1984 by Dr Patricia Ngene

1984

By

 Dr Patricia Ngene

2017

       Nineteen eighty-four was a hurricane. A tropical cyclone that blew its rotating winds in from the Atlantic Ocean off the Gulf of Guinea onto the coastal landmass of the geographic expression called Nigeria ,the elemental forces of nature , unrestrained by anything man can create unleashed a reign of pure terror on the land , crashing waves, tossing sea faring crafts upon rocks and sandbars, displacing marine life , flora and fauna, hissing , spitting, crashing, wind and water coursing through the atmosphere; rendering the landmass unrecognisable by its utter devastation, debris and death carried in its wake , charging inexorably  at speeds of up to 200 mph till it is spent.

And then silence…

“Boom boom boom boom”

     The bass drum notes in the opening stanza of The Nigerian national anthem rang out shortly after dawn on that New Year’s Eve of 1983, stirring the populace from Lagos to Calabar, and Port Harcourt to Kaura Namoda out of their last booze fest of the year –induced sleep; in Obe the morning air carried the scent of sweet palm wine we had the evening prior, tinged with wood smoke from embers of village kitchen fires. The harmattan wind whistled amid the palms and guava trees in the compound as the coarse fibres of the native broom scraped its way around the porch as Kene my cousin swept on oblivious to the import of the national anthem blaring from the radio instead of the seven o’clock news. The scratchy sounds of static danced on the unmistakable voice of Brigadier Sani Abacha as he clipped out his coup declaration speech in his Kanuri accented English. Amid shock, surprise and all round silence, even the chickens were silent; we could only make out the words “Fellow Countrymen…economic mismanagement…educational system is deteriorating…salary arrears…corruption…indiscipline…suspension of the Constitution…dusk to dawn curfew…border post closed….change in government…immediate effect”

We were in the village, for the Christmas festivities, and not just for the annual end of year village gatherings, football tournaments, feasting and church thanksgiving; we had actually relocated to Obe, a sleepy town in the rolling hills of Nkanu in the then Anambra state in Eastern Nigeria. My father, a lawyer turned government functionary had been a key player in the government of the state before the last elections had inexplicably brought the opposition party, the National Party of Nigeria with Chief Christian Onoh another lawyer as its gubernatorial candidate into power. So my family had moved out of the sprawling hilltop residence opposite the Hotel Presidential we had occupied since before the transition to civil rule referred to as the Second Republic, to our village which was a thirty minute drive from Enugu

My father was a spry man, fast on his feet, a former defender for the Red Devils of Port Harcourt, a football club that won the Challenge Cup three times in the late fifties: I was my dad’s only daughter, we were close, I tidied his desk and took his calls, made his guests at home; I was an unofficial aide de camp; and I knew where his medals were kept. I would gaze on them enraptured, wondering what type of commitment it would take to get to such a pinnacle of athletic attainment. But I digress; my dad was even quicker in his mind, and could absorb insane amounts of information, decipher the problem areas and arrange solutions, delegating men and materials about with military dispatch to actualise blueprints he had choreographed in his mind with amazing dexterity. It was for this reason that Paul Egbogu had, in the short time since he left his legal practice in Lagos on his appointment as commissioner in the Ministry of Establishments, a period of six years, his political trajectory had included Ministry of Education, Local Government and Social Development, Deputy Chairman of the state executive council in the run up to the transfer to civilian rule and after the Transition occurred, Secretary to the State Government. In the process he served under state governors, military as well as civilian- Col John Atom Kpera, Col Datti Sadiq Abubakar and Chief Jim Nwobodo.  

              Paul was of a radical bent , very opinionated and given to speaking his mind and being a minority of one; a creature of logic, devoted to hard work and Spartan discipline, classically trained, versed in Latin, Shakespeare, World History and he would reel out quotes of Churchill and other great men in times gone by. I would listen to him, mesmerised, transported into dreamland and brought back to earth by his thoughts on contemporary Nigerian politics. He adored Fela, the Abami Eda himself, the maverick musical genius and instrument for social change who preached continually against the oppressions and inequalities facing the Nigerian masses, and the strains of Fela’s peculiar afro beat music were a theme song of the late seventies and early eighties in our house. He smoked as well, Cuban Havana cigars, and he always had one in his hand as he rifled through the files, briefing papers and maps on his desk at the Cabinet Office as his workplace was known. It was indeed the engine room of the government, and all the thinking behind the policies and actions of the state government as well as its political direction in relation to the Federal Government emanated from there.

