I received interesting feedback from Obama supporters following my endorsement of Barack Obama last week. Olumide Ekisola, a partner at AE & E Legal resisted the temptation to taunt me for my previous backing of Senator Hillary Clinton. He wrote, “I must commend your candour at realising that Barack Obama is the man of the moment as regard the election in the US. I read your earlier article in which you endorsed Hillary Clinton and I was actually waiting for the opportunity of sending a mail to you to “jeer” as soon as Barack was sworn in as President but you apparently have “seen the light”…I was carried away and persuaded by his “audacity of hope” and belief that where other known civil right activists have failed he will squeeze out victory from the hard terraces of all disadvantages stacked against him. I just decided to acknowledge your endorsement (as if I am qualified) on Obama’s behalf and to let you know that just as I would have jeered I am also willing to praise. On that note, I must commend you on your write ups and opinions on all issues treated by you. Please keep it up and be rest assured that a whole lot of us Nigerians learn one or two things from the efforts of people like you.”
One Loomnie posted a comment on my blog. He said, “…you wrote that the Republicans think (thought) that Mr Obama would be an easier opponent for them. That was the first time I would hear of that argument and it is kinda surprising that they would think so, to say the least. You wrote above that the Republicans have spent many years investigating Ms Clinton's past but I think that is not quite correct. For one, she has had quite a murkier past than Barack Obama, a past that was still yet unexplored during the primaries, and that would have been dragged to the public if she had won the primaries. Think, for instance, about what would happen if there were a closer scrutiny of what happened during the time Mr Clinton was having the Lewinsky affair. I, on the other hand, think that Obama offers a stronger opposition precisely because there is about nothing to uncover in his past, and attacking him is, well, just think about what happened after the New Yorker cartoon. And is even when it was meant as a satire. I probably don't need to add that I support the American-born African American.”
There were other responses as well, demonstrating the depth of support and passion that many in Nigeria have for the Obama campaign. Which is a good thing, because of course I now count myself as a strong Obama advocate as well. Which is why I have been reading Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope”-a book that has been sitting in my library for some months now, but which I had previously not found time to read. Having read the book, I would strongly recommend that everyone reads it. Perhaps if I had done so long before now, I would have appreciated the vision and clarity of mind that Obama will bring to the US presidency and might perhaps have joined the Obama revolution earlier than now. The book does not offer a “unifying theory of American government” nor “a manifesto for action, complete with charts and graphs, timetables and ten-point plans”. But it gives the best possible insight into the mind and motivation of the author and his vision for America and the world.
The perspective is not neutral-of course Barack Obama as he readily admits is a Democrat, and even though he may not use that word is liberal, is a black man of mixed parentage. But it is a relatively objective analysis devoid of extreme partisanship, ideological posturing or demagoguery. It fits Obama’s change message and his refusal to see America in red or blue, republican or democratic, poor or rich, black, white or Hispanic or other divisive classifications. While the book does not present a unifying theory of government, he does present a common set of values and ideals that bind the US and indeed the world together.
Reading the book, you get the sense of the hand of God steering this young, brilliant, idealistic, intelligent and yet pragmatic lawyer to a great destiny-from his first election to the Illinois state legislature, to winning an unlikely victory in his Senate democratic primary and victory over his republican opponent, both his major opponents having been undone essentially by their divorces, his selection to act as key note speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and beyond the book to becoming the first African-American nominee of one of the two major US political parties. It seems almost divinely ordained that the next stop is the US Presidency especially after watching the world-the leaders of Iraq and Afghanistan, Jordan, Germany, France and Britain, the US soldiers in Iraq, and over 200,000 people in Berlin treat Obama as if he was already President. When Obama scored that three-pointer on the basket ball court in Iraq, it seemed like a prophetic indicator of something more tangible to come.
But it is in the discussion of Obama’s thoughts on politics, values, the US Constitution, economics and opportunity, race, family and the world beyond the US borders that the profundity of the mind and the values at play in Barack Obama strike you. Any fair-minded reader will soon conclude that this is not just another politician plying his trade. Barack Obama seeks an older tradition of politics. He is grasping at a set of values that he believes are at the heart of the American experience; he argues that there is another tradition to politics which assumes a common destiny and mutual stakeholding in the American dream; and he argues with passion, strong reasoning and conviction.
He argues in favour of a change in values and a change in policy-both cultural transformation and government action-to promote the kind of society America seeks. He discusses the place of money in US politics lamenting the requirements of fund raising and networking with wealthy donors that increasingly takes the elected official or indeed candidate away from the people he enters politics seeking to serve-in his words, “The longer you are a senator, the narrower the scope of your interactions. You may fight it, with town hall meetings and listening tours and stops by the old neighbourhood. But your schedule dictates that you move in a different orbit from most of the people you represent.” He argues (quoting Justice Louis Brandeis) that “in a democracy, the most important office is the office of citizen” (tell that to a Nigerian politician!); he strongly criticizes the republican economic agenda under Bush Jnr which through tax cuts and reduced regulation has catered to the wealthy and ignored the poor and proposes an alternative-based on investments in education, science and technology and energy independence.
Obama repeats the main thrust of his speech in 2004 at the DNC-“There is not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America-there’s the United States of America” but re-emphasizes the reality of the precarious situation blacks and Latinos face. In his discussion of the global environment, Obama is very knowledgeable whether he discusses Indonesia, Vietnam, Iraq, Europe, Africa, China or Russia and presents a well thought out framework for the exercise of US military power and engagement with allies. In the epilogue, Obama writes about the men and women he had met on the campaign trail-their determination, self-reliance and relentless optimism in the face of hardship. He describes this spirit as the best of the American spirit-the audacity to believe despite all evidence to the contrary and called this spirit “The Audacity of Hope”.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Endorsing Barack Obama
Like many Nigerians, and indeed millions of observers from all across the world, this column has been following the unfolding US primaries and election season for several months now. As readers of this column will have noticed, we offered support for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy during the democratic primaries because I sincerely believed (as I still do) that she would have been a very competent head of the strongest nation on earth. Of all the candidates on offer across both the republican and democratic parties, I thought she came to the race with the best preparation and the most complete credentials-in economy, foreign policy and national security-for the American voter. From the point of view of the international audience, she offered a return to effective international engagement that we saw during her husband Bill Clinton’s regime, rather than the unthinking ideology and special-interests driven neo-conservatism and chest-thumping of the Bush Jnr. years.
