by Obinna Akukwe
Yar’adua , Nigeria’s fourth democratically selected president. Yar’adua , Nigeria’s most unassuming president. Yar’adua , Nigeria’s most frail president. Yar’adua , Nigeria’s most educated president . Yar’adua , Nigeria’s only president with leftist ideology. The manner of your exit equals the manner of your entrance. Mysterious appearance and mysterious disappearance. State Governors Peter Odili, Donald Duke, Sam Egwu, Ahmed Makarfi, even Jerry Gana and Rochas Okorocha were all in the presidential race of 2007 and from nowhere you appeared through Obasanjoic abracadabra and became the ruling party flag bearer. All the presidential aspirants except Rochas and Jerry were commandeered to genuflect before His Royal Ota majesty and accept the native intelligence that brought you to power. The ensuing presidential do or die abracadabra raised to power two made you the choice of the entire Nigerians while your Buhari opponent was left to weep the second time.
Yar’adua , the first thing you did as president elect was to denounce the process that brought you to power while still clinging to the stolen mandate. You were the first president in Nigeria to ever admit that the road to victory was as fraudulent as fraud itself. However the Justices of the Supreme Court by their majority judgment felt that you actually had typhoid fever when you admitted that the election was fraudulent.
Yar’adua you were the first president in Nigeria to declare your asset. You weren’t materialistic but your wife Turai was the direct opposite of you .During your regime the praise of Turai was the arrival of favour. Emirs, Igwes, Obas, Professors, High Chiefs, Ex this and Ex that all bowed down to Her Majesty Turai before being qualified to share in the national cake.
Yar’adua , you weren’t corrupt but during your regime , the newest cabal in the country, the Nigeria Governors Forum manipulated your rule of law mantra and begun the process of liquidating the foreign reserves which godfather Obasanjo left behind.
Yar’adua your Seven Point Agenda has been replaced by the Transformational agenda and Vision 20; 2020 and Nigerians are anxiously waiting and praying for the transformation. All those cabals who held the nation hostage while you were sick have been thrown into the dustbin by your brother Goodluck and replaced by another set of cabal. Your godfather Obasanjo have been frustrated out of the PDP as the Chairman of BOT and the assistant godfather Babangida have been sidelined and marginalized by the same party that he goes about the globe complaining.
Yar’adua you weren’t confrontational but you could not suffer fools hanging around your political space. On your way to Brazil you gave the military high command order that before you finish your first breakfast in Brazil they would have wiped off Boko Haram from your Presidency or you sack all of them from the service. Of course before you finished brushing your teeth to taste the sumptuous ala-cart before the breakfast table in Brasilia, the army high command have finished wiping off the then Boko Haram and handed their leader to the notorious Nigerian police.
Yar’adua you weren’t an economist but you never trusted the economic theories of the all knowing western economists. They forced you to increase fuel price by ten naira but immediately their convoy left the gates of the state house you hastily reversed yourself and reduced it by five naira to the fury of the western economists.
Yar’adua your godfather Obasanjo , just like Shehu your late brother, never believed in rule of law but rule of power and money but you defied their philosophy and introduced the rule of law mantra into the Nigerian polity. You obeyed court orders and asked your Ministers, Ambassadors and Heads of Parastatals to do the same.
Yar’adua why did you leave live this? The nation you left behind is now a mess and civil war is looming. Let me intimate you of events tat occurred in your absence.
The first lady, Patience is still very powerful but not as powerful as your wife. The power Turai once wielded has been split between Patience, Ngozi, Diezani and stella-Oduah.
The 2011 presidential election was still fraudulent but not as fraudulent as the one supervised by professor Maurice and Dr Abel.
The Governors Forum cabal you couldn’t checkmate have checkmated your younger brother Goodluck. They have collectively defecated fuel subsidy, corruption and Boko Haram on the transformational agenda your brother promised Nigerians.
Yar’adua , while you got the Boko Haram extremists hunted and chased into Chad and Sudan your Goodluck brother have continued to play snooker with them until they now have annexes in his state house, national assembly, judiciary and police force.
Yar;adua you started the amnesty programme for the Niger Delta militants and established a ministry for the interest of Niger delta but your brother have not been able to establish a negotiable link with the Boko Haram militants.
Yaradua the James Ibori which you shielded from prosecution for helping you with funds for the presidential election have now been jailed in Britain for money laundering charges.
Yaradua ,the latest is that the fuel subsidy bill which was N384 billion naira in 2009, the year you went to that Saudi hospital where they finished you off, by 2011 the subsidy bill had skyrocketed to N1.7 trillion naira and the culprits are walking freely and threatening Brimstone.
Yaradua, some elder statesmen have left to join you in that place. Have you met with them. Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Ezeigbo Gburugburu died and was given the most celebrated burial in the history of Africa. From London to Zungeru, Lagos to Enugu thousands gathered to pay homage to the Lion of Biafra. Dr Matthew Mbu and Professor Sam Aluko also died and were accorded respects.
Yar’adua, your brother Goodluck isn’t an economist either but he got so carried away by the economic theories of western capitalists that he added eighty naira to the same fuel price you removed five naira.
Yar’adua , the rule of law mantra have died .Twenty protesters were killed around the country because they gathered to occupy empty square hitherto inhabited by beggars and mentally deranged to complain that they are hungry and need food on their table.
Yar’adua wake up. You have slept enough! The northern politicians wished you death with the evil permutations that they will use the zonal formula to ascend your exalted throne where food is N1billion naira annually. However your brother Goodluck thought them lessons on silence and subterfuge and dribbled them to political irrelevance. Out of frustration they have sworn to make the nation ungovernable for your brother until he reverts back to the zoning formula and allows them to complete your tenure and your brother is presently helpless. He prefers to hide in the villa like goggled Sanni and occasionally escape for meetings of African Union.
Yar’adua wake up now before civil war starts in Nigeria. Your tenure remains one year. Move round your former residence in the villa and chase away those people wining and dining from five pm while distracting your brother from giving us the needed fresh air.
Yar’adua wake up! You’ve slept enough! Wake up! Wait! Did I hear that revered Christian leaders like Archbishop John Onaiyekan, Bishop David Oyedepo, Pastor Emmanuel Kure and Professor Yusuf Obaje prayed with you days before your death? That’s a problem. If they did then they must have administered the Sacrament of Extreme Unction to you. This revered Sacrament is administered only to people at the point of death so that the Almighty will receive them unto paradise. If they administered it then Yar’adua you better stay where you are because that place is better than your former residence in Aso Villa.
(part 2 of this piece was written on the 8th of May, 2012 as a tribute to the late exemplary president)
Obinna Akukwe via profetobinna2@yahoo.com…facebook.com/obinnaakukwe…@ObinnaAkukwe