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Tag: Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

  • Our good man

    Our good man

    Nigeria’s President  who sees no evil, hears no evil

    By now, psychologists should be busy studying who the man, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, is. That is if they have not already concluded their findings on him. The man, who is the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has denied being Pharaoh or Herod. He said he is not even Nebuchadnezzar. No matter what anybody says, he is entitled to his opinion.

    But one of the issues I have with the president is the dissonance between some of his words and his actions, or the actions of his ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which he cannot, unfortunately, say he is not aware of. I was in the third service at the Winners Chapel on January 25 when President Jonathan visited the church. When Bishop David Oyedepo asked the congregation to pray for him, and even when he (Jonathan) made his brief remark at the service, one saw a meek President; one who could possibly not hurt a fly.

    However, I always find it difficult to reconcile this mien with some of the developments in the country, like in the Ekiti show of shame, and to some extent, the Osun governorship election of last year; or in his handling of corruption matters. Even his involvement in the sequence of events that led to the postponement of the general elections that should have started on February 14 is suspect. Would President Jonathan say, in his true Christian conscience, that what Captain Koli Sagir alleged concerning the disgraceful way very senior soldiers – Generals and all – were used to intimidate the opposition during the Ekiti governorship election last year was false? Or that he was not aware of it? Even if he was not, ignorance is no excuse in law, especially at his level. Then, now that a participant has spilled the bean, what has he done? Or is he still holding on to his earlier position that it never happened? Does playing the ostrich make President Jonathan a good man?

    Sometime last week, I watched the video where former President Attah Mills of Ghana was speaking on a ‘sting operation’ conducted at a Ghanaian airport, to see the extent of the rot in the place, and perhaps, by extension, the country. The way the president spoke you could feel the palpable anger and a strong determination to exterminate corruption in Ghana in him. It was the same Ghana that got deputy minister of communications, Victoria Hammah, sacked for merely contemplating stealing in November 2013, at a time when our own president was still dilly-dallying over what to do with Stella Oduah, then Minister of Aviation, over the scandalous purchase of two bullet-proof cars for N255million.

    Not for John Mahama, Ghana’s current president any attempt to make any distinction between stealing and corruption. Not for him any dilly-dally; he went straight for Hammah’s job.  That is how you know a leader who is serious about fighting corruption. Corruption is not a Nigerian; I mean it is everywhere that fowls are stolen at night. The difference is that chances of getting away with corruption are very high in this country and that is because instead of calling those involved the thieves that they are, the Jonathan administration, and to some extent others before it, cultivate them.  Again, between President Mahama and President Jonathan, who is a good man?

    In recent times, I have received numerous text messages that a particular political party has been giving fertiliser, for instance, with the president’s picture on the bags. And my position on this is simple: those whose Christian conscience or Moslem conscience, or even pagan conscience can stomach it should not hesitate to take whatever money, fertiliser or rice, etc. that the ruling party or any party for that matter offers them now for the sake of the election. It is our common wealth. No genuine investor or person who made legitimate income would be throwing money or Greek gifts to voters on the eve of elections. What is important is that after taking such unsolicited gifts, you still vote according to your conscience, realising that those giving such gifts are themselves no fools. Not only will they recoup their ‘investment’ after winning election, what they will take would be several times more than what they gave. Offering Greek gifts is not a way to be a good man.

    Then, one of the poisoned chalices the president is dangling for reelection. He said he would create Ibadan State if reelected. Those clamouring for it are probably politicians who themselves know that even the present 36 states are not viable. Will Ibadan State too be going to Abuja for handouts at the end of every month? A devout president who goes to churches to seek God’s face ought not be doing such a thing because he knows it is not one of the things Nigeria needs now. You cannot mix politics with God.

    In essence, President Jonathan must decide which he wants to serve: wars and chariots or the power of the Most High. I say this because the president cannot be moving from church to church in search of whatever, only for soldiers to be deployed at the slightest opportunity to intimidate innocent citizens. Our hope that the president and his ruling party would reckon with court judgments forbidding the use of soldiers for elections in the coming elections was dashed on Thursday by the Two Brigade Commander/Sector 2 Joint Task Force, Operation Pulo Shield, Brigadier-General Koko Essien, who insisted that soldiers “will be involved in the election to the extent that is allowed by law”. We have been having elections long before the Jonathan administration and we know our soldiers had not been as visible in previous elections as they have been under this administration. Yet, the law has never changed. We all know the circumstances under which soldiers can be drafted for election purposes and the process to do that. So, that cannot be an issue.

