Rejoinder to “Obasanjo in America” by Reuben Abati  

      Without any prejudice or unnecessary favours, I am yet to come across any literate Nigerian who does not appreciate our great and intellectual journalist by name, Dr. Reuben Abati.  I read him all the time in the Guardian on-line because of his comprehensive understanding of issues or topics he writes about.  His systematic analysis and composite break down of social, political and economic issues that require intellectual discussion because of their relevance to the Nigerian society, at large, is outstanding, to say the least.

      In reference to President Obasanjo’s quotable quotes, “I am not a maneuverer, I am not a manipulator, I am a democrat”.  Dr. Reuben Abati did an excellent job to portray our president as a maneuverer, a manipulator, and not a democrat without calling him so..  Reuben Abati’s last editorial opinion on the ‘third term’ issue proved to its readers that our President has no respect for the people who elected him into office, that is, the Nigerian electorate.  “Under President Obasanjo, the Constitution has been subjected to great ridicule”, so says Reuben Abati.  This assertion is absolutely correct.  The Peoples Democratic Party, unfortunately the President’s party, has produced nearly all the politicians that are engaged in manipulation to desecrate the Nigerian constitution.  As a Nigerian patriot, how does one feel about the integrity of those who are privileged to rule Nigeria at this moment in our history when one discovers that they lack transparency, honesty, integrity and other necessary qualities of leadership crucial to our national development as a people.? For any nation to be properly established, its political infrastructure must be built on the Rule of Law.  There is no alternative to it, because all nations which have achieved greatness on this planet had no other alternative than to follow that path.  Our erstwhile colonial boss, Britain, is considered the mother of democracies because its succeeding political elites, over several generations, upheld all tenets of democracy even without a written constitution.  Without initiating any deliberative constitutional conference like the Americans did in 1776 and later in 1787, the British political elite built an ordered society for themselves going back to the 1215 Magna Carta.  For about eight centuries, the English, the Scottish, the Welsh and the Northern Irish basically endeavoured to lay a solid political foundation for the emergence of the United Kingdom that we all know today.  The British Revolution was an on-going, quiet and steady revolution, based on trust among the English, the Scottish, the Welsh, and the northern Irish for about eight centuries until this moment.  Without a written constitution, or a vagrant attempt to abuse trust and conventions among the political elite class, the political leaders of the British Isles had their attitudes totally subsumed in the advancement of a political legitimacy based on numerous public documents such as the English Petition of Rights of 1628 and the subsequent Bill of Rights of 1689.  These documents were mere acts of parliament including the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, which reduced the power of the House of Lords in favour of the House of Commons, in relation to money bills and other public bills respectively. These documents remain esteemed as relevant aspects of the unwritten British constitution. In our own situation in Nigeria, we are not willing to learn anything but gallivant around in our backward communities and flaunt our ill-gotten wealth with inconsequential arrogance both at home and abroad. Those who led Nigeria to political independence are men of better mien than the present manipulators who are bent on controlling our national life by fraud..  The British Prime Ministers are leaders with high integrity, honour, and unalloyed principles and groomed by their political parties to provide quality national leadership.  The moment these leaders sense some loss of confidence in their leadership from members of their parties both in parliament and outside of it, especially from the public at large, they immediately realize it is time to leave office and consequently go ahead to resign their Prime Minister’s position with honour and dignity.

      The major problem with the Nigerian ruling elite is gross indiscipline. Because of lack of discipline among our leadership cadre, they therefore lack civility which is essential to developing responsible behaviour required in holding public office. Public service is for personal aggrandizement to a good number of our leaders and that is why they are always at daggers drawn whenever they need to vie for political positions.. When the elite cadre of any nation fails to provide selfless, honest and disciplined leadership, the national society concerned will fail, become stagnated and finally collapse.  As an individual, I fail to see any semblance of quality leadership and discipline in the so-called largest party in Africa; the People’s Democratic Party.  Senator Mantu with all his political antics, and others who run around the country with him to propagate falsities and falsifications based on fallacies and irrationalities on the good people of Nigeria are fraudulent characters who have no business in governance. These charlatans will not do our nation any good. The consistent and irresponsible but regular speeches often made by Ahmadu Ali, the PDP National chairman, along with Chief Ojo Maduekwe and others in the PDP national hierarchy demanding party loyalty and other impossibilities among its members, in order to promote false party solidarity and subvert the Nigerian constitution epitomizes fraud.  Are these men national leaders of quality or political crooks?  What kind of national society will this caliber of men build for us if we do not challenge their emptiness of purpose and false resolve?

