The Nation Newspaper

Tag: GEJ

  • GEJ: Why stuff happens

    One explosive highlight of the recently published memoir of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, My Transition Hours, is his assertion that foreign powers meddled in Nigeria’s 2015 presidential election.

    In the widely anticipated book, the ex-president unleashed some bile against Western actors, notably former leaders of the United States and United Kingdom, whom he blamed for interventions considered to have aided his defeat in the said poll. He accused former U.S. President Barack Obama in particular of downright bias against his candidature and hubristic condescension towards the Nigerian electorate.

    Jonathan writes inter alia: “On March 23, 2015, President Obama himself took the unusual step of releasing a video message directly to Nigerians, all but telling them how to vote. In that video, Obama urged Nigerians to open the ‘next chapter’ with their votes. Those who understood subliminal language deciphered that he was prodding the electorate to vote for the opposition to form a new government.”

    He as well slammed former British Prime Minister David Cameron and ex-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for querying a six-week shift in the election schedule. “The United States and the United Kingdom were especially agitated. David Cameron…called to express his concern about the election rescheduling, just as John Kerry came from the United States to express further worry. It was at best unusual and sobering. In fact, John Kerry did not accept our reasons for the rescheduling. It was unbelievable because at the back of our minds, we knew that the agitation was beyond what meets the eye.” In another stroke, he hoisted Kerry for the punch, saying: “How can the U.S. Secretary of State know what is more important for Nigeria than Nigeria’s own government? How could they have expected us to conduct elections when Boko Haram controlled part of the Northeast and were killing and maiming Nigerians?”

    There is no question that the former president’s place of honour in Nigeria’s political history is firmly assured because of his altruistic sportsmanship, which really is uncommon to our country’s political class. Also, condescending infractions of our national sovereignty by external forces should on no account be tolerated. But Jonathan’s sour grapes over foreign interest in the Nigerian electoral process need to be interrogated in light of the context and antecedents of the 2015 poll, if only to ensure accuracy of historical accounting.

    With the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) then watched over by Professor Attahiru Jega having initially fixed the presidential and national assembly elections for 14th February 2015, and the state elections for 28th February, Kerry visited Nigeria on 25th January – few hours after Boko Haram insurgents attacked a community in Borno State that had been under emergency rule since May 2013 alongside Yobe and Adamawa. That emergency rule had done little to redress the security situation in the affected states and there were indeed profound threats of the crisis spilling over. Still, the electoral commission was making ready for elections in those states along with all the others. But despite repeated pledges of its readiness, the public steadily badgered it with queries on whether / how it would be able to conduct elections in the Northeast states amidst the security crisis, and what the likely implications would be for the presidential poll if it did not.

    Rather than frontally tackle down the security challenge with its mandate in power, then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) locked into a fierce partisan duel with opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) on the necessity, or not, of rescheduling the elections. The PDP and its allies wanted the poll shifted while the APC and supporters would just not have it. But the canvassers of election rescheduling weren’t even honest enough to acknowledge the Northeast security crisis as the core of their advocacy; rather, they decoyed with claims of insufficient level of Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) collection by prospective voters and alleged unpreparedness of INEC for the poll.

    And the nation’s security establishment under Jonathan fed unreservedly into that duel. For instance, while the security services en bloc pressed the electoral commission behind the scenes to allow them a breather – within the statutory framework, of course – to use the instrumentality of then newly established multinational taskforce in dealing with the Northeast insurgency challenge, former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki seized a global podium at Chatham House, London, on 22nd January 2015 to openly prod INEC to shift the elections solely because 30million PVCs had allegedly not been collected by registrants!

    Such shenanigans only fuelled suspicion about the intention of government in waving the security card to advise a shift in the poll dates. And it isn’t unlikely that it was such abuse the foreign powers fingered by Jonathan pitched in to red-flag. But truth also is that the Jonathan administration did not change the 2015 election dates, contrary to the former president’s suggestion in his book. No government has the power to do that under Nigerian law. Sections 76 (1), 116 (1), 132 (1) and 178 (1) of the 1999 Constitution (as Amended) guarantee the power of the electoral commission to appoint dates for respective election; hence, the decision to shift the 2015 poll by six weeks was essentially that of Jega-led INEC, though at the compelling instance of the security establishment and upon an inconclusive advice by the National Council of State.

    Close on the heels of the shift in poll dates, the campaigners, still arrowheaded by the PDP, raised the stakes by demanding that the use of Smart Card Readers intended for the 2015 elections be dumped. That was despite that the nation already had shelled out huge sums in procuring the device, and with some 180,000 units deployed as at then. But they met a brick wall in the electoral commission. And that could partly explain Jonathan’s harsh words in his book for the technology factor in the poll.

    Actually, close attention to Nigerian electoral process by the international community did not stop at the run-up to the 2015 poll. After the presidential election on 28th March, and while the collation of results was underway, Kerry and his UK counterpart, former Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, issued a joint statement on 30th March, warning against “deliberate political interference” in the vote count.

    Not that the electoral commission would in the least have yielded to political interference even if there was an attempt. As Jega’s media aide, I fully knew this and said as much to CNN’s Christianne Amanpour when she interviewed me same evening on her programme. But the Kerry-Hammond joint statement was nonetheless very helpful in spotlighting then ongoing process in a manner that restrained the desperation of the political class and further insulated the electoral body. That was the same day PDP’s Godsday Orubebe for no good reason picked a brawl in the collation hall with Professor Jega, and shortly after, that President Jonathan made his famous phone call to concede defeat. Remember?

    Experience shows that close attention by the international community to Nigerian electoral process adds great value, never mind irritations as Jonathan’s over national sovereignty. The prevailing culture in our political class has not yet attained the discipline required for an insular electoral system. That is why it is important to underscore a recent call by former Central Intelligence Agency official, Judd Devermont, that the global community need step up to Nigeria’s 2019 poll. It won’t be overreaching for countries to threaten visa bans, asset freezes and International Crime Court prosecution, among others, against any political actor who grossly violates the process or abets violence in the course of the elections. Such interventions will by all means be welcome.

     

    • Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation. 

  • Ekiti presidential lodge named after Jonathan

    The new Presidential Lodge of Ekiti state government will be named after former President of Nigeria Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on Friday.

