Help from Above: The Travails and Triumph of a Child of God

By Kingsley O. Ologe

This book gives an account of how the author was unjustifiable sacked at the University of Abuja in 1994 and subjected to all manner of harassment before he won his case in court in 1998, and was reinstated in 1999. It includes testimonies of how God took him and his family through the trial by protecting them, supplying their needs and, finally, vindicating him. Finally, it contains spiritual insights that he received from the Scriptures about the Christian pilgrimage through life.

The book has been written with three objectives in mind:

To provide a permanent record of what actually happened as a body of evidence arguing against military dictatorship in Nigeria, the enthronement of mediocrity in positions of authority and the culture of impunity in our national life;

To demonstrate the power and faithfulness of God in the life of whoever commits himself or herself to Him; and

To enlighten, comfort, encourage and strengthen Christians who may be passing through some form of trial.

In the Forward to the book, the Anglican Bishop of Owerri, the Rt. Rev. Cyril C. Okorocha, writes:

Help from above may seem delayed, but it is never denied to a faithful child of a loving, Heavenly Father, Who is also the Lord God Almighty! This is the message of this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456778699

Kingsley O. Ologe

Educated at the Provincial Secondary School, Okene, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria and the University of Liverpool, Professor Kingsley Owoniyi Ologe taught Geography for many years at ABU and the University of Abuja before retiring voluntarily in 2002. In that same year, he was rewarded for his meritorious services to the country with a National Honour, Officer of the Order of the Niger, OON.

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© 2011 Kingsley O. Ologe. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author, with the exception of brief excerpts for reviews, magazine articles, etc. For further information or permission the author may be contacted through his e-mail address: [e-mail].

First published by AuthorHouse 8/1/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-7868-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-7869-9 (e)

Computer Typeset by: Bode Fagbemi, Segun Ologe and the author

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to all those, living or dead, who, as students or staff of the University of Abuja, were victimized in the wake of the student crisis of February 28, 1994.

Contents

Acknowledgements I

Foreword

Introducing Apples Of Gold

Part I These Things Happened

Part II Help From Above

Part III Insight And Interpretation

Afterword

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I

I wish to express my gratitude to:

• The Almighty God, for causing me to triumph in my time of trouble and for giving me the grace to write this book;

• Bode Fagbemi, for doing some of the typesetting; my son, Segun, who, as my Production Consultant, sourced for the cover photographs and liaised so effectively with the Publisher in turning my manuscript into a book;

• The production team at AuthorHouse for doing a fine job in a timely way;

• My parents, Pa Samuel Orimora and Madam Ruth Borimihi Ologe, both late, for inculcating in me, by the way they lived their lives, the virtues of hard work, selflessness and integrity;

• Folake, my wife of almost forty years, and my children, ’Tayo, ’Segun, ’Kunle and ’Dare, whose love and support have never failed, in spite of my imperfections (shhhhh! don’t let them hear that!);

• All my teachers, beginning with the late Alfred Kadi of N. A. Community School, Iyah-Gbedde, for letting me stand on their shoulders and glean from their wisdom;

• All those, too numerous to mention by name, who gave me and my family material, moral and spiritual support during my time of trouble;

• My co-victims, Justice (Prof.) M. A. Owoade, Prof. S. G. Tyoden, Prof. J. O. Omole and Dr. Gboyega Kolawole, who helped me to correct errors of fact in my narrative and gave me words of encouragement;

• Professor Michael Mortimore, my teacher, my friend, my role model as a Christian, for his love, his many-sided generosity and his role as a principal motivator, encourager and panel beater of this book project;

• David Preston, for volunteering to proof-read the manuscript during one of the many times when I thought that I had finished writing the book (!);

• Our former Chaplain and now our friend, the Right Reverend (Dr.) Cyril C. Okorocha, for graciously accepting to write the Foreword and for the speed with which he did it: I sent him the manuscript by e-mail at about 10.00pm one night and he sent me his draft, also by e-mail, at about 4.30am the following morning! Truly remarkable. I thank him for causing me to shed tears of pure joy. And finally,

• Our Pastor and friend, Bishop David O. Abioye, for writing the Afterword in the middle of an impossibly busy schedule of pastoring one of the largest churches in central Nigeria and supervising the development around it of a new city, Goshen City, as well as a number of educational institutions.

