Reminiscences with Gen Ipoola Alani Akinrinade

General Ipoola Alani Akinrinade (retd), Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff from October 1979 to April 1980 and Chief of Defence Staff until 1981, will clock 80 years in October this year. Akinrinade voluntarily retired from service on October 2, 1981. He was also a Minister of Agriculture, Water Resources and Rural Development from 1985 to […]

General Ipoola Alani Akinrinade (retd), Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff from October 1979 to April 1980 and Chief of Defence Staff until 1981, will clock 80 years in October this year. Akinrinade voluntarily retired from service on October 2, 1981. He was also a Minister of Agriculture, Water Resources and Rural Development from 1985 to 1986. He was a member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a pro-democracy group that confronted the Gen Sani Abacha regime. In this interview, Akinrinade spoke about his childhood, life in the military, his relationship with Olusegun Obasanjo and his NADECO experience.

 

How would you describe your experience as a child?

My parents were local people. My father was born into the Yakoyo family in a village near Ipetumodu, Ife North Local Government Area. It was a very small town when I was born. My mother was from the next village, Moro, a kilometre distance from Yakoyo. She came from a big family that was mostly made up of famers and artisans.

While growing up, I realised that most of the people in my village did not go to school. In my family, it was only one of my uncles, my father’s younger brother, that went to school. This uncle of mine brought us all up and insisted that every child in the family after him must go to school. My father told me that my grandfather was already putting me on his shoulders to the farm and he (my father) was getting worried that he would not allow me, being the first grandchild, to attend school. My grandfather died when

I was about nine years old, so I was able to go to school. I started school a little late.

We have three sides of the family now, all from my grandfather. We have the Akinrinade, Babarinde and Oparinde. Everybody looked after every other person and it was difficult to know who our mothers were. My father had four wives, but everybody born within that family belonged to all the mothers. It was a very good family relationship.

My grandfather had a masquerade shrine that he would always take me to, and I often bragged to my friends about being well-fortified. Overtime, because of Christianity and Islam, we neglected the masquerade, which is generally part of the tragedy of the black people. We picked a religion whose origination we don’t understand. We have no understanding of how it works, but are swallowing it, hook, line and sinker.

When I started school, I was made to live with one Mr Ayorinde, who was a teacher. I lived with him like a houseboy. I would go to school, and when I came back I would do some chores because he hadn’t married at that time. I think that helped me a lot because I didn’t have time outside the normal official playing time. My free time was dedicated to sitting down and reading my books. I spent just a year in the elementary school and was allowed to go to Standard One.

Mr Ayorinde was transferred to Moro and I followed him. I was still living with him despite the fact that my mother was from that village. He only allowed me to visit my mother once in a while. That way, he instilled discipline in me.

I got double promotion from Standard One to Standard Three. I had to go to another school because at that time, there were only two schools in our local government where one could go beyond Standard Two. The one I went to was Central School. It was the then Ooni of Ife that donated the land for the establishment of a school as central point for the six villages that made up Origbo at that time.

My Standard Three teacher in my new school was a kind and understanding man. I have never seen a teacher who was so committed to his work like that man. But I was scared of promotion to Standard four because it was the next room to my Standard Three class, and the teacher there was a maternal uncle who delighted in caning pupils. He was a contrast to our teacher in Standard Three. Maybe it was the fear of being in his class that made me do exceptionally well in Standard Three, which earned me another double promotion to Standard Five. I was very happy about that.

After Standard Six, instead of me to be given the opportunity of going to secondary school immediately, I was given a job as a teacher. I was teaching Infant Two. I did that for one year, and thereafter, took entrance exams to colleges. That was how I got into Offa Grammar School, where I spent five years.

After that, I came back to Ibadan, where I got a job in the Ministry of Agriculture. It was there I knew that one could get a degree in Forestry.  The premier then, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, rightly believed that in importance and priority, after education, the next thing is agriculture, so he had sent people out to specialise in various aspects of agriculture and these people had just returned to become conservators of the forest. That was how the Western Region was producing good timber and planting new forests. Working there, I was better imbued with qualities of punctuality, competence, efficiency, accuracy and orderliness. We were highly disciplined.

