Conversation with Tola Adeniyi Part 2 | The Fulani Question | Edmund Obilo | State Affairs

Buhari in his 2017 Independence Day broadcast to Nigerians said the clamour for restructuring gave some groups he described as “highly irresponsible” the opportunity to call for the dismemberment of the Nigerian state. He promised to keep the country United. President Buhari says he is disappointed in some community leaders who witnessed the Nigerian civil war yet fail to warn their “hot-headed” youths of what the nation passed through.

The president's mention of the war in his speech reminds one of Nigeria’s failure to resolve the national question and how it led to the civil war that erupted in 1967. That the civil war occurred was a response to divisive actions. The end of the war is supposed to have been the motivation for a new country devoid of the traditional centrifugal forces that almost decimated it.

In this conversation Chief Tola Adeniyi interprets the antecedent of the Fulani, using it to explain the crisis of the Nigerian state. He calls on the Fulani to have a rethink or Nigeria will fail.

He is renowned journalist. He was Chairman and Managing Director of Daily Times of Nigeria, at the time, Africa’s largest newspaper. In 1974 at Daily Times, he became Africa’s first newspaper Ombudsman.
He acted as Editor-in-chief of the Tribune. He worked with America’s Atlanta Inquirer, Britain’s Lancashire Evening Post, and Canada’s Toronto Star. He studied English with Drama as subsidiary at the University of Ibadan where he founded the University of Ibadan Writers Club in 1967.
He holds a master degree from Lancaster University, Britain.

Chief Adeniyi has seen the best of journalism and has also experienced events that make journalists targets of the state. His sarcastic writings provoked the military to go after him, causing him to leave the country when his life was threatened. He was locked up in a guard room in 1974 for the article “Soldiers, Stones and Sanity”.
In the article “Let Me Fall”, Chief Adeniyi predicted the overthrow of General Yakubu Gowon and it came to pass. In his other articles, he warned about the ousting of Murtala Mohammed and Muhammadu Buhari as military Heads of State. It was in Gowon’s regime that young Tola was thoroughly harassed by the military authorities for lampooning the Head of State and his men. He accused Gowon of plans to “nasserise” the Nigerian state and destroy the intelligentsia.

Having noticed that his security was no longer guaranteed, his boss Babatunde Jose advised him to change his name. Together they came up with the pseudonym Aba Saheed. The name would later become popular.
Why did Obasanjo in the 1980s slam a 5million Naira libel suit on him? Did he not write that Obasanjo, a military leader at the time should be tied to a moving lorry and driven round Nigeria till he died?

Chief Adeniyi is a poet and playwright. He is the first person to adapt Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” for the stage. That was in 1966. In 1967, he adapted “Weep Not Child” by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o for the stage.

Chief Adeniyi says he has always been a revolutionary and will remain so. In political agitation he was influenced by Tai Solarin. He admires tremendously the strategy, courage and heroics of Hannibal the great Carthaginian general. In industry, Awolowo is his major Infuence. He believes many youths of today are intellectually lazy and are not prepared to suffer for their convictions.
His latest book is titled “In the Belly of Vultures”.
He has promised to release an explosive book soon with the title “In the Belly of the Military”. Though not partisan, he remains a factor in the politics of Nigeria as his pen has refused to dry.

Note:
Interview was recorded on 21 February 2020

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