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Nigeria’s Leadership Crisis By Chido Onumah That Nigeria would be the latest killing field over cartoons about Prophet Muhammad was only a matter of time. While the crisis seems to have abated in other parts of the world, deluded cranks in Nigeria have taken it upon themselves to murder and maim fellow Nigerians in the name of religion and over cartoons that were published by Europeans in Europeans newspapers. At the last count, depending on who is counting, hundreds of Nigerians have been massacred in a senseless orgy of violence that is gradually enveloping the country. A few weeks ago, as the cartoon crisis engulfed much of Europe and the Middle East, I had written a piece in which I noted how irresponsible it was for the media to play the role of religious, ethnic or racial provocateur. Gladly, no newspaper in Nigeria published the offending cartoons either to push the argument for freedom of expression, bait Muslims or even sell their paper. Though I had foreboding about the crisis spreading to Nigeria, I kept it to myself. I quietly hoped Nigeria would be spared the unnecessary mayhem; I imagined our leaders so-called would rise to the occasion and show leadership. Then the inevitable happened! What started as protests in Maiduguri, Borno State, over the controversial cartoons soon graduated to mayhem. Christians and churches became targets. There was one particularly disturbing story of a priest that was burned to death. As if waiting to be prompted, other states in the North have taken a cue from Borno State. These attacks have occasioned reprisals against Muslims and "non-indigenes" in the South. Today, the whole country is gradually being turned into a huge theater of bloodcurdling violence. No day passes without reports of even more gruesome attacks. That’s Nigeria, after almost five decades of independence! The recent massacre, another in the long history of violent religious and ethnic bloodletting, points to the serious shortcoming of the Nigerian experiment. But it also points to something else equally, if not more, disturbing: the problem of leadership. More than two decades ago, eminent literary scholar, Chinua Achebe, identified the trouble with Nigeria as that of leadership. It is difficult to fault Achebe. Agreed that Nigeria has some fundamental geo-political problems, but the effect of poor leadership is felt everyday and everywhere. The criminal complicity of the present government in the current crisis cannot be overlooked. While Nigeria burned, literally, Obasanjo fiddled and his ineffectiveness was only matched by his invisibility. When the first sign of what was to come emerged in Lafia, Plateau State, almost three weeks ago, I thought President Obasanjo would nip the imminent danger in the bud by addressing Nigerians and putting security forces on alert. When the protests shifted to Maiduguri, with even more ominous signs, my opinion was that the president had to take action and quickly too. As the situation escalated, I remember putting the blame firmly on the president. The response I got from an acquaintance was that I was being uncharitable to the president. "Why is that if anybody sneezes in Nigeria, you blame Obasanjo?" I was reprimanded. My response was simple considering our experience with religious fanaticism. I had hoped that the president would read the riot act and dispatch security forces to the areas the crisis was simmering considering how the Presidency had used security personnel in the political crisis in Anambra and Oyo States and in Lagos against concerned mothers protesting plane crashes. Of course, the Presidency had other options. It could have sent the vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, who is a Muslim and whose home state of Adamawa, like Maiduguri, is in North Eastern Nigeria, to calm tempers and address the senselessness of the impending violence. It could have called an emergency meeting of traditional rulers across Nigeria to tell them the responsibility they had to help stop any attacks. It could have liaised with state governors to ensure they had the support they needed to forestall any carnage. None of this happened. There was nothing from the Presidency except some lame appeal for "calm and understanding of all Nigerians". Clueless as ever, Obasanjo sent his Minister of Information, Frank Nweke Jr to spin the situation. "Information available to us is that the states where these disturbances occurred are quiet at the moment. Borno State governor has shown tremendous leadership there and he has calmed the situation significantly. The same thing with Bauchi and Katsina. Only yesterday it was Onitsha where the situation has been calmed. The security agencies have, of course, brought the situation under control and we do not expect any further skirmishes from these places. We should not allow matters which could be discussed amicably to move into violence and panic," Nweke Jr said midweek. By then the death toll was in the triple digit and rising! Will anybody be punished or even held culpable for the wanton destruction of lives and property of the last three weeks? Not likely. Not when you have a president who doesn’t know much less accept that the buck stops at his desk. Obviously more interested in his inordinate ambition for a third term, Obasanjo seemed too preoccupied to act. But for someone who was center stage during the Civil War, the current crisis must be eerily familiar. That’s why Obasanjo’s inaction is dangerous even for him. Unless of course he is also nursing the ambition of prosecuting another Civil war. It is for this reason that Nigerians must oppose any attempt by the president to stay beyond May 2007. All the politicians clamoring for Obasanjo to stay on say he is the only person who can keep Nigeria together. It was the same rhetoric we heard during the regimes of Babangida and Abacha. If the unity of Nigeria is so fragile that it rests on the whims of one person, then Nigeria is not worth saving. If after almost 50 years of independence we can’t point to things we have in common as a people, then Nigeria is doomed. The third term agenda remains by far the most important and urgent political question confronting Nigeria. If May 2007 comes to pass without Obasanjo as president it would be the first time since independence that an elected president would be succeeded by another elected president. If nothing else, it will show our capacity as a people to change our leaders. Whether Nigeria survives or not will depend, in the most part, on our ability to undertake this most fundamental of tasks. With what we have witnessed in the last few weeks, I don’t think any sane person would make a case for a third term for Obasanjo based on the quality of his leadership. Chido Onumah 33-11131 No 1 Road, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.
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