These papers, like
Harold Smith's book, were written because he suffered much ill health
and feared that he would not survive. They are a message to future
generations. Curiously, the essays increased Harold's will to live and,
by exercising his brain, helped him to recover. There are, inevitably,
some longueurs and some repetition in these papers, which cover every
possible aspect of this great African tragedy, which saw Nigeria, the
African Giant of a nation, reduced to a political basket case by
Whitehall and Westminster treachery. (Carol Smith)
NB Items starting with ! are recent additions or updates.
Dr Azikiwe:
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa
Michael Crowder
Fred Lugard
Sir James Robertson
NB Items starting with ! are recent additions or updates.
The A, B, Zeek of Nigerian Politics
"Zeek! Zeek! Zeek!" screamed the crowds of
Nigerians in Lagos as Dr Azikiwe's cavalcade swept by, and our Nanny,
Comfort, jumped for joy when she saw the great nationalist leader.
Of the three eminent Nigerian leaders only
Balewa, who did not want Independence and was delighted with the
continuing British rule through the qualified Independence granted, led
his country as Prime Minister. If that is paradoxical it is not all, for
the supposedly peaceful Balewa was assassinated in 1966 to considerable
public acclaim, while the fiery turbulent Zik is alive and well at the
age of 92. Chief Awolowo, whom I favoured in 1960 - perhaps because his
ideas reflected my own which were Fabian, and he too was a Methodist -
died some years ago. Like Zik, he had waited for a call to high office
that never came.
A member of my old College, Magdalen, has
written a biography of 900 pages of Balewa's life, and I enjoyed reading
it enormously as it contains a great deal of fascinating information,
much of it new to me. Trevor Clark served in the North of Nigeria and
here we have the authentic voice of the Northern official. Not just
loyalty, but love of the North, its peoples, and its leaders like
Balewa. There was a great need for this account, which is not to say
that it should be the only one. A more critical account, based on what
was often suspected, but which I can demonstrate from direct experience,
that Balewa was a stooge of the British and went along with the rigging
of the Independence elections, is also needed.
If Southerners are prejudiced against
Northerners and vice versa, I also have a prejudice in favour of Trevor
Clark, quite apart from the playful desire to be friendly to a fellow
Magdalensis, for while happy to argue fiercely with ex-Northern
officials, I do have a reluctance to be beastly to them for the benefit
of those who never knew what a rotten job it could be to work in
Nigeria. It was poorly paid, often unrewarding slog in an extremely
unhealthy part of Africa. Even so I am inclined to blame the evil acts
committed by Balewa on his British masters. Balewa's many fine qualities
are indisputable and are enumerated, even if just a little exaggerated,
in Trevor Clark's 900 pages, which needs to be read alongside these
notes for a balanced appraisal. Briefly, I am saying that democracy has
not yet been tried in Nigeria, and only a qualified Independence has
been experienced. Sovereignty is a myth too.
It is possible that Nigeria, even given a true
Independence with a true democracy and genuine sovereignty, might have
ended in chaos and tears for there were what seemed insuperable problems
at Independence; but sadly we will never know, because of British
treachery in which Balewa was an accomplice and a beneficiary.
In great books on Nigeria the authors thank a
selection of experts and celebrities. I am not one of them, but I see
friends and colleagues and acquaintances mentioned, and eagerly search
for the truths and the secrets I know those people were privy to, but
they are never mentioned. The British got away with their treason in
Nigeria because it was well planned, took years to implement, and was
recorded, orchestrated and hymned by many writers and historians, some
of whom knew they were taking part in a conspiracy against truth. The
conventional British line, which shows the British to have done a great
job in Nigeria, is largely true if a line is drawn at 1956, for this is
when the first stage of the Independence elections were rigged. After
1956 the treachery spreads, the covert actions are mounted, the cover
story is peddled, and it all goes wrong and ends in a flood or sea of
bloodshed, which even now in 1992 has probably not yet run its course.
Those who come across these draft notes towards a
book on British treachery, which I will probably never see in print,
will excuse my brevity. The length of these pieces reflects the energy
available to me due to the chronic ill health I acquired while an
official in Lagos. The spiteful will claim, have claimed, that I cannot
tell the truth because sick. Whether malice is also a sickness is an
interesting question.
What is absolutely true is that I am not in
possession of all the facts. My authority for this is an excellent one,
which will be acclaimed by my Northern colleagues, for it was Sir James
Robertson himself. We were standing in his office - which seems strange,
and now I wonder if that was so. It sounds awkward, but I think that
was intended. It did not seem so odd at the time, but I was young then.
These days I am rather keen on not standing too much. We must assume
that the treachery was painful to Robertson and Whitehall. As he told
me, it was necessary. No doubt it was done for the best of reasons. Zik
and Awo were no doubt dangerous and - worse - unpredictable, and if
'elected', perhaps they would want to settle old scores with the
Northern pro-British leaders like Balewa and Bello. It would have been
unconscionable to have stood aside and let such skulduggery take place.
It was just and sensible and prudent, in Nigeria's best interest, to
preserve stability and good order by a little nudge on the helm, as a
parent might guide a child's faltering first steps. It was indeed much
more than that, it was duty. So parents sometimes fib to their children -
an unpleasant and irksome necessity. Young Smith would not understand
all that and steps would have to be taken to silence him. The fact was
that he knew far too much already. The Governor General confided all
this to me as if it were a routine matter and nothing of consequence
like the weather or cricket.
James Coleman's 'Nigeria: Background to
Nationalism' is one of those great landmarks written with great energy
by young Americans in the 1950's. Tucked away in the notes is a
quotation from Zik, which I have never seen quoted anywhere in the
hundreds of works on Nigeria that I have consulted. What is absolutely
sure is that it was duly noted and underscored on Zik's intelligence
dossier. It was from an address given at the time of his election as
President of the NCNC in 1947.
"Let it be firmly impressed upon the minds of
any person in this country that I regard all people who uphold the
status quo and regard the present political servitude of Nigeria as the
best of all possible worlds as enemies of progress. Just as worshippers
of imperialism must be viewed as international criminals, like their
Nazi counterparts, so must their adherents and stooges, who are in
reality, accomplices.... But I warn [the stooges] that, when Nigeria
shall come into her own, and we are in power... every one of them,
indigenous or alien, shall be held to strict accountability and shall be
impeached for high treason against the safety of the State of Nigeria."
The address was entitled 'Before Us Lies the
Open Grave' and it was published in Zik's own newspaper, the West
African Pilot for 31 December 1947.
One can see why Zik might need to be checked.
However, the British were not all colonial oppressors. Was not Zik
entitled to feel angry at those who denied him political freedom in his
own land? Furthermore, who knows how many villainous deeds had been
perpetrated by the British and were filed away in Zik's memory under
'Retribution'? Perhaps our people knew that Zik was informed in the
matter of all this skulduggery and reasoned that he would naturally seek
revenge. 'The Open Grave' was a bit ominous, to say the least. Even so,
Zik's language was often inflammatory and exaggerated and could be
replaced next day by his deploring the ranting of his young rebels, or a
crusade against Communism, or a declaration to defend our British
homeland, as at the start of the Second World War. If our people were
confused by turncoat Zik, so were our enemies the Communists, because
Zik had once stood on a Communist Party platform in London and expressed
solidarity with the CP in its struggle against colonialism.
In 1956, a decade after 'The Open Grave', the
British neutralised Zik. Zik's change of heart is demonstrated at page
476 in Coleman as Zik's 'masterstroke.' What Coleman does not know is
what was behind Zik's apparent somersault. Doubtless Zik believed that,
if he pretended to succumb to British blackmail to secure independence,
once the British had gone he would be really free to take charge of his
country. That was clever of Zik, but he underestimated British cunning.
They anticipated that move and after 1 October 1960 were still several
moves ahead of Zik.
The Northern leaders after Independence proved
themselves to be not just passive dupes or stooges or lackeys of the
British. They were quite ruthless and determined to put the vile and
unspeakable Southerners down. Perhaps Trevor Clark does not quite bring
this out. Zik might have known this because he himself was born and
educated in the North. Had he really been just a harmless windbag under
British rule? Is it possible that Zik too had acquired a streak of
Northern ruthlessness during his upbringing in the North? Did Balewa
underestimate the despised Southerner? The proverb Clark selects for his
Introduction is apt:
Dan Hakin da ka rena, shi kan tsone maka ido, which translates as 'The blade of grass you despise can pierce your eye.'
6 April 1992
Dr Zik was robbed
by the British at Independence of the power that he had fought for. If
it seemed that in the election of 1959 it was his fellow nationalist
Awolowo who was targeted by the British - as he was - it was only
because Zik had been set up and neutralised three years earlier. Zik was
nobbled by the Bank Enquiry of 1956, which simply sprang a trap
elaborately prepared by British intelligence. In 1962, having clipped
Awo's wings in the 1959 election, the same trick was pulled on Awo by
the Coker Commission, as had been used on Zik six years before. The
Senior Resident in the West, as he told me in 1960, had for years had a
safe full of evidence against Awo. The timing was crucial. Nipping an
offence in the bud can lead to a minor breach being corrected. Left to
develop into a major misdemeanour and strategically timed, the same
offence can be devastating.
Zik had a
reputation for devious behaviour, which was well deserved, but he had
learned from masters of deceit. The British used every possible
stratagem to defeat Zik and there was no intelligence technique that was
not employed against him. His 'phone was tapped; his mail opened, or
even destroyed, routinely. Plots and dirty tricks were used;
conspiracies and sabotage encouraged. That Zik survived this barrage of
assaults by a determined enemy is a tribute to the skill of the old fox.
Sadly, he did not survive unscathed. By 1956 Zik was caged. Suddenly he
is a damp squib on the political scene. His trips to Northern leaders
were not those of a major politician seeking alliances but a defeated
burnt-out leader begging for scraps.
Zik was a realist.
The Bank Enquiry had not only bankrupted him personally, but left his
great NCNC, the vessel which would guarantee him power, drifting on to
the rocks. The British had struck at his weak point, the money needed
for political action. Suddenly to allow political action in a hastily
constructed democracy, a house that Jack built, without provision for
financing political parties, was irresponsible but calculated. Nigeria
was a vast empire of small nations but its politicians were relatively
poor people. The graft they employed to pay for political action was a
necessary stratagem, hopefully justified in the struggle for freedom
from the colonial yoke. What is lawful and decorous in a settled and
mature democracy may not be fitting on the battlefield of a struggle to
remove a great imperial power from its unlawfully won conquests.
The British built
in the legal loopholes in the Regional Marketing Boards and stood back
as both Awo and Zik used them to finance political action. The problem
was one of perception and trust. For all their tirades against the
British, both Zik and Awo were seduced by the English ploys of fair
play, decent behaviour, cricket and the rule of law. Educated in the
West, they succumbed to the temptation to see themselves as candidates
for acceptance by the English establishment. Zik went further along this
path after 1956 simply because he knew he had been beaten. He would
rest up and bide his time. Meanwhile he would be President and wear a
Field Marshal's uniform and try to get a string of medals. Forced to the
sidelines, he would have a ringside seat at the humiliation of his
implacable opponent, Awo, by the vengeful Northerners.
It would soon
become evident to Zik that the NCNC might be next for the chop. With
Akintola ruling the West in the NPC interest and a Mid West State ruled
by the NPC, it was becoming evident that the East was no longer
indispensable as the NPC's ally. The Northerners had never wanted Zik as
President and had always loathed him, standing as he did for everything
in the South that the North hated. Zik too was extremely frustrated.
Since 1956 he had been a figurehead. The British-backed Okotie Eboh,
with seemingly unlimited financial resources, now controlled the NCNC.
Okotie Eboh had little or nothing in common with Zik, NCNC nationalism
or the East. He was from the Mid West and was to all intents and
purposes a close ally of the NPC. Okotie Eboh's power came from his
unlimited funds. These came from British and other firms by courtesy of
the British administration. My colleague Charles Bunker had established
this conduit at the instigation of the Governor General in 1956.
The hypocrisy of
the British is truly breathtaking. At the very time in 1956 when Zik was
being exposed as dishonest, the British were pressurising commercial
interests for contributions to Okotie Eboh, which would enable him to
replace Zik as the power broker in the NCNC! Having defeated Awo and the
Action Group as well as Zik in the North in 1959 by astonishing,
blatant chicanery, the British exposed Awo in 1962 for his high-handed
use of public funds. The treason of the British in all this chicanery,
gerrymandering and election rigging was routine, but perfectly in order
because it was deemed necessary to establish stability and unity in
Nigeria. Now charges of treason were needed to reinforce the accusations
of dishonesty against Awolowo. Unlike the substantial, real treason of
the British, Awolowo's alleged treason was pathetic and laughable.
Nevertheless the
British were merciful. They were happy to see Awo go to jail for only
ten years. They could, after all, have had him executed. However, there
was nothing really personal in all this. In British eyes, when it is a
criminal's time to cop it, he should go quietly. Framing of likely
guilty suspects is an old tradition with the British. Once Awo had been
sent down it would be someone else's turn and there would be no hard
feelings. In 1966 it became suddenly essential for Awo to be
rehabilitated quickly and very neatly used to help persecute Zik, who
had been last year's favoured British flavour. There is a practised
symmetry here, distilled from centuries of uninhibited wrongdoing. The
British have to be flexible and enterprising and sometimes ruthless with
rascals and rogues and rebels, as they were with Ben Franklin when they
opened his letters. Imagine the rage and disgust they felt when they
found that Franklin had purloined letters and was spying on them? No one
but an American rotter would stoop to such conduct! British hypocrisy
is such a delight unless one happens to be on the receiving end!
There is no
evidence that Zik had Balewa and Akintola and Okotie Eboh killed. He
was, I think, out of town at the time. Who knows whether the sad news
affected his recovery.
Zik had been
sorely tried for ten years by the machinations of the British and the
Northerners. It is ironic that, had he died, the young Majors' coup
would not have been perceived, as it was, as an Igbo plot. Did it matter
who put the young Majors up to their bloody deed? If everyone who
wanted Okotie Eboh dead had been a suspect, the whole nation would have
been on trial. The young Majors were seen initially as public
benefactors. Sadly, because Zik was out of town, up to two million of
his people were to die.
Had the British
not cheated Zik and Awo of their rightful inheritance of power and the
leadership of an independent Nigeria, it might have all turned out quite
differently. It was the British who created Nigeria. Was it the British
who aborted the new nation in a fit of pique on receiving their
marching orders?
19 February 1992
The British adored their stooge, Balewa. After
all, he was British made. They heartily disliked Awolowo because he was
clever, sensible and moral. Here was a true leader of his people to
fear. It was Awo who could have united Nigeria as a sober, balanced and
realistic leader. Awo had to be stopped for fear he would upset the
Northern bandwagon. Ironically, Awo was safely in jail when the young
Majors staged their military coup, which removed Britain's boys from the
political scene. How the British must have wished, as they contemplated
the destruction of their highly successful master plan for
post-Independence Nigeria, that they had activated the contingency plot
to poison Dr Azikiwe. For if Awo was feared for his cleverness, and Zik
ridiculed for his vanity and mercurial nature, it was Zik who had poured
forth his hatred of the colonial regime for a decade through the pages
of his West African Pilot, which was Britain's bete noire.
My own appreciation of Zik's character - and he
was certainly devious - came from my friend, Francis Nwokedi, who was
one of Zik's highly placed lieutenants in the administration. Francis
was one of our boys, and needed to display total loyalty to the British
if he were to prosper. His opportunity came during the Enugu shootings
where he displayed great skill in defusing what had the potential to be a
highly embarrassing situation for the British. Francis was commended
for his role, and established as one Ibo who could be trusted. He was
rightly judged to be a capable, clever careerist, who was cynical about
nationalist politics. He was cleverer than George Foggon, the Labour
Commissioner, but shared his obsessive ambitions, and understood and got
on well with him. For the British, Nwokedi was a type we understood
well, as he fitted the stereotype of the Scot on the make, which fitted a
number of the proconsuls we sent out to Nigeria. Nwokedi had no
interest in Communism and was indifferent to abstract political ideas.
As a cunning manipulator himself, he understood all too well how Zik had
to be tricky and quick on his feet to survive so much British
hostility. As I have recounted elsewhere, Francis explained to me how
Zik would always be one step ahead of the British and most certainly
never found at the scene of a crime.
Every Ibo civil servant was an unpaid member of
Zik's own Intelligence Service. However, although the ubiquitous, loyal
Ibo civil servant was well informed, the secret file system and
exclusion of even top African civil servants from sensitive positions
was intended to protect our political plans for Zik's future. Even so,
it was not difficult to divine British attitudes to Zik and to guess
that contingency plans did exist to 'silence' or neutralise him. For his
part, Zik made it clear that he feared assassination by the British.
The colonial regime pooh-poohed this as evidence of Zik's paranoia and
his desire to project himself as a persecuted, fearless nationalist. Zik
was open to ridicule by the British because he was conceited and vain
and took strenuous efforts to avoid going to jail. On this score he had
little to fear, for the British too wanted to avoid turning Zik into a
martyr. We needed to neutralise him quietly. Assassination would have
been counterproductive, unless carried out in such a way that no blame
could be attached to the British.
Poisons were the order of the day for British
covert operations, and 'Porton Down specials' for all occasions did
exist, as Eden was aware when he ordered Egypt's Nasser to be poisoned
following on the seizure of the Suez Canal. The Americans too, with whom
we shared our knowledge of poisons and chemical and biological weapons,
plotted a similar fate for Cuba's Castro. Contingency plans to disable,
eliminate or otherwise silence Zik most certainly did exist and what
seemed to be Zik's paranoid fears and hypochondria were quite well
founded. Even after Independence Zik's fear continued, and he travelled
everywhere with a contingent of medical staff. By that time Zik had been
effectively neutralised and apparently outwitted by British
machinations. Zik had been shunted into the political wilderness with
the prestigious but powerless post of Governor General and then, when
Nigeria became a Republic, President.
The events of 1966, however, proved to the
British that, if Zik had been neutralised, his power to use others to
subvert the British master plan for Nigeria was still a reality. If
there is a shred of evidence to link Zik with the awesome military coup
of 1966, it has never materialised. Zik was in England receiving medical
treatment at the time. However, there was widespread suspicion of a
Zikist plot, which was to surface and lead to the bloody Biafran Civil
War. I have explained elsewhere that, if Zik had been assassinated by
the young Majors, two million young people's lives might have been saved
in that totally unnecessary conflict.
This was the background to the sensational
disclosure during the early euphoric years of Independence that a plot
to kill Dr Azikiwe at Apapa (the port at Lagos) had been foiled by the
prompt action of the Intelligence Services. It was extremely
embarrassing to the British because a senior British official was
allegedly involved. The truth was richly comic. There was indeed a
'plot' at Apapa, but it was a plot of land, a highly sought after plot,
developed by the Federal Public Works and Lagos Executive Development
Board. The Board re-housed Lagosians from the squalor of Lagos Island,
and a senior Nigerian politician wanted a plot for a relative. This was
quite improper and was resisted as far as possible by the totally honest
and incorruptible British official, but political reality removed any
choice he had in the matter. He arranged to meet the politician outside
the House of Representatives to discuss allocating the required plot.
The British had established a Police Special
Branch during the colonial period and plain clothes meant that police
were disguised as market women, clerks, or whatever. On this particular
sweltering day outside the House of Representatives, the Police were
well represented amongst the beggars and traders who hassled passing
civil servants and politicians. It was the sharp ears of a beggar in
rags who eavesdropped on a conversation between a senior politician and a
British official. The Plot at Apapa was the subject of discussion. The
British official found the matter distasteful and was nervous. If he
spoke in a roundabout way, it was because he was not accustomed to
backhander deals which were becoming the order of the day in other
Government Departments. Arrangements for the 'plot' at Apapa were in
hand. Everything would go according to plan. The 'plot' was ready.
At Police Headquarters the news of a Plot at
Apapa could only mean one thing to an Igbo police officer. The beloved
Dr Zik was due to visit Apapa with his usual cavalcade of cars and
supporters. The British had been rumbled. Zik was to be assassinated by
the British at Apapa. This was a total nonsense. The totally innocent
British official was interrogated and his story of a plot of land
ridiculed as a specious cover story. In due course he was to be sworn to
secrecy and deported, despite his protestations. It was the cock-up
theory in action. Proof of how easy it could be to manufacture
conspiracy theories out of innocent happenings. Which does not, however,
explain the total panic in the offices of the British High Commission
and in Whitehall. It was true that a totally false story of a planned
British assassination plot could still be politically embarrassing to
Whitehall. What produced the panic amongst the British was the knowledge
that there did exist contingency plans to assassinate Zik. The black
farce, which had developed outside the House of Representatives, could
have ended up as a major political crisis for the British in this
capital of Black Africa.
The British were successful in suppressing news
of the Plot at Apapa. Steps had to be taken to ensure that the
thoroughly frightened British official never revealed details of what he
thought was a total farce. Colonel Henderson was, I think, the Director
of the LEDB whose career was cut short like mine. Our colleague, Arthur
Skinner, the Director of Federal Public Works, tried to thwart his
Minister's plans to award the Niger Bridge contract to someone who
offered him a heavy percentage, and Arthur too, after a struggle, gave
up. Neither of my colleagues knew anything of Porton Down specials or
poisons but, strangely, Arthur like myself developed a rare tropical
disease. He was to be diagnosed eventually as having tropical sprue, a
disease rarely seen in Africa, but more common in the Far East. His
disease would later be known as coeliac sprue and he would develop an
associated condition, dermatitis herpetiformis.
How strange! When I stumbled on secret British
machinations to destabilise Dr Azikiwe in the late 1950's and remove him
from effective power, I was silenced too. I was warned by a Secret
Service official to flee before they killed me. My health collapsed and I
developed a tropical disease rarely seen in Africa - tropical sprue,
coeliac disease and dermatitis herpetiformis.
Of course Zik must
have inspired the military coup of January 1966. Had he not been
side-tracked into the ceremonial position of President? This was Zik,
the great nationalist leader rendered powerless. This was tolerable when
the NCNC was in an alliance with the NPC, which persecuted Awolowo's
opposition Action Group. However, having broken Awo and put him in jail
for ten years on trumped-up charges, the NCNC itself was now being
targeted. Surely the millions of young Ibos in the Army, professions and
the Civil Service, who loved Zik, must have let their love boil over
into unconstitutional violence? This is an attractive theory and might
seem logical and reasonable in explaining total unreason, but it is only
a theory. There is little evidence of Igbo responsibility and none of
Dr Zik's. Each assertion of Ibo involvement can be countered by a
counter-argument. For example, the young Majors were largely Ibo? Yes,
but the many more NCOs and ordinary soldiers were Northerners.
I have made some
notes which seem to indicate Zikist involvement. I must in fairness take
a contrary line to see if the weight of the evidence points elsewhere.
Whoever killed the
Northern leaders and their allies, should not the abominable behaviour
of those politicians show clearly that the Southerners generally had
been provoked beyond endurance? In that respect the responsibility for
what happened must belong to the Northern junta. Even if logic would
implicate the Southerners, this excludes another pragmatic rationale,
often found to be involved in explosive situations, and that is the
cock-up theory. Illegality by the North did provoke a violent and
illegal reaction from the young majors, but millions who might have
dreamt of revenge were apathetic, as probably Zik was, even if tempted.
It is even more probable that his respect for the rule of law totally
excluded even thoughts of a bloody reaction.
A Zikist
conspiracy theory might go beyond inspiring or backing the young Majors
and extend to replacing them with General Ironsi, but reason knocks this
on the head. There was no certainty that the Northerners would not
respond promptly to the coup and place a Northerner in charge of the
headless State. As it happened, when Ironsi did take charge, he
abolished Zik's post as President. The latter point is made in a curious
study of the coup by D.J.M. Muffett, a Northern sympathiser, who was a
close friend of Sir A. Bello. (Let Truth be Told. 1982. Zaria). Not
unreasonably as a passionate Northern sympathiser, Muffett is extremely
suspicious regarding Zikist involvement, but what is most conspicuous by
its absence is any recognition that the British were deeply involved,
not only in Northern politics, but through the total power of the North
with every aspect of Southern and Federal politics.
Let us try to get
closer to the killings, which showed that all claims made by the British
for Nigerian democracy, sovereignty and independence were but myths.
Why 15 January? Muffett's friends, Bello and Balewa, destroyed any
prospect of Nigerian democracy when they took power by criminal false
pretences following the rigging of the independence elections by the
British. One foul deed leads inevitably to another and another. There
was not only guilty knowledge, but also the small problem of the next
election. There was also the fear of being found out. This is why the
Western Region leaders had to be destroyed. Bello and Balewa, firmly
controlled and directed by the British, had been acting criminally at
least since 1956, and the West was still not at peace under the thumb of
the pro-British North. A final solution was called for. The military
would take charge and the date of 'Operation No Mercy' was set for 17
January. And the Army rebelled against their political masters. It was
not unruly Westerners who were killed, but violent, criminal pro-British
Bello and Balewa. Operation Damissa was not quite the operation Bello
and Balewa intended, nor did they expect to be operated on with such
surgical precision. It seems that they got some of their own medicine at
the hands of the very young men they had depended on to eliminate their
enemies once and for all.
Zik was in London.
Even if totally innocent, perhaps he had with his remarkable political
intuition guessed something was beginning to smell. It was true that he
had been a party to the destruction of the West that took precedence
over the preservation of Nigerian democracy, or even Nigeria itself.
Zik's hands were not clean. He was now rebelling against his erstwhile
allies, the NPC, because, having cut Awo down, they could bring Zik to
book and settle more old scores. Zik's supporters had seen Zik's game
and, while his life was to be spared, they saw no reason to let him
continue to pretend that he was the all-powerful President. And let us
note that the Igbo Majors were going to the rescue of the West. True
they were next for the chop, but even so, what they did led to the
release of Awo and his colleagues from prison.
Muffett says that
Balewa dreamed of a coalition with himself in charge, in other words a
recognition of the fact that there never had been any serious attempt to
establish democracy in Nigeria. The British had always intended Nigeria
to be ruled by a benevolent dictatorship. It was not only Balewa who
was a lackey as was often said, but Bello too. It was all becoming a bit
obvious and sick-making. Operation No Mercy was the last straw.
Given the scenario
of 15 January and hindsight of a civil war that cost up to one million
lives, I regret that Zik and the Eastern Region Prime Minister were not
assassinated. Had they been killed, a million other lives might not have
been lost, for the plot was perceived as an Igbo conspiracy. The deaths
of two Ibo politicians would have silenced this accusation which had
such deadly consequences.
Zik's behaviour
was erratic and that was a fact, but the role of the British is not
brought out in Muffett's account. If it were, Zik's peripatetic approach
to politics might make more sense. Anyway, the zigzag approach worked
for Zik. He survived while Nigeria died. Had British treachery been
absent, Nigerian democracy might have been properly delivered, practised
and perhaps even taken root. Zik the shadow happily had a long life;
unhappily he was destroyed as a great political figure by British
blackmail in 1956, when the British placed their best boy Okotie Eboh in
position, supplanting Zik as leader of the parliamentary NCNC. In 1966
Zik zigzagged once too often. For the sake of Nigeria, it might have
been preferable for him to die with Balewa, Bello and Akintola.
4 April 1992
Trevor Clark's biography is a loving life of an
honest politician with no faults, who served Nigeria faithfully and was
struck down while in pursuit of his ideals of peace, unity, and love of
his disparate peoples...
Trevor Clark's biography is of a family man, a
teacher and farmer and reluctant politician, who loved the British who
had served his country so well. As Prime Minister he held his turbulent
country together for six years. After his death it almost fell apart in a
bloody civil war...
Trevor Clark's story is of a humble and deeply
religious young teacher with high ideals who was totally incorruptible.
His fine intelligence and wisdom, his golden voice and eloquence, his
exquisite manners and good humour endeared him to all...
Trevor Clark takes some nine hundred pages to
get this message, which I have condensed a bit, across. This fat volume
is not only a tribute to the North, it is vast like the North, sometimes
arid like the North, and heavy as a tombstone. Balewa was a party to
census rigging, gerrymandering of the election in his constituency,
rigging of Nigeria's Independence elections, destruction of the
parliamentary opposition, and a vendetta against Southern politicians.
His dictatorial behaviour, his disruptive policies, his totally corrupt
administration brought Nigeria to the very brink of self-destruction.
Misrule, intolerance and pursuit of vendettas forced a peaceful and
responsible officer corps to remove him from power. The coup was
celebrated throughout Nigeria, crowds danced in the streets, and his
beloved people ransacked and looted his home.
Balewa loved the British and was proud to be a
lackey, an agent, a stooge of the colonial power. He did not seek
independence, he did not want independence, he wanted the British to
stay. Never was there a rebellious nationalist the likes of Balewa. Like
many southern officials, I thought Balewa was a creep and a very
small-minded little man.
'A Right Honourable Gentleman' is no worse than
many similar dusty tomes on politicians, who have held high office
serving British interests. I quite enjoyed skipping through Clark's many
chapters transcribed from the ever-trusty mine of Nigeriana, 'West
Africa Magazine.' It truly is a great labour of love. God knows why
anyone ever thought it necessary to stick it together. It is a miracle
of words processed doggedly, and highlights the dangerous facility of
computers to knock out sentences and string them together without much
effort or pause for thought. Who will sell it? Who will buy it? I trust
those who do enjoy it will not believe it.
11 April 1992
Balewa: Nigeria's Lincoln?
A few weeks before Independence in 1960, my
friend Francis Nwokedi invited me to dinner at his home in Ikoyi, where
we both had our home in what had once been an exclusively white suburb.
There was one other guest, a visiting black American who was an expert
on co-operation. Because of the other guest's presence, it was not
possible to talk on a personal level. I can only think now that ill
health produced in me a kind of euphoria because I remember being quite
cheerful. Perhaps it was the prospect of my early return to London where
my wife and two daughters awaited my arrival. They had gone ahead by
boat, taking our seventeen packing cases.
Perhaps because Francis knew that I was in very
real trouble which had necessitated a stormy encounter with the Governor
General, he seemed troubled. Otherwise he was in his cynical mood. God
knows why, but at that time I sensed in my Nigerian colleagues an almost
total lack of excitement as Independence loomed. I was particularly
fascinated by the thought of the historical significance of this vast
great new nation, almost an empire of nations, coming into being.
Francis (as he had on other occasions) and his guest ridiculed and
scoffed at my idealistic notions.
"What nation!" exploded Francis. "This place?"
Later, like an idiot, I raised again the
question of those Nigerians who would be in the pantheon of great
statesmen when the historians wrote their books in a hundred years.
"These people! Really, Sean" exclaimed Francis.
"Perhaps there will be people, small town Lincolns we don't know about..." I suggested. I then gave up.
I recall this rather sad dinner with Francis
because it seemed symbolic. I was pessimistic about Nigeria's future and
I knew Francis was going in some way to play a major and significant
role. Shortly afterwards I fled Lagos, using an air ticket that I had
obtained surreptitiously. Francis's role as Permanent Secretary and my
boss and also my friend made our relationship rather ambiguous. He
answered to the Governor General who had said I knew too much and would
be silenced if I spoke to anyone about how the British had rigged
Nigeria's Independence elections. Soon after I got back to London,
Francis 'phoned. He had followed me to London. I refused to see him and
put the 'phone down
.For months I frantically tried to alert
Government circles to what was happening in Lagos. I spoke to eminent
lawyers, top civil servants and was in touch with the Prime Minister's
son-in-law Julian Amery, who was Minister at the Colonial Office.
Everyone was incredulous at what I told them. The Permanent Under
Secretary at the Colonial Office told Amery I had never served in Africa
and that I was mad. When Amery, who was very perturbed, persisted, he
was told it was a mistake. Of course, they knew who I was, but sadly a
fire had destroyed all my papers. Only a file cover with my name on it
had survived.
While this charade was taking place I was being
offered honours and a top job if I would not say a word. The Governor
General was in Oxford and, through Miss Margery Perham at Nuffield
College, had established contact via my friend Philip Williams, who was a
Fellow of Nuffield.
Shortly before leaving Lagos I had walked in the
garden of Nigeria's Director of Broadcasting, Richmond Postgate, who
was a friend. There was thick bush alongside the garden and as we peered
into it Richmond said prophetically, "I have a sense of evil things
going to happen, some kind of cataclysm..."
He was not usually gloomy and despondent, but
anyway we moved and he mentioned the possibility of my taking a job as
his assistant in the Broadcasting Corporation. I knew this was not to
be. I would only get Richmond into trouble with Government House. The
last place they wanted me was in broadcasting!
When I had gone out to Lagos on the mailboat
Apapa, I had been thrilled at the prospect of Independence for Nigeria.
Leaving Lagos five years later I was extremely pessimistic. Liberals
back in the UK were now euphoric at African independence. All too often a
dialogue was impossible. They knew nothing, but sensed that there had
been some kind of victory for progressives. If one tried to educate
them, they wanted to know who were the good guys in the white hats. If
they were Conservative, who was the Conservative goodie, or the Labour
goodie. I was totally disillusioned with politics at this simplistic
level. In fact, though I favoured independence one day, I now saw it as
ludicrous. Independence in 1960 was a total nonsense. My experience in
Lagos also affected my attitude to British politics. I found it hard to
view problems from a party partisan viewpoint, and Britain seemed so
small and its problems so puny.
The Governor General had said that I would never
work again. That is exactly what happened. I was gloomy because of my
ill health, but as so many people were offering me employment, I felt
that, after a good rest in the UK, I would get back my health and the
Governor General would be out of a job himself. Even if I were
blacklisted, once the storm had blown over, I would be all right. Of
course, I was not. My life had been threatened by the evil Peter Cook
who was totally corrupt. Then, as my colleagues warned me, the ghastly
Festering Sam Okotie Eboh had me in his sights, and finally the Governor
General was threatening to silence me. Surely I was not the only honest
Britisher in Lagos? I have mentioned that Postgate, who was
brother-in-law of my Professor at Oxford, G D H Cole, had offered me a
job. Nwokedi had suggested I might like to teach at the new University
in the East and, after my launching the National Provident Fund, had
offered me the top job - name my own salary. I knew my days in Lagos
were up and declined gracefully.
"You won't mind my appointing your staff, Sean," Francis had interjected before I could reply.
I saw a whole village of mission-educated
Nwokedis staffing a new Government Department, and as they flowed in,
would millions flow out?
The Haywooods put me up and gave me a farewell
lunch. On the plane a telegram arrived for Smith, but it was for another
Smith in the adjoining seat, who was Senior Resident in Ibadan. We
chatted and were delighted to find that we had both read PPE, had the
same tutor Harry Weldon, and occupied the same set of rooms at Magdalen
College, Oxford. We were both ill - he was pissing blood - and both in
trouble although he did not know it. He knew who I was.
"Smith, the young lawmaker," he said.
Postgate had talked of assignments in the North. "Hausa won't be a problem, Sean?"
"No," I had replied, as if it was a mere detail,
but I knew deep down that I was leaving Africa and would never speak
Hausa. Then Nwokedi had offered me the job at Zik's University or in
Lagos running our Provident Fund. (The idea and achievement was totally
Francis's.) Now Smith asked me to be his assistant in Ibadan.
"I hate the bloody paperwork," he said. "And from what I hear, you are good at moving it."
He then told me about the horrible corruption in
Ibadan and said he had a safe full of incriminating documents involving
politicians. I did not know how to say no. I felt very grateful.
"You don't want me, sir," I said. "I'm in trouble...the Governor General...I'm finished..."
So was he. He turned away and we did not speak
again. At the airport terminal in London I picked up a paper and saw his
name. His post had been abolished.
At a drinks party in Lagos before I left, a
well-known African journalist introduced himself. He then said bluntly,
"You are in deep trouble, Mr Smith, but you have friends. 'Phone this
number in London. Say 'Donovan'."
The CIA lived up to their reputation. They knew
everything about me and my experience in Lagos. Would I return to Lagos
in the guise of a newspaper editor. And again, "Name your own salary." I
declined again.
If this sounds remarkable, it is more than that
to me, for - mainly because I became so ill for many years with a rare
tropical disease usually found in the Far East - I was never to be
employed again. The events unfolding in Lagos beginning in 1962 were
horrendous to those, like myself, who loved Nigeria. To someone who had
believed the tragedy inevitable but had tried to stop it, the pain was
very real. Viewed through my own struggle to survive, it was absolutely
awful. Paradox abounded. Had I been diagnosed, I do not think that I
would have survived the treatments then available. What seemed a tragedy
of delayed and wrong diagnosis - it was thought I had MS - turned out
to be a blessing, because new medical discoveries saved my life when in
extremis in 1972. I was indeed the first patient ever to prove that a
new treatment for this rare disease could be successful.
In Lagos I had lost weight and complained to my
friends at dinner of everything tasting metallic. We had even speculated
as to whether I was being poisoned. Philip Haywood was Permanent
Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education and recently (1991) while
staying with the Haywoods in Bournemouth, Phil and Vera reminded me of
our conversations on this matter.
A British puppet regime had taken power in
Nigeria on 1 October 1960 and its fraudulent origin became evident in
1962 when the parliamentary opposition and the Action Group were
destroyed. With the coup d'état "Operation Damisa" - of 15 January 1966
the old North, Britain's power base in Nigeria, was destroyed and four
years to the day exactly on 15 January 1970, the Eastern collaborators
in the British fix, the nominal independence of 1960, were also defeated
and their rebel state of Biafra destroyed.
The strangest irony was that the apparent
civilian victors of this tragic civil war were the Western leaders
Awolowo and Enahoro, whom the British had robbed of victory in the
Independence elections of 1959, and whom their puppet Balewa had jailed
for ten and fifteen years in 1962.
What had British machinations against democracy
in Nigeria achieved? Two million deaths! A generation of young Africans
starved and killed. What kind of British foreign policy was this? The
product of an alliance between scheming liberals, who sought an end to
colonialism at any price, and Tory realists, who feared communist
expansion in Africa? This evil and treacherous gerrymandering appealed
to the sick minds of Eden and Macmillan and ensured, with a terrifying
symmetry, that Britain's empire in Africa, born in bloody slavery, ended
with the cruel and bloody slaughter of two million black subjects of
the great white Queen.
Recently I read again the record of the civil
war in Anthony Kirk-Greene's excellent but deeply disturbing collection
of documents on the war. He, too, speaks of Lincoln and says rightly
that, when thinking of General Gowon's great humanity and statesmanlike
behaviour at its conclusion, he is reminded of that great American
President. (Gowon was deposed in a bloodless coup in 1975 by the
immensely popular General Muhammed but in 1976 the latter as
assassinated by Dinka. Gowon appears to have been implicated in this
assassination with encouragement from the British. All great men are
flawed, and Gowon was apparently no exception.)
Kirk-Greene also mentions Balewa, who had a
great reputation as well. Perhaps it was Balewa's conscience which
troubled him and made him so deeply unhappy as Prime Minister. He knew
he had won that office by fraudulent means. He knew every detail of the
British Government's machinations. He knew, when he railed in private
against British commercial interests exploiting Nigeria, that those same
interests had financed his election campaign and that of his partner in
Government - the NCNC, led by the great but burnt-out nationalist, Dr
Azikiwe.
On 10 February 1957 Balewa wrote an
extraordinary letter to his friend, the British Governor of the North,
Sir Bryan Sharwood Smith. Those of us in Lagos knew how unhappy he was.
He loathed Lagos and consoled himself with the company of young girls,
thoughtfully procured by our people. He was not stupid and was very much
a realist, and understood full well that he could only function as the
ally of and spokesman for British interests so long as the British were
in Nigeria. Without the British how could he survive? Could he win a
straightforward, honest and fair election? It was doubtful and he knew
it.
He wrote, 'I myself do not believe that the
present type of federation can exist without the British
Administration.' He did not want to be Prime Minister and was tired of
politics. 'You will appreciate the delicate position in which I am now
placed,' he wrote. His colleagues, like the notoriously corrupt Okotie
Eboh, who funnelled funds from British firms into the pro-British
political war chest, said he could not quit.
They were quite right. Balewa's role was crucial
to the great deception planned and executed by the British. It had
taken years to assemble and was a superb piece of political chicanery,
of which the bosses of Tammany Hall would have been proud. Henry L.
Bretton, an American Professor who studied British skulduggery in detail
and at first hand, wrote that 'the very construction of the Northern
Region...' (which had the majority of the seats in the Federal
Parliament) '...in the form in which it entered the era of independence,
represents one of the greatest acts of gerrymandering in history.'
With the greatest respect to the opinions of
Anthony Kirk-Greene who served in the North during my years at Federal
Government Headquarters in Lagos, and is a great Nigerianist, I do not
think it would be in order to put Lincoln's mantle on Balewa's
shoulders. I have no reason to believe that Balewa was personally
financially corrupt, but he was responsible for his colleagues in his
cabinet, and most of them were. He not only held power by fraudulent
means, but in his constituency he tolerated, if he did not actually
instigate, total electoral corruption. His role in destroying the
parliamentary opposition two years after Independence and consigning its
leaders up to fifteen years in jail, even if done at the behest of his
British advisors and friends, was not only desperate but vindictive and
wicked. He was jailing and destroying the very people who had won
Nigeria's nominal independence. Of course, it - independence - was the
last thing he had wanted himself.
Balewa was not a Lincoln and the British, by
their treachery, sacrificed a true friend. Did he really expect the
British not to sacrifice him? How could they be expected to respect
someone who had so little loyalty to his own country's interests. He
should have known that those who slavishly lick the feet of their
British masters are always expendable. It is ironic that it was not the
Lagos mob, which he despised, which broke into his palace and shot him,
but his much loved British trained and uniformed Army officers. When the
killing finally stopped exactly four years later to the day, two
million young Nigerians, most too young to vote, had been removed from
Nigeria's always-controversial census total.
Balewa had some things in common with Lincoln,
however. He was a poor small town boy. Balewa was not one of the rich
and powerful Hausa or Fulani. Like Lincoln, his death was irrevocably
linked with a great civil war. However, more died in Balewa's holocaust
than in the US civil war. Like Lincoln, Balewa was an astute politician
and an orator who was known, says the London Times, as 'the golden voice
of the North.' Balewa was also very determined and a ruthless realist.
He said that he longed to return to the North and the life of a simple
primary school teacher, but in his heart he must have known that his
political associates were right when they said only death would get him
out of Lagos.
1 February 1992
Agent, Apologist or Historian?
In one of his last contributions to an
historical journal (African Affairs, January 1987) before his early
death from Aids, my old friend Michael reviewed Nigeria's transition
from a beacon of democracy at 'Independence' in 1960 to a basket case
twenty-five years later, after a series of coups and military
dictatorships.
Michael was a liar on a grand scale who was
blackmailed by the British in 1960 to prevent disclosure of the fact
that the Independence Elections were rigged. Michael was a promiscuous
homosexual and he was pressurised to put pressure on the present writer
who was his friend. Three British senior service officials had protested
at orders from Government House to rig the elections in the British
interest, and blackmail of Michael was just one of the tactics employed
to shut me up. All that was sought was my word. Bribes included rapid
promotion, a brilliant career in the Foreign Service, large sums of
money and honours of my choice, which my friend Philip Williams (later
the biographer of Gaitskell), who acted as an intermediary, interpreted
as a knighthood. The stick was the threat to Michael; the threat to
Philip, who was also at risk, promises that I would be permanently
unemployed and, if I spoke out, killed.
Michael's carrot to persuade me to be a white
man and not betray our chaps was a proposal that he should, with
Government approval and on Government time, write a History of Nigeria
(The Story of Nigeria). The deal was acceptable to Michael and he broke
with me after a rather tearful and emotional parting. Lying in his
teeth, he promised that, when he came to speak of the Independence
Elections, he would tell the truth of how they were rigged. I pretended
to believe him. He was my friend and, although vulnerable and weak, like
many others I loved the man.
Nigeria was a basket
case in 1960 because of British machinations. Democracy never even got
to first base in Nigeria. The Independence was a fraud and the
introduction of democracy a cruel sham.
How could a respected historian do this? Quite
easily actually. One just went along with the story as made up, put
around by the papers and accepted by a gullible public. Had Michael not
been in pawn to Whitehall he would have been booted out of Nigeria,
perhaps after a squalid trial. His career as an historian would never
have got under way.
I was purposely silent for a time after
Michael's imbroglio with Government House, but very soon, when it became
clear that my lips had not been sealed permanently (I was overheard at a
dinner party with US Embassy friends making indiscreet remarks) I too
was carpeted at Government House.
Agent? Apologist? Historian of Nigeria? My dear
friend Michael was none of these things to me. He was a golden youth
with great gifts of love and friendship, and I will treasure forever his
joy and laughter and comradeship. We both loved Nigeria immoderately
and perhaps excessively. Africa inspired us, excited us and changed and
directed the course of our lives. We were both sons of Oxford and in our
own way served Nigeria honourably.
12 May l994
We loved Michael Crowder. He would have been a
joy to know anywhere, but Lagos was a different place once he arrived in
Nigeria to edit Nigeria Magazine. We first met at the home of Richmond
Postgate, the newly appointed Director of Broadcasting, and became good
friends, partly as a result of a number of bizarre coincidences.
Michael was a very promiscuous homosexual, which
was one thing we did not have in common. However, we had both recently
left Oxford, looked like two peas in a pod except that my eyes were blue
and Michael's brown, and we passionately loved Nigeria and its people
and its history.
Michael gave me his word that he would reveal in
his historical writings one day how the British had rigged Nigeria's
Independence Elections, but unless he left papers which kept his
promise... I waited many years and, in desperation, wrote to him, when I
learned that he was in London, to remind him of his promise. His sister
replied to say that Michael was on his death bed. He had been expelled
from Nigeria and died of Aids. A tragic end.
In Michael's "Story of Nigeria", which he wrote
with the blessing of Whitehall and the Governor General, Sir James
Robertson, is the sentence, "...Sir James Robertson turned out to be the
ideal man to represent Britain during the final phase of
self-government." Self-government was an odd phrase to use on the eve of
Independence and self-government. Michael was not usually so careless
and inaccurate. There had been a pretence or form of participation in
the routine of government before Independence, with Ministers appointed
by Robertson to Departments which then became Ministries; but Michael
was as cynical and truthful as I was about this pretence of black power,
and his shrieks of laughter greeted all such instances of window
dressing as bullshit.
If Nigeria was self-governing at national level,
what were Independence and the Independence Elections all about? The
Regional/State Elections had introduced a degree of autonomy at that
level in 1956, but the real explanation for Michael's remarkable
clumsiness was his knowledge of the enormous lie he was telling.
Michael was blackmailed by Sir James Robertson.
He was threatened with a jail sentence and ruin if I continued to tell
everyone how Whitehall had rigged the State Elections and the Federal
Elections in favour of the Northerners. Michael was terrified and made
his peace with Government House. He was no threat to the Whitehall
criminals who planned the great evil. He was the ideal tool to fix the
historical record and put a seal of spurious authenticity on this gross
treachery, and that is what he did.
It is extremely painful to say of Michael, as I
must despite my love for the man, that he was as deeply flawed as a
historian can be. Michael lied and betrayed the Nigerian people he
genuinely adored. Michael broke his word to me too. I was very innocent
and naive, and thought most people who were educated were truthful, and
that many would have done what I did, and taken a stand against
Whitehall's treason which brought about the bloody Biafran civil war in
which up to two million, mainly young, people died. I was wrong. Few, if
any, I now know would have followed by example. Even those few hesitate
when I mention the glittering honours and other prizes, the bribes,
which I refused.
I will always remember Michael's laughter and infectious humour. I think of him often. We loved him.
25 March 1994
The Indiscreet Racist
Fred
was ingenious. To the African who objected to rule by a small clique of
white men, Fred retorted that the alternative was to subject a large
native population to the will of a small minority of educated and
Europeanised natives who have nothing in common with them, and whose
interests are often opposed to them... Only in 1943 were two very safe
Africans appointed to the Governor's Executive Council. Africans were
excluded from European Clubs until the early fifties when the first
token Africans were allowed in. That was why I declined to join the
Ikoyi Club in 1955. In 1960 I caused a stir when, accompanied by my
African assistants, I inspected the Ikoyi Club. The Secretary went
purple with rage and 'phoned every VIP he could get hold of. "How could
you bring those people in here!" he screamed. This was the year of
Independence.
Fred may not have been the legend of Margery
Perham's heated and frustrated imagination, but he certainly left a
legacy of dottiness and nasty racism behind him. Fred's racism was
shared by Margery Perham, as Michael Crowder records in the 1972 edition
of "The Story of Nigeria." This was a good book that I eagerly looked
forward to reading. Sadly it was marred by major omissions of vital
facts that Michael knew about.
"When I write about the Independence Elections,"
Michael promised me before I fled Nigeria in 1960, "I will tell the
truth about how the Independence Elections were rigged."
Michael made a point of not writing in any
detail about the Independence Elections. His private views of the
British occupation were far more scathing than anything that ever
appeared in his books. Yet, by not telling the truth about British
treachery, he let down his many Nigerian friends and the Nigerian people
whom he loved so much. Not even Africans loved Nigeria as Michael did.
His history may have been flawed, but his love for the Nigerian people
was diamond hard. We did not have the same sexual orientation, but we
had so much in common as well as looking alike. I loved him dearly and
felt heart-broken when his sister wrote to tell me of his last fatal
illness.
12 May l994
The Legend of Lugard Avenue
Margery Perham's contribution to the
Independence issue of Nigeria Magazine is a tribute to her beloved Fred
Lugard. As my friend Michael Crowder, the Editor, was one of her
acolytes, she could do no wrong. It is not Independence that Margery
writes about but, as always, Fred. Her panegyric is so over the top that
one feels embarrassed. An encomium is correctly a speech in praise of a
conqueror, so it is not inapposite to regard Margery's fulsome praise
in that way.
"The name of Lugard will always be linked with
that of Nigeria," she announces and then suggests that Nigerians will
ask themselves what part this man played in their journey. As Fred had
left Nigeria in 1918 and he was generally regarded by Nigerians as a
fanatical bully, which was much the view of his colleagues, the Colonial
Office and Whitehall, it is doubtful if a single Nigerian was thinking
of Fred, let alone thinking well of him on Independence Day. She refers
to his legendary name - actually only legendary for the avenue in Ikoyi
that had for some years in the 1950's some old-style, rat-infested
bungalows, one of which for a few days I once occupied.
Margery tells us how well she knew Fred, almost
hinting at a physical relationship with her hero. She worked closely
with him, lived near him and, as we know, adored him. She did not, she
says, know him in the prime of his manhood, but she thought age must
have changed him less than most men.
"He kept his slim, upright figure, with the
square shoulders and the erect head of the military man, to the week of
his death. He kept, too, the vigour of his movements and the direct and
resolute eyes of a man used to command, but in which I, as a friend,
could read mostly his kindness and understanding."
The portrait of Fred which faces us, as we read
of Margery's adoration, is of a fierce little, demented terrier of a
man. On his first expedition into what became Nigerian territory, he was
apparently hit in the head by a poisoned arrow. This might account for
his notorious ill temper and inability to make friends. If Fred was
famous for anything, it was for being pig-headed and controversial.
