•Dr. Jonathan
DR
Reuben Abati, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to former
president, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, has been expressing great anger
at Chief Edwin Clark, his principal’s self-appointed godfather, over the
godfather’s apparent denunciation of his godson recently. In a well
publicised article last week, Abati said he couldn’t believe it when he
first read remarks by Clark that Jonathan was a good man except that he
seemed incapable of fighting corruption.
“I have,” he said in the opening sentence of his article, “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”.
Instead of a disclaimer by Clark, Abati said, “the old man” has been joined by “some Ijaw voices” in denouncing a president they had “defended to the hilt” for all these years. “If,” he said, “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.”
Abati is absolutely right to denounce Clark and Company as ingrates – as friends who deserted a man when he needed them most. But Abati is equally wrong to blame only Clark and Company for their show of ingratitude. Truth be told, his principal must accept a greater share of the blame.
Abati was also wrong to say their ingratitude is “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.” This patently snide remark, obviously targeted at President Muhammadu Buhari’s triumphant coalition with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in March’s presidential election, exposes Abati as harbouring a bitter grudge over his boss’ loss. More importantly, it also suggests that for all his education, Abati is among many otherwise highly educated people who subscribe to the nonsensical but successful propaganda that only those from certain sections of this country believe they are born to rule. I’ll return to this subject next week, God willing.
Meantime consider an adage in Hausa which says “Ba’a mugun sarki sai mugun bafade,”
which translates literally as “there is no bad king, only a bad
courtier.” This is one adage I have always considered essentially, if
not absolutely, untenable. For me it is no more than an attempt by the
society to shield its leaders from the bad consequences of their bad
leadership. After all, as another, and for me a much more tenable, adage
goes, “show me your friends and I’ll show you who you are.”
Abati may be right to denounce Clark for denouncing his godson in his hour of need. However, as Abati knows all too well, Jonathan chose Clark, not the other way round. In other words, when Clark unilaterally claimed the godfatherhood of Jonathan, the man had a choice not to acquiesce. Ditto with all those who claimed they were his friends and arch defenders.
Power, Jonathan should have learnt from the lesson of History, is the absolute aphrodisiac, as Henry Kissinger, the world’s greatest modern-day diplomat, once said. As president of the biggest country in Africa and one of the world’s most naturally endowed, Jonathan ought to have known that few of those who flocked around him and swore by his name, day in day out, did so out of conviction. On the contrary, most of them did so for what they thought they would get out of him.
You can blame the Clarks of this world for using half-truths and barefaced lies to get the man’s ears. But you cannot blame them for his inability to distinguish between truths and their pretences. The man can have only himself to blame for believing their half-truths and barefaced lies that the vast majority of Nigerians were happy and satisfied with his handling of their country’s political economy all these years, and that any claim that there was widespread disaffection with his rule was the creation of a few disgruntled elements.
However, even as Abati is right to condemn the Clarks of this world for being fair-weather friends, he ought to know that there are others even more deserving of his anger than Clark and Company. Worse than the Clarks of this world who make no pretence at being apolitical are those who claim they are technocrats whose only concern is to get things done, regardless of the politics of those they work for.
The fact is that their pretences at being apolitical notwithstanding, these so-called technocrats, especially those we employ from abroad, are past masters at camouflaging their personal interests with the public interest.
The most obvious case here is Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who former President Olusegun Obasanjo first employed as Finance minister from the World Bank during his second term, until they fell apart towards the end of his tenure and she had to return to her old employers. Then after his 2011 victory at the polls, Jonathan re-engaged her and this time gave her at least nominal control over the economy as Co-ordinating minister, in clear breach of the Constitution, which vested the supervision of the economy in the vice-presidency.
Under both Obasanjo and Jonathan, the lady from the World Bank carried on as if she did Nigeria a favour by leaving her job to come home and serve her country. “I don’t think,” she once angrily retorted to a BBC interviewer who had asked her if the cases of widespread corruption in Nigeria were not damaging to her reputation, “my reputation is under threat and to imply otherwise is distinctly wrong. I know what I’m doing. I know why I’m here. It would be very easy for me to sit at the World Bank and earn a nice salary and criticise. I gave up a comfortable career to come here and do my bit because I recognise that nobody but us Nigerians can clean it up.”
