abacha

8 June 1999
TIME, it is said, is a healer of wounds. So, a full year after the
passing away of General Abacha and in the refreshing
atmosphere of full democracy, it might now be possible, even
for the most emotional of persons, to see the late Head of
State as something of a classical hero. Heroism, viewed
objectively, needs not be exclusively synonymous with
virtuousness. Although the key element in heroism is a kind of
excellence that compels admiration or honour, the hero is
actually at liberty to have flaws. Excellence in war (as with the
Homeric epic hero) in Afro music (as with the late Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti) or indeed in football (as with Diego Maradona)
does not transform the hero into a saint.

A hero is often a two-edged sword, as was Ogun in Yoruba
mythology, who, after vanquishing the enemies of Ire, turned
on his own people, momentarily drunk with the blood of
carnage. Similarly, the music star, the football star, might
degenerate into drug addiction but would continue to compel
our admiration: not for his degeneracy but for his excellence.
As J.P. Clark points out in his inaugural lecture titled ‘The hero
as a villain’ ‘It is (the) extraordinary quality in his given field of
achievement which makes him a person of honour’.

Since charges in a democracy must remain just charges, no
matter how strongly we feel about them, until due process has
been followed, it is safe to observe that it is largely speculative
and opinionated reporting that has actually helped us focus so
exclusively on the latter flaws of the late General. If we were
to attempt to re-live the sense of uncertainty and imminent
disaster that overhung the nation late 1993, we would get to
appreciate why Chief M.K.O. Abiola himself had physically
embraced General Abacha after the forcing aside of the Interim
National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan. We would
recall the reported calls on Abacha to take over by ordinarily
well-meaning persons like Bolaji Akinyemi, Gani Fawehinmi,
certain Yoruba leaders and, of course, the Northern leaders.
The last group were said to have been afraid that a bloody
coup (rumoured to have penciled down the cleansing
liquidation of as many as 98 prominent Nigerians) was in the
offing. It was in this situation that General Abacha stepped in.
With the advantage now of hindsight, we would probably
realize that our politicians were supposed to have heroically
stood up to him and protected democracy. But the most
respected politicians in the land accepted instead, to serve
under him. The Nigerian people themselves, we would recall,
placed daily adverts in newspapers to welcome Gen. Abacha’s
advent, until government had to make an official
announcement that it would not tolerate any more sycophancy.

As the professor again says in his lecture: ‘The need for a hero
only arises when everything has broken down and there is the
aspiration by a people to start afresh and reach for a better
goal in life.’ So many of my saintly fellow country men seem to
have forgotten so soon how they fell over one another to
make the legendary professional soldier’s experiment work
out. Had Shonekan refused to resign; had the Senate
President (Ameh Ebute) kept up his initial heroic determination
to resist the take-over; had the judiciary stood by the Senate
President; had thirty Houses of Assembly not quietly melted
into safety; had thirty duly-elected governors not parked their
bags and baggage out of State House without as much as a
cough, we would have had several politician-heroes by now. In
Russia, parliamentary resistance to Boris Yeltism was only
crushed when tanks were ordered to fire on the building where
representatives had, in defiance, holed themselves in. In one
small country a coup was foiled when parliament bravely
declared it illegal and stuck to their guns despite threats. It is
high time we realized that the business of national governance
is not for lily-livered opportunists. It is the exclusive preserve of
heroes: men who, as they say, are made of sterner stuff, men
who know what is right and dare to do it.

Political analysts accused the PDP throughout the last
transition of having had more than their fair share of ex-military
chiefs, yet PDP effortlessly cropped up most of the votes. A
well-known columnist, Ochereome Nnanna, argued that the
people of certain states cast their lot with the APP, in the main,
because of its association with the name of Abacha. The
aborted mob attack on Abubakar Rimi, before the local
government elections, for his vocal condemnation of Abacha,
might still be fresh in our memories. The grassroots certainly
know who a hero is: a man who takes the destiny of a nation
in his hands and redefines it.

Since the word ‘hero’ is of classical origin, Aristotle’s definition
that a tragic hero is a man who is neither wholly good nor
wholly bad is very pertinent. The classical tragic hero starts off
noble but ends up in disaster or disgrace because of what the
Greek call ‘hubris’ (over-weaning pride; vaulting ambition: an
inordinate belief in self). The Greek also have a term,
'harmatia', for the tragic error that leads the hero, unwittingly,
to his disaster.
END VANGUARD.