Professor GG Darah.

In this interview, Professor G. G Darah, academic, writer and public intellectual, speaks on various problems affecting Nigeria: politics, economy, and the value system. He summarized Nigeria’s arrested development this way.  “Those who designed Nigeria are not sleeping. They are playing draught every day and targeting people who should be pushed out of the way.” Darah fielded questions from Ademola Adegbamigbe, Nehru Odeh, while Idowu Otegbola took the photos.

Recently, Nigeria marked 25 years of unbroken democracy. What is your position on this?

Yes, it is an unbroken electoral process, not democracy. Because democracy is a deeper and more sacred term.

 Kindly explain…

If it is democratic, then it will be equitable. It will not ensure corruption of high calibre. It will not discriminate deliberately as a policy. And it will endeavour to spread welfare and facilities to a large majority of the population. What you have now is a plutocratic system. Plutocrats are what you call over-rich bourgeois whose interest is to continue to get rich and ignore human beings. Human beings are cannon fodder for them. That is, they would not share any responsibility or feel that something is wrong.  In that system, it’s like you have bandits who are wearing political toga, appearing to be democrats. So, we don’t have democracy. We never had. Maybe we were trying to have it in the 60s before the coup. Even when we read stories of that time, read Awo’s book and others, there was violence and election rigging, So, having lived almost 80 years in Nigeria, I just think that the system was deliberately arranged this way not to succeed.

By the colonialists or our people?

By both colonialists and those who inherited power from them. The way we are using the term democracy, we are indirectly acknowledging the definition provided by Abraham Lincoln as the government of the people, by the people and for the people.  He was the president of America. But he gave a hypocritical definition. He knew he was lying. First, he owned 2,000 slaves that day when he was defining this thing, which were not human beings as far as he was concerned.  People like Federick Douglas, a black revolutionary, battled him. He was not the most learned president. He was a farmer. Douglas told him, “You have a chance to redeem the American image after the Civil War.” The Civil War was fought between 1860 and 1865.  Douglas told him that the emancipation of the black slaves should take place.  He said, “Lincoln, if you can achieve it or if you promise it, I would recruit black soldiers to join in the war. Lincoln promised it and the emancipation took place in 1865, just after the war. But Lincoln never went to a library and searched for the meaning of democracy. He went to a funeral and journalists were just asking him. So, he made that statement, out of the blues. That’s what all of us are quoting as if the man was an intellectual genius. But he was hypocritical. Because he could have emancipated the black slaves. He didn’t.  So why are our intellectuals after seeing the hollowness of that definition still quoting him as if it is biblical? Can we say that Nigeria is a government of the people now?  Can you say that? I don’t know which state you came from, Demola.

 Ekiti.

Those are people who are mostly honest farmers. But when Awo brought free education, they were not rich. They embraced it like a religion.  And the fruits are there to see now.  In the six Yoruba states, they have the highest number of professors. So, they have benefitted a lot. And they helped Awo. Their voting was almost 90 per cent all the time.  NCNC was controlling Ibadan, Ijesha area, Oshogbo area and Lagos because of Herbert Macaulay. But If Awo entered Ekiti, he would get massive votes there. And when the cocoa boom came,  they had land and were already used to farming, which they benefited from. If you go to Ado-Ekiti or Ijero or any of those places,  you will see the cocoa evidence – one-storey building everywhere. And they are solid but old.  Government Reserved Areas, GRA, came during the military era when the richer people went and cleared a bush and built houses there. If we want to be honest with ourselves,  Ekiti is one of the states that is economically backward in the Southwest.

So, if democracy had worked,  they wouldn’t be having that. We can’t go to that now. We can have a new interview on Lagos, which has absorbed these economic refugees of Yorubaland. Lagos is lucky. It has what is called providential wealth.  It is not the industry. The Awo industries at Ikeja, Ilupeju,  and Apapa have closed down. It is as a result of the oil money after the war – when the federal government was still here – that diverted the funds here.  And the banks increased in numbers. Then came the expressway, the flyovers, the Third Mainland Bridge, the Second Mainland Bridge, Victoria Island etc. The only house on Victoria Island in 1960 was the Federal Palace Hotel. They sandfilled the place to build that hotel to receive the Queen’s representative who was coming to conduct Nigeria’s independence ceremony. Up till 1955, 59, it was a mangrove swamp, with water six feet deep. It was Awokowo who took the steps that favoured the area when the post-war reconstruction came and Awo was the Federal Commissioner for Finance.

We can’t go into that now. Democracy is the issue here. What Nigeria is operating cannot be described scientifically as a democracy. It is an electoral system. Even slaves run elections among themselves. Bandits, armed robbers etc run elections to elect leaders. The reason we cannot ascribe democratic value to what we are running is that there is no honest person who wins the election. If you have one, tell me. If Tai Solarin were alive and should run for Governor of Ogun State, he would lose. If Gani Fawehinmi had run, he would have lost. He ran many times to be president. Sometimes his paper would just be lost. He couldn’t find it. If Wole Soyinka, one of the deities of Yoruba land, wanted to run for president of Nigeria, even state governor of Ogun State, he would still lose. So there must be something wrong structurally. A system that cannot accommodate honesty and integrity is not democratic.

Professor GG Darah

 Are you saying there is nothing to celebrate about June 12? 

The election happened in 1993. I was doing a biography on Frank Ovie Kokori at the time. So, every day we had to see. It was an accidental development. Because the Orkar coup had taken place. That Orkar coup was a turning point for Nigeria.  Because for the first time, you had a coup that comprised minorities in Nigeria. There was no Fulani man there.  I don’t think there was even a Hausa man.  But 90 per cent of the people who did the coup were from the oil-rich Niger Delta.  I think they needed a national image of it that was why Orkar, from Tiv, in Benue who had been fighting the Hausa/Fulani for the past 120 years was brought in. So it was a very respectable group. It was not just a group of people who had been collecting money, who had oil wells and so on trying to displace each other. And that coup I think affected General Babaginda. Because his project was to change from military to civilian president. According to the stories, he had sent young, bright, graduate soldiers to Egypt to understudy the Egyptian system, and how they had been able to stay for 10, to 20 years. And among the coup plotters were the people who went to Egypt. From there they knew that this man had a plan of not going out.  That’s why they were brutal.