    The Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose disclosed this on his verified Twitter account.

    He said: “Today in Ekiti, the Presidential Lodge in the Govt House, Ado Ekiti will be named after former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.‘

  • GEJ, Abdullahi, Oduah and the missing verses

    GEJ, Abdullahi, Oduah and the missing verses

    Even days ahead of its unveiling, a new book by ace journalist and APC spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, is surely stirring the political waters already. Since teasers began to appear in Simon Kolawole’s TheCable last week, many can hardly wait anymore for tomorrow’s presentation in Abuja to grab copy and see what fresh angles “On A Platter of Gold: How Jonathan Won and Lost Nigeria” brings to Segun Adeniyi’s earlier block-buster, “Against The Run of Play”.

    Abdullahi is by no means a casual chronicler of the momentous events that shaped the Jonathan presidency; he was an insider having served as minister.

    Perhaps the juiciest extract featured thus far by TheCable is the sensational claim by Stella Oduah that she lost her Aviation portfolio in the last dispensation due to the machinations of now embattled Diezani Allison-Madueke (then the powerful oil minister) in what seems to illuminate intensely the psycho-sexual tension within the Jonathan presidency. History reminds us that empires had risen and fallen over nothing more than lust or wounded love, and the remains of many great men were found near discarded skirt and camisole.

    According to her, Diezani strongly believed leaks of her incurring a bill of whopping N10b jetting around “privately” emanated from the Aviation ministry. To exact a pound of flesh, Oduah alleges that Diezani funded sustained media spotlight on her own N250m bulletproof BMW cars scandal.

    (A presidential panel headed by then NSA Sambo Dasuki had found the Aviation minister culpable in the shady $1.6m auto deal.)

    “She thought I was the one who leaked the issue of private jet that put her into trouble with the House of Reps,” she says, adding “For her, it was payback time. Diezani was paying people to keep the story alive. At the same time, she was whispering in (the president’s) ears that he had to take action.”

    But the real meat is in her next comment: “I knew all along that Diezani could not deal with having another female around who had the kind of access I had to the president.”

    In what suggests more than official relationship with GEJ, Oduah was quoted by the author to be uninhibited enough to then pointedly demand of the president, “Did Diezani ask you to sack me?”, which he flatly denied.

    Of course, in power circles then, it didn’t require much political intelligence to know there were actually five powerful women around the President. Aside Oduah and Diezani, the three others included First Lady (Mama Peace herself), the president’s ebony-black mom and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the “Coordinating Minister” and thick-set Amazon of the exchequer.

    Romantics are likely to swoon over that and interpret as omen that GEJ was a “ladies’ man”.

    This however makes Jonathan the stark opposite of his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari, said to be very, very “shy among women” (apology Information Minister Lai Mohammed). It then perhaps explains why women today enjoy less visibility around PMB’s wooden paternalism.

    Responding to a question posed by a foreign journalist in faraway Germany following First Lady Aisha’s philippic against the presidency last year, Buhari hardly betrayed any emotion in dismissing her sense of political judgement outside what he considered her exclusive jurisdiction: “My wife belongs to the kitchen, the living room and the other room.”

    Now, the puzzle is the definition of the “access” Oduah alludes to. Of course, everyone agrees that, both in and outside office, GEJ remains a perfect gentleman, with amazingly charming smile and killer athletic build capable of making the opposite sex drool, ordinarily.

    So, could Oduah be referring to a “special pin no” from which other top female officials around Jonathan were restricted? The kind that conferred extraordinary privileges like having their proposals or memos approved with dizzying dispatch, without second look, let alone scrutiny.

    The only conclusion that could drawn from Oduah’s revelation is that she and Diezani were both shamelessly locked in a cold war over long-suffering Madam Patience’s fine husband. Now, if a scavenger gets swollen-headed over the possession of a treasure found by accident, what’s expected of the original owner? Between the feuding princesses, every waking moment seemed spent agonizing over which plot the other might be hatching to monopolize the king’s attention.

    In the circumstance, the puzzle then: what time did they really have left for official duties? We can, therefore, only continue to speculate and imagine the titanic battle poor Jonathan must have waged against falling into the sort of temptation Adam found irresistible in the biblical Garden of Aden.

    When similarly charming Bill Clinton found himself in such tight corner as president at the Oval Office in Washington in the 90s, he succumbed to curvaceous Monica Lewinsky. The ghost of that affair with its salacious details would come back to exact a price that almost cost him the presidency. Though he survived narrowly, he would endure the shame for the rest of his life.

    One of Clinton’s predecessors, John F Kennedy, was not that lucky. His hyperactive testosterone is believed to have been largely fueled by the side effect of a medication he took for Addison’s disease. Compulsive philanderer, aside the steady stream of paramours smuggled into the White House through the back door, among his other conquests were government secretaries and one Judith Campbell who incidentally happened to be linked to mafia boss Sam Giancana. This shred of evidence formed the basis of the enduring conspiracy theory that JFK’s assassination in 1963 involved the mob.

    Elsewhere in Zimbabwe about the same time Clinton was being tempted, Robert Mugabe had also come under the bewitching spell of Grace inside the White House in Harare. Sashay after tantalizing sashay up and down the presidential office, the salivating ex-guerrilla apparently began to see his dashing secretary in a totally different light. Incentives then came to work longer hours in the office. The death of the much-beloved Ghanaian-born First Lady would finally open the door for Grace to be formally unveiled to the nation as the new presidential consort.

    Following Mugabe’s ignominious fall from power last week, pundits may still be divided today over the political epitaph to engrave on his political tombstone. But regardless, there is consensus already that Grace’s vain ways contributed in no small measure in stoking public anger against the old comrade.

    Well, the good news is that GEJ left office in 2015 through the electoral door, certainly not through any proven peccadilloes. Maybe, the ghost would have been finally laid to rest had the usually blunt Oduah, presently a senator representing Anambra, taken a step further to stave the ambiguity that incriminates. By either confirming or denying the long-standing rumour in some mischievous quarters that that “access” had, in fact, some amatory taste.

    Or, since she is known to be single and available, did she ever, at any time, have a crush on the Prince Charming from Otuoke?

    With the raft of grave charges still pending at the British court, we wager Diezani would, on her own, wish to be spared this sort of question, at least for now.

