By Dele Momodu

Fellow Nigerians, the resistance against the oppression of mostly defenceless Nigerians by officers of the Nigeria Police special squad, known as SARS, came to a deafening crescendo this week. It was never a prophecy foretold. However, thanks to the young men and women who put up amazingly coordinated protests in a few major cities, the #EndSarsProtests hashtag trended and resonated in far-flung places. The movement has gathered momentum and it is imperative that it is kept going. If we sustain this social galvanising of our people against police brutality and intimidation, I foresee that it will be the precursor for successful engagements with those in power on the many more battles that lie ahead, and the manner in which we can crush those who would abuse us and our sensibilities, and even threaten our lives.

It is somewhat distressing and disappointing though that some influential Nigerians, including my humble self, bore the brunt of the misplaced aggression of some social media warriors who couldn’t differentiate between their true friends and their imagined enemies. They accused us of not supporting their agitation for an end to SARS viciousness and cruelty to all Nigerians, a campaign I joined since last week, after Mr Omoyele Sowore and I spoke. Anyway, my simple, polite advice to my young friends is that they should learn some patience, in order not to make the mistakes we made in the past by alienating many people from the struggle through pre-judging and mis-judging them.

I see the same pattern unfolding at an alarming rate. Many of our young ones tend to see successful Nigerians as their enemies who they must drag into the protests by force. I remember Fela Anikulapo-Kuti dragging and dissing Chief MKO Abiola, going to the extent of singing a song, “International Tief Tief” in which he lampooned and lambasted a much maligned and misunderstood man. The same Abiola became a beloved public icon, our martyr for Democracy whose sad demise heralded this present democratic dispensation that has endured for longer than any political dispensation or military that the country has ever had. Abiola suffered many years in prison, more than many of the less successful citizens who were incarcerated around the same time could have done. Unlike them all, he paid the supreme sacrifice for the emancipation of Nigerians and Nigeria by having his life snuffed out at the peak of his life. He blatantly refused to give up his mandate and he paid the ultimate price. What a great shame. The easiest way to lose and waste a struggle is by fighting the wrong people and targets. The rich also cry, but many of them cannot do so publicly, not because they are supermen or because they are scared, but because to do so might weaken the resolve of those who may look up to them for inspiration and encouragement. Some are known to have funded many struggles incognito. A struggle is always bigger than street protests. Indeed, there are several people in the armed forces and our law enforcement agencies who are much more frustrated than you and I about the nefarious activities of SARS and others who give the military and police the bad name.

Back then to SARS. The issues are much bigger than many can imagine. As I tweeted last week, the Nigeria Police has become a menace, and indeed pestilence to our country. Every department needs to be overhauled while some should be collapsed and merged with others. The name of SARS can be changed pronto, but can the reckless characters be removed and replaced soon or immediately! I doubt it because there are senior police personnel in collusion with politicians using the notorious police department to cover up their different disreputable and despicable activities.

Our Police need urgent retraining and reorientation. They require serious education. Moreover, they also deserve our love and support. They are too poor and sometimes have to purchase items with which to do their duties including, uniforms and shoes. I practically weep when I see policemen in rubber slippers carrying out their official duties. Where has the pride in the impeccably and fastidiously turned out policeman gone? They live with their families in squalid conditions not even fit for those who have offended against the laws of the country that they have sworn to protect. It is little wonder that they lack self-respect and self-esteem. They have turned into bullies as a way of making up for those deficiencies.

We need to be systematic in dealing with our intractable problems. Anger alone cannot solve the problems. I read somewhere that “anger often beclouds reasoning”. We should not, and cannot, just chase the Police off the streets. We must replace them with worthy alternatives. Otherwise hardened criminals will capitalise on the obvious lacuna and wreak unprecedented havoc on our society at large. In a mob action, no one knows who is real or not. We may also not even share the same motives and motivation. The organisers of the anti-SARS campaign should therefore beware and be cautious. What will stand them and us in good stead is for them to design a powerful template moving forward.

