Some of my relatives lived for decades in the North, in Kano and Bornu. They spoke fluent Hausa. (One relative taught me, at the age of eight, to count in Hausa.) They made planned visits to Anambra only a few times a year, at Christmas and to attend weddings and funerals. But sometimes, in the wake of violence, they made unplanned visits. I remember the word ‘Maitatsine’ – to my young ears, it had a striking lyricism – and I remember the influx of relatives who had packed a few bags and fled the killings. What struck me about those hasty returns to the East was that my relatives always went back to the North. Until two years ago when my uncle packed up his life of thirty years in Maiduguri and moved to Awka. He was not going back. This time, he felt, was different.
My uncle’s return illustrates a feeling shared by many Nigerians about Boko Haram: a lack of hope, a lack of confidence in our leadership. We are experiencing what is, apart from the Biafran war, the most violent period in our nation’s existence. Like many Nigerians, I am distressed about the students murdered in their school, about the people whose bodies were spattered in Nyanya, about the girls abducted in Chibok. I am furious that politicians are politicizing what should be a collective Nigerian mourning, a shared Nigerian sadness.
And I find our president’s actions and non-actions unbelievably surreal.
I do not want a president who, weeks after girls are abducted from a school and days after brave Nigerians have taken to the streets to protest the abductions, merely announces a fact-finding committee to find the girls.
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| Goodluck Jonathan |
I want President Jonathan to be consumed, utterly consumed, by the state of insecurity in Nigeria. I want him to make security a priority, and make it seem like a priority. I want a president consumed by the urgency of now, who rejects the false idea of keeping up appearances while the country is mired in terror and uncertainty. I want President Jonathan to know – and let Nigerians know that he knows – that we are not made safer by soldiers checking the boots of cars, that to shut down Abuja in order to hold a World Economic Forum is proof of just how deeply insecure the country is. We have a big problem, and I want the president to act as if we do. I want the president to slice through the muddle of bureaucracy, the morass of ‘how things are done,’ because Boko Haram is unusual and the response to it cannot be business as usual.
I want President Jonathan to communicate with the Nigerian people, to realize that leadership has a strong psychological component: in the face of silence or incoherence, people lose faith. I want him to humanize the lost and the missing, to insist that their individual stories be told, to show that every Nigerian life is precious in the eyes of the Nigerian state.
I want the president to seek new ideas, to act, make decisions, publish the security budget spending, offer incentives, sack people. I want the president to be angrily heartbroken about the murder of so many, to lie sleepless in bed thinking of yet what else can be done, to support and equip the armed forces and the police, but also to insist on humaneness in the midst of terror. I want the president to be equally enraged by soldiers who commit murder, by policemen who beat bomb survivors and mourners. I want the president to stop issuing limp, belated announcements through public officials, to insist on a televised apology from whoever is responsible for lying to Nigerians about the girls having been rescued.
I want President Jonathan to ignore his opponents, to remember that it is the nature of politics, to refuse to respond with defensiveness or guardedness, and to remember that Nigerians are understandably cynical about their government.
I want President Jonathan to seek glory and a place in history, instead of longevity in office. I want him to put aside the forthcoming 2015 elections, and focus today on being the kind of leader Nigeria has never had.
I do not care where the president of Nigeria comes from. Even those Nigerians who focus on ‘where the president is from’ will be won over if they are confronted with good leadership that makes all Nigerians feel included. I have always wanted, as my president, a man or a woman who is intelligent and honest and bold, who is surrounded by truth-telling, competent advisers, whose policies are people-centered, and who wants to lead, who wants to be president, but does not need to – or have to- be president at all costs.
President Jonathan may not fit that bill, but he can approximate it: by being the leader Nigerians desperately need now.
- Chimamanda Adichie is the award winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus, The Thing Around Your Neck and Americanah Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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Beautiful right up from an idealistic mind. But really, are there human without errors? I don't think so. President Jonathan is a human and he has never denied his humanness for one day. The truth about our country's situation is that it is laden with complexities such that those idealist concepts cannot work well. Here we have this proclivity toward our religion, tribe and so on that even the good intentions and actions of a leader is misconstrued using our tribal or religious binoculas. It is important for Chimamanda to seek to understand the effort Mr President is making towards making Nigeria better. To see that no credit was given to GEJ in this article is to believe that she is some what bias. It is true that I cannot say that the president fits in those ideas perfectly but let chimamanda know that GEJ towers high in performance in the chronicles of past nigerian presidents. The infrastructural revolution in a near war situation can only be commended by progressive minds. There is massive turn around in the agricultural sector despite distractions from the primary beneficiaries ie the Northern Nigeria. The rail is coming alive, the security system overhaul. We must realize that we have never made preparations for this magnitude of insecurity hence the president should supported. Most importantly the northern governor make little efforts at assisting the president. While we can't lay clam on the ideal, we must come to grip with gaps. Paying all attention on the negatives will lead to more frustration. We must savour our successes, gain strength there from and ask "what do we need to do differently.
