While the President Kneels Before Adedibu

While the President Kneels Before Adedibu…

Crispin Oduobuk

Last Saturday's revelation by Lamidi Adedibu--who needs no introduction here--that President Olusegun Obasanjo knelt six times before him to beg is worrisome. It is even more disturbing that Nigerians seem to have swallowed the matter without a whimper. Could this be because people have simply become used to the sometimes odd and inappropriate behaviour of the President himself? After all, didn't he reportedly do the same before a certain person when his chances of winning the Peoples Democratic Party presidential ticket for the 2003 election hung in the balance?

The silence over Adedibu's claim is remarkable. Not even Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who is usually ready to talkback at any person that says anything deemed uncomplimentary about the President, has responded to the statement. Adedibu, who was speaking to the Saturday Sun, said: "President Olusegun Obasanjo knelt down for me six times. I swear in the name of God, begging on behalf of Ladoja [ousted Oyo State governor, Rashidi Ladoja]. But I said, no. How do you expect me to pardon Ladoja? Somebody I brought into the party who later said that he has expelled me from the same party?"

Other than the Guardian's Reuben Abati, no other commentator seems to think the matter is worth mentioning even in passing. Perhaps, as someone has pointed out to this writer, there's a cultural aspect to the issue that is lost on those in this quarter since the norms of one's stock are different from that of the President and Adedibu. And it should be borne in mind that it is the same Adedibu who is said to have asked Ladoja whether the latter could put his hand on the Koran and swear falsely and even call false witnesses, among other things. So there's the possibility of the whole thing being a matter stretched beyond what actually happened. But so long as the president has not deemed it necessary to deny Adedibu's claims, one takes the statement on its face value.

Moreover, whatever the case may be, your correspondent finds this kneeling drama repulsive. If the president is not beyond kneeling before the 'amala politics' king, who else is he kneeling for? And for what purposes? One's mother, who is in the president's age group, kneels only before God in prayer as befits her status as an elder. It is inconceivable that the woman would go kneeling before mere mortals for anything. And isn't it surprising, at the very least, that after the President's demeaning exercise, the 'strongman of Ibadan politics' still had it in him to say "no"? There's something in that which should concern all of us. Besides the debasement that the office of the president has suffered, one does not need a PhD in psychology to understand there is something sordid at work here that does not portend good.

The 'return' of Atiku?

Meanwhile, it is interesting to hear Vice President Atiku Abubakar waxing eloquent about his presidential aspiration at a time when the President himself is in the news for kneeling before Adedibu. Atiku, whose political fortunes appeared to have dwindled to an all-time low following the arrest of his erstwhile aide de camp, is reported to have spoken recently through Alhaji Nasir Galla, coordinator of the Turaki Vanguard in Yola, Adamawa State .

Cautioning members of the Turaki Vanguard that there should be no "inciting or abusive statement against President Olusegun Obasanjo, PDP leadership or any elder statesman or any Nigerian of any profile," it appears that the vice president sent a message to the effect that this advice has become necessary principally because he is now "convinced of clinching the presidential ticket of the party for the 2007 presidential elections." It may all be political-speak, but one finds it notable nonetheless because, if you believe the grapevine, this is by many accounts a man on his way out. Heartening that the fellow himself doesn't seem to think so.

As it is, a little bird has been singing to your correspondent of a plot in very influential quarters to take away a certain person's deputy seat through any means fair or foul. There is an angle to the plot which has it that a usually self-assured senator who is often the mantle-bearer of trouble was asked to go and sort out the matter of who is to take over the seat between himself and a serving governor. In the end, the governor, overseeing affairs in the late Sardauna's former seat at this time, was tipped as the man to fill the soon-to-be vacant seat.

Whether there's any truth to the bird's song, only time will tell. What seems clear is that while the president is kneeling before Adedibu and diminishing his office, the same crass mix of power-gluttony, primitive spite and lack of genuine patriotic concern for this country's underdeveloped status is at work in both parties.