http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/jonathan-a-radical-president/108556/

By Reuben Abati

I have always regarded Dele Momodu as a man of very passionate convictions, but lately, I have begun to wonder about the motives that drive his recent contributions to the public discussion of the state of our nation. I started to worry when he suddenly decided he wanted to be President of Nigeria. A day after D-Day, the joke on Twitter, Facebook and online (the essential scourge of our time) was that Dele Momodu got only one vote at the polling booth in his ward, and that even his wife who followed him to the polling booth voted for someone else - Goodluck Jonathan, most probably. But he has trudged on since then like a man of faith, proclaiming his undying faith in Nigeria.


Dele Momodu has made it clear since then that he is very disenchanted with President Goodluck Jonathan. I have also noticed a strange and inexplicable streak of extreme radicalism in his ThisDay column in recent times, and I have had cause to call him to express my amazement. He is ordinarily right of centre, but he is gradually shifting to far left of centre. I confess to not being very certain about what could have caused this sudden shift to extremism by Bob Dee, but frustration, anger, mischief, misinformation, partisanship, and expediency have been suggested.


He fully advertised his “apostasy” in his piece titled “In Search of A Radical President” (Saturday, January 28). What was missing in that fallacy-laden analysis, as in most criticisms of President Jonathan, is a proper contextualization and deconstruction of the current Presidency. Momodu says the “fad in government today in Nigerian government circles is to label every critic as an enemy of government”. But there are truths and there are fallacies. What needs be noted is that President Jonathan does not consider any critic of his administration, an enemy.


President Jonathan, it must be remembered, signed the Freedom of Information Bill into law, whereas at least two Presidents before him demurred on the same issue. During the “removal of fuel subsidy” protests, the President repeatedly acknowledged the average Nigerian’s right to protest. He publicly declared that he is prepared to take unpopular decisions in the long term interest of Nigerians, at the risk of being abused in the short-term. The President’s conviction is that every Nigerian should enjoy the right to know, and the right to differ, and that Nigeria is a collective enterprise. He is a man who truly believes in the rule of law and the sovereignty of Nigeria.
However, when people talk about the disintegration of Nigeria, or regime change, it certainly bothers President Jonathan who rightly insists that he will not preside over a Nigeria that will disintegrate. The problematic in Momodu’s analysis is thus to be thrown back at its source. The true enemies of our country are the anarchists who insist that Nigerian must disintegrate. The real enemies of the Nigerian project are those who for opportunistic reasons seem to have resolved that they will not allow the present administration to have a moment of peace. Democracy yes; but anarchism, no. Where exactly does Momodu stand?


I go to the second level of Momodu’s very apparent discontent. This goes back to the circumstances of President Jonathan’s emergence as President: how he was the underdog without shoes that nobody gave a chance, the man that everyone including Professor Wole Soyinka, Pastor Tunde Bakare, the Save Nigeria Group and our very own Dele Momodu helped all the way to the throne, and now that he is there, he no longer remembers those who made him king! As Momodu puts it: “…we expected to see a President full of gratitude to man and God. We had hoped to have a radical President who would use his exalted position to correct the ills of our nation and heal our wounds…”


The sub-text of Momodu’s assertion is that too many people think Dr. Jonathan is President because of their own personal sacrifices, and Momodu makes that clear. And he is not alone. The attendant verbiage is like this: we fought for him to be President, when the Yar’Adua cabal did not want him; and he doesn’t seem to be showing us enough gratitude. Or the other face of it: he is using our term; if Yar’Adua had not died, he would not be President now. Or as the royalists put it: where is he coming from? How did we allow a minority to emerge as President?


Of course, the truth is that the essential Jonathan persona has not changed in any negative way since he assumed the mantle of national leadership. The President remains a perfect embodiment of humility who fully appreciates that it is a great privilege to be entrusted with the leadership of our great nation. He has certainly not forgotten the millions of ordinary Nigerians who voted to elect him and he constantly proclaims that God has been very kind to him. Nobody in Nigerian history has been so significantly historic, given the awakening of his emergence and its illustrative dimensions.