By writing the Foreword and the Afterword, my beloved Pastors have put their much-valued priestly blessing on the book. In the process, they have unwittingly converted it into a sandwich. Now it remains for me to say to you, the reader, Bon appétit! as you sink your teeth into it.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II

Redekop, Jacob, John van Dijk, Eugene P. Vedder, Jr. (Eds) The Lord is Near, 2008. Believer’s Bookshelf Canada Inc.

Mandela, Nelson, Long Walk to Freedom. Abacus, London, 1995.

Pierson, A. T., George Muller of Bristol and His Witness to a Prayer-hearing God. Flemming H. Revell Company, Old Tapan, New Jersey, 1899.

Adeboye, E. A., Open Heavens, Volume 9, 2009. The Redeemed Christian Church of God.

Cowman, Mrs. Charles E., Streams in the Desert, Volume Two. Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1966.

Houghton, Bishop Frank, If We Believe. Inter-Varsity Fellowship, London, 1952.

Gass, Bob, The Word for Today: Your Quiet Time Companion. Grace So Amazing Foundation.

Hughes, Selwyn, Every Day With Jesus. Crusade for World Revival, Farnham, Surrey.

Rossier, H. L., Meditations on 2 Chronicles.

Kelly, William, Eleven Lectures on the Book of Job. Loisseaux Brothers VG. No date.

Munroe, Myles, Rediscovering the Kingdom: Ancient Hope for Our 21st Century World. Bahamas Faith Ministry, Nassau, Bahamas, 2004.

Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Life Application Study Bible.

FOREWORD

This book is a must read, irrespective of one’s religious faith, profession, race or social class. It is about real life experience and touches us all. It is the uninhibited baring of the mind, with characteristic transparency and authentic insight as an insider, by one of us who is not afraid to be honest over a matter that touches our common humanity at its very depths: what C.S. Lewis describes as The Problem of Pain. It encompasses the problem of man’s inhumanity to man; mediocrity in leadership while those better suited for the job are pushed aside and the masses you love to serve suffer and progress is hindered; the suffering of the righteous and delayed justice when there is a just God; the struggle to forgive an unrepentant enemy and a callous oppressor in the face of a more natural option to vindicate ourselves, and end the matter there; the obvious prosperity and unbridled arrogance of the wicked, while help from above takes ever so long in coming. If ever you have had to face these or similar questions, or are involved in university administration in Nigeria, or have read Chinua Achebe’s The Trouble With Nigeria, or C. S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, or Asaph’s Psalm 73, then study this very frank and personal testimony for helpful insights on how not to give up.

Each page breathes with a deep sense of irreparable loss, as one glances back in illo tempore, and "the paradise lost" beckons at one with compelling nostalgia! Not just for one university, but for the whole Nigerian university system and, indeed, the whole of our education sector. But that is not all. The burden of maladministration and the nausea of mediocrity, the absence of accountability and the incidence of unbridled corruption and charlatanism in leadership at all levels and in every segment of society, the absence of a readily available and transparent justice system which often leads people to resort to taking the law into their own hands; the ever so prevalent resort to despotism and a panic-driven approach to people management, and other leadership problems that have bedeviled the whole Nigerian nation as captured in the first part of the book, and, indeed, throughout the work, and which have been narrated painstakingly with meticulous detail and characteristic candour, are quite reminiscent of Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country, and cannot but draw tears from any reader who is remotely familiar with those events and situations so described.

