Reuben Abati in new article slams E.K Clark for criticizing Jonathan In an article titled 'Clark, the Father, Jonathan, the Son,'

Reuben Abati in new article slams
E.K Clark for criticizing Jonathan
In an article titled 'Clark, the Father, Jonathan,
the Son,' former presidential spokesperson
Reuben Abati criticized former PDP chieftain
Edwin Clark for the remarks he made about
Jonathan. Read below
I have tried delaying the writing of this
piece in the honest expectation that
someone probably misquoted Chief E.K.
Clark, when he reportedly publicly
disowned former President Goodluck
Jonathan. I had hoped that our dear father,
E.K. Clark, would issue a counter
statement and say the usual things
politicians say: “they quoted me out of
context!” “Jonathan is my son”.
That has not happened; rather, some other Ijaw
voices, including one Joseph Evah, have come to
the defence of the old man, to join hands in
rubbishing a man they once defended to the hilt
and used as a bargaining chip for the Ijaw
interest in the larger Nigerian geo-politics.
If President Jonathan had returned to power on
May 29, 2015, these same persons would have
remained in the corridors of power, displaying all
forms of ethnic triumphalism. It is the reason in
case they do not realize it, why the existent
power blocs that consider themselves most fit to
rule, continue to believe that those whose
ancestors never ran empires can never be
trusted with power, hence they can only be
admitted as other people’s agents or as
merchants of their own interests which may even
be defined for them as is deemed convenient.
Mercantilism may bring profit, but in power
politics, it destroys integrity and compromises
otherwise sacred values.
President Jonathan being publicly condemned by
his own Ijaw brothers, particularly those who
were once staunch supporters of his government
further serves the purpose of exposing the limits
of the politics of proximity. Politics in Africa is
driven by this particular factor; it is at the root
of all the other evils: prebendalism, clientelism
and what Matthew Kukah has famously described
as the “myownisation of power”. It is both
positive and negative, but obviously, more of the
latter than the former. It is considered positive
only when it is beneficial to all parties
concerned, and when the template changes, the
ground also shifts. As in that song, the solid rock
of proximity is soon replaced by shifting sands.
Old worship becomes new opportunism. And the
observant public is left confounded.
Chief E.K. Clark? Who would ever think, Chief
E.K. Clark would publicly disown President
Jonathan? He says Jonathan was a weak
President. At what point did he come to that
realization? Yet, throughout the five years (not
six, please) of the Jonathan Presidency, he
spoke loudly against anyone who opposed the
President. He was so combative he was once
quoted as suggesting that Nigeria could have
problems if Jonathan was not allowed to return
to office. Today, he is the one helping President
Jonathan’s successor to quench the fires. He
always openly said President Jonathan is “his
son”. Today, he is not just turning against his
own son, he is telling the world his son as
President lacked the political will to fight
corruption. He has also accused his son of being
too much of a gentleman. Really?
Gentlemanliness would be considered honourable
in refined circles. Is Pa E.K. Clark
recommending something else in order to prove
that he is no longer a politician but a statesman
as he says?
As someone who was a member of the Jonathan
administration, and who interacted often with the
old man, I can only say that I am shocked. This
is the equivalent of the old man deleting
President Jonathan’s phone number and ensuring
that calls from his phone no longer ring at the
Jonathan end. During the Jonathan years, Chief
E. K. Clark was arguably the most vocal Ijaw
leader defending the government. He called the
President “my son”, and both father and son
remained in constant touch.
There is something about having the President’s
ears in a Presidential system, elevated to the
level of a fetish in the clientilist Nigerian political
system. Persons in the corridors of power who
have the President’s ear- be they cook, valet, in-
laws, wife, cousin, former school mates, priests,
or whatever, enjoy special privileges. They have
access to the President and they can whisper
into his ears. That’s all they have as power: the
power to whisper and run a whispering campaign
that can translate into opportunities or losses for
those outside that informal power loop around
every Presidency, that tends to be really
influential.
Every President must beware of those persons
who come around calling them “Daddy”, “Uncle”,
na my brother dey there”, “my son”, “our in-law”:
emotional blackmailers relying on old
connections. They are courted, patronized and
given more attention and honour than they
deserve by those looking for access to the
President or government. Even when the power
and authority of the whispering exploiters of the
politics of proximity is contrived, they go out of
their way to exaggerate it. They acquire so much
from being seen to be in a position to make
things happen.
Chief E. K. Clark had the President’s ears. He
had unfettered access to his son. He was invited
to most state events. And he looked out for the
man he called “my son”, in whom he was well
pleased. Chief Clark’s energy level in the service
of the Jonathan administration was impressive.
