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The Frustrated Vice President By Samuel A. Isola
The VP was recently quoted in the local media - those ones too quoting from the extracts of an interview he recently granted the BBC Hausa service - complaining about his tight official schedules in recent times to the extent that he now spends most part of the day sleeping and reading newspapers, not to forget that he now has ample time to receive several irrelevant and questionable awards been confer on him every other day by the many mush rooms and road sides NGOs set up by his cronies.
Nigeria is a very funny country; otherwise the VP would not be insulting our collective intelligence as if we were not all in this same country between 1999 and 2003. It would not be inappropriate at this point if Mr Atiku should give accounts of his stewardship when the rein of government was virtually handed over to him between 1999 and 2003, even when he was only a VP, or were the responsibilities so overwhelming for him then resulting in his abysmal testimonial which fortunately is in the public domain?
The VP should stop whipping up unnecessary sentiment as the issue on hands is more fundamental than the flippancy been attached to it by him, this affects the general well being and sovereignty of our country, hence every reasonable citizen must condemn in its entirety any attempt by anybody to justify his/her apparent incompetence when he/she should ought to bow out honorably; I know for certain that the VP has more than enough legal minds around him who should be able to explain to him, in case he’s finding it difficult to fathom the wordings of our constitution – nothing to begrudge anybody about, as it is a well known fact that the VP is highly incapacitated in this area - that the position of the Vice President ditto state Deputy Governor, is at the behest of the principal, in this case the President. The constitution does not ascribe any particular role to the Vice-President, except any duty so given to him by the President, which invariably leads us to the question: is the President constitutionally bound to assign responsibility to his deputy, especially after such a deputy has been found wanting or when such a deputy no longer enjoys the confidence of the boss?
The last point stated above now brings me to the issue of our public office holders not knowing when to bow out gracefully after loosing the confidence of both their superiors and the electorates; it is pertinent to state here that Mr Atiku and his sidekicks would readily claim that his mandate was derived from the electorates whose interests he took an oath to defend, even if the so called electorates have since lost confidence in him as could be attested to even in his immediate constituency, Adamawa state, considering the generally despondency on the faces of the indigenes of the state. Though this ought to be a story for another day but I need to digress a little bit here and share my experience in the state as I only returned from Yola a week ago after spending 3 months in the town. My experience in the town is anything but memorable, I can state unequivocally and I stand to be challenged by anybody that the state is the most backward in the country; I own nobody any apology for calling a spade a spade, the point is that a man that cannot develop his primary constituency by influencing developmental projects; opening up the economy of the state to willing investors, not intimidating them because of his selfish motives – there is no single decent eatery in the whole of Yola/Jimeta, Mr Biggs that tried to open an outlet was forced to abandon the project as our Megida do not want any competition, ditto for others; but to divert the state allocations to his private business –ABTI Groups, which the puppet he installed as Governor readily acquiesce to - has no moral right aspiring to the highest office in the land.
The point of the matter in Mr Atiku’s case is simply about morality, a word which regrettably is missing in the dictionary of most of our politicians in this clime; in advanced democracy and in societies where politics is about service to the society, Atiku Abubakar would have resigned honorably long time before now but the lure of office, notwithstanding the filthiness, is too tempting for our politicians, hence the unwillingness to toe the path of honor. Even if the man in question is willing to give up when it is obvious that things has fallen apart, and the centre could no longer holds for him, how about his retinue of aides, pseudo columnists and other sycophants whose main source of relevance and livelihood would be gone once their master is no longer in the corridor of power?
Politicians in this country are a peculiar breed, an interesting set of incurable optimists; somebody that has never contested for any elective position and would possibly not contest any in his/her life time, but for the material gains and other ancillary pecuniary benefits, not minding the ephemeral surrounding the so called vain benefits would willingly and callously put his master down the drain by given him wrong advice, misleading him to think he’s more than his actual worth, swearing with the name of God that all is going well even when all the indices are clearly pointing to a major disaster in the horizon for the not too discreet boss.
Most people in authority are unknowingly living in bondage, craftily put together and jealously guided by their aides, the only unfortunate thing is that these men of power would not realize this until they are no more in power when the reality would then down on them. Should we then blame the aide or the egoistic master? No, we should not blame the aide because for him to survive the sharks eats sharks politics of Nigeria he needs to continuously massage the Oga’s ego. To him all is fair and the ends justify the means as long as political foes are obliterated. Under the cruel guise of propaganda, naked lies are concocted and giving to some gullible journalists – accompany with brown envelopes most of the times - to publish as breaking news or hot snoop from the grapevine. And once the unfortunate master is out of circulation, these set of people with no qualm would readily be available to the next man who can pay for their disingenuous services. Then why would any reasonable politician allow him/herself to be held hostage by this self-seeking set of individuals, there could be no other reason than personal failure derived from perennial sense of inferiority complex.
It is a widely accepted norm everywhere that the right to vote and to be voted for is a basic fundamental right of every citizen; however in the blind pursuits of such right – as we are presently witnessing in our country - utmost precautions needs to be taking by those in authority to ensure that public interest and trust are not willingly and deliberately trade off just because of the personal ambition of a clique whose antecedents both in the past and present is nothing to write home about but a sorrowful reminiscent of our failed state, hence it is the civil responsibility of Nigerians, home and in diasporas to support all efforts that would lead to the emergent of responsible leadership next year as anything less would be an invitation to disaster, which all Nigerians must fervently pray against.
At the risk of being label a government apologist, sycophant or any other derogative adjective as is the trade mark of Atiku Campaign Organisation, it would be to the benefit of Mr Atiku - Yes Mr Atiku because all pretense apart, he’s effectively no longer the VP, except for the prefix privilege he still enjoys and may be the siren - to stop deceiving himself and quietly resign from the government. The public perception of the person of Mr Atiku, both in the official and private capacity is nothing to write home about; all the syndicated stories and grandstanding by his aides and so called ‘Progressives’ would amount to nothing at the end of the day. This is the period for Mr Atiku to engage himself in a sincere self –assessment and deep sober reflection to really determine what really went wrong – why should an otherwise glorious political career suddenly heading for a disastrous end? He needs the advice of people that would be able to call a spade a spade to him –Adamu Ciroma and some respected Emirs would do here - not the deluge of ‘chop I chop’ and so called ‘progressives’ he’s currently surrounded with, these people will only hasten his road to political perdition.
In conclusion, in as much as one is not claiming to be a seer nor a descendant of Nostadimus, it would not be out of place, reading from all the indices and permutations available to conclude that more days of frustrations lie ahead for the VP unless he’s able as a matter or urgency extricate himself from the strange hold of his advisers – the people I would rather refer to as opportunists for want of appropriate words - then diligently work on assuaging the public misconceptions about his public and private life, not the current defeatist approach of ‘No be me alone’ been adopted by his media aides, as mentioned above, these people have nothing to lose, in fact they are already waiting for the next man to come on board so as to gladly offer him their expertise then it might be too late for you My dear VP.
Samuel A. Isola Int_sam74@yahoo.com
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