AllAfrica
Daily Trust [05/11/12]
By Ahmed Yahaya-Joe
OPINION
Forget the parody of a banana republic led by an insatiable troop of
monkeys. Nigeria is fast sliding to be worse than that because it is
transforming into the kind of theatrical absurdity portrayed in the
classic "Our husband has gone mad again".
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| Nuhu Ribadu (Photo: François Gouahinga/allAfrica.com) |
Any country subsisting under the kind of the prevalent throes its
slum-dog millionaire kind of political leadership has subjected it to is
on the certain voyage of a titanic disaster waiting to happen. Our
country deserves a better leadership and its citizens must insist on it.
The burden of leadership is so intense that it encompasses being good and effective.
Losing your cool while responding to a routine question on the
provision of asset declaration in a media chat broadcast nationally, is
neither good nor effective leadership.
Affirming to an august gathering at the UN General Assembly that you
would abide by an ICJ judgement against your national interests at the
disputed Bakassi Peninsula only to in an apparent afterthought
constitute a committee to explore an appeal process just a couple of
days before the expiration of a 10 year hiatus to do so is neither good
nor effective leadership. Not to concertedly respond for weeks to a
flooding of huge swaths of your national constituency until your
immediate locale is inundated is neither good nor effective leadership.
And now this Ribadu Committee report debacle that can best be
described as "Fuji Garbage" in full glare and what John Cardinal
Onaiyekan would refer to as "the violence of bad government".
The idea behind constituting the Ribadu Committee with outsiders to
the oil sector was on the onset planned to hoodwink the oil industry
watchers. To select a duo from that same committee and "reward" them
with appointments in the same organization they are chiefly
investigating is tantamount to conceding to a wily fox the guardianship
of a poultry house. Unfortunately the said gentlemen so appointed
disappointed their mentors because they grossly underestimated the new
razor sharp cop in Malam Nuhu Ribadu who also is Nigeria's nearest
equivalent to FBI's Edgar Hoover. Whatever were Ribadu's shortcomings
during his chairmanship of EFCC and his premature foray into the murky
waters of Nigeria's partisan politics; he has by his principled stance
over the oil sector probe fully redeemed his goodself.
To handle the barrage of outcry over the Ribadu committee report
media aides and overzealous attack dogs will soon starting falling among
themselves in a bid to reinvent what actually transpired. But now that
the questionable anti-corruption credentials of Transformation Agenda
have been stripped bare, the federal government has unfortunately
exposed itself to more wild speculation about its inner workings. This
coming at the heels of Dino Melaye's specific allegations and the ill
timing of the minor cabinet reshuffle in the affected ministry will only
serve to further oil the hyperactive rumour mills across the country
since government has left much to the imagination by its poorly executed
antics.
An international review of Ola Rotimi's "Our husband has gone mad
again" described the award winning theatrical production as "a comic
swipe at the ideological misfits and opportunists in the ever
accommodating Nigerian political landscape driven by vanity other than
patriotism". What happened at the Ribadu Committee report submission
seamlessly fits that description.
Yahaya-Joe wrote from Fagge, Kano State
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