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Will President YarAdua Be Kind?
By Ugochukwu
Ejinkeonye
About forty days after Mr. Umar
Musa Yar’Adua was sworn in as Nigeria’s president and
the nation was saturated with loud calls on ex-President
Olusegun Obasanjo to leave alone the new man he
single-handedly imposed on Nigerians to implement his
own ideas and programmes to “move the nation forward”, I
published a piece in my newspaper column and on several
internet news sites entitled,
In
Nigeria, Yar’Adua Reigns, Obasanjo Rules, asking
those trying to shout our heads off whether they were
sure “Yar’Adua himself [was] even desirous and eager to
be rid of the overbearing influence of Obasanjo?”
I said:
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Is he really ready to
take charge? Are we sure that the
‘Servant-leader’ is not even too grateful
that Obasanjo’s meddlesome and looming
shadow are providing perfect alibi for what is gradually
appearing as his stark visionlessness? I would certainly
want to know those great ideas of Yar’Adua’s which
Obasanjo’s meddlesomeness is preventing him from
unfolding! The truth, as we know it, is that Yar’Adua
never wanted to be president, and so, he never sat down
to draw up anything that vaguely looks like a blueprint
for the country’s redemption. When he was conscripted by
Obasanjo and imposed on both the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) and Nigerians at a time elections were
merely a couple of weeks away, he was too preoccupied
with the thought of winning elections to have any time
to concentrate and think about how he would rule Nigeria
… it soothes Yar’Adua, [therefore], to still have
Obasanjo in charge, while he enjoys the perks of office
without the responsibilities that go with them. And at
the end of the day, when another four years of
devastating failure must have been successfully enacted,
Yar’Adua can conveniently come up with the theory that
he was not allowed to implement his
‘superior ideas’. |
The essay, judging by the reactions
it generated, won me many friends who thought that my
judgment of the ‘Servant leader’, though too early in
the day, could hardly be faulted.
But there were a few who maintained
that it was unfair to state like I did that the
president (who was barely a month in office) presented
the perfect picture of “a pitiably confused leader
groping his way through an impenetrably dark alleyway.”
Well, I have since been vindicated
because the crippling directionlessness and benumbing
passivity which President Umar Musa Yar’Adua presides
over in Abuja today have clearly validated the ‘heresy’
I dared to utter about forty days into his regime, so
much so that it has since become a permanent feature in
virtually every public commentary or formal and informal
discussions on the present regime. Unlike the time I
first expressed it, the view has now become all too
common and very obvious to elicit any more surprises. In
fact, I doubt if it still has the capacity to make the
president feel embarrassed.
Okay, I have been proved right, but
where has that left us? Nigeria is presently weighed
down by so many big problems, but here we are, stuck
with a president who can neither be hurried nor bothered
that the nation he is supposed to be ruling is dying
every day.
Yes, we have a ruler who cannot be
made to allow even the slightest hint of urgency in his
moves and seems not to have the barest idea of what it
means to be perturbed that he had flopped on virtually
every promise he had made to the nation. In fact, it
does not appear he can even be brought to lose any sleep
that he has failed even before he started, and that most
Nigerians have since lost every confidence in him. Many
are no longer able to feel there is a government in
Abuja! What is plastered everywhere are utter
hopelessness and despair.
Here is a president who evidently
came into office without any ideas, focus, any coherent
action plans or even an average understanding of what he
was coming to office to accomplish. And so, each time
his attention is called to the mounting problems begging
for his urgent intervention, he appears startled and
looks as if he feels he is being unduly bothered. It
looks very much like what he would prefer is to merely
sleep through the problems with the blissful hope that
he would wake one day to see all of them solved.
Maybe we should not even blame
Yar’Adua, because, come to think about it: what exactly
did he promise Nigerians during his so called
campaigns in which he was an imposed, “unwilling”
candidate?
Okay, I remember that he kept
saying something about “Energy Challenge” which he
intended to tackle headlong. But since he came into
power, the energy situation has worsened beyond what
anyone had imagined was possible in a richly endowed and
high-earning country ruled by a human being. The
Obasanjo junta had allegedly squandered about $16
billion to plunge Nigeria deeper into thicker darkness,
and the toxic revelation had caused Nigerians untold
mental torture. But to demonstrate his utter disdain for
the feelings of Nigerians on this heartless pillaging of
the nation’s resources, and his unambiguous opinion on
the astounding revelations at the power probe panel,
President Yar’Adua recently appointed three governors (Liyel
Imoke, Segun Agagu and Danjuma Goje) who had served as
Ministers of Power in that darkest period of Nigeria’s
history to serve in the so-called Presidential
Implementation Committee on Power.
What this should mean is that in
the thinking of the president, these men deserved to
be applauded by all of us for colluding with Obasanjo to
ensure the nation remained in impenetrable darkness.
What Yar’Adua has dropped is a bold hint on what he
would do with the power probe report once it gets to his
table. What an unlucky nation!
If till now there is hardly any
evidence that Yar’Adua has been able to achieve an
appreciable grasp of the enormous task facing him as
Nigeria’s president, then it would be most foolish to
hope that he would still not be groping for direction
even after two years from now. In fairness to the man,
it could well be said that since he had raised no hopes
from the beginning till now, no one can justifiably
accuse him of dashing any.
But how long can a continuously
decaying nation defer its reclamation by endlessly
waiting for a president who is yet to start charting a
very clear direction?
If Yar’Adua would be kind, that is,
to himself and Nigeria, he should put a halt to all
these blind pursuits and dumb guesswork, hand in his
papers, retire to Katsina in peace, and save the nation
further trauma of having to perennially wait for a man
who may never be able to either comprehend or respond to
the challenges of such a high and strategic office.
Although hangers-on and parasites
feeding fat on the grounded system may hold a different
view, certainly, the line of action I am recommending to
Yar’Adua would attract a kinder verdict from history to
him than going on confusedly like a child handed a
terribly complicated, strange toy to decode, and
traumatizing the whole nation in the process.
Indeed, quitting now would be more
redemptive of Yar’Adua’s person than being remembered
later as the groping undertaker of a richly endowed but
seriously ill nation?
Ugochukwu
Ejinkeonye writes a column for Independent
www.independentngonline.com every Wednesday.
scruples2006@yahoo.com
Important links:
www.ugochukwu.blog.com /
www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com
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posted 15 June 2008 |
