On the phone recently, a friend let slip that he was going to a
meeting in a matter of days at which Chief Anthony Enahoro would be present. My
mouth fell open but no sound came, a quiet hysteria gripped me. Here was my
chance to brush fleetingly with indestructible history. To have my existence
validated by this meeting of paths, as a small stream is validated by its
confluence with a mighty river. It was my chance, and it was slipping away.
Then came a lifeline as my friend said, ever so casually: “You can come
along if you want”. I seized upon it, and blurted out: “Of course I
would love to come!”
We walked into the hotel on the day and saw Taiwo Akinola,
Secretary of the National Reformation Party (NRP) Europe Chapter. He was
weighed down by six or so hardback copies of Enahoro’s 1965 book Fugitive
Offender. Akinola waved goodbye to a lady from the book’s publishers, who
had helped source these used copies from various libraries in England. We
proceeded further into the hotel until I could make out Chief Enahoro’s figure
further ahead in a reception area. My smile masked the butterflies in my
stomach as I forged ahead with my two companions. I heard my name announced as
I took the Chief’s hand, my knees lowering in courtesy.
I took a seat on another table from where I could catch some of
Chief Enahoro’s conversation, conducted sometimes in English, sometimes in
Yoruba. I was pensive as I contemplated the moment. No words could adequately
capture my feelings about seeing this man whose life has been closely
intertwined with Nigeria’s history; whose actions helped shape the course of
that history. To me he was like an oracle, on whose person is written epochs I
could not even begin to imagine.
Soon others arrived, including Dr Philip Idaewor, head of NRP
Europe. He had read some of my writings and shook my hand warmly, saying:
“Ah! The lady who destroys people with her pen!” This he said with
great conviviality, and one does not defend oneself against a compliment. I was
the only female present, and when I wondered aloud whether it would be
appropriate for me to “put my journalist’s hat on”, Chief Enahoro
jokingly replied: “It would have to be a journalist’s gele”. There
was a benevolent atmosphere to the meeting, during which we mere mortals spoke
freely in the presence of a great man who made one feel at ease. It dawned on
me that true greatness needs not assert itself. It can simply be.
Dr Tony Kakhu, a research fellow at London’s Imperial College, was
also a first time observer in the group. He wanted to know the party’s plans
for regrouping ahead of the 2007 elections. Chief Enahoro’s definition of a
political party differs somewhat from that of the INEC, which places more
emphasis on the number of seats held by parties. To Enahoro, a political party
does not have to contest elections: “A party can be about ideas, and
Nigeria lacks ideas”. His is a long-term vision in which it matters not
that the NRP is not in power today; it can be in 10, 20 years time, or as he
explained, the big parties can adopt NRP’s ideas. “Politics is a game of
ideas. If a game of numbers, China would rule the world”, he declared.
There were concerns about external forces seeking to influence the
emergence of a Nigerian leader in 2007. It was noted that similar policies in
the fifties and sixties had resulted in the elimination of progressive African
leaders like Lumumba and Nkrumah to be replaced by despots like Mobutu and Idi
Amin. All agreed that the monetisation of Nigerian politics further exacerbates
the problem, and should be resisted.
The group reiterated its position on a Sovereign National
Conference at which all groups in Nigeria would be represented. Chief Enahoro
recalled the Conference held before Nigeria’s independence, for which the
British had initially asked for the three leaders only – Awolowo, Azikiwe and
Balewa. “We wrote a stinker”, said Enahoro, smiling at the memory;
“it was my honour to take the stinker to the Consul General”. The
“stinker” informed the British that they would need more than just
the three leaders for a Sovereign National Conference, and the colonial power
was forced into rethinking the process. The Chief also shared his views on party
composition: “You can no longer sell the idea of a party based purely on
ethnicity. Even in Yorubaland, people don’t want that. They like the idea of
members in Calabar and other places.”
Copies of Fugitive Offender lay on the table. One, bearing
the sticker and stamp of the House of Commons Library, had come from the many
copies of the book in the British Parliament. I sniffed at it, wondering if the
Nigerian Legislature had a copy, or valued its importance at all. It was my
first time seeing the book and Taiwo Akinola informed me that this was by no
means unusual; 95 percent of Nigerians had never seen it either. I leafed
through the pages. A photograph of a young and handsome Enahoro in traditional
dress – he could have been the prince of some ancient kingdom. Awolowo and his
beloved HID on one page, Zik of Africa smiled on another, and so on – each page
suffused with history.
