn in as Minister for Power and Steel along with 45 others. At a press conference on Tuesday, August 3, 1999, and also on National TV, he outlined his ambitious agenda to rescue NEPA a.ka. “No Electrical Power At-All” from its jaws of ineptitude, saying that it would require N3 trillion in the following 24 months.
2000
In March 2000, NEPA management officials were fired wholesale and a nine-member technical committee
was appointed by president Obasanjo. On Friday June 2, 2000, in a cabinet reshuffle involving the dropping of 3 ministers and re-assignment of nine others, Ige was moved from Power & Steel to become Attorney-General/ Minister of Justice (AG/MOJ). In October 2000, he stated that Sharia had not violated the Federal Government as a corporate body.
2001
As AG/MOJ, Ige embarked on the resource control/littoral states trial (eg May 2001). In June/July, 2001, Ige is enmeshed in a Senate investigation over funds allocation in NEPA. In November 2001, he states that the government would not fold its hands and watch Safiya (a woman condemned for adultery in Sokoto) stoned to death.
On Sunday December 23, 2001, Chief Ige was assassinated in his own home.
From the above calendar, it is clear that Ige was THE ISSUE, the ITEM in the Abubakar transition period, and undoubtedly remained AN IMPORTANT issue in the Obasanjo regime until his death.
Why did Chief Ige move from PDP to APP to AD?
I don’t believe that it is speculation any more that he was seeking a party in which his nomination as its presidential candidate was a “sure banker.” Consequently, each time he felt that that eventuality was threatened, as the defacto political leader of Afenifere, he moved Afenifere (PCF), sometimes without due consultation and to the chagrin of some of his colleagues. He thought he finally arrived at a safe party in AD, only to be bitterly disappointed at D’Rovans.
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- MY THIRD (AND LAST PHYSICAL) ENCOUNTER WITH IGE - WASHINGTON DC SEPTEMBER 2001
The occasion was in the Washington, DC official residence of Ambassador Jubril Aminu of Nigeria to the US, where three of us - Chief Ige, Prof. Sola Adeyeye and myself - were treated to a sumptious dinner by a very gracious host. Yes, Jubril Aminu, a full-blooded, confident and proud Fulani, a member of an ethnic group that Ige has endlessly been accused of describing as being the “Tutsis of Nigeria”.
I do not believe that Prof. Jubril Aminu believes that Chief Ige considers him a Tutsi, and I wish that he (Aminu) stated so publicly.
Anyway, because the Ambassador was running late, so while waiting, the first hour in his living room saw Sola and myself engage Chief Ige in a lively debate. No - it was not a debate on the establishment of a new country of Oduduwaland, or on the convening of a Sovereign National Conference. No, those were to wait until Ambassador Aminu arrived - but the debate was on something that was making Chief Ige and the Federal Government of Nigeria very furious.
It had to do with the port situation in Lagos, and the FGN’s annoyance at neighbouring countries like Benin and Ivory Coast and Ghana. It appeared that due to low tariff regimes, importers were INCREASINGLY using those foreign ports rather than Lagos ports, and yet those goods were ending up in Nigeria because of Nigeria’s large market and (relatively) rich clientele. Justice Minister Ige, taking a very strong nationalistic (and hardline) position, wondered why, with all Nigeria was doing for these neighboring countries, why they would be undercutting Nigeria. The Federal Government was looking to somehow punish those countries with some legal measures, and Justice Minister Ige was obviously involved.
Sola and myself, as if on cue, took him on, very surprised and quite frankly bemused at his reaction and that of our government. “What do you think they should do, Uncle Bola? Economics dictates that importers go to the port where they will get good service for less fees!! If you want more people to come to Lagos ports, improve your services and reduce your import tariffs!”
“No way!”, said he. Chief Ige defended the good services of the ports, but said that the ports would lose if they operated for less. After some heated arguments which were getting nowhere, Sola and I suddenly turned mathematical and said: “Ok, Uncle Bola, the goods finally come to Nigeria, right?” “Right!”, he said. “And they come through land via Idi-Iroko and Seme Borders, right?”, “Right!”, he said. “Then why don’t you just impose new land port fees at Idi-Iroko and Seme Borders on goods imported through those offending countries, so that the cost of Benin (or Ghana or Ivory Coast) Sea Port fees plus Idi-Iroko (or Seme) land port fees will even be higher than if they had come only through Lagos Sea Port? That way, economics will dictate that they re-consider, and they will start coming through Lagos ports!”
