’Tunji Ajibade
Presidents
do not lose battles. They win, all the time. It is a reason the office
remains ever attractive. What with so much resources at a president’s
disposal; and the uncountable number of canny men to carry out his or
her instructions. So, why does getting whatever he or she wants, as the
case of electing the ruling party’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees
proved, become an uphill task for President Goodluck Jonathan? It must
mean he needs new men around him, men who know where he is going, and
the best route to it. They must be men who know what it means to the
image, power and prestige of the Presidency, for their principal to get
what he wants, and when he wants it.
The other day, President Jonathan
presided over a meeting of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic
Party. The task at hand was to get a chairman for the party’s BoT. But
the meeting flopped. Presidents don’t sit over meetings that flop; they
don’t sit over meetings that will flop. It’s because they know ahead a
meeting that will flop. Students of power game comprehend that. This is
so because prestige is at stake. And presidents have several foot
soldiers to maintain it. Hatchet men. Call them wise men on a good day,
on days when they are in their positive element, deploying energy to
positive uses. Not the negatives, which this writer finds fascinating in
itself — the negatives that leaders engage in, and get away with. The
abracadabra that leadership performs and escapes with is so fascinating
to this writer, that only the following quote can convey the very
thought of it to the reader: “There be three things which are too
wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the
air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst
of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.” Here, the good wise men
do a leader is in focus.
A president’s prestige is not separable
from setting what he wants, and getting it. When he loses, too often,
the images his citizens get are not so positive. That’s why the claims
President Jonathan’s men make that his is not a weak Presidency fail to
impress anyone. Images. Here are a few of them: Once upon a time, the
President and his party said they zoned the Speakership of the House of
Representatives to the South-West of the country. Reps defiantly voted
whoever they wanted though. The ruling party was humiliated. Its leader
no less so. There was that occasion a personality from Taraba State
wanted to be a minister of the Federal Republic. His name was on the
President’s list. Senators said he shouldn’t bother to come to their red
chamber. Some men around the President counselled that the nominee
should go. He went. He spoke. Then the Senate President had asked his
colleagues, if anyone had questions to ask the nominee. The red chamber
was silent. The nominee left, never to be confirmed. No point stating
what that meant for the Presidency. Which adviser had been so naïve to
let this happen to the President? And to think Nigerians saw the
humiliation on TV. Yet, anyone who understands the workings of the three
arms, and the code lawmakers work with on matters of ministerial
nominations, would know that only three people, four, were all that the
President’s foot soldiers needed to work on – the three senators from
Taraba State, as well as their state governor. And the President’s men
could have held the nominee back, for all the background negotiations to
be completed, before he was sent to the Dome.
The prestige any presidency enjoys is
anchored on several factors. At the zenith of the glory of the United
States of America’s presidency — from F.D. Roosevelt to Richard Nixon –
it was tagged the “imperial presidency”. The height being under J.F
Kennedy, and the low under Nixon who committed the error of being found
out, after doing what leadership usually does and gets away with.
Sometimes, the personality in the seat plays a role in defining the
presidency – JFK. At other times, it is how effectively the man in the
saddle juggles the cards, how he deploys the enormous powers at his
disposal – Nixon – a man who successfully threatened the American press
with his “silent majority” rhetoric. Compared to other democracies,
Nigeria’s Presidency stands as the most powerful. The constitution shows
it. Effective harnessing of the power will impress observers of the
power game; but not many leaders here ever did. What with the enormous
resources that the Federal Government plays around with, the fact that
other tiers of government come, cap in hand, every month, to “beg for
alms” in Abuja, powers in the Exclusive List that favour the government
at the centre, posts to which the President deploys Ministers,
Directors-General, Federal Commissioners, Chairmen of boards, and
ambassadors? If the current administration has not utilised its powers,
it is because the seats for men with mental capacity to juggle these
together and thus project a powerful Presidency, are vacant. This has
affected every facet of governance.
This matter of how much the Presidency
fails to project to the nation came to a head when President Jonathan
left a meeting, without the election of a BoT chairman for his party,
after several postponements. In fact, members present manifested a
rebellious spirit, the type members of the ruling party got away with in
recent past. The rebels had their positions, too, just like the
Presidency. Noise was all over the place about differing calculations
and permutations – the North wants the Presidency in 2015, so Jonathan
must be stopped from fixing his man in the BoT chairman seat; former
President Olusegun Obasanjo wants the seat for a Yoruba man, because his
kinsmen have been sidelined; same Obasanjo wants to work with the North
for 2015, so he wants Jonathan’s candidate stopped from getting the BoT
seat; Igbo people need the seat because they have their eyes on 2015.
After the meeting failed to achieve its
objective, a committee was set up to recommend who is best suited to be a
BoT member. That should have happened before calling for a meeting
where the President had presided, but failed to get a result. Every
adviser around the President must have been asleep. No wonder they
missed words about the strategy in the camp of the President’s enemies.
Quality advisers know the strategy in the enemies’ camp before it is
unleashed, especially on no less a personality than the president.
Basically, what the committee wants to do is reduce the BoT crowd. Have a
manageable number, a few who would listen to the right whispers. Such a
step had led to how the current BoT membership was constituted, the
same should have happened as a precaution, not solution.
Add all of that to the sacking of the
National Secretary by a court; the same personality the President had
ensured was installed not long ago. Humiliation complete. The
distraction of these is one effect. And it’s happening at a time the
President should be busy with solving the nation’s problems. Now, the
administration will mark two years in office with its house in chaos,
with noise about how politicians are trying to use the BoT seat to lay
the ground ahead of 2015. What has happened is a reflection of what
currently bedevils every sphere of governance in the country; it’s not
just a brouhaha over a BoT chairman’s seat. The saga itself is one more
call to the administration to clean up its house, organise itself
better, and work smarter in order to move the nation forward.
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