ne would be hard-pressed to find a better illustration for President Obasanjo's bizarre approach to Nigerian democracy than what happened to Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu at Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, on Tuesday, November 17, 2004. To cue you up on the story, in case you missed or forgot all about it, Chief Ojukwu was reportedly embarked on a trip to the USA with his wife - former beauty queen, Bianca Onoh, for some kind of a health assessment. Not feeling particularly well lately, Chief Ojukwu, who perhaps minimized his health condition by describing it as being "under the weather for about two weeks," decided to consult with his personal doctors in the USA. Of course, they had to catch their flight at Nigeria's main international gateway: Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos.

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But when they got to the airport, there was a drama, although not of epic proportion as usual. As everybody perhaps knows, Ojukwu is somebody who courts public drama and somehow feeds off it. But the drama of midnight Tuesday, November 17, was absolutely not the type he usually courts and regales in. Chief Ojukwu told his story to the Nigerian Guardian of Wednesday, November 18, thus: "We got to the airport ready to board, luggage already checked in, and one of my personal staff said, the SSS would like to meet me. I said: no problem. I was ushered into the office of the SSS, and I was told that I would be required to be in Abuja on Wednesday. I said: again? I sort of laughed it off. And he said, 'I am sorry.' It was my personal assistant who came back and said that they have retained my passport. Again, I cannot see why. I came back here last night, phoned some friends and contacts."

Perhaps asked why he chose to phone his friends and make contacts with certain individuals in Abuja, Chief Ojukwu declared to the Guardian: "What I wanted personally from them was whether they knew of anybody who could give me immediately a contact to speak with my good friend - the Head of State, and to tell me what the matter was. After about an hour and half, I got the information that the Head of State, contrary to previous beliefs, was not in London last night but was in Finland. And eventually he was contacted and I understand that of course that it was through his personal intervention that everything moved quickly" (Guardian, November 18).

According to Vanguard, it was "Nigeria's High Commissioner in London, Dr. Christopher Kolade, who was alerted by some concerned indigenes … (who eventually) informed President Olusegun Obasanjo, (then) in far away Finland, about the development. The president in turn immediately called the director-general of the SSS in Abuja and ordered that Ojukwu's passport be released to him" (Vanguard, November 18). And reacting to the way the situation was resolved that quickly, Chief Ojukwu declared: "I suppose I feel a sense of gratitude to Mr. President for doing his duty. But what he did was his duty; this is the way things should happen" (Guardian, November 18).

Perhaps one should quickly add here against Chief Ojukwu's reactions: "Sir, you are right to express your gratitude to the president for helping you out in this particular instance. However, you are not right to declare that that was the way things were supposed to happen in Nigeria or in any other country for that matter. No. That was not the way things were supposed to happen. Nobody already checked in to travel out of the country should have his passport seized by security agents pending the time the president of a 120-million-strong nation could intervene from another end of the planet. This is both a serious abuse of the democratic process and an incompetent way to run a nation as populous and complex as Nigeria." We hope to return to this question a little later.

Notwithstanding all that, this was one of those rare moments of grace in Chief Ojukwu's tempestuous life. Here he was in an obvious confrontation with the powers that be, which appeared intent on embarrassing him. But he kept his cool and comported himself exquisitely as an elder statesman. In a way, the SSS agent at the airport was, knowingly or not, trying to endanger Ojukwu's health by not letting him fly out as quickly as he wanted so as to take care of his ailing health. In other words, Ojukwu had every right to take any necessary action to bring his plight to the court of public opinion. But he chose not to explode and did not try to raise hell of any sort. Rather, he handled the matter calmly and gracefully like a wise statesman.

Ojukwu in that rare moment of beauty and grace even addressed his usual nemesis as my good friend, the Head of State. Calmly he wanted to find out from the Head of State what the matter was all about this time around. He was quite solicitous and diplomatic in his approach to the volatile issue. Unlike his usual self, he did not create any remarkable scene at the airport that night. This was not vintage Ojukwu at all. Rather this was a subdued man willing to employ all graceful and peaceful means to settle his personal problems. In fact on that particular occasion Ojukwu showed the other side of him. And it was a beauty to watch!

