From all appearances, President Jonathan strongly desires to win re-election and have another four-year term. All his actions and political manoeuvres point indubitably in that direction, and there is no systemic reason why he could not seek re-election. The constitution of the land allows it. Those who are threatening that they would respond to his candidacy with mayhem are talking nonsense, and the rest of us must tell them so. As I have repeatedly said in this column and other places, those who do not want Jonathan to win a second term have only one legitimate recourse – to organize and campaign to beat him at the polls. One group called APC is already doing just that and knitting together a huge political machine with which they hope to defeat President Jonathan and the party he belongs to at the polls. That is the honourable way to play the game. Terrorist threats are not part of the equation.
However, from the perspective of a nation builder, there is a problem with President Jonathan’s intention to bid for re-election. President Jonathan has raised a lot of hope by initiating, and planning for, a National Conference – and he owes us the duty of considering what most of us Nigerians hope and expect from the National Conference.
Long before President Jonathan became president, our country had been virtually wrecked. He inherited an all-controlling and unrestrained “federal” government that had become an agency for disorder, confusion and corruption, and a manufacturer and dispenser of poverty, insecurity, and conflicts. Because he hails from the Delta, the homeland of the leading armed warriors against the excesses and destructiveness of the federal government, most of us naturally expected that his presidency would be a historic turning point in our country’s history. Shockingly, for more than three years he did nothing towards change. He even seemed to be arguing for a preservation of the hated status quo. But, happily, a few months ago, he suddenly showed a change of heart – as Shakespeare might have put it, “consideration, like an angel, wiped the offending Adam out of him” – and he began to take steps about a National Conference.
For us Nigerians, this is the long-needed, long-awaited, opportunity to do something to straighten up our country, to put her on a sound footing, and to steer her onto a new path of order, sanity, and progress. No doubt, for some of the representatives going to the National Conference in Abuja, this is just an opportunity to go and live in what they see as the Sodom and Gomorrah of modern Africa for a few months, and to revel in, and benefit from, its intoxicating corruption and dissipation. No doubt also, some representatives see their going to the National Conference as a chance to go and serve partisan political purposes of their own or simply to help the 2015 electoral bids of this or that party or presidential candidate. But such folks as these are heading for a shattering disappointment – because most representatives are going to Abuja for a very serious business of national reconstruction, and most of the 170 million of us who will remain at home in most parts of Nigeria will be watching intently and pushing irresistibly for the changes that we have long desired for our country. No matter what President Jonathan originally intended the National Conference for, it is important that we all must now recognize that the National Conference has acquired a life, a momentum, and gravitas of its own, a life, a momentum and a gravitas that can beautifully remould Nigeria and restore hope to Nigeria – or that can, God forbid, break Nigeria.
In such a circumstance as this, what President Jonathan owes his country is clear. He owes us the duty of giving all his attention and energy to the National Conference, with the patriotic and sincere objective of seeing it through to the fulfilment of its mission. Side by side with this patriotic and historic duty, President Jonathan’s personal political ambition – his quest for a second term – pales into insignificance. What we are urging him to do is to recognize and accept this, and to bow in utmost loyalty to this call of duty.
Another presidential term of four years for President Jonathan, as long as the present conditions of our country prevail, can add nothing of real value to our country, to the quality of the life of Nigerians, or to the place of Nigeria in the world. It has no foreseeable chance of changing anything. By 2015, President Jonathan would have been president for six years. Sure, he is legitimately entitled to seek one more term of four years – which would then, if he wins, make him president for 10 years. But how can anybody sensibly choose those four more years and turn away from the chance of becoming the master architect of a new Nigeria, away from the chance of acquiring an immortal name for himself, his posterity, and his Ijaw people, for pulling Nigeria back from the throes of death and giving her a new lease of vibrant life.
Two choices, then, face President Jonathan. I am sure that most who really support him expect him to choose the infinitely bigger one. Many Nigerians abroad and at home, since the door opened to the presidency for Vice-president Jonathan (after the passing of President Yar’Adua), have supported him out of principle, without any partisan considerations, and without any desire for personal gains of any kind, and in spite of his foibles and vacillations. When the question was raised about who should succeed Yar’Adua, many patriots insisted that there was no question at all, and that the constitution must be adhered to. After he became president, they welcomed the fact that a citizen from a minority nationality had at last risen to the highest office in the land – a major step forward for our country. They also welcomed him because, as I said before, they were hopeful that, being an Ijaw man, his presidency would mark the beginning of greatly needed changes in the structure of our federation. And now that he has initiated a National Conference, we all expect the best for our country from it, and he can be sure of very dedicated and resolute support in this welcome path. On the other hand, if President Jonathan tries to play down or defuse the National Conference, or to manipulate it to serve the ends of his electoral politics, he risks titanic losses of support in this country –losses so massive as to drown his electoral chances and political future. He also risks the dissolution of Nigeria on his watch.
President Jonathan’s people, the Ijaw people, own the credit for being, since independence, the front-liners of militant demands for a rational federal structure. They must not now let their voices become muted in the struggle – simply because they want to support their son in his desire for a second term. No. They must give him the right counsel and support. They must remain stoutly in the struggle and ultimately earn the honour that they deserve in the history of Nigeria and of the Black race.
