STATE OF THE NATION: ANATOMY OF YAR’ ADUA’S REAL PROBLEM

BY: IFEANYI IZEZE

It is very true that President Umaru Yar Adua is not in a hurry to adopt the fire brigade approach that was typical of successive administrations especially the Obasanjo -led reign that imposed him on the Nigerian people.

It is also very true that the President has no clear -cut approach of his own or rather is yet to defreeze his ice-blocked/snail speed approach that has sent the machinery of governance to sleep since he came into office in May 2007.

No doubt, part of the problem of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is that the party is populated with several persons of questionable intelligent quotient and this group seems to form a majority of the party’s decision making machinery that has taken Yar’Adua hostage in addition to his own peculiar problems.

advertisement

Laughably, the warped mindset of the PDP was recently expressed by one of the party’s National Vice Chairman, who was proud to give a direct opposite performance rating of Yar’Adua’s achievements in the one and half years he has stayed in office.

His words as reported: “So far President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua had succeeded in taking and treating the problems of Nigeria one by one,” and that “one and half years after he assumed office, Nigeria was on the verge of restoration.

“The seven-point agenda of President Yar’Adua was aimed at addressing such critical, day-to-day issues that had direct bearing on the survival of the nation and the development of the ordinary people such as power and energy, food, security, wealth creation, land tenure changes, home ownership, national security, education and the Niger Delta issue.”

Such appraisal represents the criminal insensitivity of the PDP leadership to the plight of the real Nigerians who have been begging their president to please hurry up.

Concerned Nigerians should please tell the PDP chieftains that so far in the one and half year already blown by this administration, no single point in the seven-point agenda has been kick-started not to even talk of milestone achievement.

The situations in the arenas of all the points have gone from bad (during Obasanjo’s administration) to terribly bad.

National security –zero: oil bunkerers and arm smugglers are having field days all over the porous coastal flank of the country’s boundaries. Energy: for the first time in the history of fuel marketing in Nigeria, kerosene used by the already battered Nigerians for everyday cooking, now cost more than even diesel and petrol.

How many tales of reversed situations can anybody count? Is it Niger Delta? Of course the government is still confused or rather still planning on a workable approach to the problem.

Although the popular Nigerian adage is that: Like father like son, wallahi, former President Obasanjo and President Yar’Adua are worlds apart in almost everything including visibility, dominion, and even arrogance.

Gen Obasanjo in 1999 hit the office of the president running; Yar’Adua in 2007 hit the same office sleeping. And one and half year after, he is still sleeping or maybe just waking up and trying to figure out “a seven- point” dream he had in his sleep.

Obasanjo for one day in office never lacked ideas on what to do. Whether some of his decisions and actions were mischievous is a different issue entirely but at least he had drive and was the obvious pacesetter.

Obasanjo right from May 1999 effectively occupied the driving seat of his government and provided the needed leadership as the commander in chief. Since Yar’Adua came into office in 2007, the driving seat has been vacant thus producing the current near zero kinetics in the wheels of governance at the national level.

Obasanjo’s ministers were very colourful and full of ideas. Yar’Adua’s ministers are very un-colourful because of poor illumination from the top. The ministers couldn’t have done anything to bring out their colours as nothing is being done by the man who should be providing the drive for everybody to key-in.

Obasanjo came with ideas on how to privatize everything in Nigeria except governance. Yar’Adua came with ideas on how to reverse everything Obasanjo did as economic reform with no single idea of his own on the better way forward.

Obasanjo’s National Assembly was dynamic, creative, aggressive and even confrontational right from day one. Pathetically, both chambers of the current National Assembly are deep asleep as their oga.

Since inception, the National Assembly has not successfully debated or passed a single people-oriented legislation. I stand to be corrected.

Close watchers of the present administration would obviously agree that President Yar’Adua’s hyped state of health has nothing to do with the current lack of effective leadership at the national level.

Our president is not so sick that he cannot talk or move and he will not be that sick in Jesus Name, Amen.

He goes to the office everyday to work. He talks (discusses) with people, attends public functions and even signs arrest warrants and writ of summons for erring media outfits especially the web-based group and Leadership newspaper of course. So it is time Nigerians stop this deceit of blaming the slow pace of movement in government on the President’s ill health.

advertisement

All over the world, even very sick leaders still takes charge of affairs calling the shots from their sick beds so long as they can still talk, listen and think. They give directives and bearing to aides who will be doing the actual work. Take North Korea for example and this is just one in several of such cases. And thank God our president is very strong doing so many things by himself. So the issue of health or stamina to cope with the pressures of office is completely out of this matter.

The real problem is that Yar’Adua was catapulted into office without a single work policy/programme agenda. He had no single plan or programme of what to do even up till the day he was sworn-in.

Moreso, Obasanjo wouldn’t have allowed him raise his team to think for himself since the former President wanted him to continue with his ‘blind trust’ style of governance. The former President must have expected his begotten son to inherit his team of ‘wiz kids’ but Umaru in his characteristics manner only accepted such proposal just to be sworn in as the commander -in -chief.

All these contributed to the present confusion where the President has blown one and a half year still assembling his team of ‘professionals’ in a country that is in a hurry to catch up with even other backward nations.

It is strongly hoped that the existing pathetic situation at the top will change when the real servant leader ultimately comes out of his pudah to take the driver’s seat at the helm of affairs in our beloved country- naija.

IFEANYI IZEZE is an Abuja-based Consultant on Political Strategy and Grassroot Consultations ( iizeze@yahoo.com)