| Arewa And The Babel Of 2007: A Rejoinder To Moses E. OchonuBy Aonduna Tondu Friday, April 16, 2004 |
|
 |
| Friday, 16 April 2004 | ||
A Rejoinder To Moses E. OchonuBy Aonduna Tondu Friday, April 16, 2004
Ordinarily, the talk of an election that is almost three years away would be considered by most people as lacking in interest, if not as downright presumptuous. The almost five years of the irremediably incompetent Obasanjo tyranny have made the on-going “2007” debate both inevitable and urgent. “2007” is very much here, and it has less to do with the rantings of the eerie retinue of spineless cheer leaders and their pantomime around known political scoundrels than with the imperative on the part of well-meaning Nigerians to transcend the unprecedented evil which has engulfed the land and which has the potential of hastening our perdition. Today, the face of that palpable evil is Matthew Okikiolakan Olusegun Obasanjo and his repeated assaults on our constitutional and democratic order, not to mention his mindless slaughters of innocent civilians in places like Odi and Zaki-Biam. Obasanjo is behaving more and more like a ruthless thug who is accountable to nobody. His treachery and hypocrisy are now in the public domain. And when you have a corrupt judiciary and a National Assembly led by a charlatan called Wabara who, like Obasanjo himself, should be in jail for pretending that he won an election, you can imagine the extent of the mess the country is in. Surmounting this mess will require cool heads. Trying to find viable alternatives or options to the political quagmire the country is in today should be the focus of our national debate. To a large extent, the Nigerian media, and especially its Lagos-Ibadan axis, has been less than honourable in its coverage of the Obasanjo dictatorship. Sycophantic and docile, what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Kabiyesi media’ because of its kowtowing , deferent posture, has largely contributed to the bastardization of Nigerian democracy under the current rogue regime of Obasanjo. Quite often, the more corrupt segments of the national media have acted as ready mouthpieces for the regime’s propaganda. We saw this shameful conduct of the media during the ‘419’ elections, and recently, its idiotic parroting of an obtuse and reckless regime was on display in its uncritical handling of Obasanjo’s phantom coup story involving Major Al-Mustapha. Inanely, newspaper editorialists huffed and puffed about the need to defend our ‘nascent democracy’. Some, like those of the Vanguard, even made irritating noises about how ‘the worst civilian administration is preferred to the best military regime’, while, tepidly, the Guardian (Lagos) tried to dance around the criminal impunity and profligacy of the Obasanjo kleptocracy. As has been pointed out by other commentators, the Nigerian media, by omission or commission , has helped the Obasanjo regime in its dirty diversionary tactic of crying wolf when there is none. It is apparent that the so-called Al-Mustapha coup was an elaborate hoax, and a most grotesque one at that. By contributing to the marketing of that hoax, the ‘Kabiyesi media’ has helped focus the public’s attention away from the regime’s catalogue of misdeeds, including the most recent one – the March 27, 2004 local council election fiasco. As for the self-proclaimed human rights and pro-democracy outfits and their representatives, they have largely gone to sleep, that is when they are not participating in the dishonest legitimization of the messianic mafia in Abuja. I have dwelt on some of the critical points of our national public discourse in order to underline the need for the transparency of that discourse in our search for alternatives to our present predicament called the Obasanjo regime. It is precisely what informed my rejoinder to Professor Omo Omoruyi’s commentary on what he perceived as ACF’s role in a hypothetical Babangida-Buhari presidential contest. It is also what has informed this reaction to Moses Ochonu’s obviously mistaken assertion that my exchange with Omoruyi “...has been premised on a problematic acceptance of the inevitability of the emergence of Buhari and Babangida as THE CANDIDATES in the next presidential election” (Emphasis mine). In his rejoinder entitled “Deconstructing Omoruyi’s 2007 Punditry”, Moses E. Ochonu further claims rather erroneously that the discussion between Omoruyi and I “...represents a disturbing degeneration in the debate on the Nigeria’s immediate political future”! My reaction to the bizarre remarks by Mr. Ochonu in the last two quotes is this: Either he has not done a careful reading of my two rejoinders to Professor Omoruyi, or he has, for some reason, decided to form an opinion on those rejoinders that is clearly a mischievous distortion of my exchange with Omoruyi. Ochonu is obviously making a case against me on assumptions, not facts. The reader should remember that in my first rejoinder bearing the title ‘Omo Omoruyi’s Sermon to Arewa’, I