After a few moments, he paused and said, “Ah, a o ro be yen!” Translation? “We did not think of it that way!” And he said that he would see what could be done along those lines.
I give this example of our conversation so as to show that those who accuse Chief Ajibola Ige of unpatriotric ethnocentrism are vulgar. Here he was, away from earshot of anybody but two other Yoruba individuals, FIERCELY defending his country - and also yielding humbly to superior argument.
Very vulgar indeed, especially when despite his passing, you continue to read the kinds of bitter criticisms of him from quite a number of our Northern compatriots (in Nigeria and on the Internet on Gamji.com), which criticisms show a lack of human sensitivity and compassion to the dead.
Vulgar, for you wonder how we can be a nation with such polarizedly different humanities, a nation without shared values.
Moving on….
The Ambassador arrived, and the next one hour or so were spent at his dinner table. Nigeria was part of the menu. This time, Chief Ige was much more subdued, while Sola and I pounded away at our host with our views in support of a Sovereign National Conference, State police, the pains of the South and the Yoruba in particular, the demise of our educational system, and all such nice dinner talk. Engaging as always, the charming (ultra)conservatism of the Ambassador shining through as always, he explained why some of what we said were not necessarily so, how an SNC could lead to the disintegration of the country, how the Yoruba were the glue that held the country together, why State Police would threaten minorities, including particularly his own Fulani who were minorities of minorities everywhere, how the homogenous Yoruba could indeed be a geographically-bound nation-entity, but that his Fulani people were spread all over the North did not have that advantage, etc. He jokingly referred to himself as a simple “Fulani nomad.”
At that time, I had not heard of the Malian “Tabital Fulako” club, or of the upcoming World Fulani Congress of January 4, 2002 in Bamako, otherwise I would have informed the Ambassador of the well-recognized “Greater Fulani nation.”
I had known about these Fulani fears, but coming from such an urbane, well-accomplished and well-world-travelled person like Professor Jubril Aminu, I began to see for once the monumental mountain that still needed to be moved in our country. It also showed that despite all indications to the contrary, all political considerations in Nigeria are indeed ethnic.
All through dinner, Chief Ige sat silently watching Sola and I, occasionally putting in a word or two, sometimes in Hausa, to the Ambassador. I am told that Chief Ige’s penchant for speaking Hausa to our Northern compatriots in the presence of non-Hausas-speaking AG/UPN/AD/Afenifere colleagues is reputed to have occasionally maddened some of his Yoruba colleagues. Even I sometimes wondered what he said - for you could sell me in Hausa, and I could not be the wiser!
It is therefore more ironic the accusations levelled against him about Hausa-Fulani-phobia.
Anyway, as we all made to leave the Ambassador’s residence, Sola Adeyeye and Chief Ige in one car, and I in mine, the Ambassador invited me back into his home, and we had at least thirty more minutes of discussions, enlarging on some of our earlier dinner-table talk. We did not shift much on our grounds, but we had (I hope!) a better understanding of our separate polar positions. The Ambassador and I are separated not only by age but by a philosophical and ethnic distance leading to differences in how we see our country. That is part of the vitality of our country which we must mine to its benefit. We are, after all, both Nigerians.
- MY FIRST (PHYSICAL) ENCOUNTER WITH IGE - WASHINGTON DC NOVEMBER 1998
Although Chief Ige is a 50-year-long friend of my father, Christian godfather of my brother, his wife a friend of my mother, I had never met him face-to-face until this first encounter in October or November 1999, at least not to my remembrance.
This encounter started in November 1998 or so, in a hotel room in Washington, DC - that of Chief Subomi Balogun, the stinkingly rich financial magnate of First City Merchant Bank. The arrangement was for me to pick Chief Ige up from the hotel and transport him to his son Muyiwa’s home in suburban Maryland, where I was to have a one-on-one with him on his political ambitions. After being introduced to Chief Balogun, and telling him that I had heard so much about him (and his riches) but never met him before, he (Balogun) hugged me and said that he too was a friend of my father when the three of them (Balogun, Ige and my father) were studying in London in the late fifties.
