WAKE UP: There was a Nigerian President and my memory of him – Tribute to Megrima Shehu Shagari
By BASHIR ADEFAKA
Despite having seeing it all from school teacher to First Republic Minister and Second Republic President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, His Excellency Alhaji Aliyu Usman Shehu Shagari, GCFR, lived a very modest life that, seeing his Shagari township home where he was finally laid to rest on Saturday December 29, 2018, I resolved within myself that no matter what in life would change my mind from standing for the truth and nothing but the truth, I will never agree. This is because, like all that Shagari is left with today in the grave, it is how good or otherwise one lives his life in accordance with the laid down rules of his Lord that will be either his consolation or regrets before his Lord on a day like this.
Alhaji Shagari’s modest life restored my almost reclining commitment to struggle for better Nigeria and boosted my confidence in fighting on as one of the crusaders, despite the complex situation under which the Nigerian style of politicking has placed us, that Nigeria of our fathers the late President represented be restored.
Shagari reminds me of why it is very difficult for me to see Nigerians of Fulani extractions from the lens of those who are giving their dog a bad name in order to hang it. The thoroughness of mind! The sincerity of purpose! The majority of members ready to stand on the podium of integrity at all times! And the fearless attitude that strengthens their commitment to United Nigeria, despite all the challenges! Just like today many religious and ethnic based peoples cross-country are celebrating the growth of mutual understanding among them despite their diverse backgrounds, I may need to remind us that the personality, the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, who made that possible is a Fulani man.
The Fulani, described as Red Men of Nigeria by a colonial master’s over 350-page book over a long time ago, are wonderful people just like the Yoruba people of Nigeria. But in their own case, like the Arabs of this world, Fulani would prefer to die for a good course they believe in. You cannot confuse them; once they love you they love you. Once they find faith and trust in you, no amount of effort anybody makes that can destroy the good relationship they have built with you or you have built with them. This is consistency that brings about stability. When you find Fulani somewhere and there are issues; it is better you do not rush into conclusion because such issues may have been caused by lack of understanding or simple hate, like we see in people claiming government’s effort to establish ranches for cow breeders was to take over people’s land and hand it to “strangers”. Strangers?! Otherwise, what all of us should work towards is how to bridge the gap caused by clash of interests between Nigerians who are attached to their farmland and Nigerians who are attached to the grazing of cows that is their core economy. This frankness I learned from Fulani people whether in politics, monarchy, religion, trade or the tribes. No doubt.
If not because one must belong, political system in Nigeria gives no encouragement for one to make contribution because, you find out that you have your friends, family members and even benefactors across the parties. To one who is not independent minded therefore, it is time for him to run mouth in a way that he loses his integrity in the eyes of people outside that love him. We shall overcome. But I hold that politicians should be wary because after the general elections, President Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar (both Fulani and Muslims) will return to the same Mosque, the same Fulani community and, with all of us Yoruba, Igbo, the same Nigerian public space. We shall then relate together again as One Nation, One People!
That is the politics that Alhaji Aliyu Usman Shehu Shagari played in his NPC days in First Republic and his National Party of Nigeria (NPN) days of Second Republic. Those who played it wrongly that time, where can we find their names today? Shagari played it rightly and it is the reason, despite that his administration was overthrown on the claim of corruption, he singularly escaped clean because he was one man standing without an iota of corrupt practices traced to him. If not so, go to Shagari and Sokoto City and see where a former Africa’s most powerful black President lived till death and ask yourself, which type of Nigerianness is yours? I have not found another former President of that nature except late Tafawa Balewa and General Muhammadu Buhari.
Outside people in government, I also found it in the personality of Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, who has only one house which land was given to him by government of his state of residence and it is just a three-bedroom bungalow. Every other thing that is flaunted is just things he cannot do away by virtue of his office as, indisputably, Africa’s number four most power monarch. Yet we have a politician, who has not one-tenth of the regional, national, continental and global influence of the Sultan or Tafawa Balewa or Buhari or Shagari but has, in one state alone 172 houses and another politician having over 60 properties scattered across countries. Who then will call me a bastard as a Yoruba prince when I decide to queue behind integrity when I see one in this crop of Fulani personalities!
Recall that Alhaji Shagari, in the heat of opposition to General Muhammadu Buhari’s contest in 2015 on the purported claim that he overthrew him and sent democracy out of Nigeria, had clarified the misinformation saying that Muhammadu Buhari was not the one that overthrew his government. “President Emeritus”, my own word, Shehu Shagari said some military boys took over the government and invited Buhari who was not in the country at the time of the military coup of December 31, 1983 (exactly 35 years this December 31, 2018) to lead the new government.
