First is President Barrack Obama, the World Bank institution and the victorious Kim.
In a US election year where the incumbent president faces a tough call on all sides, one more foreign policy success is a decided plus. However, going beyond this is the need for the Obama Presidency, the World Bank institution and the victorious Kim to heed the very loud protests of the ‘rest of the world’ that is growing more and more uncomfortable with Pax Americana. As history has showed us over time, even the most impregnable empire bult by men ultimately goes into decline.
The challenge before America therefore is whether it will voluntarily engineer the invitable power-sharing reforms that the times call for or be compelled to do so with of course greater costs. While the choice of the Korean-American Kim, in the first place suggests that the liberal wing of the foreign policy elite currently in charge in Washington remains aware of how the world sees it post-Iraq, the trouble however is that the Kim option may have been too little, too late.
Next would be the lessons of the loss for Okonjo Iweala herself, Nigeria’s President Jonathan and our own foreign policy elite. Rather than the current tendency to see the loss in a deterministic mould as a continuation of ‘the impregnable superpower conspiracy’ or in the equally obtuse consolatory and fact-spinning framework that ‘we gave as much a fight as they gave and the world order has definitely changed for good,’ this reviewer would prefer to see the loss for what it was: the outcome of very poor strategic planning ab initio.
Let me explain. When the news first hit the wires that Okonjo-Iweala was a decided candidate for the position, the word from her, her handlers and the government was between denial and mum. This was an initial mistake which communicated to the world and indeed the Americans that strong as Iweala’s credentials were, she and Nigeria were indeed not ‘sure’ candidates!
For a position that everyone had known (five years ago!) was going to be vacant this month, and which Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala was in a pole position to occupy given her placement in the World Bank system amidst other pluses, that error is a grave comfirmation that our foreign policy apparatchik is sadly no longer in the mould of the valiant warriors and planners that against greater ‘cold war’ odds, literally secured the decolonization of Angola, Mozambique, Guineau Bissau, Cape Verde and Zimbabwe, and in record time too!
The unfortunate foreign policy faux pas was to be taken to a higher level when despite the glaring fact that America and her friends were going to ultimately carry the vote, we decided to take the rather antagonistic approach of confronting and not lobbying Uncle Sam! Pray, what point were we intent on making? And at what costs?
Matters of cost raise the other issue about how really inadequately, the campaign and indeed the affairs of the nation continue to be run. Rather than focus on the only realistic winning card in the game, namely, pressuring President Obama from publicly naming and endorsing an American choice which he was politically--bound to back to the end if he did, or in failing to get this, proceed to ceaselessly keep up the pressure on America and the American choice to voluntarily pull out of the race - as the third contender, Ocampo reportedly did – we preferred to endorse and despatch all kinds of low-weight lobby teams – at of course collosal costs to this poor third world country - to junket the globe and get us the votes which only one man, America’s President Barrack Obama held!!
Compounding the strategy crisis is an initial tragedy of value. A friend who served in the top echelopns of the Obasanjo presidency had remarked to me in an airport-room chat years ago that ‘richard, one of the shocking disclosures I have made in government is the almost total absence of rigour in the decision-making process.’ This much was brought to play in the current situation under reference.
Let us play back the tape. In April 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan was elected for a four yearm term in office. Having promised to hit the ground running, Nigerians were encouraged when he soon after the election proceeded on a one-week-retreat to the hilly ranges of the Obudu Ranch Resort in a manner reminiscent of second-term American presidents moving to Camp David ahead of constituting and making public their cabinet. But Nigeria is no America and this President did not have the discipline to properly hang a ‘men at work’ sign on his door and so Obudu became another carnival.
Even after the Obudu fiasco and a team was eventually put together several weeks after his return to Abuja, the nation yet had to wait many other weeks for the single super-minister-nomineee that the president was counting on to drive the transformation agenda’ who you may have guessed is also our own Okonjo-Iweala.
