JUST ONE QUESTION AS ABDULSALAMI CLOCKS 70
Everyone is greeting another former Head of State ‘Happy birthday.’ Retired General Abdulsalami Abubakar will not even sink under the barrage of congratulatory messages, that is for sure. But sometimes one message can be so heavy. If it comes from a Commander-In-chief of the Armed Forces, that is. The solace is that the message is from a Commander-In-chief to a former Commander-In-chief. It’s a balanced equation. The retired general has acquitted himself well, President Goodluck Jonathan had said in his congratulatory message to Abubakar as he clocked seventy years. And the Chief Servant of Niger State, Umuazu Babangida Aliyu, was not left out. He was at the Minna home of the retired general where is spoke in superlatives about the celebrant. One can trust Talban Minna to speak in superlatives. The truth: Any former military leader who bowed out of power for civilians deserves all of the accolades. And much more. Issue here is that Nigeria has many who have acquitted themselves well. What has the nation done with them is a question that everyone in relevant positions needs to answer on this occasion.
One nation that does not joke with its past leaders is the United States of America. That nation has always had elected presidents for over two hundred years. Yet they wouldn’t even be given presidential retirement benefits until 1958. The turn around came under the watch of a retired army general, President Dwight Eisenhower, a beloved second world war veteran. Presidential retirement benefits now includes a lifetime annual pension - The pension starts the minute the president officially leaves office at noon on Inauguration Day. The former president also has transition expenses - For the first 7 months, beginning one month before the January 20 inauguration, a former president gets transition funding that helps him transit back into private life. He has staff and office allowances – that starts from six months after he leaves office. He has travel expenses for himself and two of his staff members. But the travel must be related to the former president's status as an official representative of the United States government. Travel for pleasure is not compensated. But he and his spouse has secret service protection, and for a maximum of 10 years. A spouse's protection ends upon divorce, remarriage, or the death of the former president, however.
As for his medical expenses, a former president, his spouse and minor children are entitled to treatment in military hospitals. If he however he enrolls in private health insurance plan, it is at his own expense. A former president is traditionally granted state funeral with military honors when he dies. However, core to all of this is the role of a former president acting in official capacities as representative of the government of the United States. This has been demonstrated on several occasions. One man who has done this in recent times, and on several occasions is former president Bill Clinton. He was in the middle of getting some Americans released from North Korea not long ago. And he was given the treatment of a president that time. The released Americans arrived their soil, on the same airplane with the former president, and broke down on the tarmac, They were touched that their nation did everything to get them freed. They had responded to Clinton as though he was Barrack Obama. A former president is ever a Mr President, anyway. The summation: the president of America travelled across continents to bring his citizens back home. Emphasis: There is something extra to a nation that respects its past leaders, and makes as much use of them as possible to enhance its prestige among nations. Nigeria would arrive there one day.
The Nigerian nation is one that has former leaders in abundance; leaders it should be proud of, and to call to duty more than it does at the moment. Sometimes, one wonders if this nation, or its leadership, realizes what it is endowed with. How many of such leaders should one count? Is it General Yakubu Gowon, General Mohammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, General Olusegun Obasanjo, and the last of the military Heads of State – General Abdulsalami Abubakar. That is not to mention many Nigerians in the civilian segment who have done this nation proud. True, these men had been called upon to do one thing or the other for the nation. But when it is considered that outside the nation’s shores, the image of the country is the way it is, one wonders if the nation has made full use of those that it has in abundance. Fact is, with these giant figures that loom in the background of the nation’s political space, and with the kind of resources the nation has been committing to issues across the African continent, Nigeria should stand better and taller among other nations. All of that depends on the coordination that could be brought to bear on such matters though. And that is the fundamental problem, the capacity to strategize and use the right prongs to deal with critical issues both within and outside the country. It is an important angle to the nation’s past leadership that needs to be keenly examined as one of such, Abdulsalami Abubakar, clocked the age that unequivocally belongs only to elders.
Abdulsalami Abubakar was born on June 13, 1942, and from June 9, 1998 until May 29, 1999, he was the nation’s military Head of State. In between birth and ascension to power, he was in the Nigerian Air Force from 1963 to 1967, and in the Nigerian army from 1967 to 1999. He was born in Minna, Niger State, and he is of the Gwari ethnic group. He was educated at Native Authority Primary School in Minna, and in the Provincial Secondary School in Bida, before he attended the Technical Institute, Kaduna. After this, he joined the military. Abubakar led Nigeria's contingent in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and eventually rose to become Chief of Defence Staff from where he became the Head of State after the death of General Sanni Abacha on June 8, 1998.
Aside from his role in the history of the nation internally, Abubakar has played key roles in peace missions in African countries, an experience that qualifies him as one who can contribute more to enhancing the image of the nation. Several other past leaders here fall into the category. They deserve to be actively engaged to serve the nation more than before. But is the nation ready to rise above every prejudice, to honour such personalities and make them contribute more, for the benefit of both the nation and humanity?
Written By Tunji Ajibade
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