The Nation Newspaper

Category: Festus Eriye

Is Jonathan running out of good luck?

On the day President Goodluck Jonathan formally declared his intention to seek a second term at Eagle Square, Abuja, one of his diehard loyalists, Akwa Ibom Governor, Godswill Akpabio, warned him that the road to 2015 would be rough. Emerging developments show that the road just got downright rocky.

Not only is his army of critics growing by the day, a slew of heavyweights are going public with their criticisms of the president in a way that is unprecedented.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has been joined by Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka and the umbrella organization for Nigerian Muslims, Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) in delivering the most devastating assessments of the state of the nation under Jonathan’s watch. To that list of critics we can now add the voice of Nigeria’s former High Commissioner in the United Kingdom, Dr. Christopher Kolade.

Some may dismiss Obasanjo’s comments on grounds of his long-advertised disaffection with the president he fought to install. Others may even question his electoral value to any political party. Still, the fact that he remains very influential in Nigeria’s power calculations was confirmed last Wednesday by the five Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors who visited him in a bid to get the old warhorse to stop shelling his own party with friendly fire.

The danger of not managing a freewheeling Obasanjo who doesn’t “give a damn” who he mows down with his verbal missiles, is that for all the bad press he gets people still take the things he says seriously. It is one thing to be at the receiving end of potshots from the Publicity Secretary of the opposition party, it is a different matter when Nigeria’s longest serving leader – who also happens to be a member of the ruling party – declares that the country is messed up. When a fish rots it begins with the ‘head, he said. No prizes for guessing who the head is in this instance!

Even if the governors got the former president to clam up for a while, the damage is already done. Depend on it that the opposition would be quoting extensively from Obasanjo’s report card on Jonathan’s presidency as the 2015 battle intensifies.

When Soyinka’s denounced the president as being worse than the biblical despot, King Nebuchadnezzer, on account of a string of acts of impunity, Aso Villa’s rapid response team was quick to fire back that the writer was playing the ostrich.

Given the strength of his denunciation of Jonathan’s acts of omission and commission, you don’t need to be a prophet to know that the incumbent just lost another voter. But the damage lies not just in the fact that one more vote has been lost, it has more to do with what criticism from the likes of Soyinka does to the image of the president. It reinforces the opposition’s definition of him as failed.

In the aftermath of the suicide bombings at Kano’s central mosque which claimed over 120 lives, JNI issued an angry statement in which the line about the country being “misgoverned” leapt out. There’s no way this organization over which the Sultan of Sokoto presides would have taken such a position without his endorsement.

But perhaps the most intriguing of the critics is Kolade. He is not given to making inflammatory statements. He is one of those Nigerians whose unbending integrity many attest to.

When Jonathan was looking for someone upstanding to preside over the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) experiment it was to the former diplomat and broadcaster he turned. Many who are quick to dismiss criticisms of the incumbent as partisan would pause after reading his withering assessment of the president’s performance.

One of the signature programmes of this administration is SURE-P – a mysterious bureaucracy that has served more to create jobs for PDP cadres than ameliorate the sufferings of the people. The more the regime tries to spin it as a success the more mystified we are. Now the man who once sat over the ambitious project says he quit when it became obvious it would not succeed.

Speaking at the sixth Christopher Kolade Symposium organised by the Nigeria Leadership Initiative, the elder statesman pointed to certain actions of Jonathan that show he isn’t sensitive to the pains of the people. One example was the president’s decision to attend a political rally in Kano shortly after the Nyanya, Abuja bombing that killed close to one hundred people earlier this year.

His words: “Some nights ago, I was watching television and some people were telling us that we have never had it so good. I am in my 80s and I can tell you that Nigeria has had it much better than now.

“They even said it was not easy for Lee Kuan Yew, it was not easy for Nelson Mandela and it was not easy for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Mr President, keep doing it. Keep doing the good works because we who are with you are much more than those who are against you.

“Tell me is that part of Nollywood? Is that part of entertainment? Let me cite one example. They always say I am father to all and I accept. If somebody makes me leader of a group and there is something in that group, l should be able to stand by the group.

“If 59 boys are killed in Yobe State and you as a leader, the next day went to Kano state and danced in a political rally, then I say, that is not leadership. It can’t be.

“This is not about not being an Ijaw or non-Ijaw. It is not about being South-South or not South-south. It is about leadership. It is about the fact that those who were killed were human beings.

“If some suicide bombers bombed a place and you as a leader has political rally the next day, the least you can do is to postpone the programme. Even if they are not your children, all you need to do is to sympathise.”

This is hardly a ringing endorsement for “the best president Nigeria has ever had” coming from one of his former appointees.

Unfortunately, those who cheekily dismiss the likes of Soyinka as playing the ostrich may actually be ones whose collective heads are buried under sand dunes. While they lull Jonathan to sleep with sweet lullabies of delusion, the centers of power and influence across the country are deserting the president. In their hubris they are not any wiser.

For those who can discern, storm clouds are gathering for the administration. Anywhere in the world people heading into elections pray for lucky breaks. In this connection the health of the economy is always critical. Former US President Bill Clinton summarized his 1992 contest against George Bush Snr in the now famous phrase: ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’

Going into the US 2012 presidential elections, Barack Obama and the Democrats, kept willing employment growth figures and overall economic indices to improve. Month after month they celebrated marginal increases as sign the economy was headed in the right direction.

It is just Jonathan’s luck that barely two months to the 2015 polls, oil price is tumbling. Already, Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has announced a string of austerity measures to keep the economy from tanking. In the public and private sector there’s already ominous talk of impending job losses if the naira continues it fall against the dollar.

To be fair, the fall in crude prices is a global phenomenon over which the incumbent president has little or no control. But it is coming at an inauspicious time for a regime that has not done enough to wean the country from her dependence on oil.

Unfortunately, Jonathan’s the one on the hot seat at this point and the one who has to implement all the unpleasant measures. Political science 101 will tell you that a platform of austerity measures is not the best way to plunge into an election.

If the economy doesn’t witness a miraculous turnaround, the government would be hoping for better news in the fight against Boko Haram. After the embarrassment of the fake ceasefire pact which Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, announced, the administration has largely been on the defensive. At this point its inability to rein in the insurgents has provided potent ammunition for the opposition.

The Kano bombings and the sect’s recent sortie into Damaturu and other places are stark reminders how increasingly dangerous Boko Haram has become. But rather than engage it the government’s strategy – perhaps borne of frustration – is to pick quarrels with the opposition as well as longstanding allies like the US.

As though he didn’t have enough on his plate, the president has to deal with talk of possible impeachment proceedings at the National Assembly. Although many don’t think the lawmakers would push through the process of removing the president, it remains an unwanted distraction as there are too many disgruntled politicians in the legislature with an axe to grind who would do anything to drag it out and embarrass Jonathan.

