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Tag: GEJ

GEJ and the ‘vision’ thing

I don’t envy Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s propaganda brigade

This past week, its operatives have been striving to outdo each other in a frenzied race to demonise and pulverise General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who will be squaring off with their principal in the February 13 presidential election.

In this season, that is probably the easiest of political assignments. Among politicians aspiring to higher office, Buhari is probably the softest of targets. And they are sparing no effort to paint him, with help from his record as military head of state nearly three decades back in the most repellent hues.

The irony is that, while they are busy excoriating Buhari, their principal has been busy exhuming questions that had never lain far beneath the surface about his intellectual preparation and competence for the post he has held for six years

Now, it is one thing to raise questions about the academic credentials of a career military officer-turned politician; it is quite another for the holder a doctorate and former academic to raise at every outing questions and doubts about his own intellectual competence.

Yet, that is what Dr Jonathan does every time he speaks without a prepared text, even when his audience is a friendly church congregation. He delivers himself in a speech pattern of which non sequiturs, dubious analogies, mangled syntax, and thoughts arrested in mid-sentence are the distinguishing characteristics.

“Jonathanism” is the provisional term that a researcher in linguistics in one of our universities has bestowed on that pattern of speech, in honour of our GEJ. He tells me he is assembling an anthology of Jonathanisms, and would gratefully acknowledge examples of the phenomenon from readers.

No fake entries, please. The entries must be based entirely on words that Dr Jonathan actually spoke, where and on what occasion he spoke them, and of course, the date.

Entries should be sent to “Jonathanisms,” c/o P O Box 419, Abuja, or jonathanisms@yahoo.com

Here is the latest example, of how Dr Jonathan has been undermining his own campaign in ways that his most outspoken critics will be hard put to match, in remarks made at the Dunamis International Church, in Abuja, on New Year Day, as reported in several national dailies:

“President Goodluck Jonathan has identified lack of vision as one of the main reasons government policies have often failed and pledged a return to the good old days when things were done with clear-cut vision. . .”

Nobody can blame you for holding it right there and slowly exclaiming: Holy Molly!

We cannot enter into Dr Jonathan’s mind to ascertain what he really meant. Nor should we second-guess him. Going by his actual words, an objective analyst would have to say that Dr Jonathan came across as yearning for a return of “the good old days” when planning was based on, as he phrased it, “clear-cut vision,” unlike today, when government policies founder and fail for “lack of vision.”

By way of clarification, Dr Jonathan added:

“.. . If you look at what we have been doing as a nation, you really see that before this time when Nigeria used to have what we call 25-year rolling plan, we used to budget based on a 25-year clear plan for the country, so you know where you are going for 25 years then it was broken down to five years plan and now an annual budget.”

“But after sometimes things collapsed and we run governments on emergency basis and you see government started wobbling and I can assure you that we are going back to those good old days when we had vision.”

Nigeria never had a budget based on a 25-year plan, by the way. But there you have it. In the good old days, there was vision. But now, in the Age of Transformation, there is no vision.

This lack of vision explains so many things that define the Nigerian condition.

It explains what happened to Vision 20/20, and what is likely to happen to Vision 2020/20, despite the creative re-basing of the economy and all that.

It explains why national budgets drawn up and presented with ritual fanfare every year fail miserably to achieve their targets. It explains why Benin Republic is cashing in big-time on duties on imports destined for Nigeria, at the expense of the Federal Government. It explains why some inter-state highways look like tracks on the lunar surface.

It explains why the power supply varies inversely as sum of the public funds pumped into power generation. It explains why eight months after some 250 school girls were spirited from their school hostels in Chibok into the infernal bowels of Sambisa forest, their traumatised parents and a jaded public are treated to nothing but threadbare assurances that the girls would soon be brought home.

It explains why fuel has to be imported in a country that procures more than a million barrels of crude daily and has four oil refineries. It explains the mess called SURE-P. It explains why a president who grew up without shoes has made a fetish of acquiring executive jetliners.

It explains why hundreds of millions of Naira is allocated each year for procurement and maintenance of electric generator sets for the so-called Presidency and why, until there was a public outcry, that institution voted one billion Naira every year for food and refreshments.

It explains why Nigeria abstained from delivering a crucial vote that would have aligned it with those countries seeking an end to Israeli annexation and occupation of Palestinian territories in defiance of United Nations resolutions going back to 1967, and other policies that have turned Gaza into what British Prime Minister David Cameron in one moment of lucidity called “the world’s largest open-air prison.”

Lack of vision explains why Dr Jonathan – and his predecessors– would rather travel abroad for medical treatment than build and equip even one world-class medical facility in Nigeria.

Given the lack of vision that has historically doomed Nigeria, what can be expected in the long run of Dr Olusegun Aganga’s Industrial Revolution that seeks in essence to re-invent the wheel, or Dr Akinwumi Adesina’s Agricultural Revolution founded on statistical flights of fancy?

For that matter, what is the future Dr Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda that was conceived in this era of no vision? Given his new resolve to return to the good old days when there was vision, will he now jettison it?

And here is a bit of presidential wisdom for all those institutions that provide training without giving any thought to creating jobs:

“You are rather frustrating more people and increasing the number of criminals in the society,” Dr Jonathan admonished them. “I always say that if you train a young man as a fitter and he has no job to do, he will use that skill to break into banks, because you have trained him on how to handle iron and how to handle complicated locks.”

There you have it again, a classic Jonathanism.

Taking together, the lack of vision for which Dr Jonathan has entered a damning indictment on himself and his administration, the pattern of thought and speech that the researcher we encountered earlier has christened “Jonathanisms,” and his failure of leadership on some key issues of national existence, it is no injustice to say of Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan that he cannot lead Nigeria to the Promised Land.