I spent thirty minutes with Chief Ige and Chief Michael Subomi Balogun, watching silently as the two of them were talking in Yoruba parables about the upcoming political fight, with Balogun talking about “Bayi la si ma se, bi owun la se ma se…etc.” - you know, strategies, etc. - while Chief Ige quietly nodded almost deferentially. It may be me, but I had a sense that Chief Ige was more interested in Chief Balogun’s potential financial contributions rather than his political strategies.
The one-hour car ride to suburban Maryland with just me as driver and Ige as passenger was just about banalities - about my family, American life, etc. He said that he had read a number of my Friday Essays, Sunday Musings and Monday Quarterbackings - he was on email in Nigeria, and someone had been forwarding them to him. He asked how I decided which essay went to which day. I told him that to a large extent, it really depended on the day that I finished the essay, at which he laughed heartily, because, logical man that he was, he was probably expecting a much more cogent rationale. On getting to Muyiwa’s home, we settled for lunch prepared by Muyiwa, and afterwards, to serious political talk after Muyiwa had departed to return to his work.
He started by wooing me, saying that Sola Adeyeye had recommended that he speak to me, that he said that I was a straight and honest talker “in whom there was no guile.” I immediately developed a mild form of encephalitis.
I told him straight that I did not believe that he should take part in this transition in any form or fashion, that he should best serve Yorubaland as an organizing political pointman, while Chief Adesanya served as a cultural one, with someone like Chief Falae sent (almost like a sacrificial lamb?) to contend with the Abuja forces. In any case, I was, like the rest of the non-political pro-democrats, skeptical of the transition programme, for I felt - and actually knew from very reliable sources - that it had been sewn up for Obasanjo, in Washington and particularly in Abuja.
He thanked me, but also surprised me by saying that he had a dream in prison of leading the Yoruba to a promised land, and that he was leaning in the direction of sitting out the transition, a reprise of his “siddon look” posture of the Babangida/Abacha transition programme. He was to disclose this dream to many people over the course of many months.
I had arranged for him to have an interview on Howard University’s TV station, so he arrived on campus the following day, and I ushered him to the studios. On hind-sight, he probably was putting together footage for an impending political campaign, but that was not on my mind: I just wanted to expose him to WHTV’s viewing audience. After emerging from his brilliant interview - which I was viewing in a side room - he cautiously asked me how he had done, and I said “Great!” For once I saw a man who must have done hundreds of interviews show a little lack of confidence - or maybe it was contrived? At least, for me, it showed his humanity.
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- THE D’ROVANS “ENCOUNTER”, THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE - JANUARY 1999
Let me confess that I was quite surprised - and bitterly disappointed - when Chief Ige got himself entangled with and at D’Rovans.
On a personal note, leading to D’Rovans, I was AT FIRST very confident that Chief Falae would be selected because I felt that he had a better chance of beating Obasanjo than Ige in a national election. Despite Ige’s beginnings in Kaduna, his well-known Hausa-speaking abilities and legal fights on behalf of the Tivs during the Tarka era, I had read some of Chief Ige’s caustic remarks about the North - forget the “Tutsi” allegation; it is pure calumny - and was aware of his turning back of the Sir Francis Akanu Ibiam’s delegation on behalf of Biafra during a 1969 World Council of Churches encounter. On that occasion, Ige had used legal arguments to get the WCC not to recognize the Ibiam delegation as representing “the independent country of Biafra.”
So I knew that he generated strong passions among significant members of Nigeria’s populace. Falae was more bland, less fractious. I was in support of Falae’s candidacy - because I felt that Ige was more useful as an organizing center for the Yoruba, and that the presidency was sewed up for Obasanjo by the Nigerian Military with the support of the Western powers anyway.
The tension leading to D’Rovans was palpable, and it was on the lips of all us Yoruba in the Diaspora, and sympathizers of Afenifere and AD. However, I can confirm ALL of the calculations as outlined by APP Chieftain Dr. Kusamotu recently [GUARDIAN Thursday, January 10, 2002., “Kusamotu: Yoruba Politics and Why Bola Ige will be missed.”]
