You Must Set Forth at Dawn

by Wole Soyinka

  Julius handed over the document. Its conclusion could be summarized in two central demands and read as the defining statement of the opposition: a transitional government of national unity to take over from the military and, simultaneously, the summoning of a sovereign national conference to debate and decide the future of the nation—its structure if it must continue as a federation, and its constitution.

  Abdulsalami listened carefully, but it would appear that he had far more modest pursuits on his mind. “When are you coming home?”

  We responded that certain conditions still needed to be fulfilled, and we enumerated them. Abdulsalami took notes, promised to look into them. He played the role not only of a good listener but of one who enjoyed listening to others talk—or maybe simply enjoyed letting others provide some earnest-sounding noises as background to his private thoughts and already decided intentions. I had the impression that nothing in the world could ruffle this man. We had spent nearly an hour together already. All had been said that we had come to say, and the encounter was now over, at least from our side. Each had sized up the other beneath the courteous exchanges. The general had kept his part of the bargain; he had received us alone, except for his ambassador and someone who appeared to be his secretary. He appeared to have no secret agenda, nothing outside his main commitment to supervise the transition to a new government and embark on whatever retirement plans he had worked out for himself. He did not divulge any hint of what path he and his military colleagues would take to achieve that goal, nor was there any glimmering on his placid face of his reaction to our proposals for taking the nation back to democratic rule. In the little that he said, he appeared convincing, but we had not come this far to take any politician or “militrician” at face value. Sola Adeyeye summed up our response to him in the same preacher accents, his keen-edged trowel of a beard aimed, it seemed, at Abdulsalami’s heart: “You will be judged by your actions, not by your declarations.”

  Abdulsalami did not seem anxious to bring the meeting to a close. It was evidently his last engagement of the day, and I suspect that he was fascinated by the small group. I wondered if his thoughts strayed to the publication of our Walter Mitty, Jude Uzowanne; as the top soldier, he must have been compelled to address contingency plans in case of the genuineness of the alleged guerrilla threat. Whatever the rest of the military thought about our effectiveness, all sources—from visiting ambassadors to domestic servants—testified, both during and after Abacha’s reign, that the dictator believed that we commanded the forces of hell, all of which had joined hands with hitherto unheard-of monsters from outer space to destroy him! Abacha’s exceptional interview, perhaps the only one with a foreign newspaper (The Washington Post) was marked by an obsessive devotion to his favorite monster—“That Wole Soyinka, he is supposed to be a poet, to be writing poetry, but what he does is throw bombs all over the place, is that the function of a poet?”—all rattled off in his reedy voice. As Sani Abacha’s chief of staff, Abdulsalami must occasionally have been witness to Abacha’s famed paroxysms that had the opposition—and W.S. especially—as their trigger.

  There were thus moments during our meeting when I felt that this soldier was sizing us up, wondering if this trio represented the forces that he must contend with if he succumbed to the temptation to cling to power. A quizzical look would pass over his face, and then he would seem to engage in a keener inspection of the team than was warranted by the subject under discussion. He had one of those faces that did not readily smile, simply because it was so relaxed that the entire head constituted itself into one simple, understated smile. It broke its mold only when we came to the subject of victims—both military and civilian—who had been framed by Sani Abacha and were still held in jail, a full month after Abdulsalami had taken office.

  Why, I demanded, had General Olusegun Obasanjo been released from prison but not Generals Diya and Adisa, Colonel Gwadabe, and others? Abdulsalami replied that their cases were being closely studied. That was clearly evasive, and I insisted that the continued denial of their freedom was illogical, an unwarranted endorsement of the process that had landed them in prison in the first place.

  General Oladipo Diya, Abacha’s former second in command, whom Abdulsalami had replaced, was widely believed to have been framed, just like Olusegun Obasanjo. However, the conduct of some of these soldiers during trial had been far less than soldierly. The nation had been treated to video clips of the whimpering generals, secretly filmed by al-Mustapha, Abacha’s chief security officer. Confronted with evidence of their alleged complicity in the coup attempt, a number of them had fallen on their knees, sobbing and pleading for forgiveness. In one scene, Abacha contemptuously handed his former chief of staff his handkerchief and gestured that he should wipe away his tears.