      After their party’s strange re-registration of membership last year to embarrass and intimidate a good number of their founding fathers whose loyalties were in doubt, the often meaningless cliché of anti-party activities came to be employed to oust those who dared question all the unconventional and fascist decisions which the party continues to make unabated.

      The PDP governors are now being guaranteed a blanket immunity and an illegal third term in the envisaged amendments to Nigeria’s constitution in order to extort their support for an undemocratic and unworthy PDP notion for an Obasanjo extended presidency.  What a blackmail?  What a brigandry?  Loyalty as demanded by the PDP’s national leaders including the President himself is beyond the expressions and feelings of devoted attachment and affection from its members.  It is like demanding the loyalty of a robot that has no mind or brain.  One is not supposed to express or exhibit an honestly independent mind.  If one, therefore tells them what they do not want to hear on any issue, one is marked for a negative reward at the appropriate and at their opportuned moment of revenge. As a former member of the Unity Party of Nigeria, our late great leader Chief Obafemi Awolowo would encourage opposing views especially from those of us who were seen as ‘young turks’in the party. Papa would listen to us more than those who shared the common or popular views expressed at such meetings. It was characteristic of him to draw one nearer to himself in order to engage one in a loving and intellectual discussion. Papa understood our generation very well and was fully prepared like a father would, to engage us in responsible, responsive and enlightened discourse. I, as an individual, grew to love Papa Awo because of his deep and wide understanding of issues and the role of an opposing faction on a few party issues. From some distance, one may be doubtful or unsure of what to expect but when one moved nearer to our political sage, one would wonder how loving, plain, easy and wonderful Papa Awo was. The governors at that time, in the second republic did not enjoy our nearness to Papa because they were using Papa’s name and image to cow us from expressing our minds. With some them, our claims to free ideas and speeches were branded anti-party activities.  

      Aside from the President, all other members of the PDP, with military background. who wish to aspire to the Nigerian presidency are men of yester years who do not possess the vision to rule Nigeria of the future.  The EFCC had derailed Brigadier Marwa’s ambitious inclinations for the presidency, even though, he is temporarily back in the race under remote control. A man like him cannot be considered worthy of being elected president because he is not in control of his own mind. He is available to be purchased like the head of a ram in an open market place.  General Ibrahim Babangida’s ambition to come back again to continue the absurdity of the late eighties and early nineties is being propagated by those who served his notorious dictatorship.  Babangida and his men cannot afford to tell the world what his regime did with Dele Giwa.  Why was the most transparently democratic election of June 12, 1993 annulled?  What became of the twelve billion dollars windfall that Nigeria made from petroleum during the Gulf War in 1991? Who is the secret custodian of the Okigbo report on the twelve million dollars windfall? Why did he impose Ernest Shonekan, an executive-employee of the United Africa company on the nation as a head of state and government, thereby preparing the stage for an easy palace coup for a nincompoop who led the nation into its darkest period since political independence.?  Babangida presided over one of the most corrupt governments in Nigeria’s history and succeeded in institutionalizing corruption in high places to the detriment of majority of Nigerians. One of his military governors posted to Ogun state, a native of another state in the upper area of the South-West used to deposit Ogun state money and treasury bills in the banks of his native state. Babangida and his deputy Aikhomu cleared this corrupt Governor of any wrong-doing without any question or enquiry. They were Gods that could not be subjected to any inquiry by any group of Nigerians. Are we inviting back this kind of men to rule us again? The answer should be absolutely  NO.

