Apart from the very strange, utterly shocking and painful deaths,
yesterday, of Kaduna State governor, Patrick Yakowa, the former National
Security Adviser, Andrew Azazi and four other people in an inexplicable
helicopter crash; as well as the dramatic release of UNN’s retired
professor Kamene Okonjo, mother of Nigeria’s Finance minister, by her
abductors, two other very important messages came from the Niger-Delta
last week. The messages were words of mouth, from two ‘leaders’ of the
region who represent two different generations, and varying degrees of
closeness to Nigeria’s presidency, the source of mega money.
The first of them was the salvo by the Ijaw ethnic warlord, Edwin
Clark, who declared that President Goodluck Jonathan cannot kill himself
in a bid to prove to critics that he is fighting corruption. He said
the president is waging a tough war on the monster, contrary to what
critics say, and that he is very honest about it, so much so that he is
trying the son of his party chairman for sleaze. He wondered who amongst
the past leaders who now criticize Jonathan can achieve such feat.
I do not expect Edwin Clark to sound differently. You don’t think
about country if you have a warped definition of life and success. Mr
Clark’s definition of success is to have surplus, in bank accounts, from
the money that should be used to build Nigeria’s infrastructure and
human capital. If he can go on a motorcade, maintain an exquisite suite
in the Sheratons and Hiltons of this world, and have enough left with
which to enslave the many broke boys in his village, then he is
successful. And, yes, the country is working: nothing to be ashamed of.
That explains why the recent report by Transparency International means
nothing to Mr Clark. That equally explains why the report by Punch
Newspaper that about N5trillion has been stolen under the Jonathan
presidency is bullshit as far as Clark is concerned. It is for the same
reason that he wouldn’t mind ignoring the recent Gallup polls in which
the Nigerian government is grossly perceived by Nigerians as very
corrupt, coming second to Kenya amongst the countries polled.
Whenever Edwin Clark talks, Nigerians should know what is talking. It
is never patriotism. It is a mind that is a slave to filthy lucre.
The other message from the Niger-Delta was delivered by the very
loquacious militant, Asari Dokubo. He declared that Jonathan will lose
the 2015 elections. He said the president has been caged by some greedy
people. And that Jonathan should not have allowed himself to disagree
with former President Olusegun Obasanjo since the former helped him
become president.
For me who want an emphatic and dramatized defeat for President
Jonathan in 2015, the only sense in Asari’s rants is his acknowledgment
of what I have long concluded – that Mr Jonathan will not win another
election in Nigeria. And that all the armed forces combined cannot help
him achieve an electoral victory even in a local government. My reason
is that he has made non-performance an art, and has excelled in it with
unbelievable expertise.
Every other thing Asari said is rubbish, and should be thrown into
the trash can. If not frustration and a possible reduction in the amount
of free money that goes to him from Jonathan, I wonder what would have
made Asari to speak out against an oppressive regime which head is from
the Niger Delta. Asari is a younger version of Edwin Clark, whose
definition of performance of any public office holder is the amount of
patronage he gets, personally, from the leader of such government. His
truth is paid for, and will never weigh as truth in the world where
truth isn’t produced by cash or wealth, but conscience.
Recall that in January this year, while Nigerians groaned under the
corruption-coating policy of Mr Jonathan, the one they called subsidy
removal, Asari Dokubo called them unprintable names. He particularly
declared that Nigeria would be in for a war – possibly costlier than our
very costly civil war – if the protests continued. He even asked oil
workers to leave their ‘Niger-Delta’ if they would join other Nigerians
to protest the government’s anti-people policy.
I watched him on TV fume like a medieval warrior in the company of
his minions. As he thundered his threats, moved his body dramatically in
a certain rhythm like Ohafia war dancers, reducing the subject matter
of his disagreement to a mere joke and attention-grabbing opportunity, I
could discern the hubris concealed by his thick flesh.
While Asari fumed, Ademola Aderinto and about a dozen other Nigerians
were lying stiff and lifeless in various mogues across the country,
conscious of nothing. Jonathan’s police had killed them in cold blood
without any remorse. They committed a sin: demanding transparency from
an opaque regime. It was on their blood and a future cut short that
Asari stood, devoid of any jot of empathy, issuing threats and making a
mockery of common sense.
