MONDAY DISCOURSE BY DR. ALIYU TIDLE
Discourse 274
Update on Yaradua's Health
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
The last three days brought some
significant developments regarding the illness of the Nigerian
President, Umaru Musa Yar'adua. First, a window into the seriousness
of his illness opened to the Nigerian public by a revealing
publication of Daily Trust yesterday, 2 December 2009. It said the
President was brought out of an intensive care unit (ICU) after nine
days of admission there. While in the unit, the paper continued, only
his wife was allowed to see him twice a day for not more than ten
minutes a time. Other prominent members of his kitchen cabinet named
by the newspaper were so far not allowed to see him despite his
transfer from the ICU.
This report which emanated from a close
associate of the President according to the paper has for the first
time revealed to the confused Nigerian public that the condition of
the President does really call for concern. It is a sickness whose
degree demanded that the President be completely cut off from the rest
of the world, denying him even the mere presence of his ever caring
wife – Her Excellency, the First Lady, Hajiya Turai. With this
revelation, we can understand the origin of the rumour about his
death. At least it lays credence to the story that he has been in a
coma of a sort. In Africa a person in such state could easily be
mistaken to be dead. Many are so buried, only to wake up and
helplessly give up to the insurmountable suffocation of their graves.
The lucky ones wake up as they are prepared for burial… May Allah
grant the President better health! His transfer from the ICU to a
normal ward signals some hope. Thanks be to God.
However, that report lasted only for few
hours on the page of the web page of the Daily Trust. When I returned
to the site in the evening, the story has been removed or relegated
beyond the frontage of their news page. Its position was surprisingly
but not unexpectedly replaced by four or five less significant
stories. Did the paper realize that it has leaked too much? Was it
under pressure to delete the story? Why did it show us a picture of a
president as healthy as Mike Tyson instead of the sad one it published
last week that shocked the country?
You see, the truth always has a way of
revealing itself. The Daily Trust, for obvious reasons, I believe
would be the last newspaper to publish a lie against the President. It
published this one not to damage the President politically but to aid
him. Reporting on his improving condition will certainly raise our
hope. However, what the Trust missed is the negative consequences of
the revelation. The report has messed up with whatever the
establishment has been saying about his sickness. With it, I am even
beginning to doubt the pericarditis 'story' accredited to his
physician. It is very unlikely that a first time patient of
pericarditis will require a nine days in ICU. The future might reveal
something more serious regarding his heart.
The ICU admission has also falsified the
claims of the Vice President who six days earlier told Nigerians that
he is in constant contact with the President, speaking to him twice
daily! Haba. How could someone in ICU be receiving telephone
calls when even his closest associates – his chief economic adviser,
Tanimu Kurfi; his son in law, Isa Yuguda; and the richest man in the
country, Aliko Dangote – have spent over a week without catching a
glimpse of him? The ICU must be the first of its kind in the world. I
can understand the Vice President if he tells a white lie regarding
the poor condition of the President because he as the constitutional
heir apparent does not want to be seen as entertaining the possibility
of his enthronement. However, what I cannot understand is how Ikira
Aliyu Bilbis, the Minister of Health, told newsmen that "everything is
running well in this government; all of us are in constant contact
with him…" as I heard this morning over Deutche Welle Hausa Service.
That way, through the ICU admission window which was opened innocently
by the Daily Trust, Nigerians can see through most of the
misinformation they were fed on by those who want to underplay the
gravity of the President's sickness.
The second development was the call by
over fifty prominent Nigerians for the President to resign. Their list
included former Senate President, former Speaker of the House of
Representative and many members of the ruling PDP in addition to
members of the opposition all of whom have held reputable positions in
the country. They are people whose words, in my view, cannot be
dismissed because they have been in a position to know the demands of
public office. Their call was significant even though it was most
likely to fall on deaf ears, not because the President is not in a
position to hear them but because the beneficiaries of his
administration will not be willing to succumb to reason.
The third was the result of yesterday's
Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting which dismissed the call for
resignation of the President by his ministers, as expected. What is
actually surprising is how the ministers arrogated to themselves the
right to initiate the President's resignation, citing section 144 of
the constitution. They confused the situation of voluntary
resignation which is presumed in the constitution and a compulsory
one or another in which the President is unconscious, which the
section is talking about. The President, like a holder of any public
office, can voluntarily resign at any time for his personal reason. To
compel him to stay in power beyond his wish or against the personal
assessment of his incapacity would violate his fundamental right to
liberty and even, in this case, to life. I wonder how this presumption
escaped the judgment of many lawyers that commented on the matter
including that of the Minister of Justice who is a member of the FEC.
The cabinet has the prerogative to initiate the compulsory resignation
of the President due to ill health, not when he decides to do so
voluntarily. Moreover, the appeal to resign is directed at him, not
them since, as the cabinet members claim, the President is healthy
enough to be communicating with them daily; unless they know what we
do not know about his degree of illness.
However, Nigerians understand the
desperation of the FEC members. I expected them to urge us to give the
President enough time to recover such that he could take a decision of
his own. Why would they jump to shut the mouths of Nigerians who are
simply advising the President to resign? What are they afraid of if he
listens and acts appropriately? Why do they vow that the President
will NOT resign? Do they feel his pains? Do they know his tomorrow?
They cannot be referees in their own game. Our language is that of
health and good governance; theirs is that of power, raw power, a
la PDP.
I even heard Bilbis, forgetting the case
of Ariel Sharon, saying that President Roosevelt spent his tenure on a
wheelchair. This is missing the point, again. If Yar'adua's case was
simply locomotive, none of us would have wasted his time advising him
to resign because the wheelchair can take him anywhere. However, we
have at hand a President with a chronic renal failure and, now, a
heart disease, in addition, that makes him less capable to handle the
daunting demands of presiding over the affairs of a contentious
country like Nigeria where the rule of law is only mentioned but not
followed. Here, no thanks to our military legacy, the President, like
every Governor or Local Government Chairman in the country, has to
approve every routine affair of government: every expenditure, every
movement, every allowance, every appointment; every allocation, settle
every squabble (and they are many), and so on. Or are the ministers
and other cronies of the President praying for him to remain as a lame
duck such that they can do as they wish with our resources. A report
in Saharareporters has already indicated that some of the
ministers are seizing the opportunity of his illness to flout his
orders.
Finally, at the beginning of the week,
we heard how pro-Yar'adua's forces started the agenda of rigging the
constitution against the Vice President, claiming that, should the
reason arise, it’s the Senate President who will preside over the
country before a new President is elected within three months. They
have revived the old argument that the North will be shortchanged if
power is handed over to a southerner. The North referred to here is
not the geographical North, but the interest of the northern
beneficiaries of this administration. I doubt if the North in any way
has gained anything by the departure of Obasanjo. Likewise, it will
not lose anything from the Presidency of Goodluck Jonathan. That is
why the prominent people who called for the resignation of the
President, majority of whom are northerners, were quick to
categorically add that he be succeeded by the Vice President for the
remaining eighteen months of his tenure.
These are the developments so far. We
will continue to monitor them as we wish the President a fast recovery
so that we can here from the horse's mouth. We wish he will have the
strength again to directly inform the nation on his choice between
power and life. Those who for ulterior motives are now choosing power
on his behalf should please shut up.
Tilde
3 December 2009
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