But he asks for one favour: the “shoe-givers” should allow him to walk with the shoes and effectively implement his agenda for national transformation. President Jonathan sincerely wants to transform Nigeria. They should allow him to do so. The most ardent critics have spoken about declining goodwill and declining legitimacy. The latter is fictitious because the legitimacy is real and incontrovertible; the former is contrived, and can only be redressed by the learning of appropriate lessons on both sides. President Jonathan has a four-year tenure; those who want his position should wait till the next election to stake their claims, and not seek to sabotage Nigeria for selfish reasons. Those are the enemies Dele Momodu should worry about.


He says “a true radical”, according to Abiola, is “a man who was ready to put his personal comfort at risk.” That is precisely what President Jonathan is doing. The Presidency of Nigeria is a difficult assignment: it is not easy to lead such elite “shoe-givers” mentioned by Dele Momodu. He has however, offered “a few tips free of charge” to make the task easier, albeit he is mostly preaching to the already converted. He says President Jonathan must cut budget and slash all salaries and allowances of public officers by at least 50 per cent. But that advice is belated and not very original. The President is already doing that and more to redirect national resources away from wasteful and unproductive expenditure to critical areas of national need such as power supply, infrastructure, education, healthcare, agricultural development and employment generation.


I give a personal testimony: before my arrival at this post, the Nigerian President used to travel abroad with a retinue of independent journalists. That has been slashed to just three under Jonathan and two weeks ago, I was asked to go and reduce that figure by 25 per cent. I still can’t figure out the calculation: 25 per cent of 3, translated into individual representation!


Dele Momodu adds that the President: “must stop all frivolous contracts and concentrate on revamping our disgraceful infrastructure”. Sir, President Jonathan is already doing so too. It may have escaped your notice, but he set up a high-powered committee months ago to review all contracts and on-going projects, and he is diligently implementing the recommendations of that committee. I was there when that committee first presented its report. It was a comment on Nigeria. President Jonathan has inherited projects that were awarded over 50 years ago, and that are still in progress! I have never seen him so incensed. Momodu should ask: Is this President being fought by “enemies” because he resolved publicly to change the order of things?


Momodu also wrote that “…Our ragtag police are begging for serious attention.” President Jonathan has said that much and has set up a Special Committee to do just that. Momodu says: “The Presidential Villa need not be a Saudi palace.” As anyone who has been to Saudi Arabia knows, it certainly is not. Momodu also says “All foreign travels must be kept to the most essential ones as determined by the Foreign Ministry.” Mr. President already said so, two weeks ago in a national broadcast and has since acted accordingly. “The biggest task before our President is how to cut waste and increase revenue at all levels,” Momodu adds. That is precisely what Mr. President is doing. In addition, he is fighting corruption, tackling Boko Haram, encouraging investment and the diversification of the economy.


Dele Momodu complains that “we are spending trillions of Naira every year without any visible progress.” Progress is being made, and President Jonathan is as much in a hurry as every Nigerian. President Jonathan understands the great historical opportunity that he has to make a difference, and he is not relying on luck but hard-work, diligence and dedication as well as the continued support of all truly patriotic Nigerians.


•Abati is Special Adviser to the President on Communication.





Remember Reuben

by DELE MOMODU


“Not every journalist begins his career with an entrée in the nature of a bang. Journalistic careers tend to take a long, and windy route of much obscurity and misfortune, rejection and despair, and then, slowly, and accidentally, the career takes an upswing and the journalist is made and born…Exceptions to this rule are rare…Dele Momodu whose book you are holding…qualify as one of such exceptions


“Momodu has proven to be one of those over-subscribed men who appear to be in all places at all times and capable of doing anything to the best of their abilities…”


That was my friend and brother, Dr Reuben Abati, Ph.D, writing an introduction to my unpublished book, DELE MOMODU, PENDULUM: essays, letters and columns, in 1997, while I was in exile in London, one clear year before Dr Goodluck Jonathan joined politics. As I remember the Reuben of those days, I weep for Nigeria.