  • The moral debris of GEJ’s looted home

    The moral debris of GEJ’s looted home

    Vanguard editorial, in my view, belongs in the heavyweight echelon of Nigeria’s commentariat. The weight of its punch is to be judged not only by the resonance of the message over the years; but also its economy of phrase – the uncanny facility to say a lot in so few words, packing so much into so little a space.

    But its edition of August 3 must rank among those that fall miserably short of the high value it normally espouses. In the comment entitled, “Looting of ex-President Jonathan’s home”, the newspaper said every thing expected against the cops-turned-burglars and those who trafficked the stolen goods.

    What would have been a fine argument against yet another iniquity of man was however sullied when, in the next breath, it openly sought to either deny anyone the right to outrage against Jonathan on any count whatsoever or make a villain outright of those unable to express pity or empathy with the victim on this matter.

    It wrote: “No decent human being can claim that what took place in … President Jonathan’s house is excusable on any ground. All people of conscience must rise up and condemn evil, no matter who is involved. The atmosphere of hatred which seems to have seized the people of this country by the throat must be made to give way to empathy for one another, as that is the only way we can build a united, strong country.”

    For effect, it reminded us of the great sacrifice GEJ made to secure democracy: “It was due to his gentle and patriotic disposition that the nation experienced a peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another in 2015.”

    In the haste to whip up sentiments, the editorialist, alas, missed the context and the nuance of the great heist at issue. To start with, seeking to overplay Jonathan’s 2015 concession of defeat as reflected above is very cheap indeed. Care needs be taken against overdrawing that goodwill account. His action then was the most honorable thing to do at that moment, for which enough encomium has been showered on him both within and outside our shores.

    But that can, by no means, now amount to an entitlement to pity at all times. Nor can it possibly be tendered as adequate inoculation against reproach or perpetual immunity against public scrutiny.

    Otherwise, we, given what is now also known about the sordid aspects of the same past, risk enthroning a new relativity of morality with the suggestion that gross ethical inadequacy be excused in the throes of sentimentality or being captive to one memory.

    Rather, the intelligentsia must be seen as setting very high standards for the society, holding all actors by a universal principle. Inherent in that resolve is a commitment not to compromise values or lend itself to those seeking to lower the society’s ethical bar on sentiments ranging from ethnicity to creed.

    Two, there can be no disputation as to whether Jonathan, were he another ordinary Nigerian, would be deserving of pity over this loss of valuables. While it may be true that most Nigerians indeed lack true love for their nation as corporate entity, they certainly do not hate one another at inter-personal level, as can be verified from the instinctive response of the average Nigerian meeting complete strangers at an accident scene, for instance. He is very unlikely to turn the other way but play the biblical Good Samaritan – lending a hand to those in distress.

    As a people, Nigerians are not incapable of pity when sufficiently aroused.

    In the present circumstance, the truth is that Jonathan is definitely not the guy next door. And if we can summon courage to face the more inconveniencing truth, many – if not most – Nigerians today would argue GEJ only just got a mini dose of the bitter portion the nation was force-fed with under his watch as president.

    In a poetic reversal of role, while the man from Otuoke grieved over the loss of domestic valuables under police guard, his fellow compatriots have not stopped bemoaning the mindless looting of their own country while Jonathan was sentinel.

    On account of what is now known, those who wish to discount the GEJ silhouette as only totemic of looting without limit cannot therefore be accused of being uncharitable. The cost of plasma TVs, refrigerators and bowlers is certainly insignificant compared to, say, the $150m (N54b) of luxury assets recently forfeited by Diezani and co to US authorities alone. To say nothing of estimated $15b (N5.4t) systematically stolen through Dasukigate.

    Funny enough, when the likes of then CBN governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi were crying out that the national exchequer was being bled to death, Jonathan took it upon himself to parlay every national platform to vigorously defend Diezani as hapless victim of those playing malicious political games.

    When you occupy an enviable office, he once philosophized on a national television in her defence, enemies tell fat lies to pull you down.

    So, if some citizens are now unable to bring themselves to pity Jonathan over the Gwarinpa  burglary as the Vanguard editorial surmised, it must be understood in the context of a nation still unable to come to terms with the mega heist under his watch, the lurid details of which continue to unfold with stifling pungency both at home and abroad.

    In the statement to the police, he lamented his home was “completely stripped bare”, underlining an epic betrayal of truth. Policemen asked to guard a home chose to become the thieves themselves.

    But once the marauding vultures had been upbraided and chased away, it will be time to censure the mother fowl for exposing her chicks to danger in the first place. By Jonathan’s own admission, the theft was only discovered last month. The truth he was obviously too shy to share is that the property in question was lying waste as he lives elsewhere in Abuja. That apparently left the door ajar for the evil cops to systematically clean out the four-bedroom duplex over the months.

    Of course, in a society where estimated 60 percent of the population is thought homelessness and many more go to bed on empty stomach at night, that is not the sort of secret you want to let out.

    So, had the media not become awash last week with “sensational” claims of what went missing, it is debatable if Jonathan would not have preferred to hush things up to avoid eyebrows being raised or some hard questions being asked. His statement on the theft would then seem to be motivated more by a desire to debunk the “exaggerated” claims than a willingness to give self up for scrutiny.

    Obviously to deflect initial reports suggesting “36 Plasma television sets and 25 refrigerators”, the former president detailed the haul to include only 6 flat screen TV sets, toilet seats, 3 refrigerators, doors and one gas cooker. His statement was however conveniently silent on the reports on “bales and bales of babanriga wears and designer suits with his names embroidered on the inner linings”.

    Without being induced, some witnesses have already volunteered accounts of what really happened. One Mallam Shuaibu has been named as one of the buyers of the stolen items at the popular Pankera Secon-hand Market, Abuja. One account said each suit was auctioned for N5,000. And what a boom time it was in that corner of the market for a long time before the secret leaked. You would see locals of all nations and creeds trying assorted bowler hats on display and “woko” Ijaw jumpers of many colours in the open before making a pick.

    Not surprising, the four cops implicated in the shameful conduct have since been dismissed by the police after an orderly room trial preparatory to their being formally prosecuted. The same way Ibrahim Bagobiri, chairman of the Pankera Market, has been defenestrated by members for allegedly partaking in the receipt and disposal of the stolen goods.

