Posted by By Louis Odion on
Reverend Father Mathew Hassan Kukah has provided fresh and detailed insights into a reported attempt on his life in Bori, Rivers State penultimate Friday at a meeting called to work out modalities on the peace process in Ogoniland.
• Speaks on OBJ, PDP • Plans book on Oputa Panel
Reverend Father Mathew Hassan Kukah has provided fresh and detailed insights into a reported attempt on his life in Bori, Rivers State penultimate Friday at a meeting called to work out modalities on the peace process in Ogoniland.
Pandemonium reigned last weekend at the Bori Methodist Church as a band of armed agitators descended on the temple just when the Catholic priest had assembled alongside other clergy men to commence a special service intended to 'spiritually cleanse" Ogoniland ahead of last Monday's visit by President Olusegun Obasanjo to the area.
In a no-holds-barred interview with Sunday Sun moments before he left Nigeria for Cape Town, South Africa, Tuesday to attend a world conference on Truth Commissions in Africa, Kukah identified the leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ledun Mitee, as the mastermind of the attack.
While insisting that he was not scared of death, Kukah, head of a presidential initiative to reconcile Ogoni people with Shell Petroleum, accused Mitee of frustrating the peace efforts in the beleaquered Ogoniland through negative propaganda.
His words: 'This was exactly the kind of thing that happened in 1994 that led to the killing of the Ogoni four. So, we gathered in the church (Bori Methodist Church). They asked me to clarify what the issues were because Ledun Mitee had made some allegations, prominent of which was the claim that the event of yesterday (Obasanjo's visit) was for the signing of MoU for Shell to resume oil exploration in Ogoniland.
'So, they called a meeting for me to come and explain what the issues were. And then, I invited members of MOSOP. I arrived there about 5.30p.m because there were no flights to Port Harcourt on Friday because of the weather. I had to fly to Owerri, then took a car to Bori. We entered the Methodist Church and sat down.
Barely three minutes after that, this band of funny-looking bandits entered the church. I can't remember what they were saying. And skirmishes started. I saw them beating up one, two persons. So, the priest whom I was speaking with, Father Pius said to me, ‘Father, let's go.' That was what happened. We got up, me, Bishop Solomon who is the oldest Ogoni bishop and went out through the back door and drove off."
The erudite priest cum intellectual also took a hard look at the eight years of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration and declared: 'Even though he (OBJ) has made a few positive impacts, he has equally inflicted quite a lot of wounds on peoples' memories. I find it difficult to understand how it is that the President just shows aversion to both criticism and opposition, which is a vital ingredient of democracy."
He also put the nation on notice for a set of definitive books witten by him on the Oputa Panel.
Excerpts:
With yesterday's development (Obasanjo's visit) in Ogoniland, how would you describe the peace process so far?
First of all, I really thank God for what took place yesterday. It is perhaps the most important landmark in the assignment that I was given by the President to seek the restoration of peace in Ogoniland and create opportunities for conversation between the people of Ogoni and Shell Petroleum Development Company. What I have done for the last one or two years since the President appointed me, is to seek to create a sense of cohesion, internal harmony within Ogoniland. I also believe that the story of the Ogoni people is also their personal stories. So, to that extent, I spent the first six or more months just trying to work on this by talking to the various families, the Ogoni four and the Ogoni nine and we were able to successfully for the first time in the history of the struggle of the Ogoni people even among the Ogoni people themselves, put names to those who died, because everybody's focus was on Ken Saro Wiwa. People then subsequently said the Ogoni nine. Even within the Ogoniland, not everybody knew who the remaining eight were. I think for me, that was a source of personal satisfaction.
So, on the 19th of May last year the President laid the foundation stone of building a monument in memory of these people. So, I thought after we closed that chapter which for me was a humane and pastoral approach to the challenges, I then moved to the next stage which was the politics of the economics which was then to get Shell to pay the cost of what they have done to Ogoni land. It is an affirmation of the fact that the environmental destruction of Ogoni land, which was really what the entire Ogoni struggle was all about, we paid attention to that.
