Once upon a coup…
By Elizabeth Ohene
Babangida was said not to be interested in politics, and evidence of this was supposed to be that the December 31 1983, coup was really his doing but he still kept to strictly military roles. Finally he has assumed the ultimate positionHaving lived through how many coups, it is not surprising that one should fall into a routine the minute there is some report about a coup d'etat.
It is a drill that has been perfected through constant usage and absence from the scene does not spell too much of a hindrance in falling into the routine.
First, the radio announcement, this time on the BBC World Service at 8am, British Summer Time, 7am GMT. Predictably the first announcement was sketchy, you knew the phones must have been cut before anybody ever made it to the radio station. All the same, some perverse urge to phone every available phone number you have in Lagos and the equally perverse British Telecom recorded message, "... two, I'm sorry all the lines to the country you have dialled are engaged, please try again..” and you try again and again and again . . . In the meantime the phone is ringing non-stop, have you heard, what do you think is happening, who is behind it, which faction? At this stage you are desperately trying to sift through every bit of conversation you have had recently to see if you missed any significant clues or nuances.
When somebody had said there will be an end to the nightmare in Nigeria sooner than we all dared hope, did he mean that he knew there was going to be a coup on Tuesday the 27th? But then this same somebody had confidently predicted the same end of the nightmare 12 months ago, 10 months ago, four months ago and 10 days previously.
The name of Brigadier Dogonyaro emerges, and you know that in the Nigerian scheme of coups, he who announces coups is usually not the person to emerge as the leader. For the next hour the speculation is intense, somehow everybody is agreed that Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon are out, the name of Babangida keeps popping up.
In the past year, the name of Babangida has emerged in every conversation about Nigeria, 'a soldier's soldier' is the phrase that you often heard, but then they said the same of Yakubu Gowon in his time. Babangida was said not to be interested in politics and evidence of this was supposed to be that the December 31 coup was really his doing but he had kept to strictly military roles.
However, for somebody not interested in politics, he had played signifi- cant roles in the last three successful coups in Nigeria. . . The argument has been forcefully made that the gentleman must be quite unhappy about the way his coup has turned out. Those who know him have said consistently that the continued detention of the politicians and other people without trial must be particularly galling to him and ditto the Buhari stance towards the press. This was a man who liked people around him, who liked an argument or two in the mess and who liked to be challenged intellectually and who liked to work hard and play hard.
But then all talk about rifts within the Buhari SMC were adamantly denied. The acting Nigerian High Commissioner in London literally almost chopped out necks off a few weeks ago for suggesting that the 'real' soldiers were unhappy about the Buhari/Idiagbon rule. Sinister speculation, His Excellency assured us, all was well within the SMC, the Armed Forces and the country as a whole.
Now, of course, we all know who was right. His Excellency was either practising an extremely tongue-in-cheek or he had not the foggiest idea of what was happening in his own country.
Just about when the BBC newsreaders had about managed to get their tongues around 'Dogon Yaro', it could emerge that indeed Major-General Ibrahim Babangida was the man and you could almost see the pain on the faces of the British television newscasters as they tried to articulate that one. Reminded you of the story recounted by the famous ITN newscaster Andrew Garner about how had spent six whole years learning how to pronounce Alhaji Sir Abubar Tafawa Balewa (the first Prime Minister of Federal Nigeria), and the minute he perfected it, he was assassinated and he had to start learning another unpronounceable name all over again...
And so Babangida it was. Within hours, people in London here who had been unflinching in their support of Buhari were putting as much distance as possible between themselves and his very name.
But then that is all part of the African coup syndrome - those who were loudest in praising a regime are the first and loudest in condemning it when it falls.
Thus, suddenly, strange headlines appeared in publications that until that fateful Tuesday were sure that the Buhari' administration was doing a magnificent job. Now it had been the most authoritative regime Nigeria ha ever had to endure, the end of tyranny, Suddenly all the instances of blatant human rights that Talking Drums ha been shouting itself hoarse about became fashionable talking points and writers and commentators falling over each other to explain to the started British and BBC World Service audience just how loathsome the Buhari regime had been. One wondered when all these 'experts' recognised the position and why it had taken Gen. Babangida to make them say what they surely must have known all along. But then they are the vultures who appear only when something has collapsed and died!
