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Professor Jibril Aminu: No Longer My Hero By Dr. M. R. Bello
How does it feel when someone you have always held in the highest esteem suddenly lets you down? How does it feel to suddenly discover that someone you regarded as a hero all along is after all, no different from the rest? My answer to both questions is this: you feel utterly disappointed. In the current debate about the third term ambition of President Obasanjo which has significantly polarized the country, I have waited eagerly to hear Prof. Jibril Aminu’s stand. Somehow, I felt he would be against it based on his antecedents that I knew (or that I thought I knew). However, to my complete surprise and disappointment, I heard Prof. Aminu, my all time role model, declaring on the BBC his support for the third term agenda.
Before I talk more about the third term agenda, let me explain why Prof. Aminu was a personal role model for me. As a medical doctor like Prof. Aminu I have been impressed to learn about his exceptional brilliance at medical school in Ibadan, and his rise to the highest level in the profession after training in the best centres in the world. In addition, the medical school of the University of Maiduguri, which is my alma mater, was nurtured almost solely by Prof. Aminu. It is therefore understandable that those of us who graduated from the school have a larger-than-life image of him. He has equally excelled in other national assignments as minister of education and later of petroleum resources. He has always met my expectations as a public servant. When he was contesting for the senate seat, I felt that such a position was beneath him considering his high profile. In recent times, I have praised him for his stiff opposition to the Atiku /Boni Haruna kleptocracy in Adamawa State, even though he used to belong to their camp.
My opposition to the third term issue has always been on principle; that the constitution of Nigeria should not be amended for the benefit of an individual no matter what he or she means to the country. Such an amendment will diminish the value of the constitution, will foster impunity and instability, and will be a bad precedent for the future political life of the country. I’m not opposed to the third term because I dislike President Obasanjo or because of sectional reasons. I know that Nigerians nowadays would dismiss anyone who espouses firm principles as being naïve, frustrated or lacking in financial endowment. However, it is clear that upholding such firm principles have made countries like Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea to be what they are today. It amazes me that Nigerians who are campaigning for the third term like my dear Prof. Aminu are willing to risk the very survival of this country in order to gain money and status. The arguments put forward to justify the third term are completely unimaginative and sterile and could only have been put forward by people who are so immersed in the quest for money and status that they cannot think straight.
The main argument put forward by the third term campaigners is that President Obasanjo has done well and so he should be allowed to continue. The constitution of Nigeria, I believe, already assumes that every president elected to office in this country would perform well, and it is with this assumption in mind that it gave such a president a maximum of 8 years. The constitution did not say that a non-performing president should serve 8 years while a performing president should have his term extended. And in any case, where is the performance? I have always had mixed feelings about the so-called performance this government. I use to tell my colleagues at work jokingly that whenever I’m at work in the hospital, I regard President Obasanjo as a performer but each time I close from work and go back home, I feel he is an absolute non-performer. My reasons are simple. At work, I see that the government is re-equipping the hospital as well as 7 other teaching hospitals in the country. This is a wonderful project which will hopefully take our hospitals out of the medical dark ages. I give the president credit for that. However, when I get back home, I find, like millions of other Nigerians that there is no electricity. Anyone who knows Maiduguri would testify about how oppressively hot the weather can be at times. I find it very difficult within me to praise a President who has not given me electricity in my house, something that is taken for granted even in neighbouring West African countries. This is a country that is virtually run on generators. In Africa’s largest oil producer, even the headquarters of our state oil company (NNPC) in Abuja is frequently run on generators. Nigeria may have launched a space satellite but I’m quite sure that the earth station (or whatever they call it) for the satellite in Abuja will need to use generators frequently. Our popular Minister of Finance frequently tells the world about our brilliant macroeconomic indices while she happily maintains a generator at home (even though I have never been to her home, I can bet that there is no VIP residence in Nigeria that has no generator in it).
The other day I was watching the television show Big Brother Nigeria and they flashed a message on the screen which said that the show was “powered by Mikano”. Mikano is of course, a major brand name for generators in Nigeria. It is only in Nigeria that such a message can be seen on the television screen during a show which is taking place inside a major city in the country and not in the wild. There is no country that I can imagine which will require generators to run a television show in one of its major cities. Of course, people like Prof. Aminu and the other third term campaigners have also installed these gigantic ‘Mikanos’ in their homes and that is why its easy for them to ask President Obasanjo to continue. My cousin living in a choice area of our capital city depends on local water vendors for his water supply on a permanent basis. The only excuse the municipal authorities have to explain the lack of water is that the population of Abuja has grown too fast; as if it is impossible to have foreseen that. Some Nigerians, including Prof. Aminu are simply not aware what a big-for-nothing our country has become due to the incompetence of the people in authority.
The question in my mind is how someone of Prof. Aminu’s intelligence and experience could ignore these issues and campaign for a third term for President Obasanjo. To me, Prof. Aminu is a metaphor for the Nigerian elite; an elite that is well educated and sophisticated but at the same time all too eager to sacrifice principles and commonsense at the altar of money and status no matter what is at stake. Instead of basing his politics on sound principles, Prof. Aminu is playing the politics of amala and ewedu which was popularised by the Ibadan politician Lamidi Adedibu. The essential feature of that brand of politics is the relentless pursuit of personal aggrandizement at all costs. I think I need to shop for a new hero.
Dr. M. R. Bello, Department of Anaesthesia, University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, Maiduguri.
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