{joomplu:1360}{joomplu:1361}{joomplu:1362}Audio transcription by Victor Manfredi of the video "Sahara Reporters poses a question to Ojo Madueke, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria, at a press conference at the United Nations in New York on January 22, 2010" (08min, 07sec), cross-posted on YouTube a "Ojo Maduekwe's Miserable Press Conference at the UN"
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYFXsoMbVAE, posted on 22 January 2010) and linked to the report "Foreign Misadventure: Ojo Maduekwe in another New York mess" (http://www.saharareporters.com/real-news/sr-headlines/4913-foreign-misadventure-ojo-maduekwe-in-another-new-york-mess.html, Friday, 22 January 2010 19:50).
As a matter of style..." EPIGRAPH: "The people are a nuisance." (p. 31 of "Chief the Honourable Minister" by T.M. Aluko. Heinemann, London, 1970.)
START OF TAPE
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: I write for Sahara Reporters and my question is very direct, to you. You were on BBC yesterday and you said that you had not spoken to President Yar'Adua for the 60 days that he has been gone. And yet you are moving around the world claiming that you are representing the President and his own interest, whereas you haven't had any mandate from that President in [the] last 60 days. So how can we trust that you, being someone who has acted on behalf of every government, both legitimate and illegitimate -- I know that you supported Abacha, very strongly -- that you are not just going around doing your own wish, because Nigeria has no leadership at this point?
You know... And as you have done consistently, when you did, which you did under Abacha, that again you are doing this because this is what is convenient and the Nigerian people have been rendered powerless at this time, and you just have done what you wish to be done because again, the Nigerian country as now has no President that could have even given you the power that you claim you have been exercising now.
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MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: Well your question is so insulting, and so abusive, and so disgraceful, [it] does not even convey an educated man...
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: That's not the question I'm asking...
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: ...that it does not deserve a response. [Smiles.] And I will not answer your question.
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: It's not the question I'm asking. I'm asking you a question that I expect you to answer, not to insult me back.
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: You don't deserve an, you don't deserve an answer. [Sits back, smiles and looks around.]
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: You, you have to answer me because you are the one who has called us here to come and insult us with this whole rigamarole about how the Nigerian...
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: [Gestures.] Is anybody in charge of this place?
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: What do you mean, everybody [sic] is in charge of this place?
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: [Points around.] Is anybody in charge of this...?
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: What are you trying -- this is not Nigeria. You answer the question and forget about harassing me.
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: All right, I guess I will intervene. [Laughs.] Yeah, OK.
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: [Smiles and nods, looking around the room with relief and satisfaction.]
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: I'll only intervene in this way. What I'll do is I'm gonna ask -- as I understand it -- ask you a question, you know?
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: Yes, yes, he should answer my question.
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: OK, all right, and then, then we'll move on from that. I guess the question, I guess, I'm just, it's not to rephrase it, and I understand, I understand that, that you were offended by how it was asked. And I guess, I mean, I asked at the stake-out [?] how, when you had last spoken to the President...
MINISTER OJO MADU.EKWE: [Points finger.] I answered your own question, don't ask his own. [Points at Sahara Reporters.]
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: No, you did, you did. I understand...
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: Don't ask his own. [Points at Sahara Reporters.]
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: No, no, but I guess the, but I mean, to me there IS a question of...
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: Is it your question?
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: It is my question.
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: If it is your question, go ahead and ask it and I will answer it...
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: OK, right...
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: ...but I will not answer this... [Points again at Sahara Reporters.]
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: My question, my question would be if -- and I heard the same interview on BBC -- if for these reasons you haven't spoken with the President...
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: He is a very miserable fellow. [Points again at Sahara Reporters.]
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: Don't insult me, Minister. Why would you say I'm miserable? Because I'm exercising my right as a Nigerian to ask you a question.
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: You are very miserable.
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: You have been doing this for too long. You can't be insulting me. What do you mean I'm miserable? I think it is you that is miserable.
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: [Gestures to Sahara Reporters.] Come to Nigeria and help sort out the place. Why are you...?
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: Why not? Why not? And it is going to be a matter of time.
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: All right, I still, I'm gonna rephrase the question so he can answer it.
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: Thank you.
