Kenya’s Raula Odinga’s declaration of himself as president of Kenya, this week and his inauguration in that nation, as well as Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address, which was a lesson on the ideals of government, and democracy dominate our thoughts today. Both events question the essence power, authority and legitimacy in any democracy. Along with these but on the lighter side we look at a comment by a diplomat at a Diplomats Night organized by Nigeria’s premier social club – The Island Club, Onikan Lagos – at which a retired Ambassador ridiculed journalists as only interested in sensationalism while diplomats carry out foreign policy, a dubious claim that I intend to expose here as a fallacy.
With regard to Kenya I want to remind the self- declared Peoples President Raula Odinga of an African proverb which states that until one has seized the hilt of his sword he does not inquire the cause of his father’s death. This proverb is applicable to Odinga in terms of his personal history and political life as well as a form of saying of the wise to be respected. In declaring himself as president Odinga has taken the fight to the rightful president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta. It is a bold fight between legitimate authority and a stolen and illegal presidency. It is a challenge against constituted authority . Really, Odinga’ has murdered’ sleep and like Shakespeare’s Macbeth,’ will not sleep again’.
Perhaps Odinga is taking the matter personal between him and Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta as their fathers were President and Vice President respectively and parted company over succession when Kenyatta picked Arap Moi as his successor over the leftist father of Odinga. More than that too, even though it does not matter, was the fact that Odinga had won election in Kenya before in 2007 and had to be pacified after riots and appeased by a new constitutional contrivance that created a post of Prime Minister for him for peace to reign in Kenya then. But now with a self declared president in place with an elected president, can peace reign in Kenya? The answer is definitely No. This is because the legitimate government must claim and assert its authority or else it will be assumed to have been usurped effectively and decisively, albeit illegally by the self declared Peoples presidency of Raula Odinga. Unfortunately the Kenyatta government moved against the media instead of its political challenger and closed the media threatening them with total closure if they covered the event only for a court to overrule even that misguided order by asking that the media houses be opened for the duration of the hearing of the case on the matter. So who is in control in Kenya? Definitely the whole world is watching with baited breath political developments in Kenya as a unique event and development in and for Africa.
Similarly in Nigeria it was widely reported in the news media that the former governor of Kano State now Senator Rabiu Kwankwanso was advised by the state police command not to come to the state during the week until the security situation in the state was ‘ neutralized’. I thought that was a new way of addressing security situations because if security is neutralized it means it has been compromised and it is not adequate. Which can only mean or lead to insecurity. Was that what the state Police Command had in mind? I doubt. Anyway, what stops a former governor visiting a state he developed so much and so well and in which he handed over to his Deputy who is now governor? Definitely something big and suspicious is happening in Kano politically that needs security to be ‘neutralized ‘before a governor who was a hero during his tenure as governor cannot suddenly be seen in broad daylight by the people he once governed so popularly.
In the US, Donald Trump gave his State of the Union Address which to me was a very brilliant one to bring unity amongst all Americans irrespective of their political leanings. That he was able to couch and deliver such a speech in the midst of the media war he created by lambasting part of the media as Fake News and the on going Russia hacking and interference in the 2016 presidential elections is really amazing. I really do not care what the American political elites and media make of Trump’s presidency but I want to share some of the fascinating aspects of that speech with anyone interested good political literature and fine people oriented rhetoric.
At a ceremony to which were brought ordinary Americans who had performed incredible but patriotic duties like the kid who mad flags for graves of dead US military heroes, Trump rallied Americans in my view like Winston Churchill rallied the British people in their darkest hour during the Second World War. Except that the Americans are facing no war now, besides that between the Republicans and Democrats on one hand, and the media war between their president and those he had labeled Fake News on the other.
Trump told his people that in America it is faith and family that count, not government and bureaucracy, because America’s motto is – In God we trust.
In a moving exhortation he applauded that America gave the world the arts and music, science and other spheres of knowledge. The American people he said dreamed the US, the American people built it, and it is the American people who are making it great again. When leader invokes power and authority as belonging to the electorate in any democracy he cannot but have their admiration and undying support in any clime and in any polity. No matter how grudgingly, it is difficult not to admire Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address.
Let me now round up with the retired Ambassador who mocked journalists at the Diplomats Night of the prestigious Island Club this week. I was at the event at which the Chief of Protocol represented the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I raised a question on what is now the cornerstone of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy which was the topic of the day. The Minister’s representative did her best in identifying National Interest as the Ministry’s focus of attention before former Ambassador Segun Akinsanya came up to patronizingly insult journalists by claiming that they are only interested in sensationalism and do not know anything about foreign policy which he claimed to be the work of diplomats. Which to me is a comparison that was as unnecessary as it was grossly misinformed. This is because the media has a huge input in any foreign policy, including one that is focused on National Interest because even that is moulded and articulated by the media before it becomes foreign policy. Diplomats and Ambassadors do not make foreign policies, governments and politicians do, and Ambassadors and diplomats carry out the dictates of the policy. Perhaps the pomp and pageantry of diplomacy, the balls and cocktails may put diplomats and Ambassadors in the lime light while the journalists bring the issues to the public domain as foreign policy from the background, but that does not mean that Ambassadors and Diplomats make foreign policies. In fact and indeed they run errands across the globe to implement foreign policy. They do not make it just like the saying that ‘ the hood does not make the monk‘. Once again, Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
