Remembering the ‘Real’ MKO Abiola
The immediate impulse to the writing of this piece came from a recent conversation with my 21-year old daughter, Oreoluwa. Following the honour bestowed on MKO Abiola by President Buhari and the re-focused attention on Abiola’s legacy, Oreoluwa, who, by the way, read Politics and Philosophy at Cambridge and was only one year old when MKO was killed, called me to find out more about him. Here is how she put it: ‘Dad, I know all about June 12 and how Chief Abiola was denied the presidency and later died in prison; but what kind of man was he?
Oreoluwa’s question set me thinking and it suddenly dawned on me that many younger Nigerians, certainly the twenty-‘somethings’ and even thirty-year olds may just have only a vague memory of MKO Abiola or none at all, let alone knowing who the ‘real’ MKO Abiola was! Because of Oreoluwa and others of her age, I have decided to reproduce in full, the first chapter of the Book, Legend of our Time: The Thoughts of MKO
Abiola, which is a published collection of Abiola’s key Speeches and Lectures, edited by Dr. Chidi Amuta and myself. The book, which was published on the eve of his presidential campaigns, predates the June 12 saga.
MKO was something of a phenomenon. Obviously, he will now for ever be remembered for his June 12 victory and as an embodiment of our democratic ideals. But he was more than June 12! Indeed, June 12 was the culmination of a tremendously remarkable life. In some ways, there was none like him and there probably would be none quite like him again. He was, among other things, a man of prodigious intellectual talent, a true legend of our time.
Just months before his death, I visited him in prison. Although tired and suffering from a lower back pain, he was, even in his dismal conditions, his old self. He oscillated between anger, anxiety frustration and even optimism, but not bitterness. Then, when a prominent, Egba Chief (now, late), came in to see him, apparently carrying with him some message from the Council of Islamic Affairs, in what seemed to be another of several previous visits, MKO flared up and his defiant self resurfaced! Then, after the Chief took leave of us, he turned to me and asked me how I thought he had done! I gave him the thumbs up!! Instantly, the young security guard who had listened in on our entire discussion told me it was time for me to leave. I never saw MKO again.
So, in reproducing this lengthy piece, which was written in late 1992 and titled “Behind the Legend,” I have felt no need to change, embellish or delete any details. The man I wrote about then, remained the man I saw in prison, months before his death in 1998, determined, defiant, uncowed and unbowed.
Because of this man, there is both cause for hope and certainty that the agony and protests of those who suffer injustice shall give way to peace and human dignity…. The enemies which imperil the future generations to come: poverty, ignorance, disease, hunger, and racism have each seen effects of the valiant work of Chief Abiola. Through him and others like him, never again will freedom rest in the domain of the few. Ronald U. Dellums Chairman, United States of America Congressional Black Caucus September 16, 1989
On Saturday November 2, 1991, I had the privilege of flying with Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola in his private jet to Kafanchan to attend the turbaning of Alhaji Aliyu Muhammad as the Wazirin Jema’a. At the Abuja airport we changed aircrafts and took a helicopter which took us on the final lap of our journey into Kafanchan. After hovering above the scene of the ceremony for a few minutes, our pilot finally located a clearing for landing.
The moment the occupant of the helicopter was spotted, the stampede began. The drummers were beside themselves. The trumpeters outdid each other. Singing and dancing groups added to the confusion by raising more harmattan dust. All these were meant, of course, to acknowledge the arrival of Chief Abiola. Even uniformed officers who had been designated to keep some order watched helplessly, in an admixture of bewilderment, admiration and confusion. Considering that this was happening in Kafanchan, away from the presumed heartland of Abiola’s socio-cultural stronghold, I was quite surprised. The massive attention that greeted Chief Abiola’s arrival was remarkable. I stood back, almost detached from it all, to see if any other arrival would attract such attention. Surprisingly, none did.
Viewed from any point of view, Bashorun Abiola has become something of a national institution. By any standard, he is a phenomenon. Something about him, perhaps, his unique expansiveness of spirit and stupendous generosity, embodied in his enormous wealth, have combined to embed him in our national consciousness in a peculiarly Nigerian way. From the point when he first entered the full glare of national limelight in 1975, with the award of the International Telephones and Telecommuncations (ITT) Contingency Switching contract, all kinds of legendary tales have developed and gained currency about him. There is, perhaps, no other private Nigerian citizen, who has the distinction of being recognised anywhere in the country by his initials alone. In many of Nigeria’s villages, it is certainly probable that the initials M.K.O. will elicit a spontaneous response from Nigerians who may never set eyes on Chief Abiola.
Although a private citizen, Bashorun Abiola is sometimes accorded all the courtesies of a visiting head of state abroad, especially in Africa and from the black diaspora. Indeed, at the inauguration ceremony of President Bill Clinton, he received courtesies reserved for a head of government by virtue of the prominence of his seating position, inches away from the main event. More than anyone else, he has helped tremendously in the election of more African-American Congressmen and women in the United States of America, through direct financial assistance, deriving no gains in return, save the joy of seeing African peoples of the diaspora take greater control of their own destinies in their country of birth.
His direct assistance to Yoweri Museveni in his liberation struggles in Uganda is too well known to be recounted here. It is sufficient merely to recall that he gave massive financial assistance to that cause. He has travelled extensively around the world on his own, addressing diverse groups of audiences on a whole range of subjects, from Pan-Africanism to Reparations, Technology, Sports, Education, Racism, African political theory, African folklore, Business, the Environment, and “our connectedness as African peoples to a wider flow of world history”, – again, asking for nothing in return.
