(Being an excerpt from ‘Telling It As It Is’, the autobiography of Chief Ayo Adebanjo)
CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY
The 1953 Constitutional Crisis
My fascination with the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was heightened when I began to read and listen to his thoughts and ideas on federalism and nationalism. I admired the lucidity and intelligible arguments of the great soul.
I was enthralled by the discipline of Action Group members. In 1953, during the Macpherson Constitution when Chief Anthony Enahoro moved the motion for self-government in Nigeria, my admiration grew more.
At the time, federal ministers were appointed from the regions (from the Houses of Assembly). From the Western Region were Bode Thomas (Deputy Leader of AG), Chief Samuel Akintola, Arthur Prest and Oba Adesoji Aderemi.
Macpherson said no member of his cabinet should take part in the debate for self-government in 1956. When the discussion came up, members of Action Group in the cabinet refused to adhere to this directive. They insisted on participating in the debate to discuss Nigeria’s future as a federal union.
Macpherson was uncomfortable with Enahoro’s motion. To show his displeasure, he said any member of his cabinet who insisted on taking part in the motion for self-government should either resign or be sacked from the cabinet. He said, however, that it would pain him if he had to sack Sir Adesoji Aderemi who was a Knight of the British Empire. But Sir Adesoji Aderemi, though a traditional ruler, was an uncompromising nationalist. In pursuance of this and in loyalty to the party that nominated him into the cabinet, he told Macpherson that he (Aderemi) would save him the pain of being sacked by resigning, which he did.
So, all the Action Group members in the cabinet, who had agreed on a stand, resigned en masse.
There was so much party discipline then. Party men, after discussing and agreeing on a position, usually stood as one group. After the mass resignation, the government attempted to replace the ministers by asking the Western Legislature to send new names to represent them in the cabinet. But rather than send fresh ones, the AG sent back the same names.
The Governor-General, Sir John Macpherson turned down the nominations and the cabinet was now left without representation from Western Region. And thus began the constitutional crisis of 1953.
Consequently, the Colonial Office in the UK had to summon representatives of the political parties to a constitutional conference to discuss the constitution.
Hitherto, the Macpherson Constitution being operated was a quasi-federal constitution without autonomy for the regional government. At the time too, Chief Awolowo was the chief advocate for full federalism and it was on that plank he stood at the conference. On the other hand, the NCNC, led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, canvassed for unitary government.
The Northern People’s Congress (NPC), under the leadership of Sir Ahmadu Bello, after the self-government motion, advocated confederalism under its 9-point programme. Both Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Sardauna claimed there were no minorities in Nigeria to warrant the creation of an additional region or state.
However, on Chief Awolowo’s Western Region delegation to the conference were representatives of minority groups from all parts of the country. Prominent among them were J.S. Tarka (from the Middle Belt), J.S. Olawoyin and Sule Maito (from the Yoruba-speaking part of the North), Ibrahim Imam (North-East), Wenike Briggs (Rivers) and I.I. Murphy (Ogoja).
With that he was able to debunk the claim of Zik and Sardauna that there were no minorities in Nigeria. At the end of the conference, Chief Awolowo won the day for federalism if Nigeria must remain a united country.
Consequently, the principle of federalism was established in the constitution with the creation of the position of premier as against leader of government business, and autonomy for the regions with the constitutions written separately.
As for the minorities, the Willink Commission of Enquiry was set up to look into the problem with a view to making appropriate recommendations that would allay their fears.
It was a glorious day for Nigeria on the return of the delegates from the conference when Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who went to the conference as a unitarist, exclaimed at the airport, ‘Federalism is imperative.’
The Action Group, in demanding a truly federal constitution, wanted more states created for the minorities, pointing out that the federation then was structurally imbalanced. This was a situation whereby a region (the North) was bigger than the two other regions constituting the federation put together.
Thus, the Macpherson Constitution, which was expected to last five years from 1951, lasted for only three years.
In 1954, the constitution was changed to the Lyttleton Constitution. The office of premier was established under this constitution which was truly federal with regional autonomy. The 1954 Constitution gave the regions residual powers and exclusive powers at the centre. The new constitution now compelled the leader of the NCNC, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to resign from the Western House of Assembly and contest in the Eastern House of Assembly in order to become premier of the region.
It must be put on record that, contrary to the claim that Egbe Omo Oduduwa was a tribal organisation, when in fact it was formed to unite the disparate Yoruba race, the Ibo (now written as Igbo) State Union, which promoted only Igbo interests, had existed before it. The NNDP, which metamorphosed into the NCNC, was mainly patronised by the Igbos. Under the leadership of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Ibo State Union was helping kinsmen to further their studies (especially abroad). It had high-ranking nationalists like Mbonu Ojike and K.O. Mbadiwe as members.