Although he spent six years in Nigeria, the lengths of his leaves in
England were notorious. He did not, characteristically, seek long leaves
for his staff at the sharp end in the bush.
Fred's style was combative and he always
preferred war-war to jaw-jaw, as befitted a conqueror. Margery spends a
lot of space trying to find excuses for his disastrous leadership. Much
the same goes for Fred's second term of office from 1912 to 1918.
Nothing is ever Fred's fault. Always there is a reason why he made so
many mistakes and achieved so little. The only accord one feels on
reading Margaret's gush is when she records Fred as opposing Mussolini's
invasion of Ethiopia.
Fred married Flora Shaw, the Colonial
Correspondent of The Times. Now the Lugard fan club had two very active
members, swollen to three when Margery joined the team. In conclusion
she allows mention of some other pioneers, but only to promote Fred to
the top of the table and then to suggest that Fred in Nigeria deserved a
place equivalent to that of Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror in
British history
12 February 1993
Lugard's Lunacy and Perham's Infatuation
It was inevitable that rich white Europe would
impinge on poor black Africa. Sadly, the Lenin/Hobson thesis that this
was a bad thing did great harm to Africa. One major problem is the
widespread ignorance about Africa in Britain. Once it was agreed by
'progressives' and the Labour Party that 'imperialism' was a bad thing,
it was even more acceptable to be ignorant. Getting out of Africa was
the answer to all Africa's problems. Yet the relationship would
continue. Given the anarchy of former West African colonies in the
1980's, the fashion is changing and it is all right to say, "Pity our
people pulled out!"
We left Nigeria too soon. There should have been
more development of the infrastructure, of plantations and factories.
The discovery of oil was, paradoxically, a major tragedy for Nigeria.
Many British officials were fine administrators who, with very limited
resources, did excellent work. The inevitable slow rate of progress had
its good side too. There was less cultural shock.
Because of ignorance of Africa, Whitehall has
got away with murder. Only one or two newspaper editors needed to be
bamboozled, and Lugard and his successors could tell a pack of lies,
especially with Whitehall's backing, and there would be no problem.
What of historians? A few of poor quality,
because access to Government files was nigh impossible. And so the
officials themselves became the historians and they short-circuited the
journalists. Now we had propaganda turned into instant history. First
there was Lugard who, with his fantasies, wove a tissue of lies. Aided
by his wife who was as expert a liar as he was, his fabrications still
colour Whitehall's attitudes to Nigeria, which can be summed up as
pale-skinned Moslem North good, black-skinned Christian South bad. When
Lady Lugard died, her place as propagandist for Lugard's crazy ideas was
taken on by Margery Perham, who gave the story a few twists to fit
changing times. Posing as a liberal, she screened black nationalists and
acted as an intelligence officer for Whitehall. Miss Perham was told by
me and, if she did not already know my story it was confirmed for her
by the Governor General, that the Independence Elections in Nigeria were
rigged. She then negotiated with my friend, Philip Williams, who was
her colleague at Nuffield College, Oxford. The deal was the one I had
had before from her friend the Governor General of Nigeria, Sir James
Robertson. If I kept my mouth shut, I could have a top-flight career in
the Foreign Service. A top-up bonus was the additional sweetener of any
honours I chose. I declined once again.
So when Miss Perhaps wrote in her volume on
Lugard, "In public enterprises there are often two accounts of the
proceedings, a smooth official story of progress, studded with
compliments and congratulations to all concerned, and the true
unpublished story of the bitter struggles and the personal
conflicts...." she knew what she was writing about.
The line that was pushed right from the very
start of Lugard's occupation of Nigeria, and extended through the sixty
years of British occupation, was that the North was Nigeria, and the
ever-shrinking South an alien and extra mural, marginal extravagance.
The truth was that Lugard proclaimed Nigeria as his own creation, and
the Nigeria, which had known the British in various guises for centuries
pre-Lugard, was an abomination, an excrescence. It spoiled the picture
of Lugard, the conqueror of an empire of disparate peoples. To be
reminded that Lagos and the South were educated and relatively civilised
places with schools, newspapers and Christian churches, spoiled a good
story. It was as if, having pushed Sir Edmund Hillary on to the top of
Everest, his guide Tensing had remarked, "We come up here for a picnic
most weekends in the summer."
The first writer of note to blow the whistle on
the Lugards, and their black magic or propaganda approach to fixing the
historical record, was Ian Nicolson. (I.F Nicolson. The Administration
of Nigeria, 1900 to 1960. Oxford. 1969).I met Ian when he was in charge
of Establishments in the new office block in 1958. (This branch of the
old Secretariat became, I think, the Ministry of Home Affairs). The
Colonial Office had confirmed with him my account of how the election
rigging was getting on. I recall Ian locking the incriminating papers in
his office safe.
Lugard felt that things like justice should not
get in the way of decision-making, and saw justice as part of military
discipline. In other words, he could take the law into his own hands
whenever he so chose. Sir James Robertson had maybe learned all this
from Margery Perham, for he wholeheartedly subscribed to the same
philosophy. If elections would put the wrong people into power, it was
necessary to rig them so that our boys won. If someone like me
protested, have him silenced. Lugard executed people as if he were
swotting flies. Robertson, who was also out of the Mussolini mould, had
been officially reprimanded for following his master's example and
having natives hanged for trivial misdemeanours.
As a civil servant, I was protected by a Code of
Regulations and a Public Service Commission and British Law, but
Robertson saw no need to accept these. He was Commander in Chief and
Governor General, and thought that summary justice was what I needed. He
had tried tempting me into the Army with high rank so that I could be
court-martialled. It would, he thought, appear more seemly. Even then,
he would be ignoring military law, but it was a good try. In the event
his well-rehearsed speech went as follows:-
"The Colonial Service is the same as the Army,
and you know what happens if you disobey orders on active service - you
pay the penalty!" That was it. Standing in his office, I was, in
seconds, charged and found guilty. I was to be silenced if I did not
accept his terms. He intended to have me killed, just as he had ordered
others to be killed.
The Deputy Governor General, who had interceded
on my behalf in 1957, had left Nigeria. Sir Ralph (later Lord) Grey had
written to me mentioning my achievements and had said that I had been of
some service to the State. And now I was on my own and, for refusing
the orders of an insane Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was now to be
extinguished by an equally mad Governor General. As 'Nigeria' started
under British rule in bloody conflict, often unnecessary and unjust, so
it was to the end.
Like Lugard, Robertson loathed black people. He
had spent his life working for the Foreign Office in the Sudan, and
shared his master's love of the light-skinned Arab. Ian Nicolson zaps
not only Lugard and Mrs Lugard, but also their apologist (and Lugard's
intimate friend) Margery Perham. At the end of his book, Lugard's claim
to any kind of integrity or truthfulness lies in ruins. Mrs Lugard is
branded as a highly effective and professional liar of the school of
Goebbels, and Miss Perham shown to be as good a historian as Enid
Blyton. Perham's infatuation for the loathsome Fred Lugard seems to have
softened her brain and to have had her simpering like a love struck
adolescent.
The tradition of Lugard, amazingly, lingers on
in Oxford, not so much as a lost cause but as a memorial to despicable
treason. Academics who play down the effect of evil British policy in
Nigeria, such as the rigging of the Independence Elections and the
ghastly loss of life that ensued, write selectively of that period. See
how they ignore the manner in which British officials, academics, and
others play down their role in inciting the Northern people to start a
pogrom against Igbos resident in the North. A coup by British-trained
young officers had petered out, and legitimate power re-established with
the hand-over of power from Ministers to General Ironsi. At that point
only a handful of lives had been lost, and there had been general
jubilation at the overthrow of a wicked and despotic regime. The role of
the British in the events which followed was crucial, but only a huge
black hole will be found in the writings of British specialists on this
matter. The British had sentenced Balewa to a certain death when they
rigged the elections in his favour. Six years later he paid the price
for his criminality. Blind with rage at the loss of their stooge and his
accomplices, the British struck out against the Igbos who, they felt,
had masterminded the overthrow of their beloved Balewa. In so doing they
executed a million young children and a million other, mainly young,
people.
In her day Lady Lugard had contrasted "the
higher types of the Northern States" with the "cannibal pagans" of the
South. "The nearer to the coast, the worse was the native type...
Sorcerers, idolaters, robbers and drunkards, they were indeed no better
than their country." The vituperation of a virulent racist is familiar
to those of us who have lived through the aberrations of Hitler's
Germany and South African apartheid. That disciples of the Lugard/Perham
school, though thin on the ground, still hang on at Oxford, is not so
much proof of tolerance as of downright ignorance, perversity and lack
of scholastic rigour and integrity.
8 February 1993
Memo to a Colonial Governor
Margery Perham wrote in 1960 that, "In public
enterprises there are often two accounts of the proceedings, a smooth
official story of progress, studded with compliments and congratulations
to all concerned, and the true unpublished story of the bitter
struggles and the personal conflicts...."
Margery knew of what she wrote. That same year
she had acted in Oxford as an intermediary between the Governor General
of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson, and myself. The offer was any honours I
sought, plus a top job. In return I would give my word never to reveal
that the British Government had rigged Nigeria's Independence Elections.
I declined as tactfully as I could. She was in touch through my old
friend, Philip Williams, who was also a Fellow of Nuffield. However, she
was Philip's superior and in a position to do him great harm. Following
on my negative but diplomatic reply, she put the fear of God in Philip.
He probably got the homosexual exposure threat that had already been
given to another friend of mine in Lagos, Michael Crowder.
How strange to realise that, if I had accepted
that corrupt bargain, I might perhaps have preceded Chris Patten in Hong
Kong. Margery Perham's excellent work, from which I quoted, is her
biography of Lugard who played a major role in inventing Nigeria, and
between times preceded him as Governor of Hong Kong between 1907 and
1912. Although Lugard felt he had little aptitude (p.283) he was
reasonably well qualified, if not as superbly qualified as Mr Patten. He
did come to think (p.287) that he had made a grave mistake in going to
Hong Kong and longed for the man's work that he had done before. He felt
he was no more than a willing makeshift (p.297) for a Governor, despite
his success. London would say in due course that Lugard was too
ambitious (p.354), but he knew that for too long the British Government
was not ambitious enough.
Lugard was aware, looking with anxiety over the
hills of Kowloon, of a coming storm (p.358). He was not sorry to leave
the Colony (p.367). He had staked his professional career to win
personal happiness, and it seemed that he had been completely the loser.
But as Margery Perham comments, life's gambles are seldom quite
absolute in their results. Greatness was difficult to achieve (p.371)
"within the cramping physical and political conditions of a Colony which
calls for tact and ingenuity rather than for bold innovation and
energetic leadership."
I suspect that it will be found that when Chris
Patten leaves Hong Kong, his first contribution, as with Lugard, will be
seen to have been one of character. Few "realise the immense importance
of integrity in the man at the top. Lugard had", says Margery Perham,
"absolute sincerity and simplicity, a rock like basis of physical and
moral courage." I feel it is commendable that Chris Patten has shown, in
a situation where our physical resources are limited, that moral
resource has a real role too. The people of Hong Kong needed a shot in
the arm, and a very cheeky young General, Monty-like but hatless, has
given it to those beleaguered but brilliant people.
20 February 1993
Rigging of Nigeria's Independence Elections by the British Government
I was put on trial by the Governor General of
Nigeria in 1960. Later in retirement he wrote his memoirs but he does
not mention me. Although the book was published in 1974, I did not even
hear of it until 1991. I had read every major work on Nigeria over
several decades and nowhere was Sir James Robertson's book mentioned.
Clearly, in commenting on this book 'Transition
in Africa' I am prejudiced. After all I was found guilty of a major
crime and severely punished. Naturally, having served my sentence, I am
curious to know more about James Robertson. What is indisputable is that
Robertson was a highly successful colonial administrator.
Strictly speaking, the Sudan was not a British
Colony, and for most of his life Robertson worked for the Foreign
Office, but the differences are not really significant. The Sudan was
run like a Colony and Robertson's work was no different than it would
have been had he worked in Nigeria, which lay to the West on the
Atlantic seaboard.
The British Colonies were run in a highly
efficient and economical manner. It is true that much that is now
accepted as essential services, even in poor African countries today,
was not on offer when men like Robertson ruled vast numbers of colonial
peoples. However, it is still extraordinary just how much was achieved
by what was by any standards an absolutely minimally staffed service.
The pay was not good, the health prospects were poor and it was by no
means certain that every successful administrator would reach the top of
the tree and collect gongs and a knighthood.
The quality of the staff recruited was high and
Robertson was not untypical. He was a very capable Balliol graduate with
a second in Greats and a Rugby Blue. He learned Arabic and worked very
hard under the most primitive conditions for many years before promotion
and honours came his way. These were richly deserved. Britain got a
bargain in men of Robertson's calibre. The caricature of colonial blimps
by liberals is unfair, if understandable. Robertson was not narrow. He
had had an excellent education and his work in the Sudan called for
considerable intelligence, enterprise and stamina. He wielded enormous
power and routinely shouldered responsibilities beyond any that his
contemporaries at Oxford would have realised in the Home Civil Service
or in industry.
He was, I imagine, excellent company, with an
enquiring mind, an amiable, friendly, good-humoured manner, loyal to his
friends and, in his own way, to his country. In different circumstances
the sort of person most of us rank and file in the service in Lagos
would have been pleased to work under. As it was, my job at the
Department of Labour, a notorious place to work, was made much worse by
Robertson's intervention which was openly criminal.
My friend Michael Crowder, who was to become a
distinguished, but flawed historian of African affairs, was surprised at
how big a man Sir James was. He was to write of him as a great bear of a
man, someone with a large presence and quite a big physique. I was down
to seven or eight stone myself, largely due to Robertson, and in those
days he seemed big to me too. Now I am fourteen stone myself, Robertson
seems average. Michael got the plum job of Editor of Nigeria Magazine
because he had cultivated Margery Perham at Oxford and she had
recommended Michael to her good friend, the Governor General. When
Michael was summoned to a tête- -tête lunch at Government House he
was already indebted to Sir James, and the Governor General reminded him
of that fact. He also in a matter-of-fact way told Michael that he knew
that he was a queer and that he was friendly with someone who was a
thorn in his, His Excellency's, flesh.
"You are living very dangerously, Mr Crowder," said Robertson, topping up Michael's wine glass.
To say that Michael was frightened was an
inadequate description of the terror he felt. He could go to gaol! At
that point his bowel control became uncertain.
"Tell your friend Smith to stop dabbling in politics, or it might look bad for you. Do you understand what I am saying?"
Michael fled Government House and came straight to me after an enforced rush to the bathroom. Michael was pale and shaken.
"He knows about you, Sean," he stammered. "It was because of you I got the invitation!"
We had both wondered why Michael had been
honoured in this way. The notion that I dabbled in politics amused me
but did not cheer Michael. Henceforth he would steer well clear of me.
It was His Excellency the Governor General who
was completely immersed in politics at a level which astounded everyone
who was privy to the secret. When Robertson arrived in Lagos in 1955 he
was no routine replacement. His predecessor, Sir John MacPherson, had
become Permanent Secretary at the Colonial Office and Robertson headed a
team of Sudanese administrators charged to carry out one of the most
extraordinary missions in British colonial history. His team was made up
of Sir Gawain Bell, who became Governor of the North, and his close
friend Geoffrey Hawkesworth, who would take up the equally vital
position of Chairman of the Federal Public Service Commission. Why was
this team of experienced Sudanese administrators chosen to arrange the
handover of power to Nigerian politicians? Quite simply, because what
was required to be done was extraordinary. It is doubtful if Nigeria's
top administrators would have carried out Whitehall's orders. His
Excellency might have said jocularly, 'They've all gone native.' This
was a tough assignment for men who would do whatever was necessary.
"Why?" I pleaded, when I saw Sir James at Government House in 1960. "Why did you rig the elections?"
"Because it was necessary," he replied coolly.
And also possible. In the Sudan, international
observers were present to monitor the British administration of the
elections. Robertson's elections prove how essential it is not to trust
British protestations of fair play in running elections.
I was a lawmaker, busy preparing new laws
befitting the giant African nation about to be born. My Factories Act
had been hailed as the greatest piece of legislation to be placed on the
Nigerian statute book. The Attorney General of Nigeria had praised my
work highly, and the Chief Secretary, Sir Ralph, later Lord, Grey, wrote
a letter for my personal file stating that I 'had been of some service
to the state...' The Labour Advisor to the Secretary of State said I had
made an extraordinary start to my career - I was, after all, straight
out of Magdalen College, Oxford - and he promised that I was assured of a
brilliant career.
The first stage of the Independence Elections
took place in 1956 and were to decide the government of the three
Regions, or States, which constituted the Federation. The British had
always favoured the pro-British but very backward North, paradoxically
because it did not seek independence at all, but was quite happy with
the great powers bestowed on its hereditary leaders by indirect rule
from the indifferent British. The chosen people were totally unprepared
for independence and would inevitably suffer at the hands of the well
educated and politically sophisticated Southerners who made jokes about
British officials and ridiculed and even patronised them. The North
lacked a University, even the basic elements of an elementary school
system. Its civil servants at clerical level were Southerners and its
administrators were almost totally British. Something had to be done.
I was astonished to receive orders from His
Excellency in 1956 telling me to help fix the 1956 State elections. I
was to head a covert operation and, under cover of a study of migration,
to take all Labour headquarters staff and transport to help elect
politicians backed by the British. I replied with a minute that said,
'No.' These were criminal acts, expressly forbidden by the election laws
of Nigeria and I could not carry them out. The Governor General and the
British Government had it in for the Action Group, the government party
in the Western Region. Robertson's remarks about the Action Group in
his memoirs illustrate his deep animosity and hatred towards them.
If that refusal to break the laws of Nigeria and
Britain and the essence of democratic parliamentary system was dabbling
in politics, I plead guilty. In truth it was His Excellency and
Whitehall who were subverting the British Constitution and committing
treason against the rule of HM The Queen.
Michael Crowder had received a menacing home
visit from a senior police officer who made threatening gestures. My
wife and I gave Michael all possible moral support in this grotesque and
squalid blackmail by agents of the British Government.
Sir James told me that he had personally issued
the orders to which I had objected; that not one of the many other
senior officers involved had objected; that I knew far too much and if I
would not shut up means would be found to silence me. I did not know
all the facts. The operation was necessary. If I would not shut up I
would never work again in a responsible position. The press would never
be allowed to publish my story. Who would believe me? I would have to
agree to work abroad. I was not to be allowed to be employed in the UK. A
brilliant career lay ahead if I would give my word. The Colonial
Service was like the Army: if you disobeyed orders, you paid the
penalty.
Clearly Sir James Robertson was chosen for this
treachery because it was known that he was a very hard man with an
underdeveloped moral sense. Proof of this is to be found in his
autobiography when he was severely reprimanded for executing three
Africans who were allegedly acting as agents of the Italians.
I might have said, had I been allowed, that I
was a civil servant. Even if I had been in the Army, I would have had
the right to a lawful trial. As it was, my rights as a civil servant to
appeal to the Public Service Commission were blocked by the Governor
General's friend, Geoffrey Hawkesworth.
Amazingly, the Governor General's prediction was
correct. The Colonial Office told its Minister, Julian Amery, in 1960
that I did not exist and when he persevered he was then told that all my
papers had been destroyed. The Queen's friend, Lord Perth, was closely
involved and can verify the truth of my story. His Excellency's Star
Chamber trial verdict ran beyond his death in 1974. In thirty years the
British Press has played its prostitute role and has been shamed by the
bravery of a small County paper, the Wiltshire Times, which published my
story in 1988.
Lord Grey has been available to inform
successive British Governments of the truth of my account, but they do
everything possible to pretend they have not been informed. Deniability
is the aim. Having now had acknowledgements from Lynda Chalker, Chris
Patten and the Prime Minister, that particular tactic is no longer
sustainable. Blocking publication is proof of concerted Government
action and an acknowledgement of guilt, if it were needed.
There is little point in listing
the-sleight-of-hand deceptions and stratagems Robertson used to avoid
the truth in his account. When he is assuredly guilty of treason against
our most hallowed constitutional principles, he is a man without
honour, as are those politicians and Whitehall employees who gave him
leave to behave criminally. His actions in the Sudan and Nigeria led
directly to the tragedies which befell those countries. In Nigeria a
million people died in the Biafran Civil War because of his
machinations.
The degree of complicity of Mr. Major's
Government in the conspiracy of silence still surrounding these events
has yet to be established. As before, I am sending copies of this
statement to various notables, none of whom however has yet interceded,
and all of whom must share some degree of responsibility for preventing
the full and proper disclosure to the public of these disgraceful
events.
28 November 1991
! NB Items starting with ! are recent additions or updates.
The Administration of Nigeria 1900 to 1960: I F Nicolson
The
Governor General of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson, told me in 1960 why
the British had decided to destroy democracy at its birth in this giant
empire named Nigeria. We had favoured the North since Nigeria was
invented. A crackpot named Lugard was largely responsible. His women
disciples, including a lovesick academic Perham - later to offer me a
knighthood - were not only infatuated with Lugard, who looked like a
demented rat, but were crazy about the North.
The
best book on Lugard and his lady friends is by I F Nicolson, 'The
Administration of Nigeria 1900 to 1960.' It is sad that Nicolson did not
write a second volume taking the story on from 1960. Anyway, Nicolson
knew that we had rigged the Independence Elections, for we discussed
this in his office in Lagos, and he placed my files and papers relating
to British corruption in his safe.
We
had decided to give power to Balewa, a Northerner, because he was quite
a benevolent person who could be easily guided by our people. He was
not really a politician and was quite gentle and honest for a political
stooge. Idealistic young Sandhurst-trained officers shot Balewa in 1966.
A pro-British officer, General Ironsi then took over, but he seemed to
be under the influence of a friend of mine, Nwokedi - an Easterner.
There was a counter coup and Ironsi was killed.
When
the Governor General ordered me to get involved in the first stage at
State (or Regional) level of the Independence Elections in 1956, I
refused. I was to assist the Minister of Labour Okotie Eboh, a
notoriously crooked politician and friend of Robertson. Okotie Eboh was
my Minister. He too was shot, to everyone's delight, with Balewa the
Prime Minister.
The
British had planned for the Western power base of Awolowo, a
nationalistic leader, to be destabilised. For all I know, the
Southerners had won the Independence Elections, but no way were they to
be allowed to run Nigeria after the British left. Nicolson knew this in
1958 because Colonial Office officials were stunned when I told them
what Macmillan had planned for Nigeria. They asked Nicolson to confirm
what I told them and he did. The Colonial Office then returned me to
Lagos to see Nicolson.
Nwokedi,
who was my senior colleague, was one of our golden boys and a friend of
mine. He was an ally of Dr Azikiwe, who became Governor General at
Independence and later President. Nwokedi was largely responsible for
the Biafran Civil War starting. The British organised a pogrom against
Dr Zik's Easterners resident in the North, and Ironsi was killed as were
tens of thousands of Ibos. Kirk-Greene participated in and wrote about
these events, but has yet to reveal the squalid truth. This pogrom made
civil war inevitable. Two million died.
Although
our stooges got shot, the British were resourceful and for another
thirty years have played an active role in deciding who would rule as
military dictator. Our sponsored dictatorships have been relatively
benevolent. Nigerians have never known democracy so do not miss it too
much. Western style democracy does not appeal to them, as they dislike
the very idea of joining an opposition. As the Government controls the
spoils, many Nigerians leave the losing Party and join the winning Party
to get some loot.
I
told everyone that what we were doing in the late fifties was wrong and
would lead to disaster, but I was told by the Governor General to shut
up or be killed. I fled Nigeria in 1960 and for my pains I never worked
again and have been targeted by British Intelligence to ensure that I
never blew the whistle on British treason in Africa. I declined a
knighthood and large sums of money in return for my silence. The
Governor General told me that I was the only honest Britisher in the
Nigerian Colonial Service!
2 June 1997
'Catch 22' and a Bit: Smith's Word of Honour
My
career and health were destroyed during Government service in Nigeria.
However, Whitehall thinks that I am a thoroughly bad hat and will not
talk to me. That is not totally true. They will talk to me. They had
said that for nearly forty years, but only if I give my word of honour.
The rewards on offer were mouth-watering - knighthood, tens of thousands
of pounds (in 1960's money), a great career with rapid and instant
promotion in the Foreign Service. They say I will not talk to them. I
say they will not talk to me. The Catch 22 and a Bit is the terms on
which they will not talk to me. They will not talk to me unless I give
my word of honour never to reveal why they want my word of honour before
they will talk to me.
They
want my scout's honour, cross my heart - which, as a boy - I solemnly
believed was the highest form of oath, especially if one added '...hope
to die' as a postscript. They deny rigging Nigeria's Independence
Elections, which of course privately they freely admit that they did,
and are furious about it because I would not join in. They feel about me
as both major party leaders feel about Mr Ashdown. He is allegedly
sanctimonious, smug, pious, condescending, patronising, or - in other
words - honest.
They
must have my word of honour never to reveal what they say they never
did, i.e. rig Nigeria's Independence Elections. How can I swear never to
reveal something that they say they never did? After a long pause Sir
Humphrey would say, "Well, you must stop saying we did it!"
"But you did," I insist. "You sacked me because I wouldn't take part at a very high level..."
"Well, of course, we did. We know that. The point is that nobody else knows!"
"I know..."
"But you won't know when you have become one of us. Just keep your mouth shut."
"After I have given my word?"
"Exactly. Give your word. Forget all about it. Keep your mouth shut, or else..."
"Or else?"
"You
will regret it. An officer in the Colonial Service is exactly the same
as an officer in the Army who disobeys orders on active service. You
know the penalty...!
"I declined your offer to become a Colonel in the Army."
"You are impertinent, and you know far too much. You can never be allowed to return to the UK."
It got much worse.
Mr
Major's Government recently denied that they had me poisoned in Lagos.
It was just a coincidence that I developed a permanent gut-wasting
disease and lost half my weight and looked like a skeleton. It took
twelve years to name the disease that rarely occurs in Africa. I was
saved in extremis and my case troubled the specialists. The Government
said that Porton Down, which manufactures poisons that mimic tropical
diseases for use against enemies of Britain, had not poisoned me.
I
asked how they knew. They replied that the Director of Porton Down had
told them so. (A few weeks later he was reprimanded by the House of
Commons for lying to them on another issue.) I told the Ministry of
Defence that I would have been very surprised if the Director of Porton
Down had said anything else. It was noteworthy, I added, that at the
time Porton Down had a branch in Nigeria where they were testing poison
gas and other means of keeping the Queen's peace.
Curiously,
the Government had also built a vast, very expensive mental hospital in
the bush nearby. What it did was a mystery as it was kept fully staffed
but empty. It must have been like the hospital in the film 'Coma', with
its warehouse of spare bits of corpses. When the distinguished American
author, John Gunther, heard about it (probably from the CIA), he went
along and asked why such an expensive facility was kept empty at such
cost when the need for hospital care in Nigeria was so great. The
Superintendent told him that, although there were indeed many thousands,
even perhaps millions, who needed help, they were not the type of
patients for whom the hospital had been designed. It could not possibly
be connected with Porton Down experiments involving dropping poison gas
from the air and seeing what happened if it accidentally drifted over
African populated areas...
A
Rear Admiral recently wrote to me to say that I now had his permission
to publish my remarkable story. He added, somewhat unnecessarily, that
this did not mean that I would be published. The Government wanted it
known that they were no longer banning publication. Even the Cabinet
Secretary was anxious to tell me that I was no longer banned by the
Major Government. Nothing changed of course. Except that I was sounded
out about accepting a pension, on the usual terms of course. The
interview with an MP only took place on condition that I agreed that we
could not discuss why the interview was taking place. In other words,
officially, I suppose it never happened. Certainly nothing came of it.
Presumably because I refused to give my word never to reveal something
quite dreadful, which officially never happened.
Over to you, Mr Blair!
12 May 1997
John Smith of Kano, Colonial Cadet in Nigeria
John
Smith's 'Colonial Cadet in Nigeria' is a book of great charm, which
filled me with admiration for the author and rekindled the love of
Nigeria I shared with him. This modest, honest, straightforward and not
uncritical account is of the final years of an occupation which lasted
only sixty years, and already thirty years have passed since the British
withdrawal.
The
book is also invaluable for demonstrating how indirect rule worked.
What was initiated as an inexpensive way of running an occupied country
with a handful of administrators necessarily entailed a very close
relationship between the people at all levels and the British. The
record was a proud one. If there was modest development, there was also
the minimum of interference with the native culture. Remarkably too, for
this was imperialism triumphant, there was also deep affection and even
love. Nevertheless, every effort, including blatant criminality, was
made by the British to ensure that in the independence elections, the
pro-British Northerners won. The British were the servants of the Emirs
and the Native Administrations and the political party - the NPC -
formed with the help and encouragement of the British to contest
elections, ran the Northern Regional Government and, in due course, the
Federal Government.
In
John Smith's account, the opposition party NEPU is viewed as an
intrusive/disruptive element. The British certainly often appeared to
turn a blind eye to the harassment NEPU suffered at the hands of the
Native Administrations and the Emirs. John Smith is so innocent of the
undemocratic stance that he portrays while protecting his charges, and
this was not untypical, that one can almost feel this total
identification with the interests of the Emirs. In rigging elections in
the North (and Northern officials, while admitting the fact, will be
hurt that what they did should be seen, not as duty arising from
necessity, but as election rigging) the British did nothing unusual. It
was merely an extension of the extremely varied, normal routine, which
primarily was to act in the Emirs' interest.
Indirect
rule was not simply a system where the British used the rule of the
Emirs, that is to say, where the Emirs were the agents of the British.
In many ways, as Smith demonstrates, it was the other way around - the
British were the agents of the Emirs. When Northern officials are
charged with fiddling the elections, they openly admit it but express
astonishment. Why the fuss? That was their job. They organised the
election arrangements superbly, despite tremendous problems, and went on
without hesitation to ensure total victory for their bosses, as a
natural continuation of the same process. What seems criminality on a
grand scale to the impartial observer was to the British simply a matter
of getting on with the job.
Faced
with a Southern official, who levels charges of gross corruption, the
Northern official is bemused, amused and then a bit put out. "Come on,
old chap," they say, "That's putting it a bit strong. It was our job to
look after our people. Outsiders and trouble makers had to be checked."
The point that I am making is that the British stood for order and
stability and keeping everything quiet and peaceful. Quite how British
officials became so indoctrinated with this ethos of the status quo is a
mystery to me. Perhaps it was acquired at Oxford from Miss Perham.
Aliens were missionaries; Southern officials; forces of evil like trade
unionists; radicals like LSE-trained education officers; insensitive
industrialists; foreigners; and particularly representatives of
international bodies; and Southerners. The election business simply
added NEPU politicians; nationalists from the South; political agents
and journalists; busybodies; and other do-gooders to the list. All had
to be and were outwitted with great skill by Northern officials.
John
Smith alone can be safely excluded from anything improper. His
integrity and intelligence are exceptional and remarkable. There were
other Northern officials of the same high calibre who served 'their
people' (and by that, without sarcasm, I mean the Northern peoples) with
tremendous love and devotion far beyond the call of duty. I may seem
confused and ambivalent in both indicating criminality and yet admiring
Northern officials. I understand this, and that same paradox is an
essential part of the record of British rule in Nigeria and particularly
the North.
To
progressives, ignorant of what the British did in Nigeria, I will be
looked on as totally reactionary, and my views will be seen as very
close to the Northern officials, whom I apparently criticise. I would
point out that Northern officials were rarely responsible for initiating
the policy they carried out. In some ways they had to make the best of a
bad job. As individuals they were often men of exceptional calibre, as
were Southern officials too.
17 June 1992
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866)
A
horrible crime has been committed, but the core of Dostoevsky's novel
is Raskolnikov's attempt to find a moral justification for his crime. He
was, he claimed, going to use the money for which he committed murder,
to become a benefactor of mankind.
The
Governor General of Nigeria, HM The Queen's personal representative,
confessed to me in 1960 that he was a criminal in that he was rigging
Nigeria's Independence elections. His point in seeing me was to offer,
firstly inducements to buy my silence and, secondly threats against my
well being and, indeed, survival if I refused to give him my word to
keep quiet. Why had the British Government decided on this criminal
folly? I put the question to Sir James Robertson that day in his private
office in Government House on the Marina, overlooking the lagoon.
"Because
it was necessary," he replied calmly. "Look, Smith," he added, losing
his composure momentarily. "You don't know all the facts..."
Nevertheless, when he later adopted a more threatening posture, he went
on to say that I already knew far too much!
The
political situation in Nigeria deteriorated rapidly after independence.
The British puppet regime, headed by Balewa, had waged war on its
opponents in the South. A military coup was acclaimed by the people, but
swiftly, following splits on tribal lines, a bloody civil war broke out
which cost the lives of two million young men, women and children.
Those
who do not believe that the British Government is capable of such
infamy may be tempted to vent their anger on the messenger. The truth is
that I opposed this criminality from the start, and paid a high price
for being loyal to our democracy and traditions and the rule of law. I
have researched deeply into the question of the motives for this treason
for thirty years, and if the reasons or excuses which I produce do not
seem adequate, I must stress that I would concur in that judgement.
These are the reasons or excuses I have discovered, and unless Lord
Grey, for example, who is still alive (1992) is prepared to enlighten us
further, we may never - as the criminals may have destroyed the records
- get a better explanation.
Raskolnikov's
motives are one by one proved to be false, as perhaps Robertson's too
will be one day. It is evident that there was deep mistrust of Dr
Azikiwe, the nationalist leader, by the British., In 1943 the British
Colonial Secretary described Zik as 'the biggest danger of the lot.'
Over the years Dr Zik had made some bloodcurdling speeches which had
thoroughly alarmed the British. In 1947, for example, he labelled
imperialists and their accomplices as international criminals like the
Nazis, and promised retribution when Nigeria became free. Nine years
later Zik was proved right, because it was during the first stage of the
independence elections that I got my orders from H.E. to interfere
massively in the election and began to appreciate how hollow were
British promises of an open, free, fair and honest election. The British
for their part would say that they had to get their blow in first,
knowing what Dr Zik had in mind.
It
is highly probable that the British were going to favour their allies
in the North anyway, and looked around for evidence of extremist threats
to justify what they were already planning to do. It might be said of
Dr Zik's extremist and sometimes inflammatory speeches that he had the
role of a dedicated nationalist to maintain. It was important to appear
to be a valiant fighter against the imperialist yoke. Personally, I
always regarded Zik's hyperbole as a joke. He was an armchair rebel and
had not the slightest intention of going to jail or sacrificing his very
comfortable life style for the cause.
The
British might argue that what they were doing was in Nigeria's best
interest. It is, however, more likely that, in subverting the democratic
process to place Nigeria in the hands of pro-British elements,
Whitehall was only seeking to protect its own interests. Do the British
care that this treachery caused the deaths of two million Nigerians? In
Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov suffers a crisis of conscience, but we
have seen no signs of contrition from the British Government.
Raskolnikov, whose name is derived from the Russian word for
'schismatic' is an extremely complicated character. So too were the
British, who were presenting themselves as thoroughly honest and decent
democrats, while flagrantly destroying Nigeria's first experiment in
democracy after years of autocratic colonial rule. According to the
election results as presented by the British, the majority of the
Nigerian people had voted, not for their nationalist leaders, but for
the feudal elite who had little interest in democracy or even the
welfare of the whole of the Nigerian nation.
When
the criminality has the approval of a British Prime Minister like
Macmillan or Eden, not even a police inspector like Porfiri Petrovich,
an astute psychologist, will be smart enough to bring the criminals to
book. The question of punishment, therefore, only arises when it is
decided how to punish those who tried to expose the criminality. The
criminals were awarded high honours for their treason, which resulted in
the deaths of two million people.
Dostoevsky's
Raskolnikov suffered a crisis of conscience because he murdered two
women. How conscience-stricken should one feel for two million?
In
truth, the more one kills the less one feels. Constant repetition
obliterates the moral sense, perhaps. And the architects of Nigeria's
bloody contest, where treachery in the name of unity had Nigerians
rejoicing in the deaths of Nigerians, witnessed no killings, so why
should they even regret their evil machinations? Could it be that
conscience stirs, not in direct, but inverse ratio to killing? Put that
way, one understands both Raskolnikov's unhappiness and Whitehall's
oblivion.
Bomber
Harris planned mass killing of German civilians without the slightest
concern for his victims, because he had killed individual Kurds, and
twos and threes and small family groups while strafing rebellious
tribesmen from the air in Iran. Our boys in blue, who carried out
Harris's orders, sometimes dropped their bombs in the sea, and most
often five miles from their intended targets. It was alleged that it was
to stop this cowardice or regard for women and children that cameras
were fitted to our bombers to record where the bombs were released - a
unique reversal of conventional morality. Those who declined to kill
were punished, as I was punished for refusing to betray the people of
Nigeria.
Dostoevsky's
debate as to whether or not the end justifies the means is now
something of a cliché, but it is as vitally important as ever.
Necessity makes us bend the rules, ignore the law, flout convention and
decency. The necessity is to ensure that things come out right. The
desire is to take the chance out of political events. It may not work,
millions may die cruelly, but at least we tried. When the perpetrators
of crime are those charged with preventing it, the title of our novel
should truly be 'Crime without Punishment', or 'Punishment of the
innocent is no crime and this is your very own criminal Government
telling you so.'
20 July 1992
Nigeria by Walter Schwarz and
Nigeria: Background to Nationalism by James S. Coleman
Schwarz
is a typical writer on Nigeria. He writes of Independence giving the
official story; he reads some academic accounts, chiefly Coleman, and a
recent history or two, usually Michael Crowder, and blends them into a
readable, informed and useful account. That is what journalists do. They
act as an intermediary between reality and the general public. When
journalists, as reporters, write from Damascus as the shells fall, we
can check their accounts against other journalists' copy. When
journalists write books they are not 'there' when they write of earlier
events, but may use their writing skills, unwittingly and no doubt
unintentionally, to such effect that we almost feel they were there.
Academics do this too, when they have got rid of student nuisances, and
settle down with a pot of coffee or a glass or two of sherry to their
'real' work.
I
wish the many journalists who wrote about Nigeria's independence and
what it meant for Africa had spoken to me. I would have told them it was
a total fake. They were conned into thinking that it was the British
Empire's finest hour. A great trust had been fulfilled, etc. etc. The
Governor General, who was not the blimp that they might have imagined,
but an Oxford-educated street fighter, experienced in covert
intelligence, anti-Communist operations, terrorism and pulling the wool
over inquisitive journalists' eyes, knew how to deal with Fleet Street.
Each important journalist was given a minder to make life pleasant and
protect our sensitive and pure-minded scribblers from bad influences,
i.e. people like me. It was also thought a good thing to keep them happy
and amused with the sorts of comforts which they would expect. When
journalists said that they would like to meet the locals, or get some
local colour, or get their feet wet, the administration knew exactly
what they wanted and laid it on - plenty of drink and black girls, or
even boys.
Well,
at least Schwarz had read Coleman whose work is excellent. I met many
young Americans in Lagos but have no memory of Coleman, although he was
apparently around the Labour Department where he met one of my
colleagues, Tokumboh. He also spoke to Bola Onitiri who lodged in my
home in London as a student while I was in Lagos. Bola returned to
Ibadan as a Professor of Economics with a very rosy view of the British.
They had indeed looked after him rather well, and I had done my bit
too, I suppose. Anyway, it was usual then for Nigerians to keep their
heads down and never ever to show signs of not loving the British and
all their works. From their point of view I was extremely dangerous, a
viewpoint shared incidentally by the Governor General, as he told me
himself.
So
Schwarz gets his stuff from Coleman who got it from Tokumboh and Bola
Onitiri who followed the Yoruba tradition of telling the white man what
he wanted to hear. This is a universal custom in the downtrodden (a
misnomer, really, speaking of the Yoruba. They are rich, conservative,
proud, even arrogant and patronising) when replying to questions from
the powerful. The British police do not have to beat people up to get
confessions. Most of the British lower classes know what is expected of
them and readily comply. (Care on the part of the police is necessary
because the confessions often go way over the top and have to be edited
down rather than exaggerated, and cut and edited to dovetail in with the
rest of the 'evidence'. Was it ever thus?)
The
story in Schwarz is the official story. It sounds truthful and
realistic and authentic. The central truth nevertheless is a lie. It is
understandable that this should happen because the British took very
great care to cover up their criminality. The British are not stupid.
They know the penalty for being found out. They had, moreover, a lot of
experience in the business.
Why
did I not seek out the reporters? I did. I told everyone I could, and
this got back to the Governor General, who was very angry. The actual
incident involved my being overheard over dinner at the Lagos Resthouse
restaurant talking to an official of the American Consulate and one of
my young American friends. The latter was one or more of the following.
He was a post-graduate student, a writer, a historian, a do-gooder,
someone vaguely attached to the US Consulate or a CIA man. There were
quite a few young Americans around like this. Coleman and Bretton were
not untypical.
The
administration was not making life easy for me. I now see why they kept
me on the move, or on the hop, around various offices in Lagos, under
threat and very much under a cloud. If I had got settled, I might have
had more time to seek out visiting academics etc. to tell my story to.
As it happened, no-one published my disclosure anyway, so maybe it would
not have made any difference. Just to make sure, my friends were
subjected to the most awful harassment. That explains why Michael
Crowder's version of Independence, which he wrote little about, is
deeply flawed, because it is a lie, pure and simple.
Did
Tokumboh and Onitiri know that the independence elections were rigged?
Of course. What Coleman would have done if they had told him the truth,
or if I had spoken to him (and it is possible that I did) I do not know.
Look at the curious case of Ken Post, who wrote the authoritative study
of the elections and gave the British a glowing testimonial, not just a
clean bill of health. Ken knew much more than he 'let on'. But having
done his duty, he was suitably rewarded by appointment to Ibadan
University. Had the British known that Ken was a Marxist who did not
believe a word of it, would it have made any difference? The fact is,
they got what they wanted.
Coleman
did not know? Did he not speak to his own Consular people? Did he not
speak to the State Department? Did he not speak to the CIA? Did he not
speak to Nigerian journalists? Did he not speak to any honest British
officials? It seems not.
Sources
are like a stream. Maybe it does not matter whether you drink from the
stream or not. Michael Crowder was a wonderful friend to have, and I
cherished and was for ever proud that I had known him. He liked me too.
Yet Michael gave me his word that he would blow the whistle on British
treachery one day, but he never did. Histories go on being written, the
stream of life flows on, and the old lies are still there in the bed of
the stream.
23 March 1992
'The Nigerian Federal Election of 1959' by K W J Post. The Last Great Act of Treason?
'The
last great act of the British Raj.' So wrote Ken Post, a young British
academic-to-be (if his researches were acceptable) of Nigeria's
Independence Elections of 1959. As the elections were rigged, Ken got it
wrong, but British colonial historians often quote his verdict with
approval, for he supported their prejudice that the British had behaved
honourably.
The
bulk of Nigeria's territory lay in the Northern Region and the British
backed up the Northerners' demand for 50% of the Federal parliamentary
seats by stating in the 1950's that the North did indeed have over 50%
of Nigeria's population. At that time I was in charge of statistics in
the Department of Labour's Headquarters in Lagos and I did not believe a
word of it. What were the true figures? I did not know, nor did, nor
does anybody else. An American, Professor Henry L. Bretton, believed the
elections to have been rigged. He wrote that "... the very construction
of the Northern Region, in the form in which it entered the era of
independence, represents one of the greatest acts of gerrymandering in
history."
I
have written to many of the academics involved, including Ken Post,
about Nigeria's independence elections, which were in two stages. None
reply to my letters. I wrote to tell them of how I had been ordered by
the Governor General to rig the elections. It was beyond question,
without a doubt, that in fact the last great act of the British Raj in
Africa's largest British territory, practically an empire of nations
rather than a colony, was treason. In 1956 a conference was held at
Nuffield College, Oxford, to consider how Nigeria's elections could be
studied. When I asked the Warden of Nuffield to see a report on this
conference, I was told it was not available, for quite spurious reasons.
Had a study been made of the election at Regional level in the North,
which preceded the 1959 election, it would have been quite clear that
the election was a total farce. It was decided that it was not possible
to study that election.
A
totally inexperienced young graduate student, Ken Post, is selected to
make a one-man study of one of the most complex and important general
elections to be held in Africa. The African giant, Nigeria, is the most
populous country on the continent. Its sheer physical size and ethnic
diversity is truly incredible. On election day, where would Mr Post
position himself? He could as easily have stayed in London and read the
Nigerian newspapers and British official reports. And as all newspapers
in the major part of the territory were British-controlled - a licence
was required from the British to start a newspaper - his information,
his primary sources were British in origin, not Nigerian. However, Mr
Post could speak to the voters and write to them? Sadly, the voters were
mostly illiterate and did not speak English anyway. It seems Mr Post
spoke no African languages and employed no interpreters.
Yet
Mr Post produced a detailed, fact-filled, fat volume which appears
quite intimidating, and reached very clear and decisive conclusions.
British public relations had transformed a poor, squalid, backward
colony into a beacon of democracy, a model democracy, the twelfth
largest democracy in the world. And yet in six years the window dressing
had slipped to reveal near total anarchy, the destruction of the
parliamentary opposition, trumped-up treason trials, a totally corrupt
political elite, a military coup, the assassination of three Prime
Ministers, a bloody pogrom, one of the bloodiest civil wars in world
history and the total destruction of that democracy, hailed by Mr Post
and given his imprimatur of being fair, decent and honest.
One
in five Africans is a Nigerian. The most important black African State
has been described as the African Giant, the Brazil of Africa, and the
Texas of Africa. In area it covers 923,768 square kilometres (356,669
square miles) and is four times the size of the United Kingdom. From
Badagri to Lake Chad is about as far as New York to Chicago.
Communications in Nigeria were primitive if not non-existent. If Mr Post
visited a town, it would be a different world from the surrounding
area, which it might be impossible to reach.
Of
course, Mr Post knew that this was a British election. British
officials were in control of the electoral machinery. It would indeed
have been very surprising if Mr Post had returned to his supervisors,
his professors at London and Oxford, and announced that it was all a
great fix. Would his book have been published? Did the award of a
doctorate depend on this work? Would he have been appointed by the
British to the post of Lecturer in Government at Nigeria's prestigious
but sole University, had he discovered and published the truth? What did
the roll call of distinguished professors of presumed great integrity
intend by this unlikely of all academic, but also of incredible
politically explosive potential, projects?
Presumably
they knew that Nigeria's terrain is extremely varied, ranging as it
does from thick coastal mangrove swamps and rain forests to dry savannah
regions in the extreme North. Eminent geographers claim that there are
434 ethnic groups in Nigeria speaking 395 mutually unintelligible
languages. The major groups are the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba and the
Ibo, and some ten groups account for some eighty per cent of the
population. Remarkably, nearly 50% of the population may be under the
age of fifteen. (Remember that all British, Nigerian, official and other
figures are largely guesswork. I did my share of guessing when
compiling those official reports! As the official who planned and
drafted Nigeria's major Act of Parliament in the welfare area, the
Nigerian Factories Act, and planned and pioneered the prestigious
National Provident Fund, I needed reliable figures if anybody did!)
Mr
Post had an impossible task. I do not question his integrity. In fact,
he compiled a comprehensive, detailed, exhausting and voluminous work.
If I question its accuracy, value or integrity, it is because it is
almost totally dependent on tainted and very suspect British official
sources which I had conclusive evidence were corrupt. When I was invited
to a meeting with HE the Governor General, Sir James Robertson, to
discuss all this at Government House in 1960, his personal assistant,
the beautifully mannered and charming John Bongard told me not to
mention unsavoury matters.
"You mean the election rigging?" I asked.
"No. He wants to talk about the election rigging, but don't mention buggering black boys," said Bongard.
When I asked the Governor General why he had rigged the Independence Elections, he replied quietly, "Because it was necessary."
Livy
said, 'Treachery, though covered up, always comes out in the end.'
'Deeply concealed acts of treachery,' said Cicero, 'are often disguised
with the pretence of duty or necessity.'
Carefully
read, Mr Post occasionally indicates reservations to his general
thesis, but he carefully skirts the rocks that would sink his vessel.
Quite simply, the fact that the British-controlled NPC exercised
totalitarian power over two-thirds of Nigerian territory made the
election results a nonsense. There had been a secret agreement inflicted
on the Southern leaders, binding them not to campaign in the North.
What sort of election was this where the pro-British party, which was
hardly recognisable as a normal political party, was guaranteed success?
'And
so in 1960 Nigeria's leaders (with, be it noted, the enthusiastic
mandate of an exemplarily administered general election behind them)
moved into sovereignty...' I was a returning officer in Lagos where the
pretence and reality almost met. However, through my network of official
contacts throughout the country, I heard of British officials and their
agents lining up every available voter to vote for pro-British
candidates. Mr Post got it wrong. This was the greatest act of
sophisticated gerrymandering and skulduggery of any election in the
so-called free world (in modern history). Two distinguished historians,
both friends of mine, were blackmailed into silence because they knew
this truth.
If
Nigerians after 1960 (although British officials were still in place
over large areas) rigged elections shamelessly, they had learned from
experts. Let us consider how the British ran an election in Prime
Minister Balewa's constituency in 1964. In the general election that
year an 'affidavit described how three abortive attempts had been made
to nominate a candidate in the Prime Minister Balewa's constituency. At
the first attempt, the nominators were arrested; the second time they
were carried away by thugs; on the third occasion they were kidnapped
and held until the lists closed.' In sixty one constituencies in the
North, NPC candidates were returned unopposed. It seems the nominations
of the opposition candidates somehow were overlooked. (Martin Meredith.
'The First Dance of Freedom.' Abacus. 1985. P. 179). As the British were
still running the administration in Northern Nigeria, one can see why
Balewa was so grateful to them.
Post's
Eurocentrism and Britishness is evident throughout his study. "Nigeria
still has the test of running a Federal election without the assistance
of a largely expatriate administration." In fact the staff who ran the
1959 election were almost totally Nigerian. Should they not be credited
with running an honest election too? Is Post suggesting that the
presence of one Britisher produced an honest election? That, without
that one Britisher, the staff at each polling station were probably
corrupt? This maligns the whole Nigerian nation and is quite monstrous.
To one like myself who had been intimately connected with British
chicanery in these elections, it is absolutely infuriating to find
Post's flawed reporting passed off as objective evidence of British fair
play.
If
the relative honesty of British and African peoples is to be put in the
scales in a Nigerian context, is the integrity of the people who
conquered by force of arms outside the rule of law to be valued higher
than the innocent victims of this conquest? If Mr Post's innocence leads
him to believe that the British were impartial in a contest between the
pro-British North and the nationalist South, his study is undermined.
