“Exactly 50 years ago, darkness enveloped Nigeria. Many of us who were around then were confused; many of us were taken by surprise. For many of us it was a monumental tragedy. It was an event that altered the course of history. I have had the opportunity to say that God is a Nigerian. Whatever way you look at it, that event shook the foundation of this country. Many thought that would be the end of Nigeria.” – Chief Olusegun Obasanjo remarks at the 50th Colloquium in honour of Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, Lagos, January 15, 2016.

I was only 16 years old in 2001 when I first read Major General Alexander A. Madiebo’s book, The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War, published in 1980. The book was part of a library of great books that my father inherited from his late uncle. I can’t now remember the storyline, but I still recall that the kinds of things I read about in the book were neither impressive nor palatable. Much of it was a chronicle of guns, bullets, bombs, blood and deaths.

Fifty years after the first military coup of January 1966 that wiped out the country’s top political leadership and brought an abrupt halt to the high hopes that greeted the promising start of the new nation, setting the nation in the throes of a civil war, what can we really say we have learnt as a people and as a nation? In virtually all aspects of our national life, Nigeria remains a story of false starts, a nation on reverse gear. We are repeating the same old mistakes of the past. History is entirely being re-written today. Villains have become victims, and those who killed are now proclaiming themselves martyrs of the nation.

According to Martin Meredith in his classic book, The State of Africa (2005) “Nigerian politics (at the time) tended to be mercenary and violent. Political debate was routinely conducted in acrimonious and abusive language; and ethnic loyalties were constantly exploited.” 50 years later, politics in Nigeria still remains a rough, reckless and deadly game. The politics of ethnicity and religion continues to spew forth blood and tears.

The young army majors that staged the first coup claimed that their aim was to stamp out embezzlement, bribery and corruption from public life. This was the subject of a radio broadcast made by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu in Kaduna, speaking in the name of the Supreme Council of the Revolution: “Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in the high and low places that seek bribes and demand 10 per cent; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers and VIPs of waste; the tribalists, the nepotists; those that make the country look big-for-nothing before the international circles; those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds.”

Fifty years later, we are still faced with mind-boggling cases of sleaze and financial malfeasance that would make Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola and Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh recoil with horror and disgust in their graves. “VIPs of waste, tribalists, nepotists, political profiteers and swindlers” are still very much around the corridors of power and in high offices.

On January 15, 2016, political leaders of all shades and grades were falling on one another to eulogize and canonize the first republic politicians and senior army officers who lost their lives in the bloody coup. One question they forget to ask themselves is: If these first generation political leaders were so holy and if politics at the time was so glorious, why was there a coup that overthrew the existing order of things? Those who were the key characters in the bloody revolution have transmogrified into heroes of today.

At the 50th commemoration of the death of Sir Ahmadu Bello, in Kaduna, on January 14, 2016, Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III frankly told the Northern political elite to stop hiding behind the shadow of the late Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the Northern Region, as an alibi for their tragic and colossal failure to rescue the North from the pit of desolation. Fifty years after Sardauna’s death, much of Northern Nigeria remains a vast ocean of misery. Leaders of the North have been unable to fashion out a Marshall Plan to lift the region from the captivity of poverty and misery. If the Sultan had spoken to an Igbo or Yoruba audience, his submission would still be valid.

The January 1966 coup propelled a group of young military officers and politicians onto the national stage. They are the elder statesmen of today, the wealthy septuagenarians, who continue to wield enormous influence in the country. These beneficiaries of the hidden legacies of 1966 are living in palatial mansions today, drinking expensive Champagne lavishly and pompously, yet feeling no qualms of conscience that their mansions are surrounded by vast swathes of destitution. They find it expedient to canonize the founding fathers of modern Nigeria for their leadership, foresight, and selfless sacrifices, but their own lives are in sharp contradiction to the values that the founding fathers held most dear.

The history of that intervening period and the changing roles played by the principal characters of yesteryears have become the battleground of contested histories, conflicting narratives and opposing identities. Young Nigerians of today, most of who were not born in 1966, do not know what to believe when they read the history books. There is today a rich menu of conflicting, contested and contradictory narrative-options in the supermarket of history, a situation that has adversely contributed to the inability of yesterday’s fathers and today’s children to build a solid architecture of truth, reconciliation, and inter-generational solidarity.

Unaddressed grievances from 1966 continue to resurge in various shades and fashions today, stalling every effort to build a united, progressive, reconciled and prosperous Nigeria. Whether it is in the area of curbing corruption, providing jobs, promoting education, building social infrastructure, forging an inclusive political economy or strengthening the institutions of democracy, Nigeria remains a story of false starts. Fifty years after the 1966 coup we have reaped many coups, a bloody civil war, a prebendal political class, a rentier economy, and a Leviathan state. Shouldn’t our political leaders feel ashamed of themselves that they have failed to learn from the painful experiences of the past?
TO BE CONTINUED
• Ojeifo is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Abuja ([email protected])/ 07066363913