Much Ado About Our President

PRESIDENT UMARU MUSA YAR'ADUA

If the Nigerian rumour mill were to be a wealthy human being, resourceful Nigerian lawyers would have by now grossed billions in pay offs and commissions from litigations instituted by aggrieved individuals. But since Mr. Rumour is so faceless, it gets away with practically every crime and injury known to law. Law enforcement agencies are impotent in reining in this fellow, even when it can be conclusively proven that he has, single-handedly, assassinated our president several times since the man relocated from Katsina to Abuja.

The nightmare began in 2007 when Yar’Adua took time off electioneering campaign to embark on a medical trip to Germany. Nigerians were promptly informed that the man had already expired in the land of Martin Luther. It would take a full comedy show titled "Umoru Neva Die" by the then departing President Olusegun Obasanjo for Nigerians to know that their most patronised news medium had duped them once more.

In spite of this, Nigerians have been unrelenting in their patronage of the same discredited news medium. At least twice in the course of the last two years, Nigerians have had cause to exchange desperate phone calls to either spread or authenticate yet another outlandish story of the President’s death. It was quite easy to blame the information management machinery of The Presidency for the first eruption but this time, the State House made sufficient disclosures. Rather than help deactivate the rumour mill, the new approach by The Presidency has provided ammunition for those who do not see anything wrong with exploiting the President’s health to achieve political mileage.

There were also those who unilaterally reached some conclusions and proceeded to attack the president for daring to be sick in office. There were at least two of such columnists who declared that the only way Nigeria could survive the President’s ailment was for him to abdicate office and transfer power to his deputy. If he fails to do so, one publisher /columnist wrote "it is clear even at this point that Umaru has to step aside and let the country move on. If no one in the National Assembly has the spine and love of country to tell him this, then let us all troop to Turai and beg her to get her husband to go home."

What could possibly have happened to our humanity? How callous could we get? What is it about power that robs even those of us who are far away even from its corridors, of our sense and spirit of empathy? One female Editor/Columnist actually said unless the President vacates power for his deputy anything could as well happen to him. "Jonathan, therefore, should be allowed to take over...unless that happens, I will not lose sleep over the President’s health. Since he is unconcerned about the nation’s well being, why should I be about his health?"

Perhaps some of these commentaries have been orchestrated to bring the vice -president into collision with the President by enemies of the administration. The last two writers reviewed here for instance have at one time or the other been employees and personal friends of certain notorious adversaries of the government. If these people are using the media to achieve a crack in The Presidency, they will have to work harder because they will first contend with Jonathan’s profile of loyalty to superiors.

Who can forget so soon how solidly he had backed Governor DSP Alamieyesiegha even when it was obvious that the man was finished? Compare this to other deputy governors whose principals faced the same situation in Oyo, Ekiti, Plateau, Anambra, and you will see how decent the vice president could be.

It is certainly curious that the media vitriolic and morbid analyses are coinciding with the now open calls by certain opposition parties and hostile groups for the President to either step down or be evicted from office. In less than one week of his absence, the joint effort of this rancorous persons has simulated such a mass hysteria that the unsuspecting will be duped into believing that Nigeria was doomed for anarchy unless Yar’Adua abdicates office and does so immediately.

But beyond the emotions and partisanship that have been employed to blur the issues, the real facts on the ground do not agree with the horrifying scenario being scripted. Yes the President is ill, but officially this is the second time in two years that he is excusing himself to travel and attend to his health. The records show that in the two years under review, he has attended to all his duties and played his roles as much as had been humanly possible.

All through the period, Yar’Adua had endured long hours of presiding over Federal Executive Council (FEC) and Council of State meetings; he had conducted practically every presidential ceremony required of him including attending to foreign leaders and envoys. Of course these do not by any means exhaust presidential duties, but at least they are the most physical aspect of his occupation.

Those who now claim the President’s health has been an obstacle to the performance of his duty should be gracious enough to furnish Nigerians with empirical details of his failures, omissions and other role strains which is associated with the so called ill health. It is not enough to just declare that the president cannot fall sick. What is important is if his health has in anyway impeded his abilities. In the course of the two years under review there are several Nigerians who have had to abandon their jobs to seek medical help and are still keeping the same jobs.

History is however replete with leaders of nations who served creditably even when they were considered infirm. Great American Presidents like Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Franklyn Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and even Ronald Reagan suffered varying degrees of debilitating illnesses while prevailing over the World’s most important nation. So also did Vladimir Lenin of Russia, and Presidents Pompidou and Francois Mitterrand of France. These gentlemen remained among the best leaders their countries have ever produced. As a matter of fact Roosevelt spent his entire tenure in the wheel chair!

But here we have a full functioning man who deploys his entire sense organs effectively but just happens to suffer from a condition like most other mortals and desperate people are asking us to declare him an invalid in the name of politics. Unfortunately for these people the President will undergo his treatment and return to office notwithstanding how loud they shout. It’s either they wait to do battle with him once more at the polls in 2011 or they simply give the rest of us a breathing space. The callous plot to manipulate Yar’Adua’s health for political advantage has failed, miserably.

Falola lives in Abuja