Thank you, Dora by By Reuben Abati

DORA Akunyili, Nigeria's Minister of Information and Communications, is obviously the only man in the Executive Council of the Federation, the others have lost their spine and submitted to the tightly knit conspiracy spun by that body and its faceless accomplices in deceiving Nigerians 74 days on, that President Umaru Musa Yar'çdua is fit. Akunyili thoroughly fed up with all the fibbing and shilly-shallying reportedly submitted a memo to the Executive Council this week asking that the deception must stop and that President Yar'Adua must hand over to the Vice President so the country can move on in his absence.
Thank you, Dora. You have just confirmed what we have always known that the members of the Executive Council of the Federation who are required under Section 144 of the Constitution to take a decision as to the incapacitation of the President are not likely to do so, first because they are his appointees (the law givers apparently overlooked this, in the future this section should be amended); second, the lying Ministers are more interested in protecting their seats rather the common good and three, they want to be seen to be loyal to the President. And so before now, they had issued a statement saying that President Yar'Adua is well, some claimed to have spoken with him as if that amounts to a certificate of medical fitness, and shamelessly that body, with the help of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, chose to misinterpret the law and make short-shrift of a court ruling.

It was a case of Federal Ministers, maintained at public expense, insisting on doing what is wrong. Every week, they pretended to be holding a Cabinet meeting, with a vacant seat and an absent President as Chairman, the emptiness of that space gradually becoming a metaphor for other observed patterns of emptiness, and at each meeting they further pretended to be awarding contracts, under the authority of a Vice President who had left no one in any doubt that he has no powers to sign documents or give directives. Dora Akunyili must have been frustrated by the charade. As an insider, she must have witnessed the drift first hand, the posturing of a few and the helplessness of a Federal Cabinet that is supposed to serve the people, now bogged down by a self-inflicted illness, engaged in nothing else but "little chats".

Surely, it was not only Yar'çdua that was in hospital, the Federal Executive Council as they call it, was also ill. Everyone had issued a statement, including elder statesmen, the Arewa Consultative Forum, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, media chiefs, civil society groups, professional associations, members of the National Assembly, asking President Yar'Adua to respect the rule of law. With the Arewa joining the campaign and the likes of former President Shehu Shagari joining a delegation to Aso Villa on the same matter, there was no way anyone could fly the flag of ethnic persecution; for the first time in a long while, the Nigerian elite managed, albeit slowly, to forge a consensus on a matter of national importance. Yet, Yar'Adua's cabinet preferred a macabre dance.

Dora Akunyili's rebellion and forthrightness is the kind of development that we need for this matter to be resolved. Ironically, she is such an unusual rebel. She is paid to help the government and the President cover up their dirt. As Minister of Information, she is the government's spin doctor. Before now, she had in fact made an effort to help cover up the mess, telling Nigerians that the President's health was improving and that we should find something else to talk about. But it must have occurred to the lady that there is no way Nigeria can be rebranded, the campaign she leads, if its leaders tell lies and engage in deceits. The slogan "great nation, good people" makes no sense if so much energy has to be expended to get Nigerian leaders to act properly in the public interest. She must have gotten tired of being told by a few who claim to have seen the President to go and sell a fib to the people. Dora is a Christian. The Archbishop must be glad about her conversion on the road to Damascus.

Is this something about women? There were stories during the Obasanjo years about Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Federal Minister, being one of the very few who could stand up at meetings and tell the all-knowing OBJ the truth. But the parallel that immediately comes to mind is Clare Short, the former Secretary of State for International Development in the Tony Blair UK Government who accussed then Prime Minister Blair of "recklessness" in his pursuit of the war against Iraq. Short has quite a reputation for going against the grain within the Labour Party. Similarly, Dora Akunyili's offensive against drug dealers and importers of fake drugs while she held sway at the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration Control (NAFDAC) was more or less an act of rebellion: the drug cartel is populated by persons who are likely to donate money to politicians and who lay claim to substantial influence. Death threats did not deter Dora at the time.

Her appointment as Information Minister had raised doubts about her role in the present government, but she seems to have found her voice again. Clare Short, testifying at the on-going Iraqi war enquiry, the Chilcot Committee, continues to insist that Tony Blair lied to Cabinet about Iraq. Short used the words: "Misleading", "conning", "being deceitful". These are words that can be adapted and fitted into the current Nigerian situation. Nigeria is not going to war but it is preparing a war against itself at home. When other Ministers in the Blair Cabinet behaved as yes-men on the Iraqi question, Ms Short spoke up. Will Dora Akunyili stand firm? She should. Should she resign her appointment? I don't think so.

She has not committed treachery nor is she carrying a banner for regicide. Party chieftains may condemn her, many of her colleagues in the Federal cabinet may accuse her of grandstanding, "trying to be holier than thou", who does she think she is? "don't mind her, she is always looking for publicity?", "what's wrong with her, she caused the problem in the first place, if she had managed information well, we would not be in this mess;" "she has joined forces with enemies of government"- these are typical Nigerian responses which always beg the issue. But the only thing she has said is: please, let us obey the law. She also added: "It doesn't pay anybody the way the coutnry is drifting." But her colleagues wouldn't even look at her memo. They shot it down.
There may well be a few persons in the Federal cabinet who feel the same way as she does, but lack the courage to speak up. They should not hide behind Dora Akunyili's skirt. She has shown them that it is alright to say one's mind. Such persons should gather whatever is left in their hearts and say what is right, with the hope that the right things will be done. Party chieftains will most likely put pressure on Dora Akunyili and accuse her of disloyalty. If that happens, she must resist the temptation to recant. It's alright to stand alone.

Where are we as a nation, 74 days after our President checked into a hospital in Saudi Arabia? Things appear to be coming to a head. The world is laughing at us. It has been reported, for example, that at an ongoing conference in Cape Town, South Africa, the Mining Indaba Conference, one of the speakers, David Hale dragged Nigeria's story into his presentation telling his audience: "In Nigeria, the President has been in Saudi Arabia for nearly three months for medical treatment and he refused to hand over to the Vice President, even though the people are calling for it. He is suffering from acute heart problems and should be dead in six months. So, in Nigeria, there should be a new election in six months after the death of the President." The Nigerian delegation to that conference is demanding an apology. The Punch reports, February 4, that "The remarks by Hale who is the chairman of David Hale Global Economics surprisingly elicited loud laughter from the participants..." Loud laughter? Why won't the rest of the world find our circumstances funny?

Look at the rigmarole over a letter that the President was supposed to have written. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) says he prepared such a letter to be taken to the National Assembly in compliance with Section 145 of the Constitution. The letter was handed over to Senator Mohammed Abba Ajji, the Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters. And that same letter is now being treated like a pin in a haystack. The SGF cannot find it. He doesn't have a file copy? And what kind of man is the Special Adviser who will not know what happened to a letter given to him? A special meeting is to be held at the official residence of the Senate President to discuss this missing letter! Nothing can be more uproarious.

Unwittingly, the Yar'Adua government has turned the matter of the President's health into another June 12 or Third Term issue, two previous national issues on which every Nigerian felt obliged to take a stand. With more persons and groups taking a stand on the Yar'Adua health issue, it won't be long before the uncertainty is resolved.