AMERICAN PRESIDENCY:- THE ROAD TRAVELED!

A very high ranking Nigeria government official visited the United States of America State of California sometime last summer 2007 shortly after the sordid mess of an “election” conducted by the medicine man of Otta, Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo. This person while answering questions about the charade that took place in Nigeria’s transition parried the question referencing Florida’s hanging chard of 2000 to make a non existence case that no election is perfect. Today the number of voided “elections” therein in Nigeria attests to the mind-numbing madness that took place in Nigeria under OBJ’s supposed transition because no elections really took place and the supposed leaders that emerged were not vetted prior and hence unknown to the people they supposedly govern.

This preamble becomes necessary for a more forensic analytical understanding of the political denudation currently eroding the American political landscape. It is necessary to understand the process that leads to the final results whether in Abuja or Washington DC which explains the rapidity of moving on after elections in the United States as opposed to the lingering bickering which follows every election in Nigeria. In Nigerian, a candidate for office is most always foist on the Nigeria electorates by the powers that be which is akin to the joker of “super delegates” which the Clinton camp is trying shamelessly to employ to steal an otherwise lost nomination. When such happens, the people are left with no choice but to bear the crushing imposition with stoicism praying for the intervention of the almighty or that such an imposed ruler will die in office for a breather. This is so because the supposed head of state or president is not a choice they would ordinarily have made or an option they would have exercised or someone they would have elected or voted for in the first instance. Absence of transparency in the selection process and subsequent election of office holders in Nigeria and Africa by extension is the bane of the societies which constitute perpetual clogs in the wheels of progress therein. These impostors are then preoccupied trying to starve off oppositions and other hound-dogs throughout their term and will have less time to find solutions to the myriad of problems facing their countries. Think of malaria; think of HIV/AIDS; etc.

Nigeria experimented with transparency in elections with OPTION A4 during the regime of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida which produced Aaree Ona Kakanfo MKO Abiola in 1993 and which explains the loss felt by many a Nigerian when the military junta of Abacha incarcerated him with his ultimate death in the gulag. If only Nigeria could revert to the primary electioneering process such as Option A4; then and only then will a meaningful election take place in that country and perhaps then, Nigerians could have an elected leader who has a real mandate to govern. Were this to be the case prior, maybe all the catastrophic maladies of Aremu Obasanjo presidency would have been averted as he would not have been elected to govern in the first place. Aremu Obasanjo would have fallen victim of the primaries in his home State of Ogun as Yakubu Gowon experienced first hand in his own home State of Plateau wherein a primary school teacher was preferred by the people over him in the primaries. There is no love lost between Obasanjo and his native Ogun State people and he could not have survived the crucible therein. Aremu Obasanjo was a product of the elite powerful people who foist him on Nigerians and they reaped the whirlwind. Obasanjo was a destitute despotic bull in a China shop called Nigeria and it will take a very long time to garner all that he scattered during his ill-fated imposed presidency.

Now to the main subject of this discuss – the American primary electoral system and the phenomenon called BARACK OBAMA! The exploits of Obama in this years’ United States of America presidential primaries is astounding and this is possible because of a system which makes it possible for a hitherto “nobody” to be able to put up such a stellar performance against a former first lady of Arkansas, a former first lady of the United States of America and a United States Senator from the State of New York with a Clinton last name – only in America! And the world stands in awesome admiration, astonished and wondering how we do what we do and rhetorically positing why we are the greatest nation on earth, God bless America!

Primaries make it possible for the real people who in essence own the government to vet their would-be leaders up close and personal before certifying him or her as a fit and proper person to govern them as president cum commander in chief of the almighty United States armed forces. As would anything which properly functions, the process is all inclusive starting with the least of all the fifty states – IOWA to the biggest elephant in the union California as well as far flung territories of Guam and Puerto Rico as well as Americans in Diaspora. This gives every person the senses of belonging and a share of participation in this all important decision of who to trust with the collective interest called United States with all its’ vast purse, powers and influence which is global in nature. Iowa was the first to speak and it would seem that they were correct in their assessment of BARACK OBAMA. Today their message has been heard across the length and breath of America and the message is clear; as was succinctly and very eloquently put while campaigning for Barack Obama in Southern Virginia by the denizen of talk show, our own very Oprah Winfrey, – OBAMA IS THE ONE!

