Why the Malu Fight?

WHY THE MALU FIGHT Page 1 of 6 WHY THE MALU FIGHT? By Mike Ikhariale Until the famous barbaric military trial of Oladipo Diya, the former Chief of General Staff or the number two man in the Abacha dictatorship for the unusual offense of attempting to overthrow his own boss in a coup d’etat, the word malu, to most Nigerians simply meant docile cows, particularly those breed commonly found in the northern parts of the country from which the bulk of the protein needs of millions of Nigerians are obtained. Because the animal is considered to be very dull and evidently of little intellect as it willingly walks itself into the abattoir for its own slaughter, the word ‘malu’, all over Nigeria came to be associated with monumental stupidity. So, almost anywhere you hear someone referred to as malu, it is generally understood that there is a fool in there. But with the announcement of the Chairmen and members of the military tribunal that was ‘set up’ to try Diya and co. late in 1997, the lexicography of the word malu has completely changed as people began to get used to the reality that the family name of the highly feared Chairman of the Panel is also malu but, in this case, always with a capital M. Since then, the name ‘malu’ was no longer associated only to the dull and brutish animal we all know about, it authoritatively assumed a human dimension, in fact, the name of the new army Bigman. Those who know General Malu intimately before then say he was a very tough and courageous officer. That was all about him that was public. For a while, the people seemed to have forgotten about the man until when he was appointed by President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of Nigeria, in May 1999, to the very powerful position of the Chief of Army Staff. And from that moment until a few days ago, the man went about his official business in the most unorthodox way, running his mouth like a pipe broken by a rampaging malu, more like a political busy-body than a professional soldier. Someone reminded me recently that the last time a public figure ran his mouth so relentlessly was during the time of the big Dutchman, Clemens Westerhof, who coached the national soccer team with some appreciable success, though. Predictably, he was relieved of his command appointment as chief of Army staff of the army and also retired from the army. All of a sudden the nation became engrossed in a proper malu palaver over his removal by the President in due exercise of his constitutional prerogative to hire and fire political office holders, including military top brass. The unprecedented press controversy and very wild speculative analyses which the removal from office has generated, are suggestive of a state of affair well beyond the kind, which is commonly experienced in a country where so many heads had rolled rather casually in the past. Of particular significance is the fact that the ‘malu affair’ is attracting such cacophonic responses from individuals, some of whom until very recently did not acknowledge the equality of rights of other Nigerians who were unlucky to be born outside of a given geographic perimeter. It is not unlikely that the recent decline in the president’s popularity ratings must have contributed to people wanting to find fault with every step he takes, no matter http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/warticles/why_the_malu_fight.htm 7/18/2008 WHY THE MALU FIGHT Page 2 of 6 how legitimate or proper. I have no doubt in my mind that General Malu must have been basking in the unfolding imbroglio as if it was a measure of his own personal popularity. Such a state of mind would just be illusory because there is nothing special that he has done so well to earn such a reputation being circumstantially foisted on him by some people whose motives are quite unconnected with his best interests. As a lucky beneficiary of the booty of the long military occupation of Nigeria, he cannot be heard to be complaining of having been given the famous "UAC" medal, the so-called "Used and Condemned" award which is the typical Nigerian reward for honesty and dedication to duty in public service. Who, by the way, is Victor Malu? Who sacked him? Was the sack lawful? Even if lawful, is there anything patently unusual about it? I have carefully examined these posers and at the end of it all, I am unable to comprehend why so much ink has been wasted discussing the Malu sack when other better Nigerians are being unceremoniously thrown out of there jobs on a daily basis for much lesser justifications. What is the big deal about this man’s retirement? For the avoidance of doubt, it should be recalled that General Malu was appointed the Chief of Army Staff in May 1999 by the Head of State, President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his capacity as the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria as provided for under the constitution of Nigeria. For all intents and purposes, therefore, he held his appointment at the behest of the President and not by inheritance. For the reader to put the whole brouhaha into rational perspective, it may be necessary for us to examine a little closely the public Curriculum Vitae of the man now at the center of the evidently contrived storm. He was one of the ECOMOG warlords who held out as Abacha’s viceroy in those West African failed states. As we shall see shortly, that itself was a hanky-panky affair. The next most popular thing people recall about the man is that he was the judge who presided over the military tribunal which over-zealously prosecuted Oladipo Diya and those other lily-livered generals who (would have been better off in civil life organizing owambe parties than putting on military uniforms pretending to be soldiers) were charged with a coup attempt. Ordinarily, the fact that Malu presided over the trial should not count against him in any way because it was purely in the course of his official duties. Unfortunately, the whole trial was ludicrously flawed by the fact that Malu was more than performing his official duties, as he was also fervently pushing the Abacha self-succession agenda unabashedly, so much so, that he was well noted for regularly wearing the Abacha personal political badge on his military uniforms bought with public funds. While one cannot say much about the proprietary or otherwise of the trial and the subsequent convictions of those soldiers who were involved in the monkey business of coup making, General Malu’s sense of justice was, however, tarnished irredeemably for convicting Mr. Niran Malaolu, the Editor of the now defunct Diet newspapers, on the very flimsy ground that the editor once made a phone call (which was illegally tapped, anyway) to a US diplomatic officer wherein the accused was alleged to have spoken about an impending crisis in the army hierarchy. Granted that there was indeed a coup in the making, does such an educated guess by an investigative journalist months before the instant case amounts to coup planning? It was well known that Malaolu edited a paper that persistently came out with scathing editorials against the self-succession plan of the late Abacha. At that particular time, the present writer was the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the newspaper. With Niran as editor, the newspaper stepped on several toes and right from then, he, like many others, was marked down as an anti-Abacha dissident, for dastardly destruction. Rather than used Sgt. Rogers and his gang of killers to do the job, as was the practice of the Abacha junta, Malu tribunal came in handy. So, it was just too easy for them to come for Malaolu when the coup opportunity arose. In the light of the enormity of the exculpating evidence exonerating Mr. Malaolu, it was preposterous that a tribunal with a dose of humanity could still go ahead and find the gentleman guilty as charged. For example, none of the soldier-coupists knew him in any way, neither could a minimal thread of conspiracy be woven between them and the editor by any stretch of the imagination. I am therefore unable to see the integrity of Victor Malu who so enthusiastically pursued his master’s agenda with mindless ruthlessness that he was prepared to shed the blood of an innocent journalist who was only http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/warticles/why_the_malu_fight.htm 7/18/2008 WHY THE MALU FIGHT Page 3 of 6 carrying out his job just to prove that he was a regime loyalist in an environment in which coup plotting and rumors of coups was the order of the day. In decent societies, such travesty of justice would have been enough to disqualify Victor Malu, for life, from the high office of chief of army staff, more so, in a democratic dispensation mindful of the rule of law. Because we are still within the era of ‘anything goes’; he was given the high office of Chief of Army, his odious records notwithstanding. I have read, amongst others, Mohammed Haruna’s spirited defense and self-serving interpretation of the ignoble roles that Malu had played in that coup episode his essay, The Sacking of Malu as published on the Web. Given the fact that Mr. Haruna was a likely insider of that bloodthirsty system, one cannot totally deny the veracity of the claims he made therein.

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