Josef Omorotionmwan: Obasanjo and Jonathan present the worst specimen of Mandela

by Josef Omorotionmwan

Mandela-on-television

Yet, when Mandela passed on, Obasanjo presented the most beautiful rhyme on the type of loss Mandela’s death presented to his family, his state, his country and the world. What an exercise in hypocrisy!

We still remember the old prayer point: When we were born, we cried and people rejoiced. Our lives should be such that at the point of departure, people should cry while we rejoice into eternity.

When great people die, good people mourn, even against all advice. We are reminded of Dorcas of the Biblical times; a woman of virtue who made tremendous impact on her community by making coats and other garments for the poor and the needy, particularly widows. When she died, her place was besieged by mourners who kept recounting her kindness. And when she was brought back to life people rejoiced (Acts 9: 36-40).

For the past one week, the entire world has been enveloped in the mourning of a great man, Nelson Madiba Mandela of South Africa, nay the world. People have written and read about the man. One week after, what is still left to write about Mandela? Nothing. Everything.

World leaders have eulogised him to the high heavens. Their praises are coated in hypocrisy. Their tears are those of the guilty and meretricious. In the main, they acknowledge Mandela’s example but they shy away from following its difficult but right path.

Mandela was the last man standing among the 20th century great leaders who helped to dismantle a great racial evil of that era. He replaced old hatreds with new hopes.

Mandela relinquished power at a time when other African leaders were spilling blood to hold on to power. Hear him: “I step down with a clear conscience that I have in a small way done my duty to my people and my country.”

For Mandela, power belongs to the people. He lived what he preached: “It is not the kings and generals that make history but the masses of the people, the workers, the doctors and the clergy”.

In Mandela’s reckoning, it is not life that matters but the courage we bring into it: “What counts is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is the difference we have made to the lives of others that determines the significance of the life we lead.”

All the while that Mandela was ill, he did not leave South Africa. But in Nigeria, leaders take pride in travelling abroad even for simple ailments like headache and malaria.

We are all Mandela only if we choose to be. This is why we have attempted to look at what world leaders have said about Mandela and we compared each of them with what he did in similar circumstances and we have come to the inevitable conclusion that these world leaders are a bunch of hypocrites – they praise a great person but refrain from doing what made the person great. We found a quick exception in President Barack Obama of the USA who has lived up to Mandela’s example.

Our journey started from Mandela’s home front, South Africa. Thabo Mbeki who was Mandela’s immediate successor made desperate efforts to overshoot the runway by seeking to have an additional tenure, perhaps as a prelude to transformation into life president, but he was starkly resisted by South Africans.

The incumbent President, Jacob Zuma, who announced the death of Mandela, currently has a multi-million dollar scandal hanging over his neck. There are issues over the state-sponsored construction for him in his native Nkandla, a modest rural town in Kwa Zulu, NatalProvince. Where is the Mandela in him?

Whereas Mandela united a country, which for centuries was bitterly divided along racial lines, Kenya is today hopelessly divided along tribal lines. Meanwhile, Kenya remains the only nation on mother earth, where a sitting head of state is obliged to attend trial for crimes against humanity. And Uhuru Kenyatta is busy cracking down on the press and NGOs in his country. Yet, the most flowery condolence message came from him.

The Nigerian front symbolised by General Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo and President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonthan perhaps presents the worst specimen of Mandela. Obasanjo has done three terms – one as a military dictator and two as a malevolent civilian ruler.  He wasn’t satisfied. He was in the process of transforming himself to life president when Nigerians stopped him.

Yet, when Mandela passed on, Obasanjo presented the most beautiful rhyme on the type of loss Mandela’s death presented to his family, his state, his country and the world. What an exercise in hypocrisy!

Enter Goodluck Jonathan. His was more of a love letter to the President and people of South Africa. Following the footsteps of the US, he also declared a three-day national mourning in Nigeria. But he remains everything un-Mandela.

We are not about to re-enact our familiar story of his ascendency from the plantation to the presidency, as it were, without obtaining a single nomination form. We credit all that to good luck. But the man got to power and he is clinging tenaciously to it. After one year as Acting President and five years in substantive capacity – one year inherited from his late boss and four years of his, he still won’t let go. And it doesn’t matter to him if the country is thrown into war in the process.

Meanwhile, his foot-runners are already boasting of the number of states that must be compulsorily acquired, come 2015. Haba!

They now see a roadblock in the way to achieving this, which is what the APC represents.  They must quickly beat a retreat to a previously abandoned scheme. Suddenly, they are returning to the single six-year tenure, which a sitting President can benefit from.

This is tenure enlongation through the back door; a most desperate design by the most desperate people and so desperately will it collapse!

That a party no longer enjoys the popularity it once had cannot be a reason for tenure extension. Rather, it is a good reason to leave before your time – just pack your things and go NOW! That’s what a true Mandela would do!

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Read this article in the Vanguard Newspapers
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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