The British handed power to the North at Independence, not because of an
election result, but because it was the only condition on which power
would be granted in 1959. In fact the election was totally rigged. With
the evidence of interference known to me, no-one would accept that the
British behaved honestly in the 1959 elections. If Nigerian-run
elections post 1959 were corrupt, the Nigerians lacked the expertise to
pass them off as honest. The British had that expertise and successfully
pulled the wool over the young and inexperienced Mr Post's eyes in
1959.
The
1959 elections were orderly, efficient and largely peaceful on polling
day. The British arrangements went smoothly. It is these attributes that
Mr Post confuses with fairness and honesty. In truth he was watching
the Africans exclusively. His verdict exonerates those he observed. This
was one of the greatest confidence tricks perpetrated by a colonial
power in Africa on a subject people. Mr Post was selected by the crooked
British to see if one of the African parties was interfering with the
election. Had he examined the machinations of the British in the way
they set up the contest, he would have been compelled to cry fraud! By
and large the verdict of the election had been delivered before polling
day. Mr Post had no authority as an observer to state as he does, for
example on page 345, that polling in the 311 constituencies and 25,000
polling stations went off with remarkable smoothness. This is a measure
of his inability to appreciate what he was really doing. And even had
there been 25,000 impartial Mr Posts to warrant such a sweeping
statement, it would have proved little. People who rig elections are
crooks but not necessarily stupid. They do not do business in the open,
but in private, as one would expect.
As
Post reminds us, the registration and poll were voluntary. Allegations
that the British in the major part of the country, the North, which
covered at least two thirds of Nigerian territory, marshalled every
adult male who could walk through the registration and polling booths,
apparently escaped Post's attention. He expresses no surprise that the
politically inexperienced and apathetic peasants in remote rural areas
with few if any attributes of civilisation - tarred roads, clean water,
schools or medical provision - produced a percentage poll of 89.2.
Knowing British chicanery, Mr Post was right not to be surprised. From
reports I received from contacts throughout the country, I was not
surprised either. The lower figures of 74% in the East and 71% in the
West are acceptable as a reflection of the higher literacy and political
awareness in the coastal regions and were certainly due to truly
voluntary registration and voting. The Southern figures were comparable
(if somewhat lower) with voting figures in British general elections, as
Post notes. In the North, incredibly, albeit with British assistance,
the percentage poll was 10.5% higher than in the British General
Election of the same year! Even Mr Post acknowledges that the British in
the North lent a hand to get Northerners to register. Yet he draws back
from the realisation that the British would complete the job and
marshal largely illiterate peasants through the same booth to vote for
their pro-British masters. Why bother to tackle the enormous job of
registration if the voters were not going to turn up to vote? And as
Post records on page 205, it appeared that almost the entire eligible
male population was registered in a majority of Northern constituencies,
'voluntarily'. Presumably if the British had 'helped', registration
would have been 200%.
To
recap: In addition to the illegal gerrymandering, that I witnessed, by
my British colleagues which would have, if known, rendered the election
results null and void, the British had given the pro-British North 50%
of the seats. They had forced the Southern nationalists to keep out of
the North. 'Voluntary registration' had achieved near total figures in
the North and voting percentages were also incredibly high. In these
British-arranged circumstances a Northern (and British) win was an
absolute certainty. Any informed person betting on a Southern win
against these odds would have been declared insane. And did those who
registered know what they were doing so voluntarily? Post adds a
footnote to page 205 to suggest whether they were really aware of what
was happening was an entirely different matter. A knowing Post gives us
here a cynical smile. Post does not really believe they registered of
their own volition. If they had, we would have to assume that they knew
what they were doing. Post thinks that preposterous, as it probably
would appear to most people. And here Post gets himself into a logical
bind. He cannot bring himself to admit the truth. Yes, they did not need
to know what they were doing, because they were not registering of
their own volition. Mr Post, by his own admission in that footnote,
gives the game away. Just another British fix.
Another
astonishing fact was that the Northern Emir-controlled Government
party, the NPC, did not even need to fight its opponents in the West and
East. They could sit back and let the Southerners fight each other. The
NPC contested only one seat in the West and none at all in the East.
The NPC was indeed an unusual political party. The truth is that it was
not a proper political party at all, but a regime devised to perpetuate
the wishes of the British, both before and after the Independence
elections. No wonder Post remarks on page 240 that the outsider
experienced difficulty in penetrating the inner workings of the NPC.
In
1956 the present writer was ordered by the Governor General to take all
Department of Labour staff and vehicles to campaign in Warri for the
chief stooge of the British in the South, Festus (Festering) Samuel
Okotie Eboh, the most corrupt and probably therefore the politician most
favoured by the British in the South. I refused to take part in this
criminality as already stated. Now in stage two of the Independence
elections we had the NPC sending a team headed by a Federal Minister to
Warri to campaign for the leader of a supposed opponent! The truth of
course is that Okotie Eboh was the politician charged by the British to
tie the NPC and NCNC together so that a pro-British alliance would rule
Nigeria after Independence. Dr Azikiwe, who had been blackmailed by the
British to ally himself with an implacable enemy, dutifully visited the
Northern leaders in May 1958 to cement the deal, which had been set up
even earlier in 1956 at the instigation of the British.
Okotie
Eboh was the most important politician for the British. This is why
such extraordinary measures had to be taken to make sure he won. I knew
this in 1956, which is why the Governor General warned me that I knew
far too much. If I revealed what I knew, he said that means would be
found to silence me. The British could always deliver election results
to please their friends, even when one British official broke ranks.
There was one exception and it illustrates how grotesque Post's
conclusions were about the Independence elections.
On
7 November, shortly before the general election, a plebiscite was held
in the Trust Territory of the Northern Cameroons, organised by the same
British officials whose behaviour we have been discussing. The Northern
Cameroons ran alongside the Northern Region and the NPC expected the
British to deliver the goods as usual. But the British failed; the
Northern Cameroons did not vote to become an integral part of Northern
Nigeria. The NPC leaders were furious. It could only be that the British
were delivering the goods elsewhere. Suddenly it was quite clear. The
British wanted the Northern Cameroons so that they could build a
military base. Wrong, said the British. It had to be pointed out to the
Sardauna of Sokoto, the feudal and totally undemocratic leader of the
North, that, although 'our people' had run the elections, the suspicious
United Nations had insisted on sending UN officials to supervise the
elections.
However,
the British do not give up so easily. In the 1959 vote there had been
70,401 against 42,979 to postpone a decision to join Northern Nigeria.
In 1961 those who did not want to join the North had increased from
70,401 to 97,659, but those who wanted to join the North increased from
42,979 to an astonishing 146,296, a more than threefold increase. This
remarkable turnaround could not possibly be due to the presence of one
very experienced Northern hand, Mr D.J.M. Muffett who was a close friend
of the Sardauna? Mr Muffett had been the Chief Electoral Officer for
Northern Nigeria during the 1959 federal election and his robust
approach to registration had produced figures the Soviets would have
admired. Now, to resolve an intractable problem, the Sardauna appointed
Mr Muffett as Resident General in the Northern Cameroons and the results
were as gratifying to the Sardauna as the landslide win for the North
had been in the 1959 General Election. Mr Muffett had been resourceful,
enterprising, inventive, daring. He attacked problems head on. What
would the Sardauna have done without such brave captains?
Post
makes no reference to the celebrated presence of the CIA and its role
in the Independence elections. He does mention that Patrick Dolan's
public relations firm was working for the Action Group Government of the
West. The informed would know that Dolan was a close friend of Wild
Bill Donovan, chief of the CIA. Dolan was a spy and war hero known for
mission impossible tasks against the Nazis. Post did not mention this,
presumably because it might have drawn attention to the fact that the
whole of the SIS, MI5 and Nigerian special branch and related agencies
were deployed during the Independence elections to make sure that 'our
boys' won.
Francis
Nwokedi, whom the British had chosen to have the key post in Nigeria
after Independence, head of the Foreign Service, was my friend. It was
an uneasy friendship and it existed and survived, not in spite of, but
because I criticised Francis and stood up to him. He despised crawlers.
He knew I was like his wife Betty, which is what she told him. I thought
he could have been bigger than he was. I knew he had played along with
the British, but this was a ploy - or was it? Anyway, he was also a
close friend of Dr Zik, but the British did not know that. Not that it
mattered after 1956 because Zik had been broken at last. He was now a
burnt-out case, and could be relied on to be a ceremonial President with
no power at all after the election.
As
I have remarked, the Governor General said that I knew far too much,
and he would know. I have indicated how I knew so much. It should be
remembered that I was part of the British establishment. The Labour
Department expatriate staff made no claim to be very cerebral. (The
African staff were, however, quite brilliant). I made friends in other
departments including one that will not surprise the astute reader of
what has gone before. One informant was in charge of
counter-intelligence. Another tapped all leading politicians' 'phones.
As the Governor General rightly said, "I knew too much." This rigged
election put into office a gang of crooks who for six years ransacked
this great giant, this great empire of a nation, a commonwealth in
itself. 'Nigerians' are so diverse, so exuberant, and so full of
excitement and laughter... When the military rose against these crooks, a
civil war started and one thousand days later up to two million young
Nigerians were dead. This was treason to our democracy.
I
have written this election study as a duty, a debt, that I owe to a
dear friend now dead. Philip Williams, the biographer of Hugh Gaitskell,
pioneered the study of elections at Oxford. One of his students once
interrupted us at tea at Trinity. He was to be Dr David Butler. David
was sent away because at that time Phil, who was a don at Trinity where
he had sumptuous rooms, and I were being served tea and toasted crumpets
from a silver tray by a uniformed butler. As Labour people, neither
Phil nor I saw anything amiss in this. We believed that the workers
deserved the best. After tea Phil would unroll great charts and we would
explore the mystery of some general election.
"How do you do it, Phil!" I once exclaimed.
"I'll
tell you a secret, Harold," Phil said very seriously. "You get the
results, you get all the information you can, you take a dozen pencils
and note pads and you knock yourself out for weeks analysing it all!"
In
1957 I told Phil how we had rigged the elections in the first stage
Regional (State) level of the independence elections. I had resigned
from the Colonial Service and taken a job as Personnel Officer at the
Esso Fawley Refinery. We started a second baby; we had a house, a car, a
dog and a cat as well as a well-paid job. However, I knew too much, and
the British Government took my job, my car, my home, my dog and cat (I
still grieve for them) and forced me to return to Nigeria. If you are
surprised, I must tell you that the SIS has unlimited power. Anyone who
stumbles on secret operations is liable to be silenced. You are a
non-person. You have no rights. You cease to exist. That is exactly what
the head of the Colonial Service told Sir Julian Amery, the Government
Minister for the Colonies. He told Amery I did not exist. I had never
been in Government service; I had never served in Africa.
In
1960 I fled from Lagos and reported to Phil at his home in Chorleywood
on the 1959 election and how we had rigged that one. The above report is
the study Philip might have made - but so much more ably - had he not
been blackmailed into silence because of me. (As was another historian
friend in Lagos, Michael Crowder.) Margery Perham, the doyenne of Oxford
Africanists, put pressure on Phil. She was acting for her friend, Sir
James Robertson, the Governor General. There is a four-letter word for
Perham and it is not one to be used lightly, and it is not lady. She
made an honourable man suffer as her dishonourable friends made millions
of young Africans suffer even more.
Ken
Post worked incredibly hard to produce this book on Nigeria's
Independence election. If I cannot accept its conclusions, and I wonder
if they were dictated, I can acknowledge a magnificent if flawed work,
which my dear friend Phil Williams would have thoroughly enjoyed. The
book is packed full of brilliant description, facts and analysis, and is
truly the creation of a first-class scholar. I am told that Ken now has
serious reservations and takes a less sanguine view of what he so
brilliantly studied. If I appear to have been over critical in pursuit
of what I know because of secret information not available to Ken, I
hope he will appreciate the necessity that was dictated by the tragic
consequences of this despicable treachery by the British.
Another
American Professor Schwarz also believed Mr Post may have been too
sanguine in his conclusion about the fairness of the elections.
Certainly one of Nigeria's great nationalist leaders totally rejected Mr
Post's conclusions. When Chief Awolowo found himself charged with
treason by a Government fraudulently elected, the prosecution based its
case on the thesis that he had turned to insurrection having lost faith
in the ballot box as a result of his experiences in the North in the
1959 Independence election. Did Balewa think up that masterpiece of
sophistry all by himself?
The
Russians were always damned because in their kind of elections the
Government or official candidates always won with thumping majorities.
In some of the roughest and undeveloped terrain in Africa, Professor
Post records registration and voting figures which can only be compared
with the USSR. Even with Nkrumah on the rampage, Ghana only came up with
voting figures between 20 and 30%. Nigerian figures of 90% in the North
simply demonstrate British zeal going overboard when trying to do a
chum a good turn. Remember that few British colonial civil servants had
experience of elections either. If only the Britishers' enthusiasm had
stretched to providing tarred roads, clean water, schools, hospitals,
and other basic services for their Northern friends, but the Emirs did
not want them.
As
Sir Alan Burns proudly pointed out, '...no attempt was made to force
upon Nigeria all of the doubtful advantages of modern civilisation.'
Evidently most of the British in the Burns' mould regarded the North as
some kind of private zoo or reservation. In the capital, Lagos, with
relatively civilised facilities, the percentage poll was 76.2%, which is
still highly creditable. The North produced a percentage poll of 89.2%.
The
election studies in Nigeria were modelled on studies of British
elections since 1945, made under the auspices of Nuffield College,
Oxford. The aim was to preserve a careful, contemporary record of events
important in history. The first stages of the Independence elections
took place in 1956 at Regional (State) level. Strangely, the one
election in the North which scholars would have been most keen to know
about, was not able to be studied. These were the first direct elections
to the Northern House of Assembly. The reason was, of course, that they
were rigged. Somehow this did not seem to fit in with '...a sentiment
among Europeans that if they are to go it must be with honour, honour
defined by European standards (sic) of good government and democracy.'
This was the clarion call by Professors Mackenzie and Robinson who, with
Miss Perham, the guru of all matters colonial, headed the colonial
studies scene at Nuffield and Oxford.
It
was really the British colonial officials in the North who were
determined that it was their Southern counterparts - the mission boy
nigger lovers - who would be powerless. Did Dr Azikiwe and Awolowo
really believe that the British were going to hand over the richest
black colony in Africa to nationalists who loathed the British? (Ghana
was small beer and of little concern.) The means to this end was the
census and it was said that British officials in the early 1950's had
wanted to bolster the North, and that this had influenced their
counting.
The
only people who would be in a position to question Ken Post's
endorsement of the Independence elections as fair would be fellow
academics. This is why two historians, one an election specialist, later
to be eminent, had to be blackmailed into silence. Michael Crowder and
Philip Williams were my friends. If I could not be blackmailed because
my record was clean and I was a respectably married heterosexual,
pressure could be applied through my friends who were more vulnerable.
Michael was on the spot in Lagos and very promiscuous, and Sir James
Robertson personally threatened him with prosecution if his friend Smith
did not keep his mouth shut!
The
name of the game in handing over Nigeria to the pro-British North was
to make safe a vulnerable target for Soviet penetration. An oppressed
colony was assumed to be an obvious target for Soviet imperialism. A
newly 'independent' nation safely inside the Commonwealth with moderate
and responsible, i.e. pro-British leaders, would expand the free world.
Nothing need change in the economic relationship. There would be no
savings as the colonies paid their own expenses. The prisoner paid for
his own handcuffs even if they looked like a silken cord. A handful of
doctorates and knighthoods cost nothing. Years of planning and grooming
and fine tuning to be thrown away so Awo and Zik could rule? The idea
was preposterous. The independence arrangement, strategy, plan, was
executed perfectly. It was a well-oiled machine. It was pure theatre and
at the end of the play the performers applauded the audience. The
players thought the play was over - it had only just begun.
Britain
gave Nigeria to Balewa on a plate because independence was not granted
at the point of the terrorist's gun. Had it been so, Awo or Zik might
have won the prize. If Awo and Zik had, paradoxically, delayed the
transition, they could probably have dictated their own terms. Awo and
Zik thought they could deal with the British stooges from the North most
easily when the British left, but they were wrong. Both were easily
outmanoeuvred by the simple, but ruthless, Balewa and his British
advisors. For Awo and Zik, in truth, Independence had come too fast. Our
Northern puppets, who had never wanted independence, had to be rushed
into it. That was only Act One, although some thought Independence was
the name of and the whole of the play. Act Two was the destruction of
Awo and Act Three the elimination of Zik.
I
do not say that all the events in Nigeria between 1950 and 1970 were
planned by or dictated by the British, but some very treacherous covert
action did take place. If the central aim - to keep power in pro-British
hands - is appreciated, then much falls into place. Zik thought he was
the ace, but he was not. Awo was the ace. Zik was the joker in the pack.
Zik was easily railroaded into the presidential siding and given a set
of uniforms to play with like a black Barbie doll, while Awo was beaten
up. How the British High Commission rejoiced when Awo got ten years and
Enahoro fifteen years in jail. Revenge was sweet!
The
Coker Commission helped to prove that even if one doubted the charge of
treason, Awo had undoubtedly diverted millions of public funds into his
party machine. However, this had been known to British intelligence for
years. Had they nipped this in the bud, they could not have used it to
jail Awo at their convenience. I know this to be true because the Senior
Resident in the West, a fellow Magdalensis named Smith, told me he had
all this stuff in his safe in 1960, and it had been there for some time.
Post was told all this too, as can be seen from his book. Polling day
was on 12 October 1959. Post dates his Preface 31 August 1961. The
following year the Coker Commission was set up to - surprise, surprise! -
discover what had been known all the time and help put Awo out of
politics. One major threat to British control of Nigeria had been
removed.
Awo
may have thought that diverting funds to further the pursuit of freedom
from the colonial yoke was morally justified. The British were not the
sort of colonial street fighters who let moral considerations deter them
from going for the jugular. Awo went to jail, not because he was
charged with being a criminal - that was irrelevant - but because he
trusted the British to be moral. After all, they could have made
provision for political party financing from public funds. They could
also have acted quickly to stop the offence. Of course, that would have
seemed hypocritical when the British were financing the NPC - the party
which drew on the major geographical area and major part of Nigeria's
population - from public funds. The British bided their time like Fabius
(who gave his name to the Fabian Society), and like Fabius, when they
struck, they struck hard.
Mr
Post's study is replete with voting and registration figures, all of
which have passed through British hands. As such they are tainted, very
suspect and quite unacceptable. Sir James Robertson in 1960 not only
accepted that the elections were rigged, he was anxious to convince me
that they were, in order to underline the trouble I was in. He
emphasised that the orders had come from him and that hundreds of senior
officers had been involved in this covert operation. He stressed that I
was the only one to object.
I
already knew that the 1956 State (first stage) Elections had been
hopelessly compromised. This was how my troubles had started when Sir
James sent me personal orders to take all Labour Headquarters staff and
vehicles to assist the NCNC campaign against the Action Group. This was
the Minister of Labour's constituency although he himself was not
standing. The order came through Francis Nwokedi who was, like Okotie
Eboh, a close friend of Dr Zik. I was friendly with Nwokedi, who was to
head the Foreign Service after Independence; serve with Ironsi in the
Congo; be Ironsi's close colleague after the military coup; be
responsible for the Nwokedi report which proposed scrapping the
Federation and precipitated the Northern pogrom; and finally became a
Biafran leader, gun runner and hawk.
Also
in 1956 the Governor General ordered my boss Charles Bunker to
pressurise British and other firms to provide large sums of money, cars
and petrol to Okotie Eboh who was the National Treasurer of the NCNC. It
was this vast financial power which made it possible for Okotie Eboh to
become the major force in the NCNC, drive Dr Zik into a back seat and
seal an alliance, as the British demanded, with the NPC.
With
all this evidence and much more, the elections were clearly a total
fraud and the British role had been entirely criminal. It is for this
reason that there is really no point in examining Mr Post's numbers as
if they were factual. This criminality also reinforced commonly
expressed doubts about the integrity of the Northern census returns,
which had been designed to back up a demand that the North be given 50%
of the parliamentary seats.
If
all British chicanery were planned to give Nigeria unity and stability,
the strategy was badly misconceived and totally flawed. British
gerrymandering could put the NPC in power in 1959 but could the NPC
retain power and, worse still, win an honest election without the
British presence? The answer was evidently in the negative. Thus was
born, probably at the instigation of the British and with the connivance
of the remaining, mainly Northern, British administrators and the huge
British High Commission staff, the strategy to de-stabilise and destroy
the parliamentary opposition so ably and democratically exercised by
Chief Awolowo. This and the gross corruption of Britain's puppets
inevitably led to the military intervention that ended in a bloody civil
war in which up to two million innocent young people died.
I
do not know the true Northern census figures. Neither do I know the
true election returns for the 1956 and 1959 elections. I do know that
these elections were totally rigged and that the British, not the
Nigerians, engaged in wholly reprehensible, criminal behaviour. If the
Nigerian politicians did engage in corrupt electoral practices post
1960, they had been taught by their masters in 1956 and 1959.
There
was nothing personal in the vindictiveness shown to Awo and Zik by the
British. The nationalist leaders were not rotters; they were
intellectuals who were rather unsociable and aloof, and did not suck up
to the British, unlike the Northern creeps. Awolowo and Enahoro were men
of considerable intellect and principle, but they would tangle with the
British. Not too long after they were condemned as treasonable,
criminal and evil, they were reinstated and back in harness at a Federal
level with the full backing of the British and their Northern dupes,
for it was Zik's turn to be worked over and taught a lesson. In fact,
the wily Zik, when he saw defeat looming in the civil war, ratted on his
party and his people and was allowed to join the winning side. Of
course, it is wrong to talk of anyone winning in a barbaric war, which
cost the lives of a generation of young people. Neither the Nigerians
nor the Biafrans won this bloody contest. Surely there were only losers?
Not quite. It is true that the Nigerian people lost, but it was the
British who won for their allies in the North ruled as always and even
survived when split up into many states, because none of these states
crossed the frontier between North and South. The integrity of the North
survived even the fragmentation intended by the creation of many new
States.
The
game plan was to keep Nigeria in Britain's pocket and in the free
world. Both of these aims have been achieved by British foreign policy
towards Nigeria during the thirty years since the nominal Independence.
The necessary arrangement between colonial power and the Nigerian
'successor elite' (W.H. Morris-Jones) even outlasted the collapse of the
USSR and its allies, and the end of the cold war. The operation was a
great success. Tough that two million Nigerian young people had to be
killed to protect British interests in the cold war, but as the British
would say, omelettes cannot be made without breaking eggs.
I should very much like to have Professor Post's answers to the following questions: -
- Does he stand by his assessment of the election?
- What were his qualifications to make the study?
- Who suggested he make it? (He clearly obtained co-operation from the colonial regime). Did this affect his conclusions?
- Where did he spend polling day?
- Did he feel competent to make this colossal study without any assistance?
- Did he obtain a higher degree for this study? Is the book identical with his thesis? Can I obtain a copy of his thesis?
- Did the academics, whom he acknowledges, suggest changes in his book?
- Was he under any pressure to give the election a clean bill of health?
- What constraints were there on his freedom to report truthfully?
- I
myself spent polling day in charge of a polling station in Lagos. How
would he feel if, based on that experience, I made generalisations and
drew conclusions about the election throughout this vast nation?
- Did he employ any interpreters or conduct any interviews during the campaign?
- Apart from election returns, which came from colonial government, what were his sources?
- The
North, it was claimed, covered the major part of Nigeria's territory
and population. The only newspapers in the North were
Government-controlled. As those papers were under the control of the
Colonial Government, as was the radio in the North, what were his
sources other than these papers, radio, and colonial government election
returns?
- Where did he go during his study? What was his mileage? Did he travel only by car?
- Would his study not have had more claim to impartiality, if made by a non British academic?
- When
he made this study, how old was he? How had he voted, if ever, in
British elections? What were his political party affiliations?
- Did he make any further election studies?
- What are his views on the election now?
9 February 1992
! ('The Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends
And the World They Made' by Simon Ball)
Poor Bloody Africa: The British
Destruction of African Democracy
Macmillan's Machiavellian Machinations
'It
is out of season to question at this time of day, the original policy
of conferring on every colony of the British Empire a mimic
representation of the British Constitution. But if the creature so
endowed has sometimes forgotten its real significance and under the
fancied importance of speakers and maces, and all the paraphernalia and
ceremonies of the imperial legislature, has dared to defy the mother
country, she has to thank herself for the folly of conferring such
privileges on a condition of society that has no earthly claim to so
exalted a position. A fundamental principle appears to have been
forgotten or overlooked in our system of colonial policy - that of
colonial dependence. To give to a colony the forms of independence is a
mockery; she would not be a colony for a single hour if she could
maintain an independent station.
Three
British colonial officers protested at the British rigging of Nigeria's
Independence Elections. (Two gave in to pressure. It was decided that I
was the ringleader and should be punished accordingly. In fact, Charles
Bunker was my senior officer.)
The
remarkable way in which I was treated - vilification; vindication;
commendation; threats; vindication; hostility; offer of a knighthood
(with permanent exile); vindication; denigration - puzzled me until I
read every book on Macmillan, his diaries, biographies, etc. Only then
did I realise I had been treated in accord with Macmillan's personal
philosophy. However, as Macmillan had by this time killed three million
innocent Africans with Labour's help, I could hardly feel badly done to.
I was very lucky to be alive. Had I come near success as a
whistle-blower, I would have been killed. This was no problem for MI5/6
who have many killers to hand. Actually I was a failed whistle-blower
because poisoned by Porton Down, which was the view of a Minister of
Defence who had reason to know!
For
twelve years I suffered the devastating effects of a poison, which
destroyed my gut and simulated tropical sprue, which is rarely found in
Africa. All this time Porton Down had the antidote. This was naturally
denied me. The chance survival was remarkable and only after many years
of medical research did I feel confident enough to re-commence my
whistle-blowing. By this time the British had created a wasteland in
Nigeria. This proud showcase of democracy had become a total basket
case, thanks to Macmillan's Machiavellian machinations.
Macmillan
evolved his Casablanca philosophy while resident Minister in North
Africa. The rest of Africa, particularly Nigeria, suffered from
Macmillan's criminal tactics in the 50's and 60's, and the documentary
evidence is beginning to emerge. Macmillan adored what he learned in
North Africa. He was exhilarated!
'The purely Balkan politics we have here are more to my liking,' he wrote. 'If you don't like a chap,
you don't deprive him of the whip or turn him out of the party. You just say he is a monarchist or
has plotted to kill Murphy' - Macmillan's American counterpart - 'and you shoot him off to prison
or a Saharan concentration camp. Then a week or two later, you let him out and make him Minister
for something or other. It's really very exhilarating.'
In
1960 Macmillan rigged Nigeria's Independence Elections and put Northern
stooges in power. He then jailed Opposition leaders. Chief Anthony
Enaharo got fifteen years on trumped-up treason charges! This was sheer
effrontery of Macmillan when he was the one who was destroying
democracy. Chief Enaharo is still alive, outraged and seeking justice.
Following a coup and a British counter-coup, he then released Chief
Enaharo and his colleague, Chief Awolowo, made them Ministers in the
military administration and with massive supplies of British arms
encouraged them to wage war on their fellow nationalists of the Ibo
nation in the East. This was passed off as a civil war in which three
million innocents died. It was a classic example of British perfidy and
followed exactly the tactic proclaimed by Macmillan a few years earlier
in North Africa. No doubt it was very, very exhilarating! And the
African victims of his treason to British parliamentary democracy? They
were not human beings. They were, in his words, 'only barbarians'.
My
own treatment as a whistle-blower was not much better. His son-in-law,
Julian Amery, through the Governor General, Sir James Robertson,
threatened my life should I succeed in alerting the British public. At
the very least, they promised, if I did not accept permanent exile to
the Far East, I would never work again. They kept that promise with the
help of successive British Governments. Mr Blair has done nothing to
help me, or to correct this massive betrayal of the African people. Yet
he is fully informed and went on to deceive the British people about
Iraq and, following in Macmillan's footsteps, waged an illegal war.
Mac,
SuperMac, devious? Devious is not the word. Insane is a better one.
Drunk with power? Hitler was insane? Mussolini was insane? Nasser was
insane? Eden was insane? Macmillan was insane? Is Blair, who lied to
Parliament, not insane?
Without oil, and without the profits from oil, neither the UK nor Western Europe can survive.
Harold Macmillan, 4 October 1956. The Macmillan Diaries.
At
the time Macmillan recorded this view, he was heavily engaged with
Suez. This glaring example of dirty work abroad was a total failure.
Undeterred, Macmillan re-read a life of Machiavelli, and turned his
attention to Nigeria and its newly discovered oil fields. On 21 July
1956 he had written, "The Government's position is very bad at present.
Nothing has gone well. In the Middle East we are still teased by Nasser
and Co; the Colonial Empire is breaking up; and many people view with
anxiety the attempt to produce Parliamentary Democracy in such places as
Nigeria..."
'Many
people' doubtless included the oil companies, and Tory and Labour
politicians. In fact, the first stage of the Independence Elections was
rigged in 1956, when I, with my colleague Charles Bunker, was ordered by
the Governor General to take a major role in the clandestine
arrangement. It was evident on the ground that planning had been in hand
for some time.
Although
of great international importance, not one civil servant blew the
whistle on the awful lies told by Government Ministers during the Suez
affair. This was a largely public event, and one of its major aims
(which was denied) was regime change. Blair, another lying Prime
Minister, was more successful in Iraq.
It
is clearly better to conduct dirty work abroad in secret. Macmillan
kept a close eye on the independence arrangements for Nigeria, where a
showpiece of democracy was to be cynically destroyed and a set of
corrupt stooges invested with power. I blew the whistle on that treason
in 1956 and Macmillan knew, through his son-in-law Julian Amery, the
measures taken to shut me up. Suez was illegal, Nigeria was illegal if
Suez was illegal. The British public still do not know of the treason
which killed three million in Nigeria, but Tony Blair knew!
It
seems that it was British parliamentary democracy that was being set
aside by Harold Macmillan. Our stooges, who did not want the British to
leave - the most backward and feudal we could find - had power thrust
upon them. Nobody believed the mass of the people who followed their
nationalist leaders could possibly have voted for those awful creatures
and, in fact, very few did, but who cared when the British were counting
the votes! Amazingly at the victory celebrations on Independence Day,
not a single nationalist leader was on the platform when the Union flag
was lowered.
Had
Macmillan feared the Nigeria people were not ready for independence, he
could easily have postponed it. After regime change in Persia and the
Suez adventure, one might have expected Macmillan to be cautious. It was
not to be. What is for sure is that it was not the welfare of the
Nigerian people that Macmillan had in mind in screwing up democracy in
Nigeria. There was also the small problem of consequences. What would
happen to our stooges at elections when the British were not there to
count the votes?
Clearly,
the opposition had to be smashed, and in no time the leaders of the
Action Group were framed on trumped-up treason charges. Would not this
increase the risk of a coup? Our stooges were gunned down in 1966, and
the Ibo were for a moment victorious. A British counter-coup restored
our boys in power and sadly involved a pogrom. The Ibo declared for
independence, and they were put down by the force of British arms.
Did Macmillan feel any regret? Why should he, when the Brits kept control of the oil fields? Only three
million died, and they were black, and a hagiographer of Balewa records
that only one person of note was killed. So that was all right!
Was
Macmillan an honourable gentleman? Or a cruel war criminal? Was he a
democrat? He was certainly not going to own up. Indeed he took extreme
measures to prevent the present writer telling the British people of his
exploits.
The
Brits had sold the Nigerians into slavery. Then they stole their
country. Then they stole their mineral resources. Then they killed them.
What next, one wonders? It would seem that Macmillan did not believe in
teaching by example.
Nigeria,
after decades of British misrule, is now a total basket-case. After so
many coups, assassinations and military dictatorships, it is totally
corrupt. However, the British are not blamed. The Nigerians must carry
the can. How could you expect such corrupt people to run a parliamentary
democracy!
The
truth is, of course, that democracy has never been tried in Nigeria.
Divide and rule wins again, and the British will write the history
books!
One paragraph from an article by Michael Meacher in the New Statesman of 18 October 2004 states:
"Between
1976 and 1991, Shell was responsible for 2,976 oil spills in Nigeria,
yet has largely refused to clean up properly or pay compensation. (This
despite Shell having admitted to making illegal payments to Nigerian
officials of £1.2bn in total.)"
The
Guardian of 30 October 2004 gives us an insight into how the West
encourages Nigerian corruption. Under the heading, 'US vice-president
mired in claims of bribery and corruption...' we have the following:
"
British authorities have opened a new front in the widening
investigation into allegations of bribery at Halliburton, the American
oil services business, while it was being run by the US vice-president,
Dick Cheney.
The
Guardian has learned that the Serious Fraud Office has joined the
international effort at the request of the US Department of Justice in
Washington. French and Nigerian officials are already involved in the
inquiry.
Halliburton
has become a political liability for the Bush administration as the US
prepares to vote in presidential elections next week. The company, one
of the chief government contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been
dogged by controversy, which includes claims of White House favouritism
in awarding the firm billions of dollars of contracts without being
forced to bid and Pentagon allegations that the firm has massively
overcharged for its work. It emerged late on Thursday that the FBI had
launched an inquiry into how Halliburton secured contracts in Iraq, so
far worth almost $9bn (£4.9bn).
The
Nigerian investigation centres on $180m in payments allegedly made by a
consortium led by Halliburton to secure the contract to build a natural
gas plant in Nigeria. The cash was allegedly channelled through a
US-owned oil engineering firm in London called MW Kellogg and was
handled by a company executive based in Berkshire. The funds were said
to have been paid into a Swiss bank by a British lawyer."
Harold
Macmillan and his influence by Machiavelli started something. He had no
love of Africa or Africans. He shared the racial prejudices of his
class and his time. A good man who failed to rise to the challenges of
his time. Of course, he had a dagger in his heart.
The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years 1950-1957
For
much of my life I have deeply respected Harold. Even now, when I have
reason to be very critical, those earlier sentiments push to the front.
He was to me a very liberal, one-nation Tory, who seemed to care for
working-class people. He was a literate person, and it is a joy to be
educated by him! I just wish I had access to the London Library to get
at those multi-volume biographies he so enjoyed.
Then
why am I angry with this war hero, this very decent man? I think he was
flawed. I blame the unfaithfulness of Dorothy for the dagger in his
heart. It was his duty to forgive her. He loved her. One so wants it to
be all right. Yet she wanted too much. Like Churchill, he settled for
what he got. Took it on the chin. Stiff upper lip. I want to scream,
"Bugger that for a lark! Break free!"
There
was regime change in Persia, viewed as a success, but which influenced
Nasser and young Egyptian nationalists. Then Suez, and secretly Nigeria,
which is how he came to destroy a showcase of democracy, kill three
million innocents, and ruin my life.
In
R W Johnson's review of Simon Ball's Book on 'The Guardsmen: About
Harold Macmillan and His Three Friends' (London Review of Books, October
2004), we see revealed a transformation of Macmillan following a near
encounter with death. A hero from the trenches of World War One, a
Balliol scholar with a first in Mods, Churchill's Minister in North
Africa in World War Two, Macmillan was a man of substance. This was pure
Casablanca. He thoroughly enjoyed the Balkan politics he experienced.
In later years getting out of Empire he used 'every unsavoury trick in
the book ('The Prince?) to cut corners.' He understood 'the urgent need
to leave the age of empire behind, whatever the costs.' He got away with
'lies, wiles and charm.' The Africans were 'vain and childish.' 'Power'
as Macmillan understood it, was not a matter of morality or immorality.
Morality did not come into it.
The
Governor General of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson, had met Macmillan
when he was on his way to South Africa to make his 'Wind of Change'
speech. In 1960 when I was in Government House in Lagos, Robertson was
telling me that he had rigged the Independence Elections to let me know
how much trouble I was in.
'Why?' I pleaded.
'Because it was necessary,' he replied. He then went on to threaten my life.
Ah,
necessity and Machiavelli, and oil! Without oil, without the profits
from oil, neither the UK nor Western Europe can survive. Of course, that
was before we discovered oil in the North Sea, and squandered it.
On
14 November 2003 the Guardian reported that Bush and Blair had decided
at the President's ranch in April 2002 to work together to leverage oil
resources in Nigeria and other areas of Africa to secure a guaranteed
supply of oil from new sources in Africa. Oil production was likely to
double. The Middle East was volatile and the USA and the UK have agreed a
set of co-ordinated measures 'to help achieve our objectives.'
In
other words, more of the same chicanery for Nigeria. If capitalism was
so successful, why was it necessary to resort to those vile
machinations? Except that stealing was more profitable than buying. Why
was honesty not an option? No lessons can be learned from this chicanery
until British historians stop acting as if they are on the MI6 payroll.
No
doubt Macmillan had his reasons for rigging Nigeria's Independence
Elections, but he was keen nobody should find out. Nigeria ended up a
basket-case like the rest of poor, bloody Africa, with more coups,
dictators, more suffering people, and all the time Macmillan kept his
dark secret, and the oil flowed as did the bribes. What did he make of
the pogrom in the North, I wonder. Of Biafra, of all those starving
children? This was also necessity? Harold, a cowardly child killer? A
war criminal? Afraid to come clean and admit what he did? I wrote to him
once and accused him. The letter is somewhere and I think he replied,
but I do not want to hate him, and I leave the letter lost from view.
I
also wrote to his son-in-law, Julian Amery, about the tragedy of his
brother John, who was a traitor and hanged. I felt his pain and did not
rebuke him for the pain he gave my wife and children. I was so anxious
that I almost thanked him for giving me a mock trial and vindicating me,
although I knew in my heart that this was a cruel display of
Machiavellian deception.
When
democrats are capable of such folly and cruelty, I despair. They were
proud of their families. They regarded themselves as honest and decent.
They went to church and were believers. So what went wrong? What was
missing?
A
small consolation for me is that Harold was very rude about the
Colonial Office. As it happens, Jack Straw has just sent me for £10 my
personal file, which is heavy with treachery, revenge and lies. These
people loathed me because I tried to blow the whistle on Harold, and
conspicuously failed. Harold's accomplices in Nigeria were all gunned
down, but I doubt he lost much sleep about their fate. Had I succeeded
in exposing this evil, perhaps they might have survived and enjoyed a
pleasant retirement like Harold's.
That
was not to be, for the corrupt English gentlemen in on this fix made it
clear to me that they would kill me first. I have only survived because
I am a failed whistle-blower. That is why Harold's diaries are such a
disturbing read for me.
Consequences: No Lessons Learnt
British
dirty work abroad is nothing new, and a leading exponent in the late
1950s and early 1960s was Julian Amery, Macmillan's son-in-law.
I
discussed this with him, and his major point was that each intervention
should be evaluated separately. My point is that no lessons seem to be
learnt. Also no heed was given to the consequences.
Regime
change in Persia was thought to be a great success. This encouraged
belligerence in Suez. However, the young Colonels in Egypt had drawn a
different lesson from our dirty work in Persia.
Suez
was a disaster with awful consequences for the Middle East. They have
clever people at the Foreign Office or traitors who recommend disastrous
policies.
The
election rigging in Nigeria must have been thought very clever and
successful. Actually no one was fooled, and a coup was discussed
everywhere. The bolshie Yoruba opposition had to be jailed as our
stooges could not face an honest election. Awolowo got ten years.
Enaharo got fifteen. Innocent politicians were incarcerated at the
behest of a British war criminal, Macmillan. The Zikist opposition had
been bought to collaborate with our stooges and for six years bided
their time. Then they struck. Our stooges were shot, i.e. they got their
just deserts. A pity the Colonial Office escaped justice!
A
counter coup involving a pogrom put our boys back in charge. We
released the bolshie Yorubas from prison and put them in charge of
waging war on the rebellious Ibos and Zikists. People on the British
payroll often turn out to be rebel leaders like Mossadeq in Persia,
Nkrumah in Ghana and Nwokedi in Nigeria.
What
is termed 'collateral damage' is due to lack of planning. In Nigeria
the war, wrongly seen as a civil war, took three million lives. It
should have been stopped, and a small force of British troops could have
done just that.
Will
we never learn? A policy that is ethical and honest is rarely
considered. Boy politicians like 'James Bond' dirty work against foreign
demon monsters. The real monsters are, of course, in Whitehall.
Empire State Building and the Twin Towers
Ill-treat
the natives, and they will retaliate. Practise dirty work abroad, and
you will soon practise it at home, e.g. I protest at our destroying
democracy in Nigeria, and my human rights are extinguished in the UK.
The major reason for not following the precepts of Machiavelli is that
your opponents, if you do, have a perfect excuse for playing the same
game, and you do not have control of the consequences.
Harold
Macmillan thoroughly enjoyed wartime dictatorial powers in North
Africa, and in peacetime enjoyed applying the same tactics in the rest
of Africa. We did not build a viable democratic state in Nigeria, the
better to go on the rampage there through our stooges. The consequences
are the destruction of the twin towers. Mass destruction, as with the
twin towers, cannot be justified, but retaliation can be understood,
even if condemned. If we do not learn why the 'terrorists' retaliated
and learn a lesson, the terrorism will continue.
Harold
Macmillan and Julian Amery enjoyed being unprincipled 'state'
terrorists. It was fun. Much more enjoyable than parliament and
democracy, for democracy is slow, grinding hard work. Did Tony Blair
enjoy hoodwinking Parliament and taking Britain into an illegal war? The
answer is 'Yes'. He thoroughly enjoyed his criminal activity. Once he
realised that the Brits had been doing this for decades, he did not
disapprove. He could not wait to join in the fun.
Is there a better way to run this country?
'All things bright and beautiful
War destroys them all.
All things bright and beautiful
Are not revered by all...'
Take
retaliation. A young Nigerian, on learning that Britain destroyed
democracy and killed three million of his people, might believe that
Britain was an unlawful society and wish to take revenge.
I
get pretty angry for being unlawfully punished; being denied the right
to work and feed my family; being branded a traitor; being, in effect,
outlawed, censured, ostracised; being exiled in my own home and country.
Nudge, nudge, everyone secretly approves of killing 'niggers' - even
three million. Too strong? Everyone is content to look away while we do
it? Nudge, nudge; know what I mean; wink, wink. Smith is a wrong 'un and
deserves what he gets. We cannot put him in court or he would spill the
beans. Nudge, nudge; wink, wink; know what I mean? And it is true that
nearly all MPs for half a century know exactly what nudge nudge, wink
wink means. I take care not to get bitter or violent, for there is
nothing the bad boys of MI5 would like more than to have some excuse for
incarcerating me. Even though, as a pacifist, I harbour dangerous
thoughts - not retaliation, but dreams of delayed justice, which are
pure fantasy.
If
that means that the whole of British society is an organised conspiracy
against truth, that is the way it seems sometimes, for many journalists
and editors are on the Government payroll.
That
leaves the common people, the real enemy of corrupt politicians. I like
to think they are fundamentally decent. We have to believe in
something.
Is
there a better way to run this country? Do we have to plead necessity,
like dependence on oil, as an excuse for criminal activity abroad? Do we
have to kill millions out of necessity?
I
do wish Government would speak to me., However, I am feared because
dangerous. I might reveal to the public the fact that our leaders
indulge in criminality. They love to demonise foreigners as James Bond
monsters who must be zapped or tricked.
Is
honesty the best policy? We could start being honest with ourselves and
facing up to what we do. Because we did not engage in Empire State
Building, we have enemies who destroyed a symbol of our way of life, the
Twin Towers. The Bush/Blair response drives a highway through our
liberties and freedoms and leads to Hitler and Stalin. There are
alternatives, which call for hard work, patience and perhaps discipline
and sacrifice. Punishing the Smiths will not make these problems go
away. I can only continue to write letters and hope to find a good apple
in the barrel. There are good politicians. We need some brave ones.
November 2004
Transition in Africa: Sir James Robertson (Confession of a Witness to the Death of the British Empire)
It
has been suggested that tribalism is the reason for the tragic history
of Nigeria since Independence in 1960. See Margery Perham's weasel words
in Sir James Robertson's 'Transition in Africa', an apology for
treachery and treason.
The
very occupation of a territory with politics banned must, I suppose,
bottle up tensions and suppress real or imagined discord. Meanwhile,
totally irrelevant issues are made meaningful. What is real to the
occupying power, like a war, affects the Colony because the local
administration wills it. So l00,000 Nigerian men served in the British
Army in the Second World War, mainly in the Far East. My clerk, Mr
Fadeyebo, was ambushed by the Japanese and wounded while floating on a
river raft in Burma. When the survivors were rounded up on the
riverbank, the British officers and men were bayoneted by the Japanese.
When a Japanese officer approached Fadeyebo, he feared the worst, but
the officer said, "This is not your war, black man, we are not at war
with you", and he was left with the other wounded Nigerians lying under
the trees. Two of them survived. (The experience of war must have
affected those of the 100,000 Nigerian soldiers who survived, but
although important, this fact is irrelevant to my present concern.)
We
are often told that the aim of British foreign policy has long been a
unified Nigeria. Those of us who lived in Nigeria before Independence
might question the truth of that because we recall how the British
governed strictly in accordance with the maxim of 'divide and rule'.
The
manner in which 'Nigeria' was created was of course the responsibility
of the British, not of the millions of Africans of hundreds of tribes
who one day found themselves contained within straight lines drawn on
the map of West Africa, and told they were subjects of the Great White
Queen. A great event for a young African who could now, if a missionary
came to his village, go to a missionary school, become a Christian, get a
job as a Government clerk and own a bicycle. Other events would mould
him, events largely dictated by men in a foreign land, as a foreign war
had taken Mr Fadeyebo to Burma. If a clerk was befriended by a
sympathetic British administrator in the rush to Independence in the
late 1950's, he would find himself sitting behind that white man's desk
at Independence, living in a European house with servants and a brand
new Ford Consul parked outside.
If
unity is required, do you exacerbate tribal differences by dividing the
nation on tribal lines, creating a Northern Hausa/Fulani Moslem State; a
Western Yoruba, Moslem/Christian State; and an Eastern Igbo Catholic
Christian State? Do you confine missionary activity to the South so that
the Moslem North has no schools, and all the educated Africans who
staff the Government civil service come from the South and are mainly
Catholic Ibo? When the educated South inevitably produces nationalist
leaders, do you, seeing the danger to the feudal backward North, provide
an educational system in the North? The problem was ignored and nothing
was done.
It
seemed to the disinterested observer before Independence that the
British did everything to emphasise and exacerbate tribal differences.
Even the system of rule and administration was different. Indirect rule
in the North confirmed the power of native chiefs, who naturally found
that their interests were identical to the British. In the South the
British could speak in English to the missionary-trained locals, which
might be a mixed blessing when the village bright boy returned from
London with better degrees in British law than the big white chief, who
often made up the law as he went along. (British officials had to learn a
local language to pass a promotion bar. A thankless task because when
he had passed he would be promoted to a region where his newly acquired
language was useless.)
At
one time, so strong was the split between North and South, that
separate stamps were printed. The different policies, systems, languages
had their effect on the British rulers. Those in the South encouraged
the missionary schools and inspected them. Work had to be found for
school leavers, and public utilities and plantations sprang up to absorb
them. Clean water, electricity supplies, dispensaries and roads
followed in the wake of enthusiastic British administrators, who were
dubbed 'nigger-lovers' by their less active polo-playing colleagues in
the feudal North.
We
must not labour the point. The North, West and East were not truly
separate countries. Lagos, more or less, ruled them all, and Lagos was
controlled in turn by Whitehall. Take away the brakes on political
activity, have three Prime Ministers each leading his own 'tribe' and
each looking to the British overlord for fair play, equal treatment and
perhaps occasional favours in return for loyal behaviour, and any
pretence of unity might disappear, especially when a scramble starts to
be the privileged one to whom the British would hand over the keys of
the whole kingdom.
The
other major assumption shared by all commentators was, of course, that
the British would hand over power without fear or favour to whichever
political party commanded a majority in the second and final stage of
the Independence elections which took place in 1959.
It
was true that the British always got on well with the leaders of the
Moslem (and to a degree pagan) North. This was well known to be so, and
no one would bother to deny it. The Northern chiefs were so happy with
British rule that they did not want the British to leave at all,
particularly so if the bolshie Southerners, whom the Northerners loathed
almost as much as their British administrators - if that were possible -
were to take over in Lagos. Naturally the British did not wish to upset
their Northern friends. It was even said by the British that if the
Northerners were not guaranteed freedom from rule by the Southerners
they might march on the South and drive the despised missionary-trained
bolshies into the sea. It was left unclear whether the chiefs would do
this themselves or whether they would depute the task to their British
advisors.
Was
this to be an intractable problem? It will be seen that if the North
won the national elections, there would be those who would suggest that
the British had favoured the North and given them a helping hand. Poor
losers of course. However, if the North were to win it would solve what
might otherwise be a terrible problem.
Not
everybody trusted the British, but nobody cared what the communists
said. Uncle Joe did not get where he did by winning elections either. As
for the Fabians and other do-gooders, their doubts were quashed by the
very fact of Independence being granted at all. Had not they campaigned
for this in so many pamphlets and speeches? It was almost unbelievable
and euphoria short-circuited their critical faculties. Even the British
had been happy to confess to imperialism and an empire won by conquest,
but suddenly it all became a sacred trust which had been accomplished.
It only remained to see to which of the carefully trained and nurtured
responsible leaders we would hand on the sacred flame. More succinctly
the creeps were at long last going to be paid off.
It
was true that successive Governors General had found the southern
nationalists, led by Zik in the East and more parochially perhaps Awo in
the West, a bit of a trial. Zik had just emerged from a Government
enquiry into his running of a bank. He had not been exactly cleared but
neither had he been jailed, and a more subdued and perhaps wiser Zik,
after winning a vote of confidence in a fresh election in the East,
seemed prepared to co-operate with the British.
Nigerian
statistics were always a bit problematical. My own experience as head
of the statistics branch at the Department of Labour had not been
reassuring. The number of unemployed in Nigeria - a derisory figure
which British politicians would have envied - on slightly closer
examination turned out to be the total calling in at the handful of
Labour Exchanges in the larger towns.
A
possible insoluble problem suddenly loomed less large when the British
announced that the North contained 50% of Nigeria's population. What had
seemed to be a three-legged race now seemed to be something else. The
NPC ruled the North with little opposition, but the West and East were
at each other's throats. The North could be unbeatable. The only
question was which of the southern leaders would decide to throw in his
lot with the North. A Zik in opposition could be dangerous, but a new
less belligerent Zik might be safer in Government. One might have
thought a largely Moslem West would get along better with the Moslem
North, and indeed, once the tragic and futile Biafran war started, such
an alliance would come about.
If
the British in Whitehall had been able to influence events, these were
the thorny problems they would have mulled over. Had they done so, the
right man was available to advise, because a former Governor General,
Sir John MacPherson, was the top official. If anyone advised Harold
Macmillan on Nigeria's possible intractable problems, it was Sir John.
If
Sir John disliked Zik, he positively loathed Awo whom he regarded as a
smart arse. Awo had responded to the news, which must have been a blow,
that the North would have 50% of the votes, with a cheerful resolve to
take the war into the North with a small army of election agents and
propagandists. Awo had modelled his party machine on the British
Conservative Party, and he was to command his troops from a helicopter,
from which he would descend and perhaps seem like a god to the simple
northern peasant. Awo's plans were noted by the new Governor General
with some dismay. Was this another intractable problem looming on the
horizon?
