The person at the centre of a storm is sometimes the last to realise it. This is the case with President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Those who know may not be saying it, but Nigerians, except for the most rabid Yar’Adua supporter suspect that the end of an era is in sight. And is it not just an end to the administration of President Yar’Adua, but a terminal decline of the Yar’Adua dynasty’s political fortunes. The sun has set, and time is closing in. Ultimately, power, that most cherished of all brides will prove that no groom can hold on to it for eternity.
Forget that we were sold the dummy that the President was a decent and incorruptible man though his kinsmen from Katsina knew better. It is just that after nearly three years, no one, including the indefatigable Dora Akunyili can point out to one decent achievement of this government. Forget about the promised 6000 megawatts of electricity. We have heard more intriguing fairy tales. I have certainly come across more engaging works of fiction.
The unforgiving reality is that Nigeria literally burns dollars to generate meagre electricity, and the more money thrown at it, the deeper the darkness that engulfs the country. It is said that the major crisis in the energy sector is the nearly two trillion naira annual loss in the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Forget about the billions of dollars that have gone down the drain. Many more billions will follow because there are powerful people thrashing around the cesspits of corruption that control the sector. And forget about the Niger Delta’s ‘Final Solution’. You cannot pay poverty, illiteracy, government neglect and decades of environmental degradation to simply vanish.
It is instructive that even the longest serving cabinet member and Minister of Works, Alhaji Lawal Hassan has admitted that the Federal Government did not complete any of the 81 road projects it planned to execute in 2009. As if we didn’t know that from the mangled corpses we see every day on our roads. He also admitted that his ministry spent N24.3bn on the overhead component of its capital projects and another N17.4bn was spent on road survey contracts alone. What is new about that?
The Nigerian Senate is known for many things, but hardly for speaking out forthrightly and being in tune with public expectations. So when the Senate says that almost three years into the Yar’Adua administration, the Federal Government has failed to meet the expectations of the people, you know that there is fire on the mountain, and it is everyone for himself.
But it is not the catastrophic failure of the Yar’Adua administration that has spelt doom for the dynasty, though it has not helped matters. It is also not the President’s illness that has brought to an end, the family’s now dubious role in the history and politics of Nigeria. A critical factor that dug the grave of the Yar’Adua era is the tribe of opportunists that have beclouded his judgment and secluded him from the dangers of the gathering storm that has led him, and unfortunately, Nigeria, to the abyss. But even this is being charitable to Yar’Adua.
Without mincing words, can Turai Yar’Adua, Tanimu Yakubu, Abba Ruma, Charles Soludo etc publicly declare their assets today? How come the name of one presidential son-in-law, said to owe banks nearly N40 billion was removed from the list of published bank debtors? How, in the name of the rule of law has an element like James Ibori been discharged and acquitted? So where did the $15 million that the EFCC kept in the Central Bank come from? Perhaps it simply dropped out of the sky. But again, when characters like Aandoakaa keeping the law….
Sadly too, simply blaming the banal cabal around Yar’Adua for the collapse of his presidency and end of the Yar’Adua dynasty in politics may be simplistic. Those who knew the real Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, especially from his days as Governor of Katsina State kept a few secrets from the rest of us. Today, as the sun sets on the Yar’Adua era, some of those truths are beginning to come out. And those truths do not make pleasant reading.
If all Yar’Adua had managed to do was to adopt the recommendations of Electoral Reforms panel he set up, he might have laid the foundation for the emergence of a truly democratic Nigeria. Instead, he is leaving office on a note of betrayal and failure. What an end.