Back in 2011 as he sought to win the presidency in his own right, Jonathan invited Nigerians to share in his good luck. Such was his uncanny good fortune that he had risen to be president without winning an election. His supporters rolled out campaign posters that gleefully trumpeted the catchy phrase “Goodluck Nigeria.” Now the president’s most prized asset might just be draining out.

There’s a troubling sense that all’s not well with the country and many Nigerians are not feeling lucky presently. The only people who think things are blissful are the diminishing chorus line of sycophants whose prosperity is tied to the continuation of the current order. They must be praying that Lady Luck once again favours the unheralded man from Otuoke. Many others who have just experienced the “best five and a half years in Nigeria’s history” would be praying for deliverance.

December 7, 2014
Presidency 2015: Neither religion nor ethnicity

Some February 2015, Nigerians would not be electing a bishop or an imam: we would be choosing a president. But you would not think so judging by the way religion is being manipulated to influence potential voting decisions.

As if that were not bad enough, the usual suspects are already at it pushing ethnicity for all it is worth to gain political advantage. None of this is strange because these issues have always been overt factors in Nigerian politics.

Indeed, it would be naïve and unrealistic to try to totally keep them out of politics. Even in the US which popularised the principle of separation of church and state, this is only observed in breach. They may not have a state religion but ‘In God We Trust’ is inscribed on their national currency.

Even in largely homogeneous societies like the US, religion in politics sometimes manifests in positions taken by candidates e.g. Do they want prayer in schools or are they pro or anti-abortion?

In multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies like ours you cannot run away from balancing. Giving people a sense of belonging is one thing, but when a person’s suitability for office becomes a function of what faith he follows, we need to ask hard questions.

What I find discomfiting is the virulence with which these factors are being deployed this election cycle – without a proper sense that we are playing with dynamite. From Lebanon to Iraq to Northern Ireland, the human suffering caused by the combustible mix of religion and politics isn’t something to recommend to an enemy.

In the past we somehow managed to step back from the brink. This time around, Boko Haram has poisoned the air with atrocities that have sharply polarised the ethnic and religious divides.

Things are not helped by the fact that the two major political parties are set to pick the candidates from the opposing geographical poles – reprising the age-long North-South contestation for power. It was only in 1999 that we were briefly spared the aggravation when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the then All Peoples Party (APP) chose candidates from the South West.

The PDP pulled out the religious card quite early as it sought to define the nascent All Progressives Congress (APC) as an ‘Islamic party.’ The ruling party’s spokesman, Olisah Metuh, enthusiastically accused the opposition of propagating Janjaweed ideology. The basis of this accusation was that the party that was then in formation had a preponderance of Muslims in leadership positions.

After the APC’s first convention, a new hierarchy reflecting a better religious and ethnic balance emerged. But then suspicions that had been sown in the minds of the impressionable were reinforced with talk that the party was seriously considering selecting a Muslim-Muslim slate to challenge President Goodluck Jonathan.

As the opposition intensified their attacks against the government for its impotence in the face of rampaging insurgents who had graduated from just lobbing bombs to actually holding territory, an administration on the defensive felt the best way to fight back was to accuse APC of sponsoring and funding the insurgency.

Having made this astonishing claim, the government didn’t move to prosecute those it accused of such treasonable offences. By not taking that step it destroyed the credibility of the allegations. That has not stopped the administration from repeating the same meaningless claims in the face of new criticisms – and it leaves you wondering why.

Matters of faith don’t lend themselves to reason since they flow from our hearts and emotions. Each time Boko Haram – in the name of Islam – invade a village in the North East, burn down churches and murder Christians, it plays strongly into the ‘them-against-us’ narrative.

Just this last week at the meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) – a forum formed to promote better understanding between Nigeria’s two leading faiths, what made headlines were the exchanges between Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor and the Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar Saad.

Oritsejafor had complained bitterly about the slaughter of innocent Christians in the North. He spoke of unjust treatment exemplified by the fact that in many parts of the region Christians cannot get land to build churches, and where they manage to get land they are denied Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) for no just cause.

He then challenged the Sultan to direct the same letter he had written to ISIS to Boko Haram. The suggestion was that major Muslim leaders had not bent the ears of the insurgents sufficiently to turn them from their evil ways. Naturally, his views were not well received by the other side.

I sympathise with Oritsejafor because much of what he said is the true experience of many Christians in the far North. Even before the coming of Boko Haram, sectarian clashes in which scores lost their lives were common occurrences in the last few decades.

However, the CAN President’s comments don’t capture the total picture. If Christians have been victims of the insurgency, Muslims have also suffered terribly. Boko Haram has murdered thousands of nameless people who share the same faith they claim to be propagating across the Northern states.

On Friday, at least 120 worshipper were killed when suicide bombers attacked the Emir of Kano’s mosque. Last week 45 innocent souls were blown to bits in a Maiduguri market after two female suicide bombers detonated their deadly cargo. A few days after in Adamawa, a roadside IED believed to have been planted by the sect claimed another 35 lives. I doubt whether these explosives were primed with instructions to slay adherents of a particular religion.

There are serious unresolved issues in Nigeria revolving around ethnicity, indigene status and religion that we need to sit down and discuss frankly. A situation where the constitution talks of not adopting a state religion, while some Northern states openly do so undermines coherence and trust in the federation.

That said, we must accept that Boko Haram has gone beyond the ‘them-versus-us’ stage. Those being murdered in places like Gwoza, Damboa, Bama etc are not all Christians. This is something that requires everyone pulling together. It is something that has defeated everything the current administration has thrown at it. Even with outside help, we now have a pseudo-caliphate on our doorstep.

That is why I find it truly reprehensible that politicians are trying to fight the 2015 elections by manipulating religion and ethnicity – rather than focusing on their record and manifesto.

When you hang the tag of an ‘Islamic party’ on your opponents, are you not suggesting that yours is the ‘Christian party’? The president has not helped with his subliminal religious campaigning involving church-hopping. To decide whether he was going to run or not, we were subjected to a primetime ‘pilgrimage’ to Jerusalem flanked by two of the country’s most prominent pastors. Are their flock supposed to read between the lines and fall in line?

Christians who try to paint Jonathan as the candidate for their religion need to pause and reflect. Voting for the incumbent president won’t take anyone to heaven, just as voting for his likely Muslim opponent will not open the gates of Paradise to anyone.

How has Jonathan being a Christian furthered the Christian cause in Nigeria? Under his watch thousands of Christians are being slaughtered across the North and the butchering continues.

I recollect that over two years ago when the US first toyed with the idea of designating Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO), agents of the Jonathan government in collaboration with the American State Department then led by Hillary Clinton argued strenuously at the Congress against it.

