Delusion: Dino Melaye and the new activism Writing by Abdul Mahmud
In his acclaimed seminal, ‘’Tell no lies, claim no easy victories’’,
Amilcar Cabral warned revolutionaries of the dangers of telling lies
and claiming easy victories, even before the final battles are won.
Cabral, a distinguished African scholar and anti-colonial revolutionary leader whose credentials were forged
in the furnaces of the struggles of our people, recognised the
importance of truth to every struggle and the responsibilities the
struggle imposes on activists as they fight for ideas, for a better life
and for the future.
Cabral’s warning issued at a time
revolutionaries on the continent were engaged in the anti-colonial
struggles holds true today for activists who fight neo imperialists and
those prejudicial customs and negative aspects of beliefs and traditions
that hinder progress.
Truth, therefore, is when activists look
at their own faces in the mirror the same way they demand that society
looks at itself. Hypocrisy has no place in activism as it erodes its
integrity and quickens the collapse of the activist movement.
Activism in our part has always been an ideological one. The activist
movement of the mid 1980’s-to-late 1990’s was peopled by men and women
on the left and right of our alternative politics. Then, the activist
movement held itself out as a broad church. Though there were divisions
within the movement, activists related to each other with a certain
sense of respect. This sense of respect more than anything else
propelled the movement.
On the ideological right, there were
the likes of Olisa Agbakoba, Tunji Abayomi, Mike Ozekhome, Beko Kuti,
Glory Kilanko, Tayo Oyetibo, Fred Agbaje, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Osa Director,
Nsirimovu Anyakwee, Abdul Oroh, Shehu Sani, Patrick Utomi, Chidi
Odinkalu, Odia Ofeimun, Felix Morka, Eka Williams, Clement Nwankwo, Ayo
Obe, Nnimmo Bassey, Festus Keyamo and a host of others.
The
ideological left paraded Alao Aka-Bashorun, Gani Fawehinmi, Festus
Iyayi, Osagie Obayuwana, Ayesha Imam, Eskor Toyo, Edwin Madunagu, Bene
Madunagu, Niyi Fasanmi, Toye Olorode, Dipo Fashina, Idowu Awopetu,
Abubakar Momoh, Segun Osoba and the generation of leftist-activists who
graduated from the students politics of the National Association of
Nigerian Students (NANS): Chris Mammah, Chris Abashi, Festus Okoye,
Lanre Arogundade, Emma Ezeazu, Salihu Lukman, Bamidele Opeyemi, Abdul
Mahmud, Segun Mayegun, Nasir Kura, Comfort Idika, Femi Falana, Labaran
Maku, Chido Onumah, Seni Ajayi, Yomi Gidado, Otive Igbuzor, Abdul
Hussein, Luke Aghanenu, Odion Akhaine, Ogaga Ifowodo, Bamidele Aturu,
Chima Ubani, John Odah, Chom Bagu, Lanre Ehonwa, Chiemeke Onyeisi, Uche
Onyeagucha, Jaye Gaskia, Innocent Chukwuma, Omano Edigheji, Omoyele
Sowore, Kayode Ogundamisi, Gbenga Olawepo, Olaitan Oyerinde, Gbenga
Komolafe, Adeola Soetan, Fola Odidi, Chijioke Uwasomba, Lade Adunbi,
Juliet Southey-Cole, Biodun Aremu, Biodun Ogunade, Ene Obi, Sam Amadi,
Teejay Yusuf, Auwal Rafsanjani and many others too numerous to name
here.
The relationship between both tendencies was often tense
inside popular organisations like the National Association of Nigerian
Students (NANS), Gani Fawehinmi Solidarity Association (GFSA),
Democratic Alternative (DA) and the Campaign for Democracy (CD), but the
desire to end military rule made the relationship cordial.
Though there were the likes of Clement Nwankwo, Tayo Oyetibo, Fred
Agbaje, Tunji Abayomi, Pat Utomi, Festus Keyamo (he joined the movement
during his National Youth Service Corps’ year at Gani Fawehinmi’s
Chambers in 1994; and prior to that year, he was a reactionary student
with no connection to progressive students politics at the Ambrose Alli
University, Ekpoma) and Odia Ofeimun who lacked the temperament and
discipline to work inside popular organisations, one salutary aspect of
their individual activism was their honesty of purpose.
Today,
the new faces of public activism are Dino Melaye, Femi Fani-Kayode,
Nasir El-Rufai and the tribe of public intellectuals and boy-scout
activists that have taken the social media as the primary site of
political action.
There is a point to be made here: some of
these older activists of today bucked at the idea of joining hands with
their contemporaries who fought the military on our streets. Perhaps, it
is convenient today to throw stones at the effeminate civil governments
than risk the beatings, expulsions, rustications, arrests and
imprisonments without trials many activists suffered at the hands of
soldiers.
