An evening with the president

The trip from our temporary abode, Transcorp Hilton Hotel, to the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, took only 15 minutes. Quite unlike the fender-to-bumper weekday situation around the Federal Secretariat, traffic, last Sunday, was light.  We cleared the last security check in the Villa at exactly 6.37 p.m., twenty-three short minutes before going on live television with Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

I don’t know what happened, but strangely, I started feeling slightly nervous as Dr. Rueben Abati, Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, ushered us to the Council Chamber.
The five-man panel of interviewers included: Mallam Shehu Dauda, Editor-in-Chief of The Capitol Post, Mr. Nosa Igiebor, Editor-in-Chief of TELL, Mrs. Gloria Ume-Ezeoke of Channels Television, Abuja Bureau, Mrs. Senami Ohaimokhare, a newscaster with African Independent Television, A.I.T. Abuja, who was also the night’s anchor, and my humble self.
As I said, my heart began to palpitate as soon as we entered the chamber. Meanwhile, this was no strange terrain for me. I had covered former President Olusegun Obasanjo in this same tower of power for almost five years while I was a senior associate editor with TELL magazine between 2001 and 2005. During that period, I had teamed up with my bosses, at least twice, to interview the then president in this same chamber. This is not to mention my encounters with presidents of some other countries in my travels across the world.
So, I couldn’t understand why I should fret at the threshold of another encounter with my own president. I shared my fear with my senior colleague and beloved brother, Ohi Alegbe, and he had a good laugh.
“Bros., you, afraid? I don’t believe you?” he said as he squeezed my hand.
‘But the truth is that, I’m nervous. Pray for me,’ I insisted.
So, he said an arrowed prayer. Just as I was disengaging my hand from his, I saw the aide-de-camp, ADC, to the president. Split seconds later, President Jonathan, emerged with his signature smile. A pin-drop silence fell on the chamber as he shook our hands.
The seconds ticked. The zero hour was here. Suddenly, I found my voice as the president settled in his seat. Looking straight at him, I fired a friendly salvo: ‘Mr. President, if I was doing this interview alone, for my paper, The Sun, I would have started by asking you: How hot or cold is that seat?’
He laughed heartily as he replied:
“Well, when it is hot, it is extremely hot. When it is cold, it could be extremely cold. If things go on well in the country, nobody gives the president any credit. When things are not going on smoothly, it’s the president.”
“If I fought my wife before coming here, it must be the president,” I interjected, supporting him.
And the room, filled with TV and radio crews, as well as some ministers who sat in the shadows, quaked with laughter. That did the magic for me. My fear vanished, and from then onward, there was ‘no shaking’ as they say in local parlance.
Presently, the camera would begin to roll, and the two-hour Presidential Media Chat would kick-off. My confidence level soared once the interview started and the anchor, Senami Ohaimokhare, began with my question on the spiking temperature of the president’s seat. The rest, as they say, is history.
Now, if you were to use the opposition’s prism to do a political or journalistic portrait of President Goodluck Jonathan, you might profile him as a stiff, boring and conservative former university teacher, who lacks the spine for the high level intrigues that characterize politics in these shores. You would think he is a weak Commander-in-Chief who would have problems saluting the military on October 1 or Army Day.
But was the president boring on a night many would later testify was his best outing so far? Far from it! The President Jonathan that we sat with for two solid hours before live television, last Sunday night, was supremely confident and deeply incisive. He acquitted himself well and sincerely on virtually all the issues raised. He engaged the team brilliantly.
Now, wait for this: contrary to the impression that media managers of high profile, politically exposed persons like the president usually teleguide interview processes by forcing prepared questions on interviewers, Dr. Abati never did anything of sort. He told us to come with our questions while confirming our invitation. It was a no-holds-barred encounter, he assured. And that’s exactly what happened.
So engaging was the session with the President that Labaran Maku, Minister of Information and supervising Minister of Defence, exhaled moments after, and said: “You guys!”
As we filed out of the chamber to join the President at dinner in his residence, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said what Labaran didn’t say.