    From media pictures of the crime scene, it is easy to feel anger, vengeance in the clinical severity with which the policemen-burglars violated the haven where Jonathan once dined and slept. Literally, what remained was for the brigands to excavate the floor tiles and the blocks to complete a furious plunder.

    Though no one can tell for sure how long it took them to finish the pillage, since they were reportedly posted after the former president quit Aso Rock, it is perhaps safe to assume they had taken charge before the slime of Dasukigate began to seep out by the twilight of 2015.

    Dazed by the stories of grand larceny that began to circulate, chances are that the unscrupulous policemen themselves only saw Jonathan’s personal effects and household goods as their own fair portion of the elephantine loot. Ordinarily, no one would wish to be left out when the proverbial butchered elephant is being shared.

    It is clear Karma had passed through Gwarinpa with all its mystical stealth.

     

    Ikoyi Passport Office as beacon

    Government agencies are notoriously poor in their interface with members of the public. But exception must be made for the Ikoyi Passport Office in Lagos. At least, that was the experience of this writer recently when he went there to renew his international passport.

    Not only has effort been made to provide a more hospitable environment for customers/visitors to sit while waiting, I attest I did not require a tout to fast-track my renewal this time.

    Of course, crowd control remains an issue. Since the Immigration department might not be able to acquire/annex the neighbouring properties for now or in the nearest future, erecting multi-storied structure to replace the present bungalow is certainly the long-term solution.

    Regardless, presiding Deputy Comptroller Segun Adegoke deserves kudos for the improved service.

  • GEJ’s chronicle of untruths

    An attempt to twist facts and colour reality by ex-President Jonathan in Segun Adeniyi’s book –  “Against the Run of Play’ has attracted a lot of fury from aggrieved Nigerians who grief over his attempt to hide under our military-incubated ‘new breed’s political culture –‘big men are above the law’, to assault the sensibilities of victims of his five years of corruption-ridden administration. Some have dismissed Jonathan’s chronicle of untruths as ‘an attempt at writing a revisionist history’ while The Punch has in an editorial dismissed it as “a potpourri of falsehoods, hypocrisy, and, lame excuses”

    The consolation however is that most Nigerians know who Jonathan Goodluck is and what he represents. The exceptions perhaps will be the likes of Chief Obasanjo who, with his control of awesome state apparatus of power was better placed to know the limitations of his godson but chose to impose him on Nigeria just as he did unprepared Shehu Shagari and ailing Umaru Yar’Adua probably out of deceit or mischief only to lament about a President Jonathan “overwhelmed by the weight of his office”. Jonathan, once described by the London Economist as the ‘most corrupt, most clueless government in Nigeria’s history” is a man who would stand by while others fight his battle, takes responsibility for nothing including his own follies  and always ready to play the victim. Thus it took his defeat by Buhari for him to realize he was caged all through his presidency by PDP, or that his defeat was engineered by Mu’azu, his party chairman, the Inspector General of Police (IG), Professor Attahiru Jega – the INEC chairman, who he claimed got additional help from western leaders such as David Cameron, former British Prime Minster, Francois Hollande of France and the former US President Barack Obama.

    Jonathan knew he lost the election before the first ballot was cast. The truth of the matter was that in the absence of those who had helped him fight his past battles, Jonathan, for once in his life, was forced to fight for himself. He started by first undermining the constitution of his party on zoning of which he had been a major beneficiary. He then shortly after publicly humiliating Obasanjo, his godfather, traded him for Chief Edwin Clark, his fellow Ijaw. He next deployed the leadership of the Ijaw militant groups he had empowered through award of multi-billion dollar contracts to unleash ‘verbal terrorism’ on the leadership of the Hausa Fulani as if the strategy was to win the presidency with only South-south and South- east votes. The Yoruba nation, he had marginalized for close to five years, waiting until the eve of the election to start moving from one Oba’s palace to the other with tons of dollars while ignoring the advice of Awujale of Ijebu Ode that Obas in Yoruba land cannot go against the wishes of their subjects. In Lagos, he introduced ethnicity, appealing to non-Yoruba resident in the state to vote for him and his party.

    Then Jonathan, who can at best be described as a campaign manager’s nightmare, went on to appoint those who had just secured bail from detention following a House probe that indicted them for defrauding the country to the tune of about N1.6trillion through the fuel subsidy scam.

    Of course Nigerians also understand why Jonathan cannot see any redeeming grace in Buhari’s current commitment to fighting corruption. Not too long ago, he had told Nigerians that ‘stealing government money is not corruption’. And with the help of ‘ogbologbo’ lawyer’ (apology to Obasanjo), he unconstitutionally and effortlessly removed Lamido Sanusi, the then CBN governor for alerting Nigerians of missing $20b from NNPC account.  Jonathan is also on record as having shielded ministers of aviation and petroleum, indicted at different times by House probe for financial malfeasance. Jonathan did not see anything wrong in authorizing import duty waivers that resulted in the loss of about N630b in government revenues to a few party faithful.

    Ex-President Jonathan and his family are not insulated. There was the report of an international judicial probe that claimed Nigerian government was defrauded to the tune of $1.1bn through the Malabu oil field scam. Jonathan was personally fingered by the report along with Adoke, his former Attorney General, Dan Etete, a former Minister of Petroleum, Shell, Agip, and others.  In recent time, four companies were convicted for laundering Patience Jonathan’s $15.5m. The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders’(CACOL) is also demanding that  Patience Jonathan, a civil servant  must disclose the source of  the N10b she expended on her hotel- Aridolf Resort Wellness and Spa, Yenagoa, inaugurated in April 2015.  Rather than address any of the above issues, Jonathan has chosen to accuse Buhari’s government of harassment of his family members.

    And finally, our hypocritical leaders who are now shedding crocodile tears, as well as many of our compatriots who often behave as if they are suffering from collective amnesia knew back in 2011, that PDP was a tragedy. The party had nothing to show for its 10 years of pillaging the country’s resources. It was on record that about 17 of the close to two dozen governors elected on the platform of PDP were in various courts defending their integrity.  Some serving PDP governors had been impeached for tampering with the finances of their states. And in case we have all forgotten, Nuhu Ribadu, the then EFCC chair, only recently during a reception organized to mark Obasanjo’s 80th birthday confirmed that 99% of those arrested for corruption between 20003 and 2007 were PDP members.

