Anenih for Jonathan, Nda-Isaiah for Nigeria

Chief Anenih wrote a rejoinder to protest the damning criticism of corruption under President Goodluck Jonathan’s government contained in Sam Nda-Isaiah’s column of Monday, January 13, 2014.  The column, titled “Is the president aware that $10.8b is still missing?” was full of Sam Nda-Isaiah’s disdain for those campaigning for Jonathan to again contest the 2015 […]

Chief Anenih wrote a rejoinder to protest the damning criticism of corruption under President Goodluck Jonathan’s government contained in Sam Nda-Isaiah’s column of Monday, January 13, 2014.  The column, titled “Is the president aware that $10.8b is still missing?” was full of Sam Nda-Isaiah’s disdain for those campaigning for Jonathan to again contest the 2015 presidential election. The columnist had pooh-poohed the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation’s explanations on the missing $10.8b.
In the rejoinder, Chief Anenih was livid with anger and consternation at why his “son”, Nda-Isaiah, rejected the official statement issued by one Bernard Otti, Executive Director, Finance and Accounts of the NNPC, who claimed that the $10.8b was not missing, rather his corporation spent the sum on kerosene subsidy and repair of pipelines and depots. Chief Anenih was particularly disturbed by one of Sam Nda-Isaiah’s most acerbic remarks: “It is befuddling how anyone will want Jonathan to continue as president beyond 2015, as a few jesters are currently doing.  Anyone, no matter who that person is, who wants President Jonathan to govern Nigeria beyond 2015, is an enemy of the Nigerian State”, wrote Nda-Isaiah. Now, this could, obviously, unsettle the likes of Chief Anenih who are bent on “fixing” another presidential term for President Jonathan in 2015, irrespective of the choice made by Nigerians.

Chief Anenih said in his rejoinder that he had chosen “a few instances to show that the picture of doom and gloom” Sam Nda-Isaiah had painted of Nigeria was a creation of his imagination and not the reality. And what are these instances? They are that one British Economist called Jim O’Neil has predicted that Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey are to become what he refers to as MINT, i.e. “emerging economic giants” in the next 30 years. Chief Anenih also informed Sam that Forbes magazine had named President Jonathan’s Minister of Agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, as its African Man of the Year “for empowering more than six million farmers across the country”. The grand old man also claimed that “the Federal Government created 1.6 million jobs in the year 2013”. Unfortunately, the claim that the Federal Government created 1.6 million jobs hasn’t been verified. In which sectors of the economy have these jobs materialised? What is the distribution of the number of the jobs per state? What is the overall impact of these jobs on the unemployment situation in the country? How many jobs were created in the previous year and how many will be available in 2014? Minister Akinwumi appears to be doing a good job, no doubt, but there appears to be exaggeration in the number of farmers he has empowered. After all, this government lacks modesty, like when it claims that in two and a half years, its achievements have surpassed those of all the previous governments.
As for MINT, this is the mother of all chimerical projections. Long before O’Neil made his prediction, Nigeria had been pencilled down as a promising country. The question is whether Jonathan and company love Nigeria enough to facilitate its entry into MINT. By the way, is there any of the MINT candidates that spends $10.8b on kerosene subsidy, and repair of depots and pipelines? Is there any of them that puts up with manifestly corrupt ministers? Indeed, is Nigeria supposed to be in MINT or in BRICS?
Predictably, Nda-Isaiah’s counter-reply to his “father”, Chief Anenih was full of ridicule and venom. Firstly, he questioned Chief Anenih’s locus standi for writing him that letter. He rejected Anenih’s accusation that he had personal and sectional agenda for raising the issues he did. Sam said unlike Chief Anenih, he had stood up to the impunity and maladministration of Obasanjo and Umar Yar’adua. Contrariwise, he said, the Chief had actively served and supported every government from Babangida to Jonathan. Sam said Chief Anenih condoned corruption and misappropriation of public funds as he himself had failed to account for the billions of naira budgeted for public works when he served as Minister of Works in President Obasanjo’s government. Sam added, rather scornfully, that if armed robbers were to take over power and the Aso Villa, Chief Anenih would work with them.

Suffice it to say that Chief Anenih feels obliged to write that kind of letter in order to openly renew his support for President Jonathan. At the height of the rebellion by the G-7, the old man had once said the rebels had “genuine grievances” which needed to be addressed but he was shouted down. Chief Edwin Clark had said then that Chief Anenih’s loyalty to President Jonathan was doubtful, that there was nothing in the agitation by those governors other than the plot to stop his god son from contesting the 2015 election. Having been forced to drop that line, Anenih needed to write this kind of open letter to Sam if only to reassure the ruling cabal of his abiding allegiance.
Sam Nda-Isaiah, who wrote that their father-son relationship with Chief Anenih was inferior to his love for Nigeria, had a word of advice for PDP BOT chairman: tell Jonathan to shelve his ambition to contest the 2015 election and thus end the turmoil in the ruling party. Undoubtedly, Nda-Isaiah’s reply which he said he had penned on behalf of millions of voiceless Nigerians is a bitter tutorial to his “father” Chief Anthony Anenih on how not to write a letter to a turbo charged columnist. Is the president aware that $10.8b is still missing?