Soyinka, Abacha and the June 12 connection

Although the Jonathan administration gave valid reasons why General Abacha was considered worthy of the award, Professor Soyinka still went ahead to launch a personal diatribe against the late military Head of State, calling him unprintable names. Of course, Soyinka is entitled to his opinion, but that freedom should be exercised with wisdom, maturity and […]

Although the Jonathan administration gave valid reasons why General Abacha was considered worthy of the award, Professor Soyinka still went ahead to launch a personal diatribe against the late military Head of State, calling him unprintable names.
Of course, Soyinka is entitled to his opinion, but that freedom should be exercised with wisdom, maturity and sobriety. Street language is below the dignity of a distinguished national figure like Professor Wole Soyinka. Just because you can write, it does not give you the absolute freedom to breach the boundary of courtesy and abuse any perceived enemy with reckless abandon.
This is not the first time Professor Soyinka devotes malevolent energy to ferociously launch personal abuses on the memory of Abacha. The late Head of State is dead and unable to defend himself. Although his children had refused to join issues with Soyinka for fifteen years until recently, their silence should not be mistaken for fear or weakness.  Bullies feed on our passivity; our silence or inability to react encourages them to attack with increasing ferocity. When a man throws caution to the wind, then he should expect his victim to eventually react. When you push, the person may reach a point where he would confront you boldly to defend himself. And that precisely appears to be what Sadiq Abacha did when he jumped into the ring to confront an implacable enemy old enough to be his father or grandfather.
Ordinarily, our culture and tradition do not allow children to argue with elders. No culture, however, also allows elders to abuse their privileges by vilifying others unfairly, especially people who are dead. Professor Soyinka had the right to reject his own centenary award, but he should not proceed from there to launch a scathing attack on the person of General Sani Abacha. The Professor described Abacha as “a thief of no redeeming virtues” and obviously this was not a fair assessment of the late Abacha.  General Abacha ruled a country of 160 million citizens and I wonder how Soyinka’s opinion, which is influenced by personal hatred, would be a yardstick to objectively assess late General Abacha’s performance in office. The federal government was wise enough to adduce valid reasons why it gave Abacha the award.
In fact, even the Nobel Laureate would not have faulted those reasons based on objective assessment of Abacha’s record in office. I do not want to belabour the point by repeating those reasons, because Abacha’s performance record is well known to Nigerians.  Why does Professor Soyinka hate the late General Sani Abacha with such implacable passion? The only reasonable explanation was the June 12 political crisis of 1993, following the cancellation of the presidential election results, which the late Chief Moshood Abiola of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) was presumed to have won. Although Abacha did not annul the election, he found himself inheriting the repercussions of the political crisis, with the Interim National Government then led by Chief Ernest Shonekan clearly incapacitated to deal with the daunting political challenge.
General Abacha emerged Head of State after the coup d’état against Chief Shonekan.  Chief Shonekan was ousted after a Lagos High Court declared his interim government illegal, the first time in our political history that a government was formally declared illegitimate by a court order.  Who killed Abiola? The death of Chief M.K.O Abiola was the saddest and ugliest outcome of the June 12 political crisis. Could Abiola have survived? Was his death avoidable? Did Abacha kill Abiola? Instead of addressing these critical questions arising from the June 12 political crisis, Professor Soyinka always conveniently chose to avoid these issues and deviate instead into personal attacks on Abacha’s memory. 
But for the naivety of the June 12 warriors, Abiola could have regained his freedom and avoided death in prison. General Abacha had no intention of re-arresting Abiola after accepting bail. Instead of seeking a political settlement of Abiola’s detention, the June 12 advocates like Soyinka were dealing with the case academically against political realities on ground. Abiola died on this account. Soyinka and other June 12 advocates should confront their conscience over Abiola’s death instead of diverting attention from their own role. 
Yusuf Mijinyawa Bakori, Katsina Road, Kaduna