‘Jesus … the President Is Angry’
“The president was angry and he showed it. From the way he jumped up from his seat, from the knot on his forehead and from his glare at me, I knew he was angry, and his first sentence proved it.”
Here is what I wrote on the back of an official envelope on my way to the monthly presidential briefing at the State House for the nation’s senior journalists: “Sheer size and population doesn’t translate directly or indirectly into might. And a nation of 80 million or whatever the population of Nigeria is with a budget hardly larger than that of the City of New York with about eight million people should stop kidding itself that it is rich and powerful. Just because you live in a Nigerian city and have airconditioners in your house powered by a private generator since NEPA has abdicated its responsibility in that regard doesn’t mean that your fellow country man is not living in squalor and holelessness. And the picture of affluence and might this does not make. Nigeria is an annoyingly poor and weak country, and most Nigerians who are rich are hopelessly selfish and shameless in the way that they show the poor that they don’t care if they starve to death. Nigeria is the only country where a guy like Umaru Dikko could come out and be so shamelessly misleading in saying that he has brought rice to the table of every Nigerian, and that the commodity is now in more plentiful supply than garri. Dikko must be confusing his well-stocked table with the carpetless floor of many a Nigerian who lives at Ajegunle, the Nigerian who can’t even boast of a structure in his house that was the attribute of a piece of furniture.”
When I wrote that, I was thinking of the misperception of many Nigerians who regard their country as rich, and as such mighty. I had in my mind the failure of Nigeria to provide leadership on international issues like Chad and what appeared to be the death of the OAU in Tripoli, Libya. I was already making the point when I wrote a frontpage commentary in the Sunday Concord that Nigeria was perching on the fence as the OAU was burning to death in Libya. I signed the commentary to give it the weight of the newspaper. Appearently, the point was made. When I arrived at the State House for the monthly briefing, Charles Igoh, the president’s chief press secretary, immediately challenged the intention of the short commentary. I told him that I didn’t see where I was wrong, and I offered two arguments: I told him that it was hardly enough for Nigeria to send Ishaya Audu to Tripoli to be present, but to do nothing. And I augued that a quorum could not possibly be formed when other nations who looked to Nigeria for leadership realized that Nigeria didn’t seem anxious to see the conference on the way.
Of course, Charles is smooth, and he argued strongly and competently for the president’s position, blaming Libya for the failure of the conference. But he couldn’t find any answer to the Kernel of my criticism that Nigeria refused to join other countries in Libya in issuing an appeal to the boycotting African countries to turn up and save the conference and the OAU itself. Charles Igoh did say that the president intended to discuss the OAU issue in full later in the day after meeting the news executives for lunch. For about 15 minutes, President Shagari spoke off the cuff on the OAU, how he had seen for sometime that the issue of the Saharawi Republic might cause trouble for OAU. He spoke of the efforts of his government to defuse the issue by discouraging OAU. He said that Nigeria supported the aspiration of the Saharawi people against the Moroccan usurpation, but argued that the manner of the admission of SADR to the OAU was illegal. The president left it in no doubt that he disliked the role played by Edem Kodjo, the OAU secretary-general, in the admission of the SADR. I had not meant to ask any question on the issue, since my colleague on the National Concord, Yakubu Mohammed, had asked two excellent questions on it. But in reaching to a question on the speculation that Nigeria would like to field a candidate for the secretary-general of the OAU, the president said that Nigeria as a power in Africa, could not aspire to field a secretary-general, I felt then that the president had run into philosophical contradictions
First, he said that Nigeria played a “neutral” role on the issue – his words. Second, he said Nigeria has been active in saving the OAU. Third, he said Nigeria was opposed to the participation of the SADR in the conference. Four, he said Nigeria was a power in Africa. Each of the points stands against each other. A power cannot remain neutral on an issue that touches the life of the organization in which, as a power, it must provide leadership. You cannot be neutral if you are so openly opposed to the very issue that is at the heart of a crisis. The issue was the admissibility if the SADR to the OAU and its participation in the aborted conference in Tripoli. And the president said that Nigeria was opposed. The question that I then got up to ask the president gently pointed to these subtle contradictions, and the president didn’t like. President Shagari’s best known a attribute is his unflappability. He is cool and ling suffering. He is not known to react angrily to press inquiries. Even when I met with him for hours and asked a few prickly questions, the president was always cool, so cool that one even sometimes felt exasperated. Thus, I had assumed that the president would not lose his cool in the glare of the public, definitely not in a hall of journalists, and definitely not under the klieg lights of national television. But the president was angry, and he showed it. From the way he jumped up from his seat, from the knot of his forehead, and from his glare at me, I knew the president was angry, and his first sentence proved it: “That’s an unkind question.”
“Jesus,” I told myself, “the president is angry.”
Then he went on to repeat the gallant efforts of his government to save the OAU and the conference in Tripoli, and in the process he repeated all the subtle contradictions I pointed out in my question. In fact, he went further to say he didn’t want the conference to collapse “over my head.” I then told myself: “since when is a power afraid to have his house collapse on his head. Isn’t a power expected to hold up his house and prevent the collapse of the house?” In any case, one thing President Shagari is that he is a good politician. On that day, I was only officer of the Nigerian Guild of Editors present, and so protocol demanded that I should walk the president to his car. But I didn’t realize it, so I fell behind talking to friends. When President Shagari got to his car, he didn’t see me. Suddenly I realized that people were looking for me, that the president was at his car and that he wanted me. I hurried forward, and when I got to his car, he said joking: “Dele, as the acting chairman of the Guild, don’t you understand that protocol demands that you walk me to the car?” I apologized laughing, “I am sorry, sir, I have never been in protocol.” He shook my hand, got in his car, and drove off.
©Sunday Concord, August 15, 1982
(Pp.170-172)