So,  Babaginda now, fearing that his project was going to be in disarray,  made concessions. I was the  Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Daily Times at the time. The news just kept flowing. There was no phone, but nothing could be hidden. Inside the newsroom, you educated one another other. Somebody would bring a fraction of the news, and then another person would add to it. So we were among the most knowledgeable Nigerians in the country.  That’s why he floated the idea of parties. In 1992, he said he didn’t want the old politicians again. And he made a law, sacked all of them, no matter your size. Jakande, Falae and Bola Ige became jobless. If you become jobless politically, you will not sleep. So he put them in disarray.

Then the voting system, only two parties.  Don’t waste votes. And then the most important structural element: stand behind the photograph of your candidate. For Nigeria, I think it was revolutionary because it reduced rigging to the barest minimum and the results were authentic.  And I think that was the first time since 1918 when the first election took place in the Lagos City Council, you saw results and you didn’t want to carry a cutlass!

They were trying to go to court and so on. He put another decree. These matters cannot be heard by any court.  That’s why Bola Ige said, ‘Well as it is now, we have to be spectators’ (Siddon look). He then took the next step. In 1989, I think, Babangida had asked a group of radicals, and scholars to go and find out which kind of ideology Nigerians wanted. Professor Cookey of Uniport was the Chairman of the Committee. He didn’t want to impose it on them because he was a Democrat.  They went round. Aluta people were very many in Nigeria at that time – student leaders who would not rest for three days if they had a cause to pursue. The verdict came. They went for socialism. It is a convenient word. It is just an equitable, caring and responsible administration, people will not be corrupt. That is the system. Edwin Madunagu and co were inside. They interpreted it. It is just two fragments. He approved it. Because he knew the Egyptian system. Anwar Sadat and others were also calling themselves socialists. Then I think he banned another set of politicians again.  At that time he was clearing the way for only him to emerge at the end.  He then brought up the idea of the method of voting.  First, only two parties based on people’s wishes. But the reason Nigerians followed was primarily because they were tired of military rule. So whichever way it was, they never minded. That was our position. Let them just go. Then the voting system, only two parties.  Don’t waste votes. And then the most important structural element: stand behind the photograph of your candidate. For Nigeria, I think it was revolutionary because it reduced rigging to the barest minimum and the results were authentic.  And I think that was the first time since 1918 when the first election took place in the Lagos City Council, you saw results and you didn’t want to carry a cutlass!

So, look at what happened. But even with their arrangement, they were still planting their watchdogs beside Abiola.  Abiola’s victory was not a fluke. He won primarily because being the African chief he was, he was generous, helpful, caring and charismatic. He had built mosques throughout the whole country, awarded scholarships, and built polytechnics, He had sent money to Yoweri Museveni in Uganda to overthrow Milton Obote. He had made himself the field marshal of reparation, which means he had a javelin in the heart of American imperialism. They should come and pay money in dollars, not infrastructure or bridges. I travelled with him to Senegal for the reparation event.  He chartered a plane to go there. And he said, ‘Professor do you know how I got the figures?’  He was travelling first class to America one day and a Jew sat near him. And he said, ‘Professor the Jew was lamenting holocaust, Hitler killed all of them, six million and so on.

So in a typical Abiolaic folklore, he asked him, ‘Have you asked of the African holocaust?’ The man shouted, ‘African what? How can you have an African holocaust? I am talking of bombs, that they bomb people, gas.’ He said before he got to New York, the man agreed to work for him. Maybe he had a good bargain of dollar payment and so on.  The Jew agreed to be the researcher on the number of Africans involved. The figure was obtained. 12.5 million black people were involved in the slave trade. And that figure was what we were using in all the conferences, rallies and so on. As you can see later,  the US cannot tolerate such an African patriot. They didn’t tolerate Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Patrice Lumumba, Modibo Keita, Is it Frantz Fanon? The ones who were still alive, Nelson Mandela was in jail, and Robert Mugabe was still fighting in the bush. And then a Nigerian with this big population? Having a man of that stature!

Shakespeare says if it is a snake, whether it is big or young, eliminate it. Because if it grows, it would be more dangerous. So I think they marked out their scheme, waiting for him. And suddenly the man won. So they had to put on another thinking cap. ‘How do we block it?’ I am sure the Americans and Europeans worked with Babangida. They must have combined forces. ‘If that man rules for four years, US imperialism is gone. Because at that time we had about 150 million people. And we were the ones paying the fees of OAU headquarters in Addis Ababa.  Nigeria was the one funding 100 per cent of the OAU Liberation Committee fighting to liberate South Africa and Namibia. Every week a plane load of dollars moved from here to Addis Ababa. I knew two ambassadors who were involved. One of them is late now, one of the EK Clark brothers. And one is still in Abuja. They were in charge. Niger Delta money was available. It had value. All the freedom that came to South Africa, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique, was our money. The Americans were aware. One country was already doing this, and it was not free yet, if it became free, there would be trouble. I think they just put their legs down, and it ended here.  I am giving the background to June 12 now.

It has remained etched in the memory of the people…

Why it has remained in the memory of people is that it was a very profound experience. It touched the soul and emotions of ordinary people, not intellectuals. Every market woman knew what it was about. The photograph of Abiola in every polling unit around the country was lying on the chair there. ‘Na this be the man? Ah, na kind man o.  If na him we go vote na. Abeg  enters the queue.’  And all voters queued, to the extent that Abiola defeated Bashir Tofa in Kano. Some people were recording this. Some people were lodged in hotels to monitor the situation. And they were sending red signals to the president. ‘This one don pass garri o.’ I think that is where the process of annulment came in. ‘If you allow him to go on, it’s worse. Just block it. How do we wage the media propaganda war?’ People must have volunteered to do that. One judge, Bassey Ikpeme – he was from Cross River, he was not Hausa/Fulani. It was midnight that he gave judgment. Senator Arthur Nzeribe of the Association for Better Nigeria, ABN, took a case there,  ABN was funded by Babangida.  So, at midnight they were still giving judgment. They said the election was illegal.

