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.Lagos Pastor and leader of the pro-democracy Save Nigeria Group, Tunde Bakare, has criticised the recent visits of Muslim and Christian clerics to President Umaru Yar’Adua as “the theatre of the absurd.”

Mr. Bakare, who spoke in Lagos on Tuesday, on the heels of Monday’s visit of Christian leaders to Mr. Yar’Adua, said: “It doesn’t matter the number of clerics and ‘babalawo’ taken there. The simple truth is there is something to hide. You know those who operate in the light cannot be afraid to come out.”

He said it is not a crime to be sick, but that Nigerians deserve to know the state of health of their president.

“My good wishes and prayers to the president, if he is truly recovering,” he said. “If they are playing a dangerous political game with his health situation, then nobody should give support to the foolishness that is going on.”

Citing the example of Fidel Castrol of Cuba, the clergyman said powerful world leaders had also found themselves in such situation before, but have been open about it. He said the cohorts taking care of the president should be asked: “what is wrong with allowing the acting president to see him at the Aso Villa?

“I think you journalists should do a serious investigative journalism on this. To be honest with you, I think everything is just becoming the theatre of the absurd; that is all that I could say.”

Last Thursday, some Islamic leaders have visited the ailing president. On Monday, it was the turn of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), whose leadership claimed they sighted and prayed with Mr. Yar’Adua..

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has demanded audience with the ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua as a worshipper of Orisa, following recent visits to the presidency by leaders from the nation’s two main religions - Islam and Christianity.

Orisa is a generic name for traditional Yoruba religion.

Mr. Soyinka made this demand yesterday at the Civic Centre, where he delivered a lecture titled ‘Leadership and Followership as shared responsibility’ at an event organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG).

Proper examination

Reacting to the reported visit of religious leaders to Mr. Yar’Adua over the weekend, Mr. Soyinka said “the clerics that have visited him have been very modest in their report. One said he couldn’t speak while another said he heard him grumble, but both agreed he could not use his hand. It is time a committee of Nigerian doctors actually see Yar’Adua and examine that his hand was truly raised and as well examine if the hand can be used properly.”

Mr. Soyinka said there should be no limit to the group of people allowed to see the ailing president.

“There is a kind of insolence going on around the precincts of Aso Rock and, as privileged groups are now allowed to see him, I am going to send an application as a follower of Orisa demanding that Sango worshippers also want to see him now,” he said.

He then alleged that the president is a victim of spousal abuse and referred to him as President “Yar I do or die”..

Leadership with a sign

In his lecture, Mr. Soyinka, defined the leadership in Nigeria in two ways: governmental leadership and civil leadership and he decried both level of leaderships in Nigeria, saying “government leadership in Nigeria is generally with a sigh.”

He also criticised the previously active civil society in the country. He said that, due to lack of leadership, “civil society became unbelievably comatose, and it took a lot too much of slapping just because each of them was looking for leadership.”

He therefore said Nigerians need to boost civil leadership so as to balance the zones of leadership; stating that “it is the civil leadership that has authority, what government leadership has is just power... and only the civil society can hold the government accountable. We need to make that power ludicrous.”

He commended renewed effort, as seen with the campaigns of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) and Enough is Enough coalitions.

“The SNG is an ecumenical, non-partisan and very-very focused group, which is why I joined them,” he said. “This momentum must not be lost or else we return back to the treachery. People must develop the spirit of inconvenience and boycotting. NEPA would not have reached this deplorable state if the civil society was active. This kind of situation is intolerable. Nigerians are amazing people to have taken this much.”

He urged Nigerians to rally around the new movements, which seem to have found the required leadership. Using a Yoruba adage that says “debating if it is the man or woman that killed the snake is irrelevant, what wants matters is that the snake must be killed,” Mr. Soyinka said “that snake of corrupt or manipulative leadership must be killed.”

Iwu must go

The literary icon again reiterated his call for the removal of the chairperson of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Maurice Iwu, calling the INEC boss “a human obstacle to reforming the system.”

Then, reacting to a member of the audience who wondered about the point of voting if one knows that “in an election, my vote will not count”, Mr. Soyinka condemned the level of indolence of the Nigerian citizen, whom he described as “people always blaming the system.”

He called on Nigerians to come out of their shells and fight for the redemption of the country.

“Even when you know that your vote will not count, protecting that vote is part of the shared responsibility otherwise we get into the negative cycle where the other half makes sure you won’t have what you ever want,” he said. “If you rob me, I think it is my responsibility to go after you. It is a simple logical attitude.”

Sam Ohuabunwa, the NESG’s chairperson, affirmed that, with the small population of corrupt leaders, “the massive size of the civil society will swamp the government.”

He identified the problem of civil society as a lack of civil leadership. According to Mr. Ohabunwa, “the challenge today is that the civil society needs to improve their leadership because the more vibrant the civil society, the more accountable the governmental leadership.”

The Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said in Abeokuta on Wednesday that the committee would be joined by a Deputy Inspector-General of Police among top police officers, who would visit the accident scene near the Babcock University, Ilisan, stretch of the expressway.

Adejobi, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, who said the committee and police officers would visit the robbery accident scene in company with the officers of the state police command, did not, however, say why the committee had decided to visit the site.

Controversy had continued to trail the incident, which occurred on the night of July 31, 2009, but which some people posted on the internet, claiming that it occurred in the later part of February, this year.

The author of the internet version of the story equally narrated how the driver of the luxury (passenger) bus was ordered by the robbers, who had dispossessed the occupants, to run over some of the passengers who were commanded to lie on the road.

In the 2009 accident, a truck driver, one Idahosa, claimed he did not know that the robbers, who struck around 10pm on Friday, July 31, 2009, had placed a barricade on the road, ostensibly to shield some passengers they had ordered to lie on the road.

Idahosa, whose truck, loaded with garri, lost control and crashed into the bush after running over the victims, narrated how he had to climb a tree to avoid the rampaging robbers, who had trailed him and his assistant into the bush.

The committee had summoned the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Ogbonna Onovo, and other police chiefs to appear before it while the driver of the luxury bus, which was coming from the Eastern part of the country to Lagos, and the driver of the truck, whose vehicle inadvertently ran over the distressed passengers, had appeared and testified before the committee.

It is unclear what the committee plans to do with its visit to the site eight months after the incident.