A trained medical doctor, eloquent but reticent, Dr. Andokari A. Shiaki’s whirlwind emergence on the political stage was both a shock and a surprise – a shock to the Jukun/Chamba hegemonic establishment and a surprise to his Kuteb kith and kin, who had all but given up any hope of freedom from the enemy’s yoke. In 1990-1, he became the chairman of old Takum local government council, the first Kuteb ever to hold that position. In that position and within that short time, Shiaki revolutionized local government administration. In the fight for his people’s liberty, he took no prisoners. You either walked and worked with him or be shoved aside. He made no pretensions about his mission: to set his Kuteb people free. He peopled the administration with his kinsmen and women; but in doing so he was not unmindful of merit. Those he brought into the administration were people eminently qualified. He did not have to search far and wide to find them. They were in abundance. How did it happen? The Kuteb used the period of their persecution to acquire education while their oppressors indulged in the debauchery of drunken power. By the time they realized the mirage of their vanity, the Kuteb had left them far behind in scholarship. Till date, the opposition still resents this intellectual advantage and accounts for its unwillingness to dialogue with the Kuteb.
I still cannot say, for sure, whether or not Shiaki realized at the time that a war is not won until the hearts and minds of people are won over. Even if he did not, he did something fortuitous that helped to push the cause he was fighting. His decision to open a garden in the heart (centre) of Takum was a political master stroke. As a business, it was a flop because it was losing money because many ended up not paying for the drinks they ordered. However, it provided a good venue where the Kuteb intelligentsia often gathered to discuss the future of the inchoate Kuteb nation, out of the prying eyes and listening ears of the enemy. Until this time, our men and women frequented bars owned by Ibos, places also visited by the enemy. The Igbo bar owner would take money from his Kuteb customers as well as collect information which he passed over to the enemy. In other words, he played the dual role of a businessman and a dangerous informant. An issue for another day.
I cannot say if Shiaki read Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power. In my many conversations with him, including a long drive in his car from Takum to Gboko and a night spent in his house, Shiaki never mentioned the author or the book. However, his understanding of power and how to use it to one’s maximal advantage was faultless. Greene’s Law 28 posits that “If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity.
How did Shiaki use the strategy? His target was not a Polycarp or an Ashu but the man at the very top in the enemy’s camp – a former Nigerian army chief and defence minister. After he left the military, the civil war veteran chose to lead a revived Jukun expedition force by accepting a frightful war garb from the Aku Uka. In a piece that I did which was run in New Nigerian newspaper on January 20 1982, I said: For someone who risked his life in defence of our fatherland to have accepted to lead a tribal cause was …damnable. The role I had expected this respected son of the soil to play was that of a pacifist, but he side-stepped that role, choosing to return home a wolf to prey on the Kuteb. It was this war hero that Shiaki, then an unsung medical doctor practising, not at home but in Gboko in Benue state, took on. That David versus Goliath fight earned Shiaki the respect of his kinsmen and fear of the Jukun/Chamba. Did Shiaki, like David, win in the end? We shall see.
Greene’s Law #4 says: Always say less than necessary. Unlike TY and his “madden crowd”, Shiaki wielded no pistol or gun. His weapon was his taciturnity. A man of very few words, he concealed his intentions and plans from the enemy, making him sheepish. His silence blunted the blade of the enemy’s sword. Yes, Shiaki was not much of a loud speaker, but he wrote compulsively. He compiled a volume of poetry that gave vent to his deep thought thoughts. In his Gboko residence, he turned it over to me. However, to my shame, I must admit, I lost it during my travels between Kaduna and Lagos. The psychological advantage of Shiaki over the enemy was not to last. TY managed to deliver one fatal political thrust. It happened in 1992 when Shiaki wanted to run for the governorship of old Gongola State. He had just been removed as chairman of Takum Council, and turned his attention to the governorship race, which he entered flying the flag of National Republican Convention (NRC), one of two parties President Ibrahim Babangida had created under his convoluted transition to civil rule programme. TY, though retired, used his enormous influence in the government, the military and the secret service to stop Shiaki, citing “security reasons”. He completed his coup de grace in April 1997 when he got the government of General Abdulsalami Abubakar to excise three Kuteb communities [Bika, Kwambai and Rubur Nyim or Jenuwa Kogi] from Takum LGA in an absurd boundary adjustment that far-flung Chamba into Takum. Now back to the question: Did Shiaki, a little David, win the battle with TY, a Goliath? Here you have an answer.
Greene’s Law 2 says “Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies”. He advocates wariness of friends because “they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy…” Shiaki’s end was too sudden. Did he forget this law of power? Theories of the cause of death have bandied around. I am in no position to confirm or deny them. Suffice to say that his death dimmed to torch of a rising nation. Let me use yet another Jesus parallelism. A new Kuteb nation shall rise from the ashes of Shiaki’s demise. And “the gates of Hell (the enemy) shall not prevail against it”. The Church of Christ was not founded till after His departure from the earth. For that to happen required that there be faithful, loyal and courageous disciples, ready to face persecution, even martyrdom. Am I a truthful Shiaki apostle? Are you one? Ca, c’est la grande question. [That, is the big question]
