Saturday, September 11, 2010

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sack of Security Chiefs: Election Game of Musical Chairs

 
 

.

Laolu,

If the "unaddressed" security lapses you refer to or which you claim Ms Obe referred to are her references to the latest Boko Haram incidence in Bauchi, the complaint of the FCT Police Commissioner and the robbery menaces in Aba and Abeokuta, I would say these are mere episodes in a long list of evidence of serious security problems all over the nation which, as I have pointed out in my response to Ms Obe, cannot be addressed by the mere removal and appointment of heads of the security forces or the police. So, plugging the loophole isn't going to happen by supporting the present appointments nor will it happen by insisting on retaining those that were there before. Solutions need to be deeper and more comprehensive. However, the problem here is that some of us are thinking the sack and appointments have something to do with dealing with the security situation, even when from the utterances of Jonathan and his spokespersons, nothing of the sort is on the cards.

Now, take the Boko Haram incidence for instance. We have a situation where poorly armed fanatics of a religious sect attacked a major prison and actually killed officials and freed hundreds of prisoners! Shouldn't the question be how it was possible for such a sect to be so capable to overhaul a prison institution, especially after their menace had been well exhibited to the nation before now? Does the President's present action address the question of the security of staff and inmates of prisons and the general public? I mean, think of what the FCT Police Commissioner is reported to have said. Does that not indicate that the problem of kidnapping has far deeper official sanctions or support than we think? Who are those likely to be above the Police Commissioner of a State or the FCT with enough clout to order releases of kidnappers without repercussions? Does that not tell us that, just like the killings in Jos, topmost members of the establishment are behind these and that Jonathan cannot claim not to know? Shouldn't he therefore be thinking real fundamental solutions, rather than this self-serving game of musical chairs?

You ask me why I think Jonathan waited this long before removing these guys and appointing his own service chiefs. Well, I cannot categorically tell you, nor can anyone tell you this as this can only be truly known by him and him alone. However, we can make reasonable and intelligent conjectures by reading the signs and studying the political space. I believe that his game-plan has always been to clinch the election of 2011 with the power of incumbency. The way he and his agents went about attacking the zoning arrangement within his party, his ease at promising with a straight face what he knows he can't and isn't willing to deliver, his empowerment of known political criminals within the PDP and his ditching of the Uwais Report all tell me that this man cannot be trusted. It tells me he is no better than any of the political crooks that have sat in Aso Rock to lord it over us. It tells me that, just like Obasanjo before him, he intends to use the security forces to secure his position now and in the future.

So, these appointments now, this close to the elections, confirm my fears. With people who owe their positions to him at the helms in every security sector, people who for career reasons must be seen to be heavily invested in his continuation in office, how can we truly hope for a free and fair election? What leverage do we the Nigerian people have against Jonathan now if he deploys his appointees to keep him in office since these appointees themselves would be desperate to want to remain in office after the elections, having only spent three months by the time the election comes? What leverage have we got if he decides to rig himself into retaining office, especially as he has acted in such untrusting manner since he took over office?

Look, my brother, the signs are everywhere and I am not about to deceive myself by hoping for something I know Jonathan, by virtue of the system he operates in and his own weak and compromised personality, isn't in a position to deliver. Free and fair elections and good governance are still mirages and I would rather see them for what they are now than blindly carry on believing in the farce that is ongoing. Power concedes nothing and until a critical number of Nigerians begins the hard task of courageously confronting our failed leaders without compromise and without let, our nightmares as a nation would hopelessly continue. I have always felt that Jonathan's leadership was our Last Chance Salon and I'm deeply saddened by the fact that he just does not have it.

 

CHEERS!

..

 
 


--- On Thu, 9/9/10, laolu akande <akandeoj@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: laolu akande <akandeoj@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sack of Security Chiefs: Election Game of Musical Chairs
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Thursday, 9 September, 2010, 17:55

Ken:
Thanks fior the brief and concise analysis. Appreciate that.
Now the question is: Why did you completely left unaddressed the security lapses Sis Ayo just raised? Looks like a loophole you need to plug!! Will love to read your thoughts and how they fit in.
 
And then, in your thinking, why did Jonathan wait till now since he assumed presidency-since it is not an abnormal practice for presidents to appoint their own service chiefs on assumption of power?
 