They painted a picture of the sect as a minor irritant that could be controlled with home-grown solutions. At that same hearing was a CAN delegation led by Pastor Oritsejafor. He and his team were thoroughly astonished that agents of a government ostensibly led by a Christian would be making such arguments. All they were after was anything that would check the sect. They left America bitterly disappointed.

Instead of demonising individuals and any particular religion, let us wake up as Nigerians and confront our demons. Since we have not agreed to dissolve our union, we must tell ourselves the truth and not allow political scam artists to take us for another ride in the same tattered religious cum ethnicity jalopy.

As things stand in this country today, no Muslim can win an election without Christian votes and vice versa. Nobody can impose any religion on us without having to deal with the National Assembly and the 36 state houses of assembly.

Voters must ask themselves if they are going to elect a president based on his piety or their performance. We are suffocated with religiousity and church/mosque-going at election time. Once the elections are won and lost, these supposedly pious politicians return to business as usual. How is it that with all our holy and prayerful politicians Nigeria is so messed up?

We remember religion when it helps us carve up the nation’s wealth. Our faith takes a back seat as we despoil the land and desecrate the offices that God in his mercies has allowed us to occupy; we abuse the powers we should hold in trust for the people.

We hoodwink the ignorant with ethnicity whereas the fact is voting for someone with whom you share tribal identity doesn’t change much if you’re not in his close circle.

Northern leaders governed Nigeria for close to 40 years and yet their region remains the poorest and most backward in the country. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was in office for eight years as civilian president. By the time he left, most roads in Sango-Ota where he used to live were impassable. Jonathan has been in office for over five years and millions of people from the South-South zone are still living a hardscrabble life.

Instead of being scammed through sentiment Nigerians should realise that what we desperately need is a leader who will drag this blessed country out of backwardness.

When a Christian leader delivers 24-hour electricity it’s not only for Christians, when a Muslim provides tap water it will also run in the homes of members of the other faith.

Nigerian politicians playing the religion and ethnic card should remember the immortal words of our inimitable First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan: ‘There is God oooooo!!!! And He’s a consuming fire.

November 30, 2014
The Banana Republic and its police

Originally, the term ‘Banana Republic’ referred to small countries which are politically unstable, dependent on a primary agricultural export and are ruled by a wealthy and corrupt clique. Their police forces are often brutal, corrupt and engage in human rights abuses. They are intolerant of political dissent.

Over time the term has evolved – moving away from the sense of some tiny country whose economy revolves around banana plantations or some other similar primary export. Today, countries struggling with rampant corruption and political instability, mass unemployment, wage inequalities, poor social services and where the security forces are used to oppress their own people define the concept of the ‘Banana Republic.’

As I tried to make sense of the actions of the Nigerian police, Department of State Security (DSS) agents and soldiers who laid siege to the National Assembly last Thursday, the phrase ‘Banana Republic’ leapt at me. It was not for nothing. A series of events – beyond that day’s madness – pointed to the fact that Nigeria ticks most of the boxes to be so classified.

Ever since the images and story of that morning’s assault on legislators went viral, a number of senior administration officials have been fingered as having ordered the siege in an attempt to block Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, who had defected from the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) from presiding.

I am not bothered about the identity of the official that gave the orders. Knowing the way Nigeria operates, there’s no way security forces can storm the National Assembly and shut out lawmakers without getting their matching orders from the very top. To suggest that ‘Oga at the top’ was unaware is even more scary as it conjures images of a moving train with no one at the controls.

This latest incident is confirmation of the damage that has been done and is still being done to the Nigerian police. Over the years, a succession of pliant force leaders have acquiesced in turning an institution that is part of our commonwealth into the enforcement arm of whichever government controls the center. That can only spell trouble going into an election year.

In the dying days of the Second Republic, the then Inspector-General of Police, Sunday Adewusi, unashamedly made it clear the police would further the interests of the then ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) over and above those of the other parties. His commissioner in the old Anambra State, Bishop Eyitene, humiliated the then Governor Jim Nwobodo, severally.

Even before last Thursday’s display at the National Assembly the police and some of their sister services showed that they had not changed from their servile ways. They don’t behave like a force operating in a democracy, but more like oppressors and conquerors.

Many still remember how the former Rivers State police commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, turned him himself into the personal adversary of the Governor Rotimi Amaechi. At one point his men tear-gassed Government House, Port Harcourt. Following his transfer to Abuja, he bragged about being a lion who had caged the pesky governor.

In the run-up to the Ekiti governorship elections in June, Vice President Namadi Sambo showed up in Ado-Ekiti for a PDP rally – prompting the police to, again, show their true colours. That same day former Governor, Kayode Fayemi, who was traversing the town, had an altercation with a police officer who was particularly rude. I recollect his response when someone drew his attention to the fact that he was talking to the governor.

He said: “Which governor? Who is governor when Vice President is in town? I don’t know any governor!” He said that to Fayemi’s face and hearing.

In the same Ekiti, the week that seven legislators in a 26-person house sat to approve Governor Ayo Fayose’s nominees, the police provided the stiff arm to keep the governor’s opponents away until the illegality had been perfected.

When Tambuwal defected to APC, it was the police that pronounced he had lost his Speakership – not the courts! The scandalous nature of the force’s presumption in usurping judicial duties is till date still lost on its leadership, as they continue to defend their indefensible decision to withdraw his security details.

Since the Speaker’s defection, several members of the House and three erstwhile APC senators from Ogun State have crossed party lines. I don’t recollect the Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba, stripping them of their orderlies and ordering them not to enter the National Assembly precincts.

Examples of outrageous conduct by the police across the country make for embarrassing reading. But they carry on this way because our political leadership is so parochial. Small men in big offices don’t bother about elevating our democratic experience; they are more concerned with manipulating the coercive instruments of state to extend their grip on power and privilege.

One of the worst things about the Goodluck Jonathan administration is its lack of originality. For someone who promised to be a breath of fresh air, it’s a shame that he and his team always run back to the template of impunity designed by the first PDP president, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Long before the incumbent found himself unexpectedly president, his predecessor walked this lawless path. In the heat of his quarrels with his then deputy, Obasanjo sacked Atiku Abubakar’s aides and stripped him of every privilege of office he was entitled to as Vice President – including security details.

It was all because he defected to another party after the president had frustrated him out of PDP. Atiku went to court and won a famous victory that allowed him to continue as VP until the last day of his tenure.

It was under Obasanjo that former Plateau State Governor Joshua Dariye and one-time Oyo State Governor, Rasheed Ladoja, were ‘impeached’ by a minority of members of their respective houses of assembly. The then president sustained the illegality because he could order the police and soldiers around. Ultimately, the courts overturned the sham impeachments – much to the shame of the ruling party and its government.

