LIKE GLEN COE: A Tale
of Transmitted Hate and Misery
William the Prince of Orange was regarded as a champion of
the protestant faith and was involved in numerous wars with the powerful
Catholic King of France Louis XIV. He invaded England with his Dutch troops in
1688 after allegedly engineering support from protestant politicians and
soldiers within the ranks of the Catholic King of England James II. William III
became the protestant king of England, Ireland and Scotland after his “Glorious Revolution” deposed James II
who was subsequently allowed to flee to France from where he launched a failed
offensive to regain his throne at the “Battle
of Boyne”. A minority which included clergy and laymen sided with James II
and opposed William III. Scottish Highland forces led by Viscount Dundee were
involved in his failed resistance from 1689-1690; the king therefore offered
pardon and demanded for an oath of allegiance from the defeated resistance
particularly the Highland clans before the first of January 1692 in the stead
of reprisal attacks.
The Scots hesitated because they awaited word and instruction
from James II from his base in exile. The highland chiefs eventually got
directives just before the deadline in mid- December 1691 to take the oath.
Alastair Maclain the 12th chief of Glencoe set out on the 31st
of December 1691 to take the oath. It took him about 6 days to eventually get
this done due to a combination of bureaucracy, detention and bad weather. He
came into contact with certain high ranking Campbells and Lowlanders who had
reasons to detest the Highlanders.
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| Insignia of Clan Donald. Google images |
The Maclains of Clan Donald together with some of their Glengarry
cousins had looted the lands of Robert Campbell of Glenlyon on their way back
from one of the battles during the resistance. They stole his livestock and
aggravated his financial problems which forced him to take up an army
commission. The delay in taking the oath by Alastair Maclain was capitalized upon
by high ranking Campbells who found willing accomplices and convinved the king
to order an extermination of the MacDonalds
as an action directed against a den of thieves.
A regiment of soldiers numbering about 120 and under the
command of Captain Robert Campbell arrived Glencoe and they were received
warmly. These soldiers were mostly Lowlanders with a few related to the
Campbells. A property tax was supposed to be collected and they remained there
for about two weeks catered for by the Maclains. Captain Campbell got new
orders and despite the fact that his niece was married to Alastair Maclin’s
youngest son; most of the soldiers under his command fell upon the inhabitants
of Glencoe as they slept in the early hours of February 13th 1692
killing 38 men in the process. About 40 women and children were documented to
have died subsequently as a result of exposure.
.jpg) |
| Insignia of the Campbell Clan. Google images |
Some of the soldiers failed to comply with their instructions
with some warning certain MacDonalds and a few others even broke their swords. There
was an inquiry afterwards which declared the actions were indeed murder. The king
was exonerated and actions to punish the perpetrators were recommended. It is
not clear if anything significant was done in favor of the victims save
compensations. The memory and scars from this gory event still persists till
today and a wreath laying ceremony in memorial of the slain since 1930 still
takes place every year on the 13th of February.
Nigeria is one nation that has been vandalized by repeated
cases of murders and injustice. The scars from hundreds and thousands getting
wiped out as a result of ethnic or religious prejudices are what unfortunately
bridge the various ethnic groups of this great nation together. The relationship
among ethnicities and religious groups cannot be termed healthy; our past and
present national history is dominated by a vicious cycle of mass murders and
reprisals fueled by a dearth of good governance of failure of the justice
system.
One mistake many Nigerians make is to stereotype people from
other groups and assume some sort of supremacist stance; it is usually the other
people who are intolerant and violent. One kite which unfortunately has been
flown over this electoral period is for certain “Southerners” to label all
Northerners as extremely violent and intolerant bigots who are out to prevent a
second term for their God’s chosen brother by any means necessary. Some have
concluded that a Jonathan win would surely be confronted by widespread
bloodshed and violence even in states where Northerners are in the minority. They
go further to suggest that a Buhari win will definitely not provoke any such
chaos but I ask them who is responsible for awarding a 4billion Naira contract
to confirmed ethnic militia to guard pipelines. They obviously have never seen
vehicles donated to the Ijaw Youth council by the Minister of Petroleum or the
many unemployed youths undergoing intensive combat-like drills at roadside
SURE-P camps in Ketu and on the road to Badagry.
