Between Awo and Asari DokuboSINCE Oba Erediauwa's autobiography, "I Remain Sir, Your Obedient Servant", in which the Benin monarch put Ife behind Benin, there has been a subtle effort by the Yoruba intelligentsia to relocate their mythical suzerainty. Extremist stories have since come from Yoruba historians, journalists, politicians and mythologists, to reclaim their position. I place Reuben Abati's 'Awo and Asari Dokubo', (The Guardian, Friday, March 25, 2005), as one.
The content is not new; a recapitulation of half-truths, a revisionist history of sorts. Abati's apprehension seems to be that Ile-Ife is denigrated, and now Awo's 'hallowed' memory is being disparaged. Thus, he spends about 90 per cent of his write-ups to eulogise the memory of Awo and used the remaining 10 per cent to criminalise Asari Dokubo. Awo's memory is impeccable, sacred and even godly. Though he agrees that 'Awo has been called worse names in the past', but certainly, not by irritants like Asari Dokubo.
By Abati's account Asari described Awo as a devil and accused him of being partly responsible for the present predicament of the Ijaw people. The interview irked the members of the OPC, who arrived the venue for a showdown with Asari. Trouble was narrowly avoided, according to Abati, when Asari fled town. Defamation of one's character, dead or alive, is unacceptable in law, and the law provides a means by which aggrieved persons can seek redress. Our law forbids violent threats, even as a last resort. But not a few Yoruba folks, working in the oil multinationals in the heart of the Niger Delta, have stereotyped the entire Ijaw people with negative characterisation, yet none has received any threat. To harm Asari for exercising his fundamental rights will only take us 200 years back.
Abati's piece left out lots of things historians know about Awo. One particular fact with the Ijaw connection is worth mentioning here. Simply put, Awo's political career was nurtured under the tutelage of the legendary nationalist, Ernest Ikoli, Member of the Order of the British Empire, an Ijaw like Asari. When Awo decided to make a career in politics in the early 1930s, Ikoli was already an established name in Nigerian politics, a founding member of the Nigeria Youth Movement (NYM). Ikoli's fame eclipsed most Yoruba politicians in Yorubaland.
Awo came under Ikoli's mentorship, and in 1940 was made the secretary of the Ibadan branch of NYM. A year later, Awo became Ikoli's campaign manager when the latter contested for the Legislative Council election against a Yoruba candidate, Samuel Akinsanya. Ikoli won. In the book - Awoism - the Yoruba leader expressed a world of indebtedness to Ikoli for showing him the light. But today Ikoli is ripped off from the pages of recent history, with no national honour to his name. Shamefully, even his ethnic identity is denied of him, as Dare Babarinsa's book House of War ignobly shows.
Again, Abati accused Asari of gangsterism but he did not tell us one significant phase of the Yoruba leader. Awo was charged and sentenced to jail for 10 years in 1963 for treasonable felony against the Nigerian state. General Yakubu Gowon pardoned him in 1966. But by examining Awo side by side with Asari Dokubo, the writer has safely elevated the Ijaw freedom fighter to the pedestal of the greatest Yoruba political leader. Indeed, in many ways the two men are similar. Both men are committed to their ethnic groups. While Awo's contemporaries such as Nkrumah, Senghor and Nyerere were redefining the face of post-colonial Africa with ideas such as Pan-Africanism, Negritude and African socalism, Awo's preoccupation was the 10 million Yoruba people. At least, Abati told us: "Although Awo did not become the Prime Minister of Nigeria, the Yoruba were pleased with his performance as Premier of the Western Region. He gave the people free education, tarred roads, equipped the hospitals, created job opportunities, and formulated a grand ideology of communal greatness".
The Asaris of this world are the deliberate creation of our past leaders, the Awos of this world. On the eve of the country's independence, Ijaw leaders like the late Harold Dappa-Biriye clearly expressed their dissatisfaction with the structural and institutional imbalance in the emerging state, and called for a proper restructuring of the Nigerian state, where the Niger Delta minorities would feel safe.
The appeal was ignored except that it compelled London to commission a six-man panel under Sir Henry Willink to investigate the minorities' 'fears' and recommend ways to 'allay' them. The Commission acknowledged the peculiar environment of the region and suggested that instead of creating a separate state for the people as demanded by the leaders of the area, the area should be given a special status for particular attention. It therefore recommended the setting up of an agency to tackle the perennial problems of the area.
