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D.AKINSANYA JULIUSON HonDBA, IOM
Political Strategist,
Professional Investigator, Honorary Representative
Hon V/Chairman, Congress of Diplomats and
Parliamentarians
Fellow of the Atlantic Council of the United Kingdom
PRESIDENT OBASANJO MIGHT NOT ATTAIN AN OUTRIGHT
VICTORY THAT HE HOPES FOR
NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT CAN ACHIEVE MOST THINGS NOW IF THEY REALLY TRY
NIGERIANS ARE A LOT OF THINGS,
BUT FAILURE WE ARE NOT
NIGERIA MUST BE MADE A LEADER OF CHANGES IN AFRICA AND THE WORLD
WHAT WOULD NIGERIANS CHANGE IF WE HAD THE FREEDOM TO CHANGE ANYTHING?
PART 1
BE
A MILLER PRESIDENT OBASANJO, BUT GRIND NOT THE FACES OF THE POOR
PRESIDENT OBASANJO MUST CHOOSE A ROUTE HE CAN BE PROUD OF TAKING
THE KEY TO PROGRESS
IN NIGERIA LIES IN SINCERITY, NOT CYNICISM
WHY PRESIDENT
OBASANJO MUST LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF WISDOM
WHY NIGERIAN LEADERS NEED TO
LEARN FROM THE BEST
NIGERIAN DEMOCRACY
MUST BE MADE TO BE ADMIRED
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PRESIDENT OBASANJO MIGHT NOT ATTAIN AN OUTRIGHT
VICTORY THAT HE HOPES FOR
by D. Akinsanya Juliuson HonDBA, IOM
It’s so easy
to be strong when other people are giving us their support. When
everyone agrees with our point of view, when we are being praised and
applauded for our actions, when we feel sure that our course of action
is correct, we can march bravely ahead in spirit of determination.
It’s not so easy though, when we feel vulnerable, unsure of ourselves
and doubtful of our ability to make an accurate judgement. President
Obasanjo can and must be strong about what he sees as important, but
is he doing the right thing now?
All that any
of us ever want to do is ‘the right thing’. Given that such a noble
aspiration runs through the heart of every human – and given, too,
that the right thing is surely what we were placed here to do, we’d
think our world be full to bursting point with ‘right things’. Where,
then, do all those wrongs come from? Presumably, from our propensity
to think that wrong things are right things – vice versa. If our
President really wants to do the right thing, now, he should be open
to the idea that he could be doing the wrong thing. Like all great
powers, the power of creativity can be a tremendous force for good –
or for bad, depending on how it is applied. Artists, musicians and
writers are by no means the only people who apply imagination
constructively. We can all cook up false fears, silly conflicts and
irrelevant problems. I’m urging Nigerian politicians to cast some
caution to the wind and be careful what they allow themselves to
create and develop now. I also advise President Obasanjo not to put
himself in a situation where he could lose everything. He is not only
being highly ambitious, he is upsetting people who don’t agree with
his view of what needs to happen. He is refusing to be distracted from
a goal that he has set. The President is determined to reach it,
regardless of who disapproves. He is right to believe that something
is possible, because it is. The question now is not,’ Will he attain
his target?’ He might. The question is, quite how tactfully will he do
it? How are things going to turn out? Will they go one way – or
another? Will President Obasanjo gain what he hopes to gain? Or will
he, in the process of attempting to succeed, lose something that is
precious to him? The answer is,’ the result might not be as clear cut
as he wants it to be.’ He might not attain an outright victory that
brings all he hopes for. But if he does what is right and appropriate,
he will get a result that is fair and just. Mr President should let
that be encouraging enough now to do the right thing in the interest
of Nigerians that are suffering and smiling. He should avoid the use
of coercive diplomacy; allow peace into his life and the lives of
others. Nigerians want a solution – and a resolution. This generation
want a convincing, conclusive answer to a pressing question. We want
to come to an arrangement and start a brand new regime. Nigerians are
tired of the way in which things are just trundling on in the same old
unsatisfactory way. Did I say tired? A much stronger word is probably
more appropriate. Yet there’s not much point in dwelling on the
strength or intensity of what Nigerians feel right now. That’s neither
going to speed up change nor is a belligerent attitude. But we do have
a choice. For now we will keep on talking. Even if nobody seems to be
listening to us, we will be heard in the end, that I’m very sure of.