Simeon Adebo was the Head of the Civil Service in the Western Region, whose mentoring leadership we began to appreciate as time went on. The whole secretariat of the region in Ibadan were only about six buildings, from where Chief Awolowo and Simeon Adebo efficiently ran the whole of the Western Region, comprising all the Yoruba states, today’s Edo State and part of Delta State. The roads in the region were narrow, but they were good, so it was easy to go on tours.

It was when I was working there that I saw this advertisement in 1959, asking for potential officers in the Nigerian Army to be placed on a salary of six pounds per annum, which was more than what a graduate earned. So I applied, along with Oyin Adekoya, who I had met at the Ministry. The Army replied by inviting us for its exam. We went for the exam in Ibadan, and about two weeks later, we were told to come for the next phase. I was the only one that made the second phase from those that went from the secretariat, though there were two other persons that made it from Ibadan generally.

The Army authorities asked us to get a testimonial from either a senior civil servant, a clergyman, an imam or a well known individual. I had a distant uncle from Modakeke, who was a senior assistant secretary in the Ministry of Education. He wrote a very good testimonial for me and sent it to them. We were called in for another interview; this time, we were few. The next thing was a letter saying we had been selected, and enclosed in it was a warrant, which stated the date and what we must bring along while coming for training in Zaria. We were asked to bring only two sets of civilian clothing. The Army booked the train trip for us with a second class ticket. It was in that train that I met Alabi Isama and Adeleke.

We got to Zaria the next day and finished our six-month training. We spent the first one week in Zaria, where they trained recruits. It was tough and Zaria was hot. It was my first time of seeing so many flies. After a few weeks, 35 of us were taken to Kaduna. A report was written on each of us, which led to the Army dropping some of us. Only 15 out of 35 were retained. I think what was guiding the selected numbers was the available vacancies overseas because we were trained by the British Army. During the training, we were taught a little bit of sciences, geography and English, the rest was basically physical training, human relations and leadership quality. In Zaria, we were offered two suits, shirts, a tie, shoes and socks each. Virtually everything you needed to be dressed as a gentleman was made available.

When we got to Britain, the first thing that hit us was cold. And there was fog. Out of 15 of us that left for Britain, five of us were enrolled in the Military Academy, Sandhurt, while the rest were placed in another school.  We spent two years in Britain and I came back early 1963. On my arrival, I was posted to the 4th Battalion. A few months later, Theophilus Danjuma was also posted there and we began working together.

 

Was there any time you and General Olusegun Obasanjo’s paths crossed?

No. I only knew him from a distance because he was always with the engineers and they had their own barracks separately. I met James Oluleye during my Infant Officers course when I came back from Sandhurt. He was in charge of teaching mortar.

 

What led to your early retirement from the Army?

I retired at the age of 38, which was the trend at the time. I commanded the First Infantry Division, Kaduna, from 1975 to 1978, after which I went to the London Royal College of Defence. I spent a year there, but before leaving, I had handed over the Division to another officer. When I came back in 1979, I was expecting something else, but I was told to go back to Kaduna. Before then, Danjuma had briefed and confided in me that the year would be the most difficult for the Army; that the Army would be tested. Danjuma was a strategist, so he knew what was happening and advised that I should go back to Kaduna. So I got back there and took over the Division again.

Some things happened before and after the 1979 elections. In 1979, the idea was that all of us who had participated in government, which included the Supreme Military Council, of which I was a member, were to be retired, including all my mates like Danjuma, Abisoye and Martin Adamu, who were commanding division officers. The essence of this was to give the civilian government that would be coming in the impetus to reorganise as they wished. But I think that at the last minute, Danjuma thought that the idea of all of us walking away was dangerous and, at least, one of us should be left behind. So they agreed that I should stay behind as the chief of staff and give the civilian government led by Alhaji Shehu Shagari some confidence. They put in a northerner as my deputy. For the first time in the military, we had a deputy chief of staff.

I was a bit worried and disappointed with the arrangement. First, I had already made up my mind on what I wanted to do. I had actually decided since 1960 what I would do when I left the Army as I realised early that the Army was a bit small then and there was a limit to how far you could go. So I was ready to leave. But Danjuma insisted and I took his position as the chief of staff. I had a deputy who was, in fact, my senior. He joined the Army before me, but when I was commanding the First Division in Kaduna, he was commanding the Nigerian Defence Academy. Administratively, within Kaduna, the NDA reports to the GOC, so we were used to each other. It didn’t mean so much to the two of us, but the people outside had issues with that.

