These papers, like Harold Smith's
book, were written because he suffered much ill health and feared that he would
not survive. They are a message to future generations. Curiously, the essays
increased Harold's will to live and, by exercising his brain, helped him to
recover. There are, inevitably, some longueurs and some repetition in these
papers, which cover every possible aspect of this great African tragedy, which
saw
Bad Guys and Good Guys: Right and Wrong in Good Books
Good Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide to doing the right thing
Sing-Along Time - The Great Numbers
ALL THE WORLD'S
A STAGE (Shakespeare. As You Like It. Act II Scene vii) - The Major Players
Dr Azikiwe:
The A, B, Zeek of Nigerian
Politics
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa
Michael Crowder
Agent, Apologist or Historian?
Fred Lugard
Lugard's Lunacy and Perham's Infatuation
Sir James Robertson
Rigging
of Nigeria's Independence Elections by the British Government
The A, B, Zeek of Nigerian Politics
"Zeek! Zeek! Zeek!" screamed the crowds of
Nigerians in
Of the three eminent Nigerian leaders
only Balewa, who did not want
A member of my old College, Magdalen,
has written a biography of 900 pages of Balewa's life, and I enjoyed reading it
enormously as it contains a great deal of fascinating information, much of it
new to me. Trevor Clark served in the North of Nigeria and here we have the
authentic voice of the Northern official. Not just loyalty, but love of the
North, its peoples, and its leaders like Balewa. There was a great need for
this account, which is not to say that it should be the only one. A more
critical account, based on what was often suspected, but which I can
demonstrate from direct experience, that Balewa was a stooge of the British and
went along with the rigging of the
If Southerners are prejudiced against
Northerners and vice versa, I also have a prejudice in favour of Trevor Clark,
quite apart from the playful desire to be friendly to a fellow Magdalensis, for
while happy to argue fiercely with ex-Northern officials, I do have a
reluctance to be beastly to them for the benefit of those who never knew what a
rotten job it could be to work in Nigeria. It was poorly paid, often
unrewarding slog in an extremely unhealthy part of
It is possible that Nigeria, even
given a true Independence with a true democracy and genuine sovereignty, might
have ended in chaos and tears for there were what seemed insuperable problems
at Independence; but sadly we will never know, because of British treachery in
which Balewa was an accomplice and a beneficiary.
In great books on
Those who come across these draft
notes towards a book on British treachery, which I will probably never see in
print, will excuse my brevity. The length of these pieces reflects the energy
available to me due to the chronic ill health I acquired while an official in
What is absolutely true is that I am
not in possession of all the facts. My authority for this is an excellent one,
which will be acclaimed by my Northern colleagues, for it was Sir James
Robertson himself. We were standing in his office - which seems strange, and
now I wonder if that was so. It sounds awkward, but I think that was intended.
It did not seem so odd at the time, but I was young then. These days I am
rather keen on not standing too much. We must assume that the treachery was
painful to Robertson and
James Coleman's '
"Let it be firmly impressed upon
the minds of any person in this country that I regard all people who uphold the
status quo and regard the present political servitude of Nigeria as the best of
all possible worlds as enemies of progress. Just as worshippers of imperialism
must be viewed as international criminals, like their Nazi counterparts, so
must their adherents and stooges, who are in reality, accomplices.... But I
warn [the stooges] that, when Nigeria shall come into her own, and we are in
power... every one of them, indigenous or alien, shall be held to strict
accountability and shall be impeached for high treason against the safety of
the State of Nigeria."
The address was entitled 'Before Us
Lies the Open Grave' and it was published in Zik's own newspaper, the West
African Pilot for 31 December 1947.
One can see why Zik might need to be
checked. However, the British were not all colonial oppressors. Was not Zik
entitled to feel angry at those who denied him political freedom in his own
land? Furthermore, who knows how many villainous deeds had been perpetrated by
the British and were filed away in Zik's memory under 'Retribution'? Perhaps
our people knew that Zik was informed in the matter of all this skulduggery and
reasoned that he would naturally seek revenge. 'The Open Grave' was a bit
ominous, to say the least. Even so, Zik's language was often inflammatory and
exaggerated and could be replaced next day by his deploring the ranting of his
young rebels, or a crusade against Communism, or a declaration to defend our
British homeland, as at the start of the Second World War. If our people were
confused by turncoat Zik, so were our enemies the Communists, because Zik had
once stood on a Communist Party platform in London and expressed solidarity
with the CP in its struggle against colonialism.
In 1956, a decade after 'The Open
Grave', the British neutralised Zik. Zik's change of heart is demonstrated at
page 476 in Coleman as Zik's 'masterstroke.' What Coleman does not know is what
was behind Zik's apparent somersault. Doubtless Zik believed that, if he
pretended to succumb to British blackmail to secure independence, once the
British had gone he would be really free to take charge of his country. That
was clever of Zik, but he underestimated British cunning. They anticipated that
move and after 1 October 1960 were still several moves ahead of Zik.
The Northern leaders after
Dan Hakin da ka rena,
shi
6 April 1992
Return to
Contents (‘All the World’s a Stage’)
Dr Zik was robbed
by the British at
Zik had a
reputation for devious behaviour, which was well deserved, but he had learned
from masters of deceit. The British used every possible stratagem to defeat Zik
and there was no intelligence technique that was not employed against him. His 'phone was tapped; his mail opened, or even destroyed,
routinely. Plots and dirty tricks were used; conspiracies and sabotage
encouraged. That Zik survived this barrage of assaults by a determined enemy is
a tribute to the skill of the old fox. Sadly, he did not survive unscathed. By
1956 Zik was caged. Suddenly he is a damp squib on the political scene. His trips
to Northern leaders were not those of a major politician seeking alliances but
a defeated burnt-out leader begging for scraps.
Zik was a
realist. The Bank Enquiry had not only bankrupted him personally, but left his
great NCNC, the vessel which would guarantee him power, drifting on to the
rocks. The British had struck at his weak point, the money needed for political
action. Suddenly to allow political action in a hastily constructed democracy,
a house that Jack built, without provision for financing political parties, was
irresponsible but calculated.
The British built
in the legal loopholes in the Regional Marketing Boards and stood back as both
Awo and Zik used them to finance political action. The problem was one of
perception and trust. For all their tirades against the British, both Zik and
Awo were seduced by the English ploys of fair play, decent behaviour, cricket
and the rule of law. Educated in the West, they succumbed to the temptation to
see themselves as candidates for acceptance by the English establishment. Zik
went further along this path after 1956 simply because he knew he had been
beaten. He would rest up and bide his time. Meanwhile he would be President and
wear a Field Marshal's uniform and try to get a string of medals. Forced to the
sidelines, he would have a ringside seat at the humiliation of his implacable
opponent, Awo, by the vengeful Northerners.
It would soon
become evident to Zik that the NCNC might be next for the chop. With Akintola
ruling the West in the NPC interest and a Mid West State ruled by the NPC, it
was becoming evident that the East was no longer indispensable as the NPC's
ally. The Northerners had never wanted Zik as President and had always loathed
him, standing as he did for everything in the South that the North hated. Zik
too was extremely frustrated. Since 1956 he had been a figurehead. The British-backed
Okotie Eboh, with seemingly unlimited financial resources, now controlled the
NCNC. Okotie Eboh had little or nothing in common with Zik, NCNC nationalism or
the East. He was from the Mid West and was to all intents and purposes a close
ally of the NPC. Okotie Eboh's power came from his unlimited funds. These came
from British and other firms by courtesy of the British administration. My
colleague Charles Bunker had established this conduit at the instigation of the
Governor General in 1956.
The hypocrisy of
the British is truly breathtaking. At the very time in 1956 when Zik was being
exposed as dishonest, the British were pressurising commercial interests for
contributions to Okotie Eboh, which would enable him to replace Zik as the
power broker in the NCNC! Having defeated Awo and the Action Group as well as
Zik in the North in 1959 by astonishing, blatant chicanery, the British exposed
Awo in 1962 for his high-handed use of public funds. The treason of the British
in all this chicanery, gerrymandering and election rigging was routine, but
perfectly in order because it was deemed necessary to establish stability and
unity in
Nevertheless the
British were merciful. They were happy to see Awo go to jail for only ten
years. They could, after all, have had him executed. However, there was nothing
really personal in all this. In British eyes, when it is a criminal's time to
cop it, he should go quietly. Framing of likely guilty suspects is an old
tradition with the British. Once Awo had been sent down it would be someone
else's turn and there would be no hard feelings. In 1966 it became suddenly
essential for Awo to be rehabilitated quickly and very neatly used to help
persecute Zik, who had been last year's favoured British flavour. There is a
practised symmetry here, distilled from centuries of uninhibited wrongdoing.
The British have to be flexible and enterprising and sometimes ruthless with
rascals and rogues and rebels, as they were with Ben Franklin when they opened
his letters. Imagine the rage and disgust they felt when they found that
There is no
evidence that Zik had Balewa and Akintola and Okotie Eboh killed. He was, I
think, out of town at the time. Who knows whether the sad news affected his recovery.
Zik had been
sorely tried for ten years by the machinations of the British and the
Northerners. It is ironic that, had he died, the young Majors' coup would not
have been perceived, as it was, as an Igbo plot. Did it matter who put the
young Majors up to their bloody deed? If everyone who wanted Okotie Eboh dead
had been a suspect, the whole nation would have been on trial. The young Majors
were seen initially as public benefactors. Sadly, because Zik was out of town,
up to two million of his people were to die.
Had the British
not cheated Zik and Awo of their rightful inheritance of power and the
leadership of an independent
19 February 1992
Return to Contents (‘All the World’s a Stage’)
The British adored their stooge,
Balewa. After all, he was British made. They heartily disliked Awolowo because
he was clever, sensible and moral. Here was a true leader of his people to
fear. It was Awo who could have united
My own appreciation of Zik's character
- and he was certainly devious - came from my friend, Francis Nwokedi, who was
one of Zik's highly placed lieutenants in the administration. Francis was one
of our boys, and needed to display total loyalty to the British if he were to
prosper. His opportunity came during the
Every Ibo civil servant was an unpaid
member of Zik's own Intelligence Service. However, although the ubiquitous,
loyal Ibo civil servant was well informed, the secret file system and exclusion
of even top African civil servants from sensitive positions was intended to
protect our political plans for Zik's future. Even so, it was not difficult to
divine British attitudes to Zik and to guess that contingency plans did exist
to 'silence' or neutralise him. For his part, Zik made it clear that he feared
assassination by the British. The colonial regime pooh-poohed this as evidence
of Zik's paranoia and his desire to project himself as a persecuted, fearless
nationalist. Zik was open to ridicule by the British because he was conceited
and vain and took strenuous efforts to avoid going to jail. On this score he
had little to fear, for the British too wanted to avoid turning Zik into a
martyr. We needed to neutralise him quietly. Assassination would have been
counterproductive, unless carried out in such a way that no blame could be
attached to the British.
Poisons were the order of the day for
British covert operations, and 'Porton Down specials' for all occasions did
exist, as Eden was aware when he ordered Egypt's Nasser to be poisoned
following on the seizure of the Suez Canal. The Americans too, with whom we
shared our knowledge of poisons and chemical and biological weapons, plotted a
similar fate for
The events of 1966, however, proved to
the British that, if Zik had been neutralised, his power to use others to
subvert the British master plan for
This was the background to the
sensational disclosure during the early euphoric years of
The British had established a Police Special
Branch during the colonial period and plain clothes meant that police were
disguised as market women, clerks, or whatever. On this particular sweltering
day outside the House of Representatives, the Police were well represented
amongst the beggars and traders who hassled passing
civil servants and politicians. It was the sharp ears of a beggar in rags who
eavesdropped on a conversation between a senior politician and a British
official. The Plot at Apapa was the subject of discussion. The British official
found the matter distasteful and was nervous. If he spoke in a roundabout way,
it was because he was not accustomed to backhander deals which were becoming
the order of the day in other Government Departments. Arrangements for the
'plot' at Apapa were in hand. Everything would go according to plan. The 'plot'
was ready.
At Police Headquarters the news of a
Plot at Apapa could only mean one thing to an Igbo police officer. The beloved
Dr Zik was due to visit Apapa with his usual cavalcade of cars and supporters.
The British had been rumbled. Zik was to be assassinated by the British at
Apapa. This was a total nonsense. The totally innocent British official was
interrogated and his story of a plot of land ridiculed as a specious cover
story. In due course he was to be sworn to secrecy and deported, despite his
protestations. It was the cock-up theory in action. Proof of how easy it could
be to manufacture conspiracy theories out of innocent happenings. Which does not, however, explain the total panic in the offices of
the British High Commission and in
The British were successful in
suppressing news of the Plot at Apapa. Steps had to be taken to ensure that the
thoroughly frightened British official never revealed details of what he
thought was a total farce. Colonel Henderson was, I think, the Director of the
LEDB whose career was cut short like mine. Our colleague, Arthur Skinner, the
Director of Federal Public Works, tried to thwart his Minister's plans to award
the
How strange! When I stumbled on secret
British machinations to destabilise Dr Azikiwe in the late 1950's and remove
him from effective power, I was silenced too. I was warned by a Secret Service
official to flee before they killed me. My health collapsed and I developed a
tropical disease rarely seen in
16 April 1993
Return to Contents (‘All the World’s a Stage’)
Of course Zik
must have inspired the military coup of January 1966. Had he not been
side-tracked into the ceremonial position of President? This was Zik, the great
nationalist leader rendered powerless. This was tolerable when the NCNC was in
an alliance with the NPC, which persecuted Awolowo's opposition Action Group.
However, having broken Awo and put him in jail for ten years on trumped-up
charges, the NCNC itself was now being targeted. Surely the millions of young
Ibos in the Army, professions and the Civil Service, who loved Zik, must have
let their love boil over into unconstitutional violence? This is an attractive
theory and might seem logical and reasonable in explaining total unreason, but
it is only a theory. There is little evidence of Igbo responsibility and none
of Dr Zik's. Each assertion of Ibo involvement can be countered by a
counter-argument. For example, the young Majors were largely Ibo? Yes, but the
many more NCOs and ordinary soldiers were Northerners.
I have made some
notes which seem to indicate Zikist involvement. I must in fairness take a
contrary line to see if the weight of the evidence points elsewhere.
Whoever killed
the Northern leaders and their allies, should not the abominable behaviour of
those politicians show clearly that the Southerners generally had been provoked
beyond endurance? In that respect the responsibility for what happened must
belong to the Northern junta. Even if logic would implicate the Southerners,
this excludes another pragmatic rationale, often found to be involved in
explosive situations, and that is the cock-up theory. Illegality by the North
did provoke a violent and illegal reaction from the young majors, but millions
who might have dreamt of revenge were apathetic, as probably Zik was, even if
tempted. It is even more probable that his respect for the rule of law totally
excluded even thoughts of a bloody reaction.
A Zikist
conspiracy theory might go beyond inspiring or backing the young Majors and
extend to replacing them with General Ironsi, but reason knocks this on the
head. There was no certainty that the Northerners would not respond promptly to
the coup and place a Northerner in charge of the headless State. As it
happened, when Ironsi did take charge, he abolished Zik's post as President.
The latter point is made in a curious study of the coup by D.J.M. Muffett, a
Northern sympathiser, who was a close friend of Sir A. Bello. (Let Truth be Told. 1982.
Let us try to get
closer to the killings, which showed that all claims made by the British for
Nigerian democracy, sovereignty and independence were but myths. Why 15
January? Muffett's friends,
Zik was in
Muffett says that
Balewa dreamed of a coalition with himself in charge, in other words a recognition of the fact that there never had been any
serious attempt to establish democracy in
Given the
scenario of 15 January and hindsight of a civil war that cost up to one million
lives, I regret that Zik and the Eastern Region Prime Minister were not
assassinated. Had they been killed, a million other lives might not have been
lost, for the plot was perceived as an Igbo conspiracy. The deaths of two Ibo
politicians would have silenced this accusation which had such deadly
consequences.
Zik's behaviour
was erratic and that was a fact, but the role of the British is not brought out
in Muffett's account. If it were, Zik's peripatetic approach to politics might
make more sense. Anyway, the zigzag approach worked for Zik. He survived while
4 April 1992
Return to Contents (‘All the World’s a Stage’)
Trevor Clark's biography is a loving
life of an honest politician with no faults, who served
Trevor Clark's biography is of a
family man, a teacher and farmer and reluctant politician, who loved the
British who had served his country so well. As Prime Minister he held his
turbulent country together for six years. After his death it almost fell apart
in a bloody civil war...
Trevor Clark's story is of a humble
and deeply religious young teacher with high ideals who was totally
incorruptible. His fine intelligence and wisdom, his golden voice and
eloquence, his exquisite manners and good humour endeared him to all...
Trevor Clark takes some nine hundred
pages to get this message, which I have condensed a bit, across. This fat
volume is not only a tribute to the North, it is vast
like the North, sometimes arid like the North, and heavy as a tombstone. Balewa
was a party to census rigging, gerrymandering of the election in his
constituency, rigging of
Balewa loved the British and was proud
to be a lackey, an agent, a stooge of the colonial power. He did not seek
independence, he did not want independence, he wanted
the British to stay. Never was there a rebellious nationalist the likes of
Balewa. Like many southern officials, I thought Balewa was a creep and a very
small-minded little man.
'A Right Honourable Gentleman' is no
worse than many similar dusty tomes on politicians, who have held high office
serving British interests. I quite enjoyed skipping through
11 April 1992
Return
to Contents (‘All the World’s a Stage’)
A few weeks before
Perhaps because Francis knew that I
was in very real trouble which had necessitated a stormy encounter with the
Governor General, he seemed troubled. Otherwise he was in his cynical mood. God
knows why, but at that time I sensed in my Nigerian colleagues an almost total
lack of excitement as
"What nation!" exploded Francis. "This place?"
Later, like an idiot, I raised again
the question of those Nigerians who would be in the pantheon of great statesmen
when the historians wrote their books in a hundred years.
"These people! Really, Sean" exclaimed Francis.
"Perhaps there will be people,
small town Lincolns we don't know about..." I suggested. I then gave up.
I recall this rather sad dinner with
Francis because it seemed symbolic. I was pessimistic about
.For months I
frantically tried to alert Government circles to what was happening in
While this charade was taking place I
was being offered honours and a top job if I would not say a word. The Governor
General was in
Shortly before leaving
He was not usually gloomy and
despondent, but anyway we moved and he mentioned the possibility of my taking a
job as his assistant in the Broadcasting Corporation. I knew this was not to
be. I would only get
When I had gone out to
The Governor General had said that I
would never work again. That is exactly what happened. I was gloomy because of
my ill health, but as so many people were offering me employment, I felt that,
after a good rest in the
"You won't mind my appointing
your staff, Sean," Francis had interjected before I could reply.
I saw a whole village of
mission-educated Nwokedis staffing a new Government Department, and as they
flowed in, would millions flow out?
The Haywooods put me up and gave me a
farewell lunch. On the plane a telegram arrived for Smith, but it was for
another Smith in the adjoining seat, who was Senior Resident in
"Smith, the young lawmaker,"
he said.
Postgate had talked of assignments in
the North. "Hausa won't be a problem, Sean?"
"No," I had replied, as if
it was a mere detail, but I knew deep down that I was leaving
"I hate the bloody
paperwork," he said. "And from what I hear, you are good at moving
it."
He then told me about the horrible
corruption in
"You don't want me, sir," I
said. "I'm in trouble...the Governor General...I'm finished..."
So was he. He turned away and we did
not speak again. At the airport terminal in
At a drinks party in
The CIA lived up to their reputation.
They knew everything about me and my experience in
If this sounds remarkable, it is more
than that to me, for - mainly because I became so ill for many years with a
rare tropical disease usually found in the
In
A British puppet regime had taken
power in
The strangest irony was that the
apparent civilian victors of this tragic civil war were the Western leaders
Awolowo and Enahoro, whom the British had robbed of victory in the Independence
elections of 1959, and whom their puppet Balewa had jailed for ten and fifteen
years in 1962.
What had British machinations against
democracy in
Recently I read again the record of
the civil war in Anthony Kirk-Greene's excellent but deeply disturbing
collection of documents on the war. He, too, speaks of
Kirk-Greene also mentions Balewa, who
had a great reputation as well. Perhaps it was Balewa's conscience which
troubled him and made him so deeply unhappy as Prime
Minister. He knew he had won that office by fraudulent means. He knew every
detail of the British Government's machinations. He knew, when he railed in
private against British commercial interests exploiting Nigeria, that those
same interests had financed his election campaign and that of his partner in
Government - the NCNC, led by the great but burnt-out nationalist, Dr Azikiwe.
On 10 February 1957 Balewa wrote an
extraordinary letter to his friend, the British Governor of the North, Sir
Bryan Sharwood Smith. Those of us in
He wrote, 'I myself do not believe
that the present type of federation can exist without the British
Administration.' He did not want to be Prime Minister and was tired of
politics. 'You will appreciate the delicate position in which I am now placed,'
he wrote. His colleagues, like the notoriously corrupt Okotie Eboh, who
funnelled funds from British firms into the pro-British political war chest,
said he could not quit.
