It smacks of contempt for the appointed Vice President by down-playing the relevance of his office, and suggestive of the prospect that Nyako snubbed the President having adjudged himself too old to serve under his “junior”!
It is even more curious since there have been robust reports to the effect that Nyako was interested, or being touted for the office of vice-president before the return of Yar’adua from Saudi Arabia. Upto the very last minute of this selection process, Nyako’s name had featured among the governors and that even led to a relocation of venue to Adamawa Governor’s Lodge in Abuja. All that period had availed Nyako’s spin-doctors ample opportunity to tell the world that he was not interested.
But to wait till Sambo’s name had been announced to make this disclosure smacks of an attempt to take the shine away from Sambo and rudely make Nyako the center of media attention. It also intends to reduce Sambo to a presidential after-thought, supposedly after Nyako had rejected Jonathan’s offer.
It is even baffling as to why this disclosure is necessary, since it is not a response to any allegation of rejection of Nyako. And the arguments advanced for Nyako’s purported refusal to serve as Vice President appear very childish, since even as Governor of Adamawa State, he is still serving under Goodluck Jonathan and will still take directives from him. Definitely, Nyako will still queue behind him in protocol and wait at the airport to receive him.
When Nyako came out for Governorship of Adamawa State, he pretended to the likes of Prof. Jubril Aminu to be a reluctant conscript, preoccupied with holy incantation and rosary counting, complemented with pious white goatee.
Such a God-fearing man should have allowed for a fair process but he opted for the Garrison politics of being anointed without primaries. This unaccountable process ultimately, produced an unaccountable government with Adamawa treasury being serially looted and raped mercilessly.
Nyako is said to have also rejected the offer of Vice President because of the implication of the emergence of Christian and ethnic minority as Governor of Adamawa State. This is a great disservice to Adamawa State; and quite in concert with his policies of marginalizing Christians and other ethnic minorities.
Till today, all Boni Haruna’s former commissioners have not been paid their severance benefits, including permanent secretaries whose services were cut-short, because to Nyako’s advisers. This will translate to empowering Christians and other ethnic minorities as if Boni engaged only Christians.
This political gimmickry of turning down the president’s offer of Vice President to Nyako and the timing of the revelation serves no purpose except to ridicule the President and diminish his Vice President. This should definitely not be the pre-occupation of people of Nyako’s age, spent forces who have been resurrected to revamp their lives at the expense of our common national patrimony. His contempt for Adamawa can be tolerated, especially now that the very people that conscripted him and hounded Boni Haruna out of power are the principal victims of his misrule. But to extend this contempt to Mr President, the Vice President and Nigeria in general, is what I find suicidal.
On Tuesday, June 8th 2010, the unexpected happened in Adamawa. This was the day Vice President Namadi Sambo paid a one-day visit to the state to lunch the national campaign on access to education in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the elements were unfriendly, as it rained heavily in the state capital. However, the governor had to spend hours on end waiting for a younger man whose position he snubbed in his earlier position. Governor Nyako may dislike the Vice President’s position, but he has to grovel for hours to welcome him. Wonders, they say will not end.
Mathias Yohanna, former Commissioner for Information, Adamawa State
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