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It is Not Cricket By Omo Isokpan
As we draw nearer and nearer to an election year, we the ordinary people have a duty to be doubly vigilant so that we can not be taken for a ride by politicians. We must always be alert to the antics of politicians because if we are not, a clever rouge could pass himself off as an honourable gentleman; an opportunist would hoodwink us into applauding him as a patriot and a smart manipulator of public mood would cheaply buy our sympathy for his selfish cause by pretending that he is pursuing a collective public good.
We must be ready to search for hidden motives and hidden agenda. We must be prepared not to accept any statement, gesture or action at their face value. This is the only way we will be able to separate charlatans from true patriots. Why is one calling for alertness on the part of the ordinary citizens?
Any perceptive watcher of our politics will easily realize that one is making this call obviously in the light of vice- president Atiku Abubakar’s recent outburst against the alleged third term agenda of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
There is no argument about it that under a democratic dispensation, every citizen has the perfect right to comment or take a position on any public issue over which he or she feels strongly about. The vice- president’s remarks can, therefore, be accepted as being in line with democratic tenets and practices of free speech. In other words, it is permissible. He can not be denied the right to express his opinion on any issue just because he is the vice- president of the country.
The trouble, however, is whether what he has said and the forum he elected to say it, are right because what is permissible may not necessarily be right. The right to freedom of expression carries with it the grave responsibility to be charitable, decent, decorous and principled. Does Atiku’s remark pass that litmus test?
The answer is a big no. Any impartial commentator who takes a critical look at what the vice-president said, the way he said what he said and the possible motive behind his present public confrontational posture against the president, will easily reach the conclusion that the number two man is cowardly and not courageous, self-serving and not selfless and totally dishonorable and not principled.
As some other commentators have already pointed out, it is dishonourable for a number two man in an administration to remain inside and criticize his boss publicly. The best practice every where else in the world is that if a high functionary of an administration feels strongly enough about an issue which he disagrees with his boss, the most honourable option for such a one is to resign and launch his war from outside on the basis of principle. This, Atiku has not done. Like the cat which wants to eat fish without wetting its paws, Atiku wants to win acclaim as an activist democrat without having to pay a price for his conviction, if he has any.
This is not only unprincipled, it is also cowardly. Atiku told the so-called anti- third term forum that he has suffered untold frustration at the hand of his boss since the year 2003. If what he said is true and not merely intended to curry public sympathy, why has he not resigned long ago? What is he afraid of? Does he have any skeleton in his closet of which he is afraid that should he resign and strip himself of immunity, he could be made to account?
The vice-president also claims that the real reason the president is calling him a disloyal deputy is because of his opposition to the president’s alleged third term bid and not for any real acts of misdemeanor on his part. In other words, the veepee wants us to believe that he is a saint without any damning vice and the president is the villain without any redeeming virtue in their widely known misunderstanding.
Has the veepee for once averted his mind to the fact that he may have lost the confidence he used to enjoy with his boss possibly because of the way he handled some of the briefs he was given during his good days with the president? May we, for instance, know how clean the vice president’s hands are in the sale of government’s assets under the privatization programme, a key schedule the veepee was given when he still enjoyed the confidence of the president? There is an allegation that the veepee cornered a good chunk of the privatized assets to himself. Can he please come clean on this allegation? Could this allegation, and possibly many others, and not the so-called opposition to the third term agenda, be the reason for the parting of ways between the president and his vice?
Between 1999 and 2003, the political and administrative partnership between Obasanjo and Atiku was so strong that it looked like a perfect marriage made in heaven. Atiku enjoyed the absolute confidence of Obasanjo and the former was given so much power that many commentators said that Atiku has been the most powerful vice president that this country has ever had. For such a relationship to have degenerated to a level whereby the vice president now comes out publicly to denounce his principal, calls for soul-searching on the part of the veepee.
As it is today, it is only Atiku who has told us his own side of the story and there is no overwhelming evidence in what he has said so far to convince the impartial observer that it is his opposition to Obasanjo’s alleged interest to continue in power that is the source of their now open war. It takes two to tango and it is not wise to hear submission from one party to a dispute and pass a judgment.
It is clear that Atiku is trying to win a psychological war against Obasanjo. He is undoubtedly aware of the fact that the mass of the people tend to instinctively sympathise with any party to a dispute who looks like the underdog. What he is doing is unfair to the president, who by the virtue of his office, may not be disposed to coming out in the open to say why he considers his deputy disloyal. There is nothing wrong in Atiku or anybody else having an ambition for any office in the land but there is everything wrong with such a person seeking to undermine the one who is currently occupying the position one has eyes for. As they say it, “it is not cricket”. It is not honourable so to do. Vice president Atiku must realize that a dancer can not see his back. It is the admiring public that can pass a judgment on whether or not the man on the stage is dancing well. From what some of us can see, he is trying to use unfair means to win the public to his cause. It should worry the veepee that a few days ago, the former legal adviser to the late General Sanni Abacha, Professor Awwalu Yadudu, described his recent comment about the president as “a masterstroke of political opportunism”. That description is certainly not positive.
Omo Isokpan, Plot 244 Thomas Sankara Crescent, Asokoro, Abuja
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