KPerspective June 17, 2007
KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
with Remi Akano
e-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com
Dear Mr President. I know I have your permission to dispense with all the fawning genuflections that I understand you find a bit irritating in spite of your aristocratic pedigree. I sense too that you must have had so much to read and listen to about your divine call to lead Nigeria to some kind of Promised Land. All of which, is the lot of men of power, men in position to dispense largess. Your predecessor was reputed to have loved that particular perquisite of office so much that some cynical wit complained about the “babarisation” of governance.
This notwithstanding, I shall be in denial, were I to fail to acknowledge your reputation for frugality, incorruptibility and general decency for which I truly count among your admirers. I might even say that at NTP (normal temperature and pressure; if you permit my recourse to the language of science) you would be my idea of a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. You sure come across like a breath of fresh air after the suffocating stuffiness of the recent past.
But these are not normal times in our nation. These are indeed times which, as the cliché goes, try the souls of men; men who have not sold their souls to the devil, that is. And I am sure you know what I am talking about: the gargantuan nature of the evil perpetrated in the name of election and democracy by those who decided to put you in office at all costs. You couldn’t have forgotten the do-or-die characterization of that exercise, could you?
It is against this background that I have had the unpleasant task of alluding to you in some not-so-flattering manner on this page. On one occasion I described you as a “reasonably good builder (being contracted) to build on quicksand…” On another, I raised the question: “Should we be encouraging a man who admits to being in possession of stolen goods to enjoy the loot, just because he seems a decent man enough to begin the process of making stealing more difficult in future?”
In this latter connection, certain newspaper reports have left many of your admirers, including this writer, wondering whether amnesia is already setting in about the status of the last election – within so short a time. A newspaper report of your interview with TIME magazine said that you “argued that contrary to the claim by some foreign media, his election had no credibility problem,” and quoted you as follows: “Elections in Nigeria have never been without problems. We have made a commitment to review the electoral process. We are keen to correct some of the inadequacies that have created problems for our elections, but I am absolutely certain I was duly and fairly elected.”
It is easy to spot the difference between this and your earlier statement at inauguration in which you stated: “We acknowledge that our elections had some shortcomings. Thankfully, we have well-established legal avenues of redress, and I urge anyone aggrieved to pursue them. I also believe that our experiences represent an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Accordingly, I will set up a panel to examine the entire electoral process with a view to ensuring that we raise the quality and standard of our general elections, and thereby deepen our democracy.”
Revisionism, my dear President, will only chip at your integrity bit by bit until only something skimpy is left; which God forbid.
These lead me to the real substance of this letter. Permit me to explain sir that this column’s modus operandi is to examine issues from the lens of the word of God as contained in the bible. Because you are a Moslem, I was reluctant to engage with you on this platform, but then I remembered that you cannot be averse to listening to the Kingdom perspective of things since you had the grace to visit one or two men of God in the run-down to the elections. As for whether you’ll feel obliged to run your government the scriptural way, I thought that with Dr Goodluck Jonathan as your assistant, the bible cannot but get the occasional look-in.
The matter at hand, Mr President is how to exercise the highly disputed mandate that you have in your custody. You see sir; the history of our nation has shown that we have so far built our political house on the quicksand of electoral fraud and manipulations and watered it with the blood of very many innocent citizens. In 1999, it was tolerated out of the expediency of getting the military off our backs. In 2003, the extent of the fraud was so benumbing that only a few people with doubtful democratic credentials saw the need for protest. Somebody characterized what happened in 2003 as the plight of a woman who having found herself in a position where rape had become inevitable wisely decided to derive whatever fun she could from it! 2007 therefore became more brazen; more dastardly; more violent. So bad was it that even our acquaintances were ashamed for us!
Now, an edifice, any edifice built on a weak foundation cannot stand. And there is no weaker foundation to build upon than that of evil! No matter how hard we try, it is bound to unravel someday. As one wise man has said, no matter how long you have travelled, no matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
Mr President, I know you do not lack for advice and advisers. Many of them would be well-meaning too. But as my senior pastor, Dr Tunde Joda would say, you can be sincere, but sincerely wrong. I also know that many of them, clergy men from both Christianity and your own faith not excluded, would be self serving. It is not unheard of. Ask Dr Jonathan, examples abound in the bible. A classical one featured two kings, Jehoshaphat of Judah and Ahab of Israel who desirous of guidance on a planned expedition invited all the prophets they could assemble. All but one of them saw the truth and spoke the truth. He got a jail sentence for his effort but Ahab did not survive the war (see 2 Kings 22). Mr President, beware who you listen to! A simple rule of thumb in this matter for those who are yet to sell out to that intellectual hocus pocus called relativism is this: “…Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good “ (Romans 12:9).
Now to the vexed issue of the real way forward. Some have suggested an Interim National Government. This has been shot down by those who equate it with military president Ibrahim Babangida’s disingenuously constructed booby trap. According to those who argue this way, if it goes by the same name, it must have the same content and end up the same way! Many of this same people say that the ING has no place in our constitution. How simplistic! In a particularly disappointing intervention, a respected constitutional law teacher and columnist, writing in a respected newspaper on two different occasions hid his personal preferences under so much intellectual verbiage and ended up speaking from both sides of the mouth. ING, goes his argument cannot hold because it is unknown to our constitution which is our grundnorm. Then faced with examining whether Nigeria as was being run could be described as a constitutional democracy, he deadpanned: not quite! Now this later is the truth, the unemotional truth that must guide our search for solution to the existing situation.
A time like this calls for men; leaders with vision, able to see beyond self and own-group interests. The Lord Jesus Christ, who for us Christians, is the model (or ought to be) is the best known example of true leadership. He gave up himself for the good of mankind. In the men’s ministry in which I am deeply involved, it is said that “manhood and Christ-likeness are synonymous”. And believe me it is true. You have to resort to self sacrifice in this matter.
One of the Lord’s counsels, which I consider appropriate, in this case reads: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain” (Matthew 5:41). To appreciate the import of this advice one needs to understand that at the time Jesus was speaking it was customary for soldiers of the Roman colonial army to randomly pick a Jew on his way to work or wherever and order him to carry his bag for the next mile. It was mandatory.
Mr President, you may not agree with me, but everything you have announced as your plans; an inclusive government, electoral reforms and even your promise of servant-leadership which the method of your election negates conceptually all belong in the first compulsory mile. They are the minimum made inevitable by the manner of your arrival in the saddle. You must now take the voluntary next mile.
You must now voluntarily go out of your way to vigorously work for restructuring of this blighted federation. Our current constitution is faulty; it is a rickety foundation built upon evil and sustained by evil and can lead us nowhere. You must find it in yourself to engage with civil society, the opposition and conscientious elements in the international community to put something more concrete, more enduring in place. You must do it quickly; within the shortest possible time, possibly within 18 months. We can then hold fresh elections. If the new arrangement allows you to run and you wish to, I am sure your people will give a clean mandate. On the other hand, if the new arrangement excludes you or you decide not to run, you would not have been the longest serving President in Nigeria, but you would be her greatest. Think on these things, Mr President.
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