      What Nigeria needs today is a new set of political leaders; men and women, who were not part of our past but messy and unscrupulous military regimes of the last three decades.  Those vampires who imposed political darkness on Nigeria when the nation should advance and lay some solid infrastructure for democratic life and order should not be allowed to come back. The electorate should be educated to reject them and have their exclusion written into the Nigerian constitution instead of promoting an unwarranted and illegal ‘third term’.  What is the difference between Obasanjo and Mugabe, or Mobutu Sese Seko or Eyadema or Ghaddafi or Omar Bongo or deception personified Yoweri Museveni, if our president is now seeking a third term? On the question of a ‘ third term’: Obasanjo does not think he owes the Nigerian people a word of confirmation or denial.? He has nothing to say to the people he rules other than leaving the matter in God’s hand? Is he not aware of the rules according to the constitution? What an insult! Nigeria cannot claim to be better than other African nations where constitutional manipulations occur and illegal extensions made overnight for sit-tight dictators to have a free rule since we also manipulate our constitution and alter the democratic process fraudulently.  Other African nations will continue to resist Nigeria’s assumed leadership in the continent because its foreign policy cannot be given a different colouration and value different from its domestic policy and unstable political situation.  I suspect very strongly that the PDP will try to rig the next general election in Nigeria in order to actualize the benefits of their intended constitutional subversion. All Nigerians of good faith should be watchful. 
 

Robot  # 1 | 19.04.2006 19:59

...Read the full article.

