“One good thing about music? When it hits, you feel no pain!” This popular saying in the music of Reggae that is well known to every admirer of musical philosophy, may sooner or later, become a household trend in the understanding of Nigerian politics. The core of political practice in present-day Nigeria is beginning to crystallize in the distinctive characteristic of sowing chaos in the hope of reaping Nirvana!

If Nirvana stands for the Promised Land in the comprehension of democratic idealism in this context, the natural law governing the fundamental traits of cause and effect will obviously be the ultimate denominator in defining the fruit to be reaped from the seed of chaos. One fact is certain though. No one plants a cherry tree and hopes to reap figs and plums. Harvest day will always be the judgment day of the two-fisted and brutal sobriety.

The judgment day that will finally define the role of the orchestra and the conductor in the current political character of Nigeria will be at our doorsteps anytime soon. The picture that apparently meets the eyes these days, is that of a lame duck President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who is yet to define a clear political course and is now being dictated to, by followers and subjects that he is made to lead and guide. If there is anyone out there however, who truly takes this extremely illusionary picture seriously, the brutal reality will sooner or later, tell its own story about the true picture that does not meet the eye. Asking the Nigerian Labor Congress today for a tip on this issue, I have no doubt, the answer would be yours for the asking.

While experts and observers of political and industrial negotiations may honestly tend to attest a dose of obvious inexperience and amateurism to the conduct of the Federal government in the handling of the recent labor dispute, insiders of the Nigerian Labor Congress will definitely have reasons enough to leak their wounds and pick their pieces in the wake of the collapse of a sinister plot of willful sabotage.

First, the government of President Umaru Yar’Adua took many observers by surprise when he took a traditional last step as a fundamental first in the hope of appeasing the labor union in the recently concluded labor dispute linked with the first legacy of his predecessor.

When former President Olusegun Obasanjo declared a price hike on gasoline and raised the rate of value added tax, he hardly knew that he would be triggering off a serious wave of debates amongst experts on the usefulness of implementing the recommendations of international financial institutions in a third-world economy. Be that as it may, the handwritings of IMF or the World Bank were all too imminent in these last minute decisions of the last administration. Contrary to popular contention cladded in the vituperation of Obasanjo handing out a parting gift of evil though, it did not take a sage to understand that there were clear technically professional motivations underlying the decision. Many therefore, widely expected the new President to uphold these decisions, since he was most likely consulted in the run-up to taking them. It is therefore, not unlikely that the government had a viable plan B up its sleeves in the face of the easily predictable nature of public resentment and violent reaction the decisions were bound to generate.

In spite of all that though, professional deliberations would have required every party to keep his ace as closest to his chest as possible. Giving the aces away in the course of negotiations would have been a dying minute affair if and only if all other weapons failed in tactical utility. In other words, a more professional approach would have seen President Yar’Adua waiting for the commencement of the labor union’s strike and the start of subsequent negotiations before tabling his crucial Plan B-driven concessions of revoking the VAT increase and dropping N 5.00 from the price hike on gasoline. Since the President does not have a cabinet in place as of now and therefore, lacks a seating Minister of Labor, who would have been a competent and responsible counterpart to confront the labor union at the other end of the negotiating table, a tentative last step was simply pushed ahead unceremoniously. On top of that, civil unrest is the last development the President would wish to breed at this desperate moment of courting governmental legitimacy. In the end, concessions that would have been made in the course of mid-crisis negotiations were announced in the run-up to the strikes to take the steam out of the strikes. It was a mixture of naïveté and outright desperation.

In a robust and matured community of like-minded well-wishers though, the Labor Union would have displayed a clear sense of goodwill and lack of interest in crippling the nation’s economy for the simple sake of it. On the contrary however, our labor union seemed intent and bent on driving the Federal government to its knees. It sought a total capitulation and nothing short of humiliation. It was the orchestra seeking to direct the conductor.

