There is no doubt that, today, Nigeria is standing at the cross roads of history and there is urgent need for her to make a decision on which direction to follow. The present impasse following the debilitating health condition of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and the concomitant power play that has attended the entire scenario, no doubt, has created enormous stress and cracks on the foundations of Nigeria and has made it even more crucial for us to make a decision- a decision to either move forward as a united country or a decision to sound the death bell on the continued existence of Nigeria as a corporate entity.

In making this decision, we should be minded that the road to this point has been festooned by the blood and sweat of our past patriots and nationalists, who in a significant act of foresight contrived and accepted the federal constitution in 1956, which resulted in the birth of Nigeria as a potentially great power, not just in Africa but also in the world. Unfortunately, through a combination of lack of vision and ineptitude on the part of those who lay claim to leadership in this country, as we are presently experiencing, we are at the precipice of self-destruction and denigrating the great African possibility, which Nigeria signified at birth. Since our political independence, our leaders have pandered to the absurd and consistently fanned the embers of the centripetal socio-political forces that have tended to divide rather than unite us; and they have done this with murderous evocation.

The present health crisis of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has once again exposed Nigeria’s penchant for the absurd and the proclivity of the political leadership for dubiety, stealing and shameless power mongering and acrobatics. Otherwise how could the health indisposition of one man create so much tension and political uncertainty in the country? How could Umaru Yar’Adua’s health indisposition throw up a carnivorous cabal from Katsina that is not interested in the development of Nigeria or the implications of their actions, except to feather their nests and butter their bread? How could the Nigerian system have thrown up such indecent, decadent, evil, monstrous, thieving cabal that has no track record of achieving anything good; a cabal that is manifestly corrupt; bereft of any intelligence and understanding of the currents of history; a cabal intent on vitiating the course of history and bringing Nigeria to ruination? What society accommodates such supine and crass and incompetent bunch of buffoons to dictate the pace of its destiny? Only a warped and unfortunate contraption like Nigeria can tolerate this kind of indignity and crass showmanship of collective amnesia. How could the wife of the ailing President, for example, suddenly become the greatest power connoisseur in the country even when the Nigerian constitution and law does not recognize her position as such? Is it only in Nigeria that the wife of the President would hold members of the political class to ransom and dictates who gets what, when and how? Where has it been heard in the world that the wife a sitting President would hide her sick husband from his people in a suffocating cocoon of lies and deceit? It is only in Nigeria that such aberrations can happen and people would applaud them. That is why Nigeria is a country of the absurd and the unimaginable.

Has it not worried us that for over 100 days, Nigerians have done nothing except to talk about the health of one man; whether he is still breathing or not; whether he is eating, moving his limbs or talking? In this circus of the absurd, foolery and charlatanism, we have forgotten that we need to fix our roads that have turned into death traps, our hospitals that have turned into glorified mortuaries, our tertiary institutions that have turned into glorified secondary schools and breeding grounds for all manner cult activities, prostitution and gangsterism; the power sector that has become more epileptic than epilepsy; our collapsed public utilities and the near state of chaos which we have brought upon ourselves.

In less than 100 days, three teams left Nigeria to Saudi Arabia on a fruitless journey to see the sick President. In less than 100 days these three teams had claimed tens of billions of Naira in expenses. This is outside the health bill of the President, which we are meant to understand also runs in tens of billions of Naira. With such huge amount of money a greater percentage of the decrepit federal roads in the South-East region, for instance, could have been fixed. With such whooping amount of money a number of our teaching hospitals could have been rehabilitated; with such a staggering amount of money we could have created employment for our teeming jobless population; with such mind-boggling amount of money we should be able to reposition our energy sector or do some other reasonable thing in the country.

But this is the amount of money that the three teams that went on jamboree in Saudi Arabia, on the pretext that they went in search of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, claimed to have spent; yet millions of Nigerians are feeding from the garbage bins; yet millions of Nigerians are dying from preventable diseases; yet many Nigerians are finding it difficult to send their children to school; yet millions of Nigerian are dying from pollution and fumes from generators because there is no steady power supply.

There is no doubt that this cabal from Katsina has it script clearly written and they are playing out the script to Nigeria’s peril, yet some people are busy applauding them. If the plan of these plotters of evil from Katsina is to see if the inauguration of Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan as the substantive President of the country would be aborted, then they have failed. The Acting President must be sworn in as the substantive President without further delay to complete the tenure of this administration. Effectively Jonathan has only seven months to make any appreciable impact in such key areas as electoral reform; energy and stabilizing the country. This cabal of plotters should be apprehended and subjected to the full weight of the law. If we do not do this, we will be setting the precedence for this kind of thing to continue happening in Nigeria.

What message are we sending to the world, when we cannot manage the health crisis of Yar’Adua? What message are we sending to the world when we loot the treasury under fictitious heads such as going to Saudi Arabia to see the ailing President? What message are we sending to potential foreign investors when we display the greatest form of idiocy and ineptitude at political governance, electoral reforms and social stability on account of the health of one person?  The implications of our folly thus far in this context are far-reaching for Nigeria’s development and attraction of foreign direct investment. Indeed, Nigeria has shown gross incompetence in managing the issues raised above and has even refused to borrow a leaf from Egypt where President Hosni Mubarak voluntarily handed over power to his Prime Minister on health grounds; or Cuba where the inimitable Fidel Castro abdicated power for another person on health grounds; and even while Castro was sick and hospitalized his state of health was made very public.

Let me say straight away that what is presently at stake in Nigeria is the sovereign integrity of the country. Obviously, the sovereignty of this country means nothing to this cabal; otherwise how would the President relocate the sovereignty of Nigeria to a foreign country along with the institutions of government and even the secret files of Nigeria. Has it not bothered us that virtually all our institutions of governance have failed us at very critical times especially in taking decisive actions regarding the poor health of the President? Even in this rabid failure, the military has indicated where its loyalty lies. Admittedly, the military hierarchy has been trying to play down the implications of the wrongful deployment of troops the night Yar'Adua purportedly returned secretly from Saudi Arabia to Nigeria. However, I am minded to argue that when the safety of the ailing President was the issue, there must have been communications, signals and decisions taken at the highest levels. By doing all of that without reference to the Acting Commander-in-Chief, someone was trying to test the waters. By now, in some other climes, the military hierarchy would have been summoned by the National Assembly and an enquiry instituted. That is what should be done now to send a strong statement that irregular movements by soldiers will not be condoned.

Aside the poor health of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, I am persuaded to believe that the current crisis in the country could not all have been as a result of the President’s illness even though the health issue could have helped to crystallize and sharpen them. There is nothing wrong with people falling ill. We all do fall sick sometime and seek medical attention. The basic truth, though, is that Nigeria as a country has massive political problems, which contradictions are now becoming more sharpened. So, suddenly, the ill health of the President has brought all the problems to the front burner. But we have to ask ourselves very crucial questions: Since the Lugardian amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1914, have we really sat down for once to think if we truly are one nation? I recall a question put to the former President of the United States of America, President Bill Clinton by a top Nigerian official when Bill Clinton attended Thisday’s event in Abuja a couple of years back, regarding how the USA would relate with Nigeria under a black President, Barack Obama in view of the fact that Nigeria is the most populous black nation on earth. Bill Clinton’s answer on that occasion was both indicative and instructive. Clinton, while acknowledging the “bigness” of Nigeria had said that Nigeria should be able to, first and foremost, resolve her internal contradictions or else remain a clay-footed giant.

The reality about Nigerian politics is that it is anchored on ethnic, religious, culture and to lesser extent class paradigms. These are the factors that define the socio-political currents of any society. These factors have thus become the pivot for understanding the character and systemic forces that shape Nigerian politics and way of life. These are the factors that have sharpened the current crisis in Jos; the Boko Haram tragedy in Bauchi; and the continuous massacre of people of southern Nigerian origin and Christians any where in Northern Nigeria. These are the factors that defined and shaped the criminal annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential election. Even if we are agreed that the presumed winner of that election was a Moslem, we cannot wish away the debilitating factors of ethnicity, culture and tradition in that annulment. The assumed winner of that election was a Yoruba man from the South-West and the idea that power was about slipping from the hands of one ethnic group that has ruled Nigeria for about thirty years was unthinkable. So for the sake of maintaining ethnic dominance over the rest of us that election was annulled. These factors are the same underlying principles that defined the ethnic cleansing and genocide against Ndigbo at the behest of the Nigerian civil war.

Today these socio-political forces remain as volatile and definitive as ever. It is because of these factors that the cabal from Katsina does not want Goodluck Jonathan to be sworn-in as the substantive President because he is from the South. It is because of these factors that the so-called National Assembly is foot-dragging on commencing impeachment procedures against an ailing President that violated the constitution in the first instance by not transmitting his medical vacation letter to the National assembly as required by law.

These are the factors for which this Katsina-spawned cabal is working round the clock to ensure that Jonathan ends up as permanent Acting President. They do not want Jonathan as substantive President because he is not from the north. They do not want Jonathan as substantive President because he is from a different ethnic extraction. They do not want Jonathan as substantive President because he is a Christian. They do not want Jonathan as substantive President because he comes from a different cultural setting. They do not want Jonathan as substantive President because he represents a different class other that the feudal culture of the North particularly Katsina. These are the factors at play in the present circumstance. So whether we like it or not these issues are on the table and we must discuss them if there will be a tomorrow for Nigeria. In essence, President Yar’Adua’s illness and absence may not after all be the major issue. We cannot pretend about these things anymore. The issue is these internal contradictions. These internal contradictions appertain to the enthronement and practice of true federalism in Nigeria and the inauguration of a truly federal constitution anchored on the will of the Nigerian people. The constitution is very clear on what should be done in the event of the incapacitation of the President. The constitution stipulates that the Vice President should be sworn-in as the substantive President. The constitution has no provision for a permanent Acting President. We really cannot analyze the problems of Nigeria, be it from the prism of natural sciences, social sciences or humanities, without taking into consideration the flaming currents of ethnicity, religion, culture and tradition, history and to a lesser extent class cleavages. These are the internal contradictions refereed to by President Bill Clinton.     

The choices before us are indeed very limited. Nigeria has proven to be an archetype of the legendary caterpillar larvae that clung tenaciously to the tree branch only to succumb to a fatal fall at adulthood. Nigeria has indeed become a study in comic tragedy; a laughing stock among the comity of nations and a typical signification of a rapidly failing state despite its enormous potentials that have been vitiated by ethnic pariahs; religious jingoism; cultural and traditional ossification and unrepentant penchant for stealing from the commonwealth. This is indeed regrettable. But let no one be deceived into believing that even if President Yar’Adua surfaces today, our problems would be a thing of the past. Yar’Adua’s illness and the acrimonious politics of power that has attended it only go to confirm that our problems are deeper than the health crisis of one man. Unless we address these fundamental and internal contradictions as pointed out above, and swear-in Jonathan as the substantive President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without further delay, we may not be able to avoid this looming season of anomie.  

Dr. Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo,Leader & Presidential Candidate, People’s Mandate Party (PMP),Chancellor, Eastern Mandate Union (EMU)and Chairman, Fourth Dimension Publishers