Acting President Jonathan

Nigeria has a new Acting President. Former Bayelsa Deputy-Governor, former Bayelsa Governor, and substantive current Vice-President, Goodluck Jonathan was appointed acting president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria via a bit of legal subterfuge (a.k.a. an unconstitutional act) by both Houses of the National Assembly.

President Umaru Yar'Adua's condition remains a mystery surrounded by rumour and innuendo, but I think it is safe that on the night he was flown out of the country to Saudi Arabia, President Yar'Adua was most likely in no physical condition to conduct the official handover procedure. In fact, it is quite possible President Yar'Adua was already in a coma or near enough to it, or at the very least in imminent danger of losing his life, and was almost definitely rushed out of the country in emergency circumstances with little thought given to constutional niceties.

I understand. When life is at stake, you do what you must.

Furthermore, I am guessing whatever physical condition President Yar'Adua is in now, he was probably just as bad or (likely) worse when he first arrived in Jeddah. Poring through the rumours, trying to guess at the grains of truth, it appears the President is either unconscious or is conscious but not fully functional. Now whether "not fully functional" is a physical issue or a mental issue, we do not know yet and we are not being told.

I wish President Yar'Adua the best of health. I have always thought he was one of the more decent politicians in Nigeria. There has never been the hint, accusation or suspicion of personal corruption on his part, and he has always been good about saving money, for Katsina as governor and then for Nigeria as president. For example, Yar'Adua's interventions spared the federal treasury billions of Naira when he rejected the inflated =N=37 billion budget proposal of the Local Organizing Committee for the 2009 Under-17 World Championships; the global recession's effects on the federal budget left Yar'Adua unable to fund his 7-point agenda, and he saw little reason to use federal funds for a unabashedly padded budget. Yar'Adua knew this was money that would disappear into a black hole, as even without the budget padding, hosting major tournaments always leaves Nigeria with years of debts to service and little or no short-, medium- or long-term economic benefits to balance out the costs. Yar'Adua's pressure forced the LOC to downsize to a more affordable =N=12.1 billion, and even then, he made sure only a fraction (=N=900 million) of the funds for the newly revised budget were released to the LOC upfront.

Unfortunately, Yar'Adua is also a man of the system, and has the same limitations as the rest of the power elite. Even if they intend "good" in some small measure, they are all fundamentally opposed to ending or at least fundamentally reforming the system. And as long as the system continues in its present form, whatever "good" they profess to desire will alway be ephemeral, insufficient and unconvincing in practical, quantifiable terms.

The personal abuse and invective directed at President Yar'Adua and at his wife Turai was pointless. Those who engage in this sort of personalized blame are as misguided as the many people who blame ex-President Ibrahim Babangida for the pervasive corruption in Nigerian public life. Umaru Yar'Adua's presidency is the product of a dysfunctional system, not the cause of the dysfunction, and the same holds for Babangida and all the other political figures that came before him and after him.

Many countries in Africa have experienced dictators who held onto power for decades, but Nigeria has never been burdened such. Whatever you say about the Nigerian political system (and I am a critic), you have to say that we do not tolerate people who try to stay in office too long. Nigeria is one of the few countries in Africa to defeat an attempt by a president to amend the constitution so he can stay in power indefinitely (i.e. Obasanjo's Third Term bid). Even under military-led diarchies, we are leery of life-presidencies; Gowon was overthrown because his regime tried to extend itself beyond 9 years, and Babangida was forced out because he tried to extend himself beyond 8 years -- and we will probably never know the truth about the death of Sani Abacha (or for that matter about the death of Moshood Abiola).

Indeed, Nigeria changes leaders so frequently that we have had more heads of state/government since 1960 (13 or 14 depending on if you count Acting President Jonathan) than France (6), Germany (9), the United States (10), the United Kingdom (9 or 10 depending on how you count Wilson's two terms) and Canada (10 or 11, depending on how you count the two Trudeau administrations). Some of our governments have been brief (notably the Ironsi, Murtala and Shonekan administrations), but the same is true of some of the administrations in the same time period in the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada. Furthermore, the lack of term-limits in the parliamentary countries (UK, Candada, Germany) and the 7-year term lengths used in France until the 200s mean that all of these countries (minus the USA) have had governments that have last 10 years or longer, a length of tenure Nigerians have (thus far) declined to allow any single individual to seek (Obasanjo) or take (Gowon, Babangida, and perhaps Abacha).

