Fear history!

Just as they say that social media neither sleep nor slumber, history also never forgets! The saying goes that today’s happenings constitute tomorrow’s history. Some of my contemporaries at Great Ife used to summarise History, my course of study, as “Oba ku; Oba je” meaning, one king dies and another reigns in his stead. Or they would say History is the study of the rise and fall of empires. That is not exactly true, though; but these cliches remind us that words and actions perisheth not. There is no “a-se-gbe” or “a-so-gbe” but every word and action lies in wait for us, to bare their fangs at a later date. So watch your word! Weight it before you utter it. For, once uttered, it cannot be retrieved. “Ohun l’eyin” The words that we speak are like an egg; once it breaks, no Jupiter can collect and put it back in its shell.

In today’s Nigeria, no set of people get more careless with the spoken word as well as with their actions as the politicians. Often, they speak before they think and leap before they look. They are so audacious and reckless that they get entangled now and again when reference is made to their past statements and deeds. The one who said he would go on exile if a particular politician won the last presidential election not only sits pretty in his Lagos home, he has also become a defender of the same politician he lambasted again and again! The pastor who said “Cut off one of my arms…” if so, so, and so, a politician wins the last presidential election has failed to submit himself for amputation! Or the one that said he would stop worshipping God and become an idol worshiper if the elected presidential candidate got sworn in has not made good his threat. One who asked Amadiora, the god of thunder, to fire him if he ever defects from his political party has defected again and again! Or the one that described the opposition party in the most flattering manner today sits and eats on the same party’s dining table!

It is good to keep records! I came across two documents that fascinated me last weekend as I turned around my library. I have a collection of newspapers, magazines and other publications, foreign and local, many of which are no longer in print, that I am putting together as a Journalism Library that students and teachers of journalism, journalists themselves and those in search of knowledge can consult in due course. My first find was an exchange between cerebral and ideological Dr. Segun Osoba (as he then was) and Professor L. Beverley Halstead, both of the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-fe. It was dated February 1974, more than four years before I gained admission into the same institution as an undergraduate student.

The Segun Osoba referred to here is not Chief Segun Osoba, the celebrated journalist, one-time civilian governor of Ogun State, and now chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Dr. Osoba was one of the leading ideological puritans of the 1970s and 80s who can rightly be described as one of the lecturers accused by Nigeria’s expired military junta of those years of the locusts as teaching (Nigerian youths) what they (the lecturers) were not paid to teach! And what was that? Social consciousness and decolonization of the mind. Dr. Osoba, together with his ideological soulmate, Dr. Yusufu Bala Usman of the Ahmadu Bello University, authoured the 1976 minority report and draft constitution arising from the Constitution Drafting Committee empaneled by the then military Head of State, Gen. Murtala Muhammed. We shall soon return to that.

The second document was a Saturday PUNCH newspaper report of August 20, 2016 with a screaming front page headline titled: “I and others brought Buhari to salvage Nigeria” – Obasanjo. The story, which carried the byline of Hindi Livinus reporting from Yola in Adamawa State, was credited to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and it ran fully on page 29 thus: “Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he and four other eminent Nigerians brought President Muhammadu Buhari to salvage Nigeria from its current challenges. He said they took the decision when they felt that the country stood at a crossroads. Obasanjo said, ‘Three or four of us from different parts of the country got together and said to ourselves: what do we do? We said, what is the problem with us and why are we still not growing? We got talking and knew we needed to do something. What do we need to deal with, for this Nigeria of ours to become what God has created it to be? A land flowing with milk and honey; that is the intention of God for creating Nigeria”. The former president, who spoke on Thursday at a reception held in his honour at the Government House, Yola, Adamawa State, said, so far, Buhari has not disappointed the country. He said, ‘So far, Buhari has not disappointed us. I trust him; he will not fail Nigerians. I know he will overcome the challenges the country is currently facing’. He, however, said Nigeria needed to get its acts right in the areas of policies, governance and leadership for the country to develop….”