Overcome by a depressing cloud of hopelessness, I was tempted to stop reading. But somehow I couldn’t put the book down. The writer is a most faithful friend of many years’ standing, a dear brother in Christ whom I often refer to as a Nathaniel of our time, and who, with his dear wife, Sister Esther, along with Professors Sam Aleyideino and Ochapa Onazi, has been to my wife and me a true yoke fellow and co-partner in the experiences he describes and in the crosses he has had to bear in the bid to remain faithful as well as bear true witness to the Gospel of God’s love, justice and forgiveness, as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ! The truth is that the work is so captivating, and you can feel Brother Kingsley’s meticulous thoroughness, palpable trustworthiness, and sincerity each time you pick up the book, that you just can’t put it down!

And I was glad I did not stop reading. Otherwise, how could I have learnt from Part III of the book how not to give up hope in the face of prolonged adversity and the apparent triumph of evil and the arrogance of the wicked, but rather to wait patiently for God’s intervention at His appointed time, and then, at last, be able to tell the story of how, in the thick of any battle, we may, in the words of Rev. G. Matheson,

. . . trace the rainbow through the rain,

And know that God’s promise is not in vain

That morn shall tearless be?

Yes, Help From Above may seem delayed, but it is never denied to a faithful child of a loving, Heavenly Father, Who is also the Lord God Almighty! This is the message of this book.

Right Reverend Cyril C. Okorocha, PhD (Aberdeen),

Anglican Bishop of Owerri

July, 2010.

INTRODUCING APPLES OF GOLD

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold

In settings of silver (Proverbs 25:11, emphasis added).

The words of the wise are like goads, and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails, given by one Shepherd (Ecclesiastes 12:11).

Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heard

Rather than the shout of a ruler of fools (Ecclesiastes 9:17).

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools speak because they have to say something (Plato).

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens, we have to keep going back and beginning all over again (Andre Gide, winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize for Literature).

Humanity has a rich heritage of words of wisdom by all manner of people from all parts of the world. Many of them are veritable words on marble. One of the Hebrew prophets appropriately calls them apples of gold in settings of silver.

The words of the wise deserve our attention because they give perceptive commentaries on the human condition and on human experience; offer valuable insights into why people act the way they do; and proffer time-tested principles for living more purposeful, more fulfilling and happier lives that would, at the same time, add value to the lives of other people. In this book I have employed many of them as a vehicle for conveying my story and my thoughts. Quite often I want to say something only to discover that it had been said before by somebody else, and, perhaps, in a better and more memorable way. Whether they appear as curtain-raisers at the beginning of individual chapters and capsules, or whether they are embedded within the text, these apples of gold are an essential part of my story.

Some of the quotations are like goads to prod the thinking process, while others are like well-driven nails on which one can hang the products of one’s thinking. If one or two of them make you feel uncomfortable, I hope you will find others that will gladden your heart, put a smile on your face, or make you laugh. Between them, they offer enlightenment, vision, inspiration, motivation, hope, encouragement, comfort, refreshment, admonition, reproof, comic relief and practical wisdom as we proceed on our journey. You may not agree with some of them, but, again and again, they will make you stop and think. They will ensure that dull moments are few and far between.

I started collecting these quotations long before the internet made them cheaply available – a few of them have been on the flyleaves of my old study Bible for more than thirty years! – without my knowing how or when I might use them. But now I know: I offer them to you as a love gift that you can take away from this book and use for your personal reflection, edification and application. According to Mike Murdock, the American televangelist and pastor, just "One sentence can be the golden door to the next season of your life."

PART

I

These Things Happened

I

These Things Happened

DESCENT INTO ANOMIE

Apples of Gold

I

God has spoken once,

Twice have I heard this:

That power belongs to God.

Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy;

For You render to each one according to his work (Psalm 62:11-12).

… the Most High rules in the kingdom of men,

Gives it to whomever He will,

And sets over it the lowest of men (Daniel 4:17).

II

Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a second-rate version of someone else (American actress and singer, Judy Garland).

I do the best I know how, the best way I can, and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what’s said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference (Abraham Lincoln).

I would love to be remembered as the man who did his best in most circumstances. I would love to be remembered for being me (Alex Ekwueme, former Vice-President of Nigeria).

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment (American lecturer, essayist and poet, Ralph Waldo Edison).

