Aso Rock Operator: Good day, this is the Nigerian Presidency ASO Rock, Abuja, how may I help you. Obama: Good Morning and compliments of the seasons. This is the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama from The White House please can I speak to His Excellency the President of Nigeria, Umarua Ya’rdua
Aso Rock Operator: Hold on please
Aso Rock Operator: (after a long wait). I am sorry Mr. President; His Excellency is not on seat right now.
Obama: In that case, please can I speak to his deputy
Aso Rock Operator: That will be His Excellency, Jonathan Goodluck, the Vice President. I will put you through.
Obama: Thank you
Goodluck Jonathan: Good Morning, Mr. President. I am sorry we kept you waiting. How may we be of assistance?
Obama: Good Morning your Excellency and compliments of the season to you. I hope you had a good holiday and that you are looking forward to the near year.
Goodluck: Yes, thank you we had a good holiday, baring a few hiccups here and there. I hope you, Michelle and the girls had a wonderful time in Hawaii. I am sure it must have been like going home for you as I understand you grew up in Hawaii.
Obama: Your Excellency, I am sorry I have not called you much earlier, considering the unfortunate incident of 25 December.
Goodluck: Not to worry, I am sure you have been very busy
Obama: As soon as I was informed of the incident, I interrupted my holiday to hold an emergency meeting with my security advisers. I asked for a preliminary security report on the incident to be on my table within 24 hours. I thought it would be best if I spoke to you when I have seen that document. I also ordered an immediate review of all airport security. And I have addressed the nation three times, one in a live press conference, the other by a recorded message and the other in my weekly television and radio address to the American people. I assured the American people that we as The United States of America will not relent in our effort to bring all those responsible for this evil act to book. I assured the American people, that their safety was our main priority and even though we advised people to go about their festive businesses as usual, we advised them to be cautious and report all suspicious behaviours to the law enforcement agents. At no time, must Americans take the law into their own hands or put themselves at risk.
Goodluck: Thank you for all your effort Mr. President. You see, as soon as the report of the alleged incident came in, I ordered an investigation. Unfortunately, unlike you, I did not give the security agents a time limit within which to have the report on my table. In Nigeria, things do not work like that. Most of the security chiefs are away to the respective country homes, in various parts of the country for the holidays. I was not able to reach them because there are no dedicated secure land lines where I can call them, the mobile networks is erratic at best and we hardly ever get signals to complete a decent telephone conversation. I did try to speak to one or two of the ministers, but their telephone batteries were dead because of power failure. You see, we were not able to meet the 6000 Mega Watts target we set for ourselves by December 2009. I have apologised to the Nigeria people, so they understand. Deadline and priority means nothing to us in Nigeria. I have not even bothered to address the nation or to tell the Nigerian people what we are doing to ensure that this incident does not occur again or to assure them that their security is our priority. Our information Minister has spoken in a press conference saying initially that the alleged bomber ‘sneaked’ into Nigeria before boarding the KLM flight out of Nigeria. It has later emerged that he arrived from Ghana that morning, spending only about 30 minutes in Nigeria and boarded the KLM Flight. She has since clarified this to the Nigerian people but gave no explanation for the initial comment. We have not held any emergency federal executive meetings on the current situation. I have not even seen the security advisers to the nation. I have not been able to speak to the Inspector General of Police and I do not even know if he is in the country or not. But Mr. President please do not blame me, I am only the deputy and His Excellency President Yar'adua is currently in hospital in Saudi Arabia, he has been there since late November. You see, he did not hand over to me before he travelled so there is a really a limit to what I can do. He did not hand over to me because there are a few individuals who believe that power should stay with the North and that the Constitution which is the supreme law of the land should not be followed. Even though our regime swore to uphold the rule of law. They believe that if I were to act as president, come 2011, they will not get power back. They behave as if power and governance is something you give and take at will. In the mean time, the business of government grinds to a halt and we continue to make a fool of ourselves at the international stage. You see I do not even command the respect of members of the government. I recently ordered that no minister is to travel out of Nigeria during the holidays, I understand that one minister defied that order and travelled to attend to some ‘urgent personal problems’. I am constantly kept in the dark about the state of play in the country and I read most things on the pages of newspapers like everyone else. Because there has been no hand over, I do not have the constitutional powers to do any of the things you would expect of me especially in a very serious situation like the alleged attempted bombing of the airliner. If America or any other country were to attack Nigeria now, this country does not have a Commander in Chief who will give the orders. You see, in Nigeria we do not trust each other and we treat the business of government as our personal property. But please let me not wash our dirty linen in the street since we are currently undergoing a re-branding exercise which is intended to showcase the positive side of things in Nigeria.
