A season of disclaimers

At the rate things are going, there should be scant surprise in the event of PDP leaders issuing a disclaimer in respect of their presidential candidate. Party leaders should have no problem with this because the president earned one last Wednesday at the palace of His Royal Highness, Mallam Muhammadu Sanusi 11, the Emir of Kano. Nigerians must have been thrilled to no end as they watched smug-faced PDP leaders with raised clenched fists as they struggled to hold their babanriga in place, in a tepid show of obeisance to the man they sought to abase less than a year ago. No matter!

What matters is that, at the last count, PDP had issued four high-level disclaimers; two of them within hours of each other. Twice within the past week or so, the party distanced itself from a statement issued by one Deji Adeyanju, an aide to Doyin Okupe to the effect that the presidency was contemplating calling on the Nigerian Army to scuttle General Muhammadu Buhari’s impending inauguration. This was followed by another disclaimer in respect of Ayo Fayose, the irascible governor of Ekiti state.

Ayo Fayose. That is the name of the man ‘freely elected’ by the people of ‘educationally advantaged’ Ekiti state to be their governor ahead of Dr. Kayode Fayemi. I have met indigenes of Ekiti state who claim Fayose is a typical Nigerian hustler. You know the typical Nigerian hustler: they are those Nigerians who will do anything to get anything. C’mon, stretch your imagination: anything means anything! It is this same Fayose who, in furtherance of his policy of stomach infrastructure, placed front-page adverts to announce the virtual obituary of General Buhari. Any person who can wish anybody dead or announce the obituary of the living can do anything. See some of the president’s most reliable lieutenants?

Judged by the way they are embarrassing the president, one would think Fayose, Okupe, Femi Fani-Kayode and others are moles in the PDP. It is disturbing enough that discredited people like Fayose, Okupe, Femi Fani-Kayode and others like them count among today’s men of the moment. Is the president not aware that it was one Remi Fani-Kayode, father of Femi Fani-Kayode, whose tongue set the defunct western region on the fire that led to the January, 1966 coup? This same Femi Fani-Kayode who raised valid questions on his ability to rule is now a prominent member of the president’s kitchen cabinet. It is strange and disturbing that President Goodluck Jonathan rates Femi Fani-Kayode and his likes so highly to have committed his campaigns in their hands. With such poor judgments in the choice of top presidential aides, Nigerians need no soothsayer to tell them why and how their country was turned into a hellhole.

Nigerians should share the guilt of poor judgment because, all along, people who never prepared themselves for leadership positions have always walked their ways, with relative ease, to occupy the most sensitive office in the land. This has been the metaphor as well as the tragedy of Nigeria. Add former president, General Olusegun Obasanjo to the mix and the picture you get is the political carcasses of unprepared and ill-prepared people being foisted on Nigerians. The stench left by his government notwithstanding, a major fallout of President Obasanjo’s criticism of his protégé, President Jonathan, is that we may gradually be coming to terms with the raisons d’être behind crunching leadership paralysis, the main drawback that ensured Nigeria remained a toddler nearly fifty three years after independence.
Let’s get this straight: since October, 1960, Nigerians have not been lucky to have leaders who adequately prepared themselves for the tasking and taxing job of leadership. And this has been at the heart of the many problems with Nigeria. At independence in October, 1960, the man who should have been prime minister and head of government, the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardaunan Sokoto, opted to govern the North and ceded the throne to the late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Give this to Sir Ahmadu Bello: the obvious sign that he prepared himself for leadership role manifested in the indelible and enduring achievements he posted as premier of the defunct Northern Region.
The trend continued with the return to civilian rule in October, 1979 after thirteen years of military interregnum. In his own words, Shehu Usman Shagari, the man who became the dovish Executive President in succession to Obasanjo was prevailed upon to drop his senatorial ambition for the presidency by hawkish colleagues in the defunct National Party of Nigeria. Though Nigerians were denied the opportunity to bid farewell to poverty in 1993, it is a secret of the market-place that up till the tail end of 1992 and, especially until the death of Hajiya Simbiat Abiola, her husband, the late Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, the unannounced winner of the inconclusive election of June 12, 1993 had forsaken the presidency and could not have prepared himself for the office he was later denied.
The year 1999 brought Olusegun Obasanjo in his second ill-prepared coming. His hand-picked successor, the late Umaru Musa Yar’adua, was terminally ill at the time he assumed office. After serving eight years as governor of the north-western state of Katsina, Nigerians thought Yar’adua needed a deserved rest rather than being saddled with the tasking and taxing job of leading the nation. But Obasanjo had a different idea. Flowing from that self-serving idea, Nigerians have been stuck with Goodluck Jonathan, a man who became president more for compassionate reasons, for the past six better-forgotten years.
The electioneering campaigns so far have shown that majority of Nigerians no longer feel threatened by the puerile No Jonathan, No Nigeria campaigns of the recent past. The fear factor is dead. Hopefully, February 14 will provide Nigerians a golden opportunity to wiggle out of the snake pit their country has been turned into by a bungling ruling class. The date provides an opportunity to depart from the hurtful practice of celebrating mediocrity through imposition of incompetent leaders who glorify corruption.

* Abdulrazaq Magaji is based in Abuja.

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