    PDP in 2011 therefore had nothing to sell to Nigerians. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the shoeless PDP candidate the party presented was carrying his own baggage. The same Segun Adeniyi’s book has called our attention to a report by the US Ambassador in Nigeria that questioned Jonathan’s competence, made reference to his alleged sponsorship of militant groups as governor of Bayelsa and touched on the alleged seizure of huge sums of money in dollars from his wife by EFCC at the airport.

    Then our inimitable Sonala Olumhense in his syndicated article in many Nigerian newspapers warned that if we voted Jonathan, he would sell what is left of Nigeria to PDP. And that was exactly what Jonathan did. The only thing Olumhense did not envisage was the involvement of Jonathan’s wife and some of his family members in the buying up of what were left of our country.

    But one thing going for Jonathan is that he is a true son of his adopted fathers, Babangida and Obasanjo both of whom he regarded as role models. The two fathers and Jonathan, their only son share some parallels. The fathers took our country through a privatization programme that ended with the sharing of our national assets among some privileged elite. Jonathan, their beloved son also mismanaged the power sector.

  • Open letter to GEJ

    SIR: I never thought I was going to write to you again since your eviction from the “Rock”. But seeing how ardently you are trying to invade our memories with “Ebele-Trojan Virus”, in a bid to reformatting it- clearing off and replacing existing data, in an attempt to rewrite history thereby playing on our intelligence, it became increasingly incumbent on me to pen this short note.

    In a speech you delivered at the Annual Gala Dinner of Nigerian Lawyers Association in the US.., you said and I quote: “Under my watch, not a single Nigerian was sent to prison because of anything they wrote or said about me or the Administration that I headed.”  You must have forgotten about the military attack on Nigerian newspapers that happened right under your watch on June 6-7, 2014. An event that saw soldiers seize and in some cases destroy thousands of copies of several newspapers including Leadership, The Nation, and Punch newspapers. The general distribution centre for all newspapers in Area 1, Abuja, was also sealed by soldiers and several newspapers circulation staff were also harassed and detained in the process.

    Again, we have not forgotten the assaults on the National Assembly that happened on November 20, 2014, when policemen were stationed at the gate of the National Assembly Complex and denied the then Speaker of the House- Aminu Tambuwal and some federal lawmakers entry to the complex where they were slated to carry out their duties.

    From the havoc caused by the Boko Haram insurgency, to the massive loot and corruption under your watch, to the killing of innocent unemployed Nigerians during the Nigerian Immigration Service recruitment scam, to the attack on media houses by the military, the invasion of the National Assembly and assaults on members of the parliaments, to the collapse of systems and infrastructure in the country amongst others, in a saner society, you should have been behind bars by now.

    You cannot do such grave evil to our nation- squander our commonwealth among your friends and allies- and watched lackadaisically as Boko Haram decimated our military and made a total mockery of us, and yet come back to us and speak ostentatiously about your achievements- doing that is evil!

    I consider this as a spat in our face- as another grave evil perpetrated by you to repaint and rebrand your mischievousness in an attempt to rewrite history falsely. You cannot in less than two years come back to us like an angel walking on the street of Babylon in a spotless garment. You cannot appear to us like a saint that just came down from heaven- you are not!

     

    • Ogundana Michael Rotimi,

    Lagos. 

  • GEJ’s wonder stoves

    Amongst many others, one of the trending news items at the moment is that the Jonathanian contractor handling the N9.2billion contract to supply supposed clean cooking stoves and wonder bags, awarded by the administration of former President, Goodluck Jonathan has dragged the Federal Government to court. Again, a country that should be amongst the leading lights of the world, feeding and exporting billions of dollars worth of goods to all her neighbours along the West African coast and beyond, is caught pants down dealing in crumbs and running  mediocre errands. In its long-list of many infamies, the Jonathan administration, perhaps in a last minute desperate move to retain power at all cost, had foreclosed all available options of right-thinking, and proceeded on November 26, 2014 to approve N9.2billion, inclusive of Value Added Tax, for the procurement of 750,000 units of these disgusting stoves and an accompanying 18,000 wonder bags. No one needs to ask whether these stoves would be made in Nigeria or imported; of course we all know the answer. The sad part is that if the stoves had surfaced, it would have been a case of a whopping N9.2Billion capital flight by way of procurement. Such is it that in an unending gloom of despair, a country that had gained independence more than 50years ago, continues to behave as if it is still in slavery.

    The last government must be ashamed of itself (if it at all has the capacity to do so) for reducing this country to a kindergarten society where anything goes. In today’s fast-moving world where even smaller countries of the world are making giant strides in the areas of mind-blowing technological advancements and scientific breakthroughs, we are busy awarding contracts for the purchase of stoves, spoons and pots; stoves that if they were to be imported from China, they would most likely have been produced by the high school students of that country. One must feel sorry for those who once queued up behind that Presidency. President Jonathan (as he then was) and his now defunct Presidency, made it abundantly clear that the matters of the leadership and survival of our nation is too serious and sensitive to be left to him and his troops, who behaved as if it was too much to ask to ask him to display the average intelligence of the ordinary President. They bit the hands which fed them, soiled their stew-pot with faeces from over-feeding, and ran the country into a state of immobility and decay.

    They carried on behaving as if their politics of the belly, exotic country homes, cronyism, clientelism and primitive political bazaar will never come to an end. In their dynasty of failure, they sanctified corruption and imposed the worst form of impunity on the country, so much so that today lawyers are making a huge fortune from unending and staggering corruption cases, the same way a coffin maker makes money from death. Today if it is not corruption in NNPC, then it would be NIMASA; tomorrow if it is not the DSS, then it would be the military; next tomorrow if it is not the Office of the NSA, then it would be NAFDAC. The stench of the Jonathan rot is so convulsive that every corner and junction you turn, you hear of huge amounts of being stolen in one government agency or the other. One wonders what would have become of Nigeria, if that man had found his way back to power. For those complaining of a slow President Muhammadu Buhari today, but cynically and deliberately closing their eyes to his thus far steady, impressive and integrity-studded frontal attack on the scourge of corruption in the country, maybe they would have ferried themselves and their families to seek prosperity in Cameroon by now.