Yesterday, activism was about courage, valour and
integrity. Today it is about name and publicity-seeking. El-rufai and
Fani-Kayode, in particular, don’t express shame when reminded of their
shameful connection to that obsequious party, the ruling Peoples
Democratic Party, peopled by some of the most despicable elements we can
find in right-wing parties anywhere, that has brought us to where we
are in today.
These new activists are former public office
holders, beneficiaries of the product of the struggles they shied away
from during the years of military dictatorship, with no connection to
struggles of any kind, nor do they have any history which connects them
to progressive politics before they chanced on public governance, that
we can look at to analyse the truth of their new found public purposes.
When critics accuse them of taking to activism as the shortest route of
return to public recognition, or as a means to get on the right side of
power, they dismiss their critics with the wave of the hand. Such
criticisms cannot be dismissed because they provide the starting points
for a critical understanding of their world views and how they connect
with the masses of our people for whom they profess their new life
politics.
Though, there are no assurances that activists of
yesterday cannot today engage in role reversals that shame whatever they
once stood for as we have experienced with some left activists who are
today connected to power. History provides us basis for measuring then
and now, here and there, for defining the parameters for engaging with
them. Isn’t it important we have understanding of their
‘’Road-to-Damascus’’ moments? Isn’t it imperative we know how Saul
became Paul? How far the down aisle of time can they walk as brides and
grooms of our new life politics? That the new faces of public activism
have no connection to any mass or popular organisations makes their
public activism a project of publicity and suspicion.
Of the
named individuals, only Dino Melaye boast of a ‘’connection’’ to
struggles of any kind. Even that is dubious. My good friend, Ayobami
Oyalowo, writing under the caption, ‘’Dino Melaye They Do Not Know’’,
has this to say: “He struggled until he got admitted into Ahmadu Bello
University (ABU) Zaria and the activist in Dino came to the fore.
Throughout his stay as a student of ABU, he was a thorn in the flesh of
the authorities. Matters came to a head when he sued the school
authority. He was arrested by Abacha government and was locked in Yola
Prisons for 11 months without any formal charges. He was in cell 4 when
he was next door neighbour to Olusegun Obasanjo who was in cell 5. He
was mercilessly tortured by the infamous Sergeant Rogers and hung to
dry’’.
How audacious for any biographer to put out such
untruth, pass off fiction as truth! Assuming there are truths to Ayobami
Oyalowo’s claim, there are questions he has to provide answers. What
year was Dino Melaye arrested and detained? Was his detention
documented? We presume that Dino Melaye’s arrest and detention took
place in March 1998, shortly after Daniel Kanu’s two million Youths
Earnestly Ask for Abacha’s march. Ayobami Oyalowo’s spurious claim is
exposed by the Annual Human Rights Reports of the Civil Liberties
Organisation and Amnesty International. The reports of both
organisations make no reference to Dino Melaye.
Dino Melaye’s
claim to student activism began in late 1998 when he was elected
President of the Geography Students Association of the Ahmadu Bello
University. His presidency was cut shut when he was sacked for gross
misconduct. He later emerged as the Personal Assistant of the Vice
President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Kabir
Mohammed, who became President following the death of the incumbent
President in 1999.
Another lie is the claim that Dino Melaye
was a ‘’thorn in the flesh of the authorities’’. How could Dino Melaye
who had no connection to the radical student union leadership of that
institution led by Comrades Omale and Victor Arokoyo become thorn in the
flesh of the authorities? This writer, as a former President of the
National Association of Nigerian Students (1990/1991) and former Staff
Attorney and Head of Legal Services of the Civil Liberties Organisation
(1994 to 1999), should have become aware of the predicaments of Dino
Melaye, at least in the course of his work as a human rights lawyer who
defended students activists across the length and breadth of our
country. One point that must be made is that the President, Kabir
Mohammed, whom Dino Melaye served as Personal Assistant began the
decadent era of state capture that National Association of Nigerian
Students (NANS) has not recovered from today.
Concluding, every
responsible activist must have the courage of his responsibilities.
‘’Hide nothing, tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask
no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories’’, Amilcar
Cabral enjoined. The dangers of telling lies are starker when those who
wield power mask their own penchant for telling lies by turning the
uncovering of lies discredited activists tell into an art, some official
obsession.
The wielders of power are unsparing once they
detect the chinks in the armours of activists. An activist who gets
entangled in the web of lies he or she spins endangers the movement and
brings it to disrepute. Unfortunately, we have a rotten system driven by
individuals who have no time for the tittle-tattles of dubious
activists.
READ: The Scoop Investigates: Dino Melaye’s ‘Assassination Attempt’
READ: Eromo Egbejule: The Delusions Of Dino And Other Stories
If this government shows no interest in the dirt and mucks of Melaye,
why would it want to snuff life out of him as he falsely claimed this
week? Dino Melaye gets away with his lies because we live in a different
age; an age that makes heroes out of despicable villains. The strategy
of getting noticed today and securing public appointments tomorrow is as
old as the struggles they claim to fight. Melaye and his tribe of
opportunist- activists travel on the well-worn, beaten path.
Follow this writer on Twitter: @Abdulmahmud1
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