Some people did not like that arrangement [THAT APP AND AD WOULD PRESENT A JOINT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE] and started to work against the party and those of us who initiated it. Specifically all APP presidential aspirants' did not like it. On our part, the person that readily came to mind as presidential candidate was Bola Ige because he f?? [NOTE: FOUGHT] above others in the AD and he has connection throughout the country. But the AD leaders thought otherwise. Instead of Bola Ige, they produced Falae for us it became a fait accomplice
Before Bola Ige left for London, I told him not to travel; that he should wait and make sure that the AD nomination was made before he left. He assured us that 18 people will vote and that out of that 18 he would get 13-later, a close friend of my wife told us that they have increased the number of electors from 18 to 23. My wife phoned him in London about this. He replied that he was aware. He replied that out of that 23 he would get 15 and that we should not worry. When the result came, my wife phone him to break the news that he lost. Then he recited one quotation saying, "it looked like the second fall of man." When I came back my wife said I spoke to your Uncle about his feat and he said it looked like the second fall of man. She asked me what it meant an I said, betrayal. The first fall of man was in The
Garden of Eden when Satan betrayed him.
Bola Ige didn't believe what happened to him. He couldn't imagine it Until his death, whatever we discussed he kept on talking about it. In the first place he never thought the party could allow anybody to contest against him.
When we raised this matter, they (AD leader) told us that afterall he too, contested against Pa ?? ?? [NOTE: ALAYANDE] who was senior to him in the pray and also his former teacher and school principal and indeed against the wish of Chief Awolowo.
Some people believe that it is this development that made him decide to take appointment as a minister under President Obasanjo. In my letter to him when he took the appointment which I titled as "Sop for Ceberus" I asked him whether the appointment is a Sop for Ceberus by which I mean he had decided to take a small thing to return a big thing. He said No, that since Ad as a party participated in the election, there was nothing wrong with any member of the AD contributing to the success of the Obasanjo government to move the country forward.
My initial confidence about Falae winning the Afenifere caucus selection was badly shaken and even vanished after these calculations, hich I also became aware of before D’Rovans. I resigned myself to Ige being announced as the winner despite my support for Falae.
On that fateful day, I got a frantic phone call from a dear friend (and young turk) Dr. Wale Ogunye. He had expected Ige to win and, through his own deep Nigerian contacts, had been monitoring D’Rovans from his (then) workplace in far-away Pennsylvania, USA. He had heard of the verdict within minutes. In his inimitable ebullience, Wale blurted in complaint: “Laiye! Afenifere o mu Ige! Falae ni!” I immediately called Sola Adeyeye (who had not heard, and was also quite confident up until then that it would be Ige) in Pittsburgh right away. In his typical understatement when he is BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED, Sola merely said “That is OK” . He telephoned his mentor Chief Ige right away in London.
Whether Ige had heard about his rejection before Sola’s call, I cannot tell. How Ige took it, I cannot tell.
I also called my father in Nigeria to inform him of the stunning development about his friend. He was mildly surprised at first, and then asked where “Bola” was at this time. I said, “London.” “ What (the heck) is he doing in London when an election is going on here?” My father did not use the words “the heck”, but I believe that he meant to.
A political lesson here: Ige’s absence from Ibadan on that day was, to my mind, a politically fatal mistake, a faux-pas of monstrous proportions. The over-confidence which Chief Ige showed in leaving for London while the Afenifere D’Rovan election was going on was mind-numbing. I have since philosophically assigned such a blunder to God’s doing, when he wishes to let something happen, whether we like it or not, but chooses it to happen in a particular manner that will dumbfound us.
There was trouble ahead, because I knew that Ige would not take this D’Rovans loss very lightly, and that he would regard it as deep perfidy. He did not take it lightly, and it was a bitterness that he did not live down, despite his best attempts to put up a brave face.
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- THE SECOND (PHYSICAL) ENCOUNTER - ATLANTA JUNE 1999
The occasion was the Egbe Omo Yoruba convention in Atlanta - June 11 - 13, 1999. PDP’s Obasanjo had “beaten” AD/APP Falae soundly, May 29, 1999 had come and gone just two weeks before, but since early April, there had been STRONG rumors in the air that Chief Ige, still bitter from D’Rovan, might consider a position in Obasanjo’s cabinet.