January 6, 2015
The murder of hope

The focus seems to be GEJ must go, everyone has his eyes on the man, his power is overestimated, the opposition envies it, his party wants to keep it. The fact, however, remains that institutions must be built to work so the disposition of leaders does not define our fate as it currently does. A governor can make the payment of workers’ salary a non-issue and can’t be held accountable because he is in bed with the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, the judiciary is also powerless because he can politically blackmail them; he can starve them of funds or buy them over with funds.

Leadership is an industry requiring many units to function if any real gains would be made. The designers of democracy put in place a system where there is effective monitoring of the actions or inactions of each component part. The systems to check our democracy are faulty, the people are ignorant of the role each man should play. We blame a single individual for the failure of multitudes, we forget about the legislative arm of government that we elected to monitor the executive. When did the House or the Senate rise above their internal corruption to ensure that Nigerians benefit from the Executive?

Leadership has failed mostly because those we ‘elected’ to monitor leadership are in a sworn covenant with the leadership to impoverish us. The senate president is hand in gloves with the Executive, and hence can’t be expected to speak for the electorate. The legislatures have abused our trust more than any other group. They pass budgets for security year in year out and forget to ask questions about implementation. The man in the streets is being raped and battered with the consent and connivance of his kin who he elected to protect him.

We can’t have faith in the “Old Governors’ Forum”, that is what the Senate has become.

By Ekitumi Ofagbor

Ofagbor88@yahoo.com

January 4, 2015
Between GEJ’s today and GMB’s yesterday

In an interview with Channels TV three Mondays ago, Dr. Doyin Okupe, a senior spokesman for President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ), said the All Progressives Congress (APC), the country’s leading opposition party, made “a fatal error” by electing General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB), a former military head of state and serial loser in the country’s presidential elections since 2003, as its candidate for the February 14, 2015 presidential election.

General Buhari won his party’s presidential primaries, held on December 10 in Lagos, by a landslide, much to the surprise of most pundits who had forecast a tight race between him and former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar. Indeed, so confident was the Atiku camp of his victory that his able spokesman, Garba Shehu, boasted on the eve of the primary that his principal’s acceptance speech had already been written. Shehu, you may recall, had conducted the vice-president’s highly successful media war in 2007 against his estranged boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo,

“For you to know how confident we are,” Shehu said, “Oga’s acceptance speech has already been written. So we are winning.”

In the event, Shehu and his oga couldn’t have been more disappointed; not only did he lose to Buhari, he also lost to a much less fancied Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the Governor of Kano State, who came a very distant second. The scores were 3,430 for the winner, 974 for the governor, 954 for the former VP, 624 for Rochas Okorocha, the Governor of Imo State, and 10 for Sam Nda-Isaiah, the publisher of Leadership.

The contrast between Buhari’s win and the coronation ceremony of President Jonathan as PDP’s candidate in Abuja on the same day couldn’t have been starker as a comparative study of the internal democracy of the two parties; the ruling party simply made it absolutely impossible for anyone to contest for its presidential ticket against the incumbent, inadvertently betraying a lack of confidence that the man can retain his ticket even in a rigged primary.

When Okupe said he knew Buhari’s election was “a fatal error” he of course meant it for APC. Buhari, like Generals Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Obasanjo (whose spokesman he once was), he said, only reminded Nigerians of a past that was best forgotten. Well, contrary to Okupe’s wish, APC’s “error” may well turn out to be fatal, not for itself, but for PDP, which has ruled (misrule is more like it) this country since the start of the Fourth Republic in 1999 – and has threatened to rule us much longer for at least the next half century.

Okupe’s remarks in the Channels interview merely echoed his master’s acceptance speech on his coronation as PDP’s candidate. “The choice before Nigerians in the coming election,” he said in the speech, “is simple: A choice between going forward or (sic) going backwards; between the new ways and the old ways; between freedom and repression; between a record of visible achievements and beneficial reforms and desperate power-seekers with empty promises.”

I do not have any opinion poll to back my belief, but I have no doubt that if Nigerians were free today to choose between the immediate and distant past Okupe has denigrated, on the one hand, and his principal’s present, on the other, the vast majority of them will prefer the past. Whatever those like Okupe who prefer the status quo may choose to believe, the fact is that Nigerians have never had it as bad as it has been in the last five years under President Jonathan, the good people of the oil producing Niger Delta region he comes from not exempted.

As Eric Teniola, a veteran reporter and now a frequent commentator, pointed out in a well researched piece, “Changing tide for the Niger Delta” in The Guardian (December 24), with the region blessed with a development commission (NDDC), a ministry and the Presidential Amnesty Programme, all being allocated princely sums that are the envy of most states in the country – not, above all, to mention a president who is a son of the soil – money has since ceased being an object for the region.

Yet, today the ordinary people of the region have not in any way been better off than they were in the past. On the contrary, they are probably worse off today, as they wallow in abject poverty in sharp contrast to the mindless opulence of a few of them who the president seems ever so proud to say, as he repeated during his fundraiser two Saturdays ago, he has made millionaires and billionaires and, who knows, even trillionaires.

Speaking on December 23 at the inauguration of the Enugu-Port Harcourt train service, the president repeated the statistical self-delusion, following the so-called rebasing of our Gross Domestic Product this year, that his administration has grown Nigeria’s economy into the biggest in Africa and one of the biggest in the world. “We have,” he said, “managed the economy such that it has risen to be the greatest economy in Africa and one of the biggest in the world.”

Obviously the president, in repeating this mantra about Nigeria’s new economic status, chose to ignore a report, issued by the UK-based Legatum Institute, a research organisation that documents annual prosperity indicators around the world, which listed Nigeria as 125th in poverty out of 142 countries the institute surveyed.

The report, issued on December 19, said: “Despite its latest status as Africa’s biggest economy, and its government’s claim of improved standard of living, Nigeria was not only one of the world’s least prosperous countries in 2014, but also one of Africa’s poorest, beaten by smaller nations like Niger, Benin, Mali and Cameroun… Remarkably, Nigeria failed to make the list of Africa’s top 10 most prosperous countries, a league dominated by Botswana and South Africa.”

