Yar’Adua: Ali And The Angel

PHOTO: NIGERIAN PRESIDENT UMARU YAR'ADUA AND WIFE, TURAI.

The politics behind the illness of President Yar’Adua reminds me of a fable chapter in one of the English Course series titled, Ali and the Angel which I read in primary School. In that book, there was a particular conman in a village called Ali. He told the villagers that he had an angel in his house that could only be seen by those who are not sinners.

So anybody who went to Ali’s house without seeing the angel is regarded as a sinner.  Ali only put a chair in a room with a pair of shoes which he claimed belonged to the angel. He told the villagers that anybody who was clean and free of sin would see the angel but anybody who was a sinner would not see the angel but would only see his shoes.

Because human nature is so deceitful that nobody wants to be called a sinner, those who visited Ali’s house to see the angel pretended to have seen him though none saw any angel. Each of the villagers would come out and tell the next person that he saw the angel. 

Those who claim to be close to President Yar’Adua are not better than Ali, a conman who succeeded in fooling the whole village by taking the advantage of human frailties. The so-called cabal of Yar’Adua had fooled Nigerians for so long that they are now fooling themselves. Nobody except them and some selected few characters had seen President Yar’Adua and they pass unconvincing information to the public that he is alive and well. 

President Yar’Adua was diagnosed of Pericarditis since November 2009, and was flown to Saudi Arabia for treatment. He has not been seen in public since then. During his absence, there were growing concerns that the state of his health be made public by doctors but those close to him didn’t want that for obvious reasons. These people felt they would lose all if Yar’Adua was removed from office on account of ill health so they started all sorts of games.

First, throughout his 3-month stay in a Saudi hospital, nobody except ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was allowed to see him. A delegation of the House of Representatives and governors were disallowed from seeing him. The most pathetic is that selected members of the Federal Executive Council of the Federation were disgraced in Saudi Arabia as ailing President Yar’Adua who they were supposed to meet on his hospital bed was already airborne on his way to Nigeria before they landed in Saudi Arabia.

The second phase of the drama of Ali and the Angel started when Yar’Adua was smuggled into Nigeria under the cover of darkness at 2.00am. Lights were switched off at the airport and nobody saw when Yar’Adua was moved from the air ambulance to a waiting ambulance among the convoy of vehicles that came to pick the first family on arrival. Another curious incident at the airport was the deployment of troops without the knowledge of the Acting President. 

As days rolled by and the third phase of the drama unfolded, the reason for the game of the cabal that held Yar’Adua hostage became clearer to Nigerians. He was smuggled into Nigeria because Goodluck Jonathan, his deputy, had been elevated to the position of the Acting President and with possible invocation of Section 144 by the then Federal Executive Council. The third phase of the Ali and the Angel drama is the captivity of ailing President Yar’Adua in the Aso Rock Presidential villa, where all sorts of stories are daily being spewed out without any information about his state of health. Each time Acting President Jonathan took a major decision like the sacking of the cabinet put in place by Yar’Adua, a new story would come out just to let Jonathan know that Yar’Adua is still alive.

When the new ministers appointed by Jonathan were about to be sworn in, the Chief Imam of Abuja central mosque announced that Yar’Adua would attend Jumat service but it was a hoax. Next, was the purported visit of a Muslim cleric, one Dr. Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, who reported that he saw Yar’Adua sitting on a dining table between his wife and ADC, shook hands and prayed with them, adding that Yar’Adua may soon recover and get back to office.

He went further to threaten fire and brimstone and even warned the Acting President not to take over power belonging to the President. Another set of clerics, this time around, and Christian leaders reportedly went visiting and gave conflicting account of what they saw. While some of them said Yar’Adua prayed with them one of them was quoted to have said,’ he was motionless, just lying on a chair without talking or shaking. Though his eyes were wide open, one could not say for sure if he was really seeing anything or anybody. So the information that he shook hands and looked well remains a far cry from what we saw. It would take a big heart of faith to believe he can survive. In fact, I left feeling like it would be the miracle of the century for him to recover and return to office.’ 

The role of the Muslim and Christian leaders who purportedly visited Yar’Adua is condemnable. While the Acting President could not have access to the sick President, selected religious leaders were drafted into the theatre of the absurd and they agreed to be part of the charade. It is unfortunate that religious leaders who were supposed to be epitome of uprightness and honesty had disappointed Nigerians by lying.

They ought to have told those who invited them to allow the Acting President access to ailing Yar’Adua. Their visit to Yar’Adua, in the final analysis, is not different from that of the villagers to an unseen Angel in Ali’s house.

It is a betrayal of trust. But the visit is not useless altogether at least going by the above quoted account of one of the clerics; we are able to know that ailing President Yar’Adua is in a terrible state of health akin to permanent incapacitation. Therefore, there is no better time to invoke section 144 than now so that the Acting President can concentrate on good governance and those holding Yar’Adua could continue their game elsewhere if need be!