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| Goodluck jonathan |
By Dr. Wumi Akintide
Lying, cover-up and appeasement constitute the worse forms of Denial and President Jonathan has so far failed that litmus test by doing the same things that all his predecessors have always done, but expecting a different result. It is not just going to happen.
All the tough talk by his new Sheriff in town, Okonjo-Iweala who is going to fix all the economic problems of Nigeria by the same magic wand she has successfully deployed at the World Bank might help, but can hardly be the ultimate solution to the problems of Nigeria. Why? Because the foundation is just too weak and the people the “mata griki” want to rely upon to do the magic are just not mentally ready and well equipped to do the job because there is too much wishful thinking and self-deceit going on everywhere you look.
The first big question to ask is whether or not Nigeria as configured by the British for administrative convenience or expediency from 1914 still wants to remain one country with all that is going on in the country Sudan. The signs we see don’t suggest that at all if the truth must be told.
Sudan which is a microcosm of Nigeria in so many ways would appear to have answered that question when the South and the North finally decided to go their different ways few m
onths ago. The Sudan implosion was one accident waiting to happen for a long time. The same thing can be said of Nigeria today from all we are able to see.
The Biafran war, you will recall, was fought for 3 long years from 1967 to 1970 for precisely the same reason. Boko Haram is heading the same direction, as we speak, by declaring war on the rest of Nigeria because their doctrine is to Islamize Nigeria and they do not buy the notion of secularity or modernity that half of the country so much cherish and desperately want to preserve and sustain. Where is that stalemate supposed to lead Nigeria? Your guess is as good as mine. Unto your tents O Israel is where we are headed. Any transformational President who truly means business would not dismiss that conundrum with the wave of the hand or pretend that the cracks can be papered or swept under the carpet.
The first question any of you reading this must ask yourself is why do people and Governments lie in general? Most people lie because they are not proud of what they are lying about or what they have done. The same thing rings true for Government without any question.
Most people lie because of the fear of reprisal or punishment. Most people lie to protect their ego, their true identity and self-esteem and the way they want to be perceived or judged by people around them. The same thing is true of Government.
Most people lie and condone lying because they don’t want to be perceived as weak, incompetent and vulnerable when in actual fact they are. People and Presidents, Prime Ministers and politicians, as a rule, lie to cover up who they really are when the kind of image and perception they want to project to the world is totally at odds with who they are, and what they may be doing or saying under cover of darkness or behind the iron curtain of political power.
Lying is generally not good or healthy or desirable even for ordinary people talk less of Heads of Government or Politicians in positions of power who can build or destroy with just a stroke of the pen or the power of the spoken word. The major difference between political leaders in developing nations and developed and civilized ones is the degree to which leaders are held accountable and punished if they get caught in the act.
Richard Nixon had to ultimately resign the presidency to escape impeachment for lying about Watergate scandal. Bill Clinton narrowly escaped being impeached for lying about his affairs with Monica Luwenski even though the misdemeanor was more of a domestic affair than a serious breach of public trust as defined by the Law.
Government leaders and Heads of Government in third world countries routinely lie to their own people all the time. It becomes really offensive and egregious as in the case of President Jonathan who got elected on the promise he was going to transform the nation and be totally different from all of his predecessors. The question for me in this write-up is to ascertain whether or not President Jonathan has kept his word or if he has so far behaved just like all of his predecessors.
Nigerians should be seriously concerned that far too many lies and cover-up by our leaders is a major part of the reason why Nigeria is going from bad to worse and why our current generation of leaders are decidedly worse than all of their predecessors if you compare and contrast their performance on a ranking scale of History.
It is worse when such lies pertain to a serious denial and cover-up on the part of Government and leaders to not tell the truth about issues like the recent bombing of the UN Building in Abuja and the silly denial by President Jonathan regarding the actual number of fatalities and victims of the bombing. It ought to have been clear to him that such lies are not sustainable because there is bound to be other witnesses who could readily contradict or challenge the veracity of what the President was talking about. Nigerians should be as concerned as Fani Kayode when he openly challenged the accuracy of the information the President and his handlers had put out for public consumption.
Up till today nobody knows how many Nigerians have lost their lives in all the peace-keeping involvement of Nigeria around the world. What is more surprising is that no family in Nigeria has ever taken the Government to Court because they want some fool-proof answers to what may have been the fate of their loved ones who were reportedly lost in ECOMOG wars or the wars in the Congo or Sierra Leone.
All Nigerians are usually told is that many Nigerians died and were buried in mass graves and that is the end of it. The observation is a sad commentary on how much our Governments value the lives of their own people. I recall the Entebbe Rescue Mission in Uganda when a commando unit from the Israeli Military flew in at night to release their citizens who were being held hostage by Idi Amin. Just imagine the preparations that must have gone into that mission and the flawless way it was carried out. The commander who led the rescue effort was short dead in the process but his body was still recovered and flown back to Israel with the rest of the group. They had to make sure that everyone was fully accounted for.