The civilians couldn’t kick me out. Suddenly, I was told that the government wanted to reorganise the armed forces. Whoever advised them, I had no idea, but the president just called us one day to the normal Security Council meeting we usually had. There, they announced not just new service chiefs, they also created the position of Chief of Defence Staff. They chose my deputy to become the Chief of Army staff, while I became the Chief of Defence Staff. All the other service chiefs were retired. But in no time, I noticed that there was emphasis on trying not to involve the Chief of Defence Staff too much in the administration of government.

Few things happened within a short period. In a good set-up, it’s the responsibility of the Chief of Defence Staff to moderate what was happening in the armed forces to ensure balance. You don’t strengthen your Army and neglect your Air Force or ignore your Navy. In particular, a civilian president who had never worked with those forces should rely much on the Chief of Defence Staff. I began to think that if this position I was occupying would be effective, they would need somebody they trust. If not, the armed forces would suffer – and I didn’t want to find myself in that kind of situation. I thought I had a good time in the Army. I knew I had done well and didn’t want to destroy that with some ephemeral position, just sitting down there, and when anything goes wrong, somebody would blame me.

After I had been there for a year, I wrote the president that I wanted to leave. I gave a copy to the minister of defence and gave him the president’s copy to give him. The minister called me into his office in the afternoon and asked why I wanted to leave. I told him the letter was written in line with a term and condition of service, which demanded a six-month prior retirement notice. My six-month notice expired on April 1, 1980. The minister said I couldn’t do that, but I insisted.  The law states that when a General wants to leave his job, he can. But if he decides to withdraw his decision, he should be sacked.

The minister said he would deliver my letter to the president but would advise him not to let me go. I didn’t hear anything until three months later when the president arrived from hajj. He sent for me. Meanwhile, I had been called by Chief Adisa Akinloye and Uncle Richard Akinjide, who urged me not to resign. They said this was the first time a Yoruba man would occupy such a position, and expressed disappointment about my decision. I told them they were not there for me before I took my decision, and now that I wanted to leave, they were making it their business.

The president summoned me to his residence; he was a very simple and kind-hearted man. He said he had asked Chief Adisa Akinloye, chairman of their party, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) to talk to me. The minister had also told him his efforts on the matter. I replied, ‘Sir, since I have written the letter, I should just be allowed to go because that is the way it works in the Army.’ I also told him he knew a whole lot of people who had committed suicide, and I had enjoyed the Army and didn’t want to commit suicide.

I expected the president to ask me what my words meant and I would have told him certain things that some people were doing that would not make some other people survive. I believed I had a duty to tell him exactly what was in my mind. But then, he didn’t ask me. He only said I would have to stay another six months, and I quickly told him that would be October 1. He said he knew. I told him if that was his order, I would take it, but that after October 1, the matter would not be discussed any further. And he said yes. I said I would follow him to the October 1 Independence celebration parade, and from there I would leave. He said yes and I left.

As soon as I got out of his living room, at a corridor, I met Umaru Dikko and quickly knew he had come to hear how the meeting went.

 

How is life in retirement?

I have enjoyed my life generally. I cannot point to any period I have any depression that some people say they experience in retirement. I have never experienced such a thing. It has been generally a good life. When you have jolly good fellows around you, you enjoy life. I am almost 80 years old, and that is enough.

 

How would you describe the relationship between you and former President Olusegun Obasanjo?

First, he was my senior in the Army and is a brother, so it is always agonising to go out of privacy and talk about him. But people with conscience should have an obligation sometimes to go beyond the sentiments of seniority and friendship, and even age and profession, to let the public know where you stand on issues that bother them. So, you just have to say your mind.

I have my misgivings about some things that had happened. Let’s look back from 1979. I was shocked when my commander-in-chief then, Obasanjo, said publicly that the best man might not win the election. To me, that was bizarre. It was a wrong thing to say because it meant some people were out to manipulate the election. I was horrified. Unfortunately, nobody took him up on it. This is a country where we should be looking for the best of the people to lead us, and the commander-in-chief, who would be supervising the elections and would be handing over, was saying the best man might not win.

Subsequent happenings proved Obasanjo to have done exactly that – to have ensured the best man did not win. He manipulated the election.

