*Atiku, PDP Convention, Tambuwal Speech, Sanusi's $50billion Bomb, OBJ 18-Page letter and You.
Date line, 31st August 2013. A group led by former vice President Atiku Abubakar and seven other governors, most of which are loyal to former President Obasanjo, stormed out of their party’s (PDP) National Convention, apparently sensing that the election will not go in the way of their candidates. The group which was later known as New PDP, held a press conference where they announced what they referred to as the new leadership of the party with Baraje as the Chairman. The G7 and Baraje barraged the Jonathan presidency with lots of invectives, throwing in every available spanner in the wheel.
While the rest of Jonathan’s battles were waged by masked men with clandestine motives, this was an open confrontation of the Presidency and the leadership of the party. The secret moves against President Jonathan had precipitated to the open; the men behind it had taken off their masks. To cut the long story short, following unfavourable court judgment, loss of public goodwill and the lack of the wherewithal to fight the leadership of the ruling party from within, five of the renegade Governors have since crossed over to the opposition APC.
It would be recalled that these political “stowaways” have been embroiled in a long standing “extra-marital affair” with the APC before the eventual cross pollination. The hatred of the Jonathan Presidency has seen enemies gravitating together and becoming lovers in the process. Anything to get Jonathan out of Power will do; after all the Chinese say: The enemy of your enemy is your friend. And so, the “political mines” kept exploding.
Date line 9th December, 2013: Enter Speaker Tambuwal with a scathing attack on President Jonathan. In that speech, the speaker accused the President that his body language showed he was encouraging corruption.
As expected, this speech was given amplitude, airtime and large bandwidth, especially at a time the opposition was in “war mood”. While many saw this as a politically correct speech, properly embellished to get public sympathy, others saw buried in it a grand plan to deliberately undermine the President, as the coming events would suggest.
This was the beginning of what would appear to be a series of synchronized torpedo attacks and artillery bombardment of the Presidency. The biggest political ambush in recent times had just begun.
While Nigerians were digesting this scathing attack on the President by the speaker, the media was awash with another shocker the next day: a certain letter from the CBN Governor Lamido Sanusi to President Jonathan, informing the President of a missing $50 billion in oil proceeds – an amount almost twice the country’s annual budget.
Again, this was amplified to the high heavens, especially by the opposition. However, amidst the outrage, many sensed something sinister. Several questions came to analytical minds:
(1) How is it possible that the nation lost an amount equivalent to the size of her budget for 2 years, yet stayed afloat?
(2) Is it possible to lose over 70% of your primary income, yet remain afloat?
(3) How come this letter, written months earlier, only surfaced shortly after the Speaker’s scathing attack on the President?
(4) It’s also curious that the CBN governor did not draw the attention of the President to these “missing” funds for almost 2 years.
How did he balance his books for the year ending 31st Dec. 2012? How has he been doing his monthly and quarterly reconciliation with such amount hanging unexplained?
(5) How come his figures are below that declared by the NNPC? How long has he been working with such “wrong” figures without noticing?
(6) What efforts were made to clarify the figures with NNPC and other agencies before going public with a letter of such damaging effect to our economic outlook?
(7) How come the CBN Governor who is supposed to be the calming figure in the economy was now the alarmist?
Questions, questions, questions. Anyway, the explanation by NNPC and the other agencies, and the admission of the CBN Governor of his “error”, has cleared the questions above.
With the emergence of overwhelming facts, he was fed the humble pie.
If his letter was meant to put President Jonathan in bad light, it did a lot more than that.
It also painted the nation’s economy as one that is poorly managed, and for someone who is the head of the monetary policy wing of the economy, he unknowingly passed a vote of no confidence in himself.
In that press conference, the once steely and confident Sanusi, caught a solitary and dejected figure – he was caught “pants down” and so had to admit that he was indeed the one with the wrong figures.
That said, as an observer, it’s pretty easy to note that while the leaked letter travelled at supersonic speeds, Sanusi’s confession of using the wrong figures crawled at snail speed, receiving little space in the media and airwaves.
Media complicity or simply our penchant for peddling bad news? Anyway, let’s move on the real shocker.
While Nigerians were struggling to come to terms with Sanusi’s leaked letter, another letter was leaked to the press the next day. This time, the writer was former President Olusegun Obasanjo. This was one massive “landmine”! That 18 page stinger contained all sorts: President Jonathan accused of being an ethnic champion and clannish, a dishonest person, a dictator who is intent on killing his own people (snipers trained abroad, political watch list, etc), an anti-party operative, encouraging corruption (reechoing Tambuwal’s point), etc.
The letter even cited the false alarm raised by Sanusi’s letter, suggesting the former President had seen a copy of the letter even before it was leaked to the public. Surprised? What other evidence do you need to know that this looked like a well hatched chain bombardment? The former President, who was a civilian president for 8 years and military head of state for 3 years knows very well, the effect of such a letter (especially the security implication) in the hands of the public. The former President also knows how to access and verify most of the information fed to him, yet he didn’t seem to do that. I’m sure he must be embarrassed by Sanusi’s fictitious figures by now. Well, I won’t dwell too much on this; President Jonathan has already responded for himself and Nigerians have both letters at their disposal to draw their inferences.
That said, my chronicle of “landmines” is not an excuse for President Jonathan not to perform. Rather, it is an x-ray of his unfortunate working condition. The President still needs to do more to earn the trust of the people of Nigeria. He must continue upgrading infrastructuresand create an atmosphere that encourages job creation. He must also realize that his office is political in nature and therefore he must get his politics right as well as his policies.
There are certain political liabilities in his cabinet that he must purge. If those managing his politics can offer as much politically as the technocrats in his cabinet are contributing to the economy, most of these landmines would have been defused effectively before they exploded. The President must fold his sleeves and realize that it is not easy to be President of a robust country like Nigeria. The intrigues, the gang-ups, the scheming, etc, they will always be there but he has to rise above them. He must be ready to take tough decisions, both in his politics and in his policies. Most importantly, he should ensure he is on the side of people by making people-centric policies. No matter the gang-up, if you are on the side of the people, there will be very little to fear.
That said, I still want to emphasize again that there is no President in our short democratic history that has been so ganged up against like President Jonathan – sworn enemies uniting to fight him, ideologically incompatible groups becoming compatible over night, Political parties merging to form a stronger front, acidic letters flying around, etc. The President must realize that the storm is gathering, and at this point, the battle seems inevitable. More “landmines” will explode. From the tone of the President’s reply to Chief Obasanjo, I want to believe he is fully aware of this. Permit me to end with a quote from that letter: “…your letter conveys to me the feeling that landmines have been laid for me. Therefore, Nigerians need to have my response to the issues raised before the mines explode.” Mr. President, roll your “anti-bomb squad”! - Hope For Nigeria. 1 Like |
