Sometimes I wish I were a lunatic, so I would be operating from the realm of total freedom, that realm of extreme happiness and zero burden where the natural response to life’s complexities is a wry smile, a rippling soliloquy and, sometimes, a dance in Adamic state to spite curious glances. If I were mad, I would be free from the worries of what to eat, what to wear or where to sleep; I wouldn’t care who rules the world or who runs my state; I would give no hoot who owns a phone, who rows a boat or who drives a train. But most importantly, I would have taken a special interest in those the world calls sane, and know and mark their thought processes to detect when they reach for the world of the insane, my own world. If I were mad, I would raise the flag each time I observe a fellow the world takes seriously act more insane than my folks in the realm of freedom.
Sometimes I wish I were a lunatic, so I would be operating from the realm of total freedom, that realm of extreme happiness and zero burden where the natural response to life’s complexities is a wry smile, a rippling soliloquy and, sometimes, a dance in Adamic state to spite curious glances. If I were mad, I would be free from the worries of what to eat, what to wear or where to sleep; I wouldn’t care who rules the world or who runs my state; I would give no hoot who owns a phone, who rows a boat or who drives a train. But most importantly, I would have taken a special interest in those the world calls sane, and know and mark their thought processes to detect when they reach for the world of the insane, my own world. If I were mad, I would raise the flag each time I observe a fellow the world takes seriously act more insane than my folks in the realm of freedom.
I would inform the sane world of their loss of a member when I see a bachelor announce to his community, with glee, that the Community Health Centre just informed him of his wife’s new born baby. Such oddity makes for insanity, and qualifies for what which would catch my fancy. It is similar to a man who never applied to Harvard calling a feast to announce the University authorities just informed him that he made the second best graduating student of the school. The only other silly scenario comparable to the above two is when a village laggard who doesn’t have even one farm announces to his family, with much fanfare, that the village king just congratulated him for having harvested the largest quantity of yam tubers in the village. In any of the three scenarios, I would alert the world of the insane, and cause them to prepare for the arrival of a new member.
I’ve never seen any of these scenarios happen amongst normal men, until it happened, last Monday, and in the oddest of places: Nigeria’s Presidency. President Goodluck Jonathan turned what was supposed to be our national day of honour to a day of falsehood. Reading his usual uninspiring statewide broadcast to Nigerians on Independence Day, the President boasted; “We are fighting corruption in all facets of our economy, and we are succeeding…We have exposed decades of scam in the management of pensions and fuel subsidy, and ensured that the culprits are being brought to book.
In its latest report, Transparency International (TI) noted that Nigeria is the second most improved country in the effort to curb corruption.
We will sustain the effort in this direction with an even stronger determination to strengthen the institutions that are statutorily entrusted with the task of ending this scourge.”
I am used to lies from the government Mr. Jonathan runs. He is known for making false claims without batting an eyelid. Even in this same speech, before he dropped Transparency International’s name in his web of lies, he had earlier boasted of creating ‘millions of jobs’ for the youths. But let’s let that be for now and, maybe, return to it if space permits.
My focus is on the President’s claim on curbing corruption. First, the claim was false. Premium Times, an investigative blog, stunned by the overnight positive rating of Nigeria by Transparency International as claimed by the president, immediately reached the global anti-corruption body and obtained from them a contrary, and, I must add, authentic report which stated clearly that, “Transparency International does not have a recent rating or report that places Nigeria as the second most improved country in the fight against corruption.”
Premium Times further reported: “The group said its most recent indexing of Nigeria’s corruption activities was in the 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measured perceived level of public sector corruption in the country. In that index, Nigeria scored 2.4 on a scale where 0 means highly corrupt and 10 means very clean. It was ranked 143 out of 183 countries. That rating was actually a dip in performance for Nigeria as the country was rated 134 out of 183 countries the previous year, 2010.”
As a matter of fact, Jonathan’s efforts, in the last two years, to nurture the monster, reflected commensurately in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. We actually dipped in performance, a sad testimony to Jonathan’s romance with all that is corrupt. Then, suddenly, in one fell swoop, he conjured up lies, in collaboration with his numerous Aso Rock sycophants, and dished out to a nation long used to hearing lies from their rulers. Name-dropping is the art of many a master fraudster. They drop names to obtain credibility and hoodwink their victims into willful submission. That was what Mr. Jonathan did in that speech.