We should end the story there! In retrospect, what will Obasanjo say of his vouching for Buhari and of his bringing him? I am sure you know that, that was where the rain that was beating us in drizzles in the time of Goodluck Jonathan began to pour in torrents. Who were the two or three other people that, together with Obasanjo, brought Buhari to “salvage” Nigeria? Is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu one of them or did he act solo, since he, too, has told us he played an important role in Buhari’s emergence as president? Rather than salvage, Buhari savaged Nigeria! As my people would say, when you mention a tortoise, you also mention the forest from which you picked it. The tortoise in this way is Buhari and the forest is those who helped him into office.

Back to the Osoba/Halstead tango. Halstead (whispering into Osoba’s ears, almost in a conspiratorial tone): Do you know that there is considerable unease about the address you are to give to the students tomorrow morning? Osoba (in normal conversational voice audible to all): In which quarters is this unease? Halstead: In the highest quarters in the administration of the university. Osoba: Do you know why they feel uneasy? Halstead: I believe they fear that you would incite the students to commit acts of violence. Osoba: If these people do not know what I am capable of doing in a situation like this, then, I cannot be held responsible for their paranoia! Halstead: What are you addressing the students on? Osoba: Student power in a situation of public moral crisis. Halstead: What is student power? Osoba: I am surprised that you don’t know what student power is! It is this kind of attitude that makes conversation between two people impossible – when one party constantly asks the other to define terms that are generally understood. Halstead: I am not just concerned with definitions; I want your view of what student power is. Osoba: I cannot help you but I believe you have seen the notice issued from the Vice-Chancellor’s office earlier today, informing College chairmen, Deans, Heads of Departments, etc. about the decisions of the students to make tomorrow a lecture-free day. If you want to know student power in its crudest form, try tomorrow to deliver your Zoology lecture to an empty room. This is the most concrete form of student power. Halstead: In any case, why should you, a senior member of the academic staff, be involved in what is exclusively student affairs? Osoba: Because I owe a responsibility to the students. If they invite me to address them, as they have done on this occasion, I consider it my responsibility to respond to their call as it would give me an opportunity to focus their attention on serious and creative, rather than trivial and destructive, issues. Halstead: My own responsibility to the students is to teach them Biology; no more, no less. Osoba: I am not surprised that your responsibility does not go beyond that because, as a soldier of fortune, you have no stake in this society and, therefore, no commitment to anything other than your career as a Biology professor. My own view of studentship is that it affords our young men and women an opportunity not only to acquire specialised and professional skills but also to undergo training in responsible leadership and citizenship; and it is the duty of those of us who have a stake in this country to contribute to their development in the two main areas of their education. Halstead: But they are not all going to be leaders. Osoba: That is true but by the logic of natural selection, many of them are going to play significant leadership roles in this society and, in any case, they are all going to be citizens of this country. Hence, the responsibility one has in contributing to their development as responsible citizens and leaders. Halstead: But you also have a responsibility to the authorities of this university; haven’t you? Osoba: Yes, but I have my priorities in this regard. My first responsibility is to my conscience; second is to the tax-payers of this country without whose sacrifice there can be no university; third, is to the students without whom none of us – administrators, professors, and lecturers – will be here, and fourth to the administration. Halstead: In any case, what are the serious and creative issues you will be talking about tomorrow?”

One of the lecturers also present at the debate then cut in: “Why don’t you take a look at the text of his (Osoba’s) address?” Osoba: No, he cannot! If he is interested in learning about the responsible use of student power, he should come to the ceremony at the Sports Centre tomorrow at 10.15 am. Halstead: I would like to come but I may be held up by the current Geology conference. Osoba: if you cannot come, you can always ask me for the text of the address, which is typewritten, but that would be after the ceremony. Halstead: That’s alright. I’ll try to come but if not, I will be glad to read the text. Goodnight! Osoba: Goodnight!”

Dr. Osoba eventually went ahead to deliver his address to the “Great Ife” students on Friday, 1st February, 1974, which was the anniversary of the gruesome murder of the University of Ibadan undergraduate, Adekunle Adepeju, felled by police bullet during a student demonstration in 1971.

The Osoba lecture itself and the ding-dong afterwards between him and Professor Halstead will be another discussion for another day!

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