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: It may, sadly, I'm told by a colleague that it may be the last question because you have to go to the airport, but I will ask it, and hopefully we'll get an answer.
SAHARA REPORTERS [off camera]: Thank you.
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: I had some Darfur questions too, but we'll stick with this one. If, if both legally and just sort of in a common sense way, in the way that most ministers take their direction from, you know, from their president or prime minister, if you haven't spoken with the President since he's been in Saudi Arabia, do you -- what do you to those that say that you're, that you don't have a mandate? You said that you're "on autopilot"...
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: [Minister looks at his handheld device.]
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: ...but you also say that you wish you'd received his guidance on some issues. There's been the issue of the, of the, you know, the single, the hijacker, and the U.S.'s response to it. Various things have come up.
MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: [Minister nods in acknowledgement.]
Matthew LEE (Sr. Reporter, Inner City Press) [off camera]: Do you feel that you have a mandate? Can you read the President's mind? Do acknowledge that there's some issues that, about whether, you know, whether you have the correct mandate at this time
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MINISTER OJO MADU.EK(W)E: Well, let's put it this way. Under our constitution [PAUSE] ministers [PAUSE] do not sit in the National Assembly. So, even if you are sit[ting] in the National Assembly before, and you are made a minister, you resign. [PAUSE] We are appointed by the President, but we are described as, not "Ministers of the President", we are described as "Ministers of the Federal Republic" and "members of the Federal Executive Council". Now that appointment, again, is, the President has no choice, ah, on the issue of how many ministers he will appoint, because the constitution makes it mandatory that there must be at least one minister from a [sic] state. That the President may like you, and think you should be his foreign minister, but in appointing you he recognizes the fact that you are from a [particular] state. Like in my own case, I am from Abi.a State. So, I represent Abi.a State in the Federal Executive Council, I reflect the position of Abi.a State in the Federal Executive Council. So the mandate we have is provided for in the constitution because we are members of the Federal Executive Council from our various states. And, but it just happened that we are given portfolios... foreign affairs whether [mumbles] are different from other[s]. So, because our position is pro... prescribed for in the constitution, that defines our mandate, that we go there as the highest policy-making body representing the whole country to speak, this time not just for Abi.a, but to speak for the whole, whole country. That's why we are called "Ministers of the Federal Republic" and not "Ministers of the President".
Now, I have never, as I go round, suggested that, when I speak, I am speaking for President Yar'Adua. I am careful to say that I am speaking on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria. It doesn't mean that I'm not speaking for President Yar'Adua. But my emphases are been [sic] on the Federal Government of Nigeria EVEN WHEN THE PRESIDENT IS PHYSICALLY AROUND, and he's in Abu.ja, and he gives me directives, I still speak, as a matter of "style"[*FOOTNOTE], that I am speaking on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria. So I am the foreign minister of Nigeria, I am not just the minister of the President, I am not the foreign minister FOR President Yar'Adua, I am the foreign minister of Nigeria.
And, em, like I said earlier on, but maybe that was not understood, aha, this President does not believe in micro-managing, eh, foreign policy. I also mentioned that the Party, the ruling Party of which I was National Secretary, has a position on foreign policy, and I was the National Secretary for two years. So I bring to this job a considerable amount of experience. [PAUSE] That does not make me a robot. That makes me also understand what is [sic] the foreign policy expectations of the Federal Government and of Nigerians.
There is no substitute for the President being there. I have made that point clear. We are not enjoying his absence. And I wish that should be dealt with with the sensitivity it requires. I have... I was candid enough to say that. So, I am not committing any illegality by representing the Federal Government of Nigeria, because I was appointed by the President, who has not removed me from the cabinet. No illegality is being committed. No lack of legitimacy is in place. The constitution is clear as to how we got appointed, and that constitution protects me. And I think that that point is very, that, I mean, very well made. [Minister nods affirmatively] And I am competent to do that, and I am pushing [?] the nationality of Nigeria, which is beyond President Yar'Adua, beyond any 'dividual.
END OF TAPE
*[transcriber's footnote: in many varieties of educated Nigerian English, the word "style" has the special connotation of bluffing or presenting a potentially misleading impression in order to persuade, cajole or intimidate an interlocutor, thus for example there is a current phrase "to use style on someone" meaning to try to put one over on them, etc.]
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