They were quite right. Balewa's role
was crucial to the great deception planned and executed by the British. It had
taken years to assemble and was a superb piece of political chicanery, of which
the bosses of Tammany Hall would have been proud. Henry L. Bretton, an American
Professor who studied British skulduggery in detail and at first hand, wrote
that 'the very construction of the Northern Region...' (which had the majority of the seats in the Federal Parliament) '...in the form in
which it entered the era of independence, represents one of the greatest acts
of gerrymandering in history.'
With the greatest respect to the
opinions of Anthony Kirk-Greene who served in the North during my years at
Federal Government Headquarters in
Balewa was not a
Balewa had some things in common with
1 February 1992
Return to Contents (‘All the World’s a Stage’)
Agent, Apologist or
Historian?
In one of his last contributions to an
historical journal (African Affairs, January 1987) before his early death from
Aids, my old friend Michael reviewed Nigeria's transition from a beacon of
democracy at 'Independence' in 1960 to a basket case twenty-five years later,
after a series of coups and military dictatorships.
Michael was a liar on a grand scale
who was blackmailed by the British in 1960 to prevent disclosure of the fact
that the Independence Elections were rigged. Michael was a promiscuous
homosexual and he was pressurised to put pressure on the present writer who was
his friend. Three British senior service officials had protested at orders from
Government House to rig the elections in the British interest, and blackmail of
Michael was just one of the tactics employed to shut me up. All that was sought
was my word. Bribes included rapid promotion, a brilliant career in the Foreign
Service, large sums of money and honours of my choice, which my friend Philip
Williams (later the biographer of Gaitskell), who acted as an intermediary,
interpreted as a knighthood. The stick was the threat to Michael; the threat to
Philip, who was also at risk, promises that I would be permanently unemployed
and, if I spoke out, killed.
Michael's carrot to persuade me to be
a white man and not betray our chaps was a proposal that he should, with
Government approval and on Government time, write a History of Nigeria (The
Story of Nigeria). The deal was acceptable to Michael and he broke with me
after a rather tearful and emotional parting. Lying in his teeth, he promised
that, when he came to speak of the Independence Elections, he would tell the
truth of how they were rigged. I pretended to believe him. He was my friend
and, although vulnerable and weak, like many others I loved the man.
How could a respected historian do
this? Quite easily actually. One just went along with
the story as made up, put around by the papers and accepted by a gullible
public. Had Michael not been in pawn to
I was purposely silent for a time
after Michael's imbroglio with Government House, but very soon, when it became
clear that my lips had not been sealed permanently (I was overheard at a dinner
party with US Embassy friends making indiscreet remarks) I too was carpeted at
Government House.
Agent? Apologist? Historian of
12 May
l994
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to Contents (‘All the World’s a Stage’)
We loved Michael Crowder. He would
have been a joy to know anywhere, but
Michael was a very promiscuous homosexual,
which was one thing we did not have in common. However, we had both recently
left
Michael gave me his word that he would
reveal in his historical writings one day how the British had rigged Nigeria's
Independence Elections, but unless he left papers which kept his promise... I
waited many years and, in desperation, wrote to him, when I learned that he was
in
In Michael's "Story of
Nigeria", which he wrote with the blessing of
If
Michael was blackmailed by Sir James
Robertson. He was threatened with a jail sentence and ruin if I continued to
tell everyone how
It is extremely painful to say of
Michael, as I must despite my love for the man, that he was as deeply flawed as
a historian can be. Michael lied and betrayed the Nigerian people he genuinely
adored. Michael broke his word to me too. I was very innocent and naive, and
thought most people who were educated were truthful, and that many would have
done what I did, and taken a stand against Whitehall's treason which brought
about the bloody Biafran civil war in which up to two million, mainly young,
people died. I was wrong. Few, if any, I now know would have followed by
example. Even those few hesitate when I mention the glittering honours and
other prizes, the bribes, which I refused.
I will always remember Michael's
laughter and infectious humour. I think of him often. We loved him.
25 March 1994
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to Contents (‘All the World’s a Stage’)
The Indiscreet Racist
Fred was
ingenious. To the African who objected to rule by a small clique of white men,
Fred retorted that the alternative was to subject a large native population to
the will of a small minority of educated and Europeanised natives who have
nothing in common with them, and whose interests are often opposed to them...
Only in 1943 were two very safe Africans appointed to the Governor's Executive
Council. Africans were excluded from European Clubs until the early fifties
when the first token Africans were allowed in. That was why I declined to join
the Ikoyi Club in 1955. In 1960 I caused a stir when, accompanied by my African
assistants, I inspected the Ikoyi Club. The Secretary went purple with rage and
'phoned every VIP he could get hold of. "How could you bring those people
in here!" he screamed. This was the year of
Fred may not have been the legend of
Margery Perham's heated and frustrated imagination, but he certainly left a
legacy of dottiness and nasty racism behind him. Fred's racism was shared by
Margery Perham, as Michael Crowder records in the 1972 edition of "The
Story of Nigeria." This was a good book that I eagerly looked forward to
reading. Sadly it was marred by major omissions of vital facts that Michael
knew about.
"When I write about the
Independence Elections," Michael promised me before I fled
Michael made a point of not writing in
any detail about the Independence Elections. His private views of the British
occupation were far more scathing than anything that ever appeared in his
books. Yet, by not telling the truth about British treachery, he let down his
many Nigerian friends and the Nigerian people whom he loved so much. Not even
Africans loved
12 May
l994
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Margery Perham's contribution to the
"The name of Lugard will always
be linked with that of
Margery tells us how well she knew
Fred, almost hinting at a physical relationship with her hero. She worked
closely with him, lived near him and, as we know, adored him. She did not, she
says, know him in the prime of his manhood, but she thought age must have
changed him less than most men.
"He kept his slim, upright
figure, with the square shoulders and the erect head of the military man, to
the week of his death. He kept, too, the vigour of his movements and the direct
and resolute eyes of a man used to command, but in which I, as a friend, could
read mostly his kindness and understanding."
The portrait of Fred which faces us,
as we read of Margery's adoration, is of a fierce little, demented terrier of a
man. On his first expedition into what became Nigerian territory, he was
apparently hit in the head by a poisoned arrow. This might account for his
notorious ill temper and inability to make friends. If Fred was famous for
anything, it was for being pig-headed and controversial. Although he spent six
years in
Fred's style was combative and he
always preferred war-war to jaw-jaw, as befitted a conqueror. Margery spends a
lot of space trying to find excuses for his disastrous leadership. Much the
same goes for Fred's second term of office from 1912 to 1918. Nothing is ever
Fred's fault. Always there is a reason why he made so many mistakes and
achieved so little. The only accord one feels on reading Margaret's gush is
when she records Fred as opposing Mussolini's invasion of
Fred married Flora Shaw, the Colonial
Correspondent of The Times. Now the Lugard fan club had two very active
members, swollen to three when Margery joined the team. In conclusion she
allows mention of some other pioneers, but only to promote Fred to the top of
the table and then to suggest that Fred in Nigeria deserved a place equivalent
to that of Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror in British history
12 February 1993
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Lugard's Lunacy and Perham's Infatuation
It was inevitable that rich white
Europe would impinge on poor black
We left
Because of ignorance of Africa,
What of historians? A few of poor
quality, because access to Government files was nigh impossible. And so the
officials themselves became the historians and they short-circuited the
journalists. Now we had propaganda turned into instant history. First there was
Lugard who, with his fantasies, wove a tissue of lies. Aided by his wife who
was as expert a liar as he was, his fabrications still colour Whitehall's
attitudes to Nigeria, which can be summed up as pale-skinned Moslem North good,
black-skinned Christian South bad. When Lady Lugard died, her place as
propagandist for Lugard's crazy ideas was taken on by Margery Perham, who gave
the story a few twists to fit changing times. Posing as a liberal, she screened
black nationalists and acted as an intelligence officer for
So when Miss Perhaps wrote in her
volume on Lugard, "In public enterprises there are often two accounts of
the proceedings, a smooth official story of progress, studded with compliments
and congratulations to all concerned, and the true unpublished story of the
bitter struggles and the personal conflicts...." she knew what she was
writing about.
The line that was pushed right from
the very start of Lugard's occupation of
The first writer of note to blow the
whistle on the Lugards, and their black magic or propaganda approach to fixing
the historical record, was Ian Nicolson. (I.F Nicolson. The Administration of
Lugard felt that things like justice
should not get in the way of decision-making, and saw justice as part of military
discipline. In other words, he could take the law into his own hands whenever
he so chose. Sir James Robertson had maybe learned all this from Margery
Perham, for he wholeheartedly subscribed to the same philosophy. If elections
would put the wrong people into power, it was necessary to rig them so that our
boys won. If someone like me protested, have him silenced. Lugard executed
people as if he were swotting flies. Robertson, who was also out of the
Mussolini mould, had been officially reprimanded for following his master's
example and having natives hanged for trivial misdemeanours.
As a civil servant, I was protected by
a Code of Regulations and a Public Service Commission and British Law, but
Robertson saw no need to accept these. He was Commander in Chief and Governor
General, and thought that summary justice was what I needed. He had tried
tempting me into the Army with high rank so that I could be court-martialled.
It would, he thought, appear more seemly. Even then, he would be ignoring military
law, but it was a good try. In the event his well-rehearsed speech went as
follows:-
"The Colonial Service is the same
as the Army, and you know what happens if you disobey orders on active service
- you pay the penalty!" That was it. Standing in his office, I was, in
seconds, charged and found guilty. I was to be silenced if I did not accept his
terms. He intended to have me killed, just as he had ordered others to be
killed.
The Deputy Governor General, who had
interceded on my behalf in 1957, had left
Like Lugard, Robertson loathed black
people. He had spent his life working for the Foreign Office in the
The tradition of Lugard, amazingly,
lingers on in
In her day Lady Lugard had contrasted
"the higher types of the Northern States" with the "cannibal
pagans" of the South. "The nearer to the coast, the worse was the
native type... Sorcerers, idolaters, robbers and drunkards, they were indeed no
better than their country." The vituperation of a virulent racist is familiar
to those of us who have lived through the aberrations of Hitler's
8 February 1993
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Margery Perham wrote in 1960 that,
"In public enterprises there are often two accounts of the proceedings, a
smooth official story of progress, studded with compliments and congratulations
to all concerned, and the true unpublished story of the bitter struggles and
the personal conflicts...."
Margery knew of what she wrote. That
same year she had acted in
How strange to realise that, if I had
accepted that corrupt bargain, I might perhaps have preceded Chris Patten in
Lugard was aware, looking with anxiety
over the hills of
I suspect that it will be found that
when Chris Patten leaves
20 February 1993
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Rigging of
I was put on trial by the Governor
General of
Clearly, in commenting on this book
'Transition in
Strictly speaking, the
The British Colonies were run in a
highly efficient and economical manner. It is true that much that is now
accepted as essential services, even in poor African countries today, was not
on offer when men like Robertson ruled vast numbers of colonial peoples.
However, it is still extraordinary just how much was achieved by what was by
any standards an absolutely minimally staffed service. The pay was not good,
the health prospects were poor and it was by no means certain that every
successful administrator would reach the top of the tree and collect gongs and
a knighthood.
The quality of the staff recruited was
high and Robertson was not untypical. He was a very capable Balliol graduate
with a second in Greats and a Rugby Blue. He learned Arabic and worked very
hard under the most primitive conditions for many years before promotion and
honours came his way. These were richly deserved.
He was, I imagine, excellent company,
with an enquiring mind, an amiable, friendly, good-humoured manner, loyal to
his friends and, in his own way, to his country. In different circumstances the
sort of person most of us rank and file in the service in
My friend Michael Crowder, who was to become
a distinguished, but flawed historian of African affairs, was surprised at how
big a man Sir James was. He was to write of him as a great bear of a man,
someone with a large presence and quite a big physique. I was down to seven or
eight stone myself, largely due to Robertson, and in those days he seemed big
to me too. Now I am fourteen stone myself, Robertson seems average. Michael got
the plum job of Editor of Nigeria Magazine because he had cultivated Margery
Perham at
"You are living very dangerously,
Mr Crowder," said Robertson, topping up Michael's wine glass.
To say that Michael was frightened was
an inadequate description of the terror he felt. He could go to gaol! At that
point his bowel control became uncertain.
"Tell your friend Smith to stop
dabbling in politics, or it might look bad for you. Do you understand what I am
saying?"
Michael fled Government House and came
straight to me after an enforced rush to the bathroom. Michael was pale and
shaken.
"He knows about you, Sean,"
he stammered. "It was because of you I got the invitation!"
We had both wondered why Michael had
been honoured in this way. The notion that I dabbled in politics amused me but
did not cheer Michael. Henceforth he would steer well clear of me.
It was His Excellency the Governor
General who was completely immersed in politics at a level which astounded
everyone who was privy to the secret. When Robertson arrived in
"Why?" I pleaded, when I saw
Sir James at Government House in 1960. "Why did you rig the
elections?"
"Because it was necessary,"
he replied coolly.
And also possible. In the
I was a lawmaker, busy preparing new
laws befitting the giant African nation about to be born. My Factories Act had
been hailed as the greatest piece of legislation to be placed on the Nigerian
statute book. The Attorney General of Nigeria had praised my work highly, and
the Chief Secretary, Sir Ralph, later Lord, Grey, wrote a letter for my
personal file stating that I 'had been of some service to the state...' The
Labour Advisor to the Secretary of State said I had made an extraordinary start
to my career - I was, after all, straight out of
The first stage of
the Independence Elections took place in 1956 and were to decide the
government of the three Regions, or States, which constituted the Federation.
The British had always favoured the pro-British but very backward North,
paradoxically because it did not seek independence at all, but was quite happy
with the great powers bestowed on its hereditary leaders by indirect rule from
the indifferent British. The chosen people were totally unprepared for
independence and would inevitably suffer at the hands of the well educated and
politically sophisticated Southerners who made jokes about British officials
and ridiculed and even patronised them. The North lacked a University, even the
basic elements of an elementary school system. Its civil servants at clerical
level were Southerners and its administrators were almost totally British.
Something had to be done.
I was astonished to receive orders
from His Excellency in 1956 telling me to help fix the 1956 State elections. I
was to head a covert operation and, under cover of a study of migration, to
take all Labour headquarters staff and transport to help elect politicians
backed by the British. I replied with a minute that said, 'No.' These were criminal acts, expressly forbidden by the
election laws of
If that refusal to break the laws of
Michael Crowder had received a
menacing home visit from a senior police officer who made threatening gestures.
My wife and I gave Michael all possible moral support in this grotesque and
squalid blackmail by agents of the British Government.
Sir James told me that he had
personally issued the orders to which I had objected; that not one of the many
other senior officers involved had objected; that I knew far too much and if I
would not shut up means would be found to silence me. I did not know all the
facts. The operation was necessary. If I would not shut up I would never work
again in a responsible position. The press would never be allowed to publish my
story. Who would believe me? I would have to agree to work abroad. I was not to
be allowed to be employed in the
Clearly Sir James Robertson was chosen
for this treachery because it was known that he was a very hard man with an
underdeveloped moral sense. Proof of this is to be found in his autobiography
when he was severely reprimanded for executing three Africans who were
allegedly acting as agents of the Italians.
I might have said, had I been allowed, that I was a civil servant. Even if I had been in
the Army, I would have had the right to a lawful trial. As it was, my rights as
a civil servant to appeal to the Public Service Commission were blocked by the
Governor General's friend, Geoffrey Hawkesworth.
Amazingly, the Governor General's
prediction was correct. The Colonial Office told its Minister, Julian Amery, in
1960 that I did not exist and when he persevered he was then told that all my
papers had been destroyed. The Queen's friend, Lord Perth, was closely involved
and can verify the truth of my story. His Excellency's Star Chamber trial
verdict ran beyond his death in 1974. In thirty years the British Press has
played its prostitute role and has been shamed by the bravery of a small County
paper, the Wiltshire Times, which published my story in 1988.
Lord Grey has been available to inform
successive British Governments of the truth of my account, but they do
everything possible to pretend they have not been informed. Deniability is the
aim. Having now had acknowledgements from Lynda Chalker, Chris Patten and the
Prime Minister, that particular tactic is no longer sustainable. Blocking
publication is proof of concerted Government action and an acknowledgement of
guilt, if it were needed.
There is little point in listing
the-sleight-of-hand deceptions and stratagems Robertson used to avoid the truth
in his account. When he is assuredly guilty of treason against our most
hallowed constitutional principles, he is a man without honour, as are those
politicians and
The degree of complicity of Mr.
Major's Government in the conspiracy of silence still surrounding these events
has yet to be established. As before, I am sending copies of this statement to
various notables, none of whom however has yet interceded, and all of whom must
share some degree of responsibility for preventing the full and proper
disclosure to the public of these disgraceful events.
28 November 1991
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BAD GUYS (And GOOD
GUYS): Right and Wrong in Good Books
The Administration of Nigeria
1900 to 1960: I F Nicolson
Catch 22 (and a Bit) - Smith's Word of Honour
Colonial Cadet in Nigeria:
John Smith
Crime and Punishment: Fyodor
Dostoevsky
Nigeria by Walter Schwarz, and
Nigeria: Background to Nationalism by James S. Coleman
The Nigerian Federal Election of 1959: K W J Post - The Last Great Act of Treason?
Poor Bloody Africa: The British
Destruction of African Democracy: ('The Guardsmen: Harold
Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made' by Simon Ball)
Transition in Africa: Sir James
Robertson
The Administration of
The Governor General of
The best book on Lugard and his
lady friends is by I F Nicolson, 'The Administration of Nigeria 1900 to 1960.'
It is sad that Nicolson did not write a second volume taking the story on from
1960. Anyway, Nicolson knew that we had rigged the Independence Elections, for
we discussed this in his office in
We had decided to give power to
Balewa, a Northerner, because he was quite a benevolent person who could be
easily guided by our people. He was not really a politician and was quite
gentle and honest for a political stooge. Idealistic young Sandhurst-trained
officers shot Balewa in 1966. A pro-British officer, General Ironsi then took
over, but he seemed to be under the influence of a friend of mine, Nwokedi - an
Easterner. There was a counter coup and Ironsi was killed.
When the Governor General ordered
me to get involved in the first stage at State (or Regional) level of the
Independence Elections in 1956, I refused. I was to assist the Minister of
Labour Okotie Eboh, a notoriously crooked politician and friend of Robertson.
Okotie Eboh was my Minister. He too was shot, to everyone's delight, with
Balewa the Prime Minister.
The British had planned for the
Western power base of Awolowo, a nationalistic leader, to be destabilised. For
all I know, the Southerners had won the Independence Elections, but no way were
they to be allowed to run
Nwokedi, who was my senior
colleague, was one of our golden boys and a friend of mine. He was an ally of
Dr Azikiwe, who became Governor General at
Although our stooges got shot, the
British were resourceful and for another thirty years have played an active
role in deciding who would rule as military dictator. Our sponsored
dictatorships have been relatively benevolent. Nigerians have never known
democracy so do not miss it too much. Western style democracy does not appeal
to them, as they dislike the very idea of joining an opposition. As the
Government controls the spoils, many Nigerians leave the losing Party and join
the winning Party to get some loot.
I told everyone that what we were
doing in the late fifties was wrong and would lead to disaster, but I was told
by the Governor General to shut up or be killed. I fled
2 June 1997
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in Good Books)
'Catch 22' and a Bit: Smith's Word
of Honour
My career and health were destroyed
during Government service in
They want my scout's honour, cross
my heart - which, as a boy - I solemnly believed was the highest form of oath,
especially if one added '...hope to die' as a postscript. They deny rigging
They must have my word of honour
never to reveal what they say they never did, i.e. rig
"But you did," I insist.
"You sacked me because I wouldn't take part at a very high level..."
"Well, of course, we did. We
know that. The point is that nobody else knows!"
"I know..."
"But you won't know when you
have become one of us. Just keep your mouth shut."
"After I
have given my word?"
"Exactly. Give your word. Forget all about
it. Keep your mouth shut, or else..."
"Or
else?"
"You will regret it. An
officer in the Colonial Service is exactly the same as an officer in the Army
who disobeys orders on active service. You know the penalty...!
"I declined your offer to
become a Colonel in the Army."
"You are impertinent, and you
know far too much. You can never be allowed to return to the
It got much worse.
Mr Major's Government recently
denied that they had me poisoned in
I asked how they knew. They replied
that the Director of Porton Down had told them so. (A few weeks later he was
reprimanded by the House of Commons for lying to them on another issue.) I told
the Ministry of Defence that I would have been very surprised if the Director
of Porton Down had said anything else. It was noteworthy, I added, that at the
time Porton Down had a branch in Nigeria where they were testing poison gas and
other means of keeping the Queen's peace.
Curiously, the Government had also
built a vast, very expensive mental hospital in the bush nearby. What it did
was a mystery as it was kept fully staffed but empty. It must have been like
the hospital in the film 'Coma', with its warehouse of spare bits of corpses.
When the distinguished American author, John Gunther, heard about it (probably
from the CIA), he went along and asked why such an expensive facility was kept
empty at such cost when the need for hospital care in
A Rear Admiral recently wrote to me
to say that I now had his permission to publish my remarkable story. He added,
somewhat unnecessarily, that this did not mean that I would be published. The
Government wanted it known that they were no longer banning publication. Even
the Cabinet Secretary was anxious to tell me that I was no longer banned by the
Major Government. Nothing changed of course. Except that I was sounded out
about accepting a pension, on the usual terms of course. The interview with an
MP only took place on condition that I agreed that we could not discuss why the
interview was taking place. In other words, officially, I suppose it never
happened. Certainly nothing came of it. Presumably because I refused to give my
word never to reveal something quite dreadful, which
officially never happened.