That is a story for another day. Then of course, there is this egotism in him. He wrote books, and in the books he dragged people’s names in the mud. That was not nice and it irritated so many people like me.

Before when the Civil War ended, I called our rear commander, Emmanuel, and told him of our intention to return to Lagos with the rebels. I told him to, before anything was done, officially contact all the divisional commanders and ensure that they were present in Lagos. Obasanjo alone came to Lagos, evaded arrangements made by his own rear commander and took the rebels straight to Dodan Barracks. Even my own rear commander was not there, not to talk of Murtala Muhammed and James Oluleye, who was the field operations officer throughout the war. Obasanjo came at the tail end of the war and didn’t even understand the tactics used in the 3rd Marine Commando Division. He just went there like a private soldier manning a rifle and a machine gun. He had no regard for all those who had really fought for long months and made the declaration. I didn’t like that.

A lot of other things also happened about Obasanjo, like saying Abiola was not the messiah Nigeria needed. I hate the ego in him when he said Awolowo never made it to be president. In any case, what is so special about him that qualified him to be president? In a country that works, Olusegun Obasanjo wouldn’t be head of state as a military man. And when he was leaving, he didn’t really leave behind anything substantial that we can talk about in the development and growth of Nigeria. And then, he came back and ruled for eight years that he used to molest the Yoruba people. In his effort to change the Yoruba ancient political system that had served well them for a long time, he disorganised them. All the time Obasanjo has dictated to us, what good fruit has it yielded? Rather, we have been grieving.

 

Why do you think Obasanjo said the late Chief M.K.O was not the messiah Nigeria needed?

When we were all labouring to have Chief Abiola elected, it really took Obasanjo time to know that he would not dance to his tune as president. That was when, to him, Abiola was no more a messiah. What is really disturbing is that as soon as any president gets there, Obasanjo wants to impose his own people on him. He will dictate his preferences and put on the table, the list of names that must be appointed. The president that fails to agree with him automatically becomes his enemy. In a country of over 180 million people, one man cannot expect that he can dictate to all.

 

What is your take on restructuring?

Why is it difficult for us to admit the problem we have and that the only way to solve it is the complete restructuring of the country; unless we want to live in poverty forever. We have to organise ourselves for development; but unfortunately, we have only organised ourselves for consumption. If we want to organise ourselves for development, we have to go back to the basics and redefine all the regions, making each one of them to have its constitution and be allowed to organise themselves the way they want, including their court system.

 

You played a role as an activist after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. What happened?

You won’t believe it, but it was Obasanjo himself that called me to his farm two times. It was he who insisted I should join the Egbe Ilosiwaju Yoruba (Yoruba Progressives.) I found out that a lot of Afenifere chieftains were already there. General Adeyinka Adebayo was there, so were Baba Adekunle Ajasin and Pa Abraham Adesanya. Though there was Afenifere, Ilosiwaju Yoruba was an effort to bring all the Yoruba together in one wing because it was already assumed that the real Afenifere belonged to the left of Yoruba politics.

Obasanjo called me and said I must go there. I refused to go initially, but he invited me again and after much discussion, I accepted to join. I enjoyed sitting around these old people. Ilosiwaju Yoruba began to delve into real politics and the election of Abiola came up. The Yoruba leaders felt it wise to form an alliance with other regions. So the Ilosiwaju Yoruba moved to the North Central and got C.O. Adebayo, who brought in Gen T. Y. Danjuma. Then we approached the East and brought in another leader. At that point, we had a committee for unity, which metamorphosed into the Committee for Unity and Understanding (CUU), which decided to support Abiola in the June 12, 1993 presidential election.

That was the situation till that election took place and Abiola won. But Gen Ibrahim Babangida decided to annul it. After the annulment, we had a meeting and it became difficult for Gen Danjuma to keep us together because of the fact that we could not use the CUU for a fight. The elders quickly decided that we should form the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). and immediately, a register was brought and everyone signed.

Gen Danjuma pleaded we should understand his position as an elder statesman and find somebody else to lead the NADECO, so we unanimously elected Pa Olaniwun Ajayi. That was how we metamorphosed into NADECO.

I didn’t start out as an activist; I started out as someone that would contribute to whatever discussions we were having amidst the various people in Nigeria. But after the annulment, it became obvious that we had to become a bit more forceful to bring back democracy. As our struggle gained momentum, we were happy that the unions decided to go on strike, but NADECO was faced with sustaining the strike and encouraging the people. The strike became protracted and the house was divided.