Whatever
ideas Whitehall came up with to ease the transition, one big decision
was taken. It might have been thought desirable to leave everything to
the experienced men on the spot. On the other hand, if there were
intractable problems, would the experienced men on the spot necessarily
be the right men? Even top officials could get to love the country and
its people. Tough decisions might need tough people who could take an
overall view without sentiment. There were liberals in the Colonial
Office, but very few in the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office ran the
Sudan and when the Foreign Office cracked the whip the Sudan
administrators jumped on the Sudanese. Not everyone trusted these tough
ex soccer blues to observe the rules when it came to Sudan's turn to
hold elections, and the presence of international observers was insisted
on. It is a tribute to the reputation of the British in Nigeria that no
one questioned their ability to run honest elections. Not that there
had ever actually been any elections to speak of, but that was perhaps
the reason no one questioned the honesty of the British. They were after
all granting elections and they were going to go! Quit! Exit! Depart
forever! No more Governor General in white suit and plumed hat. No more
Government House tea parties. No more Union Jacks and Empire Day. No
more Residents and District Officers to kow-tow to. Already these local
and powerful gods were being renamed Local Government Advisors! What a
come down. Little wonder, except in the North, that they deserted their
sacred trust almost to a man in favour of the generous compensation lump
sum and pension. Or was there a more sinister reason for the defection
of these dedicated officials? Had they been ordered to cross a bridge
too far?
In
came experienced Sudanese officials as Governor General in Lagos,
Governor in the North and Chairman of the Public Service Commission.
Tough policies might produce casualties and a strong man running the
Commission to which unhappy British civil servants would appeal, was a
sound precautionary measure. A new Governor in the East rounded off
these precautionary measures in the run up to the General Election,
which would be in two stages, at Regional (State) level and finally at
the Federal and National level.
Unity
was now the overriding theme, and it was sensible that it should be so.
Precious little had been in evidence during British rule. This great
nation not only contained one quarter of Africa's black people, it was
in West Africa, unique in having no permanent white population, not one,
as white settlement had been banned as the region was so unhealthy.
Other colonies amounted to nothing against this giant. Nigeria would be
the major force in black African politics. Economically it was rich and
would be extremely wealthy when its newly-discovered rich oil fields
came on stream. What is not often realised was that the bulk of the
British Colonial Service - a misnomer really - was employed in Nigeria.
As the colonies employed and paid the officials, only a small
secretariat ran the Colonial Office and they were from the Home Civil
Service. The so-called Colonial Service was really a small recruiting
office, mainly charged with finding decent people to work for small pay
in often awful and unhealthy conditions in Nigeria.
But
was the necessity of unity being used to cloak some tough policy
decisions? Certainly when I questioned British policy in Nigeria in an
interview in 1960 with the Governor General, Sir James Robertson, I got a
very tough answer. No one could be really surprised when the North won
the Federal Elections in 1959. Quickly, the Governor General - even
before the results were all in - declared the North the winner and as
rapidly blessed an alliance with Zik's party, the NCNC.
I
was not at all surprised for I knew, even before the 1956 State
elections at Regional level, that this was how it was going to be. The
Governor General in 1960 confirmed to me what he had let me know in
1956. There had been an intractable problem and means had been found to
resolve it. Unity had made this necessary. The Northern census results
were to be challenged in many ways, but they were never to be confirmed
or accepted as accurate, and that is still the position thirty years on.
Was
that all the necessary action to be taken? Had Zik not been brought to
heel with a carefully prepared Bank Enquiry that could easily have
jailed him? A close friend of Zik told me more than I can reveal. When I
questioned him, as I was a great admirer of Zik at the time, he said,
"The next time there is trouble, Zik will be abroad. He will never be caught as he will always have an alibi."
"What cynical rubbish," I replied.
Having
said that, my friend was clearly wrong when it came to the Bank
Enquiry, because the British nearly nailed Zik, whether they were
justified or not.
After
that close brush with the law, a great manipulator took control of
Zik's party. Zik had made many great personal sacrifices for his NCNC
and had personally financed it for years at great personal cost. Now he
was broke and someone who could raise vast sums of money, as if from
thin air, would be the real power-broker in Nigerian politics. Chief
Festus Okotie Eboh - 'Festering Sam' - was not only a very cheerful
character and master crook, he was much loved by the British in Lagos
and Whitehall. Okotie Eboh was not his real name - he thought it sounded
good. Like Robert Maxwell, not much about him was what it seemed. Like
Maxwell too, he was greatly feared and he was also a great
wheeler-dealer. The Governor General knew him to be a thief, a master
criminal, a trickster, someone totally corrupt. He was also something of
a rapist. Not the first person one might think to be made Minister of
Finance by the British, after a spell as Minister of Labour.
The
NCNC made him Party Treasurer and British officials, principally
Charles Bunker, a Senior Labour Officer, were ordered by the Governor
General to extract large donations from multi-national companies for the
NCNC and NPC. Thus, in 1956, four years before Independence,
Government-approved corruption was institutionalised and at a national
level by the British. This was the first lesson in democratic politics
that the British taught Nigerian politicians. As the NPC in the North
were inexperienced in these matters, the British arranged their
finances, so they came from Native Administration (local Government)
funds. Okotie Eboh thought big, and decided when he became Minister of
Labour that he owned the Ministry, so why should he not sell its offices
if he chose? He sold a prime office site opposite the Lagos Railway
Station to a company, which had long had designs on the site. The
Governor General had him over at Government House and told him to be
more circumspect next time as people were talking! The importance of
Okotie Eboh was that he was the man who could use his newly-acquired
wealth to weld the Northern NPC and the Eastern NCNC together. The
wedding actually took place with the blessing of the British in 1956
before even the first stage of the Independence Elections. I was a
witness at this wedding. It was about unity, and two totally different
parties coming together in a partnership to solve an intractable
problem. It was a secret wedding and most people believed it took place
in 1960 after the results of the Federal Independence Elections were
announced.
Awolowo
was to pay a big price for being rude to the British and being a smart
arse. The British wanted revenge. That very word was to be used,
although when Sir James Robertson recorded it, he said it was only
natural that revenge against Awo should be sought by the parties who
formed the Government. As to why anyone should seek revenge on Awo, Sir
James could only suggest that he had invaded the privacy of the Northern
Chiefs' harems by flying overhead in a helicopter. The real truth was
that he had actually dared to send the British to Coventry and his Party
would not speak to British officials! Presumably it was because of this
helicopter prank that the British harassed Awo's Action Group when it
campaigned in the North and meted out brutal treatment, including
turning a blind eye to the murder, of AG campaign workers.
It
was in the name of unity that the British Government rigged the
Nigerian Independence Elections most successfully from start to finish. I
almost wish that Sir James Robertson had not placed his trust in me and
confided to me the British Government's plans in 1956 before the
elections took place. It put a very heavy and grave responsibility on my
shoulders.
29 November 1991
THE TRIAL (Der Prozess, 1925): Franz Kafka
The
confrontation of an individual and a baffling bureaucracy is something I
have experienced since the day in 1956 when I realised that British
democracy was a fraud. Kafka's hero, Joseph K, is accused of a crime
that does not exist, and is made to feel guilty. His attempts to obtain
justice lead nowhere. I know these feelings too. My 'crime' was to
refuse to break the law by rigging Nigeria's Independence elections. How
can I clear myself when I have committed no crime? No crime?! Did I not
refuse to obey Whitehall's orders! Did I not let my colleagues down by
refusing to commit treason against the Nigerian people! Have I not tried
to publicise this evil, covert action which led to the deaths of two
million innocent Africans?
I
thought that I could walk away, but the Queen's men were determined
that, like Humpty Dumpty, I was going to take a great fall and they came
after me.
Like
Joseph K, I have tried to obtain justice from an authority that will
not communicate with me, for the very good reason that they have
pronounced me dead. All my attempts to obtain justice have been
fruitless. I brought something new out of Africa, a plea for justice for
the African people, but they say that that was impossible for I was
never in Africa. Will my struggle too culminate after thirty years in
total frustration, loss of dignity and death like a dog? Undoubtedly,
though I would rather die a dutiful and faithful hound than live for one
day as the criminal politician or evil bureaucrat who refuse to answer
my letters.
Destroying
Nigerian democracy was evil of a very high order. Those who have looked
the other way are the many notables, politicians and journalists who
have been deaf to my pleas. A handful of politicians and journalists
have given me encouragement because they could do no more. They have
sustained me. Edmund Burke spoke for me and my experience when he said
that "for evil to triumph, good men need do nothing."
31 July 1992
The Administration of Nigeria 1900 to 1960: I F Nicolson
The
Governor General of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson, told me in 1960 why
the British had decided to destroy democracy at its birth in this giant
empire named Nigeria. We had favoured the North since Nigeria was
invented. A crackpot named Lugard was largely responsible. His women
disciples, including a lovesick academic Perham - later to offer me a
knighthood - were not only infatuated with Lugard, who looked like a
demented rat, but were crazy about the North.
The
best book on Lugard and his lady friends is by I F Nicolson, 'The
Administration of Nigeria 1900 to 1960.' It is sad that Nicolson did not
write a second volume taking the story on from 1960. Anyway, Nicolson
knew that we had rigged the Independence Elections, for we discussed
this in his office in Lagos, and he placed my files and papers relating
to British corruption in his safe.
We
had decided to give power to Balewa, a Northerner, because he was quite
a benevolent person who could be easily guided by our people. He was
not really a politician and was quite gentle and honest for a political
stooge. Idealistic young Sandhurst-trained officers shot Balewa in 1966.
A pro-British officer, General Ironsi then took over, but he seemed to
be under the influence of a friend of mine, Nwokedi - an Easterner.
There was a counter coup and Ironsi was killed.
When
the Governor General ordered me to get involved in the first stage at
State (or Regional) level of the Independence Elections in 1956, I
refused. I was to assist the Minister of Labour Okotie Eboh, a
notoriously crooked politician and friend of Robertson. Okotie Eboh was
my Minister. He too was shot, to everyone's delight, with Balewa the
Prime Minister.
The
British had planned for the Western power base of Awolowo, a
nationalistic leader, to be destabilised. For all I know, the
Southerners had won the Independence Elections, but no way were they to
be allowed to run Nigeria after the British left. Nicolson knew this in
1958 because Colonial Office officials were stunned when I told them
what Macmillan had planned for Nigeria. They asked Nicolson to confirm
what I told them and he did. The Colonial Office then returned me to
Lagos to see Nicolson.
Nwokedi,
who was my senior colleague, was one of our golden boys and a friend of
mine. He was an ally of Dr Azikiwe, who became Governor General at
Independence and later President. Nwokedi was largely responsible for
the Biafran Civil War starting. The British organised a pogrom against
Dr Zik's Easterners resident in the North, and Ironsi was killed as were
tens of thousands of Ibos. Kirk-Greene participated in and wrote about
these events, but has yet to reveal the squalid truth. This pogrom made
civil war inevitable. Two million died.
Although
our stooges got shot, the British were resourceful and for another
thirty years have played an active role in deciding who would rule as
military dictator. Our sponsored dictatorships have been relatively
benevolent. Nigerians have never known democracy so do not miss it too
much. Western style democracy does not appeal to them, as they dislike
the very idea of joining an opposition. As the Government controls the
spoils, many Nigerians leave the losing Party and join the winning Party
to get some loot.
I
told everyone that what we were doing in the late fifties was wrong and
would lead to disaster, but I was told by the Governor General to shut
up or be killed. I fled Nigeria in 1960 and for my pains I never worked
again and have been targeted by British Intelligence to ensure that I
never blew the whistle on British treason in Africa. I declined a
knighthood and large sums of money in return for my silence. The
Governor General told me that I was the only honest Britisher in the
Nigerian Colonial Service!
2 June 1997
'Catch 22' and a Bit: Smith's Word of Honour
My
career and health were destroyed during Government service in Nigeria.
However, Whitehall thinks that I am a thoroughly bad hat and will not
talk to me. That is not totally true. They will talk to me. They had
said that for nearly forty years, but only if I give my word of honour.
The rewards on offer were mouth-watering - knighthood, tens of thousands
of pounds (in 1960's money), a great career with rapid and instant
promotion in the Foreign Service. They say I will not talk to them. I
say they will not talk to me. The Catch 22 and a Bit is the terms on
which they will not talk to me. They will not talk to me unless I give
my word of honour never to reveal why they want my word of honour before
they will talk to me.
They
want my scout's honour, cross my heart - which, as a boy - I solemnly
believed was the highest form of oath, especially if one added '...hope
to die' as a postscript. They deny rigging Nigeria's Independence
Elections, which of course privately they freely admit that they did,
and are furious about it because I would not join in. They feel about me
as both major party leaders feel about Mr Ashdown. He is allegedly
sanctimonious, smug, pious, condescending, patronising, or - in other
words - honest.
They
must have my word of honour never to reveal what they say they never
did, i.e. rig Nigeria's Independence Elections. How can I swear never to
reveal something that they say they never did? After a long pause Sir
Humphrey would say, "Well, you must stop saying we did it!"
"But you did," I insist. "You sacked me because I wouldn't take part at a very high level..."
"Well, of course, we did. We know that. The point is that nobody else knows!"
"I know..."
"But you won't know when you have become one of us. Just keep your mouth shut."
"After I have given my word?"
"Exactly. Give your word. Forget all about it. Keep your mouth shut, or else..."
"Or else?"
"You
will regret it. An officer in the Colonial Service is exactly the same
as an officer in the Army who disobeys orders on active service. You
know the penalty...!
"I declined your offer to become a Colonel in the Army."
"You are impertinent, and you know far too much. You can never be allowed to return to the UK."
It got much worse.
Mr
Major's Government recently denied that they had me poisoned in Lagos.
It was just a coincidence that I developed a permanent gut-wasting
disease and lost half my weight and looked like a skeleton. It took
twelve years to name the disease that rarely occurs in Africa. I was
saved in extremis and my case troubled the specialists. The Government
said that Porton Down, which manufactures poisons that mimic tropical
diseases for use against enemies of Britain, had not poisoned me.
I
asked how they knew. They replied that the Director of Porton Down had
told them so. (A few weeks later he was reprimanded by the House of
Commons for lying to them on another issue.) I told the Ministry of
Defence that I would have been very surprised if the Director of Porton
Down had said anything else. It was noteworthy, I added, that at the
time Porton Down had a branch in Nigeria where they were testing poison
gas and other means of keeping the Queen's peace.
Curiously,
the Government had also built a vast, very expensive mental hospital in
the bush nearby. What it did was a mystery as it was kept fully staffed
but empty. It must have been like the hospital in the film 'Coma', with
its warehouse of spare bits of corpses. When the distinguished American
author, John Gunther, heard about it (probably from the CIA), he went
along and asked why such an expensive facility was kept empty at such
cost when the need for hospital care in Nigeria was so great. The
Superintendent told him that, although there were indeed many thousands,
even perhaps millions, who needed help, they were not the type of
patients for whom the hospital had been designed. It could not possibly
be connected with Porton Down experiments involving dropping poison gas
from the air and seeing what happened if it accidentally drifted over
African populated areas...
A
Rear Admiral recently wrote to me to say that I now had his permission
to publish my remarkable story. He added, somewhat unnecessarily, that
this did not mean that I would be published. The Government wanted it
known that they were no longer banning publication. Even the Cabinet
Secretary was anxious to tell me that I was no longer banned by the
Major Government. Nothing changed of course. Except that I was sounded
out about accepting a pension, on the usual terms of course. The
interview with an MP only took place on condition that I agreed that we
could not discuss why the interview was taking place. In other words,
officially, I suppose it never happened. Certainly nothing came of it.
Presumably because I refused to give my word never to reveal something
quite dreadful, which officially never happened.
Over to you, Mr Blair!
12 May 1997
John Smith of Kano, Colonial Cadet in Nigeria
John
Smith's 'Colonial Cadet in Nigeria' is a book of great charm, which
filled me with admiration for the author and rekindled the love of
Nigeria I shared with him. This modest, honest, straightforward and not
uncritical account is of the final years of an occupation which lasted
only sixty years, and already thirty years have passed since the British
withdrawal.
The
book is also invaluable for demonstrating how indirect rule worked.
What was initiated as an inexpensive way of running an occupied country
with a handful of administrators necessarily entailed a very close
relationship between the people at all levels and the British. The
record was a proud one. If there was modest development, there was also
the minimum of interference with the native culture. Remarkably too, for
this was imperialism triumphant, there was also deep affection and even
love. Nevertheless, every effort, including blatant criminality, was
made by the British to ensure that in the independence elections, the
pro-British Northerners won. The British were the servants of the Emirs
and the Native Administrations and the political party - the NPC -
formed with the help and encouragement of the British to contest
elections, ran the Northern Regional Government and, in due course, the
Federal Government.
In
John Smith's account, the opposition party NEPU is viewed as an
intrusive/disruptive element. The British certainly often appeared to
turn a blind eye to the harassment NEPU suffered at the hands of the
Native Administrations and the Emirs. John Smith is so innocent of the
undemocratic stance that he portrays while protecting his charges, and
this was not untypical, that one can almost feel this total
identification with the interests of the Emirs. In rigging elections in
the North (and Northern officials, while admitting the fact, will be
hurt that what they did should be seen, not as duty arising from
necessity, but as election rigging) the British did nothing unusual. It
was merely an extension of the extremely varied, normal routine, which
primarily was to act in the Emirs' interest.
Indirect
rule was not simply a system where the British used the rule of the
Emirs, that is to say, where the Emirs were the agents of the British.
In many ways, as Smith demonstrates, it was the other way around - the
British were the agents of the Emirs. When Northern officials are
charged with fiddling the elections, they openly admit it but express
astonishment. Why the fuss? That was their job. They organised the
election arrangements superbly, despite tremendous problems, and went on
without hesitation to ensure total victory for their bosses, as a
natural continuation of the same process. What seems criminality on a
grand scale to the impartial observer was to the British simply a matter
of getting on with the job.
Faced
with a Southern official, who levels charges of gross corruption, the
Northern official is bemused, amused and then a bit put out. "Come on,
old chap," they say, "That's putting it a bit strong. It was our job to
look after our people. Outsiders and trouble makers had to be checked."
The point that I am making is that the British stood for order and
stability and keeping everything quiet and peaceful. Quite how British
officials became so indoctrinated with this ethos of the status quo is a
mystery to me. Perhaps it was acquired at Oxford from Miss Perham.
Aliens were missionaries; Southern officials; forces of evil like trade
unionists; radicals like LSE-trained education officers; insensitive
industrialists; foreigners; and particularly representatives of
international bodies; and Southerners. The election business simply
added NEPU politicians; nationalists from the South; political agents
and journalists; busybodies; and other do-gooders to the list. All had
to be and were outwitted with great skill by Northern officials.
John
Smith alone can be safely excluded from anything improper. His
integrity and intelligence are exceptional and remarkable. There were
other Northern officials of the same high calibre who served 'their
people' (and by that, without sarcasm, I mean the Northern peoples) with
tremendous love and devotion far beyond the call of duty. I may seem
confused and ambivalent in both indicating criminality and yet admiring
Northern officials. I understand this, and that same paradox is an
essential part of the record of British rule in Nigeria and particularly
the North.
To
progressives, ignorant of what the British did in Nigeria, I will be
looked on as totally reactionary, and my views will be seen as very
close to the Northern officials, whom I apparently criticise. I would
point out that Northern officials were rarely responsible for initiating
the policy they carried out. In some ways they had to make the best of a
bad job. As individuals they were often men of exceptional calibre, as
were Southern officials too.
17 June 1992
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866)
A
horrible crime has been committed, but the core of Dostoevsky's novel
is Raskolnikov's attempt to find a moral justification for his crime. He
was, he claimed, going to use the money for which he committed murder,
to become a benefactor of mankind.
The
Governor General of Nigeria, HM The Queen's personal representative,
confessed to me in 1960 that he was a criminal in that he was rigging
Nigeria's Independence elections. His point in seeing me was to offer,
firstly inducements to buy my silence and, secondly threats against my
well being and, indeed, survival if I refused to give him my word to
keep quiet. Why had the British Government decided on this criminal
folly? I put the question to Sir James Robertson that day in his private
office in Government House on the Marina, overlooking the lagoon.
"Because
it was necessary," he replied calmly. "Look, Smith," he added, losing
his composure momentarily. "You don't know all the facts..."
Nevertheless, when he later adopted a more threatening posture, he went
on to say that I already knew far too much!
The
political situation in Nigeria deteriorated rapidly after independence.
The British puppet regime, headed by Balewa, had waged war on its
opponents in the South. A military coup was acclaimed by the people, but
swiftly, following splits on tribal lines, a bloody civil war broke out
which cost the lives of two million young men, women and children.
Those
who do not believe that the British Government is capable of such
infamy may be tempted to vent their anger on the messenger. The truth is
that I opposed this criminality from the start, and paid a high price
for being loyal to our democracy and traditions and the rule of law. I
have researched deeply into the question of the motives for this treason
for thirty years, and if the reasons or excuses which I produce do not
seem adequate, I must stress that I would concur in that judgement.
These are the reasons or excuses I have discovered, and unless Lord
Grey, for example, who is still alive (1992) is prepared to enlighten us
further, we may never - as the criminals may have destroyed the records
- get a better explanation.
Raskolnikov's
motives are one by one proved to be false, as perhaps Robertson's too
will be one day. It is evident that there was deep mistrust of Dr
Azikiwe, the nationalist leader, by the British., In 1943 the British
Colonial Secretary described Zik as 'the biggest danger of the lot.'
Over the years Dr Zik had made some bloodcurdling speeches which had
thoroughly alarmed the British. In 1947, for example, he labelled
imperialists and their accomplices as international criminals like the
Nazis, and promised retribution when Nigeria became free. Nine years
later Zik was proved right, because it was during the first stage of the
independence elections that I got my orders from H.E. to interfere
massively in the election and began to appreciate how hollow were
British promises of an open, free, fair and honest election. The British
for their part would say that they had to get their blow in first,
knowing what Dr Zik had in mind.
It
is highly probable that the British were going to favour their allies
in the North anyway, and looked around for evidence of extremist threats
to justify what they were already planning to do. It might be said of
Dr Zik's extremist and sometimes inflammatory speeches that he had the
role of a dedicated nationalist to maintain. It was important to appear
to be a valiant fighter against the imperialist yoke. Personally, I
always regarded Zik's hyperbole as a joke. He was an armchair rebel and
had not the slightest intention of going to jail or sacrificing his very
comfortable life style for the cause.
The
British might argue that what they were doing was in Nigeria's best
interest. It is, however, more likely that, in subverting the democratic
process to place Nigeria in the hands of pro-British elements,
Whitehall was only seeking to protect its own interests. Do the British
care that this treachery caused the deaths of two million Nigerians? In
Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov suffers a crisis of conscience, but we
have seen no signs of contrition from the British Government.
Raskolnikov, whose name is derived from the Russian word for
'schismatic' is an extremely complicated character. So too were the
British, who were presenting themselves as thoroughly honest and decent
democrats, while flagrantly destroying Nigeria's first experiment in
democracy after years of autocratic colonial rule. According to the
election results as presented by the British, the majority of the
Nigerian people had voted, not for their nationalist leaders, but for
the feudal elite who had little interest in democracy or even the
welfare of the whole of the Nigerian nation.
When
the criminality has the approval of a British Prime Minister like
Macmillan or Eden, not even a police inspector like Porfiri Petrovich,
an astute psychologist, will be smart enough to bring the criminals to
book. The question of punishment, therefore, only arises when it is
decided how to punish those who tried to expose the criminality. The
criminals were awarded high honours for their treason, which resulted in
the deaths of two million people.
Dostoevsky's
Raskolnikov suffered a crisis of conscience because he murdered two
women. How conscience-stricken should one feel for two million?
In
truth, the more one kills the less one feels. Constant repetition
obliterates the moral sense, perhaps. And the architects of Nigeria's
bloody contest, where treachery in the name of unity had Nigerians
rejoicing in the deaths of Nigerians, witnessed no killings, so why
should they even regret their evil machinations? Could it be that
conscience stirs, not in direct, but inverse ratio to killing? Put that
way, one understands both Raskolnikov's unhappiness and Whitehall's
oblivion.
Bomber
Harris planned mass killing of German civilians without the slightest
concern for his victims, because he had killed individual Kurds, and
twos and threes and small family groups while strafing rebellious
tribesmen from the air in Iran. Our boys in blue, who carried out
Harris's orders, sometimes dropped their bombs in the sea, and most
often five miles from their intended targets. It was alleged that it was
to stop this cowardice or regard for women and children that cameras
were fitted to our bombers to record where the bombs were released - a
unique reversal of conventional morality. Those who declined to kill
were punished, as I was punished for refusing to betray the people of
Nigeria.
Dostoevsky's
debate as to whether or not the end justifies the means is now
something of a cliché, but it is as vitally important as ever.
Necessity makes us bend the rules, ignore the law, flout convention and
decency. The necessity is to ensure that things come out right. The
desire is to take the chance out of political events. It may not work,
millions may die cruelly, but at least we tried. When the perpetrators
of crime are those charged with preventing it, the title of our novel
should truly be 'Crime without Punishment', or 'Punishment of the
innocent is no crime and this is your very own criminal Government
telling you so.'
20 July 1992
Nigeria by Walter Schwarz and
Nigeria: Background to Nationalism by James S. Coleman
Schwarz
is a typical writer on Nigeria. He writes of Independence giving the
official story; he reads some academic accounts, chiefly Coleman, and a
recent history or two, usually Michael Crowder, and blends them into a
readable, informed and useful account. That is what journalists do. They
act as an intermediary between reality and the general public. When
journalists, as reporters, write from Damascus as the shells fall, we
can check their accounts against other journalists' copy. When
journalists write books they are not 'there' when they write of earlier
events, but may use their writing skills, unwittingly and no doubt
unintentionally, to such effect that we almost feel they were there.
Academics do this too, when they have got rid of student nuisances, and
settle down with a pot of coffee or a glass or two of sherry to their
'real' work.
I
wish the many journalists who wrote about Nigeria's independence and
what it meant for Africa had spoken to me. I would have told them it was
a total fake. They were conned into thinking that it was the British
Empire's finest hour. A great trust had been fulfilled, etc. etc. The
Governor General, who was not the blimp that they might have imagined,
but an Oxford-educated street fighter, experienced in covert
intelligence, anti-Communist operations, terrorism and pulling the wool
over inquisitive journalists' eyes, knew how to deal with Fleet Street.
Each important journalist was given a minder to make life pleasant and
protect our sensitive and pure-minded scribblers from bad influences,
i.e. people like me. It was also thought a good thing to keep them happy
and amused with the sorts of comforts which they would expect. When
journalists said that they would like to meet the locals, or get some
local colour, or get their feet wet, the administration knew exactly
what they wanted and laid it on - plenty of drink and black girls, or
even boys.
Well,
at least Schwarz had read Coleman whose work is excellent. I met many
young Americans in Lagos but have no memory of Coleman, although he was
apparently around the Labour Department where he met one of my
colleagues, Tokumboh. He also spoke to Bola Onitiri who lodged in my
home in London as a student while I was in Lagos. Bola returned to
Ibadan as a Professor of Economics with a very rosy view of the British.
They had indeed looked after him rather well, and I had done my bit
too, I suppose. Anyway, it was usual then for Nigerians to keep their
heads down and never ever to show signs of not loving the British and
all their works. From their point of view I was extremely dangerous, a
viewpoint shared incidentally by the Governor General, as he told me
himself.
So
Schwarz gets his stuff from Coleman who got it from Tokumboh and Bola
Onitiri who followed the Yoruba tradition of telling the white man what
he wanted to hear. This is a universal custom in the downtrodden (a
misnomer, really, speaking of the Yoruba. They are rich, conservative,
proud, even arrogant and patronising) when replying to questions from
the powerful. The British police do not have to beat people up to get
confessions. Most of the British lower classes know what is expected of
them and readily comply. (Care on the part of the police is necessary
because the confessions often go way over the top and have to be edited
down rather than exaggerated, and cut and edited to dovetail in with the
rest of the 'evidence'. Was it ever thus?)
The
story in Schwarz is the official story. It sounds truthful and
realistic and authentic. The central truth nevertheless is a lie. It is
understandable that this should happen because the British took very
great care to cover up their criminality. The British are not stupid.
They know the penalty for being found out. They had, moreover, a lot of
experience in the business.
Why
did I not seek out the reporters? I did. I told everyone I could, and
this got back to the Governor General, who was very angry. The actual
incident involved my being overheard over dinner at the Lagos Resthouse
restaurant talking to an official of the American Consulate and one of
my young American friends. The latter was one or more of the following.
He was a post-graduate student, a writer, a historian, a do-gooder,
someone vaguely attached to the US Consulate or a CIA man. There were
quite a few young Americans around like this. Coleman and Bretton were
not untypical.
The
administration was not making life easy for me. I now see why they kept
me on the move, or on the hop, around various offices in Lagos, under
threat and very much under a cloud. If I had got settled, I might have
had more time to seek out visiting academics etc. to tell my story to.
As it happened, no-one published my disclosure anyway, so maybe it would
not have made any difference. Just to make sure, my friends were
subjected to the most awful harassment. That explains why Michael
Crowder's version of Independence, which he wrote little about, is
deeply flawed, because it is a lie, pure and simple.
Did
Tokumboh and Onitiri know that the independence elections were rigged?
Of course. What Coleman would have done if they had told him the truth,
or if I had spoken to him (and it is possible that I did) I do not know.
Look at the curious case of Ken Post, who wrote the authoritative study
of the elections and gave the British a glowing testimonial, not just a
clean bill of health. Ken knew much more than he 'let on'. But having
done his duty, he was suitably rewarded by appointment to Ibadan
University. Had the British known that Ken was a Marxist who did not
believe a word of it, would it have made any difference? The fact is,
they got what they wanted.
Coleman
did not know? Did he not speak to his own Consular people? Did he not
speak to the State Department? Did he not speak to the CIA? Did he not
speak to Nigerian journalists? Did he not speak to any honest British
officials? It seems not.
Sources
are like a stream. Maybe it does not matter whether you drink from the
stream or not. Michael Crowder was a wonderful friend to have, and I
cherished and was for ever proud that I had known him. He liked me too.
Yet Michael gave me his word that he would blow the whistle on British
treachery one day, but he never did. Histories go on being written, the
stream of life flows on, and the old lies are still there in the bed of
the stream.
23 March 1992
'The Nigerian Federal Election of 1959' by K W J Post. The Last Great Act of Treason?
'The
last great act of the British Raj.' So wrote Ken Post, a young British
academic-to-be (if his researches were acceptable) of Nigeria's
Independence Elections of 1959. As the elections were rigged, Ken got it
wrong, but British colonial historians often quote his verdict with
approval, for he supported their prejudice that the British had behaved
honourably.
The
bulk of Nigeria's territory lay in the Northern Region and the British
backed up the Northerners' demand for 50% of the Federal parliamentary
seats by stating in the 1950's that the North did indeed have over 50%
of Nigeria's population. At that time I was in charge of statistics in
the Department of Labour's Headquarters in Lagos and I did not believe a
word of it. What were the true figures? I did not know, nor did, nor
does anybody else. An American, Professor Henry L. Bretton, believed the
elections to have been rigged. He wrote that "... the very construction
of the Northern Region, in the form in which it entered the era of
independence, represents one of the greatest acts of gerrymandering in
history."
I
have written to many of the academics involved, including Ken Post,
about Nigeria's independence elections, which were in two stages. None
reply to my letters. I wrote to tell them of how I had been ordered by
the Governor General to rig the elections. It was beyond question,
without a doubt, that in fact the last great act of the British Raj in
Africa's largest British territory, practically an empire of nations
rather than a colony, was treason. In 1956 a conference was held at
Nuffield College, Oxford, to consider how Nigeria's elections could be
studied. When I asked the Warden of Nuffield to see a report on this
conference, I was told it was not available, for quite spurious reasons.
Had a study been made of the election at Regional level in the North,
which preceded the 1959 election, it would have been quite clear that
the election was a total farce. It was decided that it was not possible
to study that election.
A
totally inexperienced young graduate student, Ken Post, is selected to
make a one-man study of one of the most complex and important general
elections to be held in Africa. The African giant, Nigeria, is the most
populous country on the continent. Its sheer physical size and ethnic
diversity is truly incredible. On election day, where would Mr Post
position himself? He could as easily have stayed in London and read the
Nigerian newspapers and British official reports. And as all newspapers
in the major part of the territory were British-controlled - a licence
was required from the British to start a newspaper - his information,
his primary sources were British in origin, not Nigerian. However, Mr
Post could speak to the voters and write to them? Sadly, the voters were
mostly illiterate and did not speak English anyway. It seems Mr Post
spoke no African languages and employed no interpreters.
Yet
Mr Post produced a detailed, fact-filled, fat volume which appears
quite intimidating, and reached very clear and decisive conclusions.
British public relations had transformed a poor, squalid, backward
colony into a beacon of democracy, a model democracy, the twelfth
largest democracy in the world. And yet in six years the window dressing
had slipped to reveal near total anarchy, the destruction of the
parliamentary opposition, trumped-up treason trials, a totally corrupt
political elite, a military coup, the assassination of three Prime
Ministers, a bloody pogrom, one of the bloodiest civil wars in world
history and the total destruction of that democracy, hailed by Mr Post
and given his imprimatur of being fair, decent and honest.
One
in five Africans is a Nigerian. The most important black African State
has been described as the African Giant, the Brazil of Africa, and the
Texas of Africa. In area it covers 923,768 square kilometres (356,669
square miles) and is four times the size of the United Kingdom. From
Badagri to Lake Chad is about as far as New York to Chicago.
Communications in Nigeria were primitive if not non-existent. If Mr Post
visited a town, it would be a different world from the surrounding
area, which it might be impossible to reach.
Of
course, Mr Post knew that this was a British election. British
officials were in control of the electoral machinery. It would indeed
have been very surprising if Mr Post had returned to his supervisors,
his professors at London and Oxford, and announced that it was all a
great fix. Would his book have been published? Did the award of a
doctorate depend on this work? Would he have been appointed by the
British to the post of Lecturer in Government at Nigeria's prestigious
but sole University, had he discovered and published the truth? What did
the roll call of distinguished professors of presumed great integrity
intend by this unlikely of all academic, but also of incredible
politically explosive potential, projects?
Presumably
they knew that Nigeria's terrain is extremely varied, ranging as it
does from thick coastal mangrove swamps and rain forests to dry savannah
regions in the extreme North. Eminent geographers claim that there are
434 ethnic groups in Nigeria speaking 395 mutually unintelligible
languages. The major groups are the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba and the
Ibo, and some ten groups account for some eighty per cent of the
population. Remarkably, nearly 50% of the population may be under the
age of fifteen. (Remember that all British, Nigerian, official and other
figures are largely guesswork. I did my share of guessing when
compiling those official reports! As the official who planned and
drafted Nigeria's major Act of Parliament in the welfare area, the
Nigerian Factories Act, and planned and pioneered the prestigious
National Provident Fund, I needed reliable figures if anybody did!)
Mr
Post had an impossible task. I do not question his integrity. In fact,
he compiled a comprehensive, detailed, exhausting and voluminous work.
If I question its accuracy, value or integrity, it is because it is
almost totally dependent on tainted and very suspect British official
sources which I had conclusive evidence were corrupt. When I was invited
to a meeting with HE the Governor General, Sir James Robertson, to
discuss all this at Government House in 1960, his personal assistant,
the beautifully mannered and charming John Bongard told me not to
mention unsavoury matters.
"You mean the election rigging?" I asked.
"No. He wants to talk about the election rigging, but don't mention buggering black boys," said Bongard.
When I asked the Governor General why he had rigged the Independence Elections, he replied quietly, "Because it was necessary."
Livy
said, 'Treachery, though covered up, always comes out in the end.'
'Deeply concealed acts of treachery,' said Cicero, 'are often disguised
with the pretence of duty or necessity.'
Carefully
read, Mr Post occasionally indicates reservations to his general
thesis, but he carefully skirts the rocks that would sink his vessel.
Quite simply, the fact that the British-controlled NPC exercised
totalitarian power over two-thirds of Nigerian territory made the
election results a nonsense. There had been a secret agreement inflicted
on the Southern leaders, binding them not to campaign in the North.
What sort of election was this where the pro-British party, which was
hardly recognisable as a normal political party, was guaranteed success?
'And
so in 1960 Nigeria's leaders (with, be it noted, the enthusiastic
mandate of an exemplarily administered general election behind them)
moved into sovereignty...' I was a returning officer in Lagos where the
pretence and reality almost met. However, through my network of official
contacts throughout the country, I heard of British officials and their
agents lining up every available voter to vote for pro-British
candidates. Mr Post got it wrong. This was the greatest act of
sophisticated gerrymandering and skulduggery of any election in the
so-called free world (in modern history). Two distinguished historians,
both friends of mine, were blackmailed into silence because they knew
this truth.
If
Nigerians after 1960 (although British officials were still in place
over large areas) rigged elections shamelessly, they had learned from
experts. Let us consider how the British ran an election in Prime
Minister Balewa's constituency in 1964. In the general election that
year an 'affidavit described how three abortive attempts had been made
to nominate a candidate in the Prime Minister Balewa's constituency. At
the first attempt, the nominators were arrested; the second time they
were carried away by thugs; on the third occasion they were kidnapped
and held until the lists closed.' In sixty one constituencies in the
North, NPC candidates were returned unopposed. It seems the nominations
of the opposition candidates somehow were overlooked. (Martin Meredith.
'The First Dance of Freedom.' Abacus. 1985. P. 179). As the British were
still running the administration in Northern Nigeria, one can see why
Balewa was so grateful to them.
Post's
Eurocentrism and Britishness is evident throughout his study. "Nigeria
still has the test of running a Federal election without the assistance
of a largely expatriate administration." In fact the staff who ran the
1959 election were almost totally Nigerian. Should they not be credited
with running an honest election too? Is Post suggesting that the
presence of one Britisher produced an honest election? That, without
that one Britisher, the staff at each polling station were probably
corrupt? This maligns the whole Nigerian nation and is quite monstrous.
To one like myself who had been intimately connected with British
chicanery in these elections, it is absolutely infuriating to find
Post's flawed reporting passed off as objective evidence of British fair
play.
If
the relative honesty of British and African peoples is to be put in the
scales in a Nigerian context, is the integrity of the people who
conquered by force of arms outside the rule of law to be valued higher
than the innocent victims of this conquest? If Mr Post's innocence leads
him to believe that the British were impartial in a contest between the
pro-British North and the nationalist South, his study is undermined.
The British handed power to the North at Independence, not because of an
election result, but because it was the only condition on which power
would be granted in 1959. In fact the election was totally rigged. With
the evidence of interference known to me, no-one would accept that the
British behaved honestly in the 1959 elections. If Nigerian-run
elections post 1959 were corrupt, the Nigerians lacked the expertise to
pass them off as honest. The British had that expertise and successfully
pulled the wool over the young and inexperienced Mr Post's eyes in
1959.
The
1959 elections were orderly, efficient and largely peaceful on polling
day. The British arrangements went smoothly. It is these attributes that
Mr Post confuses with fairness and honesty. In truth he was watching
the Africans exclusively. His verdict exonerates those he observed. This
was one of the greatest confidence tricks perpetrated by a colonial
power in Africa on a subject people. Mr Post was selected by the crooked
British to see if one of the African parties was interfering with the
election. Had he examined the machinations of the British in the way
they set up the contest, he would have been compelled to cry fraud! By
and large the verdict of the election had been delivered before polling
day. Mr Post had no authority as an observer to state as he does, for
example on page 345, that polling in the 311 constituencies and 25,000
polling stations went off with remarkable smoothness. This is a measure
of his inability to appreciate what he was really doing. And even had
there been 25,000 impartial Mr Posts to warrant such a sweeping
statement, it would have proved little. People who rig elections are
crooks but not necessarily stupid. They do not do business in the open,
but in private, as one would expect.
As
Post reminds us, the registration and poll were voluntary. Allegations
that the British in the major part of the country, the North, which
covered at least two thirds of Nigerian territory, marshalled every
adult male who could walk through the registration and polling booths,
apparently escaped Post's attention. He expresses no surprise that the
politically inexperienced and apathetic peasants in remote rural areas
with few if any attributes of civilisation - tarred roads, clean water,
schools or medical provision - produced a percentage poll of 89.2.
Knowing British chicanery, Mr Post was right not to be surprised. From
reports I received from contacts throughout the country, I was not
surprised either. The lower figures of 74% in the East and 71% in the
West are acceptable as a reflection of the higher literacy and political
awareness in the coastal regions and were certainly due to truly
voluntary registration and voting. The Southern figures were comparable
(if somewhat lower) with voting figures in British general elections, as
Post notes. In the North, incredibly, albeit with British assistance,
the percentage poll was 10.5% higher than in the British General
Election of the same year! Even Mr Post acknowledges that the British in
the North lent a hand to get Northerners to register. Yet he draws back
from the realisation that the British would complete the job and
marshal largely illiterate peasants through the same booth to vote for
their pro-British masters. Why bother to tackle the enormous job of
registration if the voters were not going to turn up to vote? And as
Post records on page 205, it appeared that almost the entire eligible
male population was registered in a majority of Northern constituencies,
'voluntarily'. Presumably if the British had 'helped', registration
would have been 200%.
To
recap: In addition to the illegal gerrymandering, that I witnessed, by
my British colleagues which would have, if known, rendered the election
results null and void, the British had given the pro-British North 50%
of the seats. They had forced the Southern nationalists to keep out of
the North. 'Voluntary registration' had achieved near total figures in
the North and voting percentages were also incredibly high. In these
British-arranged circumstances a Northern (and British) win was an
absolute certainty. Any informed person betting on a Southern win
against these odds would have been declared insane. And did those who
registered know what they were doing so voluntarily? Post adds a
footnote to page 205 to suggest whether they were really aware of what
was happening was an entirely different matter. A knowing Post gives us
here a cynical smile. Post does not really believe they registered of
their own volition. If they had, we would have to assume that they knew
what they were doing. Post thinks that preposterous, as it probably
would appear to most people. And here Post gets himself into a logical
bind. He cannot bring himself to admit the truth. Yes, they did not need
to know what they were doing, because they were not registering of
their own volition. Mr Post, by his own admission in that footnote,
gives the game away. Just another British fix.
Another
astonishing fact was that the Northern Emir-controlled Government
party, the NPC, did not even need to fight its opponents in the West and
East. They could sit back and let the Southerners fight each other. The
NPC contested only one seat in the West and none at all in the East.
The NPC was indeed an unusual political party. The truth is that it was
not a proper political party at all, but a regime devised to perpetuate
the wishes of the British, both before and after the Independence
elections. No wonder Post remarks on page 240 that the outsider
experienced difficulty in penetrating the inner workings of the NPC.
In
1956 the present writer was ordered by the Governor General to take all
Department of Labour staff and vehicles to campaign in Warri for the
chief stooge of the British in the South, Festus (Festering) Samuel
Okotie Eboh, the most corrupt and probably therefore the politician most
favoured by the British in the South. I refused to take part in this
criminality as already stated. Now in stage two of the Independence
elections we had the NPC sending a team headed by a Federal Minister to
Warri to campaign for the leader of a supposed opponent! The truth of
course is that Okotie Eboh was the politician charged by the British to
tie the NPC and NCNC together so that a pro-British alliance would rule
Nigeria after Independence. Dr Azikiwe, who had been blackmailed by the
British to ally himself with an implacable enemy, dutifully visited the
Northern leaders in May 1958 to cement the deal, which had been set up
even earlier in 1956 at the instigation of the British.
Okotie
Eboh was the most important politician for the British. This is why
such extraordinary measures had to be taken to make sure he won. I knew
this in 1956, which is why the Governor General warned me that I knew
far too much. If I revealed what I knew, he said that means would be
found to silence me. The British could always deliver election results
to please their friends, even when one British official broke ranks.
There was one exception and it illustrates how grotesque Post's
conclusions were about the Independence elections.
On
7 November, shortly before the general election, a plebiscite was held
in the Trust Territory of the Northern Cameroons, organised by the same
British officials whose behaviour we have been discussing. The Northern
Cameroons ran alongside the Northern Region and the NPC expected the
British to deliver the goods as usual. But the British failed; the
Northern Cameroons did not vote to become an integral part of Northern
Nigeria. The NPC leaders were furious. It could only be that the British
were delivering the goods elsewhere. Suddenly it was quite clear. The
British wanted the Northern Cameroons so that they could build a
military base. Wrong, said the British. It had to be pointed out to the
Sardauna of Sokoto, the feudal and totally undemocratic leader of the
North, that, although 'our people' had run the elections, the suspicious
United Nations had insisted on sending UN officials to supervise the
elections.
However,
the British do not give up so easily. In the 1959 vote there had been
70,401 against 42,979 to postpone a decision to join Northern Nigeria.
In 1961 those who did not want to join the North had increased from
70,401 to 97,659, but those who wanted to join the North increased from
42,979 to an astonishing 146,296, a more than threefold increase. This
remarkable turnaround could not possibly be due to the presence of one
very experienced Northern hand, Mr D.J.M. Muffett who was a close friend
of the Sardauna? Mr Muffett had been the Chief Electoral Officer for
Northern Nigeria during the 1959 federal election and his robust
approach to registration had produced figures the Soviets would have
admired. Now, to resolve an intractable problem, the Sardauna appointed
Mr Muffett as Resident General in the Northern Cameroons and the results
were as gratifying to the Sardauna as the landslide win for the North
had been in the 1959 General Election. Mr Muffett had been resourceful,
enterprising, inventive, daring. He attacked problems head on. What
would the Sardauna have done without such brave captains?
Post
makes no reference to the celebrated presence of the CIA and its role
in the Independence elections. He does mention that Patrick Dolan's
public relations firm was working for the Action Group Government of the
West. The informed would know that Dolan was a close friend of Wild
Bill Donovan, chief of the CIA. Dolan was a spy and war hero known for
mission impossible tasks against the Nazis. Post did not mention this,
presumably because it might have drawn attention to the fact that the
whole of the SIS, MI5 and Nigerian special branch and related agencies
were deployed during the Independence elections to make sure that 'our
boys' won.
Francis
Nwokedi, whom the British had chosen to have the key post in Nigeria
after Independence, head of the Foreign Service, was my friend. It was
an uneasy friendship and it existed and survived, not in spite of, but
because I criticised Francis and stood up to him. He despised crawlers.
He knew I was like his wife Betty, which is what she told him. I thought
he could have been bigger than he was. I knew he had played along with
the British, but this was a ploy - or was it? Anyway, he was also a
close friend of Dr Zik, but the British did not know that. Not that it
mattered after 1956 because Zik had been broken at last. He was now a
burnt-out case, and could be relied on to be a ceremonial President with
no power at all after the election.
As
I have remarked, the Governor General said that I knew far too much,
and he would know. I have indicated how I knew so much. It should be
remembered that I was part of the British establishment. The Labour
Department expatriate staff made no claim to be very cerebral. (The
African staff were, however, quite brilliant). I made friends in other
departments including one that will not surprise the astute reader of
what has gone before. One informant was in charge of
counter-intelligence. Another tapped all leading politicians' 'phones.
As the Governor General rightly said, "I knew too much." This rigged
election put into office a gang of crooks who for six years ransacked
this great giant, this great empire of a nation, a commonwealth in
itself. 'Nigerians' are so diverse, so exuberant, and so full of
excitement and laughter... When the military rose against these crooks, a
civil war started and one thousand days later up to two million young
Nigerians were dead. This was treason to our democracy.
I
have written this election study as a duty, a debt, that I owe to a
dear friend now dead. Philip Williams, the biographer of Hugh Gaitskell,
pioneered the study of elections at Oxford. One of his students once
interrupted us at tea at Trinity. He was to be Dr David Butler. David
was sent away because at that time Phil, who was a don at Trinity where
he had sumptuous rooms, and I were being served tea and toasted crumpets
from a silver tray by a uniformed butler. As Labour people, neither
Phil nor I saw anything amiss in this. We believed that the workers
deserved the best. After tea Phil would unroll great charts and we would
explore the mystery of some general election.
"How do you do it, Phil!" I once exclaimed.
"I'll
tell you a secret, Harold," Phil said very seriously. "You get the
results, you get all the information you can, you take a dozen pencils
and note pads and you knock yourself out for weeks analysing it all!"
In
1957 I told Phil how we had rigged the elections in the first stage
Regional (State) level of the independence elections. I had resigned
from the Colonial Service and taken a job as Personnel Officer at the
Esso Fawley Refinery. We started a second baby; we had a house, a car, a
dog and a cat as well as a well-paid job. However, I knew too much, and
the British Government took my job, my car, my home, my dog and cat (I
still grieve for them) and forced me to return to Nigeria. If you are
surprised, I must tell you that the SIS has unlimited power. Anyone who
stumbles on secret operations is liable to be silenced. You are a
non-person. You have no rights. You cease to exist. That is exactly what
the head of the Colonial Service told Sir Julian Amery, the Government
Minister for the Colonies. He told Amery I did not exist. I had never
been in Government service; I had never served in Africa.
In
1960 I fled from Lagos and reported to Phil at his home in Chorleywood
on the 1959 election and how we had rigged that one. The above report is
the study Philip might have made - but so much more ably - had he not
been blackmailed into silence because of me. (As was another historian
friend in Lagos, Michael Crowder.) Margery Perham, the doyenne of Oxford
Africanists, put pressure on Phil. She was acting for her friend, Sir
James Robertson, the Governor General. There is a four-letter word for
Perham and it is not one to be used lightly, and it is not lady. She
made an honourable man suffer as her dishonourable friends made millions
of young Africans suffer even more.
Ken
Post worked incredibly hard to produce this book on Nigeria's
Independence election. If I cannot accept its conclusions, and I wonder
if they were dictated, I can acknowledge a magnificent if flawed work,
which my dear friend Phil Williams would have thoroughly enjoyed. The
book is packed full of brilliant description, facts and analysis, and is
truly the creation of a first-class scholar. I am told that Ken now has
serious reservations and takes a less sanguine view of what he so
brilliantly studied. If I appear to have been over critical in pursuit
of what I know because of secret information not available to Ken, I
hope he will appreciate the necessity that was dictated by the tragic
consequences of this despicable treachery by the British.
Another
American Professor Schwarz also believed Mr Post may have been too
sanguine in his conclusion about the fairness of the elections.
Certainly one of Nigeria's great nationalist leaders totally rejected Mr
Post's conclusions. When Chief Awolowo found himself charged with
treason by a Government fraudulently elected, the prosecution based its
case on the thesis that he had turned to insurrection having lost faith
in the ballot box as a result of his experiences in the North in the
1959 Independence election. Did Balewa think up that masterpiece of
sophistry all by himself?
