Nigeria: Very Rich, Very Irresponsibly Managed

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Last Wednesday, we had a very important and urgent need to be in Kumasi very early the next day. It was already midnight (Nigerian Time –11pm in Ghana), and we were still in the heart of Accra, surrounded by its brilliant lights, soothing serenity (there was not the faintest hint of any generator anywhere) and profound modesty, wondering what to do. But a Ghanaian who was with us did not seem to share our worries. He simply told us to hit the road, that in the next three hours, we should be in Kumasi.

Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama and

President Goodluck Jonathan (pix:ghanaweb)

I looked at him with surprise and disbelief. Who was sure nobody had hired him to lure the three of us into a well-laid ambush by violent robbers? When I expressed my concern about armed robbers, his answer was sharp, with a tinge of impatience.

“There are no armed robbers!”

When I repeated the concern much later, he said something he should not have said, but which Nigerians need to continue hearing no matter how painful we find it: “I have told you… no armed robbers! This is not Nige…!” He cut himself short. It occurred to him, a bit too late though, that he had gone too far in his bid to emphasize that point.

Just like the way I felt when I shouted to some Nigerians at one place we had gone to in Accra some days later when the driver was about to run over a bag: “Remove that Ghana-Must-Go bag!” The other Nigerians there looked at me with horror in their eyes. Then one of them said something like: "How can you be shouting Ghana-Must-Go in Accra?" 

 When I called a Nigerian friend and he reassured me that the long journey from Accra to Kumasi was safe, we hit the road. At the one or two places where very friendly policemen stopped us, they merely looked at the vehicle and waved us on with their torches, without the slightest hint that they wanted an ‘egunje.’ And so, after a long journey through lonely, lengthy stretches of the expressway, and vast quiet countryside, we embraced the warmth of the clean, well-lit streets of Kumasi early that cold morning, and found our way to the serene ambience of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Compared to Nigeria, Ghana is, no doubt, a very poor country. Beyond the glitter of an efficient system is poverty that is real and palpable. But Ghana has been lucky with its leaders. What nation would not prosper under the watch of a visionary, patriotic leader who is not afraid of his people who had elected him in fairly free and fair elections, but lives among them (instead of hiding himself in an impregnable fortress like our leaders do in Aso Rock). He is able to inspire the citizenry to believe in him, and buy into his determination to put in place a workable system? It is only thieving, failed leaders that live in perpetual fear of their people.

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and 
Technology, Kumasi, Ghana (pix:talloiresnetwork)

Throughout my stay in Ghana, I never dialled any number twice with my Ghana MTN line, no matter the country I called! But ever so often in Nigeria, if you dial a number duly saved in your phone, and with which you may have talked with the owner just a few minutes ago, what you would probably hear is: “This number does not exist on the MTN network.”

Then you try again: “The number you have dialled is incorrect.”

And you dial the third time: “The number you have dialled is switched off.”

Fourth time: “The number you have dialled is unavailable.”

And if you have the patience to try the fifth time, it may then go through! What a country! 

Ghana Telecom Service Providers are effectively monitored and regulated, unlike what the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) claims it is doing for us here. The Ghana regulatory body ensures that no service provider sells lines more than it has the capacity to manage. It once, reportedly, called MTN to order, when it attempted to roll out lines like it does so freely in Nigeria.

Each time I recharged my line with 2 Ghana Cedis (N230), I would make several calls both to Nigeria and within Ghana, and would still have much credit remaining. But here in Nigeria, the thing finishes with incredible speed.

It offends me each time anyone attempts comparing Nigeria with Europe or America. From Swaziland, Botswana to Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia to Uganda, Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast to the Gambia, Nigeria is, perhaps, the only country in the whole of Africa that is yet to achieve reasonable stability in its electricity supply. We are here still grappling with pitch darkness and watching our pitiably blank and hare brained leaders telling embarrassing, infantile stories about their inexplicable failure and insufferable incompetence, while very poor countries we can easily buy up have since left us behind on this issue of power supply and provision of other social amenities.

In most of these countries, one can conveniently walk to any public tap and drink water, but whoever tries that in Nigeria any time some liquid manages to trickle from any public tap would be guilty of attempting suicide.

At Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Americans, Britishers, Chinese and people from diverse nations of the world are proudly enrolled as students. 

In 1993, I met an America Professor of Economics who proudly announced to me that while he studied for his Masters Degree at the University College, Ibadan, (UCI) in 1958, he stayed in Kuti Hall. I wonder if he can advise any American child today to get near that same Kuti Hall he spoke so glowingly about, or encourage the child of his worst enemy to attend a Nigerian University.

Former Ghanaian Leader, Jerry Rawlings  

While a friend and I took a walk around midnight on Saturday, we felt so safe, despite the several trees in the well landscaped and beautified compounded that lend the school its serenity, but which could provide cover for any cultists to strike. 

As we stood on a walkway, about eight American youths hopped across, chattering, laughing and feeling so much at home. I am told that children of countless Nigerian government officials are enrolled in the school, generating huge funds to Ghana with which it now offers divers scholarships to its own citizens. 

Yes, Nigerians would prefer paying all the money to Ghana than improving and making our own schools safe so that youths from several parts of the world can also come here (as used to be the case) to study. Indeed, the KNUST faculty Guest Houses can comfortably diminish some of the things that pass for “big” hotels in Nigeria.

Ghanaians do not appear to have the drive and innovativeness of Nigerians. Under sincere and honest leaders who are not mere common criminals whose eyes and hearts are only focused on the treasury to loot it pale, what would stop Nigeria from becoming one of the greatest countries in the world?

But what do we get here as leaders: the Babangidas, the Abachas, the Obasanjos: rulers who derive peculiar animation from prospering by marketing the nation’s entrails.

Obasanjo’s only noticeable achievement while in office was to join the emergency Billionaires’ Club with such fanfare and brazenness that sent all the others scampering for safety . But while leaving office, he left us in the hands of an Umaru Musa Yar’Adua whose only understanding of leadership seems to be to perennially grope for direction.

So, while our leanly endowed neighbours like Ghana are gradually laying solid foundation for greater tomorrow, Nigeria is decaying and sinking into unimaginable depths. 

Laden with an insufferably inept legislative house, and a character like Maurice Iwu as INEC Chairman, what options are left for a country so immensely rich, but so irresponsibly managed?

What a tragedy.
----------------------
(First Published July 21, 2008)

The Fury Of 'First Ladies'

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
We are indeed in very perplexing and stressful times. As a people trapped in diverse, debilitating contradictions, occasioned by obvious failure of leadership and character on the part of those directing the affairs of our clearly rundown country, the much we should expect from the growing tribe of First Spouses, First Concubines, First Children, and even First Uncles, Cousins, and Nieces, of our clearly unprofitable rulers, wallowing in flamboyant idleness and having all their unspeakable excesses serviced with state funds, is to, at least, allow some measure of humility and moderation attend the way they flaunt their sudden and limitless privileges before the rest of us.

Stella Obasanjo

It does seem that in these parts, we are most adept at creating grotesque legitimacy for the totally absurd after which we   advertise it with indecent fanfare. At the end of the day, we end up providing  delicious specimens for bellyful mirth for the civilized.

I would certainly not be bothered one bit if I never got to see the wife or concubines of any governor or president until the expiration his tenure. I do not edit a society tabloid whose passion it usually is to discover the current colour of lipstick that adorns Madam's lips or the latest revealing blouse with a plunging neckline she wears to dimly-lit balls.

*Mr. And Mrs. Obasanjo

My candid opinion is that we can do with one ruler at a time. Let the wives of our rulers spare us their clearly unappetizing presence and retreat to their houses and be good wives to their husbands and good mothers to their children. For the umpteenth time, they should please remove their mostly over-bleached, over-made-up and over-dressed selves before our faces so we can find the presence of mind to bear the pain and anguish their husbands are unleashing on us.

We are almost forgetting that the Constitution has no provisions for the so-called office
 of the First Lady.

*Lucy Kibaki

I am not bothered, for instance, if the president's wife has a battery of special assistants, senior special advisers, and even press secretaries attached to her "office", so long as their salaries and allowances are paid from the private purse of her spouse. The state can pay for her security, we can overlook that, even though her "office" is not backed by any constitutional provisions.