Although the Nigerian constitution recognizes the executive, judiciary and legislature as independent but equal arms of government, Obasanjo pioneered a doctrine that sought to make legislators appendages of Aso Villa. He and the party worked actively to install their lackeys in legislative leadership. Where they failed they spent their days plotting to topple the incumbents until they had their way.

The latest political crisis can be remotely traced to the fact that Jonathan also attempted to foist his yes-men and women upon the House of Representatives only to be embarrassed by an assertive chamber that decided to chart an independent course under Tambuwal. Aso Villa had never been comfortable with a Speaker it didn’t make and things were bound to come to a head one day.

What happened on Thursday is a watershed in the development of Nigeria’s democracy. As the brave and heroic lawmakers risked injury scaling the locked gates, they were serving notice that Nigerians would no longer be cowed by a force that has turned into an oppressor of the very tax payers who pay its bills. They were saying that this country would not be ruled by some Inspector General of Police but by the will of the people reflected in their elected representatives.

I have been entertained by some ‘commentators’ who have tried to turn what played out on last Thursday into some so-called ‘show of shame’ on the part of the lawmakers just because they scaled the gates to access their chamber.

The analogy that comes to mind is that of a man screaming loudly because his balls are being squeezed in a vice. In walks this advocate of acceptable public conduct to berate the suffering fellow for disturbing the peace, were he to switch places with the noisemaker, he wouldn’t be so dignified. Clearly, some people never heard of cause and effect.

The heat triggered by the attempt to forcibly oust Tambuwal is so unnecessary. Jonathan and his people could have gone to court to challenge the defection. They didn’t because despite their preachments they don’t really believe in the rule of law. So they resort to self help. Like we saw a few days ago, it always ends badly.

November 23, 2014
South Africa’s dead and Nigeria’s forgotten hordes

On Saturday, October 15, 2014 South Africa executed a clinical military/civilian operation to repatriate 74 of her citizens who perished when a six-storey guesthouse at the Synagogue Church of All Nations on September 12. In all it is suspected that close to 80 persons from that country may have lost their lives in that disaster.

In the intervening two months while DNA tests were being carried out the South Africans piled unrelenting pressure in the media and through diplomatic channels seeking a proper accounting for, and the repatriation of their dead. President Jacob Zuma even appointed one of his ministers, Jeff Radebe, as Special Envoy to Nigeria for the sole purpose of bringing the Synagogue dead back home.

Mind you some of the remains had badly deteriorated because of the delay in allowing emergency services access to the site of the tragedy. In the end because of very high humidity in these parts, putrefaction set in quickly. Still, the South Africans desperately pushed to recover their dead – the good, bad and ugly. What a lesson in human dignity and concern for your people.

The number of her citizens that died at Synagogue is nowhere near the body count from some Boko Haram attacks. The Nyanya Motor Park, Abuja, attack alone produced a gory harvest of at least 88 bodies. After a quick photo-op at the hospital, President Goodluck Jonathan sped off to Kano to dance at a rally for a defecting politician.

The day after a suicide bomber eviscerated 47 school kids in Potiskum, and with images of their broken limbs making many sick online, our humble, caring president was dancing again at Eagle Square – listening to sycophants telling him all was well in the land.

Ever week hundreds are slaughtered in our killing fields. The response from those charged with protecting lives and property is to issue another canned press statement threatening to deal decisively with the perpetrators. We don’t treat our people – living or dead – with dignity. Is it any surprise that other countries find it convenient to trample all over us?

November 23, 2014
Is Jonathan Nigeria’s Jimmy Carter?

As I watched the colourful Eagle Square, Abuja carnival where President Goodluck Jonathan formally declared his intention to seek a second term in office, I kept thinking that sometimes one problem or episode can make or mar a presidency.

Despite the determination of the president and his party men to project an optimistic and cheery front, nothing could mask the fact that the declaration was being made against the backdrop of one of the administration’s major burdens – the failure to rein in the virulent insurgency in the North East.

Just the day before, a suicide bomber sent by Boko Haram killed 47 school children in Potiskum. As if anticipating that the terrorists could rain on their parade, some of Jonathan’s 2015 boosters like the so-called Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) had placed wrap-around advertising on the front pages of leading papers. The adverts were designed in such a way that not much else would be noticed.

Amusingly, while the TAN advert was labouring to assure us that ‘history’ was about to be made on Eagle Square, the very little space left on the front pages of the papers that had the advertising carried the depressing headline about the murder of 47 innocent children – obliterating the feel-good factor that any spin doctor might have been trying to project.

More than anything, Jonathan’s inability to bring the insurgents to heel, or to, at least, create the impression that momentum is on the side of the government and the armed forces, might just turn out to be his undoing at the general elections. His supporters may choose to believe that he was making history at Eagle Square, but in reality his handling of the insurgency suggests his presidency might soon be history.

This is where the parallel with the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, leap at you. Carter came to the White House against the backdrop of the Watergate mess that brought down Richard Nixon.

He was a breath of fresh air that blew into Washington to clear the foul smell of scandal. He was a former governor of southern state of Georgia with very little name recognition on the national scene. Despite that handicap he emerged the Democratic Party candidate in 1978 against all odds.

Just like Carter, Jonathan’s route to Aso Villa can only be described as a fairy tale. At the time he was asked to run with late Umaru Yar’Adua he had no ambitions to seek federal office. He was content to be governor of his home state, Bayelsa – and then fate intervened. Not only did he become Vice President, Yar’Adua’s demise ferried him into the highest office in the land on the magic carpet called good luck.

Carter like Jonathan is often described as a good man, amiable, humble and well-meaning. The former US president’s tenure had some noteworthy achievements like the Camp David Accords, the focus of American foreign policy on human right rights and renewed attention to Africa.

Unfortunately, towards the end of his term, the widespread perception of Carter was that of an incompetent and failed president. And it was all down to one incident – the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981.

The Americans became pitched against Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini after fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were seized by revolutionary students and held hostage for 444 days. Their ordeal began on November 4, 1979 and ended on January 20, 1981.

The hostage crisis put a lot of strain upon Carter and in the later stages of the crisis he often looked harassed in public appearances. Things came to a head after the US decided on a military rescue after all negotiations came to nought. On April 24, 1980, ‘Operation Eagle Claw’ which attempted to free the hostages ended badly with the deaths of eight American servicemen, one Iranian, and the crash of two aircraft.

The failure of the rescue was a huge blow to American prestige and the preeminent global super power of the age. It came to symbolise the failure of the Carter presidency. It was no surprise that he lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan and the Republicans.

