By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The news of the death of the controversial Liberian warlord General Prince Yomi Johnson has just reached me. The man became friends with me whilst he was in exile in Lagos, Nigeria.
Let’s just do a quick recall of the gory video scene of the killing of then President Samuel Doe of Liberia. There was the beer-guzzling Prince Yomi Johnson sitting in judgment over the captured and tied-up Doe who was begging for his life thusly: “Yomi, two people fight, one win. Spare me, please.”
Of course poor Samuel Doe had his miserable life snuffed out.
Now the news has hit town that General Prince Yomi Johnson too
is dead.
A tear for him!
Prince Yomi Johnson used to live in exile in Ikoyi, Lagos, and I once had a memorable encounter with him. No appointment was fixed with the former warlord. I simply appeared unannounced at the frontage of the man’s Ikoyi home one hot Tuesday afternoon, and settled on a white plastic chair by the door of the bistro that led into the compound.
I ordered a drink from the dark and tall barmaid who would later introduce herself as the cousin of the man I had come to meet. It took 30 or so minutes for the man to manifest.
General Prince Yomi Johnson appeared as simple as the boy next
door.
I sprang to my feet and greeted. He shook hands as though not having a care in the world.
I told him I came to give him a book I wrote for the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) and that I expected to have the book he had just published in return.
Meantime, two itinerant newspaper vendors entered the bar.
Prince Johnson nodded at them, went out to the car parked outside and soon came back with seven books which he gave to the vendors to sell for him.
He autographed a book for me, and said he was now a born-again Christian who drank no alcohol. One could hardly reconcile the new Prince Johnson with the boozing and woman-chasing new exile in 1994 who had bitterly complained then that a beloved consort had left him brokenhearted through the chicanery of some friends!
Nobody would again report that Prince Johnson collapsed drunk behind the steering wheel of his car on a busy Lagos road! Prince Johnson had become the complete picture of the family man who dutifully undertook school runs.
When I made mention of the gory video of the killing of Samuel Doe, Prince Yomi Johnson recoiled in anguish, saying: “Comrade Brother Maxim, don’t go there!” He had turned a new leaf in his life.
“My dream is to set up the Africa Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution and Children’s Rehabilitation,” said Prince Johnson, casually flipping through the pages of his book entitled The Rise and Fall of President Samuel K. Doe and sub-titled “A Time to Heal and Rebuild Liberia.”
The then 54-odd-year-old father of 12 children told me he
planned to become “father of the fatherless and president of the homeless.”
He no longer had any time for war and hoped to devote the rest of his life to reconciliation rather than vengeance.
“Attempting to solve problems by force of arms only ends up opening more wounds,” he submitted, adding, “We must uphold the Constitution and respect it. It is lack of democracy that leads to armed struggle and unconstitutional change. Power becomes like glue for any man who has stayed too long on the throne.”
According to Prince Yomi Johnson, “When I broke from Charles
Taylor, he wanted me dead. Taylor was planning Vision 2024 without knowing that God will kick him out. Taylor said
he would only give me amnesty after Vision
2024 but God thought otherwise.”
Prince Johnson revealed that he had completed his memoirs which ran up to 935 hefty pages. It was his firm belief that anybody who removes an oppressive system should not compensate himself with power.
“A man who operates a machine-gun may not know anything about statecraft,” Prince Johnson stressed.
“When you have God, you fear nothing,” he said. “I used to go to Babalawo before. Now all I know is God.”
He narrated how he lacked money to buy diesel one day only to wake up after a prayer to meet a boy who had come back from Cyprus after serving under him in Liberia. The guy from Cyprus gave Prince Johnson enough dollars to buy diesel and pay his children’s school fees.
Also, when the Peugeot given to him by General Sani Abacha was always breaking down, he prayed and the then President Obasanjo promptly came to his aid.
Prince Johnson did not hide his love for General Ibrahim Babangida whom he always drove to Minna to see.
Likening himself to ants that gathered what they would eat during the rainy season in the dry season, he said, “Have you ever seen ants moving in the rainy season? They gather their food during the dry season.”
Prince Johnson was at peace with himself having reconciled with the widow and son of the slain President Samuel Doe.
In Prince Johnson’s words, “Christians who suffer are people who don’t have faith.”
Counting himself as a detribalized African, he stressed that ethnicity remained a major problem in Africa.
“For now I want to reconcile all Liberians and if ever in the future I should contest elections in Liberia, if I don’t win I will go back to my village to the farm,” Prince Johnson concluded.
Now my dear friend is dead.
Once again: a tear for him!
*Uzoatu, a poet, journalist and playwright is
a public intellectual
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