I have been telling my politician friends, especially those who want to unseat the incumbent President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, that the 2015 elections entail a lot more, much more than the act of defeating or losing to the president and that the fate of his incumbency is bigger than what the 2015 elections can resolve. This kind of scepticism is not exactly popular in the prevailing anti-Jonathan trend, yet it was a foremost Nigerian political professor, Professor Billy Dudley of blessed memory, who counsels that scepticism is a political virtue. In often disagreeable terms, I have been told that Jonathan is not only vulnerable to defeat but he is actually a sitting duck. But let me begin with a personal reading of his personality and then we can scale up to the level of controversy and contention. I do this with the intention of providing a human interest perspective to the understanding of the triumphs, trials and tribulations of the president as he grapples with the clamorous governance of Nigeria.
First, he is a gentleman and a good guy and like most good guys, he tends to avoid rather than confront difficult questions and situations. Good guys find it difficult to say no to requests and demands that are routinely made on them and may end up disappointing many. They are not very assertive and would readily smile and seldom frown; and as he himself once confessed, they have no fire in their belly. “I’m not a lion, I’m not a Goliath and I’m not an army general,” so pleaded the gentleman president in begging off from the combative style a while ago.
Now we proceed to the rough and tumble of Nigeria’s political highway. In the culture of editorial boardroom discussions there is a role usually assigned as playing the devil’s advocate, arguing a view that is not yours or that is actually opposed to your position. So here is a presentation of the devil’s advocacy in the case of Jonathan versus the Nigerian opposition. First, you are reminded of the circumstances of his emergence to the Office of the President; how he started as a caretaker president and graduated to a divinely orchestrated usurper of the tenure entitlement of the ‘North’. To make matters worse, you are further told of how pathologically incompetent he has proven to be in acquitting himself as president.
Compounding the thesis of congenital incapacity for leadership, your attention is drawn to the Ijawnisation of the presidency– how the president is completely serenaded (or maybe even barricaded ) against any contact or influence by any other group of Nigerians save the Ijaws in general and the Ogbia brotherhood in particular. And that within this Ijaw power conclave there is the prevalent attitude of to hell with other Nigerians that this is our turn, after all we own the resources on which other Nigerians have fed fat without sensitivity to our plight. You will be told of how Asari Dokubo, Tompolo and other former and would-be warlords have been handed the keys to the national treasury to pillage to their hearts content.
In response, I take the stand to address the issues raised and conclude with the summation that the answers and solutions we seek go beyond Jonathan and 2015 .It is true that there is some sort of agreement within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of rotating the Office of the President between the North and the South, but it was an incurably flawed arrangement. The assumptions and the reality of its application fail to synchronise in significant respects. The primary condition for the validation of the policy does not exist and we pray to God it never exists; and that is the dispensation of one party dictatorship. It is only within this dispensation that the ruling party can dictate the policy of rotation.
Similarly, the policy was blind to the possibility of the PDP candidate losing to another party as was potentially the case against General Muhammadu Buhari in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 presidential elections. The most familiar flaw was the contingency of the incumbent dropping dead before completing his tenure, as was the case with President Umaru Yar’Adua. There is a legal wisecrack that is usually rendered in the Latin language to the effect that you do not purport to give what is not within your sole custody.
It is difficult to ascertain the truth of the claim that Jonathan committed to doing one term as president but even if he did, it is of little consequence. It is the rule rather than exception for politicians to remain flexible and review and adjust their views and positions. Please don’t ask me about morality here but remember that they do not come as morally upright as Barack Obama, yet Guantanamo Bay remains open and in operation five years into his presidency. The issue of one term or not is even beyond Jonathan to resolve. And this for the simple reason that he is not president in his own right, he is there, according to the rotation principle, as a zonal or regional nominee and cannot by himself deny his region the entitlement of two terms in office.
I believe that President Jonathan can do a lot better than he has done but it is also true that Nigerians seem readily determined to believe the worst of their leaders and write them off. One abiding curiosity I have is that I cannot recall any precedence where Nigerians have not expressed the opinion that all past and serving rulers are fit and proper candidates for jail on account of ruinous performance in office. One after another, they are condemned as the most corrupt in the history of Nigeria. If any observer were requested to score the stewardship of President Olusegun Obasanjo on the basis of the information he gathers from the Nigerian media, especially the Daily Trust and Leadership, he would sooner recommend him to the World Court at The Hague on the charges of untold crimes against the Nigeria segment of humanity.
If anybody raises the banner of anti-corruption he is immediately confronted with the refrain that let him who has not sinned cast the first stone. Presently proof positive of this is that whilst we are still writhing in the throes of the agony of the Oduahgate, we were dealt a vicious kick in the groin by the stupefying revelations of a comparable magnitude of malfeasance perpetrated (allegedly) by a leading would-be reformer of PDP and the Nigeria political landscape. Pots calling kettles black. I reason that we are witnessing the commencement of a political exhibition that will leave Nigeria a graveyard of reputations in the long and harrowing months leading to 2015.
This rot in itself is not so much the problem as our disposition towards the resolution. There is little doubt, in view of so much cumulative evidence, that in its present structure and form, the utility of Nigeria is more negative than positive. It encourages us to tolerate and rationalise our individual and collective failings and misconduct within the larger failing of Nigeria itself. It is in Nigeria that public functionaries indicted for corruption seek and often get exoneration on the premise of being a victim of selective justice and not that the offence was not committed; of guilt by association; exoneration by association
The choice and question that confront contemporary Nigeria is not whether anybody remains as president beyond 2015; rather it is about making the form and structure of the country amenable to reason and accountability. It is about limiting the potential for damage and devastation caused by the desperation to capture power at the centre. It is about making the tiers of government nearer to us more relevant and positively impactful than the one faraway in Abuja. It is about devolving powers to the lower level tiers of government from which individual and communities can better access socio-economic growth and development.
Eminent Nigerians of the calibre of Chief Emeka Anyaoku have proffered suggestions on how Nigeria can embark on decentralisation without any stressful alteration of the revenue allocation formula that will leave any section of the country worse off. It is getting increasingly hollow to argue against any review of Nigeria’s political structure and in the same breadth complain that the country is not working. If we want to retain the status-quo regardless of its subversive dysfunction, then I see no useful purpose in the opportunism of seeking to replace the incumbent president.
Stay updated with Abusidiqu.com, a member of the NIGERIANEWSBEAT team. Follow us on TWITTER or be our fan on FACEBOOK
Do not hesitate to leave your opinion in the comment section below.
To contact Abusidiqu.com for Article Submission and Advertisement or General inquiry, send a mail to info@abusidiqu.com