The Bush posture has isolated America in world opinion and led to the increase rather than a reduction in Islamic fundamentalism and terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the middle-east. The proper strategy would have been to isolate the extremists rather than as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and co. ended up doing becoming in effect recruitment agents for them. I do not blame Bush for global terrorism-the blame for that remains squarely that of Osama Bin Ladin and those of his ilk who spread hate and fear, and those in some of the constituencies he claims to represent who appear supportive or at least ambivalent towards his dangerous ideology. But America has offered the world leadership through the second world war, the era of reconstruction and the cold war precisely because of the values of freedom, democracy and notions of moral superiority that it espoused rather than just muscle flexing, or descending into the standards of its adversaries; and the Bush regime has done no more than flex its bulging muscles in the last seven years.
The failure of that approach has become so glaring today and a new, more effective approach is clearly required. Hillary I thought was a very safe option for the democrats-she was well-known by the US voters; the republicans had spent many years investigating and probing into every area of her life that it was unlikely they could find any thing new that could hurt her in an election; she was clearly competent, popular and brilliant and whether in terms of domestic policy or international leadership, Hillary’s suitability could hardly be questioned. I personally admired her as a very intelligent and strategic-minded first lady who supported her husband through very trying times and emerged from it all with the respect and admiration of many all over the world.
On the other hand, Barack Obama appeared at first like a long shot-a single-term Senator who was coming into the US Senate from the Illinois legislature, with apparently thin credentials on economy, foreign policy and national security, … and he was black and liberal. It seemed his only strengths were his personal charisma and self-confidence, or well “The Audacity of Hope”! It was most unlikely that Obama’s profile would stand up to Hillary’s and even if he beat Hillary by some twist of inexplicable Democratic Party manoeuvring, surely he was unelectable in white-dominated America? Well not quite, it seems. Obama upset all the calculations and secured a stunning though narrow victory over Clinton. It seems the republicans preferred an Obama victory over Hillary because they thought he would be easier to defeat than she, and of course they totally fear and dread Hillary.
Well bad news for the republicans! This column feels confident at this point in time to offer an unconditional endorsement of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. And we fully expect that come January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will step into the White House as President of the United States of America. It would surely be a great epoch for the Kenyan-born African-American, but it would also offer hope to all African-Americans and indeed all minorities in the US that race, colour, class, sex (thanks to Hillary) and personal disadvantages of any hue can not limit one in reaching any heights we seek. It would be a moment of restoration for the African-Americans after slavery, segregation and discrimination and I hope should help create a new stereotype of the African-American male which generations to follow can aspire to.
Beyond America, Obama’s victory will confirm to the rest of the world that the US is indeed the land of the possible. How else can America shame its adversaries than demonstrate to them the ultimate reality of the American dream, a country in which a boy born to a Kenyan immigrant student and a white mother, partly educated in Indonesia can go on to Harvard and then become a Senator and in short cause, president and commander-in-chief of the US armed forces. But Obama’s victory will also restore American leadership-in Europe, the middle-east, Africa and the rest of the world. As I write this article, I look with pride at CNN images of Obama in Afghanistan and Iraq. I see US soldiers offer an enthusiastic applause as he meets with them; I see him eat with the service men in their cafeteria and chat easily with the officers; I see him confidently interact with Karzai in Kabul and Al-Maliki in Iraq and it is clear that what we see is an emerging leader who will etch his name in history and fulfil a great destiny.
Fortunately it is also clear that Obama will be a competent leader-his instincts on the Iraqi war were right, and those of Bush, McCain and others for all their foreign policy and national security know-how were wrong; he spoke about talking with Iran, and now the US is doing exactly that; he argued in favour of concentrating the war in Afghanistan, rather than Iraq and he has been proved correct; he spoke about a time-line for withdrawal from Iraq and now the Iraq government is hinting at same; he has stronger ratings than McCain on the economy, and I am certain that shortly, he will also overtake McCain on national security. The republicans forget that Obama studied International Relations in Columbia, that he has a natural exposure to Africa where his father hailed from, and the Islamic world, having grown up in Indonesia, in short rather than foreign policy and national defence been his Achilles heel like the republicans hope, it will turn out to be an Obama strength.
Most importantly, I believe that as Americans go to the polls in November, they will be reminded as Obama wrote in his “The Audacity of Hope” that “at the core of the American experience are a set of ideals that continue to stir our collective conscience; a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences; a running thread of hope that makes our improbable experiment in democracy work. These values and ideals find expression not just in the marble slabs of monuments or in the recitation of history books. They remain alive in the hearts and minds of most Americans-and can inspire us to pride, duty, and sacrifice” and they will vote for Barack Obama.
The Bush posture has isolated America in world opinion and led to the increase rather than a reduction in Islamic fundamentalism and terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the middle-east. The proper strategy would have been to isolate the extremists rather than as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and co. ended up doing becoming in effect recruitment agents for them. I do not blame Bush for global terrorism-the blame for that remains squarely that of Osama Bin Ladin and those of his ilk who spread hate and fear, and those in some of the constituencies he claims to represent who appear supportive or at least ambivalent towards his dangerous ideology. But America has offered the world leadership through the second world war, the era of reconstruction and the cold war precisely because of the values of freedom, democracy and notions of moral superiority that it espoused rather than just muscle flexing, or descending into the standards of its adversaries; and the Bush regime has done no more than flex its bulging muscles in the last seven years.
