IS THE ERA OF ESTHERS ABOUT TO END?

KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE

With REMI AKANO

e-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com

Somebody please tell me that this is all a nightmare, a bad dream from which I shall soon shake awake! Somebody, please rouse me from this troubled sleep!! How is it that a nation that’s having the wonderful experience of the era of the “Esthers” is, all of a sudden, being told that it’s all over, before the “Josephs” are ready? How distressing.

Many years ago, the late and (according to me) great Dr Edwin Louis Cole, founder of the Christian Men’s Network, was visiting one of the countries of Southern Africa (cannot readily remember which, now). A group of people had been praying fervently, seeking the face of the Lord for change in their land. Finally, the word came. And it went something like this: “there have been the days of the “Esthers”; now is the era of the “Josephs”. Put very simply, even simplistically, there are those moments in the life of a people when deliverance comes through the womenfolk, but it does come to an end and the men take their place, once again at the head of the table.

As I follow, with amazement the tragi-comedy playing out at the Federal House of Representatives over the award of contracts for the official residence of Madam Speaker, the Honourable Mrs Patricia Olubunmi Etteh and her deputy, I found myself musing: Is it all over; is the era of the Esthers over; so soon; so unceremoniously; so prematurely; and most unhappily of all, before the Josephs are ready?

Esther, for those who might need reminding, was the Jewish orphan girl in the Bible who, under the tutelage of Mordecai, her elderly cousin, became Queen at the imperial court of King Darius of Persia. She was the mother of Cyrus, the commander of the Persian armies. She earned her place in history as the brave young queen who risked her life to deliver the Jews from imminent genocide (please read the Book of Esther). Joseph, on the other hand was the dreamer boy who became prime minister of Egypt against great odds (see Genesis Chapter 37, 40 & 41).

As I implied on this page last week, Nigeria is a nation in search of men; men who have grown out of self-centred maleness into strong Christ-like manhood. That is the explanation for the domination of our national space by a certain crop of women who, like Queen Esther, stuck out their dainty necks in the service of fatherland.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala shone like a million stars, managing the finances of this nation with a certain clarity of direction and an eye on international best practices. Were she anything but a lady of integrity, you can guess what her fate would have been when she finally fell out with the “king.” Instead of becoming Nigeria’s first female Foreign Minister, she would have been guest of Nuhu Ribadu and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Not even Chief Gani Fawehinmi, who fought and won a legal battle against her Diaspora-Fund funded dollar denominated salary, has had anything negative against her person and character.

Obiageli Ezekwesili was, for the most part, the woman with all the difficult jobs. Madam Due Process, as she became popularly known, had to step on several, possibly hundreds of giant toes in her foray into the forbidden territory of price monitoring and ensuring value for each contract-Naira. Recall how she repackaged and branded a vibrant and attractive product out of a dull, drab and unproductive, but rich solid mineral sector of our national economy. Brand MSMD will hopefully never return to the bad old pre-Oby years. And even if she did dive into controversial waters at the Ministry of Education, none could doubt her zeal and passion for change; change for development.

Esther (yes one of them was really so named) Nenadi Usman held her own, first as Minister of State under Okonjo-Iweala and later as her own “man” at the Federal Ministry of Finance. Remember the courageous disclosures about increase in foreign exchange transfers as soon as governors received allocations from the federation account. How the governors sought to skin her alive!

Professor Dora Akunyili, easily the long distance runner is still around. Veteran of many battles and winner of all, she stands tall, an Amazon in the battle against one of the best organized crime syndicates in Nigeria - fake and adulterated medicine importers and manufacturers. It is to her integrity that she owes her continued survival in office. For, were she to have a price, this international syndicate of death purveyors would have paid it.

Ifueko Omogui is also still holding sway at the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), restructuring, re-orientating and also, building a brand. So is Irene Chigbue whose success has been relatively modest at the Bureau of Public Enterprises. And I dare mention the calmness and relative dignity with which Remi Oyo carried out her task as spokesperson for a boss unknown for civility! She stood out of a crowd of uncouth and acerbic mouthpieces, conveying Obasanjo’s views without denigrating the opposition unnecessarily and assaulting our sensibilities. It was indeed an era of the Esthers and even the men couldn’t but applaud and ask for more.