Obama: Your Excellency, I hear what you say. I guess that most of those problems are internal domestic issues for Nigeria, and as you know, the United States of America will not interfere in the internal domestic issues of a sovereign nation. But surely, you should be able to approve additional capital expenditure so that at last security at your airports could be reviewed and additional equipment like full body scanner purchased.
Goodluck: That is a very good idea. The problem is that we have not been able to get the supplementary budget signed off by His Excellency President Yardua because he has been in hospital so all capital expenditure that would have been covered in the supplementary budget will have to wait. Hold on a minute
Goodluck: I am sorry for the slight wait, my Special Assistance was just telling me that it has been reported that His Excellency President Yar'adua has signed the supplementary budget on his hospital bed in Saudi. This is the first time I am hearing about this development. To God be the glory, it shows that our president is getting better and that our prayers for his quick recover are working. You know we are a praying nation and a few days after the president took ill, the Senate President asked Nigerians to pray for the president. After that, we ordered 7 days of prayers. God is able!
Obama: I can see you have a lot of difficulties. I do not know if you are aware, since you have not received your security report, that the young man spent some time in Yemen. As a result, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called an international conference in the UK at the end of January 2010 to discuss the continued growth of fundamentalism in Yemen. I hope you will be able to make it; we can have a private meeting on some other important issues which we cannot discuss over the telephone. You know I was supposed to have a private meeting with President Yar'adua at the last UN General Assembly, but I understand he went to Saudi Arabia to open a university.
Goodluck: Mr. President, I would love to attend. It would be a great pleasure to also have a private meeting with you. At least, that will also be an opportunity for me to represent Nigeria on the international arena. I am not sure if you have noticed that in the entire international platform where Nigeria is represented, it is usually our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ojo Maduekwe, would attends on behalf of Nigeria. I will give you a few examples, the recent Common Wealth Heads of Government conference in Trinidad and Tobago, the recent UN General Assembly that you refer to or even the recent climate change conference in Copenhagen. His Excellency President Yardua is usually not disposed to attend because of his failing health and I have never been authorised to attend. I think the so called power brokers are also worried that I would start getting international exposure, which might give some legitimacy to the agitation for the president to hand over to me in an acting capacity.
Obama: So I take it that Mr. Ojo Maduekwe would be attending on behalf of Nigeria.
Goodluck: Mr. President, it is not that easy. There has been some problems recently with the travel expenses of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nigeria. I am told that Mr. Maduekwe was recently told off by the Nigerian Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs because the total travel costs for his ministry came to about 2.7 Billion Naira. They have therefore refused to approve any more money for his travels. Mr. President, you see, 2.7 Billion Naira is about 18, 000,000 USD and that is for international travel alone. I understand that Mr. Maduekwe in response to the Committee said that these figures were justified because Nigeria needed to be visible in the international arena. I am sure you have noticed that visibility. I am not sure what the costs of travel for the State Department is in your country, but I think this figure is very monumental. But again, this is Nigeria and anything is possible. Bearing in mind this budget cut, I am sorry that I cannot even guarantee that Nigeria will be represented at the Conference in London in January.
Obama: Before we go, please can you give me a quick update on the Niger Delta peace process. I must say that it is very commendable that President Yardua has made this a priority despite the challenges. I understand you are from the Niger Delta so you must be thrilled that the peace process is working.
Goodluck: Well, you see, it is commendable that there has been a peace process in the Niger Delta. You see, common sense would have detected that since I am from the Niger Delta, my office should have been involved in the whole process, but no, not in Nigeria. Since the president travelled for medical treatment, everything has ground to a halt. The militants are once again agitating, saying that the Nigerian government have not kept their own part of the bargain. You see Mr. President, the problem is that in this country, everything is personalised so that when the figure-head is not around, everything collapses. That might be the story of the Niger Delta peace process.
Obama: One last thing, I know this call has taken quite some time. If it is found that there were some collaborators in Nigeria, who assisted the alleged bomber, I trust they will be brought to justice.
Goodluck: You have my word on that. But there is another problem; we do not have a Chief Justice of the Federation, who will drive that process. You see, the previous chief justice of the country retired on 31st December. The new one was supposed to be sworn in by the president, but since the president is not around, this could not happen. This being Nigeria, we came up with a solution; we got the retiring Chief Justice to swear in the in-coming one. After all, the Attorney General of Nigeria has advised us that under the constitution, the president of Nigeria can rule from any part of the world. I am afraid, that the new Chief Justice may be occupying the seat illegally.
Obama: It sounds to me as if the situation is very serious. You do not have a head of the executive arm of government and now do you do not have a head of the judiciary. I am very worried.
Goodluck: This is Nigeria; Mr. President there is nothing to worry about
Obama: Thank you for your time and best wishes for the New Year.
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