PETER Obi is an icon of what a man who wants to dedicate his life in the service of others should be. I understand he has a brother who is a priest and a sister who is a nun. Even if this was not true, the young man has so ordered his life that even that which he does not have, have been given and bestowed on him. Like I tell all my friends – if goodness is coming your way, grab it and own it.
Governor Peter Obi spoke at the Government College Ughelli Old Boys Annual Dinner last Sunday about education and his attempts to return schools and hospitals to the missionaries who used to run them. He studied philosophy, so his logic is impeccable. He said that he had a budget of N6 billion or so for education. The Catholics had 450 schools, the Anglicans 350, the State 250. Before he decided to return schools to missionaries, the schools were all decrepit, teachers not working, students roaming the streets, attendance and education quality were poor. Against all odds and against the very real experience of Government spending money on education with no results – pouring money into a black hole. He called the missionaries and released N450, 000,000 to the Catholics, N350, 000,000 to the Anglicans and to his hapless Commissioner of Education he gave N250,000,000. There was a sea change. He told us about a principal who was at the gate before 8a.m., who supervised her teachers, and who insisted that girls should be in boarding houses, not coming in as day students to school. While the schools returned to the missions were working, those directly under Peter Obi said nothing about the schools still run by the Government.
Peter Obi told us he was impeached twice and faced no end financial guidelines. The bill for rebuilding the burnt Government House was N261 million. He rebuilt it for N40 million. One of the schools had a landslide estimated to cost N60 million. The principal did the job for N23 million. Obi said he was queried on both these projects for failure to follow financial guidelines!!!
Peter Obi is convinced that common sense is all you need in politics, not the money grabbing. Nobody, who, a few months before election had no house or car, in a short while will buy ten cars and go to church for thanksgiving while the schools in his or her constituencies had no roof. They were, he said, too many “tool gates” in politics and Government. He should know because as a former Chairman of Fidelity Bank, he knew the value of money and humility. He does not travel with a convoy; he stands in line at the airport like any other passenger. He asked a telling question – why do state governments spend huge amount of money they do not have, to build mansions called Government Houses in Abuja. There is little need even for a Governor to spend more than a few days in Abuja. There was enough money to govern well and bring progress to the people if frugality and sensible accountability were to be employed.
Now all this is well and good and I praise Peter Obi for his sermon on “Mount Sheraton”. But Peter is also a Honourary Special Adviser without pay to President Jonathan.
He sees Ministers, Senators and Governors chartering planes to go to all sorts of frivolous places. He is in Aso Rock where the food bill of the President is several billions. Peter Obi has a small voice but a massive brain and intellect. We believe that when we are about to do wrong, there is a small voice that warns us off. We call it conscience. Can Peter Obi be Jonathan’s small voice?
I also listened to Prof. Tomori, a virologist, give a brilliant paper on what is Ebola and how it spreads. He believes that Nigeria was merely lucky that that Liberian came here when doctors were on strike – otherwise he would have ended up in LUTH and the story would have been different. He told us about the five varieties of Ebola and that the one now in West Africa is bat (fruit) Ebola. He gave the usual advice about cleanliness, washing of hands, keeping away from dead bodies, etc. He reaffirmed that Ebola can only spread through exchange of bodily fluids – e.g. bathing dead bodies of people who already had Ebola. He sounded a note of warning that Nigeria should not be complacent that it is free from Ebola. We have sent about 300 doctors to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Mali – what arrangements do we have should any of these people contract Ebola and have to be returned to Nigeria? One such doctor died in U.S., and two nurses died in Spain. Maybe I did not hear him well but he said also that you could contact Ebola through sexual intercourse. The mind boggles at the possibilities and potentialities of that revelation. My wife has just imported a large quantity of sanitizers. As for other precautions – man wey go die, go die. Professor Tomori did not comment on the widely held suspicion that Ebola, HIV, AIDS and several other diseases were developed in Military bio chemical warfare laboratories in the West and were introduced to the third world primates and animals for studies in biological warfare. He did not explain why these dangerous viruses exist in the tropical hemisphere as his map of the occurrences of the viruses world imply.
I was sitting near some journalists while listening to all this. At the same time the phones and texts were going crazy about millions of dollars being doled out for the Senatorial and Gubernatorial primaries on Sunday and Monday. Since this was a PDP affair, the names of President Jonathan and Lady Jonathan, were probably falsely, frequently used to buoy up one candidate or the other. All kinds of wonderful calculations were made as to who would win the primaries. If 10% of what I heard was true, then we have started on the road that will surely lead to perdition. No one is saying what he would do. Each candidate threatens that should his camp not win, his supporters would move masses to vote for the opposition just like Jakande did against the SDP who dropped Agbalojobi his candidate. He led Lagos to vote for Otedola of NRC.
I felt sad and sorry for Nigeria. Politics was never meant to be a game of money. I looked at the young men around me, not one of them had the slightest inclination to serve the nation. They ate, drank and went their merry ways. It struck me that these guys do not know that they could change the fortunes and future of Nigeria just as the Republicans have done in the U.S. by small groups who called themselves the Tea Parties where they discussed how to blight President Obama and the Democratic Party. Those small groups have written Obama’s obituary, made the Republican Party resurge. In short, Obama is presiding now over an economic resurgence not seen for over 20 years – growth is 4% -5%. But is he going to get the credit – not on your life. Some would say that it is because he is black, maybe; others said that he is too professorial; perhaps, but one thing is clear, as Peter Obi reminded us, in the game of politics you choose your friends who can make you govern. In Anambra State, out of 34 Assemblymen, he could only rely on 10. He was able to govern. Obama is a failure because he was unable to control the U.S. Congress. An essential element in being a President is how well the President can control the Congress. Is that also true in Abuja?
• Ambassador Patrick Dele Cole (OFR) is a Consultant to The Guardian Editorial Board.