Be the very best that you can be;

Do the very best that you can do;

Then, leave the rest to God,

The Judge of all the earth (Author).

III

… our nation is in the grip of anomie, meaning a lack of the usual social or ethical standards. It is obligatory that we ask ourselves how we have arrived at such a state. We are fast descending into a Dark Age that has engulfed many a civilization not only in the distant past but also in more recent times (GroundViews, a Sri Lankan citizen journalism initiative, in a press statement made on December 12, 2008).

In a state of anomie

You look for order

You search out a pin

In a haystack.

In a cold heart

You look for love

You seek out a swarthy man

In a blackout.

In a hovel

You look for comfort

You hunt a reindeer

In an African jungle.

In Nigeria

You look for truth

You chase water

In the Sahara (Unknown author).

. . . those who carry the cross for society always get crucified in the end… (Festus Iyayi, at one time President of the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU), in his novel, Heroes, for which he won the Commonwealth Prize for Literature).

On January 15, 1966, a group of military officers overthrew the government of Nigeria and ushered in military dictatorship. As a young undergraduate at that time, little did I realize that these developments would affect me personally and in a traumatic way many years later. It was the beginning of the military’s prolonged venture into the governance of the country. Unfortunately but predictably, they entrenched, if they did not introduce into our body politic, a culture of executive lawlessness and impunity. This has been disastrous for the country as a whole and for individual citizens, including the writer. But before I run too far ahead of myself, let me be more specific.

In 1979, the military voluntarily handed over power to a democratically-elected government. But on December 31, 1983, this government was overthrown in another coup d’état. In August 1985, a palace coup brought General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to power as the country’s self-styled President. At first, he tried to cut the image of a benign dictator by restoring freedom of the press, releasing political detainees who were being held without charge, and even promising to return the country to democratic governance in 1990 (later extended to January, 1993, and, later still, to August, 1993). At the end of a seemingly unending transition-to-civil-rule programme, the government organized a presidential election on June 12, 1993, and scheduled the inauguration of the new President for August of that year. By all accounts, the election was well conducted, free and fair. But on June 23, 1993, shortly before one of the candidates, Chief M. K. O. Abiola, was to be announced as the winner, the election was annulled by the government, using as pretext some controversial court pronouncements and pending lawsuits. That was how Nigeria was finally pushed off the brink into a downward spiral towards a state of anomie that was to last for five years. Nigeria was thrown into turmoil and more than 100 people were killed in riots that erupted spontaneously, mostly in Lagos and the south western part of the country.

On August 27, 1993, General Babangida bowed to intense pressure from an outraged and angry civil society and handed power over to a hand-picked, lame-duck, Interim National Government (ING) led by a technocrat, Chief Ernest Shonekan. Shonekan could not reverse the country’s worsening economic problems, neither was he able to diffuse the lingering political tension, or control the military. Predictably, three months after he was sworn in, the military struck again, toppling the ING and installing General Sani Abacha as the new Head of State.

Whereas General Babangida had pretended to be a benign dictator, the new Head of State had no such pretentions whatsoever. He moved swiftly to consolidate his stranglehold on the country, dissolving all remnants of democratic structures that he had inherited, including existing political parties, the National Electoral Commission, as well as Federal and State legislatures.

In deft moves that stunned many Nigerians, General Abacha tried to buy time by appointing Baba Gana Kingibe, Chief Abiola’s vice-presidential running mate in the June 12 election, as his chief foreign diplomat and Olu Onagoruwa, a prominent civil rights activist who had long been associated with the political opposition, as his Minister of Justice and Attorney General. But the rest of his 11-man ruling junta were military or police officers. Nigeria was, once again, firmly under the jackboot.

Initially, General Abacha was welcomed by many Nigerians. But disenchantment rapidly set in as people realized that, contrary to their expectations, he had no plans to install Chief Abiola as President.

