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IBB/OBJ: Sule Lamido's Frustrations
By Adagbo Onoja
Newsdiaryonline Tue
Aug 23,2011
It was a
manifestation of power backed by the required epistemic
authority. That is what it should be, contrary to the culture of
trying to intimidate those who insist on intellectualizing power
in Nigeria by
calling them bookish. Or describing their orientation as mere
theory. But it was not just Lamido’s epistemic authority in a
literary sense. It is his political education. For, political
power without political education is disaster guaranteed. And
Nigeria
is the classic illustration of this given the number of people
in power whose politics lack ideological content. It is not
surprising that the undialectical manner they think about power
brings them back to nemesis and ruin eventually because
mischief, deception, tricks and street wisdom, in short, can’t
replace dialectical reasoning.
It was,
therefore, fascinating watching and listening to the Jigawa
State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido problematise IBB/OBJ’s recent
verbal insurgency within a larger context of it. This saw the
governor moving from philosophy to statecraft to Nigerianism,
then to praetorianism and to governance.
It was
Monday, August 22nd, 2011, the day the members of the
House of Representatives from Jigawa State, members of the state
executive council, heads of Federal institutions in Jigawa, the
members of the NUJ and similar interests took their turn at the
collectivist daily breaking of fast at Government House, Dutse
for different groups and interests throughout the Ramadan. The
previous night, it was the members of the community of the
physically challenged. That one is a story for another day.
The
IBB/OBJ war of words was not the subject matter or theme of the
governor’s speech at the occasion. It only came in to illustrate
the governor’s sense of magnitude of the Nigerian crisis. For,
he had at a point wondered in the course of the speech about how
a country could still be a baby at the age of 50. He answered
himself by saying that it is because the power elite are
ideologically switched off. And because they are switched off
and
complacently disposed to the dangers of class misrule, they can
afford the lack of the sense of urgency that should greet the
extreme existential agony of the majority.
This, for him, is the
only reason why two former presidents of the country could
descend on each other, calling each other fools at 70 on the
pages of newspaper.
For the governor, it is bad enough that the gladiators couldn’t
restrain themselves, it is worse that editors of Nigerian
newspapers were unwilling to impose a blackout on it. Nigerian
editors groomed in what Professor Hackket calls the positivist
epistemology
underpinning North America’s Journalism will scoff at Mister Governor’s
expectation but he is not wide off mark when you bring in the
requirements of state craft. As he posed the issue, what is
entertaining in two former presidents hauling such abuses on
each other when, by doing so, they were reducing that office to
the office of comedians”.
“It is
about Nigeria because, with this kind of
political behaviour, whatever we want from the UN, for example,
would we be trusted? How can you go there and not be feared to
export the Nigerian virus?” In his opinion, then, “We need to
reflect seriously on what is there in us that blocks our sense
of things”, said Lamido who wondered if we Nigeria are not
having problems distinguishing ourselves from lower creatures of
God.
He was
happy that in Jigawa, all Nigerians are at peace with each
other. That, he said, is how it should be because Nigeria is like
the end of year hampers gift givers distribute. “In that hamper,
you have every gift item. That is how God created Nigeria. So, at this level, it is no
more whether you are Hausa or Fulani or Kanuri or Igbo or Katafs
or Jukun but a human being, a Nigerian”.
So, he
considers it frightening that today in Nigeria,
aberrations have become the norms. This he traced to military
rule even while insisting that the military is the heartland of
discipline, being people who are deliberately groomed to die for
the country. The paradox he cannot come to terms with is how two
former presidents, all of them from this background would do
what IBB and OBJ are doing, “calling each other fools with the
whole world watching”. Continuing, Lamido said, “I am not only
worried, I am even frightened. What kind of legacy are we
leaving for the in coming generation? How come it seems to have
become impossible for us to accept that in our actions and
conduct, there are some benchmarks below which we must not go?
For each and every one of us to say that if I go below this
level, I am pulling down a symbol beyond myself?”
Sure that
smaller African countries are not manifesting some of individual
and collective aberrations associated with Nigerians and
Nigeria, Governor Lamido asked,
“is our size also a sickness?” He continued the monologue this
way, “I can’t imagine Generals, coming from the powerful
background of military professionalism, people whom Nigeria honoured and dignified,
inflicting so much pain on all of us. Where is the strong
culture?”
No
wonder, said he, at 50, we are still in our napkins, easing
ourselves in there, waiting for someone to come from outside to
help us out as if we don’t have the capacity to reason or
analyse. Nigerians should frown at the leaders and say, enough
of this shame and embarrassment. Nobody should defend anybody.
It is not whether you are for IBB or for OBJ. It is that having
been former presidents, they carry our symbolism and they cannot
say or do whatever they want. There are over one million IBBs in
Minna alone or OBJs in Ota but this IBB and this OBJ have been
our former presidents and whether we like it or not, they carry
our symbolism and they must respect that. This country honoured
them. If there is no discipline at the top, then there is a
problem. We are stinking because the heads are rotten. Leaders
must behave right”.
By this
time, the speech which started with the hand clappers being at
their best had become a serious monologue to which everyone was
listening very keenly. It was not pin drop silence but it was
close to it. Given the sophistication of the audience, that
indicated that Lamido’s was a shattering but welcome
intervention. And
even a good reminder from the last of the Mohicans, (assuming my
meaning of this word is the ‘correct’ one) to a nation of
anything goes. Even those who may not find his analogy agreeable
would agree that, in substantive terms, he has brought a more
holistic perspective to the rude shock called the IBB/OBJ
discord. For Lamido, it is a matter of the interconnection
between statecraft, national prestige and national security,
(not national security in terms of machine guns, secret police
and the armed forces but, in addition to that, the welfare of
the masses).
Onoja works in
Govt House, Dutse
Related
-OBJ-IBB Feud :Good for
Nigeria, says Retired Officer
-A Falling Out of Thieves or Old Men Behaving Badly?-By
Akintokunbo A Adejumo
-Obasanjo is a
Bigger Fool-IBB
…..full text of his reply to the Ota farmer
-Obasanjo: IBB a fool at 70-The
Nation
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