Yar’adua on the people’s minds
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- Category: Comments
- Written by Femi Atunwase
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For the mass of ordinary people struggling for day-to-day existence in Nigeria’s leading towns and cities, the absence of President Umaru Yar’adua on health grounds has made little or no difference to the basic realities of life. It can easily be confirmed that there is certainly no “tension, anxiety, confusion, paralysis, power vacuum” in the immediate or remote surroundings of the common people of Nigeria caused solely by the absence of the President. And if indeed you care to find out, you will be rewarded with the view of the muted majority that President Yar’adua not only has reason to fall sick but is entitled to a long rest in addition to his period of recuperating.
But if you are among the prominent and privileged minority of Nigerians who live on the frontlines of political and bureaucratic power play and exploitation of vantage positions for material benefit, then the absence of President Yar’adua, even on genuine health grounds, triggers an irresistible urge to wish and work for the incidental and temporary absence to somehow transform into an opportunity to create much-needed back door to power. The elite-owned media shower coverage on the isolated hysteria of the power hustlers and their hunting dogs in order to spread the malady to the wider society and hopefully ride to Aso Villa like conspiring cliques riding chariots of chaos. Their deceitful posturing is packaged as nationalistic “concern” for government and country by enterprising editors who continuously elaborate on the wicked propaganda of terminal illness and permanent incapacity, among other smokescreens for their covert agenda.
The average Nigerian today is more disturbed and disgusted by the cultural abominations and religious heresies that are being flagrantly flaunted by the supposedly enlightened political elites and their allies in a banal bid to get President Yar’adua out of office “by any means” and “at all costs” while he is recuperating from an illness that is not regarded as terminal even by witch-doctors. Typical of such devilish endeavours however, the backlash instead provoked Nigerians into fervent prayers not just for the speedy recovery of their leader but for him to return to office and continue what is generally regarded as the first sober and sincere clearing of the mess that Nigeria has become. By God’s special grace to our innocent and hopeful people, President Yar’adua has not died, he is recovering normally; government has not fallen apart or been paralysed and time has exposed the crass opportunism of the heartless hustlers for power. May God continue to answer the prayers of the people and curse the ambitions of selfish power seekers who don’t mind sacrificing human life or destabilising Nigeria to grab power.
The common people still remember how President Yar’adua was being lampooned for “doing nothing” even before his first hundred days in office by these same power hustlers and their megaphones. It is the same pull-him-down clique that is today harping on the president’s “incapacity” thereby deliberately ignoring his exceptional feat of resolving the greatest threat to our sovereignty and unity since the civil war (the crisis in the Niger Delta). While dollars and gunboats failed, sincere and humble patriotism and fixed focus on dialoguing with the impoverished and frustrated people of the Niger Delta by recognising their plight and granting amnesty and due recompense to those who deserve it was President Yar’adua’s master stroke of statesmanship.
This singular monumental achievement proves the effectiveness of Yaradua’s “slow and steady” modus operandi which is the only way deep thought, careful planning and intelligent action can be accommodated in the quest for truly good governance. It is working in the power sector too as we have got almost 4,000 megawatts out of the targeted 6,000 despite the well-publicised oil revenue and gas supply sabotage in Niger Delta for most of the past three years. River Niger is being dredged for the first time to create a whole new vista of economic advancement through water transportation which like the railways was a pillar of national development, hitherto neglected except as avenue for looting. The ultimate beneficiaries of all these strategic projects of the Yar’adua administration are the majority of the people of Nigeria whose unheeded cries for employment, empowerment and emancipation from imposed poverty at last have a listening ear, a humane mind and a strong will to serve the nation as embodied in President Yar’adua. If the voice of the people is really the voice of God, then Yar’adua will not only get well but also live long in the service of his people. With God and the people on his side, the displaced and disgraced clique of retired generals and their thieving civilian collaborators are the ones facing permanent incapacity and terminal irrelevance.
