Wole Soyinka vs Tokunbo Ajasin: The Ghost of Buhari’s Past
“History matters. Records are not kept simply to assist the weakness of memory, but to operate as guides to the future.” - Wole Soyinka
The recent exchanges between the Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka and the scion of Pa Adekunle Ajasin's family, Mr. Tokunbo Ajasin have brought to the fore the obnoxious attempts by revisionists to deodorize the reeking records of the All Progressive Congress (APC) presidential candidate, General Mohammadu Buhari. The exchanges, more than it could be imagined, once again underscored the truth that no one could run away from his or her shadows. The attempt by General Buhari to run away from his Human Rights abuses during his 20 month terror rule of Nigeria between 1984 and 1985 keeps rearing its ugly heads despite concerted efforts from the APC propaganda machine to sweep it under the carpet and make an incorrigible Buhari look as a Saint that he is not.
Professor Soyinka is a very public person. He has been this way for about 60 years. He has his reputation cut for him. As a human being, he has not been perfect by any means. But it would amount to intellectual dishonesty to deny him the integrity he has been able to bring to our public discourse. He represents a sort of moral force that compels critical examination of positions of stakeholders in Nigeria and their handling of the fortunes and or misfortunes of the people, as the case may be. To this extent, even when one disagrees with his position on some issues, one still have to accord him the respect he deserves and acknowledge the integrity that he brings to bear.
That Professor Wole Soyinka has been corralled by the corrupt APC moguls with whom he is friendly, to half-heartedly endorse General Buhari is a serious challenge to the moral force he represents given his previously held positions and views on the military dictator now carrying the flag of APC in the forthcoming presidential elections. However, in giving the “cautious endorsement”, it was clear that Professor Soyinka was trying his best not to disappoint his “friends” in the leadership of the APC. Reading through the endorsement, Soyinka's pains were palpable; his doubts, ostensible; his fears, discernible; his worries, perceptible; his distrust, perceivable and his lack of confidence in the candidacy of Buhari, very detectable.
It seemed from the tenor of the endorsement that his APC friends had threatened him to give that endorsement or else? It is one's analysis that Professor Soyinka in that endorsement did not come across as the real Wole Soyinka that we all have known hitherto. Nevertheless, the fundamental streak that constituted the Soyinka we all have known before now still seeped through and it was from there that the controversy with my dear Egbon Tokunbo Ajasin emanated. That fundamental streak manifested in the Buhari's endorsement as a painful regret that Mr. Ajasin, could reportedly attempt to recalibrate the sad experience of Pa Adekunle Ajasin in the hands of Buhari's mean and cruel dictatorship in 1984.
In that endorsement, Professor Soyinka had said inter alia:
“When I read the statement attributed to a scion of a political family that his father was 'not jailed' but was merely 'invited for interrogation as required by military tradition and policies then,' I felt deeply offended, but mostly saddened. For this adjustment of reality provided evidence of yet another lesson unlearnt.”
Reading this, it was easy to understand the kind of agony that Professor Soyinka has been silently subjected to by his friends in the APC all these months. His friends in the APC and their sentries have been making every effort through propaganda to turn history of Buhari's deranged dictatorship in 1984/85 on its head. His friends in the APC have shamelessly engaged in (to use Professor Soyinka's words) “adjustment of reality” deodorizing the reeking sins of Buhari and making the Nigerian Hitler look like a respecter of Human Rights! One is aware that the esteemed professor has spoken of “calcified memories” on the part of those revising the Buhari's history, but unfortunately, those suffering from this infliction of “calcified memories” are his friends in the APC. If Professor Soyinka, despite these agonies and sadness, could still come out and endorse General Buhari, one could easily imagine the kind of pressure that has been brought to bear on him to contradict his principled stand on that soulless dictator called Buhari. One is hoping that Professor Soyinka has not adopted the philosophy of “if you cannot beat them, join them.” If that was the case, it would really be a tragedy.
Regardless, Professor Soyinka's statement above elicited a response from Egbon Ajasin who claimed that he has been misquoted by the media. He wrote the following:
“I want to assure the Professor that this was neither my answer nor my response to a simple question of whether or not my father forgave General Buhari before he died. But these must have been the words of some mischievous journalists who decided to embellish my answer with their own words as several papers went to town with different versions of what I said.”
Egbon Ajasin then went ahead vociferously to defend himself and blame the media for putting words into his mouth. He contended that he did not even see the newspaper that reportedly misquoted him until he read Professor Soyinka's endorsement. He noted that he “would equally feel as 'offended and mostly saddened'” and “actually was” when he learnt of what some papers wrote “to embellish” what he said. He maintained that he could not have said his father “was not thrown into jail” because he was “saddled with routinely visiting him at Agodi Prisons after the arduous and demeaning task of taking permission from the military authorities each time he had to visit him”. Egbon Ajasin even engaged in exploratory semantics to explain what he meant by being “jailed” under a military dictatorship.
But there is a problem with Egbon Ajasin's position in the following lines:
“I live by a philosophy that what cannot be undone has to be forgiven and forgotten particularly when the doer is remorseful.”