Over to you, Mr Blair!
12 May 1997
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Books)
John Smith of
John Smith's
'Colonial Cadet in
The book is
also invaluable for demonstrating how indirect rule worked. What was initiated
as an inexpensive way of running an occupied country with a handful of
administrators necessarily entailed a very close relationship between the
people at all levels and the British. The record was a proud one. If there was
modest development, there was also the minimum of interference with the native
culture. Remarkably too, for this was imperialism triumphant, there was also
deep affection and even love. Nevertheless, every effort, including blatant
criminality, was made by the British to ensure that in the independence
elections, the pro-British Northerners won. The British were the servants of
the Emirs and the Native Administrations and the political party - the NPC -
formed with the help and encouragement of the British to contest elections, ran
the Northern Regional Government and, in due course, the Federal Government.
In John
Smith's account, the opposition party NEPU is viewed as an intrusive/disruptive
element. The British certainly often appeared to turn a blind eye to the
harassment NEPU suffered at the hands of the Native Administrations and the
Emirs. John Smith is so innocent of the undemocratic stance that he portrays
while protecting his charges, and this was not
untypical, that one can almost feel this total identification with the
interests of the Emirs. In rigging elections in the North (and Northern
officials, while admitting the fact, will be hurt that what they did should be
seen, not as duty arising from necessity, but as election rigging) the British
did nothing unusual. It was merely an extension of the extremely varied, normal
routine, which primarily was to act in the Emirs' interest.
Indirect rule
was not simply a system where the British used the rule of the Emirs, that is
to say, where the Emirs were the agents of the British. In many ways, as Smith
demonstrates, it was the other way around - the British were the agents of the
Emirs. When Northern officials are charged with fiddling the elections, they
openly admit it but express astonishment. Why the fuss? That was their job.
They organised the election arrangements superbly, despite tremendous problems,
and went on without hesitation to ensure total victory for their bosses, as a
natural continuation of the same process. What seems criminality on a grand
scale to the impartial observer was to the British simply a matter of getting
on with the job.
Faced with a
Southern official, who levels charges of gross corruption, the Northern
official is bemused, amused and then a bit put out. "Come on, old
chap," they say, "That's putting it a bit strong. It was our job to
look after our people. Outsiders and trouble makers had to be checked."
The point that I am making is that the British stood for order and stability
and keeping everything quiet and peaceful. Quite how British officials became
so indoctrinated with this ethos of the status quo is a mystery to me. Perhaps
it was acquired at
John Smith
alone can be safely excluded from anything improper. His integrity and
intelligence are exceptional and remarkable. There were other Northern
officials of the same high calibre who served 'their people' (and by that,
without sarcasm, I mean the Northern peoples) with tremendous love and devotion
far beyond the call of duty. I may seem confused and ambivalent in both
indicating criminality and yet admiring Northern officials. I understand this,
and that same paradox is an essential part of the record of British rule in
To
progressives, ignorant of what the British did in
17 June 1992
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Books)
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Prestupleniye
i nakazaniye) Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866)
A horrible crime has been
committed, but the core of Dostoevsky's novel is Raskolnikov's attempt to find
a moral justification for his crime. He was, he claimed, going to use the money
for which he committed murder, to become a benefactor of mankind.
The Governor General of
"Because it was
necessary," he replied calmly. "Look, Smith," he added, losing
his composure momentarily. "You don't know all the facts..."
Nevertheless, when he later adopted a more threatening posture, he went on to
say that I already knew far too much!
The political situation in
Those who do not believe that the
British Government is capable of such infamy may be tempted to vent their anger
on the messenger. The truth is that I opposed this criminality from the start,
and paid a high price for being loyal to our democracy and traditions and the
rule of law. I have researched deeply into the question of the motives for this
treason for thirty years, and if the reasons or excuses which I produce do not
seem adequate, I must stress that I would concur in that judgement. These are
the reasons or excuses I have discovered, and unless Lord Grey, for example,
who is still alive (1992) is prepared to enlighten us further, we may never -
as the criminals may have destroyed the records - get a better explanation.
Raskolnikov's motives are one by
one proved to be false, as perhaps Robertson's too will be one day. It is
evident that there was deep mistrust of Dr Azikiwe, the nationalist leader, by
the British., In 1943 the British Colonial Secretary
described Zik as 'the biggest danger of the lot.' Over the years Dr Zik had
made some bloodcurdling speeches which had thoroughly alarmed the British. In
1947, for example, he labelled imperialists and their accomplices as
international criminals like the Nazis, and promised retribution when
It is highly probable that the
British were going to favour their allies in the North anyway, and looked
around for evidence of extremist threats to justify what they were already
planning to do. It might be said of Dr Zik's extremist and sometimes
inflammatory speeches that he had the role of a dedicated nationalist to
maintain. It was important to appear to be a valiant fighter against the
imperialist yoke. Personally, I always regarded Zik's hyperbole as a joke. He
was an armchair rebel and had not the slightest intention of going to jail or
sacrificing his very comfortable life style for the cause.
The British might argue that what
they were doing was in
When the criminality has the
approval of a British Prime Minister like Macmillan or Eden, not even a police
inspector like Porfiri Petrovich, an astute psychologist, will be smart enough
to bring the criminals to book. The question of punishment, therefore, only
arises when it is decided how to punish those who tried to expose the
criminality. The criminals were awarded high honours for their treason, which
resulted in the deaths of two million people.
Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov suffered a
crisis of conscience because he murdered two women. How conscience-stricken
should one feel for two million?
In truth, the more one kills the
less one feels. Constant repetition obliterates the moral sense, perhaps. And
the architects of
Bomber Harris planned mass killing
of German civilians without the slightest concern for his victims, because he
had killed individual Kurds, and twos and threes and small family groups while
strafing rebellious tribesmen from the air in
Dostoevsky's debate as to whether
or not the end justifies the means is now something of a cliché, but it is as
vitally important as ever. Necessity makes us bend the rules, ignore the law,
flout convention and decency. The necessity is to ensure that things come out
right. The desire is to take the chance out of political events. It may not
work, millions may die cruelly, but at least we tried. When the perpetrators of
crime are those charged with preventing it, the title of our novel should truly
be 'Crime without Punishment', or 'Punishment of the innocent is no crime and
this is your very own criminal Government telling you so.'
20 July 1992
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in Good Books)
Schwarz is a typical writer on
I wish the many journalists who
wrote about
Well, at least Schwarz had read
Coleman whose work is excellent. I met many young Americans in
So Schwarz gets his stuff from
Coleman who got it from Tokumboh and Bola Onitiri who followed the Yoruba tradition
of telling the white man what he wanted to hear. This is a universal custom in
the downtrodden (a misnomer, really, speaking of the Yoruba. They are rich,
conservative, proud, even arrogant and patronising) when replying to questions
from the powerful. The British police do not have to beat people up to get
confessions. Most of the British lower classes know what is expected of them
and readily comply. (Care on the part of the police is necessary because the
confessions often go way over the top and have to be edited down rather than
exaggerated, and cut and edited to dovetail in with the rest of the 'evidence'.
Was it ever thus?)
The story in Schwarz is the
official story. It sounds truthful and realistic and authentic. The central
truth nevertheless is a lie. It is understandable that this should happen
because the British took very great care to cover up their criminality. The
British are not stupid. They know the penalty for being found out. They had,
moreover, a lot of experience in the business.
Why did I not seek out the
reporters? I did. I told everyone I could, and this got back to the Governor
General, who was very angry. The actual incident involved my being overheard
over dinner at the Lagos Resthouse restaurant talking to an official of the
American Consulate and one of my young American friends. The latter was one or
more of the following. He was a post-graduate student, a writer, a historian, a
do-gooder, someone vaguely attached to the US Consulate or a CIA man. There
were quite a few young Americans around like this. Coleman and Bretton were not
untypical.
The administration was not making
life easy for me. I now see why they kept me on the move, or on the hop, around
various offices in
Did Tokumboh and Onitiri know that
the independence elections were rigged? Of course. What Coleman would have done if they had told him the truth, or if I had spoken
to him (and it is possible that I did) I do not know. Look at the curious case of Ken Post, who wrote the authoritative study of the
elections and gave the British a glowing testimonial, not just a clean bill of
health. Ken knew much more than he 'let on'. But having done his duty, he was
suitably rewarded by appointment to
Coleman did not know? Did he not
speak to his own Consular people? Did he not speak to the State Department? Did
he not speak to the CIA? Did he not speak to Nigerian journalists? Did he not
speak to any honest British officials? It seems not.
Sources are like a stream. Maybe it
does not matter whether you drink from the stream or not. Michael Crowder was a
wonderful friend to have, and I cherished and was for ever proud that I had
known him. He liked me too. Yet Michael gave me his word that he would blow the
whistle on British treachery one day, but he never did. Histories go on being
written, the stream of life flows on, and the old lies are still there in the
bed of the stream.
23 March 1992
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Books)
'The Nigerian Federal Election of 1959' by K W J Post. The Last Great Act of Treason?
'The last great act of the British
Raj.' So wrote Ken Post, a young British academic-to-be (if his researches were
acceptable) of
The bulk of Nigeria's territory lay
in the Northern Region and the British backed up the Northerners' demand for
50% of the Federal parliamentary seats by stating in the 1950's that the North
did indeed have over 50% of Nigeria's population. At that time I was in charge
of statistics in the Department of Labour's Headquarters in
I have written to many of the academics involved, including Ken Post, about
A totally inexperienced young
graduate student, Ken Post, is selected to make a one-man study of one of the
most complex and important general elections to be held in
Yet Mr Post produced a detailed,
fact-filled, fat volume which appears quite intimidating, and reached very
clear and decisive conclusions. British public relations had transformed a
poor, squalid, backward colony into a beacon of democracy, a model democracy,
the twelfth largest democracy in the world. And yet in six years the window
dressing had slipped to reveal near total anarchy, the destruction of the
parliamentary opposition, trumped-up treason trials, a totally corrupt
political elite, a military coup, the assassination of three Prime Ministers, a
bloody pogrom, one of the bloodiest civil wars in world history and the total
destruction of that democracy, hailed by Mr Post and given his imprimatur of
being fair, decent and honest.
One in five Africans is a Nigerian.
The most important black
Of course, Mr Post knew that this
was a British election. British officials were in control of the electoral
machinery. It would indeed have been very surprising if Mr Post had returned to
his supervisors, his professors at
Presumably they knew that
Mr Post had an impossible task. I
do not question his integrity. In fact, he compiled a comprehensive, detailed,
exhausting and voluminous work. If I question its accuracy, value or integrity,
it is because it is almost totally dependent on tainted and very suspect
British official sources which I had conclusive evidence were corrupt. When I
was invited to a meeting with HE the Governor General, Sir James Robertson, to
discuss all this at Government House in 1960, his personal assistant, the
beautifully mannered and charming John Bongard told me not to mention unsavoury
matters.
"You mean the election
rigging?" I asked.
"No. He wants to talk about
the election rigging, but don't mention buggering black boys," said
Bongard.
When I asked the Governor General
why he had rigged the Independence Elections, he replied quietly, "Because
it was necessary."
Livy said, 'Treachery, though
covered up, always comes out in the end.' 'Deeply concealed acts of treachery,'
said
Carefully read, Mr Post
occasionally indicates reservations to his general thesis, but he carefully
skirts the rocks that would sink his vessel. Quite simply, the fact that the
British-controlled NPC exercised totalitarian power over two-thirds of Nigerian
territory made the election results a nonsense. There
had been a secret agreement inflicted on the Southern leaders, binding them not
to campaign in the North. What sort of election was this where the pro-British
party, which was hardly recognisable as a normal political party, was
guaranteed success?
'And so in 1960
If Nigerians after 1960 (although
British officials were still in place over large areas) rigged elections
shamelessly, they had learned from experts. Let us consider how the British ran
an election in Prime Minister Balewa's constituency in 1964. In
the general election that year an 'affidavit described how three abortive
attempts had been made to nominate a candidate in the Prime Minister Balewa's
constituency. At the first attempt, the nominators were arrested; the
second time they were carried away by thugs; on the third occasion they were
kidnapped and held until the lists closed.' In sixty one constituencies in the
North, NPC candidates were returned unopposed. It seems the nominations of the
opposition candidates somehow were overlooked. (Martin Meredith. 'The First Dance of Freedom.' Abacus. 1985. P. 179). As the British were still running the
administration in
Post's Eurocentrism and Britishness
is evident throughout his study. "
If the relative honesty of British
and African peoples is to be put in the scales in a Nigerian context, is the
integrity of the people who conquered by force of arms outside the rule of law
to be valued higher than the innocent victims of this conquest? If Mr Post's
innocence leads him to believe that the British were impartial in a contest
between the pro-British North and the nationalist South, his study is
undermined. The British handed power to the North at
The 1959 elections were orderly,
efficient and largely peaceful on polling day. The British arrangements went
smoothly. It is these attributes that Mr Post confuses with fairness and
honesty. In truth he was watching the Africans exclusively. His verdict
exonerates those he observed. This was one of the greatest confidence tricks
perpetrated by a colonial power in
As Post reminds us, the
registration and poll were voluntary. Allegations that the British in the major
part of the country, the North, which covered at least two thirds of Nigerian
territory, marshalled every adult male who could walk through the registration
and polling booths, apparently escaped Post's attention. He expresses no
surprise that the politically inexperienced and apathetic peasants in remote
rural areas with few if any attributes of civilisation - tarred roads, clean
water, schools or medical provision - produced a percentage poll of 89.2.
Knowing British chicanery, Mr Post was right not to be surprised. From reports
I received from contacts throughout the country, I was not surprised either.
The lower figures of 74% in the East and 71% in the West are acceptable as a
reflection of the higher literacy and political awareness in the coastal
regions and were certainly due to truly voluntary registration and voting. The
Southern figures were comparable (if somewhat lower) with voting figures in
British general elections, as Post notes. In the North, incredibly, albeit with
British assistance, the percentage poll was 10.5% higher than in the British
General Election of the same year! Even Mr Post acknowledges that the British
in the North lent a hand to get Northerners to register. Yet he draws back from
the realisation that the British would complete the job and marshal largely
illiterate peasants through the same booth to vote for their pro-British
masters. Why bother to tackle the enormous job of registration if the voters
were not going to turn up to vote? And as Post records on page 205, it appeared
that almost the entire eligible male population was registered in a majority of
Northern constituencies, 'voluntarily'. Presumably if the British had 'helped',
registration would have been 200%.
To recap: In addition to the
illegal gerrymandering, that I witnessed, by my British colleagues which would
have, if known, rendered the election results null and void, the British had
given the pro-British North 50% of the seats. They had forced the Southern
nationalists to keep out of the North. 'Voluntary registration' had achieved
near total figures in the North and voting percentages were also incredibly
high. In these British-arranged circumstances a Northern (and British) win was
an absolute certainty. Any informed person betting on a Southern win against
these odds would have been declared insane. And did those who registered know
what they were doing so voluntarily? Post adds a footnote to page 205 to
suggest whether they were really aware of what was happening was an entirely
different matter. A knowing Post gives us here a cynical smile. Post does not
really believe they registered of their own volition. If they had, we would
have to assume that they knew what they were doing. Post thinks that
preposterous, as it probably would appear to most people. And here Post gets
himself into a logical bind. He cannot bring himself to admit the truth. Yes,
they did not need to know what they were doing, because they were not
registering of their own volition. Mr Post, by his own admission in that
footnote, gives the game away. Just another British fix.
Another astonishing fact was that
the Northern Emir-controlled Government party, the NPC, did not even need to
fight its opponents in the West and East. They could sit back and let the
Southerners fight each other. The NPC contested only one seat in the West and
none at all in the East. The NPC was indeed an unusual political party. The
truth is that it was not a proper political party at all, but a regime devised
to perpetuate the wishes of the British, both before and after the
In 1956 the present writer was
ordered by the Governor General to take all Department of Labour staff and
vehicles to campaign in Warri for the chief stooge of the British in the South,
Festus (Festering) Samuel Okotie Eboh, the most corrupt and probably therefore
the politician most favoured by the British in the South. I refused to take
part in this criminality as already stated. Now in stage two of the
Okotie Eboh was the most important
politician for the British. This is why such extraordinary measures had to be
taken to make sure he won. I knew this in 1956, which is why the Governor
General warned me that I knew far too much. If I revealed what I knew, he said
that means would be found to silence me. The British could always deliver
election results to please their friends, even when one British official broke
ranks. There was one exception and it illustrates how grotesque Post's
conclusions were about the
On 7 November, shortly before the
general election, a plebiscite was held in the
However, the British do not give up
so easily. In the 1959 vote there had been 70,401 against 42,979 to postpone a
decision to join
Post makes no reference to the
celebrated presence of the CIA and its role in the
Francis Nwokedi, whom the British
had chosen to have the key post in
As I have remarked, the Governor
General said that I knew far too much, and he would know. I have indicated how
I knew so much. It should be remembered that I was part of the British
establishment. The Labour Department expatriate staff made no claim to be very
cerebral. (The African staff were, however, quite brilliant). I made friends in
other departments including one that will not surprise the astute reader of
what has gone before. One informant was in charge of counter-intelligence.
Another tapped all leading politicians' 'phones. As the Governor General
rightly said, "I knew too much." This rigged election put into office
a gang of crooks who for six years ransacked this great giant, this great empire
of a nation, a commonwealth in itself. 'Nigerians' are so diverse, so
exuberant, and so full of excitement and laughter... When the military rose
against these crooks, a civil war started and one thousand days later up to two
million young Nigerians were dead. This was treason to our democracy.
I have written this election study
as a duty, a debt, that I owe to a dear friend now
dead. Philip Williams, the biographer of Hugh Gaitskell, pioneered the study of
elections at
"How do you do it, Phil!" I once exclaimed.
"I'll tell you a secret,
Harold," Phil said very seriously. "You get the results, you get all
the information you can, you take a dozen pencils and note pads and you knock
yourself out for weeks analysing it all!"
In 1957 I told Phil how we had
rigged the elections in the first stage Regional (State) level of the
independence elections. I had resigned from the Colonial Service and taken a
job as Personnel Officer at the Esso Fawley Refinery. We started a second baby;
we had a house, a car, a dog and a cat as well as a well-paid job. However, I
knew too much, and the British Government took my job, my car, my home, my dog
and cat (I still grieve for them) and forced me to return to
In 1960 I fled from
Ken Post worked incredibly hard to
produce this book on
Another American Professor Schwarz
also believed Mr Post may have been too sanguine in his conclusion about the
fairness of the elections. Certainly one of
The Russians were always damned
because in their kind of elections the Government or official candidates always
won with thumping majorities. In some of the roughest and undeveloped terrain
in Africa, Professor Post records registration and voting figures which can
only be compared with the
As Sir Alan Burns proudly pointed
out, '...no attempt was made to force upon
The election studies in
It was really the British colonial
officials in the North who were determined that it was their Southern
counterparts - the mission boy nigger lovers - who would be powerless. Did Dr
Azikiwe and Awolowo really believe that the British were going to hand over the
richest black colony in
The only people who would be in a
position to question Ken Post's endorsement of the
The name of the game in handing
over
I do not say that all the events in
The Coker Commission helped to
prove that even if one doubted the charge of treason, Awo had undoubtedly
diverted millions of public funds into his party machine. However, this had
been known to British intelligence for years. Had they nipped this in the bud,
they could not have used it to jail Awo at their convenience. I know this to be
true because the Senior Resident in the West, a fellow Magdalensis named Smith,
told me he had all this stuff in his safe in 1960, and it had been there for
some time. Post was told all this too, as can be seen from his book. Polling
day was on 12 October 1959. Post dates his Preface 31 August 1961. The
following year the Coker Commission was set up to - surprise, surprise! -
discover what had been known all the time and help put Awo out of politics. One
major threat to British control of
Awo may have thought that diverting
funds to further the pursuit of freedom from the colonial yoke was morally
justified. The British were not the sort of colonial street fighters who let moral
considerations deter them from going for the jugular. Awo went to jail, not
because he was charged with being a criminal - that was irrelevant - but
because he trusted the British to be moral. After all, they could have made
provision for political party financing from public funds. They could also have
acted quickly to stop the offence. Of course, that would have seemed
hypocritical when the British were financing the NPC - the party which drew on
the major geographical area and major part of
Mr Post's study is replete with
voting and registration figures, all of which have passed through British
hands. As such they are tainted, very suspect and quite unacceptable. Sir James
Robertson in 1960 not only accepted that the elections were rigged, he was
anxious to convince me that they were, in order to underline the trouble I was
in. He emphasised that the orders had come from him and that hundreds of senior
officers had been involved in this covert operation. He stressed that I was the
only one to object.
I already knew that the 1956 State
(first stage) Elections had been hopelessly compromised. This was how my
troubles had started when Sir James sent me personal orders to take all Labour
Headquarters staff and vehicles to assist the NCNC campaign against the Action
Group. This was the Minister of Labour's constituency although he himself was
not standing. The order came through Francis Nwokedi who was, like Okotie Eboh,
a close friend of Dr Zik. I was friendly with Nwokedi, who was to head the
Foreign Service after Independence; serve with Ironsi in the Congo; be Ironsi's
close colleague after the military coup; be responsible for the Nwokedi report
which proposed scrapping the Federation and precipitated the Northern pogrom;
and finally became a Biafran leader, gun runner and hawk.