I guess you could say the same thing about American seals who flew in 4 to 5 helicopters to Pakistan under cover of darkness for the sole purpose of delivering on the promise the President has made to America that he was going to do whatever it took to kill Osama Bin Laden and to put Al Qaeda in total disarray in his iron determination to avenge the death of the more than 3000 Americans who lost their lives lost in the Attack on the Twin Towers back then on September 11, 2001.
The names of those victims have remained documented for life and Americans keep remembering them and their families every year till tomorrow. Another anniversary is around the corner, a week from now, and you can expect the same remembrance happening all over again as the nation mourns their falling compatriots.
Not so in Nigeria. There are far too many unresolved murder, assassination and kidnap that have remained a mystery because the Nigerian Government and their leaders would never come clean to their people on what is happening.
Up till tomorrow the Nigerian Government has not admitted or confessed the true cause of death of General Musa Yar Adua, M.K.O. Abiola, and Uncle Bola Ige. Their killers have remained on the loose because our Governments and Presidents just don’t care enough to get to the bottom of the investigation. They lie to the nation on what they knew about those deaths and when they knew it.
Some 300 lives were allegedly lost in the latest bombing of the UN Building in Abuja and all our transformational President has admitted is that the total casualty was less than 20. He said the same thing about the bombing of the Police Headquarters, a stone throw from Aso Rock. Only 2 people died in that bombing according to the President. The President is scared to death to let the truth come out and to let the chips fall where they may.
Nigerians ought to be concerned about lying at our highest level of Government and the dire consequences of such lies and the irredeemable damage or tragedy such lying has often caused Nigeria.
A former Cabinet Minister of Aviation or Transportation under President Obasanjo, Mr. Fani Kayode Jnr, a powerful member of the ruling party in Nigeria has just issued a statement widely publicized on the Internet that the recent bombing of the UN Headquarters in Abuja by Boko Haram had killed or maimed no less than 300 people as against the 20 announced by the President’s Media Adviser, Reuben Abati who we all thought was going to be one of the only voice of reason in the Jonathan Administration. Abati has already eaten out of the forbidden fruit of power like Adam and Eve and he has already begun to show his colors as predicted.
I could have sworn that the young man was a progressive based on some of the positions he had canvassed as a very thoughtful and insightful critic of the Government back then. Now as an insider close to the corridors of power, Reuben Abati is hardly the same Reuben we used to know. If President Jonathan has succeeded in transforming anything, it is what he has done to Reuben Abati who, all of a sudden, is now defending the indefensible or just looking the other way or feigning total ignorance on matters of public interest.
I am sure that Reuben Abati must now be fuming like his boss about Mr. Fani Kayode’s revelations which have now portrayed the President and his Government as a bunch of liars who are bent on a cover-up just to make themselves look good or look better than they really are in the way and manner they have so far managed the nation’s Security. Nigerians can only continue to talk of a nation when the nation is secure and economically strong. As Security goes, so goes the nation.
Right now the Jonathan’s Government is performing so poorly in the way and manner he has so far dealt with the threat from the Niger Delta Militants and the more serious threat from Boko Haram which has been described in some quarters as a more militant unit of Al Qaeda.
Boko Haram is bent on destabilizing and intimidating a soft target like Nigeria which is believed to be a good ally of America in what they all see as a war against Islam and not just a determination to wipe out global terrorism around the world. They have hit Nigeria far too many times with effortless ease and only God knows their next target.
Nigeria is viewed as a soft target because the country is polarized on religious grounds with serious mutual suspicion between Muslims and Christians just like we saw in Sudan which has finally broken up. The comparison with Sudan has to be taken seriously by any serious Nigerian leader because the two nations have so much in common with a predominantly Muslim population to the North and a predominantly Christian population to the South of the country; South Sudan produces the oil just like the Nigerian South produces the one product economy that keeps Nigeria going. If Sudan can break up under the weight of her own contradictions or inequities, so can Nigeria. If the North of Nigeria suddenly finds oil in their territory tomorrow, they will not hesitate to kiss a united Nigeria goodbye.
It is an exercise in self-delusion for any President to argue like Jonathan is doing that Nigeria remains a united entity with all that we see going on across the country. The North is only holding on because they are not so sure they could be viable if they lose their access to the black gold in the South. If the oil wells dry up tomorrow forget it, the North will be gone in a heartbeat. We all want Nigeria to survive but it can only do so if we are all invested in that survival and if each of the six political zones has cause to want to belong. It is not something that any President can decree.