Change at the federal executive level in Nigeria is ALWAYS accompanied by change at the state and local levels too. So we are a country in which there has been a lot of change in personalities, but no substantive change in the practical realities of governance in our country. Spending our time blaming individuals (e.g. Babangida) is a distraction from the true problem, which is that our political/economic/social system is designed to repeatedly produce dysfunctional government. In fact, we have had this problem since the middle of the 1950s, and the penultimate Nigerian Civil War was the outcome of over a decade's worth of dysfunctional decisions, choices and actions; even now, a depressing proportion of the issues we face today are in effect the 21st century expressions of unresolved issues dating back to those same 1950s.

Umaru Yar'Adua is, as near as I can tell, a decent man as an individual. However, he is also a product of the Nigerian political system, and was always limited by this blunt truth. I do NOT think he is responsible for the lies and deceptions that followed his emergency trip to Jeddah for medical care, nor do I think he is responsible for the attempts by his kitchen cabinet (the so-called "cabal") to hold on to the presidency rather than resign. Nevertheless, everything that happened is a "normal" and "natural" outgrowth of the sort of politics that prevails in our country.

And therein lies the problem with those who think we would solve the problem by elevating Goodluck Jonathan to the interim or even substantive presidency. The same limitations that bound the hands and feet of Umaru Yar'Adua apply also to Goodluck Jonathan ... maybe even more so. Indeed, whereas no one ever accused the former Katsina governor Yar'Adua of personal corruption, the former Bayelsa deputy governor and governor Goodluck Jonathan was under suspicion and investigation, along with his wife Patience.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is a scion of the same Rivers-Bayelsa regional political system that gave rise to the likes of Ex-Governors Peter Odili (Rivers) and Diepriye Alamieseyegha (Bayelsa), as well as current Governors Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) and Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa). Two of these four were unabashedly corrupt, one of the four became governor by "winning" an unbelievable (and ridiculous) 98.3% of the vote, while the fourth became governor after winning 0% (yes, zero percent) of the vote not figuratively but literally.

As stated earlier, Mr and Mrs Jonathan were under investigation by the EFCC, but Nuhu Ribadu was using the EFCC as an arm of the Obasanjo political machine. A simple tactic: support Obasanjo or face the wrath of the EFCC. Goodluck Jonathan, played his political cards right, enabling the removal of mega-corrupt (and pro-Atiku) Governor Diepriye Alamiesiyegha, replacing Alamieseyegha and then holding Bayelsa (with its fat oil derivation revenues) for the Obasanjo camp, the way Ngige was supposed to hold Anambra. Nuhu Ribadu conveniently forgot about the investigations of Mr and Mrs Jonathan for corruption. Jonathan was a loyal and willing godson, unlike Rivers Governor Peter Odili who backed Obasanjo reluctantly after some arm-twisting (with Ribadu taking a hand). Jonathan became so trusted among Obasanjo's godsons that he was given the vice-presidential nomination alongside Obasanjo's chosen successor Yar'Adua; Obasanjo chose Yar'Adua because he though he would be pliant enough to be manipulated like a puppet, and chose Goodluck Jonathan because he was substantively no more than a facade that said and did whatever was required to win the favour of whichever godfather was in control at the moment of the political job he wanted top.

Essentially, Goodluck Jonathan is a man of the system. The same system that has failed the federal republic and the people of the federal republic. A system that has yet to produce any platform for the long-awaited social contract. A system that does not and has never provided Nigeria with a cogent narrative (or choice of narratives) to direct our collective development and industrialization, nor does it offer an inspirational set of idea to bind our citizenry to a common cause.

There nothing in Jonathan's past to suggest he will be any more or less keen on reform than any of our other presidents (Yar'Adua inclusive), but plenty to suggest he is not a man who will risk his political position in defence of abstract principles or notions like morality. He is an example of the sort of politician who would never have come to political prominence if we didn't operate the kind of political system we do; it is like putting a pride of lions in charge of promoting a vegetarian diet on the savannah.

Nigeria is doubly disadvantaged because the so-called "progressives", "true federalists" and other alleged reformers are as much a part of the problem as the politicians, militicians, plutocrats and sundry Big Men they profess to oppose. I say "profess to oppose" because they are (and have always been) the ones who provide the brainpower that keeps the system alive and strong in the first place! They offer the people no substantive alternative, and the effects of the individual and collective positions they loquaciously advocate reinforce the very attitudes, beliefs, suspicions, decisions and actions which keep the system supreme and safe from challenge. For example, while ostensibly opposed to tribalism, the so-called "progressives" are a rather tribalist lot, interpreting virtually everything that happens in Nigeria from the prism of tribal conspiracy theories.