PRESIDENT
OBASANJO CAN STABILISE A SITUATION NOW OR STIR IT UP
Many
would argue that tyrants, corrupt governors and other abusers of power
and authority are not leaders at all- at least not the word is
currently used. This assumption is dangerously naïve. Bad leadership
compels us to see leadership in its entirety. The dark side of
leadership – from rigidity and callousness to corruption and cruelty –
is not an aberration. Rather bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is
insidious – and so must be more carefully examined and better
understood. Bad leadership makes it clear that we need to face the
dark side in order to become better leaders and followers ourselves.
Many disasters are preceded by clear warning signals that leaders
either miss or purposely ignore. There is always a systematic
framework that leaders can use to recognize and prioritise brewing
disasters and mobilize their institutions or governments to prevent
them. I am not here to highlight the phenomenon that holds grave
consequences – But, I’m challenging our leaders to always find the
courage to act before it’s too late. People who are
in the wrong never say so! On the contrary, they loudly proclaim
themselves to be in the right. If they cannot get away with pretending
that no mistake has been made, they’ll turn their energy towards the
task of blaming someone else. What is even more ironic is that there
are other people who, despite being in the right, feel too shy –
unnecessarily guilty to defend themselves. I strongly believe the
future will bring proof of how wise they’ve been – and how well
they’ve chosen. Right now, we can make a kind choice or continue with
the harsh one. Whether it’s for a child or an adult, let’s do what is
nicest. President Obasanjo can stabilise a situation in our country
now or he can stir it up. With all due respect, he is quite entitled
to take either course of action as long as he understands what he is
doing. What he doesn’t want is to pick a route that seems to lead in
one direction, only to find that it takes him somewhere else. Some of
the political disasters currently parading themselves as the makers of
heaven and earth, without the tools of parliamentary diplomacy, like
to think of themselves as reasonable sort of souls. I am to be honest
not suggesting that this is not so. Sometimes though, their actions
are slightly less reasonable than their words. They are very good at
explanations. They can make almost any wild course of action sound
sensible and well thought through. But just between you and I, I have
to ask, is their current strategy in danger of causing them to go just
a little too far? Not everything in life has to be sensible though.
Let’s just imagine what people must have said to the Creator of heaven
and earth when He first announced plans for a nation such as our
blessed country. That I’m sure is going to take us ages. And to be
honest, what on earth is the damn point? And the Most High’s accounts
department would have gone ballistic,’ All those trees, Natural
Resources etc? ‘We can’t afford any of them! But something somewhere
had faith in Nigeria; our country was worth the effort and that we
much always appreciate.
OUR LEADERS HAVE FAILED NOT AT CREATING A VISION BUT AT IMPLEMENTING
IT
We are entering special territory
now. Let’s think of ourselves as a traveler in a foreign land ‘called
democracy’, and adapt to the different culture. The words we might
normally use will mean nothing here. The gestures we may feel inclined
to make will carry no weight. Our money won’t help us either. They use
another currency entirely in this place – where cheap things are
costly and vice-versa. Only one thing remains the same, ‘Sincerity’.
This land where honesty and simplicity reign supreme, we need to
summon those qualities and we’ll get everything we need in addition to
the fruits of democracy. Democracy is like any other mutual
relationship - what you've got to do is to work at it. The success of
any relationship turns on the spirit in which it is conducted, and not
on the performance of its minimum obligations. And the relationship
between Government and the people also turns on obligations. For its
part, the Government is determined to increase the rights of people in
their relation to the State itself. Many Nigerian presidents have
failed not at creating a vision but at implementing it. In our system,
compromise, inclusion, and some tolerance of dissenting views are
essential to developing a practical pathway to success. As words,
tolerance and civility carry a certain semantic baggage, the product
of use and sometimes misuse. As is often the case, the best definition
is a clear statement of what the word does not mean. It must be clear
that tolerance is not a surrender of conviction. Tolerance does not
require one to sacrifice personal ideals or water down beliefs to a
toothless “least common denominator. To be tolerant is by no means
the same thing as to believe that any proposition is as true as any
other. Nigerian Constitution does not reduce tolerance to some form of
moral equivalence, to degrade the truth of things. At its best,
tolerance promotes a marketplace of ideas where diverse viewpoints
collide to create a higher level of understanding. If we can listen to
each other with humility, the positive—almost sacred—accomplishments
and qualities of the Nigerian experience can enrich and fortify us to
live the fullness of the Nigerian dream. Other people and nations
have their ideas about what we should be doing, where we should be
heading and who should be leading us now. We though, have our own. Or,
at least, it is to be hoped that we do. It is fine to feel inspired to
make compromises on behalf of other people but it’s dreadful to feel
obliged to do this. The political, social and emotional pressure that
Nigerians are under now should be not so much resisted as addressed.