let it be understood that I was taking to task Omoruyi’s central argument that ACF is an anti-south organization which is not only anti-democracy and against Nigeria’s “cultural pluralism”, but one that is also politically partisan, working to promote the supposed presidential ambition of General Buhari at the expense of Omoruyi’s former political master, Babangida. I added that the aim of such unsubstantiated allegations on the part of the professor was to demonize Buhari through a false associative strategy ahead of the 2007 presidential election. Nowhere in my two rejoinders was it suggested or even insinuated that “...the choice in the next presidential election will come down to the two retired generals...” as Ochonu has wrongly claimed. If Ochonu had taken the time to serenely read my articles, he would probably have realized that I was careful to talk of Buhari’s “purported presidential ambition”, in reference to Professor Omoruyi’s claims regarding “2007” (“Omo Omoruyi’s sermon to Arewa”). As a matter of fact, in my first rejoinder, I did suggest that instead of futilely trying to sanitize Babangida’s sordid legacy, Omoruyi should do the right thing by ditching the erstwhile dictator. I continued in the same cautious vein in my second rejoinder by referring to ‘Buhari’s presumed presidential ambition’. “...No sensible Nigerian will quarrel with a genuine plea for informed debate, except that what Omoruyi is doing is trying to be clever by half. He insults our intelligence with his blanket condemnation of ACF and his half-baked attempt to score cheap political points by dishonestly fudging the lines between his perception of ACF’s agenda and Buhari’s presumed presidential ambition” (ACF Can’t be the Scapegoat for Babangida’s Unpardonable Sins against Nigeria”). Crucially also, in my second rejoinder, I drew attention to Mr. Awoniyi’s statement that ACF is not biased toward Atiku, Babangida and Buhari. Of course, this was not intended to serve as an indication that the 2007 presidential race should be limited to these three men. It was a response to specific concerns expressed by certain individuals – Omoruyi included - as to ACF’s impartiality. It is curious that my indictment of Omoruyi’s perception of ACF and its relationship with different facets of our political life has been interpreted by Moses E. Ochonu as being “premised on a problematic acceptance of the inevitability of the emergence of Buhari and Babangida as the candidates in the next presidential election.” Besides the thematic thrust of my commentary on Professor Omoruyi’s position, there is an abundance of textual indices to tell even the most casual reader that my rejoinders which were offered in a very specific rhetorical context – the rejection of Omoruyi’s perception of ACF – have nothing to do with what Ochonu has hastily, and no doubt, wrongly referred to as a “...minimalist view of the political battle that lies ahead...” It is even doubtful that Professor Omoruyi’s two articles can also be assessed in that light. Apart from expressing his support for a two-party system, and, of course, his former boss, Babangida, Omoruyi has not come out, at least not in his two articles under scrutiny, to canvass for the restriction of the 2007 presidential election to a two-way campaign between Babangida and Buhari. Another curious aspect of Mr. Ochonu’s piece is that it has totally ignored the central argument of the discussion between Omoruyi and I, namely, the professor’s contention regarding ACF and its agenda. Strangely, though, Ochonu has preferred to raise the emotion-charged issue of minority fear of domination in our polity. Frankly, I do not see how my rejoinders can be said to have re-enforced such a fear as Mr. Ochonu seems to be insinuating. If Ochonu were that concerned about this legitimate issue of minority representation in presidential election politics, the least expected of him is a sound proposal for a minority candidacy instead of leaving his intervention at the level of emotional suggestion and innuendo. Here lies the fundamental irony of Ochonu’s reaction to my rejoinders. At a time when cool heads are needed to sift through the maze of lies and dishonesty which are the hallmarks of the murderous regime of Baba Obasanjo, we can ill-afford to operate at a level that suggests otherwise. The mere evocation of the social or professional status of an individual or group cannot be used as a valid argument for exclusion or acceptance in the race for the presidency. The issues of character, track record, political programme, amongst others, should be the overriding factors in the determination of who becomes the next Nigerian president. Aonduna Tondu New York
|
||
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 23 April 2008 ) | ||
Services : E-mail news | 
RSS Feeds | Podcasts
Links: About the NVS | Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy & Cookies | Advertise With Us
All Rights Reserved. NigeriaVillageSquare.com
Posted by Robot| 12.11.2005 14:09