Yar’ Adua, Beware of these Men

By

Maxwell James

Sir,

The April polls have come and gone with tons of controversies surrounding the general conduct of the elections. From the less - than - organized - Opposition Parties to the tough talking foreign observers like the International Republican Institute (IRI), European Union Observation Mission (EU COM) National Democratic Institute (NDI) for International Affairs, to our own regional ECOWAS, down to local observers in the mould of Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Alliance for Credible Elections (ACE), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and many others – the conduct of the elections left so much to be desired. Meaning the exercise is anything but credible!

Sir, while no Institution or individual indicted you as a President - elect for any unwholesome and noxious conducts throughout your campaign period or even before, means a lot to you as a person. The fact that not even the fiercest of all the opposition candidates could haul you up on any ground further reinforced your stainless traits. While others may savour victory in impish arrogance in these circumstances, you have decided to be humble in victory, like many Nigerians; accept my congratulations.

Sir, Nigerians are concerned that your emergence as the ruling People’s Democratic Party’s candidate in the Presidential Elections and now President elect of Nigeria rest almost exclusively on the support of President Obasanjo, who many think, hopes to continue pulling strings after he steps down. Though debatable following your political learning which is well known to many Nigerians now, however, looking at the trajectory history of Nigeria’s leadership successes and failures, you must avail yourself the opportunity of avoiding traitorous and hypocritical sycophants in Aso Rock – Nigeria’s seat of power. You must prepare to listen to those sacred words of eternal significance and validity, when the enemies of Nigeria come to court and these words are often not found within the corridors of power. The Holy Bible says about these men that; “not a word of their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with destruction; their throat is an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceits” (psalms 5; 8 – 10) these men are not far away, they are found in all walks of life and political parties including your own PDP. They are a summary of a vaulting ambition, hyper galloping hypocrisy and unvarnished sycophancy. They led many government aground even Obasanjo’s failings as evident in the power sector (admitted), roads construction, jobs creation, poverty eradication, monumental degradation of the university system, massive retrenchment, militarization of Nigeria Police (not yet admitted) and lot more are all direct consequences of these men’s zero foresight.

Your Excellency Sir, as you may have observed, since the morning of times, you have become the darling of phony and phantom professional, women, youth, and elder’s groups and nonexistent opposition all in the bit to lure you into sudden failure. These men of easy virtue will employ and deploy all selfish means to achieve their spurious aims and leprous ambitions. In fact they are already organizing cocktail and dinners of lies laced with poisonous doses of praises directed at the man of power and means like you as a way to secure and divert your attention with the sole aim of holding you and Nigeria hostage and incarcerated. While your party may harbour some good men and women, look inward you will see these men that are poised to render songs and canticles of unmerited praises of which if you are self – deluded, will render you amenable to their whims and caprices.

Today Nigeria is groaning and suffocating in pains simply because we lack visionary leadership, purpose driven lots and true patriots to pilot our affairs with great sense of duty. The time has come to see Nigeria beyond an amorphous collage of looters whose private pocket is god. While a political party sponsored your candidature, that party lacks men of honour and decorum to help you pilot the affairs of Nigeria to greatness. Leadership is valuable only when it is geared towards guaranteeing social felicity to the citizenry. Having secured power, deploy it for the social good of the populace. When you look within your folks in PDP, you will see the inglorious schemers and characters who underwrote Abacha’ life presidency campaign, joined forces to contrive and attempt smuggling Obasanjo unto unconstitutional life – presidency, through the infamous third term debacle. The 3^rd termites are still there. No need to mention names.

As a man of few airs and graces many Nigerians are positive that evolution of a new Nigeria will begin May 29^th 2007. You must not loose sight of sycophancy as the metaphysic of diametrical falsehood embosoms as a congenital allergy of a platonic hatred of reality, an aversion for facts and avid propensity to celebrate falsehood. These men are ontological aberration and a perfect embodiment of all that is bad, false and ugly. They remain in the lowest expression of all that pedestal human nature as well as the dark grottos of human insincerity and wretchedness. Like corruption, sycophancy has eaten deep into the fabric of our national life. No leader is being told the truth about his immediate constituency rather inglorious cheerleaders in the mould of advisers and hangers- on massage their (leaders) ego to get their spoils of office. Sycophancy is hypocrisy with cloths on and smiles on it face. The ultimate motives of these men are always the satisfaction of their own unfulfilled needs or will to power not for the common good of all Nigerians.

Looking back at the history of the destruction and rapacious plunder of Nigeria, many contemptible characters have arisen as a summary of all that is politically vile, inglorious, hypocritical and sycophantic. As you match through the arms of these cheerleaders most of whom have been in the corridors of power for decades, remember that the ultimate goal is to prove to Nigerians and the comity of nations that even in a faulty electoral process a great leader can emerge. We saw it happen in Anambra state where a stolen mandate became the people’s mandate. You must pay attention to the voices on the streets; they are the voices of wisdom.

As a development worker in the Niger Delta region, I must commend your desire to make the region one of your priorities.  These men will feed you with such anachronistic statement that the Niger Delta does not have adequate professionals to man their various affairs. The first step to dousing the tension in the beleaguered region is to make the inhabitants stakeholders in their own affairs. By this singular but patriotic act, the time tasted cliché that no man says his mother’s sauce is tasteless becomes apt. Job creation and human capital development in the troubled region are paramount. They may tell you that the “boys” prefer money. Watch out! Your administration must work towards the provision of basic amenities such as potable water supply, electricity, schools, healthcare, road and infrastructure which are lacking in the region. This can be achieved by working with professionals from the region and other foreign and local NGOs to facilitate and enforce a responsive corporate- socio responsibility by the oil companies

To end with Sir, no amount of resources and energy that may be committed in the Niger Delta can solve these lingering problems save you identify possible partnership and collaborative avenues with genuine stakeholders in the region to map out immediate and long term plans to address the issues at stake. May your reign be glorious Sir!

Maxwell James

Project Coordinator

Niger Delta Nonviolent Elections Initiative

GRA, Port Harcourt