Kano Riots

Forty-six deaths in riots in Kano, the commercial centre of Northern Nigeria, is depressing news. For the past couple of months Nigeria has been going through a period of political crisis, but hitherto tensions had remained at the level of debate, not of violence. The trouble is that a superficial con- flict between Mr. Awolowo's Action Group, the dominant party in the Western Region, and the Northern People's Con- gress, led by the Sardauna of Sokot0, which is in control in the North, over the date when Nigeria should be granted full self-government conceals a more profound division of opinions and interests. The leaders of the political parties in the South, influenced by Gold Coast and Indian examples (Mr. Awolowo has recently been the guest of Pandit Nehru), wish to press ahead with the process whereby power is trans- ferred from British administrators to African Ministers. The traditional rulers in the North, and the Northern People's Congress which tends to reflect their views, afraid of " domination by the south," wish to retard the process and look to the Administration to protect them. At the same time they are faced in their own Northern stronghold with a challenge to traditional authority from the radical Northern Elements Progressive Union. Once this opposition between political leaders is brought into the open it is not difficult for the unscrupulous_ and irresponsible to stir up communal feeling among the rank=and-file. In a city like Kano the familiar conditions are present. Northerners and Southerners live in different towns, worship different gods and have different histories, languages and social habits. Most important of all, Southerners have the educational advantages which 'enable them to get the better-paid clerical and supervisory jobs. No- body professes to want a Nigerian Pakistan—which would be economic nonsense—but unless the leaders of all three regions can hammer out a common policy there is a danger of things drifting that way.

Kleptocracy. Britain, Nigeria, Biafra and the Umaru Dikko Affair

Culled from The Spectator 13 JULY 1984 by Richard West

“It is odd that Britain, which backed Nigeria for two and a half years in a war of attrition against Biafra, should fall out with its friends over a man in a crate”

Since the Spectator stood alone among 10 British journals in taking the side of Biafra during the civil war in the Sixties, we have the right to laugh and say 'I told you so' at the latest antics of the Nigerian government: its attempt to kidnap a former senior minister, Mr Umuru Dikko, and return him to Lagos as air freight. The new Nigerian military government of General Muhammadu Buhari claims that before the coup in December last year, Mr Dikko, as Transport Minister, had stashed away millions or billions of pounds in bribes and had forced up the cost of rice to hungry Nigerians; but it would not be wise to repeat such slander. It is my view that Mr Dikko is and has always been a selfless Nigerian patriot, scrupulous in respect for the democratic process, sober and chaste in his personal life, accustomed to give most of his meagre salary to the poor, and that if he is now living comfortably in a Bayswater house, this may be attributable to a well placed accumulator bet at Kano race course.

The Dikko affair will of course be explained on the left by neo-colonialism, and on the right by the special cupidity and incompetence of the black man; but it is worth giving serious study to the phenomenon of a place like Nigeria. The best book I have read on this, The African Predicament, by Stanislav Andreski, was published as long ago as 1968, when it was thought outrageous. For although a sociologist, Mr Andreski was born a Pole, and does not subscribe to the Marxist and liberal sentimentality about Africa or anywhere else. He had spent many years in Nigeria, and it was of that country he seemed to be writing most in his chapter: `Kleptocracy or Corruption as a System of Government'. He tried to avoid the word `corruption' because it implied a fall from a previously attained higher standard; also because it implied an outside moral condemnation, not always shared by Africans.

Professor Andreski understood that few Nigerians felt 'any moral bonds beyond the confines of the clan and the tribe'. Many of those in the cities did not feel those bonds. Those with loyalty to the larger nations or 'ethnicity', such as Hausas, Yorubas or Ibos, could not extend that loyalty to 'Nigeria' which was an area drawn on the map and named by a lady journalist on the Times. Professor Andreski observed that the former Eastern Region, then fighting for its existence as Biafra, had 'a larger and much better educated population than most African states, and by all standards of professed political ethics eminently qualifies for sovereignty.' He was writing early on in a war that was to last two and a half years before Biafra fell to the Lagos government's troops backed by Britain and Russia.

