Category: Idowu Akinlotan

For those still enamoured of the candidacy of President Goodluck Jonathan, whose support for him rests principally on their hatred for leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), I offer them the president’s shocking and revelatory performance in last Wednesday’s live television media chat. If after watching the programme anyone still thinks Dr Jonathan merits any patriot’s vote, or that Nigeria is in safe hands with him, as former military head of state Ibrahim Babangida says, then it is useless teaching such a supporter to reason. You do not have to support the APC candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, or like the APC or its leaders, to realise that with Dr Jonathan Nigeria is not only in unsafe hands, but that democracy itself will most certainly be lost should he be reelected.

Let us take a few samples from the controversial chat. Asked if the six-week military push against Boko Haram would lead to the rescue of the 219 Chibok schoolgirls abducted last April, the president gave this answer: “Well, I cannot give you a specific time range, so that you will not say the president said so. I cannot say in two weeks time; but give us some time. We are working with our neighbours and we are combing the whole area, just give us some time. The case with the Chibok girls is very unfortunate. That is the difference between the current challenges and crisis we face in Nigeria and that of other countries when they had issues of terror. Many nations have experienced terror, even the US has. We know that France experienced terror not too long ago. Other countries, when they have this issue of terror, political boundaries collapse and people work together. But in this case, it is different, we politicise everything. Is that the way we will bring back these girls?”

It is impossible not to be incensed at Dr Jonathan’s answer. He is acutely aware his word has become meaningless, and is reluctant to give it. So, why draw attention to the impotence of his word? He also sets great store by neighbouring countries’ involvement in Nigeria’s counterinsurgency efforts, but a few days ago even Niger Republic ridiculed Nigerian troops by describing them as cowards who flee in the face of the enemy, while Nigeria in turn described the troops from Niger Republic as looters and poor. The president bewilderingly suggests that while other nations experience terror, the abduction of schoolgirls make the Nigerian experience much worse and more difficult. He is apparently unable to appreciate that his government’s incompetence made the Chibok embarrassment the mess it is. Then he speaks of ‘even the US’ suffering terror attacks, as if to underscore the fact that great and powerful nations, let alone a developing one like Nigeria, are also victims of terrorism. Very poor consolation.

But perhaps the worst aspect of his response must be his exasperation with what he insufferably describes as the ‘politicisation’ of the Chibok abductions, asking rhetorically and pathetically whether that was the way to bring back the girls. It is shocking that Dr Jonathan still thinks the Chibok crime was politicised. But in fact it is a grave political issue when a president proves so inept at securing life and property, not to talk of rescuing 219 abducted schoolgirls, a fact he, his wife and government at first denied for more than one week. It is a political issue; it should be politicised; and putting pressure on a weak and indifferent government is a legitimate way to get the president to perform his constitutional duties. If he can’t live up to his oaths, he does not deserve any vote.

Dr Jonathan was also asked how he perceived his main opponent in next month’s presidential election, Gen Buhari. It was an opportunity to act the statesman, and with a little sophomoric philosophy, he could have pulled it through. Instead, he offered his long-suffering subjects a truly baffling and abysmal description of his opponent, and a sad window into his own harried mind. He said: “Buhari contested in 2003 against Obasanjo, he did so in 2007 against late President YarÁdua, and contested against me in 2011. Even in 2011 which was the closest, the tension was not there because the characters that were around him then are different from now… APC started its campaign before me and I watched some of the rallies before I started my campaign in Lagos. If you listened to the way I spoke in Lagos at my flag off, you will realise that I was aggressive.” This is probably the most spectacular indication of who the president is. He is bogged down by trivia and cannot see the big picture, takes things personal in spite of knowing that he occupies an office that impacts greatly on the people, and is bitter and unforgiving over small and big slights.

It is clear from his response to the question on Gen Buhari, which by the way he failed to answer like a leader and statesman, that Nigeria is saddled with a president who was not prepared for office, has learnt little or nothing from his five years stay in office, and worse, is unlikely to be improved by that office. He thinks he has been more insulted than Gen Buhari during this campaign, a fact he argues has prompted his bellicosity. And he formed the incredible belief that the APC candidate would have been milder had he not been surrounded by diehards. Dr Jonathan does not credit Gen Buhari with the initiative and boldness to repackage his campaign, having failed three times before. The president’s appalling reading of his opponent, not to say the environment, is leading him to horrendous anti-democratic excesses.

