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After The
Obasanjo Primaries
By
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
No one
who had keenly followed reports and analyses of
developments on Nigeria’s political terrain in the past
couple of weeks would be surprised at the emergence of
the Katsina State Governor, Umar Musa Yar’Adua, as the
presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Indeed, it had been clear to even the blind and deaf
that the whole noise, big and high profile campaigns,
screening and re-screening by several committees, and
all the pomp and fanfare about the so-called National
Convention and Presidential Primaries were all intended
to give the nation the dubious impression that something
serious was really happening, or, rather, that some
really serious minded Nigerians were meeting to jointly
take an important decision with far-reaching positive
consequences for the future of their nation.
But, at
the end of the day, as any fool on the streets had long
known, that very important decision ended up a one-man
affair, based, not on national interest, but, solely, on
narrow, personal interests of just one man. Now, if by
any stroke of misfortune the PDP wins the presidential
election next year, Nigeria would end up with a
president, chosen by one man, and installed by the same
man, for his self-serving considerations, irrespective
of whatever the feelings of the rest of Nigerians are on
the matter or their stake on the Nigerian project. Let’s
not forget, too, that the election would depend solely
on whether that same man thinks we deserve to have an
election next April or not. Another name for this
sickening situation, I am reminded is: “Reforms”! Or you
may call it “Otta Farm Democracy.”
But the
real surprise in all these is why it would take some
really earnest presidential aspirants – otherwise very
intelligent men – all that long to realize that they
were mere props, in fact, ordinary decorations, or just
plain side-attractions, in an even not-too carefully
disguised grand design that had long been successfully
concluded. Why these serious and intelligent gentleman
would allow themselves to be cheered-on on a path they
ought to have known led nowhere would remain one of the
wonders of our “homegrown” democracy.
On the
eve of the so-called primaries in Abuja, Gov Victor
Attah of Akwa Ibom State, one of the PDP “presidential
aspirants,” was on Channels Television
speaking too much grammar with his peculiar accent,
waxing hot about his ambition to become Nigeria’s
President, and informing prospective undergraduates who
would be stupid enough to want to study courses like
sociology, religion, journalism, etc., that if he became
president, he would immediately rationalize courses at
our universities, and restrict the faculties that offer
those “useless” courses to just a few universities, so
as to reduce the number of people who study them each
year. According to him, instead of many students
offering those courses and ending up on the unemployment
queue, he would rather they studied more meaningful
courses which will make them employable once they
graduate.
I
understand Attah is an architect, and I suppose
architecture is one of those “meaningful courses” he
believes students should consider offering. Attah’s
thesis would serve to vindicate the glaring fact that
most of the hurriedly formulated policies that Nigerian
leaders plagiarize from other lands and impose on
Nigerians only serve to demonstrate their insufficient
familiarity with the reality on ground in Nigeria. Now,
apart from the fact that there are several architects
and engineers out there either also begging bread or
goaded by desperation to offer substandard services that
has led to the collapse of several buildings around the
country, with huge costs to the nation, I think that
Attah’s simplistic, lazy-man approach to the
unemployment issue would rather compound the problem he
thinks he has found an exceptional solution to. If the
nation today is equally finding it difficult to
gainfully engage those who are already graduates
of those “wonder disciplines” he is recommending to
every Nigerian youth, what would happen when the number
of graduates in those areas are multiplied through this
skewed reforms he is advocating in the university
system? Does that not serve to enlighten our “super
scientist” Governor that the problem deserves a more
creative solution than the one he has hurriedly dredged
up from only-him-knows-somewhere, perhaps, from the
dustbins of some back-street colleges in Britain, or
wherever?
Well,
this is not even my concern here, so let me not allow
myself to be distracted by some proud flaunters of some
ill-digested theories. Moreover, for now, Attah has
packed up his presidential ambition, warts and all, and
returned to Uyo with his big dreams and big grammar,
where rumour has it that he has, in strict compliance
with the PDP’s degenerate tradition, anointed his
son-in-law to take over from him as Governor of Akwa
Ibom State. And before he would ever have the
opportunity of thinking of becoming president again, he
would be well over seventy, and thinking of retirement!
Now, I
don’t know when President Obasanjo called up Attah and
instructed (yes, that’s the word!) him to end the
drama of wanting to be president, since the curtain had
been drawn. I suppose it was just immediately he emerged
from the Channels TV studious, after that
brilliant interview, feeling high and good with himself,
because of that primetime outing. And so, despite all
the flowery declarations of policy thrust, all the
expressions of belief in popular democracy, freedom of
choice and participation, civil culture and all that,
the whole thing had all been hinged on the whims of one
man, and once that one man issued a very terse order,
all the “presidential aspirants” genuflected with haste,
swallowed their ambition, and headed home. That’s
Nigeria’s democracy.
Now, did
Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State, whose only claim
to political stature, and, in fact, hope for victory in
both the presidential primaries and the actual election,
was hinged on the fact that he “was the beloved son,
in whom Baba was well pleased”, try to resist when
the instruction arrived at his doorstep that Baba has
now found another “son” in Katsina, and so, wants him to
also end his own comedy, put on his bowler hat and
return to the waiting hands of Mary in Port Harcourt?