Also in 1956 the Governor General
ordered my boss Charles Bunker to pressurise British and other firms to provide
large sums of money, cars and petrol to Okotie Eboh who was the National
Treasurer of the NCNC. It was this vast financial power which made it possible
for Okotie Eboh to become the major force in the NCNC, drive Dr Zik into a back
seat and seal an alliance, as the British demanded, with the NPC.
With all this evidence and much
more, the elections were clearly a total fraud and the British role had been
entirely criminal. It is for this reason that there is really no point in
examining Mr Post's numbers as if they were factual. This criminality also
reinforced commonly expressed doubts about the integrity of the Northern census
returns, which had been designed to back up a demand that the North be given
50% of the parliamentary seats.
If all British chicanery were
planned to give
I do not know the true Northern
census figures. Neither do I know the true election returns for the 1956 and
1959 elections. I do know that these elections were totally rigged and that the
British, not the Nigerians, engaged in wholly reprehensible, criminal
behaviour. If the Nigerian politicians did engage in corrupt electoral
practices post 1960, they had been taught by their masters in 1956 and 1959.
There was nothing personal in the
vindictiveness shown to Awo and Zik by the British. The nationalist leaders
were not rotters; they were intellectuals who were rather unsociable and aloof,
and did not suck up to the British, unlike the Northern creeps. Awolowo and
Enahoro were men of considerable intellect and principle, but they would tangle
with the British. Not too long after they were condemned as treasonable,
criminal and evil, they were reinstated and back in harness at a Federal level
with the full backing of the British and their Northern dupes, for it was Zik's
turn to be worked over and taught a lesson. In fact, the wily Zik, when he saw
defeat looming in the civil war, ratted on his party and his people and was
allowed to join the winning side. Of course, it is wrong to talk of anyone
winning in a barbaric war, which cost the lives of a generation of young
people. Neither the Nigerians nor the Biafrans won this bloody contest. Surely
there were only losers? Not quite. It is true that the Nigerian people lost,
but it was the British who won for their allies in the North ruled as always
and even survived when split up into many states, because none of these states
crossed the frontier between North and South. The integrity of the North
survived even the fragmentation intended by the creation of many new States.
The game plan was to keep
I should very much like to have
Professor Post's answers to the following questions: -
- Does he stand by his assessment of the
election?
- What were his qualifications to make the
study?
- Who suggested he make it? (He clearly
obtained co-operation from the colonial regime). Did this affect his
conclusions?
- Where did he spend polling day?
- Did he feel competent to make this
colossal study without any assistance?
- Did he obtain a higher degree for this
study? Is the book identical with his thesis? Can I obtain a copy of his
thesis?
- Did the academics, whom he acknowledges,
suggest changes in his book?
- Was he under any pressure to give the
election a clean bill of health?
- What constraints were there on his
freedom to report truthfully?
- I myself spent polling day in charge of a
polling station in
- Did he employ any interpreters or conduct
any interviews during the campaign?
- Apart from election returns, which came
from colonial government, what were his sources?
- The North, it was claimed, covered the
major part of
- Where did he go during his study? What
was his mileage? Did he travel only by car?
- Would his study not have had more claim to impartiality, if made by a non British
academic?
- When he made this study, how old was he?
How had he voted, if ever, in British elections? What were his political
party affiliations?
- Did he make any further election studies?
- What are his views on the election now?
9 February 1992
Return to Contents: (Bad Guys and Good Guys
in Good Books)
('The
Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends
And the World They Made' by Simon Ball)
Poor Bloody
Destruction of African Democracy
Macmillan's
Machiavellian Machinations
'It is out of season to question at this time of day, the original
policy of conferring on every colony of the
Three British colonial officers
protested at the British rigging of
The remarkable way in which I was
treated - vilification; vindication; commendation; threats; vindication;
hostility; offer of a knighthood (with permanent exile); vindication;
denigration - puzzled me until I read every book on Macmillan, his diaries,
biographies, etc. Only then did I realise I had been treated in accord with
Macmillan's personal philosophy. However, as Macmillan had by this time killed
three million innocent Africans with Labour's help, I could hardly feel badly
done to. I was very lucky to be alive. Had I come near success as a
whistle-blower, I would have been killed. This was no problem for MI5/6 who have many killers to hand. Actually I was a failed
whistle-blower because poisoned by Porton Down, which was the view of a
Minister of Defence who had reason to know!
For twelve years I suffered the
devastating effects of a poison, which destroyed my gut and simulated tropical
sprue, which is rarely found in
Macmillan evolved his
'The purely Balkan politics we have here are more to my liking,' he
wrote. 'If you don't like a chap, you don't deprive him of the whip or turn him
out of the party. You just say he is a monarchist or
has
plotted to kill Murphy' - Macmillan's American counterpart - 'and you shoot him
off to prison or a Saharan concentration camp. Then a week or two later, you
let him out and make him Minister for something or other. It's really very
exhilarating.'
In 1960 Macmillan rigged
My own treatment as a
whistle-blower was not much better. His son-in-law, Julian Amery, through the
Governor General, Sir James Robertson, threatened my life should I succeed in
alerting the British public. At the very least, they promised, if I did not
accept permanent exile to the
Mac, SuperMac, devious? Devious is
not the word. Insane is a better one. Drunk with power? Hitler was insane?
Mussolini was insane?
A Dagger in His Heart
“Without oil, and without the profits from oil,
neither the
Harold Macmillan, 4 October 1956. The Macmillan Diaries.
At the time Macmillan recorded this
view, he was heavily engaged with
'Many people' doubtless included
the oil companies, and Tory and Labour politicians. In fact, the first stage of
the Independence Elections was rigged in 1956, when I, with my colleague
Charles Bunker, was ordered by the Governor General to take a major role in the
clandestine arrangement. It was evident on the ground that planning had been in
hand for some time.
Although of great international
importance, not one civil servant blew the whistle on the awful lies told by
Government Ministers during the
It is clearly better to conduct
dirty work abroad in secret. Macmillan kept a close eye on the independence
arrangements for
It seems that it was British
parliamentary democracy that was being set aside by Harold Macmillan. Our
stooges, who did not want the British to leave - the most backward and feudal
we could find - had power thrust upon them. Nobody believed the mass of the
people who followed their nationalist leaders could possibly have voted for
those awful creatures and, in fact, very few did, but who cared when the
British were counting the votes! Amazingly at the victory celebrations on
Independence Day, not a single nationalist leader was on the platform when the
Union flag was lowered.
Had Macmillan feared the
Clearly, the opposition had to be
smashed, and in no time the leaders of the Action Group were framed on
trumped-up treason charges. Would not this increase the risk of a coup? Our
stooges were gunned down in 1966, and the Ibo were for a moment victorious. A
British counter-coup restored our boys in power and sadly involved a pogrom.
The Ibo declared for independence, and they were put down by the force of
British arms.
Did Macmillan feel any regret? Why
should he, when the Brits kept control of the oil fields? Only three
million died, and they were black, and a hagiographer of Balewa records that
only one person of note was killed. So that was all right!
Was Macmillan an honourable
gentleman? Or a cruel war criminal? Was he a democrat? He was certainly not
going to own up. Indeed he took extreme measures to prevent the present writer
telling the British people of his exploits.
The Brits had sold the Nigerians
into slavery. Then they stole their country. Then they stole their mineral
resources. Then they killed them. What next, one wonders? It would seem that
Macmillan did not believe in teaching by example.
The truth is, of course, that
democracy has never been tried in
One paragraph from an article by
Michael Meacher in the New Statesman of 18 October 2004 states:
"Between 1976 and 1991, Shell
was responsible for 2,976 oil spills in
The Guardian of 30 October 2004
gives us an insight into how the West encourages Nigerian corruption. Under the
heading, '
" British authorities have opened a new
front in the widening investigation into allegations of bribery at Halliburton,
the American oil services business, while it was being run by the
The Guardian has learned that the
Serious Fraud Office has joined the international effort at the request of the
US Department of Justice in
Halliburton has become a political
liability for the Bush administration as the
The Nigerian investigation centres
on $180m in payments allegedly made by a consortium led by Halliburton to
secure the contract to build a natural gas plant in
Harold Macmillan and his influence
by Machiavelli started something. He had no love of
The
Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years 1950-1957
For much of my life I have deeply
respected Harold. Even now, when I have reason to be very critical, those
earlier sentiments push to the front. He was to me a very liberal, one-nation
Tory, who seemed to care for working-class people. He was a literate person,
and it is a joy to be educated by him! I just wish I had access to the London
Library to get at those multi-volume biographies he so enjoyed.
Then why am I angry with this war
hero, this very decent man? I think he was flawed. I blame the unfaithfulness
of Dorothy for the dagger in his heart. It was his duty to forgive her. He
loved her. One so wants it to be all right. Yet she wanted too much. Like
Churchill, he settled for what he got. Took it on the chin. Stiff upper lip. I want to scream, "Bugger that
for a lark! Break free!"
There was regime change in
In R W Johnson's review of Simon
Ball's Book on 'The Guardsmen: About Harold Macmillan and His Three Friends' (
The Governor General of
'Why?' I pleaded.
'Because it was necessary,' he
replied. He then went on to threaten my life.
Ah, necessity and Machiavelli, and
oil! Without oil, without the profits from oil, neither the
On 14 November 2003 the Guardian
reported that Bush and Blair had decided at the President's ranch in April 2002
to work together to leverage oil resources in Nigeria and other areas of Africa
to secure a guaranteed supply of oil from new sources in Africa. Oil production
was likely to double. The Middle East was volatile and the
In other words,
more of the same chicanery for
No doubt Macmillan had his reasons
for rigging
I also wrote to his son-in-law,
Julian Amery, about the tragedy of his brother John, who was a traitor and
hanged. I felt his pain and did not rebuke him for the pain he gave my wife and
children. I was so anxious that I almost thanked him for giving me a mock trial
and vindicating me, although I knew in my heart that this was a cruel display
of Machiavellian deception.
When democrats are capable of such
folly and cruelty, I despair. They were proud of their families. They regarded
themselves as honest and decent. They went to church and were believers. So
what went wrong? What was missing?
A small consolation for me is that
Harold was very rude about the Colonial Office. As it happens, Jack Straw has
just sent me for £10 my personal file, which is heavy with treachery, revenge
and lies. These people loathed me because I tried to blow the whistle on
Harold, and conspicuously failed. Harold's accomplices in
That was not to be, for the corrupt English gentlemen in on this fix made it clear to me that they
would kill me first. I have only survived because I am a failed whistle-blower.
That is why Harold's diaries are such a disturbing read for me.
Consequences:
No Lessons Learnt
British dirty work abroad is
nothing new, and a leading exponent in the late 1950s and early 1960s was
Julian Amery, Macmillan's son-in-law.
I discussed this with him, and his
major point was that each intervention should be evaluated separately. My point
is that no lessons seem to be learnt. Also no heed was given to the
consequences.
Regime change in
The election rigging in
A counter coup involving a pogrom
put our boys back in charge. We released the bolshie Yorubas from prison and
put them in charge of waging war on the rebellious Ibos and Zikists. People on
the British payroll often turn out to be rebel leaders like Mossadeq in
What is termed 'collateral damage'
is due to lack of planning. In
Will we never learn? A policy that
is ethical and honest is rarely considered. Boy politicians like 'James Bond'
dirty work against foreign demon monsters. The real monsters are, of course, in
Ill-treat the natives, and they
will retaliate. Practise dirty work abroad, and you will soon practise it at
home, e.g. I protest at our destroying democracy in
Harold Macmillan thoroughly enjoyed
wartime dictatorial powers in North Africa, and in peacetime enjoyed applying
the same tactics in the rest of
Harold Macmillan and Julian Amery
enjoyed being unprincipled 'state' terrorists. It was fun. Much more enjoyable
than parliament and democracy, for democracy is slow, grinding hard work. Did
Tony Blair enjoy hoodwinking Parliament and taking
Is there a better way to run this
country?
'All
things bright and beautiful
War
destroys them all.
All
things bright and beautiful
Are not revered by all...'
Take retaliation. A young Nigerian,
on learning that
I get pretty angry for being
unlawfully punished; being denied the right to work and feed my family; being
branded a traitor; being, in effect, outlawed, censured, ostracised; being
exiled in my own home and country. Nudge, nudge, everyone secretly approves of
killing 'niggers' - even three million. Too strong? Everyone is content to look away while we do it? Nudge, nudge; know what I
mean; wink, wink. Smith is a wrong 'un and deserves what he gets. We cannot put
him in court or he would spill the beans. Nudge, nudge; wink, wink; know what I
mean? And it is true that nearly all MPs for half a century know exactly what
nudge-nudge, wink-wink means. I take care not to get bitter or violent, for
there is nothing the bad boys of MI5 would like more than to have some excuse
for incarcerating me. Even though, as a pacifist, I harbour
dangerous thoughts - not retaliation, but dreams of delayed justice, which are
pure fantasy.
If that means that the whole of
British society is an organised conspiracy against truth, that is the way it
seems sometimes, for many journalists and editors are on the Government
payroll.
That leaves the common people, the
real enemy of corrupt politicians. I like to think they are fundamentally
decent. We have to believe in something.
Is there a better way to run this
country? Do we have to plead necessity, like dependence on oil, as an excuse
for criminal activity abroad? Do we have to kill millions out of necessity?
I do wish Government would speak to
Is honesty the best policy? We
could start being honest with ourselves and facing up to what we do. Because we
did not engage in
November 2004
Return to Contents: (Bad Guys and Good Guys in Good
Books)
Transition in Africa: Sir James
Robertson (Confession of a Witness to the Death of the
It has been suggested that
tribalism is the reason for the tragic history of
The very occupation of a territory
with politics banned must, I suppose, bottle up
tensions and suppress real or imagined discord. Meanwhile, totally irrelevant
issues are made meaningful. What is real to the occupying power, like a war,
affects the Colony because the local administration wills it. So l00,000
Nigerian men served in the British Army in the Second World War, mainly in the
Far East. My clerk, Mr Fadeyebo, was ambushed by the Japanese and wounded while
floating on a river raft in
We are often told that the aim of
British foreign policy has long been a unified
The manner in which 'Nigeria' was
created was of course the responsibility of the British, not of the millions of
Africans of hundreds of tribes who one day found themselves contained within
straight lines drawn on the map of West Africa, and told they were subjects of
the Great White Queen. A great event for a young African who could now, if a
missionary came to his village, go to a missionary school, become a Christian,
get a job as a Government clerk and own a bicycle. Other events would mould
him, events largely dictated by men in a foreign land, as a foreign war had
taken Mr Fadeyebo to
If unity is required, do you
exacerbate tribal differences by dividing the nation on tribal lines, creating
a Northern Hausa/Fulani Moslem State; a Western Yoruba, Moslem/Christian State;
and an
It seemed to the disinterested
observer before
At one time, so strong was the
split between North and South, that separate stamps were printed. The different
policies, systems, languages had their effect on the British rulers. Those in
the South encouraged the missionary schools and inspected them. Work had to be
found for school leavers, and public utilities and plantations sprang up to
absorb them. Clean water, electricity supplies, dispensaries and roads followed
in the wake of enthusiastic British administrators, who were dubbed
'nigger-lovers' by their less active polo-playing colleagues in the feudal
North.
We must not labour the point. The
North, West and East were not truly separate countries.
The other major assumption shared
by all commentators was, of course, that the British would hand over power
without fear or favour to whichever political party commanded a majority in the
second and final stage of the
It was true that the British always
got on well with the leaders of the Moslem (and to a degree pagan) North. This was well known to be so, and no one would bother
to deny it. The Northern chiefs were so happy with British rule that they did
not want the British to leave at all, particularly so if the bolshie
Southerners, whom the Northerners loathed almost as much as their British
administrators - if that were possible - were to take over in Lagos. Naturally
the British did not wish to upset their Northern friends. It was even said by
the British that if the Northerners were not guaranteed freedom from rule by
the Southerners they might march on the South and drive the despised
missionary-trained bolshies into the sea. It was left unclear whether the
chiefs would do this themselves or whether they would depute the task to their
British advisors.
Was this to be an intractable
problem? It will be seen that if the North won the national elections, there
would be those who would suggest that the British had favoured the North and
given them a helping hand. Poor losers of course. However,
if the North were to win it would solve what might otherwise be a terrible
problem.
Not everybody trusted the British,
but nobody cared what the communists said. Uncle Joe did not get where he did
by winning elections either. As for the Fabians and other do-gooders, their
doubts were quashed by the very fact of
It was true that successive
Governors General had found the southern nationalists, led by Zik in the East
and more parochially perhaps Awo in the West, a bit of a trial. Zik had just
emerged from a Government enquiry into his running of a bank. He had not been
exactly cleared but neither had he been jailed, and a more subdued and perhaps
wiser Zik, after winning a vote of confidence in a fresh election in the East,
seemed prepared to co-operate with the British.
Nigerian statistics were always a
bit problematical. My own experience as head of the statistics branch at the
Department of Labour had not been reassuring. The number of unemployed in
A possible insoluble problem
suddenly loomed less large when the British announced that the North contained
50% of
If the British in
If Sir John disliked Zik, he
positively loathed Awo whom he regarded as a smart arse. Awo had responded to
the news, which must have been a blow, that the North would have 50% of the
votes, with a cheerful resolve to take the war into the North with a small army
of election agents and propagandists. Awo had modelled his party machine on the
British Conservative Party, and he was to command his troops from a helicopter,
from which he would descend and perhaps seem like a god to the simple northern
peasant. Awo's plans were noted by the new Governor General with some dismay.
Was this another intractable problem looming on the horizon?
Whatever ideas
In came experienced Sudanese
officials as Governor General in
Unity was now the overriding theme,
and it was sensible that it should be so. Precious little had been in evidence
during British rule. This great nation not only contained one quarter of
Africa's black people, it was in West Africa, unique in having no permanent
white population, not one, as white settlement had been banned as the region
was so unhealthy. Other colonies amounted to nothing against this giant.
But was the necessity of unity
being used to cloak some tough policy decisions? Certainly when I questioned
British policy in
I was not at all surprised for I
knew, even before the 1956 State elections at Regional level, that this was how
it was going to be. The Governor General in 1960 confirmed to me what he had
let me know in 1956. There had been an intractable problem and means had been
found to resolve it. Unity had made this necessary. The Northern census results
were to be challenged in many ways, but they were never to be confirmed or
accepted as accurate, and that is still the position thirty years on.
Was that all the necessary action
to be taken? Had Zik not been brought to heel with a carefully prepared Bank
Enquiry that could easily have jailed him? A close friend of Zik told me more
than I can reveal. When I questioned him, as I was a great admirer of Zik at
the time, he said,
"The next time there is
trouble, Zik will be abroad. He will never be caught as he will always have an
alibi."
"What cynical rubbish," I
replied.
Having said that,
my friend was clearly wrong when it came to the Bank Enquiry, because the
British nearly nailed Zik, whether they were justified or not.
After that close brush with the
law, a great manipulator took control of Zik's party. Zik had made many great
personal sacrifices for his NCNC and had personally financed it for years at
great personal cost. Now he was broke and someone who could raise vast sums of
money, as if from thin air, would be the real power-broker in Nigerian
politics. Chief Festus Okotie Eboh - 'Festering Sam' - was not only a very
cheerful character and master crook, he was much loved
by the British in
The NCNC made him Party Treasurer
and British officials, principally Charles Bunker, a Senior Labour Officer,
were ordered by the Governor General to extract large donations from multi-national
companies for the NCNC and NPC. Thus, in 1956, four years before
Awolowo was to pay a big price for
being rude to the British and being a smart arse. The British wanted revenge.
That very word was to be used, although when Sir James Robertson recorded it,
he said it was only natural that revenge against Awo should be sought by the
parties who formed the Government. As to why anyone should seek revenge on Awo,
Sir James could only suggest that he had invaded the privacy of the Northern
Chiefs' harems by flying overhead in a helicopter. The real truth was that he
had actually dared to send the British to
It was in the name of unity that
the British Government rigged the Nigerian Independence Elections most
successfully from start to finish. I almost wish that Sir James Robertson had
not placed his trust in me and confided to me the British Government's plans in
1956 before the elections took place. It put a very heavy and grave
responsibility on my shoulders.
29 November 1991
Return to Contents: (Bad Guys and Good Guys
in Good Books)
THE TRIAL (Der Prozess, 1925):
Franz Kafka
The confrontation of an individual
and a baffling bureaucracy is something I have experienced since the day in
1956 when I realised that British democracy was a fraud. Kafka's hero, Joseph
K, is accused of a crime that does not exist, and is made to feel guilty. His
attempts to obtain justice lead nowhere. I know these feelings too. My 'crime'
was to refuse to break the law by rigging
I thought that I could walk away,
but the Queen's men were determined that, like Humpty Dumpty, I was going to
take a great fall and they came after me.
Like Joseph K, I have tried to
obtain justice from an authority that will not communicate with me, for the
very good reason that they have pronounced me dead. All my attempts to obtain
justice have been fruitless. I brought something new out of Africa, a plea for
justice for the African people, but they say that that was impossible for I was
never in
Destroying Nigerian democracy was
evil of a very high order. Those who have looked the other way are the many
notables, politicians and journalists who have been deaf to my pleas. A handful
of politicians and journalists have given me encouragement because they could
do no more. They have sustained me. Edmund Burke spoke for me and my experience
when he said that "for evil to triumph, good men need do nothing."