“Ha! You guys really engaged the President, but the President was more than equal to the task,” she declared.
On Sunday night, I saw the side of President Jonathan that many Nigerians may probably not have seen before, or known, i.e. his hilarious side. Welcoming us to dinner, he said: “It is a law here that everybody must serve himself thrice. It’s a must, lest anybody say the president is a glutton.”
Again, everybody roared in laughter. But President Jonathan was just beginning. “Now, it’s my turn to interview you people,” he announced as he sank into his seat with his first serving. Turning to Senami Ohaimokhare who sat three seats away, he said: “My first question goes to you, madam: You change your dress every morning (on Kaakaaki, A.I.T’s early morning programme that she co-anchors). How do you manage? Is your husband not in trouble?”
“So, the president watches television like ordinary people like us?” Nosa Igiebor interjected. “My organization actually pays us wardrobe allowance,” Ohaimokhare replied, as Vice President Namadi Sambo and the Chief of Staff, Chief Mike Oghiadomhe, laughed.
“But the men get more,” Igiebor quipped.
“Ah, that’s not fair oh,” President Jonathan said. “But the women need more money because they would need lipstick, and other things.”
“But Christiane Amanpour doesn’t change her dress. She is constant…,” Maku said.
“You mean she doesn’t change like we politicians?” the President joked as he scooped from his plate.
“She changes,” I corrected Maku respectfully.
“She may have hundreds of the same shirt and jacket, and you would think she wears only one every day,” Gloria Ume-Ezeoke came into the conversation.
“We, politicians, don’t change our style on purpose,” the president extended the narratives on style. “We don’t it for identity. But I can’t afford to change often because nobody pays me wardrobe allowance.”
“More importantly, we don’t want them to say our President is over dressing,” the Vice President expatiated.
I looked at the Minister of Police Affairs, Caleb Olubolade, sitting next to me, who, in turn looked at the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Chukwuemeka Wogu, and both smiled.
“But the President wore agbada when he visited Ogun State not too long ago,” Igiebor came in again after pausing to take in the jokes.
“Ah, Nosa, agbada is very oppressive o,” the President came in seriously.
“Is it because it is too heavy?” asked Igiebor.
And Maku remarked: “Mr. President, that reminds me of what the late Sultan Siddiq Abubakar III once said about politics. He said politics in Nigeria is like wearing a silk gown (agbada). As you are taking one side up, the other side is falling.”
“That’s apt,” Sambo said, as Igeibor nodded his agreement.
“The job of president is the worst job in the world that everybody wants to do,” Maku continued. “This is not a job for anybody above 70.”
The conversation continued on that note as A.I.T beamed clips of the Presidential Media Chat in its flagship news bulletin. Suddenly, a pall of silence fell on the room, as everyone shifted attention to the big, flat screen on the wall.
President Jonathan, noting the inscription at the right corner of the screen, which read ‘Live’, almost threw everybody off his seat when he joked: “This is great! So, A.I.T. is still showing it live!”
When the ensuing laughter subsided, Maku commended the president: “Well done, Your Excellency. You did a great job, sir. It was a difficult conversation but you acquitted yourself well, sir.”
Everybody agreed.
From the Presidential Media Chat, the TV station showed reactions to the massacre of students in Yobe earlier that day, after which it moved to a bombing scene in Pakistan.
“That’s Pakistan, sir,” Maku emphasized on that piece of news. “That has been going on for 10 years and it’s a Muslim country. So, it’s not about religion.”
By now, most of the plates on the dinner table had become empty. Except mine. Quite unfortunately for me, I couldn’t level the mountain in my plate before the president rose steadily, and began to thank us once again for coming.
I couldn’t eat because I was busy writing. Everybody rose automatically, as President Jonathan left the dinning area for the expansive living room.
There, he paused to converse briefly with the Minister of Labour and Productivity. In a jiffy, he was gone. That effectively ended the four-hour encounter with the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Boy, was it a worthwhile experience! You can say that again.