The failure of that approach has become so glaring today and a new, more effective approach is clearly required. Hillary I thought was a very safe option for the democrats-she was well-known by the US voters; the republicans had spent many years investigating and probing into every area of her life that it was unlikely they could find any thing new that could hurt her in an election; she was clearly competent, popular and brilliant and whether in terms of domestic policy or international leadership, Hillary’s suitability could hardly be questioned. I personally admired her as a very intelligent and strategic-minded first lady who supported her husband through very trying times and emerged from it all with the respect and admiration of many all over the world.
On the other hand, Barack Obama appeared at first like a long shot-a single-term Senator who was coming into the US Senate from the Illinois legislature, with apparently thin credentials on economy, foreign policy and national security, … and he was black and liberal. It seemed his only strengths were his personal charisma and self-confidence, or well “The Audacity of Hope”! It was most unlikely that Obama’s profile would stand up to Hillary’s and even if he beat Hillary by some twist of inexplicable Democratic Party manoeuvring, surely he was unelectable in white-dominated America? Well not quite, it seems. Obama upset all the calculations and secured a stunning though narrow victory over Clinton. It seems the republicans preferred an Obama victory over Hillary because they thought he would be easier to defeat than she, and of course they totally fear and dread Hillary.
Well bad news for the republicans! This column feels confident at this point in time to offer an unconditional endorsement of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. And we fully expect that come January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will step into the White House as President of the United States of America. It would surely be a great epoch for the Kenyan-born African-American, but it would also offer hope to all African-Americans and indeed all minorities in the US that race, colour, class, sex (thanks to Hillary) and personal disadvantages of any hue can not limit one in reaching any heights we seek. It would be a moment of restoration for the African-Americans after slavery, segregation and discrimination and I hope should help create a new stereotype of the African-American male which generations to follow can aspire to.
Beyond America, Obama’s victory will confirm to the rest of the world that the US is indeed the land of the possible. How else can America shame its adversaries than demonstrate to them the ultimate reality of the American dream, a country in which a boy born to a Kenyan immigrant student and a white mother, partly educated in Indonesia can go on to Harvard and then become a Senator and in short cause, president and commander-in-chief of the US armed forces. But Obama’s victory will also restore American leadership-in Europe, the middle-east, Africa and the rest of the world. As I write this article, I look with pride at CNN images of Obama in Afghanistan and Iraq. I see US soldiers offer an enthusiastic applause as he meets with them; I see him eat with the service men in their cafeteria and chat easily with the officers; I see him confidently interact with Karzai in Kabul and Al-Maliki in Iraq and it is clear that what we see is an emerging leader who will etch his name in history and fulfil a great destiny.
Fortunately it is also clear that Obama will be a competent leader-his instincts on the Iraqi war were right, and those of Bush, McCain and others for all their foreign policy and national security know-how were wrong; he spoke about talking with Iran, and now the US is doing exactly that; he argued in favour of concentrating the war in Afghanistan, rather than Iraq and he has been proved correct; he spoke about a time-line for withdrawal from Iraq and now the Iraq government is hinting at same; he has stronger ratings than McCain on the economy, and I am certain that shortly, he will also overtake McCain on national security. The republicans forget that Obama studied International Relations in Columbia, that he has a natural exposure to Africa where his father hailed from, and the Islamic world, having grown up in Indonesia, in short rather than foreign policy and national defence been his Achilles heel like the republicans hope, it will turn out to be an Obama strength.
Most importantly, I believe that as Americans go to the polls in November, they will be reminded as Obama wrote in his “The Audacity of Hope” that “at the core of the American experience are a set of ideals that continue to stir our collective conscience; a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences; a running thread of hope that makes our improbable experiment in democracy work. These values and ideals find expression not just in the marble slabs of monuments or in the recitation of history books. They remain alive in the hearts and minds of most Americans-and can inspire us to pride, duty, and sacrifice” and they will vote for Barack Obama.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Miscallaneous Updates
In the last month, your column has been engaged in historical excursions-Abacha, MKO Abiola, June 12 etc. That may have meant ignoring contemporary matters, some of which are important. We will attempt to bring ourselves up to date.
The Spanish Season
It’s a good time to be Spanish, isn’t it? Euro 2008 jointly hosted by Switzerland and Austria has come and gone. I doubt that any previous European national teams contest has enjoyed a similar following. I was backing Netherlands, Portugal and Spain-in that order-all of them (particularly Netherlands (Holland) and Spain) with well-deserved reputations as chronic under-achievers. It was good however that Spain has proved the cynics wrong and won a fantastic victory this time around. Less than two weeks after the famous Spanish football triumph, Spanish good fortune moved into tennis. Rafael Nadal won a scintillating victory at Wimbledon against the favourite-Roger Federer. I heard one report which quoted one of the tennis greats, John McEnroe declare it was the best game of tennis he had ever seen, and he should know. How long will the Spanish season last?
The Gambari Affair
It is not a good time to be a mediator! The president has even before his election declared his intention to convene a Niger-Delta Summit to discuss the problems in the troubled region. The government has reportedly been preparing the spade work for the conference since it came into office in May last year. As it began to look as if the summit was ready to get off the ground, the government named Professor Ibrahim Gambari as the summit Chair. Well the summit planning apparently did not include considerations of the reactions in the region to the distinguished academic and diplomat’s anticipated role, and no one either remembered or imagined that the regional stakeholders would remember offensive comments he made in the wake of the Ken Saro Wiwa affair. Now it appears all stakeholders in the region appear to have agreed that Gambari is unacceptable as in effect Chief Mediator in the Niger-Delta consultations. Now the esteemed professor is left insisting, “I must be the peacemaker!”
Daniel in the Legislators’ Den?
