Former US Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, yesterday night made a prognosis of where Nigeria should be within the next fifty years, saying that the country should have a strong democracy which would deliver for the people.
But Rice, while answering questions moderated by the Chairman of THISDAY Newspapers, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena, at the THISDAY Nigeria at 50 Awards Dinner last night in Abuja, sidestepped a question requiring her to make comments on the prolonged absence of ailing President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
She said: “I will leave this point to Nigerians. One thing that is important… I pray for your president’s recovery. I met him. I saw him to be somebody who had a real vision for Nigeria. But ultimately, the presidency is more important than the person who occupies it. In a democracy, there is the office of the presidency and the person elected to that office is the servant of the people and he is accountable to the people…
“I am certain that Nigerians would find within their democratic institutions a way to deal with the current crisis that you have; but with that said, my prayers are with your President and my prayers are with your Acting President with whom I met today (yesterday) and with all of your other leaders who must lead Nigeria through this critical time.”
The 15th THISDAY Awards ceremony held at the THISDAY Dome, Abuja, saw a number of prominent Nigerians both living and dead, as well as companies and institutions, recognised for their contributions and achievements in the polity.
Rice continued the discussion on “Nigeria: The Next 50 Years,” from where the duo of former US President, George W. Bush and former Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair left off in the afternoon during a Special Luncheon, which presaged the Awards night.
In trying to define the trajectory open to Nigeria in the next fifty years, she said while rounding off his speech which she made almost extempore that, “I come to you as a daughter of ordinary people. I come to you also as a citizen of the country that struggled to make ‘we, the people’ have meaning because, of course, when the founding fathers said ‘we, the people’ they did mean me.
“But throughout democratic institutions, solely virtually, ‘we, the people’ has come to mean more of us and the great irony is that it was the descendants of stolen sons and daughters Africa that brought America to the full realisation of what ‘we, the people’ means.
“In doing so, those descendants, impatient patriots like Martin Luther King, actually found inspirations in the liberation movements that were taking place here in Africa. They found their liberation in people who said ‘enough is enough; the time has come for freedom.’
“That inspiration then led those impatient patriots to overcome to the point that a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the dark time of segregation, a little girl who could not have a hamburger and lunch on the counter because of segregation and had never believed that she could be something in US, became a Secretary of State.”
Rice stated: “That same spirit led America to overcome to the point that it elected a black man to the highest office in the land.”
She then drove her point home more forcefully: “You see, I have come to believe that Nigeria at 50, Nigeria at 60, Nigeria at 70 will be a place that has achieved its potentials because I know that sometimes things that seem impossible just seem unaffordable after you have achieved them.
“If we take this anniversary, if we take as friends of Africa and Nigeria, and if you take, as Nigerians, this anniversary to reaffirm the principle that Nigerian democracy will be strong and honourable and deliver for its people, I am quite certain that we will look back and say: ‘a job well done; potentials fulfilled’.”
On the political risk in Nigeria, she said, “Well, I think that every country has some degree of political risk. Obviously, Nigeria has had its challenges in the last fifty years in terms of political stability, but I think that the world is watching, tracking the coming election very closely because Nigeria is now a democracy and Nigerians, I believe, would demand that this democracy functions in a transparent way, that the elections are transparent and that would send a strong signal to the international community to the international market, to the international investors that issues of political risks as we have tended to think about them with Nigeria are passing away.
“What do investors want? They want stable contracts; they want rule of law; they want to know that the political system would be calm, that there would not be upheavals and they want fair rules of the game in the economy and those are efforts that I think Nigerians have been working towards.
“You had good leadership. Your former Finance Minister (apparently referring to Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala) was a terrific leader on these issues and I think people are going to be looking at these next elections to have affirmation and confirmation that the Nigeria democracy is on sound footing.”
Rice added: “Now, Nigeria has great wealth and it seems to me that the issue for Nigeria is how to diversify the economy so that it is not just hydrocarbons that drive the economy; that means a good environment for the development of small business and for multi-nationals.
“…So, I think that the US is very involved with the Nigerian economy and I am certain that these are programmes that will continue but the question of infrastructure and building of roads, are the hardest to do and that I think government will have to find a way on their own to do them.”
On what is new in Iraq after the invasion by the US, she said: “Well, I do not think I can tell you anything new about what we did in Iraq, but I can perhaps say something about what the Iraqis are doing themselves.
“The Middle East is badly in need of democratic examples. In the modern age, it cannot be that an entire region is essentially without democratic governments with very, very few exceptions.
“Iraq has been one of the worst tyrannies of the 21st century. That the Iraqis might be able to make their transition to democracy from their terrible tyranny that was there; but they might be able to do it in a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional society with Sunnis, Shia, Kurds and others all working together in a democratic institutions.
“That will be new in the Middle East; and, there are some signs that they are doing precisely that and they have a long way to go and we are all holding our breath for the elections in March, that they will be open and fair and that all people would be represented.
“But when I look at the campaign that is going on there, when I look at the brutal criticisms of their own government and other governments, I think they have quickly taken to some of the most important habits of democracy, which is not to be fearful of your own government.
“You see, in dictatorships, people are fearful of their governments and when the time comes, when they are free of that fear and they are able and willing to express themselves and that has happened in Iraq. Now, hopefully, that will consolidate democracy.
“Like I said, it is not what we did in Iraq; what we did was to give the Iraqis a chance. I think the new headline is: ‘That they may well be taken that chance and if, in fact, they do and they succeed, it will be a new Middle East’.”
Then the question: What if Obama fails? Rice answered: “We cannot afford to. The United States of America cannot afford to have the president of the United States fail.
“Ours is a complicated and complex place - the United States. We are pretty tough on our president. We really are and we criticize them; it is a funny thing, when you are elected the president of the United States, you are the best thing ever to happen to the United States within a few months, you are not smart or not doing a very good job; that is the kind of the way we are with our president.
“But I am hopeful that our president, that our leadership in the United States will be successful… But we, as a country, do not want our president to fail. The US has many difficult problems. We have issues of economic problems; we have issues of immigration; we have problems in our educational system.” |
