March 28: As reality dawns on Mr President
ON May 29, President Goodluck Jonathan will be back to his country home in Otuoke, in Bayelsa State, where he started a sweaty early life that couldn’t guarantee shoes for school. He had trudged along, without the slightest inkling of what providence had in stock for him. Apparently, little Goodluck must have had his then school headmaster in mind, for possible role model as he grew up. Like every other growing up child, the choice of heroes and role models is mainly inspired by the immediate environment.
For a place like Otuoke, therefore, the role model in Jonathan’s childhood days might be the short sleeve-shirted headmaster or college principal. It might as well be the village catechist or the “doctor” who owned a patent medicine kiosk nearby. These heroes and role models of the time were modest in earthly possessions. But they were well known for their benignity towards the community. That was the typical background in the President’s journey from cradle to his formative years. Today, he is no longer the boy he used to be. Praise singers have since moulded him in the likeness of the great Nelson Mandela, the martyred Martin Luther King Jnr, the charismatic Barack Obama and after other men of power and honour.
By sheer providence, he has risen from a humble and rustic start, to the olympian height of power and glory. But despite his phenomenal rise in fame and power through a 16 year stretch, the provincial world view of his early beginning appears to have remained unchanged. The son is the father of the man, as the old saying goes. As he ends his five-year sojourn in the Presidency in less than one week, what will history say about his stewardship in the days and years ahead? Has he justified the mandate entrusted to him by the electorate? Is he leaving the country better than he met it?
A proper appraisal of his performance cannot be attempted without examining the quality of the President’s cognitive, affective and evaluative characteristics. Juxtaposed with this, are the general perception and the reality of the political and economic situation he is bequeathing to the nation. We may take a few major focal points: State of the economy, insecurity, corruption and infrastructure. The Jonathan administration came on board with a “transformation agenda” purportedly geared towards taking the country to the proverbial Eldorado. But five years down the line, the economy has remained comatose, obviously worse than he met it. Mass unemployment has continued to drive the nation and her people down the slope, with very little redemptive measures in the offing. He succeeded in nurturing the fuel subsidy regime he inherited from his predecessors and growing it into a huge economic monster that has bled the nation to the bones.
16 years into the reign of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), including Jonathan’s five, Nigeria still imports petroleum products for domestic use. This is in the backdrop of billions of crude barrels exported to the international market with handsome foreign exchange earnings. But these earnings (minus proceeds from oil theft), which soared to the heavens for a better part of the Jonathan era, were funneled into private pockets of a few economic vampires through obnoxious subsidy payments. It’s a case of the crocodile eating its own eggs. Nigeria is the sixth largest crude oil producer/exporter in the entire world. Ironically, the country has remained one of the highest refined importers around.
Neither Jonathan nor those PDP-produced presidents before him made any honest attempts at fixing the refineries. It is this garbage-in-garbage-out approach that has brought the nation’s oil industry to the present sorry state where motorists have to spend an eternity struggling to fill their parched vehicles. The situation today is worse than the pre-Jonathan years. Infrastructure presents a different kettle of fish. One of the major achievements credited to Jonathan by the PDP, is the unbundling of the power sector, a feat which they claim, is unprecedented in the history of the country. But the unbundling has done more harm to the generality of electricity consumers than good. The Gencos and Discos have continued to generate and distribute heavy megawatts of endless darkness, in tune with the administration’s transformation agenda, perhaps.
It is corruption unbundled. The anti corruption campaign under Jonathan has left much to be desired in the government’s litany of scandals. Under the President’s watch, corruption became an institution with cabinet ministers and heads of federal agencies donning the soiled garment with pride. From the oil sector to aviation, pensions to maritime, ring the loud echoes of unbridled corruption. The various anti-graft agencies have been tied to the stake, effectively castrated through deliberate underfunding. Impunity was left to fester where stealing, according to our President, did not constitute corruption.
Security of lives and property became perilously endangered under the administration. The Boko Haram insurgents have capitalised on the slovenly security architecture to annex Nigerian territories. Thousands of innocent citizens were needlessly killed and maimed without hindrance. It was a reversion to the Hobbesian state of nature where life was brutish, nasty and short. The government and its security agencies were initially skirting around the problem, blaming the opposition for their own inadequacies. After years of dilly-dallying, the military eventually responded to the challenge. But not before the terror gangs had wrecked sufficient devastation on the collective psyche.
Today, a sizable chunk of northeastern Nigeria lay in economic ruins even as the insurgents continue the mindless onslaught against the country and her defenceless people. Nigerians are killed in their dozens and left to rot away in bushes far and near, with dogs and rodents feasting on their remains. President Jonathan’s brand of politics is a page lifted from the Machiavellian script. In seeking re-election, the President threw decency to the dogs and shed all appearances of moderation. Never in the history of Nigeria have the people been so divided along ethnic, religious and sentimental lines. Embedded Christian religious leaders were busy spreading bile and prejudices among their credulous followers, soiling their apostolic robes in the process.
Frightening tales were sold to unsuspecting congregants, demonising the President’s major opponent in the election. Bales of cash were reported to have been circulated among certain influential Christian leaders, trickling down the rank of low cadre clerics down the strata. Ethnic warlords were recruited for the dirty job, threatening fire and brimstone if Jonathan did not win. The infamous Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), the MASSOB and a horde of mendicant Nollywood bums were recruited into the rampaging army of campaign miscreants. And before anyone could say Arthur Nzeribe, recruits of the outlawed milia groups had taken over major streets in their native regions. The electoral body and its leadership became targets of assault by these hirelings.
The security agencies, including the military, were also drafted into the President’s political war. Military service record of the President’s opponent was nibbled at, with some of the documents growing limbs and walking away from the file. The secondary school leaving certificate of retired General Muhammadu Buhari, they said, could not be found in his file. Hard-earned integrity and reputation of key opposition figures were recklessly impugned upon through audio and visual documentaries reminiscent of the proverbial Abacha coup video show. A carefully selected campaign team was empanelled for the hate campaign proper. The abrasive, caustic and mordant tongue of the President’s wife joined the mindless fray.
It turned out to be the most reckless and unrestrained show of irreverence in election campaign anywhere in the world. The President left the common chest wide open, attracting “friends” of all shades and characters for spoils. That inglorious crowd of parasites called Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) played a fast one on the apparent gullibility of the President. At the sound of the whistle, TAN had succeeded in ‘tanning’ candidate Jonathan inside out. With the election won and lost, the numerical strength of the President’s ‘friends’ has continued to diminish by the day. In the hey days, they used to throng his Aso Villa abode in hundreds per day, for obvious reasons. Now that the cookie has crumbled, they have since voted with their clean pairs of heels. The President himself has complained of having been deserted by those he regarded as his friends.
He has become a friend in need of fortitude, an unnecessary burden only few of such friends are willing to share. The reality has dawned on President Jonathan that lonely is the one that is down. The initial delusion of power and grandeur has given way for delusion of persecution. The President aptly exhibited this recently when he hollered that the incoming administration would persecute him and his ministers for, reasons he did not state. Now that the party is over, the President will be on a home bound journey in a few days. Once a man, twice a child, the reality of transience of power has set in. For Goodluck Jonathan, it is time for introspection, time for self-examination and time for self-criticism. What a thing about fleeting, ephemeral power. Fare thee well, Mr. President.
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