The
Russians were always damned because in their kind of elections the
Government or official candidates always won with thumping majorities.
In some of the roughest and undeveloped terrain in Africa, Professor
Post records registration and voting figures which can only be compared
with the USSR. Even with Nkrumah on the rampage, Ghana only came up with
voting figures between 20 and 30%. Nigerian figures of 90% in the North
simply demonstrate British zeal going overboard when trying to do a
chum a good turn. Remember that few British colonial civil servants had
experience of elections either. If only the Britishers' enthusiasm had
stretched to providing tarred roads, clean water, schools, hospitals,
and other basic services for their Northern friends, but the Emirs did
not want them.
As
Sir Alan Burns proudly pointed out, '...no attempt was made to force
upon Nigeria all of the doubtful advantages of modern civilisation.'
Evidently most of the British in the Burns' mould regarded the North as
some kind of private zoo or reservation. In the capital, Lagos, with
relatively civilised facilities, the percentage poll was 76.2%, which is
still highly creditable. The North produced a percentage poll of 89.2%.
The
election studies in Nigeria were modelled on studies of British
elections since 1945, made under the auspices of Nuffield College,
Oxford. The aim was to preserve a careful, contemporary record of events
important in history. The first stages of the Independence elections
took place in 1956 at Regional (State) level. Strangely, the one
election in the North which scholars would have been most keen to know
about, was not able to be studied. These were the first direct elections
to the Northern House of Assembly. The reason was, of course, that they
were rigged. Somehow this did not seem to fit in with '...a sentiment
among Europeans that if they are to go it must be with honour, honour
defined by European standards (sic) of good government and democracy.'
This was the clarion call by Professors Mackenzie and Robinson who, with
Miss Perham, the guru of all matters colonial, headed the colonial
studies scene at Nuffield and Oxford.
It
was really the British colonial officials in the North who were
determined that it was their Southern counterparts - the mission boy
nigger lovers - who would be powerless. Did Dr Azikiwe and Awolowo
really believe that the British were going to hand over the richest
black colony in Africa to nationalists who loathed the British? (Ghana
was small beer and of little concern.) The means to this end was the
census and it was said that British officials in the early 1950's had
wanted to bolster the North, and that this had influenced their
counting.
The
only people who would be in a position to question Ken Post's
endorsement of the Independence elections as fair would be fellow
academics. This is why two historians, one an election specialist, later
to be eminent, had to be blackmailed into silence. Michael Crowder and
Philip Williams were my friends. If I could not be blackmailed because
my record was clean and I was a respectably married heterosexual,
pressure could be applied through my friends who were more vulnerable.
Michael was on the spot in Lagos and very promiscuous, and Sir James
Robertson personally threatened him with prosecution if his friend Smith
did not keep his mouth shut!
The
name of the game in handing over Nigeria to the pro-British North was
to make safe a vulnerable target for Soviet penetration. An oppressed
colony was assumed to be an obvious target for Soviet imperialism. A
newly 'independent' nation safely inside the Commonwealth with moderate
and responsible, i.e. pro-British leaders, would expand the free world.
Nothing need change in the economic relationship. There would be no
savings as the colonies paid their own expenses. The prisoner paid for
his own handcuffs even if they looked like a silken cord. A handful of
doctorates and knighthoods cost nothing. Years of planning and grooming
and fine tuning to be thrown away so Awo and Zik could rule? The idea
was preposterous. The independence arrangement, strategy, plan, was
executed perfectly. It was a well-oiled machine. It was pure theatre and
at the end of the play the performers applauded the audience. The
players thought the play was over - it had only just begun.
Britain
gave Nigeria to Balewa on a plate because independence was not granted
at the point of the terrorist's gun. Had it been so, Awo or Zik might
have won the prize. If Awo and Zik had, paradoxically, delayed the
transition, they could probably have dictated their own terms. Awo and
Zik thought they could deal with the British stooges from the North most
easily when the British left, but they were wrong. Both were easily
outmanoeuvred by the simple, but ruthless, Balewa and his British
advisors. For Awo and Zik, in truth, Independence had come too fast. Our
Northern puppets, who had never wanted independence, had to be rushed
into it. That was only Act One, although some thought Independence was
the name of and the whole of the play. Act Two was the destruction of
Awo and Act Three the elimination of Zik.
I
do not say that all the events in Nigeria between 1950 and 1970 were
planned by or dictated by the British, but some very treacherous covert
action did take place. If the central aim - to keep power in pro-British
hands - is appreciated, then much falls into place. Zik thought he was
the ace, but he was not. Awo was the ace. Zik was the joker in the pack.
Zik was easily railroaded into the presidential siding and given a set
of uniforms to play with like a black Barbie doll, while Awo was beaten
up. How the British High Commission rejoiced when Awo got ten years and
Enahoro fifteen years in jail. Revenge was sweet!
The
Coker Commission helped to prove that even if one doubted the charge of
treason, Awo had undoubtedly diverted millions of public funds into his
party machine. However, this had been known to British intelligence for
years. Had they nipped this in the bud, they could not have used it to
jail Awo at their convenience. I know this to be true because the Senior
Resident in the West, a fellow Magdalensis named Smith, told me he had
all this stuff in his safe in 1960, and it had been there for some time.
Post was told all this too, as can be seen from his book. Polling day
was on 12 October 1959. Post dates his Preface 31 August 1961. The
following year the Coker Commission was set up to - surprise, surprise! -
discover what had been known all the time and help put Awo out of
politics. One major threat to British control of Nigeria had been
removed.
Awo
may have thought that diverting funds to further the pursuit of freedom
from the colonial yoke was morally justified. The British were not the
sort of colonial street fighters who let moral considerations deter them
from going for the jugular. Awo went to jail, not because he was
charged with being a criminal - that was irrelevant - but because he
trusted the British to be moral. After all, they could have made
provision for political party financing from public funds. They could
also have acted quickly to stop the offence. Of course, that would have
seemed hypocritical when the British were financing the NPC - the party
which drew on the major geographical area and major part of Nigeria's
population - from public funds. The British bided their time like Fabius
(who gave his name to the Fabian Society), and like Fabius, when they
struck, they struck hard.
Mr
Post's study is replete with voting and registration figures, all of
which have passed through British hands. As such they are tainted, very
suspect and quite unacceptable. Sir James Robertson in 1960 not only
accepted that the elections were rigged, he was anxious to convince me
that they were, in order to underline the trouble I was in. He
emphasised that the orders had come from him and that hundreds of senior
officers had been involved in this covert operation. He stressed that I
was the only one to object.
I
already knew that the 1956 State (first stage) Elections had been
hopelessly compromised. This was how my troubles had started when Sir
James sent me personal orders to take all Labour Headquarters staff and
vehicles to assist the NCNC campaign against the Action Group. This was
the Minister of Labour's constituency although he himself was not
standing. The order came through Francis Nwokedi who was, like Okotie
Eboh, a close friend of Dr Zik. I was friendly with Nwokedi, who was to
head the Foreign Service after Independence; serve with Ironsi in the
Congo; be Ironsi's close colleague after the military coup; be
responsible for the Nwokedi report which proposed scrapping the
Federation and precipitated the Northern pogrom; and finally became a
Biafran leader, gun runner and hawk.
Also
in 1956 the Governor General ordered my boss Charles Bunker to
pressurise British and other firms to provide large sums of money, cars
and petrol to Okotie Eboh who was the National Treasurer of the NCNC. It
was this vast financial power which made it possible for Okotie Eboh to
become the major force in the NCNC, drive Dr Zik into a back seat and
seal an alliance, as the British demanded, with the NPC.
With
all this evidence and much more, the elections were clearly a total
fraud and the British role had been entirely criminal. It is for this
reason that there is really no point in examining Mr Post's numbers as
if they were factual. This criminality also reinforced commonly
expressed doubts about the integrity of the Northern census returns,
which had been designed to back up a demand that the North be given 50%
of the parliamentary seats.
If
all British chicanery were planned to give Nigeria unity and stability,
the strategy was badly misconceived and totally flawed. British
gerrymandering could put the NPC in power in 1959 but could the NPC
retain power and, worse still, win an honest election without the
British presence? The answer was evidently in the negative. Thus was
born, probably at the instigation of the British and with the connivance
of the remaining, mainly Northern, British administrators and the huge
British High Commission staff, the strategy to de-stabilise and destroy
the parliamentary opposition so ably and democratically exercised by
Chief Awolowo. This and the gross corruption of Britain's puppets
inevitably led to the military intervention that ended in a bloody civil
war in which up to two million innocent young people died.
I
do not know the true Northern census figures. Neither do I know the
true election returns for the 1956 and 1959 elections. I do know that
these elections were totally rigged and that the British, not the
Nigerians, engaged in wholly reprehensible, criminal behaviour. If the
Nigerian politicians did engage in corrupt electoral practices post
1960, they had been taught by their masters in 1956 and 1959.
There
was nothing personal in the vindictiveness shown to Awo and Zik by the
British. The nationalist leaders were not rotters; they were
intellectuals who were rather unsociable and aloof, and did not suck up
to the British, unlike the Northern creeps. Awolowo and Enahoro were men
of considerable intellect and principle, but they would tangle with the
British. Not too long after they were condemned as treasonable,
criminal and evil, they were reinstated and back in harness at a Federal
level with the full backing of the British and their Northern dupes,
for it was Zik's turn to be worked over and taught a lesson. In fact,
the wily Zik, when he saw defeat looming in the civil war, ratted on his
party and his people and was allowed to join the winning side. Of
course, it is wrong to talk of anyone winning in a barbaric war, which
cost the lives of a generation of young people. Neither the Nigerians
nor the Biafrans won this bloody contest. Surely there were only losers?
Not quite. It is true that the Nigerian people lost, but it was the
British who won for their allies in the North ruled as always and even
survived when split up into many states, because none of these states
crossed the frontier between North and South. The integrity of the North
survived even the fragmentation intended by the creation of many new
States.
The
game plan was to keep Nigeria in Britain's pocket and in the free
world. Both of these aims have been achieved by British foreign policy
towards Nigeria during the thirty years since the nominal Independence.
The necessary arrangement between colonial power and the Nigerian
'successor elite' (W.H. Morris-Jones) even outlasted the collapse of the
USSR and its allies, and the end of the cold war. The operation was a
great success. Tough that two million Nigerian young people had to be
killed to protect British interests in the cold war, but as the British
would say, omelettes cannot be made without breaking eggs.
I should very much like to have Professor Post's answers to the following questions: -
- Does he stand by his assessment of the election?
- What were his qualifications to make the study?
- Who suggested he make it? (He clearly obtained co-operation from the colonial regime). Did this affect his conclusions?
- Where did he spend polling day?
- Did he feel competent to make this colossal study without any assistance?
- Did he obtain a higher degree for this study? Is the book identical with his thesis? Can I obtain a copy of his thesis?
- Did the academics, whom he acknowledges, suggest changes in his book?
- Was he under any pressure to give the election a clean bill of health?
- What constraints were there on his freedom to report truthfully?
- I
myself spent polling day in charge of a polling station in Lagos. How
would he feel if, based on that experience, I made generalisations and
drew conclusions about the election throughout this vast nation?
- Did he employ any interpreters or conduct any interviews during the campaign?
- Apart from election returns, which came from colonial government, what were his sources?
- The
North, it was claimed, covered the major part of Nigeria's territory
and population. The only newspapers in the North were
Government-controlled. As those papers were under the control of the
Colonial Government, as was the radio in the North, what were his
sources other than these papers, radio, and colonial government election
returns?
- Where did he go during his study? What was his mileage? Did he travel only by car?
- Would his study not have had more claim to impartiality, if made by a non British academic?
- When
he made this study, how old was he? How had he voted, if ever, in
British elections? What were his political party affiliations?
- Did he make any further election studies?
- What are his views on the election now?
9 February 1992
! ('The Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends
And the World They Made' by Simon Ball)
Poor Bloody Africa: The British
Destruction of African Democracy
Macmillan's Machiavellian Machinations
'It
is out of season to question at this time of day, the original policy
of conferring on every colony of the British Empire a mimic
representation of the British Constitution. But if the creature so
endowed has sometimes forgotten its real significance and under the
fancied importance of speakers and maces, and all the paraphernalia and
ceremonies of the imperial legislature, has dared to defy the mother
country, she has to thank herself for the folly of conferring such
privileges on a condition of society that has no earthly claim to so
exalted a position. A fundamental principle appears to have been
forgotten or overlooked in our system of colonial policy - that of
colonial dependence. To give to a colony the forms of independence is a
mockery; she would not be a colony for a single hour if she could
maintain an independent station.
Three
British colonial officers protested at the British rigging of Nigeria's
Independence Elections. (Two gave in to pressure. It was decided that I
was the ringleader and should be punished accordingly. In fact, Charles
Bunker was my senior officer.)
The
remarkable way in which I was treated - vilification; vindication;
commendation; threats; vindication; hostility; offer of a knighthood
(with permanent exile); vindication; denigration - puzzled me until I
read every book on Macmillan, his diaries, biographies, etc. Only then
did I realise I had been treated in accord with Macmillan's personal
philosophy. However, as Macmillan had by this time killed three million
innocent Africans with Labour's help, I could hardly feel badly done to.
I was very lucky to be alive. Had I come near success as a
whistle-blower, I would have been killed. This was no problem for MI5/6
who have many killers to hand. Actually I was a failed whistle-blower
because poisoned by Porton Down, which was the view of a Minister of
Defence who had reason to know!
For
twelve years I suffered the devastating effects of a poison, which
destroyed my gut and simulated tropical sprue, which is rarely found in
Africa. All this time Porton Down had the antidote. This was naturally
denied me. The chance survival was remarkable and only after many years
of medical research did I feel confident enough to re-commence my
whistle-blowing. By this time the British had created a wasteland in
Nigeria. This proud showcase of democracy had become a total basket
case, thanks to Macmillan's Machiavellian machinations.
Macmillan
evolved his Casablanca philosophy while resident Minister in North
Africa. The rest of Africa, particularly Nigeria, suffered from
Macmillan's criminal tactics in the 50's and 60's, and the documentary
evidence is beginning to emerge. Macmillan adored what he learned in
North Africa. He was exhilarated!
'The purely Balkan politics we have here are more to my liking,' he wrote. 'If you don't like a chap,
you don't deprive him of the whip or turn him out of the party. You just say he is a monarchist or
has plotted to kill Murphy' - Macmillan's American counterpart - 'and you shoot him off to prison
or a Saharan concentration camp. Then a week or two later, you let him out and make him Minister
for something or other. It's really very exhilarating.'
In
1960 Macmillan rigged Nigeria's Independence Elections and put Northern
stooges in power. He then jailed Opposition leaders. Chief Anthony
Enaharo got fifteen years on trumped-up treason charges! This was sheer
effrontery of Macmillan when he was the one who was destroying
democracy. Chief Enaharo is still alive, outraged and seeking justice.
Following a coup and a British counter-coup, he then released Chief
Enaharo and his colleague, Chief Awolowo, made them Ministers in the
military administration and with massive supplies of British arms
encouraged them to wage war on their fellow nationalists of the Ibo
nation in the East. This was passed off as a civil war in which three
million innocents died. It was a classic example of British perfidy and
followed exactly the tactic proclaimed by Macmillan a few years earlier
in North Africa. No doubt it was very, very exhilarating! And the
African victims of his treason to British parliamentary democracy? They
were not human beings. They were, in his words, 'only barbarians'.
My
own treatment as a whistle-blower was not much better. His son-in-law,
Julian Amery, through the Governor General, Sir James Robertson,
threatened my life should I succeed in alerting the British public. At
the very least, they promised, if I did not accept permanent exile to
the Far East, I would never work again. They kept that promise with the
help of successive British Governments. Mr Blair has done nothing to
help me, or to correct this massive betrayal of the African people. Yet
he is fully informed and went on to deceive the British people about
Iraq and, following in Macmillan's footsteps, waged an illegal war.
Mac,
SuperMac, devious? Devious is not the word. Insane is a better one.
Drunk with power? Hitler was insane? Mussolini was insane? Nasser was
insane? Eden was insane? Macmillan was insane? Is Blair, who lied to
Parliament, not insane?
A Dagger in His Heart
“Without oil, and without the profits from oil, neither the UK nor Western Europe can survive.”
Harold Macmillan, 4 October 1956. The Macmillan Diaries.
At
the time Macmillan recorded this view, he was heavily engaged with
Suez. This glaring example of dirty work abroad was a total failure.
Undeterred, Macmillan re-read a life of Machiavelli, and turned his
attention to Nigeria and its newly discovered oil fields. On 21 July
1956 he had written, "The Government's position is very bad at present.
Nothing has gone well. In the Middle East we are still teased by Nasser
and Co; the Colonial Empire is breaking up; and many people view with
anxiety the attempt to produce Parliamentary Democracy in such places as
Nigeria..."
'Many
people' doubtless included the oil companies, and Tory and Labour
politicians. In fact, the first stage of the Independence Elections was
rigged in 1956, when I, with my colleague Charles Bunker, was ordered by
the Governor General to take a major role in the clandestine
arrangement. It was evident on the ground that planning had been in hand
for some time.
Although
of great international importance, not one civil servant blew the
whistle on the awful lies told by Government Ministers during the Suez
affair. This was a largely public event, and one of its major aims
(which was denied) was regime change. Blair, another lying Prime
Minister, was more successful in Iraq.
It
is clearly better to conduct dirty work abroad in secret. Macmillan
kept a close eye on the independence arrangements for Nigeria, where a
showpiece of democracy was to be cynically destroyed and a set of
corrupt stooges invested with power. I blew the whistle on that treason
in 1956 and Macmillan knew, through his son-in-law Julian Amery, the
measures taken to shut me up. Suez was illegal, Nigeria was illegal if
Suez was illegal. The British public still do not know of the treason
which killed three million in Nigeria, but Tony Blair knew!
It
seems that it was British parliamentary democracy that was being set
aside by Harold Macmillan. Our stooges, who did not want the British to
leave - the most backward and feudal we could find - had power thrust
upon them. Nobody believed the mass of the people who followed their
nationalist leaders could possibly have voted for those awful creatures
and, in fact, very few did, but who cared when the British were counting
the votes! Amazingly at the victory celebrations on Independence Day,
not a single nationalist leader was on the platform when the Union flag
was lowered.
Had
Macmillan feared the Nigeria people were not ready for independence, he
could easily have postponed it. After regime change in Persia and the
Suez adventure, one might have expected Macmillan to be cautious. It was
not to be. What is for sure is that it was not the welfare of the
Nigerian people that Macmillan had in mind in screwing up democracy in
Nigeria. There was also the small problem of consequences. What would
happen to our stooges at elections when the British were not there to
count the votes?
Clearly,
the opposition had to be smashed, and in no time the leaders of the
Action Group were framed on trumped-up treason charges. Would not this
increase the risk of a coup? Our stooges were gunned down in 1966, and
the Ibo were for a moment victorious. A British counter-coup restored
our boys in power and sadly involved a pogrom. The Ibo declared for
independence, and they were put down by the force of British arms.
Did Macmillan feel any regret? Why should he, when the Brits kept control of the oil fields? Only three
million died, and they were black, and a hagiographer of Balewa records
that only one person of note was killed. So that was all right!
Was
Macmillan an honourable gentleman? Or a cruel war criminal? Was he a
democrat? He was certainly not going to own up. Indeed he took extreme
measures to prevent the present writer telling the British people of his
exploits.
The
Brits had sold the Nigerians into slavery. Then they stole their
country. Then they stole their mineral resources. Then they killed them.
What next, one wonders? It would seem that Macmillan did not believe in
teaching by example.
Nigeria,
after decades of British misrule, is now a total basket-case. After so
many coups, assassinations and military dictatorships, it is totally
corrupt. However, the British are not blamed. The Nigerians must carry
the can. How could you expect such corrupt people to run a parliamentary
democracy!
The
truth is, of course, that democracy has never been tried in Nigeria.
Divide and rule wins again, and the British will write the history
books!
One paragraph from an article by Michael Meacher in the New Statesman of 18 October 2004 states:
"Between
1976 and 1991, Shell was responsible for 2,976 oil spills in Nigeria,
yet has largely refused to clean up properly or pay compensation. (This
despite Shell having admitted to making illegal payments to Nigerian
officials of £1.2bn in total.)"
The
Guardian of 30 October 2004 gives us an insight into how the West
encourages Nigerian corruption. Under the heading, 'US vice-president
mired in claims of bribery and corruption...' we have the following:
"
British authorities have opened a new front in the widening
investigation into allegations of bribery at Halliburton, the American
oil services business, while it was being run by the US vice-president,
Dick Cheney.
The
Guardian has learned that the Serious Fraud Office has joined the
international effort at the request of the US Department of Justice in
Washington. French and Nigerian officials are already involved in the
inquiry.
Halliburton
has become a political liability for the Bush administration as the US
prepares to vote in presidential elections next week. The company, one
of the chief government contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been
dogged by controversy, which includes claims of White House favouritism
in awarding the firm billions of dollars of contracts without being
forced to bid and Pentagon allegations that the firm has massively
overcharged for its work. It emerged late on Thursday that the FBI had
launched an inquiry into how Halliburton secured contracts in Iraq, so
far worth almost $9bn (£4.9bn).
The
Nigerian investigation centres on $180m in payments allegedly made by a
consortium led by Halliburton to secure the contract to build a natural
gas plant in Nigeria. The cash was allegedly channelled through a
US-owned oil engineering firm in London called MW Kellogg and was
handled by a company executive based in Berkshire. The funds were said
to have been paid into a Swiss bank by a British lawyer."
Harold
Macmillan and his influence by Machiavelli started something. He had no
love of Africa or Africans. He shared the racial prejudices of his
class and his time. A good man who failed to rise to the challenges of
his time. Of course, he had a dagger in his heart.
The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years 1950-1957
For
much of my life I have deeply respected Harold. Even now, when I have
reason to be very critical, those earlier sentiments push to the front.
He was to me a very liberal, one-nation Tory, who seemed to care for
working-class people. He was a literate person, and it is a joy to be
educated by him! I just wish I had access to the London Library to get
at those multi-volume biographies he so enjoyed.
Then
why am I angry with this war hero, this very decent man? I think he was
flawed. I blame the unfaithfulness of Dorothy for the dagger in his
heart. It was his duty to forgive her. He loved her. One so wants it to
be all right. Yet she wanted too much. Like Churchill, he settled for
what he got. Took it on the chin. Stiff upper lip. I want to scream,
"Bugger that for a lark! Break free!"
There
was regime change in Persia, viewed as a success, but which influenced
Nasser and young Egyptian nationalists. Then Suez, and secretly Nigeria,
which is how he came to destroy a showcase of democracy, kill three
million innocents, and ruin my life.
In
R W Johnson's review of Simon Ball's Book on 'The Guardsmen: About
Harold Macmillan and His Three Friends' (London Review of Books, October
2004), we see revealed a transformation of Macmillan following a near
encounter with death. A hero from the trenches of World War One, a
Balliol scholar with a first in Mods, Churchill's Minister in North
Africa in World War Two, Macmillan was a man of substance. This was pure
Casablanca. He thoroughly enjoyed the Balkan politics he experienced.
In later years getting out of Empire he used 'every unsavoury trick in
the book ('The Prince?) to cut corners.' He understood 'the urgent need
to leave the age of empire behind, whatever the costs.' He got away with
'lies, wiles and charm.' The Africans were 'vain and childish.' 'Power'
as Macmillan understood it, was not a matter of morality or immorality.
Morality did not come into it.
The
Governor General of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson, had met Macmillan
when he was on his way to South Africa to make his 'Wind of Change'
speech. In 1960 when I was in Government House in Lagos, Robertson was
telling me that he had rigged the Independence Elections to let me know
how much trouble I was in.
'Why?' I pleaded.
'Because it was necessary,' he replied. He then went on to threaten my life.
Ah,
necessity and Machiavelli, and oil! Without oil, without the profits
from oil, neither the UK nor Western Europe can survive. Of course, that
was before we discovered oil in the North Sea, and squandered it.
On
14 November 2003 the Guardian reported that Bush and Blair had decided
at the President's ranch in April 2002 to work together to leverage oil
resources in Nigeria and other areas of Africa to secure a guaranteed
supply of oil from new sources in Africa. Oil production was likely to
double. The Middle East was volatile and the USA and the UK have agreed a
set of co-ordinated measures 'to help achieve our objectives.'
In
other words, more of the same chicanery for Nigeria. If capitalism was
so successful, why was it necessary to resort to those vile
machinations? Except that stealing was more profitable than buying. Why
was honesty not an option? No lessons can be learned from this chicanery
until British historians stop acting as if they are on the MI6 payroll.
No
doubt Macmillan had his reasons for rigging Nigeria's Independence
Elections, but he was keen nobody should find out. Nigeria ended up a
basket-case like the rest of poor, bloody Africa, with more coups,
dictators, more suffering people, and all the time Macmillan kept his
dark secret, and the oil flowed as did the bribes. What did he make of
the pogrom in the North, I wonder. Of Biafra, of all those starving
children? This was also necessity? Harold, a cowardly child killer? A
war criminal? Afraid to come clean and admit what he did? I wrote to him
once and accused him. The letter is somewhere and I think he replied,
but I do not want to hate him, and I leave the letter lost from view.
I
also wrote to his son-in-law, Julian Amery, about the tragedy of his
brother John, who was a traitor and hanged. I felt his pain and did not
rebuke him for the pain he gave my wife and children. I was so anxious
that I almost thanked him for giving me a mock trial and vindicating me,
although I knew in my heart that this was a cruel display of
Machiavellian deception.
When
democrats are capable of such folly and cruelty, I despair. They were
proud of their families. They regarded themselves as honest and decent.
They went to church and were believers. So what went wrong? What was
missing?
A
small consolation for me is that Harold was very rude about the
Colonial Office. As it happens, Jack Straw has just sent me for £10 my
personal file, which is heavy with treachery, revenge and lies. These
people loathed me because I tried to blow the whistle on Harold, and
conspicuously failed. Harold's accomplices in Nigeria were all gunned
down, but I doubt he lost much sleep about their fate. Had I succeeded
in exposing this evil, perhaps they might have survived and enjoyed a
pleasant retirement like Harold's.
That
was not to be, for the corrupt English gentlemen in on this fix made it
clear to me that they would kill me first. I have only survived because
I am a failed whistle-blower. That is why Harold's diaries are such a
disturbing read for me.
Consequences: No Lessons Learnt
British
dirty work abroad is nothing new, and a leading exponent in the late
1950s and early 1960s was Julian Amery, Macmillan's son-in-law.
I
discussed this with him, and his major point was that each intervention
should be evaluated separately. My point is that no lessons seem to be
learnt. Also no heed was given to the consequences.
Regime
change in Persia was thought to be a great success. This encouraged
belligerence in Suez. However, the young Colonels in Egypt had drawn a
different lesson from our dirty work in Persia.
Suez
was a disaster with awful consequences for the Middle East. They have
clever people at the Foreign Office or traitors who recommend disastrous
policies.
The
election rigging in Nigeria must have been thought very clever and
successful. Actually no one was fooled, and a coup was discussed
everywhere. The bolshie Yoruba opposition had to be jailed as our
stooges could not face an honest election. Awolowo got ten years.
Enaharo got fifteen. Innocent politicians were incarcerated at the
behest of a British war criminal, Macmillan. The Zikist opposition had
been bought to collaborate with our stooges and for six years bided
their time. Then they struck. Our stooges were shot, i.e. they got their
just deserts. A pity the Colonial Office escaped justice!
A
counter coup involving a pogrom put our boys back in charge. We
released the bolshie Yorubas from prison and put them in charge of
waging war on the rebellious Ibos and Zikists. People on the British
payroll often turn out to be rebel leaders like Mossadeq in Persia,
Nkrumah in Ghana and Nwokedi in Nigeria.
What
is termed 'collateral damage' is due to lack of planning. In Nigeria
the war, wrongly seen as a civil war, took three million lives. It
should have been stopped, and a small force of British troops could have
done just that.
Will
we never learn? A policy that is ethical and honest is rarely
considered. Boy politicians like 'James Bond' dirty work against foreign
demon monsters. The real monsters are, of course, in Whitehall.
Empire State Building and the Twin Towers
Ill-treat
the natives, and they will retaliate. Practise dirty work abroad, and
you will soon practise it at home, e.g. I protest at our destroying
democracy in Nigeria, and my human rights are extinguished in the UK.
The major reason for not following the precepts of Machiavelli is that
your opponents, if you do, have a perfect excuse for playing the same
game, and you do not have control of the consequences.
Harold
Macmillan thoroughly enjoyed wartime dictatorial powers in North
Africa, and in peacetime enjoyed applying the same tactics in the rest
of Africa. We did not build a viable democratic state in Nigeria, the
better to go on the rampage there through our stooges. The consequences
are the destruction of the twin towers. Mass destruction, as with the
twin towers, cannot be justified, but retaliation can be understood,
even if condemned. If we do not learn why the 'terrorists' retaliated
and learn a lesson, the terrorism will continue.
Harold
Macmillan and Julian Amery enjoyed being unprincipled 'state'
terrorists. It was fun. Much more enjoyable than parliament and
democracy, for democracy is slow, grinding hard work. Did Tony Blair
enjoy hoodwinking Parliament and taking Britain into an illegal war? The
answer is 'Yes'. He thoroughly enjoyed his criminal activity. Once he
realised that the Brits had been doing this for decades, he did not
disapprove. He could not wait to join in the fun.
Is there a better way to run this country?
'All things bright and beautiful
War destroys them all.
All things bright and beautiful
Are not revered by all...'
Take
retaliation. A young Nigerian, on learning that Britain destroyed
democracy and killed three million of his people, might believe that
Britain was an unlawful society and wish to take revenge.
I
get pretty angry for being unlawfully punished; being denied the right
to work and feed my family; being branded a traitor; being, in effect,
outlawed, censured, ostracised; being exiled in my own home and country.
Nudge, nudge, everyone secretly approves of killing 'niggers' - even
three million. Too strong? Everyone is content to look away while we do
it? Nudge, nudge; know what I mean; wink, wink. Smith is a wrong 'un and
deserves what he gets. We cannot put him in court or he would spill the
beans. Nudge, nudge; wink, wink; know what I mean? And it is true that
nearly all MPs for half a century know exactly what nudge nudge, wink
wink means. I take care not to get bitter or violent, for there is
nothing the bad boys of MI5 would like more than to have some excuse for
incarcerating me. Even though, as a pacifist, I harbour dangerous
thoughts - not retaliation, but dreams of delayed justice, which are
pure fantasy.
If
that means that the whole of British society is an organised conspiracy
against truth, that is the way it seems sometimes, for many journalists
and editors are on the Government payroll.
That
leaves the common people, the real enemy of corrupt politicians. I like
to think they are fundamentally decent. We have to believe in
something.
Is
there a better way to run this country? Do we have to plead necessity,
like dependence on oil, as an excuse for criminal activity abroad? Do we
have to kill millions out of necessity?
I
do wish Government would speak to me., However, I am feared because
dangerous. I might reveal to the public the fact that our leaders
indulge in criminality. They love to demonise foreigners as James Bond
monsters who must be zapped or tricked.
Is
honesty the best policy? We could start being honest with ourselves and
facing up to what we do. Because we did not engage in Empire State
Building, we have enemies who destroyed a symbol of our way of life, the
Twin Towers. The Bush/Blair response drives a highway through our
liberties and freedoms and leads to Hitler and Stalin. There are
alternatives, which call for hard work, patience and perhaps discipline
and sacrifice. Punishing the Smiths will not make these problems go
away. I can only continue to write letters and hope to find a good apple
in the barrel. There are good politicians. We need some brave ones.
November 2004
Transition in Africa: Sir James Robertson (Confession of a Witness to the Death of the British Empire)
It
has been suggested that tribalism is the reason for the tragic history
of Nigeria since Independence in 1960. See Margery Perham's weasel words
in Sir James Robertson's 'Transition in Africa', an apology for
treachery and treason.
The
very occupation of a territory with politics banned must, I suppose,
bottle up tensions and suppress real or imagined discord. Meanwhile,
totally irrelevant issues are made meaningful. What is real to the
occupying power, like a war, affects the Colony because the local
administration wills it. So l00,000 Nigerian men served in the British
Army in the Second World War, mainly in the Far East. My clerk, Mr
Fadeyebo, was ambushed by the Japanese and wounded while floating on a
river raft in Burma. When the survivors were rounded up on the
riverbank, the British officers and men were bayoneted by the Japanese.
When a Japanese officer approached Fadeyebo, he feared the worst, but
the officer said, "This is not your war, black man, we are not at war
with you", and he was left with the other wounded Nigerians lying under
the trees. Two of them survived. (The experience of war must have
affected those of the 100,000 Nigerian soldiers who survived, but
although important, this fact is irrelevant to my present concern.)
We
are often told that the aim of British foreign policy has long been a
unified Nigeria. Those of us who lived in Nigeria before Independence
might question the truth of that because we recall how the British
governed strictly in accordance with the maxim of 'divide and rule'.
The
manner in which 'Nigeria' was created was of course the responsibility
of the British, not of the millions of Africans of hundreds of tribes
who one day found themselves contained within straight lines drawn on
the map of West Africa, and told they were subjects of the Great White
Queen. A great event for a young African who could now, if a missionary
came to his village, go to a missionary school, become a Christian, get a
job as a Government clerk and own a bicycle. Other events would mould
him, events largely dictated by men in a foreign land, as a foreign war
had taken Mr Fadeyebo to Burma. If a clerk was befriended by a
sympathetic British administrator in the rush to Independence in the
late 1950's, he would find himself sitting behind that white man's desk
at Independence, living in a European house with servants and a brand
new Ford Consul parked outside.
If
unity is required, do you exacerbate tribal differences by dividing the
nation on tribal lines, creating a Northern Hausa/Fulani Moslem State; a
Western Yoruba, Moslem/Christian State; and an Eastern Igbo Catholic
Christian State? Do you confine missionary activity to the South so that
the Moslem North has no schools, and all the educated Africans who
staff the Government civil service come from the South and are mainly
Catholic Ibo? When the educated South inevitably produces nationalist
leaders, do you, seeing the danger to the feudal backward North, provide
an educational system in the North? The problem was ignored and nothing
was done.
It
seemed to the disinterested observer before Independence that the
British did everything to emphasise and exacerbate tribal differences.
Even the system of rule and administration was different. Indirect rule
in the North confirmed the power of native chiefs, who naturally found
that their interests were identical to the British. In the South the
British could speak in English to the missionary-trained locals, which
might be a mixed blessing when the village bright boy returned from
London with better degrees in British law than the big white chief, who
often made up the law as he went along. (British officials had to learn a
local language to pass a promotion bar. A thankless task because when
he had passed he would be promoted to a region where his newly acquired
language was useless.)
At
one time, so strong was the split between North and South, that
separate stamps were printed. The different policies, systems, languages
had their effect on the British rulers. Those in the South encouraged
the missionary schools and inspected them. Work had to be found for
school leavers, and public utilities and plantations sprang up to absorb
them. Clean water, electricity supplies, dispensaries and roads
followed in the wake of enthusiastic British administrators, who were
dubbed 'nigger-lovers' by their less active polo-playing colleagues in
the feudal North.
We
must not labour the point. The North, West and East were not truly
separate countries. Lagos, more or less, ruled them all, and Lagos was
controlled in turn by Whitehall. Take away the brakes on political
activity, have three Prime Ministers each leading his own 'tribe' and
each looking to the British overlord for fair play, equal treatment and
perhaps occasional favours in return for loyal behaviour, and any
pretence of unity might disappear, especially when a scramble starts to
be the privileged one to whom the British would hand over the keys of
the whole kingdom.
The
other major assumption shared by all commentators was, of course, that
the British would hand over power without fear or favour to whichever
political party commanded a majority in the second and final stage of
the Independence elections which took place in 1959.
It
was true that the British always got on well with the leaders of the
Moslem (and to a degree pagan) North. This was well known to be so, and
no one would bother to deny it. The Northern chiefs were so happy with
British rule that they did not want the British to leave at all,
particularly so if the bolshie Southerners, whom the Northerners loathed
almost as much as their British administrators - if that were possible -
were to take over in Lagos. Naturally the British did not wish to upset
their Northern friends. It was even said by the British that if the
Northerners were not guaranteed freedom from rule by the Southerners
they might march on the South and drive the despised missionary-trained
bolshies into the sea. It was left unclear whether the chiefs would do
this themselves or whether they would depute the task to their British
advisors.
Was
this to be an intractable problem? It will be seen that if the North
won the national elections, there would be those who would suggest that
the British had favoured the North and given them a helping hand. Poor
losers of course. However, if the North were to win it would solve what
might otherwise be a terrible problem.
Not
everybody trusted the British, but nobody cared what the communists
said. Uncle Joe did not get where he did by winning elections either. As
for the Fabians and other do-gooders, their doubts were quashed by the
very fact of Independence being granted at all. Had not they campaigned
for this in so many pamphlets and speeches? It was almost unbelievable
and euphoria short-circuited their critical faculties. Even the British
had been happy to confess to imperialism and an empire won by conquest,
but suddenly it all became a sacred trust which had been accomplished.
It only remained to see to which of the carefully trained and nurtured
responsible leaders we would hand on the sacred flame. More succinctly
the creeps were at long last going to be paid off.
It
was true that successive Governors General had found the southern
nationalists, led by Zik in the East and more parochially perhaps Awo in
the West, a bit of a trial. Zik had just emerged from a Government
enquiry into his running of a bank. He had not been exactly cleared but
neither had he been jailed, and a more subdued and perhaps wiser Zik,
after winning a vote of confidence in a fresh election in the East,
seemed prepared to co-operate with the British.
Nigerian
statistics were always a bit problematical. My own experience as head
of the statistics branch at the Department of Labour had not been
reassuring. The number of unemployed in Nigeria - a derisory figure
which British politicians would have envied - on slightly closer
examination turned out to be the total calling in at the handful of
Labour Exchanges in the larger towns.
A
possible insoluble problem suddenly loomed less large when the British
announced that the North contained 50% of Nigeria's population. What had
seemed to be a three-legged race now seemed to be something else. The
NPC ruled the North with little opposition, but the West and East were
at each other's throats. The North could be unbeatable. The only
question was which of the southern leaders would decide to throw in his
lot with the North. A Zik in opposition could be dangerous, but a new
less belligerent Zik might be safer in Government. One might have
thought a largely Moslem West would get along better with the Moslem
North, and indeed, once the tragic and futile Biafran war started, such
an alliance would come about.
If
the British in Whitehall had been able to influence events, these were
the thorny problems they would have mulled over. Had they done so, the
right man was available to advise, because a former Governor General,
Sir John MacPherson, was the top official. If anyone advised Harold
Macmillan on Nigeria's possible intractable problems, it was Sir John.
If
Sir John disliked Zik, he positively loathed Awo whom he regarded as a
smart arse. Awo had responded to the news, which must have been a blow,
that the North would have 50% of the votes, with a cheerful resolve to
take the war into the North with a small army of election agents and
propagandists. Awo had modelled his party machine on the British
Conservative Party, and he was to command his troops from a helicopter,
from which he would descend and perhaps seem like a god to the simple
northern peasant. Awo's plans were noted by the new Governor General
with some dismay. Was this another intractable problem looming on the
horizon?
Whatever
ideas Whitehall came up with to ease the transition, one big decision
was taken. It might have been thought desirable to leave everything to
the experienced men on the spot. On the other hand, if there were
intractable problems, would the experienced men on the spot necessarily
be the right men? Even top officials could get to love the country and
its people. Tough decisions might need tough people who could take an
overall view without sentiment. There were liberals in the Colonial
Office, but very few in the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office ran the
Sudan and when the Foreign Office cracked the whip the Sudan
administrators jumped on the Sudanese. Not everyone trusted these tough
ex soccer blues to observe the rules when it came to Sudan's turn to
hold elections, and the presence of international observers was insisted
on. It is a tribute to the reputation of the British in Nigeria that no
one questioned their ability to run honest elections. Not that there
had ever actually been any elections to speak of, but that was perhaps
the reason no one questioned the honesty of the British. They were after
all granting elections and they were going to go! Quit! Exit! Depart
forever! No more Governor General in white suit and plumed hat. No more
Government House tea parties. No more Union Jacks and Empire Day. No
more Residents and District Officers to kow-tow to. Already these local
and powerful gods were being renamed Local Government Advisors! What a
come down. Little wonder, except in the North, that they deserted their
sacred trust almost to a man in favour of the generous compensation lump
sum and pension. Or was there a more sinister reason for the defection
of these dedicated officials? Had they been ordered to cross a bridge
too far?
In
came experienced Sudanese officials as Governor General in Lagos,
Governor in the North and Chairman of the Public Service Commission.
Tough policies might produce casualties and a strong man running the
Commission to which unhappy British civil servants would appeal, was a
sound precautionary measure. A new Governor in the East rounded off
these precautionary measures in the run up to the General Election,
which would be in two stages, at Regional (State) level and finally at
the Federal and National level.
Unity
was now the overriding theme, and it was sensible that it should be so.
Precious little had been in evidence during British rule. This great
nation not only contained one quarter of Africa's black people, it was
in West Africa, unique in having no permanent white population, not one,
as white settlement had been banned as the region was so unhealthy.
Other colonies amounted to nothing against this giant. Nigeria would be
the major force in black African politics. Economically it was rich and
would be extremely wealthy when its newly-discovered rich oil fields
came on stream. What is not often realised was that the bulk of the
British Colonial Service - a misnomer really - was employed in Nigeria.
As the colonies employed and paid the officials, only a small
secretariat ran the Colonial Office and they were from the Home Civil
Service. The so-called Colonial Service was really a small recruiting
office, mainly charged with finding decent people to work for small pay
in often awful and unhealthy conditions in Nigeria.
But
was the necessity of unity being used to cloak some tough policy
decisions? Certainly when I questioned British policy in Nigeria in an
interview in 1960 with the Governor General, Sir James Robertson, I got a
very tough answer. No one could be really surprised when the North won
the Federal Elections in 1959. Quickly, the Governor General - even
before the results were all in - declared the North the winner and as
rapidly blessed an alliance with Zik's party, the NCNC.
I
was not at all surprised for I knew, even before the 1956 State
elections at Regional level, that this was how it was going to be. The
Governor General in 1960 confirmed to me what he had let me know in
1956. There had been an intractable problem and means had been found to
resolve it. Unity had made this necessary. The Northern census results
were to be challenged in many ways, but they were never to be confirmed
or accepted as accurate, and that is still the position thirty years on.
Was
that all the necessary action to be taken? Had Zik not been brought to
heel with a carefully prepared Bank Enquiry that could easily have
jailed him? A close friend of Zik told me more than I can reveal. When I
questioned him, as I was a great admirer of Zik at the time, he said,
"The next time there is trouble, Zik will be abroad. He will never be caught as he will always have an alibi."
"What cynical rubbish," I replied.
Having
said that, my friend was clearly wrong when it came to the Bank
Enquiry, because the British nearly nailed Zik, whether they were
justified or not.
After
that close brush with the law, a great manipulator took control of
Zik's party. Zik had made many great personal sacrifices for his NCNC
and had personally financed it for years at great personal cost. Now he
was broke and someone who could raise vast sums of money, as if from
thin air, would be the real power-broker in Nigerian politics. Chief
Festus Okotie Eboh - 'Festering Sam' - was not only a very cheerful
character and master crook, he was much loved by the British in Lagos
and Whitehall. Okotie Eboh was not his real name - he thought it sounded
good. Like Robert Maxwell, not much about him was what it seemed. Like
Maxwell too, he was greatly feared and he was also a great
wheeler-dealer. The Governor General knew him to be a thief, a master
criminal, a trickster, someone totally corrupt. He was also something of
a rapist. Not the first person one might think to be made Minister of
Finance by the British, after a spell as Minister of Labour.
The
NCNC made him Party Treasurer and British officials, principally
Charles Bunker, a Senior Labour Officer, were ordered by the Governor
General to extract large donations from multi-national companies for the
NCNC and NPC. Thus, in 1956, four years before Independence,
Government-approved corruption was institutionalised and at a national
level by the British. This was the first lesson in democratic politics
that the British taught Nigerian politicians. As the NPC in the North
were inexperienced in these matters, the British arranged their
finances, so they came from Native Administration (local Government)
funds. Okotie Eboh thought big, and decided when he became Minister of
Labour that he owned the Ministry, so why should he not sell its offices
if he chose? He sold a prime office site opposite the Lagos Railway
Station to a company, which had long had designs on the site. The
Governor General had him over at Government House and told him to be
more circumspect next time as people were talking! The importance of
Okotie Eboh was that he was the man who could use his newly-acquired
wealth to weld the Northern NPC and the Eastern NCNC together. The
wedding actually took place with the blessing of the British in 1956
before even the first stage of the Independence Elections. I was a
witness at this wedding. It was about unity, and two totally different
parties coming together in a partnership to solve an intractable
problem. It was a secret wedding and most people believed it took place
in 1960 after the results of the Federal Independence Elections were
announced.
Awolowo
was to pay a big price for being rude to the British and being a smart
arse. The British wanted revenge. That very word was to be used,
although when Sir James Robertson recorded it, he said it was only
natural that revenge against Awo should be sought by the parties who
formed the Government. As to why anyone should seek revenge on Awo, Sir
James could only suggest that he had invaded the privacy of the Northern
Chiefs' harems by flying overhead in a helicopter. The real truth was
that he had actually dared to send the British to Coventry and his Party
would not speak to British officials! Presumably it was because of this
helicopter prank that the British harassed Awo's Action Group when it
campaigned in the North and meted out brutal treatment, including
turning a blind eye to the murder, of AG campaign workers.
It
was in the name of unity that the British Government rigged the
Nigerian Independence Elections most successfully from start to finish. I
almost wish that Sir James Robertson had not placed his trust in me and
confided to me the British Government's plans in 1956 before the
elections took place. It put a very heavy and grave responsibility on my
shoulders.
29 November 1991
THE TRIAL (Der Prozess, 1925): Franz Kafka
The
confrontation of an individual and a baffling bureaucracy is something I
have experienced since the day in 1956 when I realised that British
democracy was a fraud. Kafka's hero, Joseph K, is accused of a crime
that does not exist, and is made to feel guilty. His attempts to obtain
justice lead nowhere. I know these feelings too. My 'crime' was to
refuse to break the law by rigging Nigeria's Independence elections. How
can I clear myself when I have committed no crime? No crime?! Did I not
refuse to obey Whitehall's orders! Did I not let my colleagues down by
refusing to commit treason against the Nigerian people! Have I not tried
to publicise this evil, covert action which led to the deaths of two
million innocent Africans?
I
thought that I could walk away, but the Queen's men were determined
that, like Humpty Dumpty, I was going to take a great fall and they came
after me.
Like
Joseph K, I have tried to obtain justice from an authority that will
not communicate with me, for the very good reason that they have
pronounced me dead. All my attempts to obtain justice have been
fruitless. I brought something new out of Africa, a plea for justice for
the African people, but they say that that was impossible for I was
never in Africa. Will my struggle too culminate after thirty years in
total frustration, loss of dignity and death like a dog? Undoubtedly,
though I would rather die a dutiful and faithful hound than live for one
day as the criminal politician or evil bureaucrat who refuse to answer
my letters.
Destroying
Nigerian democracy was evil of a very high order. Those who have looked
the other way are the many notables, politicians and journalists who
have been deaf to my pleas. A handful of politicians and journalists
have given me encouragement because they could do no more. They have
sustained me. Edmund Burke spoke for me and my experience when he said
that "for evil to triumph, good men need do nothing."
31 July 1992
GOOD GUYS, BAD GUYS: A Hollywood Guide to doing the right thing
NB Items starting with ! are recent additions or updates.
'Bad Day at Black Rock' (with Spencer Tracy. MGM. 1955)
'Abubakar
from the Black Rock' is the sub-title of an interminable account of
Balewa, a Nigerian politician's life, by a superb writer and splendid
historian, Trevor Clark. Anyone who can write so much - 888 pages -
about so little deserves superlatives. Apart from that, Trevor was at my
Oxford College, Magdalen, and even more we served in Nigeria together.
(I bitterly resent ill-informed criticism of colonial officials. Some,
acting on orders from Whitehall, were dreadful scoundrels, but the vast
majority were first-class people, doing excellent work under very trying
conditions in extremely unhealthy places.)
Like
Balewa, the hero of Trevor Clark's fascinating work, Spencer Tracy is
faced with a hostile community. Under Clark's vivid and imaginative
direction, his hero Balewa is transformed from a squalid traitor to his
people, a puppet of the British, to the man in white who takes on all
those vile enemies of his masters and dies tragically in the struggle.
This seminal suspense thriller - the guilty nation motif becomes a
cliché - has a dramatic unity, an economy of word and action which is
sadly lacking in Clark's master work of 888 pages. But as in Clark's
riveting presentation, the moments of violence, long awaited in the
film, are electrifying. Truly an admirable production in an age of
flabby Hollywood epics that meander on forever. (For my filmic insights I
am indebted to Leslie Halliwell's Film Guide and William K. Zinsser of
the New York Herald Tribune.)
The
man in the white suit in the rough desert terrain, where man depended
on his horse if he was to win through, was Balewa, a simple homespun
farmer and teacher. When the call came, he knew what he had to do to
serve his people, his nation, his faith. It was true that his colleagues
ransacked and plundered the national coffers. It was necessary to rig
elections and destroy democracy in pursuit of a higher, if highly
questionable, morality. His opponents had to be imprisoned, and his
actions inevitably led to a bloody civil war in which a million young
people died, but 'He Never Faltered In His Duty.' This is a true story
of epic proportions not yet told by master storyteller Trevor Clark.
('The skill of some sequences, the mood and symbiosis between man and
nature makes this film sometimes superior to High Noon.' G.N. Fenin.)
Who
knows, one day 'Abubakar from the Black Rock' will be filmed, and
Pauline Kael will write, 'A very superior example of motion picture
craftsmanship,' as she did of Dore Schary's morality play featuring
Spencer Tracy, the good man fighting evil.
Even
as I write, Mr Clark's epic story is probably being winched into the
hold of an ocean-going freighter bound for a film tycoon's reinforced
desk at MGM. Will a blacked up Alec Guinness play the martyred leader,
beloved by all his British friends, but cruelly served by his own giant
nation of a hundred nationalities who thought 'he had it coming' as they
say in Westerns? I trust, anyway, that Mr Clark has better luck than I
had when my own script of these events was to be filmed in the late
60's. The Director wanted to move the action to the West Indies, change
the title and turn the hero into a heroine
The
Girl from Black Rock,' with numbers by Andrew Lloyd Webber is truly a
fate worse than the tragic death of this simple man, who fell into bad
company as the sun set over the great and illustrious British Empire.
[Fade in theme tune. Close-up, 'The End.' Roll credits. Feature
prominently 'Director: Trevor Clark. Cut.]