However, one has to wonder what happened to the irrepressible Chief Ojukwu at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport on the night of November 17. Were those conciliatory and courteous manners to the Nigerian Head of State and to the SSS agents at the airport a result of the pressure and desperation brought upon him by his failing health? Was he mellowed and slowed in the occasion by the urgency to travel to the USA to have a quick medical examination? Or, did his calm and diplomatic approach mark a brand new beginning for an era of conciliatory and statesmanlike relationship with the Nigerian president and the security agencies of Nigeria?

But on the other hand, did his Murtala Mohammed Airport calm display show that Chief Ojukwu was beginning to listen to some of our criticisms of him that centered on the fact that as an Igbo iconic leader, he could not afford to be seen flip-flopping all the time on every national issue and hitch-hiking every popular current that made its way through the Igbo political spectrum? As every conscientious reader of this column would know, we have long maintained that Ojukwu as the symbol of Igbo resistance and courage must become more principled, more judicious in his utterances and more rational in his offers and acceptance of endorsements. Should we take it now that he is beginning to get the message? Only time will tell!

Accentuating the extraordinariness of that night for the former brass and abrasive but tremendously popular general of the Biafran people's army, Chief Ojukwu even excused over and over again the security agents that had seized his passport and disrupted his emergency travel arrangements. With a considerable amount of grace he described the whole incident as "a pardonable error." This is nothing short of fantastic. Ironically Chief Ojukwu followed this glorious moment with an unnecessarily condescending statement. He unfortunately declared: "if you were a little officer at the airport with all that has been happening in Nigeria and suddenly you see a passport and you look at the name - horror of horrors…. Most people would err on the side of caution" (Guardian, November 18).

Resuming his rare moments of grace, Ojukwu denied that anything was seized from him. He declared: "I believe actually that nothing was seized. I believe that what was being done was to delay me so that superior instruction could be taken. That's what I believe." In another strange turn of events, he seemed to blame his fate that night on his famous name: "It's the name. Again, what do I do?" But in our view, this should not be interpreted as if he was regretting the wonderful fame his name has acquired since the end of the Nigerian civil war. I believe that hell would first freeze over before Ojukwu began to regret bearing his glorious name. Rather, that particular reference to the pains of his famous name seemed to be a moment of introspection, which is required of everybody that leads a tempestuous public life.

However, the more exciting aspect of the Murtala Mohammed Airport-episode was that Chief Ojukwu came out of it looking like a great statesman the rest of the Nigerian elite must emulate. Even though he suffered some grave personal humiliation and perhaps emotional injury as well, as a result of his ordeal at the airport, he managed to rise above the whole unfortunate incident and in the process made the whole ugly matter look far less tragic than it could have been. By so doing Chief Ojukwu saved Nigeria a bundle in ethnic tensions and potential public relations disasters.

This seems what is usually expected of a great statesman, to be able to accommodate some failings on the part of his/her nation without causing unnecessary ruckus all the time. Moreover, a good statesman is one who is able from time to time to extend some graciousness to his avowed enemies and oppressors. And Ojukwu accomplished all that and more that night especially when he sought a conciliatory way to present his ordeal to the Nigerian president. He showed his skills and the magnanimity of his heart in being able to accommodate the imperfections of his national government. And such is the definition of a statesman.

But I think Chief Ojukwu came out most brilliant in the way he tried to understand the predicament of the security agents at the airport. It was gracious for him to realize that having had a recent run-in with the State Security Service, it almost could have amounted to irresponsibility that bordered on dereliction of duty for any security agent at the airport to let him continue his travels abroad without any reference to some senior officers outside of the airport facility. It was almost a given that the emergency travel plans of Chief Ojukwu would have to be immediately reported to some security agents who might be interested in his whereabouts, at least, for his own good.

However, what Chief Ojukwu was entitled to and should have gotton was a quick resolution of the matter at the airport in a far less bureaucratic way that would not have prevented him from traveling in the same flight he had checked into. That his very simple matter was referred as far wide as the SSS headquarters in Abuja, the Nigerian High Commission in England and finally to the Nigerian president traveling in far away Finland, was for us, where the tragedy of the night had occurred. Even if Ojukwu had become over night an international security risk, it is doubtful whether such a wide-ranging consultation about his travel plans would have been in any way necessary. That Ojukwu was extracted from his plane and made to wait extra days despite his bad health conditions, while consultations continued on whether to release his passport to him, is a very serious indictment on the way the Nigerian democracy is being run by President Obasanjo.

