New Leader: Umaru Yar'Adua
Lydia Polgreen wrote for the New York Times about President Yar'Adua's first months in office.After Rocky Election, Nigerians Warm to New Leader
"Five months after a contentious election that international observers said was deeply flawed and in some places so badly rigged that the results were not credible, the fires that flared during election violence have cooled, and for the most part the much-feared postelection chaos has not materialized. Many Nigerians have found a lot to like in Mr. Yar’Adua’s unassuming manner and conciliatory approach...
"But Mr. Yar’Adua has helped defuse the acrimony that surrounded the election, calling himself a “servant leader,” a distinct break from the autocratic style of Mr. Obasanjo, a former general and military ruler who was elected in 1999 after the death of the dictator Sani Abacha."Mr. Yar’Adua’s government decided to break up the giant and notoriously corrupt state petroleum company into several smaller entities in an effort to manage oil revenues and gasoline refineries better. Even though it is a leading exporter of oil, Nigeria is chronically short of gasoline.
"The new government also halted the sale of government petroleum refineries to politically connected investors... [I]t was seen by many as a declaration of independence...
"Mr. Yar’Adua is the first president in a generation to have no military ties. While he comes from a wealthy, politically connected family, he had a reputation in Katsina, his home state, for living modestly, which has bolstered his image as incorruptible in a country where the ruling elite has stolen hundreds of billions of oil dollars over the years..."
See also the BBC's profile of Umaru Yar'Adua
Labels: leadership, Nigeria, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:26 AM
3 Comments:
I wish people stopped saying he has no military ties. I mean his brother was Chief of Staff during Obasandjo's military rule.
Having never heard that Umaru Yar'Adua was Chief of Staff, I went looking for verification. I found that there is some infighting going on in the president's cabinet and that Obasanjo's Chief of Staff, Gen. Abdullahi Mohammed, was resisting resigning after a transition period.
But I did find this note about the Yar'Adua as Chief of Staff situation.
A December 21, 2006 blog entry in Chxta's World by someone claiming to have long experience reporting on the Yar'Aduas Many Sides of Umar Yar'Adua noted that
"From 1976 until two weeks ago, most reference to Yar’adua in Nigerian politics and the news media referred to the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’adua, Tafidan Katsina, Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters in 1976-79...
"[B]eginning from yesterday and for the foreseeable future, most references to Yar’adua would refer to Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’adua, Mutawallen Katsina, Governor of Katsina State until May next year and, most probably, President of the Federal Republic afterwards...
"Many people like to think of Umaru Yar’adua only as General Shehu Yar’adua’s taciturn, soft-spoken, low profile junior brother. Certainly, it is doubtful if Malam Umaru could have achieved so much prominence in politics if he was not the son of Mutawalle Musa and the brother of Tafida Shehu. However, anyone who thinks of Umaru as a passive, pampered passenger on the bull-dozing Yar’adua political train in the last 5 decades has got another thing coming..."
Can anyone confirm either the anonymous comment of Chxta's explanation for the confusion?
Of course, IF I'd just read more carefully, I wouldn't embarrass myself like this.
Anonymous' comment was the Umaru's brother was Chief of Staff.
And that's exactly what Chxta said in his blog.
Please. No contact. No foul. I'll read more closely from now on.
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