 LETTERS & VIEWPOINTS |
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By Alfred Uzokwe (EMAIL) Harrisburg, PA, USA Friday, July 27, 2001 
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Nigeria's fledgling democracy: What Obasanjo must do to restore the faith of the masses in his presidency |
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What Obasanjo may not realize is that there are specific reasons why Nigerians voted him into power. If he continues to show a penchant for disregarding the wishes of the people just because he wants to protect Babangida, he may be denied a second term. Nigerians voted for Obasanjo because they felt he had been on both sides of the country's existential spectrum and understands the country's complex political power structure, vis a vis the yearnings and aspirations of the common man. He participated in the Congo peacekeeping mission in the 60s, fought the civil war and piloted the affairs of this country at one time. People believed he had been tested again and again, and would not shy away from bringing to book, any Nigerian who participated in plundering the nation, no matter the person's status in the society. Nigerians also know, that the president has been the recipient of the heartlessness of the military as evidenced by his incarceration by the Abacha junta. This experience we thought, would make him a compassionate leader who would be slow to anger, quick to give succor to the down-trodden, receptive to criticism and most of all, would be the foremost protagonist of the principles of democracy and its attendant benefits. Obasanjo was voted into power for some of the above reasons and the masses had high hopes that a Messiah may have finally come to save the nation but he has made some tactical errors. His utterances and actions have left many feeling betrayed, derelicted and hopeless. We, Nigerians are however willing to forgive and forget if we sense penitence and sincerity of purpose in Obasanjo. If he wants to reclaim the confidence and trust hitherto reposed in him by the masses of the most populous nation in black Africa, he must make some basic changes in his method of operation. Only when the masses trust him again, only when they understand what he is trying to achieve and only when it is clear that he is not embarking on a self-serving mission, will they give him the needed support to move his programs forward. He must not only be sincere and fearless in the discharge of his duties, he must be seen to be doing so. Below are some recommendations on areas he needs to immediately commence the "fence-mending" exercise: The President should retract his statement that he "would not be stampeded into probing IBB". He should also retract the statement that he has no evidence to probe Babangida and he should immediately commence the probe! The statements credited to him tend to lend credence to the widely held belief that he is afraid to probe IBB and other retired service chiefs. He has evidence staring him in the face! What other evidence does Obasanjo need when retired officers own rows and rows of houses in places like Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Minna, etc? Is it not rational for eyebrows to be raised when you see a supposedly salaried retired officer living in a multi-million naira palatial mansion like the one in Minna built by Babangida? Is it not prudent to question how the money for the construction of these houses and mansions where acquired? What is so wrong in asking these officers to tell us publicly, how they acquired the money for these excesses? May be they will let Nigerians in on a wonderful business or stock market strategy that we are unaware of. I am sure they would not mind sharing their success stories with the nation. It is disingenuous for Obasanjo to be asking for evidence to probe IBB and other officers. The President knows very well that the evidence he needs stare him in the face on a daily basis. If he really has the desire and intestinal fortitude to commence these probes (that all Nigerians are yearning for) he could do it with evidence in the form of the multi-million naira houses strewn all over Lagos, Abuja, Minna, etc. These people should be brought before the Nigerian people to explain how they acquired the buildings even though they were just salaried workers. To delay these probes, will continue to fortify the argument of some pro-Abacha people, that the only reason Abacha was targeted was because of his demise. The probe of Sani Abacha is a welcome one, but for Obasanjo to get all Nigerians to believe in the transparency of the process and for all Nigerians to begin to feel that the process is being carried out on their behalf, the President must regularly brief the nation on what actions have been taken, how much has been recovered and what has been done with the recovered money. I must say that the recent news report that several former government functionaries have been indicted and asked to return wrongfully acquired properties comes as a welcome news because it shows that this administration still has some decency left. The exercise should however not be limited only to those that do not wield enough power; it must be expanded to include all and sundry. The Oputa Panel was supposedly modeled after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa but while the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had sufficient authority to bring witnesses before it, it is troubling to see that the Oputa Panel not only seem to be lacking that authority, but "well heeled " individuals have refused to appear before the Panel and are openly challenging the legality of the panel! This should not be; this commission will help us un-earth what ailed this great nation in the past so we can avoid a repeat of those things. Obasanjo must therefore empower this Panel with full authority. The Panel must be able to compel witnesses to come before it. The refusal of Babangida to come before the Panel is an example of double standards that undermine Obasanjo's policies and utterances; he must openly call on all those that have been summoned by the commission to respond. Another step Obasanjo should take to show his continued support for democracy is to publicly show that he is capable of accepting criticism with equanimity. Sometimes his public display of uneasiness when criticized leaves me wondering if he has clearly made the necessary transition from a military frame of mind to a civilian one. The displays of uneasiness convey very ominous feelings to Nigerians and remind them of the dictatorship we endured under Sani Abacha and his cohorts. The statement credited to Obasanjo as telling a Nigerian who asked him a question in the USA "to go to hell", just because he did not like the question, was not encouraging. The Presidents of the United States entertain all sorts of questions from the citizenry; this is borne out of the fact that they realize that the Presidency is not an ego trip, but rather a service to the nation. They know that the masses voted them into power and so they work for the masses. Their motivation is usually to leave a lasting legacy not to arrogate dignity to themselves. The most retrogressive action a leader could take is to surround himself with "yes" people. Under this condition, the leader only hears his own voice, because these sycophants tell him what he likes to hear and do what he wants them to do. This prevents frank assessment of situations and the leader would never know the true position of things. Obasanjo must conduct a radical shake up of his inner sanctum and weed out these types of men and women and replace them with truth- seeking Nigerians who are motivated to serve out of patriotism. These