Reuben remains for me one of the finest products of journalism, a man I foolishly thought would add some finesse to the lacklustre occupiers of Aso Rock Presidential Villa. But the Reuben I see today is a shadow, a pitiable sight, of the old Reuben. How else can I describe Reuben's crass crudity in his response to my last article, In Search of A Radical President? While I grant him the right of reply, it was cruel to have brought my dear and innocent wife, Mobolaji, into the whitewash of his boss.


I was aware he was under fire from everyone. His friends are grumbling aloud that this is not the Reuben they used to know. There are also rumblings from his employers that he was not pulling his weight and I have been one of his sympathisers. His employers are suspecting that he's worried for his battered reputation, and thinking he might dump them if the heat gets too hot. They need not worry because our friend has crossed the Rubicon. He's at a point of no return.


But why would Reuben ever drag my wife (a woman who had fed us all in our poverty-stricken days) in the mud? This is the only reason I'm responding to his diatribe. He knows in his heart that Nigerians are too smart to accept his assessment of Goodluck Jonathan. I expected a journalist and lawyer of his standing to check his facts but he was in a hurry to cast aspersions on my wife by subscribing to the rumour that she did not vote for me on election-day. Channels Television and BISCON Tv accompanied us to the voting centres and can bear witness to what happened that day. My wife and I voted in different Wards within the same school. Why won't a wife I married properly vote for me?


Beyond that, INEC recorded over 26,000 votes for me nationwide despite not having unrestricted access to public funds like Dr Abati's boss. I would want Reuben to tell the world if indeed he and his two wives voted for President Jonathan. I doubt it, unless he was a fake critic. I can't think of Obama's spokesman bringing the wife of a journalist into an argument. Is this what power does to otherwise sensible men? How would posterity remember Reuben? I guess: A man who voluntarily set fire to everything he ever wrote. Shame!

Remember Reuben

by DELE MOMODU


“Not every journalist begins his career with an entrée in the nature of a bang. Journalistic careers tend to take a long, and windy route of much obscurity and misfortune, rejection and despair, and then, slowly, and accidentally, the career takes an upswing and the journalist is made and born…Exceptions to this rule are rare…Dele Momodu whose book you are holding…qualify as one of such exceptions


“Momodu has proven to be one of those over-subscribed men who appear to be in all places at all times and capable of doing anything to the best of their abilities…”


That was my friend and brother, Dr Reuben Abati, Ph.D, writing an introduction to my unpublished book, DELE MOMODU, PENDULUM: essays, letters and columns, in 1997, while I was in exile in London, one clear year before Dr Goodluck Jonathan joined politics. As I remember the Reuben of those days, I weep for Nigeria.


Reuben remains for me one of the finest products of journalism, a man I foolishly thought would add some finesse to the lacklustre occupiers of Aso Rock Presidential Villa. But the Reuben I see today is a shadow, a pitiable sight, of the old Reuben. How else can I describe Reuben's crass crudity in his response to my last article, In Search of A Radical President? While I grant him the right of reply, it was cruel to have brought my dear and innocent wife, Mobolaji, into the whitewash of his boss.


I was aware he was under fire from everyone. His friends are grumbling aloud that this is not the Reuben they used to know. There are also rumblings from his employers that he was not pulling his weight and I have been one of his sympathisers. His employers are suspecting that he's worried for his battered reputation, and thinking he might dump them if the heat gets too hot. They need not worry because our friend has crossed the Rubicon. He's at a point of no return.


But why would Reuben ever drag my wife (a woman who had fed us all in our poverty-stricken days) in the mud? This is the only reason I'm responding to his diatribe. He knows in his heart that Nigerians are too smart to accept his assessment of Goodluck Jonathan. I expected a journalist and lawyer of his standing to check his facts but he was in a hurry to cast aspersions on my wife by subscribing to the rumour that she did not vote for me on election-day. Channels Television and BISCON Tv accompanied us to the voting centres and can bear witness to what happened that day. My wife and I voted in different Wards within the same school. Why won't a wife I married properly vote for me?


