By Ben Tomoloju

(Delivered by Ben Tomoloju on the occasion of the 60th birthday of Femi Akintunde-Johnson (FAJ) on Saturday, October 30, 2021)

‘If one were to answer a question with a question, I would simply ask, ‘What good can come out of a decade of unbridled anomie?’ 1960 to 1969 was the foundation of the decadence that Nigeria is experiencing today. Ethnocentrism, corruption, hegemonism, religious bigotry, brigandage, political prostitution – name it; they were all rooted in the decade of the 60s’

THE theme of this momentous celebration of the 60th Birthday of Femi Akintunde-Johnson, one of Nigeria’s most outstanding journalists, is a quizzical trouncing of the imagination.
‘Did anything good come out of the 60s? Lessons and Memories of Nigeria’s Formative Decades’ is a question upon which numerous layers of other questions mount. And these other questions bring to mind the lyrical statement of Johnny Nash, a famous reggae artiste, who contends after surveying the world around him that ‘there are more questions than answers’.
Indeed, what is being referred to here as ‘Nigeria’s formative decade’ is a period of mixed fortune which at inception was marked by a euphoric celebration of the attainment of independence and subsequently a concatenation of mixed- fortune. The euphoria was accentuated by Queen Elizabeth II, represented by Her Majesty’s sister, Princess Alexandra, while handing over the constitutional instrument establishing the freedom of Nigeria to the country’s Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa on October 1, 1960.
To inspire hope in the newly independent country, the Queen stated thus in her address :
‘I am confident Nigeria will play a worthy part in the councils of nations and, remaining true to the high ideals of friendship and co-operation which are so manifest today, will make a positive contribution to the peace and prosperity of Mankind.’
Such optimism expressed by the British Monarch and Head of the Commonwealth of Nations was spiritually uplifting, so much that the celebration of Nigeria’s independence could not have been anything less than phenomenal.
Pupils, students, civil servants, workers of all categories, technocrats and bureaucrats were mobilised in a festive mood. They sang the now rested National Anthem, ‘Nigeria we hail thee’. The green-white-green flag was hoisted across the country. School children and students waved their own flags with aplomb, drinking beverages with their famous brownish plastic cups which bore legends of the flags on the side. They marched with splendour, multitudes of them, in tidy formations in the capitals – in parks, stadia and other locations – to usher in a newly independent Nigeria.
Dreams were dreamed. Political crystal ball gazers prognosticated. Visionaries spelt out their contemplated paradigms. Philosophers and ideologues pontificated about a nascent sovereignty.
The creative enterprise, which is Femi Akintunde-Johnson’s journalistic forte, was not left out.
Artists had a field-day. In the words of veteran arts critic, Bassey Ita, ‘Independence brought in its wake a tremendous burst of energy and enthusiasm that got well acquitted in the creative arts.’ So rapturous was it that great highlife musician, Agu Norris, composed a song, ‘Independence Calypso’ to mark the celebration. Several other artistes rolled out inspiring tunes on vinyl, spun on public devices and even the old gramophone.
Yet there were the ‘still, small’ voices forewarning against possible pitfalls of mere flag independence. Chief Obafemi Awolowo in his book, THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC, describes the country as ‘a mere geographical expression’. In literature, Wole Soyinka used his play, A DANCE OF THE FORESTS, to highlight what kind of a malform the newly independent country would likely become with the palpable, inherent discordance(s) in the polity. The literary visionary projected the morbidity that was to be the lot of the state in the symbolism of the half-born child. It is a warning that has continued to haunt Nigeria even beyond the sixties till the present day.
The thematic poser, ‘Did anything good come out of the 60s?’ is as pungent as it is perplexing. There were moments high and moments low. However, the dispiriting moments surpassed the former in a mixed bag of fortune that one had earlier spoken about. For instance, when Nigeria became a republic in 1963, it was a moment of  collective ecstasy. But the ecstasy was short-lived. It only opened the gateway for centrifugal forces to gnaw at the fundamental principles of democracy until, gradually, citizens began to experience what may be referred to as the modern-day Hobbesan state of nature where life is brutal, nasty and short.
