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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING HONEST

October 31, 2008
The European media and its counterpart across the Atlantic have continued to assail us with a flurry of commentary on why Senator Joe Biden (D)-Delaware was selected the VP pick for Senator Barack Obama, the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party among the pack. Senator Biden got the position they narrated because of the need to put an end to Senator John McCain’s (Rep; Arizona) perceived strength on national security and his foreign policy acumen. Sen. Biden brings a host of assets to the Barack Obama campaign: he is the chairman of Foreign Relations Committee, has working class Catholic roots, toughness on the stump and an attribute of likeability. He was sworn in as a Senator at age 29, in 1972 when the disgraced Nixon was President. The announcement of the VP select was sent by text to party faithful deliciously at 3am Eastern Time. The most delicious part of this whole frenzy about the Democratic Party VP for me lies in some of the public statements Sen. Biden had made as an honest, straight-talking politician... Below is a selection: Sen. Joe Biden described former New York Mayor Giuliani as “a noun, a verb, and 9/11” nothing else. And on the enterprising Indians in the state of Delaware he said “you have to have an Indian accent to go to Dunkin Donuts or Seven Eleven”, the reference to the ubiquitous Asian- owned corner shops before Tesco supermarket arrived on the scene in England is noted. Some of Sen. Biden’s gaffes have come back to bite the VP pick straight away. During the Democratic primaries, Sen. Biden said of his new boss, Sen. Barack Obama: ”He is articulate, bright and clean and a nice looking guy”. It is the “clean” part of the statement that came to bite him. Clean as what? A tabla rasa or clean as a whistle? It was Sen. Obama himself who graciously came to the VP select’s rescue. Nigeria has her fair share of, top public officers prone to verbal blunders or just plain speakers, Biden-like in character. Once in a while, we are blessed to have one or two who simply appreciate the importance of being earnest/honest with public pronouncements these are no media creations, rather, the media is just their messengers. And God knows that we need them... We need them because their statements are personal, revealing, and funny and could sometimes prove embarrassing to even the maker and his establishment. Engineer Abubakar Lawal Yar'adua, the acting Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was recently quoted in several Nigerian Newspapers, lamenting the theft of 12million out of 20million liters of petrol via the pipelines within the Port Harcourt-Aba-Enugu, axis in just 8hours of pumping. The acting GMD of the NNPC also stated at the press event, that the Corporation had equally pumped 20million liters from the Suleja –Kaduna axis and received 18 million liters with a minimal loss of 2million liters. This is the good news, Engineer Yar’adua enthused. And for good measure he added, the Port Harcourt-Aba-Enugu axis is the worst. He promised Nigerians that he was going have a tete-a-tete with the Governors of the indicted States (?) about the horrendous thieving trend in that axis. We can not accuse the acting GMD for plain speaking. Or can we? Truth, though precious, could in certain cases be damaging to the credit of the maker and insulting to the listener. Any one paying attention would have to laugh off his claims. At a closer look, the condescension o f his words were palpable and provocative. Agreed that I lack the expertise to analyze the GMD’s dilemma of the vaporizing 12 million liters of petrol under 8hours, his gaffe however, jolted quite a few. And that in itself is the good news! A journalist, Mr. Ray Murphy of Leadership Newspaper, in his column last Wednesday, was so inflamed with anger with regards to the prevalence of corruption committed by public officers in Nigeria today and especially the matter under discussion that he wrote: “Again this same NNPC came out with a statement that vandals had stolen 12million liters of pumped petrol from its pipelines within 8hours along the Port Harcourt -Aba-axis. This is a brazen lie. For starters, my arithmetic tells me that you need 363 tankers to lift 12 million liters of product to be able to carry out this feat in 8 hours as told by the GMD. These vandals would have to fill up each tanker in less than two minutes. In addition, 363 tankers will create a line longer than 5 kilometers. Mr. GMD of NNPC, please do your work and stop insulting us with falsehood.” Engineer Abubakar Yar’adua does not need to be the brightest bulb in the NNPC to attain the GMD position. He is a politically safe and an establishment hand. As poisoned