After the Mau Mau decision … how about the Aba Women?

Much of Nigeria’s media in an error of judgment, unfortunately under played the importance of last week’s decision on Kenya’s Mau Mau freedom fighters. The oversight is regrettable, for it affects us.

Last week, in a remarkable departure from the past and all that it implies, British Foreign Secretary William Hague in a statement to Parliament stated that Kenyans tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950’s are to receive compensation payments from the British government. It is a significant victory. For while the Mau Mau uprising was raging, the British was actively implementing not just coercive but brutal policies which in the opinion of Caroline Elkins writing in the UK Guardian online “left indelible scars on the bodies and minds of countless men and women suspected of subversive activities.”

We are in full agreement with Ms Elkins’ position. What is decisive here is that for the first time, a British Foreign Secretary has acknowledged that Kenyans had been subjected to ‘turture and other horrific abuses at the hands of the colonial administration during the Mau Mau emergency’.

He also expressed his “sincere regret” that these abuses took place, and announced payments of £2,600  for each of 5,200 vetted claimants, urging that the process of healing for both nations begin. Although the amount to be paid for atonement is pathetic even demeaning, we are delighted that there are still hundreds of Mau Mau veterans still alive 50 years on to accept vindication in person for the liberation struggle in which they played a decisive part. Their role led to a shot being fired which reverberated around the world. Indeed, they broke the mould and became an inspirational force.

In Nigeria, there is every reason to note this significant outcome. For with it, Britain has jettisoned its appeal of the Mau Mau reparation case which had hitherto been in the High Court. Filed in 2009, the case was the first of its kind against the former British Empire. The key issue now is that it should open a re-examination of “The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag” to adapt the title of Caroline Elkins’ mea culpa.

As she has pointed out “Britain’s acknowledgement of colonial era torture has opened as many doors as it has closed. Kenya was scarcely an exception. British colonial repression was systematized and honed in the years following the Second World War. First, in Palestine, and then Malaya, Kenya. Cyprus, Aden, Northern Ireland and elsewhere, British coercive counter-insurgency tactics evolved, as did brutal interrogation techniques. The Mau Mau detention camps were but one site in a broader policy of end-of-empire incarceration, torture and cover-up”.

There will obviously be claims from across Britain’s former empire and there should be. For it is the only way to get closure based on real justice. For this reason, here in Nigeria we must re-open the file on our colonial experience now that there is a convergence of opinion that British colonialism is not as benevolent as the propagandists have made it out to be.

We must now look at the brutality used to squelch for example the Aba women’s riot and the Enugu Coal Miners strike. In the case of the former, Abia state’s can-do ‘Ochendo’ for example can be motivated to lead a re-examination of the use of excessive force against the valiant nationalist women. Other such examples of brutality and excessive use of force in the colonial era must also be taken up across the nation.

Unfortunately, virtually all of these liberationists and freedom fighters have passed on. Nevertheless, justice must be done and their offspring’s compensated. They fought for de-colonisation and we must honour their patriotic memories. They deserve it.