  “Look, General,” I protested, “there is no justifiable reason for their continued detention. What I propose is this: set them free immediately and reabsorb them into the army. Then you can legitimately court-martial them for cowardice under fire, and then—shoot them if you like. I won’t complain.”

  Abdulsalami nearly fell off his chair as, for the first time, his placid mask cracked and he doubled over with laughter.

  I had a personal matter that I had left to the last. “I think I should serve you notice,” I warned, “I am going to sue your government.”

  “What for, Prof?”

  “For gross defamation. I am going to sue your government, and your ambassadors are going to be summoned as witnesses.”

  Gambari was visibly startled, and I wondered if he already guessed that I was referring to the lurid invention of Abacha’s propaganda machinery, the glossy product of the fugitive rapist Abiola Ogundokun: Conscience International.

  “This packaged bundle of obscenities,” I continued, “was sent to key Nigerian embassies throughout the world, several of which in turn distributed them to institutions, human rights organizations, and even the international media. The president of my university was sent a copy”—and here I turned to Gambari—“directly from the Information Department of our United Nations mission, with a complimentary slip signed by one E. Agbehir.”

  Again, Abdulsalami turned wordlessly to Gambari. The ambassador sighed, probably relieved that at least this publication had not been encountered by our delegation as a companion piece to the eulogy of Abacha as world statesman.

  “All I know, sir,” he stammered, “was that this box of magazines was sitting in the office of Agbehir, the information officer. I saw it one day when I entered the office, and I was attracted by the Prof’s photo on the cover. So I took a copy and opened it. Almost immediately I realized what was inside. I dropped it, I remember saying, ‘Uh-uh, I don’t want any part of this. I don’t want anything to do with this.’ Later on, I found that the information officer had already sent me my own copy. I don’t think I’ve even read it to this day. It must be sitting somewhere in my office.”

  “I am going to sue the government,” I repeated quietly. “That’s my first duty whenever I return to Nigeria. I’m serving you notice so that you don’t complain that, after all, we had an amicable meeting, and so on. It’s nothing personal, but I have to take you to court.”

  The man smiled his broadest yet, spread out his surprisingly soft hands, and said, “Prof, everybody is suing me. Obasanjo himself has threatened to sue for wrongful imprisonment. What am I supposed to do? So many people are going to sue this government. I am not saying you’re not justified, but where are we going to get the money to pay all these damages?”

  “Well, that’s for you to worry about. I’m suing. It’s a duty imposed on me. Anyway, that’s the one item I have on my personal agenda—I needed to get it off my chest. We really should leave you now, I’m sure you have other people to see.”

  The photographer was summoned for the inevitable photographs. “But when are you coming home?” As we were set up, positioned, and repositioned for the satisfaction of the photographer, Abdulsalami continued to insist. “Next w
eek? Next month? Everybody wants you back, you know. What am I to tell them when I return home?”

  “Soon, soon,” I kept responding. “Soon. I can’t simply pull up roots and return just like that, you know. I have acquired quite a few responsibilities here.”

  “Well, at least a visit. Come home for a week or so, you can manage that. I’ll give you my phone numbers. If you’d just let us know when you’re coming . . .”

  “I will. That’s a promise.”

  In the vestibule, an official rushed in. “Your Excellency, I wonder if the Prof can delay a few moments. Madam is just coming in, and I’m sure the Prof would like to meet her.”

  “Where’s she?”

  “They’re coming up in the elevator. They should be here in a moment.”

  “Ah, please wait, Prof. My wife won’t forgive me if she knew you were here and I didn’t hold you long enough for both of you to meet.”