This was something that I thought through very carefully with prayers. I just didn't know how to go about it because I have been doing this work alone. The President didn't set up a committee, so, I more or less had to have recourse to the Grace of God thinking through the best strategy. And finally, I felt perhaps the best thing to do was for us to find an organisation, a company of international recognition that can take on the challenges of Ogoni land. The Ogoni people themselves have complained that the various initiatives made to clean up the environment have really amounted to people just bringing truck loads of sand and spreading it all over oil spillage sites.
So, by the Grace of God, to cut a long story short, I contacted the United Nations. The President was able to subsequently invite the United Nations' environmental programme. It is the company that cleans the environment. For me it was really spectacular.
We had a meeting with them on the 4th of October and by January, February this year, we had covered so much ground. So, it was more or less the grace of God that got us so far.
Right now, where we are that we have gotten commitment from them to undertake the clean up. We also have gotten Shell to pay for the cost of that clean up.
Like I try to explain to the people of Ogoni, paying for that clean up is not the same as Shell coming back to Ogoni land to start oil exploration. It is about getting them to do what in international law they are under obligation to do, under what is called pay principle. We still try to put the other details together in terms of how this work is going to be done. As I'm talking to you, the UN team was here three weeks ago and has already unfolded their programme of activities. Our interest is ensuring that a good job that meets international standard is done. And we believe the UN; the world's moral voice so to say will do a good job.
They've been working all over. We are extremely lucky to have them. So, what we did yesterday was by way of marking what I consider to be a milestone. I thought that as a priest in collaboration with the council of religious leaders in Ogoniland, we thought we should do something religiously symbolic. If you noticed, Sun last week Sunday carried stories about the cult killings in Ogoniland, which has been a recurring decimal. Also, different shades of people in Ogoniland spoke to me about Ogoniland.
Some say there is some kind of evil hanging over their land, talking about the endless spilling of blood and the need to seek God and say we are sorry and that brothers, sisters hold hands in unison for the course of Ogoniland and move on, especially when the community is predominantly Christian.
After what has happened in Ogoniland, every Ogoni person needs to have a new a life just by being an Ogoni person and living in this geographical place. One way of doing this is not by awarding people contracts, not by appointing people into government positions because if you appoint an individual into government position, they do well for themselves, do well for their family and that is the end for that community. But if you provide water, light, road and so forth, life in the community will begin to change. I felt that, that was a challenge.
I spoke to the Governor of Rivers State because they have a Rivers State sustainable development plan. I convinced the governor to make the Ogonis paramount when this master plan is ready. When you are providing water, light etc the Ogonis will be the first to benefit. I said the same thing to the President and he was enthusiastic to ensure that resources are deployed towards this master plan.
But as I'm talking to you, up till last week, I neither got a response to my letter. So, when you talk about the elite, that is what happens. So, we now had a last minute initiative by the religious leaders who then took on this document and started struggling to make something out of it. The result is that I only got a clean copy yesterday, which I handed over to the President.
I told the President that we cannot put a limit to what the Ogoni's demand for.
They might not get everything but one day they would have the freedom to ask. We wanted the President on that day to append his signature on the document. We didn't want the case of Ogoni to die with this administration. I wanted the President, president-elect, governor, and governor- elect to be there. I needed their signatures for this document.
This was what we were talking about before the militants took the story and turned it around and said that we were coming to sign the Memorandum of Understanding for Shell to start production of oil in Ogoniland. I passed the document to the President who has agreed to set up a small committee that will look at the cost of meeting the various shades of intervention in terms of the provision of basic social amenities etc. So, that is where we are now.
There was a story over the weekend that you were attacked and had to be smuggled out. What really happened?
Let me say that I am eternally grateful to God. What happened in Bori was an isolated issue. For the last two or three months, we have been holding conversations with religious leaders in preparation for this event, which is the spiritual cleansing of Ogoni-land. The way I planned this event, I had spoken to the sultan and he was quite enthusiastic. His moral present would have been significant. Letters went out to cardinal Arinze, Cardinal Okojie, Bishop Akinola, Bishop Makinde because we wanted to pull as much spiritual energy into Ogoniland as much as possible.
And all of these people are people I know very well. But I lost enthusiasm when MOSOP began to play around the issue. For example, when the clergy gathered to discuss that day, ordinarily we wouldn't have contacted MOSOP. But MOSSOP had started running around with stories and distributed documents to churches threatening the lives of the people that all those who are involved in this peace process would be killed because they have been collecting money.