This is what is saintly about the union called United States of America. People have opportunities and when we decide to do good the best is always the result. Hopefully Barrack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president next January 20, 2009; but if against all odds, it is truncated midway and a different result ensues, at least the people can deal with it and will have some closure in the fact that a contest indeed took place. First it was an open primary for the brave hearts to throw their hats into the ring, there were vetting by the ever inquisitive and very incisive American press as well as hired private investigators, followed by several debates between the candidates and criss-crossing of the entire breath of the union canvassing for the electorates’ support and giving them reasons why they are the best candidate for the office. These candidates are job-seekers applying for the highest office in the land and so are going through necessary interview processes which peradventure takes them through all the stakeholders of the union – we the people! The president is to govern the people so the people should have a choice in his/her emergence. Thus it becomes an absolute meritocracy instead of bequeath as typified by Umaru Yaradua’s emergence in Nigeria wherein Obasanjo single-handedly imposed him on the country. This is an example of crass idiocy which has held the country, Nigeria, down for such a long time and until 26th February 2008, when hopefully the Justice Ogembe election tribunal will do right by and for Nigerians by nullifying the purported “election” of Yaradua, Yaradua remains a de-facto president of Nigeria incapable of mobilizing anybody and real peace amongst the polity called Nigeria will remain an illusion. The seeming peace is like Colin Powel said of the Iraq surge, putting a heavy lid over a boiling pot to stem it from boiling over. Nigeria is as restive as nobody has ever seen – peace of the grave yard is no peace at all. A grenade with its pin on looks as docile but Nigeria must not let the Kenya experience occur. Unlike Kenya, Nigeria has been through a civil war before and since the truce of 1970, disaffection has been smoldering underneath every heart in the country with some people waiting for a pay-back time. Unlike Kenya, Nigeria has abundant oil which could be mortgaged to the Chinese should another war results for their military support including mercenaries to fight a proxy war for the oppressed Niger Delta people. Only fairness can resolve the imbroglio which will then make it possible for an Ijaw or Ishekiri or Urohbo man to aspire for the presidency and guarantee his right to the presidency as well as other juicy positions in the land. This also will ensure that his God-bequeathed resources will not be pillaged without adequate and reasonable compensation.

With these primaries, Americans have had the singular privilege of going into the minds of their would-be president and now can say that they know who is applying for the greatest office in the union and by extension the entire planet earth. There is some closeness, sense of belonging and ownership pride when one knows that he/she participated in choosing who governs him/her. But a situation where an unknown chemistry teacher turned governor of an inconsequential remote State of Kastina is put in charge of a more sophisticated people with much numerical strength and expertise and exposure scattered throughout Nigeria leads to resentment. First who is this man and second how did he come to be their president. Who is he more qualified than to make him a preferred and/or ‘anointed’ candidate? It was a total imposition and people merely tolerate such because the alternative of a midnight visit by henchmen of State Security does not bode well and hence is avoided at the mercy of stupendous loyalty.

Nigeria and Africa in general need to change their ways especially the way the powers that be install a puppet who does not have the mandate of the people to govern. According to “president in the waiting” Barrack Obama, change starts from bottom up and leaders must emerge through a viable political process for the people to be mobilized that they could move the nation forward. Such leaders remain accountable to the people whose sacred mandate they hold in trust knowing that any misadventure with either their resources or freedom would result in immediate recall or voting out of office. But a situation where an “elected” leader is not beholden to the electorates, he sees himself as answerable only to the master that put him in power and hence no obligation to perform while in office. Accountability is a necessary concomitant to consequences but where no consequences exist; there is no deterrent or incentive to do right. Forty-eight years after independence in Nigeria from Britain, there is no adequate running water or electricity or motor-able good roads; no well equipped and staffed acute care centers, salaries are not paid, no viable schools that produce comparable manpower, teachers are perpetually on strike over their backlog salaries; so also are the doctors, the army is owed their salaries as well as the police and the navy, contractors etc. and the United States made it public last week that Nigeria generated the sum of $55Billion USD in oil sales just last year 2007 alone. Translation all these lacking infrastructures could have been put in place – Dubai style, were these very inept imposed leaders answerable to the people or at least care about their legacy. What happened to this money – they ended up in private bank accounts in Geneva while the people are languishing in abject squalor.

In summation therefore, whereas no election is perfect according to this Nigeria official at least there is what is called some semblance of decency in how leaders come about. Show us the path traveled to arrive at the leader – the transparency, openness, and an all accommodating, free for all willing-contestants participation in the electoral process. At the end of the day whoever emerges will be acceptable to the people as proved with MKO Abiola in 1993. Once the road traveled is not so muddled up then the people can deal with whoever finally emerges as their leader. By these primaries, emerged candidates from both parties have been fully vetted as possible presidents which suggest that they are both viable. At this juncture there are technically two acceptable candidates for president and the election in November is just a formality to find out who amongst the two is better and more liked. It then becomes a mere preference by the majority of the people.

If Nigeria adopts this primary process as Option A4 attempted to do, a leader will start emerging in the country that could motivate the people to move the country forward. Until this is done the fight and brute struggle to control the levers of State which sometimes results to deadly consequences shall never cease and the result is that the non-criminals, usually the egg-heads, amongst the society will continue to find respite sojourning in other more civilized geographical entities elsewhere around the globe. Many Nigerians and Africans in general are now so disenchanted and disillusioned with what is going on in their native countries of birth that they have started electing to be buried in the country of their sojourn and would rather even their bodies never be sent back “home” for burial. It is disheartening indeed for a man to denounce the country that gave him birth and this trend is becoming more of an acceptable norm than an abnormally. Maybe a President Barack Obama will be the lighting rod to jump-start Africa into a new dawn. May be a President Obama will help frog-march African “leaders” into what is right and by extension start a renaissance and reorientation of Africa for a new beginning. Godspeed to Barack Obama’s quest as his struggle is our struggle and may God continue to bless his campaign and keep him and Michelle and their two beautiful little darlings safe from the evil ones, in Jesus name, Amen! So speaketh MENIRU!