Nigeria’s Paradox In The Eyes Of Foreigners

By

Deji Omotunde

phoenixbix@yahoo.co.uk

 

 

It is pretty obvious that even foreign observers, including the Western media, cannot help chuckling away at the paradox of our domestic agenda: investing resources and lives of our soldiers to resolve conflicts in Africa while the third term agenda and the Niger Delta worsening state of violence are posing a new challenge to the nation’s very political existence.

 

This paradox was brilliantly captured by Lydia Polgreen, a Foreign Desk reporter of the New York Times (Jan. 23, 2006). She noted that, while Nigeria assumes the contradictory role of being an ”enforcer” and “guarantor” of democracy in Africa, the virus of dictatorship did not die automatically with the election of President Obasanjo to office in 1999. According to Lydia Polgreen, Nigeria’s political crisis, which is shaking the delicate balance of the nation’s unity, is not unconnected with the widespread speculation that… “Mr. Obasanjo will seek to alter the constitution in order to run for a third term in office – a possibility the President has not ruled out…”

 

The manner the third term agenda overshadows domestic issues of more relevance to the quality of life of ordinary people appears to capture the curiosity of foreigner observers. While Nigeria is simmering with crisis, largely created by the third term diversion of energy and silent expenditure of resources to secure the unpopular project, the New York Times wonders why Nigeria’s own domestic problems could not be on the agenda at the just concluded African Union (AU) summit in Khartoum, the Sudan, at a time Nigeria was leading the peace offensive in Darfour, Ethopia, Chad, Congo and elsewhere in conflict zones of Africa, her own simmering crisis was silently ignored.

 

In the words of Lydia Polgreen of New York Times, there is a direct connection between the renewed violence in the Niger Delta and the needless tension created by the desperate ambition of third term advocates. “The two crises”, she said, “are not entirely separate. The political confusion has created the space for Delta militants seeking more local control over oil wealth to seize the national stage.”

 

One has had to recapture Lydia’s analysis to this copious extent because of its honesty and objectivity in assessing our domestic crises. Since the end of the June 12 crisis of 1993, no political issue has put Nigeria on the tenterhooks in recent memory like the current third term controversy.

 

Surely, the issue has already put Nigerians psychologically at war. In other words, the level of fear and distrust among the diverse elements that make up Nigeria’s complex federation has been exacerbated to a frightening degree as a result of the dangerous third term politics, initiated by self-seeking loyalists or kitchen cabinet members of the President and his “friends” and “admirers” outside the villa. The strategy of denial, concealment of intention and the deliberate policy of either blackmailing or break the political backbone of third term opponents has only added to the confusion and tension in the land.

 

The current Niger Delta youth violence is already taking its toll on the economy, because Nigeria is now losing 225,000 barrels of oil per day as a result of disrupted output of production. Our President, however, must be humble enough to embrace dialogue as Prof. Wole Soyinka has urged. There can be no military solution to a crisis that has political, economic and social dimension. The ailing Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Ariel Sharon, despite his no-nonsense posture, was eventually forced to embrace dialogue by reality, because his tough language and bellicose strategies had only complicated the Israeli – Palestinian conflict.

 

President Obasanjo has to change his tack and style in dealing with the potentially dangerous crisis in the Niger Delta and the tension unnecessarily generated by his silently burning ambition to continue in office beyond 2007. And now that he is relieved the burden of solving African problems, he should concentrate his time and energy on dealing with domestic issues. A President should not judge his achievements merely by the number of foreign conflicts he has solved; how successfully he deals with the domestic agenda is just as important.

 

He should imbibe the lesson of former President George Bush Senior of the United States, who was decisively defeated by Mr. Bill Clinton in 1992 (then Governor of Arkansas). Despite his arguments that he liberated Kuwait from the aggressor’s grip of Saddam Hussein of Iraq (now facing trial for war crimes), the American voters chose to judge former President Bush by his domestic record of performance. His 90-point popularity or approval rating after the decisive defeat of Saddam Hussein in 1991 did not cut any ice with the American voters who were more concerned about the positive impact of domestic agenda of their leaders.

 

Any President that runs his country on the philosophy of knowing all the answers, of being wiser and of having superior morality will inevitably come to terms with his limitations. No leader achieves effective dialogue when he is held hostage by the passion to hear the sound of his own voice while other members of his audience are intimidated into submission to his opinions. The President’s style has to change if a sensible solution must be found to Nigeria’s domestic crises.

 

Running a nation on the mantra of puritanical superiority, as we have seen under President Obasanjo’s style, is not a virtue. Our President should demystify himself and acknowledge that in dialogue and diverse human interactions, you must listen to others. For a rational solution to be found to the Niger Delta “rebellion” and other crises across the nation, our President has to be reminded that consensus, dialogue, persuasion and humility achieve more results than supercilious dismissal of other views, because they don’t originate from the President himself. You cannot promote yourself as a problem solver elsewhere in Africa while in your own country, your style of leadership partly complicates matters.

 

It is incredibly sad that the enthusiasm and hope that greeted the return of Nigeria to democracy in 1999 are being systematically undermined by the President’s cavalier style to governance. A man who was once viewed as the beacon of hope is now being perceived with suspicion. Already, his third term agenda has dangerously torn the nation apart along its traditional ethnic, religious and regional lines. The eruption of tension in the Niger Delta is yet another dangerous addition of fuel to an already burning flame. If our President had to condemn past leaders such as Generals Babangida and Sani Abacha for insincerity, Nigerians expect him to live by his own standards.

 

Deji Omotunde

Lagos