What is really going on in Ogun State? When the legislators out of the blues removed the erstwhile speaker, Mrs Titi Oseni, various interpretations were possible. Had the governor lost confidence in her and sanctioned her removal? At first, given the assumptions about what seemed like Governor Gbenga Daniel’s absolute control of Ogun State politics (or at least the PDP version of it), any other explanation was inconceivable. Then it began to emerge that the governor was as ignorant about the speaker’s removal as the rest of us. Then an attempted mediation by former President Ibrahim Babangida which may have complicated matters and further incensed some of the governor’s hidden opponents. Then rumours of assassination attempts and impeachment plots. It now appears clear that relations between the Governor and the House is breaking down irretrievably and Ogun State politics is entering a dangerous and unpredictable phase. May be we should pray.
No Surprises about Power
The Rilwanu Lukman Committee set up to recommend a policy framework for the power sector turned in its report weeks back. As has become predictable to close watchers, the committee is reported to have recommended suspension of further privatisation of the earlier unbundled PHCN companies. It also supported the putting in place of a “coordinating mechanism” for those entities. The committee advocated huge government spending on power obviously leading from its lack of faith in a private sector power development model. The recommendations learnt nothing from our economic experience-the rapid transformation of our aviation, telecommunications, broadcasting, pension and banking sectors amongst others without government investment; the scandals of the power sector probe which should have confirmed to any one that putting money alone into the sector without a proper industry model anchored on private sector funding and management will lead no where; and ignored the existence of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act of 2005 which prescribed a road map for development of the power sector. I am convinced the recommendations will not work, but that will be after a lot more money has gone down the drain, and the power situation has worsened further.
Will Obama be the first African-American President?
Barack Obama completed to all intents and purposes the feat of being the first African-American to be nominated by a major US political party as its presidential candidate. The next step is then for him to actually win the November elections and be sworn in as US president in January 2009. If that does happen, it will be a truly significant epoch in the journey of the African-Americans and indeed all minorities in the US. It will also be a powerful signal to the rest of the world about racial and ethnic integration and the futility of racial, ethnic and other stereotypes and prejudices. I pray Obama wins. Followers of the column will of course recall that I supported Hillary Clinton, but hoped that she and Obama could hold a joint ticket. I still believe the democrats have chosen a riskier strategy, but then nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Mugabe for Ever!
Robert Mugabe “won” another term as Zimbabwean President last week after intimidating and brutalising his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai out of the re-run elections and then prevailing in uncontested repeat elections. I used to sympathise with Mugabe at least in so far as British opposition to him was tied up with the former colonial power’s unwillingness to address the land issue. I still support the basic principle of land re-distribution, but then every leader has a responsibility to make life more abundant for their citizens and not worse, and certainly Mugabe has made life hellish, brutish and unpleasant for all Zimbabweans. He now has a duty to design an exit plan from office and allow a younger and hopefully more competent successor to resolve the problems of that nation. Unfortunately as Mugabe himself pointed out not many of his African Union colleagues are in a position to prevail on him so to do.
The Spanish Season
It’s a good time to be Spanish, isn’t it? Euro 2008 jointly hosted by Switzerland and Austria has come and gone. I doubt that any previous European national teams contest has enjoyed a similar following. I was backing Netherlands, Portugal and Spain-in that order-all of them (particularly Netherlands (Holland) and Spain) with well-deserved reputations as chronic under-achievers. It was good however that Spain has proved the cynics wrong and won a fantastic victory this time around. Less than two weeks after the famous Spanish football triumph, Spanish good fortune moved into tennis. Rafael Nadal won a scintillating victory at Wimbledon against the favourite-Roger Federer. I heard one report which quoted one of the tennis greats, John McEnroe declare it was the best game of tennis he had ever seen, and he should know. How long will the Spanish season last?
The Gambari Affair
It is not a good time to be a mediator! The president has even before his election declared his intention to convene a Niger-Delta Summit to discuss the problems in the troubled region. The government has reportedly been preparing the spade work for the conference since it came into office in May last year. As it began to look as if the summit was ready to get off the ground, the government named Professor Ibrahim Gambari as the summit Chair. Well the summit planning apparently did not include considerations of the reactions in the region to the distinguished academic and diplomat’s anticipated role, and no one either remembered or imagined that the regional stakeholders would remember offensive comments he made in the wake of the Ken Saro Wiwa affair. Now it appears all stakeholders in the region appear to have agreed that Gambari is unacceptable as in effect Chief Mediator in the Niger-Delta consultations. Now the esteemed professor is left insisting, “I must be the peacemaker!”
Daniel in the Legislators’ Den?
What is really going on in Ogun State? When the legislators out of the blues removed the erstwhile speaker, Mrs Titi Oseni, various interpretations were possible. Had the governor lost confidence in her and sanctioned her removal? At first, given the assumptions about what seemed like Governor Gbenga Daniel’s absolute control of Ogun State politics (or at least the PDP version of it), any other explanation was inconceivable. Then it began to emerge that the governor was as ignorant about the speaker’s removal as the rest of us. Then an attempted mediation by former President Ibrahim Babangida which may have complicated matters and further incensed some of the governor’s hidden opponents. Then rumours of assassination attempts and impeachment plots. It now appears clear that relations between the Governor and the House is breaking down irretrievably and Ogun State politics is entering a dangerous and unpredictable phase. May be we should pray.
No Surprises about Power
The Rilwanu Lukman Committee set up to recommend a policy framework for the power sector turned in its report weeks back. As has become predictable to close watchers, the committee is reported to have recommended suspension of further privatisation of the earlier unbundled PHCN companies. It also supported the putting in place of a “coordinating mechanism” for those entities. The committee advocated huge government spending on power obviously leading from its lack of faith in a private sector power development model. The recommendations learnt nothing from our economic experience-the rapid transformation of our aviation, telecommunications, broadcasting, pension and banking sectors amongst others without government investment; the scandals of the power sector probe which should have confirmed to any one that putting money alone into the sector without a proper industry model anchored on private sector funding and management will lead no where; and ignored the existence of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act of 2005 which prescribed a road map for development of the power sector. I am convinced the recommendations will not work, but that will be after a lot more money has gone down the drain, and the power situation has worsened further.
