The Tuesday January 12 Umaru Yar’adua’s drama or rather telephone interview with the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was an outright replay of Obasanjo’s ‘Umoooru are you dead’ home movie though this time with slight modifications in the setting and lead actor.
In fact a national newspaper aptly captured the drama when it said “Exactly 50 days after Umaru Yar'Adua disappeared from public view on a medical trip to Saudi Arabia, the BBC is reporting that it spoke to a man purporting to be our president.”
These are some of the stanzas in the text of Yar'Adua's 86 seconds Hausa Language (home movie) interview by Mansur Liman of the BBC Hausa service as transcribed from the BBC website, President Yar'Adua: “My brothers in Nigeria, I want to inform you that I am getting better insha-Allahu. By the grace of God, any time my doctors discharge me, I will come back home to Nigeria to continue my work.”
BBC: Your Excellency, do you know when you will go back home, because Nigerians are worried about your condition. Do you know how long it will take you to go back home to continue with your work?
Yar’Adua: Insha-Allah, I am getting better. Anytime God heals me and I am strong, that is the time, insha-Allah, I will come back to Nigeria, anytime the doctors discharge me.
BBC: There are a lot of issues (in Nigeria), have you spoken with the Vice President and is everything going on well as you expect?
Yar’Adua: I spoke with him; I have been speaking with him. Everything is going on well in accordance with the constitution of the country.
Though there has been no independent verification of the authenticity of the voice on the tape, hearing the voice in that short interview proved two points, both, very unfortunate for this nation. One is that the President is alive, but not well. Second is that he is obviously not in any state or shape that can enable him govern any country especially Nigeria with its hydra-headed socio-economic, political, and now diplomatic wahalas.
articleadslinks
Whosoever packaged that charade only succeeded in insulting the intelligence and sensibilities of Nigerians. Obviously it was not the presidential spokesman, Mr Segun Adeniyin as he was in far away Angola watching football match in the ongoing African Cup of Nations final. Though he claimed in an interview that the President has asked him to return to Nigeria immediately, the truth was that Segun does not speak Hausa so he was utterly useless in that conspiracy and had to be sent away to watch football match when his boss is critically ill and even rumoured dead. How things happen in this country!
articleadslinks
The interview was recorded late on Monday January 11 and first broadcast at 0530 GMT the following day. It has been widely rebroadcast by Government-owned local television and radio stations.
As rightly asserted by cross sections of Nigerians, the choice of BBC Hausa is suspect and the corporation owes it a duty to the Nigerian public to authenticate the voice on the Saudi end of the telephone line. How are we sure it was the real President Yar’adua that spoke to the BBC? The choice of a foreign medium clearly shows the warped mindsets and gross incompetence of those that arranged the gbooju gbooju. Of course what do you expect when Segun who should have known better was sent to watch football match in Angola?
More importantly, the snappish statement made by the voice that sounded like our president no doubt raised more questions that need urgent answers for the crisis of governance his long absence has continued to generate.
If the President was strong enough to grant the almost two minutes Hausa and 51 seconds English interview, he should have been well able to write a letter to the National Assembly to allow Jonathan act in his stead, when he comes back, he can take over. The real issue remains that our president who does not know when he will be discharged to return to Nigeria is still insisting on not handing handover properly to his vice to act for him while he is away. This is the crux of the matter.
Why did the President have to speak to BBC on the exact day that the anti-Yar'Adua rally was taking place in Nigeria? So Nigerians may be right to have concluded that the alleged interview with the BBC was stage-managed, ostensibly to douse the tension in country.
While the BBC broadcast of the part two of ‘Umoooru are you dead’ home movie will scotch rumours of his death, the manoeuvring among the cabals around the Presidency and some powerbrokers of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) points to two calculations.
The cabal seems to favour the strategy to delay and shorten the duration Goodluck Jonathan will sit at the helm of affairs as the acting president and this will allow them continue to plunder our collective wealth as this same group have been in charge of the economy and key decisions since the president went on sabbatical in Saudi Arabia. Moreso, this cabal must have woken up to the stack reality that Yar’adua is not in any shape to run for a second term so they need time to tidy up their mess and negotiate a soft landing platform for themselves.
Secondly, the ongoing drama at the Presidency seems aimed at totally disorienting the vice president or rather ‘acting president’ to ensure he is not organised enough to begin to think of running for the presidency in 2011.
Whatever happens, Nigerians are happy that our president is alive but pained that he is very sick and does not know when he will be healthy enough to return to continue his work. And in line with this truth, all we are saying is: Let Goodluck Jonathan step into the void as authentic acting president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria pending when our dear president Yar’adua returns to takeover.
IFEANYI IZEZE, ABUJA ([email protected])
articleadsbanner
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });