MUBARAK'S SEPTEMBER DATE, AMERICA SHOULD RATHER HELP HIM KEEP IT.

After a careful analysis of possible scenarios that might be at play following Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's sudden exit, Icheoku came to the conclusion that it will be more cost effective and a better option for America and its allies as well as Egyptians, instead of the current stand to forcefully push the Egyptian reject off the cliff, to simply cajole him into keeping that date with history. This process will gradually ease him out from power and thereby make it easier for his psyche and ego to accommodate and deal with.

Thirty-five years in office (five as vice president and 30 as president) is such an investment for Mubarak to just walk away from without a fight; which in the long run might not be beneficial to both Egyptians and America. A fractured and rife Egypt is not a good bargain for Mubarak's departure right 'NOW' and it would be better if the six months he is asking for is treated as a six-months transitional period, during which necessary political structures would be established and Egyptians tutored in the art of electoral democracy to enable them successfully complete the transition from the Mubarak's era to a peoples driven governance. Icheoku says the six months extension is a walk in the park for a people who have been forced to put up with such rabid autocracy for the past 30 plus years of and from hell. Igbo people of South East Nigeria have a popular aphorism which goes thus - the tortoise was once locked up in a putrid cell following a seven day prison sentence. After serving six days of his sentence, he was to be set free on the seventh day; and while processes were being formalized for his final release, the tortoise shouted to his rescuers to please make haste as he cannot stand the stench of the cell? This is a tortoise that has been with the stench for the previous six days but can now not stand it for a few hours or minutes?

So Egyptians, your voices have been heard not only by America's President Obama but the world at large as well as your soon to be former President Hosni Mubarak; and he agrees that your call for him to quit is legitimate and only asks for a few months to tidy up his affairs and prepare his handover notes? Icheoku says Mubarak is not asking for too much and should be obliged. The imperative here is that President Hosni Mubarak will finally call it quit with an office in which he has been around for nearly half a century and this in itself is humongous. Egyptian people, your protest is a success - you conquered your fear, you are free and you can now assemble as well as express yourselves publicly, your president fired his cabinet on the strength of your protest; he also appointed a vice president for the first time in the thirty years of his being in power on the persuasion of your protest and finally, he has accepted that you won and that he lost and he will step down. His only plea is not to be rushed out of town in order to enable him midwife a smooth transition to another government. Icheoku believes this request is reasonable as a leaderless society s prone to anarchy as well as other unforeseen eventualities. A life in Baghdad immediately following Saddam Hussein's fall is not worthy reliving in Cairo; neither is the lawless Somalia's or the Taliban bastardized Afghanistan prior to 9/11.

Icheoku says  Egyptians should cut their leader for thirty years some slacks and allow him an honorable passage into retirement. He asked for six months and Mubarak should get his six months - it is not too much for President Mubarak to ask of the proud people of the River Nile. A veteran of several Egyptian wars who somewhat equally served Egypt fairly well by developing the country's infrastructure, judging from what we could see on the streets of Cairo does not deserve any less. However this should not in anyway be read as a somersault or that Icheoku is now holding water for the dictator of Cairo; no, just that a smooth orderly transition is always a preferred alternative to a wild-wild west like alternative which may see some unpalatable elements of the society hijacking a peoples effort and converting same into their own parochial agenda-driven achievement. This is the only concern that is molding our current position on the matter of President Hosni Mubarak regarding his exit timetable.

Icheoku must also commend President Hosni Mubarak for not going the route of most dictators, who when backed to the wall always reacts with a vengeance; as they wreck the final havoc before leaving or being hung like a dog by an angry populace. Some world dictators would have first expelled all foreign media hounds from the country; then impose a total and complete media blackout in the country before unleashing his dogs of war to mow down as many still standing protester as they could point their machine guns and dump their bodies in a mass grave or use them to feed some hungry African wildlife. Afterall Mubarak is 82 years old and before the processes of his indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity at The Hague would be completed, he would have already assumed cold-room temperature. A Tienanmen Square could have been replicated in Tahrir Square but Mubarak wanted better for his Egyptian people; hence the men in steel helmet were seen freely bantering with their protesting brothers and sisters.

Further, backed into a corner and feeling wounded, Mubarak could also have revoked the peace treaty with Israel and started a war to distract the people but he did not. Any crumbling emperor could also have called America's bluff and told the White House to go to hell, with the Palestinian peace process as a bargaining chip; or even threatened to cross over to the Iranians or the Chinese or even the Russians and it is deja vu cold war days. A desperate Mubarak could also have fired any of Egypt's army commander that refuses to obey his orders to carry out the massacre of those protesting Egyptians and replaced them with gun-ho types, but he did not. There are just several ways Hosni Mubarak could have escalated the situation; but instead he listened and accepted his fate; and asked the people to grant him just six months of extension of presidency to facilitate a new government. Icheoku says, this is a rational request that Egyptians should grant their president to enable him save his face and keep his honor. As for America, they should tag along and must not be seen to be dictating to the proud people of the River Nile as they chart their future post Mubarak.

Egyptians are matured enough and should not be treated as suckling infants that must be minded every time. President Barack Obama and his government has done their part by recognizing the rights of the protesting Egyptians to fire their government; but they must desist from being perceived as meddling in a purely internal affairs of the Egyptian people. At worst, they can withhold whatever aid they have been giving to the Egyptians prior but Icheoku believes that Egypt still has some aces in Suez canal, Palestinian peace process as well as other hot-button Islamic issues still lingering in various parts of the world to merit their paycheck. Finally Mubarak could ginger a fierce pan-Arabianism including Saudi Arabia to play the oil joker against what he might see as an impetuous West, trying to dictate to him; unlike Tunisia's Ben Ali who had practically no bargaining power to hang unto or trade.

Icheoku says, so now that President Hosni Mubarak has given his words with a date fixed in the future for his departure and it is just six months, we all should indulge him and continue to nudge him towards keeping that date. Let us all try to ease him out but not push him, as transition connotes a process rather than an event and six months is not unreasonable time. Mubarak deserves some dignity in departure in order not to leave in his mouth, some sour taste of regretting his friendship with America; wondering what manner of a friend that deserts a friend in need in his hour of greatest need, when he expected and needed their affirmation most but not rebuke or ordering around. Is it possible that Mubarak may be wondering today why he did not pursue nuclear weaponry program, which like Iran, would have bought him some much needed respect at this fork on the road? Icheoku remembers during the Iranian peoples attempted revolution that Washington said they do not want to meddle in Iran's internal affairs and we wonder if Egypt is now America's 51 state?

So the West should not rev the tempo rather too much and over-humiliate Mubarak in the process; they should instead help to ensure that the emerging government in six months time meets their expectation and that like all Egyptian who seek freedom now, that women and other religious Egyptians will have an Egypt that guarantees their freedoms and that some mullahs will not hijack the new freedom and in turn deprive other Egyptians their own freedom from either the bukah, clothing or life-style choices as well as the freedom of worship and religion. In addition, the West should ensure that Egypt will retain its secular status; but should not unnecessarily try to hurry off the great grand-pa as if the heavens will fall if he does not go right now. Mubarak has earned the right to an honorable exit from power after 30 years therein and let the six months transition period be his final parting gift both from Egyptians as well as the America led West. 

And lastly, Israel's sudden feeling of being surrounded by possibly unfriendly foes and governments might persuade them to speed up the peace process and make final and lasting peace with Palestine. A Palestine which may now be chaperoned by more aggressive Arab countries since we have not yet seen the final of this tornado blowing through the Arab world. But what kind of cold-peace even existed when $1.3 billion annual aid, mostly in military equipment, is being given to Egypt by America and Israel also receives about same if not more? Anyway, that is by the by as we are here concerned with creating a somewhat decent passageway for President Honsi Mubarak to make his final exit after 35 years of perching in the highest echelon of the Egyptian society. The American led West should also in addition to considering the interest of the protesting mob, also take into consideration the interest of the millions of other non-protesting Egyptians as well as the Egyptian elite who might fight back should their goose that lays their golden eggs be knifed in such cavalier manner that gave them no fall-back. All these anomalies can be avoided once President Mubarak is indulged his six months transition and Egypt can then push their reset button as we watch their understanding of democracy.