PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA

Still On The President’s Health

ndajika@yahoo.com

Of all the odd 119 texts I received from the readers of my last column in The Nation, “Letter to President Yar’adua,” the one I found most interesting was from this respondent who asked me if I knew of any president that had ever resigned from office on health grounds. “HARUNA,” the reader asked, “PLS FOR KNOWLEDGE SAKE HAS ANY PRESIDENT VOLUNTARILY RESIGNED HIS POST DUE TO ILL HEALTH?”                                                           

To which I responded that there was none to my knowledge but also added that there is always a first time and I made my plea to the president in the hope that he would like to set an admirable record, at least in the country if not on the continent, as a leader honest enough to surrender power because he found himself physically unable to cope with the rigours of high office.

To which my respondent in turn said his prayer “IS FOR OUR PRESIDENT TO RECOVER TO CONTINUE HIS JOB OR BE REMOVE (sic) BY UNSEEN FORCE PERIOD.”

At this point I didn’t know what to make of the gentleman’s (or lady’s) remarks, particularly as I thought his query was a subtle dig at my position.  Could it be that the respondent wished the president dead or simply be removed from office if his health continued to fail him?

Whatever anyone may make of this respondent’s ambivalence I thought it exemplified the dubiousness of many of the president’s ostensible well-wishers who have said or insinuated that anyone who has asked the president to resign instead of praying for his recovery is either evil-minded or does not wish Nigeria well. It was as if the alternative to insisting that the president remains in office as long as he is alive is to wish him dead. This is obviously a false dichotomy.

I am sure most of us who have asked the president to resign wish him full recovery from his illness. I, for one, have prayed for his good health everyday along with my daily prayers for the good health of Nigeria and Nigerians.

But we all know that there is such a thing as prognosis of an illness. The fact is, that of President Umaru Yar’adua doesn’t look too good. It is an open secret that the man had a kidney transplant some odd seven years ago while he was governor of Katsina State and, as any medical doctor would tell you, anyone with an organ transplant needs regular and possibly frequent checkups. And he also needs the organ replaced in a maximum of ten years.

 In the president’s case he needed regular and frequent dialysis, something which he neglected to do until he had the first critical breakdown while on the campaign trail for the 2007 presidential election. That negligence may have since impaired his health permanently such that if, as we all pray, he recovers fully, he is unlikely to be physically fit enough to cope with the tough job of governing a country of over 150 million people, with all its attendant complications.

When my respondent asked me if any president ever resigned because of ill health and I said I was not aware of any, I was not entirely accurate. Presidents, yes, but as any scholar of Islamic history knows, and as the president himself knows, Umar his namesake and the second of Prophet Muhammad’s caliphs, resigned as the leader of the Muslim umma because he feared that the knife wounds he sustained from an attempt on his life would lead to his death.

It eventually did but he lived for over 40 days during which he appointed a committee to choose his successor. He did so even though he knew it was not beyond God to completely heal his wounds. Obviously he did so not on certain knowledge, something only God possesses, but on a balance of probability.

What some of us who have pleaded with the president to resign are saying is that the balance of probability, based on the history of his ill health, is that he is unlikely to ever have the enormous energy required to lead any country, much less one as big and complicated as Nigeria. But even if he did the politics of his health will continue to cast a long shadow over his policies and this cannot be a good thing for him and for the country.

Handing over to his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, would, of course, gladden the heart of former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, no end, because the political plot would then be running exactly according to the script he re-wrote after his Third Term Agenda collapsed like the house of cards that it was. Like Yar’adua, Jonathan too was dragged into high office by Obasanjo kicking and screaming, but is likely to be grateful to his benefactor for precisely that reason.

Indeed he could even be more grateful to Obasanjo than Yar’adua because he would be coming to the job with a lesser pedigree, experience and political sagacity than the president.  But then who ever thought Yar’adua would turn on his benefactor so soon after settling down as president?

However, even in the unlikely event that Jonathan remains forever faithful to his benefactor, this would arguably be less disagreeable than the prospects of a do-little, possibly even a do-nothing, President Yar’adua. The governance of any country is simply too important to be hanged on a president’s uncertain health.

There are political big wigs like David Mark, the Senate president, who have argued in effect that the president’s ill health does not matter much because his absence has not disrupted the smooth running of government machinery.

This, obviously, is being less than honest. If, for example, the occasional postponement of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meetings due to the president’s ill health and the gratuitous trooping abroad of senior government officials, including state governors, to demonstrate their loyalty to the president each time he is flown out, do not amount to disruption of the smooth running of government machinery, then the word disruption must have lost its meaning.

 In any case if the physical (and mental) health of our leaders did not matter much why did those who produced our Constitution make it a basic condition for holding high office?

Nigerians should, of course, pray for the full recovery of our dear president. But we should also be honest enough to accept that a president with a history of ill health like that of our No. 1 Citizen is unlikely to cope with the rigorous regime of effective governance.

I believe only the president himself can get Nigeria out of its predicament over his health. I do not see how the FEC can have the courage to take the initiative as spelt out in Section144 of the Constitution because, let’s face it, it will smack of ingratitude and heartlessness by its members especially if the president remains in a health limbo.

It is therefore entirely up to the president to follow the example of his illustrious namesake the caliph, Umar, and invoke Section 145 of the Constitution and “step aside.” May God grant him the wisdom and courage to do so.