At last count, he had been conferred with 197 traditional titles by some 68 different communities in Nigeria. Bashorun Abiola has been honoured by scores of educational institutions, worldwide, the last one being an honorary degree from the University of Makerere, Uganda. Since 1972, his financial assistance has led to the construction of some 63 secondary schools, 121 mosques, 41 libraries, and 21 water projects in 24 states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He is, to date, the grand patron of some 149 societies or associations in Nigeria alone, that is, not counting his affiliation with scores of professional associations at home and abroad. During the conferment of the award of the “Order of Merit of Gold”, Africa’s highest award for Football in Dakar, Senegal, in January 1992, it was revealed that no other African, dead or alive, had made as many “quantifiable contributions” as he had made to the development of sports in Africa.
By any standard, these are phenomenal achievements for a single being in one full life time, let alone one that has spanned a mere fifty five years. Yet, we may not quite know him as he really is. There is the danger, ever so real, that he could become the wrong sort of myth for the wrong sort of reasons.
Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, who was born on August 24, 1937 in the Gbagura quarters of Abeokuta, is a descendant of Agbon who led the Gbagura warriors into Abeokuta in 1930. Traditionally, Gbaguras are warriors and had taken up settlement in the outer boundaries of Abeokuta, where they conveniently defended the city from outside invasions. If you accept Samuel Johnson’s explanations in his seminal work, The History of the Yorubas, then the Gbaguras were closest to Oyos in mannerisms and perhaps, by implication, the most cunning of the Egbas!
Although, the view that young Abiola was born into abject poverty seems to have percolated somewhat, his father, Alhaji Alao Salawu Adenekan Abiola was a small time produce buyer in Ikire even before Moshood was born. And although Moshood was his twenty-third child, he was the first to survive, the first twenty-two dying either at birth or before attaining the age of one; hence the name Kashimawo, indicating the uncertainty that was felt even about his own survival.
The homestead in Adatan into which he was born was the subject of litigation at his birth. Evidently, when Moshood Abiola’s grandfather passed away, his father and his aunt raised a loan to help fund the funeral ceremonies. The understanding was that Moshood Abiola’s aunt would provide service to the money lender in lieu of the money borrowed under the traditional system of Iwofa. Much later, when she decided to get married and lead her normal life, an arrangement that was wholly acceptable under the Iwofa system, the money lender refused and decided to appropriate the Abiola family house. The ownership of that family house was in dispute when Moshood Abiola was born. Many years after, Bashorun Abiola came under pressure from the larger Abiola family to seek redress in a modern-day court of law and regain the family house. He refused and opted instead to buy a new property elsewhere for the family.
This incident left lasting impressions on Moshood Abiola as a child. The fact that a supposedly “free” person could be denied the right of marriage under an “obnoxious” custom was, in Abiola’s own words, “something similar to slavery.” In retrospect, it makes even more sense today that the later-day Pan-Africanist champion of Reparations for the crimes of slavery would have felt as passionately as he did, the injustice of the much abused Iwofa system. The repulsion for this kind of injustice was to characterise much of his early, and subsequent career.
For a man who was born and raised a moslem, it is significant that, apart from one long early spell of Koranic education at the Nawair-ud-Deen School in 1944, all of his pre-University education was under the watchful eyes of Baptist missionaries; Baptist Day School, (1944-1952), and Baptist Boys’ High School (1951-1956). Presumably, at this time, the best colleges in and around Abeokuta were Christian missionary schools.
Apart from the near-spartan discipline of Baptist education, with its dose of Calvinism, other aspects of the Baptist faith influenced him tremendously. The picture of a young Moshood Abiola selling fire-wood to raise money for his school fees or leading a local musical group of his own to raise extra school money was in consonance with the free-wheeling spirit of his Baptist education.
When Rev. S.G. Pinnock founded Baptist Boys’ High School, Abeokuta in 1923, the precepts of hard work and individualism within the framework of a collective ideal were amply spelt out and strictly adhered to. Even the tough rugged approach to the old site at the Egunya Hill seemed designed to tell a story of hard work in itself! That Baptist Boys’ High School has on its roll of old boys some of the highest achievers in our country is partly a testimony to the ideals of hard work, dedication and service which the institution stood for over the years: Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, Engineer Yemi Fabunmi, Mr Justice Obadina, Engineer Ayinla Somoye, Professor Adeoye Lambo, Chief Olawale Ige, former Communication Minister, veteran journalist, Tunji Oseni, to mention just a few. As Bashorun Abiola himself recalled later, “it was the best school in the world… Education at that school was what we called education-plus.”
Against many odds, Moshood Abiola plodded on. Not even a bad stammer as a child deterred him. What was to become a lifelong love with journalism started with his editorship of the school magazine, The Trumpeter, in his final year. Olusegun Obasanjo was deputy editor. Although a day student, he took more than a passing interest in sporting activities. It is also just probable that the seeds of what was to blossom into a lifelong romance with sports were sewn during these years.
It is also important to point out that the social setting in which his adolescent character matured was the Abeokuta of the World War II years and a little after. The period just before 1945 and after, were interesting years to be growing up in Abeokuta.
The nature of the political, social and cultural ferment that was taking place in Abeokuta at the end of World War II is hardly duplicated anywhere else in Nigerian history. Abeokuta was one huge flurry of activity.
MKO was something of a phenomenon. Obviously, he will now for ever be remembered for his June 12 victory and as an embodiment of our democratic ideals. But he was more than June 12! Indeed, June 12 was the culmination of a tremendously remarkable life. In some ways, there was none like him and there probably would be none quite like him again. He was, among other things, a man of prodigious intellectual talent, a true legend of our time.