The Peter Pan Story: Prologue
“Brigadier Ogundipe, Peter Enahoro said, shouted at him that Ironsi was beside himself because of his (Peter Pan) article on Ghana and that didn’t he, Peter Enahoro, know that the H.E. In Ghana and the H.E. in Nigeria were good friends?”
Peter Enahoro, aka Peter Pan, sat on a brown chair in his small room at the Ikoyi Hotel and began to recollect the important moments of his life in a conversation that lasted four hours. He had been in Nigeria just for four days in his first visit home after 13 years of self-exile in Europe. Like a little boy who suddenly discovered that his parents actually loved him, Peter Enahoro rubbed his head, his large and animating eyes rolling behind his silver-wire-rimmed glasses, and said that if he knew then he was loved thus by his countrymen, “I wouldn’t have left.” But Peter Enahoro knew he had to leave at that time even if he knew that he was loved so by his countrymen, because it was a decision between remaining sane and going stark mad. For a long time, he said, the vigour and concentration that Peter Pan demanded to come out thrice a week saved him from his daily visit to the Blue Velvet near Daily Times where he drank worse than a fish.
But around the time that Peter Enahoro decided to flee Nigeria, because that’s what he did, even writing Peter Pan five times a week couldn’t have saved him from madness. Afterall, he was just but 31, and he found himself then to be the only effective extra-parliamentary opposition in the country, an opposition expressed through biting and point-blank incisive satire of Peter Pan. Apart from the physical threat to his life, Peter Enahoro said the threat to what he called his conscience – the mental torture if you will – and the unsetting realized that Peter Pan was the only person in the country asking the unpleasant questions, made him so lonely and tired that he knew he had to go away from Nigeria for three months or so. As he had done all his life when making momentous decisions, Peter Enahoro said he decided on the spur of a leave Nigeria. He said he had written a story on the military government of Ghana of which leader, Ankrah, was reported to be a good friend of Ironsi here in Nigeria. The article in question, Peter Enahoro said, was not complimentary to the Ghanian government. As a result of the article, Peter Enahoro said, he was summoned to the office of Brigadier Ogundipe who was the number two man to the Head of State, General Ironsi. When he got to Ogundipe’s office, Peter Enahoro said, he found all the top men from the military of Information and the Ministry of External Affairs standing behind Ogundipe in his office.
Recalling what he described as the oppressive atmosphere in Ogundipe’s office, Peter Enahoro said he felt drowned by oozing hostility in the room and the steam of anger coming off Ogundipe’s face. Peter Enahoro said he knew that he was in trouble and that he had to think quite fast as Ogundipe brought out the Peter Pan’s commentary on the Ghana situation. Brigadier Ogundipe, Peter Enahoro said, shouted at him that Ironsi was beside himself because of his (Peter Pan) article on Ghana and that didn’t he Peter Enahoro, know that H.E. in Ghana and H.E. in Nigeria were good friends? Enahoro recalled that Ogundipe said the only solution was for Peter Enahoro to apologise for Peter Pan’s article. He said as Ogundipe said this, one of the top civil servants in the office, this one from the External Affairs Ministry, stepped forward with a long apology which he, Peter Enahoro, was supposed to sign.
Enahoro said he knew in his mind, even if it would cost him his life, that he would not sign the monstrosity that he was being asked to attach his name. He said turned away from the diplomatese in the paper and faced Ogundipe. He began a slow and agonizing process of asking the brigadier to change his mind and let him, Peter Enahoro, draft his own apology. He said he argued against what he called the incompatibility of the situation in which the Ironsi government had pledged press freedom and the same government asking a leading Nigerian journalist to sign a prepared apology to a foreign government for an article written about the government. The argument, Peter Enahoro said, touched the rather introspective Ogundipe who then told him to own apology. That, too, Peter Enahoro said, he knew he would not do. So, he began a new rond of argument to Ogundipe whose weakness for logic he had just discovered. On this, he said, he argued against the preposterousness of the situation. Peter Enahoro said when he began his line of persuasion, Ogundipe snapped that he was tired of hearing Enahoro’s argument, but that the brigadier listened anyway. He said he asked Ogundipe if he was aware of the number of ambassadors in Lagos at that time and what they would do on hearing that the government compelled a Nigerian journalist to apologise to a foreign government because of a negative news story? This, Enahoro recalled, touched Ogundipe. So, he said, he rushed in with what appeared to be a selfless argument. If they found out, Enahoro said he told Ogundipe, “your office would be crowded by ambassadors demanding apology from Nigerian journalists and newspapers who might have written critically about their countries.”
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Ogundipe simply told Enahoro to get out. Enahoro didn’t have to apologise. But he didn’t feel triumphant either. Instead, he felt tired and weighed down by the conscience of the whole country he was carrying on his spare back. Subsequently, he wrote the 100 Days of Military Government and the reaction from the government told him that his days in Nigeria were numbered. Without thinking twice, Enahoro said, he was convinced that he must leave his country.
©Daily Times, December 5, 1979
(Pp.11-13)
