If I'm President Laurent Gbagbo

These past weeks and month have witnessed an unprecedented focus on the personality, position and status of president Laurent Gbagbo of Cote D'voire, because he rejected the election results that declared him as the looser in an elections to Alassane Quattara, after the conduct of the historic presidential elections supervised by the United Nation's, that was set as an opportunity to unite the country after almost ten years of fractious civil war, that divided the country into two halves with the south been in government hands while the north opting to go at it alone, the genesis of the conflict was the question of the qualification and entitlement of who is an Ivorien and the argument that children of immigrants from up north, could not be granted the right of full citizenship as to entitle them presidency of La Cote D'ivoire, thus citizens like Alassane Dramane Quattara who had once served as a prime minister of the country stood excluded from seeking for the highest office in the land.

The genesis of my seeking to assume the option of a devil's advocate and insert myself into the current situational position of president Laurent Gbagbo, was the offer of refuge or more appropriately asylum granted to the Ivorien leader by the Nigerian government through the person of president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, that Mr. Laurent Gbagbo is a welcomed guest in the Federal Republic of Nigeria and would be availed of all the state protect that an honored friend is entitled to, the first thing that come to my mind after hearing of the offer was the current situational circumstance of Mr. Charles Taylor and the journey of his present travails at the Hague, what landed him at the war crimes tribunal was actually also a refuge deal and a gentleman's agreement that Nigeria would grant him a sanctuary in Calabar for an unlimited duration of time. However, what happened later has been so documented in history that it is not a subject of dispute.

The concept of an agreement, indeed a gentleman's agreement pre-supposes an understanding and a Pact agreed between individuals or parties. That all the interest concerned abiding by it as a sacred undertaking that is tied to the honor and integrity of the parties, fortunately for the Liberian people but unfortunately for Mr. Taylor the pact was not honored by Nigeria and in particular president Olusegun Obasanjo, as the former Liberian leader was conveniently handed to the jurisdiction of international criminals court trying the Sierra Leonean war crimes in Hague, thus a similar offer from the leader of the same country in the person of president Goodluck Jonathan, the current chairman of the ECOWAS is bound to elicit the response is history seeking to repeat itself? more so as the issues are contextually similar in nature, an obstinate African leader daring and trying the patience of the international community.

The personality of the individual offering a gentleman's agreement is very important in determining the status of the deal, as it is usually a pact based on the inherent grace of the undertaker of the deal, also the previous antecedents of the personality is very important and a key to the strength of the agreement. Thus the personality in these case need to be thoroughly examined as his previous encounters with signed and unsigned gentleman's agreement, the statement of the president regarding the People's Democratic Party's zoning conundrum, were as a signatory and a party to the deal the president blatantly refused to acknowledge the existence of the Pact, it is worth noting that the concept of zoning principle is actually a constitutional provision in the party, that have not been altered or even undergoing the process of amendment, yet the leader of the PDP still regarded zoning principle as a mere claim from his detractors.

It is an African adage that the you measure the individual's personality by the kind of friends, associates and company he keeps, thus the personality making these offer to you Mr. Laurent Gbagbo is actually a protégé of the former president Olusegun Obasanjo, some people are even claiming and ascribing the tag of a disciple to him, as times without number he has always sees him as a mentor that is worth emulating, thus for a personality like you that is seriously under pressure and in highly in short of trust , regarding his status as the president of La Cote D'ivoire, staking his future upon such a precarious deal would be asking for too much, more so as the international community in the mould of the French and the United States of America are mounting strenuous amount of pressure on the Nigerian president, to solve the Ivorien imbroglio by whatever means, as it is patently unacceptable to tolerate the current subsisting situation.

The history of Nigerian leaders right from time immemorial as affirmed and confirmed by the WikiLeaks cable on Nigeria, is about acting at the wishes its foreign friends and if correlated with the ECOMOG misadventure in Liberia, which was undertaken as a ploy to protect a friend in the person of late president Samuel Doe, then surely Nigeria would do everything to bring your reign to perdition, especially as the Nigerian president after recent disclosures most show the world how tough he is in an election year, mark my words if need be Ivory Coast most be destroyed at the altar of affirming Nigeria's leadership at the west coast of Africa, in the end Mr. president only your conscience can save the Ivorien people, thus please president Laurent Gbagbo follow it and step down.