The lesson from General Sani Abacha’s rule

Amongst other things, my experience of General Abacha’s regime is why I am not enamoured of China. Any person, thing, process, or event that invites my freedom to be circumscribed in pursuit of some larger goal that I am not invited to take part in dimensioning can only be dangerous to my many freedoms. That was Sani Abacha’s lesson for me.

The only reason that the conversation on Twitter last week revolved around General Sani Abacha and the meaning of his government is that the democracy we wrested at considerable cost from his vice-like grip continues to deliver suboptimal outcomes. Today, Nigerians are much poorer — runaway prices, sluggish economic growth, high unemployment rates, rural-urban migration trends gone awry, etc. — than they were in 1998. Even then, none of these removed the Soviet feel to the attempt by some commentators to rehabilitate the dictator. Where the Communist Party of the Soviet Union would have airbrushed disgraced apparatchiks from contemporaneous pictures, what transpired last week was an attempt by some to fix the general in a pollyannaish rendition of our modern political history.

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If history, however represented, teaches anything at all, it is that the ultimate character of reality is personal (not sure who the latter part of this sentence belongs to, anymore). And I experienced General Sani Abacha’s rule of Nigeria as a most malignant presence. Two years into his five-year reign, I made the transition from civil servant to media worker, as part of the migration from the boondocks to Lagos. It was not just any media. Through its portmanteau of newspapers (Tempo, through TheNews, AMNews, and PMNews), the Independent Communications Network Limited was at the heart of samizdat publications in the Abacha years. Their reportage needled the general. And the general did not like it. How Bagauda Kaltho’s body came to be mangled by a bomb in Durbar Hotel Kano sometime in January 1996 may remain a mystery, but not many of his colleagues doubted that the regime was complicit in it.

Because we were daily at the receiving end of the regime’s attention. In one colourful episode, operatives of the state security services, having invaded the Ogba-Ijaiye, Lagos, offices of the AMNews in the morning, then proceeded to herd us all into the newsroom. It was not a particularly commodious space. I cannot remember if the air conditioning was on. Even now, I am sure the beads of perspiration that adorned my brow that morning had nothing to do with either of these facts. Odia Ofeimun (he was the chairman of the newspaper’s editorial board, and I a member) did not help matters. He was incandescent with rage. And carried on a monologue with our temporary jailers. They did not seem to know whom they were looking for. So, all each person had to do was produce his or her official identity document, and after some scrutiny, could walk out of internment. Odia would have none of it. He then asked the lead operative to imagine a situation where security personnel in the US would invade the offices of the Washington Post and hold staff hostage. I guess at that point, the Bashi-bazouk had had his fill of Odia’s kvetching. He then turned to him and said, “Ọwanlẹn (an Esan address of respect) if you speak again, I will shoot you.”

A less than positive report about the prison services, and fierce-looking gun-toting men would show up at the place the next day. Lock it down. And threaten to shoot anything that moves. It was not just that uniforms became symbols of dread. As did the gun. No. It was impunity. The po-faced “I’ll shoot you dead, and nothing, nothing will come of it!” It was that simple.

We had no doubt he would have. Nor that much would have come off it. After all, it was at the same venue that the same service apprehended Kunle Ajibade (he was secretary to the AMNews editorial board then). A story by a sister title was all it needed to jail him as accessory after the fact of a failed coup. Doubt was a luxury I could not afford in those days. Angst? Yes. Just about every armed arm of government thought the Ogba-Ijaiye office fair game. A less than positive report about the prison services, and fierce-looking gun-toting men would show up at the place the next day. Lock it down. And threaten to shoot anything that moves. It was not just that uniforms became symbols of dread. As did the gun. No. It was impunity. The po-faced “I’ll shoot you dead, and nothing, nothing will come of it!” It was that simple.

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Or was it? A solidarity visit by the then Cultural Attaché of one of the big foreign embassies to the AMNews editorial board offered some perspective. Nattily dressed, one of his arguments was that Nigerians were too timid in the face of tyranny. Oh, yes, General Sani Abacha was a despot. The Cultural Attaché was certain that more muscular opposition to the general’s rule was as necessary as it was possible, if Nigeria was to make progress across several fronts. However, asked what he would do were a cretin, armed to the teeth, to force his way into that meeting room demanding that we all hugged the floor; his answer, “I would be the first to hit the deck”, underscored the dilemma of people living under tyrannical conditions.

Amongst other things, my experience of General Abacha’s regime is why I am not enamoured of China. Any person, thing, process, or event that invites my freedom to be circumscribed in pursuit of some larger goal that I am not invited to take part in dimensioning can only be dangerous to my many freedoms. That was Sani Abacha’s lesson for me.