Some jewels of Yorubaland - Bola Ige, Olu Falae, Federick Faseun, Cornelius Adebayo, Alani Akinrinade, Baba Omojola, etc.- were in attendance at the convention. On the other hand, Pa Abraham Adesanya, Afenifere leader and tolerant father of all, was at the same time attending a sparsely-attended Yoruba convention of a rival group to Egbe Omo Yoruba in Florida. So some of the same divisions at home are exported, like cockroaches, across the oceans.
I attended the Atlanta convention. In a brief interregnum in the Atlanta hotel where he was lodging, Chief Ige once again asked of my views about joining Obasanjo’s cabinet. I solemnly stated that I did not believe that he belonged in Obasanjo’s cabinet, but that in any case, he should wait for one year to see its direction before he joined. He thanked me and left it at that, although on hindsight it now appears that his mind was already made up.
In fact, looking at the calendar of events that I outlined above, it appears that by June 4, 1999, a full week or so before our Atlanta conversation, and unbeknownst to me, a letter had been written to the Senate nominating him as one of 49 ministers, a list approved within 13 days after this Yoruba convention!
I must confess too that when later Ige’s cabinet offer was ACTUALLY confirmed, and it was his CHOICE what office to occupy, I was one of those who advised that he choose the more challenging Power and Steel instead of Justice or Foreign Minister.
Again, I think that he was already leaning in that direction, but I am guilty as charged.
We might now ask: why did Ige join Obasanjo’s cabinet? The easy answer is that it was to spite his Afenifere colleagues who had rejected him at D’Rovans. However, the more complex and likely reason was a pact with Obasanjo, with an assurance from Obasanjo that he had agreed to a one-term presidency, and that Ige might be able to complete the second four-year term (ostensibly allotted to the Yoruba) if he could join the PDP government and re-assure his detractors of his “good behavior.” Ironically, Ige’s so-called detractors were Obasanjo’s main sponsors. I strongly believe that the ambition to be truly Awolowo’s “Arole” propelled Ige’s participation, and that his assassination might not be unconnected with a successful effort to thwart that ambition.
We may never know why Cock Robin was killed, or who did.
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- THE LAST “ENCOUNTER” WITH IGE, THROUGH THE GRAPE-VINE: NOVEMBER 2001
My last “encounter” with Chief Ige was really not a physical encounter. I was told just about a month before his passing by very reliable sources that President Obasanjo had complained to Chief Ige that I had arranged for some demonstrators to embarrass him outside a Washington, DC hotel on his last trip to visit President Bush. There was INDEED a loud demonstration of Nigerians to protest the killings at Gbeji and Zaki-Biam on that rainy day, and I was indeed present at the hotel to present a protest letter signed by over 100 Nigerians to President Obasanjo. After refusing a PDP-USA inducement to wear a PDP badge if I wished to personally see the president, I forwarded the protest letter to him through an aide of US Ambassador Jubril Aminu, as well as directly through UN Ambassador M.T. Mbu.
However, I did not organize the demonstration, and if I did, I would have owned up to it. In any case, it was my democratic right as a citizen of Nigeria even far away from Nigeria to protest the killings of fellow Nigerians, and it should not even be a subject of discussion for opprobrium. After all, when president Obasanjo was still prisoner Obasanjo in Abacha’s gaol, there were also demonstrations against the sitting president Abacha on his behalf. That argument, I am told, paused Chief Ige, promptly aborting his attempt to send a message to me through this mutual friend to give his friend President Obasanjo a quarter.
It is MOST LIKELY that that was the last time that my name crossed Chief Ige’s lips before he passed to the greater beyond.
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- EPILOGUE
The above narration will probably show the reader that while I do not count myself one of those who knew Chief Ige INTIMATELY, nevertheless, Ige’s ability to pull people into his orbit within such a short time probably explains why he would be able to impact so many people deeply, particularly young ones. This is why the whole nation stood still at his death.
He was, as the saying now goes, a good man, never mind what some vulgar caterwaulers say.
His death is the country’s loss, and the Yoruba nation’s immediate tragedy. Like all things though, it will be worn down, but it will take a tremendous doing.
I am done with reflecting publicly on Ige, the man.
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