Professor Andreski distinguished between venality on behalf of kinsmen and that on behalf of the individual or his immediate family. The consequences for the public were much the same. Even during the early Sixties, jobs and contracts were almost always awarded according to graft or nepotism. The headmaster of a state school would exact additional fees and expenses for food and board. In state hospitals, doctors would look at only those patients who paid them extra. 'Those in charge of the dispensary stole the medicaments and then sold them either to the patients on the premises or to the traders. The doctors did the same, taking the medicaments for use in their private consulting rooms. Patients unable to pay got injections of coloured water.' (Any British reader who feels complacent about this should study the recent trial of two London doctors convicted and sent to prison for selling blood contributed free. One of them also earned £250,000 a year from a side practice doing abortions. Perhaps 'free' health services always end that way.)

The British had trained an admirable body of civil servants, judges and military men, but when independence arrived, as Andreski remarked, these men 'were surrounded by half-baked newcomers, and became subordinated to the politicians who had reached the top by demagoguery and huckstering, and who had nothing to lose but everything to gain.'

The first military coup in Nigeria took place in 1966. Until then, says Andreski, `Nigeria was providing the most perfect example of kleptocracy.' He did not expect that this military government would remove venality but that it would 'add force as the second prop of the regime which will no longer remain a pure kleptocracy'. Since then Nigeria has endured alternate regimes of the kleptocrats and the generals, though many of the latter have themselves proved venal. Nigeria has not yet undergone a third kind of regime now seen in West Africa, that of the NCOs or junior officers, who are wont to kill off both generals and kleptocrats in the name of revenge or Marxist slogans.

The Dikko Affair will no doubt be written off by the 'Coasters', the old white hands, as another case of WAWA, 'West Africa Wins Again'. Few will stop to consider why it is that the English-speaking states of West Africa, which were once models of good government, have sunk into kleptocracy and military rule, while most of the French-speaking countries, although neglected as colonies, are fairly stable and prosperous. Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Gambia point a wretched contrast with the Cameroons, Togo, the Ivory Coast and Senegal. Some of the French territories failed. All the British territories failed.

Britain's mistake was to assume (or merely pretend?) that countries with no sense of nationhood, no tradition of government and only a small, trained ruling class, were actually able to run their own destinies. The British may have been motivated by a sincere belief that all peoples, without regard to their past or culture, are equally fit for self-government. This belief, though erroneous, may have been truly held by the left-liberal 'friends of Africa'. As for the British politicians, the Foreign Office and big business, I think that their motives were different. They wanted to be shot of responsibility for these troublesome and ungrateful African peoples, even if it meant their falling into poverty, despotism and civil war. They also wanted to maintain Britain's 'vital interests', like petrol and soap flakes, by giving support to whatever regime held power. Hence Britain's disgraceful war against Biafra.

It is odd that Britain, which backed Nigeria for two and a half years in a war of attrition against Biafra, should fall out with its friends over a man in a crate.

Can Nigeria Hold?

KEITH KYLE writes: Drastic steps will have to be taken to save Nigeria's existence after the farce of Wednesday's election. At the time of going to press the latest reports from the field were that in the Mid-West Region almost all polling booths had been destroyed, that in Enugu, capital of the Mid-West, polling had not started, that in Lagos no officials, ballot papers or voters had turned up on election day in many of the wards. These are all areas dominated by the Progressive Alliance (UPGA), the Southern combination of Dr. Okpara's NCNC (the government party in the East and Mid-West) and the imprisoned Obafemi Awolowo's Action Group (the majority party on the Lagos Council and probably the majority party in the West though currently in opposition there). UGPA pro- claimed a last-minute boycott of the election because of the apparently well-substantiated alle- gations of massive intimidation of the opposition in large sections of the Northern Region, the stronghold of the rival Nigerian National Alli- ance (NNA).

Michael Okpara of UPGA

It is worth remembering that the Northern Region is much the greater part of the country- 80 per cent of the area and 54 per cent of the population. The southern boundary of the region is nowhere more than 180 miles from the sea. In large parts of this vast region, according to apparently reliable reports, no opposition candidates were able to qualify to go on the ballot either because of crude physical pressure on themselves or their official sponsors or by the use of harass- ment by'the local courts to achieve the same effect. The scale of this situation is surprising and disap- pointing since, while some irregularities had been expected, few observers would have thought that supporters of the ruling party in the North needed to go to such lengths to secure a clean sweep in most of their own region and since, in addition, administrative efficiency was supposed to be one of the great gifts which Northerners had to offer Nigeria and Africa.