Beyond SARS, there are still many bridges to cross. Nigeria has witnessed man’s inhumanity to man ceaselessly because we’ve failed to tackle the root causes of the problems that bedevil us. A lot of us have become second-class and third-class citizens in our own country. Many of us are not bothered if the bridges collapse once we have crossed to the other side. Indeed, some are only too willing to pull the ladder up after themselves, so others cannot cross or reach their level. That is the extent of one Nigerian’s wickedness to the other. We worry more about primordial sentiments like ethnicity and religion while we neglect the issues of fairness, justice and the rule of law. We are selective in what concerns us and fail to unite against the repression and subjugation of our fellow citizens.

I pray that this latest protest would metamorphose into a bigger struggle for an equitable society. I pray it would galvanise our people into electing the best of Nigerians and not the dregs of our people. Lack of merit on all fronts is a major cause for concern and the bane of our society. Each of us know the problems and even know the solutions, but we are not ready to make the necessary sacrifice. Successive governments have improved in their expertise in blackmailing and silencing those who may want to criticise their failure and incompetence. I hope the youths will spread their wings across the whole country and unite us in moving progressively towards redemption for our nation. The standard refrain on the part of government is to describe the protests as the handiwork of disgruntled elements or Southern irredentists who wish to break up the country. Nothing can surprise me again if this government could send its goons to go after a revered man of God like Pastor E. A Adeboye for saying what should be obvious, that Nigeria is likely to implode and disintegrate if the country is not urgently restructured.

We need to revamp our infrastructure and try to convince President Muhammadu Buhari to concentrate on Nigeria before wasting our scarce resources on Niger Republic and other African countries of that ilk. Our institutions of learning are in tatters. Our public hospitals are disgraceful. Our utilities lie in ruins, yet we are being asked to pay even more and more for them. Our security network has tragically become the butt of morbid jokes, just as Nigerians lose their lies wantonly and shamefully. Our social, economic and political infrastructure are in an abject state. In short, we presently lack nearly all the indices of human development. This has been long in the making and is not the fault of this present administration alone. Although the truth is that this Administration was swept into power based on its avowed declarations and proclamations that it would work miracles and change our lives for the better. It has failed spectacularly to do this. But for our ambitious, but still deprived, private sector, I wonder where our country would be today.

We should not move on after this relatively successful protest without planning for a better future. We should grab this opportunity that has presented itself on a plater of gold with both hands. We should use it judiciously and let it be a springboard for launching a new and better Nigeria. God help us.

FROM THE ARCHIVES…

I stumbled on a 1965 Time Magazine article on emerging Nigerian millionaires and it made me sad that our country was truly on the path to greatness until some unproductive elements reversed the epic journey. This story should inspire a new generation of serious-minded Nigerians…

“Africa: The Nigerian Millionaires

Along with pride in status and problems of self-government, independence for the 31 nations of black Africa means the emergence of black businessmen. A few flourish on cottage industries, that are the early stage of every economy; some are the opportunistic agents of the colonial companies that formerly ruled them. Now, however, more of Africa’s new businessmen are not only university-trained and experienced but surprisingly sophisticated in trade and finance. In Equatorial Africa, it is no longer unusual to see a $200,000 letter of credit emerging from the folds of a native robe. Nowhere is the new African businessman doing better than in Nigeria, black Africa’s most populous and most prosperous nation. With a population of 55 million and an economy that grows 4% each year, the number of Nigerian millionaires is growing almost as fast as the country itself.

