The unmaking of a General

Ihave had the privilege of listening to several commencement and graduation speeches delivered by statesmen, academics, military officers and even businessmen. Speeches that are most times inspiring or even exhortation to aspire to higher heights in the wider sphere of life. I have heard speeches that prepare young graduates for life in the real world; but I have never heard of a graduation speech where graduands are pointedly told to take up arms against one another. I have the misfortune of listening to one such speech from one of Nigeria’s favoured sons -TY Danjuma, practically calling on these young, innocent (?) graduands to take up arms against their fellow human beings. A call to arms that does not in any way comes within the purpose and objectives of a valedictorian speech.

Lieutenant General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, a soldier’s soldier, an officer and a gentleman. These are not my accolades but that of his Jamaican biography writer, Lindsay Barret in his book, “The Making of a General”. TY, as the general is known achieved what many Nigerians cannot dream of achieving in ten lifetimes. He was born in the colonial period and grew up to become an “officer and a gentleman” in an era where everyone is given equal opportunities in the north. After a successful military career, which includes the shooting to death of JTU Ironsi and rising to become the Chief of Army Staff between 1975 - 1979, TY retired into civil life and became a fisherman in Lagos. He made a name as the moral authority behind the Obasanjo hand-over to civilians in 1979. His exploits during the Nigerian civil war also counted for him to be regarded as true patriot. And when he got oil acreage during the Abacha oil blocks allocation bazaar, TY became stupendously rich by selling a portion of the block to the Chinese. And then the decline started.

The demystification of the TY persona began a long time ago but people were either generous enough not to have noticed or were bamboozled by his largesse. He had always craved for a fiefdom made up purely of those who TY think should be top guns in whatever political or commercial arrangement they find themselves. Hence the excision of the old Wukari division from the old Benue Plateau state and merged with the then newly created Gongola state where TY believe his “people” will have the upper hand. When this failed, TY championed the creation of Taraba state. Babangida granted his wish, but again it fell short of his expectations because the state capital was taken to Jalingo instead of his beloved Wukari, if not Takum, his ancestral home.

The combination of unearned riches and unfulfilled dreams turned TY into an ethno-religious bigot and chief promoter of ethnic cleansing in his immediate locality. He tried and failed eliminating the Tivs, who chased him away from Benue Plateau state from Jukun dominated areas; he turned his legendary hatred to their immediate neighbours, the Kutebs with the same results.

With the return of the military to the barracks, TY was in the vanguard of “retired generals in agbada” cohort of politicians. He took up the role of mobilizing finance for Obasanjo’s presidential campaign in both 1999 and 2003. He was among those who fought fair and foul to ensure the emergence of Obasanjo in 1999 as the president of Nigeria. He was reported to have threatened to go into exile if Obasanjo loses the elections. He was eventually rewarded with the juicy Ministry of Defence portfolio.

TY’s stint as Minister of Defence embroiled him in defence contracts of dubious value that culminated in the overall diminishing of the standards in the military with a very high level loss of morale. The highest point of deployment of excessive military force in Zaki Biam, just a shouting distance from TY’s Takum, and Odi in Bayelsa state, were during the tenure of TY.

Danjuma has gotten the best that this country had to offer any individual and yet he cannot as much as mentor fresh graduates by broadening their horizon in his convocation lecture but rather tried to limit the scope of their worldview further by inciting them to retreat into their ethnic cocoons.

TY is known for his boldness and has never been known to mince words in expressing his thoughts. For anyone to assume senility may be responsible for his utterances will be to genuinely miss the point - to be charitable where charity is not required. His legendary boldness failed in Jalingo, where he issued his war cry. He made the objective clear - take up arms. What he failed to make clear in words is the intended target, though that also very clear. I would respect the old man more had he made the target clear by spelling it out instead of doing so by inference. He would have made it clear to his audience who the victim and who the aggressor is. This way we will all have known who to defend ourselves against.

Brigadier General Ahonotu, the then acting GOC of the 3rd Mechanised Division visited the Mambilla plateau in the immediate aftermath of the genocide that took place on the plateau in June last year. He toured the area on a motorbike and did his on-the-spot assessment. While addressing Taraba state government functionaries, including the governor, a TY acolyte, the GOC made his disgust for disregard to human life very clear. In comparing what happened on the Mambilla plateau to the atrocities of Boko Haram, the General was very clear - Boko Haram did not kill women and children while the Mambilla militia killed even pregnant women. Not a whimper from TY.

It may seem to a civilian like me that TY is intent in disparaging the institution that moulded and made him. This destructive one-track mind might have made him forget that whatever army we have today is a product of his leadership and he is therefore vicariously liable for its decay. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian butcher and the architect of modern day ethnic cleansing, was a medical doctor and his Hippocratic oath provided him the façade that he used effectively to hide his propensities, which culminated in the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims. Conversely with TY, his status of an elder statesman that led to the University inviting him to use their podium as an altar of hate speech.

Experiences elsewhere, such as Rwanda, is pointing to a clear indication that TY has gone beyond hate speech to a position of clear and present danger of carrying out the threat through the guise of the excuse of “self-defence” and blaming the military for creating the environment for arming ethnic militia to act in a convoluted sense of “self defence”.

Could any ethnic cleansing be worse than killing women and children? What do you call a situation where the future of a particular people have been targeted by cutting short the lives of their kids? Population culling? TY couldn’t raise a voice when the genocide was going-on.

He made reference to “riverine areas” in his inciting speech and I couldn’t comprehend what he meant. Is TY referring to the states where River Benue traversed? If so, then he is definitely pushing for an expansion of the theatre of war. He also repeatedly said, “Nigerians are being killed”. Who are Nigerians and who are not by TY’s definition? I will like the general to expatiate. My instincts I have only one fear in all this. There are several Danjumas in all ethnic groups in this country but they are restrained by their culture and ndottaku. At least for now. The day they decide to do a Danjuma, many lives will be lost. God forbid.

Toungo wrote this piece from Abuja