March 15, 2010
A political Tsunami was supposed to have happened at penultimate Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC). And a Tsunami actually did happen; only it did not produce the deadly result that millions of us had anticipated with bated breath. The Tsunami was that there was no Tsunami.
A political Tsunami was supposed to have happened at penultimate Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC). And a Tsunami actually did happen; only it did not produce the deadly result that millions of us had anticipated with bated breath. The Tsunami was that there was no Tsunami.
True or false, the following is one of the several ‘Thriller in the Villa’ scenarios that were predicted by all manner of informed public and private commentators: At that particular Wednesday’s FEC meeting, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan was expected to dissolve the cabinet he inherited from President Umaru Musa Yar’adua; in its place he was to appoint a new set of ministers whose first task would have been to rely on section 144 of the constitution and pronounce Yar’adua permanently incapacitated. This would then pave way for Mr. Jonathan to be sworn in as substantive president and commander-in-chief; and then…
But on the eve of that Wednesday meeting, Tuesday night to be precise, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan had what an eye witness described as a stormy meeting with the 36 governors of the federation where the scenario painted above was effectively deconstructed, and thrown away. According to reports and sources, some of them very strong and credible, the governors actually dictated to the acting president what they wanted. Namely that no dissolution of cabinet; no invocation of section 144; and more emphatically he, Jonathan ,must be contented with his “Acting Capacity” and maintain the status quo until Yar’adua is well enough to resume his duties, or until 2011 when their joint ticket would expire and another general elections would be held. Failure to agree to that, they told the acting president, would mean he would be on his own. Dr. Jonathan looked at the 36 governors, which included governors from his own Niger Delta region; and they looked right back at him; and realized that he had little or no option but to accede to the demand of the governors. What then happened in place of the Tsunami is what we have now: a subdued acting president, a quieter polity and an agitated opposition.
The relevant question to ask now is “What next?” First of all it must be clear to all by now where political power actually resides in Nigeria; state governors, under the umbrella of the powerful Governors Forum now call the shots. What may not be very clear is who and who are the significant members of the opposition and what they are likely to do next. Another very significant question to ask is: “In whose interest did the governors act?” According to the governors they acted in the interest of the country; they wanted to bring stability to a polity which temperature is rising out of control; that their action was in the best interest of everybody.
Cynics think those ideals are only a façade, and that the governors’ action was more to protect their individual and collective interests than anything else; those cynics say, with some justification, that a substantive President Goodluck Jonathan would be unpredictable and hence too dangerous and therefore unacceptable; conversely an unsure Acting President Jonathan , distracted by the remote shadow of an ailing or convalescing substantive President Yar’adua are by far the best alternative for them . Under the present arrangement, the governors, ministers and other heads of federal parastatals can keep their snout as deep as possible in the trough without having to worry about a powerful president breathing down their neck. And even sweeter than everything else, come 2011 they would have the chance to exercise greater influence in who becomes what under a weakened presidency, a wobbling EFCC and an unconvincing INEC. What could be sweeter than
that, especially to those nursing the ambition to succeed Yar’adua?
But then that is only one side of the coin, the cynical side. Flip over that coin and you will be confronted by this equally germane question: Can the nation trust a substantive President Goodluck Jonathan to hold the country together under such tremendous amount of political pressure? Does he have what it takes in terms of being a national, as against a sectional president? Can we trust him to be fair and just to all? Or, as so many people have asked, does he possess the liver to deliver?
In 1999 when the nation almost unanimously settled on former President Olusegun Obasanjo as a consensus candidate capable of pulling the country back from the brink it was lingering on, almost all those questions were answered in the affirmative. And they were not wild guesses either; we felt we knew enough about Obasanjo to answerer such questions with confidence; we felt we knew everything about him that there was to know, and our conclusion was : Yes he can. Whether Obasanjo had delivered or not is an ongoing debate, and as the former president himself once told this columnist, history would be the best judge of that.