Perhaps informing the grace Ojukwu had exhibited to the security agents that night might have been the fact that he recognized that he bore part of the blame for his ordeal by not first checking out with the SSS headquarters in Abuja with whom he had a pending matter, before embarking on an oversea trip. It could have made all the difference in this world if Chief Ojukwu had consulted with the SSS before showing up at the airport for his flight. He could have perhaps been informed ahead of time whether he was free to travel abroad without any hassles especially in view of his unresolved issues. It could have saved him lots of problems and even won him a lot more respect in the security community if he chose the wise route of letting their leaders know ahead of time that he has a health emergency that would require an immediate travel to the US. I believe that prominent leaders of a nation whose safety could be of interest and concern to the security agencies should always be able to make this kind of contacts even if it is only for courtesy's sake.

In fact, a statesman-like approach to issues of this nature could have counseled a prior call placed to the SSS to ascertain whether there was any conceivable way his travels and brief absence from the country could negatively impact the pending matter he has with the agency. There is absolutely no law about such a diplomatic schmoozing between a personality of Ojukwu's stature and a national security agency like the SSS. This is the type of courtesy Chief Ojukwu could have employed as a beautiful prelude to the wonderful grace he showed the Nigerian president and the security agents in the post-airport incident. It could have been magnificent if Chief Ojukwu sent one of his assistants ahead of time to inform the SSS that he was about to travel to America for a quick medical check-up.

However, Chief Ojukwu's attempt to attribute his ordeal to his famous name seems to me to miss the point completely. Narrating his airport ordeal to newsmen, Chief Ojukwu was reported to have exclaimed: "It's the name. Again, what do I do?" With such an unfortunate statement Ojukwu seemed to attribute the worst to his great name. He was quoted as saying: "if you were a little officer at the airport with all that has been happening in Nigeria and suddenly you see a passport and you look at the name - horror of horrors" (Guardian, November 18). Granted that Ojukwu's name could inspire fear and wonder among young security operatives in facilities like a national gateway airport, that does not mean that his is a villain's name. Try as many in the Nigerian governments have been doing since nearly forty years, they have not succeeded and will never succeed in making a monster and a villain out of the popular leader of the failed Biafran project, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.

On the other hand, it would be monumentally tragic for a man like Ojukwu or any other Igbo person for that matter, to buy into the well-worn propaganda of some Igbo-phobic politicians in Nigeria. Ojukwu's name remains as close as possible to what one may call a "haloed name" among the Igbo of Nigeria. Chief Ojukwu has a name that brings his people pride and honor. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu is a name every authentic Igbo, living or dead, cherishes and celebrates with pride. Some of us in the commentariat guild may not agree with his positions all the time, but that does not mean that we are less appreciative of what he accomplished for his people during the time of their greatest need. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu is a man who will forever remain a symbol of his people's strength (Ikemba). His place is secure in the history of the Igbo people. In fact, he is one man who has entered the pantheon of his people even while still alive. In this regard, Ojukwu's name has absolutely nothing to do with horror-horror as he had suggested. Rather, it has everything to do with halo-halo among his Igbo people.

During the Biafran war, Ojukwu was not the one who was accused of carrying out heinous acts of genocide against the embattled Igbo people. He was not the one who used starvation as weapon to win an unjust war. He was not the one who shot down and killed volunteer expatriate pilots who came out of retirement to try to fly food to the deadly malnourished children of Biafra who were dying daily in their hundreds and thousands. He was not the one who had ordered carpet-bombing of densely populated and buzzing market squares, patient-filled hospitals and sorrow-soothing churches filled with worshipers through out Igbo land. Therefore Ojukwu can never be legitimately termed a monster because of the way he had prosecuted the civil war.

And when Biafra was eventually defeated and the war came to an abrupt end, Ojukwu was not the one who confiscated the assets of the defeated Biafrans all over Nigeria and declared them abandoned properties that would never be recovered again. Chief Ojukwu was not the one who paid Biafran pre-war bank depositors some paltry sums of twenty pounds each so that they would never be able to invest in the nationalizing multi-national corporations in Nigeria in the early 70's. He was not the one who enforced a systematic economic and political emasculation of the defeated and demoralized Igbo nation in the 70's. Rather he was a defeated and broken general languishing in exile in Cote d'Ivoire reviewing what he could have done differently to change the outcome of the war.