So, I would end the June 12 thing this way. It was a mighty ideological and political lesson for Nigeria.  In addition, it gave the Nigerian media the biggest challenge and the most honourable intervention in public life. That energy is still what people are living on now. Because for the first time,  media became the alternative voice, not just a political voice but of conscience, justice and equity.

This country would be very resilient if it didn’t break up at that time. The consciousness we have now if it was present then, it would have broken up. If these mobile telephones were available,  it would be a different thing. With it, you could call a thousand people this night and it would cost you less than 10 naira.  So the military had to reply. ‘It ends here, Chief.’ And Chief had been friendly to Murtala Mohammed who was the Minister for Communications. They had given him a contract for the ITT telephone system. Whether it was executed, we don’t know. Then, according to him, he was also friendly with IBB. And IBB was friendly with everybody, both friend and foe. So you can’t disbelieve him. He smiled all the time when he was President. He never got angry. And he spoke again two weeks ago. It was on one of the platforms.

When Professor Omoruyi, who was the Director-General of the Institute of Democracy, or something, was again another design to divert attention. From what he said, from some quotations in the book, Babangida said ‘They would kill me if I allow the election to hold. He mentioned the people who would kill him. First, General Abacha would not allow a Yoruba President and Commander-in-Chief.  Another new dimension was David Mark, who said the day he inaugurated him, he would shoot the president dead in his presence. So, those were the excuses Babangida gave, that instead of dying, let the man go.

Why did you say it had a profound impact? 

It is because it dramatized the structural deficiency of the Nigerian system.  If it was a free democratic system, it would flow. That deficiency is built into the Federal arrangement because it is fake.  It’s a unitary system. But it still calls itself the Federal Republic of Nigeria to deceive the world and the Nigerian citizens. So, the cabals, the oligarchs are not in the Southwest, they are not in the Southeast or Southsouth. They are probably what the Nigerian press used to call the Kaduna Mafia in those days. They are probably headed by the Fulani, who have an understanding of power and how to manipulate it. They can favour you with a ministerial appointment and be generous to you if they consider that in 10 years you are going to be dangerous.  They are the ones who give concessions to people. They are the ones who award oil blocs. If you know the amount that comes from oil blocs, you will faint. They say go and ask that one to come. And they will give it to you. After that, you begin to fly your jet. Are you going to complain? There is an Urhobo proverb that says a person who is eating can’t blow fire!

The political significance is what we are trying to explore now. The first thing I recall is that it was the biggest mobilizer of Nigerians from all strata just because that hidden and almost internalized attitude of justice is ingrained in our genes in Africa. We would never allow it, even if we are helpless. That is, the ruling class had not been able to use ideology to fool all of us. Once a country has that divided ruling class (that was not unified yet), if it is unified, it will even make for a better democracy because they will need the people to buy their goods if they are manufacturing goods. If they are like United States politicians who have war industries to manufacture bullets, guns, AK-47 plus bombs, they will always want the Israeli war to go on. The day you cease fire in that place, people would lose the election in America because that is their permanent industry. After six months, every ceasefire is broken.  People have connected pipelines of money into it.

So, the Nigerian ruling class, as revealed on June 12, is still fractured.  They are not unified by interest or by ideology. I’m using the Marxist analysis now. When they are united and they can work together, that is when we would be in danger. The reason Nigeria is surviving now is that the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the feudalists are still fractured along ethnic lines. If something happens now, we would say no no no Adebanjo is a Yoruba man. Afenifere. No matter how correct what he says, they will dismiss it. There is no trust yet among them. And since the ethnic groups are 389, languages are 516 – because some ethnic groups have more than one language – the inability of the ruling class, whether military or civilian to create a common platform of joint interest so that they can collectively oppress and exploit, because that is the function of the bourgeoisie, they have not reached that level. But June 12 exposed that weakness.  Because as soon as the thing happened, they were divided.

We mentioned Nzeribe the other time. Some people would say Nzeribe was a bourgeoisie, he had private jets, and he was opposing the election result. Even in the Southwest here, they were candidates. I don’t know what side the Chief Richard Akinjide was. So the Yoruba were also split into groups. People from Egba or Abeokuta, where the chief protagonist comes from. Obasanjo gave a press conference, saying Abiola is not the messiah we want. That sentence was not coined in Nigeria. It was like a missile given to him to split the place. Are you going to doubt a former head of state who was the first African soldier to hand over to civilians?  So he had credibility throughout the whole world. If you took the matter to the United Nations, he would fly there himself and oppose you there. And I am sure telephones were coming to him, saying ‘hold your ground o. ‘

Professor GG Darah

Did they use him as a tool?

He was and still is.  So, if the Yoruba, the most educated and the most enlightened, the most literate elite in Africa could not even unite on this challenge that touched their ancestral land and kinsman then you know, according to Nelson Mandela, there is no easy walk to freedom. So, that is one lesson we learnt, for those who survived.

Any other lesson?

The other lesson we learnt is that the military would not let us go. The juicy morsel that anybody who gets to power enjoys is so tantalising that they won’t give up on Nigeria. And I am using this phrase,  juicy morsel. It is taken from a South African Marxist journalist called Ruth First. She wrote a book, All Governments in Africa. And the title of the Nigerian chapter is The Juicy Morsel. She was assassinated by the South African Apartheid system. So the image of that juicy morsel is still trailing us. Any group or individual that wants to be truthful, that wants to advocate equity and justice, would find a way to corrupt him or her.  If they try to corrupt him or her and it doesn’t work, they eliminate it. What happened to Ken Saro Wiwa? They had to eliminate him. Because if he lived for another five years, other people would imitate him. I keep wondering. Gani was very sturdy and healthy. He had money.  Later we heard that he had cancer.  Do you know where the cancer came from?  He ate food somewhere and the thing grew. He’s gone. They can’t fill that gap. The Yoruba cannot fill that gap. Is it Beko Ransome Kuti with a cigarette in his mouth and action is going on?  Where is he now? Is it Tai Solarin? I am sure one of the most honest Nigerians that ever lived.  He wore knickers and khaki all his life.