Her most singular achievement under Obasanjo was to have helped secure the so-called debt relief of $18 billion – so-called if only because the whole debt of $30billion was questionable to begin with, as several leading economists, including the late Prof. Sam Aluko, had pointed out, and because the onerous terms of paying $12 billion at a go for a country with an annual budget a quarter that amount, was unprecedented. In any case the debt relief made little or no difference to the dismal life of the ordinary citizens of the country. If anything, their lot got even worse.
However, that achievement did raise Okonjo-Iweala’s profile abroad because it served the interest of International Capital, her real masters.
Under Jonathan her most singular achievement was to rebase our economy, making it the No. 1 in Africa, ahead of South Africa’s the hitherto No. 1. As with the debt relief, the rebasing made little or no meaning to the lives of ordinary citizens. Even then Jonathan celebrated it as one of his greatest achievements for which he deserved re-election.
In spite of the fact that the lives of Nigerians have only worsened under Okonjo-Iweala’s supervision of the economy and in spite of the fact that Nigeria has never witnessed the degree of corruption it did under Jonathan, with little or no protest from the lady, all she has received from abroad are accolades in the form of honorary degrees from Ivy League universities, and more recently, appointments from blue-chip companies abroad. It’s not hard to imagine how the opposite would have been her fate if she were the minister of finance of some Western country whose economy had done as badly as Nigeria’s in recent times.
It is interesting that even the man she has so ill-served by not having the courage to tell him how bad things were, has since joined in her praise-singing, even congratulating her for apparently serving the interest of her masters abroad and friends at home – think of all the generous billions of dollars of waivers to importers for all sorts of junks which she gave out as finance minister – better than those of her country.
“I have no doubt in my mind,” the former president said the other day, “that you would excel in the two assignments, given your past excellent service both in Nigeria and internationally.” Jonathan was, of course referring to her recent appointment as a senior adviser in Lazard, an American investment bank, and as chair of Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI).
The contrast between Jonathan’s (indirect?) condemnation of his erstwhile godfather through his spokesman and his praise for his former finance minister couldn’t have been sharper. Yet, the minister served him not anymore truthfully and faithfully than the godfather.
Hopefully, the lesson of all this would not be lost on President Muhammadu Buhari as he prepares to form his cabinet.
ref: http://thenationonlineng.net/jonathans-fair-weather-friends-i/
“I have,” he said in the opening sentence of his article, “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”.
Instead of a disclaimer by Clark, Abati said, “the old man” has been joined by “some Ijaw voices” in denouncing a president they had “defended to the hilt” for all these years. “If,” he said, “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.”
Abati is absolutely right to denounce Clark and Company as ingrates – as friends who deserted a man when he needed them most. But Abati is equally wrong to blame only Clark and Company for their show of ingratitude. Truth be told, his principal must accept a greater share of the blame.
Abati was also wrong to say their ingratitude is “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.” This patently snide remark, obviously targeted at President Muhammadu Buhari’s triumphant coalition with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in March’s presidential election, exposes Abati as harbouring a bitter grudge over his boss’ loss. More importantly, it also suggests that for all his education, Abati is among many otherwise highly educated people who subscribe to the nonsensical but successful propaganda that only those from certain sections of this country believe they are born to rule. I’ll return to this subject next week, God willing.
Abati may be right to denounce Clark for denouncing his godson in his hour of need. However, as Abati knows all too well, Jonathan chose Clark, not the other way round. In other words, when Clark unilaterally claimed the godfatherhood of Jonathan, the man had a choice not to acquiesce. Ditto with all those who claimed they were his friends and arch defenders.
Power, Jonathan should have learnt from the lesson of History, is the absolute aphrodisiac, as Henry Kissinger, the world’s greatest modern-day diplomat, once said. As president of the biggest country in Africa and one of the world’s most naturally endowed, Jonathan ought to have known that few of those who flocked around him and swore by his name, day in day out, did so out of conviction. On the contrary, most of them did so for what they thought they would get out of him.
