Not long after Sadiq Abacha attacked Soyinka over his comment on giving Late Sanni Abacha a centenary award, Mr Sogunro has replied him.
Dear Sadiq Abacha,
I do not know you personally, but I admire your filial bravery—however misguided— in defending your father, the late General Sani Abacha. This in itself is not a problem; it is an obligation—in this cultural construct of ours—for children to rise to the defence of their parents, no matter what infamy or perfidy the said parent might have dabbled in.
The problem I have with your letter, however, arises from two issues: (i) your disparaging of Wole Soyinka, who—despite your referral to an anecdotal opinion that calls him as “a common writer”—is a great father figure, and a source of inspiration, to a fair number of us young Nigerians; and (ii) your attempt to revise Nigerian history and substitute our national experience with your personal opinions.
Therefore, it is necessary that we who are either Wole Soyinka’s “socio-political” children, or who are ordinary Nigerians who experienced life under your father’s reign speak out urgently against your amnesiac article, lest some future historian stumble across the misguided missive, and confuse the self-aggrandized opinions of your family for the perceptions of Nigerians in general.
Your letter started with logical
principles, which is a splendid common ground for us. So let us go with
the facts: General Sani Abacha was a dictator. He came into power and
wielded it for 8 years in a manner hitherto unprecedented in Nigerian
history. Facts: uncomfortable for your family, but true all the same.
Now,
for my personal interpretations: between 1993 and 1998 inclusive, when
your dada was in power, I was a boy of 9 to 14 years and quite capable
of making observations about my political and cultural environment.
Those years have been the worst years of my material life as a Nigerian
citizen. Here are a few recollections: I recollect waking up several
mornings to scrape sawdust from carpentry mills, lugging the bags a long
distance home, just to fuel our “Abacha stoves” because kerosene was
not affordable—under your father. I recollect cowering under the cover
of darkness, with family and neighbours, listening to radio
stations—banned by your father. I recollect my government teacher
apologetically and fearfully explaining constitutional government to
us—because free speech was a crime under your father’s government. Most
of all, I remember how the news of your father’s death drove me—and my
colleagues at school—to a wild excitement, and we burst into the street
in delirious celebration. Nobody prompted us, but even as 13 and 14 year
olds, we understood the link between the death of Abacha and the hope
of freedom for the ordinary man.
These are all
sorry tales, of course. Such interpretations would not have occured to
the wealthy and the privileged under your father’s government, but they
were a part of the everyday life of a common teenager under that
government. The economics were bad, but the politics were worse. And I
am not referring to Alfred Rewane, Kudirat Abiola and the scores killed
by the order of your father. Political killings are almost a part of
every political system, and most of those were just newspaper stories to
us. In fact, I didn’t get to read most of the atrocities until long
after your father died. So, these stories did not inform the dread I
personally felt under your father’s regime. And this was true for my
entire family and our neighbours.
Instead, the worry over our
own existence was a more pressing issue. Your father, Sani Abacha was
in Aso Rock, but his brutality was felt right in our sitting room. We
were not into politics and we didn’t vocally oppose Abacha, yet we just
knew we were not safe from him. You see, unlike any dictatorship before
or after it—your father’s government personally and directly threatened
the life and freedoms of the average Nigerian. Your father threatened
me. And if your father had not died, I am confident that I would not be
alive or free today.
Think of that for a while.
Now,
let’s come to Wole Soyinka. First: you can never eradicate the infamy
of your father’s legacy by trying to point out the failings of another
Nigerian. Remember what you said: A is A. Abacha is Abacha. And no
length of finger pointing will wash away the odious feeling the name of
Abacha strikes up in the mind of the average Nigerian. Second: Don’t—as
they musician said—get it twisted: Wole Soyinka did not antagonize your
father just because he was a military man—Wole Soyinka was against your
father’s inhumanity. Your father was intolerant of criticism beyond
belief. Your father made military men look bad. Your father’s behaviour
was so bad it went back in time and soiled the reputation of every
military man before him. Your father, finally, made Nigerians swear
never—ever—to tolerate the military again. Soyinka may have worked with
the military before—but your father ensured that he will never work with
the military again. Do you see? Three: Evil comes in many forms: there
is no qualification by degree. There is no “good” evil thing. Sani
Abacha, Boko Haram, Hitler, slavery—they all fit into the same category
of misfortunes. Soyinka is right: Abacha was just as bad as Boko Haram
is—deal with it. Four: Soyinka has been kind enough to limit his
criticism to the unenviable awards this inept government has given your
father. But, you see, in a saner political system, we wouldn’t just
ignore your father, we would have gone one step further and expunged the
Abacha name from all public records. Wiped without a trace. Abacha
would forever be a cautionary tale against the excesses of political
power. In a saner political system.
Abacha
was brutal—and Soyinka was one of those individuals who gave us
inspiration in those dark days. He was part of the team that founded the
underground radio station to counter your father’s activities. Let me
rephrase in pop culture language: Wole Soyinka was the James Bond to
your father’s KGB. Most of the influential people either kept quiet or
sang the praises of your father to stave his wrath. But a few like
Soyinka spoke, wrote and even went militant against Abacha. But at the
end, even Soyinka who never ran from a fight had to run from your
father. That was how terrible things were. And now you want Soyinka to
join the praise singers of your father? I’m not certain Soyinka has
grown old enough to forget how he escaped your father,slipping across
the border in disguise. You will have to wait awhile to get that praise
from him.
Now, back to you. You have a
deluded sense of your father’s role in the progress of Nigeria’s
history. Nigeria has managed to be where it is today, not because of
leaders like your father—but in spite of leaders like your father. This
is a testament to the Nigerian spirit of resilience, and our unwavering
optimism in a better future. You owe every Nigerian an apology for
daring to attribute this to the leadership of Abacha. Those
“achievements” you believe were accomplished under your father were
simply all the things he had to do to keep milking the economy, and
thereby perpetuate himself in power—they benefited Nigeria only if, by
Nigeria, you meant your family and your cronies.
Your
tone is that of a white master who justifies his oppression because he
clothed and fed his black slaves. That is what your father did. The fact
that we choose not to regurgitate, and reflect on that socially
traumatic period doesn’t mean we accept it as your entitlement. We
have not forgotten, and we will never forget. Sani Abacha raped
Nigeria. Your father raped us. Your father raped us and then pressed
some change into our hands. And he then tried to marry us forcefully,
too. You may think all this is well and good—but then you’ve never been
raped before.
But we now live under a
democracy—the kind your father denied us—and so you are free to talk.
And so you are free to insult the people who ensured that your father
had sleepless nights. Had the revolution your father rightly deserved
happened, you—and the rest of your family—would have been lined against a
wall, before you could pen one article, and shot.
And we would probably have cheered.
But
we live under a democracy now—a system of government where even the
scions of former oppressors can talk, and write freely, about the
benefits of dictatorship. That’s a democracy. A concept your father
wouldn’t have understood.
Regards,
Ayo Sogunro
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