Peanuts & Petroleum. Even before Britain withdrew five years ago, Nigeria had a flourishing trade, exporting peanuts, cotton, palm kernels and cocoa and importing in exchange manufactured goods, foods and tobacco The first native millionaires made their money by competing with the white man for his trade. Among Nigeria’s richest businessmen is Alhaji Sanusi Dantata, 46, who buys and ships much of the rich Kano region’s peanut crop. Dantata’s agents last year bought 84,000 tons from small farmers, paid with traditional handfuls of coin counted out in dusty village squares. Sir Odumegwu Ojukwu 66, knighted shortly before independence, started off by importing dried fish for resale to the non-fishing Nigerians then decided to ship the fish inland himself instead of leaving the job to others. He also amassed the country’s largest fleet of “mammy wagons,” the trucks that carry Nigerians (including market women, which gives the trucks their name) from place to place.

In today’s new Nigeria, businessmen are more likely to succeed by producing new goods or services. Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony, 59, known as “The Black Englishman” for his impeccable manners and imperturbable air, began by importing cuckoo clocks and marble statues. He now controls or owns part of ten companies, including a tanker fleet and a charter airline. Emmanuel Akwiwu, 43, earned law degrees at Cambridge; returning home just as Nigeria’s oil boom began he organized a company that now has 70 vehicles, hauls oil rigs and supplies for British Petroleum Ltd. Chief Shafi Lawal Edu, 54, who is president of Lagos’ chamber of commerce, has built a fleet of eight oil tankers. He owns a silver-blue Rolls-Royce, but usually drives around in a Mercedes—thinks it is less ostentatious.

No Need to Clash. Many Nigerian businessmen have taken advantage of the novel opportunities that inevitably accompany broadening prosperity. Chief Timothy Adeola Odutola, 63, a onetime farmer, developed a business to produce bicycle tires for the growing army of bikes, has done so well that he is adding a $1,700,000 plant, plans eventually to harvest his own rubber from his 5,000-acre plantation. A former office worker, Ade Tuyo, 63, cast around for a business that would have ‘first priority in people’s spending” opened a bakery that today has four shops and makes 115 products. The firm’s unusual name—De Facto Works Ltd.—was shrewdly chosen by Tuyo to impress Nigerian bankers with the fact that he was seriously in business

Bayo Braithwaite, 36, one of Nigeria’s younger businessmen, left a British insurance company to found a firm that would write life insurance on Nigerians which the British underwriters avoided. So successful has Braithwaite been that his African Alliance Insurance Co Ltd occupies a six-storey Lagos home office and has 300 bush-beating agents. Braithwaite lives in an elegant house in suburban Ikoyi, where glass and concrete are deliberately intermixed with African folk art to prove that “the two need never clash.”

So, it is, too, with Nigerian business. The Nigerians feel that they and their onetime white masters need never clash. “The time is coming,” says Timothy Odutola, “when we will produce more than we can consume and we will have to look outside Nigeria for markets” Against that time, Nigeria is seeking joint ventures in Europe and the U.S., has also concluded negotiations for eventual associate membership in the European Common Market. Already it exports more to the Market than to its old master, Britain.”

These men were visionaries. Some of us were lucky and privileged not only to hear the stories of Alhaji Dantata, Sir Odumegwu Ojukwu, Sir Bank-Anthony, Chief SL Edu, Chief Timothy Odutola, and Bayo Braithwaite, we were old enough to actually know and meet some of them. Their stories remain an evergreen inspiration for Nigerians. It is a constant reminder that while we may be nearing the nadir, there is a peak that we can aspire to and attain. This summit has been reached before when times may be described as dark and dire. We should therefore be capable of doing much better when we are ostensibly richer and more prosperous.
I believe the best is yet to come for our Nation…

53 years after over a thousand Asaba people, civilians all, who were dancing to welcome the Nigerian troops into their town, were gunned in a despicable act of genocide, Nigeria does not recognise it as a national tragedy. Officially, it is like the event never happened. Thus, every 7th of October, only the people of Asaba commemorate that gruesome mass murder, which meets all definitions of GENOCIDE. The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. The term, derived from the Greek genos (“race,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and the Latin cide (“killing”), was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born jurist who served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of War during World War II. 

