Of Politicians Foreign Jamboree And Our Ex Diplomats Anger
By Tunde Abatan
The Club of our retired ex- Diplomats and professional international relations experts and scholars are angry.
They are angry because our present leaders and politicians have turned the foreign countries where they one served with pride and honour as representatives of their country, have now become a meeting point for politicians to discuss the destiny of their country.
They are angry because the country where they had hitherto displayed their diplomatic finesse and thumb their chest for their beloved country is now playing the role of places where the destiny of their supposedly independent country is being determined.
Who will not be?
This reminds me of a saying in our native Yoruba that, “if the Wolf is feeling unconscious, it is not from the fowls mouth that we learn about it meaning ,”Bi oju akata ba lewo,kii ise enu adie lo ye ka ti gbo”.
It is not for today’s politicians who are probably babies when their grandfather’s look straight into their colonial masters eyes to fight for independence to now run back sixty years later to plot how to govern themselves.
But contrary to this saying, our politicians and office seekers and to say the least the ‘owners of Nigeria’s,- at least by inference, whichever of them win, determines the future of Nigeria, have decided to shift discussion about future of their country to foreign lands as did their founding fathers over six decades ago.
Should we say they are matured or simply behaving like infertile adults?.
Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, former Director General of the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, as President of Nigeria Academy of International Affairs-a body of eminent and retired professionals and scholars in diplomacy has every reason to lead his group in firing salvos to condemn in strong terms the recent fad among leaders of the leading three political parties and their presidential candidates to shift discussions on how to win and share the nations cake to London- capital of Nigeria’s former colonial masters, Paris and United Arab Emirate, now a haven for the rich and influential.
Today in Nigeria, if you are a politician and public officer holder with no property or house in Dubai, you have not arrived.
What is more, Atiku Abubakar, a former vice President and the most prominent of presidential aspirants in the last one decade, spends most of his time in the land of the oil sheikhs.
For him, Nigeria is a second home since he left power as vice president fifteen years ago, except during campaign and election period as we are now.
For Atiku and the duo of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC and new comer to the race, former Anambra Governor, Peter Obi, they now divide their time between Nigeria and foreign capitals broking and sealing deals, among contending power blocks and politicians like them.
For this reason Akinyemi and his club has every reason to be angry. This is reflected in the statement he signed along other angry retired diplomats.
He has to do this because way back in the early and mid 70s as Director General of the NIIA-then intellectual power house of Nigeria foreign policy, he has his ways even with then military leaders crusading sound and pragmatic foreign policy for the government.
His word and postulations and ideas was almost law With Akinyemi’s intellectual stand, then Colonel Joseph Navem Garba, then minister for external Affairs, stood shoulder high making declarations of Nigeria’s no- nonsense foreign policy which rattled the Western powers especially during the hey days of apartheid.
Not only that, as external Affairs minister during the military regime of former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, Akinyemi proudly displays robust engagement and intellectualism before former colonial overlords ,in whose home stead today’s politicians and aspirants now gather to strategies how to acquire and allocate power and spoils of office back home.
Hence, Akinyemi and his groups description of the gathering of leaders and aspirants of APC,PDP and Labour Party, often being touted as new, as “a show of shame that such a meeting is not taking place in Nigeria but outside it’s shores”, adding that this is a “reflection of how the leaders respect their country”.
But then is this assertion new since none of this mentioned leaders in the last five years ever receive medical attention at home while their children and families also school and spend better part of their time in this former colonial masters abode?
It is as clear as crystal ball and to a high extent indisputable that this attitude in the words of the angry diplomats is not only ” unfortunate and heartbreaking that some Nigerian leaders had to abandon the shores of this country for the ex-colonist capital of London ,Paris and now Dubai”.
One can’t help but to agree with the angry retired but definitely not tired diplomats on their country’s plight, that the frequent trip is, “I’ll advised and unwitting jamboree and a shame displayed *by* these leading Nigerian politician in London, Paris and Dubai”.
It is also apparent that the attitude has in their own words demonstrated that,” the Nigerian environment as polluted by them is not conducive to their vain glorious self- importance and unearned esteemed neo-colonial mentality.”
It is also apparent as the angry diplomats claim in the scratching statement that the politicians who still have four months to the elections,” have by their various negotiations started counting their chicken before the eggs are hatched since the deliberations centered more on dividing and allocating the national cake to themselves.”
If as cited by the diplomats that the Nigerian leaders, “should always fly out of the country in search of the magic wand to solve the country’s problems when the solution to the problems lies within Nigeria and among Nigerians “, then it will not be too far for them to withdraw from the scene and allow other sets of Nigerians imbued with vision and character to steer the nations affairs.
The continuous jamboree abroad few weeks to the commencement of electioneering is also an indication that should the prime election, the presidential becomes inconclusive, which is not impossible, then Nigeria may have to invite those who granted her independence to solve the political logjam which it’s amalgamation in 1914 has created.
It is also apparent that as renown novelist the late Chinua Achebe wrote that “we once had a country”, remaining statesmen in the country should gather and put together their Wisdom to save the nation from politicians who are merely interested in elections to share offices but not in nation building.
It may not be too late after all to reinvent the talk shops that led to granting of independence in order to re-engineer the tottering edifice.
It is also apparent that should any of the three contenders get to power, decisions on governance are likely to be taken outside the shores of the country.
The nation waits fir a much expected national rebirth.
