Yar’Adua’s Exit in Perfect Order

Hakeem Babalola

Yar’Adua’s hold to power is a distortion. Of course we all know this fact. Each day he represents Nigeria as the president is a mistake of misrepresenting the facts. But of course Nigerians can hail him in order to prove that the end justifies the means. Is the end justifies the means or should it?

From the day he was sworn-in as the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I had also sworn not to recognise him as such. For the first time in my life I strongly believe I have had enough. Yes, enough is enough. I felt that unless people like me take such stand, certain class of people would always take us for a ride. Will you please join me in my quest not to recognise Mr Yar’adua as president!

You can now imagine my shock when Nigerians, especially those famous newspaper boys who had earlier believed that Yar’Adua was not qualified to be the President, started speaking on his behalf as spokesperson. It ruined my ego as a writer as well as a citizen to hear them calling him Mr President. Then I wonder why the sudden change from those who should know better. This is a food for thought for those calling for revolution.

Most especially when Musa Yar’adua himself has acknowledged that the 2007 elections that produced him as the president were fraught with problems (although fraught shouldn’t be the appropriate word). Surely he was not the one who conducted the election. He was not in charge of the police, the Independent National Electoral Commission or any of the security branches; the fact that he benefited from the fraud perpetrated by these organisations makes him an accomplice. Therefore I violently believe he should not have become the president. He should not.

But Musa Yar’Adua had an ambition. It seems to me that the man had wanted to taste the presidency, even if only for one day. He might have dreamt being in the book of history alongside Tafawa Balewa, Aguiyi Ironsi, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, Sani Abacha, Abdusalam Abubakar, and Olusegun Obasanjo. From the look of things I supposed being in the history book as one of the Nigerian presidents is enough for Yar’Adua.

Look at him very well and tell me what you have seen. Though it was pre-judgement on my own part, I had in the very beginning of his administration, compared him to Shehu Shagari, another President imposed on Nigerians by the same Obasanjo in 1979. To compare any person to Shagari means one thing: incompetence and unqualified.

However, I am more into how he got to the throne than his performance. Unless of course we want to sweep this under the carpet. Thank God Nigerians know that Yar’Adua is an imposition. This factor alone disqualifies him as the Nigerian president. Now let me hear you saying it disqualifies him…it disqualifies him…

Yar'Adua is enjoying himself as the president irrespective of how he came to power; irrespective of his charade as someone who respects the rule of law. I mean the trips to their homeland called America and Europe and the meeting with their boss called American President. I am sure such rendezvous is part of the struggle to taste power – if only for a while. They must pay homage to their masters.

I had posited somewhere that Yar’adua’s slow poison approach may be a policy of appeasement. We may see the real Yar'Adua after the court might have legitimized his presidency. No, the court won’t disrespect Nigerians by legalizing illegality that produced him. Please say No. Say No to selection or imposition.

Therefore Umar Musa Yar'Adua should stop ridiculing himself and his family by defending the rule of law. He simply lacks the moral or integrity to do so. Gone were the days when one could even fool all Nigerians all the time. Not anymore, and definitely not in this Age of Information Technology. I have since concluded that if Nigerians should allow Yar’Adua to remain as their president, then there may be no hope at all.

Every time I examine this man, I always come to the conclusion that, here is a man who feels guilty about something - something profound. His recent pronouncement that he would not appeal Election Tribunal decision is a testimony in this regard. The guy is smart though. I think the only way to become part hero is for him to respect the Tribunal unlike his godfather who was/is famous for disobeying the law of the land.

Yar'Adua may be the opposite of his predecessor, a character that has drawn public sympathy. I say the guy is smart, for the only way a successor to Obasanjo could swindle us is by being his opposite. And that is exactly what Yar'Adua is doing. But I am not impressed simply because he was imposed on us by this godfather who was trying to protect being probed.

I have changed my mind. Yar’Adua is not a bit smart. If he is smart at all, he should not have stayed longer than a day on the throne. The former chemistry teacher should have cited massive rigging as the main reason for such decisiveness. If he had done that, one thing would have worked in his favour: being the shortest and the most honest president we have ever had. History would have been very kind to him. Nigerians would have affectionately remember him as they remember Murtala Mohammed. But now he would go down in history as one of them. It serves him right.

Now that the Owu man has warned him to take tough decision, will he change? I don't know. All I know is this: I have no respect for anyone directly serving under Yar'Adua as the president. Neither do I for anyone calling him Mr President. I strongly believe that the appropriate title should be Mr Caretaker President - at least for now.

So I am waiting anxiously for his resignation or exit. But tarry a little, who becomes the president after the court might have annulled the elections that had helped him to be part of our own peculiar history? Oh, Nigeria.

copyright 2007 mysmallvoice@yahoo.com