Wednesday
September 2, 2009 |
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A few days ago, a friend of mine in
Lagos recounted his online conversation with a Nigerian legislator
visiting the US. The Nigerian lawmaker wrote admiringly about the crowds
of Americans, rich and poor, who streamed into the John F. Kennedy
presidential library and museum in Boston, Massachusetts to pay their
last respects to Senator Ted Kennedy. Then he expressed a wish for the
day to come when a Nigerian legislator’s death would inspire a similar
expression of public adulation.
My friend essayed a sharp response. Gushing admiration for a deceased
politician, he wrote back, does not come about through the carting away
of “Ghana-must-go” bags of cash.
Perhaps my friend was in a testy mood, but his words rang true.
Senator Kennedy spent 47 years as a US senator. He won nine senatorial
elections in a row, and these were real elections, not the sham that
passes for Maurice Iwu’s idea of an election. But more than pulling off
a string of electoral triumphs, Kennedy’s real achievement lay in the
superb quality of his lawmaking. He sponsored, or co-sponsored, laws
that made the lives of immigrants, workers, the elderly, and so-called
racial minorities better.
It is an acknowledgement of his legislative vision, and in particular
his drive to utilize his political leverage to improve the lot of
numerous constituencies, that millions of Americans, including many
political foes, felt drawn to the streets to commence celebration of his
legacy. Thousands lined the streets of Boston to hail the memory of a
gentle bear of a man. One man recalled a ten-page handwritten letter
Kennedy had sent to his wife in reply to hers. Another man remembered
how his mother, Kennedy’s constituent, received a surprise at her 80th
birthday: Kennedy showed up!
To be true, Kennedy was far – very far, indeed – from being perfect. At
one point in his life, he had a reputation both for womanizing and for
drinking a pint or two too many. Yet, his constituents were willing to
forgive, or overlook, his peccadilloes; they saw a man who was much
greater than the sum of his personal flaws. At any rate, his job
description was not to be a candidate for sainthood. They perceived in
Kennedy a man willing to battle his personal demons – and determined to
put in a hard day’s work on behalf of those who sent him to Congress.
Kennedy’s long-time dream was to husband health care reform,
guaranteeing every American and resident, regardless of income, access
to sound medical care. It is strangely fitting and ironic that he died
in the midst of a raging debate over how best to fix his country’s
too-expensive health care sector. His death may or may not lend impetus
to the cause of universal health care, but nobody can deny that he gave
the mission his all – and then some.
Place Kennedy side by side with Nigerian lawmakers – any Nigerian
lawmaker – and we immediately shamble from the sublime to the absurd.
Kennedy loved to be addressed as Ted, or Teddy. No such simplicity for
Nigerian lawmakers. Members of Nigeria’s House of Representatives have a
silly ritual of addressing each other as “Honorable,” even as honor is
frequently conspicuously absent from their conduct and lacking in their
persons. But the grander gesture of inflation is to be found among
Nigeria’s senators. Each member, even those who don’t know how to spell
“bill,” is dubbed “Distinguished Senator.”
Yet, this is a body that is distinguished – along with the House of
Representatives – by gargantuan greed and mediocrity, compounded by a
steely indifference to the palpable, pressing needs of the citizens they
purport to represent.
Take the manifest injustice meted out to 27 soldiers, three of them
women, who served as part of Nigeria’s contingent to UN peacekeeping
operations in Liberia. The Nigerian legislature has chosen to remain
blind to the continued incarceration of these hapless soldiers whose
crime was to raise their voices and expose a scandal: how some
unscrupulous officers divert monies meant to pay these peacekeepers.
The 27 were originally herded to jail to serve life sentences, even as
the officers who committed the real crime of sitting on their allowances
were given nothing harsher than a (quick) sharp eye.
On August 28, the army announced that the life sentences were reduced to
seven years each. In offering this inadequate dispensation, Chris
Olukolade, Director Army Public Relations, reportedly described mutiny
“as a very serious offence in the military.” He argued that “soldiers
cannot exercise the same rights or approach to protests like civilians,”
since this would adversely affect national “security, orderliness and
survival”.
Ted Kennedy would have stood up and championed the cause of the 27
soldiers. Clenched fists pounding the podium, that extraordinary
legislator would have reminded the army hierarchy that the graver threat
to security, orderliness and survival comes from officers who eye their
subordinates’ allowances.
Nigeria’s Senate and House of Representatives may shut their ears all
they want, but the wailing of the 27 and their families will haunt their
chambers until justice – in the form of a reversal of the odious
judgment – is done to the soldiers.
