Monday
August 17, 2009 |
Remember that this and other columns are available
in PDF)
**********
The Igbo have this cautionary tale
about the perils of royal hubris. It concerns a man named Eze
Onyeagwanam – roughly translated as: “King let nobody tell me.” This
royal personage is credited with combining disastrous decisions with
hectoring pride. If anybody sought to persuade the king against treading
some ruinous path, the king screamed: “Don’t tell me!”
In time, the king’s aides learned to keep their counsel to themselves.
Even when the king took a manifestly foolish step, his hapless advisors
assured him that his action was the paragon of wisdom.
There are different accounts of how the king came to grief. Here’s my
favorite: One day, the king set out for the marketplace. He was stark
naked, in a drunken revelry. As he strode to his destination, none of
his scandalized subjects dared warn him about his flapping manhood. The
imperious man stunned onlookers when he finally arrived at the market.
It was one scandal too many for his subjects. Acting swiftly, they
deposed the man and led him away to an asylum – where he spent the rest
of his days among other deranged habitués.
Lately, I have been thinking about the undeniable connection between Eze
Onyeagwanam’s legend and Nigeria’s crop of crass leaders. Nigeria
appears cursed, not with one, but a multitude of Eze Onyeagwanams.
Morally and ethically naked men and women dominate the country’s public
space, but pass themselves off as lavishly dressed.
Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an Abuja stop as
part of her 11-day tour to a number of African countries. Even before
she arrived in Africa’s most populous – and most grandly disappointing –
nation, the American media were speculating that she would speak
candidly about Nigeria’s woes, especially corruption and record-setting
history of fraudulent elections.
Mrs. Clinton lived up to the billing. At a town hall meeting in Abuja,
she spoke in a manner that was uncharacteristically direct for a chief
diplomat. “The most immediate source of the disconnect between Nigeria’s
wealth and its poverty,” she said, was “a failure of governance at the
federal, state and local levels.” In a country where militancy has
become the disorder of the day, the American secretary stated that “Lack
of transparency and accountability has eroded the legitimacy of the
government and contributed to the rise of groups that embrace violence
and reject the authority of the state.”
In speaking so directly, Mrs. Clinton gave Nigeria’s rulers (yes, they
rule, but don’t know a thing about leading) a taste of what President
Barack Obama thinks of them. Obama riled Nigeria’s rulers when he
snubbed them and instead visited neighboring Ghana in July.
Mrs. Clinton took a swipe at Mr. Umaru Yar’Adua’s non-record in the
fight against corruption. Her verdict on the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission was unflattering. “The EFCC, which was doing well, has
kind of fallen off in the last one year,” she said. “We will like to see
it come back to business to be able to partner with us.”
Her dour and – going by the enthusiastic applause she got – accurate
portrait of Nigeria elicited the laughable pledge by Yar’Adua to
continue combating corruption.
Once Mrs. Clinton left Nigeria, the Eze Onyeagwanam impulse was
activated. Officials of Nigeria’s ruling party assured that nothing was
amiss in Nigeria. David Mark, who presides over a high-priced but
largely sleeping Senate, echoed that sentiment. A man who left a career
in the military with amazing wealth, Mr. Mark told reporters that Mrs.
Clinton’s take on Nigeria was misconceived. Where she abhorred Nigeria’s
wishy-washy elections, the senator argued, “We will decide for ourselves
what we want as our democratic system.” And the kind of system “we” have
chosen is one where the ruling party captures any states and posts that
catch its fancy, regardless of what the voters say!
Mark, a beneficiary of a questionable election, asked with a straight
face: “What is the problem with the [Nigerian] electoral system?” For
him, Mrs. Clinton’s statement that Nigerians lack a credible register of
voters arose from her inadequate education. “That is the sort of thing
we get ourselves into when we don’t educate those we ought to,” he
bemoaned. Had the US Secretary attended Mr. Mark’s classroom, she would
have learned that “This country is a sovereign nation, Nigerians belong
to Nigerians and we would decide for ourselves the way we want to move
ourselves forward.”
How exactly are Mr. Mark and co moving their nation forward? Here’s a
sample. New Inspector General of Police Ogbonnaya Onovo has asked the
legislature to empower the police to shoot during elections. Does
anybody in her or his wildest imagination foresee the police shooting
supporters of the ruling party? Mr. Maurice Iwu, who oversees Nigeria’s
infamous brand of elections, recently stated that only the military can
conduct credible elections. As I sat down to write, news came that
veteran actor and broadcaster, Pete Edochie, had been kidnapped in
Anambra.
That’s a portrait of Mr. Mark’s country marching forward into perdition.