types of people would disagree with him on occasion, but in the final analysis, he would realize that they are his windows to the true world. The President should gradually start reversing the trend of appointing only so-called "experienced people" to his cabinet. Some of these people were present during the last administrations when the looting and plundering of our treasury occured. Such people have no place in Nigeria of today. The masses were of the opinion that Obasanjo's extensive travels (during his hiatus from government) to several overseas countries, afforded him a better appreciation of the need to inject new life and blood into the Nigerian polity. He should have started seeing the need for appointment to his cabinet, of forward-thinking Nigerians whose interest in serving Nigeria would not be motivated by greed but by honest desire to better the lot of the masses and uplift the fatherland. Since Obasanjo's ascendancy to the helm of affairs in Nigeria, several well-meaning Nigerians leaving inside and outside Nigeria have proffered meaningful solutions to our problems; some offered to render their services to our nation for free, some have offered to travel from their bases abroad to Nigeria for the task of nation-building, but the presidency did not respond to these patriotic overtures! We are all cognizant of the fact that Nigerians are some of the best minds in overseas countries today; some have designed supercomputers, some have written computer programs that are being used successfully in these countries, some are physicians that are routinely performing complex surgeries while some are engineers that have designed and constructed some of the best roads and bridges. Others are professors that have made immense contribution to the advancement of research in their areas of knowledge; some are outstanding litigators, nurses, architects, and political scientists. These people have made contributions of immense proportions to the overseas countries where they reside and their works are being celebrated routinely. If these Nigerians are good enough for these countries they live in, Obasanjo cannot discount them and their opinions. They could make very good contribution towards nation building. About a year ago, an attempt was made by the Nigerian Government to register all Nigerians living in the Diaspora. Several Nigerians here in the USA responded, but just like other programs that we start in Nigeria, this one seems to have fallen by the way side and fizzled. Obasanjo seems to have ignored these talents who are within and outside Nigeria and instead settled primarily for the self-styled "experienced hands" that cannot exactly be described as forward thinking. These are the people that are so satisfied with the status quo, that they are dragging the country backwards technologically, economically, politically and otherwise. How can you have a cabinet member who thinks that installation of computers in all government facilities and parastatals is a waste of time and money? In fairness to this breed of politicians though, some of them left school more than 40 years ago when computer literacy was not essential. They have no desire (and understandably so) to school themselves in computer or cyber science, or new technology as a whole. Some of them still live in the world of yesteryears and as such, any advice coming from them is done either with the intent of maintaining the status quo, or perpetuating manual approach to things you could easily automate with computers for a fraction of the time and money needed to do it manually. I am not saying that computer or cyber science knowledge should become sine qua non in the appointment of cabinet members because the contributions of these older politicians, is still very much relevant in the Nigerian political context, but my point is that cabinets or ministries that require high usage of computers or new technologies, should have a leader who fully understands the capabilities of these technologies. If you put someone who does not understand the capabilities and hence the importance of these technologies at the helm, progress will suffer, development will be hampered, Nigeria will remain stuck in the world of yesteryears. Computers and cyber science streamline activities, reduce waste and errors, save time and money. To think that only 16 years ago (as an architectural practitioner in Nigeria) I used to labor manually for weeks on drafting boards to produce architectural building drawings. At that time, if you make errors in your drawings, the only remedy available was either to discard the drawings completely and start anew or start the painstaking process of erasing the errors one by one and redrawing it. These days, the drawings could be completed in days and errors could be corrected with a click of the mouse. Drawings could be sent from continent to continent over the web and two architects in two different continents could be looking at the same drawings at the same time, making changes simultaneously and so on. These are feats that were never heard of in those days, but yet are very real today. Obasanjo needs to be very cognizant of these developments and ensure that they influence his choice of new cabinet members, incase another cabinet shake-up is in the works. He must ensure that people who are moving with time are at the helm of affairs. He must begin to look both within and outside the country for Nigerian talents that would help move the Country forward. Finally, there is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria's problems are multifaceted and multitudinous. I have only touched on the tip of the iceberg. Years of military rule have put the country in a bottomless pit! With concerted resolve however, we can dig out of the hole, but it is going to be a gradual and sometimes painful process. It took years to sink into this level and it may most probably take years to dig back out of it. If we cannot sanitize Nigeria for the sake of our generation, let us do it for the sake of our kids and our kids' kids. Let us work hard to ensure that we leave this nation in a state that our kids would find more tolerable; a nation they would be pleased to call home. Obasanjo must master the gumption to do what is right no matter whose ox is gored. He should know that posterity will not forgive him if after 4 solid years of governance, if he is unable to put this nation back on the path of recovery. He must at every point in time be striving to build a nation where accountability, uprightness, fairness, selflessness, patriotism, discipline will reign supreme. He may have big ideas for the nation, but if he is not pragmatic enough to put the ideas into motion, it would have been a wasted opportunity for him and indeed a wasted presidency.  Alfred Uzokwe is an Architect and a registered professional Engineer in the State of Pennsylvania, USA. |
he recent statement credited to the President, retired General Olusegun Obasanjo, was very troubling; he was quoted as saying that he "would not be stampeded into probing ex-President Ibrahim Babangida." At a time when Obasanjo is trying to establish enough locus standi to enable him implement his programs with support from the masses, this type of statement has cast a long shadow of doubt on what Obasanjo stands for. The nation is beginning to wonder what he is truly trying to achieve, how he wants to achieve them and whether the policy of "no sacred cows" which he seems to espouse all the time, is still tenable. It is pertinent at this juncture to recall that on this same issue in the past, Obasanjo was again quoted as saying that if anyone had any evidence against IBB, the person should come forward with it, otherwise he could not probe IBB.