Within a week of the coup, the first signs of resistance to it began to emerge. At a news conference, Professor Wole Soyinka, the 1986 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and a consistent human rights activist, called for international sanctions against the new regime:

Our message to the international community is that it should not say or do anything to give hope to this regime. It is a regime of infamy and it should be isolated. This is going to be the worst and most brutal regime that Nigeria ever had. This regime is prepared to kill, torture and make opponents disappear.

Subsequent events were to prove him right.

Meanwhile, sections of the country’s print media, notably, The Vanguard, Newswatch magazine, and The Guardian, condemned the coup. When it became clear that the new government had no plans to return the country to democratic rule anytime soon, there arose a groundswell of opposition to continued military rule and a concerted call for the actualization of the mandate which Nigerians had freely given to Chief Abiola. The opposition and the call were led by a number of vocal, pro-democracy organizations, including the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the Campaign for Democracy, and the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). General Abacha took on these bodies, which were made up of human rights activists, trade unionists, social critics, journalists and vocal politicians, in a massive clampdown.

In defiance of General Abacha, Chief Abiola declared himself President on June 11, 1994. He was promptly arrested for treason (!) and clamped into detention. Many members or assumed members of the opposition were also detained under harsh conditions. Some were assassinated, including Chief Abiola’s wife, Kudirat; a prominent Ibadan politician, Alhaja Suliat Adedeji; Rear Admiral Babatunde Elegbede; a security officer, Akin Omotsola; and Chief Alfred Rewane, believed to have been a NADECO financier. Many others, including Professor Wole Soyinka, had to flee into exile from where they used Radio Kudirat, a private radio station that they had established to pursue their cause, to harangue the military junta and to mobilize Nigerians and the international community against it.

Our national calamity may be said to have reached its nadir in 1994-5, when nine members of MOSOP, including the brilliant playwright, Ken Saro Wiwa, were arrested, allegedly for incitement to murder. They were tried in camera by a Special Military Tribunal which was widely denounced by human rights groups both within and outside the country. In a report on the trial, a leading British counsel, Michael Birnbaum QC, came to the conclusion that:

It is my view that the breaches of fundamental rights are so serious as to arouse grave concern that any trial before this tribunal will be fundamentally flawed and unfair.

In protest against the composition and the cynical attitude of the Tribunal, the defence counsels resigned en masse, leaving the accused to defend themselves! It was not surprising that the accused were all found guilty and sentenced to death. Before they could appeal the sentence, the country’s Provisional Ruling Council, the highest organ of Government at that time, met and confirmed the sentences. And, in defiance of international appeals for leniency, including one from President Nelson Mandela, they were hastily hanged on November 10, 1995! This multiple judicial murder must rate as marking the darkest moment in the history of Nigeria under military rule.

The hanging provoked widespread outrage from within the country and from the international community. One day after the hanging, Nigeria was suspended from the British Commonwealth whose leaders were at that time meeting in New Zealand. Other members of the international community imposed sanctions on Nigeria, including the USA, Britain, France, Germany, Austria and South Africa. Time magazine branded General Abacha, the Thug of the year. Nigeria had become a pariah nation. A thick cloud of fear and uncertainty, even foreboding, descended on the country. The state of the nation at that time is well captured by the title of a book that was written in 1997 by Wole Soyinka, The Open Sore of a Continent: a Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis.

In a 1996 report titled, Nigeria: Military Government Clampdown on Opposition, Amnesty International said, among other things:

Since June, 1994, hundreds of demonstrators and protesters have been arrested in sporadic demonstrations and clashes with police, and it is estimated that as many as 200 may have been shot dead by the security forces. Many of those arrested are believed to have been released, but there have been no investigations into the circumstances in which protestors have been killed.

With time, it became quite clear that General Abacha was pursuing an agenda to transmute into a civilian President by October 1, 1998. For this purpose, the Government registered five new political parties that were to participate in presidential elections scheduled for August of that year. One after the other, these parties held a national convention at which they unanimously adopted General Abacha as their presidential candidate, prompting the late Chief Bola Ige to describe them as the five fingers of a leprous hand.

