YAR’ADUA: MUSINGS FROM THE STREETS
I did not like Yar’adua when he was alive. I neither lost him on the day he died, Wednesday, nor missed him on the day he was buried, Thursday, though I gladly observed the public holiday, given that my job hardly allows for annual leave. It was on Friday that the folly of my actions or inactions dawned on me and made me cry, actually shed tears, for the departed soul of Mal. Umaru. May his soul rest in peace.
My confusion began when tonnes of accolades poured in and testimonies about Yar’adua’s goodness were given by many people that are considered credible on the Streets. These people were not the type that would paint one green when one was actually red just because one died. No. They were making references to concrete incidents that supported their assertion of innate goodness of the deceased. Words and phrases like patriot, honest, simple, compassionate, humble, frail but focused, weak but alert, flowed copiously. They did not have to go that far, I figured, since he could not do and undo now.
So I began to ponder: What if I was wrong about him? What if I’d been wrong all along about the late President? What if he truly cared about me as a citizen, the country as a nation and all of humanity at large? What if the fault was more with the System than the person? What if Yar’adua was too weak physically to change a System that defied even the goliaths of our age? What if he was a square peg forced into a round hole and blamed for the misfit? I had to go back to the Streets to find answers.
My dislike for Yar’adua began in 2006 when he accepted to be the flag-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party. As an ordinary Nigerian from the Northern part, I thought the nation did not get more than 20% of what it deserved from the then outgoing Obasanjo government. From the streets, the picture was that of an elite class that was only interested in perpetuating itself in power regardless of the venom it was spewing into every corner of potential development.
I saw Yar’adua in a Third-term hue. I also saw him as someone ill-prepared to lead our beleaguered nation, since he apparently never planned to aspire to be president. Above all, I saw him as a willing tool of the elite to whittle down the opportunity of a Buhari presidency, which from most of the Streets (of the North) appeared to be the only solution to the problems that bedevilled our undisciplined nation.
In retrospect, I wonder if he had a choice. As I began to recollect some of the whispers and bellows that ruled the Streets before, within and after his presidency, I remembered that someone once said Yar’adua was blackmailed into playing the cards as presented to him by his principals. I was not ready to listen. The Streets had it that he was told to accept it or his dirty linen, compiled by Nuhu Ribadu, would be washed in public. Nigeria being what it was, it did not matter if the linen was actually made dirty by him. Yar’adua was asked to make a choice between the presidency and… the prison. I wonder what choice I would’ve made.
I did not want to believe this, but when I remembered that the Streets had it that Yar’adua’s name was in the first list of ignominy compiled by EFCC and was conspicuously missing in the last, I then wondered if it was true that he was indeed a victim of a system bent on perpetuating itself.
His first presidential speech did not deceive me, but I was a bit surprised when he hinted that his elections was not so clean, and promised to set up some machinery for corrections. The song of the rule of law did not make much meaning to the Streets as they were still in darkness with eyes blinded by illiteracy and ears plugged by the sound of hunger ruling their stomachs. Besides, it appeared to be selectively applied, as usual, so only the beneficiaries were impressed. Now, what if the sick man was only able to save those he could save and the others that I called ‘the usual’ were indeed those cases in which even Yar’adua could not help but watch? Or did IBB not imply that the heat in the presidency could get so high that even a healthy military president could not but annul elections?
I did not expect much from Uwais’s Committee as the Streets always remember his ‘performance’ on the presidential election petitions after the 2003 elections. But I was surprised when it proposed what appeared to be a ‘solution’ to our electoral problems. The Streets were naively awash with expectations but Yar’adua’s Council knew better and rejected a number of the proposals. The Streets lost hope. Well, what if Yar’adua truly believed that his actions were in the interest of the nation? What if he thought that INEC Chairman was only but a man, but it was the system that needed reform? Besides, he submitted the report to the National Assembly or did he not? By the way, which NJC would ignore the wishes of the president in the Nigeria of today? What if Yar’adua did not want to allow us to deceive ourselves?
As he governed, or they governed, the Streets were silent as they soundly believed that the principle of chi mu chi was fully in effect. But those who were not eating began to complain that nothing was happening! The Streets had not expected anything different to happen anyway; in fact, that fuel had remained available at N65 was indeed a cause for celebration. So when the guns in the Niger Delta fell silent, peacefully, as Yar’adua had envisaged and worked for, one item of the seven point agenda suddenly glowed. I knew I was more sceptical about the resolution of the Niger Delta crisis than I was about the other six on the agenda. What if he was painstakingly working on them? What if he had got a little more time and a little more health?
But the real euphoria began when Yar’adua allowed Sanusi to expose the rot in the Banking sector. Nothing delights the poor more than travails in high places. The Streets thought, he might have protected the real criminals but at least he was exposing the bankers of the criminals. Now, what if that was a masterstroke attempt to weaken the base of the political class? What if he was just beginning to quietly attack the backbone of those he could not touch in open field? What if that was part of the true political reform in disguise?
I was hardly surprised when Yar’adua failed to transmit a letter to NASS to enable Jonathan be appointed Acting President. Remembering the price he paid when he left Jikamshi in charge in Katsina, I thought it was a case of once bitten, twice shy. And I also thought it was quite provincial, not presidential, to reduce Nigeria to a Katsina treatment. I was surely not thinking much of the man! But as the Streets will have it, the man actually never had a chance to even hygienically clean himself since he left in November not to talk of clean and guide a nation. What if it is true that the instrument of power was hijacked by the Akunyili ‘cabal’ as Yar’adua took the fall for it? What if the stealing that was going on was more important than the survival and progress of Nigeria? What if none of them really cared about how history would judge Umaru for not doing the right thing at the right time?
Of course, one of the worst casualties of the Yar’adua presidency was the Iron Lady, Turai. The Streets believed that Turai led and bled the country while her husband held forte. A friend from Katsina said to me, jokingly, he believed Turai was so power hungry that she would ‘capsize’ Umaru herself if she would be made president! But the same Streets are now reviewing their position, some thinking she had reinvented herself during her husband’s terminal illness. Some even argued that Umaru suffered some strange affliction after receiving some guests in Saudi which led Turai to take charge, vowing never to allow a repeat under her watch. Her protectiveness of the president was understood and secretly approved by Jonathan! Otherwise, they reasoned, who was Turai to stop the Acting President of Nigeria from meeting Yar’adua? But this was not the worst story in the Streets.
There was this School of Thought in one of the Streets that believed so much that the president was murdered to satisfy some foreign countries that were about to lose out in oil deals had the president lived. US, UK, Russia and China were somehow mentioned but in no particular order and uncertain culpability. Some thought he had to go to satisfy certain internal interests in tandem with the external. No doubt, Yar’adua was a socialist that had to bathe with the capitalist to even stand a chance to govern in his State. May be the leopard could not change its spots.
But seriously, another School believed that Yar’adua had been dead for many months! That it was a matter of national security that the end would have to be managed the way it was. I was flabbergasted by the magnitude of confusion that the death of an enigmatic president could cause.
May be some of these street musings, whispers and songs are true. May be they are wrong. But one thing that is becoming clear, with every passing moment after Yar’adua, is that I was wrong not to have liked him when he was alive. I was too quick to pass judgement over a man I did not know. I should have listened to him and believed him or at least given him the benefit of doubt. I should have explored more channels to contribute my quota to nation building even during the term of a president I did not like. And I should have cried on the day he died!
Allah ya jikan Malam Umaru Musa Yar’adua.
Auwal S. Anwar
aanwar_z@yahoo.com
auwalsanwar@gmail.com