So, if anybody is looking for the horror-horror names of Nigeria, there are obvious places to look for them. Ojukwu does not belong in those places. In our view, what Ojukwu has done to acquire a horror name among some segments of Nigeria is that he is beginning to raise anew the very questions that led to the war, namely, why are the Igbo still being persecuted in a nation they have worked so hard to found and to build? Until anybody pointed out to us where the villainy of such questions lay, every patriotic Igbo person must resist to the very last any attempt at associating Odumegwu-Ojukwu's name with horror, villainy and monstrosity.

However, as Chief Ojukwu regaled in his great moments of grace, the Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, seemed to embark on confirming for the umpteenth time our doubts and fears on his democratic credentials and administrative skills. In our view, the president's intervention in Ojukwu's behalf seems clearly illustrative of the shoddy way he has been running the democracy of Nigeria since taking office in 1999. Think about it. Chief Ojukwu had some issues with some security agents at a Nigerian airport in Lagos. For that non-criminal matter to be resolved, the president had to be sought out from far away Finland and invited to intervene. And from that far end of the world, the Nigerian president presided over an airport mini-skirmish. To his credit he promptly ordered the release of Chief Ojukwu's passport to him.

Am I the only one noticing how bizarre this kind of practice is? I mean, what type of a democracy on this planet is micromanaged to success in this manner? Why does a president of a country of more than 120 million insist on running his country in this bizarre and primitive manner? Why does it take a president traveling in the other end of the world to resolve a matter as simple as releasing a confiscated passport of a bona fide Nigerian who is apparently not on terrorists' watch-list? Assuming that Chief Ojukwu was fleeing the country to escape treason prosecution, does the president not have other channels to seek his extradition to Nigeria? How can the democracy of Nigeria be successful with such an ancient style of administration?

Why this development should be absolutely worrisome to every democracy-loving Nigerian is because it seems to represent a pattern one has been noticing in the purportedly democratic administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo. He seems to be a man who wants to micromanage everything that is happening in the country. He seems to have his fingers all over the place. And nothing seems to move without his personal approval and intervention. And this is a recipe for running a nation down. In a nation of 120 million people, nothing can ever move appropriately if decisions have always to flow vertically downwards from one source. If Nigeria's democracy has to depend for its movement on one "omniscient human being" called Olusegun Obasanjo, then not much would ever be accomplished. Yet, that was what the incident at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport had symbolized and demonstrated this past week. The Nigerian president has his tentacles all over the place and that is clogging the movement of our nation's democracy.

For instance, in the past few weeks alone, how many microscopic matters has the Nigerian president put his fingers into? You may not believe it, there are quite several of them. Remember, it was the president who ordered the reduction of the cost of a pint of kerosene by a definite percentage of the former price? Does that surprise you? That was good work though, but it was a terrible administration. Of course, it was the same president who ordered the reduction of the prices of Gasoline (petrol) by another definite percentage of the contentious price after feeling the intense wrath of labor. Obasanjo seems as terrible a micromanager as any head of state has been in the history of organized governments.

However, nothing seems to show more clearly how dangerously the Nigerian president micromanages our nation's democracy than the mayhem in Anambra State this past couple of weeks. Remember, the police could not intervene to save innocent lives and protect precious public properties because they were waiting for orders from above. Both the police commissioner and the other security agencies in Anambra State were there, almost hailing the murderers and arsonists, as they rampaged and rummaged through out the capital city of the state. The only reason the police had for staying away any intervention was that the order from Abuja they had waited for had not yet come. It was dangerously bizarre but real. The Nigerian micromanager had not sent down the order yet to the Anambra State Police Department and innocent people had to go on dying.

What about the soldiers? They also stood idly by for a very long while as innocent people were hacked down and important facilities of the state go up in flames. When asked they said they were waiting for orders from Abuja. Nothing could move in such a very dangerous situation that involved the killing of innocent Nigerians simply because the awaited order could not arrive in time from Abuja for the police and the army to act. What does this say about a government that shows off this approach to administration? That it is inefficient, primitive and dumb!

Moreover, what do you think is the meaning of the phrase, "Order from above?" Is it not a euphemism for an order issued by the president himself or his close confidante? Can there be any order coming from Abuja, which could have any influence in any part of the country without the president's personal knowledge? It is almost unthinkable. The only conceivable meaning for an "order from above" or an "order from Abuja" in the Nigerian context is one personally issued by the Nigerian president himself or his instructed confidantes.