Having concluded that the men around Gen Buhari — in short APC national leaders — are responsible for the pungency, drive and perhaps effectiveness of the opposition campaign, it is not surprising that he has inspired a security cordon around and crackdown on opposition leaders. He seizes every available moment to pontificate on violence-free campaigns and peaceful governance, but he secretly winks at the brutal exercise of presidential power, which he has outsourced in plausible deniability to fawning and paranoid minds in the security agencies. As far as he is concerned, the crackdown on the opposition, the invasion of their offices, the harassment of opposition governors and lawmakers, including the invasion of the House of Representatives, not to talk of the insubordination of policemen and secret service personnel, are nothing but the routine exercise of their duties. This column concluded last week that voting Jonathan would doom democracy. Last week’s media chat, with all the president’s boyish hurting and effusions, shows clearly we would have no democracy to nurture should the increasingly fascist Dr Jonathan be reelected.

One more example from the chat and I am done. Dr Jonathan was asked what he thought of and intended to do about the fanatical war cries coming from his Niger Delta supporters, most of them so-called reformed militants. He gave a few homilies about unity and peace, talked about the treason he deduced from the northern youths who pelted him with stones, and then simply glided over the question. He said nothing about questioning or arresting the militants who threatened war if Dr Jonathan was not reelected, nor did the duties of a president strike him as so weighty and sacred as to prompt him to denounce the treasonable statements by the militants, and cause the already diseased and compromised security services to perform their solemn duties to the constitution. Dr Jonathan probably sees the creek war whoops as a necessary counterpoise to the northern stoning, and an insurance against his humiliation at the polls.

There was nothing in Dr Jonathan’s CV to indicate he possessed leadership qualities before Chief Obasanjo inflicted him on Nigeria. Nearly six years after he assumed office, as the last media chat showed, there is still nothing in him or about him to indicate he has the qualities of a leader. He is in effect leading the country to ruin. He cannot be trusted to protect anyone, let alone the constitution. If it suits him, he will ignore the constitutional tomfooleries of Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti, chuckle at the gross insubordination of megalomaniacal police officers like Mbu Joseph Mbu, an Assistant Inspector-General (AIG), nod at the military’s dangerous partisanship and incursion into politics, ignore the secret service’s many direct assaults on the liberties of the people, and envelope the country in so much gloom that the rest of Africa can do nothing but wait in apprehension at the disaster unfolding upon Nigeria. A sneering world already knows Dr Jonathan is unfit to rule; his last media chat proved that point eminently.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo warned in far away Kenya that the military should not contemplate a coup d’etat on account of the crises hamstringing Nigeria. He is not the only one to warn against military adventurism. All the watchmen are right to warn against the truncation of democracy; but they assume that democracy is really in place in the first instance. Everything at the moment, indeed, indicates that democracy is already in abeyance, and military rule has been enthroned, if not in law, at least in fact. It was the National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki, a retired colonel, that first talked of a six-week extension to the original February 14 poll date. After a lot of meandering instigated and supervised by the military, which said they could not provide security for polling officials and voters, the Jonathan government got the six weeks it schemed for. The president, who has apparently ceded presidential powers to the military, was ecstatic.

In an unprecedented constitutional affront last year, the military also targeted critical newspapers for a week or so, detained their distribution vans on the pretext of national security interest, barred them from selling their papers, and refused to compensate them for huge losses. The same military that found the Boko Haram insurgency a tough nut to crack, and hates been criticised for their ineffectiveness, however, poured tens of thousands of troops into Ekiti and Osun States last year to ‘police’ elections. Meanwhile, they needed only about eight thousand troops to man the Multinational Joint Task Force to fight Boko Haram, with all the derogatory connotations of cowardice levelled against Nigerian troops by Niger Republic officers. Apart from needing help from lowly Chad and Cameroon, the Nigerian military has unadvisedly depended on civilians (Civilian JTF) to procure intelligence for them on Boko Haram, though they have in their ranks troops and officers native to the Northeast.

Importantly too, without recourse to state authorities or the beneficiaries of their benevolence, soldiers have laid siege to the homes of opposition politicians on the pretext of giving them unsolicited security. While the federal government and all manner of small and ad hoc agencies such as the Sure-P are assaulting and upturning the little federalism left in the country, the president carries on indifferently, and indeed, no one seems to care how to halt the madness overtaking the nation.

It is in the midst of these that Col Dasuki (retd) has promised there would be no more poll date shift. How can he tell? Is it not obvious that the Jonathan government, contrary to what their supporters say, simply wanted a break to restrategise against what they perceived as humiliating defeat?