So when recently, Lagos lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo, issued a statement alerting the nation that the Publisher of Midwest Herald, Mr. Orobosa Omo-Ojo, whose paper had carried a story titled "Greedy Stella", had been arrested by detectives from the "D" Department of the Ondo State Police Command, on the orders of Mrs. Stella Obasanjo, I almost thought it was not happening in real life.

*Mwai And Lucy Kibaki With George And

Laura Bush In Washington

Unfortunately, my desire to obtain a copy of the Midwest Herald that week to see how it looks like could not be gratified. The real tragedy in the incident, however, was that the mainstream media proved themselves incapable of appreciating the dangerous signal the ugly development portended and decided to treat the report with levity. Well, let's wait until a "First Son" or "First Concubine" decides tomorrow to seal off the premises of a "national" newspaper, and then, our eyes would then open to the street wisdom that every monster is the product of a gradual, undiscouraged evolution.

Incidentally, this new piece of scandal was treated with amazing seriousness by the foreign media, and I could imagine the well-remunerated 'experts' at the Image Laundering Project office submitting fresh, well loaded requisitions to enable them adequately whitewash the stain the sorry event might have registered on the "model" regime in Abuja. Indeed, Mrs. Obasanjo, like every other Nigerian, was perfectly justified to feel pained if she was unfairly represented in the media, but should an aggrieved person respond to a perceived wrong by perpetrating a more insidious wrong? Are the courts in perpetual recess in Nigeria, or are we just witnessing a raw exhibition of "my-husband-is-in-charge" mentality here?

*Unruffled? Mwai And Lucy Kibaki
Dance To Usher In The New Year 2007
At The State House, Mombasa

And the fact that the poor publisher is still in detention, nearly one month after his arrest, should alert us all to the devastating evil that is gradually taking root in the nation.

Now if this incident in Nigeria represents a huge baggage of shame, what happened in Nairobi, Kenya, during the same period, where this "my-husband-is-in-charge" mentality was raised to an insufferable level by Mrs. Lucy Muthoni Kibaki, one of the wives of Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, has no counterpart within the boundaries of civilized behaviour.

Mrs. Kibaki, with her ferocious body guards, had invaded, the Muthaiga residence of the outgoing World Bank country representative, Mr. Makhtar Diop, where a private farewell party was being held in his honour, to complain that the music was too noisy and was robbing her of her sleep.

*Festus Keyamo: Against Stella
Obasanjo's Excesses

Diop was a tenant of the Kibakis. They were still his neighbours, and probably often exchanged pleasantries each time they stayed in their private residence, next door to the one rented by Diop. And Kibaki's children were also guests at the riotous party that disturbed Madam's sleep.

Mrs. Kibaki had reportedly stormed Diop's house in pyjamas, with boundless rage, demanding that the music must stop. She charged ferociously at the man, as she attempted to unplug the electrical connections supplying power to the sound systems. According to The East African Standard of Monday, May 2, 2005, a day after the incident, "the party was graced by the top cream of the diplomatic, donor and private sector circuit."

As would be expected, the Kenyan press were unsparing of Lucy Kibaki in their reports the very next day after her disgraceful outing. The East African Standard captioned its report on the incident, "The Shame of First Lady." The report in Daily Nation was no less-scathing. Angered by these reports, Mrs. Kibaki dressed in a pink blouse and blue jeans trousers, jumped into her 4WD, a Toyota Prado, and raced down to Nation Centre, the corporate headquarters of the Nation newspapers, accompanied by body guards and the Nairobi Provincial Police Chief, Mwangi King'ori. Her anger had received additional fuel with later reports that she had visited the Muthaiga Police Station to report the Diop's incident dressed in casual white shorts.

And so as she stormed Nation Centre by 11.30 pm, she was clutching a copy of the Standard where she had earned a front-page lead due to her embarrassing action. Her photograph on the front-page as she raged and raved was very unflattering. Once she got to Nation Centre, she headed upstairs to the editorial department and disrupted operations for five hours. She announced that she had come to protest the unflattering reports about her in the press.

"You reported that I went to the police station wearing shorts, what is wrong with the First Lady wearing shorts? I put on skirts and even bikinis when I go swimming. We are a decent family, humble and Christian. You have tried to discredit me since I became the First Lady," she yelled. 

