FOR about 24 hours this week, Nigerians did nothing other than worry about the health of President Umaru Yar'adua who had travelled to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage and was going to check on his doctors – the utterly clever description of the trip by the Presidency.
Shortly after, Nigerians found out that nobody had seen the President anywhere near Mount Arafat preparing to stone the Devil, or in any kind of religious posture, but that he had been admitted into a hospital. About the third time in four months that this will happen. Someone in fact jokingly suggested that the Saudi Arabians should create the honorary position of Deputy King or Deputy Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia for President Yar'adua or better still, grant him the country's citizenship. He must rank as one of the leading single, individual sources of foreign exchange for the Saudi Arabian health sector! That our President has to shuttle to and from Saudi Arabian hospitals so frequently is a comment on the underdeveloped nature of the Nigerian health sector. When we celebrate Nigeria's 50 years of independence next year, the health sector in Nigeria is obviously not one of those things that anyone can crow about.
Back to the President's health: effectively his administration's eighth agenda, as early as 5 a.m. on Wednesday, word was beginning to go round, a strong rumour, that President Yar'adua had passed on in Saudi Arabia. Someone called to say that he received a phone call from Saudi Arabia to that effect. Every rumour-monger in Nigeria is an expert at dressing up a tale. He or she will manage to add a hint of verisimilitude. If a call came from Saudi Arabia, surely the story must be true. It turned out that X and Y had also heard the rumour. Phone calls and text messages went round. "Have you heard? I want to confirm from you. You people are in the news business, you should know."
But nobody could confirm anything. I told one anxious caller not to bother. Since the man is a Muslim, the truth will be out in less than 24 hours. Muslims don't keep their dead in the morgue for months turning it into an object of worship. They accept Allah's Will quickly and allow the dead to continue on the journey to eternity. But Nigerians won't give up. Before noon, someone had reported that there was some activity at the Presidential wing of the International Airport in Abuja . A phone call was received from an Abuja airport staff who confirmed that ambulances had been stationed at the airport and that armed security personnel had taken over the Presidential wing. This was meant to be an eyewitness account. And if ambulances were already on standby at the airport, it must be that there was an emergency truly.
Meanwhile, those who tried to reach officials in the Presidency drew blank. Nobody was ready to say anything. Before long, my phone rang again. A friend reported that he had heard through a friend who is a friend of someone with high connections in Nigerian security that the story is true and that Aso Villa is as quiet as a cemetery. An insider in the over-mystified Nigerian secret service is supposed to know state secret, not so? Too many friends were involved in this story telling this or that friend the truth. "Did I hear anything?" No, please. The internet was similarly abuzz. Internet-based commentators spoke about the "grave news" from Nigeria . My mail box was soon clogged up with the grave news, crowding out other mails that were also making the rounds including: "Man dies in hotel after sex with neighbour's wife (good for him!); "Kemi Alao-Akala expects second baby" (so?), "man beats wife over failure to have male child" (stupid man!).
By noon, theories were beginning to emerge about what would possibly happen were the story to be true.
"Do you think they will put Jonathan Goodluck there?"
"The Constitution is very clear. If the President falls, his Deputy takes over."
"Do you think the Northerners will agree?""
"Why won't they? It is in their interest to respect the Constitution."
"But suppose they don't."
"That will mean trouble. Don't forget that Goodluck Jonathan is an Ijaw. The fourth largest ethnic group in Nigeria . They will rebel if they are told that an Ijaw man is not good enough for the big job."
"So who will become the next Vice President? "
"Definitely a Northerner. May be Turai."
"Why Turai?"
"Why not?"
"This Goodluck is just too lucky. He is always a lucky man. You mean he will get the position, he will also get… em.."
"If you say so"
"And so do you think in 2011, they will allow Jonathan to run for President on the platform of the PDP?"
"I don't think that the North will allow that."
"Why not?"
"The North will insist on its own two terms in the presidential seat. They may even ask for a third."
"Then, there will be trouble. Because let me tell you something, when that thing leaves the North it must come straight to the East, otherwise, there will be trouble."
"In my heart, I am praying for President Yar'adua. I pray that he gets well and that he completes his term in office. It is in Nigeria 's interest that he lives and instead of all this rumour-mongering, we should all be praying for him and for Nigeria ."