Why for God’s sake is President Jonathan more inclined to lie than to tell the truth concerning the escalation of tension between Nigeria and Boko Haram at this point? The only explanation I could offer is the fear on the part of Mr. President that his on-going appeasement overtures or dialogue with Boko Haram may hit a brick wall if Nigerians get to know about the deadly nature of their recent attacks which were designed to embarrass, weaken and intimidate the Jonathan Government, and to force the Government to negotiate with them not out of strength but out of fear.
The Government was probably scared that if Nigerians know the full extent of the devastation already caused by Boko Haram and the full ramifications of what they are doing to the image and reputation of Nigeria, some might question the legitimacy of the Federal Government negotiating with a group whose ultimate goal is to turn Nigeria from modern civilization to the stone age. The group has confessed they are opposed to western civilization and they want Nigeria to be governed not by the Rule of Law as we have all come to know it. All they want is a country governed by Islamic Law or Sharia, and they have said it loud and clear.
While the Niger Delta militants are fighting for empowerment and more opportunities to share out of the wealth coming from their own backyard, Boko Haram is fighting to “formalize” changing Nigeria from a secular state to an Islamic one. I use the word “formalize” because Nigeria has been smuggled to OIC (Organization of Islamic State) on observer status for close to 30 years and counting. It all started with IBB who spearheaded and authorized the move but kept a sealed lip on it in the hope that Nigerians would eventually accept the development as a “fait accompli”.
Subsequent Federal Governments in Nigeria including the one led by Obasanjo a Christian, have assumed pretty much the same stance because they are all afraid to rock the boat. The Muslim ones have all been working underground or behind the screen to find a way to rubberstamp or confirm Nigeria’s membership of OIC by amending the Nigerian Constitution to show Nigeria as an Islamic Republic.
What is stopping them is the general fear that the move could escalate tension between the Muslims and the Christians and predictably break-up the country. That is why the North is scared to death about the prospect of a southerner taking over power at the Federal level, even if the southerner is a fellow Muslim like them.
If the power brokers in the North could not trust Alhaji M.K. O, Abiola with power, forget it, they can hardly trust anyone else for precisely the same reason. They view Jonathan coming to power with the same trepidation and part of the resentment fueling the Boko Haram upheaval is a general resentment of President Jonathan and the fear that Jonathan’s successor may not come again from the North as previously assumed by a cross section of the North. The Boko Haram rebellion is designed to send a powerful message ahead of time that the North would not tolerate any other candidate other than one of their own.
Having been out of power for 11 years of Obasanjo and the next 4 to 5 years of Jonathan, they are scared to death that another 4 to 8 years of an Igbo President after Jonathan could spell disaster for the North. It is a legitimate fear if you know where the North is coming from. That “Born to Rule” has appeared on the license plate of Kaduna State is a reflection of the mindset of some power brokers in the North. You cannot blame them, however, because nobody surrenders long-held power and privilege with effortless ease or without a fight. If you do not understand that prism, you are not a good student of History.
The Boko Haram insurrection and terrorism are the early warnings or signs of that cul-de-sac for many of our compatriots in the North. The relics of the Biafran struggle around the world are busy flying a kite and reminding Nigeria that they too have not totally abandoned their goal of secession if Nigeria would not guarantee them equal opportunities like the two other major tribes namely the Yorubas and the Hausa/Fulani candidates who have both ruled Nigeria to the total exclusion of the Igbos of the South East. The minorities in the Middle Belt up north are equally jittery as they too eye an opportunity to lead Nigeria just like the South/South has now done with the coming to power of President Jonathan.
Those are the intricacies of the Nigeria situation that very few people ever talk about. Another 4 to 8 years of an Igbo President after Jonathan is something the North view as a nightmare because they fully understand what that means for them and their place in the Commonwealth of Nigeria.
That is the problem Nigeria currently faces and that is the engine quietly driving the Boko Haram upheaval or rebellion. If Okonjo-Iweala succeeds in her plans to turn around the economy of Nigeria, what would be the justification to deny her or any qualified Igbo candidate a shot at the Presidency if the Igbos are now allowed to assume their rightful position in the governance of Nigeria? It is something to seriously think about.
The South East reserves as much right as any of the three tripods on which Nigeria rests to fully claim their right. Their only crime is fighting to establish that right. The Boko Haram insurrection could predictably lead to the same outcome as the Biafran war and there could many more wars of that kind in Nigeria as Nigerians challenge the status quo which seems to favor the North more than the rest of the country the last time I checked..
I am raising this point because President Jonathan has called himself a transformational President who is going to somehow change the country. The great majority of voters from the South voted for him and not his political party because they have some faith he was going to do what he promised. My point is that he cannot do so by lying his way out of trouble like he recently did with the Boko Haram Attack and the Niger Delta Militants attack in Abuja the day Jonathan was finally sworn in as President on his own terms.
If President Jonathan is truly a transformational President his order of priorities for Nigeria would be different and he would be more disposed to telling the truth than pulling a fast on the country like most of his predecessors have done.
I rest my case.
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