Interestingly, Reagan was not regarded by most voters as intellectually superior to Carter. If anything, he was given to gaffes, memory lapses and often dozed off in meetings because of his age (He was almost 70 when assumed office). However, he always projected that confident, can-do spirit of the American cowboy. That seemed to resonate with the electorate who were fed up with the rubbishing of their proud country under Carter.

Just like Carter, Jonathan has his own hostage crisis. Over 200 days ago in the tiny village of Chibok, Boko Haram gunmen swooped on hapless schoolgirls sleeping in their dormitories at night. They carted away hundreds of them. Today, 219 of them remain in captivity with no hope in sight that they would soon be freed.

The government, of its own accord, has severally raised hopes of their release, announced ceasefires that turned out to be flukes. The upshot is that no one places much store these days by whatever the administration says on the matter.

More than anything else the Chibok schoolgirls saga and the seeming helplessness of the government to free them has come to define the Jonathan presidency. Over this matter the pride of the Nigerian military burnished by its prosecution of the civil war and exploits in peacekeeping operations around the world has been badly bruised.

The president appears to have played all his cards. Once upon a time the declaration of a state of emergency seemed to be the mighty stick that would whip the insurgents into line. But it seems like more people have been killed since the so-called emergency measure came into being.

He and his men have tried blaming everybody but themselves. First, it was embittered Northern politicians and lost out in the 2011 presidential contest in the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and promised to make the country ungovernable. Next it was the opposition All Progessives Congress (APC) which only came into existence late last year. In a moment of contrived excitement at Eagle Square, Akwa Ibom Governor, Godswill Akpabio, denounced its leaders as blackmailers and sponsors of terror.

The accusations have since been shown up to be hot air because if the accused are truly the powers behind the insurgency, and are still walking the streets as free men, then this administration has only confirmed that it is not capable of enforcing law and order in the land. No responsible government would have evidence against terrorists and their sponsors and not move against them.

Again, the Chibok saga, the recourse to the blame game and name calling is also a manifestation of another of the president’s problems. He is out of touch and surrounded by people who tell him what they think he would like to hear.

Nobody expects Jonathan to march into Sambisa Forest – guns blazing to free the girls. There is no superman president anywhere – not even in Hollywood movies. Sometimes all a leader needs do is project empathy and the people would be satisfied. He would be judged to have shown leadership at critical moments.

But what have we seen with the Chibok episode and the wider question of the insurgency are actions that support all who question the president’s suitability for the office he occupies. He swear he’s concerned but his actions tell a different story.

He and his wife began by doubting whether any kidnapping actually took place. Next, he would not even deign to visit the town in question despite the fact that it had become a global cause. Citing security concerns, the president of Nigeria with all the military resources at his disposal pulled out of visiting a locality that CNN journalists ventured into.

The day after the Abuja motor park bombing he was off to Kano to receive a defecting politician. A day after the massacre of the 47 school children he was grinning and dancing on Eagle Square. Where is empathy – even if faked? What? A minute silence and let the show go on? Shame!

President Jonathan stood on the podium and declared that he had fulfilled all electoral promises he made to Nigerians in 2011. I was shocked because I can think of several that are still awaiting fulfilment. But I will just touch on one for this Sunday.

Four years ago gigantic billboards welcomed you into Abuja with the visage of Jonathan promising a ‘breath of fresh air’ in governance. That suggested back then that there would be a new way of doing things.

On the cusp of the 2015 polls the one who promised fresh air is battling to clear the stale air that is practically choking us all. Nigerians have always struggled with our differences over our beliefs and ethnicity. But in the last four years all that has been exacerbated to the extent that people are threatening fire and brimstone because of religion and ethnicity.

We are back to the era of manipulations of the state’s weapons of coercion in pursuit of personal ends. A typical example is the Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba, jumping into a political tug-of-war and assuming the role of judge. Nigeria deserves better.

I am sure that the president must have tarred a couple of roads in the last few years. But it takes more than that to be president of a country. At this point in time it all comes down to the question of whether Nigeria under Jonathan is headed in the right direction. I don’t think so.

November 16, 2014
APC and its presidential headache

The biggest challenge confronting the All Progressives Congress (APC) as it chooses it presidential flagbearer is not the number or quality of those who have put themselves forward.

If anything, all with the exception of entrepreneur and newspaper publisher, Sam Nda-Iasiah, have some sort of experience at very high levels of government to brandish as qualification for seeking the top job.

The real headache is that everyone of the aspirants has some form of baggage that the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) will gleefully exploit – diverting attention from Jonathan’s terrible record in office.

Take former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari. He is ordinarily an electoral powerhouse. In 2011, he did the near impossible by garnering 12 million votes on the platform of a political party that was just a few months old. What that proved is that the sheer force of his personality could deliver irrespective of the platform on which he runs.

But I have argued in the past that this very strength – in particular his cult-like following in the north, eventually became his Achilles Heel – as his strategists were misled into thinking he didn’t need an electoral leg down south to help him to power. In the end, he swept the north but was undone in the South-West when Jonathan won the zone with the exception of Osun State taken by Nuhu Ribadu then flying the flag of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Were he to emerge the candidate of APC, he would be running on a better structured platform with strength on both sides of the Niger. A strategy that targets that the votes haul from the North West, North East and South West – with small pickings elsewhere could put him within touching distance of a prize he has coveted all these years.

The ruling PDP realise the potency of a Buhari candidacy and have begun undermining it even before it becomes reality – and there’s the rub for the APC. With the general on the ticket, the campaign will not be about Jonathan’s management of the economy or his failure to combat the raging insurgency in the North-East, it will be turned around to focus on the General’s record as a military head of state as well as his position on religious issues.

We will be reminded that his regime authored the infamous Decree 4 which the military reined in Nigeria’s famously free-wheeling press. It wouldn’t matter that in 2015 voters are not being asked to elect a new military junta.

The attempt to paint the khaki-clad Buhari of 1984 as the same as the agbada-wearing presidential aspirant of 2014 is one of the enduring lies of the emerging campaign. His opponents will not admit that as president he will not have the same powers he wielded 30 years ago. He cannot pass any budget or bill by fiat and would have to deal with a National Assembly whose complexity we cannot fathom now.

As another ex-military ruler, General Olusegun Obasanjo, found out to his chagrin after his Third Term project bit the dust, there are times when this much-maligned body can prove to be an effective bulwark against would-be despots. There’s no reason to think that the constitution would be amended in 2015 to accommodate any autocratic streak in Buhari.

Even his much-vaunted desire to stop corruption in its tracks could get a reality check in that same National Assembly. People forget that one of the first bills Obasanjo sent to the legislature in 1999 was a stern anti-corruption bill fashioned after similar laws in Singapore. But by the time Abuja lawmakers finished with it what was sent back to the then president was a limp and near-useless legislation whose impotence is confirmed by the depth of sleaze in the country 15 years after.