Most people think the blame should be heaped on the president’s many courtiers – often called aides. I do not think so. I think it was a deliberate attempt by the president himself to remain on track in his agenda of ensuring high-level criminals walk free under his watch. The president was aware that such an obviously false paragraph was included in the speech. He thought, as I think he has always done, that we still live in the ‘80s when it was easy for the rulers to mount the screen and reel out lies and false statistics to the nation. His major challenge is his sustained effort to wish away the new world order in which information gets delivered to the hands of its seeker just within seconds, at the mere click of a mouse. The president didn’t know somebody would want to verify his bogus claim. He thinks we still value the Business Days and This Days of this world.
Forget the excuse that they saw it in a newspaper. Our president is of a sound mind, I believe, that is why he would never allow Business Day, or any newspaper for that matter, tell him he has been fighting corruption when he knows he hasn’t even raised a finger in the purported fight. We all know, and agree, that a battle that is won must have first begun at one time. When did Mr. Jonathan begin the battle against corruption to have earned the reverence of Transparency International, so much so that his government would be ranked alongside serious countries like the United States in the efforts to curb the monster?
Of all the high profile thievery littered on our political landscape, and under Mr. Jonathan’s watch, how many cases have been pursued by the government? How many former governors have been jailed? How many known corrupt former government officials have been prosecuted under Jonathan? So when did he begin the corruption fight to have earned such an enviable place amongst nations committed to obliterating the existence of the monster in their polity? Was the battle fought in his dream? Should sane Nigerians be worried? At best, it is a delusion of grandeur for a PhD holder to see a paragraph allocating laurels to him for finishing tops in a race he never signed up for, and then went ahead to read it out to the world. But I think it is worse, I see it as a determined attempt at perjury which, in truth, should be taken very seriously by every Nigerian.
If the president wasn’t aware that such a paragraph was included in his Independence Day speech, then it beggars belief that a president doesn’t proofread his speeches before the days he delivers them to the nation. If that is the case, it then underscores the beliefs of folks like me, that this president is not fit for office. What manner of president will not make inputs in the preparation of the speech he delivers to his citizens? If this is the case, then nothing he ever says should be taken seriously, because he never said them anyway. He simply read what people wrote and asked him to read.
This must be basically why he reads them out without any facial communication with his viewers, just like a jittery student does facing his exam scripts in the exam hall.
You know a serious president with the importance he attaches to addressing his fellow citizens, a rare opportunity to talk directly to millions of people who long to hear his plans for the present and future. One of such presidents is Bill Clinton of the United States.
In his autobiography, My Life, President Clinton gives an insight into the premium he attaches to his speeches. Days before his inauguration, he had already started working on his speech. Narrating the very many activities that took place during the run up to the inauguration, he writes of January 17th, 1993: “By the time we got back to Blair House, the official guest residence just across the street from the White House, we were tired… but before falling asleep, I took some time to review the latest draft of my inaugural address.
I still wasn’t satisfied with it. Compared with my campaign speeches, it seemed stilted. I knew it had to be more dignified, but I didn’t want it to drag.”
Remember that the inauguration was to be 20th of January. Then, of 18th January, Clinton writes: “…After the concert, there was a late-night prayer service at the First Baptist Church, and it was after midnight when I got back to Blair House. Though it was getting better, I still wasn’t satisfied with the inaugural address. My speechwriters…must have been tearing their hair out, because as we practiced between one and four in the morning on inauguration day, I was still changing it… The terrific staff at Blair House…was ready with gallons of coffee to keep us awake and snacks to keep us in a reasonably good humor. By the time I went to bed for a couple of hours’ sleep, I was feeling better about the speech”
Please note the odd hours when he had to stay awake just for the sake of the speech: one am to four am. But that wasn’t all. Even on the inauguration day, Bill Clinton still got back to the speech before it was time for his swearing in. Read him: “We went back to Blair House to look at the speech for the last time. It had gotten a lot better since 4 a.m.”
Isn’t it odd that the president of America, an English speaking country, will have sleepless nights preparing for a speech he would deliver in the same English language, his native language, while a Nigerian president, who speaks English as a borrowed language, doesn’t care one bit about what is contained in his presidential speeches?
The difference is in what each respects most. Mr. Clinton respects the right of the average American citizen to know the truth, while Mr. Jonathan respects the corrupt Nigerian system of which he is a creation. That system is what he has been battling to preserve, even if it means lying before the entire world.
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