What happens when a president dies?

How Abacha died is a story that will never be fully told, particularly because of the embarrassing circumstances that—going by Amachree’s account—surrounded his demise. Another account states that he was killed by an American agent, although I am sceptical of that story for its heavy reliance on the word of government officials who have a motivation to cook up a conspiracy theory. Either way, Abacha died. His death will likely remain the stuff of lore forever, like the story of French president Félix Faure, who died in 1899 at the presidential residence, the Élysée Palace, after suffering a stroke. Because he was reportedly in the company of his mistress, Marguerite Steinheil, it is widely held that Faure died in active service. Just like Abacha, nobody knows for sure if he died during an intimate encounter. At least, those who knew would not confirm; those who confirm do not always know. Historians generally agree that Faure died after becoming ill during an intimate encounter, but no one will swear over it. That is how the story of Abacha’s death too will be told throughout history, disputed and affirmed according to prevailing interests. What I must admit is that I am partial to Amachree’s account because no one has shown he made up the story of interviewing the woman or that he has any motivation to lie about the whole affair.

What also needs to be said is that if Amachree had identified the woman in question, we ought to shower her with accolades. Politics could not have achieved what she did. Abacha had already captured the entire political space and was transforming himself into a civilian leader. If he had lived, he would have carried out that coup successfully. The activist class fought him vigorously, but they did not take him out. Many of them were exiled, and it was only a matter of time before he wore out their collective will. Nothing else worked against Abacha except his sickness and his own lack of self-mastery. For a military government that took delight in whipping us bloody civilians into shape, it is amusing how their top brass itself was grossly lacking in discipline. For all the visage of a disciplined commander that Abacha typically wore, the battlefront where he would eventually fall was the warm laps of a woman he had only just met.

Amachree’s book interested me for two reasons, and I asked a bookseller to procure a copy for me. One is that it sparked my curiosity about what goes on behind the scenes when a president dies. We know what happens constitutionally, but what set of protocols are prepared and rehearsed in the case of a president’s death in office? Or is everything that follows merely improvised? The account I have read about Abacha’s death suggests so. Some of the legitimate questions people have raised to scrutinise Amachree’s account, frankly, seem like an over-assumption that people in Aso Rock know what to do in the event of the death of the president. In Western cultures, where death is largely demystified, there are established protocols that anticipate the death of a political figure in office and—this is crucial—they occasionally rehearse them to refresh everyone’s memory and ensure the expected coordination of activities that follow. Now, try introducing that in Nigeria and see the superstitious part of our culture come out.

The gaping holes in the story about the said woman (if she was scrutinised to be sure she was not a foreign agent), her pharmacist sister (why she was not interviewed), and the results of an official autopsy (whether it even confirms Amachree’s account) might be more proof that a president matters only until a few hours after his death. Once he dies, he is no longer useful; interest in him starts to wane as everyone around him calculates what comes next for them. The high-stakes politics that surrounds these people does not leave room for prolonged deliberation about what killed the one who can no longer influence events. Interest immediately shifts to making mental calculations about who will replace the dead guy and how they will fare in the inevitable reshuffle of power about to follow. The political atmosphere around a dead president begins to change even before his soul fully leaves his body, and his most sycophantic loyalists have started to reassign their fealty. If the story of Abacha’s death and the aftermath did not wrap up neatly, it could be because those at the centre of action moved on too quickly.

The second interest I have in Amachree’s book is his reflection on the DSS itself, the agency where he served the nation for so many years. When I pick up the book, I will be looking for how the DSS declined institutionally. The DSS used to be “secret police”, but today they are everywhere, in your face like a social media clout chaser. Nigeria is in a state of insecurity. Terrorists and bandits constitute themselves into an authority and build legitimacy at government expense. Parents openly hold fundraisers to raise enough money to pay the bandits while the DSS is busy scouring social media to find a comedian to punish for satirising the president. Some years ago, DSS DG Yusuf Bichi joked that Nigerian politicians trusted Babalawos and marabouts more on security matters than the DSS. He thought he was telling a story of the paradox of a modern government, whereas it is a tale of distrust in an institution that continuously fails to justify itself.

Bandits openly flaunt their faces and loot on social media, but nothing ever happens to them. Yet, the DSS arrests comedians for saying unsavoury things about Bola Tinubu. How did it happen that national security has been jeopardised right under the nose of the DSS, but their institutional priority through two regimes has been to pursue SaharaReporters publisher Omoyele Sowore? Their agency has been so cheapened that a DSS official shot a tailor in Garki market over a petty dispute. What happened to their recruitment and personnel training process that someone left his office with his service weapon to go fight in a market? To understand how the DSS had no shame hiring a Babalawo to raid Sunday Igboho’s house because they took too seriously the fiction of his supernatural powers, one needs more than a general theory of Nigeria’s institutional decline. The people who are supposed to be ruled by rationality lent their institutional credibility to the sorts of fantasies popularised by the culture industries! Hopefully, there is some reflection in Amachree’s book that explains how they ended up with a leadership that ranks cheap spectacles over meaningful security management.