Return to Contents: (Bad Guys and Good Guys in Good
Books)
GOOD GUYS,
BAD GUYS: A
Gone With the Wind (of Change)
Mr Smith Goes to Washington (Westminster)
'Bad Day at Black Rock' (with Spencer Tracy. MGM. 1955)
'Abubakar
from the Black Rock' is the sub-title of an interminable account of Balewa, a
Nigerian politician's life, by a superb writer and splendid historian, Trevor
Clark. Anyone who can write so much - 888 pages - about so little deserves
superlatives. Apart from that, Trevor was at my
Like
Balewa, the hero of Trevor Clark's fascinating work, Spencer Tracy is faced
with a hostile community. Under
The
man in the white suit in the rough desert terrain, where man depended on his
horse if he was to win through, was Balewa, a simple homespun farmer and
teacher. When the call came, he knew what he had to do to serve his people, his
nation, his faith. It was true that his colleagues
ransacked and plundered the national coffers. It was necessary to rig elections
and destroy democracy in pursuit of a higher, if highly questionable, morality.
His opponents had to be imprisoned, and his actions inevitably led to a bloody
civil war in which a million young people died, but 'He Never Faltered In His Duty.' This is a true story of epic proportions not
yet told by master storyteller Trevor Clark. ('The skill of some sequences, the
mood and symbiosis between man and nature makes this film sometimes superior to
High Noon.' G.N. Fenin.)
Who
knows, one day 'Abubakar from the Black Rock' will be filmed, and Pauline Kael
will write, 'A very superior example of motion picture craftsmanship,' as she
did of Dore Schary's morality play featuring Spencer Tracy, the good man
fighting evil.
Even
as I write, Mr Clark's epic story is probably being winched into the hold of an
ocean-going freighter bound for a film tycoon's reinforced desk at MGM. Will a
blacked up Alec Guinness play the martyred leader, beloved by all his British
friends, but cruelly served by his own giant nation of a hundred nationalities
who thought 'he had it coming' as they say in Westerns? I trust, anyway, that
Mr Clark has better luck than I had when my own script of these events was to
be filmed in the late 60's. The Director wanted to move the action to the
'The
Girl from Black Rock,' with numbers by Andrew Lloyd Webber is truly a fate
worse than the tragic death of this simple man, who fell into bad company as
the sun set over the great and illustrious British Empire. [Fade in theme tune. Close-up, 'The End.' Roll credits. Feature prominently
'Director: Trevor Clark. Cut.]
Postscript
The
total cost of publishing Mr Clark's epic work was paid for by the British
taxpayer. The cash went from a secret Foreign office account via the old
Colonials 'Friends of Nigeria' to the publisher. This was an MI6 wheeze to
ingratiate the British with
30
April 1992
Return
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Carry
On up the Creeks: Carry On Series: Up the Khyber, et al.
(Anglo-Amalgamated. Peter Rogers, Director)
In all the Carry On
films, there is one English idiot who believes that everything is pukka and
above board, and that our people are decent, and the natives (i.e. whomever we
happen to be against at the time) just need a bit of good advice to be jolly decent
types too. This nutter, often played by Kenneth Williams, is sometimes cast as
a clergyman or otherwise wet character. The other British stereotypes are
colonels who are lunatics, captains who are drunks, lieutenants who are
lechers, and a cockney crew of anarchical layabouts. I have omitted the
streetwise world-weary senior NCO's, the linchpins of the Army and Empire who
keep the whole show afloat. They are unshockable, ingenious, forever
resourceful, and know every fiddle, whether at lower rank or Commanding Officer
level. Their tricks of the trade are nudge-nudge, wink-wink, watch it, keep
your nose clean.
The noodle, as vicar,
teacher or academic - usually a professor - has led a sheltered life. It is
only when removed from that backwater and put into life-or-death situations
that he faces real moral dilemmas. In war films the academic as commando killer
is Jack Hawkins in "Bridge on the River Kwai". In real-life war, some
academics adapt quickly, perhaps because of a brutalised public school upbringing,
to the cruelties of war and reveal a vicious, cruel streak. In war there is no
moral problem, particularly in a good war against Hitler. Academics love
intelligence work because it is competitive, brainy and to do with problem
solving. Perhaps they like deceit. Crossman, who was a natural liar, plainly
adored black propaganda and being paid to lie.
There are, of course,
moral dilemmas in war. Soldiers are told not to take prisoners. The parachute
brigade never did, which is why their first act, when at risk of having to
surrender, was to bury their beloved red beret, lest they got what they usually
dished out. In 1946 a young RAF pilot mounted a chair outside the Abbey in
When the British
Government (1956-1960) rigged the Nigerian independence elections, colonial officials
were stunned. It was extremely hard to believe what was happening. There were
cynical and dishonest officials who exploited these machinations to advance
their careers. They entered enthusiastically into this treason. I was one of
those who protested. Most thought of their pensions and kept their heads down.
Perhaps it was
extremely naïve and foolish to try to divert this criminal juggernaut once
8 June 1992
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Casablanca - Play it again, Festering
Sam, but Circumspectly
Clark, in his
monumental biography of Nigeria's first Prime Minister Balewa ('Right
Honourable Gentleman': 1991) tries to distance him from his totally corrupt
Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Samuel Okotie Eboh, better known as Festering
Sam to the British colonial officials who had to serve under him.
For a time in 1958,
shortly before he moved from Labour to Finance, I had a desk outside Festus's
office. My boss, Francis Nwokedi, knew full well that I loathed Okotie Eboh and
Festus's intelligence service must have alerted Festus to this fact. However,
Francis was inviting international experts to the Ministry of Labour in
connection with the Provident Fund Scheme he inaugurated and which I helped to
set up. He wished to make a good impression on these specialists and I was made
the official responsible for looking after them and keeping them happy.
I had, however, given
the white administration a very nasty shock such as it had rarely received
before. The Governor General was incensed and personally censured me. My sin
was to protest at the complex arrangements for rigging
While at Alakaro I
inspected the bars, hotels and the drinking dens of
Some of
I was accompanied by a
team of black assistants armed with notebooks, who would seek wages' books and
official records. The book usually proffered was the 'dash' book which recorded
bribes to officials and to which our names would be added, even though I
spurned the bribes tendered. The bar manager could cheerfully pocket the bribe
I had refused. I was offered money, whiskey, girls, boys and, at one celebrated
hostelry which never paid its staff any wages at all, the proprietor's wife and
then - in desperation - his daughters. I was told that I was the most difficult
person to please in the whole colonial administration. A sentiment the Governor
General probably would have endorsed.
I certainly was not
Bogart. We had one thing in common though. Neither of us got the girl. Some
beautiful girls offered dalliance on the Minister's conference table or desk,
but they were the Minister's girls and I suspected that he had put them up to
it.
Our Commissioner of
Labour, George Foggon, was credited with putting through some very unsavoury
deals for Festering Sam. It did George no harm for he was promoted to the
Colonial Office. However, Sam's thirst for crooked deals had not been slaked.
He had the Governor General's approval too as he told us after being carpeted
by the Governor General. Carpeted, not for being a crook - he was after all our
most pro-British politician and a great fixer - but for being careless.
"Be more circumspect," he told us Sir James had warned him. Sir James
had told him that he had details of every crooked deal that he had a finger in.
That was unsurprising because MI5 opened his mail and tapped his telephone and
kept a close eye on him. To control him we needed to know what he was up to.
Not to stop him, but to use the information to blackmail him lest he forget who
was paying the piper. He had to put through our crooked deals. To head off
nationalisation, to protect British interests in return for large donations to
his bank account in Switzerland and his Party funds.
Sam could certainly
have played Sydney Greenstreet who bought Rick's night-club. Sir James
Robertson was a very serious criminal but lacked the charm of Claude Rains. I
suppose he was closer to Conrad Veidt's Nazi Commandant. He seemed that way to
me in his office at Government House, when he looked at me icily and said that,
if I did not give him my word to keep secret the fact that we had rigged
I met enough
scoundrels in
Bogart's eternal
anti-hero was much too starring a role for a bit player like me. It is said
that Bogart and Bergman did not know how the screenplay would end while they
were making the film. In my humble role in a contest between good and evil,
played against a backdrop of the retreat from Empire, I was unlike the
street-wise Bogart and resembled more an innocent abroad. I somehow thought I
would be able to walk away from this ghastly and shocking plot, which
undermined our claim to be the world's most distinguished and pre-eminent
democracy.
The Governor General
brought me down to earth cruelly. He said that I knew far too much and that I
could not be allowed to return to
With the arrival of TV
in the late 1950's, some very fine actors found that they had made their last
film. They too never worked again. I know how it is to struggle to survive, to
battle with chronic ill health, to suffer the slings and very real arrows of
outrageous fortune. My reputation has been slandered, my character defamed, I
am told that I am obsessed, a sick old man, bitter, a liar. This from criminals
who were responsible for the deaths of up to one million young people in the
Biafran War which flowed inevitably from our criminality in rigging Nigeria's
independence elections. The euphemism actors use is
'resting'. They travel abroad, they claim, or are writing their memoirs in the
sun. All too often they are employed as shop assistants or clerks.
Bogart was the man who
embodied Raymond Chandler's classic dictum, "Down these mean streets a man
must go, who is himself not mean, who is neither
tarnished nor afraid." After the Colonial Office got me sacked from my
post of Personnel Manager at the Esso Refinery at Fawley, I was recognised by
both workers at the plant and colonial officials on leave delivering the post
in Lymington near the refinery. Having been humiliated and kicked around, it
was hoped that I had learned my lesson and
No academy awards for
seeking to defend the rule of law or our democracy. Tough. I would rather walk mean streets than live well with a string of honours, but
have no honour.
Return
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'The Empire Strikes Back' (
This galactic screen
epic, like its predecessor, 'Star Wars', is simply Flash Gordon Rides Again -
but faster. And who better to star in "The Wind of Change," another
colossal production, but SuperMac! Harold Macmillan was a man who walked alone.
Turning away from his partner, Lady Dorothy, who loved another, Macmillan headed for the Big Country,
But hold on, is not SuperMac the hero of this astounding motion picture
classic? Sorry, no. SuperMac is playing Darth Vader. Right. So the heroes are really Zik and Awo, and they form a Rebel Alliance to fight
Darth Vader? Well, yes, they are heroic, standing up to the dastardly British,
but the first trick Darth pulled was to split them and make them fight each
other.
Balewa, Darth's man on Earth, is appointed ruler of
The British were horrified, and Balewa was not too pleased either, but
his feelings got overlooked in the tumult that followed. "Who did it, and
who was behind it?" demanded the British. A General who looked as if he
might be a possible replacement for Balewa disposed of the young Army officers
pretty smartly. Ironsi was ambitious, but not too pushy; bright, but no
intellectual; and honest without being too principled. He had promise. Did the
beastly British, playing the role of Darth Vader, finger Zik and Awo and
execute them horribly? Sadly, this was not possible. Awo had a reasonable
alibi. The cunning rogue had forced us to jail him for ten years. And Zik was
in
In Balewa's homeland, the North's revenge was planned. The Empire would
Strike Back. First Ironsi, the General, was dispatched, and then the British
organised the angry Northerners and set them on those of Zik's people who were
residing in the North. Thousands and thousands of peaceful men, women and
children were hacked to pieces, and the survivors fled back to Iboland, which
rapidly trained an army and declared independence, calling itself
Like all great war productions, the 'Wind of
Change' gave us bloodshed with some mythical and Sophoclean overtones, which
would please SuperMac who saw himself as a Thinker, someone above the drab
routine of workaday life. Did SuperMac's production lack some of the
inventiveness, humour and special effects of its predecessors? Perhaps, but it
did good business. A recent big book on Balewa tries to make up for our neglect
of the dead teacher whom we used as a front to protect our interests in the African
Giant. But how to write off those embarrassing two million
dead? Well, they were only common people, Trevor Clark tells us. Only a
single man of distinction died, and he was a poet and presumably did not count.
The motion picture epic Empire had a Muppet as its spiritual guide and,
not to be left behind,
(Acknowledgements to Leslie Halliwell's Film Guide and Time Out Film Guide. Fade in theme music - a War Requiem. End
credits on 'A British Empire Film Production.' The End. LIGHTS.)
16 June 1992
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Gone with the Wind of Change... MGM, David Selznick. 1939)
The Ibo and the Yoruba are transplanted in the New World and their
plight on the ole plantation is the backcloth for, on the superficial level,
"a re-run of the 'Taming of the Shrew' by Shakespeare out of Ethel M. Dell"
(James Agate) - or how a Southern girl survives the Civil War but loses her man
- and more seriously the case for racism, reaction and sexism presented in the
best block-busting, bonk-busting and bodice-busting epic style that Hollywood
could command. Both the largely fictitious, elegant, honourable and decent
South and Scarlett, as bitchy Southern belle, get raped, which was the nightly
lot of the Ibo and Yoruba in the ole log cabin back of
A century later the British almost left
Quite what went with the wind of change in Africa, apart from any claim
to honesty or honour by
The Governor General, while admitting British treachery to me, added
dryly, "No one will believe you, Smith." Sadly, that is not the
problem. All too many turn away, not because they do not believe, but precisely
because they do and are frightened. Ah well, tomorrow is another day, as
Scarlett observed and as for Sir James Robertson, and Macmillan and his
criminal gang, frankly I don't give a damn. Rhett Butler could not have put it
better.
(I acknowledge with gratitude my reliance on Leslie Halliwell's and Time
Out's Film Guides for filmic insights.)
22 June 1992
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Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
Stanley Kramer staged a contest between good and evil in 1952 on a
This epic film of the classic struggle between right and wrong reflected
the menace of McCarthyism, which at that time threatened democracy in the
In the build-up to
That is why
When I replied with a terse minute, 'No, Sir, this would be a criminal
act,' to the Governor General, I did not know that the covert action I had
refused to join would have such tragic consequences. I knew what the Governor
General was up to was evil. Much to my surprise, people I told turned away or
went into shock. Then my colleague, Vic Beck, approached me. His senior officer
had been ordered to pressurise British multi-nationals for large sums of money
for pro-British political parties. He had carried out his orders and was
conscience-stricken. The three of us sought advice from Government House. This
was the correct procedure. The orders were confirmed. They came from the
Governor General. My colleagues ran when a mighty roar of fury came from Sir
James Robertson. How dare we question his orders! My colleagues, I learned
later, fingered me as the ringleader. I was not, but as the one who stood his
ground, it was understandable that everything should be thrown at me. My
excellent work, the testimonials to my considerable
achievements, the outstanding reports on my work by my superiors, were as nothing now I stood alone.
I felt like the marshal in High Noon, but Birth of a Nation was also in
there somewhere. The feeling of isolation increased when the colonial
government and
Gary Cooper was victorious. I failed to blow the whistle on British
treachery and a million died in a totally unnecessary, bloody, civil war.
However, I survived to tell the tale even if only in a limited manner to the
cognoscenti.
Workers in my care were beaten to death in Spanish Fernando Poo, despite
my pleas. The British did not want to know. I fought other battles
unsuccessfully. One afternoon I helped to rescue the body of a dockworker from
the lagoon outside Government House. Was he one of the workers who had sought
my protection when I was Port Labour Officer? The docking company, which
enjoyed a monopoly, employed a goon squad to discipline troublesome workers.
Messages of support came my way from the African office staff at the Department
of Labour Headquarters. Others tried to be supportive while making clear I was
on my own. There were thrills, tension and excitement in my version of 'High
Noon'. There were surprises, plot developments and twists as the story
unfolded. I was thrown back on myself and found inner strengths I did not know
I possessed. I did not need Grace Kelly at all, for in my wife Carol I had a
totally honest and upright partner who never flinched from her duty. In
Those of us who take a stand never regret it, for to do so would be to
kill off the people we were, to become someone, a lesser kind of person, other
than we are. Maybe it is only in Hollywood epics that the guy in the white hat
wins and then only because he kills the evil bastards with his trusty
six-shooter or
Maybe if my story is filmed (not as unlikely as it sounds as one effort
has already been made) a good-looking hero will win through decisively and
press home the moral that crime does not pay, and that a man has to do what a
man has to do; that good will always triumph over evil and that a man must be
true to himself. I find that last sentiment appealing. I will drink to that,
stranger. And now I ride away up a dusty road into the far horizon.
2 May 1992
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Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
High
Plains Drifter (or the Lower Levels of Moral Decay)
The citizens are
threatened by villains and turn to Clint Eastwood, but Clint has a score to
settle with the citizens too. Evil can only triumph if good men let it. Clint
kills the bad guys, but is really pissed off with the gentry too. They deserve
hell, and Clint gives it to them.
I once watched a potentially
great nation set on an evil course which would tear it apart in a bloody civil
war in which, it is said, two million innocent people died. When I intervened
to try to stop
Since that time I have
struggled to survive and have told my story to Prime Ministers, Presidents,
Archbishops and Cardinals, politicians of all parties and self-proclaimed but
bogus tribunes of decency, like Guardian Editors, the law and goodness knows
who, but to no avail. Nobody wants to help me, it seems. There are brave,
decent, honest people about, and I find them, but we are few.
Some critics seemed to
have difficulty with the plot of this film - High Plains Drifter. It was over
the top and too violent. They wanted the bad guys to be killed painfully, and
Clint obliged, but that was a side-show. The villains he had in his sights were
the cowardly evil citizens who let the roughnecks, the yobbos loose on the
State. We know that, if not checked when they spread terror in a locality, they
can spread their wings and become Hitler's and Tito's children and destroy
States and plunge Nations into bloody war.
I could perhaps have
murdered one or two of those I know to be enemies of the State who were responsible for the deaths of millions of Nigerians, but I cannot take
revenge on all those who stand by and let evil prosper. It has been my duty to
alert everyone to evil and make sure that all understand and be given a chance
to take a stand, and this is very time-consuming. So much so that thirty years
pass, and
Clint drifts on high
moral plains and is god-like in dispensing justice. I suspect ordinary
cinema-goers, unlike the circuit critics, had no problems with the plot of this
film. There is little justice in the factory or on the farm, and they know the
top people of
Strangely, after
thirty years, I feel closer to the evil crooks of the Macmillan and Eden
regimes who murdered the Mau-Mau suspects in
Some of the good guys,
who sympathise but forget to even tell me or offer even moral support, are
disgruntled because they feel that their own cowardice is being made evident.
And when they learn of the bribes I was offered, they become really disturbed.
They feel bad and blame the messenger, one Harold Smith.
Clint Eastwood has his
hypocritical and cowardly town elders paint their town buildings red and put on
a welcoming party for the cowboy villains cum destroyers of democracy and
civilisation whom they have allowed to flourish through their treasonable
neglect. I know that hatred and desire for vengeance too. It is negative and
pointless, but to pretend one does not feel great anguish and pain at their
treachery would be to lie. If I could afford a helicopter, I would drop a
thousand gallons of red paint over the offices of the Guardian and the Observer
newspapers. I would dig up the bones of countless victims of journalistic
genocide and encircle those buildings. It would do no good, but it might
assuage the pain in my heart.
15 March 1994
Return to Contents (Good
Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
Hold the Front Page (Howard Hughes, 1931) and as 'His Girl Friday': (Howard Hawks, 1940, and Billy Wilder, 1974)
This is the greatest newspaper comedy of them all, and
the one journalists (like almost everybody else) love. Best
to see Wilder's coarse and tacky version first, then toss a coin between 1931
and 1940, for they are both great classics. As a Cary Grant fan, I like
the 1940 version best, but this is a bonanza of a triple-layered birthday cake
for any film buff. This fast, frantic, black farce chronicles journalism as
mythology, as a 'vanished race of brittle, cynical, childish people rush around
on corrupt errands'. (Pauline Kael).
The journalist is involved if he chooses, but he can
always retreat into his role as observer. Each day a new
edition with a new story. The central plot in The Front Page involves
the intrusion of reality into the partly make-believe concerns of the
reporters' room when an anarchist, awaiting execution, escapes and hides in a
celebrated roll-top desk.
When a great new nation came into being in 1960, I
witnessed its birth. Here was a magnificent, historic event, presented as a
triumph for
"Your story is of no interest to our
readers," wrote one of the Guardian's senior executive editors. Remarkable in itself, because an acknowledgement is a rare event. No journalist from
The papers, which record my battle to make a first
draft of history, will shortly be placed in the archive of the Melville
Herskovits Library at
I have for thirty years felt very close to the
anarchist in that roll-top desk. Maybe I too will escape one day and see my
story hold 'The Front Page.'
10 July 1992
Return to Contents (Good
Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
Little Caesar (Edward G. Robinson. Mervyn
'Those who live by the sword, die by the sword...' If only it were true!
This cautionary note prefaced Warner Brothers' splendid gangster film. Edward
G. plays Rico Bandello who makes like Al Capone, and he 'died by the sword'
with the memorable words, "Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?"