Postscript
The
total cost of publishing Mr Clark's epic work was paid for by the
British taxpayer. The cash went from a secret Foreign office account via
the old Colonials 'Friends of Nigeria' to the publisher. This was an
MI6 wheeze to ingratiate the British with Nigeria's latest military
ruler and win some arms contracts. The book was the centrepiece of a
ceremony in Nigeria to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Balewa's
assassination. I am the only person known to have purchased a copy of
this splendid work. It was worth every penny. I have never laughed so
much!
30 April 1992
Carry On up the Creeks: Carry On Series: Up the Khyber, et al. (Anglo-Amalgamated. Peter Rogers, Director)
In all the Carry
On films, there is one English idiot who believes that everything is
pukka and above board, and that our people are decent, and the natives
(i.e. whomever we happen to be against at the time) just need a bit of
good advice to be jolly decent types too. This nutter, often played by
Kenneth Williams, is sometimes cast as a clergyman or otherwise wet
character. The other British stereotypes are colonels who are lunatics,
captains who are drunks, lieutenants who are lechers, and a cockney crew
of anarchical layabouts. I have omitted the streetwise world-weary
senior NCO's, the linchpins of the Army and Empire who keep the whole
show afloat. They are unshockable, ingenious, forever resourceful, and
know every fiddle, whether at lower rank or Commanding Officer level.
Their tricks of the trade are nudge nudge, wink wink, watch it, keep
your nose clean.
The noodle, as
vicar, teacher or academic - usually a professor - has led a sheltered
life. It is only when removed from that backwater and put into
life-or-death situations that he faces real moral dilemmas. In war films
the academic as commando killer is Jack Hawkins in "Bridge on the River
Kwai". In real-life war, some academics adapt quickly, perhaps because
of a brutalised public school upbringing, to the cruelties of war and
reveal a vicious, cruel streak. In war there is no moral problem,
particularly in a good war against Hitler. Academics love intelligence
work because it is competitive, brainy and to do with problem solving.
Perhaps they like deceit. Crossman, who was a natural liar, plainly
adored black propaganda and being paid to lie.
There are, of
course, moral dilemmas in war. Soldiers are told not to take prisoners.
The parachute brigade never did, which is why their first act, when at
risk of having to surrender, was to bury their beloved red beret, lest
they got what they usually dished out. In 1946 a young RAF pilot mounted
a chair outside the Abbey in Bath and told a largely indifferent group
of passers-by that he had protested when he learned he was to drop bombs
on civilian targets in German towns. He had believed the propaganda lie
that we were fighting a clean war against the beastly, murderous Hun.
The young RAF officer was now reduced to the ranks. He was no longer a
pilot, no longer an officer, and he had joined the real world. The men
in the cookhouse he now worked with probably took it for granted that we
were killing civilians.
When the British
Government (1956-1960) rigged the Nigerian independence elections,
colonial officials were stunned. It was extremely hard to believe what
was happening. There were cynical and dishonest officials who exploited
these machinations to advance their careers. They entered
enthusiastically into this treason. I was one of those who protested.
Most thought of their pensions and kept their heads down.
Perhaps it was
extremely naïve and foolish to try to divert this criminal juggernaut
once Whitehall had given the go-ahead. For me there was no choice.
Probably the English have been indulging in this kind of duplicity,
hypocrisy and treachery for centuries, particularly against Ireland and
our colonial empire. There is a vacancy, a role in all these evils, for
one lone voice to protest. I have no regrets at having fulfilled that
role when Britain retreated from its imperial responsibilities in Africa
in ignominy.
8 June 1992
Casablanca - Play it again, Festering Sam, but Circumspectly
Clark, in his
monumental biography of Nigeria's first Prime Minister Balewa ('Right
Honourable Gentleman': 1991) tries to distance him from his totally
corrupt Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Samuel Okotie Eboh, better
known as Festering Sam to the British colonial officials who had to
serve under him.
For a time in
1958, shortly before he moved from Labour to Finance, I had a desk
outside Festus's office. My boss, Francis Nwokedi, knew full well that I
loathed Okotie Eboh and Festus's intelligence service must have alerted
Festus to this fact. However, Francis was inviting international
experts to the Ministry of Labour in connection with the Provident Fund
Scheme he inaugurated and which I helped to set up. He wished to make a
good impression on these specialists and I was made the official
responsible for looking after them and keeping them happy. Lagos was
like a film set in those very heady pre-independence days. A great
mammoth production was being planned and my international VIP's were the
beginning of a flood. I was delighted because Lagos became a much more
interesting place. It had always been vibrant and exciting in the black
capital, but where we lived in the exclusive white suburb of Ikoyi one
could so easily die of boredom.
I had, however,
given the white administration a very nasty shock such as it had rarely
received before. The Governor General was incensed and personally
censured me. My sin was to protest at the complex arrangements for
rigging Nigeria's Independence elections. As a consequence, the
administration sought to relieve my boredom in various ways. Threats to
my life and, if I survived, my health and career became so common that
they failed to excite. I retreated to London, but was seized by the
throat, shaken, and returned to Lagos where I was moved around a series
of dismal, downtown, ramshackle offices. My move to the Minister's suite
was a pleasant change from the sewer stench of Alakaro from where
millions of black Africans had embarked to become black Americans.
While at Alakaro I
inspected the bars, hotels and the drinking dens of Lagos. It was
something to do. I had been denied access to the files and papers in
Central Office lest I got up to more mischief. Had I not written an
infamous minute on a command from HE Sir James Robertson, the Governor
General, which had given him apoplexy and caused me to be banished from
headquarters? "No, Sir," my minute stated categorically. "This would be a
criminal act." As Robertson was violating the extensive election laws
of Nigeria, he was a criminal, as were the whole of the administration
employed in the election rigging. I had it on the highest authority, the
Governor General himself, that only one senior British officer had
defied him and refused to join in the fun - me.
Some of Lagos's
low dives, though in no way as sophisticated as Rick's Bar, reminded me
of Casablanca. That town is said to be the ugliest in Northwest Africa,
as I suppose Lagos is the ugliest in West Africa, and - the lagoon apart
- perhaps the ugliest on the whole continent. In the 50's it was
certainly one of the most insanitary, unhealthy and least graceful
British outposts in the Empire. Of course, Rick's Bar only existed on
the back lot of Warner Brothers' Burbank Studio in 1942, but its
corruption and seediness was pervasive and real, and that is what I
encountered in bars and brothels, where sailors from around the world
and others seeking the low life got together during the late and early
hours. Casablanca's original title, 'Everybody Comes to Rick's' was not
too applicable because I visited these Lagosian bars in mid morning when
the festivities had expired, as had the remaining clients who were
sleeping it off, slumped over tables or on the floor. (As we inspected
the bars and brothels, it occurred to my African assistants that we
should also inspect the place where top British officials - whites only -
met together. Our visit to "The Club" caused consternation, but that is
another story.)
I was accompanied
by a team of black assistants armed with notebooks, who would seek
wages' books and official records. The book usually proffered was the
'dash' book which recorded bribes to officials and to which our names
would be added, even though I spurned the bribes tendered. The bar
manager could cheerfully pocket the bribe I had refused. I was offered
money, whiskey, girls, boys and, at one celebrated hostelry which never
paid its staff any wages at all, the proprietor's wife and then - in
desperation - his daughters. I was told that I was the most difficult
person to please in the whole colonial administration. A sentiment the
Governor General probably would have endorsed.
I certainly was
not Bogart. We had one thing in common though. Neither of us got the
girl. Some beautiful girls offered dalliance on the Minister's
conference table or desk, but they were the Minister's girls and I
suspected that he had put them up to it. Casablanca is a damn good film,
but also a philosophic treatise on moral responsibility versus
emotional needs and compulsions. (Film buffs will suspect rightly that I
have been reading John Kobal's 'Top 100 Movies.') I recall Esther who
had been very naughty but also had a fine brain. She would unfold her
lappa, a loose wrap-around skirt, by my desk and then lean over it. It
would get even hotter in that office and my friend Cathy Polkinghorne,
passing by, would yell, "Remember you're a happily married man, Sean!"
Our Commissioner
of Labour, George Foggon, was credited with putting through some very
unsavoury deals for Festering Sam. It did George no harm for he was
promoted to the Colonial Office. However, Sam's thirst for crooked deals
had not been slaked. He had the Governor General's approval too as he
told us after being carpeted by the Governor General. Carpeted, not for
being a crook - he was after all our most pro-British politician and a
great fixer - but for being careless. "Be more circumspect," he told us
Sir James had warned him. Sir James had told him that he had details of
every crooked deal that he had a finger in. That was unsurprising
because MI5 opened his mail and tapped his telephone and kept a close
eye on him. To control him we needed to know what he was up to. Not to
stop him, but to use the information to blackmail him lest he forget who
was paying the piper. He had to put through our crooked deals. To head
off nationalisation, to protect British interests in return for large
donations to his bank account in Switzerland and his Party funds.
Sam could
certainly have played Sydney Greenstreet who bought Rick's night-club.
Sir James Robertson was a very serious criminal but lacked the charm of
Claud Rains. I suppose he was closer to Conrad Veidt's Nazi Commandant.
He seemed that way to me in his office at Government House, when he
looked at me icily and said that, if I did not give him my word to keep
secret the fact that we had rigged Nigeria's Independence elections,
means would be found to silence me.
I met enough
scoundrels in Lagos to populate Rick's Casablanca many times over. I
suppose my friend and later eminent historian, Michael Crowder, was a
natural for Paul Henreid's part. I tried to protect Michael when he was
pressurised by the Governor General to put the screws on me. Michael's
sexual preferences made him at that time an easy choice for a
blackmailer and thug like Robertson. I encouraged Michael to put aside
such loyalty as he felt for me. He gave me his word that he would one
day tell the truth about Britain's vile machinations and what happened
to us, but although he was a prolific historian, he never did, nor will
he ever because he died from Aids recently.
Bogart's eternal
anti-hero was much too starring a role for a bit player like me. It is
said that Bogart and Bergman did not know how the screenplay would end
while they were making the film. In my humble role in a contest between
good and evil, played against a backdrop of the retreat from Empire, I
was unlike the street-wise Bogart and resembled more an innocent abroad.
I somehow thought I would be able to walk away from this ghastly and
shocking plot, which undermined our claim to be the world's most
distinguished and pre-eminent democracy.
The Governor
General brought me down to earth cruelly. He said that I knew far too
much and that I could not be allowed to return to Britain. He feared
that I still harboured the notion that the British had not rigged the
elections. Indeed, against the direct experience of the orders he had
sent me, I still longed to be told that it was all a misunderstanding.
Sir James intuitively knew of these hopes and dashed them. He wanted no
misapprehension. He wanted me to know the truth of the real trouble I
was in. He was not pussyfooting around. He had rigged the elections
because it was necessary. When he made remarks about carrying out
orders, I realised or thought I did - perhaps I was clutching at straws -
that we had this in common. Momentarily I softened towards him, but
almost immediately he was threatening me. He said that I would never be
employed again, and the hopelessness of my stand submerged me in a
profound gloom which hangs round me to this day.
With the arrival
of TV in the late 1950's, some very fine actors found that they had made
their last film. They too never worked again. I know how it is to
struggle to survive, to battle with chronic ill health, to suffer the
slings and very real arrows of outrageous fortune. My reputation has
been slandered, my character defamed, I am told that I am obsessed, a
sick old man, bitter, a liar. This from criminals who were responsible
for the deaths of up to one million young people in the Biafran War
which flowed inevitably from our criminality in rigging Nigeria's
independence elections. The euphemism actors use is 'resting'. They
travel abroad, they claim, or are writing their memoirs in the sun. All
too often they are employed as shop assistants or clerks.
Bogart was the
man who embodied Raymond Chandler's classic dictum, "Down these mean
streets a man must go, who is himself not mean, who is neither tarnished
nor afraid." After the Colonial Office got me sacked from my post of
Personnel Manager at the Esso Refinery at Fawley, I was recognised by
both workers at the plant and colonial officials on leave delivering the
post in Lymington near the refinery. Having been humiliated and kicked
around, it was hoped that I had learned my lesson and Whitehall returned
me to Lagos. They cannot do that, you protest. I can only answer that
Whitehall and MI5 can commit murder without a thought of exposure or
punishment. Top officials in Lagos wondered that I had not been
eliminated because of my defiance and what I knew.
No academy awards
for seeking to defend the rule of law or our democracy. Tough. I would
rather walk mean streets than live well with a string of honours, but
have no honour.
1 May 1992
This galactic
screen epic, like its predecessor, 'Star Wars', is simply Flash Gordon
Rides Again - but faster. And who better to star in "The Wind of
Change," another colossal production, but SuperMac! Harold Macmillan was
a man who walked alone. Turning away from his partner, Lady Dorothy,
who loved another, Macmillan headed for the Big Country, Nigeria, in the
Big Continent, Africa, to do what a Macmillan had to do. The African
Giant was ripe to be independent, and Big Mac had a problem. How was
Nigeria to be controlled in the British interest when it was 'free'? The
natives were restless, and two of their tribal leaders, Zik and Awo,
unfriendly. The third leader, Bello, was our man but inclined to be
bellicose. Someone more diplomatic, but still ruthless, was sought
amongst his deputies. Thus was Balewa, a simple teacher, chosen to do
SuperMac's bidding and destroy the hostile Zik and Awo.
But
hold on, is not SuperMac the hero of this astounding motion picture
classic? Sorry, no. SuperMac is playing Darth Vader. Right. So the
heroes are really Zik and Awo, and they form a Rebel Alliance to fight
Darth Vader? Well, yes, they are heroic, standing up to the dastardly
British, but the first trick Darth pulled was to split them and make
them fight each other.
Balewa,
Darth's man on Earth, is appointed ruler of Nigeria by SuperMac, and
everyone is happy. Except, that is, Zik, who is robbed of political
power, and Awo, who is jailed for ten years, and their peoples, who are
tricked, conned and robbed that the evil empire may thrive. Tough for
them, but the good news is that for six years the British are happy. As
Balewa had four wives, lots of girl friends and particularly adored
fornicating with black Lolitas, there are parts galore for female
friends and family of everyone connected with this incredible
production. Sadly, just when almost everyone - well, all except the
Nigerian populace - is having a ball, some bolshie Army officers shoot
Balewa stone cold dead.
The
British were horrified, and Balewa was not too pleased either, but his
feelings got overlooked in the tumult that followed. "Who did it, and
who was behind it?" demanded the British. A General who looked as if he
might be a possible replacement for Balewa disposed of the young Army
officers pretty smartly. Ironsi was ambitious, but not too pushy;
bright, but no intellectual; and honest without being too principled. He
had promise. Did the beastly British, playing the role of Darth Vader,
finger Zik and Awo and execute them horribly? Sadly, this was not
possible. Awo had a reasonable alibi. The cunning rogue had forced us to
jail him for ten years. And Zik was in England, claiming to need
medical attention. He would certainly have needed it if our boys in
Nigeria could have got their hands on him. (Were the young Majors not
from his tribe?)
In
Balewa's homeland, the North's revenge was planned. The Empire would
Strike Back. First Ironsi, the General, was dispatched, and then the
British organised the angry Northerners and set them on those of Zik's
people who were residing in the North. Thousands and thousands of
peaceful men, women and children were hacked to pieces, and the
survivors fled back to Iboland, which rapidly trained an army and
declared independence, calling itself Biafra. However, the Evil Empire
had only just started, and now under the pretext of putting down the
rebels, the killings could really commence. Fighting against
overwhelming odds, with makeshift weapons, the Biafrans fought
valiantly, but were inevitably vanquished. Two million died. The Empire
had truly struck back with a vengeance.
Like
all great war productions, the 'Wind of Change' gave us bloodshed with
some mythical and Sophoclean overtones, which would please SuperMac who
saw himself as a Thinker, someone above the drab routine of workaday
life. Did SuperMac's production lack some of the inventiveness, humour
and special effects of its predecessors? Perhaps, but it did good
business. A recent big book on Balewa tries to make up for our neglect
of the dead teacher whom we used as a front to protect our interests in
the African Giant. But how to write off those embarrassing two million
dead? Well, they were only common people, Trevor Clark tells us. Only a
single man of distinction died, and he was a poet and presumably did not
count.
The
motion picture epic Empire had a Muppet as its spiritual guide and, not
to be left behind, Clark demonstrates that the British Evil Empire had
its spiritual puppet, too, in Balewa. The British were well cast as the
'droids' and the tired and emotional Wookie was tailor made for... CUT.
Roll Credits.
(Acknowledgements
to Leslie Halliwell's Film Guide and Time Out Film Guide. Fade in theme
music - a War Requiem. End credits on 'A British Empire Film
Production.' The End. LIGHTS.)
16 June 1992
Gone with the Wind of Change... MGM, David Selznick. 1939)
The
Ibo and the Yoruba are transplanted in the New World and their plight
on the ole plantation is the backcloth for, on the superficial level, "a
re-run of the 'Taming of the Shrew' by Shakespeare out of Ethel M.
Dell" (James Agate) - or how a Southern girl survives the Civil War but
loses her man - and more seriously the case for racism, reaction and
sexism presented in the best block-busting, bonk-busting and
bodice-busting epic style that Hollywood could command. Both the largely
fictitious, elegant, honourable and decent South and Scarlett, as
bitchy Southern belle, get raped, which was the nightly lot of the Ibo
and Yoruba in the ole log cabin back of Tara, both ante bellum and post
bellum. Scarlett smiles submissively after her rape - it was in marriage
after all - and the African sought consolation in Christianity, which
was also cheap and available.
A
century later the British almost left Africa with honour, but not
quite. In the great British tradition of a Whitehall farce and an Ealing
comedy, SuperMac declared Nigeria free of the Imperial boot and
replaced it with the soft shoe shuffle of Northern puppet rule.
Government of the people, by the Emirs, for the British, was, as a
winning formula, pilot-tested in the North and then extended to the
whole of Nigeria. The Northerners, if not quite white, were certainly
not quite black, and had some old scores to settle with the uppity Ibo
and Yoruba. Come to that, so had the British and, at independence,
having rigged the elections to favour their Northern friends, the
British withdrew temporarily to watch the fun which rapidly escalated
into a bloody civil war.
Quite
what went with the wind of change in Africa, apart from any claim to
honesty or honour by Whitehall man, historians will in due course tell
us. In the meantime, I note that more died in 'Biafra' in the 1960's
than in the US civil war of the 1860's - more also than British losses
in World War Two.
The
Governor General, while admitting British treachery to me, added dryly,
"No one will believe you, Smith." Sadly, that is not the problem. All
too many turn away, not because they do not believe, but precisely
because they do and are frightened. Ah well, tomorrow is another day, as
Scarlett observed and as for Sir James Robertson, and Macmillan and his
criminal gang, frankly I don't give a damn. Rhett Butler could not have
put it better.
(I acknowledge with gratitude my reliance on Leslie Halliwell's and Time Out's Film Guides for filmic insights.)
22 June 1992
Stanley
Kramer staged a contest between good and evil in 1952 on a Hollywood
back-lot with the help of Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. When the marshal
seeks help from the frightened townsfolk, they turn away, and he has to
take on the revengeful bad men alone.
This
epic film of the classic struggle between right and wrong reflected the
menace of McCarthyism, which at that time threatened democracy in the
USA. Idealistic Americans, liberals and democrats, as well as
sympathisers with bolshevism, were persecuted and ruined. McCarthyism
itself was part of an undeclared world confrontation, the Cold War.
Remote peoples in Asia and Africa were judged by issues they barely
comprehended. Were they likely supporters of bolshevism? The verdict
could leave whole nations laid to ruin by the shock troops of the forces
of democracy, MI5 and MI6, the CIA and the SAS, and US military
advisors.
In
the build-up to Independence for Nigeria the intelligence agencies sent
in their advance men, and soon the flow became a flood. Who amongst the
nationalist leaders could be trusted to keep Nigeria safe for
democracy? Daftness prevailed and nationalists, who were liberals, were
truly socialists, who were truly crypto-communists, and subversives, and
enemies of the free world, and monsters, and truly a menace, and
enemies who must be exterminated, eliminated, neutralised, extinguished.
That
is why Nigeria's Independence elections had to be rigged by the
British. It was necessary, as the Governor General confessed to me in
his office in Government House in 1960. Not expedient, desirable,
essential, required or a damned good thing, just necessary. In fact,
whatever the excuse or reason dreamt up, this covert action was a
colossal disaster. Not for the British, of course. They had moved on to
deal with a pressing problem elsewhere by this time and what had seemed
so urgently necessary was now forgotten. Up to one million young
Nigerians were to die in a bloody civil war because of British
machinations - a blood bath that was surely totally unnecessary.
When
I replied with a terse minute, 'No, Sir, this would be a criminal act,'
to the Governor General, I did not know that the covert action I had
refused to join would have such tragic consequences. I knew what the
Governor General was up to was evil. Much to my surprise, people I told
turned away or went into shock. Then my colleague, Vic Beck, approached
me. His senior officer had been ordered to pressurise British
multi-nationals for large sums of money for pro-British political
parties. He had carried out his orders and was conscience-stricken. The
three of us sought advice from Government House. This was the correct
procedure. The orders were confirmed. They came from the Governor
General. My colleagues ran when a mighty roar of fury came from Sir
James Robertson. How dare we question his orders! My colleagues, I
learned later, fingered me as the ringleader. I was not, but as the one
who stood his ground, it was understandable that everything should be
thrown at me. My excellent work, the testimonials to my considerable
achievements, the outstanding reports on my work by my superiors, were
as nothing now I stood alone.
I
felt like the marshal in High Noon, but Birth of a Nation was also in
there somewhere. The feeling of isolation increased when the colonial
government and Whitehall blackmailed my friends so they too turned away.
I had been moved away from my colleagues and now my friends kept their
distance. Word got around that I was dangerous and I was treated as a
leper. I had let the side down. I had gone native. I had betrayed our
people.
Gary
Cooper was victorious. I failed to blow the whistle on British
treachery and a million died in a totally unnecessary, bloody, civil
war. However, I survived to tell the tale even if only in a limited
manner to the cognoscenti.
Workers
in my care were beaten to death in Spanish Fernando Poo, despite my
pleas. The British did not want to know. I fought other battles
unsuccessfully. One afternoon I helped to rescue the body of a
dockworker from the lagoon outside Government House. Was he one of the
workers who had sought my protection when I was Port Labour Officer? The
docking company, which enjoyed a monopoly, employed a goon squad to
discipline troublesome workers. Messages of support came my way from the
African office staff at the Department of Labour Headquarters. Others
tried to be supportive while making clear I was on my own. There were
thrills, tension and excitement in my version of 'High Noon'. There were
surprises, plot developments and twists as the story unfolded. I was
thrown back on myself and found inner strengths I did not know I
possessed. I did not need Grace Kelly at all, for in my wife Carol I had
a totally honest and upright partner who never flinched from her duty.
In London too, we found frightened politicians, cowardly editors and
those who spoke great liberal thoughts, but felt no need to defend our
democracy.
Those
of us who take a stand never regret it, for to do so would be to kill
off the people we were, to become someone, a lesser kind of person,
other than we are. Maybe it is only in Hollywood epics that the guy in
the white hat wins and then only because he kills the evil bastards with
his trusty six-shooter or Winchester rifle. For all my pacifism I could
be tempted by that violent solution, though I know in my heart it would
not work.
Maybe
if my story is filmed (not as unlikely as it sounds as one effort has
already been made) a good-looking hero will win through decisively and
press home the moral that crime does not pay, and that a man has to do
what a man has to do; that good will always triumph over evil and that a
man must be true to himself. I find that last sentiment appealing. I
will drink to that, stranger. And now I ride away up a dusty road into
the far horizon.
2 May 1992
High Plains Drifter (or the Lower Levels of Moral Decay)
The citizens are
threatened by villains and turn to Clint Eastwood, but Clint has a score
to settle with the citizens too. Evil can only triumph if good men let
it. Clint kills the bad guys, but is really pissed off with the gentry
too. They deserve hell, and Clint gives it to them.
I once watched a
potentially great nation set on an evil course which would tear it apart
in a bloody civil war in which, it is said, two million innocent people
died. When I intervened to try to stop Nigeria's Independence Elections
being rigged, the British Government threatened to kick the shit out of
me and a lot of good people stood by and watched a great nation
destroyed and a lone dissenter gagged.
Since that time I
have struggled to survive and have told my story to Prime Ministers,
Presidents, Archbishops and Cardinals, politicians of all parties and
self-proclaimed but bogus tribunes of decency, like Guardian Editors,
the law and goodness knows who, but to no avail. Nobody wants to help
me, it seems. There are brave, decent, honest people about, and I find
them, but we are few.
Some critics
seemed to have difficulty with the plot of this film - High Plains
Drifter. It was over the top and too violent. They wanted the bad guys
to be killed painfully, and Clint obliged, but that was a side-show. The
villains he had in his sights were the cowardly evil citizens who let
the roughnecks, the yobbos loose on the State. We know that, if not
checked when they spread terror in a locality, they can spread their
wings and become Hitler's and Tito's children and destroy States and
plunge Nations into bloody war.
I could perhaps
have murdered one or two of those I know to be enemies of the State who
were responsible for the deaths of millions of Nigerians, but I cannot
take revenge on all those who stand by and let evil prosper. It has been
my duty to alert everyone to evil and make sure that all understand and
be given a chance to take a stand, and this is very time-consuming. So
much so that thirty years pass, and Nigeria is still denied democracy
and suffers dictatorship and repression, and I have become an old man.
Clint drifts on
high moral plains and is god-like in dispensing justice. I suspect
ordinary cinema-goers, unlike the circuit critics, had no problems with
the plot of this film. There is little justice in the factory or on the
farm, and they know the top people of Largo were mean-spirited bastards,
and shed no tears when Clint the Director zapped them.
Strangely, after
thirty years, I feel closer to the evil crooks of the Macmillan and Eden
regimes who murdered the Mau-Mau suspects in Kenya while supposedly
interrogating them, and produced a bloody civil war in Nigeria. One can
so easily understand them. One can also understand their henchmen, the
top civil servants like Sir John MacPherson, the Permanent Under
Secretary at the Colonial Office, who masterminded the death at birth of
Africa's greatest new democracy. Others like Sir James Robertson
carried out their orders and executed on a grand scale what started as
evil ideas in the heads of a few sick politicians.
Some of the good
guys, who sympathise but forget to even tell me or offer even moral
support, are disgruntled because they feel that their own cowardice is
being made evident. And when they learn of the bribes I was offered,
they become really disturbed. They feel bad and blame the messenger, one
Harold Smith.
Clint Eastwood
has his hypocritical and cowardly town elders paint their town buildings
red and put on a welcoming party for the cowboy villains cum destroyers
of democracy and civilisation whom they have allowed to flourish
through their treasonable neglect. I know that hatred and desire for
vengeance too. It is negative and pointless, but to pretend one does not
feel great anguish and pain at their treachery would be to lie. If I
could afford a helicopter, I would drop a thousand gallons of red paint
over the offices of the Guardian and the Observer newspapers. I would
dig up the bones of countless victims of journalistic genocide and
encircle those buildings. It would do no good, but it might assuage the
pain in my heart.
15 March 1994
Hold the Front Page (Howard Hughes, 1931) and as 'His Girl Friday': (Howard Hawks, 1940, and Billy Wilder, 1974)
This
is the greatest newspaper comedy of them all, and the one journalists
(like almost everybody else) love. Best to see Wilder's coarse and tacky
version first, then toss a coin between 1931 and 1940, for they are
both great classics. As a Cary Grant fan, I like the 1940 version best,
but this is a bonanza of a triple-layered birthday cake for any film
buff. This fast, frantic, black farce chronicles journalism as
mythology, as a 'vanished race of brittle, cynical, childish people rush
around on corrupt errands'. (Pauline Kael).
The
journalist is involved if he chooses, but he can always retreat into
his role as observer. Each day a new edition with a new story. The
central plot in The Front Page involves the intrusion of reality into
the partly make-believe concerns of the reporters' room when an
anarchist, awaiting execution, escapes and hides in a celebrated
roll-top desk.
When
a great new nation came into being in 1960, I witnessed its birth. Here
was a magnificent, historic event, presented as a triumph for Britain
and democracy in our newspapers. Yet I knew it to be a tragedy and a
black day for British honour and decency, because Whitehall rigged the
independence elections. I have written enough letters to Fleet Street
over a period of thirty years, telling the true story, to fill that
roll-top desk to overflowing. Like the anarchist in the desk, my story
undermines the presentation of a daily rag as 'The Fourth Estate,' a
pillar of our freedoms and shield against tyranny. If newspaper columns
truly were the first draft of history, the truth of our treason in
Africa would have held the Guardian's front page and perhaps altered the
course of history, for that treachery dragged in its wake a bloody
civil war in which, it is claimed, two million people died.
"Your
story is of no interest to our readers," wrote one of the Guardian's
senior executive editors. Remarkable in itself, because an
acknowledgement is a rare event. No journalist from Britain's national
press has spoken to me, seen me, or given me an interview in thirty
years, despite my success in being published in small local papers and
magazines. The D Notice is deniable and not even necessary, when major
government secrets are involved. This is knighthood material and highly
prized. What I will not be bought for is quickly put up for sale by
hacks seeking honours for dishonourable behaviour.
The
papers, which record my battle to make a first draft of history, will
shortly be placed in the archive of the Melville Herskovits Library at
North Western University, Illinois, courtesy of Professor Jean
Herskovits. In a series of essays, of which this is one, I have tried to
address the questions historians are already beginning to ask. One of
these questions is why Fleet Street or Wapping has refused to publish.
Sir James Robertson, the last Governor General of Nigeria, was superbly
confident that no one would publish, and told me so. They would not be
allowed to, he said. It seems that he was correct. The British
Government then proceeded to proclaim, not only a version of history
that was totally false, but also that I did not exist. I had never been
employed by Government or even been in Africa, so how could I have
received secret orders from the Governor General to interfere with the
independence elections? The person making a fuss was clearly quite mad.
I
have for thirty years felt very close to the anarchist in that roll-top
desk. Maybe I too will escape one day and see my story hold 'The Front
Page.'
10 July 1992
Little Caesar (Edward G. Robinson. Mervyn Le Roy, US, 1930)
'Those
who live by the sword, die by the sword...' If only it were true! This
cautionary note prefaced Warner Brothers' splendid gangster film. Edward
G. plays Rico Bandello who makes like Al Capone, and he 'died by the
sword' with the memorable words, "Mother of God, is this the end of
Rico?"
It
was the end of Rico, but the city politicians who looked the other way,
and the Chief of Police who terrorised jaywalkers, they did not die by
the sword. They died with money in the bank, provided by Rico or Al.
Rico was determined to gain sole control of an empire, and died in the
struggle. If he had been wearing the cocked hat and plumes of the
Queen's personal representative, Sir James Robertson, Governor General
of Nigeria, he would have known a few tricks that street criminals were
unfamiliar with.
Jimmy
Robertson wanted to win sole control of the Nigerian Empire of one
hundred nations, and rigged the Independence elections. He chose for his
sidekick to put through the big deal, not the dancing gigolo Massara
played by Douglas Fairbanks, but the present writer. When I declined
this signal honour, Jimmy got tough like Rico, and threatened to have me
silenced. As a Balliol man and a Scot, Jimmy put it in a refined
manner. "If you don't shut up, means will be found to silence you!"
Jimmy
was pretty good, playing Rico. He sounded vain, cruel, jealous and
vicious, every inch the ruthlessly ambitious mobster. In truth, Jimmy
was a gangster on an epic scale like Hitler and Mussolini, who both
adored gangster films. They killed in millions. The crooks Jimmy
installed to run Nigeria got their hands in the till, destroyed the
opposition and in due course died at the hands of young idealists,
sickened by the stench of corruption. By this time, Jimmy was in an
English country garden, killing green fly. The civil war, which broke
out as a consequence of Jimmy's subverting democracy in Nigeria, took
two million, mainly young, lives.
"Why?" I asked Jimmy. We were in his study in Government House, overlooking the lagoon that gave Lagos its name.
"Because it is necessary," he snapped. "Nobody will believe you," Jimmy told me. "And you will never be employed again."
I
fled from Nigeria, having surreptitiously obtained an air ticket. I
sought help from Whitehall, but they denied knowing me. Indeed, they
said that I had never existed. So who was pleading for help? A madman
they said. They told that to Julian Amery, who thought he was in charge,
as he was a Minister at the Colonial Office and the Prime Minister's
son-in-law.
Do
you recall Cary Grant at a prestigious Embassy reception trying to
alert everyone to the fact that the charming diplomats are Nazis and
determined to kill him. What was that film? That was how I felt, seeing
distinguished lawyers who told me that it could not be happening. God
damn it, it was against the law! We are a democracy! Top civil servants
said that it could not happen! It is against all the regulations! They
told me that I was a highly thought-of civil servant who was destined
for higher things. Such kind people to reassure me that all was well.
Then they turned away. I was never employed again. Whitehall had claimed
that I did not exist despite being the brilliant young civil servant,
who had put great laws on to the statute book of Britain's major African
colony. Two million black people truly ceased to exist and they too are
forgotten. In their case it is because they are black. Only one person
of significance died in the Biafran civil war a British historian has
recorded, the rest were common people. "Mother of God, did the British
Empire have to end like this?"
'One of the best gangster talkers yet turned out... a swell picture.' (Variety).
(I am indebted to Leslie Halliwell and Time Out as always for filmic insights.)
2 August 1992
A Matter of Life and Death: - The Staircase to Heaven - (Powell and Pressburger: The Archers: 1946)
And
did not the Archers hit their target! A propaganda film, which is
nothing like a message film and was released anyway after the war ended.
A joyous, heart-warmingly English production - full of a simple
patriotism - which must surely be one of the greatest films ever made. A
triumph for David Niven, because his nervous limitations and lack of
big star quality are just right for his part and contribute to the
film's success. Some said that he was never as really nice as this, but
he did return from Hollywood to fight, and was truly a gallant soldier.
But
what was that target but a love affair between a GI girl and a RAF
pilot, symbolising the Allies - Britain and America - working together
for victory? Powell said, "...all films are surrealist. They are ...
something that looks like the real world but isn't."
The
war was over; we had won. Millions had died and it was not then
realised that area bombing by the RAF had slaughtered very many women
and children. Our gallant RAF aircrews were heroes and butchers at the
same time. It was not their fault. But if we excuse them for the
necessary slaughter of the innocent, we must excuse the German soldier
who obeyed orders too?
Quite
what the film is about is not clear, and perhaps that is part of its
appeal. It is a beautiful film, and the craftsmanship is everywhere in
script, acting, and atmosphere. For those who knew the wartime years, it
is superbly accurate. Those were grotesquely happy years for so many of
us because, despite privations, we felt good. This was the good, just
and necessary war. It was the good people triumphing over evil. True our
moral victory was spoiled, inter alia, by Bomber Harris's lack of a
moral sense and the way we rapidly rehabilitated the most vile of the
Nazi middle ranks and recruited them for our struggle against Communist
Russia. Yet democracy had triumphed and the decency, which shines out of
Roger Livesey and Niven and Kim Hunter, epitomises a wartime England
and the essential England of kind, sweet, warm-hearted, good people we
love.
Yet
Powell and Pressburger fearlessly show us a heaven full of the war dead
who are at peace and serenely happy and untroubled, and Niven is
betwixt and between; and there is table tennis and chess and a village
and a GP with a camera obscura. Somehow, despite the chaos and evil of
war, simple goodness and cheerfulness are portrayed... And the war to
end war produced a Cold War and a plague of wars, all too often in poor,
neglected areas of the world. One such was in Nigeria. The British had
installed a pro- British regime at independence, following fraudulent
elections. When that regime was ended by a military coup, civil war
broke out and two million innocent young men, women and children
ascended Powell and Pressburger's staircase to heaven.
The
British deny that two million died because the British foisted a
corrupt Government on Nigeria. After all, they have not yet admitted to
rigging Nigeria's independence elections, though they assuredly did. In
the same way they did not admit to the systematic murder of the German
civilian population by area bombing. Sadly, neither in peace nor war
does the British Government let truth get in the way of its often covert
operations. The thousand-bomber raid which Niven was part of in this
film would be said to be bombing military targets. Only the beastly
Nazis bombed women and children. Only ten years after our Second Great
War to defend democracy, I was ordered by Whitehall to fix Nigeria's
elections. A further ten years, and in 1966 the killing, consequent on
this treachery which I opposed, would commence.
Unlike
the Archers' World War Two epic, there was no good side to the Biafran
Civil War. When the evil commenced which led to that civil war, three of
us opposed the treachery planned by the British Government. We were
swept aside and the other two ran like hell. Like Niven, I too hovered
between heaven and earth as I struggled to survive a tropical disease
and its crises. My mind left my body and soared into the heavens, and I
had the key to all wisdom and was suffused with happiness as I looked
down on the planet. But sadly I was made to return to the twisted,
agonised body that I glimpsed, sprawled lifelessly on a rumpled bed. I
had my own lovely wife to return to, and she nursed me over the years
until new medical breakthroughs provided a lifebelt.
I
hope that those who have struggled through moral crises find the
strength to be true to themselves, and that they too find joy and moral
support in this magnificent, English, classic film.
11 July 1992
Mr Smith Goes to Westminster
(cf. 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington': James Stewart. D: Frank Capra. 1939)
"I am going to
make you famous," said the film producer, but the film never got made.
Jimmy Stewart's little man came out on top, but that is because it was
not real life. So I can dream I came out on top too. Exposing corruption
in high places is a dangerous pursuit. Jimmy Stewart's film was thought
to be dangerous, too, for setting a bad example and it influenced me. I
had four years at Oxford and was stuffed with democracy, decency,
freedom and fair play. I went to far more films at Oxford than lectures
(maybe six or seven of the latter) and although I read many books on
ethics and moral philosophy and the law, it was the Westerns and Twelve
Angry Men and the Grapes of Wrath, and the Hollywood- message films in
which I really graduated. John Kennedy's father gave the film his
personal recommendation while he was Ambassador in Britain at the
outbreak of the war against Hitler and the Nazi evil empire. "This
film," said Joseph Patrick, "will do inestimable harm to American
prestige all over the world."
Colonialism was a
dirty word during the great world struggle for freedom, known as World
War Two, and President Roosevelt said he was damned if he was going to
pay out millions of dollars so that the British Empire could survive.
Suddenly Africa was free to be poverty-stricken and, in Nigeria,
pauperised by pro-British patriots in the pay of the Whitehall pariahs. I
quit the Colonial Service in 1957 and went up to Church House, HQ of
our Empire. This crook was sweating with fear. "You haven't told them...
you know... what I did..." I shook my head. This jelly had put through
crooked deals in Lagos. His face lit up, and he produced a set of native
Nigerian costume and jiggled in it. "They gave me this," he grinned.
Outside in the clean air of Victoria, I wondered why I had not pushed
this squirmy creep out of a window. For the hell of it, I agreed to
return to Nigeria because at heart I loved the place and missed it. I
came back to Whitehall in 1960, having secretly obtained an air ticket.
The white regime wanted me dead and conveniently I had somehow acquired a
rare tropical disease usually found in the Far East. I was losing
weight rapidly.
The Governor
General did not want me near Westminster. He said that I could have
promotion to the top and honours if I would keep my mouth shut and stay
in Africa. Julian Amery was the Minister at the Colonial Office and the
Prime Minister's son-in-law. I told him that our people had rigged the
Independence elections in Nigeria. This one great act was supposed to
wipe the slate clean in Africa. We were leaving with honour, having set
the African free. Amery asked if I had really been in Africa. The top
civil servant had told him that I had never set foot there. They also
told Amery that I was insane. My lawyer, who knew Amery, assured him
that I was not. They told Amery that Government had never employed me.
The lawyer produced my contract. They said it was all a mistake. Of
course they knew me, and I had been in Africa, but I was a liar, and
crazy. They told Amery, when he persisted, that they could say no more
as there had been a fire which had destroyed all my documents and
records...
In time I told
every Fleet Street editor, and they said, "Piss off." I told the
Guardian, a once great newspaper, and they said the same. I told Frank
Allaun, a radical MP, and he said, "How very interesting", and showed me
the door, and became PPS to the Colonial Office. I told an academic at
Oxford, and he was harassed and blackmailed into silence. This had
happened to another academic in Lagos, too.
Capra's film was
packed with slimy senators. I wrote a novel, telling my story, and it
was nominated by the readers for a prestigious US literary prize, but
Gore Vidal said that it was all too English - he had forgotten Capra's
epic - and the prize was not awarded. Julian Amery's brother had been a
traitor. He was hanged because he pleaded guilty. His lawyer was a QC,
Tory MP, and a maverick. He cross-examined me to establish that I was
telling the truth. He was deeply shocked. "We don't do this kind of
thing, Mr Smith!" There was more of this when I met the Queen and the
Duke of Edinburgh, who told me the Empire was a 'load of bollocks', and
we both laughed. The Times and newsreels recorded this manic moment of
truth. It seemed best to end that chapter there, as my health
deteriorated further. In extremis I discovered God and gained a
spiritual calm. Pregnant young girls came to our door, seeking shelter
where they could give birth, and we shared what we had. Strangely, those
were happy years because we lost sight of our anguish in the troubles
of others.
In 1966 the
corrupt pro-British politicians, whom we had placed in power in Nigeria,
were shot. In the civil war that followed, up to two million young
Africans were killed and a territory laid to waste. Where did I go wrong
when I went to Westminster? Why did my crusade not work like Capra's?
Was it my lack of Jimmy Stewart's fast-talking comic panache? All I
lacked was a hard-boiled dame, played by Jean Arthur, to be won over by
my honesty, but I did not really need her. I already had a beautiful,
very brave, young wife who needed no convincing of my honesty. Our film
came out right, but sadly it has not yet gone on general distribution.
12 June 1992
(Mrs) Sanders of the River (Alexander Korda, 1935)
If the de facto
Mrs Sanders was usually a young black girl who has disappeared into the
shadowy world she usually inhabited, the white Mrs Sanders, who
contributed enormously to the survival of the Empire, also inhabits a
shadowy world, for her role is rarely recorded or appreciated. (As
always in colonial affairs, what seems a sensible assertion is too
readily contradicted. Helen Callaway has compiled a fascinating study of
European - usually British -women in Nigeria.)
As the Boys' Own
Paper stereotypes are vaguely upper middle-class, public school boys,
when women do make an appearance in the literature they are of the same
class. We hear much of ADO's, DO's and Residents carrying the flag for
Britain. These are the figures mocked for decades by left-wing critics.
However, as the radical cynics grow up they sometimes see the light and
begin to comprehend that they have caricatured honest, thoroughly
decent, and worthy English people, not always very high in the social
scale or rich, and none the worse for that.
If we
rehabilitate the decent District Officer from his malicious and
ill-informed critics, accept the essential role of the too-often unsung
Nigerian clerks like Joyce Carey's Mr Johnson, bring centre stage the
superb and often long-suffering British wives and their black sisters,
the cast is still incomplete. Working-class England was surely
represented in Nigeria but, like the women, it is invisible.
I have no idea
how many ordinary British artisans served in Nigeria or how common it
was for wives to accompany them. When we went out to Lagos on the mv
Apapa, there were some railway wives who told us that Ikoyi was rather
grand or posh and that they lived in the railway compound at Ebute
Metta. How many non-commissioned troops served with the Army? The PWD,
Posts & Telegraphs and the Salvation Army were all staffed by
first-class people of largely humble origins. Even writing of class, one
struggles to avoid snobbery and patronising phrases, but trying to find
neutral nomenclature seems an impossible task.
The Labour
Department's Commissioner of Labour in 1955 was George Foggon who had
worked his way up from being a counter clerk in an Employment Exchange.
Peter Cook, his Deputy, had been a railwayman. The Trades Union Officers
and Trade Testers were of working class origin. The non-working class
strand in the Labour Department consisted of ex-Army officers. We had
Lieutenant Colonel Cheesely, Major Bunker, et al. When Vic Beck and I
arrived in early 1955 we were, I think, the first graduates to join the
Labour Department. We were both working class in origin, but we carried
typewriters, the symbol of our new status.
How many other
departments employed substantial numbers of working class Britishers?
They all made a substantial contribution to the development of Nigeria.
Did these working class men emulate the example of their betters and
sleep with black girls? Was it always lust or did these lonely,
frustrated men also discover love with women with whom they would share a
common fate? They would flit about in the margins of the colonial
record, as written up in the history books.
3 April 1992
Touch of Evil (Paramount, 1952)
The main aim and
achievement of the colonial administrator was the enforcement of law and
order. We were the enforcers and the Africans were the ne'er-do-wells.
In a sense, the very criminality of the people ruled is the raison
d'être of the ruler. No criminality, no law enforcers, no rulers.
As
a lawmaker in Lagos I suppose I should have been familiar with these
ideas. As Labour Officers, we had labour legislation, even if of a very
insubstantial nature, to enforce. However, we rarely went into court and
there was much looking the other way. The people we knew best were not
the Africans but our own colleagues and it soon became clear to the
rookie administrator that few laws applied to us. We could not really be
expected to prosecute each other, that would have been uncivil and
letting the side down. In the Labour Department, if one chose not to
work, no one gave it a thought. A senior officer could be brought out to
do a job that never materialised and he would never be given other
duties, except perhaps of a window-dressing kind. He would attend his
office and, seemingly never suffering from boredom, would read the
papers, then magazines and then sports annuals, racing form and
fixtures.
The
staff had a relaxed attitude to taking money from the Africans they
served. Little and often was the motto and it was astonishing how the
'dash' would accumulate in the bank accounts of the trade testers in the
Department. Black mistresses were conventional but Peter Cook, the
Deputy, was special in preferring young boys and, although this was not
exactly approved of, neither was it frowned on. When Okotie Eboh became
Minister of Labour and thought up imaginative plans for making money, he
met with no opposition from British officials, even when he came up
with the wheeze of selling off the Ministry buildings
Were
we really the law enforcers, one might ask? Charlton Heston had a job
like mine in Touch of Evil. He was a narcotics inspector, but he finds
that the criminals are not the local people but his own police chief. I
had much the same experience when I discovered that the voluminous
election laws, designed to ensure fair elections, were flawed. They
covered every eventuality that the British could think up to stop
skulduggery by the wicked Nigerians, but did not cover chicanery by the
British. They might indeed apply to British wrongdoing, but I cannot
imagine a British Police Chief arresting our Governor General.
Arrest
Sir James Robertson! Why, one asks, would one do that. Well, for a
start, he was rigging the Independence elections so that our pro-British
favourite Nigerian politicians, i.e. those in the North, would win.
Elections are very unsettling and government is about order and
stability. It was clearly in everyone's interest if Nigerians would win
whom we could work with. This was not sabotaging elections, but actually
improving on them. After all, it was our colony and we were not even
voting in the election. It was necessary for us to have some say in the
outcome. Desirable, necessary and a damned good thing. Such thoughts
were clearly in Sir James's mind when he ordered me to play a major role
in the election rigging and he was evidently very surprised and not a
little displeased when I said, 'No,' and declined to join in.
Like
the film made by Paramount in 1958 with Orson Welles as the corrupt
police chief, life in Lagos was never quite the same again after I
realised who was the chief crook in town. The confusing Paramount plot
is laced with violence and perversion, which was much like life in the
Labour Department. Indeed, in some respects Lagos was more crooked than
the Mexican border town where Orson Welles was running the police force
like one of Mrs Thatcher's state monopolies, where the enterprise seems
to exist primarily to reward its chief executive with an astronomical
income.
Further
reversals of morality and convention were evident when Sir James
decided to punish me for embarrassing him and calling him a criminal. I
was supposedly protected from arbitrary punishment by Civil Service
regulations, but Sir James simply ignored them. If I would join in the
criminality and stop trying to blow the whistle, I could be much richer
and could have honours. In other words, I would be approved of. The
alternative, if I chose to be someone who observed the rule of law, was
that I would be hounded and thrown out of the service. Government would
ensure that I would never be employed again.
I
thought that was diabolical. I thought the Governor General had more
than a touch of evil. He had blackmailed my friend Michael Crowder, who
was homosexual and vulnerable. Still, not everyone thought he was a
rogue. One historian wrote a book, in which he extolled Sir James's
virtues and said that he was a jolly nice bloke with a great bear hug,
and was the best thing since sliced yam. The historian's name was
Michael Crowder. Michael had promised me that he would reveal all about
the rigging of the elections in his book, but he must have forgotten
that he gave me his word. Nice one, Sir James. Not so nice one, old
friend Michael.
5 May 1992
Twelve Guilty Men? - Harold's Cabinet (Man includes Woman)
You saw the film 'Twelve Angry Men' on Channel 4 last Sunday. It is the kind of thing Channel 4 does.
There
was this dispute and our Government took sides. Harold Wilson said that
the Biafrans were guilty as hell, so he waged war on them. Hold on, the
Government waged war on them. Quite so. Strictly speaking, the Cabinet
agreed to supply arms to the Northerners who were in control, having
shot an Eastern General who was in charge, a General Ironsi. The
Northern lot was in control, said Harold, so they were the legitimate
Government. So the Cabinet talked it over and backed Harold. That is
what we thought at the time, anyway. That is what reminds me of 'Twelve
Angry Men.'
In
fact we now know that only two members of the Government agreed with
Harold and, as one was Harold himself and the other was Michael Stewart
who moonlighted for the US State Department, that was the only majority
that Harold needed.
The
Foreign Office had given Harold evidence that the Easterners were
trouble and that the Northerners were nice boys who liked us. That was
enough for Harold. He sent more arms for the Lagos crooks to use against
the poor Biafrans (the Easterners) than the British Army expended
throughout the whole of World War Two. If we did not send arms, said
Harold, the Russians would. The Russians did anyway, but that only made
Harold send more. Then the French, being absolute rotters who wanted our
trade in Nigeria but would not take 'no' for an answer, supplied some
arms to the Biafrans.
Harold
got deadly serious and threatened really heavy intervention and carried
out his threat. He visited Lagos again. We used to limit the
treacherous activities of foreigners who wanted to muscle in on our
market in Nigeria by burning their mail in the Lagos GPO unopened. I
asked the MI6 bloke who chucked the letters in the furnace how he knew
which to burn. I supposed that he must be a superb linguist. (I cannot
reveal his name as I have given my word to our censorship at the
Ministry of Defence that I will not).
I
only speak English, Smithy, old chap,' he said. 'Of course, I've years
of experience in Vienna. What I'm telling you is in the strictest
confidence.' He tapped his nose. 'Know what I mean?'
I
reassured him on that point, having always had the most tremendous
admiration for our James Bond boys with their unlimited libido.
I never open them,' he said. 'I just look at the stamps. Letters from foreign buggers go straight in the fire!'
X
slept with a revolver under his pillow. He was, of course, a crack
shot, perhaps 007 and a bit. He also slept on his trousers to press them
- an old Forces wheeze. If he ever got burgled, he would shoot to kill.
One morning he had great difficulty waking up. When he did, he was sans
revolver, uniform and everything. I was broken hearted.