Obviously this is not a record any leader who cares for the welfare and the happiness of his people would be proud of. As The Punch said in the conclusion of its strongly worded front page comment, “Jonathan’s N21 bn donation: Impunity taken too far,” (December 23), “It is all evident that Jonathan has failed badly to build a credible, honest and minimally effective government for almost half a decade that he has been president. This is regrettable indeed.”

Yet we are told that we should reject change and vote for the status quo next year when our yesterday seems all so much better than our today.

Of all the things the president said in his acceptance speech as PDP’s candidate, the most profound for me was one of the shorted paragraphs in the speech. “Our mission,” he said, “is to secure Nigeria’s future.”

On his current record of his abysmal failure to even secure our present, it seems highly doubtful that he can secure the country’s future – certainly not with the level of threat we have repeatedly been subjected to by several of his henchmen like Asari Dokubo, who have said his loss next year will mean the end of Nigeria. Given the widespread public concern about recent massive and illegal importation of arms as articulated only the other day by former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, in a letter to the President and to Buhari as the two leading presidential contenders, pleading with them to sign a memorandum of understanding that they will get their respective followers to eschew violence especially after the election, Dokubo’s threats cannot be dismissed as empty or idle.

Predictably, threats from the likes of Dokubo have provoked counter-threats from Buhari’s camp, the most controversial of which has been the threat by Rivers State Governor and now the Director-General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Rotimi Amaechi, that the opposition will form a parallel government if PDP wins, his assumption being, of course, that PDP cannot win next year’s election if it is free and fair.

Amaechi’s threat is to be condemned as much as Dokubo’s. However, whereas government officials have condemned Amaechi over his threat, they have maintained a deathly silence over those from the president’s men.

Not only have government officials condemned threats of violence from opposition elements, they have now gone further to threaten them with arrest and imprisonment. Only two Mondays ago, the combative Minister of Police Affairs, Chief Jelili Adesiyan, said he has ordered the Inspector- General of Police and the Directorate of State Security to arrest anyone “making mutinous and inflammatory statements.”

He named no names but it was obvious he was referring mostly to Amaechi, especially over another statement the governor made, condemning the death sentence passed recently on 54 soldiers for alleged mutiny in the war on Boko Haram terror in Borno State. “The soldiers,” the governor had reportedly said, “have a right to protest for the Federal Government’s failure to fully equip them.”

If the rather liberal interpretation of Amaechi’s words by PDP and government officials is accurate, he was hardly alone in speaking them. In this he was clearly in the company of such human rights lawyers like Femi Falana, SAN, and the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who have said the inability of government to arm and motivate the soldiers adequately are mitigating circumstances for their misconduct.

More importantly Amaechi is in the good company of one of the most respected retired generals of the Nigerian military, Major-General Alabi Williams.

“Those playing politics with the lives of these soldiers who were being sent to commit suicide in the name of fatherland and they refused, have to be ashamed,” the general, who retired as an officer and gentleman of the highest integrity and as the Chief of Defence Operations, Planning and Training in 1993, said recently. “The army’s top hierarchy is covering up its weaknesses by court-martialling these soldiers. Period.”

As the February presidential election approaches, the question then is not whether our present is worth preserving, because obviously it is not. The question is, can the opposition deliver on its promise to bring an end to our nasty and brutish present? My answer will form the subject of this column next week, God willing.

Happy New Year

With every difficulty, says a dictum, there’s ease. As we enter the year 2015 tomorrow, may the Good Lord bring an end to our sufferings of recent years. Happy New Year.

December 31, 2014
When GEJ finally gave a damn

The usually somnolent Presidential Villa in Abuja spurted into damage control last week when several Nigerian newspapers, quoting an online magazine RichestLifestyle.com, reported that Dr Goodluck Jonathan ranks sixth among the wealthiest African heads of state, with a personal net worth of U.S. $100 million.

The report thus elicited from on high what a barbarous assault on the Judicial Branch that same week had failed to elicit. It also moved an apparently incensed Dr Jonathan to lapse into an absurdity that was entirely lost on him. If the publication was not retracted, he would file lawsuits against the first publisher of the alleged libel and all media organisations that republished it.

Where?

In the same courts, in the desecration of which he has connived, by act and omission? The very courts he has eviscerated out of raw partisanship? It is preposterous that Dr Jonathan would effectively, even if temporarily, oust the jurisdiction of the courts out of self-interest, and then threaten to use the authority of the same courts to affirm his self interest, namely, the reputation he is asserting.

The whole thing was clearly an over-reaction that proved nothing and settled nothing. And it is emblematic of the utter humourlessness at the top, as I will demonstrate presently.

To return to the publication that sent Aso Rock into a tizzy: In absolute terms, the amount reported as Dr Jonathan’s personal net worth might seem staggering, especially when most Nigerians live on no more than two dollars a day. But when compared with the reported net worth of the Top Five in the League of Africa’s Wealthiest Rulers, it is piddling.

President Eduardo dos Santos of Angola tops the League with a personal net worth, or “known wealth”, of $20 billion, according to NewsRescue.com, which seems to be domiciled in Nigeria. The Moroccan monarch, Mohammed V, comes a distant second, with a personal net worth of just $2.5 billion. Thereafter, the graph falls precipitously, with Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea at third place with a personal net worth of $600 million.

This last has got to be a huge undercount. Mbasogo’s playboy son, known simply as Teodorin, blows close to that amount every year in his escapades in the most notorious fleshpots of Europe and the United States.

Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, on the saddle for just one year, comes in fourth, worth some $500 million, followed by the wily and durable Paul Biya of Cameroun at fifth, reportedly worth $200 million.

Only then does our JEG figure in the League, tied for sixth place with, of all people, the hugely concupiscent King Mswati of the landlocked, hardscrabble state of Swaziland, with Idris Deby of Chad ($50 million) and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe ($10 million), after nearly three decades in office and in power, bringing up the rear. Mugabe seems to have been tucked into the mix as an afterthought. They never miss a chance to tweak what is left of Uncle Bob’s moustache.