Beyond that, INEC recorded over 26,000 votes for me nationwide despite not having unrestricted access to public funds like Dr Abati's boss. I would want Reuben to tell the world if indeed he and his two wives voted for President Jonathan. I doubt it, unless he was a fake critic. I can't think of Obama's spokesman bringing the wife of a journalist into an argument. Is this what power does to otherwise sensible men? How would posterity remember Reuben? I guess: A man who voluntarily set fire to everything he ever wrote. Shame!

Dele Momodu's orginal article
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/ibb-quits-politics/108031/

In Search of A Radical President

Pendulum By Dele Momodu. Email, dele.momodu@thisdaylive.com

Fellow Nigerians, I’m amazed that the fad in Nigerian government circles today is to label every critic as an enemy of government. Please, permit me to speak for myself for now. I’m not an enemy of President Goodluck Jonathan. I have no reason to be. He did not engage me to demonstrate against the Yar’Adua cabal that did everything possible to prevent him from acting as President during the incapacitation of our former President. I had voluntarily queued behind some young Nigerians who marched confidently towards the National Assembly in Abuja. No one paid me before or after. And I will do it again, whether the person affected is from the North or South of Nigeria, or even a Nigerian of Mongolian descent. I believe we must rise above this pettiness of ethnic jingoism. My participation was, and would always be, on principle.


Dr Jonathan was the Vice President at that time, but I did not hear him or his cronies speak against the rallies that were organised by the Save Nigeria Group and the Enough-is-Enough crowd. I did not see soldiers and police officers shoot guns into the skies or fire tear-gas on eminent Nigerians. We were so sure those crude days of high-handedness were gone. As a matter of fact, Dr Jonathan rolled out the red carpet to activists like Professor Wole Soyinka and Pastor Tunde Bakare. I did not hear him call the demonstrators such odoriferous names like miscreants that my dear Sister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, chose to label us recently. It was cool then to risk our lives for a man we did not know bore any iota of dictatorial instincts. Even some Federal Government officials came out publicly to address the huge crowd made up of some Lagos celebrities. How easy it was to fool us into thinking a civilised government was about to be born in Nigeria.


For a man who claims to have suffered so much in life, and for someone who didn’t have to lift a finger to occupy the highest office in our country, we expected to see a President full of gratitude to man and God. We had hoped to have a radical President who would use his exalted position to correct the ills of our nation and heal our wounds. Again we were fooled. It is ok to be fooled once but when you are fooled a second time, you are a fool indeed. Our President wasted no time in showing that it was going to be business as usual. When asked if he would contest the Presidential election, his first body language was that of a disinterested person. As days climbed days and months mounted months, it was obvious the man was more than interested. He actually craved the high office, and very desperately for that matter.


President Jonathan dived into the Presidential race like a poor swimmer. His decision would soon split his political party down the line. It endangered our unity and divided us into North and South, because of an unproductive zoning formula that had been enshrined in their PDP Constitution by the godfathers, in order to perpetually rotate our commonwealth amongst themselves. The zoning arrangement was never about attracting development to the geo-political communities. It was all about wanton greed and unbridled selfishness. But that battle for the body and soul of Nigeria would be very costly. According to facts emerging from the sources, President Jonathan, figuratively, opened the vaults of our Central Bank to fund what has been described as the most expensive Presidential primary in the world. It was not a clash of the titans but now a clash of Dollars. Our politicians are no longer interested in Ghana-must-go bags.


If the money spent to win that war was atrocious enough, the amount spent to restore peace to the party was sinful. And it did not end there. Jonathan was fighting a battle of his life on all fronts. He had the most ubiquitous Presidential candidate, General Mohammadu Buhari, to contend with. It was Buhari’s third and, possibly, last attempt. And it was going to be a battle royale. Again, President Jonathan blew money as if it was going out of vogue. Fortunately for him, Nigeria was never a country where people worried about such prodigality. Many people trooped out to try and catch their own manna from heaven. In that season of giddiness, Jonathan became the quintessential Santa Claus. Everywhere he went, he made unusual promises that would be impossible to achieve in several lifetimes rolled into one, and it was incredible how otherwise intelligent people fell for those old tricks of politics.


