Muhammad Al-Ghazali
31 July 2007
column
Abuja — "Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage." - Benjamin Disraeli
Let us encapsulate the current situation in the country this way: had Olusegun Obasanjo not daydreamed with the idea of a third term in office; were he not so shamelessly effective in the use of the various apparatuses of state to hound or eliminate the leading lights of the opposition to pave the way for his chosen candidate in the race to succeed him as a last option; and were he not so deadly effective in installing him, we would probably not be talking about President Umar Musa Yar'Adua today.
But barely three months into his contentious presidency, there are few reasons for Nigerians to doubt that everything considered, including the manner of his election, the president has done his bit to restore honour and dignity to the very important institution of the Presidency. First, decorum, which took a bizarre French leave in the days of Obasanjo, appears to have made a necessary, if somewhat temperate return to the State House, and that is not even to mention integrity.
Second, unlike his benefactor and immediate predecessor, Yar'Adua has demonstrated the capacity to uphold the rule of law, and in the process proved that he could be trusted with power. When the Supreme Court called time on Andy Uba's wanton abuse of our patience and intelligence, we all marvelled at how speedily the judgement was implemented even before the general public became aware of its full import.
Third, when some bureaucrats from the MFCT hung on the legacies of Nasir el-Rufai's intrepid but horrendously draconian handling of demolitions in Abuja recently visited the Villa, they were told in no uncertain terms that defiance of court orders of the type we experienced in the case of the obliteration of the Head Office of Bulet Construction Company would no longer be tolerated.
Fourth, unlike Obasanjo who was deaf like a mule and did enough for the majority of Nigerians to believe that he possessed an uncommon appetite for inflicting injury on others, we have cause to rejoice that this president at least has a listening ear. The refineries at Kaduna and Port-Harcourt, improperly sold to a few of the former tyrant's cronies, and which precipitated a brutal, but necessary strike by the NLC, have been recovered. A moratorium was also placed on future increments in the prices of petroleum products for at least another year.
What is more, our students were back in school barely one month into Yar'Adua's presidency. The president, a former lecturer himself, somehow successfully brokered a truce with the Academic Staff Unions, a feat guaranteed to have made his predecessor, famed for his combative and decidedly uncaring attitude, wince in disappointment. We also saw from the release of the Lagos State funds illegally withheld by Obasanjo, despite the ruling of the Supreme Court, that sadism is not one of the attributes of the incumbent president.
Recently, it also transpired that the EFCC has discovered the virtues of civility in the manner the agency invited, arrested and even arraigned some former governors who mistook the treasuries of their states for their private bank accounts. Certainly, what we saw from the way the governors were treated was a marked departure from the past when the agency operated like, well, the Gestapo. The attitudinal change obviously was in sync with the new emphasis on the rule of law insisted upon by the president. But for all the positives and good works since his inauguration a little over two months ago, it is precisely what the EFCC and the president have failed to do that inspired this piece.
Not a few Nigerians were dumbfounded, for instance, that the former governor of Rivers State Peter Odili was not among those arraigned despite the damning allegations made against him by Nuhu Ribadu in the media before the elections. Many were also alarmed that the EFCC rushed to defend Andy Uba after people close to the indicted former governor of Jigawa State Saminu Turaki revealed that substantial parts of the billions their principal is accused of stealing was in fact given to the former president's sidekick as part of the slush funds to execute the infamous third term project.
Similarly, it was obvious from Obasanjo's conduct in office that he probably committed more atrocities than all other Nigerian leaders in the last three decades put together. The massacres at Odi and Zaki-Biam are still fresh in our minds and should have qualified for a proper probe by the UN for possible crimes against humanity were the global body not so hopelessly overstretched and in need of urgent reinvention. But it is the economic crimes that Obasanjo committed while in office that concerns me here.
No one's contesting the fact that Nigeria was in need of far-reaching economic reforms to right the wrongs of our tragic miscalculations in the past when he assumed office. No one's even suggesting that nothing was gained from the various policies introduced to curb the spiralling overheads or the rampant corruption in the public service. No one, except the most optimistic communist or socialist, it must also be emphasized, reckons that the need to reposition the private sector as the lead driver of the economy was such a bad idea. Few also scorn the laudable idea of Nigeria's aspiration to join the league of the world's twenty leading economies by the year 2020.