The Night of the Long Knives
The years rolled by, and the difference between states governed by our party, Unity Party of Nigeria and the others became glaring. Things worked, many pupils and students were back in school, and legions who would have been deprived of education were enrolled under the free education programme. There was a new revival in agriculture, health and the economy of those states.
Our party had a good image and was perceived as doing well. But there were bickerings and rows among the leadership, especially in the states where the party ruled.
The powers of the governors, the chief executive officers, were awesome. They could literarily do anything. Some of them behaved in ways not consistent with the ideals of the party. There was therefore an opposition to the automatic return of some of them during the 1983 general election.
Instead, the party now canvassed for full primaries for the election. This was eventually held at the National Theatre in Lagos.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, as the leader, said there should be no primaries for the return of the governors seeking second term in office at the election. I advised the leader against this, saying that people would label him a dictator.
My argument was that if any of them was popular, he would be re-elected. But Papa’s contention was that if any of them was not sure of re-election, he would not pursue his own (Awo’s) federal election faithfully. I told the leader that these people he was defending would be the same people that would later call him a dictator; and that those who wanted to contest against them would ask why there should be no primaries. I said, ‘Papa, we shouldn’t give the impression that there are some blue eyes in the party. If anybody wants an election, let him go for an election, and let the people decide.’ Surprised by my line of argument, Chief Awolowo said, ‘Ayus, I thought I had discussed this matter with you in private?’ Then I answered, ‘Yes sir! But I had also disagreed with you in private.’
However, when the agitation became very strident, he had to agree to the primaries being held, as he did in 1979.
Their agitation took root in 1978, spearheaded by Chief Bola Ige who wanted to be governor of Oyo State. They had chanted then, ‘governorship or nothing’, which led to the shadow election where he defeated his teacher, Canon Emmanuel Alayande (though Chief Awolowo and many leaders of the party believed Ige should have yielded grounds and allowed his teacher a go first). Ige ruled Oyo as executive governor between 1979 and 1983.
By 1982, they wanted full-blown primaries. But Awo thought that for him to win the Presidency, the party must be united, and support the sitting governors and elected officials. He wanted them returned unopposed. Many didn’t agree with the proposal. Even Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, the
‘Action Governor of Lagos’, rejected the idea.
The issue was creating animosity. And camps were emerging. In Oyo, it was very bad, and it almost led to the expulsion of Chief Bola Ige in September 1982.
It was in Yola during a NEC meeting (between September 8 and 10, 1982) that the battle reached a head. Dubbed the ‘Night of the Long Knives,’ Chief Bola Ige and Chief Sunday Afolabi (the deputy governor) were accused of meeting General Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd) in Ibadan, to settle a party dispute. The events were captured by Dare Babarinsa in his book, House of War (pp. 113-114) thus:
Adelakun accused Ige and Afolabi of holding a nocturnal meeting with General Obasanjo at the latter’s residence on Osuntokun Avenue, Bodija Estate, Ibadan on June 27, 1982. Adelakun said the secret meeting was at the instance of Obasanjo, who was Afolabi’s schoolmate at Baptist Boys’ High School, Abeokuta and a friend of Ige. The former Head of State had sought to persuade Afolabi to allow Ige a second term. After six hours of discussion, the meeting, which was also attended by M.D. Yusufu, Obasanjo’s Inspector-General of Police, and General Muhammed Inuwa Wushishi, ended in an impasse as Afolabi maintained he would contest the governorship against Ige. No issue about the presidency or the ambition of Chief Awolowo was discussed. Adelakun, who spoke through an interpreter, said Afolabi narrated the story to him.
Both Ige and Afolabi were kept standing for several hours, defending themselves. Ige was later to refer to the Yola meeting as the “Night of the Long Knives”.
What the two men did was akin to heresy since Obasanjo was regarded as an ‘arch-enemy’ by party men who placed the blame for the UPN loss of the 1979 presidential elections on the retired general. Some of those who spoke had even recommended that the two men be expelled but Chief Awolowo had prevailed, saying that he vouched for the loyalty of the two top stalwarts. A resolution was passed at the Yola meeting condemning the Obasanjo initiative as ‘a dangerous, an unwarranted and intolerable intervention in the internal affairs of the UPN.’ It also concluded that ‘the conduct of the two leaders was most reprehensible. In particular, the council considered that the chairman of the party in Oyo State (Ige) was more to blame for the ill-motivated meeting.’ The two leaders were censured, but were allowed to go. It was the last time Ige and Afolabi would stand on the same side of the fence. It was at the Yola meeting, too, that the decision was taken to hold the October special conference.
The episode left a sour taste in the mouth. Party leaders were enraged; that Bola Ige who knew so well that Obasanjo never pretended to be sympathetic to Awolowo or his cause could commit such an infraction.
Alhaji Jakande moved the motion to expel Ige from the party but Awolowo didn’t want that, especially since Ige swore that it never happened.
