I have tried delaying the writing of this piece in the honest expectation
that someone probably misquoted Chief E.K. Clark, when he reportedly
publicly disowned former President Goodluck Jonathan.
I had hoped that our dear father, E.K. Clark, would issue a counter
statement and say the usual things politicians say: “they quoted me out of
context!” “Jonathan is my son”. That has not happened; rather, some other
Ijaw voices, including one Joseph Evah, have come to the defence of the
old man, to join hands in rubbishing a man they once defended to the hilt
and used as a bargaining chip for the Ijaw interest in the larger Nigerian
geo-politics.
If President Jonathan had returned to power on May 29, 2015, these same
persons would have remained in the corridors of power, displaying all
forms of ethnic triumphalism.
It is the reason in case they do not realize it, why the existent power
blocs that consider themselves most fit to rule, continue to believe that
those whose ancestors never ran empires can never be trusted with power,
hence they can only be admitted as other people’s agents or as merchants
of their own interests which may even be defined for them as is deemed
convenient. Mercantilism may bring profit, but in power politics, it
destroys integrity and compromises otherwise sacred values.
President Jonathan being publicly condemned by his own Ijaw brothers,
particularly those who were once staunch supporters of his government
further serves the purpose of exposing the limits of the politics of
proximity. Politics in Africa is driven by this particular factor; it is
at the root of all the other evils: prebendalism, clientelism and what
Matthew Kukah has famously described as the “myownisation of power.”
It is both positive and negative, but obviously, more of the latter than
the former. It is considered positive only when it is beneficial to all
parties concerned, and when the template changes, the ground also shifts.
As in that song, the solid rock of proximity is soon replaced by shifting
sands. Old worship becomes new opportunism. And the observant public is
left confounded.
Chief E.K. Clark? Who would ever think, Chief E.K. Clark would publicly
disown President Jonathan? He says Jonathan was a weak President. At what
point did he come to that realization? Yet, throughout the five years (not
six, please) of the Jonathan Presidency, he spoke loudly against anyone
who opposed the President.
He was so combative he was once quoted as suggesting that Nigeria could
have problems if Jonathan was not allowed to return to office. Today, he
is the one helping President Jonathan’s successor to quench the fires. He
always openly said President Jonathan is “his son.”
Today, he is not just turning against his own son, he is telling the world
his son as President lacked the political will to fight corruption. He has
also accused his son of being too much of a gentleman. Really?
Gentlemanliness would be considered honourable in refined circles. Is Pa
E.K. Clark recommending something else in order to prove that he is no
longer a politician but a statesman as he says?
As someone who was a member of the Jonathan administration, and who
interacted often with the old man, I can only say that I am shocked. This
is the equivalent of the old man deleting President Jonathan’s phone
number and ensuring that calls from his phone no longer ring at the
Jonathan end.
During the Jonathan years, Chief E. K. Clark was arguably the most vocal
Ijaw leader defending the government. He called the President “my son,”
and both father and son remained in constant touch.
There is something about having the President’s ears in a Presidential
system, elevated to the level of a fetish in the clientelist Nigerian
political system. Persons in the corridors of power who have the
President’s ear- be they cook, valet, in-laws, wife, cousin, former school
mates, priests, or whatever, enjoy special privileges.
They have access to the President and they can whisper into his ears.
That’s all they have as power: the power to whisper and run a whispering
campaign that can translate into opportunities or losses for those outside
that informal power loop around every Presidency, that tends to be really
influential.
Every President must beware of those persons who come around calling them
“Daddy”, “Uncle”, na my brother dey there”, “my son”, “our in-law”-
emotional blackmailers relying on old connections. They are courted,
patronized and given more attention and honour than they deserve by those
looking for access to the President or government.
Even when the power and authority of the whispering exploiters of the
politics of proximity is contrived, they go out of their way to exaggerate
it. They acquire so much from being seen to be in a position to make
things happen.
Chief E. K. Clark had the President’s ears. He had unfettered access to
his son. He was invited to most state events. And he looked out for the
man he called “my son”, in whom he was well pleased. Chief Clark’s energy
level in the service of the Jonathan administration was impressive.
Fearless and outspoken, he deployed his enormous talents in the service of
the Jonathan government. If a press statement was tame, he drew attention
to it and urged a more robust defence of “your boss.”