But with Mr. Jonathan we have no such privilege information to guide our assessment of him. We hardly know him beyond the fact that he is mild mannered, barely ambitious and uncontroversial. If you consider that we are in a crisis situation, these moral virtues are not necessarily the best attributes for a leader at a time like this. But then neither are they enough to disqualify Jonathan. What worked, and is working against, Jonathan and is also providing legitimacy to the action of the governors forum was that wittingly or unwittingly, the acting president and his mandate are being hijacked by dangerous mix grill of shadowy political gladiators with interests that is often at variance with what the nation really needs; so that where Jonathan was supposed to be the symbol of our unity in diversity courtesy of our federal constitution, he is gradually and inadvertently becoming a symbol of our differences. Suddenly you are either a southerner or
Christian and therefore pro Jonathan; or you are a northerner or a Muslim and therefore anti Jonathan (but significantly not necessarily pro Yar’adua either)
Some of Dr. Jonathan’s early actions didn’t help either. A lot of people from the North took offence over his decision to interfere with the dredging of the River Niger; but in reality that was blown out of proportion by some selfish northern elements for their selfish reasons. Before Jonathan, at least five previous northerners led Nigeria covering a period of about 30 years who could have dredged the River Niger several times over, but they didn’t. Not because they couldn’t but because they wouldn’t. Why should we take it out on Jonathan?
The real danger that emanated from the Jonathan camp really had to do with the people around the acting president and their general attitude especially as he inched closer to becoming a substantive president. They became boisterous, loud, unguarded, arrogant and menacing. A big irony unfolded here: while the pro-Jonathan (they prefer to be called pro-constitution) elements were accusing a “cabal” in the Yar’adua camp of working against the national interest, they were themselves gradually metamorphosing into another “cabal” working to actualize an interest that is at best unclear.
This is the second point of convergence between ailing or convalescing President Yar’adua; and a naïve or deceptively so, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan. The first point of convergence of course is that on average, they are both adjudged to be good men. But both, it seems, are being systematically destroyed by the people that are either very close to them, or those that pretend to be so. If you take Yar’adua for example, most of the odium he surfers is a throwback from the terrible public image that two of his aides, Economic AdviserTanimu Yakubu and Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Abba Sayyadi Ruma project. And if their public posturing is terrible, their competencies in the task they are assigned is even worse; neither of them has been able to produce a convincing performance in his assigned task.
And for Jonathan there is Dora; the rabble rousing minister of information and communication is hardly a credit to Jonathan’s perceived simplicity of style. Somewhere along the line a Christian group that go by the name of Northern Christian Elders Group (of which the Chairman of Jonathan’s consultative group, T.Y. Danjuma is a member) rose from a meeting and dealt another wicked blow to Jonathan’s cause by subtly trying to align forces with him; not to be outdone, a northern Muslim group (which should be in the trenches fighting against the scourge of child abuse in the name of Islam) dealt its own bad card on Yar’adua in much the same manner as their Christian counterpart. And then consider the acting president’s most strategic appointment yet: by bringing back General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau (Rtd) to his former position Dr. Jonathan seems to be sending one hell of a mixed signal. A dark horse if ever there is one, Gusau is the most secretive and unfathomable of all the retired generals that have dominated our lives, against our Will, over the years. Gusau is supposed to be close to the Yar’aduas, with whom Jonathan is supposed to be at loggerheads; Gusau is also supposed to be at loggerheads with former President Obasanjo, who is supposed to be Jonathan’s mentor. He is also said to be a soulmate of another significant ‘other,' former military president Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. “What the hell is going on” is arguably the closest to what most Nigerians are thinking right now.
Meanwhile, the biggest question mark of them all, substantive President Yar’adua remains inaccessible and incommunicado, somewhere between life and death, so to speak.
Under normal circumstances, Nigerians should have nothing but sympathy for President Yar’adua; the softer, spiritual side of most Nigerians may be whispering something like this: “It’s not a crime to be sick; yar’adua did not choose to be sick; anybody can be sick; have sympathy for the poor guy”. But then, a more practical side may be prodding us to think with our heads, rather than with our hearts: “True; but even when he was healthy, was he exactly measuring up to our expectations; not just in performance but in the people he chose to work with?? With all the available options at his disposal, why did he assemble a cabinet that some critics consider the worst in history? Why did he choose from amongst the worst there is as his closest lieutenants?” If the rest of the country is angry with Yar’adua for opting to work with the likes of Ruma and Yakubu, people with such huge disagreeable attitude, the North, on behalf of which Yar’adua got the PDP zoning ticket, is frustrated beyond measure.