That such an unprovoked gruesome mass murder of hundreds of people took place at Asaba, is not in question anymore. What really happened that October 1967? As Emmanuel Andrew Chukwuedo Nwanze, BSc. MSc. Ph.D. DIS, Professor of Neurobiochemistry and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Benin said in a lecture: “Asaba people came out from their homes and places of other engagements in response to a call to come out and welcome and receive the conquering Federal troops. When the troops requested them to separate into groups of males and females, they naively complied, never having ever witnessed such an event before. The men were marched away to the more secluded axis of Ogbe Osowe- Ilo-Umuaji-Ogbe Ilo. When the guns started blazing it was too late to escape. The staccato over, only the groans of those on the throes of death could be heard with blood flowing freely: indeed ‘blood on the Niger’. The few alive or not completely dead who had been clobbered to the ground by the falling dead could be heard calling on the soldiers to come on and finish the job. Hence the weak cries of “See me, I never die o” 

Mr. Chiedu “Cassy” Juwah was about ten years old then. He recalled that “People were dancing in a welcome party at OgbeIlo field. Then soldiers stopped the music and a grim business began. That was how Asaba became a town of landladies. My cousin who had survived the pogrom at Kano, his dad and two elder brothers, were shot. I hid and returned home. The following day, 7th, we were rounded up and shepherded to Oma, opposite today’s Grand Hotel, That’s where we were separated. At Ogbe Osowe, the men were separated from the boys and the women, and I, a boy, joined the women in going to the Convent, now St. John Bosco’s Church at Nnebisi Rd, and Ogbe Osowe became a killing field. My brother, Augustine Juwah, who passed out of St. Anthony’s College in 1964, pretended to be dead and hid among dead bodies there as a machine gun belched fire and death. By 8.pm he made his way home and we started our flight; first to Achala, and from there to Ubulu-Uku. Some people returned home days later and were still killed in the house-to-house combing by the military.” 

The Federal troops thundered into Asaba on the 5th. The Biafrans had melted away as the immediate commander, the late Col. Joe Achizia (a son of Asaba), opted to retreat to Onitsha as a lorry load of cutlass was all he was given to defend Asaba with. He blew up the Niger Bridge. Then, the indiscriminate killing started. It turned horrendous on the 6th and became hellish on the 7th. 

About 1, 000 persons died in Asaba in those gruesome three days. Yet, more died later as the town’s folks fled into the bush, trying to escape to the nearby towns and villages. Many were caught outside the town while escaping and were decimated, others died from hunger and unhealed wounds inside the bush. 

In fact, the killing spilled into Ogwashi-Uku, Onicha-Ugbo, Onicha-Olona, Ebuh, Illah, and several other towns in the Anioma Delta North Senatorial District. Ubulu-Uku people still mourn the murder Paul Okocha whom the Federal troops killed at Onicha-Ugbo and seized his Peougeot car, just as they remember late Lt. Patrick Nwajei (alias Nwaelengwu), late Captain Michael Ugbechie of Isho Quarters, and other decimated ex-Nigerian officers, who had retruned home but did not join the Biafran Army. In Ishiagwu, a coastal village to which Biafrans would travel to from around Oguta to buy food stuff, having crossed the lordly River Niger by canoe, the Federal troops visited one night and simply killed 400 people who failed to escape and burnt down the village – even as a General Cyril Iweze, a son of Ishiagwu, was fighting on the Federal side. Ibusa, just a few kilometres from Asaba, suffered genocide and the entire surviving population fled into the bush. Yet, Nigeria has not officially acknowledged this malfeasance. 

As late into the war as 1969, the killings were still on. A Benin-City based medical Doctor, Patrick Anyafulu said: In 1969, a company of Federal troops was ambushed and decimated by Biafran troops on the road leading to Asaba from Oko. That incident brought the horrors of war to my sleepy, rustic village. The whole village was razed to the ground. We escaped death through Providence…a heavy rainstorm the previous night delayed their advance from Asaba, and fishermen who had gone to check their nets saw them and alerted the whole village. Shells were already landing in the village and the air was filled with the whine of bullets. We escaped into the forest and lived there until 1970!” 

