By UZODINMA NWALA
The nation waited helplessly as the ominous cloud continued thickening over her political horizon. The meeting of the ICS was called for Kaduna on February 18, 1998. I was unable to attend the meeting but I gave my Memo to Dr. Ekwueme at Obollo Afor on his way to Kaduna. At the meeting, it was decided that the first step in the public reaction of ICS was to get its Northern members to speak out first against Abacha’s plans. This was to strategically establish the overwhelming northern support of the ICS position. The northern outrage was to be followed by a collective statement by the entire ICS group. One critical propaganda weapon which Abacha exploited was to portray opposition to his plans as a purely Southern phenomenon. Beyond that, his strategists tried to link every semblance of opposition against him as NADECO-inspired. Leaders of NADECO were mainly from the West and East of Nigeria.
To neutralise this propaganda and to demonstrate that Northern patriots and democrats were not supportive but, rather, were vehemently opposed to Abacha’s self-succession plan as well as his fascist government, the decision to have the Northern wing of the ICS, made up of patriots and democrats, to make their position pubic first became very compelling. The famous G-18 letter was, therefore, written and signed by 18 members of ICS Northern wing, under the joint-leadership of Malam AdamuCiroma, Chief Solomon D. Lar and Alhaji Abubakar Rimi. The statement came out with a big bang and became known as the G-18 Statement. It had eighteen signatories.
Following this development, members of this group began to publicly voice their opposition to the regime. Alhaji Abubukar Rimi and Alhaji Sule Lamido were detained for their principled public stand. Down in the South, both Chief Bola Ige and Chief Olu Falae were detained for different fabricated reasons. Chief Basil Nnanna Ukegbu was hounded in and out of the court for sedition. National and international reactions to the G-18 document were overwhelmingly favourable and inspiring. It was the first public demonstration that a national consensus was emerging in opposition to Gen. Sani Abacha. What is more, it was evidence that an alternative political leadership to Abacha’s infamous regime was crystallizing, something Dr. Nelson Mandela saw was previously absent. The nation’s hope began to rise as she now perceived a strong, twinkling, star-lit silver-lining on her gloomy political horizon. It, then, appeared that it was possible to overcome Abacha without provoking a civil strife. If it was possible to deny Abacha the opportunity of using one section of the country against another, then, the threat of war was mitigated. History has demonstrated again and again that once the entire populace is geopolitically united in any struggle, the resistance against tyranny, the latter’s weapon of repression and domination, becomes considerably weakened.
After this, Dr. Ekwueme and I met and agreed that a national meeting of the entire group should be summoned immediately. The ICS had to demonstrate the reality of a national consensus. On the eve of April 27, 1998, I spent the night with Chief Ekwueme in his Enugu residence. After dinner with Beatie, his beautiful wife, we drank chilled palm wine, sat down and perused the documents we had assembled to prepare the statement to be discussed the next day in Lagos. I woke up by 2.00 am and prepared a draft of the letter. By 6 am, Chief Ekwueme and I went through the draft and made necessary changes. We then ate and left for the airport en-route Lagos for the meeting at the Mainland Hotel, Ebute Metta. The meeting was presided over by Chief Ekwueme, the Chairman of the ICS. Only 18 people, from both the north and south, had the courage to attend the meeting.
After reading the draft we came with, a member urged that we should tone down the language so that Abacha could read it. I told our colleagues that, even though the letter was addressed to Abacha, that it was not really meant for him. That it would be unrealistic to expect that Abacha would unwind because of our letter. I argued that the letter was meant first and foremost for our countrymen and women who have lost any hope of any intervention from any man or group in Nigeria. Secondly, that the letter was meant for the international community that had doubts over the emergence of any alternative political force under the prevailing circumstances in Nigeria, as was ably espoused by Dr. Nelson Mandela. Mallam Adamu Ciroma quickly got up to support my argument. He queried why we expected Abacha to care and read the letter, let alone respond to it – a man who does not listen to the voice of the international community, or even to the voice of God. He emphasised that the letter was meant for the people of Nigeria to signal that there are men of honour and integrity ready to sacrifice anything to save the people of Nigeria from the grip of a mindless dictator. The Chairman and other members concurred with our submission. Then, we set up a Committee of five (Alex Ekwueme, Jerry Gana, Uzodinma Nwala, Senator Onyeabor Obi and Senator Iyorchia Ayu) to update the draft in the light of the agreements in the meeting and mandated the former Vice President of Nigeria, Chief Alex Ekwueme, to formally forward it to General Abacha.