Afenifere, inappropriately described as the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, has reportedly endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for a second term. Whether the organisation’s leaders like to admit it or not, the implication is that it is now official that Afenifere has endorsed the PDP, for Dr Jonathan cannot be divorced from the PDP anymore than the PDP can be extricated from Buruji Kashamu. They are all intertwined, soul and body, follies and foibles, and in manners and egregiousness.  It is unlikely that Afenifere entertains any illusion about the full ramification of its endorsement, or that all along it has been a political and ambitious organisation. It gave the endorsement boldly and proudly, indifferent to whether it was wise or foolish.  Last week in Akure, after a meeting at the residence of the organisation’s leader, Reuben Fasoranti, Afenifere offered its soul to Dr Jonathan in the presumptuous conviction that of the two main contestants to the Nigerian presidency, Dr Jonathan better approximates the Yoruba yearning and worldview.

There is nothing in their statements and actions to indicate that Afenifere still represents all Yoruba people. Indeed, over time, its moral force has weakened considerably, its political sagacity and logic waned, its judgement dulled, and its compass so twisted it is a wonder its leaders can still find their way home after every endorsement they give out to undeserving politicians. But they hold on to past glories, just as they won’t let go of past prejudices and bigotries. Notwithstanding the formation of the more ideological and principled Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), the rump Afenifere still believes it is the main deal among the Yoruba, that it can crack the whip and the gelding would respond, that the little rudder it imagines itself to be literally and figuratively  can still imaginatively steer so large a ship and so complex and intransigent a people as the Yoruba.

The endorsement comes barely three weeks to the general elections, and was hatched in Akure under the tempestuous and conspiratorial noses of Governor Olusegun Mimiko, Chief Fasoranti and Gbenga Daniel, former Governor of Ogun State, among others. Dr Mimiko was once hailed as the rallying point for Yoruba renaissance by the same Afenifere enigmas who a little while back were famished for a hero, anyone, any type. Dr Mimiko wins elections, but he possesses little else by way of sagacity, spunk and character. He is the archetypal Machiavelian  who thinks nothing of giving his word with quiet dignity, but desperately disavowing it at the first hint of a challenge or difficulty, and with all the contrived ruefulness his melancholic spirit will allow. Today, the Afenifere enigmas have moderated their expectations.

Chief Fasoranti may have inherited the stool dignified by the late Adekunle Ajasin and the late Abraham Adesanya, but there is little else to indicate that the contemplative quietude and regal aloofness with which the founding leaders presided over the Yoruba group are inherent in the current leader.  In particular, Pa Adesanya not only exhibited an expansive view of history and culture , and was deep, reserved and magisterial, his judgement was also incomparably and intuitively sound, his style avuncular, and his view of leadership noble, rich, kaleidoscopic, selfless, metaphysical, almost infallible. Under Chief Fasoranti, Afenifere’s endorsement of Dr Jonathan illustrates the wide gulf between inheriting a throne in its physical ordinariness and inheriting a throne in all its dignity, nobility, and intangible etherealness. What Afenifere’s soul looked like under Pa Ajasin and Pa Adesanya was indisputably robust and magnetic; now who can tell what it looks like and what strange and indecipherable signals it emits?

Otunba Daniel was also reported to be present at the meeting where Afenifere’s endorsement was peddled for a trifle. Like Dr Mimiko, Chief Fasoranti and a few others, Otunba Daniel pretends to be imbued with the attribute of a Yoruba leader. But when he governed Ogun State, his mind wandered promiscuously between the esoteric mysticism of his past, complete with a fondness for cultural miniatures and gargoyles, not to say the dark arts of native alchemy, and the more open and conventional orthodoxy of his Christian upbringing. He perhaps excuses this fondness for the dark arts, this strange besottedness, on cultural grounds, but no one is fooled. It is not for nothing that the mind of this self-appointed Yoruba leader is seething with reactionary politics and discordant dialectics, as evidenced by his eight years in office.

All three, together with their personal and dedicated clearing house and cultural and political Ouija board, Yinka Odumakin, have engineered Afenifere’s questionable and reprehensible endorsement of Dr Jonathan and the PDP. Finally, after many years of rigmarole and epic struggle with their identity and conscience, Afenifere has now become a subset and subject of the PDP in a galling and anticlimactic way. It has shut its eyes to all the weaknesses, not to say the crass conservatism, of the ruling party. It convinces itself that neither the PDP nor the APC is progressive, and that if it comes to bureaucratic and leadership shenanigans, there is apparently no settling the precedence between the two leading parties. More, it believes without substantiation that the deceptive affability of Dr Jonathan, as it sees him, is preferable to the mercurial and brutally competitive nature of one or two APC leaders.