*Meanwhile, A Man Looks For

Dinner From A Lagos Dustbin

Complaining about how the media refer to her husband in their reports she charged: "In the news you call him Kibaki as you did when he was campaigning, when will you learn to call him the President, [and] start respecting him?"

Then she turned and yelled at the provincial police boss that came with her:

"Does the Police Commissioner (equivalent of Nigeria's Inspector General of Police (IGP)) know that I am here protesting? Call him. He should be here with us."

And immediately, the officer went out, radioed his boss, and within some minutes, the Commissioner, Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali, was there with them. Indeed, Mrs. Kibaki was an unmitigated nuisance. She went from table to table, shouting, complaining, threatening, and even occasionally laughing.

Suddenly, she noticed the KTN cameraman, Clifford Derrick, recording her and she went berserk. Said Derrick later: "She just walked up to me and slapped me hard. I was terrified."

Yes, she attacked him and attempted to take away the camera from him. As this went on, none of the police chiefs moved an inch. According to the Standard, the "Central Officer Commanding Police Division (OCPD), Julius Ndegwa, watched from a distance, as he communicated on his pocket radio." 

Mrs. Kibaki's action has been greeted with unsparing condemnation. Derricks is considering legal action, especially, against the police, for failing to protect him from the angry woman.


Lucy Oriang, a Daily Nation columnist, called on President Kibaki the following Friday to save Kenya's honour by curtailing his wife's excesses.

I agree totally with Ms. Oriang, because, till now, Kibaki is yet to make any comment about his wife's unedifying outing. It does seem that for his government, what his wife had done was acceptable. The only reaction I have read from the authorities in Nairobi was the one some days after the incident by Dr. Alfred Mutua, government's spokesman, who was quoted in Kenya Times as dismissively saying: "The Kenyan government and its people is known for many things and a particular incident cannot cost the country's image."

If you ask me, this is the most unfortunate statement to come out of Kenya since the Mrs. Kibaki affair.

I also must add here that as much as I condemn Mrs. Kibaki's crude behaviour, I must admit that I was thoroughly sickened by the nuisance constituted by Diop's party. They have no right to rob Mrs. Kibaki of her sleep. But her reaction to the inexcusable disturbance caused by Diop and his guest has now overshadowed what was clearly unambiguous advertisement of irresponsibility on the part of the World Bank staff. His action is as detestable as that of Mrs. Kibaki who has vowed to fight her own battles and confront those who disparage her and her family.

"Every day you write lies about me, I will come to the newsrooms and you will see me in my true colours. I'm annoyed beyond control," she bellowed at Nation Centre.

Somebody should please advise Mrs. Kibaki to rather deploy this energy to keep herself away from behaviours that embarrass Kenya boundlessly.

--First Published May 2005

Enough Of The Obasanjo Family, Please!

(First Published November 26, 2008)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye           

Last Saturday (Nov 22, 2008) I wanted to purchase a copy of Bitter-Sweet: My Life With Obasanjo, by Mrs. Oluremi Obasanjo, the woman who is sparing no effort just to underline her belief that no matter what anyone, including even Gen Olusegun Obasanjo himself, thinks is the case, the truth she would want everyone to see and swallow is that among the countless women swarming the Obasanjo harem, she is the only one qualified to be called his wife.  Others, she insists, are mere concubines.

To buttress this point, she reminds us on page 91 of Bitter-Sweet, that while broadcasting the profiles of leading members of the Obasanjo junta just before he handed over power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1979, “the NTA showed me, and my husband, and our five children then, as the officially recognized and properly married wife, the wife of his youth he swore to keep forever.”

When I called the number on the invitation card for the public presentation of the book (which I didn’t attend), an elderly female voice told me to go to James Robertson Street in Surulere, that I would get the book there. In Surulere last Saturday, especially, on Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, and virtually all the other streets in the area, including Ogunlana Drive, Masha Road, and James Robertson, I encountered one of the worst traffic situations Lagos may have experienced since it began to exist, which served as painful reminder of the abysmal failure of character and leadership that had distinguished the eight-year reign of the subject of the book I was taking all the trouble to purchase.