It makes for a complete lack of trust. Let me give an example. A pan-federal, pan-regional, pan-ethnic majority of Nigerians chose the late Moshood Abiola over Bashir Tofa, his rival in the 1993 elections, but when Abiolas "mandate" was denied, a majority of Nigerians did not lift a finger to fight for him. There are two reasons for this. The first was the people realized Abiola (much like Babangida, Abacha, Obasanjo, Yar'Adua and Goodluck Jonathan) was a man of the system; what is the point in risking your life so that one of them or the other can continue the very system that makes your life more difficult than it need be? But there was another reason. Ethnic distrust has been high in Nigeria since the 1950s, and a lot of citizens did not trust the pan-federal, pan-regional or pan-ethnic credentials of the "pro-democracy" movement that sprung up in the 1990s.

Now, before you accuse me of doing the very thing I criticize, let me remind you that the "pro-demo" coalition initially entered the Fourth Republic pledging to fight for a new kind of politics, complete with constitutional and political reform. They initially refused to align themself with corrupt, old-school politics/politicians and with "pro-Abacha" politicians who they blamed for all the federal republic's woes. Thus they founded the Alliance for Democracy (AD). And then mysteriously, out of the blue, the AD entered an alliance with the All People's Party, thus aligning themselves with the very "pro-Abacha" politicians they professed to disdain. But this was just the first step towards the disaster of 2003, when the Alliance for Democracy, spurred on by the ethno-regional Afenifere group, through its support behind President Obasanjo purely for ethnic and regional reasons. Four years prior, the AD had pilloried Obasanjo as no more than the tool of the shadowy caucuse of Big Men who really governed Nigeria, yet here they were now urging ethnic and regional solidarity with a kinsman ... classic First Republic ethnic politics.

Mind you, the 2003 Elections in general, aside from the rigging, were a throwback to the 1960s. The first-, second- and third-place presidential candidates, Olusegun Obasanjo, Mohammedu Buhari and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, are all retired military men who first came to political prominence during the violence of 1966-1970.

That violence was the outcome of our dyfunctional politics in the 1950s and 1960s. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, the 2003 Elections read like an attempt to bring back the politics of the '50s and '60s. Ojukwu's APGA attempted to reconstruct the voting patterns of the NCNC and NPP; the AD/Afenifere mobilized old AG/UPN networks in favour of an ethnic kinsman Obasanjo; and Buhari's ANPP relied on governors who deliberately used wedge issues to rally bloc support in what had been the NPC's regional heartland.

On the other hand, the 2003 Elections also marked the end of this 1950s/1960s-style ethno-regional bloc politics. The new politics of Nigeria, as revealed in 2003, was much more like politics in the rest of Africa -- one giant, dominant "government" party and a bunch of small, regional "opposition" parties. This development is the culmination of a process begun in the 1970s, in the aftermath of the violence and war that followed the fall of the First Republic.

The First Republic fell after 6 years in part due to the unmoderated rivalries of the major Big Men, and one could say the same or similar of the Second Republic, which fell after 4 years. In contrast, the Fourth Republic has lasted 11 years (and counting) due to the mediation, arbitration, coercion and (where necessary) enforcement by the all-embracing PDP. No matter what happens in Nigerian politics, be it unconstitutional, illegal, criminal or whatever, the PDP moves to settle it in-house. President Obasanjo famously described the crisis in Anambra following the 2003 Elections as a "family affair" to be settled, as between brothers.

The People's Democratic Party (PDP) is the culmination of 40 years of change within the Nigerian political class. The process began in 1970, after the end of the Civil War. Nigerian politics, for all its seeming ups and downs, is more stable now than it has ever been. Indeed, the orderly and peaceful transition from Umaru Yar'Adua to Goodluck Jonathan, for all its hiccups, is a more impressive sign of this stability than the previous transition from Obasanjo to Yar'Adua.