The Afenifere position on the presidential election is anchored on two leprous legs, both of which attempt to justify the endorsement. Hear the group: ‘’As far as Afenifere is concerned, the presidential election is to decide between two options, freedom or slavery. We have elected to choose freedom, freedom from bondage, internal enslavement and internal colonialism that hold most Nigerians down under the bastion of domination and we are convinced that the 2014 national conference report has laid the basis for the proper restructuring of the country…We want to warn the people of Yorubaland to be careful of those who promise change and do not believe in the restructuring of Nigeria and those who boycotted national conference and described it as diversion.’’

While it is clear the reasons Afenifere endorsed Dr Jonathan, it is not quite clear why and how they became heedlessly trapped in the ethnic divisions and prejudices of the past. Using hysterical language, the Yoruba group talks sweepingly and anachronistically of the choices they claim are before the country: of freedom and of slavery . It is hard to explain why they are stuck with this nonsense. The revelation of the 2011 elections is that no one, no region, no ethnic group can singlehandedly win a presidential election, let alone dominate and enslave others.

More profoundly, it is also crystal clear that the North has to work with the South to win, and the South must ally with the North to sweep the polls. East-West alliance never worked, and never will. Northeast-Northwest alliance is even more preposterous. It is dead on arrival. The 2011 elections put paid to the military aberration that distorted and undermined the polity for decades. Whether we like it or not, for peace and stability to reign, cooperation between North and South is unavoidable, and is in fact the crying need of the moment. Instigating ethnic loathing, such as Afenifere is doing, and fanning sectarian distrust, such as Dr Jonathan is himself doing, should be viewed warily and denounced.

It is likely Afenifere spoke of slavery in respect of the quest by the North, in this instance, through Muhammadu Buhari, to win the presidency. In the Second Republic, the ordinary south-westerner was harried by the ghost of northern hordes swooping on the South and forcefully Islamising them. Many southerners outgrew this childish apparition and have yielded themselves to the prospects and possibilities of inter- and intra-regional relationships. But not the regular Rip Van Winkles of the Afenifere who canonise this outdated and indefensible argument with the quizzical zealotry of kid soldiers introduced to killing for the first time. And except Afenifere leaders who self-righteously reduce the presidential poll to a choice between one thing or the other, every other person, including foreigners and an assortment of half-wits, knows the issues that are uppermost in the minds of Nigerians. Foisting a discredited and silly agendum on Nigerians is unworkable.

Second, and more revealingly, the Yoruba group went beyond endorsing Dr Jonathan to warning the Yoruba to avoid the All Progressives Congress (APC) whose mantra is change. Since a few leaders of the opposition party advocated a boycott of the national conference, it was enough for Afenifere to appoint themselves as leaders and prefects of the Yoruba and issue what amounts to a political fatwa on the APC. Given how they worded their warning, and the effrontery with which they issued it, it is abundantly clear that the leadership of the group is consumed by malice, bitterness and unadulterated hatred for one or two of the APC national leadership. It is such personal grievances and petty animosities that Afenifere has shockingly elevated into group and regional policies. In previous statements, leaders of Afenifere even insinuated that the APC was polliticising the Chibok abductions, without explaining how, and had sold the Southwest to the Hausa-Fulani, without suggesting how anyone can win the election by alienating a whole region.

Without doubt, the presidential poll is all about the economic downturn, with unemployment rate close to a quarter of the workforce; insecurity in large swathes of the country, a fact dangerously underestimated and misread by the Jonathan government; cancerous corruption; the nine-month-old abduction of 219 Chibok schoolgirls that has outraged the whole world; the personal ineptitude of Dr Jonathan; his obtruding wife; the president’s well-known ethnic prejudice and provincialism evident in his indulgent handling of the provocations of Ijaw militants;, and his obvious demonstration of inability to comprehend the demands of his office.

The poll is certainly not about Afenifere’s so-called choice between freedom and slavery, two gaseous and malignant words signifying nothing. The world is appalled by events in Nigeria; the African continent is ashamed of Dr Jonathan and bewildered by our connivance; Nigeria no longer commands respect of any sort in Africa;  and Nigerians themselves are so dismayed and frustrated that they are lost for words to describe the sorry pass to which their country has tragically come. It is a shame that the Yoruba, famed for their education, political activism and progressivism, can host a socio-cultural organisation that blindly ignores the reality of the moment, embraces a chimera, and instigates ethnic and in some ways sectarian hatred with violent words.