chalices go the NNPC GMD post takes the crown not only as the commanding height of the economy but also as the plum symbol of political patronage and it’s vexatious attendant problems. Although, the perennial question of corruption and theft of the Corporation’s products are hot-button and worrisome issues, the GMD must have believed his statements to be utterly inoffensive. A plain speaker, bless his heart, one who realizes that our politicians have rendered the word ”unfortunate” threadbare to any question affecting public policy. The incident is unfortunate would have been the quintessential politician’s response which is as vacuous as the British television presenter Bruce Forsyth’s famous line “Nice to see you to see nice”. Whereas the theft is minimal and therefore good news at the Suleja-Kaduna axis, it is the worst at the Port Harcourt-Aba-Enugu end of pumping. What constitutes good news when considering oil theft, the theft of the Nigerian peoples’ patrimony?. At times it does seem a shame that Noah and his party did not miss the boat, says Mark Twain. Because the GMD is fast gaining the notoriety for his gaffes. By the time he leaves office Nigerians should be able to make him a befitting garland out of what some may consider his poorly thought out remarks which violate our ideal politician’s doublespeak. We love his knack for plain speaking if not honesty because the statements are quite revealing. They provide the windows into knowing what obtains inside the nation’s number one oil company for those looking in from the outside and to some extent reinforces the public’s perceptions of the organization. Back in July 23/08, Alhaji Abubakar Lawal Yar’adua was in the news and quoted by the media as admitting that the NNPC paid “militant’ groups the sum of $12m (N1.4billion) to protect /repair oil facilities including Chanomi creek pipeline in Warri South Local government of Delta State. To resuscitate the Kaduna and the Warri refineries both of which had been lying dormant for two years, the NNPC engaged Fenog Nigeria LTD based in Warri, Delta State to repair the refineries with S57million. The NNPC did more and in secret. “The price we pay is very high. It is difficult to get expatriates to work in the Niger Delta. We paid $12m because we were losing $18m (daily, monthly, and annually?) To the problem of the Chanomi pipeline”, he testified before the House of Representative Committee on Finance probing the financial remittance to the Federal government. His reason: to arrest future loss by the Federal government. These statements were greeted with laughter, astonishment and anger by both the opposition parties and a cross section of the public even though they were not side shows. Of course, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the alleged recipients of the sum publicly refuted the claims and went ahead to narrate their side of the full gist of the whole matter. Which party to believe? On that “unfortunate” occasion, when NNPC’s massaging activities were divulged, and quite innocuously too, a cross section of Nigerians spoke their minds saying that Yar’adua, the NNPC GMD, had displayed an exceptionally insensitive comment or weakness on the part of President Yar’adua ‘s government in dealing with insurgency in the Niger Delta, a gaffe unbefitting of a public officer. And by the strike of lightening, the fire extinguisher- mavericks in the NNPC management team came up with a more measured statement to the media and fed it to the public regardless of whether or not the public believed them. The GMD was left to bear the gathering weight of public angst as it were alone. Yar’adua need not be muzzled for his appreciation of the importance of being honest. Oscar Wilde, the Irish writer, would have been very proud of him indeed. The story in question however has died a natural corruption death, never to be heard again. Engineer Yar’adua’s promise to meet with the Governors of the States in the affected axis smacks of a dubious reassurance except he knows what we do not know or has failed to disclose. What on earth is this diplomacy to the Governors for? Absurdity ad infinitum. On his way to the Governors, in the Port Harcourt-Aba-Enugu axis ,Yar’adua should please wind down the windows of his car to enable him take a closer look at the men and women roaming the streets, haggard from want and hunger as it were God has unstrung his bow and had afflicted them. The Good Lord has no hand in it. Their suffering is man-made, government-made and the picture is surreal for an oil producing country. If there are reports of ‘leakages’ within the pipelines in any axis in the country, what is needed are ‘plumbers’ to fix them. Maudlyn Park, broadcaster and barrister wrote in from Cambridge, UK.

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