The elections came and some of the results were predictable. The stage was well set for the coronation of the biggest spender in Nigeria’s chequered history. I did not waste time in accepting defeat. And even went on to offer my congratulations. I was deeply encouraged by examples from Ghana where President John Agyekum Kufuor contested three times before victory smiled at him. The incumbent President of Ghana, Professor John Evans Atta-Mills, also suffered the same ordeal three times before he eventually won the race. The story of America’s Abraham Lincoln was all too familiar.


It takes time to convince a nation of substantial doubters about the seriousness of any mission. When I came to live in Lagos in 1988, Chief Moshood Abiola was one of the most abused human beings in Nigeria. He was called names his parents did not give him by political opponents. He was even told, sarcastically, that the Presidency was not for sale. But the brilliant, and extremely generous man, must have been a good footballer. He knew that to score a penalty, you had to keep your focus totally on the ball and the net and not the crowd.


For me, the fact that I went all the way and did not blink was a great achievement. No one would ever doubt my good intentions and qualifications. I saw what the uninitiated would never see. I gained a wealth of experience, and a better knowledge of my country. So I had no reason to begrudge Jonathan. There is always the hand of fate in human journey. There would have been no Olusegun Obasanjo without Murtala Mohammed. There would have been no second coming of Olusegun Obasanjo without Moshood Abiola. There would have been no Umaru Musa Yar’Adua without his elder brother, Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and Olusegun Obasanjo. There would have been no Goodluck Jonathan but for Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.


Barely 48 hours ago, no one would have dreamt that five Governors would soon fall from grace to grass. Such is the way of God. There is always a reason for every situation. Who knows if God raised up Jonathan to keep Nigeria as one or to break it up. It took a Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev to change the history and configuration of the Soviet Union. Our own President Jonathan loves to call himself a transformer. Either for good or for bad, a transformation must lead us somewhere. Any discerning mind can see that Nigeria is headed in a direction I’m sure Jonathan himself did not contemplate. I had no doubts in my mind when such a man broke all of Nigeria’s political records in one fell swoop that God was up to something again. The ground was being prepared for our next leap into the orbit.


Anyone who has followed the stories of my life would attest to the fact that I have been in the struggle since the Ali-must-go days in 1978. I love my country with an uncommon passion. While I may not wear the looks of a typical radical, I have always been ruled by my conscience. It would have been easier to use my contacts to my personal advantage but I’m reasonably convinced that that alone would never guarantee my happiness. I have always chosen to speak on behalf of the voiceless. A true radical, according to Abiola, was a man who was ready to put his personal comfort at risk. The Soyinkas, Fawehinmis, Agbakobas, Falanas, Shehu Sanis, Joe Odumakins, and others have friends in high places but this did not stop them from speaking the truth. Our duty as citizens of Nigeria is to seek good governance and competent leadership.


A critic is not an enemy but a friend who keeps a smart leader in check. If the leader succeeds, all the glory would go to no one but the leader. How can those asking you to do the right things become your enemy? What I expect President Jonathan to do is to first transform his person before he can transform Nigeria. And I will give him a few tips, free of charge.


He must be ready to radically change the way government is run in Abuja. It starts from cutting our budget drastically. He must slash all salaries and allowances of public officers by at least 50 percent after a meeting with political leaders. He must stop all frivolous contracts and concentrate on revamping our disgraceful infrastructure. The Presidential fleet of aircrafts should not be expanded beyond what it is at the moment. Our Air Force needs all the money it can get to become the pride of our nation. It is the same with our Navy. Our armed forces in general parade very bright officers but are handicapped by lack of modern facilities and incentives. Our ragtag police are begging for serious attention.


The Presidential villa need not be a Saudi palace. It should be a place where we assemble our best brains to think through our complex problems. All foreign travels must be kept to the most essential ones as determined by the Foreign Ministry. The biggest task before our President is how to cut waste and increase revenue at all levels. I have had the great privilege of working in poorer African countries and can see how they are managing their poverty well. Why can’t we manage our own wealth to the benefit of our citizens? The President would do well to stop being a ceremonial leader. Let him jump in his jeans and shirt and go on the streets, and in the woods, to see reality first hand. He can study the life of Chairman Mao of China and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. The PDP way of doing things will never lead Nigeria to greatness. The road to greatness is always littered with thorns and pains. The jamboree in government must stop.


