HAS anyone seen or heard, sensed or otherwise encountered Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, Ambassador Aminu Wali, acting out his remit lately?
This is the more nuanced version of the question that has been on my mind: Has anyone in the attentive audience ever seen, heard, sensed or otherwise encountered Ambassador Aminu Wali acting out his remit since he was appointed Foreign Minister in March 2014?
I first raised this question in the wake of the Chibok abductions, when the accident-prone Jonathan Administration stumbled from miscue to egregious miscue in a perfect calendar of blunders. Day after day, Nigeria took a pummeling in the global news media, and the foreign minister who should have been the international face of Nigeria at such a time was nowhere to be found.
In his place, Dr Jonathan pressed into service political hacks innocent of the subtleties of international communication, rank amateurs who operate on the principle that the higher the decibel, the more persuasive the message. They ended up confirming the worst fears of Nigerians and foreign audiences about the capacity or lack thereof at the top.
Since then, Boko Haram has escalated its campaign of murder and mayhem and entered into the foreign policy calculations of the most prominent international actors. It has battled the ill-equipped and ill-used Nigerian military to a stalemate, often dictating the terms of engagement. In one instance, an entire army battalion faced with Boko Haram’s superior firepower and motivation “tactically maneuvered” its way to neighbouring Cameroun, where it was disarmed and transported safely back to base.
No matter how they spin it, this incident is a humiliation for the military, from which the Minister of Defence and, for that matter, the Commander-in-Chief, cannot wholly absolve themselves. The diplomatic ramifications are plain. Yet, they did not move the Minister of Foreign Affairs to issue a statement or call a news conference to address at least some of those issues.
They say the nation is at war, and yet the Foreign Minister, the nation’s chief diplomat who should be explaining the situation to the outside and deflecting damaging charges of unlawful killings and gross human rights violations made against the military by the highly credible Amnesty International and other organisations is nowhere to be seen.
No, I take that back.
Ambassador Wali has actually been sighted lately, but not in a foreign policy context. He was desperately trying to sell Jonathan to political kingmakers in the so-called North West geopolitical zone as the best thing to have happened to Nigeria since the amalgamation, and an unquestionably worthy candidate for reelection.
It fell on him to read the communiqué at the end of the September 1 meeting, from which I quote: “Having carefully considered the steady and stable progress of our nation under the able leadership of the President, the stakeholders of PDP in the North West, having in mind the monumental strides attained by this administration, have resolved to urge President Jonathan to declare for president in the forthcoming 2015 elections so as to continue the good works he started in nation building.”
Four days later, on September 4, Wali actually took a break from campaigning for Dr Jonathan’s re-election to do something that was perfectly within his remit: He held talks in Abuja with the foreign ministers of Cameroun, Benin, and Chad to urge a joint approach to curbing arms trafficking and violence in the sub–region.
By and large, however, an official who should be hopping from one foreign capital to another trying to repair Nigeria’s not-so-savoury image has been turned into a campaigner for a president who has not even declared that he will seek re-election, an operative of the ruling PDP for all practical purposes.
In the United States from which Nigeria copied its much-abused Republican Constitution, Wali would have faced severe public censure. Though he owes his tenure to the president, a cabinet official cannot turn himself or herself into a functionary of the ruling party, of any party for that matter. A member of the cabinet who wants to campaign for the president will first have to resign, cease drawing an income from the public payroll and derive his sustenance from the party’s coffers.
Ambassador Wali is of course not the only minister or senior official who has been dragooned into Dr Jonathan’ re-election campaign, or has insinuated himself or herself into it in the mistaken belief that the job demands it. There is Professor Rufai Alkali who answers the title of Senior Special Adviser on Political Affairs to the President. Paid from the public purse like Wali, he has been conscripted to coordinate the activities of some 80 mushroom organisations whose self-assigned mission is to ensure Dr Jonathan’s re-election.
Wali stands out from the lot because of the stark incongruity between his cabinet portfolio and his campaign errands for Dr Jonathan.
Given the abuse he has suffered from his principal and the self-abuse to which he has subjected himself, it is no wonder that his expertise has not been tapped even tangentially in the most recent foreign policy misadventure of the Jonathan Administration.
I have in mind last week’s dramatic seizure of N9.3 million from a Nigerian-owned private jet that landed in a private airport near Johannesburg, South Africa. The Nigerian authorities say the money was for the purchase of arms from private vendors for the security services and that the shipment was properly documented.
Now, if national sovereignty means anything, it means that Nigeria can legitimately purchase arms and ammunition to protect is territorial integrity. So, why the secrecy? Why go through third parties that are not even primarily arms dealers. Why were the South African authorities not properly briefed? Why was no Nigerian embassy official on hand to provide diplomatic and intelligence cover to forestall any embarrassment?
The South African authorities seem to be acting on the theory that this was a money-laundering caper gone awry and are not in the least impressed by the disingenuous fudging that has marked the Nigerian government’s attempt to explain away the incident.
I am not betting that, for once, they will trot out Ambassador Wali to try to finesse what is without question a diplomatic fiasco with criminal undertones.
Or that he and indeed his principal are seized of the foreign policy implications of a pronouncement by a United States District Court last May that the status of a drug suspect and fugitive with the improbable name of Buruji Kashamu as “a political figure in Nigeria, and his relationship with President Goodluck Jonathan,” would render futile any attempt to extradite him to the United States to face criminal charges.
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Benjamin Adekunle: A Postscript
In the tributes that have been paid to the memory of Brigadier Benjamin “Black Scorpion” Adekunle who died last week, aged 78, much emphasis has been laid on his heroic even if controversial civil war exploits. His no less heroic exertions in decongesting Lagos Port, a task reminiscent of one of the more daunting labours of Hercules, was reduced to a footnote, if not forgotten altogether.
It was a titanic undertaking.
From the Marina, you could see ranged as far as the horizon ships laden with cement and consumer goods, the reckless importation of which a country awash in petrodollars had approved, money being the longer the problem but how to spend it.
Some of the vessels had waited six months to berth, with no hope of doing so in another six months. Meanwhile more ships laden with more consumer goods convergedon the port from all over the world, paralyzing handling facilities.
Demurrage billed to the Federal Government exceeded the annual budgets of the poorer West African countries put together.
Adekunle cleared the mess with brutal efficiency.
The task presented him with an opportunity, no questions asked, to acquire enough wealth to last his progeny till the end of time. He spurned it, unlike many of his contemporaries.
He lived the last two decades of his life in near destitution.
