Two “meetings” with Mandela

The first occasion was in April 1990. Some weeks after his release from 27 years in prison, Mandela began a thank-you tour of the world. Every country in the world was falling over itself to host him. We in Nigeria had a feeling of entitlement because we thought all our governments since the First Republic […]

The first occasion was in April 1990. Some weeks after his release from 27 years in prison, Mandela began a thank-you tour of the world. Every country in the world was falling over itself to host him. We in Nigeria had a feeling of entitlement because we thought all our governments since the First Republic had materially contributed to the struggle to overthrow apartheid. Even though geographic reality placed us thousands of miles away from the “apartheid enclave,” as we referred to South Africa in those days, General Obasanjo’s military government declared in 1977 that Nigeria was a “frontline state.” That is, we inserted ourselves into the ranks of the anti-apartheid Frontline States of Angola, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Botswana.
In 1977, the Federal Government also created a National Committee for Action Against Apartheid [NACAAP] under the Cabinet Office. Its first chairman was Mazi Sam Ikoku. When he quit the position in 1979, government appointed his younger brother Professor Chimere Ikoku as chairman. This chance event soon brought me close to the centre of the anti-apartheid action in Nigeria. Prof Ikoku was the Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of Sokoto and I was the President of the Students Union. He sent a young lecturer Malam [later Dr] Hakeem Baba-Ahmed to fetch me. Ikoku asked me to form a students’ chapter of NACAAP, which he named Sokoto Institutional Chapter Against Apartheid, SICAAP. I soon formed one with student union leaders from the College of Education, College of Arts and Science and the Federal College of Arts and Science.
NACAAP and SICAAP jointly organized several high profile events in Sokoto in those days. Among NACAAP’s members were the ANC Special Representative to Nigeria Mark William Shope and the SWAPO Special Representative [I cannot remember his name now]. Then editor of the Sunday Times Tunji Oseni was a member. NACAAP’s secretary was Miss Adejumo, who was called Madam Anti-Apartheid. In 1980, we organized a huge demonstration against the British transitional administrator of Zimbabwe Lord Soames, who we thought was manoeuvring to stop Mr. Robert Mugabe from becoming the leader of independent Zimbabwe.
As SICAAP’s leader, I soon gained another role as the Consultant to NTA Sokoto’s weekly program African Scene. The anti-apartheid struggle dominated the program week after week. I had a few minutes’ slot on the show every week, which I used to rail against Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the main stumbling blocks against the massive international campaign for sanctions against apartheid.
 SICAAP did many things to idolize the great leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle. Mandela was the top one, but also  Walter Sisulu, his wife Albertina Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Umkhonto We Sizwe’s chief of staff Joe Slovo and his wife Ruth First, Umkhonto’s commander Chris Hani, South African Communist Party leader Yusuf Dadoo as well as Cyril Ramaphosa, who led the epic mine workers’ strike of 1988. While that strike lasted BBC used to open its world news with a sound bite from Ramaphosa. He will make a very militant statement and the news anchor will say, “General Secretary of the South African Union of Mine Workers Cyril Ramaphosa.” As an ardent BBC listener since the late 1970s, the only other time I knew it did this was during the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament [CND] in 1983, when it used to open the world news with a sound bite from CND’s general secretary Monsignor Bruce Kent.
Ikoku’s presence in Sokoto ensured for us a steady supply of anti-apartheid literature including the ANC’s two periodicals, Sechaba and the ANC Monthly Bulletin. The latter consisted of cuttings from South African newspapers of stories about the anti-apartheid struggle, in particular the massive school boycotts directed by ANC’s internal wing, United Democratic Front [UDF]. Black school children took to the streets everyday chanting the slogan “liberation before education.” They threw stones at the police who responded with teargas, rubber bullets and the heavy leather whip called sjambok. Pictures of children whipped with sjamboks were terrible to see. ANC and UDF measured the success of the school boycotts through the weekly statistics issued by the apartheid Ministry of Bantu Education. Absenteeism was often as high as 90%.  
Anyway, we were about to find out how much ANC valued our contribution when Mandela began his world tour. ANC’s National Executive Committee, then in exile in Lusaka, drew up Mandela’s itinerary according to the contribution of various nations to the liberation struggle. We watched askance as Mandela went to Zambia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Libya and UK before he arrived in Nigeria. Clearly, ANC valued the guerrilla training camps and weapons provided by Mengistu Haile Mariam and Muammar Gaddafi over and above Nigeria’s contribution of money and seminars.
Efforts by the Western powers in subsequent years to dissuade Mandela from cozying up to Gaddafi were firmly rebuffed. As for Britain, whose government under Mrs Margaret Thatcher did everything possible to thwart the international campaign for sanctions against apartheid, ANC made it clear that Mandela went there to acknowledge the contribution of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement led by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston.
When it was announced that Mandela was coming to Nigeria in April 1990, the Babangida regime directed all state governments to send large contingents to welcome him at any of the three places that he was due to visit—Lagos, Enugu and Kaduna. I was having my siesta in Sokoto one afternoon when a courier arrived with a message that I was urgently wanted at the Government House. When I got there, the Commissioner for Information Alhaji Abdullahi Abarshi Yauri came out of an emergency Cabinet meeting to meet me. Up to that time I was viewed by the Sokoto State Government as a radical nuisance, but I was now asked to write a brief on Nelson Mandela for the State Executive Council.
Sokoto State had mobilized hundreds of cars and buses to convey people as well as dancing troupes to Kaduna to welcome Mandela. As it happened, the abortive Orkar coup took place just before the visit so the government scaled down the movements. Commissioner Abarshi however sent for me and said, “Even if no one else is going to Kaduna to see Mandela, you must go.” He gave me an official car, a driver, N300 and a letter to the Sokoto Guest House in Kaduna to provide me with accommodation. That was how I saw Nelson Mandela at Kaduna’s Murtala Square.
The second time I saw Nelson Mandela was at the OAU Summit in Abuja in June 1991. A day before Mandela arrived, ANC’s secretary for publicity Mr Thabo Mbeki gave a press conference at the International Conference Centre. At that time we best knew him as the son of Govan Mbeki, another anti-apartheid titan who was imprisoned together with Mandela.
I personally felt offended that Mandela attended that year’s OAU summit as an “observer.” He quietly sat on the sides while revolting men such as Mobutu Sese Seko took centre stage. At one point during the proceedings, the live television cameras zeroed in on Mandela and his image filled the large screens in the conference hall. Suddenly there was a deafening applause. Mandela was dozing at that moment. When he heard the applause he looked up and saw his image on the screen. He quickly bowed, waved and smiled, which elicited an even louder and longer round of applause.
That was only small applause inside a small hall. Since Thursday evening when his transition was announced, there has been deafening applause all over the world for the life of Nelson Mandela, the greatest man to come out of Africa in more than 100 years and the greatest statesman on the world stage in the last 20 years. It will ring in our ears for generations to come.