I think I have illustrated two consequences of June 12. Of course, the third one is, now Babaginda’s stepping aside.  He is the longest-serving military ruler. Stinkingly rich. No matter how that power was, other forces insisted he steps aside, otherwise ‘we put a gun on your neck or you sleep you don’t wake up. ‘ Abacha had been understudying him for 10, 15 years and he had also planned that he would become Head of State. He too didn’t have all the factors in his favour. First, he was a Kanuri man. He was not Fulani. It was the Fulani man that lived long, that designed the entire process. People were contesting Babaginda’s ancestry from Ogbomoso.  He claimed that he was a Fulani man.  So, Abacha had that handicap. But he was born in Kano and grew up there. So his Hausa was perfect. And it was probably the Fulani hierarchy that recommended him to enter the army. And he was very diligent as a follower of his boss. He never gave him any cause to doubt him, not knowing that his goalpost was ahead. So while this argument about whether Abiola should come back or not was going on, he struck on 17 November 1993. He changed all the ministers, changed all the structure, cancelled June 12 again, abolished the parties and started establishing his parties.

Abacha was a new dynamism, a completely new system. If he was a Fulani man, they would have least trailed him. This was a strange one, coming from an ethnic group, the Kanuri people, that was the only one that defeated the Fulani during the Jihad. By the 11th century, the Kanem Bornu empire was already Islamized. And they were already writing in Arabic, 700 years before Futa Djallon Fulani came and tried to lord it over them. And of course, they stopped them. They were highly regarded as very determined, self-reliant and proud people. That was where Abacha came from. And of course, he formed his party and they would go and hold conventions. Then it was becoming clearer by 96, and 97 that all the conventions were going to nominate him as the only credible candidate.

Why I call it the consequence is that the response to his ambition was not just local, the general mobilization of June 12 trailed him. The population was thoroughly mobilized and angry. He didn’t enjoy any moment of peace and recognition. So he battled and locked himself up in his Aso Rock, not travelling anyhow and completely goggled so that you couldn’t see his eyes. But behind the goggles, the ambition was going on. This country is a vineyard, a vineyard planted or assembled by what I refer to as capitalist plutocrats and Generals of Britain, People who sent Taubman Goldie, Royal Niger Company, from there to UAC. Goldie was the one who drew the maps that he handed over to Lord Lugard. Lugard was a security officer of the Royal Niger Company.  When the Nupe and other ethnic groups in the north were fighting the Royal Niger Company, Lugard was the one that the company sent to eliminate them. So, he won his credentials through bloodshed.  That was the first Governor-General of Nigeria. When things are going wrong, which has been for long,  we don’t remember the origin of things in this country. He was transferred to Uganda because the Bugandas were rioting against British colonialism there.  He went there and massacred many.  From Uganda, he was taken to Hong Kong to quell riots of Chinese nationals there.  These three murderous missions that he accomplished earned him the office of Governor-General of Nigeria. First, he was the High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria. Then they had taken the company from Taubman Goldie and nationalized it in 1900. He was angry. He had spent money and he had built an empire that would have been so rich in resources, from Niger Delta up to Kebbi. If you read Mark Sillion, an American Sociologist,  his latest book on what the British did to Nigeria, you will see details of every intrigue, and murder that was required. It is there.

When Buhari overthrew Shagari,  Dr Alex Ekweme was the Vice President. Ekweme was put in Prison, and Shagari was put in the Government Guest House, Victoria Island, where he was smoking. They knew what they were doing. They cannot punish a Fulani man, no matter what he has done  

So, Mr  Lugard and Taubman were even struggling over a girlfriend, somebody to marry. Lugard was faster and took her from Taubman. Taubman never forgot. He died of emotional hypertension later.  It’s like he had worked so hard in his life, created this empire, and handed it over to this scoundrel. He wouldn’t have any respect for a soldier. It was not a respectable profession.  It pained him. So, when we look at the credentials now of Lugard’s career,  what kind of country do you think he would put together? Just by way of digression. One of the things I consider ironic is that the ethnic groups in the north, including Fulani and Hausa, were the ones who fought most seriously the British and resisted them from putting a colony in Nigeria. They died during the Satiru revolt of 1906 in Sokoto Province.  I think about 185, 000 people were eliminated to quell rebellion against the British. The irony is that these days now, after a hundred years, they seem to be the ones who are more compromised or happy with the country that Britain gave them. They fought more than the South in terms of group fights.  In the south, there was an Iseyin revolt in 1918.  Then in Warri Province where I come from,  there was an anti-taxation insurrection in July 1927. That one, the Urhobo, Itsekiri, Ijaw and Ukwani, went to a congress.

From left, Professor GG Darah, Ademola Adegbamigbe and Nehru Odeh.

They declared independence from Britain and signed that they had broken away. They appointed one of them as head of state and started calling him His Excellency.  Whenever they went to rally, they carried him up so his leg would not touch the ground. Then there was Ekumeku in Asaba, Agbor area. I think about  14, 15 years. Then the Arochukwu people before you have the Warri Taxation revolt. That was what influenced the Owerri Province, the Aba Women’s Riot in 1929. Warri Province was 1927. Two years later it flew across the Niger.  They were such skirmishes. There was a fight between Jaja of Opbo and the British.  Then Nana of Itsekiri and the British.  And then the one between Oba Ovoranwen Nogbaisi and the British. That was the final one.