    But we have never had a situation where politicians would be giving orders to military officers on how to intimidate the opposition during election as they allegedly did in the Ekiti State governorship polls and which the military authorities have not responded to, even though they were swift in replying General Olusegun Obasanjo for saying the president wants to use the service chiefs for his tenure elongation agenda. What the military authorities did not know or pretend not to know is that the military brought this kind of suspicion to itself. Obasanjo merely said what is in the minds of many Nigerians. Our laws could not have envisaged a situation where more than 1,000 soldiers would be drafted to a place like Ekiti just to conduct governorship election when there were no sufficient troops to send to confront the Boko Haram insurgents in the troubled northeast. It is such abuse of the military that we are talking about; and that, I suppose, is what the courts too have outlawed.

    Now, we are hearing a lot of speculations, some of which ordinarily are easy to dismiss because they are just unthinkable in 21st century Nigeria. Obasanjo had even warned against (?). But we cannot wish these speculations away because that was how the speculation about postponement of elections started and the government tried all the tricks in the world to no avail. It eventually had to force its way through. Anything is possible when you have a good man who is also the leader of a democratic party that is afraid of elections, as president. The latest now is that the president is visiting some ‘Yoruba leaders’, whatever that meant! The point is that only a fool would not know that those who met in Akure last week and are parading themselves as Yoruba leaders cannot even speak for their own immediate families, not to talk of the Yoruba race. That race is too sophisticated for any wool to be pulled over its face. President Jonathan has been in office for more than five years, if he had any intention to restructure Nigeria, he should have done that. It is the kind of ‘divide and rule’ that his administration has been doing; going to the north to assure of one thing and coming down south to assure the exact opposite. I also do not know of any traditional ruler in the southwest zone who would openly canvass support for President Jonathan, knowing the groundswell of opposition to his government and reelection in the region. Any of them who makes the mistake of saying the president is a good man would be reminded they said so of the Babangidas and the Abachas of this world, etc. Yet, see where they landed us. The Yoruba race is one that neither forgives nor forgets when people commit political sacrilege. Such people remain renegades for life!

    Yet, no one can blame the government for whatever shenanigans it might be planning to stay put or avoid elections perpetually. That is what happens when people are not punished for crimes against the State. If General Ibrahim Babangida and his co-travellers who annulled the popular wish of Nigerians in 1993 had been severely punished, today’s leaders would not see those shenanigans as an option.

    We should be on red alert over this our man who is so good that he hardly can make mistake that could attract criticism. When the other time, The Economist said it would not endorse President Jonathan because he has not done well, he said he did not need the magazine’s endorsement for reelection. Reports only last week said he had sent some people abroad to launder his government’s image. I don’t know of any other country in the world that launders its image several times like Nigeria; yet the image remains as dirty as ever.

    When Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka said both the president and General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential hopeful of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have some sort of k-leg, the former as a result of his current performance, and the latter as a result of his antecedents, the president’s men took offence. Such is the goodness of their boss that everybody must eulogise him like they have deceived him over the years to the point that he is now struggling (or is it desperate) to have what should be on his laps just for the asking.

  • 2015 elections: INEC has been compromised, says Junaid Mohammed

    2015 elections: INEC has been compromised, says Junaid Mohammed

    Dr. Junaid Mohammed, a Russian-trained medical doctor was chairman of different Committees at the House of Representatives in the Second Republic. In this interview with KOLADE ADEYEMI, the maverick politician who has served Nigeria in different capacities alleged that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Presidency, Police, Department of Security Services (DSS), military and other para-military agencies billed to ensure free and fair elections have perfected plans to rig the 2015 elections in favour of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. He urged Nigerians to resist this move by standing up to defend their votes at the polls.
    Excerpts:

    o you agree with the latest statement credited to President Goodluck Jonathan that the 2015 elections will be free and fair?

    First and foremost, I speak as an independent person, and I also believe that as a democrat, I must have respect, and participate in the democratic process. Simply put, democracy is nothing but election. This election must be free, fair and credible. Once you accept that democracy is good; then even the elections are even better, because democratic systems can only work when the democratic institutions allow it to work; and that in itself, also is premised on the open and honest understanding of the needs of democracy and the desires of the people of Nigeria for democratic system. Now, I have always complained that there is problem with the Nigerian elite. So, unless the political class is serious and that means that the manifestation of their seriousness is reflected in the behavioural utterances and commitment of the political parties. I cannot say how we can have what we can call credible and rancour-free election. It is obvious to me that democracy needs to be institutionalized; and democratic free and credible elections must be institutionalized-that calls into being the assumed good behaviour of first and foremost the Commission that is involved in the election (that is INEC), the Police, the other security agencies that is involved in the elections-the SSS and the military police, immigration services and all the para-militaries. Now, but where, ab initio, you have no faith in INEC, because I am one of those who have no faith in INEC

    Why don’t you believe that INEC can conduct credible elections in 2015?

