|
APRM:
Will the Dragon Dance in Abuja?
By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
Two weeks ago, at
the Editorial Board of the Independent
Newspapers, Lagos, we deliberated on the brilliant report
submitted by the Independent Panel of Eminent Persons appointed
by the Heads of State of the African Union (AU), who had, under
the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), assessed developments
in Ghana and Rwanda.
For me, the idea of
peer review is very healthy, edifying and utterly fascinating.
It affords Africans the ennobling opportunity to look at
themselves with objectivity and sincerity and tell themselves
unambiguous truths about themselves with candour and openness
for the good of the continent. The expectation now is that the
APRM will be given free hand to fully assume its position as a
credible benchmark for realistic assessment of the New
Partnership for African Development (Nepad).
It is indeed
encouraging that Africa has now recognized the need to
reposition itself in a manner that vindicates its maturity
before the outside world, through programmes and actions that
demonstrate clearly that the continent now possesses the
capacity and discipline for credible self-appraisal, and that it
can help itself stand firmly, and sincerely pursue realistic
policies that foster sustainable development. Indeed, the
continent is ready to show that it has the capacity to correct
itself with the best of intentions and make it impossible for
further patronizing assessments riddled with gratuitous insults
oozing towards it from the Western world.
Ghana and Rwanda
had offered to pioneer the self-assessment, and according to a
report in The New Times (Kigali) of June 22, 2005,
the two countries have been widely hailed for taking this very
bold, decisive first move. Nigeria’s President Olusegun
Obasanjo chairs both the AU and APRM, and so I had thought the
natural thing would have been for the leader to show example by
being the first to be assessed. Well, I have since had cause to
review that opinion.
Having looked at
the matter again, I now think it is good for everyone to first
observe the decent and civilized reactions of Ghana and Rwanda
to the report, so that when other countries are equally
examined, we can now juxtapose their response with that of Ghana
and Rwanda and determine the sincerity of those leaders who had
soaked in undue attention by over-advertising and
over-dramatizing the mere fact of their being the
initiators and directors of the laudable policy.
My colleagues at
the Editorial Board were particularly impressed by the reaction
of these two countries since the report was made public. For
instance, President John Kufuor of Ghana was told that he did
not need an 88 member cabinet in a struggling country like
Ghana. Also, according to Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg),
June 24, 2005, his country’s economy was described as
“relatively weak and highly vulnerable to external shocks,
especially the vagaries of world trade and sub-regional
political stability.”
But instead of
dusting up a habitually discourteous and loquacious fellow among
his aides to rubbish the report and describe it as the handiwork
of the enemies of “Mr. President” who are unable to
appreciate “Mr. President’s” (they are always too scared
to use a pronoun for him) great efforts to move Africa (not his
country) forward, Kufuor was rather grateful that the report had
helped him realize areas his administration could devote further
attention and harder work. “The country will continue to
implement the Programme of Action and be submitted to regular
reviews on its performance,” BuaNews (Tshwane,
South Africa, June 23, 2005) quotes Kufuor as saying.
The Mail
& Guardian (June 24) also credits him with this
statement: “We are not before this forum as people in the
dock. We are here as brothers to see our reflection so we can
correct the path we make in terms of governance and good
leadership for economic development and upholding human
rights.”
The APRM report
while commending Rwanda for having 49% of women in its
Parliament (about the highest in Africa), urged the country to
make its laws conform with international standards, and
sincerely pursue true reconciliation and its public finance
reforms. Rwanda also got a few “brotherly” knocks here and
there. But in his reaction, President Paul Kagame described the
APRM report as initiating in a “good learning process,”
which his country will benefit from, adding that Rwandans are
looking “forward to working with” other African nations as
they “carry out the corrective measures where weaknesses have
been identified.”
Now, I must confess
that it was difficult for me to contribute anything meaningful
to the deliberations on this topic during our Editorial Board
Meeting two weeks ago. I was more preoccupied with the future of
APRM which, to my mind, appeared very bleak.
The simple question
to ask is: Will APRM be able to survive a head-on collusion with
Nigeria’s President I-Know-And-Respect-No-Law
when the Eminent Persons Group eventually gets to Abuja for the
“brotherly” appraisal? In deed, the report that will emanate
from Nigeria is easily predictable by even the most porous brain
in the Isale Eko area of Lagos. Unless maybe the body of experts
coming to do the job will let themselves to be overwhelmed by
the Abuja magic and water down their report.
But until
APRM survives an encounter with Nigeria’s Emperor, everyone
should moderate his or her optimism about APRM revolution. I so
much yearn to be proved wrong, at least, this once.
After the recent
Abuja forum where this report on Ghana and Rwanda was unveiled,
President Obasanjo had described the report as “generally
satisfactory.” So enthralled by this apt description, Accra
Mail (Accra), captioned its Wed. June 22, 2005 report on
the Abuja meeting: “Satisfactory!”
