During
the second term inauguration ceremony of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as
President in 2003, a brother and friend invited me to visit the
Presidential Villa, the official residence of Nigerian president in
Abuja as a witness to the event. One evening, I met with the former
president in his home, and the second time was in an early-morning
prayer session where a handful of the Peoples Democratic Party
juggernauts including the current Imo State Governor, Rocha Okorocha
(now in the All Progressives Congress), Special Assistants Oby
Ezekwesili and Femi Fani-Kayode, Special Adviser Jerry Gana, and a few
other party stalwarts were in attendance.
The opulence and
elegance of the villa are unforgettable memories; the vastness and
sprawl of the “palace” where a seasonally-recycled platoon of men and
women routinely run up and down to serve one man in authority over
millions of people and huge deposits of resources can’t just easily get
deleted off the storage room of my brain. I had never seen a place
like that even here in the United States and in my many travels around
the globe.
Troops of visitors were coming in and out
even until late at night. Representatives of different regions came
seeking the attention of the Head of State. The attention presidents
receive daily, and the control, authority and the monstrosity of vested
power they exercise must be gladdening to their hearts. With what I
observed in the sumptuous edifice of Aso Rock, I concluded in a
soliloquy to my soul that it will take God for any occupant of the house
to voluntarily choose to go back to his village and not seek
continuity, even if that village is Las Vegas in the US. It will take
God.
Some men have glided to power when they never thought it
was a possibility; some have coasted to power contrary to all human
permutations and expectations; some were on the brink of death and moved
from prison to become the leader of a free people. There are many who
were given a shot at power by popular demand; and many men who exercise
enormous power and authority today probably never thought yesterday that
that much authority would be bestowed on them.
Togo’s
Gnassingbe Eyadema rose to power from a peasant family background to
become president in 1967. He ruled for 38 years and ran the nation as a
personal business. Togo was heavily militarised under Eyadema; and his
mother was imposed on the people as the first-and-only holder of the
office of Mother-of-the-Nation before whom Togolese citizens had to bow
and tremble. Eyadema trained 1000 beautiful young women to dance before
him as they gushingly and riotously sang his praises. Anytime the siren
blasted on the streets of Togo, it was always assumed that Eyadema was
passing through the neighbourhood, and the people had no choice but to
drop whatever task they had going and clap in praises of a passing
brutal dictator who killed opposing voices at will. In 2005, when his
time was up in the eyes of God, he died of heart attack as he boarded an
airplane in Tunisia on his way to a medical appointment. We all have a
beginning; and we must have an end, we just don’t know when.
Before
Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi was shamefully and ruthlessly slaughtered by
his own people in a civil war in 2011, he was and till today the longest
serving African Head of State. The son of a goat-herder seized power
through a coup d’état in 1969, and had no intention of relinquishing it.
He ruled Libya for 42 years. The fear of losing power made Gaddafi hop
and skip between huts, caves and his many houses. No one could predict
where he would lay his head at any particular night. When he was killed,
it dawned on many that any leader who attempts a perpetuation has
already lost out in the game before it begins.
Robert Mugabe was
in the frontline of a triumphant and courageous fight for independence
from white overlords in Zimbabwe. In 1980, Mugabe became the Prime
Minister and then the first executive black President of the landlocked
Southern African country seven years later. He manipulated and falsified
the results of many elections organised in the nation while members of
opposition parties are killed and maimed by his administration. Mugabe
has perpetuated himself and has refused to relinquish power that was
given to him by Providence. Not too long ago, the 91-year-old Mugabe
came out of an event when he tripped and fell like a humpty-dumpty. The
security men and women scampered to pick him up from the ground he will
one day go under. He has grown older, weaker and frailer, yet, he
latches onto power. When his current term runs out in 2018, it’s already
in the works that his wife, Grace, may become his successor. Why men
perpetuate themselves in power in a world that promises no one tomorrow
still beats me.
These men turn the government house into a
family compound, public properties become their personal inheritances,
members of the opposition are either killed or silenced, and the polity
gets heated up. These ignorant men keep sitting tight on a seat that has
got too tight for them to sit. At the end of it all, they are either
disgraced from office, or death shovels them into ignominious history
they wrote in their own handwritings.
When a leader’s sagacity
is sagging, he sheepishly and erroneously believes that power that never
began with him has to end with him. But if he knows that life is like
an electronic audio gadget with a “start” and “stop” button; then he
must also know that whatever is designed to start is designed to stop.
There is a time to stay on stage, and there is time to get off the same.
Men will shower praises in a loud ovation on him, but if he is wise, he
must have an understanding of the times. Ovation, my friend, is like a
vapour that appears for a season and then disappears as if it never
existed.
I draw a daily inspiration about how Homo sapiens ought
to approach power when the Vatican announced the resignation of Pope
Benedict XVI February 11 2013. The Pope was the first to do so in 600
years. Modern era popes have held the position from election until
death. Pope Benedict gave as a reason a declining health due to old age.
With the wealth and worth of the Vatican, the Pope saw something more
precious than power. He gave it all up. So did Nelson Mandela of South
Africa who chose to serve only one-term of five years as the first Black
President of the country. If Mandela had chosen to perpetuate himself,
he probably could have got a global approval because of the sacrifice of
27 years behind the prison walls he had made on behalf of millions of
South African Blacks who are today free men and women. But, he too gave
it all up!
Whether it is political, royal, business or
otherwise, man is not the inventor of power; he only exists to take
advantage of it for the good of humanity as yielded to him by his
Creator; the sole controller of power. Power is not an exclusive family
right or an unending lineage entitlement. When you have it, you must not
cuddle it as a phenomenon that will last eternity. Power may be
scheduled to last one day, one month or 10 years; but its evanescent
nature is incontrovertible. There is no man who can outlive or outlast a
community of people over which he holds a temporary control and
authority. Power, when it runs its full course, has a terminating point.
It is transient and God-given. I still wonder why men choose to sit
tight.
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