What all this means is that President Obasanjo seems to be running Nigeria with a method of administration that is unheard of in a modern democracy. He wants to micromanage everything. And that means that the whole nation has always to wait for him to make a decision in everything including such flimsy matters as the costs of kerosene and gasoline and who gets to travel overseas with his/her passport documents. In a situation like what happened in Anambra State these past few weeks, the Nigerian president's bizarre style of administration costs precious innocent lives and important public facilities. And this is absolutely bizarre to say the very least. It is not funny. Bad and incompetent leadership exerts a very heft cost on a nation. Nigeria is not just paying an enormous price for this type of unimaginative administration right now but may continue to pay way into her foreseeable future.

President Obasanjo's approach to a democratic administration has embedded in it the entire reason why Nigerian democracy has not functioned effectively since he came into power in 1999. He seems atrophied in his military dictatorship past when only he made every single decision for the entire nation. That method of administration is primitive and unworkable in a modern democracy. The Nigerian president does not seem to be one who could trust anybody to do anything independent of him. He wants to be the one making every decision in a country of more than 120 million people. And what does one get for such a primitive approach to the administration of our supposedly modern nation? Of course, a logjam, clogged-together and confused administration that drives everybody mad. This seems exactly what is happening with the current administration of Nigeria.

Most important, the style of administration preferred by the Nigerian president is nothing short of a pre-meditated sabotage of our nation's fledgling democracy. The main virtue and characteristic of any successful democracy is the fact that it is a shared enterprise. Democracy is a shared effort, a shared responsibility and it is a shared joy when it becomes successful. There is nothing in a democracy that suggests a go-it-alone attitude. A good and successful democratic administration is markedly different from a military dictatorship, which the Nigerian president seems habitually accustomed to. In a military dictatorship, authority trickles down from top to the bottom or grassroots. But in a democracy authority springs and wells from the bottom and the grassroots upwards. Power in a democracy, they say, belongs to the people. It is the people who wield authority, while the president executes it.

What all this means is every genuine democratic administration spreads out wide and shares its authority to hundreds and thousands of individuals. Many who participate in a democratic administration dispense their real authority according to their mandates derived from legal institutions approved vicariously by the people through their representatives in the legislature. It means that those charged with issues of security must be trusted to dispense their authority efficiently and fairly when the need arises. Where they fail to do so, they lose their mandates and their jobs. In a democracy, a president cannot be seen as usurping every other person's authority. He cannot insist on being the one making the decisions even in matters as minor as dictating the prices of a pint of kerosene. This is a tragic aberration in Nigeria's democracy. Any leader who chooses such a terribly flawed approach is definitely leading his nation to the rocks.

Moreover, it tells volumes about the tragedy of his administrative approach for the Nigerian president to be seen or thought of as making every individual decision alone even on matters as uncomplicated as the release of a confiscated passport to a non-criminal individual intending to travel overseas. Even in a communist country like Cuba, North Korea or the former Soviet Union, it would be hard to see a president micromanage a country to this extent and in such a manner. There is no doubt that this is the real basis of most of the political problems Nigeria has been experiencing. It seems that the Nigerian president cannot get himself to think and act democratically. Rather he would always prefer his old ways of trying to make every minor decision alone like in his days as a military dictator. Of course, that primitive style of the 70s got our nation nowhere. It does not need a crystal ball to tell that his dusting it up for a try in a purportedly democratic Nigeria of the 21st century will once again get our nation nowhere.

Special Announcement:

Dear Readers:

From December 1, 2004, Home Truths Column will embark on an indefinite period of break. This is to enable me fulfill my other obligations as well as complete some outstanding research projects. Hopefully the column will return some time in the nearest possible future. Until then we wish to thank all you fans of our column for your appreciation and dedication to the principles espoused in Home Truths' essays. Your encouragement gave us the energy to confront issues of importance with as much courage and clarity as we could muster. With you we shared a common faith in our nation's destiny of greatness and a hope that by dint of hard work we would get there.

We wish to thank in a special way every reader who recognized that our mission in this column has been and will always be about helping to bring justice, peace and development to our stupendously blessed and potentially great country of Nigeria. We will continue in this mission as long as God gives us life, energy and clear perspectives on issues of significance to Nigeria and the world.

Peace on earth!

David Asonye Ihenacho