Azubuike Ishiekwene: A Praying Nation’s Moment of Truth
Even in normal times, Nigerians wear religion on their sleeves, paste it on their car bumpers, and post it on their windscreens. In the last four weeks, however, the country has become one huge cathedral, with politician after politician mounting the stage to request special prayers for President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who is now spending his fourth week at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The president needs prayers, no doubt. His latest medical trip to Saudi Arabia on November 23 was his fourth to that country on health grounds since he came to office in 2007. Though Yar’Adua has had a long history of kidney disease, his doctors have linked his current health crisis with pericaditis, an inflammation of the lining of the heart. No further statement on his health has been issued, setting off a firestorm of rumors in the public and infighting in his cabinet.
Politicians have also been exploiting the president’s health crisis, calling for prayers in the daytime and plotting at night—just in case the worst happens.
The Senate president and number three man in the country, David Mark, called for a nine-day prayer, yet a recent press report linked him with moves to edge out the vice president if the president is unable to resume. In a statement that shocked the country, Mark’s deputy, following his master’s voice, said President Yar’Adua could be hospitalized for one year and still be validly in charge: all that was required, he said, was constant prayers.
That’s not what the constitution says, however. The president is required by law to hand over to his deputy, if on grounds of fitness or holiday he cannot effectively discharge the duties of his office. Three weeks ago, a group of 53 prominent politicians, across party lines, issued a statement calling on the president to follow the law by officially handing over to his deputy and stepping down.
And today, a suit filed in a Federal High Court in Abuja by a former member of the House of Representatives requested that judges order Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to assume the nation’s highest office. As of yet, that seems unlikely to happen. As one source told me last week, “those who are now in charge don’t trust the vice president enough.”
Fifteen years ago (though the country was under military rule at the time), what was supposed to have been a “temporary” handover of power from the military president, Ibrahim Babangida, to the most senior officer, Gen. Sani Abacha, marked the beginning of one of the darkest episodes in Nigeria’s history. In a country where the delicate power balance between the largely Muslim north and Christian south remains a sensitive issue, the feeling in some circles is that an abrupt transition from Yar’Adua (a Muslim) to his Christian deputy president—after eight straight years of Olusegun Obasanjo (also Christian)—will once again tip the scales in favor of the south.
Meanwhile, the country is paying the price.
The 2010 appropriation bill cannot be signed into law because that can only be done be a sitting or acting president. The Petroleum Industry Bill—which the government had promised would be signed into law before the end of the year as a major part of the peace offering for the troubled Niger Delta region—may remain a pipe dream if the president is unable to return to office. Rebel groups may once again take up arms in the restive region. Moreover, the bad blood between oil companies and the government over licenses for new fields and project funding will increase tensions.
Worse, the paralysis which now threatens the executive branch could spread to the judiciary. Vacancies to the offices of the president of the Court of Appeal and the chief judge of the Supreme Court cannot be filled without a sitting or acting president. Right now, Nigeria has neither.
And, all of this comes at a time when the country badly needs a shot in the arm, following the banking crisis that devalued capital market assets by over 60 percent in one year.
Hassan Malik: Pakistan’s Opiate of the Masses
The recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, striking down a previous agreement that granted immunity from prosecution for corruption to thousands of bureaucrats and politicians, was greeted with cheers by Pakistanis, both in the streets of Karachi and amongst the diaspora in London, but with discomfort in the West.
More astute analysts, however, are concerned that the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t herald a step forward, but rather a descent back into the tussle of recriminations and accusations that have long characterized Pakistani politics. Worse, it threatens to distract national attention from far more pressing problems.
The court struck down the National Reconciliation Order (NRO) that was passed in 2007 under Western-backed President Musharraf and was billed at the time as a step towards restoring Pakistan to multiparty democracy. Although political players of all parties benefited from the deal, observers saw it largely as a compromise aimed at enabling the return to Pakistan of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Pakistan’s current president, Asif Ali Zardari.
After Mrs. Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, a wave of sympathy for her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) helped Zardari take over de facto leadership of the PPP and the presidency of the country in quick succession. But Zardari hardly enjoyed a honeymoon with voters or, for that matter, even his own party leadership. Lacking what some would term the demagogic charisma of his late wife or father-in-law, Zardari was hardly Obama-esque.
His reputation as Mr. Ten Percent—earned by his penchant for demanding bribes while serving as his wife’s minister for investment and minister for the environment in the mid-1990s—won him many enemies and, along with his appointments of cronies to top government and party posts, grated on members of the PPP itself.
