Any time from now, the United Nations will name a new Executive Director for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). There is every chance it will be a Nigerian.
Any time from now, the United Nations will name a new Executive Director for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). There is every chance it will be a Nigerian.
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The joke is that it could be two Nigerians: Bunmi Makinwa, a top UN official who is currently Africa Regional Director for the Fund, and Babatunde Osotimehin, a professor of clinical pathology who was in the federal cabinet until a dissatisfied *President Goodluck Jonathan relieved him of the appointment several months ago.
In the multilateral environment, a country’s ambitions are not often matched by its resources. This year is different for Nigeria: the opportunity to send a man to lead UNFPA is matched by the availability and readiness of Mr. Makinwa, who has the relevant experience to turn the troubled UN agency around.
That may explain why the Jonathan government, apparently embracing merit, recommended him to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon without delay. It was the right move to make.
That may explain why the same government presented Makinwa’s candidature to other African countries. And that ought to explain why Mr. Jonathan, only six weeks ago, presented Mr. Makinwa’s recommendation to Mr. Ban in New York.
That would suggest that Makinwa’s candidature enjoyed the full support of such foreign policy bigwigs as Foreign Minister Odein Ajumogobia, and our Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Professor Joy Ogwu.
But it now seems that Mr. Jonathan may have forgotten to obtain clearance from Otta before broadcasting Makinwa to the world. Professor Osotimehin, it now emerges, won the favour of Olusegun Obasanjo for the post.
The sequence of events at this point is not exactly clear, but apparently with no reference to Jonathan, Obasanjo is said to have recommended the former Minister of Health directly to Mr. Ban. Obasanjo had recently served as Special Representative of Mr. Ban to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a personal relationship that is proving more powerful than the Secretary-General’s relationship with Nigeria as a Member State.
So powerful, reports suggest, that Mr. Jonathan has turned his back on his government’s own recommendation of Mr. Makinwa.
As a Nigerian, I have to hope that these reports are wrong because the first thing such incoherence may achieve is to guarantee that neither Mr. Makinwa nor Mr. Osotimehin gets the appointment. That would be particularly sad because it would mean, in effect, that Mr. Osotimehin has denied Mr. Makinwa a golden opportunity without being able to get it himself.
Think about it: Osotimehin is really not a candidate; a candidate is a person recommended by a Member State because the UN is an association of Member States, not of egotistical former Heads of Government. That would mean that Mr. Osotimehin is an interloper who would merely have prevented another Nigerian from rising to a position he stood a good chance of being appointed to.
What would make this situation stink even more is that Mr. Osotimehin travels with a heavy credibility deficit. He was been heavily criticized in previous public offices by the UN Global Funds for HIV/AIDS. The ineffectiveness of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) under him was also largely attributed to him personally.
Following NACA, he seems to have run the Ministry of Health with no greater success, with Nigeria lagging seriously behind in the implementation of such health-related Millennium Development Goals as maternal and child health. That was the background to his being relieved of the Health ministry by Jonathan only months ago.
The concerns, therefore, include the following: if Osotimehin had such poor returns running a Ministry in Nigeria, is he really up to scratch as a manager of complicated assignments? What has changed since Nigeria rejected him in Health barely six months ago for the same government to be willing to gamble its flickering credibility on his candidature for leadership of a major UN agency?
But none of these is the most important concern in this matter.
It is curious that Nigeria has both an official candidate and an unofficial candidate, with the backdoor candidate gaining dubious traction in the hallways of the UN.
Anyone who knows anything about the UN knows that at best, Nigeria’s presentation of two candidates for the same office is unusual, perhaps even unprecedented. That Osotimehin’s candidature seems to have remained in the discussion alongside Makinwa’s several weeks after the story broke tells a very sad story about the netherworld that is leadership in Nigeria.
It is disrespectful of Olusegun Obasanjo not only to Jonathan but to the country he has led on two occasions to have smuggled in a private candidate, knowing very well a national candidature had been filed by the government, and introduced to African Member States. That is the precinct of sabotage, even treason.
What is worse is the impression that Mr. Jonathan is acceding to Obasanjo’s wishes, a tacit admission that Nigeria is still being governed from Otta, and through subterranean military manoeuvres.
That is an impression neither *President Jonathan nor this beleaguered country can afford. The immediate impact will be on Jonathan’s standing among the world’s leaders. He will be seen as a fumbling, bumbling reed in the wind with no true hold on power. It will be tough for him to walk into a meeting even of the African Union and win recognition just by being present.
Of course Nigeria’s image within the international community will take a severe battering. It was never the most remarkable in recent years, but the “Muddle Over Makinwa” will be the ticket to a new round of jokes. For several years, Nigerian diplomats have complained they receive either contradictory policy briefs, or no guidance at all. Experience tells me that other foreign diplomats have heard the same stories, which means the Nigeria-UNFPA story will be taught in foreign policy departments for generations.
The situation is not irretrievable. If Nigeria wishes, it is something that the Foreign Ministry can clean-up in one week. It should approach the United Nations and categorically correct the impression there are two candidates. It is that simple.
Ideally, Nigeria should stand by its candidate, Mr. Makinwa. It is the right thing to do, nobody questions his competence, and it would also be easier and more honourable to work for his prospects.
But even if Nigeria were to renege on Makinwa and embark on the Obasanjo track, and despite the obvious danger that Mr. Osotimehin will be swimming up-river from Day One, Jonathan should at least show the international community some backbone and clear-headedness. That would attract some measure of respect for Nigeria, rather than contempt, and give our diplomats who have the job of cleaning-up after Abuja a smiling chance when they go to work.
Whatever Nigeria chooses to do, this story simply reformulates the question as to whom we are. Jonathan says he wants a changed country, but is he serious? Only three months ago, he fielded a scandalous list of National Honorees that was roundly rejected nationwide. I believe he said the future would be different.
But now, in broad daylight, we have an instance of two Nigerians emerging for the same recognition at the international market square. The issue is that not only is the better candidate the government-backed candidate, he is also the recommended candidate.
But is that candidate, Mr. Makinwa, going to lose his opportunity to an inferior candidate who is being smuggled in through the back door in full view of the world?
Is this a story we can preach to the children of Nigeria?
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