At about the same time some military officers and a number of civilians were arrested and charged with planning a coup d’état against the government. Those arrested included General Abacha’s deputy, Lieutenant General Oladipo Diya; former military Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo, and his deputy, General Shehu Musa Yar’adua. They were tried in camera by a Special Military Tribunal, found guilty and sentenced, some to long years of imprisonment, others to death. It was while he was in prison that General Yar’adua died mysteriously. Mercifully, those who had been sentenced to death had not yet been executed before General Abacha himself died mysteriously in June, 1998.

The nation had been driven into a state of nature in which almost anything could happen, including the bizarre. For example, Chris Anyanwu, a brilliant journalist and publisher of The Sunday Magazine (TSM), was one of the journalists who were tried in connection with the above alleged coup plot. She was found guilty of publishing false information for saying, after thoroughly investigating the matter, that there had not been a coup plot after all. She was sentenced to life imprisonment in July, 1995 (reduced to 15 years in October, 1995). She nearly lost her eyesight under the harsh conditions of her incarceration. She was released on health grounds by General Abacha’s successor in June, 1998. She went on to write a political novel titled, Days of Terror, based on Nigeria’s travails during the Abacha dictatorship. In an article published in 1999, she wrote on her experience as follows:

. . . Three years after I was abducted from my office on a hot, humid, exhausting production day, I returned to face the full weight of reality awaiting me and it was a harsh, daunting reality. General Abacha had smashed nearly all I had built with my life’s resources and most vital energies. It was not enough for him to have imprisoned me in his rage over my audacity in publishing a truth too bitter for him to stomach; he had to try to inflict so much financial damage as to make recovery difficult.

By his specific instructions, the security agencies raided, towed away property, smashed equipment, and shredded records. Bank accounts - both personal and company- were frozen. The company was starved of funds. My family dependants were starved of funds. Checks I signed to take care of their immediate needs were seized by military security and kept till this day. Financial obligations mounted. Problems mounted.

I got out of prison to see I had no work to return to, no organization from where to relaunch my career. Our government had decimated everything, even going as far as to seize my personal land and reallocate it; seize my telephone lines and reallocate them.

I went to what used to be my office, a place that was so full of life and activity that merely approaching it quickened my heartbeat. It was dark, cold and silent. It was eerie. Cobwebs hung everywhere, low from the ceiling. Dust hung in the air, on the walls, on the floor and on the smashed up furniture. The dust of injustice had indeed settled there. On the floor, shredded bits of company papers had soaked moisture, dried, faded and gnarled. I looked at the papers and I saw the challenge of the whole act. Someone was daring me to pick up the pieces. I walked away from the scene with a promise to myself to return when I was ready with something better…

She has made good the promise which she made to herself. The Federal Government of Nigeria has cleared her of the offence she had allegedly committed and for which she had been sent to jail and she is a proud recipient of the National Honour, Member of the Federal Republic, MFR. Furthermore, she is today (2010) a distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic and proprietor of the popular Hot 98.3 FM radio station based in Abuja.

I have written these things not to reopen old wounds but because they provide the backdrop for the chain of events that prompted the writing of this book. Sometimes people look for trouble. At other times it is trouble that searches for people and locates or overtakes them. Although I was not a human rights activist, a trade unionist, a social critic, a journalist, or a politician, trouble still located me at the University of Abuja, threatening to terminate my career as a University Professor prematurely. The chain of events had nothing to do directly with the political situation in the country, but it was made possible, shaped, nurtured and prolonged by that situation. For you to understand what happened as well as its genesis, I must take you back several years in time and back in space to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, my Alma Mater and the place where I started my academic career in 1971.

TENSION AND TRAGEDY AT AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA

Apples of Gold

Here in Northern Nigeria we have people of many different races, tribes and religions who are knit together to common history, common interest and common ideas. The things that unite us are stronger than the things that divide us. I always remind people of our firmly-rooted policy of religious tolerance. We have no intention of favouring one religion at the expense of another. Subject to the overall need to preserve law and order, it is our determination that everyone should have absolute liberty to practice his belief according to the dictates of his conscience (Alhaji (Sir) Ahmadu Bello, Premier of Northern Nigeria, in his Christmas message to his people in 1959).