This is not an attempt to focus my attention on just one
group. The truth remains that there is hardly any group of people in this
country called Nigeria that is innocent of directly or indirectly spilling the
blood of fellow nationals. The have been many Tiv-Jukun conflicts; Umuleri and
Aguleri; Ife and Modakeke; Ijaw and Itsekiri; just to name a few. The many
lives consumed by conflicts in Jos, Barkin-Ladi, Kafanchan, Ajegunle, Kano,
Southern Kaduna, Ipetumodu, Warri , Aluu community as well as the many cases of
Fulani herdsmen and unknown gun men have not gone unnoticed.
There may be an army pact that has limited greatly the
discussions about the coup culture intiated in January 66, the subsequent civil
war and other coups thereafter. I am tempted to believe that many of those
soldiers who witnessed and/ or participated in the hypersensitivity reaction of
the July 66 mutiny as well as the civil war are constantly tormented by the
memories of what they did deliberately or otherwise to their colleagues who
were on the receiving end. Incidentally, many have reaped dynasties from their
military adventures with a few still key in determining the pattern of events in
the country even at this time. A few appear to me as truly concerned about how
totally derailed the nation is and one of them I make bold to state is Major
General Muhammadu Buhari.
Military coups appeared to become fashionable in the early
1960s with Nigeria, Ghana and Congo Kinshasa ranking high on the list. These coups
largely toppled violently neonate democracies and the role played by external
forces cannot be overemphasized. General Buhari assumed power as Head of state
on January 1 1984 after a coup led by Major General Ibrahim Babaginda overthrew
the democracy led by Shehu Shagari. This fact is what some people refuse to
understand but heap so much insult on Buhari for solely truncating “our”
corrupt democracy like Babaginda, Brigadier David Mark (current senate
president) or Lt. General Aliyu Gusau (current minister of defence) were no
perhaps more active participants. This coup was very similar to what happened
in Ghana exactly 2 years prior. Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings supported by
other military men and some civilians took advantage of the New Year
festivities organized by the Head of state Dr. Limann to overthrow the elected
government citing economic mismanagement. The irony here is that Dr. Limann was
handed over power by the same Rawlings 2 years earlier. Rawlings first stint as
Head of state in Ghana was in 1979 when he led a revolutionary group of
soldiers to overthrow the presiding military government; he organized a rapid
election which Limann won and thereafter returned to his commission in the Airforce.
When he took over again on December 31st 1981, it took just over 11
years for Ghana to return to democratic rule.
Jerry Rawlings was not smiling; he was ruthless in achieving
his goals beginning with the execution of 3 past military Heads of state and
Generals. He had taken out 4 high ranking officers when he realized they were
all of Akan descent and in order to balance the equation and prevent a
potential mutiny; he ordered the execution of 4 others who were not Akan. 3 Supreme
Court justices, military officers and over 300 Ghanaians were reported killed
or disappeared in Ghana while Rawlings ruled. It seems the coups of the early
80s were very similar producing leaders with similar goals of ending corruption
in the countries and breaking the grip of colonial masters and global financial
institutions. One personality visited at a time was Captain Thomas Sankara who
became the president of Upper Volta on August 4 1983 about 5 months before
Buhari came on the scene in Nigeria.
