Whispering Drums With Maigani
by Musa Ibrahim
Maigani's reply to the Nigerian A.G. High Commissioner
His Excellency referred to the coup makers as Nigerian Armed Forces - whereas he should have said some members of the Armed Forces. There was no consensus, only a conspiracy of a few among the members. And if it was a coup by the Nigerian Armed Forces why did it become necessary to arrest some of them later, execute, retire, send out in exile as Ambassadors or dismiss them? Those who carried out the coup were a Northern Kaduna Mafia connected clique within the Armed Forces, no more, no less. Indeed, the off-shoot of those who served in the same Brigade as General Murtala Mohammed.
If Nigeria's economy was, according to H.E. Alhaji Ibrahim Karfi, mismanaged to the extent that "Nigeria almost lost its credit worthiness", today it can be rightly said that Nigeria has totally lost its credit worthiness. The only form in which anybody would do business with Nigeria is countertrade. It might have helped the readers if His Excellency had told us "those businessmen or international communities who have confidence in Nigeria". Is it the few front men or the crude oil peddlers or is it the new countertrade associates?
H.E. Alhaji Ibrahim Karfi talks of "Nigerians who are happy and who have noticed improvement in the quality of their lives". I wonder who these Nigerians could be. Could they be the unhappy and patriotic doctors who were harassed, disgraced and sacked for going on strike because of lack of drugs in the hospitals? NO!
Could they be the bulk of workers in both public and private sector who have seen hundreds of thousands of their colleagues retrenched and are living under the fear of being similarly dealt with any day? NO!
Could they be the students who during the civilian and elected government enjoyed free education, and complete freedom, but who today are threatened and their leaders locked away for merely protesting against the withdrawal of these amenities? NO!
Could they be the 10,000 students in British, Indian, Canadian and American universities who have been forced to abandon their studies because scholarships and grants have been stopped, foreign exchange clearance for the private ones among them stopped? NO!
Could they be the friends, families and dependents of the politicians (from all parties) who are today in jail, whose bank accounts have been frozen ever since so as to starve their families, whose houses have been searched and money found either officially or unofficially, stolen? NO!
Could they be the journalists who once enjoyed the greatest freedom of reporting in the whole of Africa, but who today go to jail under Decree 4 for reporting even the fact, not speculation? NO!
Could they be the good and highly experienced civil servants and men who have served as Nigeria's Ambassadors abroad but who today have been retired or dismissed on concocted charges and allegations? NO! Some of them were relieved because they were considered too experienced to toe arbitrary military instructions or orders or to flatter below school certificate standard boys in uniform.
Or could they be, I dare ask, the generality of the masses who live in fear and in desperation? NO! It cannot be the masses who are stopped on the road and asked to pay levy for this and that. It just cannot be the masses who are being burdened with taxes and who have been deprived of the means of earning a living and are told to go to the bush and farm for the military and their elite friends in Ikoyi etc, to buy!
So, anyone can, by the simplest analysis, arrive at the kind of Nigerians that H.E. Ibrahim Karfi must have meant in his rejoinder as being "happy today and whose quality of life has been improved". They can only be:
(1) Those Nigerians who are the friends and close associates of military, the members of the Milit Party of Nigeria - MPN.
(2) Those Nigerians who are incapable of getting the support of the masses and who dread elective government. They are only capable of conniving under cover of darkness, conspiracies and clinging to the Military in order to loot.
(3) Those Nigerians who are fronts for the Khaki dictators and carry out businesses on their joint behalf of the new contractors! They are the ones with passports to travel all over the world.
(4) Those Nigerians who are prominent or confirmed in their jobs at the expense of their better colleagues who have been removed, retired dismissed because they do not have right connection, an SMC Godfather or an NSO kinsman..
(5) Those Nigerians who hail from right geographical areas, or who have the appropriate school connection who have good representation in SMC and NSO.
Such Nigerians who fall into any of these five categories are those that Excellency must be referring to, in the present situation of Nigeria, as meaning Nigerians". Of course doing well is meaning well - who says. The rest are grouped as subversive, unpatriotic and corrupt!
They are the Nigerians who Maigani is accused by His Excellency as fronting for. Maigani is delighted and takes this as a back-handed compliment because he is fronting the vast majority of Nigerians who have no guns, no votes and are opposed and condemned. Fear may prevent a man from voicing out his thoughts but it can never prevent him from thinking.
Those who are enjoying everything today pray that the military may stay in power in Nigeria forever! They civilians are corrupt and their new song is that democracy would not work. You can sing and sing loud for now. You are protected by Decree 4, Khaki friends and NSO relations.
Together with them they continue to persecute, incriminate and prosecute the people using Military Tribunals in secret. But one should never assume that the rest, 99.999% of the Niger population, cannot forever fail to react or call for justice. More importantly, one should never forget that no condition is permanent.
You may refer to these people as criminals, corrupt, or mismanagers of the economy etc, etc. Call them a name you like, gag the Nigerian Pre by Decree 4, and so prevent them from exposing present day corruption and officially certified looting, do as you wish. You will not escape accountability for your doings to the masses.
Remember that Nigeria's independence and freedom, now being destroyed, had been fought for and won by those that you today condemn and jail as corrupt politicians. There was no help from the military in building Nigeria. They only led us to a Civil War!
Mr Acting High Commissioner, your assertion that the recording of a balance of payment surplus by what you call "good and honest leadership" as being worthy of praise is neither here nor there. This is no achievement! Why? Because this is simply the result of:
(a) Mass dismissal of Nigerians from work and consequent saving from their salaries, the human misery and suffering not a matter of concern. WAI in action.
(b) Stopping all development projects in the country.
(c) Refusing to pay for work already executed by contractors.
(d) Curtailing business activities and eliminating the bulk of Nigerians from business and industrial sector participation.
(e) Cutting down on imports (food included) and restriction on the import licences issued to only a handful of friends and special companies!
(f) Taxes, Levies, Donations, Students' fees etc...
(g) Stopping the scholarships, grants, foreign exchange clearance of over 10,000 Nigerians studying overseas.
(h) Selling of crude oil below official price and through countertrade.
This is no miracle, it follows that money must accumulate since all services to the people are stopped, the country strangulated, only the chosen few can do business or work. The welfare and suffering of the people are no longer a matter for care or concern. Just show surplus by any means and anyhow.
You must at all costs justify the coup! No way! President Shagari, in his second and disrupted term, came out with economic measures which did not ignore the welfare of the masses and did not stop the structural development of the country. He did not deprive the people of all opportunity, rights or liberties. Was he given time to implement them? Only two days!
I implore His Excellency to think again, remembering that you took over from your predecessor H.E. Rid Major-General Halidu Hannaniya the 'I Am Not Aware' General whose presence in the United Kingdom was declared inappropriate following the kidnap of former Minister Umaru Dikko. I implore His Excellency to bear in mind that all those in the forefront of condemning the politicians and ousted Shagari administration were in the service then, and DID NOT PROTEST or resign because they dis- agreed with what was going on.
I appreciate that with the wave of retirements, dismissals and mass retrenchment of people by the military, those on whom the axe has not fallen or has not yet fallen must be cautious and not only pledge loyalty but must also be seen to do so unequivocally. We do recognise all this. But there are situations in which silence may be a better option. It is not necessary to put one's conscience at war with itself.
Maigani is NOT faceless. Free from Decree 4, His Excellency may wish to invite him openly, provided this will not put YOU in trouble. It is only those who are faithless that wish to be faceless. Writing under a pen-name does not render the writer faceless. It is simply a matter of choice and elegance.
Bye for now.