Very early in his regime, respectable people from the North have privately voiced strong reservations at the pace and style of the Yar’adua presidency. It is difficult to imagine Yar’adua doing anything spectacular even if he was as healthy as he should be. His performance in Katsina, though commendable, was hardly what can be classified as outstanding. He certainly was not the best governor in the North. But as president the entire region and indeed the whole country, in accordance with the peculiar politics of the nation, expected Yar’adua to be the catalyst for a renaissance in the North; and to rekindle the hope of a nation that has been so badly battered by a succession of overestimated, over-indulged and over recycled leadership class. At age 53 when he became president, Yar’adua was seen as the representative of a new, better educated, younger generation crop of leadership that would propel the country towards its rightful position in the 21st century.
But in a most spectacular manner, Yar’adua disappointed everybody. Some people might probably want to waste their time making a case for Yar’adua to be seen as himself a victim of incompetent and even treacherous aides and subordinates; but that argument would be indefensible. Speaking for myself, I place the frustration and disappointment I am suffering both as a Nigerian and as somebody from Yar’adua’s part of the country squarely on Yar’adua. And then of course I blame the people that are closest to him.
My friend Abba Mahmood had in his back page column of the LEADERSHIP newspaper of last Thursday described Yar’adua’s economic adviser Tanimu Yakubu as “one of the most arrogant and inaccessible public servants in the history of Nigeria”. I believe that is a very apt summary of the man. In addition to being economic adviser Yakubu is also one of the three closest people to Yar’adua. So even if on merit Yakubu deserves to be economic adviser, you cannot help but ask: why did Yar’adua have to give so much access, power and influence to such an obvious political liability? Virtually everybody that mean well for Nigeria and for the president himself complain bitterly over Tanimu Yakubu. This perception must have gone back to both Yakubu and Yar’adua himself; but for some reason neither was bothered in the least by what should have bothered any average-intelligent politician that cares about public opinion.
Instead Yakubu waxed stronger and has become more arrogant in his ways; meanwhile, for all the impact he makes on his job as economic adviser, he might as well be operating from China (pun intended); the only person that appears to be having sleepless nights, struggling with the economy has been the governor of the central bank, Malam Sanusi Lamido; if Yakubu was having any trouble at all, it seems it would be with the multiple deals he is involved in, mainly in the areas of oil and gas. Then again, to be fair to Tanimu Yakubu, you really cannot blame him for all that; if he didn’t have the president’s approval he wouldn’t last one day in the corridors of power. For that I vent my anger, disappointment and frustration on Yar’adua who was either too daft, too mean or too insensitive to have forced such a character on us; to have him exercise enormous influence and state power on our behalf while he doesn’t give a hoot about our welfare.
The other fellow that is closely associated withYar’adua and who is said to enjoy his favours is the minister for agriculture Abba Sayyadi Ruma. His colleagues in the cabinet complain that he is in many ways just like the economic adviser; I don’t know how true that is, but Ruma certainly hasn’t done much to improve the public perception of the Yar’adua regime as a clueless, localized, conservative and insensitive affair. No analysis of the Yar’adua regime is ever complete without a mention of these two fellows, usually for all the wrong reasons.
Perhaps behind closed doors there are other people that exercise influence on Yar’adua, but these two are the public face of the regime. Because they spend our money and generally appropriate our common weal, we are entitled to dissect their conduct and pass judgments. My own judgment concerning them is that they have failed both the country and their principal. And since we are saddled with this outdated, rather undemocratic practice of ‘turn-by-turn-to-chop’ presidency, we have to hold them responsible for squandering a golden opportunity meant for the turn of the North.