Indeed, I can’t
wait to hear how President Olusegun Obasanjo would describe the
report that will be issued about his country when the body of
experts arrive Nigeria, probably, later this year. In its
editorial entitled: “Let Us Not Make Excuses,” Ghanaian
Chronicle (Accra), June 23, 2005, appealed to President
Kufuor “not to discredit the findings of the report,
especially, as the defects observed have more to do with the
lack of institutional capacity.” It then urged the government
to instead “come up with countervailing measures, as APRM
requires, so that” Ghanaians “shall collectively deal with
these identified shortfalls, for (their) democratic
advancement”
The Chronicle
should have saved its editorial for a more appropriate audience
in Abuja. Kufuor was being blamed for lack of institutional
capacity, what then would be said about my country, Nigeria,
held down by institutional and personal corruption at the
highest levels? What will be said about the countless
Special assistants, Senior Special Assistants, Special Advisers,
Senior Special Advisers, Ministers and Ministers of State, many
of who have over-lapping functions.
I once read where
one of them was being addressed as Special Assistant to the
President on Presidential Matters! (Whatever that means). There
are even more ridiculous ones. Just be reading Nigerian papers,
from time to time, you will keep seeing them. I even heard that
one noisy Special Assistant for Talk-Talk may not even
have an approved vote. He was once heard defending the letter he
wrote to a government corporation demanding some millions of
naira, in the spirit of anti-corruption and transparency
thriving in Abuja, to enable him run his
“office.”
APRM, did you hear
that?
Indeed, anytime
they arrive here, the body of experts will certainly hear about
the “executive extortion” represented by the outrageous
launch of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Otta, and
it is most unlikely they would be impressed by the infantile,
made-in-Aso-Rock legalism that the library project belongs to a
duly registered Foundation and not Africa’s (not Nigeria’s)
most righteous President (Nigeria has become too small).
Probably, Abuja
would instruct the Eminent Persons, as they do to us daily in
Nigeria, to forcibly accept the wild tale that Bells University
of Technology does not belong to the President, but his clone in
one remote part of Egbaland who also shares the same name with
him. You know that in Nigeria, the government does not make any
effort to convince anyone. It would just be beneath it to do so!
All it does is just to drop a statement for you and if you fail
to be convinced by it, then, you are a mischief maker, intent on
blackmailing Baba!
What will be the
reaction of APRM to the recent emergence of “Obasanjo
Undemocratic Party (OUP)” from the ashes of what used to be
known as Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)? Will they
be allowed just a glimpse into the oil sector where nauseating
and belly-aching rackets thrive daily with utmost impunity?
Well, by the time they arrive, someone must at least show them a
copy of the judgment already delivered on the presidential
election which Obasanjo had “won” in his home state, Ogun,
which was dismissed as mere fraud.
Fortunately, the
Supreme Court has just upheld Obasanjo’s “election.” But
why was there so much heat on Mohammed Uwais, the Chief Justice
of the Federation, a few days to judgment day, making rumour
mongers to go all over town with the tale that the man’s
travails have a lot to do with the judgment the apex court was
about to deliver on the petition of the All Nigeria’s
People’s Party (ANPP) presidential candidate, Gen Muhammadu
Buhari, challenging the landslide “victory” of Mr. President
in the last elections?
The thinking then
was that given the number of landmark rulings delivered by the
Supreme Court in recent times in cases wherein the interests of
Aso Rock were clearly predictable, and given that already the
electoral “results” of Ogun State, the President’s home
state, has been cosigned to the bin of infamy with the worst
kind of phrases, a retiring CJ Uwais would not wish to rubbish
his 38 years on the bench, 26 of which was spent at the Supreme
Court, by giving an “Egbo-Egbo” judgment in this
autumnal stage of his career.
And so,
anti-democratic forces had vowed that he must either be
stampeded out office “before he embarrasses the President”
or his integrity would be damaged so much that he would lack the
moral facility to deliver any credible judgment again. And from
the way the man so much sounded like someone about to keep a
date with the gallows in interviews he granted just some days
before the judgment, it did seem he was beginning to believe the
rumour.
Well, the judgment
has now been delivered by the highest court in the land, and
President Obasanjo has been declared “duly elected” in a
most scandalous election that astounded the world and shocked
international and local observers. All we can do now is to go
about our normal businesses in a country so badly managed that
even the most basic amenities, like regular power supply, taken
for granted by citizens of even leanly endowed countries, is
grossly lacking.
But now that the
“right” judgment has been delivered, will the grievous
allegations of corruption and gross abuse of office
against the CJ by a lawyer in an open court be now swept under?
Well, I am fully in support of a full-scale investigation to
discover whether the man had got his hands soiled as is being
alleged; but the desperados in Abuja must realize that it is
also in their interest that the apex court still remains the
sole surviving credible institution in the land, after the most
disgraceful death and burial of the two Houses of Assembly in
Abuja.
Those who are
destroying all our organized systems and seducing anarchy into
an exalted seat for ephemerally beneficial self-serving reasons
cannot predict where exactly the monster will start to kill and
devour. We better make ourselves to see reason.
There were reports
that Nigeria’s turn in the peer review exercise might be in
October. All in Africa should wait in anticipation to see if
APRM will emerge from Obasanjo’s Nigeria in one piece. If it
is not rubbished and disbanded after coming to Nigeria, then, it
will become clear that it has come to stay. Surely, it won’t
be a long wait.
posted 8 July 2005
* * * * *
update 9 February 2008 |