Laolu A

--- On Thu, 9/9/10, Ayo Obe <ayo.m.o.obe@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Ayo Obe <ayo.m.o.obe@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sack of Security Chiefs: Election Game of Musical Chairs
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Thursday, September 9, 2010, 4:55 AM

Hellooooooooo!  Bauchi Prison stormed and all inmates - including Boko Haram 'suspects' (i.e. STILL awaiting trial) - freed.  Commissioner of Police for the Federal Capital Territory complains that all kidnappers arrested in the 100 cases in the FCT of which the police were informed are people who had been previously arrested for the same offence - kidnapping - but released because of instructions from above.  Banks in Abeokuta take a leaf from their Aba counterparts and shut down in the face of threats by armed robbers.  To mention just a few.

Don't want to go out on a limb, but these things suggest that there is a slight problem with security in the country.  Of course, perhaps Jonathan should have watched the meltdown continue in order not to be accused of planning election rigging.  But if it is standard rigging procedure to put your own people into these positions, why didn't these intelligence chiefs see what was in the offing and get their act together so that we would all see clearly that there couldn't have been any other reason for their removal?

Ayo

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 3:38 AM, Kennedy Emetulu <kemetulu@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
 
 

.

Thursday, 09 September 2010

 

 

Sack of Security Chiefs: Election Game of Musical Chairs

 

 

Just as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was releasing the timetable for the 2011 elections, the news came that President Goodluck Jonathan has sacked all the service chiefs and the Inspector General of Police and appointed others in their place. In principle, no one doubts the power or prerogative of the President to sack these persons and appoint others to replace them. But in a democracy, every discretionary power is expected to be exercised reasonably and in good faith, more so, in the appointments to and sacks from such high and sensitive offices as the ones in question.

 

First, we need to understand that every position here carries its own duties and responsibilities. The President as the Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief is expected to regularly check on the work of each office holder to ensure that they are performing their duties constitutionally and effectively. It follows that once he sees any reason to question the office holder or sack to him, he needs to do so immediately. It further follows that if he was doing his own duties diligently as constitutionally expected, a situation will never arise where all the service chiefs would have to be relieved of their positions all at once. I mean, these are appointive not elective posts that are determined at a time. It is inconceivable that under proper consideration, all of them will merit the sack all at once, based on whatever criteria the President adopts. The logic here needs not be over-emphasised.

 

Now, what does a wholesale sack at this time indicate? One, it could indicate that the President as the chief security officer of the nation is so lax in his duties that the whole security and command edifice has become so bad that it has to take a wholesale sack at the top to correct it or two, it could be that the President has other agendas on his mind outside performance. On both counts, the President himself stands indicted, even if we know it is within his powers to do so. If we rule out the first conjecture and assume, for the sake of argument, that the President has diligently performed his constitutional duty as Commander-in-Chief and has found the individual officers worthy of keeping their positions up till now, it raises the question of what other agenda he hopes to achieve by engaging in the wholesale sack. The only place we can find the answer is in the political environment and in the forthcoming election that is just four months away.

 

Without wasting too much time on analyses, it is obvious that the President did not do this for some national interest. It is purely an action carried out to entrench his own position as President by having his own appointees, as opposed to those appointed by the late President Umaru Yar'Adua. Considering the imminence of the election, it also indicates that the President is putting people in place that will do his bidding towards re-election. And, of course, from our chequered history, we all know the role security chiefs appointed by an incumbent play for the incumbent in an election in Nigeria. So, what confidence do we now have for a free and fair election when he has put men everywhere that will do all within their power to protect their newly acquired position post-2011? What confidence do we have when these men, pursuant to that aim of protecting their positions, will necessarily do everything, by hook or by crook, to keep their appointer in power? Isn't this akin to a coup against the Nigerian people? Of course, I know there are those who would immediately accuse me of crying wolf or putting it too strongly, but why couldn't these new appointments wait till after the elections, if only to show good faith and instil confidence in the people that there is no hanky-panky afoot?

 

So, without mincing words, the unreasonableness of the action is clear. It is a leaf from the standard practice of all election riggers in Nigeria. No one should read any ethnic meaning into this because appointees are not there to represent any ethnic group. They are there to protect their appointer and by extension, their own newly-acquired positions. Jonathan has not unveiled a new defence or security policy and there is nothing to remotely indicate that these new appointees are going to do anything differently from those who are there, except that they now owe their elevation to one man whose position they are likely to protect, even if it's against the national interest. After all, we haven't seen anything in their résumé or career history to show that they are new brooms. I make bold to say that by changing the guards at this crucial time, this is an indication that the President and his handlers have declared the next election a do or die affair. That can't be good for democracy.

 

 

 

Kennedy Emetulu,

 

London

 

…

 

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