As the traffic situation worsened, I abandoned the car in one of the streets, jumped onto an okada, and in no time, was in James Robertson Street. Since I needed to get an additional copy for someone, I bought two copies – one hard cover (N3, 000) and soft cover (N2, 000), and there went N5, 000 which I now sincerely believe, after reading the book, could have been invested in a more rewarding and edifying venture!

Now, forget the sensational reviews of the book you may have encountered so far since it was presented to the public at a very poorly attended ceremony in Lagos a fortnight ago. The book contains only very insignificant, highly biased items that could be considered new to what the public already knew about Obasanjo; there is hardly any information therein with the capacity to shock or awe; nothing really exciting, enlightening or edifying about the subjects treated in the entire book. The public appears to have more than it offers.  

Mrs. Oluremi Obasanjo At The Public Presentation 
Of The Book In Lagos

The book is all about a woman’s attempt to rewrite herself into prominence and reckoning in one man’s life, to demonstrate, albeit incoherently, that no matter who the public saw starring with Obasanjo in all those days he hugged the limelight   as Nigeria’s ruler, it was she, Oluremi, that the man regarded as the central figure in his life, despite the countless battering she got from him; that it was she who turned down the offer to live with him in Ota; that her decision to stay apart left a huge void in his life; that he was always pleading with her not to leave him alone; and that despite his brutal actions   towards her, he loved and respected her and only kept the other women as “ponies.” Although, it is known that the author and her husband were separated at some point in time (and she keeps talking, about “when I  was kicked out”) the strength of the book lies in her ability to leave the reader in total confusion about when exactly this happened, how long it has lasted, or whether it has been intermittent.

Instead, greater energy was devoted to show the prominent role she continued to play in Obasanjo’s life, playing down the separation and reducing all the other women to mere fringe elements in Obasanjo’s life. Dripping from the pages of the book is the undying love she retained for her man, and her willingness to receive him back any time he returned from his boundless wandering through countless skirts. The author’s bitterness towards late Stella was so palpable; it could not be assuaged even by her death. And the way she always gleefully announced the misfortune that met the several people that did her hurt speaks volumes about the nature of her heart. And despite all she suffered from Obasanjo (including being detained on Obasanjo’s instructions at the Lafenwa Police Station, “stripped to my underwear”), she, like Carol McCain, still loved him. But she makes a touching confession on page 64: “He is the only man I have known all my life … So when I found out his philandering exploits, I regarded it as the unkindest cut for his breaking   the sacred vow we took at the London Registry.”

Olusegun Obasanjo: The Man At The Centre Of The Storm

He went further to say that due to this multiple sleeping partners his wife was generously hosting with immense relish, he required a DNA test to establish the paternity of the children born to him by his wife, since he was not sure any more who among the three had fathered them. What a family! My heart surely goes out to those hapless tender children, who never asked to be born into the badly mismanaged Obasanjo family, and who would grow up tomorrow to grapple with the serious debilitating doubt over their paternity, raised by no other person than the man they call their father.    

Iyabo Obasanjo: First Daughter Of The Marriage

Senator Iyabo, on her part, is always in the news for the most horrible reasons. When she is not transacting very controversial and ugly deals with a name other than her own, she is being accused of mismanaging committee funds in the Senate. In fact, a newsmagazine once called her on its cover, “The Queen of Scandals,” a tag her mother on page 123 of the book thinks does not befit her daughter. Rather, Oluremi thinks her children are all unfairly having image problems because of “the name, Obasanjo.” And so, the attempt by the EFCC to get Iyabo to explain her role in the scandal involving the Senate Health Committee fund was all done “in a bid to humiliate her because she is Obasanjo’s daughter.” Iyabo, she maintains, was not appointed Ogun State Health Commissioner because she was Obasanjo’s daughter, but rather she had worked hard to earn it. I suppose she expects anyone to believe that?

My problem with this book is that it is a needless effort to advertise raw bitterness. And it would end up dishonouring the same children she loves and defends. But what sickens me most is her attempt to exonerate her children from matters in which the public is even in possession of superior facts. What it tells me is that if Obasanjo had not kicked her out of his life, she would also have been out there today defending him against Nigerians who dared express   disgust at the unmitigated disaster and organized banditry he effectively supervised for a whole eight years in Nigeria, during which corruption was effectively institutionalized and celebrated,  and  the country ruined.  

