Prime Minister
I have never attended a durbar before and I did not know really quite what to expect. I did not really quite know what to expect in Kano. I have never seen so many people out in the streets. It was partly, I think, because there was a durbar and there must have been hundreds of thousands. I thought, when we went inside the city walls, there might be fewer but, in fact, there were not—it increased enormously.
The pageantry of the durbar and the numbers taking part … I thought the most impressive thing was really the horsemanship. With the numbers of people, their control of the horses on the parade ground was superb. At first, I wondered if they were going to get into any sort of order, but if you looked at it they did as they went into an outer circle and an inner circle and then, when they started the charge with the horns, the drums the firing those horses never flinched. They were controlled perfectly to come up sharply in front of the stands. I do not think I have ever seen horsemanship like it before.
I think it was wonderful to get out of Lagos, to come and see life in one of the great cities of the north with a very ancient history and to see how, in a way, it still evolves round all the old traditions and in a way they are really like the sort of skeleton in [end p1] the body; they are the whole framework of society still. There are the old loyalties—and they are still there and they still in a way govern the whole way of life, although I think in many ways they have kept in touch with the people the entire time. Wherever one goes, either in the Arab World or here, you find that they have audiences and they go about constantly among the people and the palace is not merely a palace for an immediate family, but it is a palace where they are constantly meeting the people and there is constant coming-and-going.
I thought it really was a fantastic day and I am very grateful that we managed to get into Kano because of the preparations that have been made for us; just think how guilty we would have felt had we known there was all this and we had not been able to get in.
I am sorry it was a little bit difficult for some of you, but that was really because there were so many people about.
Question
Did that trouble you, Prime Minister?
Prime Minister
It did not trouble me, but I know you have to get back with your pictures and some comments and it was not very easy because there were so many. Even when we got back here there was another whole crowd and I must say there were comparatively small demonstrations compared with the numbers of people and the numbers of press here. It is a pretty free society. [end p2]
Question
But there were a number of incidents involving members of your staff as well in the crush!
Prime Minister
They are perfectly all right. It was remarkable, I think, that they were. I am always worried when there are that number of people about that they might get caught, but I thought on the whole, bearing in mind the fantastic numbers that there were in the crowd, they did not do too bad a job of controlling it, but on the parade ground where there were people swirling about, horses, people accompanying them, spears, guns, the actual discipline control almost that you could not see, but they knew what to do; they knew when to do it. It was very good.
Question
Prime Minister, what about your talks with President Babangida and the substance of your visit to Nigeria? Do you think you have made headway in your arguments over sanctions?
Prime Minister
Yes, very much so. In the arguments over sanctions, I think our argument is a valid one and I think that we have not set it out sufficiently often, which is why I set it out—I will not say in great detail—but the main strands of the argument last night, [end p3] together with what we are doing and then put in the phrase: “This is too little known and too little recognised!” and I saw some people nodding at that.
But although we take a different view of it, it did not play an overpowering part in the discussions because there was too much else to discuss, nor indeed did it affect the fundamental friendship in any way.
President Babangida is very easy to talk to because we both talk in a very straightforward, undiplomatic way, you know, without jargon.
Question
Do you think you have now built bridges to Black Africa?
Prime Minister
Yes. There always were quite a number, you know, as I indicated on the first night we met. There always were a number from the Lusaka days because some of the things they say or think are totally incompatible with the fact that we brought Rhodesia to full independence.
Question
But you have improved those bridges then? [end p4]
Prime Minister
Of enormously, yes; enormously.
Question
Prime Minister, may I ask how you are going to get home your gift from the Emir?
Prime Minister
I asked if, very kindly, they would look after the horse for me, because I thought it would be happier here!
Question
Prime Minister, looking at the whole trip to Africa, how have your preconceptions about this continent and this part of the world changed?
Prime Minister
This continent is very varied indeed. You talk about sub-Saharan Africa. It is rather different on the west coast than some of the things on the east coast. You look within Nigeria; it is very varied.
You look back over our history with this continent and also with India: there was no united India before we were there. Then, of course, as we left it went to Pakistan and then Bangladesh. There was no Union of South Africa before we were there; it was [end p5] four different states. There was no Nigeria; before we were here, it was many many different states—twenty-one; it was nineteen; they have gone to twenty-one; it was many different states, so within each of those you have got many disparate groups—should I say a wide variety—each with their own culture, and so it is very different even within a territory. Even within Kenya, there are a number of different tribes as we have different clans.