Of
course, the Northerners were our boys, our stooges, whom we had
corruptly placed in power in 1960. Only two million died in the Civil
War. Harold said that it only proved how right he was. And nobody of any
importance got killed. If Harold has lots of black neighbours wherever
he is, I know he will be happy. Ordinary Nigerians are lovely people -
kind, hospitable and really sweet.
The
Foreign Office are still very anti the French, and Mr Blair does his
bit by being very rude to Monsieur Jospin. He paid the French Prime
Minister his ultimate insult and called him a Socialist! Tony also
warned Jospin not to try stealing our trade with Nigeria while we were
engaged in bullshitting the Commonwealth into believing that we were
being rough with our military thugs who run things in Nigeria. Now Tony
is President of the New Europe which will live for a thousand years,
Monsieur Jospin is going to find the postman does not call any more. He
might even find Tony putting old fashioned British pounds into his
opponents' party funds. He might even find the SAS occupying key points
in Paris to protect him from subversion. Incredible? Not really.
Did
I mention that we detested beastly Ibo/Biafrans because the Ibo young
Majors shot our Northern stooges, headed by the rather sweet Balewa
whose only vice was for virgin schoolgirls. (The least the British could
do was to arrange a constant supply.)
Tony
does not understand (or so my old chums at tell me) that the French
think up rude things to say about him, knowing that GCHQ will pick it up
and tell the JIC who tell Tony. It is all a tease really but Tony gets
really upset. Having said that, Tony seems to have overlooked the fact
that the French Secret Service is incredibly professional. It is really
very naughty of Jospin to wind Tony up so!
Sadly,
in our version of Twelve Angry Men, the Smiths did not succeed like
Henry Fonda in turning round the Foreign Office idiots, and some two
million Nigerians died. Was Harold drunk or insane or both? Our dear
friend Marcia knows, but is not going to tell us. We must ask the French
- they are sure to know.
We
are giving Monsieur Jospin our account of British treason in Nigeria
with regret, as we believe it to be shameful. We want M. Jospin to guide
our young and inexperienced leader so that he steers clear from the
temptations to which past British Governments have succumbed. We want
our Government to turn over a new leaf and set a shining example in
Europe for 100% probity and integrity. We are sure that we have Mr
Blair's total support in this endeavour.
10 February 1998
'Z' (France/Algeria, 1968)
How
a political murder is made to look like an accident. Z is about fascism
working under the surface of conventional crapitalist (stet) politics
in Greece. It could never have happened in Nigeria. It is true that
Nigeria's great nationalist leader, Dr Zik, was railroaded into the
obscurity of a flag-independence Presidency with nil power, but was this
not accidental?
Of
course, Balewa's benevolent dictatorship, benevolent to his Northern
friends and the British, and dictatorial to most of the black polity,
did give way to generations of rule by Colonels, and along the way two
million died in a bloody, and totally unnecessary, and pointless civil
war, but somehow the Greeks seemed to suffer more. After all, white
suffering is more real, more poignant, more deeply felt, than blacks'
suffering. The white man has so thoroughly brainwashed blacks that they
sympathise with the whites who suffered so much in coming to Africa to
imprison THEM. This is the ultimate slavery - a mind in handcuffs and
chains while the body appears to be free.
When
in 1960 I told a Director of BP in London of the suffering of Nigerian
workers in Fernando Poo, he said, "Well, if the Spanish don't kill them,
the crocodiles will eat them, so what's it matter?"
Another
great nationalist leader, Awolowo, was jailed for ten years on
trumped-up charges that could have been comic opera, but this was real
life. The loss of democracy in Greece quite rightly infuriated liberals
in the West, but the total destruction of Nigerian democracy by the
British Government excites no interest because Nigerians are black. I
would know, because for thirty years I have told Conservative
politicians, Labour politicians, Liberal politicians, and all I get by
way of response is not even an embarrassed silence but a total lack of
reaction. They do not begin to care because they do not begin to
understand that blacks are human. These same leaders who detest racism,
or so they say, are more objectionable than the racists, in a strange
way. The racists are sincere, if ignorant and inadequate people. Our
liberals too often practise gentle, loving, benevolent racism. They
speak nice words but practise foul deeds by deception, inaction and
laziness.
Come
on now, I exaggerate. Nigeria was only a beginner in democracy whereas
in Greece we behold the birthplace of democracy. Z is based on the true
story of Lambrakis, a Professor of Medicine, who was struck down by a
truck as he left a peace meeting. Could anything like that happen in
Nigeria with its free press? No editor needs fear getting a bomb in the
post? It did happen in Nigeria? Well, Z shows how the mechanics of
fascist corruption may be hidden under the mask of law and order. The
British are fascists? Is that what I am saying? Well, yes. The cold,
calculating, evil destruction of democracy at birth in Nigeria is
nothing if not fascist. And here our Nigerians, who loved British rule
whatever its faults, will protest because they feel uneasy. They have
been made to feel that they do not really deserve democracy!
This
roman a clef, this political thriller with the style and pace of a
gangster movie, exudes what was novel then but is now a cliché - a
conspiracy. Those who write of conspiracy are now derided as fantasists
in the organs of the establishment, which is itself a permanent
organised conspiracy by the privileged against the common people. Well,
they would need to cover their treachery, would they not? What else are
the papers for?
Will
Nigerians one day recover from the trauma of slavery and colonialism
and neo-colonialism, and expose their own society to the eye of the
liberated filmmaker and the lens of the camera? A is for Awo, B is for
Bello and C for the long-suffering common people. Let us hope that, when
movie studios in Nigeria supplant Hollywood, moviemakers will
nevertheless put the comedy and laughs first and keep the message low
key. Ordinary Nigerians are getting poorer and are really in need of a
few laughs, as were the American people when Preston Sturges made them
laugh with the likes of Sullivan's travels.
10 July 1992
The Whore of Farringdon Road
As a Mancunian, liberal, and life-long Fabian
and Labour supporter, it may surprise some when I say that, although I
have read The Guardian for nearly half a century, I dislike the paper. I
do not particularly trust the rest of the press either, for The
Independent, though admirable in a number of ways, has been unfair to
Labour, and particularly Neil Kinnock, and has blatantly published,
almost verbatim, MI5 black propaganda on Irish issues. The Observer
employed Kim Philby in very dubious circumstances, and its present
ownership does not inspire trust. I read all these newspapers and trust
none.
The Guardian employs radical writers, I will be
told, so it must be all right. Maxwell employed Paul Foot too, and the
Express group employs, or did, Michael Foot - a Beaverbrook admirer -
and various other Tribune socialists, but I do not trust those papers
either. As a child, I read my father's Daily Mail and have therefore
never had a problem with the Tory slant of that paper.
When I was fifteen, I heard Frank Allaun speak
on the Press at my youth club at Oswald Road school in
Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. Frank was very fair, and anyway did not
need to exaggerate his thesis, which was that the Press was owned by
capitalists and Tories, and was heavily biased against Labour. I was to
know Frank well in later years, but look back on that evening with
particular warmth, as it was then that I decided to take an active part
in the Labour Party. I assumed that Frank was a Labour man, but was
surprised to discover later that he was at that time the regional
organiser of the Young Communist League. However, Frank was deeply
involved in Labour politics and after 1945 was certainly in the Labour
Party, for when I joined the Labour Party League of Youth in Chorlton in
that year, Frank was behind it and gave a series of talks on socialism.
I think that Frank was at Metro Vickers during
the war and edited the works newspaper. He also wrote for an ILP
newspaper, Labour's Northern Voice. This paper published long, spirited
essays by Mrs Bruce Glazier, whom Frank adored. (It was edited by an
ILP-er with whom Orwell stayed when he went North to write 'The Road to
Wigan Pier'. Another Guardian journalist was a regular contributor, but
wrote under a pseudonym.) If Frank's politics confused me, I was not the
only one, for later he would be thought to be a communist
fellow-traveller, but I found Communists very suspicious of him.
"Because he's an ex-Communist?" I would ask. "No", they would reply,
"because he is not what he seems to be.
Frank wrote to me when I was in the RAF on
national service, and I met him again when back in Manchester. I revived
the League of Youth in Chorlton, and quickly set about opening branches
throughout Manchester. I started to speak in Platt Fields with Frank,
and soon incurred his displeasure when I took an anti-Communist line.
There would be warmth between us, but then suddenly he would be very
cool and seemingly hostile.
When he became a Labour MP, I went to him to
reveal that the British Government had rigged Nigeria's independence
elections. Frank was quite unhelpful and seemed jealous in some way.
When I remarked that I could never be an MP (we were in the tea room at
the time) he said, "You're only saying that because you can't get a
seat!" I thought this remark childish. Outside on the terrace he said,
pointing to the wall of the House, "That's where there'll be a plaque to
me one day." I was quite stunned at this. Abruptly he changed tack and
invited me to see the House from the Gallery. We were talking as I
stepped into a lift, but in mid-sentence he waved good-bye as the lift
moved. I had thought we were in the middle of our business, and he had
departed. More strangely still, he had played the same silly trick when
he had invited me to visit him once at the Guardian office in Cross
Street, when he had been appointed Industrial Correspondent. Perhaps my
confusion about Frank Allaun spilled over into distrust of The Guardian,
but somehow I was not surprised when The Guardian rebuffed me when I
tried to get them to take an interest in Whitehall's machinations in
Nigeria.
These preliminary remarks are a preamble to
explain any seeming prejudice on my part to The Guardian, for in
examining The Guardian's refusal to publish my story, I am still a
little mystified. Perhaps MI5 has infiltrated The Guardian, or its
editors are supine to Whitehall, or playing a cunning game of deception,
but one thing is certainly true, The Guardian not only will not publish
my story, but is hostile to me too. I have never expected The Guardian
to accept the truth of what I am saying without close examination, but
no one from that paper has ever spoken to me on Nigeria or shown signs
of wanting to. A very curious exchange of letters between myself and a
Guardian essayist, who mentioned he had lived in Nigeria, ended abruptly
when I seemed to be getting somewhere. I learned later that this
mysterious figure - he would not reveal his background or why he had
been in Nigeria - was a former Foreign News Editor of The Guardian. The
Guardian's Religious Affairs Correspondent had worked in Nigeria too,
and was regarded as an expert, having written an excellent book on the
country. I had met him when I was twelve because I was a friend of his
cousin, but even that would not persuade Schwarz to respond to my
letters.
A point made in a letter by this Guardian
essayist is the subject of this paper. Whether it is a substantial
reason or an excuse for rebuffing me, I do not know. The point made was
that the British did not rig the elections - and therefore I was a liar -
because they did not need to. The North covered most of the country and
had a majority of the seats, and was therefore invincible. The election
results were therefore a foregone conclusion. Strangely, this argument
was not new to me. I had heard it from Communists who suggested that the
worse things got in Nigeria, the better, because a revolutionary
situation would develop. Because I loathe this kind of communist
claptrap I may have difficulty in writing about it.
Is this what The Guardian is telling me? The
clearest exposition of the Guardian line is by the communist writer on
Africa, Ruth First, in her book, 'Power in Africa: Political power in
Africa and the Coup d'Etat'. Because writers like First equate the
British with the devil, British policy is never examined seriously or, I
would suggest, truthfully. It is all subsumed under colonialism or
imperialism, and is ipso facto a bad thing. It is difficult to write
about this kind of nonsense, for otherwise apparently intelligent people
accept it. It is quite impossible to point out that much of the British
record is good or even excellent. Surely, if making a case, it is
important to be fair and to get one's facts right? Sadly, this is not
thought to be necessary if you are on the left and discussing Africa. As
a result, I find myself appearing to be a supporter rather than a
critic of Whitehall policy, for I am for ever, in taking a balanced
view, making the point that blanket condemnations of British policy are a
nonsense. Some aspects of British policy are bad, and do not need to be
exaggerated. As to motivation, though greed and cruelty are there,
there is also altruism and genuine goodwill. This is all anathema to the
unthinking left. They know, and do not require evidence. So twisted is
their logic that they cannot accept that the British rigged the
elections, because suggesting this is to accept the thesis that the
British could ever run honest elections in Africa, or that there were
decent and honest colonial officials.
Certainly I met the blimps and in some ways, I
suppose Sir James Robertson had certain blimpish qualities. Indeed he
did rig Nigeria's elections, but he was also a human being, and no human
being is totally evil, or wrong, or a cardboard figure. Most certainly
he gave me a bad time, but he told me to my face what he thought. This
was a loaded confrontation and not really fair to me, but he did see me
and gave me a chance to accept his terms. I have discussed Robertson
elsewhere, because, if we are to get to the truth of what really
happened in Nigeria, it is essential to understand and get into the
minds of our people. I am in the business of finding the truth - not
pursuing a vendetta while blinded by dogma. It is the Ruth
First/Guardian thesis that I wish to examine.
Whitehall was fully
aware of Northern fears of Southern domination, and may have encouraged
them for their own devious purposes, but the fear was real and not
imagined. A promise was made to give the North as many or more
parliamentary seats than the South. If the simpletons at the Guardian
believe that this means that the North inevitably could win power in
Nigeria legitimately, they are naive in the extreme. It does follow from
this reasoning that the British did not rig the elections because there
was no need. My evidence that the elections most definitely were rigged
- and who would know better, because I was intimately involved - is an
acute embarrassment to the Ruth First/Guardian school of thought. This
is why, presumably, they are so anxious not to look at the evidence.
Ruth First was a professional communist worker.
She was sincere, dedicated and compassionate. In my opinion, she was
also confused, muddled and wrong-headed, and probably so starry-eyed and
idealistic that she did not even begin to comprehend that she was a
mouthpiece for Stalin's evil empire. We met once, and I liked her, but
when we began to talk, I knew that it would not be likely that we could
have a proper exchange of views. For brevity I am probably
oversimplifying our short meeting. She was helpful, and generous in
suggesting that we might meet again, and that she could introduce me to
her publisher. In the situation of South Africa - who knows? - perhaps
many liberals went communist under those ghastly oppressive conditions.
Ruth First was assassinated, probably by the South African government.
If, in differing with Ruth First I seem to be slighting a brave and
courageous fighter against oppression in South Africa, I ask
forbearance. West Africa is not South Africa. Perhaps I will have an
opportunity to explain this in a paper, as it is perhaps this confusion
that is responsible for the Guardian's total misunderstanding of West
African politics. It is probable that it is simply ignorance of the
totally different circumstances that is responsible for the impasse
between the Guardian and myself.
Let us examine the comic-book view of Nigeria
presented by my critics at the Guardian. Consider the size of the North.
A line on the map separating North and South represents what?
Initially, an administrative division. The North was run from Kaduna,
the South from Lagos. The South was further divided into East and West,
run from Enugu and Ibadan.
The differences between North and South are real
enough, without being exaggerated, and to some extent British policy
made these differences more acute. For example, the British kept
Christian missionaries, and therefore a system of schools and
educational provision generally, out of the North. Yet there are many
other cleavages in Nigeria that are not North/South. There was indirect
rule in the North. When introduced into the South it was a failure. The
generalisations - crude and incorrect - such as Muslim North and
Christian South - have a limited usefulness. Polo-playing pricks in the
North and black-loving LSE liberals in the South was a good joke, but
the officials in North and South were basically the same people! The
romantic, sentimental caricature of the Northern official, to which
Anthony Kirk-Greene has perhaps unwittingly contributed from Oxford -
has been harmful to truth and is quite simply a caricature. There were
progressive officials in the North and backward officials in the South.
The hundreds of tribal groups and linguistic areas did not neatly divide
at an administrative frontier, drawn on the map by the British.
So what are First and the Guardian saying when
they state that the North had a majority of the seats? That there was no
democracy in the North? I do not think so. Rather that the North was
pro-Emir, pro-British, pro-NPC, and there was some truth in these
generalisations because the history of the North under the British had
been authoritarian and anti-democratic. At conversational level one did
talk of a backward, reactionary, Muslim North of illiterate peasants,
ruled by authoritarian native administrations and Emirs. There was a
limited truth in this, but it was not the whole truth and Azikiwe and
Awolowo sincerely believed that, given a fair contest, which they
absolutely did not get, they would appeal to the ordinary Northern voter
over the heads of their natural rulers, and command a majority. It was
not a foregone conclusion that the NPC would win. Had it been so, the
extensive machinations, that I observed, to secure an NPC victory would
not have been necessary or have happened.
The Guardian, in not listening to me - someone
who had direct and top-level experience - is concocting a story and
disregarding evidence. As often happens, this kind of dotty left-wing
extremism meets and finds an ally with the right-wing extremism of
Whitehall and MI5, which claim that everything in Nigeria was above
board. I have written papers explaining British machinations and the
cover up provided, unwittingly perhaps, by Ken Post's book on the
independence elections, so do not need to explain the covert action
here. The point I am making is that it is an absolute nonsense to talk
of 'the North' in the terms of Ruth First and the Guardian. There were
Muslims in the South and particularly in the West, who were progressive.
To equate this great religion with backwardness and reaction is totally
unfair and inaccurate.
Zik and Awo were deeply conservative too, even
though they talked of socialism. To them, socialism meant piped water
and hard top roads, schools and dispensaries. I can assure the Guardian
that the Governor General and headquarters staff in Lagos generally did
not share the Guardian's simplistic views about the North. The great
covert action to neutralise Zik and appoint Okotie Eboh as his minder
and as the real force in the NCNC, would not have been necessary if 'the
North's' win was inevitable. A major battle took place to keep Awo from
campaigning effectively in the North. None of this would have been
necessary if the Guardian had been remotely correct in its bizarre
thesis. The oppressive regime in the North would not have been necessary
if the Northern peasants had been as docile and stupid as the Guardian
paints them. One can be uneducated and illiterate, and still be wise and
sensible. All this is, I hope, not over the heads of the Guardian and
its Religious Affairs Correspondent. Illiterate, too, may mean
illiterate in English, but not illiterate when it comes to reading the
Koran.
The Guardian's line of reasoning is quite
spurious and designed to deceive. It was not a supposed majority in one
part of the country which determined the result of the election. This
was totally irrelevant. A perfectly legitimate election would have been
possible, had the British not rigged the results. The major
qualification to this statement has to be the presumption that the
British census figures had not been tampered with, allowing seats to be
created where the population did not justify them. Where such seats
might have been created, the registration and voting figures had to be
rigged to justify the creation of the seats, for very low figures would
have given the game away. The presence of agents and candidates could
have led to the detection of such fraud, and the fact that there was
widespread harassment of opposition agents and candidates in the North,
with British officials looking the other way, is strong evidence that
such hanky-panky was in fact undertaken.
Once election fraud by the authorities, in this
case the British, has taken place, the matter is not over and done with.
Subsequent elections also have to be manipulated, and this is one
reason why elections in supposedly independent Nigeria got off to a very
bad start and deteriorated even further. The British had set in motion a
sequence of events which replicated the original fraudulent election
results. Unravelling deceit on this colossal scale is not a simple task.
Nor was the original criminality simple. A great deal of planning went
into ensuring a victory for the pro-British North.
The Guardian, by not taking evidence from me and
others involved, which would have proved conclusively the truth of my
story, have destroyed their credibility. There is something rotten here
in the Guardian's behaviour. It is their own standards by which they
should be judged, and by those standards which they proclaim, they have
lamentably failed. How has this come about? The events I have described
are shocking, particularly as they strike at the roots of Britain's
reputation as a great democracy, which espouses decency and fair play.
Presumably this is too much for the editors at the Guardian. Mr Preston
may say he would have published in 1960, but if he lacks the courage to
publish now, it is absolutely certain he would not have had the courage
then. To claim, as the Guardian has, that its readers are simply not
interested in this treachery, is to insult the Guardian's readers, but
it is only an excuse. There are all kinds of treachery and many degrees
in each category. An editor can protect himself by threatening to
publish secrets he is privy to. Secrets can be traded and deals done.
Once such a deal has been done, the paper is stuck with it. Perhaps Mr
Preston is holding the line for a deal done by his predecessor. There
may, of course, be more sinister reasons. With the treatment I have
received from the Guardian over many years as evidence, it is probable
that the Guardian has been infiltrated by MI5. However, given what
British journalists will do without being bribed or threatened, does it
matter?
6 June 1992
The Politics of Ignorance: Nigeria and the Cross Street Hacks
Professor John P. Mackintosh wrote a book of 650
pages and concluded that, if the Northern politicians could command
their own Region, the North could rule Nigeria in perpetuity as the
North had a majority of the seats.
This was played back to me by a retired
journalist on behalf of the Guardian when I tried to get that newspaper
to take an interest in how Dr Azikiwe and Awolowo had been cheated of
power by the British. The Guardian has no interest in British
machinations overseas, treason, election rigging or whatever. They want
to know nothing, but if pressed further, they will say that they know it
already and anyway it is not important.
The Guardian does, however, have a point. The
most vital stratagem in ensuring that the pro-British North would rule
was to give them 50% of the seats in the House of Representatives.
Clearly the Guardian believes that Professor Mackintosh wrote 649 pages
too many as did the Guardian's own Walter Schwarz - a childhood
acquaintance - in his excellent 'Nigeria', and also many other academics
who have tried to explain why the Nigerian Civil War took place with
the deaths of up to two million young people.
There are many other mysteries here, and I
happen to know quite a few of the answers as I was closely involved in
the British plots against Zik and Awo. An additional mystery is why the
Guardian prefers to bask in its ignorance. Actually, the Guardian is not
so naive. They already know what happened in Nigeria, but if they admit
it they will feel obliged to publish. They play the same game as the
British Government and are presumably on the payroll. Geoffrey Taylor of
the Guardian is coy and will not reveal what his experience is of
Nigeria. Walter Schwarz was there during the Civil War in the late 60's
and before that was employed on the best informed and prestigious
magazine, 'West Africa.'
I was entrusted with a major role in the
election rigging on the personal orders of Sir James Robertson, the
Governor General, but that excites no interest from Taylor or Schwarz.
Besides which, they may believe it was a good thing that the North was
given 50%. Perhaps the North merited 50% of the seats. Anyway, the
British had their reasons and Awo and Zik were both revealed to be
engaged in criminal activity by commissions of enquiry.
Schwarz deserves respect. His book is objective,
well researched and scholarly. In fact I suggested he update it and
also incorporate the solutions which I have arrived at, by virtue of
having been an insider to several of the major problems that scholars of
Nigeria still wrestle with. Taylor sounds like an ex-Marxist, like Ken
Post who wrote a big book on Nigeria's independence election which,
sadly, is deeply flawed. Both Post and Taylor have now swung to the
other extreme, and their eyes fill with tears each time they see the
label on a Camp coffee bottle. They are back in the Boys' Own Paper they
read so avidly at school, and regret the sweeping criticisms they once
made of colonialism and our great empire.
The 50% Northern fix was only stage one of the
master plan. Stage two was to keep the Southerners out of the North and
to collect the maximum legitimate vote for the NPC. What that vote was
we shall never know, because the win was essential and the numbers were
juggled when and where necessary. Stage three was to destabilise Zik and
place him under the control of Okotie Eboh. This was the stage at which
I came in. It was my job to guarantee the safety of Okotie Eboh's Warri
seat. My colleague Charles Bunker's job was to funnel large sums of
money from British multinationals like Shell and BP to Okotie Eboh, who
used the money to keep the bankrupt NCNC on the road. (He also funnelled
vast sums to a Swiss Bank through middle men in the City of London).
Okotie Eboh was the vital link man between the NCNC and the NPC. Stage
four in 1962 was to destroy Awolowo, and the final stage was intended to
remove Zik from the largely ceremonial post of President and scatter
the NCNC to the wind.
The wily Zik, as I have explained elsewhere,
decided it was time to leave town. Balewa should have seen this as a
very dangerous sign, but he was bloated with success at having almost
destroyed his Southern enemy and also having established an almost total
Northern dictatorship with the assistance of his beloved British ally.
Operation Damissa took place early one morning in January 1966.
The British plot to destroy Nigerian
independence was responsible for the deaths of up to two million young
people in the bloody civil war which was the direct consequence of this
evil. The Guardian would not listen to me in 1960, and they therefore
have good reason not to come clean now. These people were only
journalists and not the sort of people one would expect to be
responsible or to aspire to a sense of honour, therefore we should not
look for contrition. The paper was once great but has long been heavily
infiltrated by the SIS and the CIA. Its radical stance is largely due to
these agents who find this cover most protective.
Nigeria is controlled
by a Northern-based military regime as it has been for the past thirty
years. There has been no true democracy in Nigeria and there is no
certainty we shall ever see it. Sadly, we will never know whether
Awolowo might have been the great leader Nigeria and Africa so
desperately needed in the 1960's; a handful of grubby hacks helped see
to that.
12 March 1992
Friends, Britons, Citizens
The Secret
Services get your friends to admit that you are a total shit. A crook, a
pederast, despoiler of virgins or whatever. Friends? Well, the boys
have experience at this business. They play on envy, jealousy,
ambivalence or whatever.
All people,
Russians, Germans, Brits, are the same as are their Secret Services.
When the East Germans opened their Secret Police files to the public, it
was found that friends betrayed friends routinely, just as they do
here. They lied and told the Secret Police what they wanted to hear.
They may be frightened or just gratified, or just vile people, but they
do it. And the Cold War was probably just an excuse. (See Philip
Knightley on a looking-glass war in 'States of Secrecy, a Review of the
File, a Personal History' by Tim Garton Ash in the Independent, 5 July
1997.)
The CIA do the
same and were taught by the British. Whistle blowers and renegade CIA
folk are hounded around the USA mercilessly. 'Why are you employing a
Commie traitor? Do your customers know? Your advertisers?'
Your neighbours
who rat on you are not evil but normal. They may be bad neighbours with a
score to settle, but they are average, ordinary Brits. The Intelligence
guys, however, are total shits, who will make up dirt if they cannot
find a mouth to put it into and extract it as spontaneous grassing.
Really principled, honest, intelligent folk are pretty rare and not a
protected species. The bastards have consciences to warm their hearts.
They enjoy being persecuted. They need the Intelligence Services to
harass them, so they can feel like Christian martyrs. They make the
average Secret Service guy going about his proper business as a super
shit feel distinctly queasy and restless.
Why cannot these moral arseholes and principled pricks act human? A good question.
6 July 1997
I am a prisoner. I
live in internal exile. No income, no career, no reputation. The
Intelligence Services gave me a life sentence. They can control me
whenever they wish, which means whenever I get near to blowing the
whistle on them.
Some Scots boys on
the make are also prisoners. They are politicians, decent blokes at
heart, and of course democrats. They are prisoners too. In theory they
control the Secret Services. In fact, they are prisoners of a system
they dare not change. When Ramsay Macdonald asked to see his Secret
Service file he was refused. Harold Wilson used the Secret Services for
dirty jobs and then was surprised when they played dirty with him. Even
Marcia, who had guts, could not make Harold stand up to them. Because
Harold was being blackmailed?
So Tony, Robin and
Gordon are human and have skeletons in their cupboards. So what? Would
the Secret Services dare spill the beans, spread the dirt? Tony and
Company are too young to have dirty hands on Nigeria. Maybe they would,
when in Opposition, have blown the whistle, but perhaps they felt
powerless. I would not agree with that as exposure would have revealed
the incredible criminality, and at the very least an enquiry would have
been mounted. Look at the fuss, a mere nothing in comparison, of the
'cash for questions' furore! MPs were peddling supposed power and
influence they did not really have. They should have been reported to
the Trading Standards Officers.
How did Robin
Butler not collapse in fits of laughter when the Cabinet discussed open
government? The man in charge of all intelligence, black government
operations, told to bring in measures which, if honestly operated, would
destroy the Secret State which he controls! We know, of course, that
open government is simply a charade, a pretence, a fake, a phoney. The
real game is New Labour equals old fudge.
In a true
democracy those who have sacrificed a great deal in defence of democracy
would be honoured and not reviled. The secret black government can
destroy my reputation, blacken my character, destroy my career, spy on
me and take away all my rights. The élite statesmen, officials,
dignitaries, Cabinet members, will not lift a finger to help me. Poor
old Tony and Robin and Gordon are guilty of covering up treason, now
that we have found out that there is to be no change of policy towards
the Smiths by New Labour. Tony and Company will pretend that they did
not know. No one will believe them, but they will get away with it as
Mrs Thatcher did every day she was in power, and Robin and Company are
her children.
We live in a
pretend democracy which suits New Labour fine. With a massive majority,
Tony and Company intend keeping the black Government intact and may even
extend it, for measures will be needed to outwit and circumvent the
supposed Freedom of Information legislation etc. Nothing will change.
The black government will target the Smiths to prevent the State
criminality, condoned by Tony's silence, being exposed to the British
people.
The common people
believe that it is enemies abroad who must be the whole point of having
the Secret Services. Wrong! It is the public who must never find out
about the criminal actions of the secret black government. The British
public are the enemy who must be kept in the dark. The Secret Services
exist to stop them finding out what is being done in their name. The
Head of State, the Speaker, the Lords, the Judges, the Mandarins, the
all powerful Cabinet Secretary are the enemies of democrats like the
Smiths. We are dangerous, because we know far too much and we are
honest. All the eminent people who turn away when we plead for help are
not full-time criminals and fascists, only part-timers. Hypocrisy and
self-deception are so common in British public life that the poor feeble
troopers we are writing about, headed now by three new Scottish
Musketeers, would be shocked at our truthful, accurate indictment to
which there is no credible defence whatsoever. Not the ill-educated
trade union barons of old, but the very élite of University graduates,
elected on an anti-sleaze platform and precious little else of
substance.
Tony and Robin and
Gordon are decent people on the make like many a Scot. They are career
makers, political artists, acting out a role. Whitehall politics is cant
and nonsense and humbug. Aren't they good at it? When starting out they
loathed the secret black government. Now they are part of it and think
that they can control it. Whatever happened to conscience?
The Smiths are in hot water as ever, but it keeps us clean.
7 July 1997
NB Items starting with ! are recent additions or updates.
Britain - Springboard of Democracy?(or 'Knee-Deep in Dishonour' - Tony Blair)
Since Britain
rigged Nigeria's Independence Elections and destroyed black democracy in
Africa at its birth, the military from the North, Britain's allies,
have ruled.
It is hardly
surprising that one Nigerian - the Commonwealth Secretary General -
believes that Britain is 'the springboard of democracy in the
Commonwealth.' He would, wouldn't he? There are black Nigerians who
think that they are white, and then patronise their fellow countrymen.
Blacks can be discrete racists too.
The high comedy
becomes sad black farce when the Commonwealth commends our henchmen in
Nigeria for invading Sierra Leone to protect democracy! The Foreign
Office loves the military regimes in Nigeria - they are our boys. They
are forces for stability (!) and keep the oil flowing, and trade and
business working for us. Multinational corporations or us?
As Nigeria, an
artificial construct of recent origin, never enjoyed any democracy while
the British had an army of occupation, and were not impressed by the
phoney brand forced on the Nigerian people in 1960, they may never have
really missed what they never had. If Mr Blair and Mr Cook ever
officially knew that we destroyed democracy in Nigeria, they would be
outraged! Of course, they do know because we have written dozens, if not
hundreds, of letters to the Labour Administration and the Speaker. As
we did not actually see them registering their total disgust, as they
are true democrats, sadly they will deny knowing. Mr Major knew, as his
Cabinet Secretary was in contact with us. As Sir Robin knows, and is
still Cabinet Secretary, he would tell Mr Blair? We know how everyone
but Mrs Thatcher knew what was in the newspapers and got away with it.
Why shouldn't Mr Blair, having won a great democratic contest, be blind
to the fact that a hundred million Nigerians were denied democracy by
his predecessors?
Mr Blair is not a
Mrs Thatcher, nor is Mr Cook a Foreign office patsy. However, many, many
lies have been told by officials to cover up the democratic crime of
the century. This criminality was of the highest order. It brings shame
on our nation that for forty years the crooks have had absolute power
and total control to prevent disclosure. Even so, Mr Blair does not know
that we, the Smiths, are people of total integrity as he is. He may
feel that the people who planned a Suez and lied their heads off to
cover it up were far too morally superior to plan the rape of Nigerian
democracy.
No one from New
Labour has sent us a message of support and hope - yet. These are early
days, however, and there is still time before the moral malaise and
ethical stun guns of Whitehall immobilise and castrate New Labour's
conscience, and capacity to distinguish right from wrong and then act on
it. Mr Blair has promised honest Government and the people have proved
that democracy can work by giving him a blank cheque. We seek jobs and a
sound economy, but far more important is the moral health of our
nation. A grave crime was committed by Britain in Nigeria. The Smiths
have been sorely punished for doing their duty. Mr Blair knows this, but
his Ministers and his office do not respond to our pleas for justice
and redress.
Mr and Mrs Blair
are barristers. They know that the state has broken many laws, even the
mighty Magna Carta in its treatment of a civil servant who predicted
that only disaster could flow from British criminality in Nigeria.
Mr Blair has won a
great victory. Can he imagine British officials and Security Services
robbing him of this great electoral triumph? Yet this is what we did in
Nigeria. One hundred million Nigerians have no democracy. Is Mr Blair
going to be the honest and truthful person he tells us he is, and whom
we believe him to be? Will he order MI5 to intensify its bullyboy
tactics to shut us up if we remind him of his promises?
I told the
Governor General of Nigeria that he was a criminal. The election laws of
Nigeria were similar to and based on UK legislation. He, Sir James
Robertson, was rigging the Independence Elections. He admitted this -
indeed he wanted me to know what he was doing so that I could be in no
doubt how much trouble I was in. That was not the worst. He threatened
to have me killed if I blabbed. Was he a criminal? If so why, forty
years later, am I still a fugitive? An outcast? I am the one who got a
sentence and has been treated as a criminal.
If the Blair
Government continues to treat me as the wrongdoer, someone who needs to
be targeted by Special Branch and MI5 and MI6, then they identify with,
ally themselves with the Governor General and his criminality. They are
accessories after the fact. However, in the same way as the Governor
General then denied he had done what he did, Mr Blair's Government can
deny he did what he did, whatever I say. I will, of course, know that
they are guilty but they can stop me telling anyone else. They could
deny knowledge of everything. Do I have proof I told Mr Blair's
Government? They get lots of letters. I can copy my letters to them to
others. That does work. I can write to their enemies too. That is
embarrassing.
The criminals can
be seen as individuals who seized the controls of the State apparatus
for their own ends. They could be disowned. I could be rehabilitated.
The Chief Constable in Wiltshire knows that I am an honest man who
fought criminality exactly as she does. She should be on my side in a
sane civilised society. The society, which allowed Nigeria's
Independence Elections to be abused so that the losers won power, was
criminally sick or temporarily insane. Is it not time that the insanity
was ended, stopped, and the rule of law re-introduced?
Only a few
criminals were involved. The mass of the public, the officials, the
politicians, the House of Commons, knew nothing of this criminality.
This was a secret coup. In Hitler's Germany the criminals took over all
the state and everyone was forced to take part. The allies declared that
Nazism was a criminal conspiracy. It was wrong to carry out orders of a
criminal nature. I disobeyed criminal orders, but did not become a
hero. I got a life sentence. And many good people looked away lest they
get punished too. Nobody wanted to know. They still do not want to know.
The Speaker does
not want to know., Prime Ministers do not want to know. Top civil
servants do not want to know. Judges do not want to know, although some
told me how to get a pay off. I am told that I am honest. That
apparently is a problem. They do not tell others that I am honest. They
say I am mad, obsessed, paranoid - maybe they cross their fingers and
mutter"...about the truth." Quite a lot of people do think that I am mad
not to take massive bribes like a knighthood. Who gives a fig about a
thousand and one lies; about democracy; and starting civil wars in which
two million die. I care. Do you?
A state with a
secret service is both lawful and criminal at the same time. But only
for issues like mine. Really big state crime. They may turn a blind eye
to warders beating the hell out of prisoners and police beating
confessions out of suspects, but that is something else. Shoot to kill
when the Irish and terrorists and colonials and foreigners are concerned
gets us near the secret state, but polite society is not too bothered.
Rarely do MPs question these abuses. MPs often have a girl or boy friend
on the side and fear MI5's curiosity.
Honesty is the
best policy? Honesty is its own reward? Honesty is a load of nonsense in
a semi-police state like ours. We are creeping up to the millennium
with New Labour - a moral millennium. Mr Blair will not let us down; Mr
Cook promises to be a good guy with a white hat on a white horse. We
shall have to wait and see, won't we?
22 May 1997
For non-Britishers
who are unaware of the hypocrisy of British institutions, I should
explain that you are only allowed to complain to the MP for your
constituency. If he declines to answer your letter, there is nothing you
can do. Even Party leaders play this game. An MP may correspond with
you if you are lucky, but it is unlikely he will act for you. The
laziness or irresponsibility of MPs is recognised in the strictly
defined areas where one may complain to an Ombudsman. One has to
approach the Ombudsman through an MP, but not necessarily your own MP.
It may be thought
an MP will reject you if you are a critic of his Party or the
Government, but that is not necessarily so. The truth is that MPs are
powerless and know it. Even if they write to a Minister they are likely
to be fobbed off. Awkward MPs can be silenced through the Whips' Office
or pressure through their constituency officials. If all else fails, MI5
may harass or blackmail him. Few MPs do not commit indiscretions at
some time and MI5 (and the Whips' Office) are ever keen to record them.
Fiddling expenses, cheating on a spouse, or using prostitutes are
fertile areas in which to provide pressure. MI5 is totally unscrupulous
and, if they can totally misbehave with a Prime Minister, as they did
with Harold Wilson, an ordinary MP does not stand a chance unless he is
fearlessly brave and honest. He will also find MI5 has many Friends and
the luckless MP may find pressure being applied from the unlikeliest
source. Even if a paragon, he may have to cope with many ugly rumours
that circulate about him.
However, your MP
will be a paragon and does see you and listens and then changes the
subject and bids you a cheerful good-bye. He may, however, really be
interested until you mention the bribes you were offered. A dramatic
change may take place. I am too cynical. Your MP is still interested.
Then mention the knighthood you were offered to buy your silence. If I
exaggerate MPs' interest in titles, honours and money, Labour leaders
will tell you that hundreds of Labour MPs will do anything for them. Is
there a Labour MP who does not hanker to sit in the totally undemocratic
and abhorred House of Lords?
I omitted to
mention that, if an MP valiant for truth is found, his Questions may not
be accepted 'at the Table.' Various devices exist to stop a difficult
MP even asking a Question.
And my complaint
was not about the train service or a library closure. The State had
threatened to kill me. The State was destroying democracy by rigging
elections in the African giant nation of Nigeria. Two million would die
as a consequence. Not one MP in thirty-four years wanted to know.
26 October l994
The Third Way: An Ethical Foreign Policy? No Way, No Way, No Way
The mandarins plot
against Governments in favour of the secret establishment. This is no
paranoid fantasy, but the stark truth, for they control the flow of
information, conceal many secrets, are adept at lies and deception, and
control all the Secret Services, Armed Forces and the Foreign Service.
As soon as possible they will curry favour with gullible Ministers, lead
them astray, trap them and use blackmail.
On Day 11 of the
New Labour era we were promised that the Queen's Speech would include a
Privacy Law to protect us from 'the misuse of power by the State.'
(Guardian, 23 May 1997.) A move the Government described as 'the first
step on the road to a Bill of Rights.' The mandarins saw that off by
mentioning some dirty washing Old Labour had carelessly left behind for
the amusement of the mandarins.
In 'behind the
Chair' friendly chats and briefings between Mr Blair and Mr Cook and
Messrs Thatcher, Major and Company, New Labour has been put in the real
picture on Nigeria, including the destruction of democracy by the
British. Mrs Thatcher gloried in our treason and buttered up the
Nigerian dictatorship while batting for Britain, i.e. encouraging arms
deals and family business. John Major, on the other hand, has African
experience and is totally honourable, and actually released the Smiths
from press censorship, even if in the event it changed nothing.
Will Mr Blair
match Mr Major's decency and honesty with regard to our disgusting
record of treason in Nigeria? Will his mandarins poison the well of his
essential decency and honesty and total integrity. Whom shall we blame
if this is what happens? Will New Labour turn into Old Wankers before
our very eyes? Surely not...
5 June 1997
NB Items starting with ! are recent additions or updates.
It was in 1945 that the war crimes trials at Nuremberg commenced. There has been some question of their legality.
In 1955 I was employed by HM Government in
Nigeria. My major task, for which I was recruited, was to draft a
Factories Act, which I did in six weeks. I am not a lawyer, but did PPE
at Oxford in two years, and a Diploma in Public Administration, despite
leaving school at thirteen. As a time-served engineering craftsman I had
previous knowledge of factory safety. It was a scissors and paste job,
based on existing laws in other colonies, and my wife typed it.
I was very proud of 'my' Factories Act, which
went on the Statute Book immediately and was given a great welcome. I
have always loved the law, and enjoyed the legal studies which formed
part of my studies at Oxford.
I was familiar with Nigeria's comprehensive
election laws, and eagerly waited for Independence and a great
experiment in democracy and black majority rule. Yet in 1956 I was
shattered to have orders from the Governor General making clear that the
elections were to be rigged. The showcase of democracy was a fraud. I
queried this policy through official channels, but was treated with
great hostility and never allowed access to the Civil Service tribunals
established for redress.
In 1960 I returned to London in very great trouble, though I had been charged with nothing.
(As a consequence of the abolition of the rule of law, a war started and three million innocents died - UN figures.)
In 1960 the Governor General had threatened my
life, but also spoke of permanent exile from the UK and honours, top
jobs, etc. The alternative was life-long unemployment, harassment, and
surveillance by MI5/6. Mr Chester Barratt approached the Colonial Office
but was told many lies. A well-known City solicitor, he had an
acquaintance with Julian Amery, a junior Colonial Office Minister and
son-in-law of the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan.
Tom Sargant was the Secretary of 'Justice', a
recently formed all-Party law reform group, part of the International
Commission of Jurists. The Chair of Justice was Sir Hartley Shawcross,
former Chief British Prosecutor at Nuremberg. He was now a VIP at Shell
Oil whose newly-discovered oilfields in Nigeria were a major reason for
the abandonment of the rule of law by HM Government in Nigeria.
The Government had been dealing with my concerns
since 1956. I was objecting too to harassment, which had wrecked an
agreement I had reached with a handshake at the behest of Lord Grey, the
Deputy Governor General. This gentleman's agreement was breached by the
Colonial Office, and I had to return to Nigeria in 1958.
In 1959 Hartley Shawcross had been made a peer
by his friend Harold Macmillan. The Lord Chancellor was Viscount Kilmuir
who, as David Maxwell-Fyfe, had been Shawcross's Deputy Prosecutor at
Nuremberg. They now teamed up with the Labour Shadow, Gerald Gardiner,
who was to be Lord Chancellor in 1964, and Sir John Foster, QC, MP, who
was a friend and lawyer to the Amery family. Sir John also had
experience of war crimes and treason, as he had attempted to defend John
Amery, who was executed in the Tower in 1945. Macmillan as Prime
Minister and Iain Macleod had either ordered the illegal machinations I
complained of, or had a hand in implementing them or the consequences.
Now, Tom Sargant explained to me that
Maxwell-Fyfe, Shawcross and Gardiner had discussed what should be done
with me, and they had agreed that I could never be allowed in an English
court of law. I was perplexed because it was the Government which was
acting criminally. I had protested through the proper channels, but
never had a hearing. Maxwell-Fyfe, Shawcross and Gardiner had decided
that an alternative 'trial' could be held at 'Justice' in secret. This
was clearly a 'Kangaroo trial', which is illegal.
I attended because Tom Sargant was persuasive,
and assured me of Gardiner's liberal leanings. If I told the truth I
would be vindicated.
The 'trial' and outcome were a disappointment.
Sir John Foster was to be prosecutor, jury and judge, and Viscount
Kilmuir, Shawcross and Gerald Gardiner would decide on a verdict. Harold
Macmillan would then accept the decisions and implement them. The
charge was very serious for it was treason, of which I was innocent. I
did not need a 'trial' or even a 'Kangaroo court' to tell me that. What I
wanted was a trial of those guilty of destroying democracy at birth in
Nigeria.
This was obviously a very high level 'trial',
and presumably 'Justice' had been chosen to lend an air of
respectability and legality to the proceedings. Surely even at Nuremberg
the war criminals had defence lawyers?
I was a law maker and had never been charged
with anything, but my life was threatened by a law-breaking Government!
It was a nightmare, and I was ill. My weight was dropping and I was like
a skeleton.
The eminent people who were trying me were the
criminals who had robbed a newly-independent, giant nation of its rule
of law and its democracy. Decades of bloody, unparalleled chaos and
millions of deaths would flow from this machiavellian treachery, which
would set the tone for the whole Continent of Africa to be pitched into
savagery.
The Nuremberg Prosecutors had represented good
against evil, but had tried scrupulously to give Nazi leaders a fair
trial. I was not getting a fair trial. Was I worse than a Nazi?
Evidently there was a great hatred of me! Was there a pretence that the
law could be set aside if the two major political parties agreed to do
so together in secret?
Lord Shawcross in his memoirs deplores
whistle-blowers like me, even if we expose gross criminality. Why could
Britain not pay a fair market price for Shell Oil like everyone else?
What was Independence meant to mean?
There were so many things wrong with this
'Kangaroo trial', and so much unexplained, that I could only conclude
that the criminals had taken over the system.
I have dealt with the proceedings, the verdict
and the sheer horror of this illegal trial elsewhere. Was this unique?
The intention of this illegal 'Kangaroo trial' was to gag me for life,
and get my consent to permanent exile. The threats to my life had not
worked, for I had stood up to them. I was to be declared a winner and
rewarded with honours and a top job, and be gulled into the acceptance
of gross criminality. I refused the offer. The US State Department had
offered me a safe haven in Washington. The CIA had approached me, and I
met the Station Chief in London who was concerned for my safety. It
sounds crazy, but I was fearless and defied them to kill me. I was
blazing with a controlled anger at the treachery of the British
Government.
Lovers of liberty and the law should regard
these 'Kangaroo' proceedings as a disgrace to the British legal system
and be hopping mad!
January 2005
I have no proof, other than my own experience -
often unsubstantiated - that Macmillan destroyed Nigerian democracy. He
wrote no confession of what he undoubtedly did. On the contrary, every
precaution was taken to keep his machinations secret. There will be no
flood of e-mails to investigate.
As the operation was carried out on a bipartisan
basis involving the Privy Council, the question of legality never came
into it. 'The hidden hand' and 'fancy footwork' exercised an 'enduring
fascination for him.' 'The sheer devilry of his later adventures in
foreign policy shocked some...' He found the Balkan politics of North
Africa exhilarating. He favoured black and white partnership and black
majority rule, but had no intention of handing over the reins of
government to militant African leaders. (Africans were like children;
they are vain; they easily get excited; they are barbarians. These were
the ideas and beliefs of the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan.) It was
evident that right and wrong did not come into it. Illegality did not
worry him. The machinery for operating as an adventurer outside the rule
of law was to hand in the Privy Council.
All this happened in Nigeria, and I was a
witness. I tried to stop it, but I failed. After fifty years, no one is
listening, and three million people died. A small handful of top
politicians can create this mayhem from within a parliamentary
democracy! Can the exercise of law stop it? These people can use all the
resources of the State to shut you up, and they are not overly
scrupulous. In Lagos during the 1950's, thousands of letters were burned
unopened every day. These practices make a mockery of our democracy.
This paper is a record of my attempts to expose the abuse of poor bloody
Africa by trying to operate the Freedom of Information Act, 2001.
One can understand scepticism to what I suggest.
Wasn't Maxwell-Fyfe devising constitutions for soon-to-be-free
Colonies? I, too, was a lawmaker in Nigeria. What I was discovering was
almost unbelievable, yet it was certainly proved to me that the really
decent and popular David Maxwell-Fyfe was a total liar when he gave me a
'kangaroo trial'* at 'Justice' to shut me up.
In October 1960 David Maxwell-Fyfe went to
Nigeria for the Independence celebrations. Not a single nationalist
politician was on the platform. Those who had opposed freedom and
independence welcomed him. Six years later Britain's major stooges on
the platform were gunned down. But for the British plotters, headed by
Macmillan and Ministers like Maxwell-Fyfe, those African cheats whom we
had selected to lead this great nation, would have lived out their
expected span. Little did they know that men like the genial and decent
David Maxwell-Fyfe had signed their death warrants.
February 2005
! Gerald Gardiner - Saint or Criminal
Is it possible if one is a lawyer, especially a great reforming Lord Chancellor, to be a bit or a fraction of both?
In 1960, when I was trying to expose the rigging
of Nigeria's Independence elections by the British Government, the Lord
Chancellor, Viscount Kilmuir aka David Maxwell-Fyfe, got together with
his Shadow, Gerald Gardiner, to shut me up with a 'Kangaroo' trial at
'Justice'.
The loss of three million innocent lives
resulted from the election rigging, but they were Africans. Macmillan,
the chief architect of this treason referred to Africans as
'barbarians'. The question of right or wrong did not come into it when
outwitting these excitable children. It was exhilarating using power in a
machiavellian fashion. The Chair of 'Justice', Sir Hartley Shawcross,
was evidently in close agreement, for these rascally Nigerians would
probably interfere with the smooth running of the newly-discovered Shell
oilfields if allowed to take power. As Shawcross was a VIP at Shell
Oil, he would know about such things.
Sir Hartley and David Maxwell-Fyfe had also been
the leaders of the British team of prosecutors at Nuremberg, and were
accustomed to dispensing justice in orginal - some would say
questionable - situations. Trying Smith in an official court would not
be right at all, for the public might disapprove. Better to keep it
secret.
Yet a year later Gerald Gardiner was to
prosecute the leaders of the ETU for election-rigging. I followed this
with great interest, having made similar charges against the AEU and
been worsted for my pains. The facts seemed indisputable in the ETU
case, and Gerald quite correctly proved that there was a conspiracy to
fix elections. However, was this not a storm in a teacup compared with
the British conspiracy to destroy democracy in Africa? One in five
Africans is a Nigerian. Our behaviour in regard to the Africans was
sometimes very questionable indeed, as in Kenya.
If the ETU conspiracy was the biggest fraud in
Trade Unionism, what was the British Government's conspiracy in Africa?
And why was Gerald covering it up? One could see why Sir Hartley
Shawcross was playing a rather sinister role. One could see why David
Maxwell-Fyfe was playing a rather seedy, criminal role, for he was a
member of Harold Macmillan's Government, and he had plotted and approved
the treason.
The answer may be simple in that Sir Hartley may
have given a bundle of Shell shares to his colleagues. A dreadful
suggestion, of course, but as reasons go it was a popular one, simple to
understand and difficult to fault, referring as it does to the
weaknesses that men are prone to.
If the conspirators had any concern for the
person of the trouble-maker, who was such a pain to the Government, they
did not show it and one may reasonably assume that they thought I
deserved all I got. It was not as if I had been to a public school,
where I would have learned not to snitch and rat on our people, the
British. Evidently my years at Oxford had not given me the right code of
behaviour.