gwobezentashi  # 2 | 20.04.2006 01:33

Leave office gracefully, Awoniyi tells Obasanjo An open letter of appeal dated Monday April 10, 2006 from Chief Sunday Awoniyi (Aro of Mopa), to President Olusegun Obasanjo. DEAR Segun, Many times in the last several months (before the armed attack on me on Sunday 12th March 2006 in my bedroom in Abuja) I have had repeated strong feelings to write you an open letter on the affairs of our country under your stewardship in the last seven years. I refrained from doing so on each occasion because as one executive outrage of your government followed the other, young men and women, especially journalists, some of whom are in the same age bracket as your children and mine, write on the issues concerned with so much feeling, eloquence, logic and intelligence than I ever could. Segun, although you probably will not believe it, it is nonetheless true that for some unaccountable reasons I still have some soft spot for you. I pray for you and wish you well. That partly accounts for this letter. I thought, may be if I am able to show you openly and unflatteringly the other side of the coin from the one displayed to you by those who behave as if they love you better than you love yourself, you may change tack and find a way out of the cul de sac into which you have been boxed. What the vast majority of Nigerians and particularly the knowledgeable, experienced, patriotic lovers and leaders of our country have felt increasingly in the last seven years are mostly silent bewilderment, unbelief, deep pain and sorrow for you and for our country rather than just futile anger. They are embarrassed to see their once beloved leader waddling naked on the national and international stage while flatterers praise his robes as being more resplendent than those of the biblical King Solomon. It is painful that the unequaled opportunity that providence and the good peoples of Nigeria gave you in 1999 to bind the nation's wounds and to strengthen its internal cohesion, through the various prescribed democratic institutions and organs, in freedom, justice and fair play, in an all inclusive manner have been so needlessly betrayed. As you will recall, nobody thought that the task given to you in 1999 was going to be easy. At my own level, in spite of my initial grave doubts about your temperamental suitability for the job, I was persuaded from our many honest discussions over weeks and months that if you performed half as much as you sounded, we would succeed. More importantly, from the stimulating seminars and retreats which we organised at which you participated and spoke eloquently about democracy and the team work that would be needed to revamp the nation, you made the leadership of the party that brought you to power and its vast followership to believe that you were a leader worthy of trust, who would midwife the democratic ethos we needed in our national life. In addition, your comments, posture and activities after your military presidency, your Leadership Forum at Otta, your countrywide lectures on the virtues of democracy and your warnings to past and current leaders of the day not to take the good nature of Nigerians for granted, all helped to convince Nigerians that you were a committed democrat. Furthermore, Nigerians had put religion behind them in the Abiola/Kingibe Moslem/Moslem presidential ticket as a major factor in the choice of their leader. And in your election, Nigerians decided to put ethnicity behind them as a major factor in their choice of the leader. They voted massively for you regardless of religion and ethnicity all over the country while your own people rejected you and humiliated you at the polls. These were two of the greatest achievements of Nigerians in nation building. Segun, those were heady days, full of hope and expectations. I thought that if I could rekindle for you some sparks of the high ideals of those days, particularly at this period, when we have a confluence of spiritual preoccupations, and prayers by Nigerian Moslems and Christians alike (prophet Mohammed's birthday, PBUH, Lent and Easter), you may prayerfully join them and rethink where you have led Nigeria and how you can get her out of the jam into which she has now been landed. I thought also that instead of the usual abuse from your image makers and beneficiaries of the present situation, may be men of knowledge and experience, particularly those of our generation from all walks of life - administrators, professionals, businessmen, etc. - will break their silence and speak to you or find ways of speaking to those who can influence you. What finally pushed me to write you in this manner I decided to shrug off all inhibitions to write this letter because of an incident that nearly brought tears to my eyes yesterday. My physiotherapist here in the UK has prescribed a set of exercises for me to follow strictly to aid my recovery. One of the exercises is to take some walk little by little, and slowly, slowly daily. Yesterday, as I walked past a Request Bus Stop my eyes caught a notice board with the flags of some thirty nations drawn on it. I ran my eyes over them and behold, I saw my country's beloved green white green flag - so simple and so beautiful. I suddenly heard myself singing alone that portion of our original national anthem relating to our flag. I probably did not get all the words right after some forty years, but its words struck a deep chord in me: Our flag shall be a symbol That peace and justice reign. In peace and battle honoured And this we count as gain. To hand on to our children A banner without stain. O God of all creation, Grant this our one request, Help us to build a nation, Where no man is oppressed. And so with peace and plenty Nigeria may be blessed. Segun, I plead with you, please ponder over these words and see how you can bring our country back to the path of mutual accommodation and progress, so that: "Though Tribe and Tongue may defer, In brotherhood we stand. Nigerians all and(sic) proud to serve Our sovereign motherland." Let us not betray these visions of our great Founding Fathers. God has been Good to you God has been magnanimous to you Segun. For instance, to give just one example, every one of our past Heads of State has been used by God to aid you at all stages of your career. You benefited where others had sown. They saved you from death. They saved you from impeachment. They even tried to make you Secretary General of the United Nations until one of the major European countries said that what the United Nations wanted was a Secretary General, not an Army General. One of our most respected distinguished Generals recommended you to Nigerians as a man they could trust. He was even reported to have threatened "to checkout" of Nigeria like Andrew, if you were not elected President. In all humility, ask yourself what kind of truly beneficial relationship