Will Obama be the first African-American President?
Barack Obama completed to all intents and purposes the feat of being the first African-American to be nominated by a major US political party as its presidential candidate. The next step is then for him to actually win the November elections and be sworn in as US president in January 2009. If that does happen, it will be a truly significant epoch in the journey of the African-Americans and indeed all minorities in the US. It will also be a powerful signal to the rest of the world about racial and ethnic integration and the futility of racial, ethnic and other stereotypes and prejudices. I pray Obama wins. Followers of the column will of course recall that I supported Hillary Clinton, but hoped that she and Obama could hold a joint ticket. I still believe the democrats have chosen a riskier strategy, but then nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Mugabe for Ever!
Robert Mugabe “won” another term as Zimbabwean President last week after intimidating and brutalising his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai out of the re-run elections and then prevailing in uncontested repeat elections. I used to sympathise with Mugabe at least in so far as British opposition to him was tied up with the former colonial power’s unwillingness to address the land issue. I still support the basic principle of land re-distribution, but then every leader has a responsibility to make life more abundant for their citizens and not worse, and certainly Mugabe has made life hellish, brutish and unpleasant for all Zimbabweans. He now has a duty to design an exit plan from office and allow a younger and hopefully more competent successor to resolve the problems of that nation. Unfortunately as Mugabe himself pointed out not many of his African Union colleagues are in a position to prevail on him so to do.
Fifteen Years after "June 12"
Part 2
The June 12 crisis raises many questions which are yet to be answered, either partially or in full. Why did Ibrahim Babangida (aka IBB) encourage his friend M.K.O Abiola to contest the elections when he was probably inclined to seek to retain the office beyond the democratic transition? While IBB’s motivation (staying put in office), and Abacha’s (inheriting an office he had been eyeing for many years) was clear, what was the motivation of the military “cabal” that pushed through the annulment of the elections? Why did IBB leave Abacha in the army and government as he was leaving in August 1993, while retiring other service chiefs? Wasn’t it fairly predictable that Abacha would at some point move against the toothless interim government which IBB had installed in his stead?
Why did the seeming national consensus that manifested in Abiola’s overwhelming victory on June 12 collapse so easily in the days after June 12? Why did the mainstream northern and eastern political elite so easily abandon MKO leaving mainly his Yoruba home base to be “standing on June 12”? Why did the Nigerian people who expressed righteous indignation at Abiola’s initial escape abroad and demanded his return to reclaim his mandate abandon him to his fate when Abacha clamped him into detention? How on earth could the leaders of NADECO and even MKO Abiola himself have trusted Abacha to return the Presidency to Abiola? In what way had Abacha earned such trust? How did Abacha die? Was it purely fortuitous or was there a human “hand of God” facilitating things? How did MKO himself die?
I can not claim to have definitive answers to these questions-only God and the main actors do. What I present in the following lines are interpretations and analysis based on known facts, and in some cases my personal projections from such facts. It was clear like I asserted in the first part, that IBB did not wish to leave office. He sought to “succeed himself” as civilian president. However as “maradona”, he was not going to announce his intention to the whole world, especially as he was intricately familiar with Nigerian history, and knew that such a declaration that “1976 is no longer realistic” may amount to the final straw. So his strategy was to wear out the political class, and eliminate all the key contenders until everybody understood his body language and left the office for him.
So the extensions of the hand-over date, banning and un-banning and long winded transitions were all part of a pattern of behaviour that confirmed IBB’s real strategy. By the time of the June 12 election, the first and second tier of politicians had been eliminated (Yar’adua, Falae, Ciroma, Shinkafi, Saraki, Bamangar Tukur, Lai Balogun, Nzeribe, Abel Ubeku etc) and Abiola, Kingibe, Atiku and Tofa etc were probably the last group of people with financial, political and social capital to embark on a venture as costly and risky as the presidency of Nigeria. I can assert that if IBB had gotten away with disposing of the June 12 election like the previous party primaries he annulled, he may have had a smooth ride to a civilian presidency. IBB encouraged Abiola along as part of the intricate scheme to eliminate all viable contenders to the presidency, except that things spun out of control.
Abacha clearly wanted the presidency for himself. He had cherished the appellation “Khalifa” (the next one or successor) for many years. Some indeed believe that he may have had some kind of pact with IBB to this effect as a consequence of his role in bringing IBB to office and retrieving his presidency (and life as well, perhaps) during the Orkar coup of April 22, 1990. Again if IBB made such a promise, I have no doubt that he had no intention of honouring it confident of his evasive skills, but again he underrated Abacha. I believe IBB left Abacha in the army, not because of such a promise, but to protect himself from a possible back-lash in the unstable and unpredictable terrain of those post-annulment days. In spite of the risks, IBB must have believed that it was only Abacha he could rely on to cover his back. He must have believed that Joshua Dogonyaro and Aliyu Muhammed Gusau could checkmate Abacha if he had any funny ideas. In any event, Abacha had sold everyone a dummy that he was in a hurry to go back to civilian life and business.
I found it inexplicable that IBB, “NADECO”, General Diya and even Abiola fell for Abacha’s dummy. As a purely private citizen, I recall warning in conversations with friends and family that if IBB (and later Shonekan) was pushed out of office prematurely without a clearly designed alternative, Abacha would take office, and Nigeria would live to regret that eventuality. Till today, I wonder why I could take such a position based on information in the public domain, yet very senior leaders and politicians did not sufficiently analyse the facts and act rationally. The other decision the pro-June 12 forces took which I found emotional and not strategically sound, was the insistence that MKO must return home to claim his mandate, without any clearly articulated plan for realising that objective. As we know from the game of chess, once the King is captured, the war is over!