And then two months later, in March, he followed through to type,
declaring that Jonathan was going to contest the 2015 elections. He even
declared that the president’s open declaration during his 2010/2011
campaigns that he was going to serve only one term was ‘unacceptable’ to
him (Asari). He said Mr Jonathan must go for a re-election so as to
serve the full eight years which is the turn of the South South.
The question is: what has changed? I don’t know. But if I’m forced to
guess, I would think his expectations from this government, possibly in
the form of an oil block or some juicy contracts like Tompolo’s, may
not have come his way.
He quickly took a jab at the president on why the East-West road has
not been constructed. But I still wonder where Asari wants the money for
the East-West road to come from. Here’s a man who is paid $9 million
per year just for being a militant, a renegade who should be tried for
the crimes he committed against the state and even his people. He isn’t
just the only one. Tompolo – the one who secures our waterways – is paid
$22.5m, while Ateke Tom and Boyloaf each collects $3.5m from Jonathan’s
government. It isn’t important converting the money to naira to put
these amounts in perspective. It is only an unreasonable fellow that
will eat his cake and insist on having it. Ethnic warlords cannot
continue to ask for money unworked for from the government and still
expect infrastructural development. Money doesn’t grow on trees.
In one rare demonstration of guts, his wife lashed out on critics of
the bizarre amounts being doled out to her husband and his co-travelers.
Without minding her inability to understand what punctuation marks mean
in English language, Mrs Asari made a post on her Facebook wall,
without comma or full stop, calling the critics names and boasting that
the money was ‘their’ money.
The assertion that Jonathan should not have disagreed with Obasanjo
is quite unintelligent. Where is it written that two people should not
disagree? I didn’t vote Jonathan, but I feel the millions who sincerely
voted him are insulted each time anybody tries to attribute Jonathan’s
victory to just a few individuals. Even if Obasanjo had not supported
Jonathan, he would have won that election. The sentiments were high and
greatly tilted towards the ‘poor, harmless kid from the creeks’. In
Jonathan many Nigerians – I wasn’t among – saw goodness and a promise of
a good future. Nobody in this country could have stopped his victory.
Even as I took a different stand on the election, I knew Jonathan was
going to win.
Somebody should tell Asari to shut up and enjoy his just desert from Jonathan’s presidency, whichever way it comes.
Back to the other two messages from the Niger-Delta. Those in
government have always blamed the media for the negative coverage of
Nigeria. Interestingly, part of those who think the media is unfair to
their honest efforts is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the daughter of the
kidnapped 82 year-old Professor Kamene Okonjo. In the heat of the
woman’s abduction, I asked friends how best Nigeria media could report
the story so as not to portray Nigeria in bad light before the world.
Nobody could answer. The very simple truth – which, unfortunately, those
in government have refused to acknowledge out of sheer mischief, is
that Nigeria is in trouble, and that it will take only a humble
acceptance from the government, and a sincere will for change, to face
the troubles and surmount them. Denial has always hurt us, and will
continue to do so, even as Nigeria accelerates to the bottomless pit.
How much have we spent on security in the last two years? What have
we got in return: mounting insecurity and a few overnight billionaires?
How many policemen do we have in Nigeria? Of that population, how many
are drafted to the houses and offices of politicians, capitalists and
traditional rulers for private protection? The insecurity is worse than
we’ve always thought, and the kidnap of Prof Okonjo should cause a
security reform. But again, have we chosen between private wealth of a
few friends and cronies of those in government and public security? I
don’t think so.
The death of Kaduna State governor and Andrew Azazi underscores what
many have been echoing since the day of Dana: that Nigerian airspace is
not safe, and that refusing to fix our roads because government
officials can fly is not an escape from the carnage on the roads.
Happening barely two months after Governor Suntai of Taraba State had a
crash that has reportedly rendered him perpetually brain-damaged, the
Bayelsa helicopter crash should remind Nigerian rulers of both the
necessity of good public life and the finality of death.
It is not too late to ask those who stole the funds voted for our
roads to return them. It is equally not late to start using the
instrumentality of the law to punish those who brought us this path of
total state dysfunction. The government should be awakened today to the
demands of posterity.
I said yesterday on twitter that the most important thing in life
isn’t money, it is the life itself. This is a simple lesson that must be
learnt by Nigerian rulers.
Every of the echo from the Niger-Delta in the last two weeks should
cause this federal government to rethink how they have treated Nigeria
and Nigerians in the last two years. If the baggage they are dragging
will let them, then there’s still room for change.
Ekekeee