Ahmadu Bello University had been a relatively peaceful academic community between 1962, when it was established, and 1986. Although it had experienced student crises during the 1966/67, 1970/71, 1978/79, 1980/81 and 1981/82 academic sessions (I was an active participant in the very first one!), these were child’s play when compared with the crises that were to follow in 1986, 1987, and 1988. Those three years were years of great tension in the University, partly because of trade union and student radicalism within it, and partly due to socio-political unrest in the wider Nigerian society. It was this tension that repeatedly erupted into major crises that rocked the institution to its very foundations.

On May 22, 1986, students of the University embarked on a peaceful protest over the expulsion by due process of two of their leaders. Unfortunately, the protest turned into a bloody tragedy when, on May 23, armed units of the Nigeria Police entered the campus, beating, brutalizing, and shooting students and anybody who looked like a student. At least four students lost their lives; twelve were seriously injured, while seven sustained minor injuries.

In March 1987, what appeared to have been a minor inter-religious quarrel at the College of Education, Kafanchan, in southern Kaduna State, sparked off an orgy of church burning virtually all over the State. Over 100 churches – including our own beloved Chapel in ABU’s Main Campus, as well as the Chapel in its Institute of Administration campus – were burnt down in Zaria and its environs in three days! Many business premises belonging to Christians were burnt, destroyed, or looted. A palpable feeling of uncertainty descended upon the land and there was a strong sense of insecurity among Christians throughout the Northern States of Nigeria.

The burning of the churches marked the end of an era of relative religious tolerance in Northern Nigeria. This was something that the former Premier of the Region, Alhaji (Sir) Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, had tried hard to promote and preserve. It was sad that his worthy legacy was being mindlessly destroyed. I still remember that at the Senate meeting that was held immediately after the event, I was moved to make a solemn speech which I ended with the words:

Mr. Vice-Chancellor, sir, with what has happened in the past few days, does it not mean that the pot (of inter-religious harmony) has been broken? And if the pot has been broken, does anybody know a potter who is able to gather the pieces together so that we can have a whole pot again?

Somebody had to say what needed to be said. Nobody was or has been able to answer these questions, and inter-religious violence has broken out intermittently in several parts of northern Nigeria ever since then.

It did not help matters that even before the religious crisis, the University had become a community hopelessly divided against itself. There were several student organizations on the campus, each dedicated to one cause or the other. Often diametrically opposed to one another, they contended for membership, for attention, and for influence amongst the student population. They included the Movement for a Progressive Nigeria (MPN), a radical leftist organization with an elusive membership and obscure activities, and yet a pervasive influence in campus politics. The Vanguard was an offshoot of the MPN with which it, inexplicably, seemed to always disagree. Then there was the Gamji Memorial Club, which was also always at loggerheads with the MPN. The Fellowship of Christian Students (FCS) was a vocal group dedicated to Christian evangelization and discipleship training. We also had the Muslim Students Society (MSS), an equally vocal group whose objectives were to promote and defend Islam.

One of the fall-outs of the burning of the churches in 1987 was the arrest and detention of a large number of suspects. As time went on this became a national issue that divided students on the ABU campus. Muslim students and non-students began to hold processions around the campus after every Friday prayers chanting, Allahu akbar and Release our brothers from detention. This went on for weeks and created fear in the minds of the Christian community. The Friday Fear Syndrome, as it was called, was a constant source of irritation to these people who kept wondering why the University authorities were unable or unwilling to put a stop to the demonstrations since the University had nothing to do with the detention of the people in whose behalf they were being held.