Other issues that will come to dog a Buhari campaign will include the retroactive execution of the convicted drug pushers, the controversial clearance for 53 suitcases to be allowed into the country at a time when the country’s borders were shut to allow for currency reforms.

We will be told not to forget that the General once professed a love for Sharia – so much so that he would have loved for it to apply throughout the country.

And let’s not forget the incendiary comments made by the ex-CPC presidential candidate after it became clear that his ambitions had bitten the dust four years ago. His embittered supporters took to the streets to vent their frustration with fatal consequences for many National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members who had serviced as electoral officers for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

He may have distanced himself from the acts of violence, but his opponents would still seek to embarrass him and damage his candidacy on the altar of vicarious responsibility.

This brings us to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Again, we are confronted with another political giant who through a series of wrong choices undercut his own relevance in national power calculations. We cannot forget in a hurry that at the end of Obasanjo’s first term Atiku controlled the PDP and the then president had to virtually go on bended knees to secure his backing and that of governors loyal to the then VP to clear the way for a second tenure.

Frustrated out of the ruling party by Obasanjo, his ill-fated presidential run on the ACN ticket and his return to the party he had spurned and excoriated in the bitter days before the 2007 polls, and now his presence in APC, makes it all too easy for those who will paint a caricature of a desperate politician.

Many acknowledge his virtues as a mobiliser who understands Nigerian politics. His deep pockets would make him an asset for a party like APC which could find itself challenged in the money stakes against the ruling party.

Interestingly, in his campaigning so far, Atiku has tried to talk about issues and advance policy positions he would like to pursue as president. All that elevated politicking would disappear in a puff of smoke the moment he emerges APC candidate because the PDP, again constrained to shift attention away from Jonathan’s record, would dredge up the former Vice President’s many controversies.

We would be reminded of the American Congressman William Jefferson’s saga as well as questions about Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) and sundry matters. From now till Election Day, Atiku would be defending and explaining himself against real and imagined charges in the court of public opinion.

I will not dwell much on Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Nda-Isaiah because whatever baggage they come with is linked to fact that their appeal is limited across the country. The PDP would be quite happy to dismiss them as provincial – never mind the fact that Jonathan and his erstwhile boss, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, could have been described in those terms at the point they assumed office in Aso Rock.

Much of the handwringing within APC has focused on how much ammunition its aspirants have laid out for PDP attack dogs to play with.

But this ignores the fact that Jonathan, the ruling party’s candidate, has baggage that would finish off any candidate in different clime. Compared to his, United States President Barack Obama’s issues were child play, and yet American voters punished him and his party at last Tuesday’s congressional elections by handing power to the Republicans.

If APC’s candidates have things they have to explain, then Jonathan finds himself in a similar quandary ten times over. On the economic front it is impossible to say that Nigerians are better off economically than they were in 2011. The recent collapse in power generation is an embarrassing enough statistic for a ruling party that has promised light since 1999, but only succeeded in delivering darkness.

In the 70s the British Tory Party produced an electoral poster showing a serpentine queue of the unemployed waiting to be interviewed for a few job openings. The pay-off line was ‘Labour Isn’t Working.’ It was devastating. The inimitable Margaret Thatcher was swept into 10 Downing Street on the cusp of the landslide.

Today, Jonathan’s stewardship in the area of unemployment can be captured just as succinctly with those photographs of an Abuja National Stadium packed to overflowing with desperate applicants seeking employment in the Nigerian Immigration Service.

The exercise ultimately ended tragically with over 19 persons killed nationwide. Such is the contempt that the government has for public opinion that those like the Interior Minister, Abba Moro, who presided over that fiasco are sitting comfortably in their offices till date.

To say that the administration has been scandal-scarred is to state the obvious. The nation still awaits the results of the forensic audit triggered by allegations made by the former Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, that the NNPC had failed to remit billions of naira to the Federation Account.

Petroleum Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke and erstwhile Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah, hugged the headlines for months over allegations of sleaze. While the former continues to fight to stop the House of Representatives from probing allegations that she spent a fortune hiring a private jet, the latter did the ‘needful’ by throwing in the towel when the heat became too much.

But the government’s reputation totally went down the tubes with the botched attempt by its agents to smuggle $9.3 million into South Africa in a private jet in a bizarre arms shopping trip. While it was still trying to contain the first mess, it emerged that a second seizure had been made by the South Africans – bringing the total to $15 million.

But perhaps the greatest failure of the Jonathan administration is its inability to end the insurgency in the North East. Today, the insurgents have carved out a caliphate the size of three states in that region. Those who predicted that country would break up in 2015 are inching closer to seeing that dire prophecy become reality.

A break-up isn’t only when we are scattered in many pieces. Today’s reality is that unless the gains of the insurgents are quickly reversed the map of Nigeria handed to Jonathan in 2011 would be different from that he would hand to a successor next year.

Today, Nigeria is more polarised along sectional and religious lines than at any time in its history. We are seeing a government and ruling party that has shown every readiness to use religion to divide the country in order to rule over it.

Tragically, the diabolical efforts of the ruling party’s hacks have produced a situation where many voters have already made their decision on who they would vote for simply on account of his religious identification. That shows how much progress we are making.

APC should stop searching for the perfect candidate. That creature doesn’t exist on the face of the earth. At any given time aspirants come with baggage. The answer is not to flee from a candidate because of baggage, but to see whether what he brings to the table is greater than his negatives.

The party must decide whether a Buhari who’s a vote magnet up north should be dumped just because of his controversial past. Will it do better with a ‘safe’ candidate who doesn’t offend sensibilities but cannot galvanise the supporter base the way the General can? The same can be said about Atiku. Should he be passed over despite what he brings to the party just because opponents would call him names? It’s a no-brainer.

November 9, 2014
Boko Haram: We’re all victims now

Boko Haram is Nigeria’s ultimate man-made disaster. Natural disasters often occur as one-off events, whereas the insurgency in the North East is becoming a never-ending horror flick.

Unfortunately, this is not make-believe as lives are being lost and communities devastated. Speaking in France in May this year, President Goodluck Jonathan estimated that over 12,000 have been killed in the conflict since 2009.

For many years Nigerians living far from the flashpoints could not really relate to the violence because the victims were mostly poor, faceless, nameless ‘nobodies.’ All that changed when the insurgents snatched close to 300 girls from Chibok over 100 days ago.

By that singularly brutal act, Boko Haram landed foot first on global primetime TV. Today, Abubakar Shekau’s sorry visage is about as familiar to the average person as any pantomime bad guy in a Nollywood production.

A few days ago, former military Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, came within a whisker of being assassinated when suicide bombers took aim at his convoy. He was clearly the prize they were after, but his would-be assassins bungled the task. In the process over 40 innocent persons became collateral damage.