The establishment of the Niger Delta Development Board in 1962 failed to allay the fears of the Ijaw people. Barely six years into the new road of self-rule, the Nigerian state became jinxed at the first military coup d'etat. The minorities' fears heightened when the Federal Government and the secessionist Biafran forces laid claim to the oil fields and port facilities in the Niger Delta, chiefly located in Ijawland. The latest book on the Nigerian civil war by Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle, The Nigeria-Biafra War Letters: A Soldier's Story, says 'the control of Nigeria's oil resources was the bone of contention' in the war. And, inspite of repeated constitutional means by Niger Delta leaders to own their own separate state, the Federal Government ignored their plea. This frustration, combined with the near collapse of the Nigerian state in 1966 paved the way for the declaration of the Niger Delta Republic by a group of 150 Ijaw youths led by Major Isaac Boro.
The end of the war meant more troubles for the Ijaw people: Gowon's famous three R's post-war project (reconstruction, reconciliation and rehabilitation) was not intended for the Ijaw people even when they were deeply hurt. Worse still, the oil resources derived from Ijawland were used to heal the wounds of the war. Awo was the most influential figure in the Gowon wartime government, as the Federal Commissioner of Finance and Vice-Chairman of the Federal Executive Council.
And in order to finance the war, he codified in our statute book the on-shore off-shore dichotomy, which upturned the hitherto prevailing derivation principle, and consigned the Ijaw people to the flames. (And when Gen. Ibrahim Babangida rescinded this notorious law several years after, Bola Ige, a true successor of Awo and self-acclaimed federalist like Awo, instituted a case against the oil producing states to retain the illegality. Asari in that interview questioned the morality of Awo's thoughts on Nigerian federalism and action he demonstrated when he had the opportunity to do so).
Thus, the suspicion the Ijaw people harboured in pre-independent Nigeria deepened in post-colonial Nigeria. Thirty-two years after the ill-fated Boro republic, history almost repeated itself when Ijaw youths, including Asari Dokubo, reinvented the spirit of Boro in his hometown, Kaiama. The tough-speaking youths converged there and deliberated for an entire day and adopted a resolution known as the "Kaiama Declaration". The youths resolved to ignore all obnoxious laws governing oil operations in the Niger Delta by the Nigerian state and warned all Trans-National Companies (TNCs) doing business in the area to repudiate their agreements with the federal government or quit. To ensure effective implementation of the declaration, the youths formed the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and mandated the council to dismantle the internal colonialism in the region. Thus, the IYC announced a programme of action and mobilised the people to a peaceful mass action against the State and the oil companies in the area.
The Nigerian state labelled the peaceful protest of the people as seditious and treasonable, and violently suppressed the protest with two warships and over 15,000 military personnel. A disturbing phenomenon that emerged at this period was the direct involvement of the oil multinationals in the crisis. TNCs doing business in the Niger Delta have always collaborated with the oppressive State to further subjugate the Ijaw people.
Oil multinationals in the Niger Delta have provided amatory and other logistics for the Nigerian security system to abuse the fundamental human rights of the local people. Shell International also confirmed that Shell had indeed purchased arms on behalf of the Nigeria police because 'the Nigeria police do not have sufficient funds to equip themselves...and this is a common practice for private companies'.
Abati's paper, The Guardian said in its editorial on November 22, 1999, p.20: "Since the Kaiama Declaration of December 11 last year, the entire region has been under siege. In the immediate aftermath of the declaration, armed detachment raided various communities. Innocent people were killed; many were injured including the aged and infants. Soldiers and police have brutalised people in the Niger Delta in the name of peace-keeping. Inspite of loud protests, the government has never investigated these charges. Do the people of Bayelsa State not deserve the protection of the Federal Government...? Clearly, the situation in Bayelsa State does not warrant this extreme measure".
Asari claims he has an assignment to struggle against ethnic domination, perverted federalism, and corporate injustice. Asari may not have completed his law degree programme, but he understands the legalities of the Nigerian system; he may not actually represent the entire Ijaw race but tens of thousands of Ijaws in the creeklets in the Niger Delta see him as an icon; he may not be included in the Ibadan School of History but the Niger Delta Hall of Fame may well find a corner for him. Time alone will tell.
Banigo lives in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
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