Thus, thanks to Yar’adua, we got saddled with a problem that was entirely avoidable. At this point our options aren’t many, so this should make our choice relatively easy. And by us I refer to Nigeria as a nation as symbolized by our institutions: the bi-cameral parliament; the judiciary; the presidency which includes both Jonathan and Yar’adua; the security agencies; and the divergent public in which you can throw in religious and traditional leadership, civil society groups and the intelligentsia.
In spite of our pretensions we all know what we have to do. For Yar’adua, if he ever regains his health and returns to his job, his first task should be to cleanse his house. But if it is God’s Will that his presidency is over, let him try to exit with as much dignity as he could manage.
Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the most significant single entity in this quagmire carries the biggest responsibility in determining where the country heads from here; if he listens to the evil whispers of opportunistic, perennial beneficiaries of walking the corridors of power, he would be judged accordingly, and indeed would only have himself to blame if he ends up the way of so many of his predecessors: a failure. He knows what to do; and he knows what not to do. Nigeria would survive this situation, because she has survived worse; but some actors might lose their integrity forever, not that integrity matters in our country. Ditto the parliament, or as we generally refer to them the National Assembly (NASS); the very powerful and influential Governors Forum; the traditional and religious leaders and of course the rest of us.
As for the North, well, I think we have far bigger issues to worry about than any other part of the country. And those who are responsible for this sad development also know what they need to do to assist the region to recover before it finally collapses, beyond redemption.
One piece of puzzle that needs to be sorted out is the president’s wife, Hajiya Turai Yar’adua and where she fits in all this. Strange as it may sound, I am one of those very few Nigerians that have absolutely no problem with Mrs. Yar’adua. She is where she is, and doing what she is doing because she is married to our president; I believe that she is just being feminine: protective of her territory, which includes her children, her husband and her home. For those who think she was wrong to marry-off her daughters to governors, I would strongly recommend they read Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’; they would know that what Turai did as a mother is timelessly universal. Given the chance and the same circumstances, most women would do no less. Besides I do suspect that if Turai were not there, the real culprits in the Yar’adua clique could wreck greater damage than what they are doing now. Unlike the likes of Tanimu Yakubu, Turai has no official position, no budget and not accountable to anyone. She just happens to be one of Yar’adua’s problems, who in turn happen to be our problem.
True or false, the following is one of the several ‘Thriller in the Villa’ scenarios that were predicted by all manner of informed public and private commentators: At that particular Wednesday’s FEC meeting, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan was expected to dissolve the cabinet he inherited from President Umaru Musa Yar’adua; in its place he was to appoint a new set of ministers whose first task would have been to rely on section 144 of the constitution and pronounce Yar’adua permanently incapacitated. This would then pave way for Mr. Jonathan to be sworn in as substantive president and commander-in-chief; and then…
But on the eve of that Wednesday meeting, Tuesday night to be precise, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan had what an eye witness described as a stormy meeting with the 36 governors of the federation where the scenario painted above was effectively deconstructed, and thrown away. According to reports and sources, some of them very strong and credible, the governors actually dictated to the acting president what they wanted. Namely that no dissolution of cabinet; no invocation of section 144; and more emphatically he, Jonathan ,must be contented with his “Acting Capacity” and maintain the status quo until Yar’adua is well enough to resume his duties, or until 2011 when their joint ticket would expire and another general elections would be held. Failure to agree to that, they told the acting president, would mean he would be on his own. Dr. Jonathan looked at the 36 governors, which included governors from his own Niger Delta region; and they looked right back at him; and realized that he had little or no option but to accede to the demand of the governors. What then happened in place of the Tsunami is what we have now: a subdued acting president, a quieter polity and an agitated opposition.
The relevant question to ask now is “What next?” First of all it must be clear to all by now where political power actually resides in Nigeria; state governors, under the umbrella of the powerful Governors Forum now call the shots. What may not be very clear is who and who are the significant members of the opposition and what they are likely to do next. Another very significant question to ask is: “In whose interest did the governors act?” According to the governors they acted in the interest of the country; they wanted to bring stability to a polity which temperature is rising out of control; that their action was in the best interest of everybody.