Personally, I am even more enraged than Dr Jonathan can possibly be, though for an entirely different reason.

He is clearly not in the league of Aliko Dangote, Mike Adenuga, Folorunsho Alakija, or even Femi Otedollar – beg your pardon again, Ote$, beg your pardon one more time, Otedola. Even after former police chief Tafa Balogun was dispossessed of sizable chunk of his gazillions, he may still well be worth close to, if not more than the amount over which they are working themselves into a froth in the Villa.

In Nigeria, it is no longer news that even middling “civil servants” and customs officers now tote up their net worth in the hundreds of millions of naira. That kind of money is no more than pocket-change to the syndicate of wheelers and dealers and smugglers who control the petroleum industry.

How then can it even be newsworthy that the man who sits atop Nigeria’s re-based economy, the largest in all of Africa and 16th largest in the entire world (take that, South Africa), with a run-away annual growth rate conservatively estimated at six per cent, to say nothing of a Transformational Achievement Index in the stratosphere: how can it be newsworthy then, it is necessary to ask, that the President of such a country has a personal net worth of just N100 million, unless the purpose is to canonise him for modesty and restraint and prudence, the rarest attributes in our clime?

How can it be deemed equitable that Uhuru Kenyatta, who took charge in a Kenya with a struggling economy just a year ago, should have a personal net worth five times that of our own JEG who has been running Africa’s most prosperous economy for the better part of six years?

Dr Jonathan’s inveterate critics will put down his puny personal net worth to lack of ambition or imagination or enterprise – or indeed, all three – on his part. And the gullible as well as the unpatriotic, whom we shall always have amongst us, just might believe them.

It is at these – the inveterate critics and their gullible and unpatriotic followers, especially the unpatriotic —that Aso Rock should have directed its indignation when it finally chose to give a damn, a mistake it must now be regretting.

It should have stuck with its practice of not giving a damn in matters of this kind. By breaking its own code, it has merely emboldened all kind of meddlers to wade into matter and stir things up.

Instead of applauding Dr Jonathan’s forthrightness, some of these people are taunting him, saying that it is not enough to deny that he has personal assets worth $100 million. If Aso Rock disputes that figure, they say, why won’t it supply the correct one and lay the matter to rest?

That was exactly what President Mobutu Sese Seko did in the 1980s at a point in his crisis-ridden reign in Zaire, now Congo DR, when the news media were saturated with reports that he had stashed away a personal fortune of $500 million in coded offshore bank accounts.

Not so, he said at a news conference.

How much was he worth, then?

Only $25 million, he said, adding that, after 25 years of selfless service to the people – who, he once said in a moment of exasperation, had forfeited his confidence—he did not consider $25 million an unjust recompense.

At a million dollars a year, that was a great bargain for the people of Zaire. The matter never came up again.

The challenge Mobutu faced is exceedingly courteous compared with the one that some of the unpatriotic elements, aforementioned, have launched. They say if Dr Jonathan still has enough faith in the courts he has locked up to repair there for redress, they will meet him there with iron-clad proof that he is worth a great deal more than the $100 million he is kvetching about and that the reputation he is claiming rests on shaky ground.

Strong stuff, indeed.

All because Dr Jonathan decided for once to give a damn.

But all is not lost. There is an authentic Nigerian formula he can employ to get out of this unforced error.

Accused in the 1960s of pocketing £3,000 — the equivalent of a cabinet minister’s salary for a year then –in what came to be known as the Ijora Land Deal, Dr Kingsley Mbadiwe responded with the bonhomie that became him so well.

The money about which his detractors were working up so much fuss, he said, was “chicken feed in an elephantine mouth”.

Loosen up, GEJ. Take a vacation.

October 14, 2014
Jonathan, can you say no?

IT is interesting that President Goodluck Jonathan is proving to be a master choreographer and perhaps contradicting the view of his antagonists that he is a clueless leader. The amused public can look forward to the next episode in a long-running entertainment show; and it is likely to feature enthusiastic sycophants pleading with Jonathan to agree to be the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 general elections. With his unprecedented endorsement by the party’s governors, Board of Trustees and National Executive Committee, the question of holding the conventional Presidential Primary to choose a candidate has been effectively overtaken by events.

Add to this picture the reinforcing activities of the obsessive self-defined non-governmental organisation known as Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN), which insists on an incomprehensible objective: “the continuation of transformation by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ)”. What the group makes of the concept of “transformational government” remains a puzzle because the Jonathan administration has been anything but that. However, TAN’s promotional train is on course and its region-by-region approach is expected to climax in the federal capital, Abuja, on September 30.

But Jonathan would want observers to believe that this background, as persuasive as it is, may not be enough to make him interested in re-election. He seems determined not to be seen as desperate for a second term in office, which may be a reasonable projection; but it is impossible to hide his ambition. Indeed, in a telling irony, the harder he struggles to mask his aspiration, the more he gives himself away.

It is noteworthy that when he appeared at his party’s September 20 “Southwest sensitisation rally,” he could not resist wearing that familiar mask of deception. In his speech on the occasion, he referred to the various endorsements and introduced a suspicious complication. He said: “I also have the right of refusal and I thank the party for giving me the opportunity.”

The question is: Would he exercise this right and refuse? Jonathan, perhaps unwittingly, but more likely not innocently, supplied the answer, albeit in a coded communication. He boasted about the establishment of a Presidential Jobs Board which would “create three million jobs in the next one year.” He reasoned: ”That means in a few years, we would solve the problem of unemployment.” Then he added: “We continue to promise to transform Nigeria; make changes and never go back. We need all Nigerians to work with us. In the next few years, unemployment will continue to drop. We are totally committed to changing all sectors of the Nigerian economy.”