    Under the masquerade of transformation, they pilfered the country to the bone. So nauseating was it then that it became a recurrent decimal for the people to be daily and consistently harassed on the TV stations of their media accomplices, with very mouth-watering, tantalizing and psychedelic graphics showing gargantuan projects lined up to be executed by the Jonathan government, for which billions of naira would have been appropriated, only for the money to suddenly develop wings and fly into private pockets. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it became a matter that never ended, for several trips to be made abroad, in an innumerable company of party faithfuls and other genuflecting jonathanians, with the pretension of going abroad to go and shop for foreign investors, only to return with some weather-beaten white-men posing as investors, but ending up to become mere briefcase consultants for the thieving government and later disappear to go and act as their fronts for their many businesses abroad. As a matter of fact, this disgraceful stove contract is about the least of the many underhand deal of the departed government.

    Now and upon realising the new state of zero tolerance for corruption in the air, their contractor has gone before the court, asking that the contract be not terminated. Wonders as usual shall never end. Perhaps, the contractor will have to tell Nigerians how much has been advanced to him from the total contract sum, how many stoves he has supplied so far, and who are the people to whom it has been shared. In addition, he will have to answer to Nigerians if the stoves in question were a part of the very many other souvenirs that were transported nationwide in hundreds of trailers, and shared during the build up to the April 14 Presidential elections, as stomach infrastructure to buy the votes of the people? If like I suspect, this contractor is unable to answer any of these questions, I should suppose that he must be made to pay a visit to the EFCC, give an account of all of the sordid details of the deal gone awry.

    It is important to remind those in power that God has not changed his place on the throne and no man shall escape the fatal consequence of his own handiwork. In God’s eternal order, there will always be enough to meet the needs of all, except that in man’s mortal disorder, there will never be enough to meet the greed of some. Recent ugly deeds of the last government has helped further proved, that it was a good thing that Nigerians decided to throw away the baby and the bath water. With a new man at the helm of affairs, Nigeria obviously has turned the corner, but this turn must be maintained and guarded by the eternal vigilance of the people. For the first time, it has been proved that Nigeria can even run efficiently without the much media-hyped appointment of corrupt ministers.  It took one man to show that that is possible. Other would quickly have started rewarding their friends and cronies with juicy ministerial appointments.

    Today, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has set out on a new journey, to re-chart the course of the near rickety Nigerian state. This journey he has brilliantly started without the usual motley crowd of greedy businessmen and a coterie of hungry political contractors who had in the time past fine-tuned their skills of manipulating the cluelessness in government and holding on feistly to the levers of power to meet their selfish ends. So Nigeria can function again? We are proud of this humble re-beginning and cannot but charge the President to carry on with the same vigour, energy and temperament. Nigeria must rise, irrespective of the unhappiness that this may bring to the apologists of the government of yesterday. After all, it has been said that “It is only a foolish cock that thinks that the sun will not rise, if it does not crow”.

    • Adegbite, Esq. is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

  • GEJ used police rank and file as scapegoat

    SIR: I read with keen interest the publication in The Nation of May 13 captioned “Jonathan: Indiscipline rampant under Sulaiman Abba”. It was categorically stated that Sulaiman Abba was sacked because of indiscipline in the rank and file of the force.

    I wish to state here that it was not the indiscipline in the rank and file that made the president to sack Sulaiman Abba. Rather, it was simply because President Jonathan did not win the presidency. If President Jonathan had won, the IG and all the rank and file would have been regarded as the best in the world.

    The rank and file constitutes about 70% of the force and they are the tools doing the real police work and making the Nigeria Police very relevant in the society in terms of crime fighting under sordid working conditions.

    The unsavoury treatment meted out to the members of the rank and file by the former regime is pathetic. In the first place, the former IGP MD Abubakar once announced that President Jonathan approved fifty thousand naira (N50,000) minimum basic salary for the least constable. However, till this present moment, the said salary increase is still a mirage. Rather, N11,000.00  was deducted from the salary of rank and file in the name of ‘shares’ by IG Abubakar without any cogent reason.

    It is very disheartening to note that the rank and file and inspectors are now buying all police accoutrements and uniforms with their meagre salary. A camouflage uniform is sold at the rate of N17,000.00. the boot is sold at the rate of N10,000.00 to mention a few; despite the fact that the then IG Abukar said that President Jonathan approved N1.5 billion for the purchase of the uniform for the police during his tenure.

    A visit to all the police stations in Nigeria shows that in the past six years, if not the provision of vehicle and armoured personnel carriers by the various state governments, the Federal Government has not provided a single patrol/armoured vehicle to any police station. It was the approach of 2015 general election that made the Federal Government to provide paltry 206 patrol vehicles for the police. Let all Nigerian ask them if there were no allocation for police on these issues for the past six years.

    How can one explain a situation in the Nigeria Police Force where thousands of policemen enlisted as constable and have spent 30 years and above in the force without blemish are still in the Inspector cadre simply because they have no godfather or money to pay their way through as far as promotion up to the rank of Assistant Superintendent of police (ASP) in concerned?

    Most of the rank and file are made to acquire only three stages of promotion – Corporal, Sergeant and Inspector in their entire  35 years of service.

    Again, the rank and file and Inspectors often use their personal money to fuel and maintain the available patrol vehicles in the stations. The rank and file have had more than enough; they should be treated well as they too are Nigerians. They should have a future in the police and not to be subjected to unnecessary scapegoatism.

     

    • Justus Abu,

    Alakuko, Lagos.

     

  • From GEJ to GMB: A poisoned chalice

    From GEJ to GMB: A poisoned chalice

    Early in Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency, I asked an eminent and influential public figure who was in a position to know — I asked him whether Dr Jonathan was up to the task.

    ‘Without hesitation, no,” he said, his voice tinged with pained disappointment.

    He went on to relate how Dr Jonathan would arrive at meetings not having studied his briefing papers, and how he would often doze off during meetings he himself had convened.

    Nor was the eminent person impressed by Dr Jonathan’s inner circle, men and women who had  no business being on such hallowed ground – “ ragamuffins,” — he called them.  They caroused far into the night, with their host holding court– as it were.

