BY MIKE OZEKHOME
My reaction to the appointment of Prof Ibrahim Agboola Gambari
is that this is one good choice of an appointment made by President
Muhammadu Buhari. I don’t care that Buhari could not still look
beyond his perennially blurred sectional binoculars, as usual,
regarding key government appointments. The reasons are that I
personally know Prof Ibrahim Agboola Gambari. He is a decent
gentleman and a fine trust-worthy Nigerian patriot. We worked
closely together at the 2014.
National Conference. He had also warmly received my group in New
York, USA, in 1990, as Nigerian Ambassador to the United Nations
during an American Embassy (political section)- sponsored human
rights tour. At the 2014 National Conference, Gambari and my humble
self, together with few other selected creme-de-creme
Elderstatesmen and women at the Conference, belonged to a select
Committee that worked assiduously to harmonise seemingly
irreconcilable and volatile political, ethnic, gender and religious
differences between the many varied and heterogeneous tendencies at
the Conference.
I found him very detrabilised, diplomatic, warm, brilliant,
accommodating and having a deep grasp and knowledge of the
multi-faceted problems besetting Nigeria, including the NATIONAL
QUESTION. We worked very hard together and resolved knotty national
issues and arrived at acceptable common grounds amongst the 492
delegates of the National Conference. To me, this is an opportunity
for this former senior lecturer, professor at Ahmadu Bello
University (ABU) and diplomatic Czar to push for the implementation
of some of the most urgent recommendations out of the over 600 well
thought out recommendations contained in the National Conference
report, but which this government had surprisingly shoved into the
cold archives of historical oblivion.
HUMBLE ADVICE
My personal humble quick piece of advice to Prof Gambari: your
appointment is favourably viewed in many circles, notwithstanding
that you are over 75 years old, perhaps, as a compromise middle
ground for some urgently needed national re-direction and
intellectual intervention and moderation in the poor governance
style of this rather clueless government, know it now that this
government has enthroned more hardship, poverty, insecurity,
corruption, sectionalism, clannishness, favouritism, hypocricy,
nepotism and prebendalism, more than any government in Nigeria
since Lord Lugard’s forced amalgamation of the Northern and
Southern Protectorates to found Nigeria on January 1, 1914.
As an experienced brilliant Academic, Ambassador and former UN
Under Secretary on African Affairs, you must shun the allure and
glamour of power and its intoxitating effect. Many before you drank
from power’s poisoned chalice and regretted it, albeit too late.
Run away from the hawks and cabal in Aso Villa and keep far, very
far away, from them. If you don’t know them, ask outspoken Mrs
Aisha Buhari. She does. She even publicly identified some of them.
These are people who deliberately use their positions to make the
lives of Nigerians one of a torturous hell on earth. Many, millions
of Nigerians have since then been turned in to “the living dead”,
or “walking corpses” (apologies, Ayi Kwei Armah, his epic novel,
“The beautiful ones are not yet born”). Prof, please, in your own
interest and in the larger interest of Nigeria, speed far away from
Aso Villa power merchants. Run fast away from politicians,
politics, sheer power play, muscle-flexing and official grand
standing. Focus squarely on your job as the urbane, suave, humble,
very well educated, well travelled and highly cultivated technocrat
that many know you for. Don’t wrestle with, or kowtow to, the power
players in Aso Villa. You will lose out. They will beat you to it.
They will make a mincemeat and ruination of your glittering
credentials. They know the ‘corner-corner’ of the Villa more than
you. Some of them have been there, either directly or indirectly
through proxies, for over 50 years! You are no match for them and
their nightly schemings like witches and wizards in a coven. You
are certainly an uncircumcised neophyte in high-wired Aso Rock
politics. Simply do your job, with focus on posterity and future
judgement by history. Look immediately into the sorry plight of
beleaguered Nigerians that are in slavish doldrums and in a state
of complete nadir and on ground zero. Upgrade the office of the
Chief of
Staff from its present polluted and politicised nature and
remake it into a respectable one that takes after its counterpart
in America from where it was borrowed. Don’t make yourself a human
god or deity to be hero-worshipped, deified and canonized. You will
have thousands who will readily fawn, flatter, grovel, cringe, boot
lick and toady at your feet. Shun them. Keep them afar. They are
power lepers, who are inebriated by its all-consuming aphrodisiac
effect. Professor, you are not a politician. You have worked with 4
Secretaries-General and 7 Heads of State in Nigeria. You are an
Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR). So, what more do you want?
