Umaru Musa Yar'Adua: political career and legacy

Nigeria's New President & His Challenges

Miss Nigeria America's Conversation with President Umaru Yar'Adua

Good morning, Mr. President, and thank you very much for inviting me to meet with you here at Aso Rock. I congratulate you on your election victory. The people of Nigeria, and those Nigerians who are presently out of the country, are all hoping that you and your leadership team can bring about the changes that are needed to make things better here. The safety, health and happiness of so many people in our country and Nigerian citizens everywhere are depending on your administration in so many ways.

If you would please allow me to speak frankly this morning, I would very much appreciate your indulgence. Of course I am not an elected official in Nigeria, and I have no official power to make changes or alter the path that the nation is taking. But I have been fortunate to achieve my personal goal of becoming Miss Nigeria in America for 2007, and that does give me some visibility and some standing as far as the public is concerned, both here in Nigeria and throughout the world. With that in mind, I ask for your understanding and grace, as I point to several important issues that affect our people. The things I will mention have an affect on Nigerians living in America, because first of all, many of them would like to come home, at least to visit, and under current conditions politically and socially, they are afraid to come home. Secondly, we Nigerians living abroad take pride in our homeland, and wish to see it returned to a more stable and peaceful state, lest we be ridiculed and chastised by those around us while we reside on foreign soil.

Let me thank you for your candor and your hopeful remarks, because as you know, Nigerians need to believe that you, our new president, can bring us up out of the bad situation we find ourselves in today. We need healing now, and we look to you to be the "doctor" so to speak, and to begin the healing process. Let me quote from your speech on the day you were inaugurated and officially took over the reins of government from our past president, Olusegun Obasanjo. You acknowledged that the elections that made you president "...were not perfect and had lapses and shortcomings." You also stated that you would pledge to be a "servant-leader...a listener and a doer who will serve with humility."

That promise is so very important to Nigerians right now, because things have not been done with humility in recent years. I believe that we truly are a democracy that the world is watching closely; but what the world sees is not all good. Please, allow me to quote from an editorial from the Daily Independent. Nigeria is currently "weighed down by a deep sense of betrayal, loss and national despondency," the editorial stated, and that betrayal is based not on you, Mr. President, but on "...eight years of broken promises and abysmal failure of leadership..." Even the elections that we just went through were provocative and controversial. According to journalist Talea Miller, speaking on the Public Broadcasting Service on the very day of your inauguration, May 29, 2007, said, "...international observers derided [the election] as being largely rigged."

We read and heard about the flaws in the election - in fact, the PBS report asserted, "...there were widespread reports of rigging, mismanagement of ballots and invented results." Also 48 winners of the Nobel Prize (in Europe and the West) urged that there be a new election because the evidence of fraud was so blatant. I know you are aware of the fact that the European Parliament passed a resolution that urged the European Union of nations to stop sending financial aid to Nigeria "...until fresh elections are held." One of our most prominent political scientists - Rotimi Suberu - who is living in the United States (and working as a fellow with the U.S. Institute of Peace) said, "...There is a sense of disenchantment." And Suberu also said that the major challenge now for you is to "...salvage the legitimacy of government," and yet people will be willing to accept you if you make major strides toward political reform. Like other scholars from Nigeria, Suberu is part of the brain drain; we must make the country whole again so our bright scholars and intellectuals may return home and help us solve problems.

There are other issues I hope you can work on, as well, Mr. President. Shell Oil, as you know, has been allowing gas flares to burn and burn. Many groups have protested against the burning of these gases, which are a product of the production of crude oil. This is a terrible abuse of our environment. For one thing it contributes to global warming, and for another, it hurts the air that our citizens breathe. Chevron, Texaco, and Mobil are also exploiting our people by polluting our air - and to top it off, money these American oil companies are making is not shared fairly with Nigerians. You promised in your inaugural speech to make "dramatic improvements" in energy production; you must take action to follow through, sir.