On Yar’adua’s official medical trip

That statement released by the presidential spokesperson is quite weighty and has wide-ranging implications. Such statements ought to come with apologies to the Nigerian media and the Nigerian people. The Nigerian media has made to feel like a meddlesome institution which thrives on hearsay and pure innuendo. Methinks also that a better public relations stunt […]

That statement released by the presidential spokesperson is quite weighty and has wide-ranging implications. Such statements ought to come with apologies to the Nigerian media and the Nigerian people. The Nigerian media has made to feel like a meddlesome institution which thrives on hearsay and pure innuendo. Methinks also that a better public relations stunt would have been for him to order his lawyers to withdraw any legal suit resulting from the coverage of that even. Today, we can officially announce that Yar’adua is sick.

What we cannot say with conviction is that that sickness incapacitates him from being able to steer the ship of state. It is a difficult scenario where the state is sick and its leader is sick. Which sickness should be treated first? Nigeria is truly sick and it is either Mr. President either does not understand that; or that he knows, is incapable of understanding it because he is intellectually incapable of rising up to it. Scenario two is that he understands but is totally unfazed about what is going on. If Yar’adua does not understand what is going on in the country, is he altruistic enough to admit that and to seek help or does he think that ignorance can be covered with nonchalance in a country of 150 million people adrift at the sea of inconsistency and inaction? That is a question that at some point very soon he would be called upon to answer. If he is aware of what is going on but lacks the mental capacity to address it he should seek help. And finally, if Mr President is aware that his country is adrift while he sleeps or treats his own malady, he should be told that he is riding on the back of the Tiger.

This country is not a banana republic with a few hundreds of thousands of informed people whose legitimate needs can be handled with insouciance. Mr President should learn from history. The Nigerian people are about the only people apart from the Philippines fought and forced out the military without firing a shot but with their own blood.

The challenges facing our nation are so enormous and paramount it leaves no time for tokenism. Mr. President is known to have left his country on the verge of being overrun by militants and fundamentalists. He went on a frivolous trip to Brazil to learn how to increase tariff for a commodity his country has the capacity to generate but does not. He is the only one in leadership who goes for the cure to a disease he has not even diagnosed. Mr. President is yet to make a pronouncement on how suspects in police custody were executed by law enforcers without recourse to the judicial system while he prides himself on adherence to the rule of law.

The academia was Mr. President’s former base. It was his natural choice of retirement after warming the chair in Katsina for eight uneventful years before being steamrollered into Aso Rock. For months now, his colleagues in the ivory towers have shut down the ivory tower. Rather than meet face to face with his colleagues whose language he speaks, he sends emissaries while he wines and dines with militants whose activities are inimical to his economic interest, while his wife raises funds for cancer of the body, the cancer of progress is eating up the nation.

Methinks that there are issues more germane to Yar’adua’s presidency than treating cough and catarrh in a Saudi clinic. Leadership requires the commitment that those who prefer trivia should leave the scene for those with ideas and the zeal to carry it on. Sorry Mr President, I can’t even pray for your safe treatment because Nigeria is in a worse state of physical and mental health than you can imagine. Truth is, Nigerians may not have voted you to ameliorate their state of being, but the courts have declared that you were so elected to fix their problems. The question we need to ask you in all honesty as you raise your face towards the Ka’abba is – are you? Nothing else matters if this question is not conscientiously answered. If your sickness incapacitates you, let Nigerians know and find alternate route – forward march!