…Presidency Bigger than President, Says Rice
From Sufuyan Ojeifo in Abuja, 02.22.2010

Former US Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, yesterday night made a prognosis of where Nigeria should be within the next fifty years, saying that the country should have a strong democracy which would deliver for the people.

But Rice, while answering questions moderated by the Chairman of THISDAY Newspapers, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena, at the THISDAY Nigeria at 50 Awards Dinner last night in Abuja, sidestepped a question requiring her to make comments on the prolonged absence of ailing President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

She said: “I will leave this point to Nigerians.  One thing that is important… I pray for your president’s recovery.  I met him.  I saw him to be somebody who had a real vision for Nigeria. But ultimately, the presidency is more important than the person who occupies it. In a democracy, there is the office of the presidency and the person elected to that office is the servant of the people and he is accountable to the people… 

“I am certain that Nigerians would find within their democratic institutions a way to deal with the current crisis that you have; but with that said, my prayers are with your President and my prayers are with your Acting President with whom I met today (yesterday) and with all of your other leaders who must lead Nigeria through this critical time.”

The 15th THISDAY Awards ceremony held at the THISDAY Dome, Abuja, saw a number of prominent Nigerians both living and dead, as well as companies and institutions, recognised for their contributions and achievements in the polity.

Rice continued the discussion on “Nigeria: The Next 50 Years,” from where the duo of former US President, George W. Bush and former Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair left off in the afternoon during a Special Luncheon, which presaged the Awards night.   
In trying to define the trajectory open to Nigeria in the next fifty years, she said while rounding off his speech which she made almost extempore that, “I come to you as a daughter of ordinary people.  I come to you also as a citizen of the country that struggled to make ‘we, the people’ have meaning because, of course, when the founding fathers said ‘we, the people’ they did mean me.

“But throughout democratic institutions, solely virtually, ‘we, the people’ has come to mean more of us and the great irony is that it was the descendants of stolen sons and daughters Africa that brought America to the full realisation of what ‘we, the people’ means.
“In doing so, those descendants, impatient patriots like Martin Luther King, actually found inspirations in the liberation movements that were taking place here in Africa.  They found their liberation in people who said ‘enough is enough; the time has come for freedom.’

“That inspiration then led those impatient patriots to overcome to the point that a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the dark time of segregation, a little girl who could not have a hamburger and lunch on the counter because of segregation and had never believed that she could be something in US, became a Secretary of State.”

Rice stated: “That same spirit led America to overcome to the point that it elected a black man to the highest office in the land.”
She then drove her point home more forcefully: “You see, I have come to believe that Nigeria at 50, Nigeria at 60, Nigeria at 70 will be a place that has achieved its potentials because I know that sometimes things that seem impossible just seem unaffordable after you have achieved them.

“If we take this anniversary, if we take as friends of Africa and Nigeria, and if you take, as Nigerians, this anniversary to reaffirm the principle that Nigerian democracy will be strong and honourable and deliver for its people, I am quite certain that we will look back and say: ‘a job well done; potentials fulfilled’.”   
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http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=167017