Monday
March 1, 2010 |
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A friend of mine, an American who has
studied and taught in Nigeria, sent me a terse e-mail yesterday. It
read: “The ‘president’ of Nigeria is a perfect icon for the country:
prostrate in intensive care and held hostage by a secretive, greedy
clique!”
Last week, that clique sneaked Umaru Yar’Adua back into Abuja in a move
whose mode and purpose ought to disturb Nigerians.
First, there’s little doubt that the man is still gravely sick. Yet, the
cabal profiteering from his name (and the misery of the Nigerian people)
chose to smuggle in this comatose patient under the cover of darkness.
Goodluck Jonathan, officially designated “acting president,” was kept in
the dark about Yar’Adua’s return. Yet, in a classic demonstration that
Nigeria is a failed state, troops were deployed around the airport and
other locations in Abuja to create an atmosphere of absolute secrecy for
Yar’Adua and his coterie. If Chief of Army Staff, Abdulrahman Dambazau,
ordered this unapproved movement of troops, then he should be fired.
Second, there’s little question that Yar’Adua’s purported return – I say
purported because, at the time of this writing, nobody had gone on
record to certify that he or she saw the man – was engineered by his
wife and cronies as a desperate mission to grab back power from “acting
President” Goodluck Jonathan. That mission collapsed only because
Nigerians and the international community raised voices in protest.
Third, the whole messy saga starring Yar’Adua really bespeaks the
harrowing nature of Nigeria’s condition. Let’s think about it, ladies
and gentlemen. For three months, a nation of 150 million people has
expended much of its precious time and energy on a ridiculous question:
Can Yar’Adua effectively, competently run the affairs of Nigeria from
his address in a foreign hospital?
No self-respecting people should waste their breath on a question which,
I insist, is ridiculous.
One cannot imagine a scenario where the chairman of an association of
motor park “touts” in Agege (Lagos), Sabon Gari (Kano), or Upper Iweka
in Onitsha, takes ill, is hospitalized for three months during which
he’s incommunicado – and yet insists that he’s still a competent leader.
His fellow touts would laugh at his delusion.
Or take a situation where the headmistress of a Nigerian elementary
school disappears for three months on account of serious sickness. None
of her young pupils would be in doubt that such a woman has ceased to
run the school.
But Yar’Adua, a man who – even at the best of times – appeared perplexed
by the demands of presidential office, goes missing for three months and
– what do we hear? That the machinery of state was running just
smoothly!
It took Nigeria’s overpaid National Assembly two and a half months to
arrive at a conclusion that something was amiss – and that Goodluck
Jonathan should be asked to “act.” It took the cabinet even longer.
Nigerian politicians cover their hollowness with flowing agbada, and
they think the world is impressed. Yet, as the Yar’Adua farce played
out, these politicians showed the world that theirs is a country where
both the emperor and his courtiers have no clothes.
The Yar’Adua mess began the moment Nigerians permitted Olusegun Obasanjo
to impose a certified invalid on them. Turai Yar’Adua, conducting the
orchestra whose tune is that Nigeria deserves a moribund leader, must
have told herself that, if OBJ got away with impunity, so could she.
Is there a positive here? Yes, and it lies in the hope that, next time
around, Nigerians will jealously guard their vote. Or they will be
condemned to inhabit a colony run by derelicts and the morally as well
as physically feeble.
Is Ohakim a monster?
It’s time Nigerians seriously pondered the question whether Ikedi Ohakim,
the governor of Imo State, is a monster in disguise.
Shortly after his inauguration as governor, Mr. Ohakim came to national
attention when he reportedly stood, unconcerned, as his security escorts
beat a woman black and blue in the streets of Lagos. Her offense?
Apparently Ohakim’s entourage found her guilty of impeding the progress
of the governor’s convoy. For that “crime,” the governor’s thugs
allegedly pummeled her.
Perhaps Mr. Ohakim then decided that one of the perks of being a
governor is a passport to operate as he pleased. And – if the narrative
of Citizen Ikenna Samuelson Iwuoha is true – Ohakim appears no longer
content to have his boys manhandle those who cross him. He has, it
seems, graduated to flogger-in-chief.