It was the end of Rico,
but the city politicians who looked the other way, and the Chief of Police who
terrorised jaywalkers, they did not die by the sword. They died with money in
the bank, provided by Rico or Al. Rico was determined to gain sole control of
an empire, and died in the struggle. If he had been wearing the cocked hat and
plumes of the Queen's personal representative, Sir James Robertson, Governor
General of
Jimmy Robertson wanted to win sole control of the Nigerian Empire of one
hundred nations, and rigged the
Jimmy was pretty good, playing Rico. He sounded vain, cruel, jealous and
vicious, every inch the ruthlessly ambitious mobster. In truth, Jimmy was a
gangster on an epic scale like Hitler and Mussolini, who both adored gangster
films. They killed in millions. The crooks Jimmy installed to run
"Why?" I asked Jimmy. We were in his study in Government
House, overlooking the lagoon that gave
"Because it is necessary," he snapped. "Nobody will
believe you," Jimmy told me. "And you will never be employed
again."
I fled from
Do you recall Cary Grant at a prestigious Embassy reception trying to
alert everyone to the fact that the charming diplomats are Nazis and determined
to kill him. What was that film? That was how I felt,
seeing distinguished lawyers who told me that it could not be happening. God
damn it, it was against the law! We are a democracy! Top civil servants said
that it could not happen! It is against all the regulations! They told me that
I was a highly thought-of civil servant who was destined for higher things. Such kind people to reassure me that all was well. Then they
turned away. I was never employed again.
'One of the best gangster talkers yet turned out... a swell picture.' (Variety).
(I am indebted to Leslie Halliwell and Time Out as always for filmic
insights.)
2 August 1992
Return to Contents (Good
Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
A
Matter of Life and Death: - The Staircase to Heaven - (Powell and Pressburger: The Archers: 1946)
And did not the Archers hit their target! A propaganda film, which is
nothing like a message film and was released anyway after the war ended. A joyous, heart-warmingly English production - full of a simple
patriotism - which must surely be one of the greatest films ever made. A
triumph for David Niven, because his nervous limitations and lack of big star
quality are just right for his part and contribute to the film's success. Some
said that he was never as really nice as this, but he did return from
But what was that target but a love affair between a GI girl and a RAF
pilot, symbolising the Allies -
The war was over; we had won. Millions had died and it was not then
realised that area bombing by the RAF had slaughtered very many women and
children. Our gallant RAF aircrews were heroes and butchers at the same time.
It was not their fault. But if we excuse them for the necessary slaughter of
the innocent, we must excuse the German soldier who obeyed orders too?
Quite what the film is about is not clear, and perhaps that is part of
its appeal. It is a beautiful film, and the craftsmanship is everywhere in
script, acting, and atmosphere. For those who knew the wartime years, it is
superbly accurate. Those were grotesquely happy years for so many of us
because, despite privations, we felt good. This was the good, just and
necessary war. It was the good people triumphing over evil. True our moral
victory was spoiled, inter alia, by Bomber Harris's lack of a moral sense and
the way we rapidly rehabilitated the most vile of the
Nazi middle ranks and recruited them for our struggle against Communist Russia.
Yet democracy had triumphed and the decency, which shines out of Roger Livesey
and Niven and Kim Hunter, epitomises a wartime
Yet Powell and Pressburger fearlessly show us a heaven full of the war dead who are at peace and serenely happy and untroubled, and
Niven is betwixt and between; and there is table tennis and chess and a village
and a GP with a camera obscura. Somehow, despite the chaos and evil of war,
simple goodness and cheerfulness are portrayed... And the war to end war
produced a Cold War and a plague of wars, all too often in poor, neglected
areas of the world. One such was in
The British deny that two million died because the British foisted a
corrupt Government on
Unlike the Archers' World War Two epic, there was no good side to the
Biafran Civil War. When the evil commenced which led to that civil war, three
of us opposed the treachery planned by the British Government. We were swept
aside and the other two ran like hell. Like Niven, I too hovered between heaven
and earth as I struggled to survive a tropical disease and its crises. My mind
left my body and soared into the heavens, and I had the key to all wisdom and
was suffused with happiness as I looked down on the planet. But sadly I was
made to return to the twisted, agonised body that I glimpsed, sprawled
lifelessly on a rumpled bed. I had my own lovely wife to return to, and she
nursed me over the years until new medical breakthroughs provided a lifebelt.
I hope that those who have struggled through moral crises find the
strength to be true to themselves, and that they too find joy and moral support
in this magnificent, English, classic film.
11 July 1992
Return to Contents (Good
Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
(cf. 'Mr Smith Goes to
"I am going to make
you famous," said the film producer, but the film never got made. Jimmy
Stewart's little man came out on top, but that is because it was not real life.
So I can dream I came out on top too. Exposing corruption in high places is a
dangerous pursuit. Jimmy Stewart's film was thought to be dangerous, too, for
setting a bad example and it influenced me. I had four years at
Colonialism was a dirty
word during the great world struggle for freedom, known as World War Two, and
President Roosevelt said he was damned if he was going to pay out millions of
dollars so that the British Empire could survive. Suddenly Africa was free to
be poverty-stricken and, in
The Governor General
did not want me near
In time I told every
Fleet Street editor, and they said, "Piss off." I told the Guardian,
a once great newspaper, and they said the same. I told Frank Allaun, a radical
MP, and he said, "How very interesting", and showed me the door, and
became PPS to the Colonial Office. I told an academic at
Capra's film was
packed with slimy senators. I wrote a novel, telling my story, and it was
nominated by the readers for a prestigious
In 1966 the corrupt
pro-British politicians, whom we had placed in power in
12 June 1992
Return
to Contents (Good Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
(Mrs) Sanders
of the River (Alexander Korda,
1935)
If the de facto Mrs
Sanders was usually a young black girl who has disappeared into the shadowy
world she usually inhabited, the white Mrs Sanders, who contributed enormously
to the survival of the Empire, also inhabits a shadowy world, for her role is
rarely recorded or appreciated. (As always in colonial affairs, what seems a
sensible assertion is too readily contradicted. Helen
Callaway has compiled a fascinating study of European - usually British - women
in
As the Boys' Own Paper
stereotypes are vaguely upper middle-class, public school boys, when women do
make an appearance in the literature they are of the same class. We hear much
of ADOs, DOs and Residents carrying the flag for
If we rehabilitate the
decent District Officer from his malicious and ill-informed critics, accept the essential role of the too-often unsung Nigerian clerks like Joyce
Carey's Mr Johnson, bring centre stage the superb and often long-suffering
British wives and their black sisters, the cast is still incomplete.
Working-class
I have no idea how
many ordinary British artisans served in
The Labour
Department's Commissioner of Labour in 1955 was George Foggon who had worked
his way up from being a counter clerk in an Employment Exchange. Peter Cook,
his Deputy, had been a railwayman. The Trades Union Officers and Trade Testers
were of working class origin. The non-working class strand in the Labour
Department consisted of ex-Army officers. We had Lieutenant Colonel Cheesely,
Major Bunker, et al. When Vic Beck and I arrived in early 1955 we were, I
think, the first graduates to join the Labour Department. We were both working
class in origin, but we carried typewriters, the symbol of our new status.
How many other
departments employed substantial numbers of working class Britishers? They all
made a substantial contribution to the development of
Return to Contents (Good
Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
Touch
of Evil (
The main aim and
achievement of the colonial administrator was the enforcement of law and order.
We were the enforcers and the Africans were the ne'er-do-wells. In a sense, the
very criminality of the people ruled is the raison d'être of the ruler. No
criminality, no law enforcers, no rulers.
As a lawmaker in
The staff had a relaxed attitude to taking money from the Africans they
served. Little and often was the motto and it was astonishing how the 'dash'
would accumulate in the bank accounts of the trade testers in the Department.
Black mistresses were conventional but Peter Cook, the Deputy, was special in
preferring young boys and, although this was not exactly approved of, neither
was it frowned on. When Okotie Eboh became Minister of Labour and thought up
imaginative plans for making money, he met with no opposition from British
officials, even when he came up with the wheeze of selling off the Ministry
buildings.
Were we really the law enforcers, one might ask? Charlton Heston had a
job like mine in Touch of Evil. He was a narcotics inspector, but he finds that
the criminals are not the local people but his own police chief. I had much the
same experience when I discovered that the voluminous election laws, designed
to ensure fair elections, were flawed. They covered every eventuality that the
British could think up to stop skulduggery by the wicked Nigerians, but did not
cover chicanery by the British. They might indeed apply to British wrongdoing,
but I cannot imagine a British Police Chief arresting our Governor General.
Arrest Sir James Robertson! Why, one asks, would one do that. Well, for a start, he was rigging the
Like the film made by Paramount in 1958 with Orson Welles as the corrupt
police chief, life in Lagos was never quite the same again after I realised who
was the chief crook in town. The confusing
Further reversals of morality and convention were evident when Sir James
decided to punish me for embarrassing him and calling him a criminal. I was
supposedly protected from arbitrary punishment by Civil Service regulations,
but Sir James simply ignored them. If I would join in the criminality and stop trying
to blow the whistle, I could be much richer and could have honours. In other
words, I would be approved of. The alternative, if I chose to be someone who
observed the rule of law, was that I would be hounded and thrown out of the
service. Government would ensure that I would never be employed again.
I thought that was diabolical. I thought the Governor General had more
than a touch of evil. He had blackmailed my friend Michael Crowder, who was
homosexual and vulnerable. Still, not everyone thought he was a rogue. One
historian wrote a book, in which he extolled Sir James's virtues and said that
he was a jolly nice bloke with a great bear hug, and was the best thing since
sliced yam. The historian's name was Michael Crowder. Michael had promised me
that he would reveal all about the rigging of the elections in his book, but he
must have forgotten that he gave me his word. Nice one, Sir James. Not so nice
one, old friend Michael.
5 May 1992
Return to Contents (Good Guys,
Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
Twelve Guilty Men? -
Harold's Cabinet (Man includes
Woman)
You saw the film 'Twelve Angry Men' on Channel 4 last Sunday. It is the
kind of thing Channel 4 does.
There was this dispute and our Government took sides. Harold Wilson said
that the Biafrans were guilty as hell, so he waged war on them. Hold on, the
Government waged war on them. Quite so. Strictly
speaking, the Cabinet agreed to supply arms to the Northerners who were in
control, having shot an Eastern General who was in charge, a General Ironsi.
The Northern lot was in control, said Harold, so they were the legitimate
Government. So the Cabinet talked it over and backed Harold. That is what we
thought at the time, anyway. That is what reminds me of 'Twelve Angry Men.'
In fact we now know that only two members of the Government agreed with
Harold and, as one was Harold himself and the other was Michael Stewart who
moonlighted for the US State Department, that was the
only majority that Harold needed.
The Foreign Office had given Harold evidence that the Easterners were
trouble and that the Northerners were nice boys who liked us. That was enough
for Harold. He sent more arms for the
Harold got deadly serious and threatened really heavy intervention and
carried out his threat. He visited
'I only speak English, Smithy, old chap,' he said. 'Of course, I've
years of experience in
I reassured him on that point, having always had the most tremendous
admiration for our James Bond boys with their unlimited libido.
'I never open them,' he said. 'I just look at the stamps. Letters from
foreign buggers go straight in the fire!'
X slept with a revolver under his pillow. He was, of course, a crack
shot, perhaps 007 and a bit. He also slept on his trousers to press them - an
old Forces wheeze. If he ever got burgled, he would shoot to kill. One morning
he had great difficulty waking up. When he did, he was sans revolver, uniform
and everything. I was broken hearted.
Of course, the Northerners were our boys, our stooges, whom we had
corruptly placed in power in 1960. Only two million died in the Civil War.
Harold said that it only proved how right he was. And nobody of any importance
got killed. If Harold has lots of black neighbours wherever he is, I know he
will be happy. Ordinary Nigerians are lovely people - kind, hospitable and
really sweet.
The Foreign Office are still very anti the
French, and Mr Blair does his bit by being very rude to Monsieur Jospin. He
paid the French Prime Minister his ultimate insult and called him a Socialist!
Tony also warned Jospin not to try stealing our trade with
Did I mention that we detested beastly Ibo/Biafrans because the Ibo
young Majors shot our Northern stooges, headed by the rather sweet Balewa whose
only vice was for virgin schoolgirls. (The least the British could do was to
arrange a constant supply.)
Tony does not understand (or so my old chums at tell me) that the French
think up rude things to say about him, knowing that GCHQ will pick it up and
tell the JIC who tell Tony. It is all a tease really but Tony gets really
upset. Having said that, Tony seems to have overlooked the
fact that the French Secret Service is incredibly professional. It is
really very naughty of Jospin to wind Tony up so!
Sadly, in our version of Twelve Angry Men, the Smiths did not succeed
like Henry Fonda in turning round the Foreign Office idiots, and some two
million Nigerians died. Was Harold drunk or insane or both? Our dear friend
Marcia knows, but is not going to tell us. We must ask the French - they are
sure to know.
We are giving Monsieur Jospin our account of British treason in
10 February 1998
Return to Contents (Good
Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
How a political murder is made to look like an accident. Z is about
fascism working under the surface of conventional crapitalist (stet) politics
in
Of course, Balewa's benevolent dictatorship, benevolent to his Northern
friends and the British, and dictatorial to most of the black polity, did give
way to generations of rule by Colonels, and along the way two million died in a
bloody, and totally unnecessary, and pointless civil war, but somehow the
Greeks seemed to suffer more. After all, white suffering is more real, more
poignant, more deeply felt, than blacks' suffering. The white man has so
thoroughly brainwashed blacks that they sympathise with the whites who suffered
so much in coming to Africa to imprison THEM. This is the ultimate slavery - a
mind in handcuffs and chains while the body appears to be free.
When in 1960 I told a Director of BP in
Another great nationalist leader, Awolowo, was jailed for ten years on
trumped-up charges that could have been comic opera, but this was real life.
The loss of democracy in
Come on now, I exaggerate.
This roman a clef, this political thriller with the style and pace of a
gangster movie, exudes what was novel then but is now a cliché - a conspiracy.
Those who write of conspiracy are now derided as fantasists in the organs of
the establishment, which is itself a permanent organised conspiracy by the
privileged against the common people. Well, they would need to cover their
treachery, would they not? What else are the papers for?
Will Nigerians one day recover from the trauma of slavery and
colonialism and neo-colonialism, and expose their own society to the eye of the
liberated filmmaker and the lens of the camera? A is for Awo, B is for
10 July 1992
Return to Contents (Good
Guys, Bad Guys: A Hollywood Guide)
The Secret
Services get your friends to admit that you are a total shit. A crook, a
pederast, despoiler of virgins or whatever. Friends? Well, the boys have experience at this business. They play on envy, jealousy,
ambivalence or whatever.
All people,
Russians, Germans, Brits, are the same as are their Secret Services. When the
East Germans opened their Secret Police files to the public, it was found that
friends betrayed friends routinely, just as they do here. They lied and told
the Secret Police what they wanted to hear. They may be frightened or just
gratified, or just vile people, but they do it. And the Cold War was probably
just an excuse. (See Philip Knightley on a looking-glass war
in 'States of Secrecy, a Review of the File, a Personal History' by Tim Garton
Ash in the Independent, 5 July 1997.)
The CIA do the same and were taught by the British. Whistle blowers
and renegade CIA folk are hounded around the
Your neighbours
who rat on you are not evil but normal. They may be bad neighbours with a score
to settle, but they are average, ordinary Brits. The Intelligence guys, however,
are total shits, who will make up dirt if they cannot find a mouth to put it
into and extract it as spontaneous grassing. Really principled, honest,
intelligent folk are pretty rare and not a protected species. The bastards have
consciences to warm their hearts. They enjoy being persecuted. They need the
Intelligence Services to harass them, so they can feel like Christian martyrs.
They make the average Secret Service guy going about his proper business as a
super shit feel distinctly queasy and restless.
Why cannot these
moral arseholes and principled pricks act human? A good
question.
Return to Contents (It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie)
I am a prisoner.
I live in internal exile. No income, no career, no reputation. The Intelligence
Services gave me a life sentence. They can control me whenever they wish, which
means whenever I get near to blowing the whistle on them.
Some Scots boys
on the make are also prisoners. They are politicians, decent blokes at heart,
and of course democrats. They are prisoners too. In theory they control the
Secret Services. In fact, they are prisoners of a system they dare not change.
When Ramsay Macdonald asked to see his Secret Service file he was refused.
Harold Wilson used the Secret Services for dirty jobs and then was surprised
when they played dirty with him. Even Marcia, who had guts, could not make
Harold stand up to them. Because Harold was being
blackmailed?
So Tony, Robin
and Gordon are human and have skeletons in their cupboards. So what? Would the
Secret Services dare spill the beans, spread the dirt? Tony and Company are too
young to have dirty hands on
How did Robin
Butler not collapse in fits of laughter when the Cabinet discussed open
government? The man in charge of all intelligence, black government operations,
told to bring in measures which, if honestly operated, would destroy the
In a true
democracy those who have sacrificed a great deal in defence of democracy would
be honoured and not reviled. The secret black government can destroy my
reputation, blacken my character, destroy my career, spy on me and take away
all my rights. The élite statesmen, officials, dignitaries, Cabinet members, will
not lift a finger to help me. Poor old Tony and Robin and Gordon are guilty of
covering up treason, now that we have found out that there is to be no change
of policy towards the Smiths by New Labour. Tony and Company will pretend that
they did not know. No one will believe them, but they will get away with it as
Mrs Thatcher did every day she was in power, and Robin and Company are her children.
We live in a
pretend democracy which suits New Labour fine. With a massive majority, Tony
and Company intend keeping the black Government intact and may even extend it,
for measures will be needed to outwit and circumvent the supposed Freedom of
Information legislation etc. Nothing will change. The black government will
target the Smiths to prevent the State criminality, condoned by Tony's silence,
being exposed to the British people.
The common people
believe that it is enemies abroad who must be the whole point of having the
Secret Services. Wrong! It is the public who must never find out about the
criminal actions of the secret black government. The British public are the
enemy who must be kept in the dark. The Secret Services exist to stop them
finding out what is being done in their name. The Head of State, the Speaker,
the Lords, the Judges, the Mandarins, the all powerful Cabinet Secretary are
the enemies of democrats like the Smiths. We are dangerous, because we know far
too much and we are honest. All the eminent people who turn away when we plead
for help are not full-time criminals and fascists, only part-timers. Hypocrisy
and self-deception are so common in British public life that the poor feeble
troopers we are writing about, headed now by three new Scottish Musketeers,
would be shocked at our truthful, accurate indictment to which there is no
credible defence whatsoever. Not the ill-educated trade union barons of old,
but the very élite of University graduates, elected on an anti-sleaze platform
and precious little else of substance.
Tony and Robin
and Gordon are decent people on the make like many a Scot. They are career
makers, political artists, acting out a role.
The Smiths are in
hot water as ever, but it keeps us clean.
Britain
- Springboard of Democracy?
The
Pitfalls in Approaching a Member of Parliament
The
Third Way: An Ethical Foreign Policy
Return to Essays
Since
It is hardly
surprising that one Nigerian - the Commonwealth Secretary General - believes
that
The high comedy
becomes sad black farce when the Commonwealth commends our henchmen in
As
Mr Blair is not a
Mrs Thatcher, nor is Mr Cook a Foreign office patsy. However, many, many lies
have been told by officials to cover up the democratic crime of the century.
This criminality was of the highest order. It brings shame on our nation that
for forty years the crooks have had absolute power and total control to prevent
disclosure. Even so, Mr Blair does not know that we, the Smiths, are people of
total integrity as he is. He may feel that the people who planned a
No one from New
Labour has sent us a message of support and hope - yet. These are early days,
however, and there is still time before the moral malaise and ethical stun guns
of
Mr and Mrs Blair
are barristers. They know that the state has broken many laws, even the mighty
Magna Carta in its treatment of a civil servant who predicted that only
disaster could flow from British criminality in
Mr Blair has won
a great victory. Can he imagine British officials and Security Services robbing
him of this great electoral triumph? Yet this is what we did in
7 June 1997
Return to Contents
(New Labour – Same Old Lies)
I told the
Governor General of
If
the Blair Government continues to treat me as the wrongdoer, someone who needs
to be targeted by Special Branch and MI5 and MI6, then they identify with, ally
themselves with the Governor General and his criminality. They are accessories
after the fact. However, in the same way as the Governor General then denied he
had done what he did, Mr Blair's Government can deny he did what he did,
whatever I say. I will, of course, know that they are guilty but they can stop
me telling anyone else. They could deny knowledge of everything. Do I have proof
I told Mr Blair's Government? They get lots of letters. I can copy my letters
to them to others. That does work. I can write to their enemies too. That is
embarrassing.
The criminals can
be seen as individuals who seized the controls of the State apparatus for their
own ends. They could be disowned. I could be rehabilitated. The Chief Constable
in Wiltshire knows that I am an honest man who fought criminality exactly as
she does. She should be on my side in a sane civilised society. The society,
which allowed
Only a few
criminals were involved. The mass of the public, the officials, the
politicians, the House of Commons, knew nothing of this criminality. This was a
secret coup. In Hitler's
The Speaker does
not want to know., Prime Ministers do not want to
know. Top civil servants do not want to know. Judges do not want to know,
although some told me how to get a pay off. I am told that I am honest. That
apparently is a problem. They do not tell others that I am honest. They say I
am mad, obsessed, paranoid - maybe they cross their fingers and
mutter"...about the truth." Quite a lot of people do think that I am
mad not to take massive bribes like a knighthood. Who gives a fig about a
thousand and one lies; about democracy; and starting civil wars in which two
million die. I care. Do you?