Atunwase is a priest in Ota, Ogun State
Articles
Yar’adua on the people’s minds
Category: Comments Written by Femi Atunwase Hits: 732
For the mass of ordinary people struggling for day-to-day existence in Nigeria’s leading towns and cities, the absence of President Umaru Yar’adua on health grounds has made little or no difference to the basic realities of life. It can easily be confirmed that there is certainly no “tension, anxiety, confusion, paralysis, power vacuum” in the immediate or remote surroundings of the common people of Nigeria caused solely by the absence of the President. And if indeed you care to find out, you will be rewarded with the view of the muted majority that President Yar’adua not only has reason to fall sick but is entitled to a long rest in addition to his period of recuperating.
But if you are among the prominent and privileged minority of Nigerians who live on the frontlines of political and bureaucratic power play and exploitation of vantage positions for material benefit, then the absence of President Yar’adua, even on genuine health grounds, triggers an irresistible urge to wish and work for the incidental and temporary absence to somehow transform into an opportunity to create much-needed back door to power. The elite-owned media shower coverage on the isolated hysteria of the power hustlers and their hunting dogs in order to spread the malady to the wider society and hopefully ride to Aso Villa like conspiring cliques riding chariots of chaos. Their deceitful posturing is packaged as nationalistic “concern” for government and country by enterprising editors who continuously elaborate on the wicked propaganda of terminal illness and permanent incapacity, among other smokescreens for their covert agenda.
The average Nigerian today is more disturbed and disgusted by the cultural abominations and religious heresies that are being flagrantly flaunted by the supposedly enlightened political elites and their allies in a banal bid to get President Yar’adua out of office “by any means” and “at all costs” while he is recuperating from an illness that is not regarded as terminal even by witch-doctors. Typical of such devilish endeavours however, the backlash instead provoked Nigerians into fervent prayers not just for the speedy recovery of their leader but for him to return to office and continue what is generally regarded as the first sober and sincere clearing of the mess that Nigeria has become. By God’s special grace to our innocent and hopeful people, President Yar’adua has not died, he is recovering normally; government has not fallen apart or been paralysed and time has exposed the crass opportunism of the heartless hustlers for power. May God continue to answer the prayers of the people and curse the ambitions of selfish power seekers who don’t mind sacrificing human life or destabilising Nigeria to grab power.
The common people still remember how President Yar’adua was being lampooned for “doing nothing” even before his first hundred days in office by these same power hustlers and their megaphones. It is the same pull-him-down clique that is today harping on the president’s “incapacity” thereby deliberately ignoring his exceptional feat of resolving the greatest threat to our sovereignty and unity since the civil war (the crisis in the Niger Delta). While dollars and gunboats failed, sincere and humble patriotism and fixed focus on dialoguing with the impoverished and frustrated people of the Niger Delta by recognising their plight and granting amnesty and due recompense to those who deserve it was President Yar’adua’s master stroke of statesmanship.
This singular monumental achievement proves the effectiveness of Yaradua’s “slow and steady” modus operandi which is the only way deep thought, careful planning and intelligent action can be accommodated in the quest for truly good governance. It is working in the power sector too as we have got almost 4,000 megawatts out of the targeted 6,000 despite the well-publicised oil revenue and gas supply sabotage in Niger Delta for most of the past three years. River Niger is being dredged for the first time to create a whole new vista of economic advancement through water transportation which like the railways was a pillar of national development, hitherto neglected except as avenue for looting. The ultimate beneficiaries of all these strategic projects of the Yar’adua administration are the majority of the people of Nigeria whose unheeded cries for employment, empowerment and emancipation from imposed poverty at last have a listening ear, a humane mind and a strong will to serve the nation as embodied in President Yar’adua. If the voice of the people is really the voice of God, then Yar’adua will not only get well but also live long in the service of his people. With God and the people on his side, the displaced and disgraced clique of retired generals and their thieving civilian collaborators are the ones facing permanent incapacity and terminal irrelevance.
Atunwase is a priest in Ota, Ogun State