Fearless and outspoken, he deployed his
enormous talents in the service of the Jonathan
government. If a press statement was tame, he
drew attention to it and urged a more robust
defence of “your boss”. If any invective from the
APC was overlooked, he urged prompt rebuttal. If
the party was tardy in defending “his son”, he
weighed in.
If anyone had accused the President of lacking
“the political will to fight corruption” at that time,
he, E.K. Clark, would have called a press
conference to draw attention to the Jonathan
administration’s institutional reforms and
preventive measures, his commitment to
electoral integrity to check political corruption,
and the hundreds of convictions secured by both
the ICPC and EFCC under his son’s watch. So
prominent and influential was he, that ministers,
political jobbers etc etc trooped to his house to
pay homage.
In due course, those who opposed President
Jonathan did not spare Chief E. K. Clark either.
He was accused of making inflammatory and
unstatesman-like statements. An old war-horse,
nobody could intimidate him. He was not
President Olusegun Obasanjo’s fan in particular.
He believed Obasanjo wanted to sabotage his
son, and he wanted Obasanjo put in his place.
Beneath all of that, was an unmistaken rivalry
between the two old men, seeking to control the
levers of Nigerian politics.
Every President probably needs a strong,
passionate ally like Chief E. K. Clark. But what
happened? What went wrong? Don’t get me
wrong. I am not necessarily saying that the Ijaw
leader should have remained loyal to and defend
Goodluck Jonathan because they are both Ijaws;
patriotism definitely could be stronger than ethnic
affinities, nonetheless that E. K. Clark tale about
leaving politics and becoming a statesman is
nothing but sheer crap. If Jonathan had returned
to office, he would still be a card-carrying
member of the PDP and the “father of the
President” and we would still have been hearing
that famous phrase, “my son”. Chief E. K. Clark,
five months after, has practically told the world
that President Buhari is better than “his own
son.”
It is the worst form of humiliation that President
Jonathan has received since he left office. It is
also the finest compliment that President Buhari
has received since he assumed office. The
timing is also auspicious: just when the public is
beginning to worry about the direction of the
Buhari government, E. K. Clark shows up to lend
a hand of support and endorsement. Only one
phrase was missing in his statement, and it
should have been added: “my son, Buhari.” It
probably won’t be too long before we hear the
old man saying “I am a statesman, Buhari is my
son.” I can imagine President Obasanjo grinning
with delight. If he really wants to be kind, he
could invite E.K. Clark to his home in Ota or
Abeokuta to come and do the needful by publicly
tearing his PDP membership card and join him in
that exclusive club of Nigerian statesmen! The
only problem with that club these days is that
you can become a member by just saying so or
by retiring from partisan politics. We are more or
less being told that there are no statesmen in
any of the political parties.
It is not funny. Julius Ceasar asked Brutus in
one of the famous lines in written literature: “Et
tu Brutus?” President Jonathan should ask Chief
E. K. Clark: “Et tu Papa?” To which the father
will probably tell the son: “Ces’t la vie, mon cher
garcon.” And really, that is life. In the face of
other considerations, loyalties vanish; synergies
collapse. The wisdom of the tribe is overturned;
the politics of proximity dissolves; loyalties
remain in a perpetual process of
construction. Thus, individual interests and
transactions drive the political game in Nigeria,
with time and context as key determinants.
These are teachable moments for President
Jonathan. Power attracts men and women like
bees to nectar, the state of powerlessness ends
as a journey to the island of loneliness.
However, the greatest defender of our work in
office is not our ethnic “fathers and “brothers”
but rather our legacy. The real loss is that
President Jonathan’s heroism, his messianic
sacrifice in the face of defeat, is being swept
under the carpet and his own brothers who used
to say that the Ijaws are driven by a principle of
“one for all and all for another”, have become
agent-architects of his pain. The Ijaw platform
having seemingly been de-centered, Chief E.K.
Clark and others are seeking assimilation in the
new power structure. It is a telling
reconstruction of the politics of proximity and
mimicry.
Chief E.K. Clark once defended the rights of
ethnic minorities to aspire to the highest offices
in the land, his latest declaration about his son
reaffirms the existing stereotype at the heart of
Nigeria’s hegemonic politics. The same
hegemons and their agents whom Clark used to
fight furiously will no doubt find him eminently
quotable now that he has proclaimed that it is
wrong to be a “gentleman”, and that his son
lacks “the political will to fight corruption”. There
is more to this than we may ever know. Chief
Clark can insist from now till 2019 that he has
spoken as a statesman and as a matter of
principle. His re-alignment is curious
nonetheless.
• Dr. Abati was Special Adviser, Media and
Publicity to former President Goodluck Jonathan