Still on Mr. President’s poor health
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- Written by Saleh Ibrahim Bature
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Nigeria, the so-called giant of Africa, is to Africa what Turkey was to Europe. Coincidentally, the story of Turkey in the 19th century has paralleled with our not-so-cheerful condition as a nation today. The Ottoman Empire’s diminishing influence and subsequent collapse gave it the coinage - the sick man of Europe.
Nigeria is today looked down upon as a failed state because the country is going through a very difficult moment characterized by retrogression and despair. Our country is being faced with lots of problems that have the potential to dismember it as a single indivisible nation that it used to be. Our leaders are filled with the obsession of being the honcho men of big brother African country with stupendous oil wealth to champion the cause of the black race.
Two issues have caught my attention in the unfolding imbroglio that the nation has found itself recently. The palpable political tension being generated in the country by President Umaru Musa Yar’adua’s illness and the acute and perennial fuel scarcity that has hit the nation in the last two days after Eid-il-fitr sallah and which still persists.
It is rather unfortunate that Nigerians should be in a state of confusion because of the uncertainties surrounding the health of their president at a time when a shocking official statistics on human development report on the nation is giving everybody sleepless nights. Despite the huge increase in our foreign exchange earnings and our abundant and robust human and capital resources, “approximately 75 million Nigerians continue to live in absolute poverty; one in every five children dies before reaching the age of five; over 12 million children are not in school; our schools and hospitals lack necessary facilities and millions of our people die of AIDS, malaria and other preventable diseases”. These frightening figures of people wallowing in poverty and misery should ordinarily be a food for thought to every conscientious and patriotic Nigerian.
The ill-health of the President has now occupied pages of our newspapers and is also the cynosure of attention not only in the nation’s electronics media, but the discussions of the ordinary man on the street also centres on the subject. Indeed, it is not bad for people to show concern when the life of their leader is at stake. However, the debate surrounding the president’s health has put the nation in a state of confusion. Worrisome and more disturbing is in fact the politicisation of the issue by those that want the president to shake the dust of Aso Rock villa off his feet and those that want him to soldier on.
A group led by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari and 54 other eminent Nigerians from across the country demanded for the resignation of Mr President and the immediate assumption of leadership by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan.
In the same vein, another group of politicians and technocrats of purely Northern extraction placed an advertorial in the Daily Trust of December 2, 2009 calling for Vice President Jonathan to immediately be sworn-in as president as provided by section 144 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
As the two groups in support of the resignation of the president are frantically slugging it out to outwit each other in an effort to actualise their cause, a powerful voice resonating from the Presidency declared that the government is not oblivious of the situation and will not succumb to pressure to do anything unconstitutional. Speaking on the government’s position on the ill-health of the president, Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, The Secretary to the Government of the Federation did not mince words when he told journalists that government will not be compelled to do anything unthinkable because it is fully in control of the situation.
Much as the majority of the Nigerian citizenry are fed up to the teeth with the failures of the PDP-led regime, a cursory look at the list of people calling on Yar’adua to abdicate gives pictures of friends and former PDP stalwarts who are disgruntled because they fell out of favour. This therefore belies their persistent pressure on the president to resign as a mere propaganda in disguise.
There is no gainsaying the fact that President Umaru Musa Yar’adua is not well and that the uncertainty surrounding his poor health has thrown the nation into a state of confusion. The government is not sincere in the way it handled the issue. Vice President Jonathan’s remark that Mr President’s case is not as bad as people think it is, the Senate’s refusal to debate the president’s health at the floor of the House and the first family’s attempt to sweep under the carpet the allegation of no lost love between the First Lady and Mr President’s mother on whether the president should ride on or resign to give him time to deal with his health problem are divisive, unnecessary and therefore uncalled for.
While we all believe that Allah gives health and no soul will die until its stated time and poor health does not always imply incapability or incapacitation, we should not however lose sight of the fact that the president is solely responsible for his action. If his ill-health is so damning that he cannot discharge the duties incumbent upon him as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it is high time he opened up and tell Nigerians the truth or simply relinquish the throne.
If what we read on the pages of the newspapers and the recent national call for prayer for his health by Christians and Muslims in the country is anything to go by, one will understand that government’s official position on Yar’adua’s poor health is far from the truth.
The danger that this portends to the nation is to say the least grievous. The cacophony of opinions being expressed by the different groups have heated up the polity and will have dire consequences for the security and survival of the nation as an entity, if allowed to continue.
Nigeria as a nation has been held hostage by the coterie around the president. This small cabal of hangers-on, parasitic businessmen and contractors, sit-tight administrators, hungry and greedy politicians have for long been feasting on the president’s poor health and on our incredulity and docility.
As a leader, Yar’adua is indebted to Nigerians and he owes the nation an apology for keeping us in darkness over the actual condition of his health. Anything that affects him also affects the nation, because the office he holds is the highest in the land and his problem is an issue of concern to the entire nation. Nigerians have the right to know the actual situation at stake about his current condition in order to clear the confusion that has come up in the nation.
Bature wrote from Bauchi.