For her, so long as a person is in her good books, the person can do no wrong. So, why should I bother myself about such a person and her book?

------------------------

scruples2006@yahoo.com

US Election 2009: For Senator John McCain, Nigeria's PDP Beckons!

(First published October 22, 2009

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

No matter who is announced winner of the American presidential election after November 4, 2009, what would never remain in doubt is that this is one election that would be far-reaching in redefining the political and social scene of the United States. As the campaigns rage and voters package their decisions, virtually nothing would be spared the raging fire of large-scale transformations sweeping through the US, as cherished and pampered myths are exploded, resilient pretensions and hypocrisies unmasked, and obstinate, enduring obsessions and habits badly scalded and shredded.

 *Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

For instance, a distinguished statesman like former president Bill Clinton whose non-racial credentials had been so well-acknowledged that renowned African-American novelist, Toni Morrison, had to describe him as the “First Black President” is still in his Harlem office hurting because of the serious bruises on his well-cultivated image as a result of the racial remarks he had let out during the primary contest between his wife, Hillary, and Senator Barack Obama. 

A recent report suggests he is still nursing his wounds and hoping that Obama would publicly defend, clear and help him brush off the racist dent now prominent on his image,   as a compensation for the rousing endorsement he gave Obama at the Denver Democratic Convention. 
On his part, Senator John McCain has so badly dishonoured himself by the kind of crude and ugly campaign he has conducted so far that  people are wondering whether this was the same man who began to lay enormous emphasis on character and decent politics after recovering from the “Keatings Five” scandal which nearly sank his political career.

*Senator John McCain, US Republican

Presidential Candidate (2009)

 I am glad that I am only an observer, and not a registered voter in this election, else, I would have found myself in a very big dilemma.  Obama may be young, intelligent and charismatic, but I am not a big fan of his. In fact, if I am a registered voter, I will not cast my vote for him. But if he eventually manages to get my vote, it would be a vote against McCain (who is unredeemable in virtually every respect), and not for Obama. Obama’s views on abortion are ones I cannot in all good conscience overlook. The almost callous, emotionless manner he declares in the paper he authored as president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990 that government has more important things to do than “ensuring that any particular fetus is born” makes me very sick indeed.

Not too long ago, Obama was also quoted as saying that he would not allow any of his daughters “to be punished with a child” just because “she had made a mistake.” And so, to protect his daughter from the responsibilities that ought to go with her action, another innocent, tender, helpless child (though yet unborn) should be cruelly, heartlessly and gruesomely sacrificed?

But the Republicans have not helped my dilemma by choosing McCain as their  flag-bearer. The way McCain has conducted himself so far in this election shows he is not ashamed to embody all that could be wrong about politics and politicians.  His crude methods, fired by raw desperation, carried beyond the fringes of decency, have been most revolting to many people, even in his own party. His campaign brazenly lies and distorts facts with ease, and all his claims about character and decent politics are now proving to be overly fraudulent.  

*Sarah Palin, Alaska Governor and
US Republican  Vice Presidential Candidate (2009)  

McCain enjoys being addressed as a “maverick” and “Straight-talk” politician, and his running mate, Sarah Palin made heavy weather of this maverick tag when she answered almost every question posed to her during her debate with Senator Joe Biden, her Democratic Party opponent, by restating that McCain was a maverick. In fact, at one point, she called him a “consummate maverick.”

One person thoroughly sickened and offended by this unending false characterisation of John McCain is Ms. Terrellita Maverick, the 82 year old San Antonio lady, who, according to New York Times columnist, John Schwartz, “proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.”

Ms. Maverick, member emeritus of the board of the San Antonio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas could not just understand how McCain would claim that he is a maverick among the Republicans.  
“It’s just incredible — the nerve! — to suggest that he’s not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again,’ ” she said.

*Senator John Mccain And Mrs. Cindy McCain

To better understand the phenomenon that is John McCain, let’s recall the story of Carol, his first wife.  McCain, then a 28 year old navy pilot had in 1965 married Carol, who reports say was “a successful model.” After their daughter, Sidney, was born, he left for Vietnam at the end of 1966.