Now to say that the task at hand for any leader in Nigeria today is not massive is to simply lie. It is. But it is even more puzzling that just six months into the ‘strong woman’ settling into tackling this massive challenge, the nation and her quizzingly lean resources have being mobilized and deployed with neither rigorous analysis nor hint of caution into winning for her this clearly elusive and moreso essentially personal trophy!
For Iweala herself, the lesson if she would see it as dispassionately as she should, is all too clear. Madam, this nation has given you much and could have given you the World Bank presidency were it in our power to do so. But the nation and its people are now asking that beyond rhetoric, you should give them a few things.
One, you are a super-minister in a system that many Nigerians believe is yet the problem and not the solution. Being a super-minister is not just an ego-ride and is not also just about the access that guarantees the capacity to get the whole nation behind you as you prosecute your own personal career objectives as has just been displayed. More than this it demands that you change your wardrobe and get into grease and sand-attuned overalls.
If you have not been properly briefed by now, we will proceed to help you see yourself as many Nigerians see you. Indeed, the Nigerian people do not dislike you and would on an even day, back your strengths and guts where they are well-channeled. And rather than the ‘protestations of personal innocence’ you were making in the heat of the fuel subsidy fiasco, it is this ‘to whom much is given’ scenario that accounted for much of the negative bile that followed you and your government’s handling of the first phase of the fuel subsidy removal.
But that they fought you on that very badly handled policy-correction process does not mean they will not back you when you now stand up to work for, and be seen as working in their interest.
One such recent example is on how your recent campaign and sad loss was handled. Almost to a man, and even when there was no real stake for them other than the emotional attachment of having ‘one of our own up there,’ they supported your bid and ignored the deeper reality that our lean resources were being deployed to pursuing it - without an initial budgetary allocation and almost without caps! Even for analysts like us who had seen through the gaffes and knew your bid was a still-born one, we out of personal courtesy tinged with a dose of national interest would not discuss it until now.
And so this is the message that the people would want to pass over to you. Madam minister, the battle for the World Bank presidency is over. You could have made it but you did not. However, since all things work together for good,’ you should see in this loss the fact that your current assignment as a minister handling very critical roles in the government requires even stronger attention, drive and action.
For example, we have heard you address the nation on the drawbacks of the present system where government players at different levels dangerously draw down on the treasury without any scant regard for tomorrow. Can you intensify this message and find practical ways to halt this abberant practice. The CBN governor is I believe in sync with you on this and I dare say that organised labour, civil society, the media, the masses and even the President (at least nicodemously) too. Can you be a more vibrant champion for this most deserving national crusade given that it would give a strong push to the imperative of expenditure-tracking at all levels. And this is not without precedent given the experience in the Obasanjo era when your former deputy, Nenadi Usman, regularly released data on allocations to different tiers of government.
You have also talked of other laudable change initiatives as the need for port reforms, the proper diversification of the economy, fighting corruption and a smaller and more attuned government bureaucracy. We agree with you on these and wonder why with your work so clearly cut out for you, you wanted to abandon your silent backers in this fight and ‘check out’ once again in the first place? Or have you not seen how long it takes for the system handlers to permit ‘one good person’ (like your good self now) to come up close to, and even join them there at the top where the opportunity cost to build or ruin Nigeria in any dispensation is decided?
Finally Doc, like many other Nigerians, I do believe that Nigeria is a great nation that has been so gravely abused. I also believe that this abuse is not irreversible and I see two critical segments that would get us to our promised land. One is visionary, nation and people-oriented policies; and the other is a hard-working, disciplined and focussed leadership. This is not the day to talk policy. But I have followed your story for well over a decade now and am personally satisfied that you fit into the leadership mould that we are talking about. I want to also assure you that, like the Lord told Elijah, you are not alone in this standing. ‘There are 7000 others that have not bowed their knees to Baal.’ So be encouraged, and continue to do your own bit. We shall overcome very soon.
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