Even though it must be said that they were blind and deaf to the terrible things that had been going on in Nigeria in the past 20 months.
The British Daily Star editorialised on the coup: "...in a country where corruption was a way of life, the Buhari regime had perfected it into a fine art..."
Well, well, I could have sworn that I had read that one somewhere before and it sounded suspiciously like the same editorial that was dusted up on December 31, 1981, and on December 31, 1983, except that those two earlier occasions, it was the 'Limann regime' and the 'Shagari regime', and I am willing to bet my last cedi on it that to the editorial writers in the Daily Star, it all means the same thing.
Predictably, the Financial Times saw in the coup an economic angle: it had happened, said the eminent FT, because of the inability of Buhari to come to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund! Now try telling that to Brig. Dogonyaro or to the Nigerian people whose pulse Babangida and his colleagues had unmistakably taken.
Then you waited and hoped that you would hear something positive and this time, Gen. Babangida did not disappoint. Decree 4 goes. I don't care if the man is a soldier's soldier, he sure has a lot of that rare commodity: COMMON SENSE, and then he goes and releases almost 100 detainees and by this master stroke, succeeds in winning more supporters than anything else.
Gen. Buhari and Gen. Idiagbon had at every opportunity asserted that they were in power by their own strength and owed nothing to anybody. They therefore felt that they were under no obligation to listen to anybody. While it lasted, it was quite fascinating to watch this strange 'death wish' dance they were engaged in, oblivious to the fact that they need the acquiescence of the people to rule.
His Excellency was either practising an extreme case of tongue-in-cheek or he had not the foggiest idea what was happening in his own country.
It will be in his own interest for Gen. Babangida never to forget that he will be watched with even more suspicion by his countrymen than former leaders. The question of the jailed released politicians in particular is likely to prove the most thorny issue to face the new regime.
For, after one has congratulated Gen. Babangida on the release of the detainees, a number of pertinent questions need to be asked. When the started, there was no indication that the cases were being held in any particular order. They did not start with the biggest allegations and worked their way towards the smallest or most frivolous.
The way the 'trials' were held, it was obvious that it was all a case of a lucky draw whichever name came out of the hat first, went before the tribunal. The fact that somebody has not yet appeared before the Tribunal, cannot be taken to mean that he/she has no case to answer according to the Buhari/Idiagbon theory.
It can be argued, of course, that having spent 20 months in jail without charge is enough punishment for whatever 'crimes' these people are alleged to have committed. All the same it can also be argued that simply because somebody has been lucky enough not to have been hauled before some tribunal until Gen. Babangida struck does not mean that he should be allowed to go free, if he has committed crimes.
The query can be raised, for example, about ex-Governor Lateef Jakande who Gen. Buhari insisted, ought to explain the source of the N28 million he raised for the UPN - other governors are in jail for having given to the UPN less sums of money.
Obviously, if these people had been brought before the proper courts, none of these questions would ever have arisen whether Gen. Buhari was in power or not, but that was the option that was rejected by Buhari himself.
The benefit of the doubt, if any, therefore will have to be given to the detainees and jailed people. It is too late to exercise the option of taking people before the courts and if people are to be released, the facility should be extended to all those politicians who have been jailed by the tribunals.
In the meantime, the 'federal character' of the Babangida admini- stration is bound to come under the greatest scrutiny, for the old 'South' had about decided that they had been effectively excluded from the govern- ment of the country. These are matters that cannot be legislated upon but which can provide a lot of ammunition for mischief. The foreign press in particular are at a loss when they can- not explain Nigerian events in terms of tribal conflict. Gen. Babangida can only buy some time for himself and the only way to announce a programme for a return to constitutional rule. The current betting is that such an announcement and other far reaching statements will be made on October 1, 1985, on the 25th anniversary of Nigeria's independence.
At the moment, one is watching with 'trials' before the military tribunals interest.