Read between the lines. Does he sound like a man who would say “No”? He must be self-deluded to imagine that his game of laboured suspense is beyond public comprehension. On the contrary, whatever game he is playing appears so cheap and degrading, not to say nauseating.

From the look of things, Jonathan could be dreaming of a day when the entire country would rise as one and crown him without opposition. That dream is a grandiose delusion

September 26, 2014
House of Reps PDP endorses Jonathan for 2015

Members of the People Democratic Party (PDP) in the House of Representatives Tuesday endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan to run for the 2015 presidential election.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal was absent at the meeting.

Speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the meeting with President Jonathan at the Presidential Villa few minutes to midnight, the House Leader, Mulikat Adeola-Akande said the caucus passed a vote of confidence on him.

She said: “We are PDP caucus of the House of Representatives, a meeting like this is not strange because we met with the President who is our leader.”

“We deliberated on issues affecting our party. The House caucus on our own decided to pass a vote of confidence on Mr. President and also endorse him for second term.”

On whether the President accepted, she said: “We did the endorsement and we are urging him to run for second term.”

On why the Speaker was not present at the meeting, she said: “I am sure when you see Mr. Speaker, you will ask him, this is a PDP meeting. Obviously, he will have his reasons why he was not at the meeting.”

According to her, security issues were also discussed at the meeting and the government was commended for efforts to restore peace in trouble spots in the country.

July 15, 2014
Comments

For Olatunji Dare

You read politics into everything. Jonathan is not problem. Jonathan cannot be everywhere. Why do we have governors, local govt chairmen etc. They know the security situation of that place, what arrangement they made before taking the children to that place? Anonymous

Are you God to decide whether Jonathan should go for second term or not? Let me inform you that he has a right to contest and will win whether you like it or not. That is why you are orchestrating violence to discourage him. Anonymous

GEJ: No second term. Thank you Dare. You have spoken the minds of 80 per cent of Nigerians. This number can’t be wrong. Anonymous

Thank you Dare, for, JEG:No second term. There is nothing anybody can add to what you have written. Indeed, Nigeria deserves much,much better. Anonymous

Thank you Dare. You have spoken the minds of 80 per cent of Nigerians. This number can’t be wrong. Anonymous

Is that the reason why you introduce Boko Haram to frustrate his ambition? We are 100 per cent behind him, the devil is a liar, GEJ carry go 2015. From Nasarawa State

Please only God in heaven can stop Jonathan and not selfish people causing confusion in Nigeria. From Delta State.

GEJ. No second term. You speak the minds of 80 per cent Nigerians. You really love him by telling the truth. You are a. great writer sir. From Dr Jide Akinyemi Ikole Ekiti

It appears that your main preoccupation and reason for this your write up is to canvass that Jonathan does not seek re-election. You only found the Chibok incident as a support to your argument. You never said anything about the governor of the state who is the chief security officer of the state and collects security votes. You did not also make any reference to the local government council chairman. May I ask you; are you aware whether or not the governor and the council chairman have visited the families of the girls? From Orji O. Orji

Jonathan has constitutional right to contest a second term. You can break your neck if you like. Jonathan is like all of us. Leave him alone. From Olukaiyeja Dare, Lokoja

I have never been afraid for Nigeria and Nigerians than in the last three weeks. We are saddled with a leader who seems not to have the strength nor words to bring out the best of us. I salute your courage for speaking the truth.. From Lokji David, Jos.

I really enjoy your article. Gej is an accidental president in Nigeria. Remember the first Oct 2010 bomb blast in Abuja where Gej exonerated MEND and later mend publicly claimed responsibility. Thank to South African police and judicery system for sentensing Henry Okah the mastermind of the October bomb. It is time in Nigeria for us to elect a competent and good president better than the one in office. Anonymous

A few Nigerians have Dare’s courage. Please Mr. President step aside. The President I want is the Philosopher-King. Thank you. From Adakole Oine

Goodluck Jonathan will serve second term that is clear you and your paper will not stop him. Anonymous

Who among those jostling for the position of the president in 2015 is the messiah, tell me. You forget that Boko Haram is not Goodluck Jonahan’s creation. Anonymous

Are you and other nation newspaper columnist’s not tired of your vendetta against Jonathan? Never mind Jonathan will seek re-election and win by landslide margin. He is doing well.you are not blind to transformation in the agric and power sectors. the massive airport, road and rail rehabilitation.Try to be objective. From Barrister Felix Agbonrofo, Akure

Thanks for your today’s opinion on your back page, it is a fine one. But for the PDP political group, what you would have advised them is to field another candidate instead of GEJ, they would then know you don’t have anything against the president. Weakness is what you are pointing out and this they should understand. From Emma Omotson.

Truly, the man of thought who cannot act is ineffective and the man of action who cannot think is dangerous for a country like Nigeria. From Saheed Yussuf.

Is the presidency of this nation Nigeria the preserve of the Hausa’s and Youruba’s only? Anonymous

Each time I read your ranting called editorials in The Nation newspaper(s), I weep for Nigerian jornalism. Instead of giving Nigerians food for thought, you only end up making us to have stomach(s) aches. But my only consolation is that come rain come shine, Jonathan will surely “WIN” next year presidencial election. Anonymous

For Segun Gbadegesin

You said it all in your today’s article. But then, must stay together by force. It is to your tent oh Odua, now or we remain stupidly enslaved forever. What are we doing in this deceitful mere geographical instability and failed union that has no future even for the proponents. Anonymous

Re-Looking back…and moving forward. We emphatically need not go back to three regions again. We also do not have to give six geo-political regions any prominence any longer if Nigeria is to progress. Three major things are killing Nigeria’s unity and progress- Indiscipline, Corruption and Ethnicty! Once they are killed, there would be merit, functional power supply, technological development, effective/efficient leadership, economic growth and complete unity! Let us retain our 36 states, 774 LGAs and one FG. From Lanre Oseni.