But his plane was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967 on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam. He remained a Prisoner of War (PoW) in the dreaded Hoa Loa Prison for five years.  During the Christmas holiday of 1969, Carol was involved in a terrible accident that put her through multiple surgeries as a result of the severe injuries she had sustained. She eventually learnt to walk again, but had to limp because one of the legs had become shorter. She equally gained some weight in the process, thus losing the willowy figure that once gave her a stunning look.

In March 1973, when McCain was released, and received in the US as a war hero, he scored a fast one on the American public by telling reporters how much he still loved Carol despite the effects of the accident on her.

*Carol Mccain: The Wife John McCain  Dumped

Having lost his chance of becoming an admiral (his father and grandfather were admirals), McCain turned his eyes on politics and equally rekindled his wild taste for strange women. In fact, he has admitted he was unfaithful to Carol as he had girlfriends at this time. But when he met Cindy Hensley in Hawaii, he devoted the next six months in extramarital affairs with her for, perhaps, one principal reason: Cindy, a former rodeo model, was daughter of Jim Hensley, the highly connected and extremely wealthy Arizona beer distributor. 

Thus, while Carol waited at home for the husband she trusted and loved so passionately, McCain and Cindy played Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton all over the country. He eventually dumped Carol to the shock and dismay of many people, and married Cindy, the beautiful blond and heiress of the brewing giant, and moved to Arizona, where his new father-in-law offered him a job, and gave him the necessary connections that put him on the fast lane to political ascendancy. 

*Former US President, Bill Clinton and His Wife, Senator Hillary Clinton  

Commenting on the character of John McCain, Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam, told UK’s The Mail On Sunday: “I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit. When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it. Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better. This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.”

Some old acquaintances of McCain’s interviewed by The Mail On Sunday portrayed him “as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field,’ just the same way it is now feared that he,  as   US President, could also abandon the pursuit of national causes if they do not advance his personal and selfish interests! The other day, he refused to answer a question at a town hall meeting if he had ever cheated on Cindy. Instead of answering the question which was asked him repeatedly, he began to talk about his son serving in Iraq.

*Barack and Michelle Obama

As an old political warhorse who always finds ways of securing the understanding and accommodation of the American people and wriggling out of career-sinking troubles, and whose Vietnam heroic stories have sometimes been questioned here and there, the only thing still rekindling some hope on the McCain candidacy is, perhaps, the white skin covering his body.

With his rather poor choice of Alaska Governor, Ms. Sarah Palin (who is now proving to be a huge liability and raising serious questions on his capacity for quality judgment) as running mate, and even some of the other impulsive decisions he had made of late like suspending his campaigns to join the bailout talks (where he eventually contributed little or nothing), suddenly conceding defeat and pulling out his campaign from Michigan when he saw he was not making any headway — a decision that baffled even Republicans who feared it could make it easy for Obama to secure the 270 electoral votes he requires to win, and his uncritical adoption of “Joe The Plumber” as a symbol for lampooning Obama’s tax policy, mentioning him about two dozen times during the last presidential debate only to realize later that the man he had raised to celebrity status was not even a registered plumber and also owed arrears of taxes.

His attempt to turn Obama into a scary figure is backfiring, lowering his esteem before many people instead, and attracting more sympathies and  support for Obama. Indeed, because of the consistent false claim by Ms. Palin that Obama is  “palling around together with terrorists,” people now shout “terrorist!!” once Obama is mentioned during McCain campaigns, and McCain is having serious trouble stopping that.

 How would McCain repair his damaged honour even if he wins this election? How would he explain that just to win an election in a do-or-die fashion, his campaign had to stoop so low to falsely label his opponent a terrorist just because Obama had served on a number of education boards in Chicago with Bill Ayers, a Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, who many years ago, when Obama was only 8, had set bombs targeted mainly at properties to protest American military campaign in Vietnam.  

Well, it is clear that McCain would surely lose this election, but he needs not to worry. A more fulfilling job would be waiting for him in Nigeria in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where his unedifying talents and crude strategies would be better appreciated.

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scruples2006@yahoo.com

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