Obasanjo/Jonathan, EFCC and Governor Lamido
But Sule Lamido has made it impossible for some of us to do that, his arrogance about the Obasanjo matter notwithstanding. He made it impossible because when one takes a broader view of history, he has solved one of the two most critical problems of Nigeria . The first problem with Nigeria is lack of […]
But Sule Lamido has made it impossible for some of us to do that, his arrogance about the Obasanjo matter notwithstanding. He made it impossible because when one takes a broader view of history, he has solved one of the two most critical problems of Nigeria . The first problem with Nigeria is lack of unity because the truth today is that we are a collection of people united only by oil money without a sense of the country. And that is why people behave anyhow in Nigeria today and nobody can punish them. The second problem with Nigeria since independence is lack of performance in office. People get elected or selected into office and simply refuse to perform. Or simply have no idea of what is expected of the office.
Then almost from nowhere, Alhaji Sule Lamido came and showed that performance in office is possible. When I say performance in office, I am not just referring to the roads and clinics and schools in Jigawa of today. I am also referring to the intangible performance of the Jigawa governor in wielding together a state where every emirate thought of itself as an island. The Jigawa ‘nationalism’ of today can be regarded as the eight wonder of the world for some of us. I am not from Jigawa but we indeed came in stark contact with the Jigawa ‘nationalism’ of yesterday at a place like the Federal Government College , Kiyawa several years ago.
There is no way this type of leadership will not be noted in the centres where leadership performance is carefully scrutinized, both within and outside Nigeria . And if I may cite what is more or less a personal experience now, that is the fact that my wife and children attend hospitals in Jigawa and this is the truth today for many families in Bauchi, Yobe and Kano. We cannot deny this because our wives are already talking of the governor of Jigawa very differently from what we might like to believe about him as a result of our own perception of him previously.
This is unbelievable for a man like the governor of Jigawa who came back from government as Obasanjo’s minister of foreign affairs a totally destroyed personality, somebody who was seen as having contributed nothing to his office beyond accompanying Obasanjo in his wild tours. In retrospect now, it is either that Obasanjo appropriated Alhaji Sule Lamido’s intelligence or emasculated the governor when he was his minister. That is why everyone was shocked that this same Alhaji Sule Lamido went and invited the same Obasanjo to Jigawa in 2008, at a time Obasanjo was such a miserable outcast and loner in the whole Nigeria . It was unbelievable that Governor Lamido could engage in such self-humiliation by still wallowing in Obasanjo-mania.
Even students in my class were aghast as much as Northern Nigeria and the Villa at that time especially when the Jigawa governor not only went on to defend his action but also to calling Obasanjo “my president”. And all these were out there in the newspapers. If the Yar’Adua’s were a gangster presidency like this Jonathan’s and even like Obasanjo’s, hell would have been let loose. But the gentle Yar’Adua (May his Soul rest in peace) kept his cool. It was the Jigawa State Government that was actually embarrassing itself by disclosing in an advertorial that, in spite of everything, the late Yar’Adua still granted many concessions to the state. But Nigeria is not a country where such nobility of mind counts and so, Yar’Adua was not commended by any editorial for such magnanimity of spirit, not even by newspapers like Daily Trust or Leadership that are based right there in Abuja. The late president is not here to have the last laugh as Obasanjo pays Alhaji Sule Lamido back in treacherous coins through Jonathan’s EFCC but we are all here, watching Obasanjo and Lamido, with keen interest.
But like I said earlier, Alhaji Sule has made it impossible for us to say to him: it serves you right on your Obasanjo friendship. We cannot say that to him now for reasons I enumerated earlier. Anybody who is conversant with snippets from Jigawa, especially women and children will agree that Alhaji Lamido’s performance exonerates him of all ‘everything’. It must be what makes Abuja and an unsure incumbent lacking the Yar’Adua’s subdued brilliance and nobility of mind, to go gangster, certainly with the active approval of his men Friday, top of which is Chief Obasanjo who perfected the use of the EFCC as attack dog.
The only little surprise in all these is what makes Jonathan Goodluck thinks he can become president via the gangster approach or the garrison commander tactics of Obasanjo and Ahmadu Ali, given the failure of that approach in the hands of more lethal predecessors like IBB, Sani Abacha and Obasanjo. Obasanjo, for example, was somebody we can say knows Nigeria very well. By his professional exploits, his ethnic identity and general involvement in Nigeria ’s affairs, he could do certain things and get away with it especially as he was never seen to be interested in break-up of Nigeria . But the same cannot be said of president Jonathan.
In fact, for the first time in the history of Nigeria , we are having a presidential aspirant who is most unacceptable at all levels, from within his party, his own region and across the second half of the country. Not entirely president Jonathan’s own making but he is not only the single most divisive Nigerian to aspire to power by swimming against the soul of Nigeria, (zoning) but he is also the most fundamentally inadequate in grooming and preparation for the office, with his high education being a liability rather than asset. This is the only way some of the current EFCC raids could happen under Jonathan, showing a reasoning crisis.
Other than these, he is also the aspirant whose wife is already a problem even before he actually becomes the president in 2011; one with the least forgiving heart, if we take what he tried to do to Speaker Bankole Dumeji before the young speaker beat him in his own and he is poised to be the most miserable pawn in the hands of foreign interests in recent history of Nigeria especially that there is very little or no idea of how Nigeria can become anything coming from the presidency.
When one looks at all these, one asks if this guy knows what it means to be president of Nigeria . Nigeria , we have been told long time ago by someone who should know, is a country of anything goes. But Jonathan Goodluck seems to me to be the limit of anything goes. According to the Nigerian Tribune in an editorial titled “President Jonathan’s 100 Days” on August 31st, 2010, he lacks the grit and charisma to lead. This utter lack of grit and charisma is what we see in the graceless assault on so-called pro-zoning governors.
Dr. Jurmai wrote from ATBU, Bauchi