Clearly, it is to these women, rather than to her two hardly distinguished terms at the House of Representatives that Madam Speaker owes her election, some say selection as presiding officer of the lower house of the National Assembly and Nigeria’s Number Four citizen. And it is therefore in her ability to walk in the same integrity and character that her position’s tenability would generally be appraised.

But see what we have playing out (by the time you read this, it would most probably have played to a kind of dénouement). Madam Speaker, according to her accusers, approved a certain amount of money for the renovation of her official residence and that of her deputy. They put the figure at N628million. The National Assembly bureaucracy says the project was an upgrade, not a renovation, and that the figure was N591million not N628million. Madam Speaker says the figure is far lower at just over N200 million and in any case she and her deputy would have spent that much on hotel expenses were she to be as profligate and unmindful of the ordinary man as her opponents are making her out to be.

Her opponents say the contract award did not follow due process. She says it did. In passing, perhaps Mrs Ezekwesili should be recalled from her desk at the World Bank to decide who’s right on this score. The Honourable Idoko-led panel established to investigate the issue has been inundated with tons of documents and plenty of sometimes sanctimonious or condemnatory; sometimes forthright or evasive verbiage from witnesses at its public sittings. The panel members have also had the privilege of ringside tickets to one of the most thrilling mixed-grill physical combats in recent times. It was a combination of boxing, kick-boxing and wrestling. Fela would have called it “roforofo fight”, I call it legislative madness. They say they have expunged it from their records and so it did not happen! Thank God, that even if they were to, commando-style, have the tapes seized from the various television stations, they cannot expunge it from our memories.

But, I digress. From the belated rebuttals coming from the speaker’s office, Mrs Patricia Etteh obviously thinks this is a fight for her political life and to some extent, it is. But I think it is much more than that. She needs to ask herself a number of soul-searching questions. Is she totally innocent of the crime she’s being accused of? I mean, was she advised by some brilliant do-gooder to save the nation over N200million Naira from hotel expenses and make a bit of it for herself in the process; thus making a name and a nest-egg? Did she make any promises to those who glowingly eulogized her at nomination, and once in office decide it wasn’t the correct thing to do? What bargains did she make to clinch the office?

These questions and many more go to the heart of some of the things I have been saying on this page. One, that every Christian in public office must live their Christianity to the full, not partially. That is to say the Christian must literally wear the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) wristlet, so that in every situation, in taking any decision, the question rings in his or her heart. What would Jesus have done? Yet if the Church leaves her members to be sponsored to office by people who do not share the values of true Christian living, it will come at a price, the price of compromise. And I have also said that the organized bodies of the Church have a pivotal role to play in this.

I shall refrain from making any pronouncements over Madam Speaker’s culpability or innocence, but there are those, like the writer of this joke, who have: “Epitaph: Here lies the remains of an e-speaker, digital hairdresser, analog friend of baba, 3-terms representative of her people and patriot of the next century who saved her country the ordeal of having to pay the statutorily allowed N2.09345794392million per day in a hotel but chose to renovate and upgrade her official residence for only N238,852, 192.90. She came, saw nothing, said nothing, did nothing. There will be two verdicts: the verdict of the House and the verdict of the people (CyberschuulNewsJoke).

Contrast that with this extract from Madam Speaker’s inaugural speeches: “…I solemnly pledge not to disappoint you. I promise, from the bottom of my heart, to serve with God‘s wisdom, the people of Nigeria and ensure a strong House…My vision is to provide leadership for a re-invigorated legislature that will be responsible and responsive to the yearnings of Nigerians… Let us fasten our seat belts as the flight of the sixth House of Representative of the Fourth Republic of the Federal Republic of Nigeria takes off. By the grace of God, we shall arrive safely at an economically prosperous, politically peaceful and progressive destination”

That’s why I am musing: Is the era of the Esthers unraveling so soon?