    I had no reason to doubt my source, a person of few but measured words. But I checked his assessment with two other public figures, persons of consequence in their own right, who were also in a position to know whether Dr Jonathan was up to the job.

    Each, separately, concurred in the assessment of my first source.

    That was early in the Jonathan presidency.  As the years passed by, he may have cut down on the night-time carousing and learned to stay attentive and engaged during meetings. But mastery of his brief, or of any public issue for that matter, eluded him throughout his presidency, now mercifully set to end next Friday.

    You could never accuse him of having a firm grasp on any issue, be it commonplace routine or recondite, despite his advertised doctorate in ichthyology.  You could never accuse him of profundity, of lofty thought, the type that springs from a lofty mind.  You could not even accuse him of honest-to-goodness blandness.

    Dr Jonathan was, well, Dr Jonathan.

    It has to be said, however, that he did not seek the office.  He did not envisage public office outside the bucolic enclave where he had spent his entire life until national service took him to Osun State. And as soon as he completed the one-year deployment, he returned to familiar surroundings. All his three degrees came from the University of Port Harcourt, which further locked him into the insularity that he was never able to shed.

    Catapulted from deputy governor in Bayelsa to state governor, to vice president, and then to president of the Republic in two dizzy years, from obscurity to celebrity and to the global stage as it were, Dr Jonathan was more than overwhelmed.

    Nothing had prepared him for such preferment. He never rose to its opportunities.

    Instead he took refuge in a Transformation Agenda that was more slogan than substance, so much motion but, alas, very little movement.   Meetings of the Federal Executive Council became contract bazaars, at the end of which contract awards were solemnly announced as if they were epochal achievements.  And for the most part, nothing was heard again about them.

    Dr Jonathan felt much more comfortable traipsing all over the country in gaudy apparel to attend to the affairs of the dysfunctional PDP than sitting down and contemplating how to make Nigeria work for the masses of the people.  Nigeria was working well for him and his cronies. The formerly shoeless boy had a fleet of 11 executive jets at his beck and call, a one billion naira budget for food and beverages.  What could be sworn with a system like that?

    Despite all the talk of transformation, Dr Jonathan could not build an independent power facility for the Presidential Villa and its complementary facilities.. Nor could he raise to world class the National Hospital that serves the Presidency to world class.  Why bother when he could always hop off in an executive jet for treatment in European hospitals?

    Being at the helm and reveling in the perks was what mattered the most to Dr Jonathan.  Performance was of no consequence, whether at the national level or in the states where the PDP held sway, more by crook than by hook.  Perversity and impunity thrived without even perfunctory remonstrance, especially in the PDP states or in the ministries, departments and agencies headed by its stalwarts.

    It is in fact the case that, the greater the perversity and the impunity perpetrated in those domains, the greater the tacit support of the Jonathan presidency.

    The PDP was never a political party, in any case.  It has always been a patronage organisation, held together by the power of federal patronage.  One of its chieftains, Iyiola Omisore, spoke a greater truth than he intended or realised when, in a plea for party unity, he urged squabbling camp followers to remember that the PDP was nothing without the presidency.

    Omisore was splendidly vindicated when, following the PDP’ rout two months ago in the general elections, its senior officials and card-carrying supporters started jumping ship by the thousands.  The cookie on which they had gorged themselves remorselessly for 16 unbroken years had crumbled.

    Jonathan presided over a comprehensive collapse of state institutions and the national value system.   In almost no area of national life can Nigerians say with confidence that they are better off today than they were four years ago when Jonathan was voted into office on his own.

    At its best, Nigeria generated in the Jonathan years only a small fraction of what a platinum mine in South Africa generates for its operations.  When they work at all, Nigeria’s four oil refineries produce less than one-half of the nation’s needs; the balance is imported through a system that is about as transparent as a steel door.

    Nigeria has been mired in corruption on a scale beyond belief.  But to Dr Jonathan, the problem is ordinary stealing, and we only compound matters when we call it corruption.

    Faced with the devastation over which he has presided, it might be thought that a contrite Jonathan would accept that he was not up to the task, thank Nigerians for the jolly good ride he has had, and humbly vacate the scene.

    Instead, he engineered a false consensus to clinch the PDP’s presidential ticket and sought desperately to buy or steal the presidential election, employing in the process some of the most despicable tactics ever seen in these parts.

    Instead of consolidating the ethnic solidarity that had triumphed over the machinations of a cabal  bent on preventing him from taking power following the death of his principal, and had thereafter given him a strong mandate for a substantive term of his own, he resorted to ethnic-baiting and incitement.

    In the twilight of his disastrous tenure, Dr Jonathan launched out on an activist streak, making major appointments, dismissing senior personnel, setting up new institutions,  threatening to link all 36 state capitals by rail, and even vowing to become a statesman, as if that is a position to which one can appoint oneself.

    He has even cast himself as a super patriot who has always been ready to lay down his life for Nigeria. Coming from a president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces who could not bring himself to go near Chibok where Boko Haram abducted 230 young women from their      school hostel and stole their future, this has got to be the height of delusion.

    The system collapse Nigeria is experiencing now is an eloquent epitaph to Dr Jonathan’s inept rule. The damage he has inflicted on every aspect of Nigerian life will be with us for a long time. What he is handing to President-elect Muhammadu Buhari is nothing less than a poisoned chalice.

  • Beyond GEJ’s phone call

    It is all too Nigerian. I refer to the way Nigerians have been falling over themselves to heap encomiums on President Goodluck Jonathan for conceding defeat in the March 28 presidential election. In particular many have been impressed by his calling General Muhammadu Buhari on phone and congratulating him on his victory. Of course, the gesture is laudable. But there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about it. It is what is expected in any decent and honourable society.  That the whole world has joined us in celebrating Dr Jonathan for doing what is right, normal and sane only shows how far we have degenerated morally and deviated from the path of sanity as a people. And this applies not only to Nigeria but the entire black race even though a number of African countries are becoming models of democratic and decent conduct.

