Friday April 10, 2009 |
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Those who persist in seeing Umaru Musa
Yar’Adua as a democrat at heart had better pay attention to the macabre
show the man took to Ekiti State. He comes across as a man who wants
power at all cost and for its own sake.
Nigeria’s economy is in more dire shape than Mr. Yar’Adua cares to tell
his countrymen and women. Despite its upward trend in recent weeks, the
price of oil – Nigeria’s cash cow – remains low. By mid-2008, a barrel
of oil was going for close to $150. There’s little hope that the price
will go anywhere near last year’s record levels anytime soon.
Nigeria’s country’s foreign reserves have dropped sharply – even though
the Yar’Adua regime hasn’t disclosed just how much is left.
He has not found the steam to redeem a two-year promise to declare a
state of emergency in the power sector. Nigeria’s worsening power woes
have yet to register on the radar screen of this do-nothing occupant of
Aso Rock. All he does now is promise improved power supply in the future
– long after he must have left the stage.
The Nigerian stock market is embroiled in a grave crisis. A market that
once yielded huge returns to investors has become one of the worst in
the world. A responsive government would have investigated how the
bottom fell out. A responsible administration would have sought to
determine whether the market was long manipulated, and by whom? Not
Yar’Adua, a man who doesn’t permit nightmarish economic news to
interfere with his sleep.
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It’s known that numerous
Nigerians betrayed their offices by accepting bribes from
Halliburton, the U.S.-based oil services company. Several
Halliburton officials have been indicted, and are being
prosecuted in European, British and American courts. |
This man
has managed the rare feat of proving that it’s possible to be a
greater disaster than former President Obasanjo. |
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What’s happened to the suspected
Nigerian beneficiaries of these bribes, among them two living ex-heads
of state, a former vice president, and a former police honcho turned
politician? As at the time of this writing, absolutely nothing. Yar’Adua
warms up to corrupt elements. He keeps the doors of his official
residence always open to the nation’s league of corrupt players, retired
and current. He has done zilch about the Siemens scandal in which,
again, foreign multinational company bribed Nigerian officials. Wait a
minute, I got that wrong. Yar’Adua did do something; he rewarded Siemens
with plum contracts!
Yar’Adua is coming to the second anniversary of his tenancy in Aso Rock,
and he has few, if any, achievements. This man has managed the rare feat
of proving that it’s possible to be a greater disaster than former
President Olusegun Obasanjo. Yar’Adua’s ghastly run has been compounded
by his feeble health and wilting personality.
Despite his remarkable deficits as a leader and man, Yar’Adua is, from
every indication, eyeing a second term. And we have it on the authority
of Mr. Tony Anenih that Yar’Adua has already “won” the 2011 presidential
contest. Some weeks ago, Anenih, whose long and improbable career in the
public arena can happen only in a space like Nigeria, said Yar’Adua has
six years to go.
One could say to Anenih that only by rigging again would Yar’Adua ever
find himself re-selected as Nigeria’s president. To which, I suspect,
Anenih would retort, “Tell me something I don’t already know.”
Two weeks ago, I wrote on this page that Maurice Iwu is as good as gone
from his perch at the national electoral commission. It’s a matter of
time, but Iwu won’t be around to misconduct the 2011 polls. Some may
think that, once Iwu is gone, the ruling party would be too handicapped
to steal elections. That’s to naively belief that Nigeria doesn’t have
other men and women like Iwu.
Yar’Adua is desperate to hijack the prerogative to select the next
umpire to preside over the 2011 version of the rigging extravaganza.
Should the opposition parties and Nigerians let him get away with that
outrageous arrogation, then we might as well surrender the next round of
elections to Yar’Adua and his party of conquerors and rulers.
Last week, Yar’Adua found time out of his dozing schedule to make a stop
in Ekiti. He went to prepare the grounds for the PDP’s conquest of the
state in a governorship re-run election scheduled for April 25. He
touted the alleged “transparency, accountability and hard work” of the
party’s candidate, Segun Oni, who spent twenty months in office before
an appellate court determined he was a usurper, and ordered him to
vacate.
Following Yar’Adua’s opening remarks and supplications, Speaker Bankole
Dimeji, who has erased any moral difference between him and his rustic
predecessor, stepped forward to lay out the party’s strategy for
victory. In a sentiment that ought to earn him dismissal from office, he
assured the party faithful that the party was capable of deploying
soldiers during the forthcoming gubernatorial election.
Bankole – who later issued a weak clarification – implied that the army
is an adjunct of the ruling party. His careless statement may well be an
early sign of the shape of things to come in 2011.
