Abdul Mutallab
If you think the actions of Nigerian-born terror-bombing suspect Abdul Umar Mutallab raises questions about the competence of the Nigerian government in Abuja to deal with issues of terrorism and global security, you are probably right.
But what about the alarming fact that there is political conundrum in Nigeria where that West African nation’s president has been out of office for 50 days now?
No one has been sworn in as acting president even though the constitution empowers the vice president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, to act in the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua.
President Yar’Adua is presently in Saudi Arabia attending to a serious aliment that Nigerian newspapers are already reporting has left the president brain dead.
There is a silent war inside the Nigerian government regarding who would succeed Yar’Adua, who may not come back to rule. The government has yet to issue a statement on the actual condition of the president.
Too bad in a nation that has been all too familiar with political strife and inconsistent democratic governance over the last decades. The history of so-called governance in Nigeria is a history of ruthless corruption with their Western collaborators at the expense of hard-pressed Nigerian tax payers in a nation that is the 11th largest oil producer in the world and fifth supplier to the U.S.
It is unimaginable that despite the billions that Nigeria profits in oil revenues, most parts of that nation don’t have electricity. For too long, the people of Nigeria have watched government officials siphon public dollars to Swiss Bank in the billions.
One would expect that given the recent heightened negative publicity that Nigeria received as a result of the Mutallab saga, plus being added to the list of terror prone countries, the government would quickly move to address the president’s absence by installing the vice president.
One would think that the government would in fact want to show to the world that its house is in order despite Yar’Adua’s long absence. But that is not the case. Nigeria is presently the only country in the world where the president is reported to be in a comatose state and the vice president cannot take charge.
The millions of people who have long been abused by corrupt leaders — most of them coming from the top brass of the Nigerian military — are waiting to watch another political dance take place. Hopefully there won’t be another military coup.
One Nigerian in Detroit said the reason for the silence and hesitance to name an interim replacement is that the different factions in the Nigerian government are trying to work out a deal. They are trying to see who would benefit the most from the president’s absence.
President Yar'Adua
Just as we deal with racism and class issues here, Nigeria, like some other African nations, is entangled in deadly tribalism that has often left some parts of the continent ungovernable.
The vice president is from the eastern region of Nigeria. It is believed that this gives Mr. Jonathan less clout to become president in a government that has always been dominated by top military men and ministers from the north, a Muslim region.
In Nigeria, the northerners have always favored a Muslim president, which is why military coups in the past were led by officers from the north. In fact, the top brass of the Nigerian military is dominated by the Hausa tribe from the north.
The conspicuous silence over the president’s absence and the leadership vacuum is fueling all sorts of speculations in the Nigerian media, online blogs and in the rumor mill. Some are even suggesting that the president’s signature on the supplementary budget that was passed weeks ago was forged because he could not be brain drain yet sign a budget.
Despite this confusion, the Nigerian government has not cleared the air except to say the president is responding to treatment and will be back. No talk of the constitutional requirement that would enable the vice president to take charge. The Senate is threatening to take action.
The government of Saudi Arabia has not issued a statement either on this crisis that has huge international implications.
Meanwhile, Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian-born Nobel Laureate whose work has dominated the global literary scene for a long time with acclaim as Africa’s William Shakespeare, and other eminent Nigerians, have formed an organization called Save Nigeria Group (SNG) to respond to what it calls “a nation without government, a nation where things don’t work, a failed state.”
Soyinka, who has taught in universities across the U.S. including Stanford and Harvard, is disturbed by the leadership crisis in Nigeria, which has always formed themes in his literary work. His group, SNG, is leading a nationwide protest this week calling on the masses of its people to send a message to Abuja, the capital that there is a mass discontent on the present state of governance there.
“This is not about the north, south or east, neither is it about Islam nor Christianity, but about Nigeria as a nation that has a group of concerned Nigerians that have come together to salvage this country from the shackles of bad government,” SNG said in a statement.
What is happening in Nigeria has global security implications not only across the continent of Africa but the world.
Given Nigeria’s geographic location as the largest country in Africa with 150 million people, any conflict in that nation could spill over to its neighbors, just as how the Sudan crisis has affected neighboring countries like Chad.
If you think Nigeria needs to do more to secure its airports, then it perhaps must begin to do so by addressing the presidential vacancy.
Maybe by the time the father of terror suspect Mutallab appears before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has invited him to testify, the Nigerian government would have gotten its act together and stopped deceiving the masses of its people.
Maybe.
Editor Bankole Thompson’s weekly show, “Center Stage,” on WADL TV 38, this Saturday, Jan. 16, at 1 p.m. will feature an exclusive interview with two Detroit lawmakers, State Reps. Shanelle Jackson and Bert Johnson about the Democratic Party’s 2010 gubernatorial troubles. E-mail bthompson@michronicle.com.