Sule Lamido, a former foreign affairs minister and two-term governor of Jigawa state, recently gave President Bola Tinubu quite a dig about the latter’s inexperience in international diplomacy. He was referring to the president’s handling of the July 26 military putsch in neighbouring Niger. He said the president “since the coup d’état in Niger has found himself walking on a very tight rope. He has never been exposed to international diplomacy and can fittingly be called a novice in this field”.
Sule went on: “I thought President Tinubu would have from the onset looked into the chemistry of the cocktail called ECOWAS before taking (a) weighty decision on any issue that affects the region and its consequences … (for) the region and his country. In the last couple of days, two brotherly and sisterly countries were almost on the brink of war (which) neither of them could fathom or justify. The big brother, Nigeria, has become (so) entangled in a far fetched multilateral moral pretense of (a) regional formation called ECOWAS that it has jettisoned its fundamental primary responsibility to the constituency (Nigeria) that gave it the legal authority to that membership.The fact that he (was) an emperor with total dominance of the most populous and prosperous State of Lagos does not confer on him any wisdom in diplomacy. But he is also the luckiest Nigerian president had he desired to harvest from the wisdom and experience of former Presidents and Heads of State Nigeria is so richly blessed with”.
The ex-minister suggested Tinubu seek advice from past presidents and heads of state as a form of “damage control”. “The next thing for President Tinubu now is to embark on damage control and repair and this brings him to the time to now harvest from the connection and wisdom of our former Presidents and Heads of State as someone rightly advised over BBC Hausa service. These leaders are highly respected and trusted not only in our sub-region but globally. It is true, there is no love lost between President Tinubu and some of them, but certainly, on any issue that affects Nigeria no matter how remote, those leaders will always be there for Nigeria.
Sule feared that Tinubu’s readiness to send soldiers into Niger to restore the elected government of President Mohamed Bazoum has cost Nigeria a friendly neighbour. “Time is not on the side of both countries,” he warned. “What we had in the last one thousand years has been lost in a matter of few weeks. But we have the bond and love for each other to build on,” he said.
Firstly, let my good Sule know that if expertise in foreign relations or warfare were a requirement for becoming a leader, many of today’s presidents wouldn’t be holding office. George Bush was not an expert in diplomacy or a war hero before he took his America into the Desert Storm in Iraq, neither was Barack Obama when he ordered his SEAL fighters to kill Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s mountains. Americans rejected John Mcken, a decorated war hero for unheralded blackman Obama as their president. The point is Tinubu doesn’t have to be a diplomat to know what to do about Niger. Why does he have a foreign affairs minister, a defence chief and an ambassador in Niger, if not to advise him?
By the way, how did Sule become foreign minister, in the first place? President Olusegun Obasanjo, initially, did consider him experienced enough in “international diplomacy” to give him the full foreign ministry portfolio. Obasanjo took it for himself and made Sule minister of state instead. It was not until the wee hours of his presidency that OBJ promoted Sule to full cabinet minister because, obviously, he considered him tutored well enough to handle “international diplomacy”.
However, it doesn’t appear that Sule has come out of OBJ’s shadows after all. His choice of means of delivering his ‘advice’ to the president is Obasanjoean.This open letter apron string that still ties our Sule to Obasanjo should be cut to make him his own man. He needs to do so, really.
Otherwise, I find Sule very interesting as interview material. He makes you feel at home immediately and wastes no time on preambles. But his Marcel Proust style of delivery is quite daunting. I interviewed him once in the 1990s when he was in the SDP, one of two political parties Babangida produced for the nation. Then twice when Sule was governor of Jigawa, its first, in fact. His political radicalism goes very deep into the NEPU days of the late Aminu Kano. You cannot but be impressed by his knowledge of Nigeria’s political history but, as I mentioned, his delivery can be tasking. It is like an exam question paper asking you to “fill in the blank spaces”. My first interview took me a week to transcribe and I had to consult his media man now and then before finally running it. But he is good company any day.