One day, Obasanjo called us for a meeting. But before the meeting, I knew something was going on between him and Ibrahim Babangida. I wrote a speech saying we should insist on June 12. We had a good election and must make sure it was concluded if that was the last thing we would do for the country.

However, things were getting more difficult for us. One day, I was having a meeting with Baba Anthony Enahoro and Gen Adebayo at Sheraton Hotel in Ikeja early in the morning when a man walked in and said we had been invited to the State Security Service (SSS) headquarters in Shangisha, Lagos. We asked for what reason, but he said he didn’t know; he was only obeying an order. We followed him in our vehicles.

When we got there, we were interrogated. I was the last to be interrogated. We were offered food but we rejected it. About 6pm, our interrogator came back and said he had the instruction from Abuja that I should be released. I asked him about my two fellow detainees and he said he didn’t have instructions on that. So I said we would all wait until he got an instruction to release the other two men. We were still sitting there when Enahoro said I should go to tell Alfred Rewane, who was the closest person to him, about what had happened.

The following morning, the gentleman I met the previous day came to advise me to leave my house the next day. I decided not to mention it to anyone apart from a friend, Dr Akingba. Very early the next day, about 6 o’clock, my steward came to tell me that some people were outside asking for me. I packed a few things and sneaked through the backdoor to my neighbour’s house and the boy went out to tell them I wasn’t around. They slapped him, saying he was lying. They entered the house and ransacked everywhere; I was watching them from my neighbour’s roof.

While the drama was ongoing in my house, a sister to my neighbour advised that it wasn’t safe to stay there. She said I should follow her when she was leaving, and I did. She safely took me away from there to a friend’s place in Surulere. I used my friend’s phone to call Dan Suleiman to tell him to be careful. Suleiman said we must leave the country. So we found a way to get to Cotonou the next morning and stayed in a hotel. I asked Dan to check the rooms if they had escape routes. While he was doing that and I was filling forms at the reception, Tinubu tapped me from the back; that was how the three of us settled at the hotel.

We booked a flight to the United Kingdom, where I spent almost six years. There, we met Kayode Fayemi, who was doing his PhD. That was how we began gathering ourselves for meetings. From the UK, we were coming to Cotonou on a regular basis for meetings.

Then London got too hot for me because of Radio Kudirat. One day, they burnt my house down completely. My son was the only one in the house. He was living downstairs at the back and that was what saved him. The building didn’t go down because all the windows were the first to shatter and the smoke and heat were going out through them.

My son was able to escape.

 

Have you met Obasanjo since then?

I have met him three times. When Obasanjo luckily got out of prison, he was invited to America, and we decided that for whatever it was worth, we should go and pay him our respect. We sent for Prof Wole Soyinka to come from California. We had an appointment with Obasanjo at 6pm, but he wasn’t there, and they asked us to wait. He came back at about 9pm and this annoyed Soyinka, who had come all the way from California. He had actually told us he didn’t want to see Obasanjo although he would fight for him. We didn’t know the reason for not trusting him until I read one of his books and saw how Obasanjo nearly sent him to jail in Brazil.

Since Soyinka wrote that book, Obasanjo has never referred to it to say the author told a lie. We had a meeting with Obasanjo and Soyinka said, “We saw a picture of you with Babangida and others and the story is that they want to make you president.’’ He said no. Since he said no, we could not even advise him on what to do. Immediately we left there, Soyinka said Obasanjo was a liar.

After the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had picked Obasanjo to be president, he came to America and sent for me to lend him a hand in his government. I told him that even if he won and spent eight years as president, I would not come back. He left and I didn’t meet him.

 

Where was your wife during the years of struggle?

I had sent my wife to London long before the crisis started. My family was in London.

 

How has the relationship been?

My wife is like another friend. Whenever she is around, I don’t have any trouble at all. Even when people invited me to functions and I needed her to go, she would do it without any complaint. I miss that now because she has gone to take care of our grandchildren. That is why the house looks empty. She is not someone that argues about anything. She is a positive person.

 

What do you want to be remembered for?

That I passed through here and whatever was entrusted to my care,

I did my best to make a strong, positive difference.