    President Jonathan must be quite dizzy from the flurry of laudatory adjectives hurled at him. He has been described as a national hero, a nationalist, a patriot, the saviour of our democracy among others for accepting defeat. Someone even suggested that he should be a candidate for the Nobel peace prize! It is very ridiculous. A cartoon in The Punch of Wednesday put the point cogently. The cartoon depicted four world heroes – George Washington, Mao Zedong, Nelson Mandela and Goodluck Jonathan. According to the cartoonist, Washington led the American people in the fight for independence from Britain. Mao launched an agrarian revolution to make China feed its over a billion people. Mandela suffered years of imprisonment for the sake of his people. And Jonathan? The cheeky cartoonist said “He conceded defeat in an election he lost”! That is what it takes to be a hero in Nigeria. It is very funny.

    Did we expect our humble President to claim victory in an election he so glaringly lost? If he did, would the Nigerian people have accepted any such insolence helplessly? Have we come to think and expect so little of ourselves? Why is everybody sounding as if Dr Jonathan has done us a favour by doing what he is expected to do? Have we forgotten that this is the first doctorate degree holder to be President of Nigeria? Should we expect any less in ethical and moral standards from a man of intellect and culture?

    Not even the victorious All Progressives Congress (APC) could restrain itself from joining the Jonathan as hero orchestra. The party said by that concessionary phone call, Jonathan had ‘snatched victory from the jaws of defeat’ and ‘catapulted himself to a statesman’. Given his uninhibited desperation to win re-election for a second term including deliberately and cynically dividing Nigerians along ethno-regional and religious lines and unconstitutionally manipulating the institutions of state to gain undue advantage, Jonathan’s post-election gesture is not enough to redeem his record. He has left the nation in a moral cess pit from which it will be exceedingly difficult to extricate her. The impunity of his administration has been unprecedented in this and previous civilian dispensations.

    Even the respected General Theophilus Danjuma claims that Jonathan averted civil war in Nigeria by conceding defeat. Not a few Nigerians also believe so. They thus feel a sense of gratitude to Jonathan for respecting the will of the people. This is absolute hogwash. The truth is that there is a divine finger in the affairs of Nigeria. Not many countries could have survived the civil war as one like Nigeria did. Not many countries could have survived the June 12 annulment trauma without descent to war. That Jonathan could have plunged Nigeria into war for the selfish reason of wanting to remain in power against the will of the people in a free, fair and credible? Perish the thought. The glory for the achievement of June 12 belongs to God and the entire Nigerian people, Jonathan not excluded.

    In any case, Dr Jonathan bears the greatest responsibility for the tension and fear of violence that gripped the country before, during and after the elections. He did absolutely nothing to call people like AsariDokubo, Tompolo and other Niger Delta militants as well as elders like Chief Edwin Clark to order when they threatened civil war if Jonathan did not win the election.He empowered and indulged an organisation like the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), which just before the election staged a rowdy demonstration in Lagos openly brandishing sophisticated weapons and threatening violence if Jonathan lost the election. Even a supposedly cultured person like Jimi Agbaje, the Lagos State PDP gubernatorial candidate in today’s election hinted darkly in London that the Niger Delta would shut down the country’s economy if Jonathan lost at the polls!

    Jonathan further heightened the level of tension in the country by the unwarranted degree of militarisation of the polls and the bad precedent set inthis regard by his administration in previous elections in Ekiti and Osun states. We have to be grateful to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, and most of his Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) for their tenacity and resolution to utilise the Permanent Voters Cards (PVC) and electronic card readers for the polls despite the fierce opposition of the PDP. Even then, the sheer electoral brigandage displayed in most parts of the South-South and South-East on March 28 is incredible.

    The military and compromised electoral officials were recklessly used to manipulate the election in favour of the PDP. Results announced in most parts of the two regions were entirely fictitious. Yes, Jonathan would still have won in the two regions in free and fair elections but certainly not by the figures and margins announced. Rivers and Akwa Ibom states provide the most glaring examples. Jega’s silence on such brazen cases of electoral armed robbery is baffling. If Jonathan had been proclaimed winner of the election on the basis of such manufactured figures, in defiance of the popular will, we would be telling a different story today.

    In the same way, Jonathan himself is to blame for the widespread belief that he would not accept the result of the election if he lost and that he would enjoy the support of the compromised top military hierarchy in continuing in office against the will of majority of Nigerians. For instance, he had colluded with his service chiefs to achieve an unwarranted six-week postponement of the polls for his personal advantage with adverse financial and psychological costs to the nation.

    Again, simply because he does not like Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s face, he refused to accept the result of the Nigeria Governor’s Forum election (NGF). He recognised a minority of 16 governors as numerically superior to 19 and left the NGF comatose till date. Most people naturally believed he would exhibit the same attitude to the outcome of the March 28 election.Dr Jonathan cannot eat his cake and have it. He cannot deliberately create a problem and at the same time receive credit for acting to avert its consequences.

    Some others say that both Jonathan and the President-elect, Buhari, are heroes of the March 28 election and our democracy. I do not agree. Winning or losing an election is not what makes a hero. Yes, General Buhari deserves plaudits for his tenacity, determination and faith in contesting the presidency for a fourth time despite three previous failed attempts. Yes, he had deservedly achieved heroic status for his sterling integrity and incorruptibility, which make him a star amidst a thoroughly perverse and odious political class. But winning an election only means that the majority of the electorate have accepted your electoral agenda and given you a mandate to fulfil your promises. You can only become a hero when, at the end of the day, you have succeeded to a reasonable extent in fulfilling your part of the social contract. The President-elect, his deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and their party have a herculean challenge ahead. It is not yet celebration time.

    The impression must not be created that the achievement of March 28 was a gift to Nigerians by President Jonathan’s undoubtedly gracious concession of defeat. It was a function of the determination, persistence and fierce resolve of Nigerians to vote and make their vote count. The sick in hospitals, the aged, youth and women across the country trooped out in their numbers to exercise their rights as citizens. This is perhaps the meaning of what Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called the ‘common sense revolution’.

    Voters stood in line for hours, many from morning till late at night to make their votes count. They bore the pains of INEC’s logistical problems with patience and patriotism. They were determined to make a statement. Nigeria cannot be the same again after March 28. Never again, will any incumbent government take the electorate for granted. That day marked the emancipation of the Nigerian electorate. An era has ended in Nigeria’s march to democracy and a new one begins.