By Odimegwu Onwumere
 |
| Okonjo-Iweala & David-West |
The professor is one of the few Nigerian public officials without blemishes.
Moreover, he is a father who is
spending his old age very well, epitomizing the re-compensation of a well-spent
youth, bringing hopes of a better Nigeria.
His lifestyle reminds us of a Robert
Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra poem thus: “Grow old along with me!/ The best is yet
to be,/The last of life,/for which the first was made”. You may lace the
introduction of the persona further that he has become a prophet that his
people are finding it difficult to follow, because of his verbalization and
practicalization of truth. This is evident when he told Nigerians that the oil
subsidy is fiction and that Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was practicalizing
fabrication before Nigerians, to accept “Oil Subsidy" removal.
Many people had called him names
since then, especially when he said that Okonjo-Iweala should resign. What is
more than vindication and conviction that Professor David-West had the
hindsight that the duo of President Goodluck Jonathan and Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala
were out for something in Nigeria with the unsympathetic “oil subsidy” removal,
when in reports of March 21 2012, fingers that Jonathan backs Okonjo-Iweala for
World Bank’s top job, as she was set to be nominated to lead the World Bank.
As the Coordinating Minister of the
Economy of Nigeria, it is ridiculous how Jonathan who convinced her (who left
the World Bank as managing director last year to join his cabinet to provide
more power to his reform agenda) was now blessing her candidacy for the plum
job at the World Bank. While many may see and appreciate this rather difficult
political exaltation in the World Bank, would it make Okonjo-Iweala to see
clearly her dim-witted vision for the economy? This is only if the United States
will allow her, whereas that country has an option of her in a Chinese.
Junketing for the job through the
exposition of her body language shows that David-West was right at last that
Okonjo-Iweala lacked the dexterity and did not believe in her bloated mission
of rescuing the Nigeria's
economy. If she succeeds at the World Bank today or after, this will make it
the second time she is leaving her position as minister in Nigeria.
Is she an unconstitutional Prime Minister of Nigeria that she cannot be
left in her World Bank?
It is laughable that somebody who
has given Nigerians the hope that she unequivocally had the interest of Nigeria so
cherished in her heart was making such transitory approach for the World Bank.
It is even more laughable that she has been unable to achieve much in the
stained transformational agenda within the period she had served. This goes a
long way to show that impeccability of credentials, as anybody would say she
has, does not give the job of the President of World Bank.
Who wants America
not to give Nigeria
loan again if Okonjo-Iweala any day is the World Bank president? It is evident
now that the economies of most nations are subject to World Bank directives.
And she may stand a better chance to give Nigeria
directives and economic policies, but not to supplement these with financial
empowerment, because of the Goliath called America
that is a major key player at the mainstream of the ocean of World Bank.
The USA
is lushly threatening to stop financing the bank in the event of a non-American
heading it. What will Jonathan do? This is a tough decision and time for him.
Has he even ever decided anything on his own before?
It was the recalcitrant indecision
of the government that has made it not to hearken to the call by David-West
when he said that he challenge any government after the regime of General
Buhari: from General Ibrahim Babangida and Chief Ernest Shonekan to General
Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, to appear on national
television with him to justify their subsidy. Not even Okonjo-Iweala, whom
Jonathan reposed a lot of power and trust on and presented her to us as the
transforming minister of the economy, was able to contend David-West when he
world-widely said that there was no oil subsidy in Nigeria and that it was a lie and
fraud.
David-West even reminded them,
citing Edmund Burke, the great British philosopher that said, government is a
contrivance of human wisdom and the wisdom should be used to satisfy people’s
needs. Any government that can’t satisfy the need of its people is irrelevant
and must be overthrown and kicked out. Okonjo-Iweala didn’t blink when he added
that no government should exist if it can’t serve the people, because
government is a trust. With the events of the day that Okonjo-Iweala was
headburied on the World Bank coveted job, was David-West not right when he told
Nigerians that Jonathan didn’t understand what he was saying on subsidy; that
he was only parroting what they told him?