A state with a
secret service is both lawful and criminal at the same time. But
only for issues like mine. Really big state crime. They may turn a blind eye to warders beating the hell out of prisoners and
police beating confessions out of suspects, but that is something else. Shoot
to kill when the Irish and terrorists and colonials and foreigners are
concerned gets us near the secret state, but polite society is not too
bothered. Rarely do MPs question these abuses. MPs often have a girl or boy
friend on the side and fear MI5's curiosity.
Honesty is the
best policy? Honesty is its own reward? Honesty is a load of nonsense in a
semi-police state like ours. We are creeping up to the millennium with New
Labour - a moral millennium. Mr Blair will not let us down; Mr Cook promises to
be a good guy with a white hat on a white horse. We shall have to wait and see,
won't we?
22 May 1997
Return to Contents
(New Labour – Same Old Lies)
The Pitfalls in
Approaching a Member of Parliament
For
non-Britishers who are unaware of the hypocrisy of British institutions, I
should explain that you are only allowed to complain to the MP for your
constituency. If he declines to answer your letter, there is nothing you can
do. Even Party leaders play this game. An MP may correspond with you if you are
lucky, but it is unlikely he will act for you. The laziness or irresponsibility
of MPs is recognised in the strictly defined areas where one may complain to an
Ombudsman. One has to approach the Ombudsman through an MP, but not necessarily
your own MP.
It may be thought
an MP will reject you if you are a critic of his Party or the Government, but
that is not necessarily so. The truth is that MPs are powerless and know it.
Even if they write to a Minister they are likely to be fobbed off. Awkward MPs
can be silenced through the Whips' Office or pressure through their
constituency officials. If all else fails, MI5 may harass or blackmail him. Few
MPs do not commit indiscretions at some time and MI5 (and the Whips' Office)
are ever keen to record them. Fiddling expenses, cheating on a spouse, or using
prostitutes are fertile areas in which to provide pressure. MI5 is totally
unscrupulous and, if they can totally misbehave with a Prime Minister, as they
did with Harold Wilson, an ordinary MP does not stand a chance unless he is
fearlessly brave and honest. He will also find MI5 has many Friends and the
luckless MP may find pressure being applied from the unlikeliest source. Even
if a paragon, he may have to cope with many ugly rumours that circulate about
him.
However, your MP
will be a paragon and does see you and listens and then changes the subject and
bids you a cheerful good-bye. He may, however, really be interested until you
mention the bribes you were offered. A dramatic change may take place. I am too
cynical. Your MP is still interested. Then mention the knighthood you were
offered to buy your silence. If I exaggerate MPs' interest in titles, honours
and money, Labour leaders will tell you that hundreds of Labour MPs will do
anything for them. Is there a Labour MP who does not hanker to sit in the
totally undemocratic and abhorred House of Lords?
I omitted to
mention that, if an MP valiant for truth is found, his Questions may not be
accepted 'at the Table.' Various devices exist to stop a difficult MP even
asking a Question.
And my complaint
was not about the train service or a library closure. The State had threatened
to kill me. The State was destroying democracy by rigging elections in the
African giant nation of
26 October l994
Return to Contents (New Labour – Same Old Lies)
The
The mandarins
plot against Governments in favour of the secret establishment. This is no
paranoid fantasy, but the stark truth, for they control the
flow of information, conceal many secrets, are adept at lies and
deception, and control all the Secret Services, Armed Forces and the Foreign
Service. As soon as possible they will curry favour with gullible Ministers,
lead them astray, trap them and use blackmail.
On Day 11 of the
New Labour era we were promised that the Queen's Speech would include a Privacy
Law to protect us from 'the misuse of power by the State.' (Guardian,
23 May 1997.) A move the Government described as 'the first step on the
road to a Bill of Rights.' The mandarins saw that off by mentioning some dirty
washing Old Labour had carelessly left behind for the amusement of the
mandarins.
In 'behind the
Chair' friendly chats and briefings between Mr Blair and Mr Cook and Messrs
Thatcher, Major and Company, New Labour has been put in the real picture on
Nigeria, including the destruction of democracy by the British. Mrs Thatcher
gloried in our treason and buttered up the Nigerian dictatorship while batting
for
Will Mr Blair
match Mr Major's decency and honesty with regard to our disgusting record of
treason in
5 June 1997
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! SECRET TRIALS - WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT?
Gerald Gardiner - Saint or
Criminal?
How to Justify a 'Kangaroo’ Trial
A Magdalen Manner Notwithstanding
National Security and ‘Kangaroo’ Courts
Supermac and Supershell: The Hartley and Maxwell Story
! Echoes of
It was in 1945 that the war crimes
trials at
In 1955 I was employed by HM
Government in
I was very proud of 'my' Factories
Act, which went on the Statute Book immediately and was given a great welcome.
I have always loved the law, and enjoyed the legal studies which formed part of
my studies at
I was familiar with
In 1960 I returned to
(As a consequence of the abolition of
the rule of law, a war started and three million innocents died - UN figures.)
In 1960 the Governor General had
threatened my life, but also spoke of permanent exile from the
Tom Sargant was the Secretary of
'Justice', a recently formed all-Party law reform group, part of the
International Commission of Jurists. The Chair of Justice was Sir Hartley
Shawcross, former Chief British Prosecutor at
The Government had been dealing with
my concerns since 1956. I was objecting too to harassment, which had wrecked an
agreement I had reached with a handshake at the behest of Lord Grey, the Deputy
Governor General. This gentleman's agreement was breached by the Colonial
Office, and I had to return to
In 1959 Hartley Shawcross had been
made a peer by his friend Harold Macmillan. The Lord Chancellor was Viscount
Kilmuir who, as David Maxwell-Fyfe, had been Shawcross's Deputy Prosecutor at
Now, Tom Sargant explained to me that
Maxwell-Fyfe, Shawcross and Gardiner had discussed what should be done with me,
and they had agreed that I could never be allowed in an English court of law. I
was perplexed because it was the Government which was acting criminally. I had
protested through the proper channels, but never had a hearing. Maxwell-Fyfe,
Shawcross and Gardiner had decided that an alternative 'trial' could be held at
'Justice' in secret. This was clearly a 'Kangaroo trial', which is illegal.
I attended because Tom Sargant was
persuasive, and assured me of Gardiner's liberal leanings. If I told the truth
I would be vindicated.
The 'trial' and outcome were a
disappointment. Sir John Foster was to be prosecutor, jury and judge, and
Viscount Kilmuir, Shawcross and Gerald Gardiner would decide on a verdict.
Harold Macmillan would then accept the decisions and implement them. The charge
was very serious for it was treason, of which I was innocent. I did not need a
'trial' or even a 'Kangaroo court' to tell me that. What I wanted was a trial
of those guilty of destroying democracy at birth in
This was obviously a very high level
'trial', and presumably 'Justice' had been chosen to lend an air of
respectability and legality to the proceedings. Surely even at
I was a law maker and had never been
charged with anything, but my life was threatened by a law-breaking Government!
It was a nightmare, and I was ill. My weight was dropping and I was like a
skeleton.
The eminent people who were trying me
were the criminals who had robbed a newly-independent, giant nation of its rule
of law and its democracy. Decades of bloody, unparalleled chaos and millions of
deaths would flow from this Machiavellian treachery, which would set the tone
for the whole Continent of Africa to be pitched into savagery.
The Nuremberg Prosecutors had
represented good against evil, but had tried scrupulously to give Nazi leaders
a fair trial. I was not getting a fair trial. Was I worse than a Nazi? Evidently
there was a great hatred of me! Was there a pretence that the law could be set
aside if the two major political parties agreed to do so together in secret?
Lord Shawcross in his memoirs deplores
whistle-blowers like me, even if we expose gross criminality. Why could
There were so many things wrong with
this 'Kangaroo trial', and so much unexplained, that I could only conclude that
the criminals had taken over the system.
I have dealt with the proceedings, the
verdict and the sheer horror of this illegal trial elsewhere. Was this unique?
The intention of this illegal 'Kangaroo trial' was to gag me for life, and get
my consent to permanent exile. The threats to my life had not worked, for I had
stood up to them. I was to be declared a winner and rewarded with honours and a
top job, and be gulled into the acceptance of gross criminality. I refused the
offer. The US State Department had offered me a safe haven in
Lovers of liberty and the law should
regard these 'Kangaroo' proceedings as a disgrace to the British legal system
and be hopping mad!
January 2005
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I have no proof, other than my own
experience - often unsubstantiated - that Macmillan destroyed Nigerian
democracy. He wrote no confession of what he undoubtedly did. On the contrary,
every precaution was taken to keep his machinations secret. There will be no
flood of e-mails to investigate.
As the operation was carried out on a
bipartisan basis involving the Privy Council, the question of legality never
came into it. 'The hidden hand' and 'fancy footwork' exercised an 'enduring
fascination for him.' 'The sheer devilry of his later adventures in foreign
policy shocked some...' He found the Balkan politics of
All this happened in
One can understand scepticism to what
I suggest. Wasn't Maxwell-Fyfe devising constitutions for soon-to-be-free
Colonies? I, too, was a lawmaker in
In October 1960 David Maxwell-Fyfe
went to
February 2005
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Gerald Gardiner - Saint or Criminal
Is it possible if one is a lawyer,
especially a great reforming Lord Chancellor, to be a bit or a fraction of
both?
In 1960, when I was trying to expose
the rigging of Nigeria's Independence elections by the British Government, the
Lord Chancellor, Viscount Kilmuir aka David Maxwell-Fyfe, got together with his
Shadow, Gerald Gardiner, to shut me up with a 'Kangaroo' trial at 'Justice'.
The loss of three million innocent
lives resulted from the election rigging, but they were Africans. Macmillan,
the chief architect of this treason referred to Africans as 'barbarians'. The
question of right or wrong did not come into it when outwitting these excitable
children. It was exhilarating using power in a Machiavellian fashion. The Chair
of 'Justice', Sir Hartley Shawcross, was evidently in close agreement, for
these rascally Nigerians would probably interfere with the smooth running of
the newly-discovered Shell oilfields if allowed to take power. As Shawcross was
a VIP at Shell Oil, he would know about such things.
Sir Hartley and David Maxwell-Fyfe had
also been the leaders of the British team of prosecutors at Nuremberg, and were
accustomed to dispensing justice in original - some would say questionable -
situations. Trying Smith in an official court would not be right at all, for
the public might disapprove. Better to keep it secret.
Yet a year later Gerald Gardiner was
to prosecute the leaders of the ETU for election-rigging. I followed this with
great interest, having made similar charges against the AEU and been worsted
for my pains. The facts seemed indisputable in the ETU case, and Gerald quite
correctly proved that there was a conspiracy to fix elections. However, was
this not a storm in a teacup compared with the British conspiracy to destroy
democracy in
If the ETU conspiracy was the biggest
fraud in Trade Unionism, what was the British Government's conspiracy in
The answer may be simple in that Sir
Hartley may have given a bundle of Shell shares to his colleagues. A dreadful
suggestion, of course, but as reasons go it was a popular one, simple to
understand and difficult to fault, referring as it does to the weaknesses that
men are prone to.
If the conspirators had any concern
for the person of the trouble-maker, who was such a pain to the Government,
they did not show it and one may reasonably assume that they thought I deserved
all I got. It was not as if I had been to a public school, where I would have
learned not to snitch and rat on our people, the British. Evidently my years at
I was the sort of bounder who would
have argued that the rich had taken over charitable foundations, designed for
poor scholars like myself. Viscount Kilmuir was a Scot like the Governor
General, and had taken a Third at Balliol. I had had the nerve to push into
Magdalen and get a Second, which was almost indecent when Gerald had taken a
Fourth and been sent down from Magdalen. Poor old Hartley had not even got to
These sentiments, which I guy and send
up, were very real at that time. Labour and Tory politicians were also
anti-Semitic almost to a man. Lyttleton was a rare exception. Negrophobia was
common and Roy Welensky was rubbish to Macmillan, not only for being Jewish,
but a poor Jew and a railwayman at that. The grandson of a crofter who had
married an adulterous
Note: When one has read the memoirs
and the biographies of the period and newer critical works such as 'The
Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made' and 'Harold
Macmillan and Britain's World Role', it is clear that we were all taken in, for
the conclusive evidence suggests that Macmillan was a first-class Machiavellian
monster, who poisoned the climate of politics of Westminster with his
treacherous intrigues, and denied better men the opportunity to serve the
nation.
January 2005
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The
In no time after that whole regiments
of Nazi killers were being settled in
David Maxwell-Fyfe loved honours and
his ambition as a collector was endless. He looked like Telly Savalas playing
Kojak without the lollipop. His boss at
At 'Justice', of which Hartley was
Chair, they arranged a 'kangaroo' court* in 1960 to silence the Smiths who were
establishing that the British Government had fixed the Independence Elections
in Nigeria to place the newly-discovered Shell oilfields in safe hands. It
helped that Hartley was a VIP at Shell Oil. The following year Hartley was
rewarded with a 'goldmine' - a directorship of Shell Oil.
The Government has for over forty
years denied that the Smiths exist. They deny that the Smiths got a 'kangaroo
trial' at 'Justice'. They would, wouldn't they?
The destruction of democracy in
February 2005
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How to Justify a
'Kangaroo' Trial*
An illegal trial, if set up by a Lord
Chancellor, is still not legal, especially if it is held in secret. When the
accused is held to threaten State security by exposing State criminality, one
understands why secrecy is desired. It is also understandable why the accused
should not be allowed counsel. Those involved in the trial will be complicit in
the State criminality and must therefore be trustworthy to the accusers.
If the trial is not a court martial,
but is to be dressed in authority and made to appear legal, the use of lawyers
and a quasi-judicial setting like the Head Office of 'Justice' is
understandable. (An attempt had previously been made to second the accused to
the Army as a high ranking officer, so that he could be subject to military
law.)
The accused was attempting to use due
process. His solicitor had made submissions to Government. Three years earlier
a deal had been brokered by the Deputy Governor General of
An illegal, secret trial did take
place at 'Justice' in 1960. The fundamental principles of a proper trial were
absent. An attempt at justifying the trial was made. The accused was misled as
to the purpose of the trial. Implicit in the trial was the approval of
'Justice' to the proceedings.
An illegal trial, sanctioned and
instigated and authorised by a Lord Chancellor, is intimidating to an accused.
De facto charges of treason had been alleged by Government. The accused was
appealing against arbitrary punishment, inflicted when he had left the service
of Government three years before. The effect of this punishment was to force
the accused to enter into Government service again.
When the trial was held the accused
was no longer in Government service. The accused fully co-operated with
Government and respected the office and great authority of the Lord Chancellor
and others. The accused was not allowed to negotiate the terms of the trial. He
did, however, have reasonable expectations regarding justice and fair play.
At all times when in Government
service, the accused complied with civil service regulations and used official
channels to pursue redress.
The accused was at all times polite
and well-mannered in dealings with his superiors. Correspondence was directed
to the proper authorities.
The initial complaint was made in
1956. The 'Justice' trial was held in 1960.
It was admitted in 1960 by the
Governor General of
Threats to the life of the accused
were made by Government. Offers to the accused were made by the Governor
General in
Sir John MacPherson, the Governor
General in 1956, became the top official at the Colonial Office. He was a
personal friend of the Lord Chancellor.
The Minister at the Colonial Office,
Julian Amery, was the son-in-law of the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who
approved of the illegal machinations in
The Lord Chancellor, David
Maxwell-Fyfe, was a colleague of the Chair of 'Justice', Sir Hartley Shawcross,
at the Nuremberg Trials. They were members of Gray's
Sir John Foster, QC, MP, who conducted
the trial, was a political associate of the Prime Minister and the Amery
family.
Gerald Gardiner, the Shadow Lord
Chancellor, associated himself with Maxwell-Fyfe in setting up the trial.
It was evident, by the involvement of
the Shadow Lord Chancellor, that Labour was allied to the Government in the
machinations in
February 2005
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A Magdalen Manner Notwithstanding
The Chair of 'Justice' in 1960, Sir
Hartley Shawcross, was a VIP showcase front man for Shell Oil. He basked in the
reputation of having been the chief British prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.
The real chief, who did all the work, was David Maxwell-Fyfe. (Anyone who
consults Kilmuir's 'Memoirs' will arrive at the same conclusion.) Shawcross was
a fraud who derided Maxwell-Fyfe's intellectual abilities. In fact,
Maxwell-Fyfe was the youngest KC for three hundred years. A wartime degree,
complicated by service in the Army, brought him a creditable Third. Shawcross
lacked a degree at all, and was not really in the top league where Maxwell-Fyfe
belonged, and he probably envied him his popularity and success.
Harold Macmillan and Iain Macleod took
Seconds and Gerald Gardiner a Fourth. The last-named was also derided by
Shawcross who wrote that he knew nothing about politics.
Julian Amery was Macmillan's
son-in-law, and Sir John Foster was the Amery family lawyer, and friend of
Macmillan and Maxwell-Fyfe. The three Tory politicians attended
It was extremely interesting for me to
be charged with treason in 1960 at 'Justice' by the
The only treason in existence was that
of the British Government. It was piquant also because the Nuremberg Code
stipulated that it was not sufficient to claim that one was carrying out orders
if accused of war crimes. Only lawful orders should be obeyed. Moral choice
must be a consideration. Government efforts to strike down a 'public interest' defence
in recent years are probably in breach of both international and British law.
Both Maxwell-Fyfe and Shawcross knew
intimately the Nuremberg Convention. What were they doing lending their
authority to a secret trial of a civil servant, charged with treason for
disobeying criminal orders? As I was not allowed a lawyer to present a defence
against Sir John Foster's charges, which were presented in a ferocious manner,
it was not possible to make these points.
The authority of the court was
questionable, of doubtful authority or legality. The charges were vague. There
was no defence or jury. The verdict and judgement were to come from the Lord
Chancellor, Maxwell-Fyfe, in agreement with his Shadow, Gerald Gardiner, and,
whilst purporting to be a judgement in my favour, it demanded my word to keep
silent about gross State criminality, and my consent to lifetime exile!
And this 'kangaroo court' was held
near the Inns of Court at 'Justice', a law reform society with an interest in
African justice!
Star Chamber treatment in modern times
lacks documentation, but my case contained every element of this barbaric
behaviour.
I experienced the duress of having my
life threatened. I had already been illegally punished. Further punishment was
threatened. If I refused to accept the 'judgement' of the court, I would never
work again and would be subject to lifetime surveillance and harassment.
In his political intrigues against
rivals, Harold Macmillan favoured 'the hidden hand' which drew on Machiavelli's
doctrines. In a conflict with
If the
February 2005
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My
In 1960 I returned from
Another ploy was to deny officially
that I existed. Clearly, if I did suffer 'foul play' and disappear, Government
would not be unduly concerned to discover what had happened. Another idea was
to subject me to permanent exile abroad. The
It now seemed that the four years I
had spent seeking redress through the official channels of the Civil Service
were totally wasted. I was never going to be allowed to appear before a Civil
Service Tribunal as was my right. I sought the advice of the celebrated author
C P Snow, who had been a Civil Service Commissioner, and he advised that I seek
redress in the Courts. That also was supposedly my right, but Government was
adamant - I had no such legal rights!
My reference to Nazi policies was to
be proven absolutely correct, for Government now decided to give me a 'kangaroo
trial'* under
the auspices of the two British prosecutors at
David Maxwell-Fyfe was now the Lord
Chancellor, as eminent a legal position as one could encounter. Sir Hartley
Shawcross, one-time Attorney General, was now Chair of 'Justice', under whose
auspices I was to be tried.
Sir John MacPherson, the Governor General
of
I was approached by Tom Sargant, the
Secretary of 'Justice', who informed me that the Lord Chancellor Maxwell-Fyfe
and his Shadow, Gerald Gardiner (who was to be Lord Chancellor in 1964), had
decided that I could never be allowed to appear in an English court of law.
Therefore I should be tried at 'Justice' and cross examined by Sir John Foster,
QC, MP a renowned prosecution lawyer. There would be no jury. Foster's
conclusions would be considered by Maxwell-Fyfe and Gardiner and they would
come to a judgement. A transcript was made of the cross-examination, and the
following week Tom Sargant met with me to advise me of the verdict. I had been
denied due process and subjected to an illegal 'kangaroo trial' under duress.
Tom spoke as if there had been a
victory for Foster had said I was telling the truth. Presumably they had
thought I had been lying? Now, I was to be awarded a large sum of money in
return for my word to accept a gagging order and consent to life-long exile.
I rejected these terms, which were
identical to those the Governor General had offered me in
The Government immediately carried out
Sir James Robertson's threats to make me unemployable and subject me to
life-time surveillance and harassment. My treatment as a 'traitor' was very
much the way 'terrorists' are handled today by the Home Secretary, Charles
Clarke. 'House arrest' is not news to MI5 targets like myself,
who are totally innocent of anything except embarrassing
The British public are regarded as the
enemy, and must be kept in the dark about major breaches of the law and dirty
work abroad. Party leaders, in collusion on 'Privy Council terms', believe they
are above the law and deny 'due process' to anyone they dislike. A craven legal
profession and the media co-operate in these criminal machinations.
The people of
A 'Nuremberg Trial' of a law-abiding
British citizen is another great scar on the conscience of
February 2005
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National Security and 'Kangaroo' Courts
The British Constitution is largely
unwritten. No comprehensive document has been written which details what is
legal and what is not legal. Our government has evolved. It was not designed.
