Yar’adua: Politics or constitutionality?

One thing that has always been clear is that Umaru Yar’adua has not been in very good condition of health since he became the governor of Katsina State. One of the reasons why he exhibited low profile aside from his modest perception of life and living standard, anyone that came across him for a long […]

One thing that has always been clear is that Umaru Yar’adua has not been in very good condition of health since he became the governor of Katsina State. One of the reasons why he exhibited low profile aside from his modest perception of life and living standard, anyone that came across him for a long time will attest to his simplicity.

In my view, Nigerians knew pretty well that they were voting for a person who wasn’t very healthy. At a point, those of us who opposed his candidacy and eventual election were forced to make do with the fact that being a president or in any position of responsibility for that matter didn’t require a Mike Tyson or Usein Bolt. It is more of a mental issue than it is physical.

In the last few years since the coming of this government, the nation has had breaks in transmission due to concerns on the president’s health. Perhaps one of the reasons why it is so difficult to see or interact with the president has a lot to do with his ailing being. Definitely, this is not an ideal situation but we are here face-to-face with it.

The centrepiece of this work today is on the management of the situation that we’ve all found ourselves in. The president’s men have done wonderfully very poorly. They failed in keeping the nation abreast of the status of the president which in my view is mainly responsible for the route that political adventurists have since found and are playing the game at the detriment of the nation and its unassuming majority.

When over a year ago, I confronted one of my close friends in government as to why they chose to keep Nigerians in the dark whenever the president was indisposed, the response was more frightening than I expected. As usual, I did not leave it at that, I kept ramming it down the throat of this very influential politician that it is not just dangerous and risky, but a grave political miscalculation to deploy that preferred method in dealing with a very complex people and society like Nigeria where the relationship between the leaders and the led has for a very long time been that of ‘we’ versus ‘them.’

I am not in government and don’t hold anybody’s mandate as a representative, but feel duty bound as a principal stakeholder in the national development project to advise, suggest and even criticise those who hold our trust on what should, ought, must or must not be done. This is the hallmark of liberty and freedom as the pillars of what we call democracy.

Since President Yar’adua left the country in November 2009, it was however the very first time that the nation was told that the Number One citizen was suffering from certain heart problem and was under the care of competent doctors in a Saudi hospital. That was what ought to have been done in previous cases.

The matter again became a national concern when little or nothing was heard periodically on how far the president was faring. This ignited some national outrage and timely capitalised by political opponents who found it easy to rally round the morality and national interest thesis to push forward their various agitations.

Those responsible for the information management shouldn’t have any motif stronger than the national agitation and especially those of their supporters who would be willing to know what the truth is so as to reinforce their confidence in facing those they see as their detractors and those of government.

Whatever the case was, the new dimension that the Yar’adua episode has now taken is alarming. I say this with all sense of humility that I was one of the very first few Nigerians who came out and voiced in no uncertain terms that the Vice President should be made to act due to the prolonged absence of the president.

Equally were very respectable Nigerians especially those of Northern extraction. To the greatest chagrin of quite a few of us, not sooner than the vice was asked to act by the National Assembly, a development whose legality is still a focus in question, the acting president began to fire from every side of the cylinder.

I wrote in one of my columns the week the vice began acting that he was starting on a wrong note. As usual, several people wrote in or called and said different things. The fact that a minor cabinet reshuffle occurred and the decision to stop the dredging of River Niger were unnecessarily not strategic and ill-advised.

The issue here is that definitely, some powerful political forces are bent on causing political commotion in the country. General Obasanjo has been fingered unfortunately in this development because of either his mischief or search for new relevance which he felt he was losing under the leadership of President Yar’adua. It is the deep involvement of Obasanjo in this Yar’adua/Jonathan affair that has provided the required clue that the battle for the soul of Nigeria by several citizens isn’t genuine, but purely political and selfish.

I thought the agitation was to fill the vacuum that the long absence of the president had caused the nation. Little did I know that some people have hidden objectives of taking over power from the president’s cabal. Rightly, therefore, it is that some Nigerians chose to call the February 9th contraption of ‘child of necessity’ as a civilian equivalent of coup.

Could this be the reason why several other people are unwilling to make do with the reality that Yar’adua is back and are jittery? They want to see him first, they say. Even before that, the mode of entry back to the country was shrouded in secrecy. Why would he not shroud it in secrecy in the face of the startling changes and upturns that the acting government was already deeply engaged in?

I find little problem if any with the manner of the return of the president because he left in similar condition and the hostile political environment created by those desperate political forces poses sincere threat to stability.

I make bold to say that while I condemn in its entirety the methodology adopted by the handlers of the president, the anxiety palpably shown in the form of desperation on the part of those who wanted by hook or crook for the vice president to take over from the president is most alarming.

My disappointment is in the fact that at the need of the entire exercise, the nation is not the focus but the selfish desires of some of its elite and leaders.

Now that the president is back, let’s see more transparency and openness in the handling of issues relating to him, his officials and governance in general. Nigerians must learn from the mistakes that we often make if the future is to be better.