Crooked thinking

Isn’t it interesting that there are people who still argue that former President Goodluck Jonathan should have been re-elected because of a promise he made?  Prominent in this pro-Jonathan circle is Chief Ayo Adebanjo, a leader of the Yoruba interest group known as Afenifere.

In an interview published on October 2, Adebanjo declared: “I said the greatest mistake Nigerians – Yoruba must not make was voting for Buhari. Everybody heard me when I said that. Many people said I was a Peoples Democratic Party’s apologist. I made that statement back then based on what I know about Buhari and his antecedents. Former President Goodluck Jonathan didn’t realise the importance of implementing the confab report on time. He promised that if given a second term as president he would examine the recommendations and try to implement them. The other man (Buhari) said he wasn’t going to look at the report at all. I think it is reasonable to consider the person who promised to do something.”

This argument is simplistic, to put it simply. Adebanjo was referring to the controversial 2014 National Conference organised by the Jonathan administration and the confab’s contentious recommendations.  It is unbelievable that a senior citizen of Adebanjo’s standing failed to appreciate that a promise to do something is not the same thing as doing something.

There was no guarantee that Jonathan would have kept his promise if he had been re-elected. Furthermore, to say that “Jonathan didn’t realise the importance of implementing the confab report on time” appears to contradict the reasoning that he would have implemented the report because he had promised to do so. If the rejected ex-president considered the implementation of the confab report important, he ought to have realised the importance of a timely implementation, particularly since he tried to base his electoral appeal on a promise to implement the said report.

If all that mattered to the electorate was the implementation of the confab report, perhaps Jonathan would have performed better than he did in the presidential election. But his performance as president was what mattered at election time; and he was poorly rated.

It would appear that Adebanjo and his ilk choose to be blind to Jonathan’s clear failure in terms of good governance, even when the colossal corruption that characterised his administration continues to hit the headlines.

Those who think like Adebanjo need to be told that there is always a clear difference between straight thinking and crooked thinking.