Beware, someone wants you dead

Many prominent Nigerians have read their own obituaries notably Nnamdi Azikiwe and recently Maryam Babangida. But by far the cat with nine lives is our own Mr President, Umaru Musa Yar’adua. He has been dying and resurrecting since ‘campaign’ days in 2007, and in his recent battle with pericarditis he has died and resurrected many […]

Many prominent Nigerians have read their own obituaries notably Nnamdi Azikiwe and recently Maryam Babangida. But by far the cat with nine lives is our own Mr President, Umaru Musa Yar’adua. He has been dying and resurrecting since ‘campaign’ days in 2007, and in his recent battle with pericarditis he has died and resurrected many times. Our lives are in the hands of the creator and to read one’s obituary is exasperating. But who do we blame?

His critics say we must blame the President for accepting a job they swear he was medically unfit to do and for playing pranks with the most enlightened and most critical audience in the sub-Saharan hemisphere – Nigerians. Second, his dummy media managers who do not know that while illness may be as natural as the air we breathe, for the President of Africa’s largest country, it is a cause for concern. The constitution foresees a situation where a president could be incapacitated and recommended what is to be done to fill the vacuum if ever such existed.

With scanty information about the state of health of the prime citizen, the intractable and uncontrollable rumour mill is at its highest frequency leaving political hawks and vultures cashing in. First they want Vice President Goodluck Jonathan in the saddle not for the love of Jonathan; rather the carnivores are lining themselves up for imaginary positions. Jonathan, whose finger had been burnt once, has smartly removed himself from the fray leaving the scavengers with the legal or constitutional option. With the fate of the President still hanging in the balance, some of his quondam friends want him out of the way. Strange bedfellows are outwitting each other taking responsibility for their strange calls and denying their involvement with equanimity.

Little do they know that in the Nigerian context, none of the constitutional options can be invoked. A Yar’adua-appointed Federal Executive Council (FEC) will never vote against its benefactor. This was aptly demonstrated on Wednesday when they met, as usual to share our common patrimony. That is the death of option one.

Option two is for the Senate to constitute a medical panel to determine whether Yar’adua will return from his medical pilgrimage to full state functions. Under a proper political arrangement in which the party is a people’s party, that would have been possible. But anyone who thinks that a PDP-controlled Tower of Babel which reacts only when its individual or corporate interest is threatened would constitute a medical panel likely to declare the head of their government incapable is having a bad dream and should take the advice of pugilist Bash Ali – that is wake up and apologise. Last week, they behaved true to type when they did not allow the deputy senate leader to even move a motion which would have led to a confidence vote for fear that it could be hijacked. That buries the matter, even though everybody knows that if the deal was done, it would have benefitted David Mark.

The most improbable of the options is a situation where the President’s personal physician agrees to sit as member of a panel to x-ray the President’s state of health. That would have been ludicrous to say the least in the Nigerian context. It would have amounted to biting off the finger of a patron. Such an act of ingratitude would have signed and sealed the socio-political future of any person. This means that all the legal options currently being canvassed by the hawks and the vultures are stillborn.

The most patriotic and humane option actually is to pray for Mr President to recover from his illness and return to Nigeria either to continue stirring the ship of state even at the usual snail speed. He could also be persuaded to resign and return home to heal away from the troubles of state. This last option is what his traducers crave. It is an improbable option because power is not a lapel fixed and removed at will, neither is it a call to national service. Rather, it is the most potent magnet that draws and captures with an octopus grip; sought and held with vice tenacity over and above all things including personal health and happiness, it is a call to liberation of one’s generation from the claws of uncertainty; it is a seal against poverty. Since human nature is such that no matter what state you are in, there is someone who envies you bad enough to want you dead so as to take your place, these options are not a result of altruistic cravings it is aggrandisement goaded by selfish ambition and fuelled by envy. This call for resignation clamour is a clamour for an opportunity to be passed the baton to plunder the common wealth. It is to be so seen.