           So this was my dad, in his caftan and long shorts and leather slippers, on this coup morning, the harmattan haze still sitting like a cloud at eye level, holding his chewing stick and thinking furiously while listening to the broadcast as we all lingered about on the porch in front of the house .Suddenly he sent us all inside and I went to the kitchen to tidy up and prepare for the day. I was still peeling plantains and I heard a car pull up outside ; two minutes later  my mum breathlessly grasped me by my shoulder ; I was startled, “ If they ask you where your dad is say you don’t know”. I raised an eyebrow then frowned when the confusion in my brain actually registered, “What? Where did he go?” I asked no one in particular, for my mum had dashed outside again. In the few minutes I had been in the kitchen something had been in the offing. I peered from the side of the house and saw four burly men in plain clothes sitting on the bench reserved for assorted village visitors outside. They sat unconcernedly for about thirty minutes before they left. They returned the next day about the same time, and the next, until they gave up.

        I learnt from my brothers that a quasi-commando operation to abduct my dad had been foiled by God’s providence and the quick-thinking of my dad’s only brother Uncle Tony. After we had been sent inside my Uncle had gone to buy cigarettes across the street and met the gang of four burly men in a Peugeot 504 arguing with the gateman; on enquiring who they were and not getting any reasonable answer he ran back the length of the driveway, a distance of about 120 meters and somehow bundled my dad who was standing in the sitting room with his thoughts, oblivious to the goings on, through a side door and out of the house. The fence on that side was yet above dwarf level and they jumped it and made their way through the bush to the safety of a relative’s house .All this transpired before the goons were able to overpower the gateman and drive to the front porch. My brothers and I were nonplussed, confused, no one could say what was going on ; but clearly whatever it was far from good. Clarity became a receding reality moving further away by the day; one day we had been in the throes of a governorship election the Nigerian People’s Party was certain to win. The next day the electoral Returning Officer announced a hastily contrived result and a new Governor was sworn in; we moved out of Enugu and not two months later martial music was on the airwaves announcing a new Military Government. We were still digesting the news and some James Bond script was playing out right before our eyes. Confusion had come to visit, and it had packed bags for a long stay apparently.

           My mum made contact with the military authorities in Enugu, who assured her they had not sent anyone after my dad; and indeed, they sent a lorry load of soldiers to get my dad out of hiding and he returned to the house under protective house arrest as the soldiers remained on guard until he had to report to the mandated authorities for detention with other political figures of the time

 It was under this murky and uncertain climate that I returned to my studies as a medical student in the University of Benin.

             I was a 300 level student and we were studying Pharmacology and Microbiology that year. It wasn’t my hardest year academically, and I was involved in other church-based activities on campus that enabled me to immerse myself and try to put my father’s plight away from the forefront of my mind though it was psychologically impossible.

There was change in my household all right but everyone in Nigeria felt the pinch of change. The four years of civilian rule had been a long, expensive party and we, the people were left with a bad hangover. The babanrigas, Italian made suits and handmade ostrich leather shoes of the politicians had been replaced by the stiffly starched olive green uniform of the Nigerian Army and thick black boots polished to a high shine stomped to a martial rhythm in military parades in formations all across the country. The new head of state Gen Muhammadu Buhari, a thin, dour Fulani who was a military hero and a former Petroleum Minister asserted himself two days into the new year and assured us his fellow countrymen and women that the Army was there to clean up the mess inherited from the political class and there would be zero tolerance for kickbacks, inflation of contracts and over-invoicing of imports. The twin evils of corruption and indiscipline had attained a hitherto unprecedented height and a War Against Indiscipline was waged. Nigerians became accustomed to queueing for buses and in banking halls and hospitals .The Chief of General Staff, a Kwaran, Major- Gen Tunde Idiagbon with his stern demeanour brooked no nonsense as they prosecuted the war with military zeal and despatch; former public officers were thrown into detention and made to face special military tribunals; long jail sentences were handed out and large sums of money forfeited.

Decrees were reeled out in quick succession that curbed personal liberties, press freedom and expatriation of foreign currencies. Decree no 4 saw two journalists with Guardian

Newspaper Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor thrown into gaol for refusing to disclose their source of information.

  The economic landscape in particular was a scene of devastation. Amid the poor balance of payments, mounting external debt inherited from the previous regime and a fall in oil prices the new Head of state appointed an Industrial Sociologist from the University of Ibadan Dr Onaolapo Soleye who had served as a Commissioner of Industries and of Finance in an earlier regime. Times got worse for the citizenry  ; there was increasing economic hardship, job losses and rationing; food lines for milk, soap and other things we students called essential commodities appeared on the Nigerian landscape .An agency called ESSENCO was created to enable imports of sugar , milk and other essential items by issuing sole import licences .The scarcity drove prices higher and incited inflation By April, the currency exchange took place , ostensibly to prevent or check currency hoarding. The colour of naira notes were changed and rendered up to 6billion naira in private hands useless. Scarce money supply in face of high demand for goods and services put a chokehold on the economy. The Grains Board could not buy grain because market prices were higher than what it was allowed to pay, bread prices skyrocketed.