We need to re-educate those who seem to think that we (Nigerians)
ought to be at their beck and call. By doing this, we will see that, a
little explanation goes a long way sometimes. We might not realize it
but Nigerians are remarkably well equipped and blessed. Among the
resources we take for granted are some exceptional assets – ones that
other people and nations would dearly love to have at their disposal.
Admittedly, if we are unable to use these to our advantage, there’s
nothing so enviable about our situation and us. However, we can now.
It’s time to take an inventory of our opportunities and then start
seizing the best of these. Let’s never mind what’s not possible, let’s
look at what is FEASIBLE….and our tomorrow will yet prove immensely
rewarding.
IS IT TRUE
THAT HEAVENS HELP THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES?
Few people go
to law school. Of those, few are called to the bar. Even less of these
rare beings become elevated to the judiciary. And yet…we are all
judges. We all keep, in our back pockets, a little olde worlde wig, a
potable gavel and a pair of spectacles. Several times a day in our
imagination, we don the appropriate apparel and pass judgement on our
fellow humans. Nobody stops us. Everyone else is too busy playing the
same game. We (Nigerians) need to watch out now for many convictions
based on wildly insufficient evidence. Some people know how to lay
down the law. They also get a kick out of doing things by the book. So
much so that sometimes, even when there really is no book to do things
by, they invent one. They cite rules that have not actually been
passed. Nigerians are not such a stickler for protocol. Indeed, we can
be and what about our actors? Don’t they do much the same thing; day
after day, week after week? Some of us though, are not actors, so we
don’t have to live other people’s lives without having to pay the
price. If actors are appearing in a long-running play, they will speak
precisely the same lines whilst making identical gestures. Throughout
the run of the show, additional nuances in the script will be
discovered. Even the writers may be surprised by what they later
realise were the true depth of their words. Nigerians, I believe are
not now stuck in any kind of rut. Nor are we going round in circles
like our politicians. Nigerians are just getting ready to make an
enormous, amazing breakthrough that’s long overdue. It’s so funny
that, whenever we play it too safe, we sell ourselves short. We end up
settling for the tried and tested, when we could be…. the mixed magic
of the glorious unknown. Whilst the opposite also applies – and if we
dance too close to the edge for too long, we might fall over it. There
are times though, when it’s wiser to take a risk than to wallow in the
mud of mundanity. However, is it true that, Heavens help those who
help themselves? Well, I believe it rather depends on what they happen
to be helping themselves to. It’s not that the Heavens discriminate,
they really don’t judge. But if people are helping themselves to the
things that aren’t so good for them, the Heavens can’t help them. Or
can they do much for those who are doing little or nothing. How
exactly do we help ourselves now? By looking to see how the Most High
is trying to help us. But should we go out of our ways to give others
especially poor Nigerians and those children a tough time? Some people
seem to think so. They argue that life is often sad and stressful. On
that basis, we may as well help prepare our offspring for their own
inevitable brush with difficulty and disappointment. On the other
hand, we can all do what is within our power to create a comfortable,
cosseted environment in the hope that this will give them a happy
memory to refer back to in later life. I believe it’s not too late
for us to start doing what pleases God and then, Heavens will be too
pleased to help us.
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"All
that any of us ever want to do is ‘the right thing’. Given that
such a noble aspiration runs through the heart of every human – and
given, too, that the right thing is surely what we were placed here
to do, we’d think our world be full to bursting point with ‘right
things’. Where, then, do all those wrongs come from? Presumably,
from our propensity to think that wrong things are right things –
vice versa. If our President really wants to do the right thing,
now, he should be open to the idea that he could be doing the wrong
thing. Like all great powers, the power of creativity can be a
tremendous force for good – or for bad, depending on how it is
applied. Artists, musicians and writers are by no means the only
people who apply imagination constructively. We can all cook up
false fears, silly conflicts and irrelevant problems. I’m urging
Nigerian politicians to cast some caution to the wind and be careful
what they allow themselves to create and develop now. I also advise
President Obasanjo not to put himself in a situation where he could
lose everything.."
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