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• Continued from last week
Rage is the currency of their trade while outrage and defiance are their demons. They maim, kill and draw blood at will. No qualms whatever. Their background provides no clues. In the case of Nigeria’s first coup, Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna who was one of the ringleaders graduated from the University of Ibadan which would have afforded (even guaranteed) him a comfortable existence either in the civil service or the military. Regardless, he could lay legitimate claim to being the architect and planner-in-chief of the coup.
As a university student, his room was right next to that of Emeka Anyaoku who was sandwiched between Ifeajuna and Jide Alo. Anyaoku proceeded to the world of diplomacy and dazzled as the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth (from 1 July 1990 – 31 March 2000) along with a brief stint as Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1983. Alo was reputed to have drafted the announcement of the coup which Nzeogwu read to a bewildered nation. He later became Nigeria’s Ambassador to Brazil but eventually disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
What is self-evident is that once the seal that glues a nation together is broken to put it back is in the same category as a Herculean task/mission impossible. Thereafter, what you are left with is deep-seated animosity, mutual suspicion and finally revenge in the game of death preceded by ethnic cleansing and/or genocide – along with looting and plunder.
When Brigadier-General Atom Kpera was tackled on “Hard Talk”: “Nigerian generals are said to be very rich, especially the retired ones. Did you also amass billions of money while in service?” His response was as follows: “The long and short answer is that I didn’t. I have my pay slip here. I received my last payslip in the Army in September 1985 and the take-home pay was N1, 500.
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At that time it was adequate to take care of my needs, and when I retired, there was still strict control of military personnel on matters of handling money, you could hardly embezzle money. If you did, they would send you to prison and retire you. So in our own time, up to 1985 when I left, we had no money. When I was military governor of Anambra, my allowance was about N400 and I couldn’t touch the Government House money. In fact, you had a permanent secretary in Government House who handled everything concerning money; he accounted directly to the accountant-general of the state.
If I had to go to Lagos, I had to tell the perm sec and he would prepare everything for me, including my hotel bills. He would then give the money to my ADC who spent it and made returns strictly to the permanent secretary. The same thing for Government House expenses. So we had no such thing as government having money or diverting security funds. And as I earlier said, in our time, we didn’t have federation account where money would come in billions. So the question of amassing wealth didn’t arise at all. Remember that we introduced the War against Indiscipline (WAI). These billions of a thing started when we left. So my answer is no, I am only hearing that billions are being made by military persons.”
I had lost touch with the Ambassador for quite a while when he suddenly called from the U.S. to alert me that he was on his way to Nigeria as a special envoy of President Donald J. Trump. Anyway, after he had completed his official duties in Abuja, he decided to come to Lagos rather than return straightaway to Washington D.C. It turned out that he was bothered about the security situation in Nigeria and the consequences for U.S. business interests (and the security implications for the U.S. itself – both domestic and international).
According to him, the U.S. is exceptionally concerned about the rapidly evolving dynamics of Nigeria’s demography – 65 per cent of the population are young people most of whom fall into the category of the unemployed/partially employed, without any social safety net. Economists have defined it as the demographic bulge. According to the Ambassador, the U.S. under President Trump is ready to provide ample funds for Nigeria to ensure that these kids acquire relevant skills and funding to become entrepreneurs that would massively impact on job creation. Of course, this is a subject close to my heart and as regards which my firm has endeavoured to play a catalyst role with some degree of success.
However, what took me entirely by surprise was the Ambassador’s amazement that he attended the Official Flag Off of the Redevelopment of J.K. Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History on Tuesday 9th January 2018 but to his astonishment, members of the J.K. Randle family were conspicuous by their absence!! According to him, he was at the meeting in June 2017 in the White House when an enraged President Trump declared (not realising that the microphone was still on): – according to Michael Shear, White House correspondent of New York Times: “Trump railed against the number of Nigerian U.S. visa holders (40,000 entry permits were given to Nigerians) and that they would contravene their visa terms so as not to return to their “huts” in Nigeria having been captivated by the splendour, and grandeur and abundant blessings of America.”
The Ambassador took pains to defend Trump and that the J.K. Randle Trump Super Towers was very much on President Trump’s mind and that he was ready to go to war over the demolition of the Chief J.K. Randle Memorial Hall, Onikan, Lagos which was in flagrant contempt of the sanctity of heritage buildings and the preservation of historic monuments.
President Trump has made no secret of his intention to build Super Trump Towers as his signature and footprint in every major African city in order to demonstrate the efficacy and potency of American capitalism and entrepreneurship with regard to wealth creation and the galvanisation of jobs for both the able and disabled – without discrimination on the basis of tribe, creed or gender as the counterforce for insurrection and terrorism. It all fits in well with Trump’s mantra for which he remains unrepentant: “AMERICA FIRST” with a subsidiary (subtext) about persuading Africans, especially Nigerians to develop their own country and continent instead of wasting their enormous resources and institutionalising corruption as well as incompetence. What particularly enraged Donald Trump is why would government undertake a project which the J.K. Randle family has already volunteered to fund in memory of their ancestor?
J.K. Randle
