USA Africa Dialogue Series - On Heroes, MAU-LAG and Nigeria

I want to attempt putting the recent issue on the propriety of naming a 50-year old university, established by an Act of Parliament, after a Nigerian who supposedly won an election but was denied the mandate, and died in the process of reclaiming it.

It seems to me that there are three fundamental issues involved in this case which has generated so much acrimonious opinions. The first is whether the President has the right to wilfully change the name of UNILAG to MAU-LAG in his independence Day speech. The second is whether naming UNILAG after Chief MKO Abiola does the man a truly national honour. And the third involves the philosophical issue of who truly is a hero and deserving of Nigerian national honour.

It would seem that the preponderance of opinion believes that Jonathan goofed in unthinkingly announcing the change of name without first putting the change of name in the public sphere through a signaling of the intention in the broadcast. This would seem to imply for me that most commentators believe that UNILAG and the stakeholders are really helpless if the President has the political will to carry out the intention. In other words, if the President had been conscious of the legal implications of wilfully changing the name of a university established by an Act of Parliament, he wouldn't have been so mindless and presumptious in anouncing the change of name. I would even argue that it would have been easier for him to introduce the bill to, and ram it through, the House. But then, as usual, President Jonathan betrays his clueless presidency. He initiated the right procedure after the fact.

The second line of defence for those who feel strongly about the change of name has to do with the appropriateness of naming a regional university after a supposed 'national' hero. For these commentators, a much better option would have been anything-national stadium, national highway, a national day or any national monument or institution-which would truly be representative of the achievement of Abiola. Well, the simple objection to this defence is that UNILAG is equally as national as any institution or honour could be. There really is nothing critically wrong with renaming UNILAG as MAU-LAG. It would seem that it is what is considered the untimeliness as well as the abruptness of the act that incensed people. I was equally infuriated.

However, what seems to me to be much more critical for our national interest is the philosophical issue of who properly should be regarded as a hero. This issue is very significant because celebrating heroism implies two important things. First, it implies that the people we are celebrating are truly heroes who have contributed to national development in unambiguous ways. Second, that Nigeria has actually tapped from the greatness of these heroes rather than belatedly celebrating their worth in death. I have not attempted to give a definition of a hero (simply because I fear what such definitions can do).

In Nigeria, we have a funny underdtanding ofand a funnier approach to celebrating those we percieve as such heroes. In the first place, we honour those with mitigated character; like politicians who have bled the nation rather than adding to it. And we leave others who would qualify alone to suit our definition of political correctness. People suddenly become heroes because they have held one political post or the other. Or, we suddenly wake up to suddenly percieve the greatness of a person when s/he has died. The Yoruba say: N'jo aba ku la ndere; eeyan o suan laa'ye (no one amounts to anything while alive; we only achieve deity when dead). So, Gani Fawehinmi died and we suddenly come to the awareness that he was great! May be Wole Soyinka will also suddenly become great when he dies!

Who then who is a hero? Does Abiola qualify, even in death? A nation can only accelerate the development of its own underdevelopment and undermine its own national integrity if it keeps honouring those who have contributed to its underdevelpment.

Adeshina Afolayan

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

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