By Usman Adams
I first met Lt Gen. Victor Samuel Leonard Malu in 1965 when I gained admission to the then Provincial Secondary School, now Government College, Katsina Ala. The late Gen. was in form four by the time I arrived to start in form one.
Ordinarily, in a school set up there is little or nothing that would bring a form one student and someone three years ahead of him together but in the case of the late General there were certain attributes which I admired in him. He was a great sports man being a member of the school’s football team and a great rugby player and member of the school hockey team. In today’s Nigeria, late Gen. Malu could be equated with the likes of Lionel Messi, the Argentina star.
On my part, I was adjudged as a great athlete being a member of the school junior athletics team who was awarded an athletics medal in December 1965. I also saw late Gen. Malu as a serious minded student who didn’t bother about the shortcomings of his juniors and had no cause to maltreat them and who believed that his fortunes and interest lay beyond the precincts of the college.
In retrospect, I also my believed that he was already thinking about what his future and was therefore not surprised when he found his way into the Nigerian Defence Academy in 1967 as part of the 3rd Regular course. In any case he had some precedents. His two notable kinsmen Col. Joe Akaham was Chief of Army Staff and died in a mysterious helicopter crash during the Biafran civil war and Lt Col. Shande who also died during the Biafra war, were examples of gallant military officers.
Although I had some misgivings about how some senior students were treating the younger ones I had concluded long after I arrived in Katsina Ala that the late Gen. didn’t have such deficits and I therefore saw him as a man of honor and candor.
In 1967 I relocated from Katsina Ala to Government College, Kaduna, a stone throw from NDA, Kaduna when Malu was already a cadet officer. My perception of Malu as a kind and fair-minded person may have persuaded him to seek justice and intervention from him when I was unjustly accosted by his fellow cadet officer in 1968, who seized a Nigerian military school, Zaria face cap I put on. When I took the matter to Malu he sent for the cadet and pointedly told him to return my cap to me “immediately” and said that he should have cautioned me instead of seizing the cap.
This anecdote reveals a lot of silent issues – that even if the weaker ones cannot immediately fight back injustice, it could remain in their heart. Secondly, in times of distress a weaker person instead of running to the older and stronger person for protection may run away from such a person because of his earlier bitter encounter with such a person.
I ran to then cadet Malu because he was a fair-minded and could protect me and he didn’t disappoint. Because of the vicissitudes of life I could not follow the career of Gen. Malu closely until he was appointed ECOMOG Force Commander in Liberia from 1996-1998. He distinguished himself as a gallant and tactical military commander that broke the back bone of the rebels which led to the eventual end of the Liberian civil war.
Late Gen Sani Abacha must have also recognized his military acumen when he appointed him head of a seven-man military tribunal to investigate roles played by soldiers and civilians in the plot to overthrow him. He performed that role creditably devoid of sentiments even though he recognized that the career and lives of his colleagues were at stake.
Gen. Malu reached the apogee of his military career in 1999 when he was appointed by then President Olusegun Obasanjo as Chief of Army Staff (COAS). Although the circumstances that led to his premature retirement in 2001 were not clear to most Nigerians it was however obvious that it had nothing to do with his professional competence.
In any case many of those who admired and followed his military career admitted that he had more than paid his dues to his country. The issues that led to the invasion of his country home, Tse-Adoor, in Benue state by the very Army he had once led and several unsubstantiated allegations against him by then government must have saddened him, particularly at a time when he was not in the best of health and the payment of his military pension were also being held at the time.
As he is being laid to eternal rest on October 29 at his country home Tse-Adoor along Katsina-Ala Zaki-Biam road in Benue state, the priest at the funeral must say his soothing words but humanity is also astounded whenever death occurs. The words of Shakespeare that “one who dies today is quit for another” could relieve humanity from the pains and mystery of death because death is a necessary end for all human beings.
The question that those who would be at the funeral and those opportune to read this piece should constantly ask themselves is whether it is worth the while going to the extreme that some of us usually go in the pursuit of our daily engagement while at the end of the day it is only God who knows the day and the hour. My condolence goes to his immediate family, members of the Katsina-Ala Old Boys Association (KAOBA), the entire people of Benue state and the country at large just as we pray to Almighty God to bless his soul.
Adams, a member of KAOBA, writes from Abuja.