There were many in the military, apart from IBB and Abacha who coveted the Presidency and the offices around it. The 1990 Gulf War had made the country momentarily rich again, and those close to the corridors of power were unwilling to walk away from the honey pot. The truth is there were also many politicians even in Abiola’s Yoruba base and evidently the rest of the country who relished another try at the office if Abiola’s election was nullified. Even in the core of Abiola’s camp, traitors and saboteurs abounded. In Eastern Nigeria, support for Abiola was half-hearted and whatever support there was may have been due to a sense of inevitability about his victory. At the first signs that Abiola’s presidency was not quite inevitable, the support base dissipated. In Northern Nigeria, senior politicians, including Yar’adua who gave apparent support to MKO saw the annulment as another opportunity to grab the presidential prize.
Senior Northern leaders who initially supported Abiola re-evaluated the situation and decided there was nothing wrong in keeping the Presidency in the North. Ciroma derided the Yorubas for acting like “rain-beaten chickens” while Abubakar Rimi sensationally declared that he was not in politics because of MKO! So how did first Abacha and then MKO die?-happenstance, co-incidence, enemy action or just an act of God? What is clear to me is that Nigeria’s military and power elite and the “international community” (meaning US and UK) were by June 8, 1998 convinced that Abacha stood in the way of the nation’s development. A final solution may also have been viewed as requiring either an Abiola who would forsake his mandate, or one that was dead. It was thus very convenient for the “stakeholders” that Abacha and Abiola passed away within days of each other!
The June 12 crisis raises many questions which are yet to be answered, either partially or in full. Why did Ibrahim Babangida (aka IBB) encourage his friend M.K.O Abiola to contest the elections when he was probably inclined to seek to retain the office beyond the democratic transition? While IBB’s motivation (staying put in office), and Abacha’s (inheriting an office he had been eyeing for many years) was clear, what was the motivation of the military “cabal” that pushed through the annulment of the elections? Why did IBB leave Abacha in the army and government as he was leaving in August 1993, while retiring other service chiefs? Wasn’t it fairly predictable that Abacha would at some point move against the toothless interim government which IBB had installed in his stead?
Why did the seeming national consensus that manifested in Abiola’s overwhelming victory on June 12 collapse so easily in the days after June 12? Why did the mainstream northern and eastern political elite so easily abandon MKO leaving mainly his Yoruba home base to be “standing on June 12”? Why did the Nigerian people who expressed righteous indignation at Abiola’s initial escape abroad and demanded his return to reclaim his mandate abandon him to his fate when Abacha clamped him into detention? How on earth could the leaders of NADECO and even MKO Abiola himself have trusted Abacha to return the Presidency to Abiola? In what way had Abacha earned such trust? How did Abacha die? Was it purely fortuitous or was there a human “hand of God” facilitating things? How did MKO himself die?
I can not claim to have definitive answers to these questions-only God and the main actors do. What I present in the following lines are interpretations and analysis based on known facts, and in some cases my personal projections from such facts. It was clear like I asserted in the first part, that IBB did not wish to leave office. He sought to “succeed himself” as civilian president. However as “maradona”, he was not going to announce his intention to the whole world, especially as he was intricately familiar with Nigerian history, and knew that such a declaration that “1976 is no longer realistic” may amount to the final straw. So his strategy was to wear out the political class, and eliminate all the key contenders until everybody understood his body language and left the office for him.
So the extensions of the hand-over date, banning and un-banning and long winded transitions were all part of a pattern of behaviour that confirmed IBB’s real strategy. By the time of the June 12 election, the first and second tier of politicians had been eliminated (Yar’adua, Falae, Ciroma, Shinkafi, Saraki, Bamangar Tukur, Lai Balogun, Nzeribe, Abel Ubeku etc) and Abiola, Kingibe, Atiku and Tofa etc were probably the last group of people with financial, political and social capital to embark on a venture as costly and risky as the presidency of Nigeria. I can assert that if IBB had gotten away with disposing of the June 12 election like the previous party primaries he annulled, he may have had a smooth ride to a civilian presidency. IBB encouraged Abiola along as part of the intricate scheme to eliminate all viable contenders to the presidency, except that things spun out of control.
Abacha clearly wanted the presidency for himself. He had cherished the appellation “Khalifa” (the next one or successor) for many years. Some indeed believe that he may have had some kind of pact with IBB to this effect as a consequence of his role in bringing IBB to office and retrieving his presidency (and life as well, perhaps) during the Orkar coup of April 22, 1990. Again if IBB made such a promise, I have no doubt that he had no intention of honouring it confident of his evasive skills, but again he underrated Abacha. I believe IBB left Abacha in the army, not because of such a promise, but to protect himself from a possible back-lash in the unstable and unpredictable terrain of those post-annulment days. In spite of the risks, IBB must have believed that it was only Abacha he could rely on to cover his back. He must have believed that Joshua Dogonyaro and Aliyu Muhammed Gusau could checkmate Abacha if he had any funny ideas. In any event, Abacha had sold everyone a dummy that he was in a hurry to go back to civilian life and business.
I found it inexplicable that IBB, “NADECO”, General Diya and even Abiola fell for Abacha’s dummy. As a purely private citizen, I recall warning in conversations with friends and family that if IBB (and later Shonekan) was pushed out of office prematurely without a clearly designed alternative, Abacha would take office, and Nigeria would live to regret that eventuality. Till today, I wonder why I could take such a position based on information in the public domain, yet very senior leaders and politicians did not sufficiently analyse the facts and act rationally. The other decision the pro-June 12 forces took which I found emotional and not strategically sound, was the insistence that MKO must return home to claim his mandate, without any clearly articulated plan for realising that objective. As we know from the game of chess, once the King is captured, the war is over!
There were many in the military, apart from IBB and Abacha who coveted the Presidency and the offices around it. The 1990 Gulf War had made the country momentarily rich again, and those close to the corridors of power were unwilling to walk away from the honey pot. The truth is there were also many politicians even in Abiola’s Yoruba base and evidently the rest of the country who relished another try at the office if Abiola’s election was nullified. Even in the core of Abiola’s camp, traitors and saboteurs abounded. In Eastern Nigeria, support for Abiola was half-hearted and whatever support there was may have been due to a sense of inevitability about his victory. At the first signs that Abiola’s presidency was not quite inevitable, the support base dissipated. In Northern Nigeria, senior politicians, including Yar’adua who gave apparent support to MKO saw the annulment as another opportunity to grab the presidential prize.
