by Akin Osuntokun
Why was I calling the South-west wing of the All Progressives Congress (APC) political descendants of Akintola? I did not — I’m not in the business of calling people names. I only drew attention to how they could become victims of their own penchant for demonising opponents.
The original title of this essay was ‘With Malice toward none’ and I still believe it is more appropriate than the one it now carries. I was on an almost absent minded rumination and foray over an entirely different issue when I discovered that it has been used word for word by another columnist barely a month ago. Following the discovery I had two options. One was to go ahead with the title as originally intended and acknowledge the repetition. The other was to seek to convey the same or proximate meaning with a different choice of words. In deference to the logic of originality and creativity I chose the latter. I was compelled to exercise my imagination more and add value even if it is in a few words.
My task was made easier and ultimately more rewarding when on further reflection I recalled it was actually an extraction from the second inaugural address of President Abraham Lincoln of the United States of America. I went back to look at the address and found the present title as a culmination from the originally intended title, in the opening phrase of the conclusion to the inaugural address. It goes thus “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Lincoln was speaking to the American civil war — as it neared the end. The war was occasioned by the secessionist bid of the Southern states over its resolve to retain and sustain the iniquitous status quo of slavery against the equal determination of Lincoln to extinguish the evil. He was speaking as a statesman, who was being magnanimous in victory; who was compelled to fight a war he would rather not; who needed to reconcile and bring together a torn nation; who was challenging his nation to seek the higher moral pedestal of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Since a couple of months ago I have been engaged in regular (weekly) political advocacy, which has generated some controversy. It comes with the trade I suppose. As an aspiring intellectual I subscribe to its characterisation as one who seeks and follows the truth no matter where it leads. The fulfilment of this characterisation invariably leads to the manifestation of a trait some people call the ‘bitter truth and brutal frankness’ polemical style. But I do not believe in bitterness and brutality and I do not encourage either. In consequence I feel seriously obliged to seek mitigation in the language of restraint and empathy in getting my message across.
In the context of politics and in the idiom of the late Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim, this kind of aspiration is called politics without bitterness. This high sounding ideal is of course a tall order, regardless of our best efforts. In the rough and tumble world of politics, mere innocent citation of facts and figures is sometimes liable to the interpretation of sadism.
Politics is inherently conflict ridden and conflict driven. It amounts to little more than the generation, sustenance, management and mismanagement of conflict and crisis. In a society like ours — governed as it is by a deadly combination of ignorance, fear, uncertainty and mutual recrimination — it can be quite damaging to long-standing social and interpersonal relationships. In one form or another and reflective of the current desperate, life and death jostling for power, Nigerians are anticipating the Armageddon. Nerves are getting high strung and tempers are accelerating towards the short end of the fuse. So I have my task cut out for me.
In the journey of my Dialogue series, one of the most difficult subjects for me to grapple with (in terms of its capacity to offend sensibilities) has been the peren¬nial topic of the national conference. As a proposal, it begins with the peculiarity of working from the answer. Those who support it have already hosted the conference in their minds and passed the resolution of ‘restructuring’. The understanding of this restructuring, in turn, is a zonal or regional decentralisation and devolution of powers correlating largely with the present six nominal zones. The expectation from this redress is a more functional and development oriented Nigerian union, at the zonal and national levels.
The catch is that the story is seldom rendered and perceived in such neutral and inoffensive language. In no time and in the search for scape goats, it gets frequently decoded and debased as canvassing a rejection of association with a certain part of the country, namely the ‘North’. In popular Southern lexicon, the understanding of the basis of this rejection is that the North is a liability and a burden on the country and therefore each unit should be allowed to develop at its own pace. No Nigerian from the Northern part of the country is likely to be fond of this denigration. It is no less the case with close friends and brothers who hail from what we variously call the far North, the muslim North…,the core North; and I’m talking of individuals, who, if I have any choice in the matter, I will choose as family. I tend to get the sinking feeling that they vicariously share this sense of rejection.
This psychology of rejection is as traumatising for them as it is for me, a veritable killjoy. It becomes a topic we would rather not discuss and a conversation we would rather not have. It casts a palpable pall, as hitherto mirthful banter and raucous debate drift and taper off into embarrassing silence and awkward monosyllabic exchange. It gets particularly difficult for me because I do not have the therapeutic and mitigating escape valve of been enamoured of the roaring to go mission of kicking Jonathan out of Aso Rock.
Nearer home I continue to labour under the discomfort of knowing too much about recent political history of the Yoruba in Nigeria. I had no choice in the matter really. My transition from infant to adolescent occurred, front out and centre in the thick of the crisis that terminated the first republic. It could not have been my choice that my dad was a big player in this turbulent piece of history; that he elected to prematurely and unfairly conscript me into the political war zone by naming me Akintola. I had to grow up fast and get a crash course education on the terminal crisis if I was to fully answer to that name. Seems there is plenty of logic, after all, in the suggestion that all writing is autobiographical. Now at over 50 years in age, the knowledge has become handy in a way that is causing some distress to personalities I would rather not offend and towards who I mean no harm.
A week ago, I was woken up by a telephone call at 4am. I sensed a worrisome tiding and I was not disappointed. A younger friend and colleague from who I seldom hear was on the other end telling me all hell was let loose on account of something I wrote. He was inundated with marching orders to go and see what his brother had written. After reading through he felt sufficiently panicked to call me immediately, regardless of the insensitivity of disrupting my sleep therapy.
Why was I calling the South-west wing of the All Progressives Congress (APC) political descendants of Akintola? I did not — I’m not in the business of calling people names. I only drew attention to how they could become victims of their own penchant for demonising opponents. If they felt Akintola was the first cousin to Judas Iscariot and, thereby, deserves to be perpetually called to the service of political gamesmanship, as the bogeyman of Yoruba politics, then they had better realise the self-incrimination the political rapport with Gen. Mohammadu Buhari and co implies. What about Senator Bola Tinubu? I was taken aback by this. I honestly felt I had actually cast him in a positive glow. Besides and on a personal level, here is one political giant who I know is fond of me.
The point to note about Tinubu is that he is a particularly fascinating and engaging political science seminar subject matter and merits a critical study and scholarly scrutiny by serious students of Nigeria politics. My association with him goes deeper and longer than what many people know and I admire him for what he was and what he is but probably not what some people are projecting him to be. He has a big enough pair of shoes and he should feel comfortable in this footwear and he is in no need of the ill-fitting shoes of the presumption of being the political heir to the Awolowo political heritage. Notwithstanding his conspicuous imperfections, the late president elect, Chief Moshood Abiola, remains my all-time hero. I was a keen witness to his exemplification of the human capacity for self-redemption. Typically he has no need of the superficial accretion of a tenuous invocation of umbilical linkage to Obafemi Awolowo to justify his stature and status.
Much as I admire him, were he alive today I would even have criticised Awolowo for subordinating his commitment to federalism to the fulfilment of his aspiration to become the president of Nigeria and his confounding lack of political savvy to correctly read the writing on the wall. I will do this to make the point that I do not believe in the doctrine of papal infallibility, neither will I accept that any human is beyond public reproach. The hero is not without his fair share of flaws and foibles. More importantly, let me not forget to warn, in anticipation of the political roller coaster road ahead of us, that we will continue to scrutinise and criticise but with malice towards none. Fair enough?
Happy New Year to you all.
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This post is published with permission from Akin Osuntokun
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.