Clinton and the Age or Reason

By

Wada Nas

wada@gamji.com

 

Looking at things in broad terms, the Obasanjo administration deserves credit for successfully hosting President Clinton of the United States. The events sailed through smoothly without much of our usual "accidents" or better still, the "Nigerian factor", a phrase for so many ugly way of doing things or not doing them at all at the right moment. Certainly, it was a great day for the administration. Throughout the period, even our notorious "chiefs of the night" laid down their robbery arms in honour of the visitor, and every other thing stood at a standstill for the same purpose. For the inspiring message he brought, he deserves it, if not even more, other details unknown notwithstanding. Whatever, we can confidently say congratulations President Obasanjo and your men. You have done well here and in any case, there was no ground for failure and failure didn't occur, count this as one of the rare achievements of the administration. President Jimmy Carter came twenty two years ago as a good friend of Nigeria and he has remained to be so. President Clinton came on 26/08/2000, as a man who loves Nigeria and we hope he would remain to be so. Not that he said everything to the delight of our ears and the admiration of our hearts, but said quiet a lot that were inspiring especially when he addressed the joint session of the National Assembly. In the prose of his delivery, he was at his best; in conveying his message he was frankly inspiring and in the choice of his words and phrases, he was quite understanding. Every moment of his speech was captivating. He said quite a lot without using the Nigeria socio-political words and phrases of marginalisation, sovereign conference, ethnicity, tribal hatred, national unity, cleansing and more.

He was intellectually and diplomatically crafty in the manner he dealt with the subjects without mentioning them by, name. In discussing them, he dwelt on three broad themes, national unity, democracy and the economy. His Nigerian Desk and diplomats must have fully briefed him, before coming, and all the issues he raised, such as the issue of sovereign conference, the threat to Nigerian unity, tribal hatred and violence and such other issues of our age. Describing what he calls the "New Nigeria" as a potential future superpower, he insists that the country cannot attain this age in fragments, as a piece cannot constitute a whole. For the pieces to be strong they must stick together to constitute a formidable whole.

He noted, without saying so in many words, how powerful nations of yesterday have become weak fragments of today. He certainly has in mind Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, our own Ethiopia and one or two others. At a time, Turkey was the sick man of Europe, today it is the Soviet Union of old and the Russia of today. There is dead Soviet Union giving rise to a weak Russia, today most certainly the laughing stock of the West. The Union is dead, the fragments are weak and each may never, if ever, attain the golden age of the Union. It goes also for Yugoslavia which, painfully, died in the pain of ethno-religious, tribalism which is confronting us today.

President Clinton warned that never shall we aspire to the sad age of fragments but the golden age of unity for our aspiring superpower status, warning, in the bargain, that a shattered Nigeria is a shattered hope of the African land, the black race and a problem for the International Community. Dead right Tribes of the ancient world he said, had suspicion of the other and from there to fear, to hatred, violence and death. As of the ancient, so are we today. Tribal hatred is assuming such a frightening proportion that the OPC, for example, doesn't believe that some tribes deserve to go the full circle of their lives. And in support, some key personalities, of the Obasanjo administration have been more than supportive, describing other as Tutsis, who deserved equal massacre as happened to that tribe in Rwanda.

Minority ethnic brothers are up in arms against their long age friends and brothers, and this culminated into the Kaduna dastard massacre. Clinton took time to warn seriously against this development, insisting that in spite of our differences there is something common to all mankind; their humanity as children of the Almighty Allah, created indifferently in his own image. In other words to hate a person on the basis of what he is, as a religious or tribesmen, is to insult the Almighty who created him so. Citing about 200 ethnic groups in his own country, US, which over the years have been moulding into the American personality.

Nigeria, with its present status, he said, could equally mould the Nigerian personality out of its 250 diverse tribes, insisting that having lived together for the greater part of 100 years, we still could do the same. Drawing from the American experience, it took years of civil war after staying together before the American personality finally emerged and over one hundred years for all groups to enjoy the status guaranteed all in the constitution. Put another way, he is telling us that in the same way the American personality developed, after several years of bitter conflict and acrimony, Nigeria could also mould its own personality in spite of differences. He calls not only for the understanding and appreciation of these differences but for their positive utilisation for the future greatness of our country giving as an example the technological wonder of a Nigerian American in the field of electronic technology that there are thousands of his type on the Nigerian landscape yet unexplored.

Let us sit together, he says, to understand our differences and resolve how to create the best out of them. This summarises, the sovereign conference issue or a plan conference for our staying together. He strikes a balance between those demanding for this and those insisting on national unity as a pre-condition for any discourse. The clear message from President Clinton is that whatever our differences, our hopes as a people and indeed those of the West African sub-region, if not Africa as a whole, would best be realized by sticking together as whole.

