Uzokwe's Searchlight



Frankly speaking, President Obasanjo may just have run out of options; he may have done the best he knows how to but since his best has not been good enough to turn things around, it is time for us to look elsewhere.
Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Alfred Obiora Uzokwe
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HAVE NIGERIANS LOWERED THEIR EXPECTATIONS OF THE PRESIDENCY?


few days ago, an article I wrote entitled "President Obasanjo may have run out of options" ran on this column and to my utmost amazement, it elicited quite a lot of feedback both for and against it. Some reactions came by way of emails while others came by way on Internet commentaries. In the article, I had stated that Obasanjo may have run out of options because try as he may, it seemed like things were not getting any better in Nigeria. I therefore advised the President not to contest for re-election in 2003 so that someone else can take the mantle of leadership and hopefully steer the drifting nation called Nigeria to the proverbial Promised Land.

After careful analysis of the feedback I got, I came to the conclusion that some Nigerians may have lowered their expectations of their public officials without realizing that there is a high price to pay for so doing. They no longer have the energy or gumption to fight for their right instead they settle for whatever they are given. These are the people who say that Nigeria is great because they now get NEPA two times a week as opposed to total blackout. Their concept of development has become "anything is better than nothing". In my considered opinion, this is not the direction Nigeria and Nigerians should be going!

I will now go through some of the feedback with some analysis of how I feel about them:

One of the most hypocritical arguments I got was from a commentator; he feels that it is undemocratic to be asking Obasanjo not to run for reelection. The commentator failed to realize that by taking the position he did, he was asking me to give up my freedom of expression and that in itself is undemocratic! I deign to remind other Nigerians who may hold this type of position that in the United States (which has the model of democracy we emulate) when John McCain ran for the presidency against George Bush, many republicans openly advised him to withdraw because they felt he was ruining George Bush's chances. Of course McCain exercised his democratic rights and stayed in the race and eventually, voters made the final decision. The same thing is applicable here, I have the right based on my assessment of Obasanjo's performance to advise him not to run and he has the right to ignore my calls and forge ahead. What I did was advise him, I did not physically restrain him from so doing neither do I intend to do so. That is true democracy.

The same commentator even went to the extent of insinuating that those asking Obasanjo not to run in 2003 were doing so because Obasanjo was not from their ethnic extraction! This is preposterous; it is this type of myopic and hasty approach to issues that bedevil democracy in Nigeria. When you constructively criticize, you are branded too ethnocentric; weak-minded people therefore shy away from calling things the way they see it for fear of being branded; this is arrant nonsense. Let me restate that what Nigeria needs today is a pragmatic and purposeful leader with Nigeria's interest at heart, a visionary who is capable of lifting us out of economic doldrums. We need an upright individual who genuinely loves the country and will not use his office to amass ill-gotten wealth. We need someone who has truly analyzed our problems and set down a reasonable path and time frame within which to resolve most of our problems. What we want is a man of action no matter his ethnicity.

The trouble today in Nigeria is that people just want to contest and win elections first and then worry about what to do later, that is very wrong. One of the biggest reasons why Ross Perot never became the President of America (apart from the snafu committed by Admiral Scottsdale during that VP debate) is that even though he raises many good concerns, when asked how he would solve them, his standard answer was always " when I get there, I will sit down with good people of this country and determine how to�" That is not what America wants, they want someone who understands the problems and also has a clear vision of how to solve them. That should be our standard in Nigeria too.

A self-confessed "fervent and ardent" reader of my commentaries argued in his email to me that Obasanjo inherited a bad economy with its attendant problems and so should not be blamed for the current situation in the country! I thank Chris for always tuning in but my reaction to his argument is simple: if Nigeria inherited problems from past administrations, then Obasanjo cannot completely absolve himself of culpability because he was a one time military ruler of Nigeria. As much as I applaud him for voluntarily handing over power to Shagari when he could have reneged like Gowon and Babangida did, the fact remains that some bad decisions were made under his watch which directly or indirectly may have hastened the near demise of Nigeria.

Also, we all knew that Nigeria had problems in 1999 and it was the expectation of Nigerians that anyone who contested the presidential election had analyzed our problems, understood them and developed a viable plan of attack. I do not think that Nigerians were expecting a miracle from Obasanjo, but we expected more effort from him than what he has put out so far. He has to develop the mindset of President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he said "I have no expectation of making a hit every time I come to bat, what I seek is the highest possible batting average" Roosevelt was referring to how he approached his work as the President of America. The highest possible batting average is what Nigerians are asking Obasanjo for and I do not think we are getting it with armed robbery spiraling out of control, inflation going from bad to worse, the value of our naira going down with alarming rapidity and communal clashes reaching an all-time high. Just a few days ago, eight to ten policemen were shot to death by night marauders in Lagos. The men of the underworld were traveling in a Mercedes Benz V-booth and our policemen were traveling in a lousy 504 car. Also, the marauders had AK 47 assault-type rifles and only God knows the brand of cock and shoot guns our policemen were carrying. Under such conditions, our policemen had no chance at all and these are some of the issues Obasanjo did not start addressing early and we are paying the price.