Rather than have Nigeria face two choices, it is Afenifere itself that is staring down the barrel of two disconcerting choices. By endorsing Dr Jonathan and throwing in their lot with the PDP, thereby abjuring their apolitical nature, they have indicated their preparedness to swim or sink with their new masters. If inconceivably he wins, Dr Jonathan can still not rise above his modest talents to offer Nigeria quality and inspiring leadership, and may in fact come to grief sooner rather than later. Afenifere will thus be exposed for backing the wrong horse. But if he loses, as he seems fated to do, Afenifere will lose everything dramatically. What were they promised for them to make this mad and desperate gambit? In short, Afenifere is damned whether Dr Jonathan wins or loses. For a Yoruba organisation that galloped resplendently  into the people’s view and consciousness on a revolutionising and liberating ideology, they have found themselves in a peculiar and uncomfortable position indeed. It is sad that barely three leaders since the Sani Abacha years, the Afenifere knights errant are impaled on their own swords in one massive, tectonic unravelling.

If Nigeria fails once again to elect the right man as president, it will be because the country has focused on the wrong priorities. So far, as the campaigns for the polls intensify, Nigerians are preoccupied with what they describe as weighty election considerations. They try to see how much President Goodluck Jonathan has implemented his so-called transformation agenda, evaluate his opinions and policies on corruption, agriculture, social and infrastructural programmes, the tertiary institutions he has established, and his counterinsurgency strategies, among other things. If they judge he has been faithful in nearly all the items he promised to deliver, it seems likely the electorate will enthusiastically return him to office. Should that happen, it would be because the voters and their president understand one another, have met at a common junction down the road, and shared values, cultures, politics and philosophies — in short, that they reflect a common depth of wisdom and vision, no matter how shallow these are.

But the voters could also assess the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, and judge him a good substitute for, perhaps, a non-performing Dr Jonathan. The voters may be persuaded that Gen Buhari’s programmes and his party’s worldview would rejuvenate Nigeria and take the country to a great height, the so-called lunar landing Dr Jonathan has obsessively dreamt of without a scintilla of effort in that direction. Even if Gen Buhari is elected and the APC is endorsed, no one can be sure what factors would procure him that electoral victory: his programmes, his party, voter frustration with Dr Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the urge and desperation to try something new, a consideration that anything but Jonathan would do just fine, etc?

Less than four weeks to the nation-defining presidential poll, the PDP and Dr Jonathan’s supporters have sensibly avoided any reference to their candidate’s character, choosing instead to focus on whatever achievements they think he has made, and to denounce his opponent, Gen Buhari, for his weaknesses and inconsistencies as a person and leader. Conversely, the APC has tried valiantly to focus on their candidate’s character, which they roughly define in terms of his honesty and integrity, electing to de-emphasise his records as military head of state in the mid 1980s. In their push and pull, and cut and thrust, both parties give only a pathetic hint of the significant role character — a virtue and value they have no proper understanding of — should play in the election and in the task of rebuilding Nigeria.

One of the reasons the world is plagued by poor leadership in both politics and business is that there is not much emphasis placed on character anymore. According to former French leader, Charles de Gaulle, “A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.”He adds: “Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.” But character loses its meaning or is weakened if it is not sustained and ennobled by sound judgement, and intuitive understanding of times, issues and policies. Character means so much more than the dictionary understanding of embodying a person’s personality. It is deeper, metaphysically nuanced and is projected at a level that transcends simple and exact definitions and terminologies.

By focusing on projects a president has executed or not executed, the Nigerian voter makes the incalculable mistake of using the wrong yardsticks to assess their leader. Leadership is more than projects executed. They are not interchangeable; though projects sometimes open a window into the character of a leader. Indeed, Dr Jonathan is the perfect example of the weakness of democracy in producing leaders with character. What projects has he executed, and what are their visionary rubric? How have his policies and ideas projected his understanding of democracy or any other concept of governance original to him? Has Dr Jonathan not dedicated himself to avoiding crisis, or responding amateurishly and cowardly to them when he can’t avoid them? How did he respond to the fuel price crisis, especially when it emerged it was complicated by gargantuan thievery by oil cabals? How has he responded to the insurgency in the Northeast, a troubled region that discomfited his delicate spirit?