you have with them today. The truth is that today, you hold them in derision, and their views count for nothing with you. Surely, this cannot be right. Why I feel able to write you I feel qualified to write this letter to you for several reasons. But I will mention only three. Firstly, providence brought us together and we have come a long way together and I know you more than most people and still feel for you more than most. With a few exceptions, most of the people around you dread you. The law they obey is the law of survival in office no matter the cost. They cannot tell you the truth. Well, in spite of recent events, I am still foolhardy enough to risk offending them and offending you by telling you the truth. Both of us are over 70, i.e., the biblical three score and ten. We are not half the men we used to be. Let us face it. Let us accept it that TIME and the biological ravages that accompany TIME have taken their inevitable toll. We are old and should not hanker after a new career of fame or world acclaim. National and world fame will come if they are merited. Leave your place in history in the hands of your Creator. At our age we should be more reflective and more accommodating, less impulsive and less combative. As we prepare for the great beyond, we should work and pray to be remembered for sowing the seeds of good accord and not for fanning the embers of discord between and amongst our peoples. We should not pitch the South against the North, or vice versa; nor should we manufacture new areas of disharmony where none existed before. Let us help the young to grow and grow alright. The future is theirs. They are bright and impressionable. Let us give them good example for their interpersonal and communal relationship. We owe them this debt. I write this letter, secondly, as a fellow Christian; and more especially as a fellow member of the Baptist Denomination. I urge you to ponder and accept the biblical injunction that if we are truly born again, we would be Christ-like in our actions, and conduct ourselves in ways that will make our "light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." I write this letter, thirdly, as a fellow Yoruba man. As I have said over and over again in many gatherings, the one thing on which the Yoruba man cannot be faulted is in his expression and display of gratitude for good done to him. A Yoruba man would express gratitude for the good done to him yesterday. Years later, he would greet his benefactor and tell him that he has not forgotten the kindness of yesteryears. God has been very good to you, Segun. He has used good men, many of whom I came to know, to help you in your private life, in your profession and in your political career. Please ponder on how you have repaid their kindness to you. The answers to our current problems Now, what are the answers to all the mess we are in? I believe you should know much better than anybody. You know how you got us into it. First and foremost, you as the undisputed leader today must have the humility to accept that you are human and that mistakes have been made that need urgent correction. And as they say, if you want to get out of a hole, you must stop digging. Therefore, whatever solutions you may have to offer, for them to have any chance of success, you must begin by mending fences and regaining the trust of those leaders and groups of influence whom you have grievously and so needlessly let down. You must call off the harassment of all those opposed to you or those whom you are opposed to, including your Vice President. It is disingenuous to pretend that you have no hands in these harassments. It is like hiding behind a finger and pretending that people do not see you. Although I believe that you probably did not order these harassments, those who did believe that you would not object provided they are not directly traceable to you. It is disgraceful and dangerous considering the men of high repute and service to this nation that are the victims, including the Vice President. Habba, Segun! Please order immediately, firmly and publicly, that they must stop. Show gratitude to Nigeria and its people by putting an end to all actions that can plunge it into communal or sectarian strife and possible civil war. Look up the recommendations of the Etsu Nupe Committee on the ways to tackle the problems of 2003 rigged elections. They are relevant to the present situation. And now to the big one! The third term The way the third term project was conceived in brazen deceit and contempt for all decency, and the ruthless methods being used to force feed it into an unwilling populace by intimidation, blackmail and all manners of corruption, are in complete contradiction to your administration's sermons on integrity, transparency and accountability. They are immoral. They are irreligious. Therefore, I beg of you, for your own good and for our country's good, make a simple announcement to say that you are not interested in a Third Term and that you plan to go back to Otta in 2007. This will bring down the political temperature dramatically. You will be amazed at the favourable public and nationwide reaction to such an announcement. Your credibility nationwide will be considerably restored. Some of those around you will certainly not like it, but most of them who have been battling with a moral dilemma on their conscience on the project will be greatly relieved. It will then be possible to consider seriously a meeting of the various leaders of our country - political, professional, traditional, etc., etc., to discuss issues. Please think on these things. Finally, please rejoice with me as a fellow Christian, that from the bottom of my heart I have forgiven those who violated my privacy and wounded me. Whether their reasons were economic or political or both, as our president, the ball is in your court to restore the right economic, political and security atmosphere to Nigeria to obviate these outrages. Segun, at my level I intend to continue to endeavour to work for the emergence of a Nigeria where their children will have no cause to earn their living by criminal activities. Please refer to the recommendations of our "Whispering Palm Presidential Retreat" of April 1999. They are still relevant. Generally, Nigerians are forgiving. They are particularly generous in forgiving the aberrations of their rulers, particularly if they leave office gracefully. Leave gracefully, Segun. Save Nigeria from unnecessary social and political trauma, besides which the horrors of Rwanda and Burundi will be child's play. I pray God to bless you abundantly and grant you the humility, wisdom, righteousness of spirit and courage to do so. Thank you very much for your visit to me at Abuja following the armed attack. I am grateful. I am getting better, "slowly slowly." I wish you well. Yours sincerely, as always. source: Guardian 20/04/2006