This was exactly the kind of thing that happened in 1994 that led to the killing of the Ogoni four. So, we gathered in the church, they asked me to clarify what the issues were because Ledun Mitee had made some allegations, prominent of which was the claim that the event of yesterday was for the signing of MoU for Shell to resume production in Ogoniland.
This is the same Ledun Mitee that on the 4th of October in his absence at a meeting conveyed by the president was appointed a member of the presidential implementation committee of which I'm the chairman, based on my recommendation.
All the meetings we held, Ledun had found all the reasons in the world not to attend. But up to the last meeting, we sent him notification out of respect but he didn't write back to say ‘I don't want to be a member of the committee.' So, if he had been sincere enough he would have at least availed himself of the information that is available. I made not one, not two attempts to say ‘come let's tell you what the issues are.'
On the 19th of last month, we convened a meeting here, in which the UN team came and unfolded its plan, what it intended to do with Ogoniland. We have said there is no conversation yet to the best of my knowledge about Shell resuming work in Ogoniland. To the best of my knowledge, what Shell had been doing in collaboration with the Rivers State government is, whenever there has been spillage etc they know the channels of communication, they would write to the governor of Rivers State, the governor would direct the letter to the Commissioner for Environment who incidentally is an Ogoni woman.
Then they would weigh the situation and decide to give them all the support they require to deal with that practical problem. How that constitutes resumption of exploration, I don't know. But these issues were serious enough. So, they called a meeting for me to come and explain what the issues were. And then, I invited members of MOSOP.
I arrived there about 5.30p.m because there were no flights to Port Harcourt on Friday because of the weather. I had to fly to Owerri then take a car to Bori. We entered the Methodist church and sat down. Barely three minutes after that, this band of funny looking bandits entered the church; I can't remember what they were saying. And skirmishes started. I saw them beating up one, two persons. So the priest whom I was speaking with, Father Pius said to me, ‘Father, let's go.' That was what happened.
We got up, me, Bishop Solomon who is the oldest Ogoni bishop and went out through the back door and drove off. I have heard all kinds of stories here and there about what happened. Everybody may at one time or the other come under the shadow of death but death is one of the least of my worries or fears. I have an assignment and I have to do the assignment to the best of my ability. So, that was what happened.
If you were on the field yesterday, you would have seen when the President spoke, a pocket of young men who had been bribed, stood in a corner making noise. I found it very interesting in a gathering of perhaps three to four thousand Ogoni people in a field, everything that was said nobody seemed to have a problem except pockets of people who were obviously paid to get a particular task done.
An exaggeration of their number will be like we are dealing with 30 young people. Now, what does that say in a gathering of four thousand people?
As far as the event of yesterday was concerned and as far as the President is concerned, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the ordinary Ogoni people on the street here in Abuja, in Lagos or wherever have no problem. They tell me ‘Father, thank you for what you are doing for our people.' I thank God there was no major incident.
Yesterday, the President was here and decided to put aside his prepared speech. Typically of him, he delivers his best speeches by not reading. You might not like his style but he was brutal with the facts. I don't think any Ogoni person whether he belongs to MOSOP or whatever, who didn't go home with the correct message yesterday.
You played a major role in the Oputa Panel. You also played another important role in the National Political Reform Conference. Looking back now, what lessons do you think the nation has learnt, especially with the view in some quarters that the panel did not achieve anything?
I thank God that I'm a Christian. I wear many caps so perhaps that helps me tremendously. More so, I consider myself with all sense of modesty as an intellectual. I also want to discuss some of these things in context and symbolism. History is a process; nation building is a process. So, when people talk about the achievements of the Oputa Panel, you ask, what do you mean by achievement? The Oputa panel was about a nation trying to come to terms with history but that nation is not just monolithic, it is made up of individual with their individual stories, families with their stories.