You can blame the Clarks of this world for using half-truths and barefaced lies to get the man’s ears. But you cannot blame them for his inability to distinguish between truths and their pretences. The man can have only himself to blame for believing their half-truths and barefaced lies that the vast majority of Nigerians were happy and satisfied with his handling of their country’s political economy all these years, and that any claim that there was widespread disaffection with his rule was the creation of a few disgruntled elements.
However, even as Abati is right to condemn the Clarks of this world for being fair-weather friends, he ought to know that there are others even more deserving of his anger than Clark and Company. Worse than the Clarks of this world who make no pretence at being apolitical are those who claim they are technocrats whose only concern is to get things done, regardless of the politics of those they work for.
The fact is that their pretences at being apolitical notwithstanding, these so-called technocrats, especially those we employ from abroad, are past masters at camouflaging their personal interests with the public interest.
The most obvious case here is Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who former President Olusegun Obasanjo first employed as Finance minister from the World Bank during his second term, until they fell apart towards the end of his tenure and she had to return to her old employers. Then after his 2011 victory at the polls, Jonathan re-engaged her and this time gave her at least nominal control over the economy as Co-ordinating minister, in clear breach of the Constitution, which vested the supervision of the economy in the vice-presidency.
Under both Obasanjo and Jonathan, the lady from the World Bank carried on as if she did Nigeria a favour by leaving her job to come home and serve her country. “I don’t think,” she once angrily retorted to a BBC interviewer who had asked her if the cases of widespread corruption in Nigeria were not damaging to her reputation, “my reputation is under threat and to imply otherwise is distinctly wrong. I know what I’m doing. I know why I’m here. It would be very easy for me to sit at the World Bank and earn a nice salary and criticise. I gave up a comfortable career to come here and do my bit because I recognise that nobody but us Nigerians can clean it up.”
Her most singular achievement under Obasanjo was to have helped secure the so-called debt relief of $18 billion – so-called if only because the whole debt of $30billion was questionable to begin with, as several leading economists, including the late Prof. Sam Aluko, had pointed out, and because the onerous terms of paying $12 billion at a go for a country with an annual budget a quarter that amount, was unprecedented. In any case the debt relief made little or no difference to the dismal life of the ordinary citizens of the country. If anything, their lot got even worse.
However, that achievement did raise Okonjo-Iweala’s profile abroad because it served the interest of International Capital, her real masters.
Under Jonathan her most singular achievement was to rebase our economy, making it the No. 1 in Africa, ahead of South Africa’s the hitherto No. 1. As with the debt relief, the rebasing made little or no meaning to the lives of ordinary citizens. Even then Jonathan celebrated it as one of his greatest achievements for which he deserved re-election.
In spite of the fact that the lives of Nigerians have only worsened under Okonjo-Iweala’s supervision of the economy and in spite of the fact that Nigeria has never witnessed the degree of corruption it did under Jonathan, with little or no protest from the lady, all she has received from abroad are accolades in the form of honorary degrees from Ivy League universities, and more recently, appointments from blue-chip companies abroad. It’s not hard to imagine how the opposite would have been her fate if she were the minister of finance of some Western country whose economy had done as badly as Nigeria’s in recent times.
It is interesting that even the man she has so ill-served by not having the courage to tell him how bad things were, has since joined in her praise-singing, even congratulating her for apparently serving the interest of her masters abroad and friends at home – think of all the generous billions of dollars of waivers to importers for all sorts of junks which she gave out as finance minister – better than those of her country.
“I have no doubt in my mind,” the former president said the other day, “that you would excel in the two assignments, given your past excellent service both in Nigeria and internationally.” Jonathan was, of course referring to her recent appointment as a senior adviser in Lazard, an American investment bank, and as chair of Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI).
The contrast between Jonathan’s (indirect?) condemnation of his erstwhile godfather through his spokesman and his praise for his former finance minister couldn’t have been sharper. Yet, the minister served him not anymore truthfully and faithfully than the godfather.
Hopefully, the lesson of all this would not be lost on President Muhammadu Buhari as he prepares to form his cabinet.
ref: http://thenationonlineng.net/jonathans-fair-weather-friends-i/
No comments:
Post a Comment