Whispering Drums With Maigani
by Musa Ibrahim
The fighting elephants
When two elephants fight, it is often said, only the grass suffers. This is a classic metaphorical statement that has come to signify all that is wrong with the way Africans practise their own brand of politics - be it military politics, civilian politics or whatever. For most African politicians (for the purpose of this piece, members of the armed officers that are in control of the mechanics of government qualify as politicians), political power is not a relation as it would generally be construed to be, but a property or a predicate, and as such something to be valued not only for its own sake, but because its possession is what makes everything else possible. It demonstrates an acceptance of Nkrumah's dictum to: "Seek ye first the political kingdom and everything else shall be added unto you.”Based on this premise, one finds that Africa's type of politics is that of winner-takes all, that of cut-throat, and, once this has been achieved, power ceases to be a means for the realisation of some greater good for the community, the masses. Power becomes an end-in-itself. As a result, whatever government that emerges is, in the words of Fanon, "no more than a holding company of the national bourgeoisie intent only on sharing out the national booty."
Again, in the process of sharing out the 'national cake' (as Nigerians are wont to call it), certain in-fightings or personality conflicts within the rank and file of the political elite and political decision-makers occur. These in-fightings, it must be noted, have nothing to do with trying to better the lives, or provide the basic necessities of food, cloth and shelter, to the off- scourings of humanity, the dregs of the populace. Rather, they are for personal political gains, ascendancy and supremacy. When this fight is on, the grass, a symbolic representation of "the wretched of the earth" suffer. Even then, not all those fighting can expect to win.
John Jerry Rawlings' 'revolutionary' three-year-government is the best example of the epiphenomenalistic problem of infightings within the government of the day. Since Rawlings' second coming into Ghana's political scene, most of the 'revolutionary friends' and colleagues that formed the People's National Defence Committee (PNDC) have fallen by the wayside. Some have even been vaporized by Rawlings. Today, Rawlings is the single, unchallenged "leader" of the people and the revolution, having out-couped all his lieutenants.
Taking the cue from Rawlings has been Liberia's Samuel Kanyon Doe. The lean-witted master-sergeant with his mock transfer or handing over of political power to a democratically elected government has, within the four years he has been in total control of the instruments of coercion, successfully outsmarted all the colleagues and friends that helped him come to power. Today, he is in the process of crowning himself another of Africa's Presidents for life.
In Buhari's Nigeria, tempers are now frayed at the edges as the leadership prepares for a showdown next month. In the centre of the controversy is the Director-General of the National Security Organization, Alhaji Lawal Mohammed Rafin Dadi. Rafin Dadi, it has been ascertained, was not meant for that exalted position when the coup against Shagari was being hatched. Tipped for that post was a high ranking army officer who happens to be (then, and now) the Director of Nigeria's Military Intelligence. At the time of the coup, the Director was on a military course outside Nigeria, but since he was tipped as Nigeria's NSO Boss, simple logic suggests that must have been aware of the coup. He had not finished the course when the coup took place. Rafin Dadi was then called to be a temporary Director of the NSO pending when the Military Intelligence Director finishes his course. It ends next month (November).
As the Director of Military Intelligence prepares to go back home to takeover from Rafin Dadi, serious in-fightings have erupted among the rank and file of the ruling Supreme Military Council. The Head of State and a few other members of the SMC want Rafin Dadi to continue as the NSO Boss, but a greater majority are not in support. Things have now heated up to the extent that one tiny slip on the part of those concerned could be cataclysmic. But until the military Director reaches Nigeria, Rafin Dadi is still the quiver full of arrows.
Whatever happens, one of these fine days, somebody up there will find himself all alone in that cellar of gloom and desolation. Of course, as far as Africa's brand of politics is concerned, that ain't gonna be news. It will only be in line with Africa's weird political laws. Ngugi Wa Thiongo, one of Africa's most prolific, provocative and versatile writers puts it more succinctly: "This Africa knows only one law. You eat somebody or you are eaten. You sit on somebody or somebody sits on you... For, in a world of beasts of prey and those preyed upon, you either preyed or you remained a victim..." Certainly nobody up there wants to be a victim, and so the struggle continues.
The ugly side of Decree 4
In making their case against the way stories about the Third World are written and distributed by the international news agencies based in New York, London, Paris and Moscow, proponents of the New World Information Order argue that "the Western press gives inadequate and superficial attention to the realities of developing countries, often infusing coverage with cultural bias..." To them, this type of coverage amounts to neo-colonialism and cultural domination. The polemics aside, the issue of information dissemination and the role of the mass media in both developed and developed societies are now some of the most provocative issues of our time. More so, because of the generally accepted postulate by media scholars and statesmen that: "He who controls communications, controls more transmit messages. He has in his hands, a terrible power, the power to than the means to create for his audience an image of the world, and, more important still, an image of itself..."Made up of an amalgam of diverse ethnic units within which a multiplicity of cultural identities co-exist, Nigeria has had a long time to deal with a problem of communication. But over the years, the mass media in the country have successfully carved out for themselves a significant place in the domestic policy and have, in the last decade, emerged as strong forces in the domain of the country's power politics, often playing the role of "creator" and "destroyer" of participants in the political arena. This has been mostly possible because of the unfettered freedom the mass media have enjoyed throughout its history. Then General Buhari came and Decree 4 was born.
But worse than Decree 4 is the present conscious measures by the Federal Military Government to stifle and grind to a halt independent mass media. While Federal Government controlled mass media (New Nigerian, Daily Times, NTA, FRCN) have been allocated huge sums of money for the purchase of raw materials for their publications, privately-owned newspapers are denied or given only paltry sums of money for the same venture. The danger signal is that the government deliberately wants the private press to be out of business so that it will completely control all the communications in and outside of the country, and if that happens, there can be no end to the havoc this will lead the country into.
Unless Buhari and his Brigade want to take Nigeria into the Communist enclaves. Even then, all sane persons should prevent and resist this dangerous move.