It is like Catholics. Every Saturday, Catholic priests sit at the confessionary waiting for the penitent among the congregation who wants to come and confess their sin. May be my parish has about six thousand Catholics but on a Saturday only about a hundred or two hundred people feel that they have sinned against God and they want to publicly confess their sin. So, the point is I still believe that philosophically, not many Nigerians understood what a process like Oputa Panel actually meant to achieve. The major achievement of the Oputa Panel is Oputa Panel itself. That doesn't make sense but that really is the essence, the way fact that this event took place at all.
We are leaving in Nigeria, you are a journalist and I don't think you were too young then. You saw the consequences. You don't need to be Chris Anyanwu to know the consequences of speaking out. Even some of us who were just partially contributing to this debate, I had people calling me aside and saying ‘Father please, don't be talking too much, fear for your life.' The armchair critics of this process who were just seating in the comforts of their room and watching the Oputa Panel were those who saw Oputa Panel as a threatre. But I know that those who came and told us their stories in tears. Sometimes we will ask people, ‘now that you are telling us your story what do you want?' Some said ‘I don't want anything.
The fact that I have told this story is enough healing to me.' Oputa Panel was not supposed to create jobs, Oputa Panel was not supposed to found political parties, it wasn't supposed to try people, that wasn't what it was all about. In many situations, when you ask people how do you want to progress with this and he says ‘no, no, no, the fact that I have told my story, I don't want anything. I just want to be told the truth. So, you would notice whether in South Africa, Sierra Leone, Ghana, the essence is the same. Tonight, I'm going to Cape Town because we are convening as Africans to discuss the implications. What has truth commissions achieved in Africa? Were they really the right roads to go? For me these are critical questions.
Up till today, the South Africans are still referring to me as Deputy Chairman of Oputa Panel. In Nigeria here, I have said it over and over and every body keeps telling me I'm secretary of Oputa Panel. I was not secretary of Oputa Panel; I was just a member. The only good thing is that, in fairness to Justice Oputa, he and I clicked. And he was humble enough to admit some of the things we didn't quite understand or know. Finding a theoretical rationale for issues of justice and their contestation, these were things that I was very comfortable with. I saw Oputa Panel from the point of view of history. We couldn't find money from government but by the Grace of God, I had my own international connections.
My friends in Fort Foundation were able to help us with money. And with that money, we made sure that every piece of paper that come to the Oputa Panel has been preserved. Two, every word that was said at Oputa Panel is in audio, it is in video. We have perhaps, over 10,000 pages of the transcripts. I didn't do that for Obasanjo. I did that for generations yet unborn. I went to School of Oriental and African studies, that is where the best colonial historical records, even my own people in my small ethnic group, it was at the school's library that I was able to pick up data about my people.
This is the only country that has no sense of history. And I argue, if you don't have a sense of history, you don't know where you are coming from, you cannot guess where you are going to. The day when we were handing over the Oputa Panel report, the President brought the man who was Director General of the National Archives and we handed the documents to him. Because I hope Odion that one day if you appeared before the Oputa Panel, your great grand child, will say, ‘I read somewhere that my great grand father appeared before the Oputa Panel, we read the transcripts, listened to the voice of his great grand father. That may be the only opportunity to hear the voice of their grand father.
For me, these things are pure emotions. If you begin to talk about Oputa Panel, literally, for me it is an emotional thing. And I worry because, here we are a nation without history, we fought the civil war, but there is no history and they cannot tell the story. But I can tell you if for nothing else, I feel very proud that I was instrumental to helping to get that history.
No serious intellectual, political scientist who is worth his salt should be wasting time talking nonsense about what the Oputa Panel achieved. Right now as I am talking to you, the only person who has written a thesis on Oputa Panel is a young guy I met in University of Oxford.
When I was at the University of Oxford, I hardly spent two weeks in Oxford, everybody was calling me here and there asking, what happened? Here in Nigeria, I have never received one single letter from a church, from a university, from a group of Journalists, saying, ‘Father, please come and tell us about Oputa Panel.' So, there is something wrong with us. Why our country is what it is, is something that we need to be very clear about. On the political reform conference, Journalists were not fair to us.
You are treating this reform conference as sociology which is, you just want to see what is happening: he said, he said, he said. And I keep saying, why did all the media houses in Nigeria send such young journalist? I don't have anything against young journalists and I thought they did extremely well. But I thought the political reform conference was an opportunity for Nigerians to clear some of the contradictions.