Well, what became clear was that as the day of the
convention drew near, operatives of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), swooped on the
hitherto “forbidden and untouchable” territory of
“Baba’s beloved son” and, reportedly, arrested and
detained Odili’s Finance Commissioner, Mr. Kobani, two
other commissioners, Mr. Arumemi-Johnson, owner and
founder of Arik Air, and the Speaker of the State House
of Assembly, Mr. Amaechi.
Perhaps,
the message was lost on Odili, who still continued to
run his campaigns with zeal and fanfare. Then reports
began flying around that Nuhu Ribadu and his men were
now after him personally. In fact, the Times of
Nigeria (December 15, 2006) captioned it’s
report: “Odili May Be Impeached Over 200 Billion
Fraud”. According to the paper, “If feelers from
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission are
anything to go by, the Governor of Rivers State, Peter
Odili will soon join the ignoble list of impeached
governors. Sources close to EFCC investigators sieving
through the books of the oil-producing state say that
the agency may have discovered the misappropriation of
over 200 billion naira.” By this time, Odili has
already got the message and quit the race for good.
Now,
Yar’Adua has emerged the “winner” in the PDP
presidential primaries. I just hope the Katsina State
Governor would realize that he has enormous task on his
hands. He must go the extra mile to urgently commence
the most essential task of correcting the very
unflattering image the Obasanjo anointing has
unavoidably attracted to him. Long before he featured in
the many speculations about the PDP presidential hopeful
that would win Baba’s confidence, there have been
widespread reports that the only qualification that
would earn anybody the position Yar’ Adua has so
effortlessly collected today would be the willingness to
“protect Baba’s interests” when he retreats to his farm
in Otta. Of course, Yar’Adua should know what that
means. He needs no one to tell him that what this
implies is that he would never dare to ask any probing
questions about the stewardship of his predecessor in
office (if he wins the main election in April), or pry
into his sudden stupendous wealth and “legacies” located
here and there. Most importantly, he must show that he
would be counted upon not to reverse the “reforms”,
which (as he must understand) actually means the
auctioning off of Nigeria’s prized possessions to
friends and cronies that became part of our recent
history. “Reversing the Reforms”, therefore, means
revisiting those scandalous sales and digging deep to
find out whether those in power merely bought up Nigeria
through proxies.
To
ensure this arrangement does not backfire, the PDP
constitution has been hurriedly amended. Now only a
former president elected on the platform of the PDP can
become the Board of Trustees (BOT) Chairman. And when I
looked at the powers of the BOT Chairman as reported in
the papers last weekend, there is no doubt, that the
President in Aso Rock might end up being a mere errand
boy to the real president in the farm house. Especially,
if that “farmhouse president” is also the life-leader
of his party, with overwhelming powers. Democracy of one
man, by one man, and for one man!
Dear
reader, this is the Nigeria we have found ourselves in.
For while the Nigerian state has completely failed,
those who call themselves our leaders are only
interested in their personal welfare and comfort. In
Lagos now, places like Agric or Barracks in Ojo Area
have become war zones. Hoodlums operate any time,
anyhow, do whatever they like, kill whom they want to
kill, spare whom they want to spare, while our rulers
are busy jostling for power for self-serving reasons.
And from any fool can see, there appears to be
practically little or no governance going on.
Now, if
Obasanjo had read Robert Greene’s 48 Laws Of Power
and Nicole Machiavelli Discourses, it
would have dawned on him that no matter the extent of
manipulations he indulges in to plant surrogates,
puppets and toadies in power, with the hope of
teleguiding them from his farmhouse, this is one risk
bad students of power have always undertaken to their
grave disadvantage. If what the authors of these books
are saying are anything to go by, it is those same
seemingly pliable, loyal servants, who have been
“yessiring” you all these years that would look into
your very face, when they have finally consolidated
themselves in power, and cut you to size.
To
expect that an educated man (especially, one who was
even once known by his colleagues in the academia as
“Comrade Yar’Adua”), who also has his eyes on the
verdict of history, and who might even want to equally
have his own minions to genuflect before him, and leave
his own “legacies” here and there, would agree to hold
power in trust for one godfather somewhere in a
multi-million naira farm, and just be content to be his
mouthpiece, in this twenty-first century, would amount
to stretching uncritical optimism and wishful thinking
beyond their malleable limits.
Who
would have told Chris Uba (the self-acclaimed godfather
of Anambra politics and Obasanjo's friend) that the
seemingly pliable, “yessiring” former Gov Chris
Ngige of Anambra State, would prove to be his nemesis
once he ascended the throne? Fredrick Chiluba is
somewhere in Zambia, someone should hop across and ask
him to relate his own experience.
Na so
this world be.
* *
* * *
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is on the
Editorial Board of the Independent (www.independentngonline.com
), where he writes a weekly column (SCRUPLES) every
Wednesday. He could be reached with
scruples2006@yahoo.com
Source:
Independent Nigeria Online
posted 24 January 2007 |
