You won’t believe the confession I’m about to make. I actually missed Baba Iyabo, General Matthew Olusegun Okikiolakan Aremu Obasanjo, last Tuesday, when I saw the swagger of some of our Governors on television in London. For a moment, I actually thought a new Acting President had been chosen from their rank. There was this particular Governor who looked so imperial and was busy firing orders at the Acting President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, just like teachers do to a recalcitrant student. Holy Moses, I screamed! What is Nigeria turning into? It was obviously a payback time for the avuncular protection of his benefactors.
The thrust of their retrogressive position was their well-advertised closeness to President Umaru Yar’ Adua. They even roped in the Lagos State Governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola as being one of those very close to the sick President. Please, tell me what such fabled closeness has earned Lagos, where all the Federal roads and other institutions remain in shambles, and Fashola is being discouraged by Federal agents from clearing off their mess. So Nigeria must bleed to death because of the bloated egos of a few people who can’t appreciate how transient power is. (By the way, I saw on the same network news as the former Governor of Nasarawa, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu, was being led into a Federal High Court in Lafia, on 149-count charge for corruption, by EFCC operatives. He looked pitiable and devoid of his old confidence.) No condition is permanent.
Where were those Governors when Baba Iyabo reigned supreme in Abuja for eight years and nearly added four years as top-up? These same guys could not muster a whimper at the time. In fact, most of them used to flock around Baba to re-assure him of their unflinching loyalty. The fear of Nuhu Ribadu then was the beginning of wisdom. They knew Baba Iyabo would waste no time in dusting up their dirty files. He would have unearthed all the giant worms in their cans, and the fat skeletons in their wardrobes. A prompt impeachment would have been arranged in the middle of the night by the kidnapped members of the House of Assembly. What haven’t we seen before in our country?
These Governors had broken themselves into two sections weeks ago and held the so-called Northern Governors Forum summit where they threw their weight behind the ailing President. In less than two days after, the same group made a volte-face when they joined the rest of their colleagues and said they now believed Jonathan should be allowed to act as President. One of the first obligations performed by Dr Jonathan was to sign off a fat cheque to the Governors from the excess crude sales account. Who didn’t understand the rules of the game? These same Governors would later come back to tell Nigerians that we should wait for Yar’ Adua to fully recover, and that the impending impeachment was out of the question. As if that was not bad enough, they are moaning that the Acting President did not consult them before constituting his Advisory Committee headed by respected former Army General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma. I’ll like to ask if they ever consulted anyone before they hired and fired their multitude of aides.
Say what you will, Baba Iyabo was the kind of President Nigeria needed; iron-fisted, egocentric, brave, combustive, temperamental, ruthless, ambitious, and much more; but, unfortunately, he couldn’t translate those attributes into making Nigeria a better nation. No Governor would have had the temerity to talk down on Baba Iyabo the way they did to Dr Jonathan this week. Now we have an apparently incapacitated President; a most audacious First Lady; and an incredibly soft Acting President. How blessed or cursed can a country be? The Legislature is blowing hot and cold. We have just been told the health of the President is beyond discussion. What is more important than the virtual disappearance of the President of Africa’s biggest nation without any trace in hundred days? The popular refrain in our new national anthem is “it is not a crime to be sick.” I wonder who criminalised the President’s sickness if not his family, and those cronies who have chosen to make a fetish of what ordinary people go through in life.
What exactly are they hiding if not to make proceeds from the misfortune of a man who deserves our respect and prayers at this difficult time? Has the President contracted a disease that is unknown to the medical books or why this recourse to abracadabra? The party which claims to be the biggest democracy agent in Africa has already pre-determined those who can contest the next election and those who cannot. The party’s politburo has even completely ruled out a large chunk of the country from fielding a presidential candidate. There are strong indications that our omnipotent First Lady may decide to contest in her own capacity, or toss a coin between her well-positioned in-laws to determine who should go first lest the daughters exchange fisticuffs. This is our dear old Nigeria, the land of possibilities.
And who says the President cannot rule from anywhere? A President may soon enter the book of records as ruling from the grave, courtesy of unprincipled politicians. We now have an e-President, unseen but very effective, running a government by remote control. The Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, spewed out some odoriferous comments as he came out of one of their meetings. He said he likes the Acting President, because “Goodluck Jonathan is not an ambitious man.”
Now we know we have a party of people without the requisite ambition to move our nation forward in the right direction. Ambitious people always dream big, like the oil sheikhs in Dubai and Qatar. Our own prodigal sons would rather fly aimlessly to Saudi Arabia in search of treatment instead of building their own hospitals at home. They’ll rather waste our money in search of a President they know would never be found. An ambitious Chairman would not have embarked on the merry-go-round to Saudi where he could not even see his own President. We sent six powerful Ministers all the way to Saudi Arabia to meet a Foreign Minister who would help transmit our gratitude to the Saudi King for looking after our President in his royal hospital.