Cynics think those ideals are only a façade, and that the governors’ action was more to protect their individual and collective interests than anything else; those cynics say, with some justification, that a substantive President Goodluck Jonathan would be unpredictable and hence too dangerous and therefore unacceptable; conversely an unsure Acting President Jonathan , distracted by the remote shadow of an ailing or convalescing substantive President Yar’adua are by far the best alternative for them . Under the present arrangement, the governors, ministers and other heads of federal parastatals can keep their snout as deep as possible in the trough without having to worry about a powerful president breathing down their neck. And even sweeter than everything else, come 2011 they would have the chance to exercise greater influence in who becomes what under a weakened presidency, a wobbling EFCC and an unconvincing INEC. What could be sweeter than
that, especially to those nursing the ambition to succeed Yar’adua?
But then that is only one side of the coin, the cynical side. Flip over that coin and you will be confronted by this equally germane question: Can the nation trust a substantive President Goodluck Jonathan to hold the country together under such tremendous amount of political pressure? Does he have what it takes in terms of being a national, as against a sectional president? Can we trust him to be fair and just to all? Or, as so many people have asked, does he possess the liver to deliver?
In 1999 when the nation almost unanimously settled on former President Olusegun Obasanjo as a consensus candidate capable of pulling the country back from the brink it was lingering on, almost all those questions were answered in the affirmative. And they were not wild guesses either; we felt we knew enough about Obasanjo to answerer such questions with confidence; we felt we knew everything about him that there was to know, and our conclusion was : Yes he can. Whether Obasanjo had delivered or not is an ongoing debate, and as the former president himself once told this columnist, history would be the best judge of that.
But with Mr. Jonathan we have no such privilege information to guide our assessment of him. We hardly know him beyond the fact that he is mild mannered, barely ambitious and uncontroversial. If you consider that we are in a crisis situation, these moral virtues are not necessarily the best attributes for a leader at a time like this. But then neither are they enough to disqualify Jonathan. What worked, and is working against, Jonathan and is also providing legitimacy to the action of the governors forum was that wittingly or unwittingly, the acting president and his mandate are being hijacked by dangerous mix grill of shadowy political gladiators with interests that is often at variance with what the nation really needs; so that where Jonathan was supposed to be the symbol of our unity in diversity courtesy of our federal constitution, he is gradually and inadvertently becoming a symbol of our differences. Suddenly you are either a southerner or
Christian and therefore pro Jonathan; or you are a northerner or a Muslim and therefore anti Jonathan (but significantly not necessarily pro Yar’adua either)
Some of Dr. Jonathan’s early actions didn’t help either. A lot of people from the North took offence over his decision to interfere with the dredging of the River Niger; but in reality that was blown out of proportion by some selfish northern elements for their selfish reasons. Before Jonathan, at least five previous northerners led Nigeria covering a period of about 30 years who could have dredged the River Niger several times over, but they didn’t. Not because they couldn’t but because they wouldn’t. Why should we take it out on Jonathan?
The real danger that emanated from the Jonathan camp really had to do with the people around the acting president and their general attitude especially as he inched closer to becoming a substantive president. They became boisterous, loud, unguarded, arrogant and menacing. A big irony unfolded here: while the pro-Jonathan (they prefer to be called pro-constitution) elements were accusing a “cabal” in the Yar’adua camp of working against the national interest, they were themselves gradually metamorphosing into another “cabal” working to actualize an interest that is at best unclear.
This is the second point of convergence between ailing or convalescing President Yar’adua; and a naïve or deceptively so, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan. The first point of convergence of course is that on average, they are both adjudged to be good men. But both, it seems, are being systematically destroyed by the people that are either very close to them, or those that pretend to be so. If you take Yar’adua for example, most of the odium he surfers is a throwback from the terrible public image that two of his aides, Economic AdviserTanimu Yakubu and Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Abba Sayyadi Ruma project. And if their public posturing is terrible, their competencies in the task they are assigned is even worse; neither of them has been able to produce a convincing performance in his assigned task.