ReplyDeleteEmeka
evaluable413@yahoo.com
You're obviously disillusioned. What you have listed as the President's efforts has little or nothing to do with the issue at hand. Chimamnda's concern is about the president's body language and absolute show of stupidity. A president that went for a party and a rally the day after. @emeka - may u go for a party the next day after your sister or mother or daughter is smitten to pieces by a bomb. @emeka - may you form a fact finding committee 1 month after your sister abducted. Sometimes I wonder if people like have any brain at all. Nobody begged GEJ to run for President, so he must be ready to tackle the complexity of Nigeria without us making excuses for him. George Bush did not prepare for Sept 11 attacks, Obama was not prepared for Boston bombings but there reactions showed leadership and concerted efforts! O Emeka, O Fool, wake up from ur world of stupidity and face the reality at our hand. We're in a big mess and GEJ is clueless
DeleteYou have said it all. The President should re-weigh his capability to rule this country and act accordingly. He should ignore those ignoble aids and assistants working with him and refused to tell him the truth. I must tell the truth 99.9% of Nigerian are not happy with GEJ. They look at his pictures with disdain and hopelessness. During the presidential media chat this evening, I was in a salon, everybody who came in gave one discordant comment or another on The President. I told them that they should not forget that that was our president, but one person retorted that GEJ was the president of his household. Isn't that enough evidence that Nigerians are fed up? May God help us out! Amen!
ReplyDelete99.9% of Nigerians who understand this country and what is happening support GEJ full time. Those who don't are women, biased men and scores of those who don't know Nigerian history. We elected governors whom we pay salaries and they equally loot our coffers, three of them have failled to protect lives and property in their various states and majority of Nigerians have insisted that those trio will not be removed to pave way for full state of emergency. At the same time we want to develop our democracy, do you want GEJ to act like OBJ and Nigeria that is already on fire will survive it? NO. Going down history lane, IBB, OBJ, DANJUMA, BUHARI, TINUBU, ATIKU etc have amassed so much wealth and experience (Negatively though) that anyone they don't want will not be there and they have said and acted it. These are men who made majority of us poor, uneducated, uninformed, uncivilised and crude. Which of our past leaders have ever thought about educating the ALMAJIRI? But majority of our past leaders are from that part of the country. If then they don't know the problems of their immediate constituency how can they know and tackle the problems of Nigeria and Nigerians?
ReplyDeleteHe should act like president. The man is too clueless. We are facing international terrorism in the north but the man and his sycophants are saying it is all about destroying his government . People are dying helplessly and yet the man feels it is about 2015 or ijaw man issue. Allegations and accusations on the northerners being behind the killings yet nobody is arrested. Even without BH issue the man is a failure. He was vice to late Yar adua when he dropped down petrol pump price to N65 from 70 and started working on our refinery, where are we today? The man said ASUU strike was political before seeking solutions after six months. PDP has no solutions let for once behave like Americans and have alternative /change at up so that politics can be healthier than this. GEJ should stop giving attention to religious matter not to talk of CAN. Nigeria has no religious problems. They only claim we have one to attach importance to their office. Whether Nigeria divides or not one cannot eliminate xtainity from the north neither can you eliminate Islam from the south. GOD bless Nigeria
ReplyDelete@Emeka. Its this talk about infrastructural achievement etc that angers me. Nigerians have never felt so insecure in Nigeria than now. more people are being displaced everyday. kidnappings everywhere, so much unemployment of nigerian youths etc. corruption is at its all time high and is even being trivialized. how can you flaunt credentials of infrastructure or whatever when life has become so insecure. are you guys no longer human? are your conscience dead? Nigerian leaders are SELFISH! They are not the least patriotic. Their personal ambitions for political power has clouded their visions. Nigerians deserve more than what we are getting from our president!! Let him go after the sponsors of boko haram and end this bloodshed once and for all.
ReplyDeleteJonathan know what he is doing.at least he was able to call governors to security meeting, why can't he continue in that direction and end the insecurity and senseless killing.God come and save nigeria o.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree that this is a religious issue as has beeb bandied about by Nigerians who know no better. I agree that unease lies the head that wears the crown but that head has got to show what it is... THE HEAD. Whatever is wrong with the head is wrong with the whole body. There is something wrong with our head. That thing is ultimately wrong with the whole country. Our president cannot do it alone,we understand but he has shown no sign of even understanding what he should do. Chimamanda has not dwelled on the negatives,she has only dwelled on the issue at hand and suggested what is expected of a leader. Sir historian,is that so bad?
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