          In universities food subsidy was removed, leading to student unrest; and for me personally with my dad in detention and facing trial with his accounts frozen, I was effectively immobilised. I quite frankly was living below the poverty line, and beans and bread became all I could afford to eat. Hunger was one thing; worry that my dad would be thrown into prison for life as the government threatened every chance they got was another.

I took to praying at all hours; if I was not studying I was praying, sometimes all night. I was worried for his health, after seeing Chief Bisi Onabanjo, the former governor of Ogun State on a stretcher being conveyed for medical treatment in the papers. I hurriedly took a sphygmomanometer to Enugu prisons where my dad had been transferred to with other political detainees to measure his blood pressure. It was normal, much to my everlasting relief. My dad, on the other hand appeared highly unconcerned, and simply asked me to ask my mum why there was no coffee in his weekly provisions basket! My dad was made of stern stuff, and if he suffered deprivation or disappointment he didn’t show it, rather he devoured the newspapers and Time magazine we brought every week and his Bible which he made comments on small cards in his needlepoint writing that looked very much like an ECG tracing for ventricular fibrillation.

I suffered greatly internally, from the disappointment in a system that punished someone who was so undeserving of punishment. I was not unaware of the profligate lifestyle of the political class at the time, but I knew for sure that my dad had no part in such, for he was very unconcerned about money, whether he had any or not. I know that he was revered and to some extent feared by his contemporaries as well as the opposition National Party of Nigeria for that same reason that he could not be bought. We were under strict instructions at home to accept nothing under guise of gifts in cash or kind from anyone of the teeming number of people who would come to him to seek some favour or the other. He was not that kind of politician and we had moved to the village because that was the only property he owned apart from a single duplex still yet unfinished.

This however meant nothing and in due course after a summary trial he was convicted of misuse of public funds, the said funds being the security vote which at that time actually meant what it connoted. The sentence was twenty two years.

I had heard some bit of the sentencing on the four o clock news but the following morning I saw it in the papers. I couldn’t breathe but I was adamant I wouldn’t cry. Time stood still as blood rushed to my ears and I could hear my heartbeat thudding in my head like a gong. I kept hearing twenty two years, twenty two years, twenty two years…and I was looking at other students going to and from lectures, laughing with friends and living carefree lives and I wasn’t to know what my tomorrow would be. My eyes glazed over and I couldn’t see straight. I straightened up, took a deep breath and went past the milling crowd at the paper stand past the parking lot and common room to my dorm room;   I was nineteen, no longer a child and not yet a woman . But I squared my shoulders, set my face forward and got on with life as best as I could.

         That year was like navigating a road full of potholes with a rickety tricycle made of rusty sheet metal; your entire skeleton and bony parts were shaken arrythmically, rendering you dizzy, disoriented and almost disabled from the trajectory but you still had to function .It was not a solo expedition however as Nigeria was limping along like a bloodied soldier, wounded, tired and almost out of gas. Extensive job cuts were undertaken across the country under guise of retrenchment or downsizing in an attempt to reduce government recurrent expenditure on payrolls. Some states even attempted across board pay cuts for the state employees. The Manufacturing sector became moribund as severe shortages of raw materials and spare parts reduced capacity utilization and induced massive layoffs in the private sector; at the same time inflation was rising up to 14%.The economy with a negative GDP growth rate of -2% was officially declared bankrupt in October

Transportation became very challenging as new cars became very expensive

There was a period of severe disenchantment that lingered, as well as frustration at the inability of the government to move quickly and decisively especially on the economic front, rather than choosing to clamp down on interest groups and pursue various vendetta and ill-advised policies like cancelling the Lagos Metro project that could have solved the long-standing issue of Mass transportation, and paying a fine that was almost 60% of the funds required to complete it. Arbitrary jack-boot policies were the order of the day and the ship of state floated abysmally. All passengers on the ship held on for dear life while the storm raged, hoping against hope that a lull in the storm or a new captain would emerge to chart us into calmer waters. Those that could go overboard and check out like Andrew, a famous video clip made to discourage people from leaving, did so , and thus began the massive haemorrhage of Nigerian talent, ingenuity and resilience that has birthed the Nigerian Diaspora. It is a haemorrhage that is ongoing, waxing and waning according to the season and the climate of the new frontier, but it never ceases completely; we are not out of stormy waters yet.

            My personal journey in that year marked a watershed, a loss of innocence, a first modelling in the furnace of affliction that deepened my resolve, illuminated and sharpened my focus and

Set my course on the path I continue to walk. The end is far from being in sight but I have acquired a degree of self –knowledge that remains, no matter what storms life may bring. I believe each of my co-travellers has come to some such realisation, at this halfway point in all our lives; we will never be broken by the journey .A greater end is hopefully in sight on the horizon.