And for Jonathan there is Dora; the rabble rousing minister of information and communication is hardly a credit to Jonathan’s perceived simplicity of style. Somewhere along the line a Christian group that go by the name of Northern Christian Elders Group (of which the Chairman of Jonathan’s consultative group, T.Y. Danjuma is a member) rose from a meeting and dealt another wicked blow to Jonathan’s cause by subtly trying to align forces with him; not to be outdone, a northern Muslim group (which should be in the trenches fighting against the scourge of child abuse in the name of Islam) dealt its own bad card on Yar’adua in much the same manner as their Christian counterpart. And then consider the acting president’s most strategic appointment yet: by bringing back General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau (Rtd) to his former position Dr. Jonathan seems to be sending one hell of a mixed signal. A dark horse if ever there is one, Gusau is the most secretive and unfathomable of all the retired generals that have dominated our lives, against our Will, over the years. Gusau is supposed to be close to the Yar’aduas, with whom Jonathan is supposed to be at loggerheads; Gusau is also supposed to be at loggerheads with former President Obasanjo, who is supposed to be Jonathan’s mentor. He is also said to be a soulmate of another significant ‘other,' former military president Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. “What the hell is going on” is arguably the closest to what most Nigerians are thinking right now.
Meanwhile, the biggest question mark of them all, substantive President Yar’adua remains inaccessible and incommunicado, somewhere between life and death, so to speak.
Under normal circumstances, Nigerians should have nothing but sympathy for President Yar’adua; the softer, spiritual side of most Nigerians may be whispering something like this: “It’s not a crime to be sick; yar’adua did not choose to be sick; anybody can be sick; have sympathy for the poor guy”. But then, a more practical side may be prodding us to think with our heads, rather than with our hearts: “True; but even when he was healthy, was he exactly measuring up to our expectations; not just in performance but in the people he chose to work with?? With all the available options at his disposal, why did he assemble a cabinet that some critics consider the worst in history? Why did he choose from amongst the worst there is as his closest lieutenants?” If the rest of the country is angry with Yar’adua for opting to work with the likes of Ruma and Yakubu, people with such huge disagreeable attitude, the North, on behalf of which Yar’adua got the PDP zoning ticket, is frustrated beyond measure.
Very early in his regime, respectable people from the North have privately voiced strong reservations at the pace and style of the Yar’adua presidency. It is difficult to imagine Yar’adua doing anything spectacular even if he was as healthy as he should be. His performance in Katsina, though commendable, was hardly what can be classified as outstanding. He certainly was not the best governor in the North. But as president the entire region and indeed the whole country, in accordance with the peculiar politics of the nation, expected Yar’adua to be the catalyst for a renaissance in the North; and to rekindle the hope of a nation that has been so badly battered by a succession of overestimated, over-indulged and over recycled leadership class. At age 53 when he became president, Yar’adua was seen as the representative of a new, better educated, younger generation crop of leadership that would propel the country towards its rightful position in the 21st century.
But in a most spectacular manner, Yar’adua disappointed everybody. Some people might probably want to waste their time making a case for Yar’adua to be seen as himself a victim of incompetent and even treacherous aides and subordinates; but that argument would be indefensible. Speaking for myself, I place the frustration and disappointment I am suffering both as a Nigerian and as somebody from Yar’adua’s part of the country squarely on Yar’adua. And then of course I blame the people that are closest to him.
My friend Abba Mahmood had in his back page column of the LEADERSHIP newspaper of last Thursday described Yar’adua’s economic adviser Tanimu Yakubu as “one of the most arrogant and inaccessible public servants in the history of Nigeria”. I believe that is a very apt summary of the man. In addition to being economic adviser Yakubu is also one of the three closest people to Yar’adua. So even if on merit Yakubu deserves to be economic adviser, you cannot help but ask: why did Yar’adua have to give so much access, power and influence to such an obvious political liability? Virtually everybody that mean well for Nigeria and for the president himself complain bitterly over Tanimu Yakubu. This perception must have gone back to both Yakubu and Yar’adua himself; but for some reason neither was bothered in the least by what should have bothered any average-intelligent politician that cares about public opinion.