Sankara was propelled to the highest seat in his country
following a coup led by his deputy Blaise Compaoré. He wanted to eliminate
corruption and French domination; he pushed for debt reduction and resisted the
World Bank and International Monetary fund just like Buhari did in Nigeria. He was
so authoritarian that he changed his country’s name to Burkina Faso; he banned
press freedom and paralysed Unionism dismissing 2,500 teachers following a
strike. Sankara tried corrupt officials and sold off the country’s fleet of
Mercedes Benz cars making the cheapest brand sold in his country at the time
the official vehicle for ministers. He slashed the salaries of public servants
and forbade luxury. Blaise eventually organized the assassination and
dismembering of Sankara in 1987 citing deteriorated relationships with neighboring
nations. Almost all of Sankara’s policies were reverse and the nation rejoined
the IMF and World Bank just the same way Babaginda ploughed Nigeria back into
the funding organizations when he took over in August 1985. We all know how
Campaoré fled his nation with his tail between his legs last year despite
transforming himself into a “democratically” elected president and ruling for
27 years.
Amnesty International as well as other International
Humanitarian Organizations accused Sankara of extrajudicial executions, arbitrary
detentions and torture of opponents. Despite all these allegations, Thomas
Sankara like Che Guevara remains a symbol of genuine revolution and people centered
good governance. He is forever idolized in Burkina Faso just as Jerry Rawlings
is in Ghana. Rawlings is internationally recognized delivering lectures at
reputable universities and earning a “Global Champion for People’s freedom”
award in October 2013 from the Mkiva Humanitarian Foundation. I do not quite
know if the descendants of those categorized as corrupt and executed by
Rawlings hold any grudge against him or even against the nation of Ghana like
it happens here in Nigeria. Perhaps General Buhari would have become our Che
Guevara if Babaginda had opted to oust the duo of Buhari and Idiagbon in a
bloody coup; perhaps the blame of misfortune and lies would never have occurred
and we all would have seen Buhari clearly for what he stood and suffered for
with over 3 years of his life in incarceration on the orders of Babaginda who
had midwifed the 1983 coup.
Perhaps Buhari would have been our Rawlings but without putting
lead into the craniums of the past heads of state but he did not have the time
and we would never know. Sankara ruled for about 4 years without handing over
to a democracy and Rawlings stayed on for 11. When people accuse Buhari of
lacking an election plan, it only indicates that such people only want to give
a dog a bad name in order to hang it. Obasanjo had handed over to Shagari in a hotly
disputed election in 1979. That experiment clearly failed with corruption escalating.
The final straw must have been the economic downturn or the clearly rigged
election to earn a second term. I do not think it would have been wisdom to
rush into another democratic adventure considering the circumstances.
The issues which retard our development as a nation have
persisted since before independence; unfortunately the animosity and suspicion
have now become genetic dominant enough to render even the ivy college educated
completely unreasonable and primitive. Many of those who resist the candidacy
of General Buhari really cannot coherently express why they do so. Some somehow
blame him for all the atrocities committed by some Northern officers during the
civil war while others somehow assume the pain of those whose breadwinners got
jailed rightly or wrongly, those forced into lines by soldiers or those
executed for drug trafficking. Although a few like the son of a certain
governor and a musician still cling on to their grievances (of which they are
entitled); there is however a significant group who have chosen apology or not
to reach beyond their scars to join hands in support of the General.
Nigeria is a curious case where serious issues are constantly
swept under a magic carpet and expected to vanish. We have done much evil to one
to another but it may not be possible to achieve complete truth and
reconciliation; we may never have full disclosure and even closure for all who
have been severely scarred and routed. It will be foolhardy to remain resolute
awaiting apologies from all who have offended us instead of striving hard to
move on (which I know is easier to say). One can only imagine how long it would
rake for every single case of injustice and savage killings from the slave
trade period was revisited. Apartheid greatly undermined South Africa but the
wisdom of a former militant who spent 27 years in jail somehow kept that nation
on course. It took a former Australian Prime minister Kevin Rudd about 4mins
and 3 seconds to apologize for the many years of injustice meted out to Aborigines
who are the original owners of the Land.