There are plans to publish a second edition of Fugitive
Offender later this year, to give younger generations the opportunity to
know about the book, and the man. This is important, Akinola said,
“because of his relevance in Nigerian life and politics”.
Official meeting ended, I moved across to Chief Enahoro’s table to
ask him questions over drinks. He was feeling peckish but all the hotel could
offer by way of snacks were chips, which the Chief called by their American
name, French Fries. A plate of chips duly arrived and he motioned for me to
join him as he tucked in. I looked at the chips but held back, not wanting to
break the spell of this enchanted hour.
I asked for Chief Enahoro’s views on the way forward for Nigeria.
“The way forward to where?”, he asked. I certainly didn’t know. But
he was forthcoming: “We need to recreate Nigeria on the basis of a
restructured federation and it should be a federation of nationalities. Each
nation should itself be a federation of the sub-nationalities. This should
accord with our natural existence. It would be easier to build a democracy on
that basis”. News of Chief Aminosoari Dikibo’s killing had broken in
London but the details were still sketchy, so Chief Enahoro did not want to
comment. But on the spectre of high-profile assassinations in Nigeria
generally, he expressed the view that the system we are operating “is
contributing to this outbreak of violence”. He believes the easier it is
to remove people from office the more senseless it is to seek to eliminate them
because there is no other way.
Chief Anthony Enahoro had been away from Nigeria for two months,
preoccupied with the “daunting task” of writing his memoirs. He hopes
to complete the project in the next 15 months. The new edition of Fugitive
Offender will be followed by a collection of his speeches through the
years. The final part of the memoirs will be mainly political, covering major
events in Nigeria from 1963 to the present. In undertaking the project, Enahoro
believes his task is to report and interpret the events for the benefit of the
post-independence generation. In so doing, he is “not trying to lecture
them, just stating the particulars of life” as he recalls them.
Our chat over, I moved along to allow others the chance to talk to
him. There were still plenty of chips left but the Chief seemed to have had his
fill, so I pulled the plate close to me. These were historic chips, and I was
determined to get some inside my belly. I wolfed them down with relish, though
I wasn’t hungry.
Then it was time to go. “Ee pe fun wa Sir”, I said to
Chief Enahoro in Yoruba as I shook his hand in farewell, wishing him plenty
more years this side of heaven. “Why do we write things down?”,
someone asked in print recently. “To make them real, perhaps”, she
sought to explain. The friend who took me to the meeting, NRP Europe official
Dele Ogun, knew instinctively that I would write of the experience.
“Somehow, the chips will find their way into the recount, I’m sure”,
he speculated. “You bet”, I felt no shame confirming. When you have
eaten from the same plate as the man who moved the motion of Nigeria’s
independence, you don’t let the matter rest.
What a burden it must be for men like Chief Enahoro, for almost
every person you meet to look at you as a living relic of a valiant past, which
must of necessity point the way forward. I remembered a documentary I saw last
year about Nelson Mandela. In one scene, the Madiba was leaving a function at a
hotel in South Africa when suddenly a kitchen maid appeared in the lobby,
plastic cap and apron still in place. Forbidden perhaps from leaving the
kitchen, she heard that Mandela was passing by and, unable to help herself,
broke hotel protocol. She wept and tore at herself as she wailed after the
hero, yet made no attempt to approach him. Her words about what he meant to her
were subtitled for us in English at the bottom of the screen. Mandela, who must
get this kind of thing daily, did not look back. “Mandela! Mandela! I have
waited for this moment!”, shouted the kitchen maid as the old man made his
way slowly to the lift, burdened by history.
If Chief Anthony Enahoro is burdened by history, or the constant
gaze of an endless stream of people like me, it didn’t show. Enahoro is now an
octogenarian like Mandela. There are no sweeping comparisons to be made between
the two, but it could be argued perhaps that certain parallels exist. In
Enahoro’s presence I knew something of what that South African kitchen maid
must have felt on seeing Mandela, only I was not weeping or tearing at myself.
Unlike her however, I had not waited for the moment. Quite simply, I never thought
I’d see the day.
First published in The
Guardian (2004)