The PDP has perfected what the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) tried and failed to do in the Second Republc, what Ibrahim Babangida professed to be doing when he constructed the NRC and SDP of the short-lived Third Republic. The theory is that by compelling all of the Big Men to enter the same Big Tent, and working out the thorny issues of distributing power (through staged elections or coups) and wealth (through rent-seeking, rent-extraction and patronage) within that tent, Nigerian politics can enjoy "stability".

The Nigerian political system is set up like a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle is home to a number of Big Men, and sometimes one or two of these in-piece Big Men are bigger than the rest of the Big Men within their piece. "Representation" as such, within the confines of this system consists of having Big Men from each piece of the puzzle present at the high table when the spoils of government are being distributed. The man at the table becomes in turn the patron to a web of clients within his piece of the jigsaw, giving him political/economic/social power and relevance in both directions; federally he is the man who can "deliver" his jigsaw piece thus helping to ensure stability of tenure to the federal government, and regionally or locally (i.e. within his puzzle piece) he is the man who can deliver "government money" to the piece.

Politics in Nigeria consists of Big Men fighting each other to be the "representative" of their puzzle piece, and fighting each other (separately) to be in charge of the spigot of government patronage (i.e. to be governor or president). "Victory" in these contests does not mean you necessarily occupy a political office; most likely you (and your allies) nominate a consensus figure to occupy political office on your collective behalves.

We the citizens are not allowed to vote or otherwise decide the outcome of these political contests. Instead we are forced to watch like spectators while a combination of violence, the threat of violence, a labyrinth of networks of alliances, shadowy connections, quid-pro-quo business-type relationships, behind the scenes maneuvring and ethno-religio-regional mobilization produces a political landscape that remains substantively the same even as its facade changes with great fluidity.

From the mid-1950s to the 1970, there were no limitations on how far our byzantine political system could go in its internal wrangling. From 1970 onward, the political class, while remaining disdainful of real democracy, began to seek a somewhat more "stable" framework within which to conduct its internal chess match. While Nigeria's civilian politicians and plutocrats profess opposition to "military rule" and do prefer to be in charge of power and patronage themselves, these civilian Big Men have always been somewhat ambivalent towards military-led diarchies. In the same way that the Pax Romana allowed for a growth in trade around the Meditteranean, civilian Big Men in decades past kind of liked the "order" that army generals brought to the disorderly, chaotic, unstable system. Mind you, they did not want to change the system (they profited from it immensely), but felt the system needed a bit more order.

The NPN in the Second Republic was the first effort to build a Big Tent, comprising a super-majority of Big Men, to control the competition for and distribution of power and patronage without the need for the strong hand of an army general. In theory (if not in practice) this was also the motivation for Ibrahim Babangida's NRC and SDP in the Third Republic, although it was expressed in the language of ethnicity/region/religion (i.e. that without artificial mass parties, our politics would degenerate into ethnic, regional and religious factions).

Interestingly, part of what made the PDP successful was the de facto merger that has taken place between the military and civilian wings of the diarchies that have ruled Nigeria for much of the period since 1960. The People's Democratic Party can count on retired generals as well as the super-majority of civilian politicians and plutocrats, to work together as a sort of iron fist to first control the country, and then to moderate the in-house competition between members for shares of the national patrimony of power, privilege and patronage.

The 40-year process that produced the PDP has seen a lot of colourful characters, a lot of events of historic import, and a lot of violence. No one should be surprised to find that Anthony Anenih, known today as the PDP's "Fixer", cut his teeth as an NPN state chairman during the Second Republic. Anenih's footprint is microscopic when compared to the influence of the late Moshood Abiola on the birth of Nigeria's first "mega-party".

Abiola was deeply involved in the efforts to coalesce the Big Men into a single tent from the start. He aligned himself with the diarchies of the 1970s, and acquired wealth, power, influence and (most importantly) connections. Abiola then joined the NPN during the Second Republic, helping it weaken the strangehold of the Obafemi Awolowo's Unity Party of Nigeria on the southwestern states, particularly in 1983. After the fall of the Second Republic, he moved on to align himself with Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha, ultimately joining one of Babangida's two "proto-PDP" parties during the Third Republic. The events that followed 1993, while ultimately tragic, were nevertheless "normal" in the context of Nigerian politics. This is the country where the late Ladoke Akintola fell out with the late Obafemi Awolowo, where Ibrahim Babangida had Mamman Vatsa executed, where the Offor/Mbadinuju and Uba/Ngige wars nearly wrecked a state.

