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Let Yar’Adua Be
Comfort Obi
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Let me confess that I have a lot of
sympathy for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Aside the fact that it is the only political party in Nigeria with any semblance of seriousness, all my best friends, some of whom I can claim as brothers and sisters, are in the PDP. But most important, the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration has done well. Obasanjo, as a president, has more pluses than minusus. On a scale of 10, I will, without a pause, score him seven. He is not perfect. Nobody is. I have had occasions to criticise him and his government. But he has led us with courage. If a future Nigerian President exhibits as much courage as he has, in a few years time, Nigerians will start seeing some light in the long, dark tunnel. I will, therefore, not support anybody who will not continue with the Obasanjo reformation.
The above is why I take interest in anything PDP. It is why I take interest in the party’s candidates. And, because I am proudly Nigerian, it is why I take interest in the individual who I strongly feel will be my next president.
I don’t know how you felt on Wednesday, March 7, when the false news of the death of the PDP presidential candidate, Governor Umaru Yar’Adua, broke. To say that I was worried is to put it mildly. I was worried for Obasanjo. And it is clear why. To most people, Obasanjo foisted Yar’Adua on us as a presidential candidate. I share the same thoughts. His emergence was as untidy as it was unexpected. I felt the party could have done better than it did. Until he emerged the PDP presidential candidate, not much was known about him in the media. I doubt if much is still known about him. He never granted interviews. He never met with journalists. Yet, I agree that in politics, these may not be of any weighty consideration. It is solely the business of the party who it chooses as its flag-bearer.
When he emerged, concerns were expressed over his state of health. Speculations were high that his kidney was in a bad shape; that he needed constant dialysis to survive. I was in sympathy with him. I didn’t think it was okay to discuss the state of his health so publicly. But having picked up the presidential ticket of the PDP, he lost the privacy concerning the state of his health. The state of his health became an issue. And many people were worried by what were being alleged. Indeed, at the VIP lounge of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport recently, one Northerner insisted: “We know Obasanjo’s plans. He deliberately chose Yar’Adua who has health problems, just so when he dies, a Southerner would continue in power." Obscene, and false, as such thoughts are, it is not a secret that not a few people in the North hold such thoughts.
So this day when Yar’Adua fell ill, my heart sank. When the rumour spread, like wildfire, that he was dead, I thanked God that the elections had not been held yet; that he and Goodluck Jonathan had not won yet, and so, had not been sworn-in. If they had, then, my family and I would have started heading towards the South east.
I thank God that it didn’t get to that stage. Yet, I submit that we should be worried about the state of health of Yar’Adua. Nigerians have the right to ask questions and get answers. Healthwise, is Yar’Adua strong enough to be the president of a complex country like Nigeria? Can we afford to have a president whose state of health is open to suspicion? So, I ask again: What is the state of Yar’Adua’s health? Both President Obasanjo and Yar’Adua had tried to tell us that he is okay. Some weeks back, Obasanjo told an anxious nation that Yar’Adua was miraculously healed in year 2000. Yar’Adua himself had challenged those who thought he was ill to a game of squash. He asked them to play with him, and see if they can last 12 straight sets.
This day when he was rushed out of the country to Germany, we still were unable to say what the problem was because nobody told us. And this concerns a man who, come May 29, could become our president. We need a better deal from the PDP. None of them could react coherently when it became public that he was ill, and had to be flown out of the country. The PDP National Secretary, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, called it a routine medical check-up. Chief Bode George, the Director-General of the Yar’Adua / Jonathan campaign, told us the man was exhausted, and attributed it to the excruciating campaign, and harmattan dust. Listening to him, I asked: Where is this harmattan dust? President Obasanjo dismissed the death rumour as satanic, and cursed those who started it. Yar’Adua, the man at the centre of the storm, spoke up from his hospital bed. He said he had a dose of catarrh.
Nobody has any control over one’s health. Yet, I ask: is this what we are going to see? If the dust affected Yar’Adua, what about the others? If he would be this exhausted after campaigning for only about four weeks, then, we are in trouble. If he had to travel out of the country for a whole week because he had catarrh, then we are in more trouble than I thought.
I submit that nobody has told us the truth about Yar’Adua’s ill-health. And I think it is unfair. If he cannot withstand the rigours of a campaign, how can he withstand the problems associated with governing Nigeria? Can we trust this country in the hands of a man whose state of health will be a subject of constant speculation?
Yes, Yar’Adua has done well as the governor of Katsina. Yes, the EFCC tells us he is clean. Yes, Obasanjo confirms that he would carry on with his reformation. But we need more. I’ll be sad if the PDP loses the presidential elections over Yar'Adua's health. Anybody outside the PDP would turn back the hands of the clock. I know we are suffering now. But I believe it is for a better future. If the PDP knows that, indeed, there is more to Yar’Adua’s health, they should let him be. The time to change him is now. There are other clean, capable hands in the North to pair up with Jonathan.
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