Any programme to be consumed by Nigerians must be produced in Nigeria- Lai Mohammed insists

1. 

   Oge Ubasom

   July 22, 21:37 Reply

   Of course, there were side attractions such as sleeping in some of the best hotels
   in the world or coming face to face with many of the
   people whom one merely heard their names before
   or watched them on television and finding that there is no mystique around most of them.
   And the dramatic encounters of which the one between Lamido and Kofi Annan on Robert Guei’s coup
   in Cote d’Ivoire must be the most memorable. Let me
   not miss out the Obasanjo factor in Nigerian foreign policy
   to which Nigerian scholars have not paid any serious
   attention, probably because Obasanjo is generally not popular with them.

   For these reasons, foreign affairs was quite an experience for me even though
   the level at which I operated was not where I could directly determine anything, officially.
   But there is no other arena which could have more brutally brought home to me
   the discomforting truism that Africa has too long a way to travel.

   Then from foreign affairs, I came to be the media
   adviser to Sule Lamido again in Jigawa State since
   June 4th, 2007. And there is a connection between the two: while foreign affairs was the theatre for the rhetoric on one of the key issues which defines international politics, Jigawa was the theatre for the practice.

   It is the story of two contrasting worlds that could
   be a fascinating read if imaginatively told.

   Now, however, that chapter has come to a close. Like in all things beautiful, there is
   always a contradiction which, once it reaches
   the fore, cannot but transform a thesis and an anti-thesis into a synthesis.
   That is how revolutions come about without anybody being able to abort it.
   And that was how the Jigawa theatre kept narrowing for me to a point that any
   attempt to stay on would be to risk killing a beautiful relationship entirely.
   No sacrifice is too great to make so that such does not happen because Sule Lamido
   has played a part in my life.

   As long as my stay lasted, Jigawa was hospitable and clement, near perfect.
   The people were friendly and good across the board: from the youths to the political elite to Jigawa emirs who are not only exposed but very,
   very welcoming. It was an incredible source of joy mixing into people of different cultural
   identities from mine and being centrally a part of a government in Nigeria
   that proclaimed from day one that “Our programmes, pronouncements and actions will bear the unmistakable stamp of the moral and ideological character of the political background we come from”.
   And then went on to say that “Let me, therefore, at this juncture, state the ideological background of the leadership of this new government. It is firmly anchored on the antecedent of Democratic Humanism as defined and epitomized by its chief exponent, Mallam Aminu Kano. That is the only ideological framework by which this government can satisfy the yearnings of the vast majority of our people whom poverty and misery have reduced to conditions unworthy of human beings”.
   These were enough for me to give my all.
   There was no naivety in doing so because if the leadership at the centre in 2007
   or even now could vocalize these sentiments, half of Nigeria’s problems would not
   be there. Nigerians are slaughtering themselves today only
   because ideological mobilisation other than ethno-religious and regional consciousness is
   missing from leadership and politics. Instead of politics of ideology, we are
   presented with politics of good men and good intentions.

   I thank Sule Lamido for availing me of these two experiences.
   I will miss his intuitive flare and, well, the emperor size ego.
   It is not debateable whether Oxford University don, Professor
   Anthony Kirk-Greene had my boss in mind when he wrote his paper titled “His Eternity, His Eccentricity And His Exemplarity? A Further Contribution to the Study of His Excellency the African Head of State”.

   But without the ego, Sule Lamido will not be Sule Lamido.
   It is the ego which propels him to compete with himself
   and attain the brilliant finishing uniquely his.
   Those who have not been to Dutse in recent years may never understand this statement.

   It is too fulfilling leaving without any blemish, especially financial.
   I only wish the critics who think that everyone with access
   to a governor did nothing else than steal government money knew how much I had left the day I turned in my letter of resignation, particularly the judge who once sent a message to me and another colleague
   in the Media Unit of the Government House saying he knew
   we had made money. Some of us stole nobody’s money.

   I have got too many people to thank for their contributions to whatever I was able to contribute to
   the government. There is a Benue brother who will lead this
   pack for taking off a lot of my material burdens while I pushed the frontiers of a regime
   publicist. Just as there is a Jigawa brother who provided me a take-off grant
   to start a hut in Abuja. There is yet another Jigawa senior brother
   who made a material intervention in my brother’s medical trip
   to South Africa merely on the basis of hearing me on the phone complaining to the doctors over there
   about the cost. These are humbling interventions that must be mentioned in this farewell.

   I must acknowledge the numerous editors who bore the burden of my aggressive pressure for editorial space.
   I thank all the comrades and civil society actors who extended automatic though critical solidarity
   at all times. I cannot thank enough the elders in the profession who kept pointing out one thing or the other to me.
   These were people who had nothing to gain from me materially whatsoever.
   Lastly, I thank all the junior staff in the Government House, Dutse.
   Their helpfulness and reliability provides the
   evidence for my conviction that the problem of ethno-religious intolerance
   in Nigeria is strictly an elite affair.

   The departure from Jigawa did not permit the luxury of another job before turning in the resignation. So, for now, I am Mr.

   Onoja of No-Fixed Address. But I can see a magnificent new phase
   of life opening for me. I cannot say what the new
   phase would be at the moment but the outlines promise
   to be even more fulfilling.

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