Labor Unions in matured democracies (at least in Germany) are well funded and also assist striking members with a fraction of lost income in the days of strike. The Nigerian Labor Congress neither has the financial means nor does it have a program in place, of buffering the financial strains on its members in the aftermath of strikes. Yet, it went ahead to impose untold 4 days of sufferings on its already financially decimated members and innocent citizens in spite of the government’s reasonably acceptable concessions. It did not take a sage to smell a hidden political agenda seeking to exploit the current weakness of the newly elected President. A Labor Union, which in collaboration with other interest groups, failed to convince Nigerians to launch an orange-revolution-type uprising against President Obasanjo, who they thought was badly and widely hated amongst the ordinary folks, was now simply sensing that its time had come. Our folks failed to follow when the cry was loudest. The gasoline price hike then almost seemed to have played into the hands of the lurking wolves.

Umaru Yar’Adua saw the writing on the wall and early enough too. He sounded the warning of a political agenda oozing too strongly out of the labor union’s camp. As signs of a silent dragnet closing in on the organizers from weary citizens and the lurking wolves of the opposite camp began to get all too imminent, officers of the labor union were forced to call off the futile show of woeful strength and willful sabotage. They too saw the writings on the wall. One good thing about Umaru? When he hits, you feel no pain! This is a clear and sound hint of things to come when the President finally begins to sail the boat of government in calm and smooth waters.

The need for calmness and soothing of pains has been uppermost in the new President’s strategy of restoring Nigeria’s glory. Unfortunately however, this call is not home to a stubborn minority of die-hard hate preachers. Venom, poison and songs of hate still continue to trail the last President Olusegun Obasanjo from the cabins of this die-hard, incorrigible minority.

“Devil”, “Wicked”, “Dictator”, “Hypocrite”, etc. are a few adjectives with which the ex-President is being described of late, in spite of his present absence from the seat of power. God, I have repeatedly said to myself!! How long more do we wish to forge ahead in sowing this seed of perpetual hate?

I have even heard of respected compatriots threatening to leave Nigeria on exile if Obasanjo remained in power beyond May 29^th, 2007. All in the hope that their absence would have been felt in the multitudinous stretch of 140 million Nigerians.

Indeed, I have grown a nature all through the years, of opening up to the challenges of factual debates and courageously appreciating the rightness of my fellow man whenever my own weaknesses are proven. This is a trait I am so proud to maintain and encourage many others to do since the glaring absence thereof in the conduct of many fellow Nigerians clearly informs the tendency of perpetual combat-readiness even in the minutest or most insignificant of mutual discrepancies. A character trait that has long been surpassed in the troubles between the former President and his adversaries.

Unfortunately however, I have just not been able to comprehend any cogent reason for this skin-deep animosity and outright hatred emitted towards the person of the former President. I have simply seen or heard no acceptable reason till date, to explain why Olusegun Obasanjo is accorded so much personal hatred as opposed to many of his predecessors, who even outperformed him in failures or as some would choose to say “evils”. Quite recently, someone wrote that Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has started governance with less than a fraction of the reservoir of goodwill with which Obasanjo started his eight-year tenure. The writer contended that Yar’Adua will therefore, be forgiven a lot if he fails to live up to expectations.

This writer who obviously summed up the sentiments of many Obasanjo’s adversaries simply ended up highlighting the gravity of injustice being meted on Obasanjo in the aftermath of his failure to live up to wide-spread expectations and not for achieving absolutely nothing as some mischievously claim. Expectations seem to have been one of Obasanjo’s worst crimes. In the latest complaints I have read so far, closer insights have been provided on the rugged attitude of the former President of not giving a damn about very many issues and people. While it is arguably true that this attitude is unavoidable in the governance of a country like Nigeria – as Umaru Musa Yar’Adua will sooner or later, also find out – chances are that President Olusegun Obasanjo exaggerated this and ended up making too many enemies. Today, these obviously powerful persons simply end up denying anything good about the person of Olusegun Obasanjo and this is simply wrong and unethical.

Latest intrigues and subtle attempts of crafty political desperadoes within the ruling party PDP, to have a try at some sneaky coup d’etat vis-à-vis the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees, clearly illustrate the latest episode of enemy acts involving the former President.

Still, Nigeria seeks to move forward in prosperity with the ultimate prerequisite of social and political harmony in the spirit of Yar’Adua’s conciliatory project. If this message is not sinking through, I bet our folks know too well that they will never plant a cherry tree and hope to reap figs and plums. Chaos begets chaos and not democratic maturity. The only viable alternative is an outright political revolution!

Robot  Villager

# 1 var sbtitle1838=encodeURIComponent(The Music o...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 29.06.2007 15:33