Democracy has suffered a blow from which it may not soon recover; what needs to be saved from the wreck is Nigeria. Any results proclaimed must be farcical. To save the country—if enough powerful people still wish to save it, which is doubtful—the election results will have to be can- celled, an all-party provisional government formed and the Army put incomplete charge of election preparations and conduct in all regions. There seems no other possible way out except partition, and if Nigeria cannot stay together this means death to any notion of eventual continental union. In a sense Nigerian Federation was a pilot scheme for the bigger aspiration, since most of the ten- sions which a continental union would face exist Within its boundaries.

The crisis has many strands. One is the race hatred for the Ibos in the Northern Region. Talk to any Northerner from the Premier to the man in the village, pick up any copy of the Northern Assembly's Hansard, read any local papers and, the obsessive desire to throw the lbo bag and bag- gage out of the North strikes one as the most pressing ambition. The Ibos, who dominate the Eastern Region and are strong also in Lagos, get ahead quickly in any sphere permeated with Euro- pean values. They were the clerks, shopkeepers, contractors and fixers throughout the North under British rulers. Northerners will not be content while one of them remains on Northern soil. The Sardauna of Sokoto, the Northern Premier, says openly that Northern jobs are available to candi- dates in this priority : one, Northerner; two, a non-African; three, a non-Northern Nigerian (meaning, really, an Ibo). Dr. Azikiwe, the Federal President, and Dr. Okpara, the Eastern Premier and the leader of the Progressive Alli- ance, are both Ibos. Oil has been discovered in the Eastern Region in substantial amounts. 'Good,' is a typical Northern reaction, 'let the Ibos be rich in Iboland and have nothing more to do with us.'

Another strand is a question of national persona or the absence of it. Many Southerners feel that if there had been a dynamic individual to give an international brand name to Nigeria as Nkrumah has to Ghana, Nigeria would both have cut more

of a dash abroad and because of this have meant more as a concept to her own citizens. But Tafawa Balewa whatever his merits is not dynamic and foreign affairs appear to bore him. His Foreign Minister is dynamic in a way, but is thought of both at home and abroad as an eccentric without much political weight—the very fact that he can remain Foreign Minister being an indication that the Federal leaders are not much interested in foreign affairs. The Sardauna. as leader of the NNA, made a huge mistake in announcing form- ally that Tafawa Balewa, the deputy leader of his party, would stay on as Federal Prime Minister if the alliance won. At least this was a mistake if the Sardauna is really interested in Nigeria staying to- gether—and this one must now doubt.

Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa

In all this there is a paradox, which has occurred to some Nigerians. All along the line the Sudan being currently the most dramatic example the question of whether there can be an 'African personality' is resolving itself into a question of whether it is possible to produce a synthesis of the Arab and. African personalities. Northern Niger- ians are not, technically, Arabs, but they are the product of cultural influences they have shared with the Arabs for a millenium. A man like the Sardauna feels himself. in many ways more affiliated to the Middle East than he does to Black Africa. So in Nigeria Arab-African relations im- pinge on domestic politics and Southerners, de- nouncing Northerners as reactionaries, at home can repudiate also their pro-Arabism. But South- erners also demand a dynamic foreign policy, by which they mean one that we should define as a Leftist ('Casablanca' type) stand. The pioneers of that stand are, apart from Nkrumah and Tour& the North African states.

Nigerian cabinet dissolved

Monday, November 17, 1997 Published at 07:44 GMT 


 

The Nigerian military leader, General Sani Abacha, has dissolved his entire cabinet and announced an amnesty for some political detainees.

General Abacha made the announcement in a broadcast on national television and radio, on the fourth anniversary of the coup which brought him to power.

He said the cabinet had been dissolved to allow ministers to play a full role in the political processes, which are intended to end in parliamentary and presidential elections next year. General Abacha said that the government's amnesty extended only to those detainedes whose release would not pose a threat to national security.

He made no mention of Nigeria's best known political prisoner, Chief Moshood Abiola, the presumed winner of the annulled elections of 1993. 

Alleged $1m bribe-for-defection tears House apart - Vanguard News

Alleged $1m bribe-for-defection tears House apart - Vanguard News