Oduah and the Trap for President Jonathan

Sadiq Ibrahim[1]

  

“Of course, that we are investigating the Aviation Ministry does not mean that all is not well with the sector. The aviation sector has improved tremendously even from where it was one week ago to where we are now.”

– Hon. Nkeiruka Onyeojocha

  

Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, the Chairperson of the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation, gave the response quoted above in an interview she granted to Vanguard newspaper. The interview, titled “Why we deleted armoured cars from budget”, was published in the paper on October 26, 2013. It was granted against the backdrop of Hon. Onyejeocha’s involvement in the investigation of certain allegations of official misconduct levelled against the Minister of Aviation, Mrs Stella Oduah, for which her accusers summarily demanded her removal from office by President Goodluck Jonathan even as she denied the allegations and no investigations had been conducted as to their justification.

I think it is remarkable that, despite the dust that had been raised by the allegations against Oduah, Hon. Onyejeocha did not lose sight of what I regard as the real issue even in the light of those allegations, which is that Oduah, as Aviation Minister, continues to deliver stellar performance. And so rapid is the transformation she has brought to the aviation sector that Hon. Onyejeocha even suggests that it is improving on a weekly basis.  

For those who appreciate the size of the aviation sector and the challenges of making it function properly, it calls for special notice that anyone could improve it in ways that become noticeable within such short spans of time – weekly, as suggested by Hon. Onyejeocha.  And I agree with those who say that President Jonathan deserves commendation for the choice of Oduah as Minister of Aviation, while Oduah deserves to be better appreciated, especially by her critics, so far as performance in office is the primary consideration.    

Interestingly, it is in the nature of things that those who have shown good leadership – in the service of their country and other ways – have not always met the strict moralistic expectations of their critics. Yet some of them have transcended the strictures of such critics and their own indiscretions, where applicable, and continued to be relevant and recognised as achievers in or out of office. What better proof of this can there be than the involvement of former US President, Bill Clinton, in the so-called Lewinsky affair?

Not only did Clinton survive the call of his critics, largely members of the then opposition Republican Party, for his impeachment over that unfortunate incident. He provided quality leadership afterwards, better than most American Presidents whose tenures did not witness such a “scandal”, and since leaving office has continued to play the role of a global statesman, benefitting many through his personal activities and The Clinton Foundation.

Of course I wish President Clinton did not get involved in what he himself described as an “inappropriate” relationship with a woman other than his wife whom I admire greatly, and whose feelings I respect. But after listening to the great speech he delivered in support of President Obama’s re-election during the last Democratic Convention, and considering his other noble deeds that many people globally have benefited from since the end of the Lewinsky affair, I was grateful that the Americans ultimately showed us that we need not throw away the baby with the bathwater to prove that we are interested in ensuring good behaviour by our public servants or public figures generally.  

And to a certain category of “moral” beings, it would have been inconceivable for Mandela to stand by Clinton during his Lewinsky travails. But that was exactly what happened. As Scott Pelly of CBS News wrote in his introduction to an interview by the former US President: “Clinton got caught up in a scandal, Mandela, visiting the White House, stood by him, saying, "Our morality does not allow us to desert our friends.”

For me, Mandela’s support for Clinton under such circumstances also reflected his ability to see the big picture, with the great mind he obviously had, that the worth of human beings need not be measured by their indiscretions, that grace is superior to punishment. By contrast, there’s almost always a tinge of pettiness in insisting on punishing every indiscretion committed by others, like the Pharisees whom Jesus condemned in the Bible.           

And back home to Nigeria. Chief Bola Tinubu, the man widely acclaimed as the current leader of the opposition, was once embroiled in a scandal over a “misleading” claim that he graduated from the University of Chicago. He was then the Governor of Lagos State. Later, for a similar claim regarding his having attended Government College, Ibadan, former President Olusegun Obasanjo reportedly said of him at a public forum last year: “You said Bola Tinubu is your master; what Buhari did was not anything worse than what Bola Tinubu did. We got Buhari impeached. “But in this part of the world, some people covered up the other man. The man claimed he went to Government College, Ibadan, but the Governor of Oyo State then went to Government College and packed all the documents so that they would not know that he did not go there.”

The Buhari in question was Salisu Buhari, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who was impeached for certificate forgery, claiming that he graduated from University of Toronto.

Ironically, despite the disgust evident in his above remarks against Tinubu, the same Obasanjo recently hosted a delegation led by Tinubu, apparently to forge an alliance against President Jonathan’s administration, apparently united by their antipathy for the President. And more ironically, the same opposition led by Tinubu has made repeated calls for President Jonathan to remove Oduah from office, as if removing the mote in someone else’s eye should be more important to them than removing the log in their own eye, to paraphrase Jesus.

  

But I believe there is a concealed plot behind the call by the opposition for Oduah’s removal, a trap for President Jonathan; for they – the opposition – could perceive that his doing so could mean returning the leadership of the aviation sector at the ministerial level to the underachieving mediocrity that had characterised it for decades before Oduah’s tenure. Of course the sector would be worse off as a result; and for the decline in service delivery, etc., that would follow, they – the opposition – would have more cause to say that the President is not performing.

Should the President fall into such a trap with his eyes wide open?