If any invective from the APC was overlooked, he urged prompt rebuttal. If
the party was tardy in defending “his son”, he weighed in.
If anyone had accused the President of lacking “the political will to
fight corruption” at that time, he, E.K. Clark, would have called a press
conference to draw attention to the Jonathan administration’s
institutional reforms and preventive measures, his commitment to electoral
integrity to check political corruption, and the hundreds of convictions
secured by both the ICPC and EFCC under his son’s watch.
So prominent and influential was he, that ministers, political jobbers etc
etc trooped to his house to pay homage.
In due course, those who opposed President Jonathan did not spare Chief E.
K. Clark either. He was accused of making inflammatory and
unstatesman-like statements. An old war-horse, nobody could intimidate
him. He was not President Olusegun Obasanjo’s fan in particular. He
believed Obasanjo wanted to sabotage his son, and he wanted Obasanjo put
in his place. Beneath all of that, was an unmistaken rivalry between the
two old men, seeking to control the levers of Nigerian politics.
Every President probably needs a strong, passionate ally like Chief E. K.
Clark. But what happened? What went wrong? Don’t get me wrong. I am not
necessarily saying that the Ijaw leader should have remained loyal to and
defend Goodluck Jonathan because they are both Ijaws, patriotism
definitely could be stronger than ethnic affinities, nonetheless that E.
K. Clark tale about leaving politics and becoming a statesman is nothing
but sheer crap.
If Jonathan had returned to office, he would still be a card-carrying
member of the PDP and the “father of the President” and we would still
have been hearing that famous phrase, “my son”. Chief E. K. Clark, five
months after, has practically told the world that President Buhari is
better than “his own son”.
It is the worst form of humiliation that President Jonathan has received
since he left office. It is also the finest compliment that President
Buhari has received since he assumed office. The timing is also
auspicious: just when the public is beginning to worry about the direction
of the Buhari government, E. K. Clark shows up to lend a hand of support
and endorsement.
Only one phrase was missing in his statement, and it should have been
added: “my son, Buhari.” It probably won’t be too long before we hear the
old man saying “I am a statesman, Buhari is my son.” I can imagine
President Obasanjo grinning with delight.
If he really wants to be kind, he could invite E.K. Clark to his home in
Ota or Abeokuta to come and do the needful by publicly tearing his PDP
membership card and join him in that exclusive club of Nigerian statesmen!
The only problem with that club these days is that you can become a member
by just saying so or by retiring from partisan politics. We are more or
less being told that there are no statesmen in any of the political
parties.
It is not funny. Julius Ceasar asked Brutus in one of the famous lines in
written literature: “Et tu Brutus?” President Jonathan should ask Chief E.
K. Clark: “Et tu Papa?” To which the father will probably tell the son:
“Ces’t la vie, mon cher garcon.” And really, that is life.
In the face of other considerations, loyalties vanish; synergies collapse.
The wisdom of the tribe is overturned; the politics of proximity
dissolves; loyalties remain in a perpetual process of construction. Thus,
individual interests and transactions drive the political game in Nigeria,
with time and context as key determinants.
These are teachable moments for President Jonathan. Power attracts men and
women like bees to nectar, the state of powerlessness ends as a journey to
the island of loneliness.
However, the greatest defender of our work in office is not our ethnic
“fathers and “brothers” but rather our legacy. The real loss is that
President Jonathan’s heroism, his messianic sacrifice in the face of
defeat, is being swept under the carpet and his own brothers who used to
say that the Ijaws are driven by a principle of “one for all and all for
another”, have become agent-architects of his pain.
The Ijaw platform having seemingly been de-centered, Chief E.K. Clark and
others are seeking assimilation in the new power structure. It is a
telling reconstruction of the politics of proximity and mimicry.
Chief E.K. Clark once defended the rights of ethnic minorities to aspire
to the highest offices in the land, his latest declaration about his son
reaffirms the existing stereotype at the heart of Nigeria’s hegemonic
politics.
The same hegemons and their agents whom Clark used to fight furiously will
no doubt find him eminently quotable now that he has proclaimed that it is
wrong to be a “gentleman”, and that his son lacks “the political will to
fight corruption”. There is more to this than we may ever know.
Chief Clark can insist from now till 2019, that he has spoken as a
statesman and as a matter of principle. His re-alignment, is curious
nonetheless.