A child born in the 60s – like FAJ, our celebrant of today, who was born exactly a year and 29 days after the independence – would likely be asking himself or herself, ‘Where is respite?’ For an answer, his thoughts would likely drift back to Ghanaian writer, Ayi Kwei Armah’s aphoristic statement, ‘No sweetness here’. Apparently, there were snappy moments of exultation and existential fantasies during which citizens bailed themselves out of the burden of disillusionment and despair. Such were the moments in which citizens only tried to make the best out of bad situations.
Survival instincts powered people to face challenges, navigate an ignoble system and ride high to various levels of contentment in a generally disabling ethos.
Notwithstanding, disillusionment set in. Writers as voices of the people indexed the state of disillusionment. After some notable authors had recast Africa against the jaundiced opinions of  paternalistic Europeans, they soon turned the critical mirror inwards to examine the rot that the new, post-independent African polities had become. Achebe, in THINGS FALL APART, did recast Africa against the misrepresentation in Joseph Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS. The same Achebe in latter years wrote NO LONGER AT EASE to signpost the economic mess that a newly independent African country had become. Soyinka’s novel, THE INTERPRETERS, highlights the frustration of assiduous, ingenious members of the educated elite to such an extent that one of them invoked an excremental vision of society at every turn. The setting is Nigeria, even in the sixties.
Nigeria’s attainment of a republican status in 1963 gave way to conflicts among the tribes. Political victimisation that led to the incarceration of opposition figures, hegemonic agenda of self-serving sub-nationalities, insensitivity of politicians to the needs of the people and outright corruption were indicators of the gradual decimation of what was dreamed of as a cohesive nation-state. Nigeria had started to fall apart since the 1960s.
The ‘Operation Wetie’ in the so-called Wild, Wild, West, the ascendancy of political intrigues and brigandage over the civilising principles of human existence eventually led to the first military coup on January 15, 1966 in which prominent political leaders were felled by the bullets of military adventurists whose naivety was betrayed just a few days after they snatched power. Obviously, they did not even know what to do with it and handed power over to their equally naive superiors. A counter coup and more bloodshed followed, executed by officers and men from a section of the country who felt aggrieved by the first coup, cascading into the massacre of the Igbos in Northern Nigeria in October, 1966. The carnage ultimately climaxed in a civil war from July 6, 1967 to January 12, 1970. Millions of human lives were lost. The pronouncement of ‘No victor, no vanquished’ by the then Head-of-State’,  General Yakubu Gowon was neither here nor there. It was mere rhetoric. Who feels it knows it, to use the words of Bob Marley.
The scars are still there, even in the consciousness of numerous members of the age-group of the celebrant of today. It is there in the consciousness of the children of the 60s, the new, gritty ones who in their formative stage grew up in a horrifying atmosphere of war, of large scale butchery in the corresponding formative years of their country, Nigeria, whether remotely or proximately.
If one were to answer a question with a question, I would simply ask, ‘What good can come out of a decade of unbridled anomie?’ 1960 to 1969 was the foundation of the decadence that Nigeria is experiencing today. Ethnocentrism, corruption, hegemonism, religious bigotry, brigandage, political prostitution – name it; they were all rooted in the decade of the 60s.
The good is merely consolatory. The good ensues only from individual or group assertions in the various fields of human endeavours. It is harvested from the very few who are determined to make a difference from the blight and genuinely earn local or global acclaim.
Otherwise, the existential profile of the average Nigerian citizen is that of ‘Living and partly living’, to borrow words from the Chorus of T. S. Eliot’s MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL. The lessons learnt are about jettisoning disruptive, criminal predilections and embarking on a radical reconstruction of the polity in the true sense of civility, or else, memories will remain sordid and the future bleak.

*Tomoloju, dramatist, journalist and culture advocate/communicator, is former Deputy Editor of The Guardian, and columnist with Naija Times.