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The Continuity of Mr. President
Political spinners of President Obasanjo are bent on ramming his third term agenda down our throats, in spite of the nationwide opposition to the idea. They have crafted a proposition based on which they want us to extend his tenure. They said he did well so far and by the time he will complete his tenure in May 2007 many things will remain uncompleted. His successor, they fear, may abandon them and change course. So Obasanjo deserves a third term. This is rubbish.
In the following paragraphs, the above argument is rebutted as invalid using the records of Obasanjo’s performance in the past seven years. In fact, we believe that the contrary is true. The aging dictator has performed so woefully that he does not deserve an hour more at the Presidential Palace in Abuja; another person is needed who will face our problems squarely and start the proper task of solving them.
To begin with, the argument has two premises, both of them false. The first is that Obasanjo has done well in the past seven years. The second is that a regime change may derail the progress he has made so far. The two propositions are false since there is not a single evidence to prove that Obasanjo has performed well in the past six years. I do not know of a single problem which Obasanjo has solved to the satisfaction of Nigerians; none, whatsoever. We will elaborate on t his shortly. And who, other than his egocentric disposition, tells that the Nigerian who will succeed him would do better?
Neither is there any certainty that granting the President another four years will finish the job. There will always be problems. That is the essence of leadership. As old problems are cleared, new ones will emerge, sometimes out of the solutions of the previous ones. That is what makes society dynamic and that is why Nigeria needs dynamic leaders, people who can live to the challenges of their days, not those who will resort to importing the monolithic capitalist dictum of open market and economic liberalisation to the detriment of our citizens, industries and entrepreneurs.
Now, it is known since Aristotle that the conclusion of a conjunctive proposition, like the one which these clowns are proposing, can never be true unless both or all its premises are true. Since we have found both premises to be false the conclusion that Obasanjo deserves a third term must be false too.
If we were not dealing with a mammy market scholar who is surrounded by an army of sycophants and selfish politicians the above would be enough to invalidate the agitation for a third term. Unfortunately, Obasanjo and many politicians in this country can be correctly classified as egocentric. Each of them thinks that he alone knows the problems of this country and he alone can solve them. We are thus compelled by this reason to walk the extra mile of recountin g his failures below.
The failure of Obasanjo is something I have written on in more than a hundred and twenty different essays during the past seven years. However, recently, retired Colonel Dangiwa Umar has done a good job in compiling such failures into one paper which was published in the Insider of 27 February 2006. It is interesting to note that when I wrote Obasanjo Has Failed just 100 days into this regime in 1999, the likes of Umar felt I was too hasty in my judgement.. Seven years later, it appears that they have realised that enough water has passed under the bridge. And evidently, with only a year left, nothing could change. With a testimony from widely respected individuals like Dangiwa Umar, I can safely reassert and update below what I said seven years ago.
In Obasanjo Has Failed, we assessed the President using three parameters: democracy, anti-corruption campaign and political stability of the country. The steps he took then showed clearly that he missed the road to achieving anything. Today, it is clear that democracy is under the spell of the same demon of dictatorship as it was under his predecessor, Abacha. The National Assembly has become ineffective in checking the excesses of the President as he uses every means to counter-check its members. He is behind the sacking of all Senate leaders in the past six years and he has never implemented any budget. Also, agencies under the Presidency, like INEC and the police, freely violate court orders when the interest of the President is tampered with. Under Obasanjo elections were held in 2003 that proved to be nothing but robbery. The degree of arm-tw isting shown by the Federal Government prior to the election, the violence that took place during the elections and the fraud committed at the compilation and announcement stages of the elections left the nation in utter shock. His masters – the British and American governments – had to rush and announce their approval of the elections to douse the strong disapproval of international observers. And now, four years later, the same person has dragged the country back to where it was in 1993 and 1996: Tazarce, the clamour for tenure extension, without any feeling of shame or pride. Where is the achievement in democracy, if elections are not free and fair, if the constitution is not respected, and if thugs like Chris Uba are allowed to freely desecrate democratic institutions and commit treason without spending a night in prison?