Pragmatism rather than principle is the rule. In recent times many changes and
reforms have been introduced.
Yet there is still incoherence and
extensive secrecy. The intelligence services are prohibited from furthering the
interests of any political party, and are vaguely supposed to protect
parliamentary democracy. When I pointed out that the SIS (MI6) Charter stated
this objective, and therefore SIS should be on my side as I was protecting
democracy in
As we have two largely conservative
parties taking turns in office, it is no big deal to enlist support from
ex-Ministers to get round the political party problem. James Callaghan is very
sympathetic to MI5/6 and their machinations. If the two major parties
collaborate on Privy Council terms, do they need to be bound by the law? They
can operate in secret if in doubt.
Tom Sargant of 'Justice' told me that
the Lord Chancellor, David Maxwell-Fyfe, had agreed with his Shadow that I
could never be allowed in an English court of law, as the story might get out!
Was this 'authorised' by written Privy Council decree? And justified with
'national security'?
If there is no transparency, how can
abuse be checked? What of my legal rights? Can I never appeal?
Democracy was destroyed in
Iain Macleod was a party to the
conspiracy to rig
February 2005
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An Open
Letter to 'Justice': The Strange Case of Gerald Gardiner and 'Justice'
In 1960 following an approach by Tom
Sargant, the Secretary, I took part in a mock trial at 'Justice' and was
subjected to a ruthless interrogation by an eminent QC and Tory MP, Sir John
Foster It was established that I was telling the truth about the rigging of the
Independence Elections in Nigeria by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, with the
support of leaders of the Labour Party.
The 'trial' was set up at the
instigation of the Lord Chancellor, Viscount Kilmuir; the Labour Shadow
Chancellor, Gerald Gardiner (who became Lord Chancellor in 1964); the
Government Minister for the Colonial Office, Julian Amery; and, presumably,
with the knowledge of Harold Macmillan who was Julian Amery's father-in-law.
When I had returned from
At that time I did not know of Labour
involvement (on Privy Council terms) in the rigging of
With the assistance of Sir John Foster
and Peter Benenson (the co-founder of Amnesty) 'Justice' was set up in 1957 by
Gerald as the British branch of the International Commission of Jurists. It
would be an all-party organisation, consisting of leading lawyers representing
the three main political parties, formed to 'uphold and strengthen the
principles of the Rule of Law in the territories for which the British Parliament
is directly or ultimately responsible: in particular to assist in the
administration of 'Justice' and in the preservation of the fundamental
liberties of the individual. It was also concerned to help the International
Commission of Jurists to promote observance of the rule of law throughout the
world.'
Naomi Sargant, had married Peter Kelly, a friend of my wife Carol. Peter and Carol were
students at
My decision to go to
My studies at
In 1964 Gerald was held in such high
esteem that he became Lord Chancellor in Harold Wilson's Labour Government.
This was the background when Tom Sargant, father of an old friend, offered the
assistance of 'Justice' in my whistle-blowing about the destruction of
democracy in
Tom Sargant informed me that in the
opinion of Gerald, I would never be allowed in an English court of law. This
was also the view of the Lord Chancellor. If, after a 'trial' under the
auspices of 'Justice', I was proved truthful and my allegations correct, I
would have 'Justice' on my side. I saw my career problems as secondary, and -
incorrectly as it turned out - thought that 'Justice' would challenge Whitehall
regarding the rigging of Nigeria's Independence Elections.
The numerous top jobs I had been
offered in 1957, including a research post at the TUC and as a consultant to
the State Department in
I had fled
At the Holloway Labour Exchange where
I had a temporary job, I was photographed and filmed with the Duke of Edinburgh
during a royal visit. He told me that the Empire was a 'load of bollocks'. I
also met John Hare, the Minister of Labour, who was on his way to
Tom said this job at 'Justice' was
very important to him. He could not advise me or appear too close. He was
carrying out his instructions. (However, we did discuss his daughter's marital
problems. Tom knew that I had tried to help Naomi as a friend.
Sir John was ruthless, frightening,
merciless and hateful. It was an awful experience, but I stuck to my account
through the repeated questioning and insinuations. Suddenly he was shaking my
hand and comforting me. I was so shaken up that I was really upset. He
complimented me and was a totally different person. Kind,
considerate, sympathetic. He had had to test me to the limit to be sure
that I was truthful, public spirited, honest, etc. etc. Later, Tom said I had
done well. I had 'won', and was to be awarded damages and much more by
Government.
When I saw Tom the following week the
offer was of a large sum of money. Honours, a top job, etc.
etc. in return for my word never to reveal what I knew of the Government's
disgusting destruction of democracy in
I said to Tom that this had been
offered already by the Governor General. I was not protesting for personal
gain. I had been treated abominably because of what I witnessed in
Retaliation against me was very swift.
The Governor General had threatened I would never work again, and disgusting
means were employed to stop my working at the Holloway Labour Exchange. It was
1957 all over again. I became very ill. The future was bleak. Whistleblowers
often kill themselves. I know how desperately depressing all that is, but I had
Carol, who believed in me, and two lovely small daughters. It was not easy, but
in helping others we gained strength and somehow survived.
What are we to make of 'Justice',
which was such a let-down? Gerald was a great man. Sir John seemed thoroughly
decent. Tom was a splendid man. We later came across Benenson through the
Coeliac Society. He was also an idealist and very public spirited. (Sadly,
Peter was very mentally troubled and ill. Was there something sinister in our
having identical gut-wasting problems?)
Labour and the Macmillan Government
set aside democracy in
On a personal note, 'Justice' had not
lived up to its aims in protecting me. I was abandoned. In so far as exposure
threatened 'Justice' for its failure regarding
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In 1960, David Maxwell-Fyfe, the Lord
Chancellor - a Balliol man, and the youngest QC for 300 years - had an unusual
case. (Two years later, Macmillan would sack him in the night of the long
knives.) Gerald Gardiner, the Shadow Lord Chancellor, was a Magdalen man but had
been sent down with a Fourth. Lord Shawcross, the Chair of 'Justice' did not
bother with a degree at all.
I was the difficult case. I left
school at thirteen and, in 1954, took a Second at Magdalen after two years.
Perhaps Shawcross (a former Attorney General
on the Labour side) and Gerald Gardiner (a future Labour Lord Chancellor)
resented a council estate boy who had drafted a Factories Act and defended the
rule of law against trade union bosses and Imperial nabobs, alike. The friends
of these lions of the legal establishment were to spend the rest of the century
denying that I ever existed.
After a Kangaroo Court* trial at 'Justice', it was decided that I should become an Orwellian unperson
lest my defence of the rule of law should embarrass
Over twenty years earlier, my friend
Frank Meade had put up Orwell in his neat
The odds at my 'kangaroo' trial were
decidedly and deliberately stacked against the defendant, for I was not allowed
a defence. My lawyer, Mr Chester Barrett, was to be excluded from the smooth
tenor of the proceedings, lest he introduce a jarring note. It may have been a
quiet, illegal trial near the Inns of Court, but in spirit it was a Soviet
showcase trial of the 1930s and some, but not I, would say, the trial by the
victors of the vanquished at
Had I been allowed my day in a legal
British court, I would have suggested that, at the dissolution of the mighty
January 2005
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Supermac and Supershell: The Hartley and
Maxwell Story
In 1960, Tom Sargant, the Secretary of
'Justice' told me that, as the Lord Chancellor - Viscount Kilmuir, aka David
Maxwell-Fyfe - and his Shadow Gerald Gardiner - Lord Chancellor in 1964 - had
agreed that I would never be allowed into an English court of law, I should be
given a 'trial' at 'Justice'. My lawyer, Chester Barratt, who was writing
letters to the Colonial Office on my behalf, was side-stepped, and I had no
defence at my illegal 'kangaroo' trial.
The reason for my 'trial' was
supposedly my claim for damages against Government for what they had done to me
after my first tour of duty in
. It was the mention of Gerald
Gardiner that calmed my fears and Tom's reassurance that the whole thing was a
good idea. I now know that it was a bad idea, but it is impossible to describe
why I was foolish and agreed to attend. I was extremely tired, and had lost
several stones in weight. I needed to talk it over at great length with a
sympathetic advisor, but everything took so long and things moved so fast. In
the end it was Tom and my liking and, I suppose, my
trusting him that did it. The whole thing was a fraud. It was a conspiracy to
shut me up. They thought I was an idealistic, young fool - and they were right.
I was also very honest.
I was protesting that
Let us be clear. The rigging of
Harold Macmillan, Supermac, was, I
believe, a machiavellian thug disguised as an English
country gentleman. He described Africans as 'barbarians'. His lack of public
morality links him to Stalin. I doubt that the loss of three million lives in
Iboland worried Supermac very much. Stalin had the same attitude. He said that
the loss of one life was a tragedy, but the loss of a million was a statistic.
These gentlemen were the cream of the
British legal establishment, and they put me on trial for treason. I was a nobody who left school at thirteen and was brought up on a
council estate in
In 1960 I continued to protest through
official channels. That did not prevent threats to my life by the Governor
General of
The
Some form of legitimacy was desirable
- this being
How to shut me up was agonised over by
the best legal brains in the
Eventually, some mighty legal talent
was assembled, and arrived at a solution. Somehow I had to be persuaded that I
had 'won' and could stop whistle-blowing. Loaded with honours and a lot of
money awarded secretly, I could then go off to the
Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe (one of many
Scots - fellow Celts - who hated me for not putting my career first) was the
Lord Chancellor. He achieved fame as the deputy chief British prosecutor at the
The chief prosecutor at
Macmillan gave Shawcross a peerage
(but Hartley says he could hve been made a Viscount if he had wanted) and it
just happened that Hartley had become a Shell Oil VIP, and their discovery of
large quantities of oil in Nigeria was the major reason for fixing the
elections there, so that the oil would be in 'safe' hands. Shawcross was a
friend of Gerald Gardiner, the Labour Shadow Lord Chancellor, who would take
office in 1964. As Labour had also agreed to destroy democracy in
The Colonial Office Minister, Iain
Macleod had little choice but to go along, although he did try to back out when
millions began to die as a consequence of these machinations, as did Labour's
Jim Callaghan, but it was too late. His junior Minister, Julian Amery, enjoyed
this sort of dirty work enormously and almost made a full-time occupation of
'covert operations'.
A prosecutor was needed, and
Maxwell-Fyfe, Gardiner and Shawcross decided that it would be better to use
someone not too well known. Actually their choice, Sir John Foster, QC, MP, was
very well known as a prosecutor for his ferocious manner. He too was
experienced with traitors, for he had tried to defend John Amery who had
assisted the Nazis. John was hanged in the Tower. As there was a Cold War on,
there were undoubtedly some, including my former boss George Foggon, a
Nazi-sympathiser himself, who would have wished a similar fate on me.
Maxwell-Fyfe was to act as teller in
another vital election when Macmillan was chosen to be Prime Minister over
Four eminent lawyers, a Prime
Minister, a Governor General, and two Ministers! This was some Star Chamber
Trial for a nobody off the council estate!
After my trial at 'Justice', Hartley
and Maxwell went off to
January 2005
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I was well acquainted as a Labour
Officer with the laws of
In 1956 the British parachuted in a
new Governor General who, as agreed in
Lord Hartley Shawcross, a Shell Oil
VIP, made a Lord by the Prime Minister as a favour to a friend, was Chair of
'Justice' and, persuaded that I was a traitor (for upholding the law!) gave me
a 'Kangaroo trial'* and rough justice at 'Justice', set up to
uphold the law and extend it to Africa! Sir John Foster, as Prosecutor,
launched a vitriolic attack on me. As I was not allowed a lawyer to defend me,
he had nothing to fear by way of contradiction. He accused me of betraying my
colleagues, in effect snitching on them. In fact, as a traitor, I was ratting
on everybody. I was the public school sneak personified.
Strange, but I thought I was upholding
the law. I have no idea what my thousands of colleagues thought, even if they
went along with this criminality under duress.
The leadership of the major UK Parties
is stuffed with QCs. Whey they collectively engage in criminality, I do not
know what their collective noun is. A "quorum"; a "quango"; a quackery"? (However, "quackery" may
be reserved for a collection of suspect doctors.) A "quagmire" or
"quail"? A "quaint" or "quake"
or "qualm"? Surely not a
"quality"? A "quash" or "quasi" or
"quaver"? Not a "queen" in a strictly non-royal sense! A
"queasy" is too nauseating, and a "querulous" is too
peevish and plaintive. A "quibble" has merit, but so have
"quidnunc" and "quiddity". A "quintessence" is
not fitting, and a "quirk" is too mild. We are getting close with
"quisling" if we rate respect or love of the law? A "quote"
is not quite sufficient, and we must rule out "quondam" and
"quotidian".
Perhaps they deserve the term a
"quiminality", if reduced to a stammer by their presumption. Surely
too, a Kangaroo Trial* staffed by real QCs must be a "Quangaroo
Trial", particularly so if they are also shady politicians. Which brings me to Lord Shawcross, in memory of whom perhaps we
should drop 'Kangaroo'. Henceforth our name for an illegal court should
be a 'Hartley'.
The world of law was indeed turned
upside down by the proceedings at 'Justice' in 1960, specially designed to give
rough justice to a 'turncoat'. The revenge motive was only paralleled by a
January 2005
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SINGALONG TIME - The Great
Numbers
'Bewitched, Bothered and
Bewildered'
'Rule Britannia' - Fool Britannia?
'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' Chamber
'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered'
Dr Azikiwe's attitudes to the British
are bewildering. Plural 'attitudes' because Zik clearly could
not decide whether he loved the British or hated them. As a nationalist
leader, he had a public persona to project and keep alive, and he would feel it necessary, as someone opposed to colonial rule, to
damn the colonial oppressors of his people. Zik had a problem here because the
British had a public persona to maintain too, so they were for the most part
very nice to Zik and never put him in jail. Behind his back they said he was an
old fraud, a poseur, an unscrupulous, conceited and quarrelsome troublemaker.
It must be remembered too that the British read his mail, tapped his telephone
and planted informers amongst his contacts, so they would know what his 'real'
views of the British were.
Zik had his intelligence service, too,
in the largely Igbo-staffed British administration. Zik's problem was that the
British administration was probably as relaxed and kind and sensible as any
colonial regime in history. It was not the fault of the men on the spot if
resources were scarce. These officials came to love
Zik was a great joiner too, and seemingly enjoyed hospitality and being made a fuss
of. Probably all the reports I noted are false. Surely Zik could not have
supported Freemasonry, Moral Rearmament, the Catholic Church, the Communist
Party and such a diverse group of disparate organisations. It seems Zik wanted
to be accepted as a VIP and leader of his people. He sought respectability. Zik
was not cut out to become a guerrilla fighter in the jungle.
The British were decent people.
However, they had not built a great empire by being soft. They could be tough
and ruthless, if opposed. It was sensible of Nigerians to accept British rule.
Rebellion could have had bloody consequences. Neither do we know of all the
excesses of British rule. The files are closed or destroyed. The British were
nice guys when possible and good behaviour was rewarded, but colonial rule is
not a children's tea party. We were an occupying force, with an army - though
small - of occupation. Our intelligence service - a synonym for the
administration, for all Britishers had a political and intelligence role - was
everywhere and superb. The administration too was very efficient and cheap to
run. The British were for the most part respected, liked and rarely unpopular.
It is little wonder that the British
confused Zik. Neither were they too serious about absolute power, and a gradual handover began many years before final independence on 1 October
1960. Zik was not the only one who was confused - many of the British were a
bit bewildered too. Few Northern administrators were best pleased at the
prospect of handing over power to the Southern tribal leaders, Zik and Awolowo.
It might have been all right if
So why did we come to rig
"It was necessary." We were
only obeying orders. The first part was absolutely categorical. Those were the
Governor General's words to me in his office in 1960 when I asked him why we
had rigged the elections. He implied the bit about obeying orders. He told me I
was the only senior British officer to refuse to take part. He also said that I
had been mistreated, which he openly admitted, not by him but by the
Actually - and this was not an
intellectual response but a surge of feeling - when he spoke indirectly of us
obeying orders, he got to me somehow and I wanted to go along with him and do
whatever he said. What he wanted was my word. My word never
to speak to anyone of how we had rigged the elections. Maybe he did not
know he had got to me. I have a strong sense of duty and believe... and
suddenly I really do not know how he got to me. Anyway, he soon lost me because
he switched to a very threatening stance. I do not respond to bullying, and I
realised that for all his considerable charm and attractiveness, he had an
icy-cold, amoral streak. What the balance of good and evil in him was, I do not
know. He certainly had a most attractive personality when he switched it on.
Robertson was, I think, extremely intelligent and he had a touch of warmth and
sympathy. As I say, he was getting to me. I am not good with men close up in
intimate conversation, but I felt he had some understanding of where I was. It
was quite a shock when I saw the cold steel. He went on to say he would destroy
me if necessary. I was more than frightened. I looked into his eyes. His
expression had changed totally. His eyes were dead. He made me feel he could
wring my neck and return to signing his papers without giving a second thought
to my body lying on his carpet.
Did I say that Zik was bewitched,
bothered and bewildered? Zik was not the only one.
25 March 1992
'Rule Britannia' Fool Britannia?
All too often the desired balance in
foreign affairs is not between the despised idealism and the favoured realism,
but between honesty and criminality. In fact the favoured excuse for
criminality is necessity. There is nothing new in all this. For centuries
Attlee's Government espoused honesty
and decency, and started the Cold War and set up a secret terrorist force that
practised state violence abroad for fifty years. However, Professor Charmley
tells us that Attlee was indeed an idealist, but that the trade union bully
Bevin got his way and overruled Attlee.
Wilson's bad behaviour in Nigeria,
which killed two million, was his own doing for he admitted that he was almost
isolated in his own Cabinet, but he got his murderous way. Paradox abounds and
a case could be made that British policy is to have no policy at all. Given the
mentality of the Oxbridge types, who run the Civil Service and particularly the
Foreign Office, this is hardly surprising. They have no experience of anything
but believe that they have a divine right to rule. One does not need to think
up insults for these unfortunates; telling the truth about them is devastating
enough.
Fool Britannia, Cruel
21 April 1998
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star Chamber...
The original Star Chamber was
supposedly abolished in 1641, but as befits a tribunal appointed by the Crown
and totally secret and severe in its judgements, it merely went underground and
out of view. The security of the State is the only business of the Star
Chamber, whatever name it goes by, whether it functions as an adjunct of the
Joint Intelligence Committee, or Privy Council, and its clientele or victims do
not even have to make an appearance. In wartime, spies are executed in secret
and traitors disappear, and the enemy is quietly assassinated. Much the same
happens, but less frequently, in peacetime, but in the Cold War, although it
was business as usual, more secrecy was called for.
The sentence I got was unemployment
for the rest of my life, which included, of course, the Civil Service by whom I
was employed at that time. Any attempt to reveal the state secrets to which I
was privy would be met by sufficient force to silence me. Some plea-bargaining
was offered. In exchange for my word of honour never to reveal what I knew, I
would have a brilliant foreign service career (I had
made a brilliant start, it was conceded), rapid promotion and honours of my
choice. Having declined these seductive offers, I was warned by a secret
service agent to flee Africa before they killed me, and by a CIA agent to make
a quick get-away and, when in London, by the use of a password, to make contact
with the CIA's Station Chief in London.
The Governor General who passed
judgement on me had clearly been fully briefed by his masters, both as to
whether to pass judgement, and the exact sentence to be applied. To persuade
me, as he said, of how much trouble I was in, he frankly admitted the total
truth of the fact that the British Government was shamelessly rigging
"I'm a civil servant," I
said desperately.
"Senior Colonial Service officers
are the same as Army officers, and you know the
penalty for disobeying orders on active service..." he answered crisply.
He was threatening, oh so quietly, as if discussing whether to have tea or
coffee, to have me killed. "Think of your wife and children," he added
compassionately.
As my existing entitlement under the
Widows' and Orphans' Pension scheme had been suspended, as he well knew, it did
seem he had overlooked nothing.
He emphasised that I was on my own,
though in truth three of us had protested.
"You are the only senior officer
in the whole service engaged in this operation who has
defied me and refused to obey my orders..."
His reference to the Army reminded me
of the strategies employed to induce me to transfer to the Army at high rank. I
had suspected a trap and now I knew that it had been one. His final threat was
to the point.
"If you refuse to give your word,
means will be found to silence you," he said...
This was the most powerful man in the
largest and most important and richest nation in black
If there is an appeal from the Star
Chamber, I have not yet heard of one. I was silenced, and I was never employed
again. Thereafter I was too busy trying to survive, to stay alive, to be much of a threat to public order.
`
Yes. We
Have No Bananas... (Popular
song: Silver and Cohn, 1923)
If
a) Does the Government rig elections?
b) Is the Press strictly controlled?
c) Is official corruption tolerated?
d) Is a civil servant denied redress against
injustice?
e) Is criminal Government action
tolerated?
f) Are civil servants punished if they
protest against criminal action by Government?
g) Are the secret services used to
initiate and cover up criminal covert Government action?
Here we have the seven deadly sins of
open and decent Government and, as I can demonstrate, the British Government is
guilty on all seven charges. Albion has become
We really do need a new national
anthem now that we are the mainstay of the European Community. A proud lyric on
the lines of, "Confound their Politics, Frustrate their knavish
Tricks..."
Perhaps.
20 June 1992