No one should lose out the fact that Shagari, who until few months to his demise was still very active attending activities and council meetings of the Sultanate Council, should be the saddest supposing Buhari did him any wrong. But he was one of the happiest with Buhari to come back as civillian President because, he held strong belief that Buhari did not overthrow his Second Republic Government. I have interviewed his Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice of the time, Chief Richard Akinjide, and he never countered Shagari’s verdict on the who was or was not responsible for his ouster from power.
It is therefore wonderful that some people still peddle the news around today, when they pretend to be reading General Buhari’s profile and say, “Buhari was leader of the military coup that ousted Shehu Shagari’s democratic government of between 1979 – 1983). That is misplacement of fact.
Alhaji Shagari remained committed to the Sultanate Council under another General turned monarch, Sultan of Sokoto His Eminence Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, son of Sultan Sir Siddique Abubakar III, who ruled for 50 years as 18th head of the Calliphate, which has its jurisdiction far beyond Nigerian borders.
It was due to his activities – at 91 in 2016 – that I was able to meet him and took picture with him along with others in the Sultan’s Palace Sokoto and I will never forget in a hurry the FG 04 plate number of the single car he drove, modestly, around until last Eid-ul-Fitri when he came to pay homage to the Sultan and later was no longer able to come to Council due to understandably old age, which the Sultan really understood and for what reason he even had to visit the home of the Turakin Sokoto to look after him.
I remember also his nod when, on behalf of the Attah of Aiyede Ekiti, I presented a speech before the Sultanate Council where in my preamble I sought the permission of the Sultan to “let me tell my former President His Excellency Alhaji Aliyu Usman Shehu Shagari GCFR that I was in Primary three at Iju, Akure, Ondo State when during Your Excellency’s visit to Old Ondo State you were to visit Ado-Ekiti and all we were required to do was line up along the road and say to you when we saw your presidential car: ‘Welcome Mr. President’. That day we did just that, when we saw your car passing front of where stood like others we waved the Nigerian flags in our hands as excited kids wanting to see their President and screamed ‘Welcome Mr. President’. That was in 1981. I am today happy that while I could not move near the tyre of Your Excellency’s car at that time, I can find myself standing before you right here in the chamber!” I said in the preamble of the Attah’s speech I read on his behalf and then turned to the Sultan in a way that ran many people emotional in the Council Chamber of the Palace where the Attah’s courtesy visit was held.
Alhaji Shagari shook his head in a manner that I saw him giving glory to the Almighty Allah. “See the irony of life! A kid of 34 years ago has grown to be recognized by the President who could not identify him among crowd at that time. Allahu Akbar!” The Yoruba community members led by the Oba of Yoruba in Sokoto State, Alhaji Coker, screamed. Yes! That was the experience of a President of Nigeria and my memory of him, His Excellency Alhaji Shehu Shagari!
I cried for Shagari in death not because he is too young to die. Of course, knowing that Baba was always a specially made person with a heart filled with fear of Allah and he lived so long even as the longest living Nigerian President so far, his death could not have been a rude shock. But I cried for him so much that, much as politicians tried to commit all the atrocities they committed under his government, when the Head of State General Muhammadu Buhari’s “War Against Indiscipline” (WAI) Government arrested and investigated him, he was the first if not the only politician of Second Republic that was quickly set free for lack of involvement in corrupt practices. What a clean life of a great politician!
Instead of getting angry thereafter, Shagari rather appreciated the Buhari military government for at least, in my own word, helping him pass the first stage of Call-to-Account here in life of this world before he would have to face the bigger Call-to-Account before Allah in the next world.
This should be the attitude of politicians of today if, really, their intention is to make Nigeria better for Nigerians to live good life. Instead of seeing Call-to-Account over your stewardship in any position as witch-hunting, you should consider it as helping to lighten your burden before Allah because, if you escape the Call-to-Account of this world, which the Nigerian Government starting from the Military Regime of General Muhammadu Buhari up till the beginning of the ongoing democratic dispensation has been doing with Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), you should be rest assured that you cannot escape the Call-to-Account in the Hereafter which no other person will order except Allah the single maker of your soul, who created the heavens, earths and all that are in-between both.
Baban Shagari was a man of God to the core! I love him and I pray that Allah would please strengthen him to overcome the questioning by angels of graveyard, repose his gentle soul in Al-Jannah and make him pass the questioning of the Day of Resurrection! Amin!
