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Requiem For President Yar’Adua …Sad Exit Of A Servant Leader
Yar’Adua’s was indeed one death that is worth grieving over, not only by family and friends but even by those whose vigorous pursuit of their constitutionally allowed protests, tended, inadvertently though, to diminish the amount of pain, helplessness and a grueling battle a good man was waging against a fatal medical condition and by extension death.
At about 9pm that Wednesday, in his sick bed at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, an ailing Yar’Adua eventually lost the battle to death, after Soul-lifting assurances by Moslem clerics that the president was fast recuperating and would return soon to the work Nigerians entrusted to him, that of superintending the presidency of Africa’s biggest and most populous democracy. But Yar’Adua couldn’t, afterall and instead surrendered to death, apparently as a token of his usual selflessness, so that Nigeria that he had laboured to keep united, would not be divided by the politicking and avoidable grandstanding that evoked comments and actions over his protracted illness.
Earlier, he had been flown-out of the country to the King Faisal Specialist Hospital, Saudi Arabia Nov 23, last year, where Yar’Adua had been battling acute pericarditis, a medical term explaining inflammation of the outer coverings of the human heart. According to informed medical opinion, the President might have died of cardiac complications arising from the ailment.
Ordinarily, those were moments Nigerians would have willingly shared and empathised with their President, knowing that ill-health is neither an example of gross misdemeanor nor should it be seen as a criminal offence.
But the poor and phoney information management by handlers of Yar’Adua’s health rather than unite Nigerians behind a goodman, helped to heat-up the system and contributed to the diminishing of the import that ought to have been attached to his condition, the pains, the trials, and the tribulations before his eventual death.
For instance, the medical team made a secret of the president’s health condition, forgetting that Nigerians had as much right to such information as it did, even if, granted that Yar’Adua was first of all a husband, father and a Moslem.
These are not times for the blame game, but man must note the mistakes of the past, learn from the present and avoid any repeat in the future, for, without such retrospection, it would be easy to willfully vilify or even demonise civil society groups and indeed all other progressive Nigerians who insisted and rightly too that the Nigerian constitution must be adhered to, no matter the circumstances.
For the records, at the time Yar’Adua was flown to Saudi Arabia, none could tell his medical condition and could not have been expected to follow all the requirements of section 145 of the constitution, that of handing over to his Vice President, since he was to be on a medical vacation.
Sadly, handlers of the President’s health and indeed his information managers chose instead, to hoodwink an already agitated citizenry with less than acceptable hints of their President’s medical condition. As if that was not damaging enough, the same clique, using Saudi security support denied all, especially key national officers, the desired access to see the ailing President. The list included cabinet ministers, then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan and indeed leadership of the National Assembly. The only valuable information concerning the president’s health was sourced from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News, where-in Yar’Adua was early this year, quoted as saying he was recuperating from a major heart problem.
And because Yar’Adua was a goodman, who could not be blamed for the poor management of information, concerning his health, the Senate sought a soft-landing, and eventually agreed to imploring the Doctrine of Necessity to empower Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to assume Presidential powers as Acting President, instead of declaring the substantive president incapacitated.
Strangely, the ailing President was flown back into the country at night, amidst tight military security without the knowledge of the Acting President, and Commander –in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, an event which the President’s health-handlers and close political associates intended to implore to diminish the legality of Jonathan’s new identity.
In fact, Yar’Adua’s Special Adviser on Media, Mr Segun Adeniyi, in pursuit of same agendum made a veiled reference to Jonathan as Vice President and went further to assure that the ailing president would return to his duties, the following week, after worshiping at the Abuja Central Mosque that Friday. The President never did.
Even so, Nigerians were hopeful that since he could as much as thank “Vice President” Jonathan for managing the presidency in his absence, he could as well address the nation or at least meet with both the Acting President and indeed leadership of the National Assembly. The ailing President never did.
Instead, some Moslem clerics and later Christian leaders were obliged audience with the ailing President, where they offered prayers for his quick recovery. Thereafter, leader of the Moslem clerics and Chief Iman of the Abuja Central Mosque confidently told Nigerians that Yar’Adua had handsake with them, joined them in prayers and even assured them of his quick recovery and timely return to presidential duties, the following week.
The timing of that statement almost truncated Jonathan’s attempt to infuse fresh blood into the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF), having dissolved the original cabinet, put in place by Yar’Adua
It was only days later that Nigerians came to terms with the fact that Yar’Adua required prayers from all and not merely those who had seen, prayed with him and later dazed the citizenry with half-truths, if not total lies.
Ordinarily, as former US secretary of state, Candolessa Rice rightly observed, the presidency is bigger than any one man and should therefore never be left stagnant, but because of the tremendous goodwill, love and compassion, Yar’Adua had earned in his dealings with others, virtually every attempt by civil society groups to insist on the invocation of section 144 of the constitution, required to declare the ailing President, permanently incapacitated were rebuffed. And rightly too because he was a Goodman, and not because the so-called cabal, who hoped to capitalise on Yar’Adua’s condition to govern Nigeria by proxy were more powerful but because of Yar’Adua’s lasting power of love, humility, selfless services, true statesmanship and indeed accommodating spirit that endeared him to many Nigerians, devoid of ethnic leanings, religion, political diversities and indeed cultures.
These are why, try as they could, to reduce Yar’Adua’s national appeal to a small ethno-religious tin-god, providence ended up exalting a good man and used his death to unite a people nearly torn-apart by human greed, political misadventurism and insatiable appetites.
As Nigerians together mourn Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, we must do so, always remembering his ever forgiving spirit which he often demonstrated during key national challenges, such as the pronouncement of amnesty to Niger Delta militants who had carried arms against the Nigerian state.
We should also learn from his preference for fairness, equity and justice as exemplified by his bold step of establishing the Niger Delta Affairs Ministry to address some of the issues that informed the rebels’ armed confrontation by standing behind his successor in trying to actualise Yar’Adua’s ideals.
My Agony is that once Jonathan starts pursuing these pro-active policies, grounded in the same virtues of fairness, equity and the need to give the Niger Delta the much desired sense of belonging, the same cabal, will see him as pursuing a Niger Delta agendum.
Methinks such vain talks, if they do come, should be jettisoned by President Goodluck Jonathan, because doing so will be the only way of living-out dreams of servant-leader Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to assuaging the pains of that group of Nigerians who have been giving far more to the centre than they can point to as dividends of their own sacrifices.
For a people’s true leader, I say, Fare-The-Well, Yar’Adua and to a worthy successor Jonathan, I say NYSC-Now Your Suffering Commences, so that Nigerians, all Nigerians may breathe a little easier in the future.
That’s what Yar’Adua wanted.