Friday, January 20, 2006

Soyinka accuses Obasanjo of impeachable offences
By Kodilinye Obiagwu

A STRIDENT call has been made by Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, on President Olusegun Obasanjo to change his ways and desist from unconstitutional acts inimical to the good health of the nation.

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Failing this, according to the literary icon, Obasanjo risks the wrath of Nigerians and ultimately is in danger of being impeached from office. Indeed, Soyinka said yesterday, if matter gets to that head and the National legislators fail to heed the call to impeach the President, the citizenry would begin plans to compel them to act.

And, if these two options fail, the citizens would resort to a campaign of civil disobedience.

The social critic, at a press conference in Lagos yesterday, said that impeachment would be a just measure against Obasanjo for allegedly letting out the genie to whimsically fight others and in illegal ways.

Soyinka accused President Obasanjo of complicity in the contrived political crisis in Oyo State, where two people are currently laying claim to the governor's seat.

He said Obasanjo's silence in the matter is not golden, especially given the apparent support for the deputy governor, Christopher Alao-Akala, by the police against the governor, Alhaji Rashidi Ladoja.

Soyinka said: "Inaction becomes eloquent when it involves a deliberate avoidance of duty, a failure, in the case of any citizen in a responsible position, to take preventive action to head off anarchy and disaster. That inaction becomes even criminal where such an individual, by virtue of his or her special position, is saddled with that very special responsibility."

Worried by the play-out of events in Oyo and elsewhere, Soyinka asked if this was what the President wanted. He asked: "Is this the crowning glory of the politics of your second term in office?"

At the press conference, Soyinka declaimed an earlier statement regarding the crisis in Oyo State that he had "demanded that the President of the nation, Olusegun Obasanjo to speak up." According to the Nobel Laureate, "I could not have made such a demand, and the reason is quite simple: I am not deaf. President Olusegun Obasanjo has already spoken."

He said: "And for those who try to suggest that there has been no overt action by the President before, during, and after the Oyo State crisis, I can only respond that there are times when inaction speaks even louder than both action and words."

Dismissing as self-deception any inclination to view the President's conduct as inaction in arresting the drift of Oyo into anomie, Soyinka noted that Obasanjo had been active. He stated that Obasanjo has been "unabashedly partisan in the formulation of that crisis, so the burden of guilt that rests on the presidential shoulders is not simply one of failing to act, but of instigating, stoking and guaranteeing the state of chaos."

He added: "This is no time to beat about the bush. The presidential hand in this affair is blatant. Obasanjo has openly endorsed violence as a means of governance, embraced and empowered individuals whose avowed declarations, confessions and acts are cynically contrary to the democratic mandate that alone upholds the legitimacy and dignity of his office."

According to the literary icon, "authorship of the ongoing illegalities and abuse of the Nigerian constitution in Oyo State - this being only the latest of such manipulations - lies squarely within the presidency". He then continued: "There are two relevant questions: has the Police, by its actions, not flagrantly set itself above and against the judiciary, whose decisions it is lawfully bound to enforce? And the second question follows from this: who gives the Inspector-General his orders? The finger points to one direction - President Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo's misuse of the Police to enforce his private political vendetta has become a notorious governance perfidy that screams for remedial action."

From Anambra State to Bayelsa and Oyo, Soyinka traced an alleged graph of political intolerance by Obasanjo. He told the President: "You failed in Anambra, but you felt you had learnt certain lessons in the use of state coercion. Hence the armed take-over of Bayelsa's state radio by federal might during the Bayelsa impeachment saga, an illegal and unnecessary act that merely pandered to presidential ego and lust for domination. You felt that you had been subtle in Anambra in the use of the police - poor (Raphael) Ige was a fall guy - and so, in Oyo, you decided to go the brutal distance with what overt state power can do. If you succeed in Oyo, the nation will be at your feet." The nation? Asked Soyinka in a tone dripping with anger. "No, the state maybe, but not the nation."

Soyinka acknowledged that the intra-party intrigues of any political organisation were not the business of non-members. However, he stated that such politics or intrigues become the business of others, when the "protocols that bind us together are flouted, mocked and debased. "Those protocols are not articles of convenience, to be cited as guiding authority when convenient, then discarded at will whenever they prove an obstacle to misgovernance. Obasanjo mangled the constitution and turned its polluted pulp into a weapon of offence against the rights and legitimate expectations of the people."

Drawing from other events like the statement by the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmadu Ali, that a state was a garrison and that elected representatives should obey instructions, Soyinka asked the President if he was proud of "what you have unleashed?" "Is this what you wanted? Is this the crowning glory of your second term in office?"

Alluding to Obasanjo's alleged politics of third term, Soyinka gave the advice he once offered to the former president of Kenya Daniel Arap Moi.

"Leave quietly, peacefully take your quite considerable successes in governance policies with you. Make it possible for us to call you in retirement as an elder statesman. Do not leave the nation with such lacerating memories, with such a bad taste in the mouth that the people dismiss even your success as mere accidents, as flashes in the pan or the work of others." The social critic advised Obasanjo further: "Leave now, pleading governance exhaustion, age betrayal, resentment at the ingratitude, anything at all but leave. Leave today, right now!" he stated.

Soyinka added that if the president wishes to serve out his term, then "he must begin a reversal of unconstitutional acts. "You must begin by obeying the decisions of the courts to the letter. Anything less will not be acceptable."

Soyinka stated in his statement that "if this presidential conduct persists, we have an obligation to call our legislatures to rescue that instrument (impeachment) of constitutional remedy from current debasement and apply it to the author of our present predicament. And so I urge the nation to commence plans for an orderly convergence of our elected representatives from all parts of the nation to compel them to act."

He noted that a campaign of civil disobedience is another option, which remains a legitimate instrument of resistance against governance of illegalities.