Jonathan’s Non-Negotiator and the moral black hole threatening our govt

IN my last column entitled “Jonathan’s Hostage Negotiator Puts Him in a Tight Corner” (3 September 2014), I argued that Australian hostage negotiator Dr. Stephen Davis did Nigeria a favour by daring to call by name two persons alleged to be sponsors of Boko Haram, and by pointing to an unnamed person alleged to be the evil sect’s banker ensconced in our Central Bank in Abuja.

A premise of my argument was that Davis played his generally acknowledged role of negotiator for the release of the over 200 Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram 154 days ago on behalf of the federal government.

But Davis, it emerges, was never hired by the president. It is unclear to me if Davis, a reverend gentleman, intended to mislead the world or merely succumbed to the lure of self-inflation once faced with television cameras, but no matter.  It seems clear, nonetheless, that Davis has had an informal but close relationship with the federal government dating back to his role as a hostage  negotiator in the Niger Delta when General Olusegun Obasanjo was president.

Australian negotiator, Dr. Stephen Davis, and Boko Haram commanders in 2013 after BH reportedly agreed to dialogue 

Australian negotiator, Dr. Stephen Davis, and Boko Haram commanders in 2013 after BH reportedly agreed to dialogue

My argument does not depend on Davis’ true status. His prime suspect, the untouchable former governor of Borno State, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, remains, despite his staunch denials and the presidential protection-by-association he is currently enjoying, under the darkest cloud of suspicion.

In any case, I did allow enough room for doubt up to the possibility that Davis could be a “rabble rouser,” insisting only that President Jonathan put personal interest and petty party politics aside to move unequivocally against anyone regarding whom a prima facie case of aiding and abetting the terrorist group threatening to destroy Nigeria can be established. By the evidence that has filtered into the public domain, a prima facie case against Sheriff can be made.

This is what gives Femi Falana the confidence to beg Sheriff to sue him for defamation. And to threaten to seek an order of mandamus to compel Jonathan, through his Attorney-General, to act or, failing to act, give him a private prosecutor’s fiat so he can initiate proceedings, thereby separating fact from fiction, vindicating or convicting Sheriff.

But far from invoking the law, or asking Sheriff to clear his name, Jonathan contrived to be seen with him holding bilateral talks with the president of another country, General Idriss Déby of Chad! Without any foreknowledge on the president’s part, we are told, Sheriff appeared at the airport in Djamena to welcome him to another country, and sit with him in the room where he held talks with his host.

How well this speaks of our protocol and intelligence services that they do not vet the list of persons who would be in close contact with our president, especially in a foreign land! We know that to this government, everyone who is not a member or cheer leader of the shameless political hucksters called BringBackJonathan or Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria — yes, those who say Jonathan is a co-equal of Ghandi, Mandela and Martin Luther King — is an enemy.

You know, the likes of those who were bribed with pure water, a luxury not to be found in Otuoke, to protest their further pauperisation through the withdrawal of a corruption subsidy, deceptively named fuel subsidy, in January 2012. Or who believe that no president can fight a war against corruption if he doesn’t give a damn about the public declaration of his assets. Or that it smacks of immorality to pardon a convicted former governor even before the social wound of his thievery is yet to stop bleeding. Well, with friends like Sheriff and Déby, it is clear why those I have just described must be enemies.

But watch out, my president! First, it would seem you are your own worst enemy for always acting contrary to your best interest by scorning the general good. Second, those you call your friends may well be your mortal enemies.

See how your latest bosom friend, Sheriff, connived — since you had no knowledge of it — with your brother president in Chad to embarrass you! But perhaps you are not embarrassed, which would be yours and Nigeria’s great ethical dilemma.

And why Davis still has you in a tight corner and the public thinks Boko Haram is winning the war against Nigeria. Sir, you must do better than tell us that Sheriff did not travel with you to Djamena. The point is that you did not protest his presence, not seeing the moral implication of having him within arm’s length at this very time. If you will not have Sheriff prosecuted, you are obliged at the very least to tell him to go and clear his name. And that until then you will not be seen in his company.

For the trouble, sir, is that as with Sheriff, so with every minister, governor or close associate who has been accused of serious wrong-wrongdoing, even of crime.

Thus, one might say that with you integrity comes with a bad reputation. That your best political friends are precisely those under suspicion, the thicker the cumulus cloud of suspicion the better. Making me wonder if Sheriff, like Mr Ayodele Fayose and Senator Iyiola Omisore, will not emerge as the Borno State PDP governorship candidate before long. A moral black hole threatens your government and my worry is that you don’t give a damn about that.