The failure of the President to check corruption is more colossal. We are still classified among the top three most corrupt countries in the world. We are not surprised when Transparency International reported that 56% of the corruption in the country takes place in the Presidency because we learn daily of expenditures to the tune of billions for jobs not executed in various ministries, especially the ministries of works, power and petroleum, the last being directly under the President. He has the benefit of EFCC, an agency that was specifically created to crack down on corruption. But instead of using it evenly, it is now widely believed that he has turned the agency into a ferocious dog that he releases on every political opponent. His family members, close associates and political allies are either treated mildly by the agency or allowed to go free. I pity my brother, Ribadu. The agency, for example, heavily descended on governors like Dariye and Alamieyseigha who proved uncooperative, leaving over twenty-five others who are ready to play the President’s game, though their people have petitioned the agency on their massive corrupt practices. Dangiwa Umar has eloquently reminded us of the cases of Makanjoula, the President’s cousin who stole over N400million and now living freely in London; Chief Bode George who ravaged the Nigeria Ports Authority; Chief Tafa Balogun, the Inspector-General of Police who, under Obasanjo, stole over N17billion. He also touched on the fraud in the National Identity Card Scheme involving late Chief Afolabi; in different federal ministries and Parastatals; in privatisation of NITEL, Steel Rolling Mills, and ALSCON; in Abuja Water Project, Abba-Owerri-Onitcha road project; and above all, the President’s Library Project, among many others.
in A renowned columnist in Thisday three yeas ago reminded me that Obasanjo was also elected in 1999 to improve on our economy. Agreed. The economy I understand is not the amount of dollars we have in foreign reserves; after all, despite his loot, Abacha too left a pretty $9 billion dollars there. They attracted President Abdulsalami Abubakar and off they went. And if crude oil had sold at $65 dollars a barrel during his tenure, Abacha would have certainly saved over $60 billion. What then is all the farce about our foreign reserve? In any case, Obasanjo’s reserve attracted the eyes of multinational debtors and he was made to concede it to them, while his government, as Umar rightly observed, is indebted to local contractors to the tune of N3trillion and it owes pensioners over N1trillion.
I wonder how we can talk about improvement in the Nigerian economy without any significant improvement in agriculture, a sector that contributes about 40% of our GDP. In fact agriculture has further declined, causing an increase in the percentage of those living below the poverty line to hit 70% even by 2002 and o ur life expectancy is now 45! All we hear is the rhetoric over cassava and the arrival of some Rhodesian farmers. Nothing else. But subsidies are withdrawn and tangible things that will improve agriculture, like farm machinery, provision of inputs like seeds and fertiliser, are left unattended to. This explains why inflation in food items reached a record high during Obasanjo’s tenure: a 100 kg of maize, for example, cost N7,000.00 last year.
Where is the improvement in economy without good infrastructure? The roads are still very bad, though hundreds of billions are said to have been spent on them. How could our roads be fine when their repairs are awarded to contractors – the likes of those handling Jos to Kaduna, Gombe to Maiduguri, Kaduna to Kano, etc – who have only hand tools like diggers, shovels and wheel barrows ,? This week the Minister of Finance announced the approved budget for the year, another N74billion is allocated to power this year alone. How many billions are we spending annually on power without any tangible result? In telecommunications, the GSM is often cited as the President’s achievements. Then the people of France need to thank Chirac also. This is dubious. Our railways are still dead. The messiah has failed to resuscitate them. Our airline, auctioned to Virgin, is gone. The President for the first time had to publicly apologise for the inability of his government to transport all our pilgrims to Mecca for two consecutive years.
The social sector is worst hit. Despite UBE, how many children get quality education in public schools? How many people, living under poverty, can afford treatment in public hospitals? What is the condition of life for the weak and the average Nigerian who is poor? Etc, etc. Where is the President’s achievement that warrants a third term then? This premise is false. The conclusion, therefore, is false too.
Now let us move to the issue of a successor. Is Obasanjo afraid of a successor? After all, as a person in whos e hands lie our resources, as the de facto chairman of the ruling party and as the President and the commander of all forces that are armed with bullets and pens in the country, who else is better positioned to choose his successor? Can’t he see amongst his associates – the ministers, senators and governors – a person he can trust? Let us give him a list of people he can trust and to choose from: (Alhaji) Ibrahim Mantu, (Professor) Jerry Ghana, (Chief) Bode George, (Chief) Tony Anenih, (Chief) Chris Uba, (Chief) Fani-Kayode, and (Chief) Adedibu.
In conclusion, we can firmly assert that the continuity of Mr. President is not in our best interest. It is rather a continuity of his interest and that of his associates. While the regime is a success to them, it is a colossal failure to Nigerians. These guys are richer t oday by billions than in 1999. Otta Farm is worth billions now; the Presidential Library for which the President extorted state governments and contractors is certainly worth billions; and the University he is building close to the library is worth billions also. Last Sunday Leadership carried a cover story quoting a World Bank report which indicated that the offices of the President and his Vice alone have received nearly N3billion in salaries during the past six years. Aha. Here comes the true context in which continuity as a basis for third term makes sense. No one would wish the fountain that generates such billions to go dry. Abi?
Bauchi 7 March 2006
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