If one may ask, was this “remorse” being taunted by Egbon Ajasin shown in secrecy to him by General Buhari? If so where and when? Does Egbon recognize the fact that Pa Adekunle Ajasin was and still is an icon of the Yoruba Nation? After having been humiliated by General Buhari publicly, partly to humiliate the Yoruba Nation, how come the “remorse” was done in secrecy? Was the remorse shown to Egbon in a makeshift arrangement where he was the only one present? What happened to the other members of the Ajasin family? Or did Egbon Ajasin deliver General Buhari's message of “remorse” to other members of the family? Why was the “remorse” not done in public to assuage the anger of the rank and file of the Yoruba people?
Egbon Ajasin has to take a cue from the same Professor Soyinka in this matter of Buhari's “remorse” that is unknown to the people of Yoruba Nation whose psyche were violated by the unjustified imprisonment of Pa Adekunle Ajasin. Speaking on the issue of Buhari's arrogance and incorrigibility as well as lack of “remorse” or regret of his actions, Professor Soyinka has contended inter alia:
“Of course, we know that human beings change. What the claims of personality change or transformation impose on us is a rigorous inspection of the evidence, not wishful speculation or behind-the-scenes assurances. Public offence, crimes against a polity, must be answered in the public space, not in caucuses of bargaining. In Buhari, we have been offered no evidence of the sheerest prospect of change. On the contrary, all evident suggests that this is one individual who remains convinced that this is one ex-ruler that the nation cannot call to order.”
- Prof. Wole Soyinka
When General Buhari was showing that “remorse” that is being flaunted by Egbon Ajasin, was it a blanket one that covers the unfair treatment of Chiefs Bola Ige, Bisi Onabanjo and Ayo Ojewunmi, Busari Adelakun, Professor Ambrose Alli and Alhaji Lateef Jakande and several other Yoruba leaders? Or was it a specific “remorse” on the jailing of the innocent Pa Adekunle Ajasin? When Buhari was showing Egbon Ajasin this “remorse,” did he explained why he allowed Awwal Ibrahim caught in Heathrow Airport in London with 14 million pound sterling to be in a guest house while Pa Ajasin tried three times and found innocent still had to remain in Agodi Prisons? Did he explain the rationale for President Shehu Shagari's placement in Ikoyi Guest House while Alex Ekwueme, “a mere Vice –President” had to be in Kirikiri?
Pa Adekunle Ajasin as a Yoruba icon is an historical, political, philosophical, intellectual and ideological property of the Yoruba Nation. In his league are Pa Abraham Adesanya, Professor Banji Akintoye, Pa Olanihun Ajayi, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, Senator Ayo Fasanmi, Professor Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, Professor Ade Ajayi, Chief Bola Ige, Chief Bisi Onabanjo, General J.J. Oluleye, Pa Emmanuel Alayande, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, General Alani Akinrinade, Professor Tunji Otegbeye, General Benjamin Adekunle, Chief Jonathan Odebiyi, General Olu Bajowa and many others. These personalities represent the struggles of the Yoruba Nation since the last 60 years or thereabout. They are the ones who built the modern Yoruba Nation. They have been in the trenches all their lives in one way or the other. They have paid huge sacrifices at one point or the other in their lives.
For this reason, they are not just owned by the members of their families, they are all properties of the Yoruba Nation. They belong to us all. They are our heroes. They have labored relentlessly to make the Yoruba Nation what it is today. Majority of them are direct foot soldiers of the one and only Obafemi Awolowo. Some of them are indirect foot soldiers of Awolowo. They have all paid their dues. Any abuse or disrespect to any of them is an affront to the Yoruba Nation and our history. It would be tantamount to ingratitude. The fact that they are human beings who have been imperfect and have made some mistakes does not detract from their sacrifices and heroism on behalf of our Yoruba Nation.
To this extent, Egbon Ajasin has to realize that General Buhari could not have surreptitiously apologized to him. If it is true that he actually showed any “remorse” in secret, such is not acceptable. By publicly humiliating Pa Ajasin, the only remedy would be a public apology and show of remorse to the Yoruba Nation. Just as Professor Soyinka posited above, “Public offence, crimes against a polity, must be answered in the public space, not in caucuses of bargaining.” In this matter of Buhari candidacy, it is tantamount to treachery to gloss over his crimes against our Yoruba Nation without him having to apologize and show remorse to the Yoruba people.
One has no reason to read any motive to Egbon Ajasin's position on this issue because one knows him to be an easy going quiet man of integrity. But his response to Professor Soyinka left a lot of questions unanswered. It raises eyebrows about whether my dear Egbon has also become a victim of the well oiled machine of the crooked APC juggernauts that makes well known public personalities compromise their long known principles? It raises concern as to whether he has also been corralled and or railroaded to betraying the memory of our own Pa Adekunle Ajasin. One is desperately and fervently hoping and praying this is not the case.
In this matter of Buhari candidacy, for my dear Egbon Tokunbo Ajasin, silence would be more than golden. Professor Soyinka is not the only one who would be “offended and saddened” by any sign of betrayal of the memories of some of these heroes who live on in our memories. The silent majority of our people, whose memories have refused to be calcified would not only be “offended and saddened”, they would be pushed to anger.
“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.”
- John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address January 20, 1961