President Jonathan has appointed Dr. Doyin Okupe as his Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, leading some to wonder if his actual, practical role won't be to duplicate or replace Dr. Reuben Abati, the President's Special Assistant on Media and Publicity.
Personally, any time I see Dr. Abati's name in the news these days, I am reminded that just a short while ago, as an editor and columnist at the (Nigerian) Guardian, he was a staunch critic of many of the things he now defends as the media front-man for the Jonathan administration.
This is a long-running trend in Nigeria. Actually, the trend is worldwide.
People criticize certain things, then get hired or otherwise co-opted by whatever it was they were criticizing, and then they become staunch proponents of the very thing they rose to fame by criticizing. Actually, most of the time, when an "opposition party" displaces its rival and becomes the "governing party", it promptly does exactly the same things it criticized when it was the opposition.
This doesn't matter so much when it happens in a country that is already wealthy, a country whose citizens' lives will remain comfortable regardless of what their politicians and governments do.
It is problematic in a country that is in need of serious reform, restructuring and transformation.
Most of the things Nigeria needs to do are difficult even in the best of circumstances. Everyone says we need to consolidate the states and local government areas into fewer, more viable units, but getting from here to there will not be easy, and even if we get to the point of actually doing it, the process will not be as simplistic as the commentary suggests.
You need leaders, people of influence willing to stand their ground on points of principle. I did not agree with everything the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (RIP) advocated, but I always respected him for sticking to his principles, even if it meant jail time. I also don't always agree with Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, but I respect the fact that he has the courage (possibly due to his familial connections) to at times be the one contrarian in a room of Big Men spouting the usual things Big Men are supposed to spout.
I am often critical of my fellow citizens (and of myself, I stress) because we seem to be spectators, sidelined from decisions of consequence, just watching things being done that affect us, but taking no action to ensure that the things that are done are the things we want or the things we need. We also seem to acquiesce in a lot of the decisions and actions whose results we ultimately find ourselves complaining about, though those results could have been foreseen from the start.
But we are not really apathetic. Life and lived experience have taught us that any attempt to change the status quo will attract a harsh, crushing response from those, within and without our borders, who benefit most from the status quo. Patrice Lumumba was dead within a year of Congo's Independence; Thomas Sankara made it to four years as president before he was killed. I am not saying either man was "perfect" or that I agree with everything they stood for, but that the mere hint that they were going to do things different was enough to mobilize various forces to abruptly end their lives. The Congo was deemed so important to some people's interests that Lumumba was not even allowed to live long enough for us to discover what he stood for, much less for us to form an opinion on whether we agreed or not. All his enemies knew was that he was not going to be their vassal, and that was all they needed to know.
Mind you, external powers are not necessarily what worries us day-in and day-out. There are plenty of domestic political and economic titans who are quite quick to crush anything that resembles a challenge to their control.
We the citizens do not tend to listen to so-called revolutionaries and reformers who claim to oppose these powerful interests, because we know (again from experience) that if we died in their cause, we would have done so in vain -- if and when these so-called revolutionaries and reformers get power, they are invariably as bad as that which they once professed to criticize. And that is when they don't sell out a-priori, cutting a deal with the powers-that-be for a slice of the political action in exchange for which they call off the people fighting and dying, supposedly on behalf of a cause.
And we know that nice guys like the late Chief Fawehinmi might have the best of intentions, but would likely be overrun by the not-so-nice guys that tend to dominate murky industries like politics.
Some of you are probably thinking that it is "pessimists" like me who discourage people from giving politicians like Chief Fawehinmi their full-fledged support.
But think about it for a second.
Nigeria has frequently been led by nice, good men.
The late Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa was by all accounts a modest, honest, decent, nice man (who did not loot a Kobo from our Treasury). General Johnson T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi was an affable man. General Yakubu Gowon was a nice guy. Alhaji Shehu Shagari was a lot like Tafawa-Balewa, and the recently late Umaru Musa Yar-Adua was also a nice person by all accounts. If you are one of those who include Ernest Shonekan in our list of executive leaders, then he was a mild-mannered man too.
Indeed, the Big Men and sundry Powerbrokers seem to prefer it if the apex job in the country is held by a politically weak person with no disposition towards forcefully imposing himself. I can almost hear you thinking about Goodluck Jonathan.
On the one hand, it is a bad thing, as Nigeria tends to lack direction, as our executive leaders usually lack the standing to give the country direction. And even if that apex leader is not personally corrupt or is only mildly corrupt, they are usually powerless to control the free-for-all feeding frenzy of theft and waste that occurs under their watch.
On the other hand, it is a good thing. Nigeria has never had the life-presidents and iron-handed dictators that have afflicted other parts of Africa. Once any administration gets to the 6-to-9 year mark, the Big Men and Powerbrokers start to get nervous, and before you know it there is a coup or a peacefully defeated Third Term bid. And if any president starts to exercise the kind of unfettered power usually enjoyed by African dictators, there is an abrupt and violent change of government -- Murtala in '76, Buhari in '85, Abacha in '98 (to a certain extent, Ironsi's move to make Nigeria a Unitary state as opposed to a Federation was interpreted by sections of the country as a power-grab, though the abrogation of the Federation was not really the reason for what followed).
But I digress.
In truth, the deepest, truest source for the political apathy of most Nigerians is our realization that most people in the public sphere are like Dr. Reuben Abati. No matter how much they trumpet their support for this and their opposition to that, as soon as someone offers them access to a cushy job, a fat contract, or some other money-making possibility, they change their tune.
There is a semi-acquaintance of mine who fled into exile and was given asylum by the USA because he was a pro-democracy activist and opponent of the Abacha regime and feared for his life (I don't think the Abacha regime knew who he was, much less planned to kill him, but that is another story). Come the Fourth Republic, the man returned to Nigeria to be a sycophant to every governor of Delta State since 1999. He has become quiet rich, and quite fat, and is a staunch defender of every corrupt politician in Delta State.
And mind you, I have said nothing about so-called reformers who profess to want to do what is best for all of Nigeria, but who, when prompted by a crisis, reveal themselves to be tribalists with a seething and previously well-hidden hatred towards swathes of the country.
You see, we the people know this. And unfortunately this has bred a lot of apathy towards politics and politicians.
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