UNREGISTER  # 3 | 20.04.2006 10:20

The Letter Makes More Sense Than The Article.

Exxcuzme  # 4 | 20.04.2006 10:29

"Reuben Abati’s last editorial opinion on the ‘third term’ issue proved to its readers that our President has no respect for the people who elected him into office, that is, the Nigerian electorate" REALLY, DID WE ELECT HIM?

holypyrate  # 5 | 21.04.2006 08:17

WHAT HAVE US-BASED NIGERIANS GOT TO OFFER? It is alarming how Nigerians based in the United States of America will be up against their own country in a foreign land. This washing of dirty linens outside is one too many. It must stop. The international embarrassment, which these diaphoretic fellows are constantly causing the image of the country is now getting out of hand. Rather than see to ways, brain drain syndrome. We need your services rather than awful criticisms and condemnation. invent strategies and sellable ideas; proffer potent solutions to the many impasses in the land, out dear brothers in America are busy with fruitless and endless criticisms. The association agreed on a number of issues, prominent amongst them: ‘there must be free and fair elections in 2007….’ They however failed to state their own quota to the realization of this dream. How possible would it be to remain in the United States and make far-reaching contributions to the polity? What efforts have the Nigerians abroad made to see to it that elections are actually ‘free and fair’? Have there been any constructive suggestions to this effect? The group also accused the present administration of ‘witch-hunting and selective prosecution’. They failed to realise that only truly madman revolutionizes all at once. Everyone cannot be prosecuted at the same time, moreover without evidence of corruption. It is a gradual process. The issue of third term is indeed a non-issue. How can these ‘Andrews’ abroad affect the issue of tenure extension? Besides, what concrete reasons have they lain out to suggest that policy continuation is anathema to the socio-political and economic growth in Nigeria? Of course, policy truncation has been the bane of development in the country. For now, policy continuation should not be treated in dissociation of regime extension. Besides, Obasanjo has lain a solid foundation to be built upon by subsequent regimes. I feel the World Igbo Congress, Zumunta Association and Egbe Omo Oduduwa ought really to think harder and act better. There is little or nothing ranting from the Diaspora can do. They should all return home and help build their country. We are clamouring for foreign investments, we need intellectuals to speed up the rate of national growth; we are tired of the RANSOME OBEM,

Picasso  # 6 | 21.04.2006 16:10

Bankole: Pls consider using shorter paragraphs in your articles next time. Helps for easier reading. That 2nd paragraphs for instance was way too long.

UNREGISTER  # 7 | 22.04.2006 09:41

Holypyrate, thanks for your comment. The writer of this article needed that comment. I am not concerned about his ilk. They've left Nigeria for good. But we must not lose patience. We ought to continuosly explain all you said to them. Perhaps some day they would re-examine their present motto viz A GOOD SCAPEGOAT IS AS GOOD AS A SOLUTION. Who else can be their scapegoat other than Olusegun Obasanjo? When an educated man writes that President is extending his term or recklessly asserts that Nigeria is governed by a Dictator, what do you tell him? Are you the one to tell him we have a Democracy with an Executive, Legislative and Judicial functions vested in separate independent entities? That there are 38 registered Political Parties 28 of which contested the last Presidential Election? Consider this writers last observation: That PDP is out to rig 2007 Election. Does it deserve a re-action? Another one wrote: They want to squander our foreign reserve. Yet another says: Obasanjo is planning Phanton coup. One says: They want to declare state of emergency. Of course, in a country of 150 Million thaere are bound to be a few with "attitude". Would you blame them? But there should be some sanity by those resident in places "where things work". These iconoclasts go silent when reminded that Britain has no term limit. That USA adopted Term Limit only about 50 years ago. Of course they reside in these countries and can see how things are done. But they have a mindset of mischief. In Yoruba: Esu ta'po si, kiun riran wo. They talk down on their Nation knowing fully well that in those countries they reside, things are not perfect. 911 and Katrina were monumental intelligence and security disasters yet Americans are not calling for impeachment of their President. Some even refer to Nigeria as "that country" even on this website. (I can understand the case of the Biafrans whose may "justifiably" talk like that.) They forget that the Nigeria masses look up to them for meaningful action NOT perpectual whyning. They warn of impending armagedon and crucify our country, its processes leadership and our democracy as anachronistic, corrupt and just plain evil. Bankole has to travel home (Nigeria) more often. His next piece would definitely be more restrained and factual. I also commend to him the Proceedings of the British House of Lords posted on this site. By way of advise, he ought to know that some of the write-ups in this site are laden with hidden agenda and that when a man like Atiku Abubakar or Uche Chukwumerije for example say they are against third term, that does not ipso facto make them pro-democracy. We don't want praise singing. We would not also condone muckraking. But we would appreciate CONSTRUCTIVE write-ups. Coming from a member of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria, this is not a piece Chief Awolowo would have associated with.