Chief Awolowo stopped the motion of Ige’s expulsion from being moved. And as he was swearing with his son’s name, Papa said, ‘No, don’t involve your son in this matter. Let the matter end there.’
Later, we asked him why he took the decision not to allow Ige to be sanctioned. He said, ‘A kii gbo riwo riwo n’ile agbalagba l’emeji.’ (This means literally that there should be no uproar in an elder’s compound twice). When we asked him privately what he meant by this proverb, Awo referred to the dispute between himself and Akintola and would not like a repeat of an open conflict with another prominent member of the party. Because of the crises in the 1960s involving Akintola (his deputy) he said, ‘what they did was wrong, but I leave them to God.’
Unity Party of Nigeria was rocked by so many disagreements that, by the elections of 1983, we were losing ground and faithful loyalists. We lost some states under controversial circumstances, and Awolowo himself didn’t win the presidency.
Before the elections in 1983, Awolowo made a statement that if the elections were rigged, our generation might not know democracy. Chief Awolowo had confidence, and believed that among all the candidates, he was the most prepared for Nigeria’s leadership. He had solutions to the problems of the country which he had proffered through various channels, including some of his books, such as, Path to Nigerian Freedom (1947); Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution (1966); The People’s Republic (1968); The Strategy and Tactics of the People’s Republic of Nigeria (1970); The Problems of Africa (1977) and Voice of Wisdom (1981). He believed he could rule well.
That led to the famous statement that while he busied himself at night with thoughts on how to make the country better, his opponents were ‘frolicking with women of easy virtue’.
Chief Awolowo was always making constructive criticisms, offering solutions to the country’s multifarious problems. He was not an armchair critic.
The country was drifting under the NPN leadership, and on December 31, 1983, the soldiers struck again. Major- General Muhammadu Buhari became Head of State, and the politicians were sacked, with many of us either imprisoned or exiled.
I remained in Nigeria, because I was not directly involved in any government. Many were not enthusiastic about the coup, regardless of Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s famed ineptitude. Chief Awolowo was not happy about the coup. At this time I was a middle-aged man, already going on 55, and I faced my law practice and private business following the ban on partisan politics.
The Betrayal of AD
The strong party many thought would provide the platform for progressives and advance the cause of ordinary Nigerians was disunited almost from inception. It just rolled along, tottered and eventually collapsed.
The Alliance for Democracy (AD) tragedy has many interpretations. For me, a group of people, led primarily by Chief Bola Ige and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, were the undertakers who presided over the funeral of AD, after they had plotted and supervised its sickness and death.
As far as I am concerned, the moment Bola Ige joined Obasanjo’s government, following his loss of AD’s presidential primaries where he polled 6 votes against Chief Olu Falae’s 17, marked the beginning of the end for the party. In my opinion, these are the scenarios which led to the collapse of AD.
Bola Ige didn’t join us in Action Group until 1961. We met for the first time when I was living in England. He was also a student there at the time.
He was elected as the publicity secretary of Action Group shortly after, in 1961, and also one of the lawyers that defended those standing trial in the treasonable felony case of 1962/63.
He served as a commissioner in the government of Major-General Adeyinka Adebayo in the Western Region in 1967. In 1979, he became the Governor of Oyo State, a position he held until 1983, under the banner of the Unity Party of Nigeria.
However, I had known Mrs. (Atinuke) Ige before I met Bola; we were contemporaries at the CMS Grammar School, and CMS Girls’ Grammar School, Lagos, respectively. At that time, the students of CMS Girls’ Grammar School attended science lessons at the CMS Grammar School. In fact, in all the years when we were having political party meetings in Ibadan, I came from Sagamu and lodged in Bola Ige’s house.
Our families were very close.
Nobody was against Bola Ige’s candidacy in the presidential primaries of Alliance for Democracy in 1999.
Awolowo was no longer there to contest election as presidential candidate. Somebody must lead. I was neutral in the primaries, though I had my views.
Bola Ige could be rightly accused of undermining Afenifere and plotting the eventual collapse of the AD. Ige’s excuse that he was betrayed at the party primaries was not tenable. After all, he was among the people who selected those who conducted the primaries, to the extent that when we nominated Lawrence Omole, Ige objected to his nomination and we dropped him.
It won’t be fair, as alleged by Bola Ige, to blame elders of the party for his loss in the primaries of the Alliance for Democracy. In the first instance, he took part in nominating the body that constituted the Electoral College.
I had said it when he was still alive. Even at the meeting of the party leaders which took place in my office in Lagos, Pa Solanke Onasanya was opposed to his presence there. He said, ‘Since you are one of the candidates to be interviewed you have no right to be here.’ But he insisted that as deputy leader he must be there. I think it was Tinubu who said that even in a company meeting when a person was interested in an issue he would excuse himself. When he still insisted, Pa Adesanya ruled in his favour that he could sit down and be part of the proceedings. So, we started the nomination.