Another reader cautioned albeit mildly that commentators should refrain from using USA as a model to compare Nigeria because it took America 200 years to get where they are today. It surprises me that this argument is made at all; are we saying that since it took America 200 years, it should take us 200 years to get to where they are? The fact that America has almost perfected several things after 200 years is the more reason why our own development should be very rapid because we know all the mistakes they made before getting to their current level and we do not have to make those mistakes all over. Zinox computer company in Nigeria has done exactly what I am saying, they learned from companies that went before them and then used their own initiative to create a brand of computer system that could compete with any other in the market while meeting specific needs indigenous to Nigeria. This is what we should be doing in politics also but my fear is that we seem to have lowered our expectations so much so that even when people criticize Obasanjo constructively, some people see it as unfair because they feel he is trying, well as far as I am concerned, "trying" is not good enough, we want tangible results. He should look around, learn from the mistakes of past leaders in Nigeria and indeed around the world and strive to avoid those mistakes.

A reader also stated to me that Obasanjo should be given a break because according to the reader, Obasanjo has done a great job of putting Nigeria back in good stead in international circles. Let me restate that at the time Obasanjo took over, Nigerians had become fed up with military rule that no matter who was elected (excluding the military boys) Nigerians and the international community were willing to work with the person. Having said that, I must agree that Obasanjo had a higher profile because of his voluntary hand over and his international work, but other civilian rulers would have had equal success. The question still remains: what has this exalted international profile done for Nigerians lately? Nigeria is still a nation replete with fear, uneasiness, bad business climate, 419, ubiquitous presence of slums and more; all these problems discourage foreigners from coming to do business or vacation in Nigeria. It is therefore preposterous to think that just putting us in the limelight internationally translates automatically to goodies; other things need to be done; Obasanjo must strive to create in Nigeria an environment conducive for business and recreation and foreigners would come.

A friend of mine adduced the last and final argument; he feels that Obasanjo was our best bet in 1999 because his presence at the helm discouraged and still discourages coups and anarchy in the nation. I agree with that argument partially because Obj understands the intricacies of the military and has taken (I hope) some measures to checkmate the military. Hopefully, those measures would remain potent when another civilian President takes over. My issue with Obasanjo in this area (as I argued in my previous article) is that by excessively using the military to quell riots, he may have given them a renewed sense of importance. Some of them would be feeling that since they are called in every time there is a problem, Nigerians would not object if and when one of their own takes over power; that is dangerous and must not be allowed to take hold. He must now start stepping back from this dependence on the army and channel resources into equipping and training our police force because I feel they can do as well as the army.

I will like to end this piece by telling a real life story of a friend of mine who is currently a construction Inspector in a nearby State. He was given the responsibility of overseeing the rehabilitation of an old bridge and the contractor's job was to sand blast the bridge steel components to remove rust and then put a fresh coat of paint on the bare steel. Before my friend was posted to that job, there was another Inspector who was relieved of the work because he let the contractor get away with putting fresh paint on steel components that were not properly sandblasted. One day, my friend's superior paid him a surprise visit and discovered that there were still areas on the bridge where fresh paint was put over rusted steel. The project Engineer immediately called the attention of my friend to the problem but my friend objected and said that the portion of work in question was done under the watch of the fired Inspector. His boss' response was: "we knew when you were hired that the other Inspector did a bad job and that was why you were hired. This job became your responsibility the day you were posted to it and I am expecting that you will start treating it as such regardless of what the other inspector did" According to my friend, from that day on, he knew he had no excuses because he agreed to take the job and correct the poor performance of the other Inspector. The same goes for Obasanjo, he knew in 1999 that Babangida and company ruined our economy, if he felt he could not handle it, he should not have contested the election, but he contested and promised us a lot. We believed that he had the ability to handle the problems and so we voted him into the most exalted office in Africa. It is his responsibility to clean house; there should be no excuses along the lines of " I inherited this and inherited that" I abhor what Abacha, Babangida and the rest did to us, but they are no longer in power and one of them is even no longer on earth so Obasanjo should shape up or shape out!

HERE I STAND!