Back from the Brink? Part 3

Last week I predicted that the swearing-in of Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President was not likely to be the final chapter of the “interesting times” we have been experiencing since November 23 last year. I expected a counter-strategy from the clique which I have described for two weeks running as carrying out “the Turai Coup”. I had thought the primary response of the group would be through the judicial system and that they were likely to take us right back to square one. In the event, the group exceeded themselves and actually almost took us back to square zero! When I got a text early that fateful Wednesday morning warning me to expect the ill Umaru Yar’adua to show up in Abuja, I knew Nigeria was going right back TO the brink!
When I later got reports that the plotters had actually deployed soldiers in and around Abuja; and flown Yar’adua in during the thick of night without the knowledge of the Acting President, it became clear that we were dealing not just with an on-going coup attempt against the constitution as I had previously argued, but with people who are actually prepared to deploy military power in pursuit of their (treasonable) objectives. The statement issued by Segun Adeniyi referring to Jonathan as Vice-President who would hold forte while the President recuperated was the final confirmation that the group expected a return to the scenario in which instructions would be issued by them in the name of Yar’adua which Jonathan, Ministers and other senior government officials were expected to obey without reflection. Last week I likened the plotters to children who ignorant of the risks involved were recklessly playing with explosives. Now they are actually moving dangerously close to pulling the pin from the grenade!
What happened last Wednesday was a reckless attempt by this narrow group of provincial politicians largely from Katsina (Tanimu Yakubu, Sayaddi Abba Ruma, Senator Kanti Bello etc); their collaborators (e.g. James Ibori) and their surrogates (Aondoakaa in particular), their military and security operatives (which according to newspaper accounts include the Army Chief, General Abdulrahman Dambazau; the President’s ADC, Colonel Mustapha Onoyvieta, the Commander of the Brigade of Guards, Abdul Mustapha and Yar’adua’s powerful Chief Security Officer (CSO), Yusuf Muhammad Tilde and led by the First Lady, Turai Yar’adua to subvert the National Assembly’s designation of Jonathan as Acting President and in effect foist Turai on the nation as a de facto President. Implicit in their actions was a willingness and actual deployment of soldiers from the Nigerian Army in aid of their dangerous moves.
It was a complete throw back to the Abacha days when the CSO Major Mustapha and his allies including then Army Chief, General Ishaiya Bamaiyi and other military and security officers isolated the Head of State and began to run the country in his name. Like in the Abacha days, such a stratagem could only be sustained by force and terror and soon that regime unleashed terror across the nation. If the Turai group had succeeded in their audacious power grab last week, they would sooner than later have had to shed any pretences of running a constitutional government and we would soon have returned to some form of military (or otherwise unelected) despotism. In the event, their moves were aborted substantially because of the strong statement issued by the US government and Jonathan’s caution in not holding the executive council meeting that day. It is probable that there were other powerful domestic stakeholders who moved to prevent Nigeria’s slide back into confusion and maybe tragedy.
It is now time for all those who have allowed this shameful set of circumstances to persist since November to step up and put an end to the unending manipulation of the destiny of 150 million Nigerians. It should be obvious now that we are not dealing with rational people. They are so consumed in their ambition and greed that they can’t understand what is possible and what is not achievable. They do not understand that Nigeria has changed since 1966, 1983, 1985 or 1993 when military coups were in vogue. The world itself has changed and in this age of global broadcasting and communications, international criminal courts and genocide indictments for sitting Presidents, no nation can be completely detached from the rest of the world.
But all this game-playing has continued for over three months because the National Assembly, the Courts and the Executive Council of the Federation have all failed in their responsibility towards Nigeria. Justice Dan Abutu of the Federal High Court had several opportunities but failed; the Ministers in the Executive Council (minus Dora Akunyili) continue to cower in cowardice and shirk their duty to the nation; the House Speaker, Dimeji Bankole is seemingly more interested in protecting Yar’adua rather than the nation; the ruling PDP leadership is afraid to act in the interest of the nation lest they lose their benefits from the ailing Presidency; the National Assembly remains timid and half-hearted-they left the loophole that power would return to Yar’adua once he returned to Nigeria, which Senator Iyabo Obasanjo actually pointed out to no avail; and the Governors continue to make selfish individual political calculations rather than recognise the collective threat to our democracy. While all others remain lily-livered, Turai and her group, continue to scheme and plot in so far as they see any glimmer of opportunity.
It is time for Nigeria to put an end to this shame.