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Nigeria: A Birthday Mess
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This Day (Lagos)
EDITORIAL
22 July 2008
Posted to the web 22 July 2008
Lagos
For most Nigerians, the recent muddle in respect of the birthday of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, speaks volumes about the nation's carelessness in virtually all matters that have to do with records. But what is most shocking about the mix-up as to the actual birthday of the president is that even the Federal Ministry of Information did not seem any better informed.
According to media reports, ignorance of the actual birthday of the President on the part of some governors, the Minister of Information and the so-called well-wishers had led many of them to placing congratulatory messages for the president in national dailies on July 9. That date happened, however, to be more than one full month away from the president's actual birthday - August 16.
That sort of national embarrassment is symptomatic of the levity with which vital records concerning the nation and its leaders is often handled. It is hard to believe that accurate information on the birthday of the President was not with the Federal Ministry of Information. If the mix-up had been limited to the so-called well-wishers who are often no more than plain contractors and patronage seekers, we could understand it. But to think that government agencies and state governments would fall into such grave error is astonishing.
Are we to assume that those who printed the wrong birthday for the President were victims of the printer's devil or that this was a clear case of recklessness on the part of those who handed the information to them? Whatever is the case, the entire episode ridicules the nation and portrays us as an extremely careless people? The Ministry of Information and all those who handle the President's personal information ought to be sorry for that muddle.
Our other worry about the episode is the fact that government agencies would defy the President's request that such noisy congratulatory messages should not be embarked upon for him. The president is indeed on record for decrying the self-seeking culture of advertised congratulatory messages. On more than one occasion he had described it as wasteful and irrelevant to the serious national challenges facing the country.
We share the President's sentiments on the issue. No self-respecting public official should take such advertised birthday congratulatory messages seriously except it is from long-standing friends. Even so, we can excuse such adverts if they are sponsored by private individuals or companies. What is inexcusable is the penchant of government agencies and public functionaries for taking out whole pages in national dailies to sing the praises of one government 'big man' or the other. In doing so, they waste taxpayers' money.
Ironically, this culture thrives in the face of obvious poor performance by the government agencies that sponsor such adverts. In a sense, it would seem that the real intention of such messages is to make the beneficiary overlook the glaring incompetence of the sponsors.
In the light of that therefore, we deem it necessary to caution Mr. President against falling for such trick. Those who think advertising their birthday wishes to Mr. President is a short cut to retaining his favour must be made to understand that such trick won't take them anywhere.
Interestingly, only recently a ranking public functionary pleaded with those who would like to send her advertised congratulatory messages to instead send the money to charity homes. She was careful to list the names of such homes. It would not surprise us if only a handful of her well-wishers heeded that request. And the reason would be obvious. Nigerians generally like to be noticed when they do charity work. Once you bring some anonymity to it, you will not get many who are interested.
It also bears repeating to say that those who are dying to advertise their birthday goodwill messages to President Yar'Adua today will hardly remember that date as soon as he is out of power. The lesson here is that those in positions of power and influence must learn not to take such messages too seriously. They are often opportunistic and self-seeking.
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There is considerable merit in the President's attitude to all such advertisements. They are to be discouraged because they amount to a waste of public funds on the part of government agencies. Even when such advertisements come from private entities, they could also put public officials under undue pressure to favour sponsors of such advertisements in the award of contracts. It is a culture that deserves to be shown the door.
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