  Mrs. Abdulsalami came in a short while later, accompanied by four women. It was a remarkable change. In the heyday of the “two Ms”—Mariam Babangida and Maryam Abacha—there would have been no less than a caravan of women, at least two dozen, if not thirty to forty, overdressed, overpainted, simpering satellites. Abdulsalami’s wife was dressed very simply and, I soon discovered, had spent nearly the entire day observing the proceedings of the Supreme Court, herself being a judge. I spoke to her briefly, and could not help observing that she was somewhat ill at ease with me—not conspicuously, but she did seem a little short on spontaneity. I wondered which of my many reputations she had swallowed that had created that air of discomfort or if my entire surmise had been misplaced. Perhaps it was nothing but a cultivated judicial mien.

  Later I was informed by a childhood friend of Abdulsalami that during the Abacha period, she had been very critical of the language of contempt that I employed toward Sani Abacha. She was in agreement with the content but belonged to that school of thought, quite prevalent among a substantial portion of our educated elite, that holds that a head of state was still a head of state, no matter what else he might be. This meant that he was entitled to the fullest respect from the nation’s citizens. No matter what he did, you simply did not refer to him as “a murderous imbecile,” “cretin,” and other standard epithets that I found objectively descriptive of the man. Approval for the role I was playing in the struggle, yes. But it was wrong to be so abusive. A head of state was still “His Excellency.”

  As further knowledge was obtained of Abacha’s plots to get rid of all probable or imaginary obstacles in his bid for self-perpetuation, it emerged that Abdulsalami had himself been next for the jump. During interrogation, which routinely involved torture, some of the accused coup plotters had been offered the chance to shorten their agony and even purchase their freedom or survival by implicating Abdulsalami in one of the phantom plots against the Abacha regime. This attempt had commenced, it turned out, right from the interrogations that had preceded the trials and convictions of General Diya and others. A Colonel Lawan Gwadabe in particular, once one of Abacha’s most trusted collaborators, had undergone horrendous torture in the effort to make him implicate his boss. He had been hung upside down, flogged, and had buckets of excrement poured over him.

  Unfortunately for that colonel, he was, like his master, a devoted client of marabouts, one of whom sealed Gwadabe’s fate by divining that he would one day become Nigeria’s head of state. The prophecy reached Abacha’s ears, and he promptly took preventive action. Perhaps the marabout also predicted a like elevation for Abdulsalami; those marabouts loved to please! Speculations were pointless with Sani Abacha, however. For whatever reasons in the murky recesses of what passed for his mind—and with steady prodding from his hatchet man, al-Mustapha—Abacha had begun the process of removing Abdulsalami from office and trying him for treason, with predictable results. Gwadabe was to have been the prime witness, but that loyal soldier, notoriously of Abacha’s cast of mind in many other ways, refused to break. I wondered if, after learning that truth, Mrs. Abdulsalami would still be of the opinion that Abacha’s anointed number one enemy had been too extreme in his choice of language.

  THE PAST BEGAN to recede in the mind, ceased to influence daily habits and instincts or govern practical choices. Finally, I accepted my papers of release from the custody of fear and sent prudence on indefinite sabbatical. I could begin to act on the spur of the moment, plonk myself down at a table on the open pavement of a café or restaurant, walk the streets and enter recreation spaces with greater spontaneity, constrained only by my craving for anonymity. It was in this new mood that, headed for London, I accepted an offer of two tickets to Wimbledon from a Nigerian tennis coach, Jacob Akindele, who had been one of my volunteer marshals in the heyday of the Road Safety Corps. Jacob had a more impressive distinction, however—he could boast of having coached John McEnroe in his rookie days! In my mood of liberation, I prepared to venture into Wimbledon’s hallowed precincts, my first such visit in more than forty years.

  Not that I have ever been one for blood sports, least of all lawn tennis, whose genteel setting—most especially in England’s Wimbledon—I have always considered a contradiction, the game itself being no more than a sublimation of the blood instinct that has stuck with such tenacity to every rung in the ladder of human evolution. Boxing is another matter entirely. It does not pretend to be anything else, and thus, I have never been averse to watching the occasional round of a boxing match, almost exclusively on television.