The pitch battles that took place in northern Nigeria in the early phase of colonialism were so fierce and blood flowed. Those revolts were buried in blood. And 2000 slaves would be led out and distributed among the Generals. If there were ladies among them, they were also shared. This country was established on grave injustice and massacres of innocent people. So, how can it reproduce a democratic and sustainable system? It cannot. Because some of these things appear as spiritual matters. If you have committed so many crimes and atrocities, you still expect that you will go on ruling in confidence. No. People get revisited. Frustration and anger can go to generations before they are replied to. As Britain apologized to Nigeria? Rather they gave us an anthem and educational system. And we have been following in a very stupefied manner as if Britain is an example of democracy. It is not. How did Britain attain that status? Was it not a global empire? They had the biggest empire in the world. What were they doing there?  Were they just eating there? They were plundering resources which they used to develop their small island. And when those colonies broke away, what is the island doing now?  It is depressed. It is Indians who would become prime minister there now. That is, foreigners. Their ruling class don’t have a sense of where to go. If you don’t have an economy that is vibrant like Germany America or Japan, you have no voice. The empire crumbled. And the British have divided their country into three, which means they know the value of restructuring. If the ethnic differences are wide, you distribute power in a manner that everybody has autonomy. The United Kingdom now has Britain and Scotland. And across there is the Northern Island before another island. There are five nations there. They use this one to get World Cup slots. All of them go to the World Cup. They would give only five to Africa.

So, I would end the June 12 thing this way. It was a mighty ideological and political lesson for Nigeria.  In addition, it gave the Nigerian media the biggest challenge and the most honourable intervention in public life. That energy is still what people are living on now. Because for the first time,  media became the alternative voice, not just a political voice but of conscience, justice and equity.  Anybody that was oppressed in Nigeria became the darling of the press. The media have never died completely.  Because the most vibrant media in Africa are in Nigeria. During the military era when our heads of state went to meetings in Addis Ababa, they asked them how they survived in that country. Unlike these French countries where you cannot say anything. You go there, the front page of the magazine is attacking the president. It is a treasure we should not toy with. It is the alternative structure that I think holds Nigeria together.  And it is for good because the media is one domain where self-censorship, advocacy for truth and justice are almost ingrained in our career. We don’t go there because we want to be rich. You go there because you want to be critical, you want to be remembered for somebody who defended a value.

Both the diversity of the media plus its strength, plus its institutional facilities both its age, an image of a long history of practitioners from the past, from 1926 when Ernest Ukoli was editor of the Daily Times. That is almost a hundred years old now. He was editor at the age of 27. He was the first editor of the Daily Times from June 1 when it was started. He was a graduate (I think the first set) of Kings College, Lagos. He lived a pure elite bourgeois life with pipe and played polo with the Europeans at the Race Course. So, he argued with Lugard and others in the best English ever, drinking wines with a pipe in his mouth. He died at the age of 60. That is the heritage that is sustaining many of us who came into the media. Even when we were not trained as journalists we found a place in it because it was the battleground of ideas. We should sustain it because that is the reason why the ruling class has not buried Nigeria. Any time they plan something, fire would come the next morning. Look at that senator who said they should give cows equal rights, that they are citizens of Nigeria. By the next morning, he couldn’t sleep. Rejoinders firing back like ballistic missiles. So the press is our ally. I still remember some elements of June 12, how a polygamous man like Abiola had among his wife a revolutionary, Kudirat Abiola. She was deep, organized, brave, and indomitable. The reactionary forces knew that if ‘you allow that one for too long, she would go to the United Nations one day and they would ban Nigeria from participating in its affairs.  June 4 was the day they killed her in Ojota. That was the day of J.J. Rawlings’s revolution in Ghana. Her elimination was a blow. They drove off and came back to find out whether she was dead. Then they pumped more bullets.

At the time the Guardian had journalists who were devoted  – Olatunji.Dare Andy Akporugo, Edwin Madunagu, Femi Osofisan, Odia Ofeimun,  Stanley Macebuh, the MD. Everybody there was a revolutionary. And the paper was the most respected paper on the continent.  Anytime it came out in the morning, its views carried weight. That was why Abacha went for it in August 1984. They closed it down, while Mr Alex Ibru, the publisher, was Minister of Interior in Abacha’s government. The June 12  affair brought out certain elements who were agitators and defenders of justice and equity that we never knew about before. Alex Ibru was one of them. He was not the fire-spitting person like us who would just expose themselves with the first sentence. He was quiet, extremely rich financially,  and self-confident including the pedigree of his family. The Ibru organization with about 30 companies was the richest African organization for about 50 years on the whole continent. So, they were not looking for money from anybody. They helped Obasanjo to pay salaries when he was Head of State and loaned money to them. And one of them being head of a newspaper had assembled the best and the brightest. And he had told them ‘Write what you know, what you feel, don’t refer to me. It is very rare in journalism when a proprietor will say you are free to express yourself. That was why communists could work there, people like Madunagu,  Odia Ofeimun, Prof Omolara Ogundipe Leslie, and Biodun Jeyifo. Five other papers were closed down along with it. There were other companies in that place. And they suffered losses for one year. By the time they came back, the machines were rusted, and you had to repair them, They came back in August 1995. By the time they came back, some of them were fed up with the way that they negotiated the comeback and because of their rights and so on, some left. That was how Olatunji Dare went back to America.

This is a personal testimony now. I was the Chairman Editorial Board of The Daily Times. Ogunbiyi was the one who brought me there because we were colleagues in Ife. He was in Dramatic Arts, I was in Literature. Suddenly The Guardian Editorial Board became empty.  That was when they sent for me, that they had a problem. Will you agree to this? I said Ibru was the most important personality of Urhobo in the world at that time because the paper was read in South Africa, anywhere in the world and he had interviewed all the Heads of State that were alive. So he had elevated the paper to a continental courier.  I said I would join them. That’s how I went to The Guardian in August 1995. And there was fear among the customers, the patrons, that the way they had come back, they would not be as they used to be So, that was a major professional challenge to us.  How do we reclaim that glory?