Another notable name in the consolidation process was (oddly enough) Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, who joined the NPN on his return from exile. Ojukwu's role in the NPN was to serve as an arrowhead to break the grip of Nnamdi Azikiwe's Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) hold in the southeastern states, again with specific focus on 1983. Ojukwu would go on to work with Sani Abacha, before consenting to be the figurehead of the ethno-regional party APGA ahead of the 2003 Elections. His work for APGA was not enough to counteract the trend he had helped foster, the coalescence of Big Men nationwide into a single Big Tent party. As a supporter of the Big Tent concept in the Second Republic, he helped break the mystique of one of the Big Three leaders of the 1950s/1960s ethno-regional politics; as an opponent of the concept in 2003, he indirectly strengthened it by making the PDP seem "least bad" compared to two candidates (Ojukwu and Buhari) perceived as having agendas that excluded Nigerians outside of their regional areas of core support (this despite the regional bias of Obasanjo's AD/Afenifere support base).

Zamfara ex-Governor Sani Ahmed Yerima was the first to realize he would profit from wedge politics in the Fourth Republic. There is plenty of focus on the legal code he introduced, and the effects of that on his political popularity. But what really profited Yerima was the backlash his policy provoked from the other half of the population of the country. Divide-and-rule politics in Nigeria is not about presenting yourself as someone who intends to attack the other sociocultural groups. Rather, you define a constituency and then position yourself as the only person who can defend or protect them against other sociocultural groups that allegedly would harm them if you were not there to protect them. It is the backlash that established and secured Yerima's political position. He even aspired to run for the presidency in 2007....

... but, as it turns out, and contrary to the the legal code he instituted, Sani Ahmed Yerima was corrupt. He was one of the governors whose arms were twisted by EFFC boss Nuhu Ribadu. The deal was simple: Support Obasanjo's chosen successor and enjoy your stolen money in peace or fail to support Obasanjo's chosen heir and face EFCC prosecution the moment you lose your gubernatorial immunity.

Yerima's consequent loss of influence was a symbol for the ANPP as a whole. Wedge politics just didn't work as well as it had in the 1950s and 1960s; as of 2010, the states previously run by ANPP governors states have either been taken over by PDP governors, or are led by ANPP governors who will soon decamp to the PDP, or are led by ANPP governors who behave like PDP governors (perhaps because they used to be in the PDP before they lost the primaries).

As our politics have become more like the rest of Africa, we are starting to show signs of the sort "stability" you see in African countries that have had civilian government for decades. Such countries are not necessarily democratic (some are not democratic at all). In some cases there is a "life president" in control of the government party and the country, but in others the government party is in enough control of the situation to manage orderly transitions from one party man to the next. Nigeria's entry into this class of nations is epitomized, as I said earlier by the Yar'Adua to Jonathan transfer.

Having said that, "stability" is good only when it means the preservation of good things. Stability can be a terrible thing, if it means the continuation and persistence of bad things. In Nigeria's case, "stability" is a synonym for "stagnation". Yes, politicians and plutocrats are better able to moderate their differences (with each other, not with the citizenry) over control of the distribution of power, privilege, patronage and economic advantages, but nothing fundamentally important to the future of "Nigeria" or "Nigerians" has been resolved or is even being addressed. Indeed, the broader citizenry remain riven by distrust, factional violence and competition for scarce survival resources; unsurprisingly, the coalescence of the political class into a single party has not led to any sort of coalescence of citizens. "Unsurprisingly" because in the absence of democracy, what the politicians do among themselves remains adrift and disconnected from the jigsaw people the politicians pretend to serve.

The so-called "progressives" are as much a part of the problem as the men of the system like Goodluck Jonathan. Indeed, while the Big Men spent the 40 years since 1970 evolving and coalescing into the PDP, the so-called progressives have spent the same time period cementing their irrelevance to the Nigerian citizenry -- distinguishing themselves only by their willingness to betray everything they pretend to believe at the drop of a hat.

Nigerian citizens know most pro-reformers forget about reform if offered a cushy government job or given access and influence in the corridors of power; as the late General Abdulkareem Adisa told talk-show host Funmi Iyanda, "All you book people - you are part of the problem. You help us cook the books." Professor Maurice Iwu, head of the Independent National Electoral Commission, and mastermind of the 2003 and 2007 elections, is a PhD-holder, as is Professor Charles Soludo, under whose watch the Nigerian banking industry became a giant bubble that popped, leaving Nigerian citizens to foot the $10 billion clean-up bill for toxic assets.