"Well done, Pastor. Why can't they just change whatever is causing problems in the man's body? I hear these days, these things can be changed and everything will be okay. In fact, a heart transplant is also possible. "
"I pray for the President because I think Nigerians are rather callous. The man has told us he is ill. Before leaving for Saudi Arabia , he told the entire country. But people just prefer to believe rumours. People have told me that they received phone calls from Saudi Arabia , and that some Nigerian pilgrims have even spoken with Mrs Yar'adua. This is a complex country. How did the rumour come about in the first place? Who is behind it? "
"I don't know"
In the rumour-mongering business in Nigeria there is so much lack of civility on display and the manner in which angry, ordinary Nigerians wish all kinds of evil and death upon their leaders is frightening. What is advertised is the gap between both classes and the people's frustrations about their own lives. It was the second time President Yar'adua would be reported dead. A death wish hangs over the nation. About a week ago, the rumour was also abroad that Mrs Maryam Babangida had died in a Los Angeles hospital. There were persons who swore that they saw former President Ibrahim Babangida at the airport, LA-bound, and that he was looking sad. But how does mere look translate into death in the family? Turning death into a vehicle for expressing frustrations, individual and shared, points to a deeply felt pain at the heart of the community. Jubilating over the death or the likely death of a member of the community as a kind of release or triumph is a curious dimension of the sociology of death. But it is Nigeria itself that deserves the outpouring of our anguish. Nigeria is sick. The country has since slipped into coma. It is dying. The evidence can be found in the ironies of our circumstances and how the nation has remained immobile on all fronts.
There was an error of management in the official treatment of the rumours about President Yar'adua's death. It is not enough to say that a government cannot respond to rumours. The thing to do is to nip the rumour in the bud or state the truth. And this must be done promptly. A brief statement from the Presidency reassuring Nigerians and the rest of the world very early in the day would have been adequate. Reports of confusion in Aso Villa helped to fuel the rumour mill. With every key government official who should offer information disappearing, and refusing to be quoted, the rumour mongers were given extra oxygen for close to two days. In the age of internet technology with every housewife and busybody getting involved in the business of information dissemination, news has become instant and the definition of news has become ever so elastic. What this requires on the part of information managers is greater openness and capacity to act with equal speed. By the time the Presidency finally spoke yesterday, with Presidential spokesman, Segun Adeniyi, and the physician, Dr. Salisu Banye, telling Nigerians that the President is responding very well after being treated for acute pericarditis (an inflammatory condition of the coverings of the heart), it was rather belated. The information could have been better conveyed; if it had been released much earlier, it could have helped to reduce the confusion and uncertainty that overtook the nation.
However, with increasing anxieties about President Yar'adua's health and official confirmation that he is indeed managing a kidney problem and now an inflammation of the coverings of the heart, should anyone be talking about the man running for a second term of four years in office? And yet, the other day, a group of clowns under the umbrella of a suspicious "Yar'Adua For New Nigeria" (YFONN) gathered in Abuja and formed committees at all governmental levels to ensure that President Yar'Adua retains his seat in the 2011 Presidential elections. They reminded me of a similar circus that was organised for General Sani Abacha. And the third term scam that was put together for President Olusegun Obasanjo until it all exploded in their faces. Nigeria is dying because it is in short supply of true citizens and patriots. Too many persons do not care whether this country fails or not as long as their personal ambitions are realised at the expense of everyone else.
But it doesn't quite matter who runs for President or not in 2011. The Yar'adua case strongly justifies the urgent need for an electoral framework which will ensure that the people's votes count on Election Day.. It is for the people to decide the kind of President they want and they should have the freedom to do so: to choose either a weightlifter, or a President who cannot stand erect for twenty minutes, or a President who is perpetually in and out of hospital. The people are apprehensive and now they appear cruel, because they lack such freedom. They also know that it if it was possible for one man to choose a President for Nigeria in 2007, it is also possible for nationwide committees to choose again on behalf of the people in 2011. A country where the people are so discounted, where they are rendered powerless in determining their own future, where their common interests mean nothing to those who lead them, is truly an unfortunate land.
By Reuben Abati
The Guardian
Friday, November 27, 2009
