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Attah and the National Question
By Fidel Odum

The national question in Nigeria concerns all the underlying and recurrent issues that
excite perennial discourse, debate and conflict such as federalism, revenue
generation/sharing, security, injustice, energy crises, election, constitutionalism, religious
extremism, ethnic intolerance, corruption and so on.

Top on the list today is constitutionalism and political succession, with the President’s
health and absence fueling and heating up the system.

With so many divergent voices producing a cacophony in recent weeks, the wisdom of
elders was badly needed and one voice that has clearly pointed out a path to follow is that
of former Akwa Ibom State Governor Obong Victor Attah. See Sunday Sun, Guardian on
Sunday, Sunday Compass, The Independent and other national papers of Sunday Dec. 20,
2009.

For reasons of space, I wish to isolate only a few of the matters raised as they concern the
general polity. Many will agree that the monster of corruption is the biggest killer strangling
our nation today. Former EFCC boss Nuhu Ribadu once lamented that there was
insufficient national outrage against corruption when compared with the explosion of anger
directed against religious and ethnic provocations. Alhaji Bashir Tofa, a former presidential
candidate, and former PDP chairman, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, at different times and on different
occasions, equally made significant statements on this malaise. Tofa said the corrupt and
the poor around them were feeding from the same purse.

He went on to expatiate on how, invariably, so many people relied on their loved ones in
power or out of power to eat and remain alive. Whether we like it or not, this remark, no
matter how simplistic it seems, reflects the truth of how crushing poverty has rendered
many Nigerians helpless in fighting corruption. Yet, there can be no excuse for selling our
souls to evil men and women.

Audu Ogbeh put it more succinctly. He observed the sad fact that when people served the
nation honestly and left office poor, they were usually derided as fools worthy of scorn. This
has been Victor Attah’s own experience since leaving office, as he told the editors. The
paradox is amazing, he said, of how people still line up for one form of assistance or the
other, school fees, house rent, medical bills and so on, meaning that such supplicants
expect that you must have enriched yourself while in office.

However, in answering the question, he told the journalists that he has since returned to his
profession as architect and town planner with his office in Abuja. He has to work, he
explained, because his pension as governor cannot pay all his bills, including salaries for a
cook, a driver, two security guards and a personal assistant.

What the former governor has told us in plain language is that, as a nation, we have to
choose between honest leaders and corrupt ones. Having been victimized by false
accusations, innuendoes and insinuations, some of them from malicious officials of his
home state, the former governor continues to challenge anyone who has evidence against
him to come forward and present such.

These include the EFCC, the Akwa Ibom State Government, any and every other individual
or organization whether within or outside the country. How many of our past and present
leaders can pose this challenge publicly to their detractors? It is on record that the Federal
Government wrote a retraction and apology to Attah, following an earlier misinformation
given to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). Compensation was also paid for this
error to the former governor.

Apart from challenging Nigerians to rise up once and for all against corruption, the greatest
public service rendered in the press conference is the clear-headed and logical approach
to the burning issue of constitutionalism and political succession necessitated by President
Umaru Yar’Adua’s absence.

At a time so many conflicting voices had produced nothing but a barrage of emotions, Attah
was one of the few and, in fact, the one statesman who rose above partisan and parochial
sentiments to show Nigeria and the world that truth has no room for equivocations and
prevarications. Let the constitution be respected, he averred. Vice-President Goodluck
Jonathan should immediately take over as Acting President to close the gap created by Yar’
Adua’s absence. But to the extremists, Attah responded that resignation by Yar’Adua could
not be the solution, since the President cannot resign one day and return later to rescind
the decision.

On the whole, the behaviour of party hierarchy members of the PDP and officials of the
Presidency on the President’s health has been unfortunate, with all of them making
statements that were outright falsehood such as claiming that they were in daily
communication with their boss. Where was the evidence? Loyalists were fawning all over
the place to demonstrate their love for Mr. President, when that was not the major issue.
For long, the preposterous impression has been given by these sycophants that even an
effigy of the President deserves idolatrous reverence and will suffice for re-election in
2011. This is utterly disgraceful.

The PDP and the nation should be grateful that a clear-sighted statesman of Attah’s calibre
came forward to say: Enough of this sentimental rubbish! The nation and loyalty to the
constitution should come before loyalty to one man, without any ill will to the sick man.

Equally a statesman-like service rendered by Obong Attah is the fearless support he lent to
the current movement to form a strong opposition party, the so-called mega party. Why
should anyone who means well for Nigeria and its development challenge this patriotic
tendency? The logic proffered by Attah is the same as the one advanced by scholars in
political science..

America and the U.K are among the advanced democracies where, in spite of there being
other parties, two dominant ones are always locked in fierce contest at every election. This
reality keeps the two contending parties on their toes, impelling them to do their best both
while in office and outside power for their respective countries. Now, in Nigeria, some PDP
members are arguing that the best party loyalists are those who subscribe to their party
being in power for 60 years. Before God, humanity, and Nigeria, which is a superior
argument for progress and development – a one party democracy or a strong two-party
system?

For our purpose, another plank of ex-Governor Attah’s press briefing that deserves a
passing comment here concerns Akwa Ibom State. He reiterated his stand about speaking
the truth at all times on the way forward for this state and loyalty primarily to party, as
opposed to personal loyalty to anyone. Internal democratic dynamics at national, state and
local levels and producing a credible candidate for 2011 are his major concern for now,
although he feels disturbed by the obsession of Godswill Akpabio with re-election and
personal glorification, in utter neglect of urgent matters of development. There is a lot of
“hyperbolic exaggeration” about achievements which, on the ground, are largely
ephemeral. All these are quite distinct from the vision-filled and transformative projects that
he (Attah) initiated and some almost completed such as the Le Meridien Hotel and Golf
Resort, the International Airport with a hangar and MRO (maintenance, repair and
overhaul), the Independent Power Plant (IPP), the Science Park, the Sea Port at Ibaka and
the University of Technology. All these, he said, have laid the foundation for Akwa Ibom’s
economic development. On the other hand, observers are still waiting to see the bread and
butter projects of this present administration (housing, education, healthcare etc.).

Many are also asking why a whopping N200 billion has been expended on roads by
Akpabio, when the Federal Government has ordered twenty road contracts nationwide at
only N71 billion. This is all a matter for future treatment.
Odum, aloymaria_best@yahoo.co.uk, resides in Lagos.