I pay homage to a self-effacing general of the Nigerian army who passed on December 19, 2023. Were he to be around, he would have been 81 last November. He is now an ancestor. God knows best. I knew this ancestor by reputation before I met him. I was one who admired martial qualities. Perhaps, because I had been a soldier in my last incarnation. My ancestors told me so. As I was often soldiering, perhaps still, even as I have ascended to the sixth floor. Never mind, the confessional group I belong to, as I have refused to disavow natters of afterlife. Perhaps you might say from an academic curiousity, this writer being one.

My subject is General Chris Alli, a former Chief of Army Staff of the Nigerian army. I saw his image in the newspaper, sitting on his staff as he addressed his troops in the Bakassi Peninsula. When the disputed borderline between Nigeria and Cameroon escalated to a tipping point. My country had not declared open war, always conscious as the big brother to our African brothers and sisters.  As he would later tell me, he had moved the soldiers deep into Cameroonian territory beyond the disputed peninsula as a defensive measure.

In the course of our national history, the General and I were in opposite situations; in other words, he was a member of the military junta, and I was a leading member of the pro-democracy movement. Our country was in the middle of a national crisis. It was an intense struggle for power. The military that had run the affairs of the country was reluctant to hand over to Chief M.K.O. Abiola, a democratically elected candidate in the general election held on June 12, 1993.   Instead, the election was annulled by the military. The people were locked in an epic battle to retrieve their sovereignty from the usurpers of the mandate freely given by the electorate. Our subject was part of the military junta by professional calling. He was not part of the intrigues to annul the will of the people. In terms of the inner dynamics of the junta that he was part of, he was a reformer who believed in the revalidation of the democratic mandate of victor, even while he worked to ease the armed embargo on Nigeria by defying the EU multilateral travel ban on junta members. As the bespectacled head of the junta dug in, he was eased out of the service. An indication that the head of the junta was no longer at ease with dissent.

At last, when that regime that he had been part of and rebelled against expired, it was so awfully characterised by the South African Citizen newspaper on June 10, 1998. The paper wrote: “He was a thoroughly nasty piece of work…If ever there was an enemy of democracy, it was…Abacha…Already, a new military man has been sworn in to run a country which has not seen civilian rule since 1983. Please let us not start praising him, unless and until he shows some genuine signs of easing the burden of the millions of Nigerians who cheered the news of…Abacha’s death”.

The general’s philosophical outlook was ennobling. He focused on the primacy of God in our lives, the transient nature of power, and the illegitimacy of military rule. On his faith in God, he noted, “I believe in the service of, reverence to one living God Almighty by whom all things are ordained, who predestines the natural order of the universe, actions, thoughts, results and effects and man/woman impact and pattern of life and course of living.” On the transient nature of power, his words: “the lure of  office and its grandeur, power and authority are transient…often it is not the  holder or incumbent  that people revere in Nigeria, but the seat of authority occupied or post. When you are no more there, on the throne, peoples’ (sic) gaze and awe shift to the next occupant or your successor.” On military rule, he expressed disdained for coups and averred that “soldiers role in the political environment and defined in the constitution of the land should be respected” The foregoing are contained in his book, The Federal Republic of Nigerian Army, pp. 133-136).

The Guardian was a concourse where our souls conjoined. The Guardian Editorial Board was and is still a think tank on our national condition, pointing the way forward. I met Alli in 2010 when I joined the think tank. On every national issue, we found ourselves aligning on the same position. Always nationalistic in our position, though my firing angle was always from a left radical perspective. He was the consultant on military issues. Others brought strategic knowledge to bear on his information. He was passionate about our country and bemoaned the sundry contradictions besetting a nation so potentially great. On the Nigerian condition, we found a common cause, and it was the root of our bond.

When I paid homage to the Octogenarians in The Guardian in 2022, I said, among other things, that:“He was born in December 1944 while World War II raged. He will be 80 years old next year, so he is more or less in the octogenarian bracket. He became the army chief at a very difficult moment in Nigeria’s history, between 1993 and 1994. A democratic election had been annulled, as a reformer in the army, he felt the political logjam could be resolved by way of the man on the horseback, apologies to Samuel Finer. His Commander-in-Chief had a different notion—self-transmutation. This would earn him a sack from the military. It is to be noted that Alli had been the military governor of Plateau State of Nigeria from August 1985 to 1986 under the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. Fate would have him back as an interim administrator of the state under emergency rule in 2004.  His military training characterises him: ramrod gait, strategic advice on military matters, and the patriotism of those trained to defend their country”.

His comments about me when my father passed in January of 2022 reveal in-depth his reading of my personality and the bond between us. When I returned from my father’s funeral, and on the floor of The Guardian Editorial Board Room, he rolled his chair and held my hands, said, “Let me tell you what I said in your absence. The father who gave birth to you is an achiever”.  General Alli lives.
• Odion-Akhaine is professor in the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University.