Segun,You’ve set agenda of peace for the nation…Blowing elephants horn into ele phants ear! IF they blunder,we will throw their memo into fire! From Prof AEO,Uyo.

Hello sir, Re: Fallacious Reasoning For Centralised Security Regime. The idea of state police is desirable and ideal in a truly federated republic. However,with the current corrupt, inept, highly unreliable state of our police force, where majority of its personnel don’t even know the essence of their being in the police force and majority of who live under the delusion that being in the ‘force’ gives them the ‘power’ to harrass those that they are supposed to protect and with whose tax payers money they are catered for with impunity,will amount to a great disservice to Nigerians and the Nigeria police force itself. What we need to do now is to promote a ‘genuine to protect and serve orientation’ among police personnel and ensure that it is ingrained in their mind before we can start thinking of decentralising our police force. From Olumide Soyemi.

I read your article with admiration for your well crafted pit fall of our great nation but once again just like others before you. You failed to mention in emphasis, the civil war, which for me has remained the greatest of all the stumbling blocks of the nation. Some group may want to wish that away because of the role some so-called elderstatesmen played and failed to avoid that shame called the civil war; amazingly that part of our history holds the key to our moving forward as a nation or we shall continue in this vicious cycle called Nigerian nation. Anonymous

I don’t think anybody or group of people should be considered qualified to stop Jonathan from contesting the forthcoming 2015 presidential election having been constitutionally certified to do so.You dont ask a man whose turn and right it is to conduct the affairs of his people not to do so because there is a problem(real or imagined) in his method.Subjective reasons/his performance index rating notwithstanding,let the president’s continuity or removal be decided at the polls by the electorate whose power it is to determine who rules over them in a given period and time.Thats what makes democracy what it is for the people. From Emmanuel Egwu.

For Tunji Adegboyega

Hi Tunji, I read your piece, “Does the president need help”?. You actually brought into public glare the sycophancy in governance; praise singers have done this country more harm than good. Really, the Reuben Abati I knew with Prof Pat Utomi and his days at The Guardian is completely a different person today. Abati even gags the press at times; as for Labaran Maku, before now, Maku had been a critic of government. Well done, Tunji. From Musa.

You don’t disappoint your readers when all one needs to hear is the kind of truth that the Bible says can make one free. I haven’t met Jonathan in person; I only worked briefly in Bayelsa State (his home state) when he was deputy governor. During that period, I was able to discover that he is not a good leader, or, better still, he is not someone who can take the right decision when that is what is needed to make a difference. Having shouted myself hoarse, warning Nigerians not to elect him as president in 2011, without anybody listening, I published an article in which I told the people to get prepared for stormy and confusing leadership style. Three days after his election in 2011, when the people were jubilating over his victory, I repeated the same warning and was almost skinned alive by those who thought they had found good luck on a platter of gold. Today, the reality is staring us in the face. From Ifeanyi O. Ifeanyi.

Your today’s (Sunday) piece was an excellent one; a great advice to the president and other leaders, But, being the lazy type, will they be able to read a piece like this by themselves? Let us pray so that they will not listen to wise counsel until they give way to someone who will save us from the mess of almost 16 years. More ink to your pen. Regards. From Festus.

Patience Jonathan’s meddlesomeness in governance is a reflection of the home front irritation … Anonymous.

This president actually needs to be helped because, presently, he is in a fix. Those people he thinks are his friends are his worst enemies. They advised him to go and dance in Kano while Nyanya was burning and now, they said going to Chibok does not make any meaning. Then, why is he the president if going to Chibok is nothing to him? This is a very hard moment for all Nigerians because our so-called leaders are only leading themselves. The president needs a very solid orientation from all of us. From Hamza Ozi Momoh, Apapa, Lagos.

Re: ‘Does the president need help?’ The most striking aspect of the media chat was when Mr. President was dazed by the fuel pump price of N110-N130per litre by the independent fuel marketers since February 2014. Since then, I was amazed whether Mr. President was governing us from Nigeria or from France. Even since his assurance that the DPR would do its job, his promise is yet to materialise. Indeed, Mr. President needs help on all fronts; but not from sycophants. From Lanre Oseni.

The president has a good plan for Nigeria but his problems are the sycophants and the cabal that are misleading him in pursuance of their own selfish interests. Some people are benefiting from the security crisis; so, the president needs to be proactive in dealing with insecurity before talking about development. He should not take sides; he should bring the people behind the insurgency and other vices to book to deter others who might intend to cause trouble. From Gordon Chika Nnorom,

Tunji, your criticisms are moderate, so, I will choose to be moderate in my observation too. Please for heaven’s sake, GEJ only inherited a sick nation after years of succession of misrule by leaders your paper is clothing with a saintly coat … GEJ has done well under the circumstances he finds himself. Northern problem; northern solution. From K. Briggs, Port Harcourt.

May 21, 2014
Gunmen abduct Jonathan’s cousin in Otuoke
- They hit him on the head, collected N400,000 from wife before whisking him away – inlaw
Without fear of President Goodluck Jonathan, ten gunmen sneaked into Otuoke, his hometown in Ogbia Local Government Area, Bayelsa State, and whisked away his first cousin, Chief Inengite Nitabai.

In a daring move, the heavily armed men stormed the expansive compound of Nitabai located before Otuoke bridge, off Otu-Okpoti-Ogbia Road and isolated their target without a gunshot.

Nitabai said to be about 70 years old is a compound chief in Jonathan’s Ebele family.

He has been acting like a father to the President since Jonathan’s real biological father died, sources from the family said.

Commotion and panic reigned supreme in the compound of Nitabai when the bandits gained access to the area between 8 and 9pm on Sunday.

The victim, his wife, his wife’s sister and three of his children were in the house when the assailants stormed the compound.

His wife’s sister, 37-year-old Akinobebh Jin, said Silas, one of the sons of the victim first sighted the criminals and raised the alarm.

