Monday
February 15, 2010 |
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Last Wednesday, February 10, the
Barack Obama administration made a move that’s likely to hurt its
credibility among Nigerians. Johnnie Carson, the United States Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Robin Sanders, the US
Ambassador to Nigeria, traveled to Minna to confer with former Nigerian
dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, at his hilltop mansion.
That visit was, I suggest, a serious diplomatic gaffe – and one unworthy
of the Obama administration.
That neither the American diplomats nor Babangida disclosed the subject
of the meeting compounded the gravity of the misstep. For one, it raised
speculation that the US government wanted to signal its tacit support
for Babangida’s run for the presidency in next year’s elections. At the
very least, the parley suggested that Obama’s team regards the retired
general as an instrument for solving Nigeria’s myriad, and deep,
political crises.
Either goal represents a serious lapse in judgment on the part of the
Obama administration.
It would appear that Babangida covets the Nigerian presidency. Four
years ago, he and his cohorts orchestrated what was tagged Project 007,
implying that the former military head of state considered himself a
shoo-in as President Olusegun Obasanjo’s successor. Nigerians, for
understandable reasons, were disquieted by the prospect of another IBB
presidency. Many heaved a sigh of relief when Obasanjo, for reasons hard
to fathom, foiled Babangida’s ambition.
There’s no question: Babangida is one of the most enigmatic figures to
have emerged in Nigerian politics. I have always found the man
intriguing, but in a sad, even tragic sort of way. In 1986, on the first
anniversary of the man’s rule, I wrote a column in the (now defunct)
African Guardian in which I likened Babangida’s political style to the
dribbling wizardry of Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona. That name,
Maradona, stuck on Babangida and has become one of his more famous
monikers. Evil genius, I understand, is a tag Babangida adopted. My
argument, in baptizing IBB with Maradona in 1986, was that, while the
soccer player dribbles in order to create scoring opportunities,
Babangida dribbled as an end in itself. There was little or no sense of
purpose to his statecraft.
In 1993, Babangida lost power in one of his costly, purposeless gambles.
His annulment of the June 12 election, an act of supreme perfidy,
precipitated his own political downfall. In characteristic fashion, he
euphemized his fall from power as a decision to “step aside.”
Babangida introduced a structural adjustment program (SAP). The economy
policy, as the propaganda went, was meant to endow Nigerians with the
benefits of a free market economy. When Nigerians complained that the
ostensible gains were elusive, Babangida counseled patience. But he and
his cohorts were far from willing to be patient. As SAP sapped Nigeria’s
poor and widened the blanket of misery, Babangida and his closest
friends acquired mansions, private jets, and fat bank accounts. When he
was done, IBB boasted a 50-room mansion and dizzying wealth.
Such a man has no business seeking to return to his country’s seat of
power. Some of his acolytes have said that Babangida’s mission is to
correct the mistakes he made the first time. Remediation is a nice
concept, but he need not become president to make amends.
One hopes that the Obama who went to Accra and spoke eloquently about
Nigeria’s leadership crisis has not permitted himself to be led into the
contradiction of prescribing IBB as the answer. Or even as a factor in
finding the answer to Nigeria’s quagmire.
Obama must guard against the Bill Clinton error. Even though former
President Clinton is popular in Nigeria, many Nigerians are still
appalled by his bizarre statement, in the heydays of Sani Abacha’s
self-succession plan, that the US was open to recognizing the
bespectacled dictator if he won an election. That statement came at a
time when any neophyte knew that Abacha didn’t plan to hold a credible
election.
In making such a public show of coddling Babangida, the Obama
administration risked being perceived as wishing to forestall the
ongoing mobilization of a progressive force to serve as a viable
alternative to the grubby, visionless elements who have steered Nigeria
to perilous waters.
If Washington doesn’t want to see a cataclysm befall Nigeria, with
horrible consequences for Nigerians and the international community,
then it must rethink its seeming courtship of the Babangidas of Nigeria.
Jonathan’s burden
After the disingenuous maneuver that made him “acting president,”
Goodluck Jonathan appears in danger of wasting his opportunity to lead –
and also wasting Nigerians’ time.
Since his investiture, Jonathan’s calendar has been taken up with
courtesy visits by former heads of state as well various delegations,
including so-called traditional rulers.
One hopes that he understands the gravity of the burden he must
discharge, if he is to be worth his hire. If he fancies that he and
Nigerians have time for some ceremonial interlude, then he hardly grasps
the depths of Nigeria’s desperation.
Jonathan had better make a polite but firm statement asking those who
wish to pay a visit to hold off. He ought to tell the horde of
professional well-wishers that he has a job to do for long-suffering
Nigerians, and that he needs to get to it with alacrity.
Nigerians did not agitate all over the world these past two months
against Umaru Yar’Adua’s facile idea of offshore governance so that
Jonathan could take over and host an endless stream of “royal fathers”
pledging their loyalty and support. No, Nigerians wanted somebody to
take up the full-time job of fixing their rutted roads, improving power
supply, solving the problem of fuel shortage, combating sectarian
violence and its concomitant high casualty, and sending bills to the
National Assembly to address a plethora of issues, from electoral reform
through job creation to adequate funding for education and health.
Nigerians know as much as Jonathan that the hangers-on who profited from
Yar’Adua’s moribund “presidency” do not wish him well. They are, it is
safe to assume, regrouping even now to torpedo his “acting presidency.”
But Jonathan’s handlers must tell him that the way to silence these foes
is not by looking over his shoulder or even by garnering a long register
of big-name supporters. His safest bet is to set to roll up his sleeves
and apply himself to the task of working to change the lot of the
generality of Nigerians.
In doing so, he must recognize his own limitations. One, he doesn’t have
a lot of time; better, then, to get cracking immediately. Two, it’s
unrealistic, even counterproductive, to take on a long menu of
challenges at once. He should focus on a few critical sectors that are
likely to have widespread impact. His wife’s arrests several years ago
on corruption charges are already serious deficits. He should both rein
in his wife’s materialistic impulses and steer clear of any impeachable
conduct himself.
Above all, Jonathan ought to take a hard, honest look at himself. If he
doesn’t have the mettle to work for Nigerians, he should avert a looming
personal and national disaster by relinquishing the crown of “acting
president.”
Back to the Top
Murder most foul
Horror, that’s the word that came to mind as I watched Al Jazeera’s
video documentation of Nigerian soldiers and police executing innocent
civilians last year in the name of fighting Boko Haram. Last July and
August, hundreds of Nigerians died in a fierce battle between the
militant group, which denounced all western influences as corrupting,
and Nigerian government forces. But Al Jazeera’s videos show soldiers
and police sweeping through charred and still smoldering cities to
arbitrarily round up targets. These “suspects,” some of them deformed
men on crutches, were then ordered to lie face down and shot at close
range.
Those who made a gruesome sport of killing their fellows should be
identified and prosecuted. Any nation that would treat its citizens as
if they were lower than cattle sows the seeds of its own destruction.
Those who excuse the bestial extra-judicial execution on the grounds
that the victims were rabid Boko Haram attack dogs are off the mark. For
one, the soldiers and police had no way of proving who was Boko Haram or
who wasn’t. Besides, a state that authorizes summary execution has cast
itself as a jungle, not a community of humans. At any rate, if Nigeria
must adopt executions without trial, why not start with the politicians
whose mindless looting creates hopelessness and fertilizes groups like
Boko Haram?
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