Preface
Passion and Patriotism in the Times of Tyranny
By Dr. Bayo Williams
On Saturday, 6th of June, 1998, from my Birmingham redoubt, I called Tunde Fagbenle, veteran journalist, publisher, fiery columnist, and gentle-man-hell-raiser, to see if he could join me at a footballing extravaganza jointly sponsored by The Guardian of London. Without giving it a second thought, the master of journalistic melee, agreed. It was the eve of the 1998 World Cup. I was billed to contribute to a panel discussion about the linkages between football, global politics, and philosophy. Facetiously titled “An Afternoon without Gary Linekar”, the session turned out to be a fire-cracker of unintended consequences.
I had been fielding tame and genteel questions to the audience when a voice suddenly growled for recognition. It was Tunde Fagbenle. “How”, he asked in a baritone bristling with indignation, “can we prevent Third Word dictators like General Abacha of Nigeria from exploiting the World Cup to boost their popularity?”
There was a pin-drop silence. The façade of urbane exchanges and witty repartees had been punctured. No one had expected such a direct confrontation with the sordid realities underlying contemporary soccer politics. In the ensuing confusion and panic, I saw Genaral Abacha in white shroud being hurried over to the great beyond. Never having written a single poem before, I reached for a pen in order to capture this moment of radical revelation for posterity in verse. When it was read to the jostling crowd, the poem, titled “Red Card for a General”, caused a lot of stir. It also calmed nerves considerably and answered Fagbenle’s angry inquiry. Exactly thirty hours later, General Sani Abacha, the scourge of the lower Niger was dead.
The intervention was vintage Fagbenle whose popular column in the Sunday Punch became a source of hope and inspiration for many Nigerians in the darkest days of tyranny. Karl Max was who once observed for him, criticism is not just a passion of the mind but the mind of passion itself. As this memorable collection demonstrates, it is obvious that for Tunde Fagbenle, journalism is not a passion of the mind but the very mind of passion: a throbbing, blood-covered weapon against political and social inequities. As those who might have been at the receiving end of his caustic wit and barbed denunciations can attest, our veteran slugger is not interested in taking political prisoners, or in the Geneva Convention of warfare for that matter. Ask Wada Nas, Peter Enahoro or any of those who have been recently added to Fagbenle’s vintage collection of political scalps.
At a point during the struggle against military dictatorship, Fagbenle almost became synonymous with its implacable physical reality. At foreign embassies, picket lines, demonstrations, sit-ins, lock-outs, the tall strapping figure of the amiable journalist was a permanent fixture. If he harboured any illusions that his exertions had gone unnoticed by the powers that be in Nigeria, a brief sojourn in detention after an attempt
to slip out of the country would have done a lot to dispel such. After that, the column itself became the equivalent of a mobile launcher: moving from Lagos to America through London and then back to London
via Lagos. If this restlessness and permanent shuttle are a reflection of uneasiness and disquieting nature of the times, they are also emblematic of the writing itself. It huffs and puffs with restlessness and brooding
alienation which often breakthrough the surface joviality and light hearted tirades and tantrums. While many with less character and resilience appear to have abandoned the barricades, Fagbenle continues to soldier on like a lone sentry at a deserted duty post.
Yet it must be said that Fagbenle, far from being an instinctive agitator and born protester, is indeed a reluctant rebel. He is not a natural gadfly. It is obvious that our author would have been more at home in a
climate of peace and justice, a democratic Nigerian in which all are free born citizens and none a second class feudal serf. Had that been the case, the writings collected here would have been remarkable for their
gentle wit and light-hearted optimism, and Fagbenle himself would have been something of a well-connected society journalist. But the ravages of post-colonial injustice in Nigeria, the combination of military tyranny and feudal oppression culminating in the senseless annulment of a free and fair election have turned peaceful men into militant crusaders. These writings tell the story of Nigeria, a perpetual toddler and under-achieving mammoth, as well as the dramatic transformation of a journalist steeped in the tradition of mild protest into a flame-throwing protester.
In such circumstances, the pilgrim’s progress cannot be without its telling contradictions, or the traumatic parting ways with old friends and associates. Having been born and bred in the north of Nigeria, Fagbenle has had to repudiate his past and the oligarchic privileges this can confer in the process, some friends have become ex-friends and old associates have become new-found antagonists. For a man with a naturally amiable a friendly disposition, this must have been a source of private anguish. Yet, it is absolutely impossible to break completely from the past and Fagbenle’s writings come with the residual cultural baggage of the past: they are replete with the proverbs and wise-sayings of the Hausa-Fulani tradition. On the political and ideological front, one occasionally catches out the old society journalist, the cool courtier of power in the “ranka dede” tradition or the ancient praise-singer of the Hausa “maroka” ancestry foraging in very familiar haunts and indulging in customary ego-massaging. But the court-jesting is immediately supplanted by an “up and at em”, “damn it”, “go hang” bravura of the aging rebel.
And herein lies the abiding moral of this tale of metamorphosis: the need to keep faith with one’s self. The period covered by this collection is a period of changing fortunes and dramatic transformations for Nigeria and Nigerians, having gone through the horror of an annulment, the protracted struggle against military tyranny and its attendant barbarity and the restoration of civil governance. In the course of the struggle, many were those who deserted the barricades. After the restoration of civil rule culminating in the election of a Yoruba president, many are those who felt the struggle has ended and that all is well that ends well.
Obviously not Tunde Fagbenle can be seen in this collection. But by refusing to sheath his journalistic sword, by refusing to crawl way from the barricades, by refusing to accept or believe the rumour that Nigeria has arrived at a political utopia, Fagbenle has kept faith with himself and the finest tradition of journalism. In an age where hypocrisy and dishonor are no respecter of ideological and political divides, nothing can be more honourable. Written in racy and fluent English, here, then, are the extensions of an honourable Nigerian, a very rare gem in terrible times.