Upon taking office, Zardari’s reluctance to restore the popular and respected ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry—widely seen as a last-ditch attempt to avoid prosecution for corruption—further eroded what little support he did enjoy. Only after mass, nation-wide protests did Zardari eventually relent and agree to the restoration of the chief justice to his office.
The repeal of the NRO, then, comes as a long-awaited victory for many sections of Pakistani society, from secular middle-class civil society activists to mullahs fed up with Zardari’s poor record and aggravated by his repeated evasion of corruption charges.
The concern, however, is that on a deeper level, the hoopla over the NRO shows just how much Pakistan’s political life is stagnating.
Charles G. Cogan: Slouching Toward Jerusalem
On December 8, the State Department issued the following statement: “The U.S. position on Jerusalem is clear and remains unchanged: that Jerusalem and all other permanent status issues must be resolved by the two parties themselves. It has been official U.S. policy for many years that the future status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue….”
Why did the State Department feel compelled to issue such a statement? Apparently, because in Brussels that same day, the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council issued a statement on the Middle East Peace Process, and one can only conclude that the U.S. government wanted to distance itself from the EU memo.
On Jerusalem, the EU statement had this, inter alia, to say: “The Council recalls that it has never recognized the annexation of East Jerusalem. If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states.”
An earlier EU draft specifically stated that the Palestinian capital should be in East Jerusalem, but intense Israeli lobbying, including and especially among the new EU members from Eastern Europe, resulted in striking that reference in the final version.
Usually, the American phrase that Israeli-Palestinian issues “must be settled by the parties themselves” is, in effect, a code word for allowing the Israelis perpetuate the status quo—the Israelis, of course, being by far the stronger party. At least the U.S. statement declared that Jerusalem remains an outstanding issue, and this is in itself important. It seems clear, however, that Washington, while openly favoring a “two-state” solution, cannot bring itself to advocate a “two-capitals” solution as well.
Michael Daxner: Germany’s Troubles in Afghanistan
Over the past few months, a public opinion firestorm has ravaged the German government as the weight of a tragic event in Afghanistan continues to press down hard on the collective conscience of the nation. The impetus for the current uproar was the bombing of two trucks in Kunduz, Afghanistan on September 4, which was ordered by German forces and resulted in the deaths of numerous civilians (estimates range from 17 to 142). Yet, what seemed to be an ugly but collateral blip on the nation’s broad foreign policy radar has turned into a veritable crisis of the first order for the lawmakers in Berlin, with the future of Germany military engagement in Afghanistan at stake. The debate could not come at a more embarrassing moment for the government.
When Germany initially committed itself to sending troops to Afghanistan, it did so wanting to be the “good guy” in the war effort—the country that would “stabilize” Afghanistan with its contingent of soldier-humanitarians while the Americans did the majority of the fighting. But now, with its soldiers both in harm’s way and inadvertently doing harm, the presence of German troops on Afghan soil has become infinitely more difficult to justify to a skeptical public at home, a majority of who now want a complete withdrawal. Moreover, there’s a growing perception within Germany that the government no longer even pulls its own strings, having recently re-committed its 4,400 troops in Afghanistan to another year of duty, while lacking a significant voice either in Washington or at NATO headquarters.
Still, the new strategy proposed by President Obama is promising for those in Germany who have a political stake in the intervention. The more hawkish voices within the German government have held that domestic security and freedom are being defended in the Hindu Kush. But this argument has gained little traction lately, especially among a populace that is now so ill-at-ease about Germany’s role in Afghanistan—a role that appears to be moving toward full-fledged participation in a war not of its own making.
Thus, it is welcome that the new American strategy is placing greater focus on the Afghan people and society. Likewise, the military components embodied in the upcoming Afghan “surge” seem to be more rational and targeted than under Bush, while the civil programs are stronger and likely to be less scatter-shot than in the past. But even with some good news coming out of Washington these days, Berlin still needs a clear humanitarian and civil society mission to bolster the legitimacy of its involvement in the conflict. Unfortunately, new signals from both the American and German governments are blurring the lines.
First, there’s the insistence on the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden, as again reiterated by General Stanley McChrystal in the halls of the U.S. Congress on December 8, 2009. But of what use is such a goal, whether as part of the broader Operation Enduring Freedom or as related to policies against Al Qaeda? This goal is profoundly unpopular in Germany, both due to the lack of a clear rationale and the echoes of President Bush’s bellicose ideology.