I think they have problems in government with the size of a country like this, but provided you get the framework of government right with the loyalty to the country, then I think the variety of the many different groups is probably a strength to them.
So you have countries partly created through the colonial period by our putting them together. They have, I think, very wisely kept the boundaries, because once you started to undo them, you do not know really quite where you would be. Sometimes the boundaries went across tribal customs and sometimes people go across the boundaries now with their tribal customs, but I think in Africa the OAU very wisely agreed the present boundaries and worked within them.
There are enormous differences within Africa of kinds of governments, different cultures, different ways of life. It is not for us really to pronounce on them. [end p6]
Question
Do you not think the French have done rather better … .
Prime Minister
Just look at the size of Africa and look at the number of differences that you get from John O'Groats to Athens! Now that is not far if you look at the differences in Africa. It just gives you some idea of the even greater differences that you might find on the African continent, from Alexandria right down to Port Elizabeth or Cape Town.
Question
Prime Minister, but politically, what you have encountered in your first trip to Black Africa has been opposition to your policies …
Prime Minister
It is not my first trip to Black Africa, with all due respect. While I am Prime Minister, yes, first tour.
Question
But what you have encountered as well have been some protests from the general public over your policies over sanctions and opposition to our policy as well from both the leaders. [end p7]
Prime Minister
They are not protesting. They were organised protests, both in Lagos and here, and very little else. No more organised protests than I would have had in big cities in Britain by the anti-apartheid campaigners who do not accept our arguments.
Question
But you have seen or heard nothing to change your mind?
Prime Minister
No. I have said to you before, I do not alter my arguments wherever I am, because I believe they are valid arguments and as I put it to people: in your own country, you know that you cannot have prosperity for all people unless you build a strong economy. You cannot build prosperity for all people in South Africa and full political rights if you destroy the economy, and what do you think people in your own country would say if you went out with a policy saying “We are going to impoverish you and some of you will be in acute hardship, for a political belief!” ? It would not in fact help South Africa.
It would make it much more difficult. It would make it much much worse. It would bring about far more hardship in the front-line states and do not forget the front-line states are not the front-line states; three of them are: Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and the two within Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho. The [end p8] others, Tanganyika and Zambia, are not front-line; they are called front-line states, but they import heavily from South Africa. They require roadways, seaways, through South Africa, and the reason why, believing passionately in comprehensive sanctions, they have not in fact put more on is because they know the effect on their own people and then they say, as they did at Vancouver: “Don't tell us we have not put them on! We are not in a position to put them on!” So you say: “Why not! Because it would harm your own people!” They do accept, when it comes down to it in practice, the validity of the argument.
We have won the argument and what we have got now is the rhetoric, because they never make a “Why?” . They say you have got to have punitive, comprehensive sanctions to bring apartheid to an end. You say: “Why? How?” They never make that link. They never make it because it is not there to make, so you are dealing with rhetoric.
In the meantime, I think on the ground in South Africa things are changing. It is quite absurd in my view—and I say this to them and to whomever I am talking—to attack some of the big companies who are actually breaking down apartheid for sound economic reasons, because you have got to train people. You have got to train them according to their ability. There is no job reservation. In Harry Oppenheimers they are training people as black managers. They are paid according to the job. [end p9]
Question
Do you feel that as a result of your trip here to Kenya and to Nigeria, it will be worth pursuing the idea of taking the whole thing further and possibly going towards the front-line states, going to South Africa again?
Prime Minister
I do not think it would help to go to South Africa at the moment in any way and there is no point in going. I have been once. There is no point in going unless it would be helpful.
Question
But what about the front-line states and perhaps South Africa after that?
Prime Minister
I do not think we are going to have very much chance this year to do much more in Africa, which is why I was anxious to do it at the beginning of the year, because we have got quite a full programme. We will look next year, because towards the end of next year we have another Commonwealth Conference and before that, I think one would like to see what has happened on the ground and see whether there is another election in South Africa or what is actually happening in practice. [end p10]
In the meantime, we do keep up the pressure through our ambassador. I do believe that the concept of the Eminent Persons Group was right—the suspension of violence on one side with genuine negotiations with all groups on the other.