On our first outing in October, we wrote an editorial against Abacha.  Adesuwa Oyenokwe was a broadcaster in NTA. One-on-one was the name of the programme. I taught her in Ife along with  Dapo Olorunyomi, Owei Lakemfa, and Odumakin. Femi Falana also took some courses as a law student.  Oyenokwe was the one who called that morning when the paper came out. She said,  ‘Doctor ( I was Doctor then), dem go close una down again o (laughs). But we sustained it Within three months we gained our customers back. In six months, we doubled production. And in those six months, we doubled our profit.  June 12 was part of the reason because they battled Babangida and Abacha to the last point.   In July 1998,  Abacha died. And the vibration of the OOdua Peoples Congress, OPC, on hearing that news and what Marxists would call illusion and reality, thinking that the road is now opened for MKO to be restored to his mandate.  Meanwhile, they had already decided that whatever happened, they would have a new country. You know that tendency is still in this country, people who want self-determination.  Exactly a month later, the Americans said that they were working with the new government to free the man. They would just direct you to a corner. Before you recover, they have done what they want to do. So, all of us were expectant. We were June Twelvers, both my wife, my brother, Rauf Aregbesola,  and Baba Omojola, all of us on the left. Comrade Ola Oni who was our leader, held the Ibadan front throughout. We were all saying, ‘The man is going to be freed now. At least we have some little breath of fresh air.’  That was the expectation. Because those who designed Nigeria, as I told you, are not sleeping. They are playing draught every day and targeting people who should be pushed out of the way.  Thomas Pickering was the leader of the delegation that came from the USA. He is an old ambassador. The American Ambassador Walter Carrington was a June Twelver. He openly supported the June 12 movement. I am sure his people were monitoring him from there. That means they had lost him. And to make it more pro-African, they put Susan Rice, the black woman Secretary of State. And they came, of course, with Abiola. They were all shaking hands. They said they came to finalize the papers for his release. What did we hear? That he drank tea. All of them were sitting in the same waiting room. We have not seen Pickering in Nigeria since that time. We have not seen Condoleeza Rice in Nigeria since that time. They have done their duty. The imperialists are deadly. They created Osama Bin Ladin. They were the ones who gave him money to set up a guerrilla army to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. They later arranged for him, kidnapped him, and bombed him. Then they burned his body to ashes, put them in a cup and buried it under the ocean because of that 9/11 bombing of the Twin Towers. They have never been humiliated that way by anybody. Because America grew up in peace. It goes to war outside. They don’t fight in their territory. Nobody can even dare go there. But they can go to Japan, they can go anywhere, kill and come back. So, they have never suffered casualties within. Those Arabs studied that history and tried to set fire to it; they agreed to perish in the process but to leave a trail.

Daewoo is the company that built the biggest oil well near Delta State called Bonga Oil Well inside the ocean. It produces 250, 000 barrels of oil per day. Daewoo constructed the Derrick inside the ocean in Scotland, divided it into small pieces, packaged it into a ship and came and installed it in Nigeria: that if they do it here, pirates and kidnappers would not allow them to do it in Niger Delta. It could have been done in Lagos. That money went to Scotland.

So, the celebration is not in vain.  Although I think it was motivated by hypocrisy. Why I say so is that Buhari is not committed to June 12. He was anti-June 12. He doesn’t believe in the values of democracy. He is the one who crushed democracy in December 1983, jailed all the politicians and set up a kangaroo tribunal. He jailed some governors for 150 years.  It had never happened in history, not even the Pharaohs of Egypt did that. They jailed Sam Mbakwe, former governor of Imo State, for 150 years. They said it was not enough, only 150 years.  Two lifetimes. Then they checked his wife’s file. They jailed the wife for 50 to make it 200 years for the two of them.  Our governor in the then Bendel State, Ambrose Alli, first professor governor we had. He was a professor of agronomy. They tortured him. He never lasted.  He lost his sight by the time he came back. All of them were crying as they were dying because of the lifestyle they had never lived before. If they put you in that Kirikri prison for one week, you will not be what you are now.  When Buhari overthrew Shagari,  Dr Alex Ekweme was the Vice President. Ekweme was put in Prison, and Shagari was put in the Government Guest House, Victoria Island, where he was smoking. They knew what they were doing. They cannot punish a Fulani man, no matter what he has done. They are sacred. Was it not Buhari in his first coming that abolished the metro system started by Lateef Jakande in 1982 with money borrowed from France?  It is 42 years now. We would have by now been underground. If you are going to Apapa, you pass underground, no need to pass up. By now it would have stretched to Abeokuta and Ibadan. That is how London and other cities are. You don’t pass the top. It would waste time. There are tunnels between Britain and France, about 120 kilometres, 10 lanes below. And the lights don’t blink. There are restaurants and bookshops. You don’t believe that you have left your country, under the Atlantic Ocean. At Victoria Station, you go down as if you are going to where hell is. And they put concrete to roof it so that it can never cave in. Those things are happening in the world and we are still here using candles and rechargeable lights, as if we don’t belong in the world. London had street lights in 1898, the same year Lagos had street lights. Can you step into a street in Lagos now and see the light? After a hundred years, we went back? The London Underground was started in 1863, during the time of Charles Dickens. And it’s been growing and growing. They have never closed it down one day.

So one vow we can take with June 12 remembrance is that Nigeria is well endowed with natural resources. But natural resources are dormant. They don’t lead to growth until human intelligence is applied to them. And human intelligence is political education, not just literacy. All of us are literate, from Ibadan, Lagos etc. But we don’t have the mentality and ideological orientation or liberate this country. Resources are useless unless intelligence comes to convert them. See how long we have had oil money. If that is all we needed, we won’t be lamenting now. The countries that are completely without natural resources are making more progress than we are making. Singapore has nothing. It is just an island like Lagos. Then South Korea. I have been there about four or five times. There is no single mineral in the whole land. The land is all mountain. Only one quarter is level, which is where they put all the railways, all the highways, all the cities. So agriculture has to be extensive, not intensive. That’s what they call it. You make rice to grow four or five times a year. The price does not control itself, you control it. They can plant rice on this table by packing soil of four inches on it because they know no root of the rice will grow more than four inches and in three months they are harvesting.