So, leave politics to politicians. Don’t make yourself a super
minister, or make your table a clearing one for ministers and other
obsequious government appointees. They will tell you that you are
the new Sheriff-in-town, the new powerhouse, the new Louis XIV of
France. Reject these false appellations. Don’t dorn the borrowed
robes. They are false robes of perfidy, treachery and grand
duplicity. Simply thank them and tell them to go and continue with
their normal jobs and carry out their constitutional duties,
unhindered, undisturbed, unmolested. Prof, listen to me very
carefully: those close to wealth and vainglorious lucre will
attempt to bribe you. They will tell you it is not bribe but
‘appreciation’ for your allegedly ‘wonderful performance’. Thank
them, but reject the Greek gift. It is dirty. It is a dangerous
trap, a looming nose and albatross on your neck.
They are simply setting you up. At the appropriate time, they
will show you a mirror and tell you to look at yourself in it. They
will then unearth and untie the hidden bound files. They will open
the pandora box to show you your concealed skeletons. At that time,
it will be too late for you to back-pedal. You will then be led
slavishly by the nose thereafter. Because, you have no option, as
you would have lost your character, integrity and honour. Sprint
and hasten away from politics and the 2023 seers, calculators,
estimators and statisticians. Just tell them you are not interested
in politics at all. Tell them you are simply a servant of the
people. Be loyal, of course, to your appointer. Loyalty and
fidelity surely pay. That was probably why President Buhari still
sought you out and appointed you his Chief of Staff, nearly 37
years after he appointed you his minister of External Affairs at
just 39, in 1984. But, wherever and whenever your appointer’s
directives or interests clash with your personal convictions,
conscience and the national interest, reject them. Throw in the
towel and resign immediately. Nigerians, and more importantly,
Almighty God, will hail and bless you for it. In such a situation,
run, run, run!!!
As Catherine Pulsifer once put it, “your character defines who
you are by the actions you take”. Finally, sir, in the famous words
of former American President, Woodrow Wilson, “if you lose your
wealth, you lost nothing; if you lose your health, you have lost
something; but if you lose your character, you have lost
everything”. Prof, from the power jingosts and tin gods in Aso
Villa, take a run as if Lucifer himself is pursuing you. Prof,
RUN,
RUN, RUN!!!
BY MIKE OZEKHOME
My reaction to the appointment of Prof Ibrahim Agboola Gambari
is that this is one good choice of an appointment made by President
Muhammadu Buhari. I don’t care that Buhari could not still look
beyond his perennially blurred sectional binoculars, as usual,
regarding key government appointments. The reasons are that I
personally know Prof Ibrahim Agboola Gambari. He is a decent
gentleman and a fine trust-worthy Nigerian patriot. We worked
closely together at the 2014.
National Conference. He had also warmly received my group in New
York, USA, in 1990, as Nigerian Ambassador to the United Nations
during an American Embassy (political section)- sponsored human
rights tour. At the 2014 National Conference, Gambari and my humble
self, together with few other selected creme-de-creme
Elderstatesmen and women at the Conference, belonged to a select
Committee that worked assiduously to harmonise seemingly
irreconcilable and volatile political, ethnic, gender and religious
differences between the many varied and heterogeneous tendencies at
the Conference.
I found him very detrabilised, diplomatic, warm, brilliant,
accommodating and having a deep grasp and knowledge of the
multi-faceted problems besetting Nigeria, including the NATIONAL
QUESTION. We worked very hard together and resolved knotty national
issues and arrived at acceptable common grounds amongst the 492
delegates of the National Conference. To me, this is an opportunity
for this former senior lecturer, professor at Ahmadu Bello
University (ABU) and diplomatic Czar to push for the implementation
of some of the most urgent recommendations out of the over 600 well
thought out recommendations contained in the National Conference
report, but which this government had surprisingly shoved into the
cold archives of historical oblivion.
HUMBLE ADVICE
My personal humble quick piece of advice to Prof Gambari: your
appointment is favourably viewed in many circles, notwithstanding
that you are over 75 years old, perhaps, as a compromise middle
ground for some urgently needed national re-direction and
intellectual intervention and moderation in the poor governance
style of this rather clueless government, know it now that this
government has enthroned more hardship, poverty, insecurity,
corruption, sectionalism, clannishness, favouritism, hypocricy,
nepotism and prebendalism, more than any government in Nigeria
since Lord Lugard’s forced amalgamation of the Northern and
Southern Protectorates to found Nigeria on January 1, 1914.