In the nascent stage of Boko Haram atrocities, exasperated Southerners digesting their daily dose of gory headlines from the comfort of their sofas in Lagos, Yenagoa or Abakaliki, could afford to snort derisively that “these bloody Northerners can blow themselves to kingdom come if they like.”

Today, the reality is that no matter how far we are from the epicenter of the conflict, we have all become victims in one way or another.

We desperately need to come to terms with how Boko Haram is impacting our lives, and the way we live, to understand that if we don’t throw all we can muster at the monster, it will soon consume the entire country.

Some years ago, statements credited to unofficial United States diplomatic or intelligence sources suggested that Nigeria could break up in 2015. Ever since that report came to light, Jonathan and several other former Nigerian leaders have vowed that the worst would not happen. They speak with such confidence thinking that a split would follow the old Biafran template.

Truly, Nigeria may not break into tiny pieces in 2015, but what percentage of our sovereign territory would we be exerting control over when terrorists have started planting their flags in parts of Borno?

Unless we radically review our approach and begin to take the fight to the insurgents, what Biafra couldn’t achieve in the 60’s could manifest through the war in the North East.

So far, our best efforts rather than contain the terrorists have only pushed them to unprecedented levels of depravity. This is a group that does not operate by any known norms of civilized conduct and is not influenced or affected by international conventions that govern conduct in war. That is why they serve up fresh atrocities every new day.

The question is how many more mindless blasts or slayings can this fragile country take before things spiral out of control? Many wars have been ignited by some stupid incident. World War 1 was sparked off by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo in 1914.

Who could have predicted the fallout if Buhari had been killed in the deadly blasts a few days ago? Given the present foul political atmosphere in the country, conspiracy theories would have gone into overdrive – with unpredictable consequences.

This government doesn’t understand the deadly phenomenon they are toying with. That is why its leading lights are still playing political games trying to tie the opposition to the insurgency. If the governments that have held power since 2009 had properly assessed the danger posed by Boko Haram, we won’t be where we are today.

Five years ago when the sect’s members went on an orgy of violence across three North Eastern states, the then President Umaru Yar’Adua went ahead with a state visit to Brazil – despite the massive loss of lives and destruction of property.

Back then, it was clear that this latest manifestation in a long line of extremist Northern Islamist groups was something special. But what did Yar’Adua do? From the safety of Brasilia, he sent preachy appeals to other Muslims not follow the ‘bad’ example of Boko Haram. On his return from the trip he didn’t even deign to visit the site of the mayhem, but retired to Aso Villa to business as usual.

His successor has followed that same pattern – treating psychopathic killers as compatriots who can be reasoned with. The government even went as far as colluding with Hillary Clinton’s State Department two years ago to thwart efforts by the US government to designate Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO).

While this tomfoolery was going on, Boko Haram got enough breathing space to beef up its fighting capacity. Now, they have acquired a fleet of pick-up vans, APCs and, according to some reports, even anti-aircraft guns which they still don’t have the knowhow to operate. In that time, too, they mastered the deployment of IEDs to deadly effect.

What could have been contained three years ago within the budget now requires the country to go a borrowing $ 1 billion.

In 2012 when Nigerian government officials and diplomats were strenuously resisting the FTO designation for their enemy, the argument was that it would make life difficult for privileged Nigerians who travel overseas as they would be subjected to intrusive searches. Today, we have much more to worry about.

One of the inevitable consequences of wars is that they produce refugees who flee to neighbouring countries or internally displaced persons who run to other parts of the country for safety. Already, thousands have fled the theatre of conflict in Borno.

Recently, over 400 Northerners were intercepted in several trucks headed for Port Harcourt in the dead of night. Although security agencies reportedly apprehended a wanted Boko Haram leader among the travelers, the vast majority have since been repatriated to the states from which they initiated their journeys.

We should prepare for more of such mass movement as the areas of conflict broaden. Worryingly, the consequences of such movements go beyond security as they have ramifications that are beginning to threaten national unity.

After steps were taken by the Imo government to track Northerners living in the state, reciprocal action has been initiated by several groups in Kano and Kaduna seeking registration of Southerners living in those states. Where will such tit-for-tat actions lead? No one knows.

If things get worse in the North, people would drift South – it is only to be expected. As it is, many farmers in the North East cannot access their farms for fear of being killed. Those who manage to plant crops soon lose all to rampaging insurgents who harvest them to feed their hungry cadres.

The economic impact is spreading beyond locals who have lost their means of livelihood. Boko Haram is affecting our pocket and impacting our dining tables. Much of the produce that used to come from Borno State and surrounding areas has been cut off leading to price increases because of diminishing supplies of everything from grains to livestock.

On the political front the implications are equally troubling. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Attahiru Jega, keeps assuring us that election will hold all over the country next year. Unfortunately, security conditions in large swathes of the North undermine his words.

Who is going to conduct polls in unprotected places like Damboa or Chibok? If the President could not visit such places for security reasons, which school teacher or NYSC member would put his life on the line to guarantee the success of those polls?

If the conditions in many areas of the North are such that free and fair elections cannot be held, how does it affect our democratic transition? There are grave questions that need to be answered. Unfortunately, those to address them are still too giddy with a sense of their power to realise that their empire is shrinking dramatically by the day.

July 27, 2014
Beyond freedom for the Chibok girls

Attacks against the hapless Chibok community didn’t end with the abduction of the over 300 schoolgirls from the dormitory on the night of April 15. Since then Boko Haram has carried out several sorties into areas surrounding the town.

It would appear, however, that pain and death have taken residence in the town. One recent report states that 11 parents of the kidnapped girls have died since their children went missing.

Of that number, seven are among the dead from an attack in the nearby village of Kautakari this July. Four more parents are said to have died of heart failure, high blood pressure and other illnesses that the community blames on trauma due to the mass abduction.

We have the assurance of the authorities that not only do they know where the girls are, but that their freedom is imminent. That should offer a measure of comfort to the grieving families.

Still you cannot help but wonder what kind of girls would be returning from Boko Haram captivity. What sorts of unspeakable experiences have they been subjected to? Will they ever be able to live normal lives again?

The world owes it to these girls and their community to ensure that the one day leaders of Boko Haram, their financiers and collaborators pay for their crimes against humanity. Our duty doesn’t end with demanding their release; we should faithfully document the atrocities of this group for the day they would face justice.

July 27, 2014
Getting 2015 debate back on track

If one week is a long time in politics, then one month is an absolute life time. In the space of 30 days the All Progressives Congress (APC) which has in the last few months positioned itself as a credible alternative to the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), has had some wind knocked out of its sails.