If you ask me about the Third Term, I swear and I'm telling you this, till the last day, I never believed that what they were doing was right because I did not see the rationale. But I have no sense of regret. Documents of the political reforms conference are all there. Again, I remain very proud about every person that participated. I tried to make sure the proceedings were properly documented. Both in audio and video. We have all the records, they are there. If you want to know who said what, at what time, who coughed, .
When President Obasanjo told me about political reform conference, I told him I was not interested ‘unless you tell me what has happened to the Oputa Panel report.' I'm not stupid, I can't write my signature on a stolen paper.
I took the recommendations and made almost a thousand copies. There were about 400 people at the political reform conference but I made those copies for a reason.
Odion, as I'm talking to you, from the beginning to the end of that conference, no one single journalist in Nigeria came to my office to say ‘Father, we heard the President said the Oputa panel report is here, where is it?' Not one person. The only human being, who mentioned Oputa Panel to me properly, was Bayo Ojo (Attorney General of the Federation). He said ‘I think we should incorporate it into our archives.'
But from the debate, everything, no one said anything about the Oputa panel. So, this accounts for why we are going round, round round in circle and asking the same boring questions without having the intellectual curiosity to see whether we can do something different.
On a final note, Obasanjo's time is winding down. Precisely, he has two weeks left now, how do you think history will judge him?
Well, those are facts of records. Historically, you can say he scored 200%. I think frankly, like you people say in journalism, it is history written in a hurry. I don't think we can now begin to assess how Obasanjo will be remembered in the sense that many of us remember Obasanjo based on our personal experiences. The wounds are still too fresh. Whatever gains the president made in the last eight years, the way these elections were conducted, the way PDP conducted itself, the way this process was brought to where we are now leaves so much to be desired. I feel so sad about it because Obasanjo is not the kind of person that you can say wanted power just to be able to accumulate.
I don't know what the level of his accumulation is. Frankly, it is so difficult to assess what the future might be but I do know that at least perhaps beyond this generation, he has inflicted quite a lot of wounds on peoples memories.
I find it difficult to understand how it is that the President just shows aversion to both criticism and opposition, which is a vital ingredient of democracy. PDP's obsession with power has defeated the essence of democracy. The sledgehammer that was used to destroy the ANPP, the AD, we didn't need all this. Each and every one of these actors is primarily Nigerian.
For me, the PDP has left us a legacy that is not favourable to politics in the 21st century. Perhaps, with hindsight, it is because from the President, to the chairman of the party, they came from a military background. I think that we can now heave a sigh of relief and say that even if for nothing else, one of the things that Yar'Adua could being to this process, is that he could make politics and politicians and political leaders vulnerable. Because a leader has to be vulnerable not in a negative sense, but vulnerable in that you can make mistakes, recognising that everybody has something to contribute.
But then, it is easy to appreciate Obasanjo's psychology. If you look at the top hierarchy of PDP, you realise pattern in terms of its leadership. That explains why electoral contest is being likened to 'do or die". That is the mentality of soldiers. A general tends to see every engagment as war he must win.
I think one of the few re-assuring things today is that their man (presdent-elect, Alhaji Umar Yar'Adua) is coming from an entirely different back-ground. One hopes he would help bring about a new political culture that is in consonance with civil attitudes.
No doubt, Obasanjo is motivated by sincere and guinuine feelings for the nation. What is quite unsettling is this claim to redemptive or messiahnic spirit. It is like the story of a man who thinks the only way to show care to his wife if to keep buying her clothes, loads and loads of clothes.
Each time, he expects the wife to be happy, to show appreciation. Hey, come to think of it, the woman needs clothes right. But then, she equally needs ear-rings, bangles, trinket and all that.
You've been very hard on Obasanjo. You don't think he has also some positive things in the last eight years?
Sure, there is no doubt about that. If you remember where the country was in 1999 and where it is now in terms of unity, you must credit Obasanjo in that regard. Again, he also deserves credits in terms of promotion of brotherhood, unity and peace on the African continent.
In terms of foreign policy, Obasanjo has done very well. Also, I think today we think and talk differently about the issue of corruption compared to the situation before he assumed office in 1999.