As an experienced brilliant Academic, Ambassador and former UN
Under Secretary on African Affairs, you must shun the allure and
glamour of power and its intoxitating effect. Many before you drank
from power’s poisoned chalice and regretted it, albeit too late.
Run away from the hawks and cabal in Aso Villa and keep far, very
far away, from them. If you don’t know them, ask outspoken Mrs
Aisha Buhari. She does. She even publicly identified some of them.
These are people who deliberately use their positions to make the
lives of Nigerians one of a torturous hell on earth. Many, millions
of Nigerians have since then been turned in to “the living dead”,
or “walking corpses” (apologies, Ayi Kwei Armah, his epic novel,
“The beautiful ones are not yet born”). Prof, please, in your own
interest and in the larger interest of Nigeria, speed far away from
Aso Villa power merchants. Run fast away from politicians,
politics, sheer power play, muscle-flexing and official grand
standing. Focus squarely on your job as the urbane, suave, humble,
very well educated, well travelled and highly cultivated technocrat
that many know you for. Don’t wrestle with, or kowtow to, the power
players in Aso Villa. You will lose out. They will beat you to it.
They will make a mincemeat and ruination of your glittering
credentials. They know the ‘corner-corner’ of the Villa more than
you. Some of them have been there, either directly or indirectly
through proxies, for over 50 years! You are no match for them and
their nightly schemings like witches and wizards in a coven. You
are certainly an uncircumcised neophyte in high-wired Aso Rock
politics. Simply do your job, with focus on posterity and future
judgement by history. Look immediately into the sorry plight of
beleaguered Nigerians that are in slavish doldrums and in a state
of complete nadir and on ground zero. Upgrade the office of the
Chief of
Staff from its present polluted and politicised nature and
remake it into a respectable one that takes after its counterpart
in America from where it was borrowed. Don’t make yourself a human
god or deity to be hero-worshipped, deified and canonized. You will
have thousands who will readily fawn, flatter, grovel, cringe, boot
lick and toady at your feet. Shun them. Keep them afar. They are
power lepers, who are inebriated by its all-consuming aphrodisiac
effect. Professor, you are not a politician. You have worked with 4
Secretaries-General and 7 Heads of State in Nigeria. You are an
Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR). So, what more do you want?
So, leave politics to politicians. Don’t make yourself a super
minister, or make your table a clearing one for ministers and other
obsequious government appointees. They will tell you that you are
the new Sheriff-in-town, the new powerhouse, the new Louis XIV of
France. Reject these false appellations. Don’t dorn the borrowed
robes. They are false robes of perfidy, treachery and grand
duplicity. Simply thank them and tell them to go and continue with
their normal jobs and carry out their constitutional duties,
unhindered, undisturbed, unmolested. Prof, listen to me very
carefully: those close to wealth and vainglorious lucre will
attempt to bribe you. They will tell you it is not bribe but
‘appreciation’ for your allegedly ‘wonderful performance’. Thank
them, but reject the Greek gift. It is dirty. It is a dangerous
trap, a looming nose and albatross on your neck.
They are simply setting you up. At the appropriate time, they
will show you a mirror and tell you to look at yourself in it. They
will then unearth and untie the hidden bound files. They will open
the pandora box to show you your concealed skeletons. At that time,
it will be too late for you to back-pedal. You will then be led
slavishly by the nose thereafter. Because, you have no option, as
you would have lost your character, integrity and honour. Sprint
and hasten away from politics and the 2023 seers, calculators,
estimators and statisticians. Just tell them you are not interested
in politics at all. Tell them you are simply a servant of the
people. Be loyal, of course, to your appointer. Loyalty and
fidelity surely pay. That was probably why President Buhari still
sought you out and appointed you his Chief of Staff, nearly 37
years after he appointed you his minister of External Affairs at
just 39, in 1984. But, wherever and whenever your appointer’s
directives or interests clash with your personal convictions,
conscience and the national interest, reject them. Throw in the
towel and resign immediately. Nigerians, and more importantly,
Almighty God, will hail and bless you for it. In such a situation,
run, run, run!!!
As Catherine Pulsifer once put it, “your character defines who
you are by the actions you take”. Finally, sir, in the famous words
of former American President, Woodrow Wilson, “if you lose your
wealth, you lost nothing; if you lose your health, you have lost
something; but if you lose your character, you have lost
everything”. Prof, from the power jingosts and tin gods in Aso
Villa, take a run as if Lucifer himself is pursuing you. Prof,
RUN,
RUN, RUN!!!