We see the "progressive" critics who turn around to become defenders of that which they previously criticized the moment their preferred candidate is in political office. We see the job-seekers, like the lawyer Femi Fani-Kayode who was a vociferous critic of Obasanjo up until Obasanjo gave Fani-Kayode a high-paying Abuja job.

We saw those who were vocal supporters of Obasanjo and Nuhu Ribadu when their "War on Corruption" made a distinction between "bad" corrupt people (like Atiku Abubakar) who should not be allowed to hold office, and "good" corrupt people (like Andy Uba) who they helped to rig into office. Heck, many of Umaru Yar'Adua's most vociferous critics are the very men and women proximately responsible for Yar'Adua being president in the first place!

The inconsistencies, hypocrisies and dishonesties in the so-called pro-reform camp mean that at a fundamental level, citizens do not really trust them. In a credible, free and fair election, the people would probably choose the devil they know, an old-school Big Man who will simply keep the system we have adapted to running as usual, rather than a supposed "intellectual" reformer who promises to make it snow in the Sahara via "solutions" that sound worse than the problem he/she proposes to fix.

The scandal and saga revolving around President Yar'Adua's failing health should have been the ideal moment for the 120+ million people of Nigeria to stand up and fight for radical reform, restructuring and transformation, preferably under a Transitional Federal Government. Of course where are you going to find this Transitional Federal Government when there exists no stream of political consciousness, no movement, no platform, nothing at all fighting for substantive reform and change? We have no conduit through which to express our wishes, no format for choosing interim leaders to oversee transformative change.

We just have people clamouring for Goodluck Jonathan or for Umaru Yar'Adua ... as if it makes a difference.

There is no structure for promoting change or reform. Even if we somehow got the chance to press for reforms, there has been no real discussion or discourse on what those reforms should be. The people are not stupid, and our collective apathy and lack of activism is caused in large part by the fact that we have never seen nor heard anything that sounds like something we could rally around to fight for. Not only have we not been allowed to exercise our right to choose (i.e. credible, free and fair elections), but even if that right was conceeded, there is nothing of value out there to choose from, hence we don't care. We don't care if there is a coup. We don't care if elections are rigged. We don't care because it doesn't matter who wins.

Oh well.

With that said, I (like most every other citizen) am willing to shut my eyes and pretend not to notice the unconstitutional legislation that ushered in the Goodluck Jonathan Acting Presidency. There needs to be some sort of closure to the issue, and the only sensible thing to do is to fudge a reason to make Goodluck Jonathan the Acting President.

At this point, regardless of his condition, I do not think President Yar'Adua should resign. It is is only a year or so to the 2011 (to-be-rigged) Presidential elections. The safest course of action would be to see out the remaining year with Umaru Yar'Adua as the de jure president (recuperating in Saudi Arabia or at home in Katsina) while Goodluck Jonathan continues as the de facto president for one year.

It is only one year. No need for people to keep acting as if this was the end of the world or something. At the end of the day, when historians look back on this period, they will decide these changes signified NOTHING. We will have the usual "initiall gra-gra" that every new government does when it gets into office, before the inevitable "relaxation" and continuation of the status quo.

If the initial gra-gra involves the sacking of some of Yar'Adua's kitchen cabinet and other political hangers-on, then fine by me. I blame them (not Yar'Adua or his wife Turai) for the subterfuge, secrecy and confusion. If they had any concern at all for the President's health, they would simply have released the necesssary information to allow Nigeria move to a situation of an Acting President sooner. I guess they were scared they would lose influence if it became known the President was not longer capable of carrying out the duties of his office.

But why were they scared? This is Nigeria where every major political action is the result of behind-the-scenes agreements and understandings between factions of varying hue. If Yar'Adua could not handle the job requirements for an indefinite period, they should have moved to "manage" the transition rather than block it. It is not like Goodluck Jonathan has an independent power base or something, nor (in the context of our stupid rotational system) is it possible for him to remain in the office beyond 2011; like Kgalema Motlanthe in South Africa, Jonathan could at best expect to see out the end of his erstwhile boss' tenure. The only thing the "kitchen cabinet" succeeded in doing with their subterfuge was isolate themselves and draw unto themselves the ire and wrath of several political constituencies.

It is only one year to the next (likely to be rigged) general elections. We can ride it out until then.