Reminiscences with Oba Olufemi Olutoye

Retired General, Olufemi Olutoye, was the first Nigerian Director of Army Education and a one-time federal minister who witnessed several coups as a soldier. In this REMINISCENCES, Gen Olutoye, now 89 years old and traditional ruler of Idoani, in Akoko, Ondo State, speaks with Daily Trust on Sunday on the politics in the army and […]

Retired General, Olufemi Olutoye, was the first Nigerian Director of Army Education and a one-time federal minister who witnessed several coups as a soldier. In this REMINISCENCES, Gen Olutoye, now 89 years old and traditional ruler of Idoani, in Akoko, Ondo State, speaks with Daily Trust on Sunday on the politics in the army and why he believes President Mohammadu Buhari should be allowed a second term in office.

 

You will soon be 90 years old but you are still looking somehow younger. How have you been keeping fit?

Oh! It’s God’s grace. Yes, I am close to 90 years, and I must tell you I am happy to be. I used to play outdoor games to keep fit but I don’t play games anymore.

Did you go straight to the military after school as many young boys of that era in Nigeria who later rose to be generals did?

No. I was born in Idoani, just a couple of miles away from Akure. My junior primary school was St James, in Benin City, while my senior primary school was Saint Peters CMS (now  Anglican) between 1937 and 1944.

In January 1945, I was admitted to Government College, Ibadan, where I wrote the school certificate examination in December 1949. I got admitted into University College, Ibadan, in October 1950 and graduated in June 1954. I thereafter went to Cambridge University in the UK. I returned to Nigeria to teach at Oluwa College, Ijebu-Ode, where I held several posts from Housemaster, Gamesmaster and Senior Science master to Vice Principal.

 I left after I had been acting Principal for almost one year. I chose to leave the teaching profession and later went to join the West African Frontier Force. I retired from there about 41 years ago. 

Why would you leave at the pinnacle of your teaching career to join the military?

I discovered that as a graduate teacher all we could hope for was a Scale A.  It was Scale A then. So I felt that in my 20s, I had to move up. I had to manufacture some excuses to go because many people didn’t want me to leave the teaching profession. Those days, we were told that your reward was in heaven as a teacher, though not anymore.

 The second reason was that I had the opportunity as a student to get involved in the student cadet corps when I was in the UK. So when the opportunity to join the Army here in Nigeria came up I took it with both hands, and I enjoyed it well.

 I used to love teaching but the idea was to go to a profession where I could start all over again. The military provided that opportunity.

How was your experience in the military?

Up till my retirement, I enjoyed it. I started off with my seniority backdated to 1957, which meant I didn’t have to go through the Second Lieutenant and all those little ranks, as I called them then.

 My experience as a teacher was useful in the military and they decided to capitalize on that because though I was commissioned into Infantry as an officer, when I came back from Staff College in India in 1964 I was posted to the Education Corps of the Nigerian Army as the Director of Army Education. In fact, I was the first Nigerian Army Director of Education. When the expatriates were about to leave, there was no Nigerian more qualified than I. They could rather have recruited someone from the field, but there I was to be naturally given the post. There was nowhere else that I enjoyed in the Army more than there within the few years that I stayed there.

Who were your close friends then?

I made a lot of friends in the military. There was Emeka Ojukwu, who was a very good friend. I remember I visited him at Oxford University when he was graduating. I was then already a graduate doing post-graduate studies at Cambridge University and I went to visit fellow Nigerians who were also at Oxford University. I met Ojukwu there only to discover later that we would meet again in the Army.

Did you get any wind of the 1966 coup before the coupists struck?

I did not object to it but I certainly did not participate in it, which made it impossible for me to make any positive contribution to it. Of course, I knew the boys who were responsible, led by Chukwuma Nzeogwu. In fact, we were together at the Staff College where the whole idea came from. The reason why I didn’t participate was that I knew some Nigerians would be killed. I have said it times without number that I didn’t join the Army to kill Nigerians. I joined the Nigerian Army to kill enemies of Nigeria, to fight foreigners who might take up arms to fight Nigeria. I still maintain that. The same philosophy guided me in the 1975 coup.

Could you dwell more on the 1975 coup?

No. It would be unfair, because I did not participate in it. I knew a lot about all these things by virtue of being a friend to some of them. In fact, some of them were my students and associates. As much as possible, I try not to let out the secrets that I know about them. Let them do so themselves.  On the 1975 coup, my own opinion was, indeed, sought and I said we were one Nigeria. They sought advice from other people and they utilized it.

What led to your retirement in 1977?

I had wanted to retire much earlier. I would have retired but when Gowon was ousted, I became virtually the most senior officer in the Nigerian Army. I told the new Head of State, Gen Murtala Mohammed, that I wanted to leave because all my mates had retired. But he refused. He said the boys wouldn’t understand.