It could be figured out that
David-West was really right, because one wonders why a president could be
traced to be backing a woman he has sirened as the best thing that will ever
happen to Nigeria, in much touted transformation agenda. David-West had told
Nigerians that Okonjo-Iweala said the subsidy goes to the wrong hands. This is
the same way today, they are sermonizing to seduce people to accept her as the
best qualified person for the President of World Bank, when she had talked
about cushioning the effect of the removal of oil subsidy. What would her exit
bring should it work at last? David-West would say, “Rubbish!”
It is hard to believe Okonjo-Iweala
again on anything Nigerian and her sugermouth painkilling measures that will
help the citizens. Should the organized labour and Nigerians at this time make
her posturing for the World Bank impossible? She told us about palliatives of
the removal of the oil subsidy, but this has sent many Nigerians on the road of
Golgotha. Do we need her at the World Bank so
that we could build our dilapidated roads, provide water and electricity and
vote for capital projects, which have taken a capital flight?
With these rigmarolings, David-West
was right when he said that Degrees don’t guarantee good governance and degrees
don’t make leaders, but leadership is a natural endowment or one acquires it by
hard work. Jonathan and Okonjo-Iweala are pushing us to ask numerous questions
about what is so special about the World Bank job. Are they trying to tell us
that the bank is preferable to Nigeria?
Whichever way, David-West would say that it is a privilege to be born into a
wealthy home, and being born humble is not an issue, but how you articulate
your humble situation is the issue.
In his words: That you are born rich
doesn’t say you should look down on people. The problem with Jonathan is that
though he has PhD, he is a brilliant man, but there is a difference between
native intelligence and book intelligence. Jonathan is basically brilliant. The
danger in that is that such people whenever somebody like Iweala comes talking,
they idolize them like mental geniuses and become internally inferior to them.
Whatever they say goes –– garbage in, garbage out.
Was David-West not right when he said
that Jonathan doesn’t have the stamina to challenge the advisers? He buttressed
his points saying, for a prince to be advised wisely, he must be wise too.
Iweala is not the most brilliant economist. There are hundreds of people more
brilliant than she is. Pius Okigbo and Ojetunji Aboyade, they served the nation
meritoriously. She is working with somebody psychologically inferior and she
will lead him into a ditch. She talks like the president. She once said that
government would not negotiate with the Niger Delta militants. Did they not
negotiate later? She was paid in dollars when she served in Obasanjo’s cabinet
and her monthly pay was N2.8 million and now she is saying oil subsidy is
killing the economy. Hypocrite!
There is need we see today that
David-West was not making derogatory statements against Okonjo-Iweala and
Jonathan, but facts. How has she convinced people that she knows her job with
arguments, facts and figures when she has expertized in running from one job to
another at any little featherweight opportunity? What we have always got from
her are sermonizations! The same way we were told that they hired consultants
with millions of naira to convince Nigeria
to accept their oil subsidy removal, they are perhaps at it again with
virtually all the countries in Africa and
beyond clamouring that Okonjo-Iweala is the best thing that can ever happen to
World Bank.
Maybe, Okonjo-Iweala’s removal will
be Nigerians subsidy to a new lease of life. But is this the way she has
to live: genuflecting from one slighted opportunity to another without leaving
any vital record on the sand of history? Many of us are beginning to believe
David-West’s outbursts totally that Jonathan was not leading anybody to any
hopeful place, especially when he admonished that we should not think and say
we are safe in Nigeria.
We are indeed not safe whereas we have leaders who speak from the sides of
their mouths.
What is corporate disappointment if not the interest a serving
minister has shown for the job in the blues? This is why David-West had
admonished Jonathan and his cohorts to know that government is not about
commissioning or investment and profits, but should have moral dimension; and
any government that disregards the moral dimension, that is, respect of God, God
will punish such for making Nigerians to suffer.
Odimegwu Onwumere, Poet/Author, is the Coordinator,
Concerned Non-Indigenes In Rivers State (CONIRIV)
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