One of the often anticipated events in the political development of Nigeria may not take long before it will materialize after all. In spite of his very busy engagements in the quest to resolve the ever pending issue of true state building amongst the nationalities that were made to constitute the country, it may not be long before Chief Anthony Eronsele Enahoro sits down to write his political memoirs.
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It took quite a long time before he came around on various subtle suggestions made by those close to him to the effect that writing his memoirs is an obligation that he owes contemporary society and posterity. According to those who are privy to such efforts to persuade him on the idea, his reluctance derived from his logic that as the only surviving individual amongst all the foremost political activists who played crucial roles in the quest to send the British packing, such memoirs might seem fantastic to some in those areas and issues that cannot be easily corroborated by anyone since the other personalities with whom he played politics at the time are no longer alive. But his astute persuaders who countered by insisting that those departed colleagues of his who couldn't write their own memoirs before they died may have left him with the obligation to accomplish what they couldn't attend to during their own life time may have won the debate that pivots on why he must write and publish those memoirs after all.
During a two-day visit with the Chief in his GRA residence in Benin City and in Lagos this summer, he did disclose that preliminary explorations have been underway for sometime now to find a worthy publisher either in Nigeria or abroad who will be willing to negotiate the terms of commitment that will include ensconcing him somewhere quite in the United States for a preliminary duration of three months during which he would produce the first draft. Macmillian Nigeria is one such publishing house that has so far indicated interest in publishing the veteran political activist's memoirs.
He further disclose that some preliminary documents have been signed to that effect with Macmillian. According to the agreement, the actual memoir will be preceded by a collection of some of the landmark political speeches given by him over the years. Such speeches were sourced both locally and abroad by Chief Enahoro and Macmillan. The historical importance of publishing those speeches was such that the editors at Macmillan approached the oldman to let them include seventy instead of the fifty that they indicated earlier that they would include. Proofs of the collection have been corrected and returned to Macmillan. But the launch date which is slated for this year has not been specifically picked or confirmed.
This writer learnt that Enahoro may not use the services of a ghost writer to pen his memoirs. He disclosed that he intends to "do most of the writing" himself. However, most of the extensive research that will be required will be done by his aides and others. The book itself which will be full of revelations may run into volumes. I learnt that it will include exclusive disclosures on his release from prison by Yakubu Gowon and other landmark historical events including how he accepted to be part of the regime headed by Gowon, as well as his roles in the prosecution of the war against Biafra after his release.
There is hardly any cause to doubt that when it is released, the book will fill considerable gaps in the history of Nigeria. From his demeanor during the exclusive encounter with this writer, one could discern that there are several episodes that he was privy to throughout the course of his political involvement that must be revealed for the first time in his memoirs. Some of those episodes are still painful to the man even up until today.
When pressed, he dropped hints on some of those episodes. The one that seems outstanding was the one about the late Murtala Muhammed's conducts during the war against Biafra in the Onitsha sector. From the story, Muhammed's conducts bother clearly on war crimes. Caught on camera by the Red Cross, the enormity of those conducts was such that they caused Harold Wilson who was British Prime Minister at the time to withhold the supply of all manner of military equipment to Gowon, which produced a devastating stalemate in the prosecution of the war much to Biafra's advantage. Wilson's condition for the resumption of support and supplies was Muhammed's immediate deployment from active war duties. Of course Enahoro through whom the former conveyed the condition to the regime was persuaded by Gowon to bring it to the Supreme Military Council on the grounds that he couldn't do so himself. As the Oldman put it, "the reason for Gowon's reluctance to confront Muhammed wasn't far-fetched at all". "Muhammed", he said, "was the only one who flouted a standing regulation that required civilians and soldiers alike to check their side arm at the security gate before entering Gowon's office in Dodan Barracks. He was obviously a law unto himself in that regime from the outset. He went every where with his loaded side arm". He acted his disregard for authority and the law and was feared by the other members of the ruling Supreme Military Council including Gowon himself. According to Enahoro, Muhammed was one individual who arrogated unbridled authority unto himself throughout the course of Gowon's regime.
At first, Enahoro said that he refused to attend a meeting of the SMC just to relay Wilson's condition not out of fear of Muhammed, but on the principle that he felt that it was improper for the highest legislative cum executive organ in the land at the time to excuse a member's insubordination. When Enahoro was eventually persuaded to attend the special session of the SMC, he was hardly half way through his narration of how Wilson had confronted him with pictures of scenes of extra-judicial mass execution of teenage males in the Igbo areas of the then Mid-West on Muhammed's orders, when the latter sprang up from his seat and exclaimed: "It's a lie"! "I was so infuriated by his outburst that I couldn't help asking: 'who is this ruffian who feels that he could refute allegations backed by pictures of him taken at some of the times when some of the extra-judicial executions were carried out. But for the intervention of the late Admiral Wey I could have stormed out of the session myself to protest Muhammed's unwarranted rudeness" At the end, Enahoro disclosed that he later found that Muhammed refused to comply with a request by the SMC for him to remove himself from active war duties. When he gave in eventually it was on the condition that he must be redeployed as the Communications Ministers. That was how he took charge of the strategic ministry of communications, which enabled him to retain over sight and authority over crucial military matters during and after the war. There's no doubt that deployment aided and abetted his eventual ouster of Gowon in 1975.
The other episode that the Chief disclosed was the ripple effects of Biafra's swift incursion into the Mid-West in the early days of the war, which panicked Gowon to the degree that he almost relocated his capital and centre of operations to Dahomey, the present day Benin Republic when it became obvious that Lagos could be over ran in a matter of days if not hours. According to Enahoro, "the only saving grace for the federal side and Gowon was that the error of judgment exhibited by the Biafran commanders in charge of that campaigned caused them to halt their push to Lagos which was rather too swift and gave them cause to camp in Ore instead on the suspicion that they were walking into an ambush".
According to Enahoro, during the ensuing confusion on that day, Chief Awolowo who was also part of Gowon's regime alongside Enahoro and Joseph Tarka on the former's invitation had tacitly told Gowon that he, Awolowo will simply return to Ikene and get prepared to cooperate with the next authority that finds its way into Lagos. As the saying goes, the rest is history.
● E. C. Ejiogu, PhD, is a political sociologist. He is the author of The Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria: Political Evolution and Development in the Niger Basin, which was endorsed by Ted Robert Gurr as "a masterful new sociological and historical analysis" will be published in January 2011 by Ashgate Publishing Group in the UK. This piece was written in the summer of 2004.
Source: SR