Senior Northern leaders who initially supported Abiola re-evaluated the situation and decided there was nothing wrong in keeping the Presidency in the North. Ciroma derided the Yorubas for acting like “rain-beaten chickens” while Abubakar Rimi sensationally declared that he was not in politics because of MKO! So how did first Abacha and then MKO die?-happenstance, co-incidence, enemy action or just an act of God? What is clear to me is that Nigeria’s military and power elite and the “international community” (meaning US and UK) were by June 8, 1998 convinced that Abacha stood in the way of the nation’s development. A final solution may also have been viewed as requiring either an Abiola who would forsake his mandate, or one that was dead. It was thus very convenient for the “stakeholders” that Abacha and Abiola passed away within days of each other!
Fifteen Years after "June 12"
Last week we wrote on the Abacha phenomenon and its dramatic effects on the evolution of the Nigerian state and reflected on how Nigeria has fared ten years after his death on June 8, 1998. Today we remember the events that led directly to the ascension of General Sani Abacha to the office of Head of State of Nigeria. It is not controversial I believe to assert that Abacha’s rule was a direct consequence of the June 12 1993 election crisis and the events following therefrom.
Soldiers led defacto by General Ibrahjim Babangida and dejure by General Muhammadu Buhari had removed the civilian regime of Alhaji Shehu Shagari from office on December 31, 1983. General Buhari became military head of state with General Babatunde Idiagbon as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, in effect the military prime minister. The Buhari/Idiagbon regime as it became known was not very politically savvy, alienating virtually every important local and international constituency-the politicians, civil servants, media, business and even important segments of the ruling military. At some point, Babangida, the powerful Chief of Army staff and real power behind the throne was similarly alienated and on August 27, 1985, Babagida struck and took the power for himself.
IBB as Babangida was popularly known did a lot of things differently. He was till then the Nigerian leader who came to office with the best preparation for the office. He had been a member of the Supreme Military Council under the Murtala Muhammed/Obasanjo regime between 1975 and 1979, even as a relatively junior army officer. He had been one of the inner circle of coup planners (along with Joe Garba, Shehu Musa Yar’adua and Anthony Ochefu etc) who decided to displace the Gowon regime and install the triumvirate of Murtala, Obasanjo and Theophilus Danjuma in his place. IBB took the unprecedented action of taking the title of President, signalling that he intended to be an executive rather than a collegial head of state.
He launched an ambitious economic programme, the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), the precursor to NEEDS and other such economic reform programmes based on free market principles and embarked upon a transition to civil rule programme. The former Buhari regime had explicitly ruled out a similar transition programme. IBB announced a very elaborate transition starting with a Political Bureau, then a constituent assembly and thereafter local government elections on zero party basis. He initially announced an exit date of October 1990, but then began to shift the date raising suspicions that IBB was beginning to enjoy the office, and may be reluctant to hand over. Then a series of banning and un-banning of experienced politicians.
The most significant political innovation of the IBB transition was however the decreeing into existence of two government formed political parties-one “a little to the left” (the Social Democratic Party-SDP) and the other “a little to the right” (the National Republican Convention-NRC) after Babangida ordered the dissolution of the authentic parties formed by the political class and forced the politicians to congregate in his government-owned parties. The government actually appointed interim administrators for these parties and everyone was supposed to be a joiner with no founders and owners. Consequently the more conservative elements with their centre of gravity in the North joined the NRC, while the Western political elite and General Yar’adua’s Peoples Front of Nigeria (PFN) joined the SDP.
In the run up to the Presidential elections which had then been shifted from 1990 to 1992, several front runners emerged-Chief Olu Falae and Gen Yarádua in the SDP and Adamu Ciroma and Umaru Shinkafi in the NRC. I recall that those nomination battles were the first time I took a deep interest in politics backing Falae’s campaign and actually attending some of his rallies and political events. But then Yarádua’s PFN faction was in control of the SDP party machinery and had strong allies in Falae’s Yoruba base (Dapo Sarumi, Bola Tinubu, Lamidi Adedibu etc) and Yar’adua was on course to winning the nomination. In the NRC, there was in effect a stalemate between Ciroma and Shinkafi. IBB then stepped in banning all the 23 aspirants in both parties and ordering a fresh nomination contest.
In stepped MKO Abiola, IBB’s friend and financier, and a rich contractor friend of most of the top echelon of the military and the government. Abiola had been a persona non grata in Yoruba politics because of his opposition to Chief Awolowo and membership of the second republic NPN, but in the interim, he had ingratiated himself with communities and constituencies all over the country, and managed to reach accommodation with even his former adversaries in the Yoruba political establishment. Eventually Abiola defeated Abubakar Atiku and Babagana Kingibe to emerge as SDP presidential candidate with a relative lightweight Alhaji Tofa as NRC candidate. There was little doubt who would prevail in that contest!
Abiola’s campaign was better organised, better financed and even had a more national penetration than the Tofa campaign. But it was not clear yet what was going on in IBB’s mind. Arthur Nzeribe alias Dr Atkins had emerged with an “Association for Better Nigeria” that continued to campaign against the transition. Many wondered who was providing the funding for their extensive newspaper advertisements. At some point it was unclear whether the presidential elections would hold as injunctions were obtained seeking to prevent the election from holding. The US government had to take the unprecedented action of publicly warning against the scuttling of the elections. It did appear that IBB eventually only allowed the elections to hold quite reluctantly.