 Of course, I understood what he meant because he knew my relationship with most of them. When I was in charge of education as Director of Army Education, I assisted most of the young officers to upgrade their educational standard. In fact, I took over the Nigeria Military School, Zaria, which was then a vocational school and converted it to a full-fledged secondary school. The students there, after passing their examination, were admitted to the Nigerian Defence Academy as officers. Officers were hitherto recruited and sent to the U.K and various countries but Nigeria decided to have its own training school and I am very proud to say that not less than 80 per cent of the officers now in the Army, Air Force and Navy were products of that school. I have every cause to be grateful to God to have been given such an opportunity to make such a contribution.

It is believed that women loved flocking round military officers of your generation. What was your experience, as a dashing young officer, with women?

Yes, as an Army officer, we were smart and always well dressed. Money was not our problem; we weren’t earning much money but then we didn’t need much money then to do anything. We had a system where you could own a house. It was called the African Staff Housing Scheme. It was not limited to military officers alone as even civil servants benefited from it. All you needed to do was write down your name that you were interested in it and you would start moving up the ladder until your name comes out.

  At that time, you were either lucky to have a plot of land and put up your house or you were lucky to apply to the Housing Corporation.

We didn’t have to start looking for loans. By virtue of putting down your name, it could take up to eight years to be considered and your rank would have improved and you own your house. Then you could look for a pretty girl. We were not really in great demand, but if girls believed we were in demand, I wouldn’t blame such girls. I see nothing wrong in that anyway.

What did you engage yourself in after retirement?

I didn’t want to be employed. I was already a major-general; besides, I had been a federal minister. So for what job would I be applying?

We appointed most of the governors and they were my juniors, so would I be going to them and start asking for contracts or employment? In school, I did botany and chemistry and that helped in informing me to go into farming.

 I went back to Ondo State after I retired. Then the Ondo State government invited me to help establish its Health Management Board. I retired in March 1977 and in January 1978, I was in Akure as Chairman of the Health Management Board.

You were a federal minister and later chairman of a government board. How was participation in governance then, compared to now?

I didn’t really like my first experience because I did not participate in the coup that brought the military boys into power, so I would say I didn’t know what their philosophy was. This was why I said I had planned to retire earlier.

 To many these days, governance is business; some come to steal, some come to help themselves, some come to defraud the community and some to enrich their pockets. See what we read in the papers everyday. But it wasn’t so in our days. In fact there was nothing to steal, so we did not steal.

 There was a governor from the North. It was when the idea of public officers demanding 10 per kickback was gaining ground. The governor drove to Lagos one afternoon and journalists met him at the airport and asked him a question relating to that kind of thing. And he replied, ‘You people keep asking what we do with 10 per cent but you never ask about the remaining 90 per cent.’

 That was his own way of looking at it. The truth is that those who were governors at that time did not have access to 10 per cent. Those who were making away with 10 per cent were the go-betweens. Of course, people would come to you with proposals for projects they would tell you would be beneficial to your state. But all we were bent on seeing was progress.

See what the Southwest did with education right from during the days of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Even some of the leaders now were products of Awolowo’s free primary education; most of them would not have gone to school without it. I know many professors who but for Awolowo’s idea of free primary education would never have touched the walls of schools. Some people did not buy into the idea at the time but we can all see how that has contributed to the nation’s progress.

 Governance these days is something else. Many of today’s leaders, when they know you are too knowledgeable, they drive you away. We have been reading long lists in the newspapers of staggering amounts credited to the bank accounts of certain people and you begin to wonder where we are heading to. In Awolowo’s time, we never had much money, but there was judicious management of what we had.

So how was life serving Ondo State?

The Ondo State government wanted me to serve as Chairman, Health Management Board, for five years. I then called the Head of Service, Mr Theophilus Iwajomo, and explained to him that I had not lived there for a long time and would have to spend the first two years learning to live in my own state. I had been away for many years as a soldier, moving from place to place.

They agreed, but instead of five years, they gave me less time. At the end of 18 months, to God be the glory, we did well. There was no hospital that was short of anything. We were managing the meagre resources we had to ensure people were taken care of medically. And also towards the end of that tenure I started my poultry business.

 I became the Ondo State president of the Poultry Association of Nigeria for a number of years. It was that time that I introduced the trade fair in Akure. Before then, trade fair was being held only in Lagos. I told my people that each local government would be exhibiting at the fair what it had. Businessmen and women all over Nigeria were given the opportunity to exhibit their goods.

 From the first edition of the fair, the site became a market place where many people were coming to buy and sell. The following year, we increased the period; it was close to Christmas and business was very good for many people.  I also started the Oodua Trade Fair that I advised should be held in Ibadan, so it was held in Ibadan. People took stands and exhibited what they had.

How did you become a traditional ruler?

My grandfather should have been the traditional ruler of our town at that time but he declined. Where I came from, we have a lot in common with Benin because ours is a border kingdom with Benin, so much so that till today the language that half of our town speak is Edo, while the other half speak Yoruba.