We discussed the signatories to the letter. Our colleagues from the North informed us that out of the eighteen persons that signed the G-18 letter, one person had developed cold feet. However, the rest, including Abubakar Rimi and Sule Lamido who were in detention, asked that we include their names in whatever we had agreed. That gave us seventeen (17) signatories from the north. To even things out, we then had to look for another seventeen (17) signatories from the South. This was how we arrived at the name of the famous G-34.
This brings us to the incident of August 13, 1998, at a meeting of the G-34 in Abuja. The main agenda was the manifesto of the emergent new political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), especially with respect to Power-sharing and Rotation of the Presidency. These were some of the most contentious issues at the 1994-5 Abuja Constitutional Conference. Although the Conference decided in favor of zoning and rotation, the decision was based on a vote in which the Southern delegates and their northern allies had won.
As soon as the issue of zoning and rotation came up, the Chairman of the Contact and Mobilization Committee, Alhaji Lawal Kaita, stood up and said “Gentlemen, we shall adopt the policy of zoning and rotation. To begin with, we shall zone the Presidency to the South, and not only to the South, but personally to Chief Ekwueme.
As soon as he finished speaking, many hands were up. And the few who had opportunity to speak, spoke in favour of Lawal Kaita’s position. But the Chairman, Chief Ekwueme, interrupted the discussion and said, “Gentlemen, we can decide that the Presidency should be zoned to the South, but it is not a personal matter. It cannot be zoned to anyone person.”
As soon the Chairman ruled, I was one of those who rolled their eyes and even shook their heads. For us, it was the loss of a great historical opportunity for the right man in our midst to be invested with the awesome power to lead the emergence of the civilian democracy in Nigeria, nay the emergence of a new era in the political history of Nigeria.
Chief Ekwueme’s action was that of a gentleman, a democrat, so to say, a man anxious to hold the fragile post-military society together. But, it was the action of an honest, puritan political actor; yes, it was not the voice of real politics! Someone else in Chief Ekwueme’s position at that moment, guided by the realities of raw political struggle as has always been the case in Nigeria, would have allowed the debate ignited by Alhaji Lawal Kaita’s proposition to run its full course. At the end, he would have simply called for a formal motion and then a vote.
Concluded
Prof. Nwala writes from Enugu
The outcome of the vote would have been unanimously in favour. The political environment at that point in time was that the civilian politicians in control of the G-34 had become not only the singular political power, but there was no alternative to them as the leading political power in the country at that point in the political history of the country. Every member of the G-34 was anxious for a transition that would have handed political power to them.
The main power brokers, the military leaders, were bruised and dazed by the turn of events, following the annulment of June 12 election, and the majority of their members were anxious to leave the political scene. Abacha was gone, Abiola was gone. No one would have accused Chief Ekwueme and those rooting for him as leader of the G-34 of any political misstep. After all, the G-34 and Chief Ekwueme had called for the release of Chief Abiola, and asked to have him installed as President, having convincingly won the presidential election of June 12, 1993. Once that opportunity was lost, the ailing military power-brokers were politically revived immediately. They quickly sprang into action, shopped for their candidate, rallied round their local agents, and sent their foot soldiers to reach out to the Emirs and other political forces in the North. And finally, they reached out to their international political and business partners, who helped them to reach out to the international community. And by all these, they had seized the leadership from the G-34 and, ipso facto, set up their own nucleus, THE ALTERNATIVE TO ABACHA, which in fact, was no alternative but the continuation of the game as usual.
The then sitting military Head of State, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, who was beholden to the G-34 and preparing to hand over to them, was immediately wised up to the fact that the political equation had changed. Shortly, at a meeting he held with the leadership of the G-34, he now mockingly asked the leaders of the G.34 “do you have a leader who will take over if we have to go”. The answer was obvious. The answer was utter silence! They had taken the rug out of the feet of the G-34 – the democratic process! It was a coup against the G-34, nay another annulment and abortion of the democratic process! They now proceeded to anoint their candidate.
Ekwueme’s chance of becoming the post-military civilian President of Nigeria was lost on August 13, 1998. And, that was because he was a gentleman and an idealist in politics.
PROF T. UZODINMA NWALA
Political Philosopher and Statesman.
Enugu, December 5, 2017.