Articles
Still on Mr. President’s poor health
Category: Comments Written by Saleh Ibrahim Bature Hits: 915
Nigeria, the so-called giant of Africa, is to Africa what Turkey was to Europe. Coincidentally, the story of Turkey in the 19th century has paralleled with our not-so-cheerful condition as a nation today. The Ottoman Empire’s diminishing influence and subsequent collapse gave it the coinage - the sick man of Europe.
Nigeria is today looked down upon as a failed state because the country is going through a very difficult moment characterized by retrogression and despair. Our country is being faced with lots of problems that have the potential to dismember it as a single indivisible nation that it used to be. Our leaders are filled with the obsession of being the honcho men of big brother African country with stupendous oil wealth to champion the cause of the black race.
Two issues have caught my attention in the unfolding imbroglio that the nation has found itself recently. The palpable political tension being generated in the country by President Umaru Musa Yar’adua’s illness and the acute and perennial fuel scarcity that has hit the nation in the last two days after Eid-il-fitr sallah and which still persists.
It is rather unfortunate that Nigerians should be in a state of confusion because of the uncertainties surrounding the health of their president at a time when a shocking official statistics on human development report on the nation is giving everybody sleepless nights. Despite the huge increase in our foreign exchange earnings and our abundant and robust human and capital resources, “approximately 75 million Nigerians continue to live in absolute poverty; one in every five children dies before reaching the age of five; over 12 million children are not in school; our schools and hospitals lack necessary facilities and millions of our people die of AIDS, malaria and other preventable diseases”. These frightening figures of people wallowing in poverty and misery should ordinarily be a food for thought to every conscientious and patriotic Nigerian.
The ill-health of the President has now occupied pages of our newspapers and is also the cynosure of attention not only in the nation’s electronics media, but the discussions of the ordinary man on the street also centres on the subject. Indeed, it is not bad for people to show concern when the life of their leader is at stake. However, the debate surrounding the president’s health has put the nation in a state of confusion. Worrisome and more disturbing is in fact the politicisation of the issue by those that want the president to shake the dust of Aso Rock villa off his feet and those that want him to soldier on.
A group led by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari and 54 other eminent Nigerians from across the country demanded for the resignation of Mr President and the immediate assumption of leadership by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan.
In the same vein, another group of politicians and technocrats of purely Northern extraction placed an advertorial in the Daily Trust of December 2, 2009 calling for Vice President Jonathan to immediately be sworn-in as president as provided by section 144 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
As the two groups in support of the resignation of the president are frantically slugging it out to outwit each other in an effort to actualise their cause, a powerful voice resonating from the Presidency declared that the government is not oblivious of the situation and will not succumb to pressure to do anything unconstitutional. Speaking on the government’s position on the ill-health of the president, Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, The Secretary to the Government of the Federation did not mince words when he told journalists that government will not be compelled to do anything unthinkable because it is fully in control of the situation.
Much as the majority of the Nigerian citizenry are fed up to the teeth with the failures of the PDP-led regime, a cursory look at the list of people calling on Yar’adua to abdicate gives pictures of friends and former PDP stalwarts who are disgruntled because they fell out of favour. This therefore belies their persistent pressure on the president to resign as a mere propaganda in disguise.
There is no gainsaying the fact that President Umaru Musa Yar’adua is not well and that the uncertainty surrounding his poor health has thrown the nation into a state of confusion. The government is not sincere in the way it handled the issue. Vice President Jonathan’s remark that Mr President’s case is not as bad as people think it is, the Senate’s refusal to debate the president’s health at the floor of the House and the first family’s attempt to sweep under the carpet the allegation of no lost love between the First Lady and Mr President’s mother on whether the president should ride on or resign to give him time to deal with his health problem are divisive, unnecessary and therefore uncalled for.
While we all believe that Allah gives health and no soul will die until its stated time and poor health does not always imply incapability or incapacitation, we should not however lose sight of the fact that the president is solely responsible for his action. If his ill-health is so damning that he cannot discharge the duties incumbent upon him as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it is high time he opened up and tell Nigerians the truth or simply relinquish the throne.
If what we read on the pages of the newspapers and the recent national call for prayer for his health by Christians and Muslims in the country is anything to go by, one will understand that government’s official position on Yar’adua’s poor health is far from the truth.
The danger that this portends to the nation is to say the least grievous. The cacophony of opinions being expressed by the different groups have heated up the polity and will have dire consequences for the security and survival of the nation as an entity, if allowed to continue.
Nigeria as a nation has been held hostage by the coterie around the president. This small cabal of hangers-on, parasitic businessmen and contractors, sit-tight administrators, hungry and greedy politicians have for long been feasting on the president’s poor health and on our incredulity and docility.
As a leader, Yar’adua is indebted to Nigerians and he owes the nation an apology for keeping us in darkness over the actual condition of his health. Anything that affects him also affects the nation, because the office he holds is the highest in the land and his problem is an issue of concern to the entire nation. Nigerians have the right to know the actual situation at stake about his current condition in order to clear the confusion that has come up in the nation.
Bature wrote from Bauchi.