It is in fact possible for a leader to execute great developmental projects without anything properly describable as character. Should that happen, the electorate would at least be consoled by the good life, in place of the greater aesthetics of life, the great and lofty abstracts that sometimes burden a leader, compelling him to design structures and frame ideas for the day after tomorrow. But if there is no coherence in the plans for the material enjoyment of today, how can there be, like the sun that produces its own energy, a brilliant, self-actualising and self-perpetuating vision for tomorrow? This was the tragedy Nigeria encountered in 1999 under former President Olusegun Obasanjo. And this is tragically the fate now being endured in greater distress and humiliation under Dr Jonathan. But this was also a tragedy that predated the Fourth Republic, a tragedy clearly the nemesis of many businesses, societies, and in this case, Nigeria.

Gen Buhari wears the outer shell of character, and is at least a better person and leader than Dr Jonathan. But his detractors are not wrong to argue that his judgement both as head of state and when he presided over the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) was less than unimpeachable. His character may not be ennobled by the wisdom and intuitive intelligence that only a deep person can exude, but he will at least not shy away from crisis, wilt before it, or indulge in the expediencies souls enfeebled by years of irresolute living and leadership are accustomed to. The choice before Nigeria next month is very clear: to put a man in office that best approximates the archetypal leader with character, not a man who cites antediluvian projects like narrow gauge railway as trophy. The wrong choice will probably doom the country, and further consign it to the dungheap, thereby reinforcing its sordid reputation as a byword among nations.

Hearing President Goodluck Jonathan declaim upon the higher virtues of electoral rectitude at the Abuja workshop where he and APC candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, signed a covenant to keep the peace during and after next month’s presidential election, one would easily ascribe to him the greatest political altruism. But President Jonathan, experience has shown repeatedly, is only capable of affected political display, the most egregious ever by a Nigerian president or head of state. It used to be thought such affectations were deliberately conjured to impress. After a careful study and understanding of Dr Jonathan’s idiosyncrasies, it became obvious his affectations are products of a part of him neither he nor anyone close to him had control over. He speaks one thing with conviction, and the next moment he is doing the perfect opposite with equal, effortless and innocent ease.

The pact between him and Gen Buhari, which was supposedly midwifed by former United Nations Secretary-Genral, Kofi Annan, and former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Emeka Anyaoku, is no exception. To be fair to Dr Jonathan, he has never spoken glowingly of democracy, or offered us any original thought on the subject, whether practical from experience or philosophical from a visionary standpoint. So, he could not be expected to declaim on the topic, whether he faked it or meant it. But on a variety of other topics, such as electoral fidelity, employment, economic development, and social transformation, the president has lent the full gamut of his complex personality.

Gen Buhari is not in office, nor does he have his hands on the levers of law enforcement and security. So it is difficult to gauge his sincerity regarding the pact. But does anyone trust Dr Jonathan’s enthusiastic view of the Abuja covenant? Newspapers emblazoned a photograph of the president and the general embracing each other after signing the pact, both beaming wide grins, the more surprising because the inscrutable Gen Buhari seldom openly smiled. Beyond the smiles and the photographs, there is little else to the pact, at least as far as Dr Jonathan is concerned. To him, a pact is not any more important than the paper it is signed on. For the pact to have meaning, all institutions of state, not just the electoral body, must be impartial and professional. Dr Jonathan has never demanded impartiality or professionalism of the police, Department of State Service, army, judiciary, his cabinet, or even the bureaucracy. His idea of impartiality is their unalloyed commitment to his person and government.

Could the president therefore feign ignorance of the crass unprofessionalism of former Rivers State police commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, whose despicable interpretation of his powers and the constitution, not to say his obnoxious insubordination, went unchallenged, mediated or moderated by the president? What of the gangster assault executed by the police on the House of Representatives, and especially against the person of the Speaker? What of the withdrawal of the Speaker’s police security, a decision that both affronted the constitution and manifested political intolerance and lack of respect for democracy? How then can a president under whose nose such deplorable assaults on the constitution were planned and executed claim to desire a violence-free poll and the institution of an impartial, sane and developed polity?

Judging from the president’s enthusiasm, or the body language he cavils at when others read it in him, his idea of violence-free poll does not refer to him, for after all, he had repeatedly warned that no political ambition was worth the life of anyone, regardless of the fact that he often spoke violence. The pact makes sense to the president only as a tool to control Gen Buhari’s die-hards, many of whom he believes require little prompting to take extraordinary and extra-constitutional measures to conjure their utopia. But let the president offer real leadership, the kind that is truly inspiring and altruistic, one that even the blind and the deaf can attest to, and see whether there would be a whimper if an election was lost.