Then the Governors added their own insults to the festering injury, by telling the Acting President to forget the idea of impeaching a chronically ill President. They even told him he has to sanction his boisterous ministers and turn them into robots. I wouldn’t have minded if these were stark illiterates who lacked the knowledge of modern politics but some of them were sent to good schools by their parents only to end up in the mud of Nigerian politics. What manner of backwardness are these guys trying to force on our nation when Ministers can no longer disagree in public? The future of Nigeria cannot be safe in the hands of some of these guys who see power as an end in itself.
Please, where is Baba Iyabo? I’ll bet my last kobo that he would have slapped a few of these guys black and blue. Let’s give honour to who it is due. No governor, no matter how delirious, would have found the courage to give Baba Iyabo such disrespectful instructions. The harbinger of such spurious message would have been forced to confess both his sins of commission and omission in a jiffy. The message itself would have evaporated as quickly as it was conceived.
I’m beginning to think that it is a crime to be a gentleman in Nigeria. Goodluck Jonathan is being forced to pay the price of being a level-headed politician. The joke in town is that Jonathan is the only man born in the creeks of Bayelsa who’s not a militant. He’s a perfect gentleman who would never attempt to rock the boat. The other joke flying around is that “Goodluck and Patience got married but they’ve not been able to give birth to a child called Courage.” But jokes apart, the Governors have clearly demonstrated that they are disconnected from the people they claim to serve. I’ll love to examine the logic behind their irascible actions. What is very painful is that a few Governors are committing these atrocities in the name of all the Governors, including the few good ones among them.
Let’s start with the North-South dichotomy. Zoning is no where enshrined in our Constitution. When did the wishes of PDP become synonymous with the aspirations of Nigerians? How many Nigerians in reality are card-carrying members of PDP? Why must PDP continue to delude itself that Nigerians would continue to allow the type of rigging the party seemed to have perfected over the years? Every Nigerian I know except the few hawks in power are ashamed of what politicians are doing to our collective psyche. The argument that Jonathan cannot contest presidential election next year is not tenable no matter how hard they try.
Are they saying even if Jonathan achieves what no Nigerian has been able to fix in 50 years, they’ll force him to step down for a Northern candidate? How can a country as potentially great as Nigeria become reduced to the level of a woman who’s being gang-raped by hoodlums? Most Nigerians are dying for good, efficient and accountable governance, irrespective of where such leader comes from. Zoning can no longer be elevated to the level of religion. I’m reasonably convinced the North has advanced beyond the primordial sentiments being promoted by a few oligarchs on its behalf. These are the set of leaders who have mercilessly impoverished the North almost beyond redemption.
I challenge the so-called champions of Northern interests to come out and show how they’ve developed the North. Instead, they have only succeeded in breeding some of the bitterest youths in the land by siphoning out the resources meant for their general wellbeing. Unlike in the past, the Northern youths are now aware of the issues at stake and better poised to reject the age-old tradition that has kept them down without justification. I know, because I encounter many of these bright guys and ladies on the internet and everywhere I travel.
My prediction is if Jonathan performs well, Nigerians will not worry about where he comes from. He’s a true citizen of Nigeria who has not displayed unbridled lust for power like his colleagues. He has exercised great caution, unlike those who want to set Nigeria on fire at all costs. Is it not only reasonable to promote the candidacy of an Ijaw man as President now that the near-impossible opportunity has presented itself? Jonathan did not throw himself up. He was chosen by an uncommon destiny. Why are these Governors trying to play ethnic card against him?
They alleged that he chose a Northern Christian and a Southern Christian to head his body of advisers. Where were they when two Muslims, Chief Moshood Abiola and Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe contested election in Nigeria as President and Vice President? Didn’t the Christians vote for them? The Governors cannot continue the old game of playing ethnic and religious cards in order to perpetually enslave us all. What has the zoning achieved for Nigeria other than for a few parasites to gain access to power and by extension an atrocious acquisition of wealth?
Let me even play the devil’s advocate here. What happens if a sick President dies in power? Are the Governors saying his Vice President would not be immediately sworn in? And if and when he’s sworn in, would he be told that he’s only a houseboy who cannot aspire to the high office because he’s been disqualified on account of his place of birth? What nonsense? Let me even stretch it further. If the understanding of the zoning formula is about equality and fair-play, Jonathan is more qualified to run for the next presidential election. He comes from an area that produces our wealth. Yet no President has ever emerged from that zone. Now that one has emerged miraculously, and due to no fault or scheming of his, the Governors are telling him to perish the thought.
Since those who should protect our hard-earned democracy have chosen to toy dangerously with it, the Nigerian people must rise up once again to rescue our nation from these hijackers who would stop at nothing to retain power at all costs. We must assist Jonathan in finding his bearing and the courage to stand up to these bullies. I’m happy that Lt. Gen. T. Y Danjuma has already told Dr Jonathan that there is no time to waste. If and when Jonathan begins to wield the big stick, the conspirators will begin to toe the line. He has nothing to lose if he goes ahead to run the government his own way. He should go ahead and show that he’s indeed the Acting President and Commander-in-Chief and not a houseboy. It is a chance of a lifetime to end this slavery.
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