The former emir of Gwandu and former ADC to General Buhari; Major
Al-Mustapha Jokolo in an interview to the Sun Newspapers made several valid
points with respect to the state of the union. He said:
“If Nigeria should
disintegrate as a result of one office like that of the President, is it fair
for anybody? Look at the implication for all of us; whether Igbo, Yoruba,
Hausa, Fulani, majority, minority, we are all going to pay for it. If this
position forces us to disintegrate, nobody in the North will find it easy going
without seaport or oil. We cannot find it easy. Let’s not pretend because even
if we have farms, even agriculture, generally, we have passed the stage of
using hoes to farm.
We need tractors and
how do we oil those tractors? We don’t have oil here in the North and we have
no spare parts. Who are the traders in spare parts? Who are the electricians?
The Igbo. So if there are none within our midst, on and on, we don’t have that
knowledge. Even where few of us do, how are we going to survive without these
things? On the other hand, look at the Igbo themselves. Can they survive
without the North? They need space. They are a highly intelligent race. That
was what happened in Germany. They discovered they were in an enclosure. That
was why they started waging wars.
The Igbo with their
active nature cannot be contained in the South-eastern states. So they need to
expand to get space. And they have no space there. So how are they going to
survive without space? Never mind food. You can import food from anywhere.
Saudi Arabia has no food. So they can buy from anywhere. That’s no problem. But
they cannot get space. So what are they going to do? If they have no space,
they are going to move over like they did before and try to capture
South-south. They are not going to allow the South-south to remain on their own.
They had one region before.
They had ACB. They used
the money from that bank and acquired choice areas in Rivers State and then
there was war. The Rivers people fought against the Igbo and after the war,
they said the property the Igbo acquired were abandoned property even though
the Igbo owned the land. They bought the land with loans they got from their
bank. Interestingly, David Mark as a Major was the one who was the Chairman of
the abandoned property thing. So you find that we all need each other.”
We ought to concentrate more on the positives and less on our
differences; some of the people we despise are able to do things that some of
us will refuse a fortune for because we are just not capable.
It was a Scottish friend and instructor of mine who first
mentioned Glencoe to me late last year when we were having a discussion. He told
me of a relative of his who is a descendant of the Macdonalds. She instructed
her son not to open a can of “Campbell soup” inside her house more than 300
years after the unfortunate massacre. I did a quick check on the internet to
see if Campbell food products were packaged in Scotland but the only reference
I found to Campbell soup and other products was a New Jersey based company that
has done business for more than a few decades now. This is what many Nigerians
want their children and descendants to do; to hold on to pain instead of being
a balm and save ourselves from transmitted misery.
One of the fallouts from the Glencoe massacre was an amendment
to challenge the Scots law of “murder under trust”. The result of the inquiry
declared that:
“Though
the command of superior officers be very absolute, yet no command against the
laws of nature is binding; so that a soldier, retaining his commission, ought
to refuse to execute any barbarity, as if a soldier should be commanded to
shoot a man passing by inoffensively, upon the street, no such command would
exempt him from the punishment of murder.”
A public commentator said recently that he thought Captain
Koli of the “Ekitigate” scandal was disloyal to his superior officer Brigadier
Momoh by taping the conversation he had with ruling party members who have
since affirmed their participation. I totally disagree with this viewpoint
because the recording exposed serious issues of National importance. Should the
loyalty of the Captain to his superior officer greater than to Nigeria? A military
friend of mine suggested to me that his loyalty depended on whoever was in
power hence he is currently fully loyal to Jonathan irrespective of any breach
of the constitution and would therefore salute Buhari if he ends up winning the
election. I do not know if there is any part of our military code that talks
about refusing any command against the law of nature but I want to take the
risk and assume that there could be something of the sort since our military evolved
from the British system. Even if there isn’t any; our Military officers should
know and be convinced in their hearts that their loyalty is primarily to Nigeria
and they should not be tools in the hands of any group of desperate politicians
to subdue the majority of Nigerians.
LONG LIVE THE FEDERAL
REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!!!!