 Our tradition conforms with the Edo tradition that the first son of a ruling king becomes the king at the demise of the king. It was not so with other parts of Yorubaland. Our king at a time called Obasunloye started it all. He had only 102 children; don’t ask me how many wives.

His first son was an abiku (in Yoruba, an abiku is a child who keeps dying and keeps coming back). So he kept coming back again and again, as the records have it. This was as far back as 1840.

So the first son, the abiku, the only one alive, became a Muslim. A Muslim evangelist from Ilorin came to town at a period Islam was spreading to Ogbomosho, Osogbo and other parts in the southwest.

How did all that influence you becoming a traditional ruler?

This man, my grandfather who was to have become the king, told his father he was no longer interested in being the king since he had become a Muslim. Before him, in Idoani, there was no Muslim or Christian. It was when this Muslim evangelist became a guest of the then king that this young boy saw how the evangelist prayed five times a day, was impressed and eventually got converted to Islam. As he grew up, he said he was no longer interested in becoming the king. Rather, he became an Islamic leader.

 My father too became a Muslim, but not for long. About the year 1892, missionaries brought Christianity to Idoani, Owo and some other parts. The man who brought Christianity to Idoani also brought cocoa. You would plant it, sell the product and earn money.

Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has reiterated he won’t support President Muhammadu for a second term. What is your take on this?

What has President Buhari done wrong? Didn’t Obasanjo rule as Head of State? And as a civilian, didn’t he come back to rule for two terms?

And he even wanted a third.

 Buhari has done well in his first term, he should be given a second.

I have only one vote. If the people believe he has done well, they will vote for him and if they feel he has not done well they will not vote for him. We should allow the people to decide. My vote alone won’t bring him or disallow him from being president. We should learn to judge our leaders based on performance. Has anything been traced to him that he made away with one naira as president? Can you say the same for those who are ministers or those in the Senate or House of Representatives?

You said earlier that most leaders of today were products of free education. In Ondo State, students have been protesting astronomical hike in school fees. What do you think now that education is getting so expensive in the Southwest?

It is obvious that the government here has not done enough home work.

Look at Lagos State, it was just a little wealthier than other states but now Lagos State can buy all the other states put together. Even when Obasanjo refused to pay the allocation of local governments when Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was governor, they still adequately financed their programmes. How did those people do it? How are they doing it? Did they go to a different university?

 If you don’t know how to achieve it, why can’t you go there and learn? Lagos State has no land for farming, didn’t they approach Kebbi State for collaboration? And now they have rice factories in Lagos, they will produce and make more money for the people who are growing rice. We must learn to collaborate with one another for good results.

 Ondo State has always been a poor state. I am not opposed to increase in school fees but how do you expect someone that paid N30,000 last year to pay N200,000 now? Maybe we misunderstood the government. I don’t have the complete details of government’s intention, or government was fed with wrong information.

Those in government now are failing because their advisers don’t bother to advise them well. Look at Mimiko, the immediate former governor. He could have invested the money he put in the Dome elsewhere. Do you think when there is election, people will vote for the man who says education is no longer cheap. They will not vote for him. Children will tell their parents, ‘That man is not good o.’ And that’s all the parents need to hear. The few people who get to the top think they have answers to all problems, which is not possible.

What is your advice for the Buhari government?

There is need for us to restructure. And to the governors, some states are not viable. We need to find out what is responsible for their not being viable. Look at America, I lived there. There is a state called Indiana, another one is called Michigan. There is cooperation and collaboration between the two states, even up to electricity. Here, once you are from Ondo State, you believe you don’t have anything to do with Ekiti State. There is so much immaturity in our politics.

What advice do you have for the youths and Nigerians generally?

Advice for the youths? What advice do you give to them when they are daily emasculated? Some say our youths are truly lazy. But why won’t they be lazy; where are the jobs? Some have been out of the university for five, six years, they have no jobs and you still describe them as lazy. They see their peers who are nowhere as brilliant as they are achieving materially and they say, ‘This boy or girl, I was better than him in class o’, and they will become envious and even be tempted to snatch their flashy cars. They suffer because they are not well-connected. But should they?

These are the various problems. Journalists have a lot of work to do by enlightening the people on what is happening.

What is your take on the herdsmen issue?

It is quite unfortunate, very unfortunate. In Idoani here, we have cattle on the side of the road everywhere. It is possible that those who do kidnapping will seek refuge among the cattle herders.

I took the case to the meeting of traditional rulers. Most of us have been to Europe and the USA and we did not see cows moving about on the roads. Do we eat meat as much as those people do, or can we produce or boast of as many cows as those countries have? Yet we see how they take care of their cows. We should learn on developments and modern trends; we don’t have to be too conservative.

 So how we can get over it? Some came with the idea of ranching. It will be good if we can buy our cows, buy our land and ranch our cows there.

 We used to have our own cows in Ondo State. I use to tell people that our forefathers had cows but they did not disturb others with them because they were kept in confines. At the Federal College of Agriculture, Akure, they still have the system.