Given the situation on the ground, it was only a matter of time before religion became a factor in the politics of the student body. Sadly, that time finally came in 1988. In June of that year, elections were held into the Executive Council of the Student Union. For the first time since the University was established in 1962, its students were sharply divided along religious lines, Muslims versus Christians. Each group wanted its candidates to win. On June 13, a bloody clash broke out between them over the outcome of the elections. It was a fierce battle that lasted from about 9.00pm till about 7.00am the following morning. Incidentally, the University Sick Bay was within the territory controlled by Christians. The medical students among them commandeered it and turned it into an emergency clinic where they gave first aid to injured combatants, Christians and Muslims alike! After treatment those who were still fit to fight were sent back into battle! In the morning the floor was covered with human hair scraped from broken heads and there was dried blood everywhere.

The Panel that was set up to investigate the incident discovered that one student had lost his life and about 160 had sustained injuries, many of them serious.

It was a sad day for those of us who had been students in the University in the 1960s when Student Union elections had been carnival-like events, with Muslims campaigning and voting freely for Christian candidates, and Christians doing the same for Muslim candidates. I remembered, with nostalgia, the role that some of us, Christians, played in the election of Aminu Dorayi, a Muslim from Kano. He was elected purely on the basis of his character and competence and he turned out to be, in my view, one of the best Student Union Presidents which the University has ever had. He led the first student demonstration in the University. It was a huge success and we got everything that we asked for. He later joined the staff of the University as a Lecturer in Chemistry. When, sometime around 1981, Professor Afolabi Ojo wanted me to help him find somebody who could assist him in setting up the then newly-established Open University of Nigeria, I had no hesitation in recommending him. They worked quite well together until the institution was scrapped by the military in 1984.

TIME TO MOVE ON

Apples of Gold

The Lord our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying: ‘You have dwelt long enough at this mountain. Turn and take your journey, and go …’ (Deuteronomy 1:6-7).

If you spend too much time on the dunghill you will see flies with horns (Yoruba proverb).

How times had changed! My wife and I were upset by the developments in the University. Having lost its state of innocence, it had become a hotbed of controversy. We decided that it was time we reviewed our continued stay there. We could not see things changing for the better in the then foreseeable future. We decided that we did not want to bring up our children, at that time aged 16, 12, 9 and 7, in an atmosphere soaked in tension that could erupt into violence at any time. Therefore, although I had worked in ABU for 17 years and still loved to continue to work there, we decided that we had stayed there long enough and that it was time to move on.

But we were not in any hurry to leave the place. And so we made two prayer requests. First, we wanted God to grant me favour so that my employers would approve a sabbatical year for me. I knew that, in accordance with the existing conditions of service, I would have to return to the institution to serve for one more year after a sabbatical leave. Our second prayer request, therefore, was that God should make the first door opening to a suitable new job, during the course of, or after that year, the one He had in mind for me.

SABBATICAL YEAR: A TIME OF REFRESHING

Apples of Gold

And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13).

Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart (Jeremiah 24:7).

As the deer pants for the water brooks,

So pants my soul for You, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God (Psalm 42:1-2).

… I will pour water on him who is thirsty,

And floods on the dry ground (Isaiah 44:3).

The first prayer was swiftly answered. I was given 1988/89 as a sabbatical year and I decided to spend it at the University of Jos where my friend, Prof. Ochapa Onazi, was the Vice-Chancellor. It turned out to be a time of much-needed spiritual rejuvenation for me and for my wife. I can now say that it was there that God started to prepare me in earnest spiritually for Abuja. I came across William Hendriksen’s Survey of the Bible: a Treasury of Bible Information in the University Library. This remarkable book surveys every book of the Bible, its author, its historical background, as well as its main theme, or themes. It then goes on to give an outline of it. I was so pleased with it that I took pains to make a summary of all its book outlines. My summary covered several notebooks. Much more importantly, the book spurred me on to read the Bible itself through for the very first time, and to do it twice in one year. Reading the Bible through was for me an exciting and rewarding experience and continues to be so. I experienced something like what the Prophet Jeremiah experienced after the only extant scroll of the Scriptures was discovered accidentally while the temple was being renovated on the orders of young King Josiah (II Kings 22:3-20). He wrote:

Your words were found, and I ate them,

And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart

(Jeremiah 15:16).

By the way, if you want to have an idea of the