I was the sort of bounder who would have argued
that the rich had taken over charitable foundations, designed for poor
scholars like myself. Viscount Kilmuir was a Scot like the Governor
General, and had taken a Third at Balliol. I had had the nerve to push
into Magdalen and get a Second, which was almost indecent when Gerald
had taken a Fourth and been sent down from Magdalen. Poor old Hartley
had not even got to Oxford and did not have a degree at all! I was just a
pushy, elementary schoolboy who lacked loyalty and did not know his
place.
These sentiments, which I guy and send up, were
very real at that time. Labour and Tory politicians were also
anti-Semitic almost to a man. Lyttleton was a rare exception.
Negrophobia was common and Roy Welensky was rubbish to Macmillan, not
only for being Jewish, but a poor Jew and a railwayman at that. The
grandson of a crofter who had married an adulterous Devonshire only
acted the role of an Edwardian country squire. In truth he took acting
lessons from Bud Flanagan of the Crazy Gang. What an insecure little,
Scots, bastard racist he was. His reference to Africans as 'barbarians'
from a man who sucked up to Oswald Mosely in the 1930s makes one wonder
whose side he was really on in World War Two. Perhaps he needed more
acting lessons!
Salisbury, the real
thing as aristocrats go, appreciated Roy Welensky. Salisbury was no
parvenu and upstart, but Macmillan got his revenge. He set the
Intelligence Services on Salisbury and Welensky, which proved Salisbury
was absolutely correct about one thing. Harold was not a gentleman and,
if proof were needed, the night of the long knives confirmed this.
Note: When one has read the memoirs and the
biographies of the period and newer critical works such as 'The
Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made' and
'Harold Macmillan and Britain's World Role', it is clear that we were
all taken in, for the conclusive evidence suggests that Macmillan was a
first-class machiavellian monster, who poisoned the climate of politics
of Westminster with his treacherous intrigues, and denied better men the
opportunity to serve the nation.
January 2005
The Nuremberg prosecutors did a window-dressing
job in finding guilty a handful of Nazi leaders, whom the Russians would
have shot out of hand. If you could not find Nazi leaders who led a
State, which systematically killed millions,, guilty, you were in the
wrong job. Yet Goering ran circles round the prosecutors. Maxwell-Fyfe
did better than his boss, Hartley Shawcross.
In no time after that whole regiments of Nazi
killers were being settled in Britain by Ministry of Labour
counter-clerks selected from labour exchanges, like George Foggon. It
helped to be a Nazi sympathiser like George, who told me in 1956 that no
Nazis were guilty of anything for they were simply carrying out orders.
George thought that the Official Secrets Act was like the Hitler Oath -
an excuse for anything. Harold Macmillan, a major war criminal, thought
very much like George and awarded him high honours.
David Maxwell-Fyfe loved honours and his
ambition as a collector was endless. He looked like Telly Savalas
playing Kojak without the lollipop. His boss at Nuremberg, Hartley
Shawcross, did not manage David's earldom, but made up for it with
directorships.
At 'Justice', of which Hartley was Chair, they arranged a 'kangaroo' court*
in 1960 to silence the Smiths who were establishing that the British
Government had fixed the Independence Elections in Nigeria to place the
newly-discovered Shell oilfields in safe hands. It helped that Hartley
was a VIP at Shell Oil. The following year Hartley was rewarded with a
'goldmine' - a directorship of Shell Oil.
The Government has for over forty years denied
that the Smiths exist. They deny that the Smiths got a 'kangaroo trial'
at 'Justice'. They would, wouldn't they?
The destruction of democracy in Nigeria has
produced for decades a basket-case nation and took the lives of three
million innocents. To this day, Mr Blair is covering up this holocaust.
'Justice' will not answer the Smiths' letters. They compound their
guilt.
February 2005
! How to Justify a 'Kangaroo' Trial*
An illegal trial, if set up by a Lord
Chancellor, is still not legal, especially if it is held in secret. When
the accused is held to threaten State security by exposing State
criminality, one understands why secrecy is desired. It is also
understandable why the accused should not be allowed counsel. Those
involved in the trial will be complicit in the State criminality and
must therefore be trustworthy to the accusers.
If the trial is not a court martial, but is to
be dressed in authority and made to appear legal, the use of lawyers and
a quasi-judicial setting like the Head Office of 'Justice' is
understandable. (An attempt had previously been made to second the
accused to the Army as a high ranking officer, so that he could be
subject to military law.)
The accused was attempting to use due process.
His solicitor had made submissions to Government. Three years earlier a
deal had been brokered by the Deputy Governor General of Nigeria. This
was honoured by the accused but broken by Government. The civil service
rights to a hearing had been denied over a period of two years.
An illegal, secret trial did take place at
'Justice' in 1960. The fundamental principles of a proper trial were
absent. An attempt at justifying the trial was made. The accused was
misled as to the purpose of the trial. Implicit in the trial was the
approval of 'Justice' to the proceedings.
An illegal trial, sanctioned and instigated and
authorised by a Lord Chancellor, is intimidating to an accused. De facto
charges of treason had been alleged by Government. The accused was
appealing against arbitrary punishment, inflicted when he had left the
service of Government three years before. The effect of this punishment
was to force the accused to enter into Government service again.
When the trial was held the accused was no
longer in Government service. The accused fully co-operated with
Government and respected the office and great authority of the Lord
Chancellor and others. The accused was not allowed to negotiate the
terms of the trial. He did, however, have reasonable expectations
regarding justice and fair play.
At all times when in Government service, the
accused complied with civil service regulations and used official
channels to pursue redress.
The accused was at all times polite and
well-mannered in dealings with his superiors. Correspondence was
directed to the proper authorities.
The initial complaint was made in 1956. The 'Justice' trial was held in 1960.
It was admitted in 1960 by the Governor General
of Nigeria that the British Government had rigged Nigeria's Independence
Elections. This was confirmed by other top officials.
Threats to the life of the accused were made by
Government. Offers to the accused were made by the Governor General in
Lagos and in Oxford.
Sir John MacPherson, the Governor General in
1956, became the top official at the Colonial Office. He was a personal
friend of the Lord Chancellor.
The Minister at the Colonial Office, Julian
Amery, was the son-in-law of the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who
approved of the illegal machinations in Nigeria.
The Lord Chancellor, David Maxwell-Fyfe, was a
colleague of the Chair of 'Justice', Sir Hartley Shawcross, at the
Nuremberg Trials. They were members of Gray's Inn and shared chambers.
Sir John Foster, QC, MP, who conducted the trial, was a political associate of the Prime Minister and the Amery family.
Gerald Gardiner, the Shadow Lord Chancellor, associated himself with Maxwell-Fyfe in setting up the trial.
It was evident, by the involvement of the Shadow
Lord Chancellor, that Labour was allied to the Government in the
machinations in Nigeria.
February 2005
! A Magdalen Manner Notwithstanding
The Chair of 'Justice' in 1960, Sir Hartley
Shawcross, was a VIP showcase front man for Shell Oil. He basked in the
reputation of having been the chief British prosecutor at the Nuremberg
Trials. The real chief, who did all the work, was David Maxwell-Fyfe.
(Anyone who consults Kilmuir's 'Memoirs' will arrive at the same
conclusion.) Shawcross was a fraud who derided Maxwell-Fyfe's
intellectual abilities. In fact, Maxwell-Fyfe was the youngest KC for
three hundred years. A wartime degree, complicated by service in the
Army, brought him a creditable Third. Shawcross lacked a degree at all,
and was not really in the top league where Maxwell-Fyfe belonged, and he
probably envied him his popularity and success.
Harold Macmillan and Iain Macleod took Seconds
and Gerald Gardiner a Fourth. The last-named was also derided by
Shawcross who wrote that he knew nothing about politics.
Julian Amery was Macmillan's son-in-law, and Sir
John Foster was the Amery family lawyer, and friend of Macmillan and
Maxwell-Fyfe. The three Tory politicians attended Strasbourg together in
1949.
It was extremely interesting for me to be
charged with treason in 1960 at 'Justice' by the Nuremberg team of
British prosecutors. In 1956, as a colonial civil servant, I had refused
to carry out orders I deemed criminal, namely to interfere with the
Nigerian Independence Elections, which were being extensively rigged by
the British Government.
The only treason in existence was that of the
British Government. It was piquant also because the Nuremberg Code
stipulated that it was not sufficient to claim that one was carrying out
orders if accused of war crimes. Only lawful orders should be obeyed.
Moral choice must be a consideration. Government efforts to strike down a
'public interest' defence in recent years are probably in breach of
both international and British law.
Both Maxwell-Fyfe and Shawcross knew intimately
the Nuremberg Convention. What were they doing lending their authority
to a secret trial of a civil servant, charged with treason for
disobeying criminal orders? As I was not allowed a lawyer to present a
defence against Sir John Foster's charges, which were presented in a
ferocious manner, it was not possible to make these points.
The authority of the court was questionable, of
doubtful authority or legality. The charges were vague. There was no
defence or jury. The verdict and judgement were to come from the Lord
Chancellor, Maxwell-Fyfe, in agreement with his Shadow, Gerald Gardiner,
and, whilst purporting to be a judgement in my favour, it demanded my
word to keep silent about gross State criminality, and my consent to
lifetime exile!
And this 'kangaroo court' was held near the Inns
of Court at 'Justice', a law reform society with an interest in African
justice!
Star Chamber treatment in modern times lacks documentation, but my case contained every element of this barbaric behaviour.
I experienced the duress of having my life
threatened. I had already been illegally punished. Further punishment
was threatened. If I refused to accept the 'judgement' of the court, I
would never work again and would be subject to lifetime surveillance and
harassment.
In his political intrigues against rivals,
Harold Macmillan favoured 'the hidden hand' which drew on Machiavelli's
doctrines. In a conflict with Salisbury over Sir Roy Welensky's policies
in Rhodesia, Macmillan enlisted the services of MI5/6. To use these
official dark forces against a ministerial colleague of such eminence
reveals much about Macmillan's character and ambitions. It also
demonstrates that the politicians, who were trying me in secret with the
collaboration of eminent legal figures, would have no compunction in
ordering the security services to impose life-long sanctions against me.
If the Whitehall establishment could show such
contempt for the mighty Salisbury, they would certainly not hesitate to
punish someone out of the factory and off the council estate, whether or
no he had acquired a faint gentlemanly gloss, along with the manner and
status of a Magdalen man.
February 2005
In 1960 I returned from Nigeria in disgrace, and
the wrath of Government was evident. I protested my innocence and even
employed a lawyer, but the charge of treason had been put around in
public by Whitehall, and there were official threats to my life. These
exceptional circumstances, like today, called for special measures. I
wanted to be given a proper trial so that I could demonstrate my
innocence, but Whitehall refused then, as they refuse now, to try
'terrorist suspects.'
Another ploy was to deny officially that I
existed. Clearly, if I did suffer 'foul play' and disappear, Government
would not be unduly concerned to discover what had happened. Another
idea was to subject me to permanent exile abroad. The Far East was
mentioned as a likely destination. As an Oxford graduate with some legal
training and experience of the law, and holding a Diploma in Public
Administration, I knew of the fine principles on which British law is
based, and knew also that Whitehall was behaving as if the law did not
exist where I was concerned. I was an outlaw, though it seemed to me as
someone who was totally innocent that the British Government was acting
as if we were part of the Nazi empire!
It now seemed that the four years I had spent
seeking redress through the official channels of the Civil Service were
totally wasted. I was never going to be allowed to appear before a Civil
Service Tribunal as was my right. I sought the advice of the celebrated
author C P Snow, who had been a Civil Service Commissioner, and he
advised that I seek redress in the Courts. That also was supposedly my
right, but Government was adamant - I had no such legal rights!
My reference to Nazi policies was to be proven absolutely correct, for Government now decided to give me a 'kangaroo trial'* under
the auspices of the two British prosecutors at Nuremberg in 1945/6, Sir
Hartley Shawcross and David Maxwell-Fyfe. I was in an even worse
position than the Nazi leaders because their trial was held in public. I
was to be tried in secret. The Nazis too were allowed defence counsel. I
was not allowed that right, which is one of the essential principles of
our system of law.
David Maxwell-Fyfe was now the Lord Chancellor,
as eminent a legal position as one could encounter. Sir Hartley
Shawcross, one-time Attorney General, was now Chair of 'Justice', under
whose auspices I was to be tried.
Sir John MacPherson, the Governor General of
Nigeria whose orders I had challenged in 1956, was a school friend of
the Lord Chancellor. MacPherson was now Under Secretary at the Colonial
Office and worked closely with my Minister Julian Amery, the son-in-law
of the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan who had abandoned the rule of
law by destroying Nigeria's democracy.
I was approached by Tom Sargant, the Secretary
of 'Justice', who informed me that the Lord Chancellor Maxwell-Fyfe and
his Shadow, Gerald Gardiner (who was to be Lord Chancellor in 1964), had
decided that I could never be allowed to appear in an English court of
law. Therefore I should be tried at 'Justice' and cross examined by Sir
John Foster, QC, MP a renowned prosecution lawyer. There would be no
jury. Foster's conclusions would be considered by Maxwell-Fyfe and
Gardiner and they would come to a judgement. A transcript was made of
the cross-examination, and the following week Tom Sargant met with me to
advise me of the verdict. I had been denied due process and subjected
to an illegal 'kangaroo trial' under duress.
Tom spoke as if there had been a victory for
Foster had said I was telling the truth. Presumably they had thought I
had been lying? Now, I was to be awarded a large sum of money in return
for my word to accept a gagging order and consent to life-long exile.
I rejected these terms, which were identical to
those the Governor General had offered me in Lagos and Oxford, plus
threats to my life, freedom and liberty. I had simply declined to take
part in rigging Nigeri['s Independence Elections. I did not protest for
financial gain. I was not even a whistle-blower, but simply a
law-abiding citizen and democrat.
The Government immediately carried out Sir James
Robertson's threats to make me unemployable and subject me to life-time
surveillance and harassment. My treatment as a 'traitor' was very much
the way 'terrorists' are handled today by the Home Secretary, Charles
Clarke. 'House arrest' is not news to MI5 targets like myself, who are
totally innocent of anything except embarrassing Westminster politicians
by exposing gross misconduct.
The British public are regarded as the enemy,
and must be kept in the dark about major breaches of the law and dirty
work abroad. Party leaders, in collusion on 'Privy Council terms',
believe they are above the law and deny 'due process' to anyone they
dislike. A craven legal profession and the media co-operate in these
criminal machinations. Whitehall and their allies have pretended that
Harold Smith never existed or has died or disappeared.
The people of Nigeria and Africa now know of
Whitehall's breach of trust and dark machinations. In time, the British
public will also know of this cover-up of the destruction of democracy,
at great human cost, in Africa.
A 'Nuremberg Trial' of a law-abiding British citizen is another great scar on the conscience of Westminster politicians.
February 2005
! National Security and 'Kangaroo' Courts
The British Constitution is largely unwritten.
No comprehensive document has been written which details what is legal
and what is not legal. Our government has evolved. It was not designed.
Pragmatism rather than principle is the rule. In recent times many
changes and reforms have been introduced.
Yet there is still incoherence and extensive
secrecy. The intelligence services are prohibited from furthering the
interests of any political party, and are vaguely supposed to protect
parliamentary democracy. When I pointed out that the SIS (MI6) Charter
stated this objective, and therefore SIS should be on my side as I was
protecting democracy in Nigeria, Mrs Thatcher changed the objectives.
As we have two largely conservative parties
taking turns in office, it is no big deal to enlist support from
ex-Ministers to get round the political party problem. James Callaghan
is very sympathetic to MI5/6 and their machinations. If the two major
parties collaborate on Privy Council terms, do they need to be bound by
the law? They can operate in secret if in doubt.
Tom Sargant of 'Justice' told me that the Lord
Chancellor, David Maxwell-Fyfe, had agreed with his Shadow that I could
never be allowed in an English court of law, as the story might get out!
Was this 'authorised' by written Privy Council decree? And justified
with 'national security'?
If there is no transparency, how can abuse be checked? What of my legal rights? Can I never appeal?
Democracy was destroyed in Nigeria with the
consequent loss of three million lives. Is secret policy reviewed at any
point and rectified if seen to be wrong?
Iain Macleod was a party to the conspiracy to
rig Nigeria's elections, but when a long drawn-out war started as a
direct consequence, he began to panic as the casualties ran into
millions. He tried to put the bipartisan policy into reverse, but it was
too late and three million innocents died.
February 2005
! An Open Letter to 'Justice': The Strange Case of Gerald Gardiner and 'Justice'
In 1960 following an approach by Tom Sargant,
the Secretary, I took part in a mock trial at 'Justice' and was
subjected to a ruthless interrogation by an eminent QC and Tory MP, Sir
John Foster It was established that I was telling the truth about the
rigging of the Independence Elections in Nigeria by Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan, with the support of leaders of the Labour Party.
The 'trial' was set up at the instigation of the
Lord Chancellor, Viscount Kilmuir; the Labour Shadow Chancellor, Gerald
Gardiner (who became Lord Chancellor in 1964); the Government Minister
for the Colonial Office, Julian Amery; and, presumably, with the
knowledge of Harold Macmillan who was Julian Amery's father-in-law.
When I had returned from Nigeria in the early
summer of 1960, a well-known City lawyer (and acquaintance of Julian
Amery) had written to Amery on my behalf. The letter exists on my
Colonial Office personal file (Overseas Service WAF/P 1949). Amery
informed Mr Chester-Barrett that I must be a lunatic as the Colonial
Office had never heard of me. After Mr Chester-Barrett had produced my
Contract of Service, Amery admitted that they did in fact know me very
well. Sadly, there had been a fire which had destroyed all my records.
All that remained was a charred file cover bearing my name.
At that time I did not know of Labour
involvement (on Privy Council terms) in the rigging of Nigeria's
Independence Elections. Tom Sargant made much of Gerald Gardiner's
involvement with 'Justice', and I was enormously impressed. In a
biography by his second wife, Muriel Box, Gerald is referred to as 'a
man of immense humanity, generosity and humility ... motivated by a
hatred of injustice ... who has devoted his life to bettering the lot of
mankind.'
With the assistance of Sir John Foster and Peter
Benenson (the co-founder of Amnesty) 'Justice' was set up in 1957 by
Gerald as the British branch of the International Commission of Jurists.
It would be an all-party organisation, consisting of leading lawyers
representing the three main political parties, formed to 'uphold and
strengthen the principles of the Rule of Law in the territories for
which the British Parliament is directly or ultimately responsible: in
particular to assist in the administration of 'Justice' and in the
preservation of the fundamental liberties of the individual. It was also
concerned to help the International Commission of Jurists to promote
observance of the rule of law throughout the world.'
Naomi Sargant, had married Peter Kelly, a friend
of my wife Carol. Peter and Carol were students at Queen Mary College.
(Another student friend was Marcia Williams - Lady Falkender.) Naomi and
Peter lived in a house in Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green, owned by
Peter Benenson, a friend of Tom Sargant.
My decision to go to Oxford in 1950 was
motivated by my protest at Communist election rigging in the Amalgamated
Engineering Union in 1949. I was blacklisted by the Union and became
unemployable as an engineer. Had I known that Gerald was involved in a
legal battle against Communists in the Electrical Trades Union on the
issue of election rigging, I would have been very impressed. Gerald
described the case as 'the biggest fraud in the history of British Trade
Unionism.'
My studies at Oxford had taken me from Ruskin,
where I trained in Bethnal Green as a social worker, to Magdalen
(Gerald's old College, from which he had obtained a Fourth and been sent
down!) The law had played a major role in my studies of the Poor Law,
Industrial Relations, Local Government and Constitutional Law. In
Nigeria I had drafted a Factories Act and, if I had not been chronically
ill from 1960, I would probably have qualified as a barrister. As an
Oxford MA with a Diploma in Public Administration, who had been invited
to stay on at Oxford, this would not have been difficult.
In 1964 Gerald was held in such high esteem that
he became Lord Chancellor in Harold Wilson's Labour Government. This
was the background when Tom Sargant, father of an old friend, offered
the assistance of 'Justice' in my whistle-blowing about the destruction
of democracy in Nigeria. I was not alone in regarding this matter as
political dynamite. The Governor General of Nigeria had accompanied
offers of a knighthood and top jobs etc., with threats of permanent
exile from Britain and threats to my life. The latter, which sound so
melodramatic, were confirmed by a top British civil servant in Lagos who
urged me to flee, and by MI5 and CIA agents there. A British Defence
Minister later suggested in a letter to me that I had been poisoned by
Porton Down! I had returned from Lagos like a skeleton and was diagnosed
with multiple sclerosis, later corrected to tropical sprue, which is
rarely found in Africa.
Tom Sargant informed me that in the opinion of
Gerald, I would never be allowed in an English court of law. This was
also the view of the Lord Chancellor. If, after a 'trial' under the
auspices of 'Justice', I was proved truthful and my allegations correct,
I would have 'Justice' on my side. I saw my career problems as
secondary, and - incorrectly as it turned out - thought that 'Justice'
would challenge Whitehall regarding the rigging of Nigeria's
Independence Elections.
The numerous top jobs I had been offered in
1957, including a research post at the TUC and as a consultant to the
State Department in London, would have been threatened by George Foggon,
a corrupt Nazi sympathiser, who had tried to sack me in Lagos when I
protested at the election rigging. Now in London, he had compiled a
'dirty dossier' which left out the excellent reports on my work, my
drafting of the Factories Act, and a commendation by Lord Grey. Foggon
described me to Esso as a traitor who must never be employed in the
United Kingdom. He threatened reprisals against Esso by Whitehall if
they employed me! After a long list of my character defects he concluded
that I had 'all the faults of my race.' Some months later, after I had
revealed some of his corruption to a Personnel Chief named Douglas at
the Colonial Office, both Foggon and Douglas recommended my return to
Nigeria! The lies and character assassination are detailed in a copy of
my personal file (Overseas Service WAF/P 1949), supplied to me by Jack
Straw in 2004, after his officials and the Cabinet Office had yet again
strenuously denied that I existed in 2003 .
I had fled Lagos after threats to my life.
Francis Nwokedi, my Permanent Secretary, had flown to London to see me. I
refused to see him. The CIA were offering a safe haven in Washington
and had given me a password and an emergency phone number, which I had
reason to use and met the CIA station chief in London. The Governor
General had contacted my friend Philip Williams (the biographer of
Gaitskell) and he renewed his offer of top honours etc. in return for my
silence. Philip was frightened. Robertson had used homosexual blackmail
in Lagos against my friend Michael Crowder, who was very promiscuous.
Philip was single and a confirmed bachelor, and that was all.
At the Holloway Labour Exchange where I had a
temporary job, I was photographed and filmed with the Duke of Edinburgh
during a royal visit. He told me that the Empire was a 'load of
bollocks'. I also met John Hare, the Minister of Labour, who was on his
way to Nigeria. I was featured in a cover photograph in the Ministry of
Labour Staff Magazine. This was the background to my being interrogated
by Sir John Foster at 'Justice'.
Tom said this job at 'Justice' was very
important to him. He could not advise me or appear too close. He was
carrying out his instructions. (However, we did discuss his daughter's
marital problems. Tom knew that I had tried to help Naomi as a friend.
My website has more details.)
Sir John was ruthless, frightening, merciless
and hateful. It was an awful experience, but I stuck to my account
through the repeated questioning and insinuations. Suddenly he was
shaking my hand and comforting me. I was so shaken up that I was really
upset. He complimented me and was a totally different person. Kind,
considerate, sympathetic. He had had to test me to the limit to be sure
that I was truthful, public spirited, honest, etc. etc. Later, Tom said I
had done well. I had 'won', and was to be awarded damages and much more
by Government.
When I saw Tom the following week the offer was
of a large sum of money. Honours, a top job, etc. etc. in return for my
word never to reveal what I knew of the Government's disgusting
destruction of democracy in Nigeria.
I said to Tom that this had been offered already
by the Governor General. I was not protesting for personal gain. I had
been treated abominably because of what I witnessed in Lagos. I could
not possibly give my word to cover it up. Tom was nice to me but was
very worried for my future.
Retaliation against me was very swift. The
Governor General had threatened I would never work again, and disgusting
means were employed to stop my working at the Holloway Labour Exchange.
It was 1957 all over again. I became very ill. The future was bleak.
Whistleblowers often kill themselves. I know how desperately depressing
all that is, but I had Carol, who believed in me, and two lovely small
daughters. It was not easy, but in helping others we gained strength and
somehow survived.
What are we to make of 'Justice', which was such
a let-down? Gerald was a great man. Sir John seemed thoroughly decent.
Tom was a splendid man. We later came across Benenson through the
Coeliac Society. He was also an idealist and very public spirited.
(Sadly, Peter was very mentally troubled and ill. Was there something
sinister in our having identical gut-wasting problems?)
Labour and the Macmillan Government set aside
democracy in Nigeria. These machinations brought on a coup, and a
British counter coup when Labour was in power, and a civil war
(so-called) which killed three million innocents. Gerald and others,
like Callaghan, held high office and were complicit in the dirty
machinations of 1960.
On a personal note, 'Justice' had not lived up
to its aims in protecting me. I was abandoned. In so far as exposure
threatened 'Justice' for its failure regarding Nigeria, they did not and
may still not wish me well, and treat me with hostility. I can only
approach them honestly and see how they react.
January 2005
In 1960, David Maxwell-Fyfe, the Lord Chancellor
- a Balliol man, and the youngest QC for 300 years - had an unusual
case. (Two years later, Macmillan would sack him in the night of the
long knives.) Gerald Gardiner, the Shadow Lord Chancellor, was a
Magdalen man but had been sent down with a Fourth. Lord Shawcross, the
Chair of 'Justice' did not bother with a degree at all.
I was the difficult case. I left school at thirteen and, in 1954, took a Second at Magdalen after two years.
Perhaps Shawcross (a former Attorney General on
the Labour side) and Gerald Gardiner (a future Labour Lord Chancellor)
resented a council estate boy who had drafted a Factories Act and
defended the rule of law against trade union bosses and Imperial nabobs,
alike. The friends of these lions of the legal establishment were to
spend the rest of the century denying that I ever existed.
After a Kangaroo Court* trial at
'Justice', it was decided that I should become an Orwellian unperson
lest my defence of the rule of law should embarrass Whitehall and
Westminster and graduates of the illustrious Inns of Court.
Over twenty years earlier, my friend Frank Meade
had put up Orwell in his neat Manchester council house when Orwell was
on his way to largely invent the lurid degradation of Wigan. Frank was
not particularly impressed by Orwell, but I had no problem in seeing a
parallel between my 'kangaroo' trial by two chief Nuremberg prosecutors
and the nightmare world of Orwell's '1984'. I had upheld the rule of law
and was being charged with treason. My prosecutors were covering up the
most flagrant abuse of the rule of law, and were seeking to punish me
by permanent exile from the UK. In an Orwellian-like phrase, the animals
had taken over the zoo and were intent on expelling the keeper to a
faraway shore.
The odds at my 'kangaroo' trial were decidedly
and deliberately stacked against the defendant, for I was not allowed a
defence. My lawyer, Mr Chester Barrett, was to be excluded from the
smooth tenor of the proceedings, lest he introduce a jarring note. It
may have been a quiet, illegal trial near the Inns of Court, but in
spirit it was a Soviet showcase trial of the 1930s and some, but not I,
would say, the trial by the victors of the vanquished at Nuremberg.
Had I been allowed my day in a legal British
court, I would have suggested that, at the dissolution of the mighty
British Empire, the principle of 'might is right' was triumphant, and
the light of liberty, justice and the rule of law had been extinguished.
January 2005
! Supermac and Supershell: The Hartley and Maxwell Story
In 1960, Tom Sargant, the Secretary of 'Justice'
told me that, as the Lord Chancellor - Viscount Kilmuir, aka David
Maxwell-Fyfe - and his Shadow Gerald Gardiner - Lord Chancellor in 1964 -
had agreed that I would never be allowed into an English court of law, I
should be given a 'trial' at 'Justice'. My lawyer, Chester Barratt, who
was writing letters to the Colonial Office on my behalf, was
side-stepped, and I had no defence at my illegal 'kangaroo' trial.
The reason for my 'trial' was supposedly my
claim for damages against Government for what they had done to me after
my first tour of duty in Nigeria. I had never believed I would get into
court. I knew I had no chance of winning. What I wanted was to stop them
doing it again and my real fears of the consequences for Nigeria unless
something was done, even at this late stage, to put matters right.
. It was the mention of Gerald Gardiner that
calmed my fears and Tom's reassurance that the whole thing was a good
idea. I now know that it was a bad idea, but it is impossible to
describe why I was foolish and agreed to attend. I was extremely tired,
and had lost several stones in weight. I needed to talk it over at great
length with a sympathetic advisor, but everything took so long and
things moved so fast. In the end it was Tom and my liking and, I
suppose, my trusting him that did it. The whole thing was a fraud. It
was a conspiracy to shut me up. They thought I was an idealistic, young
fool - and they were right. I was also very honest.
I was protesting that Britain's interest in the
Shell oilfields had brought her to destroy the future of democracy in
Nigeria. Now, the voice of Shell Oil, Sir Hartley Shawcross, was holding
a 'kangaroo' court at 'Justice' where he was Chairman, and I was on
trial without a lawyer to defend me. I was at the mercy of the Shell Oil
interests; Sir Hartley the Shell spokesman; and his friend the Prime
Minister, Harold Macmillan. We had Supershell and Hartley and David -
almost a vintage motorbike. The two of them had fooled around together
while eating dinners at Gray's Inn. The two young lawyers had become
famous at Nuremberg. Now they were in partnership again to destroy
democracy in Africa.
Let us be clear. The rigging of Nigeria's
Independence Elections and the consequent deaths of three million
innocents was an international war crime, which is why MI5 and MI6 and
GCHQ and Porton Down had been employed to shut me up for many years.
Britain (the mother of parliaments, the great British Empire, the great
Western democracy) condemned Nigeria, this giant African state, to
become a basket case after a plethora of coups, assassinations,
dictatorships, and warfare - all on a par with Imperial Rome.
Harold Macmillan, Supermac, was, I believe, a
machiavellian thug disguised as an English country gentleman. He
described Africans as 'barbarians'. His lack of public morality links
him to Stalin. I doubt that the loss of three million lives in Iboland
worried Supermac very much. Stalin had the same attitude. He said that
the loss of one life was a tragedy, but the loss of a million was a
statistic.
These gentlemen were the cream of the British
legal establishment, and they put me on trial for treason. I was a
nobody who left school at thirteen and was brought up on a council
estate in Manchester. I served an engineering apprenticeship and, after
service in the RAF in Egypt, fought communists who were rigging
elections in the Engineering Union. I believed that the rigging of
elections in Africa by the British Government was also criminal. It was
also stupid, and set a terrible example. How were our stooges ever going
to win an election once the British went home. It is evident that
Supermac only cared for quick fixes.
In 1960 I continued to protest through official
channels. That did not prevent threats to my life by the Governor
General of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson, who had hanged natives in the
Sudan for handing out leaflets! His boss, the British Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan, was quite bloodthirsty too, and at the same period in
Kenya Africans were made to dig a grave and were then hit on the head
with the spade and buried.
The Whitehall secret file on Harold Smith
contains contingency plans to eliminate me. Clearly Macmillan did not
want to be found out, and the only reason I am alive to tell the tale is
because my whistle-blowing had been a failure.
Some form of legitimacy was desirable - this
being Britain - and that meant lawyers. The Government had committed
treason and somehow it had to shut me up. There was a lot of discussion,
and some would cheerfully have belted me on the head with a spade. One
Whitehall insider in recent years advised against lonely walks along the
canal beside my rural cottage!
How to shut me up was agonised over by the best
legal brains in the UK. As I had been working for Government as a
lawmaker, and had drafted the Nigerian Factories Act, this was perhaps
an embarrassment, but was easily resolved. My open personal file was
graced with a statement that I was not a lawmaker at all and had not
drafted laws. So that was that. Orwell would have loved this very
British expedient. I was, of course, vilified too. Traitor and scoundrel
were the least of it. I could hardly be tried, however, in open court,
though this was considered. Even a picked or packed court could be
dangerous for the plotters, for indeed they were the truly guilty ones.
Eventually, some mighty legal talent was
assembled, and arrived at a solution. Somehow I had to be persuaded that
I had 'won' and could stop whistle-blowing. Loaded with honours and a
lot of money awarded secretly, I could then go off to the Far East and
in some remote place be disposed of quietly. Intoxicated by success,
'Sir Harold' would consent to a life-time gag and permanent exile.
Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe (one of many Scots -
fellow Celts - who hated me for not putting my career first) was the
Lord Chancellor. He achieved fame as the deputy chief British prosecutor
at the Nuremberg trials in which his chief, Hartley Shawcross played
only a minimal role. Those trials were legal and open, and the accused
were allowed a defence. My lawyer, Mr Chester-Barratt, had startled the
Government by claiming to be acquainted with a Colonial Office Minister,
Julian Amery, the Prime Minister's son-in-law. It was thought prudent
to deny me a defence or we might turn the tables and prove the
Government guilty!
The chief prosecutor at Nuremberg was Sir
Hartley Shawcross, the former Attorney General. He was now Chair of
'Justice', founded to bring the protection of the law to the people of
Africa. Hartley was readily persuaded by Maxwell-Fyfe, now known as
Viscount Kilmuir, that 'Justice' would lend an aura of legality and
respectability to a court at which Smith could be tried without
publicity, that is a 'kangaroo' court. As it would be secret, no one
could point out that this was illegal and an awful miscarriage of
justice. Means had to be found, and all this 'fixing' was necessary.
After all, they had already fixed elections in Nigeria. This was just a
postscript to the Nigerian fix, and a tidying up exercise.
Macmillan gave Shawcross a peerage (but Hartley
says he could hve been made a Viscount if he had wanted) and it just
happened that Hartley had become a Shell Oil VIP, and their discovery of
large quantities of oil in Nigeria was the major reason for fixing the
elections there, so that the oil would be in 'safe' hands. Shawcross was
a friend of Gerald Gardiner, the Labour Shadow Lord Chancellor, who
would take office in 1964. As Labour had also agreed to destroy
democracy in Africa because it was 'necessary', Gerald agreed to approve
the trial.
The Colonial Office Minister, Iain Macleod had
little choice but to go along, although he did try to back out when
millions began to die as a consequence of these machinations, as did
Labour's Jim Callaghan, but it was too late. His junior Minister, Julian
Amery, enjoyed this sort of dirty work enormously and almost made a
full-time occupation of 'covert operations'.
A prosecutor was needed, and Maxwell-Fyfe,
Gardiner and Shawcross decided that it would be better to use someone
not too well known. Actually their choice, Sir John Foster, QC, MP, was
very well known as a prosecutor for his ferocious manner. He too was
experienced with traitors, for he had tried to defend John Amery who had
assisted the Nazis. John was hanged in the Tower. As there was a Cold
War on, there were undoubtedly some, including my former boss George
Foggon, a Nazi-sympathiser himself, who would have wished a similar fate
on me.
Maxwell-Fyfe was to act as teller in another
vital election when Macmillan was chosen to be Prime Minister over
Butler. He found for Macmillan. No doubt to Hartley's chagrin, David
ended up as an Earl.
Four eminent lawyers, a Prime Minister, a
Governor General, and two Ministers! This was some Star Chamber Trial
for a nobody off the council estate!
After my trial at 'Justice', Hartley and Maxwell
went off to Nigeria hand in hand for the Independence Celebrations. It
was a beautiful friendship, just like the one between Rick and Captain
Louis Renault when they wandered off together at the end of
'Casablanca'.
January 2005
! A World Turned Upside Down
I was well acquainted as a Labour Officer with
the laws of Nigeria, as not only were my duties defined in the Labour
Code and other acts, but I had drafted The Factories Act. There were
extensive election laws once the British agreed on majority rule.
In 1956 the British parachuted in a new Governor
General who, as agreed in Whitehall, on the q.t. let it be known to the
white administration that we were not going to have fair, legal
elections any more. The Independence Elections were going to be rigged
to keep the Shell oilfields in safe hands. According to Sir James
Robertson, I was the only Britisher who queried this and thought it was
not only madness but criminal and evil. Actually three officials visited
the Chief Secretary's Office to confirm what was happening, but the
other two buckled, and ran, and denounced me as the ringleader of the
protest.
Lord Hartley Shawcross, a Shell Oil VIP, made a
Lord by the Prime Minister as a favour to a friend, was Chair of
'Justice' and, persuaded that I was a traitor (for upholding the law!)
gave me a 'Kangaroo trial'* and
rough justice at 'Justice', set up to uphold the law and extend it to
Africa! Sir John Foster, as Prosecutor, launched a vitriolic attack on
me. As I was not allowed a lawyer to defend me, he had nothing to fear
by way of contradiction. He accused me of betraying my colleagues, in
effect snitching on them. In fact, as a traitor, I was ratting on
everybody. I was the public school sneak personified.
Strange, but I thought I was upholding the law. I
have no idea what my thousands of colleagues thought, even if they went
along with this criminality under duress.
The leadership of the major UK Parties is
stuffed with QCs. Whey they collectively engage in criminality, I do not
know what their collective noun is. A "quorum"; a "quango"; a
quackery"? (However, "quackery" may be reserved for a collection of
suspect doctors.) A "quagmire" or "quail"? A "quaint" or "quake" or
"qualm"? Surely not a "quality"? A "quash" or "quasi" or "quaver"? Not a
"queen" in a strictly non-royal sense! A "queasy" is too nauseating,
and a "querulous" is too peevish and plaintive. A "quibble" has merit,
but so have "quidnunc" and "quiddity". A "quintessence" is not fitting,
and a "quirk" is too mild. We are getting close with "quisling" if we
rate respect or love of the law? A "quote" is not quite sufficient, and
we must rule out "quondam" and "quotidian".
Perhaps they deserve the term a "quiminality", if reduced to a stammer by their presumption. Surely too, a Kangaroo Trial*
staffed by real QCs must be a "Quangaroo Trial", particularly so if
they are also shady politicians. Which brings me to Lord Shawcross, in
memory of whom perhaps we should drop 'Kangaroo'. Henceforth our name
for an illegal court should be a 'Hartley'.
The world of law was indeed turned upside down
by the proceedings at 'Justice' in 1960, specially designed to give
rough justice to a 'turncoat'. The revenge motive was only paralleled by
a Cambridge lawyer who served as Chief Justice in Nigeria for the
trading companies, which became the British administration. He returned
from Africa and, as a close friend of Marx and Engels, translated 'Das
Kapital' for the whole world to read. That puts my rebellion over the
Internet into perspective!
SINGALONG TIME - The Great Numbers
NB Items starting with ! are recent additions or updates.
'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered'
Dr Azikiwe's attitudes to the British are
bewildering. Plural 'attitudes' because Zik clearly could not decide
whether he loved the British or hated them. As a nationalist leader, he
had a public persona to project and keep alive, and he would feel it
necessary, as someone opposed to colonial rule, to damn the colonial
oppressors of his people. Zik had a problem here because the British had
a public persona to maintain too, so they were for the most part very
nice to Zik and never put him in jail. Behind his back they said he was
an old fraud, a poseur, an unscrupulous, conceited and quarrelsome
troublemaker. It must be remembered too that the British read his mail,
tapped his telephone and planted informers amongst his contacts, so they
would know what his 'real' views of the British were.
Zik had his intelligence service, too, in the
largely Igbo-staffed British administration. Zik's problem was that the
British administration was probably as relaxed and kind and sensible as
any colonial regime in history. It was not the fault of the men on the
spot if resources were scarce. These officials came to love Nigeria and
its peoples, and were often critical of their own administration. The
need for elementary basic services, such as clean water and sewage
services, schools and dispensaries was obvious and great. In that sense
there was neglect, and in the North too much power was given to ignorant
and feudal native authorities, but there was little or no real
oppression or cruelty or bad behaviour. This made Zik's problems acute.
It would have helped if he could have been seen as a martyr. He did try
to provoke the British, but they largely ignored him. Neither was he in
fact terribly keen to go to jail. He was a successful businessman who
had a high standard of living and travelled a great deal.
Zik was a great joiner too, and seemingly
enjoyed hospitality and being made a fuss of. Probably all the reports I
noted are false. Surely Zik could not have supported Freemasonry, Moral
Rearmament, the Catholic Church, the Communist Party and such a diverse
group of disparate organisations. It seems Zik wanted to be accepted as
a VIP and leader of his people. He sought respectability. Zik was not
cut out to become a guerrilla fighter in the jungle.
The British were decent people. However, they
had not built a great empire by being soft. They could be tough and
ruthless, if opposed. It was sensible of Nigerians to accept British
rule. Rebellion could have had bloody consequences. Neither do we know
of all the excesses of British rule. The files are closed or destroyed.
The British were nice guys when possible and good behaviour was
rewarded, but colonial rule is not a children's tea party. We were an
occupying force, with an army - though small - of occupation. Our
intelligence service - a synonym for the administration, for all
Britishers had a political and intelligence role - was everywhere and
superb. The administration too was very efficient and cheap to run. The
British were for the most part respected, liked and rarely unpopular.
It is little wonder that the British confused
Zik. Neither were they too serious about absolute power, and a gradual
handover began many years before final independence on 1 October 1960.
Zik was not the only one who was confused - many of the British were a
bit bewildered too. Few Northern administrators were best pleased at the
prospect of handing over power to the Southern tribal leaders, Zik and
Awolowo. It might have been all right if Nigeria had been a unified
country or nation, but it was not by a long chalk. However, we British
were upholders of the law and would not go along with anything underhand
or deceitful.
So why did we come to rig Nigeria's independence
elections? The question is rhetorical, and I have tried elsewhere to
discover the answer, although it appears obvious that we were not really
granting total independence. Strange as it may seem, I was not sold on
total independence myself in 1960. I thought it was premature. What I
really want to express is my shock. How could we do it?! We were
genuinely decent people, doing a good job in very unhealthy places. We
were thin on the ground and not well paid. It was a rotten career choice
by modern standards, but our people got on with it. We were a cross
section of graduates of the better endowed Universities. Most came from
middle class backgrounds. Quite a few could claim to be upper class. I
was working class myself, although I did obtain the imprimatur of an
education at Magdalen College, Oxford, and I was a Fabian, earnest,
serious, a do-gooder. I had done social work in London's East End and
had once aspired to be a missionary. Quite a few of the British in
Nigeria had a working class background, but they were in PWD, the
Railway Department, Labour Department, and the Police and Army, not in
the Administration who rigged Nigeria's independence elections. Even so,
I had no problems in being accepted in Lagos, no more than I had in a
wealthy college in Oxford. 'Manners maketh man', and are also an entrée
into most circles. The doors that manners, politeness, sensibility and
good humour do not open are probably not worth the bother.
"It was necessary." We were only obeying orders.
The first part was absolutely categorical. Those were the Governor
General's words to me in his office in 1960 when I asked him why we had
rigged the elections. He implied the bit about obeying orders. He told
me I was the only senior British officer to refuse to take part. He also
said that I had been mistreated, which he openly admitted, not by him
but by the Whitehall wallahs. I got the impression that he was saying to
me that we were in the same boat really. We had orders and had to obey
them. He said that being in the Colonial Services was the same as being
in the Army (it is not, of course) and those who disobeyed orders could
expect to pay the penalty. As the penalty on active service for
disobeying orders can be death, I was giving his remarks my best
attention.
Actually - and this was not an intellectual
response but a surge of feeling - when he spoke indirectly of us obeying
orders, he got to me somehow and I wanted to go along with him and do
whatever he said. What he wanted was my word. My word never to speak to
anyone of how we had rigged the elections. Maybe he did not know he had
got to me. I have a strong sense of duty and believe... and suddenly I
really do not know how he got to me. Anyway, he soon lost me because he
switched to a very threatening stance. I do not respond to bullying, and
I realised that for all his considerable charm and attractiveness, he
had an icy-cold, amoral streak. What the balance of good and evil in him
was, I do not know. He certainly had a most attractive personality when
he switched it on. Robertson was, I think, extremely intelligent and he
had a touch of warmth and sympathy. As I say, he was getting to me. I
am not good with men close up in intimate conversation, but I felt he
had some understanding of where I was. It was quite a shock when I saw
the cold steel. He went on to say he would destroy me if necessary. I
was more than frightened. I looked into his eyes. His expression had
changed totally. His eyes were dead. He made me feel he could wring my
neck and return to signing his papers without giving a second thought to
my body lying on his carpet.
Did I say that Zik was bewitched, bothered and bewildered? Zik was not the only one.
25 March 1992
'Rule Britannia' Fool Britannia?
All too often the desired balance in foreign
affairs is not between the despised idealism and the favoured realism,
but between honesty and criminality. In fact the favoured excuse for
criminality is necessity. There is nothing new in all this. For
centuries Britain wheeled and dealed to gain advantage; and lied and
cheated, robbed or raped without a second thought. Britain also, on
occasion, acted altruistically as when it turned against the slave
trade.
Attlee's Government espoused honesty and
decency, and started the Cold War and set up a secret terrorist force
that practised state violence abroad for fifty years. However, Professor
Charmley tells us that Attlee was indeed an idealist, but that the
trade union bully Bevin got his way and overruled Attlee.
Wilson's bad behaviour in Nigeria, which killed
two million, was his own doing for he admitted that he was almost
isolated in his own Cabinet, but he got his murderous way. Paradox
abounds and a case could be made that British policy is to have no
policy at all. Given the mentality of the Oxbridge types, who run the
Civil Service and particularly the Foreign Office, this is hardly
surprising. They have no experience of anything but believe that they
have a divine right to rule. One does not need to think up insults for
these unfortunates; telling the truth about them is devastating enough.
Britain's near bankrupt state since the Second World War is their single
great achievement.
Fool Britannia, Cruel Britannia, Britain has
been waiving the rules for centuries. The Third Way is an appropriate
title for the efforts of the third-rate minds that rule Westminster and
Whitehall.
21 April 1998
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star Chamber...
The original Star Chamber was supposedly
abolished in 1641, but as befits a tribunal appointed by the Crown and
totally secret and severe in its judgements, it merely went underground
and out of view. The security of the State is the only business of the
Star Chamber, whatever name it goes by, whether it functions as an
adjunct of the Joint Intelligence Committee, or Privy Council, and its
clientele or victims do not even have to make an appearance. In wartime,
spies are executed in secret and traitors disappear, and the enemy is
quietly assassinated. Much the same happens, but less frequently, in
peacetime, but in the Cold War, although it was business as usual, more
secrecy was called for.
The sentence I got was unemployment for the rest
of my life, which included, of course, the Civil Service by whom I was
employed at that time. Any attempt to reveal the state secrets to which I
was privy would be met by sufficient force to silence me. Some
plea-bargaining was offered. In exchange for my word of honour never to
reveal what I knew, I would have a brilliant foreign service career (I
had made a brilliant start, it was conceded), rapid promotion and
honours of my choice. Having declined these seductive offers, I was
warned by a secret service agent to flee Africa before they killed me,
and by a CIA agent to make a quick get-away and, when in London, by the
use of a password, to make contact with the CIA's Station Chief in
London.
The Governor General who passed judgement on me
had clearly been fully briefed by his masters, both as to whether to
pass judgement, and the exact sentence to be applied. To persuade me, as
he said, of how much trouble I was in, he frankly admitted the total
truth of the fact that the British Government was shamelessly rigging
Nigeria's Independence Elections and, when I pleaded to know why,
blithely answered that it was necessary. He said that, although I did
not know all the facts, I knew far too much to be allowed my freedom.
Anticipating or reading my thoughts, he advised me firmly in an almost
friendly way, that no one would believe me and no paper would ever be
allowed to publish my account.
"I'm a civil servant," I said desperately.
"Senior Colonial Service officers are the same
as Army officers, and you know the penalty for disobeying orders on
active service..." he answered crisply. He was threatening, oh so
quietly, as if discussing whether to have tea or coffee, to have me
killed. "Think of your wife and children," he added compassionately.
As my existing entitlement under the Widows' and
Orphans' Pension scheme had been suspended, as he well knew, it did
seem he had overlooked nothing.
He emphasised that I was on my own, though in truth three of us had protested.
"You are the only senior officer in the whole
service engaged in this operation who has defied me and refused to obey
my orders..."
His reference to the Army reminded me of the
strategies employed to induce me to transfer to the Army at high rank. I
had suspected a trap and now I knew that it had been one. His final
threat was to the point.
"If you refuse to give your word, means will be found to silence you," he said...
This was the most powerful man in the largest
and most important and richest nation in black Africa. Sir James
Robertson was the Queen's representative and as such, when the Prime
Minister visited Nigeria, he bowed to Sir James. That was the protocol.
That was how powerful he was. The Queen had bestowed two, not one,
personal knighthoods on Sir James, and he had a reputation for being
totally ruthless, having ordered the execution of those found guilty of
handing out leaflets which he thought were subversive.
If there is an appeal from the Star Chamber, I
have not yet heard of one. I was silenced, and I was never employed
again. Thereafter I was too busy trying to survive, to stay alive, to be
much of a threat to public order.
29 April l994
Yes. We Have No Bananas... (Popular song: Silver and Cohn, 1923)
If Britain had bananas it could be a Banana
Republic. So, rather insolently, I told the Government in 1992. My
criteria for dancing Latin American were:
a) Does the Government rig elections?
b) Is the Press strictly controlled?
c) Is official corruption tolerated?
d) Is a civil servant denied redress against injustice?
e) Is criminal Government action tolerated?
f) Are civil servants punished if they protest against criminal action by Government?
g) Are the secret services used to initiate and cover up criminal covert Government action?
Here we have the seven deadly sins of open and
decent Government and, as I can demonstrate, the British Government is
guilty on all seven charges. Albion has become Albania. Mr Major's
window dressing with a series of autocratic charters - nil consultation
is permitted - may one day lead our prostituted press to enquire why his
shop is nevertheless quite empty like a pre-glasnost Moscow store. The
Major charters are fraudulent in intent and merely confirm that Britain
is one of the tackiest smaller nations on the periphery of the kind of
civilised behaviour one is led to believe distinguishes advanced liberal
nations from banana, brazil, cocoa, cotton and poppy territories.
Britain rigged
Nigeria's independence elections in 1960. For thirty years the Press has
not been allowed to publish the truth about this evil. The officials
who perpetrated this evil, which led to the deaths of two million
Nigerians, were rewarded with honours. Redress for loss of career etc.
has been denied me. Government to this day have covered up this evil.
Civil servants who uphold the law are illegally punished. The secret
services are used both to carry out Government's dirty work and to
ensure that the British public does not find out what is being done in
their name.
We really do need a new national anthem now that we are the mainstay of the European Community. A proud lyric on the lines of,
"Confound their Politics, Frustrate their knavish Tricks..."
Perhaps.
Britain is not only
sans empire and wealth and prestige, but also morals. Sadly, we are not
disposed to change our ways. Great Britain may soon only be remembered
as the name of Brunel's jacked-up, iron-plated museum of a ship, now
high and dry, beached and embalmed in the old slave-trade base of
Bristol.
20 June 1992
SINGALONG TIME - The Great Numbers
NB Items starting with ! are recent additions or updates.
Britain Nigeria This Will Shock You