“We came back from somewhere around 8pm. Silas was at the verandah doing his assignment while my inlaw, my sister and two other siblings were in the living room together.

“After sometimes, Silas came shouting and saying that some people had jus entered into the compound. As we sprang on our feet, we were confused because we didn’t know where to run to.

“Shortly After that five heavily armed men entered into the house, barking. We ran into the kitchen and some of them followed us to the kitchen. They asked us to lie down. They hit my sister on the head and asked her to give them money.

“They also hit my inlaw with the butt of their guns and demanded money. They threatened to shoot us. My sister told them she had small money and they followed her to the bedroom where she gave them money”,she said.

Jin said after collecting about N400,000, the gunmen still took their victim forcefully into a car parked at the compound.

She said the car a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) belonged to the victim and was parked in the compound.

“Five of the gunmen entered the compound while five others were hanging around the premises. They locked us inside the house before leaving”, she said.

Jin who sustained injury at her finger said she had yet to recover from the shock.

When our correspondent went to the compound, there was uneasy calm around the area.

A detachment of Joint Task Force(JTF), Operation Pulo Shield, and operatives of the police had been deployed to the place.

Sympathisers were seen trooping into the compound while the wife of the victim was said to have gone to the clinic for treatment.

People were seen in groups discussing the incident just as a road leading to Otuoke had been cordoned off by soldiers.

It was learnt that the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Hilary Opara, and the Deputy Commander, JTF, Commodore Ime Ekpa, had earlier visited the crime scene.

Opara said he and his men had murdered sleep since the incident happened.

He said the police alerted other sister security agencies and prompted them to swing into action.

He added that two gunboats had been stationed at the Onuebum waterside disclosing that the police had so far patrolled Edebiri, Kiambiri, Anyama and Ogobiri creeks.

Opara revealed that two suspects had been arrested so far.

“The other two suspects saw my men and ran away. We know them and we will get them”, he said.

The Media Coordinator, JTF, Col. Onyema Nwachukwu, confirmed the incident and said the assailants abandoned the victim’s car at the Onuebum community water front.

The confirmation showed that the assailants must have escaped with their victim into the creeks through Onuebum waterways.

Nwachukwu said: “Information available to me is that a certain Chief Nengite Nitabai was abducted by about 10 gunmen yesterday at about 9pm at Otuoke community in Ogbia LGA using his private vehicle.

“The vehicle was later recovered at Onuebum community water front. The Deputy Commander, JTF, Commodore Ime Ekpa and a team of security agents have visited the crime scene and investigation is in progress to unmask the kidnappers and rescue the victim”.

Further investigations in Otuoke revealed that there were two Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) of the Nigerian Army stationed in the community.

While one and detachment of soldiers have been guarding the mansion of President Jonathan, the other was stationed at the former hotel belonging to the wife of the President.
February 24, 2014
If I were the President

In a socio-economically developing country especially, like Nigeria, presidential posturing and actions can weigh significantly on the shape and direction of the national psyche. Alarmed at the engineered polarization of the national psyche and consequent tensions, I sought access to the president’s ears. Extracts of my two hour engagement with the president are shared hereunder.

Me: Good evening Mr President and thank you for your time.

President Jonathan (GEJ): You are welcome and how are things with you?

Me: Things are okay with me sir, business is good, family is fine and I can say that I am enjoying life but things are depressing!

GEJ: You seem to be contradicting yourself or did I not get you clearly?

Me: Sir, it is the same contradiction as that of Nigeria being a rich country with poor people. The pervading atmosphere is that of dejection and anger. You are aware sir, that a volcano can lie dormant ‘forever’ but you don’t tempt fate by going to live nearby and thinking that if it has not erupted all this while it must be in a state of permanent docility.

GEJ: So Goodluck Jonathan is to blame for the dejection and all the angry faces in Nigeria and your volcano?

Me: No sir and you miss the point. It is not about you! It is about Nigeria and Nigerians! All this counter intuitive referencing of every issue to self, tribe or section is plainly diversionary and potentially devastatingly destructive.

GEJ … cuts in… You say it is not about me so let me ask if it is my administration that is now responsible for ethnic rivalry or are we the ones sponsoring the so called ethnic bigots?

Me: No sir but you can play a part in steering us away from that dangerous direction. Your body language suggests that you are not uncomfortable with all the propaganda. Let me assure you sir, that anybody who is discomfited or opposed to your being president on account of your ethnic origin or religion is doing so out of only selfish motives. You will be surprised that because of years of retrogressive feudalism and mis-governance, the illiteracy level in the north is such that a large chunk of the population does not know Goodluck Jonathan or that there is anywhere called Bayelsa! We fought a civil war because the senseless killings by a handful of army officers of Igbo extraction led to senseless reprisal killings of innocent Igbos as if the officers were acting at their behest or with their blessing. This collective responsibility propaganda is dangerous and wrong. The majority of our hapless people do not base everything on ethnicity or religion as some will like us to believe. That is why Nigerians live freely together in all parts of the country and intermarry and do business with so called ‘different’ people from other tribes and have no problems but the locust elite will not let them be, and keep on promoting divisiveness.

Sir, you can steer the national discourse away from every issue being given an ethnic or religious colouration. Human nature is basically selfish and resort to territoriality is all in furtherance of selfishness.

GEJ: So what is your point because I do not see the relevance of all this theory?

Me: I am just making the point sir, that resort to ‘ethnic games’ is like sitting on a keg of gunpowder. Also and has been proven by experts, ethnicity is a major contributory cause for underdevelopment and poverty.

GEJ: Why do you assume that I am naïve and do not understand these things? Of course it is all politics! Okay let me concede that it is food for thought but get to the point of your visit, what of all the advice you claimed to have?

Me: There are three actions you must take immediately which will start the redirection away from the trending impunity, calm the rising national temperature and portray you as a leader.

