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Sighting and sight failures: double jeopardy for Vincent Ogbulafor

February 18, 2010
Please spare a thought for Vincent Ogbulafor, chairman of the ruling PDP. In the final days of the intrigues which unconstitutionally delivered Jonathan Goodluck as “Acting President” of Nigeria, the much-vaunted “biggest party in Africa” suddenly went AWOL.
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The PDP governors underscored their overbearing power and if anybody doubted the “wisdom” of Nigerian politics, the governors delivered an object lesson that it is the tail which wags the dog. The party that should lead the search for solution snored away in denial as Babangida Aliyu and Bukola Saraki orchestrated a governors’ stranglehold and left the party irrelevant. The Wadata Plaza-based leadership was given a true measure of how light weight it truly was. The governors as fief holders in the states could determine the fate of members of the National Assembly; they beat them into line and the Jonathan era was brought about.

But Vincent Ogbulafor was determined to make a tangential bid for relevance in the sordid matter of presidential disappearance, through an appearance in the black hole of presidential whereabouts in Jeddah. Here I seek your indulgence to exercise some imagination. Ogbulafor transported himself to childhood, remembering the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow: if only he gets the pot, he must have reasoned, just how rich, famous and lucky he would become! Well, over 80 days after hurriedly exiting Nigeria, covered in the dust of piles of lies, subterfuge and prayers, Umaru Yar’adua has come to resemble that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of Nigerian politics. No one has been able to announce a positive sighting; neither governors nor members of the National Assembly. Every track led to the neither-nor land of a cul-de-sac. Yar’adua became the quintessential spirit and while the nation pays to keep the spirit in a foreign land, citizens are denied information about his state. Fellow Nigerians, “keep praying”; “it is not a crime to be sick”; “the man has not committed any offence”; “the president is eating, walking around and will soon be discharged by his doctors”, etc.!

You still have to be patient in this small matter of a failure of sighting and sight. As a good Christian, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor then remembered that the sighting of the baby Jesus (May the Peace of Allah be Upon him), had been done by three wise men bearing presents: frankincense, myrrh and gold! In direct emulation of that journey of historical importance, Vincent Ogbulafor led a three-man delegation of himself, his deputy and party secretary on a journey of sighting of our spirit-president in Jeddah. Ogbulafor’s team did not have incense, myrrh or gold; in a Nigerian manner of things, we can assume that they will only bear pockets heavy with Estacode. DAILY TRUST of Tuesday, February 16, 2010, reported that the three PDP wise men “arrived in Saudi Arabia last Friday but they could not get access to Yar’adua who has been there for more than 80 days”. There was no star to lead our wise men in the direction of the president and the effort at a sighting failed woefully. That was jeopardy number one for Vincent, the Prince.

DAILY TRUST then made a reference to the failure of sight that is also afflicting Ogbulafor. Vincent, the Prince, the report said, “has left Saudi Arabia to seek medical attention for his eyes AFTER FAILING TO SEE President Umaru Yar’adua in Jeddah (emphasis is mine please and no pun intended!)”. Ogbulafor’s “visual impairment” became an issue last week when he got the party’s scribe to read a National Working Committee’s resolution. Vincent, the Prince, is a loyal man of both the party and the spirit president. He endured a failure of sight for two months, presumably holding prayer vigil for “Oga”, with “expectations that he would soon return home”, according to DAILY TRUST, especially against the background of the avalanche of a national outpouring of prayers and more prayers! In Jeddah, Ogbulafor suffered the jeopardy of failure of sighting to compound a failing sight. That is double jeopardy in a time of trouble. The final piece in this puzzle is that had there been a successful sighting in Jeddah, Vincent, the Prince, would have been caught in the dilemma of the blind man trying to feel out an elephant: touch the leg to determine the size or simply recognize it through its sheer presence. I have no doubt in my mind that the two wise men who accompanied Vincent, the Prince, would have been able to describe how well our president now looks to their chairman, if they had enjoyed a successful sighting (remember Ambassador Aminci said Yar’adua is “eating well”). They did not unfortunately; sighting failed the three wise men and sight is failing Vincent, the Prince, so off to India was he shipped!

Meanwhile, situation is dire for the spirit president. Meek as lamb, Jonathan is exploiting good luck to entrench himself and without showing his hands, the mood of politics has shifted decisively in his favour. The clamour to remove Yar’adua is gathering strength. For now, Jonathan remains Nigeria’s “Sole Administrator”, albeit on very shaky and unconstitutional grounds with disgraced despot Obasanjo, whispering clandestine advice. In all these shenanigans, the main losers are the chaps around Yar’adua who combined provincialism, arrogance and incompetence to alienate the poor man from the empathy of the Nigerian people. They carried on with a medieval none-challance as if the Nigerian people did not matter. Crucially, they alienated even their own best allies, such as the governors who stuck out their necks to protect the truth of presidential infirmity with a body guard of lies until it became clear they had to rescue their own political careers. They cut loose from the Yar’adua chariot headed for a spectacular crash down the ragged slope of Nigerian politics and latched on to the political rickshaw of Goodluck Jonathan as “Acting President”. In politics, there are no permanent friends but interests and there are no emotions in the cut and thrust of power: it is a very vicious world out there. I am sure the provincials have learnt that lesson now.

DISHOHONOUR AND EXCESS CRUDE MONEY
Colleagues at our weekly planning meeting last Tuesday were surprised when I said former Attorney General Aondoakaa was the honourable person in the events of the past few weeks. He stood by Yar’adua throughout, and didn’t do a volte-face when it became obvious that the tables were about to turn. Dora Akunyili has earned praises but there seemed an opportunistic and self-seeking content to her last-minute abandonment of the sinking Yar’adua ship. Sticking by principles is not a currency of our politics. And talking about currency, it is clear that very few people believe the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), that they did not agree a quid pro quo with Jonathan: become Acting President but release money from the excess crude account! What is sure is that a huge chunk of that money will disappear into the black hole of Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) in some states. PPP is that devious mechanism to steer public funds into private pockets; so looting times are here again!
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