We went to Shangai in China. The rice was planted on top of the roof of your house. Because the space has been taken over by either industry or agriculture. They don’t build corridors where people can relax. Those are food places. They have 1.4 million people to feed. In the corridor, you plant rice on the doormat. And then you put soil on top of the roof and plant rice there. They harvest four times a year. Their scientists have worked out the rhythm. They know how long it takes rice to grow. They have not done one year about three times. No. Four times. Consistent. In South Korea, they have 2000 research institutes. And the funding is not done by the government. The funding is done by the big companies they have. They are called chaebols, what they call multinationals. Hyundai is the biggest among them. The result of their research is to make their products more competitive in the international market. Those professors never sleep because each year there is competition among companies who produce a more inventive, more innovative thing. Samsung is number two. They go into microchip research. How can we do a better phone in five, or six years? Money will be given to you. They use their computers to search the whole world. Daewoo is number three. Daewoo manufactures 3,785 products in the world market. And it’s number three. All the helicopters in the Nigerian Army and Air Force are from Daewoo. And the man who started it was a vendor. He would sell newspapers till seven in the morning and walk eight miles to primary school. A soldier overthrew their bad government. He was called Engineer Park. He swore that whenever he went to the American embassy, he would see long queues of people wanting to go to America. He swore that he would make Korea look like America and stop this japa syndrome. He did. He ruled for 19 years. It is not a matter of election, it is what are you doing with power. The Presidential Palace was painted only once in 19 years. Whenever they wanted to paint it, he would tell them, to go and paint a school or a health centre with the money. He had only two pairs of shoes and two pairs of suits. Whenever he wanted to start a project like a railway, he preferred to hold a shovel to dig. Won’t people die for him? He said since God did not give them minerals, his policy was to give every Korean an average polytechnic education. The country must be literate, if they had education, wherever the minerals are in the world, they would go and bring it. You have Hyundai in Nigeria. Samsung is in Nigeria. Daewoo is the company that built the biggest oil well near Delta State called Bonga Oil Well inside the ocean. It produces 250, 000 barrels of oil per day. Daewoo constructed the Derrick inside the ocean in Scotland, divided it into small pieces, packaged it into a ship and came and installed it in Nigeria: that if they do it here, pirates and kidnappers would not allow them to do it in Niger Delta. It could have been done in Lagos. That money went to Scotland.

But the man insists that he must make Korea look like America and stop the drainage of human capital. They sent somebody to study atomic energy at one of the universities in America. When the person was about to graduate, Americans assassinated him. The literacy rate was even higher than what Awo did. Every community or street had people like monitors. If your child missed school, musicians were hired to come and sing in your doormat, abuse you and shame you so that the next day you would chase your son to school. He also said they wanted to build multinationals like the American ones – Coca-Cola and so on but there was no money. So he made a law that whenever government workers received their salary, they would leave 25 per cent. They cannot withdraw the whole money. Within three years the bank was loaded with surplus money.

Then he said Koreans could borrow because they needed the money to establish enterprises. That was the money the owner of Daewoo borrowed. He borrowed 10,000 dollars. That is Daewoo now. His aeroplanes fly the highest in the world. He said whenever he was travelling to a place like Nigeria, he would put 10 professors inside the jet who would educate him about various areas. So that when he gets there and speaks, they would think he was born in that country. And contracts would be going to him immediately because of trust. But the first time that some people borrowed, they diverted the money to marry… So, the Minister of Finance said, ‘General, the people are wasting the money. He said to give them a second chance. That second chance is what created the company I am naming for you now. They are number nine in the world rank of economy. There is no oil. There is no coal. There is no bitumen. There is nothing under the ground. And they told me, ‘Professor we are not satisfied. We want to move to number eight. We want to beat Germany.’

So we can say June 12 is a political ritual that exposed Nigeria to the limits of our unity and centralized political system. That is the major obstacle to Nigeria’s development. It also showed us that the ruling class is ideologically backward, wicked, cruel, and corrupt. It exposed the weakness of what you can call the progressive forces in the country. It had not been covered. It has not had a consistent leadership. It does not have sufficient resources to sustain mobilization.

And it is depleting now. It is mostly in the media that many of them, what I can call the Ife-Ibadan generations. Even then now, they are fewer. It shows that it is going to take a long struggle. Restructuring is one of the options.   It is the most pacifist and peaceful available. And it is the one that is resisted so much now. The resistance tells you that the thing has value. When the ruling class or oligarchs are resisting you like that, it means that is what Nigerians want, that is the way to go. We did it in the National Conference in 2014. We got those ideas from there. Then I think President Jonathan wanted to come for a second term before implementing it. His Chief of Staff was a Fulani man. For those six years whatever he is planning, he hears. It will get to somewhere. And as a suspect, those people connected with America to stop him. Because he committed a crime against imperialism by making Nigeria prosperous. The economy was stable. Ngozi Iweala did a census. We were number one on the continent. If the Nigerian economy is growing and stable, it means wealth will accumulate, that people will not japa to America. Then Nigeria will have the confidence to say, ‘Congo, what is the problem there? Okay, we will send you 200 teachers.’ That’s what China did to Southeast Asia. A big brother country like that. No. Not to be allowed. I think the American Secretary of State came during that campaign in 2015 and invited all the governors and emirs to Sokoto to give instructions. He didn’t come here. Lagos is very enlightened. He didn’t go to Enugu. He didn’t go to Port Harcourt. It was a plan. The irony is that Obama was head of state, seemingly black, but  Obama was saying that Jonathan should adopt same-sex marriage. And he refused. And then what happened?  Attahiru Jega, the man who was going to determine the vote,  is one of them. He is a Fulani man. The person coming in is a Fulani man. And you think Jega would choose a man from the creeks? He was surrounded. And luckily he left office with his head on his neck.

Professor GG Darah

So the second part of this interview is that if you meet President Tinubu today, what would be your advice to him? 