Instead Yakubu waxed stronger and has become more arrogant in his ways; meanwhile, for all the impact he makes on his job as economic adviser, he might as well be operating from China (pun intended); the only person that appears to be having sleepless nights, struggling with the economy has been the governor of the central bank, Malam Sanusi Lamido; if Yakubu was having any trouble at all, it seems it would be with the multiple deals he is involved in, mainly in the areas of oil and gas. Then again, to be fair to Tanimu Yakubu, you really cannot blame him for all that; if he didn’t have the president’s approval he wouldn’t last one day in the corridors of power. For that I vent my anger, disappointment and frustration on Yar’adua who was either too daft, too mean or too insensitive to have forced such a character on us; to have him exercise enormous influence and state power on our behalf while he doesn’t give a hoot about our welfare.
The other fellow that is closely associated withYar’adua and who is said to enjoy his favours is the minister for agriculture Abba Sayyadi Ruma. His colleagues in the cabinet complain that he is in many ways just like the economic adviser; I don’t know how true that is, but Ruma certainly hasn’t done much to improve the public perception of the Yar’adua regime as a clueless, localized, conservative and insensitive affair. No analysis of the Yar’adua regime is ever complete without a mention of these two fellows, usually for all the wrong reasons.
Perhaps behind closed doors there are other people that exercise influence on Yar’adua, but these two are the public face of the regime. Because they spend our money and generally appropriate our common weal, we are entitled to dissect their conduct and pass judgments. My own judgment concerning them is that they have failed both the country and their principal. And since we are saddled with this outdated, rather undemocratic practice of ‘turn-by-turn-to-chop’ presidency, we have to hold them responsible for squandering a golden opportunity meant for the turn of the North.
Thus, thanks to Yar’adua, we got saddled with a problem that was entirely avoidable. At this point our options aren’t many, so this should make our choice relatively easy. And by us I refer to Nigeria as a nation as symbolized by our institutions: the bi-cameral parliament; the judiciary; the presidency which includes both Jonathan and Yar’adua; the security agencies; and the divergent public in which you can throw in religious and traditional leadership, civil society groups and the intelligentsia.
In spite of our pretensions we all know what we have to do. For Yar’adua, if he ever regains his health and returns to his job, his first task should be to cleanse his house. But if it is God’s Will that his presidency is over, let him try to exit with as much dignity as he could manage.
Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the most significant single entity in this quagmire carries the biggest responsibility in determining where the country heads from here; if he listens to the evil whispers of opportunistic, perennial beneficiaries of walking the corridors of power, he would be judged accordingly, and indeed would only have himself to blame if he ends up the way of so many of his predecessors: a failure. He knows what to do; and he knows what not to do. Nigeria would survive this situation, because she has survived worse; but some actors might lose their integrity forever, not that integrity matters in our country. Ditto the parliament, or as we generally refer to them the National Assembly (NASS); the very powerful and influential Governors Forum; the traditional and religious leaders and of course the rest of us.
As for the North, well, I think we have far bigger issues to worry about than any other part of the country. And those who are responsible for this sad development also know what they need to do to assist the region to recover before it finally collapses, beyond redemption.
One piece of puzzle that needs to be sorted out is the president’s wife, Hajiya Turai Yar’adua and where she fits in all this. Strange as it may sound, I am one of those very few Nigerians that have absolutely no problem with Mrs. Yar’adua. She is where she is, and doing what she is doing because she is married to our president; I believe that she is just being feminine: protective of her territory, which includes her children, her husband and her home. For those who think she was wrong to marry-off her daughters to governors, I would strongly recommend they read Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’; they would know that what Turai did as a mother is timelessly universal. Given the chance and the same circumstances, most women would do no less. Besides I do suspect that if Turai were not there, the real culprits in the Yar’adua clique could wreck greater damage than what they are doing now. Unlike the likes of Tanimu Yakubu, Turai has no official position, no budget and not accountable to anyone. She just happens to be one of Yar’adua’s problems, who in turn happen to be our problem.
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