It is shameful that we are spending trillions of Naira every year without any visible progress. Nigerian politicians have no respect for money. We call figures that most calculators would find difficult to unravel. And yet we have nothing to show for it. That is the reason the anger of the people is turning violent. That is why the army of unemployed youths would find comfort in sleeping at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park endlessly. It is the only hope they can see. And government must protect their rights too. The recent crisis has thrown up fresh challenges, that if President Jonathan must succeed, and survive in power, he needs more than luck. He would have to demonstrate that the people of Nigeria would never be taken for granted again.

Radical kwo! Radical zo!

Abeg The Man na Fresh Fart!

or Fresh Mess according to my Igbo Brothers!

BetaThings:

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/jonathan-a-radical-president/108556/

By Reuben Abati

I started to worry when he suddenly decided he wanted to be President of Nigeria. A day after D-Day, the joke on Twitter, Facebook and online (the essential scourge of our time) was that Dele Momodu got only one vote at the polling booth in his ward, and that even his wife who followed him to the polling booth voted for someone else - Goodluck Jonathan, most probably.


, but frustration, anger, mischief, misinformation, partisanship, and expediency have been suggested.


President Jonathan, it must be remembered, signed the Freedom of Information Bill into law, whereas at least two Presidents before him demurred on the same issue. During the “removal of fuel subsidy” protests, the President repeatedly acknowledged the average Nigerian’s right to protest. He publicly declared that he is prepared to take unpopular decisions in the long term interest of Nigerians, at the risk of being abused in the short-term.

The true enemies of our country are the anarchists who insist that Nigerian must disintegrate.

we fought for him to be President, when the Yar’Adua cabal did not want him; and he doesn’t seem to be showing us enough gratitude. Or the other face of it: he is using our term; if Yar’Adua had not died, he would not be President now. Or as the royalists put it: where is he coming from? How did we allow a minority to emerge as President?


The President remains a perfect embodiment of humility who fully appreciates that it is a great privilege to be entrusted with the leadership of our great nation. Nobody in Nigerian history has been so significantly historic, given the awakening of his emergence and its illustrative dimensions.


But he asks for one favour: the “shoe-givers” should allow him to walk with the shoes and effectively implement his agenda for national transformation. President Jonathan sincerely wants to transform Nigeria. They should allow him to do so. The most ardent critics have spoken about declining goodwill and declining legitimacy. The latter is fictitious because the legitimacy is real and incontrovertible; the former is contrived, and can only be redressed by the learning of appropriate lessons on both sides. President Jonathan has a four-year tenure; those who want his position should wait till the next election to stake their claims, and not seek to sabotage Nigeria for selfish reasons.


He says President Jonathan must cut budget and slash all salaries and allowances of public officers by at least 50 per cent. But that advice is belated and not very original.  The President is already doing that and more to redirect national resources away from wasteful and unproductive expenditure to critical areas of national need such as power supply, infrastructure, education, healthcare, agricultural development and employment generation.


the Nigerian President used to travel abroad with a retinue of independent journalists. That has been slashed to just three under Jonathan and two weeks ago, I was asked to go and reduce that figure by 25 per cent. I still can’t figure out the calculation: 25 per cent of 3, translated into individual representation!


It may have escaped your notice, but he set up a high-powered committee months ago to review all contracts and on-going projects, and he is diligently implementing the recommendations of that committee.  


Momodu also wrote that “…Our ragtag police are begging for serious attention.” President Jonathan has said that much and has set up a Special Committee to do just that.

Dele Momodu complains that “we are spending trillions of Naira every year without any visible progress.” Progress is being made, and President Jonathan is as much in a hurry as every Nigerian.

At least 2 presidents on FOI Bill. Who were these? Obj declined it, but it was never passed to Yaradua
Indeed, a president who came into office by popular protest under doctrine of necessity could not say no to FOI Bill a month before election
Just like he did not say no to min wage bill just before the election, but has he paid the min wage?

How many people are saying this country must split?