My simple response to President Tinubu’s question is that I compare his situation to that of the pilot of a leaking boat. He is taking passengers, but the boat is leaking. And he assures the passengers that before we get to our destination, I will block the place that is leaking. But either he forgets or he doesn’t have the equipment to block the boat and the boat is still leaking. That is my metaphorical representation of Nigeria. He has aimed at that office for so long and has a heavy and well-staffed body of advisers and propagandists and has set a record in Lagos – Lagos is just 3000 sq Kilometres. Warri North Local Government, where Koko is the capital, is only 2000 sq Kilometres, almost as big as Lagos. Niger State, 76, 000 Sq Kilometres is about one and half times the whole of the Southwest region. It is like from Ekiti to Lekki. So if you want to sympathize with him, you will say he is overwhelmed, and that he underestimated the gravity of the situation. And if not for the kind of I-can-do spirit and arrogance,  they would have discovered the gravity and complexity of the situation. Unfortunately, he has not been able to rise and change his tactics or strategy. So he has earned himself the image of s failure the first year. Because the policies that he gave attention to are all pro-American and pro imperialists. You don’t even need to do political science before you know it. In other words, he is operating as a puppet. The Nigerian public is very conscious of America because we both speak English, and it is a very important aspect of international relations. We listen to their television and we also can write. So we know each other. Policies are programmed to either pacify or apologize to Bretton Woods institutions – the World Bank and the IMF. And they are boasting about it that he should remove the so-called subsidy from oil. They even called a press conference that he should also remove from electricity. They said it openly. If the imperialist agents can be caught so bold in foreign countries that they are the ones dictating what we are doing, then it is very deep.

So, I don’t know how he will rescue himself because he has a double burden. The first is that he inherited the regime of a cruel and dictatorial president who epitomised the injustice in Nigerian politics, right from the time of the first republic, when they jailed Awo. They accused him that he wanted to overthrow the government and that they found torchlight. Is torchlight the equipment for overthrowing the government? And they jailed him for 10 years.

President Mohammadu  Buhari is a prodigee of that regime of oppression and exploitation. That is what Tinubu inherited. Ordinarily, even to wipe that stain from his body, he would need a lot of political soap. Because they are in the same party he won’t even dare to criticize that man. Even when there are very obvious cases, he won’t dare. If he dares, they would call a meeting, saying ‘this boy don dey go, he don dey go mad o. That is why he is silent on the atrocities of that regime. That atrocity is not just rigging of elections, it is the invitation to foreign mercenaries to occupy our land under different guises. Some you call them kidnappers, some you call them terrorists, Boko haram, cattle rustlers. And they entered Nigeria from various frontiers, which means it was not an error. And Governor El Rufai himself admitted that they invited them for political, election purposes. And since the election did not go in their direction, they stayed back. So, those people now are masters of themselves.

They are not obeying any authority. If you are a foreign investor from Germany, Japan France Korea, or America, would you take a briefcase from California that you are going to put an industry in Nigeria? Even as capitalists they have blocked their avenues of Direct Foreign Investment. And your resource base in terms of revenue is too weak. It is only crude oil we have. We don’t have petrochemical industries that are turning crude oil into different products. When I went to Korea, I  dressed like an Oba, trying to show off. But the Managing Directors I was meeting,  one of them was publishing a newspaper with two million copies. We were drinking tea in his office. He said, ‘Prof  we are going to publish in New York now.’ He pressed a button behind him. He said, New York is printing now. Thirty minutes, they have finished printing. So I gave a lecture on Nigeria, resources, timber, oil,  gas, animals, and snails. At the end of the lecture, he said, ‘Professor, you said you are from Warri.’ I said yes. ‘We buy crude oil from Forcados (they want to corner me now) and they buy five barrels per day. And they have done it for 20 years without reducing it one day. And from each barrel of crude oil they buy, they make 101 products. If I was not an adult, I would be looking for a hole to enter at that point. The cost of a barrel of crude oil is now about 82 dollars. And then you make 101 industrial products from it. They didn’t even allow me to speculate. The rug on the floor, the ceiling, the cover of all the telephones, the cover of all the television sets, biro, plastic chairs, and nylon shirts are from crude oil. So ask me if Nigeria has had crude oil since 1956 and started the export first in 1958, 5,000 barrels per day. So it is more than 60 years. And you don’t have a functioning refinery, not even petrochemicals now. And if we say Buhari and Co were not development-oriented, that they are feudalists, what of this capitalist President Tinubu who made his political name in the richest city in the continent? What policy has he brought now that can point in the direction of self-reliance even in five years?

About six months ago, they said the Port Harcourt refinery is going to work now. They even put a light in it one day. They said smoke was coming out. Have we bought fuel from the Port Harcourt refinery? The one in Warri is both a refinery and a petrochemical plant. It is 15 minutes from my house. They said it is being repaired. No smoke has come out of it. They cannot even tell the people some truth that they will at least sympathise with you and say let’s have patience it will be the better. But what is coming from the regime of Tinubu is like he is playing a game with us. It is very unfortunate. So, I don’t think I have any advice to give to him. And I don’t think if I give my advice, he will take it. That is the long and short of it. Because advice will counter his policies. It will be too radical for him.

Let’s end it this way. If you drive from Lagos to Sokoto, the whole country is green now. If is green, it means crops can grow, even without applying fertilizers. One of the difficulties we have faced in the past year is a shortage of food. An ordinary individual doesn’t need a university degree or PhD. If Tinubu had focused on let’s go and plant yams. Even if you are a peasant, plant corn, plant this. If he devotes 90 billion naira to agriculture in this country all of us will be fed. They spent it to send pilgrims to Mecca. You are asking that I should advise that president? If you divide 90 billion by 36 states, every state will get three billion. If you put three billion in Oyo, which has the largest farm size. If you put it in Shaki and a place like Iseyin and planted food crops, and not cash crops, the inflationary trend that flowed from the removal of subsidy would not have been as grave as it is. Is it not an elementary idea? Does it require a foreign consultant?

He hasn’t funded agric. And that is why I hold him, that he is conscious of what he is doing. Because this is not an industrial society. It is an agrarian society. One of the problems that the farmers have is a lack of funds to buy fertilizer and other inputs. If it were Mao Zedong, he would face that thing with the communist discipline and in two years, they would be exporting food. Nigeria is the number one producer of yam in the world. It is also the number one producer of cassava in the world. We are also the number one producer of ogbono and potato. These are root crops. If you concentrate on them, they grow in six months. As we say in Niger Delta, there is oil below water. Water does not flow unless there is oil below it. There must be something that has held him hostage, that has made President Tinubu forget his campaign promises.

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