Last Saturday, the Sun published a wide-ranging interview with Iwuoha
who’s a one-man war machine against Ohakim. He does not hide his disdain
for the governor; he considers Ohakim a thief. Mr. Iwuoha has written
several petitions – to the state assembly, the police, and the EFCC –
accusing the governor of flagrant acts of corruption. Not only has he
signed each petition, he’s also provided his contact information and
promised to validate his allegations if invited to do so.
A governor who’s beyond reproach would be incensed if anybody falsely
accused him of dipping filthy fingers in state coffers. Such a governor
should quickly deny the allegations and seek to demonstrate their
falsity. He would instruct his lawyers to file lawsuits against his
traducer in order to reclaim his good name, and to make his accuser pay
for malice.
That may not be the Ohahim method.
Mr. Iwuoha told the Sun that Governor Ohakim sent “five heavily armed
men” to his home at dawn on January 21, 2010. The men reportedly claimed
that the state commissioner of police, Aloysius Okorie, had asked them
to summon him. But when he submitted himself to the gun-toting men, they
drove him to the governor’s office, arriving at 7:04 a.m. Once Mr.
Ohahim arrived in his office just after 9 a.m., the governor’s chief
security officer (CSO) reportedly appeared to convey Mr. Iwuoha to the
governor’s lodge for an encounter with Mr. Ohakim.
There, the story of the encounter between governor and his nemesis took
an even more bizarre turn. Mr. Iwuoha recounts that Ohahim “shouted
‘lock the door, lock the door’” and ordered him to strip nude as the
“CSO pulled his gun on me.” Ohakim then “took a ‘koboko’ (whip) and
started flogging me.”
Weeks after the beating, Iwuoha’s bared back and legs still bear
horrific scars and welts, mementoes of a citizen’s brutalization.
The Sun reports that Ohakim’s “aides have denied” Iwuoha’s account. The
story should not rest on that note.
The Inspector General of Police as well as the Nigerian Bar Association
ought to investigate what transpired – and specifically, how those welts
got on Mr. Iwuoha’s body. Our so-called democracy has no meaning if
public officials can get away with the extra-judicial savaging of fellow
citizens. If Ohakim whipped Iwuoha, then the governor must be regarded
and treated as a criminal of the highest order, one that deserves to be
stripped of his gubernatorial preferment, arrested, and put to trial.
His office notwithstanding, Ohakim, like every other Nigerian, is bound
by the nation’s laws. He’s also entitled to the protections guaranteed
by the laws. His job specification does not include lashing citizens,
even if they call him an embezzler. If he has conducted himself in an
exemplary manner in public life – if, in other words, he’s earned a good
name – he’s entitled to protect his reputation against all false
accusers. He reserves the right to defend himself against Iwuoha’s
allegations that he pillages public resources. But the courtroom is the
arena to seek that redress. No law confers on Ohakim any right to smack,
whip or kick his accuser. That’s abuse of office.
Mr. Iwuoha’s narrative of assault at the hands of Governor Ohakim is,
for me, most disturbing at the point when he asserts that the state
police commissioner, Mr. Okorie, and the state director of the State
Security Service (SSS) entered the governor’s office, the venue of the
flagellation. If they were indeed present, then both the state police
boss as well as SSS director ought to have read the riot act to the
unruly governor.
Instead, according to Iwuoha, the two officers pleaded with him to
“cooperate” with Ohahim. The head of SSS, a woman, reportedly implored,
“My son, cooperate with His Excellency”.
The IGP as well as the director general of the SSS ought to investigate
the alleged role of their top state officers in this shameful act. If
it’s determined that the officers stood askance as a power-drunk
governor flayed a citizen, then the officers deserve to be dismissed
from service – to serve as examples to others who misconceive their duty
as law enforcement agents.
A governor who beats up a citizen has displayed open contempt for the
law, and should not enjoy immunity from prosecution. If Nigeria’s
democratic culture is to germinate and flower, then lawyers as well as
all enlightened citizens ought to view Iwuoha’s bitter experience as an
affront to our collective dignity.
