19 Jul 2009 |
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Ghana, Revisited (A con-versation) Mr. President, Although you chose to visit another country, not mine, I want to thank you for taking this telephone call from me. Believe me, this is the happiest day of my life. I know I have said that before, but this time, I mean it. The reason I am calling you today is to tell you, with due respect, that you made a mistake by choosing to go elsewhere, particularly to a country that is just our little brother. Theirs is not even up to one-tenth of our democracy. The reason you think they are successful is because they are so small. If you ask them, they will tell you we are their big brother. We support them. They look up to us. We congratulated them at the end of their last presidential election. As Africans, they know that you cannot be superior to your older brother. And something else you did not seem to consider, Mr. President, is that as President of this country, I believe in the rule of law. I never interfere with the judiciary. I know people accuse my Attorney-General of interference here, there and everywhere, and of manipulating the law, but think about it: he is the Minister in charge of Justice! Why does anybody feel he knows more than the Minister of Justice about what is right or wrong? That would be a contradiction, but that is the way of Nigerians. They just want to bring him down. They even accuse the man of corruption. That is nonsense: the fact that he remains in office proves that democracy is strong in Nigeria. He is a good man, and to prove how hard he works, I can tell you he has the bedroom and mobile phone number of every judge in this country. He can get any of them to Abuja at any time of the day or night, and they all love him. I tell you, Nigerian democracy is seriously understated, and we are going to get the Minister in charge of rebranding—I mean, er..Information—to make sure it is adequately stated in every country in the world, especially yours. Do you know, Mr. President, that I am the first Nigerian leader to declare his allegiance to the rule of law. I eat, sleep, breathe and preach the rule of law. And yes, I know, Mr. President, that you must have been briefed that many Big Men in Nigeria that are indicted of corruption are not being tried and are not going to jail. Nothing can be further from the truth; all those deserving to go, are going. The first thing to understand is that Nigeria is not like any other country. We love our Big Men. We treat them with respect. Nigerians do not like their heroes thrown into handcuffs or behind bars like common criminals. For them to be seen like that is not good for the young ones. That is why, if you recall, my predecessor did not allow Lamidi Adedibu, who was caught with ballot boxes in his house before my election, to be tried. Adedibu was not a criminal; he was just trying to help the democratic process, knowing very well that I was destined to be the president. How can having ballot boxes in your house to make the elections flow smoothly be a crime when everybody in the country already knew who the winner was going to be? The other point, of course, is that some of these indicted men and some who are known to have looted their states into the next century have direct ties to me, or through the party to me. I am an honest man, and I will not deny this. Some of them are my personal friends and former colleagues that I served with when I was a governor, and even before then. Some are important people in my party. I am a loyal man, and allegations that they have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars ought not to change this. A leader ought to be a loyal man. This is even more important when you consider that I am a leader of such a vast nation. As I am sure you can appreciate, to allow my friends and colleagues to be embarrassed in public would tarnish and devalue the presidency. The important thing is to support the rule of law and the war against corruption. Standing by the law is what will help us win the war; we cannot win it by embarrassing the President or his allies. I know that you have also been briefed about my Vice-President. To be quite honest, he is a bit of a stranger, but his background and political profile as a man from our troubled Delta were quite helpful to our electoral ticket. And I am proud to say he declared his assets when he came into office, right after I did. The never-do-wells who question his wealth are detractors of our party, the PDP. Is it not a contradiction in terms for a senior official of the party, indeed a former governor, to be poor? In fact, one of my most annoying experiences so far is the fact that, just before we were elected, his wife was twice held for money-laundering. No, the embarrassment was not that she was arrested and the monies in question taken from her, but the paltry sums involved: about 104 million Naira in one instance, and just over $13 million dollars in the second. Walahi, it is wrong for the wife of such an important man to be embarrassed for such minute sums of money. And so, Mr. President, this is the nature of our robust democracy: one that is practical, and cultured. There is almost no senior official of my party or government who has not been accused of either looting, or living beyond their means. The press, particularly the online press, is full of pictures and detailed stories of the homes and boats and planes owned by these officials. They forget that these people are more important than what they loot, and that they could have looted far more. That is why I ignore these published stories, as I am sure you would, because that is the nature of democracy: they say what they want, we choose whom to ignore. Let me give you an example. In the past couple of weeks, two of my senior officials have been accused of spending well over N100million to arrange the wedding of their children. First of all, ours, like yours, is a free country? And why is N100 million, which is well under $20 million, a lot of money? If a cabinet minister cannot spend N100 million at a child’s wedding, what can he or she do? After all, when my daughter got married, her husband, a state governor, was alleged to have spent about N1 billion. Now, that’s a man’s man, and I would give him another daughter if he asked! Speaking of money, let me turn my attention to the economy and show you what you missed by not visiting us. To begin with, I am going to declare a power emergency to rid my country of its electricity problems forever. I promised the emergency even before I was elected, and I am committed to doing it in the next few years. In fact, I would have personally briefed you about my seven-point plan for my country. Not one or two meager points, but seven. It is a great plan. And the country will become one of the world’s top 20 countries by the year 2020: in just over 10 years! I would have informed you of this great plan myself. In fact, to make it possible, my patriotic party will rule for a very long time to put things in the right hands. Yes, we need continuity; it is the only way our democracy can work. That is why, recently, the President of the Senate declared that all Senators should be returned unopposed in 2011. It is a wonderful idea because that continuity will enable our democracy to flourish. He is being supported at the highest levels of the party, and we will work to establish a mechanism to implement it. As you can see, ours is a dynamic democracy, with no end in sight. That is why we are encouraging everyone to join a successful party like ours. We have to be forward-looking, and the party is forward-looking. I may have to amend the constitution in 2015 to permit a third term in order to guarantee the consolidation of all these democratic gains. You would have been able to assess our momentum in person had you come here. But all is not lost. Following this phone call, I will ask my Minister for Foreign Affairs, who loves to visit your country, to arrange for me to visit you shortly, so that you can hear from me in person. Believe me, that will be the next happiest day of my life. Mr. President…Mr. President! Are…are you there, Mr. President? Did you hang up?
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