Jega is primed to fail
Babangida became president at a time when Nigerians were coup-weary and unhappy with the jackboot tactics of the Buhari/Idiagbon junta. IBB’s recipe for winning the hearts and minds of the people was a combination of devious manipulations based on his warped study of the people’s psyche. While dumping WAI which did not distinguish between the […]
Babangida became president at a time when Nigerians were coup-weary and unhappy with the jackboot tactics of the Buhari/Idiagbon junta. IBB’s recipe for winning the hearts and minds of the people was a combination of devious manipulations based on his warped study of the people’s psyche. While dumping WAI which did not distinguish between the conduct of the deviant and the normal, he invented MAMSER, a cornucopia of WAI with a tinge of civility and respect for a respect-crazy society primed to lead nowhere. Then DFRRI, conceived to open up rural areas where subsistence farmers were to open their subsistence products to non-existent global markets. And in case women felt left out of the pillage, there was the Better Life, the profligate feminine arm of the wasteful IBB era.
All these were foisted on Nigeria by a soldier whose toothy smile disarmed even his worst critics as against his predecessors whose faces were as taunt as they were gaunt. Out flew misanthropic and gagging decrees and in their place were robust debates and discourse on issues about which IBB had made up his mind. The people always had their say, but IBB always had his way. We should never forget an IMF -inspired SAP implemented without the true blueprint. The wooing of dye-in-the-wood critics for good on the surface projects which magnetised the likes of Wole Soyinka and the late Tai Solarin into helping legitimize governance. All these while IBB was using Nigeria as a guinea-pig for ideological political experimentation – the opening of the ‘democratic space’ for politicians to form parties which were later cancelled because it did not meet the despot’s blueprint.
We would not forget the longest transition programme which eventually led to the foisting of the Babangidance – the a little to the left and a little to the right philosophy. It gave birth to the SDP and the NRC. The epilogue was the 1993 elections which were shamefacedly annulled by the despot and brought us here. It’s still an unending transition – a road to nowhere. Of course, the era opened up chapters in the novel of unsolved murders and political eliminations that has sunk our nation deeper into the abyss.
Today’s politicians are proving to be good students of the IBB school of ingenuity, difference is that in the quest for Aso Rock occupancy in 2011, both the students and the evil genius are aspirants. All that is waiting to unfold is whether the royal fox can outfox the other foxes. The present occupant of Aso Rock is a smooth operator. While the nation was virtually put on the boil during the 3-month saga of Yar’adua’s comatose presidency, Goodluck Jonathan was not known to publicly make a statement. Yet, behind every agitation, you could see the unseen hand that led to him benefitting from the doctrine of necessity. A corrupt head of his party who adamantly stuck to the so-called zoning formula quickly found that a dormant volcano can suddenly spew enough lava to destroy a whole city.
The new prince is perhaps no better and has proven a good student of the Babangidance. From the ruling camp we have the new verdict from the fresh prince – you can vie if you must but the position is zoned philosophy – is a subtle way of saying to those outside the influence of incumbency that they are kicking against the pricks. All those who are waiting to bite the bait know the consequences could be very dangerous indeed. Then, there was the advertised quest to appoint Attahiru Jega, a man whose fight against the antics of dictatorship is legendary to come and direct a script well written but subject (like all scripts) to emergency ad-libbing before its grand performance.
Jega has not been asked to bring his first eleven, he would have filled INEC with tough as nut ex-or serving dons with their vision clear and their conscience intact. Rather, he inherited a system that is primed to sing it’s master’s voice. His time is so short that it gives neither room for reform nor redress. He is called to make the best of a bad situation. A Jega in an institution that is steeped in corruption is a tree attempting to be a forest in the Sahara and far from an oasis. This is why Jega flunked his first test at making a mathematical calculation by a margin of N2 billion. This is why he would defend the transfer of a discredited Ayoka Adebayo with the untenable and factually incorrect statement that the allegations against her were unproven. For, if indeed they were, her conduct is so fresh in current history to be easily muddled. Finally, the unveiling of the gestation time-table is convincing enough that this man has put his reputation on the line for a project that is primed or programmed to fail. But fair enough, history has a place reserved for his ilk – the iglou of Humphrey Nwosu.