So, why has the Federal Government, which has recently acknowledged the evil inherent in denying the late MKO Abiola his June 1993 electoral victory, refused to even recognise the atrocity committed against Asaba and other Anioma towns? As hard as that insult upon injury is difficult to swallow, it is pertinent to remember that for years the Asaba massacre was a totally hushed up topic. 

A London Times correspondent, Bill Norris, who passed through Asaba in mid-October 1967, sent back photos of hellish destruction there and noted that the town appeared to be largely abandoned. But he said nothing about the genocide. He explained in a 2012 interview that he did not know about the massacre. The first mention of mass killing in Asaba appeared in the London Observer, almost four months later, when Africa correspondent Colin Legum confirmed that Federal troops took part in the killing. However, his (second-hand) account claimed that a group of ‘implacably hostile’ Igbo attacked troops by surprise as they watched the welcome dance, leading to retaliation. 

Even both pro-Biafra and pro-Nigeria authors on the Civil War left the Asaba massacre well alone. The Nigerian Army made no attempt during or after the Civil War, to investigate it. Yet, The London Observer commented on it on 21 January 1968, Le Monde, the French evening newspaper, wrote about it on April 5, 1968, LOOK, the British magazine, did same and even a Canadian Member of Parliament, who served as the UN Observer, Stephen Lewis, was mentioned in the London Observer on October 11, 1968. Yet, the then Nigerian High Commissioner to Britain, Brig. B. O. Ogundipe called the reports “wild rumours”. The Times of London reported in 1968 that Biafran propaganda had instilled fear of genocide by Federal soldiers in Igbo people, but these fears were unfounded. A year later, the Times reported that an international observer team had “been unable to find one single trace of mass killings of Ibos”. 

An Asaba indigene, Sylvester Okocha, then senior civil servant in Benin, wrote to the International Committee of the Red Cross describing what had just happened. His letter was intercepted by the military, he was arrested, tortured and incarcerated in Lagos. A few months later, the Joint Consultative Assembly of Biafra sent a document to the UN Committee on Human Rights, listing multiple atrocities, starting with the 1966 pogroms and continuing through the midwest invasion. In requesting that the war be ruled genocide, it noted: ‘Asaba was one of the centers of mass killings of the natives’, and gave detailed accounts of murder and rape, with one witness estimating 2,000 killed. Essentially, the Biafrans were arguing that if federal troops would massacre so many of those who remained loyal to Nigeria, simply because of their ethnicity, they would do far worse to Igbos who had defied the government and seceded”. 

The world paid no heed! So, the Biafrans learnt a hard lesson; the people always fled before any town or village fell to Nigerian troops, this increased the suffering of the civilians and made genuine national reconciliation difficult. 

Now, the truth is out…and it is horrendous. There are only two choices left for Nigeria: to keep ignoring this sordid fact and allow the sore to fester and become handy for agents of national disunity or address it so that real healing can begin. Yet, the silence has really ended, what continues is national self-deception. An Asaba indigene, ex-Enugu Rangers footballer and journalist, Emma Okocha published the book Blood on the Niger in 1994 (his father was a victim of that massacre). It lifted the lid off that story and has remained a condemnation of the government’s official silence on the Asaba massacre – that terrible blot on Nigeria’s history. 

53 years after the massacre and 50 years after the end of the Nigerian Civil War, is the Nigerian government still afraid that acknowledging the truth of that genocide, would be feeding the Biafran propaganda? After witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust, in which every member of his family except his brother was killed, Dr Lemkin campaigned to have genocide recognised as a crime under international law. 

His efforts gave way to the adoption of the UN Convention on Genocide in December 1948, which came into effect in January 1951. 1951? Yet, in 1967, pure genocide took place in Asaba, and 53 years after, Nigeria has not yet acknowledged that fact…she has not punished those who perpetrated it, and so she has not guided against such happening again. (independent)