In that time it lost Ekiti State in circumstances that can only be described as stunning and mystifying. It has had Adamawa State pinched from under its nose. But the fate that befell it in the latter has been one of the worst kept secrets in political circles. For ages the media has been reporting that at the right moment the PDP would move against ex-Governor Murtala Nyako.

The ruling party’s goal of recovering the ground lost to APC following the ‘New-PDP’ rebellion has moved on to the next stage with the impeachment notice served on Nasarawa State Governor, Tanko Al-Makura. It is also said to have Imo, Osun and Rivers States in its sights. Whether these states will meekly surrender as happened in Adamawa remains to be seen.

What is not in doubt is the fact that the ruling party members and some pundits would see the opposition reverses as a clear portent for PDP victory at the center in 2015. But that would be presumptuous, just as it would be foolish for the APC to start feeling sorry for itself. There is still so much to fight for going into the next general election. What we have witnessed so far are just skirmishes: there’s still the war to be won.

What needs to change if the opposition is going to prevail is a redefinition of the terms of engagement. Several months ago I wrote in this column that the APC needs to quickly move beyond celebrating the number of ruling party deserters joining its ranks, to highlighting the abysmal record of the Goodluck Jonathan regime, as well as setting out the alternative it offers.

Nigerian politicians are fickle. They will jump ship at the drop of a hat and not because of any deep principle. We have seen that play out with the shameless crisscrossing between the two camps by those who would offer as an excuse such inanities as: ‘Our people have always belonged to the ruling party.’

It is not surprising that where no principle is involved, it has been very easy to reverse the direction of defections in favour of the ruling party. The opposition has cried out that its ranks were being depleted by a desperate government using mindboggling sums as inducement. But did they expect a regime that has shown itself willing to use all means necessary to achieve its ends to play fair?

Those presently locked in a power struggle with the administration make several mistakes. First, they underrate Jonathan. He has shown that he’s no longer the timid, tentative player of the early years of his presidency; he is a wily operator who can play the power game with the masters.

Secondly, people underestimate the crowd that has the president’s ear. They fail to understand that the level of desperation we see in the abuse of the instruments of state is driven not just by Jonathan’s second term ambition, but also by the fact that those who are relevant today are in no hurry to become irrelevant if they allow the opposition seize power. Such people would do things Jonathan would not even dream of – in the president’s name.

Thirdly, what looks like a bastion from which an opposition onslaught to unseat the government can be launched – the North – is just an illusion. If you thought the North was split in 2011, now it is virtually fragmented.

The likes of former minister and Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Prof. Ango Abdullahi, may rage all they like and declare with ‘certainty’ that the region is taking back power, the reality is its elite are so divided that coherent regional action is virtually impossible.

Never before has the ‘One North’ myth been laid bare than in today’s Nigeria. The Boko Haram insurgency, with its diabolical efforts to set Muslim against Christian, has driven a sharp knife through communal bonds that used to unite the people. Anyone who thinks that the death of thousands felled by the insurgents in minority areas of the region, would not affect the political picture is naïve. It is the very reason the ruling party is making the outlandish claim that the insurgency is a creation of the opposition.

The disarray in the region is made worse by the typical nature of the political elite to be found anywhere in Nigeria. No one can come out to say there’s a consensus for power to return to the North in 2014. For every Ango Abdullahi who insists that it must be so, there are scores of others who are willing to live with another four years of Jonathan if that will clear the way for their own presidential bids in 2019. In the meantime, they will remain relevant. Acquiescing to an opposition takeover, however, would be tantamount to committing political suicide.

So on the face of it the decks appear stacked in favour of the incumbent. But as we have seen in the Ekiti election this year and in the past, incumbency can be a vastly overrated factor in determining which way a Nigerian election would swing. Dr. Kayode Fayemi lost to Ayo Fayose, but we must not forget also that Fayemi as challenger also toppled the then PDP governor, Segun Oni.

Some would say that a state governor’s incumbency advantages are greatly vitiated by the desperation of federal forces who manipulated the polls using cash and soldiers. But it should also be pointed out that Nigeria doesn’t have enough soldiers to intimidate every voter when the nation would be voting as one in 2015.

So what can the opposition do if it really wants change? It must quickly change the narrative. APC is not going to prevail in a slanging match. That suits the PDP perfectly because it takes away the focus from Jonathan’s Achilles Heel which is his record.

That is why rather than discussing its record, the ruling party has been more concerned with painting the opposition in terms which strike a chord with our most primordial instincts. That is why APC is being defined as an anti-Christian, pro-Muslim and therefore pro-insurgency party.

It was no help that the party in its drive to strengthen its ranks opened up to all and sundry – something that is unavoidable for a public institution like a political party. One of those ensnared in that recruitment drive was former Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, under whose tenure Boko Haram really took off as a malevolent organization.

The PDP used his membership of APC to telling effect as it tried to tie the opposition to the insurgency. Now that he has defected to the ruling party can we then conclude that PDP is for Boko Haram?

Those in APC who blithely dismiss the PDP charges as silly and worthy of being ignored would be shocked at how the undiscerning are lapping them up and accepting them as gospel truth.

Jonathan will not be dislodged just because someone says power must return to the North. There is no consensus around that idea. Add to that the fact that the Boko Haram insurgency has so polarised the nation along ethnic, regional and religious lines that any bid for power that is driven by what is perceived as some sectional agenda will founder in today’s environment.

The only way change will come in 2015 is by focusing like a laser on Jonathan’s record. In 2011 he swept into office on a crest of sentiment – the self-effacing politician with humble beginnings. He was a breath of ‘fresh air’ with a story that tugged at our heart strings.

Four years later a chunk of the country has become a war front, millions are unemployed, the economy is prostate, personal freedoms are being rolled back in an unprecedented manner, democracy is being given a black eye as the military stages a comeback into our everyday life, and Obasanjo-era impeachments have become the order of the day.

Do you reward a man for this kind of demolition job? In any other country on this earth such a record will topple any incumbent.

Whether at state or federal level we must ensure that the next elections are determined by the records of the incumbents. Let us not be duped by the sleight of hands by political con artists, nor should we be impressed by stage-managed impeachments which may yet be upturned in the courts of law.

July 20, 2014
A hashtag headache

Imagine if there were no #BringBackOurGirls campaigners, Nigeria and its government would have long abandoned the over 200 innocent girls still in the hands of Boko Haram terrorists. This plucky band of Nigerians are a positive sign that there are still people in these parts driven by higher ideals. The y may not be popular with government for keeping the issue on the front burner, but I nominate them for a national award for their patriotism and humanity.

For the Jonathan administration and security agencies they are a headache. But any attempt to cure this ‘irritation’ using blackmail and trumped-up charges will fail because the world is watching. The only thing that will excise the headache is the safe return of the Chibok girls. The campaigners deserve our support in the face of bare-faced intimidation by the authorities.

July 20, 2014