But while IBB may have been scheming to defer the elections in favour of himself, it appears clear that there were several sub-cliques within the military trying to prevent an imminent Abiola take-over, for different reasons. Some may have disliked Abiola as a person; some may have been worried about the geopolitical transfer of power; but there were others whose intent was to elbow Babangida out in order that they may ascend to the office. Abacha who had taken the nickname “Khalifa” was clearly in this category, and there may have been others! Anyway for as long as these various cliques wanted the elections (whose results, which were public knowledge days after the election, showed that Abiola had won a clear victory) annulled, Abiola’s fate was sealed, but once the annulment was announced, Babangida lost the initiative and was pushed aside in favour of a hastily-conceived Interim National Government, headed by Chief Earnest Shonekan. It was only a question of time before Abacha who stayed behind after IBB’s exit as secretary for Defence would shunt Shonekan out of the Presidential Palace. On November 17, 2003, Abacha retired Shonekan and took the office he had eyed for many years.
Soldiers led defacto by General Ibrahjim Babangida and dejure by General Muhammadu Buhari had removed the civilian regime of Alhaji Shehu Shagari from office on December 31, 1983. General Buhari became military head of state with General Babatunde Idiagbon as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, in effect the military prime minister. The Buhari/Idiagbon regime as it became known was not very politically savvy, alienating virtually every important local and international constituency-the politicians, civil servants, media, business and even important segments of the ruling military. At some point, Babangida, the powerful Chief of Army staff and real power behind the throne was similarly alienated and on August 27, 1985, Babagida struck and took the power for himself.
IBB as Babangida was popularly known did a lot of things differently. He was till then the Nigerian leader who came to office with the best preparation for the office. He had been a member of the Supreme Military Council under the Murtala Muhammed/Obasanjo regime between 1975 and 1979, even as a relatively junior army officer. He had been one of the inner circle of coup planners (along with Joe Garba, Shehu Musa Yar’adua and Anthony Ochefu etc) who decided to displace the Gowon regime and install the triumvirate of Murtala, Obasanjo and Theophilus Danjuma in his place. IBB took the unprecedented action of taking the title of President, signalling that he intended to be an executive rather than a collegial head of state.
He launched an ambitious economic programme, the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), the precursor to NEEDS and other such economic reform programmes based on free market principles and embarked upon a transition to civil rule programme. The former Buhari regime had explicitly ruled out a similar transition programme. IBB announced a very elaborate transition starting with a Political Bureau, then a constituent assembly and thereafter local government elections on zero party basis. He initially announced an exit date of October 1990, but then began to shift the date raising suspicions that IBB was beginning to enjoy the office, and may be reluctant to hand over. Then a series of banning and un-banning of experienced politicians.
The most significant political innovation of the IBB transition was however the decreeing into existence of two government formed political parties-one “a little to the left” (the Social Democratic Party-SDP) and the other “a little to the right” (the National Republican Convention-NRC) after Babangida ordered the dissolution of the authentic parties formed by the political class and forced the politicians to congregate in his government-owned parties. The government actually appointed interim administrators for these parties and everyone was supposed to be a joiner with no founders and owners. Consequently the more conservative elements with their centre of gravity in the North joined the NRC, while the Western political elite and General Yar’adua’s Peoples Front of Nigeria (PFN) joined the SDP.
In the run up to the Presidential elections which had then been shifted from 1990 to 1992, several front runners emerged-Chief Olu Falae and Gen Yarádua in the SDP and Adamu Ciroma and Umaru Shinkafi in the NRC. I recall that those nomination battles were the first time I took a deep interest in politics backing Falae’s campaign and actually attending some of his rallies and political events. But then Yarádua’s PFN faction was in control of the SDP party machinery and had strong allies in Falae’s Yoruba base (Dapo Sarumi, Bola Tinubu, Lamidi Adedibu etc) and Yar’adua was on course to winning the nomination. In the NRC, there was in effect a stalemate between Ciroma and Shinkafi. IBB then stepped in banning all the 23 aspirants in both parties and ordering a fresh nomination contest.
In stepped MKO Abiola, IBB’s friend and financier, and a rich contractor friend of most of the top echelon of the military and the government. Abiola had been a persona non grata in Yoruba politics because of his opposition to Chief Awolowo and membership of the second republic NPN, but in the interim, he had ingratiated himself with communities and constituencies all over the country, and managed to reach accommodation with even his former adversaries in the Yoruba political establishment. Eventually Abiola defeated Abubakar Atiku and Babagana Kingibe to emerge as SDP presidential candidate with a relative lightweight Alhaji Tofa as NRC candidate. There was little doubt who would prevail in that contest!
Abiola’s campaign was better organised, better financed and even had a more national penetration than the Tofa campaign. But it was not clear yet what was going on in IBB’s mind. Arthur Nzeribe alias Dr Atkins had emerged with an “Association for Better Nigeria” that continued to campaign against the transition. Many wondered who was providing the funding for their extensive newspaper advertisements. At some point it was unclear whether the presidential elections would hold as injunctions were obtained seeking to prevent the election from holding. The US government had to take the unprecedented action of publicly warning against the scuttling of the elections. It did appear that IBB eventually only allowed the elections to hold quite reluctantly.
But while IBB may have been scheming to defer the elections in favour of himself, it appears clear that there were several sub-cliques within the military trying to prevent an imminent Abiola take-over, for different reasons. Some may have disliked Abiola as a person; some may have been worried about the geopolitical transfer of power; but there were others whose intent was to elbow Babangida out in order that they may ascend to the office. Abacha who had taken the nickname “Khalifa” was clearly in this category, and there may have been others! Anyway for as long as these various cliques wanted the elections (whose results, which were public knowledge days after the election, showed that Abiola had won a clear victory) annulled, Abiola’s fate was sealed, but once the annulment was announced, Babangida lost the initiative and was pushed aside in favour of a hastily-conceived Interim National Government, headed by Chief Earnest Shonekan. It was only a question of time before Abacha who stayed behind after IBB’s exit as secretary for Defence would shunt Shonekan out of the Presidential Palace. On November 17, 2003, Abacha retired Shonekan and took the office he had eyed for many years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)