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So Yar’Adua is also a gambler?

I did not know Umaru Yar’Adua was a gambler.  Yesterday, he showed his ruthlessness at the one-armed bandit.  Said the man who claimed on the BBC to be Nigeria’s leader: "At the moment I am undergoing treatment, and I'm getting better from the treatment. I hope that very soon there will be tremendous progress, which will allow me to get back home."


Now, I have listened to Nigerian leaders say all sorts of selfish and unpatriotic things—even in public—for over 30 those years.  With those words yesterday, the man who spoke for President Yar’Adua moved him to the top of that infamous list. 

Nigeria’s so-called leader made his cameo coughing “appearance” on the BBC.  After seven dark and desperate weeks, he gambled that Nigerians would be so pleased to hear his voice.

He gambled they would be satisfied with that voice, no matter its quality or lack of it.

He gambled that from the coast to the desert, whatever they heard would be considered wise and virtuous and nourishing. 

He gambled that his omissions and commissions, political knife and gunshot wounds on Nigerians would be forgiven and forgotten.

He gambled that if he mentioned the Super Eagles, particularly on the day that the team was starting its Africa Cup of Nations campaign, Nigerians would regard him as being alert and informed.

But Mr. Yar’Adua and all those that informed him about the wisdom of his three minutes on the BBC gambled disastrously. 

If those three minutes represent the best efforts of the Nollywood impersonator whose voice we heard, perhaps Yar’Adua ought to have imported someone from Bombay.  The Bollywood people have been in the acting business for much longer. 

But should that speaker actually have been Yar’Adua, his performance did not confirm that he is “undergoing treatment and getting better from the treatment.” On the contrary, what we learned is that despite the attention of the world’s most expensive doctors, in over seven weeks, he is in a very poor physical shape indeed. 

We also learned that he is not terribly concerned about his country.

If Yar’Adua cared about Nigeria, he would have been apologetic about tying the nation to his own selfish, personal cares.  He might have told Nigerians that while he is physically impaired, he is attuned to the nation’s best interests which are, and must always be, superior to those of any particular individual.

If he cared about Nigeria, he would have told Nigeria yesterday—and through a Nigerian medium—that he has had the legal documents delivered to the National Assembly as prescribed by the constitution, and that as a result within the previous hour, the Vice-President had been sworn into office. 

Now, anyone who reads me knows that I have serious reservations about Goodluck Jonathan, our Vice-President, as well as Patience Jonathan, his wife who has serious money-laundering allegations she has yet to discharge.  My comments are available online at this very moment. 

I do not yearn for a Jonathan leadership.  But that is the beauty of the legal ideal: Jonathan did not draft the constitution.  What the law has in mind is that even if—God forbid—Olusegun Obasanjo or Ibrahim Babangida or James Ibori or even James Ibori’s mistress happened to be the Vice-President at the time the President became incapacitated, he is to assume the presidency. 

Unfortunately, Yar’Adua, who only confirmed yesterday just how poor his condition is, has refused to abide by the provisions of our supreme law, the one he swore to uphold and protect.   

Instead, he chose to confirm that he is a gambler, and that he sees in Nigeria no more and no less than 140 million chips to play with. 

He said that he hoped to resume duties as soon as his doctors discharged him, as though he were a night guard returning to his post at the gate.  That makes his doctors our actual leaders at the moment.  Yar’Adua has no understanding of, or respect for the presidency, the nation or the law.

Nigeria, he is still gambling, can wait.  He believes that Nigeria can wait for as long as he lives.  After all, the presidency is just another “sit-there” job, like Oloja of Oja in television’s fictional “Village Headmaster.”  But even an elementary school teacher knows that when he is sick, the children must continue to be instructed: by someone else.  But Yar’Adua says when he is “well enough,” he will work, as though going to work and working are the same thing.

Still, he is generous, is he not?  He offers us some “hope,” that halting-coughing-gasping hope which his cabinet says is good enough for us.  But if you listened carefully to him, Yar’Adua was making it clear that after 50 days and 50 nights of undergoing treatment, they tell him that he is getting better, but that, cough, he was not yet, cough, feeling it. 

His message was that unless there is “tremendous progress,” coming “very soon,” Nigerians will just have to fend for themselves because he is in desperate straits.  Here again is his full disclaimer:  “At the moment I am undergoing treatment, and I'm getting better from the treatment. I hope that very soon there will be tremendous progress, which will allow me to get back home." 

Now, don’t you wonder why he needed to say “from the treatment” when the statement would actually have been stronger without that clause?  Perhaps the original draft read “from the prayers” or “by the grace of Allah” and someone opted to replace, rather than remove, those words.  And what if, contrary to “the moment,” he is unable to receive the treatment tomorrow?

Welcome, Nigeria, to Desperate Streets—or straits.  Here, unless you scream passionately, resolutely and persistently—and in larger numbers than you did in Abuja yesterday—you will remain shackled.  And you will permanently be taken for granted. 

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