First make Governor Amaechi irrelevant to our destiny by immediately acknowledging that mistakes have been made in the Rivers crisis by all sides and that those purportedly fighting in your corner should cease henceforth and accord him all due recognition as the Governor of Rivers State and that you also recognise his electoral victory as chairman of Nigeria’s Governors Forum.

GEJ: .. mscheew! Of what importance is Rotimi Amaechi? Or is Amaechi now the solution to Nigeria’s problems?

Me: He is not the solution but you have made him your biggest problem and the Rivers crisis is now a serious national virus. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him! All because you did not apply Law 36 of the book- ’48 Laws of Power’

GEJ: My friend you obviously do not know how demanding this job is or you think I have time to read all these books. So what is law 36?

Me: Basically it says ‘disdain things you cannot have: ignoring them is the best revenge’. Your control of Rivers State or the governors’ forum or Amaechi’s respect and support would have been nice but since all proved elusive, you should have disdained them and really what is the big deal about chairman of governors’ forum? A confluence of disparate and mostly unpopular governors with competing egos and selfish conflicting interests, was heading for inevitable irrelevance before you unwittingly breathed life into it. Let me share an illustration of the law as contained in the book – A monkey was carrying two handfuls of peas. One little pea dropped out. He tried to pick it up and split twenty. He tried to pick up the twenty and split them all. Then he lost his temper scattered the peas in all directions and ran away.

I need not say more sir!

GEJ: So I am behind the Rivers crisis or the governors’ forum crisis?

Me: I do not think that discussion is worthy of our time sir and if I may be frank – only a fool will believe otherwise!

Secondly sir, announce the immediate cancellation of any plans for a national conference or if you think this too drastic, announce its postponement in the national interest and for wider consultation.

Mr President this is a meaningless exercise and a waste of valuable resources. Apart from not having any legal or constitutional basis, the modalities clearly show that it is just a charade. If people are complaining of marginalization how are they going to obtain redress, in a conference where some of them will have no representation at all and worse still, decisions can only be taken based on unanimity or 70% approval! This is a recipe for perpetual agitation and more anger. If held, it does not take a soothsayer to predict that it will end in chaos and abandonment. This will not be good for the country and you are better off reverting to your initial posture that there are institutions to take care of the issues and we need to strengthen and build confidence in the institutions so that the problem areas can be addressed meaningfully with citizens having a say in a democratic atmosphere.

In any event and as the first digital president, why not just ask every ethnic and other interest group to collate their positions and send them to a national conference website. Let us have an E-conference instead.

GEJ: Are you being serious, can I possibly do that kind of summersault, because to be honest I never knew this matter will be this complex.

Me: Yes you can – that is leadership and you must know your people now, all those self sponsored protagonists for a conference will jump to your defence and posit that any conference that is not sovereign is meaningless and that it will be preposterous for a constitutionally elected president to convene a conference outside the ambit of the same constitution under which he derives legitimacy!

GEJ: You are very cynical; anyway I have to go now so last point.

Me: You have no friends sir! So if protection of friends is what has killed the fledgling anti-corruption drive, do another summersault. The free-for-all is not good at all and you may not know it but corruption is the greatest turn-off for you administration. Nigerians give a damn about corruption and it is the number one problem of Nigeria’s unfortunate circumstances.

GEJ: Thank you although frankly I was expecting more from you but thanks all the same

Me: Sorry to disappoint you sir but sleep over everything and in any case, Law 22 says that, surrender can be a tool of power – ultimately! So think of the big picture sir and lastly since this is Valentine season and on a lighter note – how is your love life, your Excellency?

GEJ: Thank God it was you that said it is not about me! And we are not in France!

General laughter -There is nothing like waking up from a dream with laughter, as in the case of this fictional chat with a man I have never met.

• Ukpong is a legal practitioner

February 18, 2014
GEJ: Performance, not empty promises

SIR: It is now obvious that the Jonathan administration has nothing to offer after more than two years in the saddle. The president had promised that his doubters were going to be surprised in 2013 and here we are still waiting for the president’s container of positive changes.

Sincerely, President Jonathan continues to surprise Nigerians with the way he is running his government. Presently, there is marked increase in pipeline vandalism, unprecedented oil-theft, bomb blasts, economic instability and lots more. Yet, the president has not realised that Nigeria is drowning.

My problem with Jonathan and his cabinet is that they have not for once admitted their failures. A government that is not criticised will never get things right. Whether the criticisms are constructive or not, what the government ought to do is to prove its critics wrong by doing it right rather than engage in meaningless counter-criticism. Nigerians were in jubilation galore when Jonathan emerged in 2011. Many people who gave birth then named their child after him thinking that his emergence would change things for better.

A lot of promises have been made but none of them has been fulfilled and the president and his aides are already talking about re-election. My belief is that, if the president and his aides feel that they are moving Nigeria forward and that the populace are happy with the government, then, he should let Nigerians judge his performance by providing the avenue for free and fair election and not like Jega claimed free and fair election when he could not provide the ballot papers at the election petitions tribunal for cross examination.

Education which is the bedrock of democracy of every nation is what our own government is toying with. The amazing thing about this government is that it can afford to pay huge amount of money to our lawmakers who are doing nothing to move the country forward; pay erstwhile bandits billions of naira to secure our pipeline when we have military men who can do this for less; the same government claims it cannot pay varsity lecturers who spend day and night teaching and researching to enable the universities produce students who would contribute their quota to moving Nigeria forward.

For how long does the president want Nigerians to continue to wait? Nigerians are increasingly losing hope. The country cannot change until its leaders change. The backwardness of this country is nothing but the problem of leadership; we need leaders who are bold and quick at decision-making, leaders who will put the interest of the masses before theirs and build Nigeria of our collective dreams; not leaders who would grant amnesty to people who steal from the country’s treasury.

If the president really wants to get it right, he should dissolve his cabinet and bring in people who have vision, people who will tell him the truth; not praise-singers.

• Waziri Mohammed

Mokola, Ibadan.

August 28, 2013