For Roberts S. Roberts
By Edwin Madunagu
THE report that some senior Nigerian politicians had formed a new political organisation called the National Democratic Movement, or NDM, reminded me of two significant events in the history of the Nigerian Socialist Movement. The first was the formation of the National Democratic Movement (Against Fascism), or NDM (AF), formed in March 1982 after a long meeting which started in Calabar on October 1, 1981, moved to Yola in November, 1981, and ended in Ile-Ife in March 1982. The second event was the disappearance, a decade later, of Roberts S. Roberts. He was one of the participants in the Calabar and Ile-Ife segments of the meeting which gave birth to NDM (AF).
I confess that for about 15 years I have been afraid - yes, afraid - to write on Roberts S. Roberts. I have been afraid to commit to paper the possibility that this cherished Comrade has departed the planet Earth - as if my writing about him could transform my lingering fear into a fact. In any case, Nigerian professional politicians have now forced me to perform this duty. The story of my first meeting with Roberts S. Roberts has been told by Roberts himself in his Foreword to my first collection of Essays, The tragedy of the Nigerian Socialist Movement and other essays, published in 1980.
This is Roberts story: "As it could be recalled, the Rawlings' affairs in Ghana generated a lively discussion in this country's press last year (that is, 1979). And with due humility, I happened to be one of the few privileged Nigerian journalists to watch it from close quarters. On my return to the country I discovered with dismay that the whole affair was not only wrongly interpreted, but distorted and misrepresented. In an attempt to reverse this trend, I succeeded in putting up three articles in the Nigerian Chronicle and one in Sunday Chronicle, a group of newspapers then owned by the Cross River State government and for which I worked".
Roberts' narrative continues: "A few days later the then Sunday Chronicle Editor, Offiong Okon, sent for me in his office where I was introduced to the author of this work. From the way our discussion went, I could guess that Edwin Madunagu was not just deeply interested in the issue but also the way I saw it. That meeting happened to be the hallmark of our friendship which became cemented as other things came into play. One year later, here I am introducing his work".
I am writing with the assumption, or hope, that Roberts S. Roberts is alive. At the time of our first meeting, that is, 1979, Roberts was about 25 years old. He had gone through secondary education and had also attended a journalism college in Ghana. He is a Nigerian of Akwa Ibom State extraction. Roberts is an albino by skin and eye pigmentation. Otherwise, he is a very strong man, physically well-built, intelligent, radical, warm, and with a high sense of humour. At the time he disappeared in 1992 he had married and had a two-year old son, named after him. Roberts has several siblings most of whom are not albinos.
In March 1981, Roberts Riberts and three other Comrades, including my spouse and me, left Calabar for Ile-Ife as delegates to the final session of the meeting considering the formation of NDM (AF). We travelled in a Volkswagen - beetle car and I was behind the steering from Calabar to Asaba. My spouse completed the journey. Roberts, as "continuity announcer" and "commentator", made sure there was no dull moments and no politics during the journey. He announced over-speeding, careless driving and hunger. At a point, as we approached Onitsha, he announced that the time was "ten minutes on the other side of one o'clock". My ignorance of such expression provoked the loudest and longest laughter of the journey.
At Ife Roberts S. Roberts solved the sleeping arrangement by volunteering to join the night watchman to deal with any thieves that would be unlucky to come around during our stay in a participant's campus residence. His contributions at the meeting were vigorous and he was one of the few participants that were not, at any time, assailed by sleep during the night session which extended to "the other side of 4.oo a.m.".
The formation of NDM (AF) was predicted on the need to mobilise the masses, including those already organised, against the increasingly intolerant actions and utterances of the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN). These included the shooting of tens of protesting farmers in Bakolori, then in Sokoto State; the shooting of protesting students of University of Ile-Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University ,OAU); the impeachment of Balarable Musa, the Executive Governor of Kaduna State who belonged to the radical Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) but had to contend with an NPN-dominated State Assembly; the abduction and illegal deportation of an opposition leader in Borno State, Shugaba; the prolonged trial of Arthur Nwankwo, one of the leaders of PRP in Anambra State on the charges of "sedition" against Nwobodo's government which Nwankwo accused of massive corruption and left; etc.
Why was "Against Fascism" (AF) appended to "National Democratic Movement" (NDM)? Why not simply NDM? First, the more appropriate name, Popular Democratic Front (PDF) was stood down because the participants wanted the movement to be as inclusive as possible; the name should not unnecessarily frighten any decent person. But then, it would be counter-productive to adopt a name that even the right wing of the mainstream political class could easily identify with and attempt to hijack. So, the name NDM (AF) was chosen. The full programme which was printed and circulated throughout the country included nine specific struggles, namely, Struggle against fascism; in support of workers' rights; in support of peasants' rights; against ethnic and national chauvinism; against the oppression of women; in support of the broad masses; in support of students and professional unions; against imperialism and the multinationals; and in support of South Africans, Namibians and Palestinians.
In 1989, seven years after the formation of NDM (AF), as General Babangida's regimented transition rolled on, a new organisation, Popular Democratic Front (PDF), was formed in Lagos. The military dictatorship had wiped out the earlier inhibition about the use of the term "popular". Structured as an alliance of autonomous organisations and conceived as a non-partisan, but actually political, organisations and conceived as a non-partisan, but acutely political, organisation and with no intention of canvassing for votes or sponsoring candidates into elective or appointive offices, the PDF aimed, among other things "to unite all democratic and civil liberty movements in the country" and "to defend the principles and practice of democracy in Nigeria."
Roberts S. Roberts participated in the effort to form the PDF, and did much of the initial leg-work. But he did not remain in the frontline for long: prolonged joblessness in Lagos and his refusal to live for long on Comrades and friends took their heavy tolls on him, his wife and their tiny baby boy. The couple lost the baby; but the wife conceived again, and delivered another baby boy. Baby and mother returned to Calabar shortly after the birth of the second son. Roberts' second son survived and is now about 19 years old. Roberts' wife, who is not officially a widow, is still waiting for her husband to return. Roberts is (I cannot say "was") is a bright and principled activist, bold, courageous and with a high level of self-esteem, capable, as is often demanded in research institutes, of independent and original thinking". His training as a journalist has been immense benefit to the movement.
I shall conclude with the painful disappearance of Roberts S. Roberts. But before then I shall briefly touch upon the October 2009 formation of an NDM by some prominent mainstream politicians. A report of the formation of the 2009 NDM stated: "It was a consensus that any one among the 23 of us that signed the article of association can aspire to become the presidential candidate. This was the main aspect of the agreement before the article of association was eventually signed". In fact, everyone knows that the issue of presidential candidate, and not the programme, will be the main (if not the only) question in the new organisation.
Roberts S. Roberts had arrived in Lagos about 1986 after losing his job in Calabar. In Lagos he was employed in the Punch newspapers under the editorship of Comrade Najeem Jimoh, - if I remember correctly. Again, he lost the job. We tried to support him, but Roberts would accept only minimal assistance. He would not be dependent for long on anyone. Then he stopped coming to see me at The Guardian where I worked. He was also not in Calabar. I thought he had gone to re-establish himself and would re-surface whenever he found his feet. Investigations later revealed that long before he stopped seeing me he had also disappeared from his family, friends and other Comrades. I last saw him in a Maryland supermarket in mid-1992, with a heavily beaded man whose appearance I can never forget. Roberts cut short my agitated enquiries by promising to see me in the office the next day. But Roberts did not keep the appointment, and has since then not been seen, or reported seen, by anyone.