  It was only natural that my mind should travel back to my last visit to Wimbledon as a fresh graduate, in the company of Barbara, my first wife, perhaps even then pregnant with Olaokun, my first son. Everything fell into place—this time Olaokun was bound to be in London, and I had two tickets. He also, I thought, must be feeling the pangs of withdrawal, having thrown himself into the fray body and soul, serving as secretary to the UDFN and neglecting the small computer publication business that had developed from his medical publication enterprise until it had gone bankrupt in the service of democracy. He had been compelled to return to his first profession, as a part-time doctor on call. I pictured him wondering what to do with himself now that he was deprived of preparations for preceding me into Abacha’s lair, tried to gauge what his reaction would be when I informed him that I had never had the slightest intention of gratifying his wish! I called him up—did he wish to come with the old man? He was more than ready.

  A summery day, the kind that Wimbledon aficionados pray for and sometimes get. Whatever was going on in Olaokun’s mind, I did not know, and I wondered if his mother had ever told him that we used to take the bus and walk to Wimbledon during my stint at the Royal Court Theatre in 1958–59, when we lived in Maida Vale, Willesdon, and Putney, the last being nearest to Wimbledon. What went through the old man’s mind, however, was the sheer air of freedom. I was walking among crowds without sprouting eyes all around my head, without being accompanied by a volunteer bodyguard or two, inconspicuous but close by. All I dreaded was to be recognized by anyone— Just make them leave me alone, I pleaded with the unseen gods.

  Those deities are, however, practiced in turning a deaf ear. As we walked past the gates and began to drift through the crowd, the familiar sound shot through the air: “Prof! Prof! Professor Soyinka!”

  I always know when I cannot bluff my way, pretending to be someone else. This was no voice of uncertainty, and, whoever it was, we were going to be ensconced within that place for the next few hours, when she would have lots of time to scrutinize me closely if I tried the gambit of self-denial. It is always an embarrassment when a “senior citizen” finds himself caught in a bald lie, especially by a mere juvenile.

  I turned. She was petite and light-complexioned, and could easily have passed for an Indian. Yet it was not she who really caught my interest but her companion. Darker and of a somewhat more substantial build, she remained rooted by the entrance gate while the one who had called out ran forward excitedly. Not one probing step did she take in our di
rection. Her face read horror, unrelieved horror, her body—total petrification. She shrank progressively into her distant self, staring at the scene with wide-eyed apprehension.

  The girl came up to me, her excitement bubbling over. “Yes, I knew it was you. I recognized you in spite of the hat.” She continued breathlessly, “I’ve read your books, I admire them a lot.”

  “Thank you. And you? What’s your name? Are you studying here?”

  “Zainab, and I’m reading law.”

  I nodded, gestured toward Olaokun. “This is my son, Olaokun.”

  They shook hands. The congealed companion appeared to have thawed sufficiently to drag closer to our group on heavy limbs but remained several strides away. Her expression distinctly said, “Zainab is mad. She’s stark raving mad. What’s going to happen now?”

  “When do you finish schooling?” I inquired.

  “Oh, I’ve finished. I’ve qualified, but now I’m serving my attachment.”

  “Congratulations. So you’re on holiday? You enjoy tennis?”

  “I love it. But I’m not on vacation. I live in London.”

  I gave my self-deprecatory gesture. “I’m afraid I’m not very fond of tennis, but I wanted to see if I could recover my former taste for it, especially with the Williams sisters playing. When it comes to sports, I’m a racist. Are you also heading for Centre Court?”

  “No,” she sighed. And she mentioned the names of the players she had come to see.

  “Well, I hope you enjoy your match.” I made one more effort to include her shrinking companion in the exchange, nodded briefly toward her. And then, intrigued by this retiring girl, I decided on a little more time with both, wondering if there was a history that could be dredged up from my lamentable memory. Keeping my eyes not on the forward one called Zainab but on this other, I asked, “You did not tell me the rest of your name. Zainab what?”