Here therefore, Clinton came preaching to us the greatness of our unity and its eventual values to us as a people and nation. This ought to spur us into a new age of reason, a new thinking towards and about ourselves, devoid of extremist rancour of the OPC variety, so that in harmony and understanding, we could launch ourselves on the map of the greats. Nigeria is an unstoppable great nation, if only we will allow and appreciate the hopes it has for us in its harmonious future.

Touching on the issue of democracy, particularly the essentials of the cardinal principles of separation of powers, another burning issue, he minced no words in saying that, in spite of the ethnic threat of Mbang, that the legislature ensures that the executive is squarely put in check, a principle for which Okadigbo was removed and one for which Mbang is threatening the House of Representative, as if he was not around when the Senate threw out its President on the spur of extraneous demand. Mbang never said a thing but as asked recently, what would happen should the legislature also take it out against the President. Any way let us leave the person aside, so as not to miss the message of Clinton to President Obasanjo. By bringing it home, that the legislature exists to check the excesses of the executive, President Clinton is merely telling President Obasanjo that he cannot exceed his constitutional brief on such an important ingredient of presidential democracy, which could cause the nations democracy. If he insists on playing tricks with it, sure, he must have been briefed of the serious danger facing our new democracy on this tug of war between the executive and legislature on the matter.

Politely, he is telling Mr. President that he is in the wrong and should retrace his steps. Thus, President Clinton came to preach to us the importance of respecting democratic rules so that our democracy would grow in stature and strength. Hope Mr. President got the message and would mend his ways without letting down his "conscience" and principles. It should be pointed out, however, that the only conscience and principles of democracy is the full respect of its rules and verdict, and not the private conscience of the individual and, especially, how that private principle interpret the concept of democracy to satisfy only the self. Generally, President Clinton came with an inspiring sermon of hope in our future as a nation, growing once more in democracy, insisting that if we violate the rules, as we have been doing, gloom would stare us in the face. As said, this calls for an age of reason, to be different from the ugly practices of the past, for the new hopes of the future and abundance of harmonious democracy. Of course, he was short on assuring us total debt cancellation but helped in inviting the world to "come and invest in Nigeria". From most of his utterances, President Clinton, indeed and in fact, love's Nigeria the way Carter has been friendly to Nigeria. Good that he got Nigerian names of Sodangi, Okoro and Omowale. Meanwhile, between President Clinton and House Speaker Na'Abba, I don't know who was the star of the visit of the US leader.

Clinton was masterly courageous, frank and well mannered in delivery. He was every inch very presidential and had full knowledge of his points. Na'Abba was fluent charming, cultured, brave and frank so many Nigerians must have felt proud that indeed they have a Speaker who could represent them, in any forum, He was beautifully intelligent in his delivery, conscious of his place in the democratic history of the country. He went out in full force in support of democracy and its true practices, a belief for which he is being haunted, a belief re-enforced by the democratic pronouncement of Mr. Clinton, a belief for which they pushed out Okadigbo from the Senate Presidential chair. Na'Abba said most of the things that have been bothering his colleagues and so no wonder that they gave him several claps and about five times well deserved standing ovations with shouts of Fire! Fire! ! Fire! ! ! Clinton got the message as he nodded and most certainly appreciated the fluency and forthrightness of the House Speaker, whose delivery was superb and abundantly intelligent.

This is the House Speaker most of us never know enough of his guts, and who because of others want him out. Nigeria, after all, has no hero, except tribal lords and sectionalist chieftains. Na'Abba has sufficiently proved, by his candor, style of delivery and fluency of language that at any forum he could be a good Ambassador of his country. He proved it. Same enough, Clinton played it excellently but Na'Abba stole the show from under his feet without, however, under-minding the greatness of the President excellence of presentation and the forcefulness of his inspiring message. Clinton came to inspire on democracy; Na'Abba forthrightly underlined the preamble with such dignity and intellectual guts no less than Clinton's intellectual wits. Both were the lead stars.  Finally, I call on Mbang not to mar the Clinton spirit with his recent sectionalist ranting that he would mobilise Nigerians against the House, should it go ahead with its planned vote of no confidence on President Obasanjo. This talk of Nigeria would be doomed should anything happen to Mr. President, as being thundered by chief tribal master, sounds hallow in the face of what happened to Okadigbo, and the wider network of ethnic plan to bring down Na'Abba. In the way others love Obasanjo, so are Okadigbo and Na'Abba not orphans. They too have loving and caring parents equally capable of mobilising Nigerians in their support. The Igbos never issued such a threat when their own was being disgraced on the premise of falsehood; nor are northerners doing same in support of Na'Abba. This doesn't make them less Nigerians, who some people believe have no support. Those who have been supporting the plot to disgrace the two should be reminded that others have also the capacity to plot against their own. Sorry this remark does not deserve a space here in the spirit of the Clinton's sermons, but when others have no ears to listen, we have the right to stress the values of the essence of his message. Mbang should be bold enough to enter the new age of reason.


You can read more about my views in my webpage http://www.gamji.com/wada.htm

 

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