But even so, when we made the sort of sacrifices Obasanjo demanded from us, it never occurred to many Nigerians that our national patrimony would be sold to a few of his cronies or some Asians under controversial circumstances. No one could have foretold that a steel company expensively acquired at the cost of billions of dollars would first be leased to some charlatans, and then later, sold outright to some Indians for a fraction of its actual value.
No one imagined that the principal arbiter or umpire in the same privatization exercise could have contrived to acquire 200 million shares in a contraption called Transcorp, initiated and operated by his cronies and business partners. Nobody could have foreseen that the same company could be awarded choice oil blocks or that most of the nation's principal assets including NITEL and the Abuja Hilton, could be sold to the same paper conglomerate. More importantly, few Nigerians expected that the internationally-recognized protocols on best business practices or conflict of interests would come to mean very little in Obasanjo's definition and interpretation of economic reforms.
Very certainly, we never expected that for the lengthy period the man had a vice-like grip on the petroleum portfolio, the few refineries we had could be allowed to rot, while a tiny cabal of importers of refined products evolved within his inner cycle and extended family. Worse still, we never bargained for the massive corruption which consumed the NNPC to the extent that the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Commission was compelled to blow the whistle on the mind-boggling anomalies in the operations of the agency.
And so if today few Nigerians are celebrating the fact that four former governors are cooling their heels in jail for corruptly enriching themselves, it is because they appreciate the fact that the bigger fishes are still out there mocking our collective resolve to cleanse the system with impunity and rubbing salt into their injuries. It is because much more significant indictments of the leading lights of the past administration need to be made to regain their confidence and faith in the polity. It is because so far, the president has shown no enthusiasm to probe some of the monumental atrocities of his mentor and benefactor. Last, but not the least, it is because he has displayed more loyalty to the former president than the type of patriotism required of a self-professed servant-leader.
With each passing day that the president fails to do the necessary, he gives further proof and ammunition to critics who are entitled to believe his government's suffering from massive crises of legitimacy. In that sense, it serves his image well that he has shown the inclination to be beholden to the rule of law of late, but his failure to probe Obasanjo's well-documented excesses provides further evidence that he owes his election more to the chicken farmer than the Nigerian people who, ordinarily, should be the original custodians of his mandate.
Obviously, the president has no stomach to embarrass the very person who was instrumental to his election. But like many writers have pointed out since his inauguration, it is not sufficient grounds for him to allow Obasanjo and his partners to escape with the blue murder so evident in their serial rape of the nation of eight solid years. In any case, what did Obasanjo do for Yar'Adua that prominent Nigerians such as Generals Ibrahim Babangida, T. Y. Danjuma, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Aliyu Mohammed Gusau did not do for the Ota farmer before 1999? These people practically sprung him from Abacha's dungeons, clothed and installed him as president despite the better judgement of the man's own kinsmen. Did that still stop him from defining his own presidency the way he eventually did?
If anything, Obasanjo summarily succeeded in proving that Nigeria was and still is bigger than any single individual. Unless we also deny the potent lessons of history and statecraft, it is the same attitude that Nigerians are now entitled to expect from Yar'Adua. No one in his right senses is suggesting that he should engage in a street brawl with his mentor, but now is the time for him to cease referring to his benefactor as 'President' in his speeches at public occasions, because unless he accepts that widely-touted view of his surrogacy, the former leader ceased to be president on May 29th, 2007.
If it was to his advantage that he remained loyal to Obasanjo for the period he sought the presidency, the same orientation should have expired the moment he was sworn into office to protect the constitution of the Federal Republic. And unless I read the wrong document, the constitution has no room for the enthronement of cronyism in the affairs of state or the wanton abuse of office in a patently flawed privatization exercise. It has no place for the bribing of lawmakers or the truncation of judicial proceedings when the president's cousin was about to be served with justice for the theft of state funds.
Therefore, the more I contemplate the state of affairs, the more it seems to me that the time is right for Yar'Adua to define his own presidency by stepping away from Obasanjo's long shadow of seamless plots and reckless debauchery. Now is the time for him to assert himself by seizing the opportunity that destiny has bestowed on him by recognizing that running the affairs of this great nation should not include shielding felons from justice, no matter how highly placed such individuals may be.
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