All we need is balanced judgments, and deliberate efforts by those who have the opportunity and power of the media to keep their eyes on issues, and be less parochial. It is unconscionable for Azu, who has a wide readership, to pick up his pen each week and tear a certain Turai or some imaginary ‘cabal’ to pieces when he is equally (allegedly) corrupt. He would have done better writing a book about the clash of our culture with the Oyibo man’s economic system which many times lead to corruption? New Ministers have been appointed now, and even though they have all of six months to work, the newspapers will soon be awash with congratulatory messages. That is the beginning of corruption. Azu and co would want to mislead the public instead, deflecting attention away from the evils they perpetrate, while setting up other people for ‘crucifixion’.
Deposed Emir, Alhaji Mustafa Jokolo stated that what the political class is doing to Umar is ‘burying him alive’. One wonders what Umar’s sins are and why he deserves such a fate. Notable among those figures performing this wicked task, are Akunyili, Obasanjo, Masari, Ken Nnamani and that obnoxious U.S Assistant Secretary of State, Johnnie Carson, who has been on Nigeria’s case for too long now, a turncoat and Uncle Tom, if ever there was one; a black man, used by white people, to hold black people down, and destroy them. Carson was on a posting in Nigeria between 1968-1971. He was U.S Ambassador to Uganda, Zimbabwe etc. If his interaction with Africa has been good, we would have known by the improvements in those countries by now.
Acting President Jonathan who had played the part of a reluctant conspirator has now showed his colour, especially with the kind of ministers he is appointing. Or maybe he has just been totally cowed and intimidated by his godfathers. If it was not bad enough to appoint tired people of yesteryears, people who had been ministers in some distant past, Dr Jonathan, who had been marketed by the press as a modern-day messiah, went further by adding insult to a prostrate Yar’adua’s injury. He had nominated Yar’adua’s arch enemy – Aminu Masari, then later dropped him. But say, what is the idea behind appointing Yar’adua’s nephew; a timid, un-experienced fellow with no fire-in-the-belly; an ‘aje-butter’ guy who would rather be left alone to run his business and enjoy his money, has been brought in to spite his uncle. And why would Nigeria still be saddled for the next twelve months or so, with Dora Akunyili’s antics.
To believe that Dr Jonathan has very little time on his hands to make a difference. If I was him, I would act with the alacrity of a Japanese Kamikaze bomber. I would have no time for the shenanigans that is Nigerian politics. Admitted a few technocrats like Aganga, Bio, and Kayode have been retained, but the line-up could have been vastly better. But I will not join the ranks of those who criticize a government’s every move just because they were not appointed. Still the choice of Akunyili is bizarre. Here is a minister of information who refused to manage her boss’ information positively but was the first to stab him in the back. Here is a minister who reveals state documents to guerilla news agencies just to score a point (her initial memo asking for Yar’adua’s removal, her letter threatening to sue Aondoakaa and the latter’s response were scanned and sent out to ‘pro-democracy’ sites). What recklessness.
Dora is a tribalist too, what with all those her claims about some ‘cabal’. All that did was to direct anger at Katsina people, and by extension the whole North. All that did, while she tried to achieve her short-term agenda of power-grab and dance to her paymasters’ tunes, was to divide Nigeria like never before. She has the blood of innocent Nigerians like the NNPC duo killed in Delta State on her hands for fanning tribal embers. To the people who killed those two guys, they could as well have been killing members of Dora’s imaginary ‘cabal’. After all, anybody from the North is seen by most southerners as ‘Hausa’. One of the NNPC guys was a Christian, from Adamawa. Thank you Madam Dora, for cementing the word ‘cabal’ in our mental faculties – and for increasing hate in the land. A whole Minister of the Federal Republic with the temperament and demeanour of a groundnut seller.
Dr Goodluck reappointed Orubebe, who alleged while a serving minister, that Goodluck was to be poisoned (ostensibly by Yar’adua loyalists). We all ignored that Yar’adua could also have been poisoned by those who now constitute the new ‘cabal’. With Orubebe’s appointment, Goodluck is running another government by ‘cabal’; a government of poisoning and counter-poisoning. That is what Senator Kanti Bello may have been alleging when he referred to Dora’s lofty qualification as a pharmacists and how she used to cook for the erstwhile first family. The propaganda war played by the Goodluck people was simply too evil. And Goodluck never rebuked Akunyili for setting this country on fire with her unguarded statements, he rewarded her instead. Welldone Dr Jonathan. What you have taught children watching this whole charade is that desperation pays, that tribalism is a virtue and prejudice a laurel to be worn on their sleeves. And that they can betray their friends just to get along. Or how do we explain ‘cabal’ to our young ones without turning them into tribal and religious bigots?
The politics of Jonathan has worsened our North/South, Christian/Muslim divide. With his Chief Adviser being Theophilus Danjuma, and his chief godfather being Matthew Obasanjo, and his Chief Kingmakers being Pastor Bakare and co, he can only hope to get Christian and mainly Southern votes in 2011 if he manages to bulldoze PDP to that extent. The politics he is allowing himself to be a pawn in, is a politics of destruction and divisiveness. And lest I forget, if the plans of the wicked people succeed and they have to break up Nigeria, I hereby plead with my Northern friends and readers, to continue to allow me stay in Northern Nigeria or whatever it will be called then. Left to me, I will live here, among a people who hold little spite, guile and prejudice in their insides, who still have at least some iota of innocence. The propaganda machine that we have built in the south may become unstoppable, and it won’t be fun when we don’t have anyone to direct it towards but ourselves.