In carrying out the exercise, we wanted only members who would be neutral, without any connection whatsoever with any of the contestants. It was in trying to ensure this that we mentioned Lawrence Omole, but for one reason or another, that was unknown to us, Bola Ige opposed him. We then proposed Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi to be a member of that body as a replacement for Omole, because we were giving it divisional representation.
Ige accepted Akinyemi’s nomination. I had made the statement before when he was still alive, and he couldn’t oppose it.
After the election, Bola Ige himself told some people, including Ambassador Oladapo Fafowora. Fafowora told me that Ige had boasted that it was going to be a walkover for him at the primaries. He had a right to think so, because about 6 of the 23 members of that committee were his former commissioners. They included Chief Emmanuel Alayande, Chief Bisi Akande, Justice Adewale Thompson, Lam Adesina and Senator Akinfenwa. But he had a handicap. We had chosen governors of states as members of the electoral body.
Neither Pa Abraham Adesanya, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi nor myself was a member of that body; we inaugurated the body and left. Segun Osoba was a member too.
I don’t think I remember who said I told him not to vote for Ige. He was so sure of winning that he told Fafowora. When this was published in an interview I had with the press, Fafowora felt so embarrassed because they are both Ijesa. But unknown to Ige, unfortunately, many of those he thought would vote for him had grudges against him which they kept to themselves waiting for an opportunity to vent their spleen on him.
Talking about me, it’s true we had a meeting in Kaduna or so and we lodged in his wife’s apartment. That was at the initial stage of AD. I think we went for a conference there, and he asked us to support him. I told him pointedly I would not. I said, ‘As the acting chairman of the party, if I should support you, then I would be partisan.’
While others gave him assurances of support, I bluntly told him I would not. When they were trying to settle the matter between us, I said I didn’t learn this type of system from Awolowo. How can I be the chairman of a party and set up a committee to go and find out something for me and I am already in support of one of the candidates? So, that was my offence. That I didn’t support him alone and told him why.
‘You are very qualified; you are very efficient, there is no doubt about that. But I have to be neutral.’ When he even raised the question of his being deputy national leader as enough reason for us to have appointed him, I asked, ‘Did you make that point before submitting yourself to the committee? We all decided together on having an electoral college. As a lawyer, how can you submit yourself to a board of enquiry and then be objecting to the findings of the enquiry?’ These were some of the things that baffled some people about his image.
Again, I don’t think people knew that Ige didn’t pay his nomination fee. It was after the election that we found out that he didn’t pay. He explained that he didn’t know which account to pay his nomination fee into. Nobody expected a statement like that from a deputy leader.
He was supposed to pay the N500,000 nomination fee. The account we used was Pa Adesanya’s. The other candidate, Chief Olu Falae, paid into that account.
We didn’t want to open an account for AD because of our experience in AG. The same happened to UPN. Because if anything happened, the account of the party would be frozen. There were some things we knew that Ige never knew. One of the things I knew, for instance, was that he was relying on some people who would never vote for him. One of them confided in me. Bola had offended some people who kept quiet.
He really thought he would win. I mentioned it to Obasanjo during Ige’s lifetime. When Pa Adesanya and I met Obasanjo on a private visit, Obasanjo said Pa Adesanya should settle the quarrel between Ige and myself. Obasanjo claimed that Bola Ige alleged we held the primaries when he was away on holiday abroad. I told him, ‘That can’t be true, he is still a member of your cabinet. Go and ask him.’
When Ige was travelling abroad. Pa Adesanya told him not to go, saying, ‘Suppose those who are conducting the primaries say they want to interview the candidates?’ But Ige insisted that he was going on medical appointment. ‘How can he now come and accuse us?’
The problem with the late Bola Ige was that he didn’t really know his friends from his enemies. As I told him at a meeting where they wanted to settle the matter, where he was to be appointed a minister and we were opposed to it, he made allegations against some leaders of the party. He even said he didn’t know what he had done to me that I was opposed to him.
Then I told him why. ‘I always tell you the truth; something others would not tell you.’ That was at a meeting in Ijebu-Igbo where Pa Emmanuel Alayande was the chairman.
So, when the result came out, he was baffled. He was devastated, having thought he could boast that his victory at the party primaries was achieved when he was not even in the country. He told somebody that he was sure of 13 out of the 23 votes. I said at an interview later that when his 13 became 9 he should have examined himself.
Unfortunately, some intelligent people, close friends and party associates of Bola Ige insinuated that we were culpable for his death. How they reason I don’t know. These people who could have wondered at the mysterious murder of the nation’s chief law officer despite the heavy presence of security personnel around him thus foreclosed investigation into other areas because of their prejudiced minds.
TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW
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