I remember the day the man died. My younger brother and I after a very long queue at the Bida Sawmill came home around 7:30pm with two big sacks of sawdust to be used for the popular “Abacha Stove” necessitated by acute lack of kerosene and many more necessities of life. Things were really messy then.
I can’t remember what we were watching but I can remember that it was something of great interest to dad and his friend. I was almost dozing off when dad and his friend went in to a sort of frenzy shouting, jumping and clapping hands. At first, I thought it was a football match. Then I listened carefully as the newscaster repeated the news that the head of state, General SaniAbacha was dead. Even as a kid, I couldn’t wrap my head around why dad and his friend were happy at the death of ‘the man’. I could remember how dad frequently associated ‘the man’ with virtually every woe we were experiencing from lack of water, food, money to freedom of movement.
Abacha was simply called ‘the man’ or ‘this man’ by dad. Years later, I realised why dad and his friend were joyous. The man’s death meant different things to different people. To majority of Nigerians, Abacha’s death at least meant that the dark days were over. For my brother and I, it meant that going to queue at Bida Sawmill to fetch sawdust for “Abacha Stove” was over.
When recently, the inept men and women running the affairs of this country decided to award people they felt have contributed to bring us to where we are today in celebration of 100 years of our ‘country-hood’, one wasn’t surprised to see Abacha on the list of awardees.
I knew what he was going to say but I called my dad to ask him his opinion on Abacha’s presence on the list anyway. I was shocked when he said he would have protested if ‘the man’ didn’t make the list. To him, if the awards were for those who brought us here, then Abacha deserves double honours! Now I understand.
So to Abacha’s children, your riposte to Prof. Wole Soyinka because he poked his long finger in the nose of your late father is in order. But the fact that your father was a dread to many a fellow country men and women can’t be eroded by even the best written open letter.
For the rest of us, we must not, as Soyinka did, wait for the lion’s leg to be broken or till the lion is dead before we go asking for the debt he owes us.
During the peak of the Abacha dark days, Soyinka stood out as a voice. We read of the activities of the “Radio Kudirat”. We read of how the man had to disguise to escape the Abacha-bred killer dogs. Standing up to Abacha even in the hidden was the most daring thing to do at that time. But Prof. Soyinka did. So to me, he’s earned the right to reject his own share of the national embarrassment called Centenary Awards fairly and squarely albeit giving us the reasons why.
UsmanKatun Umar,
Bida, Niger state