    Yes, I take this position because INEC has become highly politicized; it is being governed by a Chairman and all other members who are card-carrying members of the PDP. I have been saying this before 2011; I have been saying this since 2011. Now, there is no way you can assume non-partisanship, impartiality and good conscience in the conduct of election even when it is being ran by the most competent people you can pick around and allow them to be umpires. So, if the umpire is already, ab initio, tempted by partisanship, if the government is in cohort with the party, its own party and INEC, then, really, I think he (President Jonathan) is  asking too much to say that people are going to have to live with the consequences of  an election being conducted by the party and INEC. It is also obvious that election in this country have been tempted over the years by corruption, open intimidation, abuse of office and abuse of security agencies, particularly, the police.

    You have emphasized much on the Police in terms of electoral corruption. What is your grouse with the current leadership of the Nigeria Police Force?

    Now, we have in the Police Force, the most … (expletive) Inspector-General of Police in the history of Nigeria. Can you expect this fellow (Suleiman Abba) to conduct elections freely and fairly-the man who could have the guts to go into the National Assembly and tear-gas the principal officers and other members of the National Assembly! Do you expect free and fair elections under this fellow? The answer is no! Now, when you also go further, you find out that members of the so-called DSS are now behaving no better than political thugs-they are political thugs! The kind of statements being issued by Marilyn Ogar are in fact, sometimes, more irresponsible than the statements you get from Olisah Metuh, Publicity Secretary of the PDP. Now, if this is the kind of characters we have in the so-called non-partisan security agencies, now what do you expect from those forces which are openly partisan. So, I am not a believer in what the elite say; I believe in judging the people in power by what they do and not by what they say; because if you judge them by what they do, you are likely to come out with the kind of attitude and the kind of scenario that will pervade and prevail and facilitate universally accepted free and fair election.

    How do we ensure that Nigeria gets it right in terms of universally accepted rancour-free and fair elections?

    You see, these are the kind of things reasonable politicians and patriots will want to discuss; but you can see even in the cause of attempting to discuss the issue, PDP is playing games,  Now, if they didn’t want to discuss the topic, how do you expect them to carry out their own commitment in achieving free and fair elections? How do you expect them to give free-hand to their police, their … (expletives) DSS, their … (expletives) Armed Forces and other services-what are you telling me? My advice is this, Nigerians should be vigilant and take whatever step necessary to defend the integrity of their votes and make sure that their votes count.

    From what you have said, you established the fact the government in power is capable of using security agencies to rig election. What is the way out?

    First and foremost, the citizens should resist such harassment; and they should also remember that those who have being subjecting them to intimidation by forces of Federal Government, particularly the Police, and the SSS hardly know them. So, if you get yourself sabotaged, if you get yourself assaulted by a neighbour who you know is a member of the PDP; of course, you will take necessary steps to protect yourself and unveil whatever happens. This is so because we are dealing with a bunch of characters in government who don’t know the language of civility. So, you must protect yourself because you cannot be protected by the judiciary, you cannot be protected by the police, the SSS themselves are bunch of thugs working for the presidency. So, take whatever necessary steps to protect yourself and in doing this, history will be on the side of those who would want to resist the PDP, the police and the DSS.

    The APC has alleged that people are moving en masse to their country homes because of fear of violence that may erupt during the election. What is your take on this?

    I think it is very unfortunate but it is prudent for people who have decided to relocate to their various places of comfort, where they feel save during the election, after all, life is very important because if you are dead, there is nothing you can do. As far as I am concerned, it is unfortunate that politics in our country has been reduced to a level where people don’t feel comfortable to play politics outside their home town! Now, the solution is not to mourn about it, complain about it, the solution is to force … (expletives) …in government out of power and do the necessary things to ensure that all Nigerians are comfortable to play politics anywhere in the country in their own comfort. Nigerians must be allowed to exercise their franchise and vote for whoever they want no matter where they are within the country-that is very important. If the government cannot protect anybody, then I don’t know what the hell they are talking about democracy.  The primary responsibility of every government is to maintain law and order-to protect the integrity of every person, his family and belongings- if the government cannot do that, then I don’t see any need we have for such government. So, I think we should realize that it is not the fault of those who want to go home, it is the fault of the government that has failed reasonably to protect lives and property of Nigerians. Number two, if the government cannot allow meaningful discussions with the opposition parties-then this is not the kind of government that we can hope on. Thirdly, we have a bunch of incompetent people who are card-carrying members of a political party, who are running INEC and don’t know anything.

    They messed up the elections of 2011 and do you know they were busy telling foreign media that it was the best election we ever had in Nigeria. Now, in less than two months to the elections, they are telling us that the electoral law has to be amended; I don’t know where on earth, you amend an electoral law two weeks to the election. Electoral laws are passed very early enough and they are tried and tested; and they will do some kind of trouble-shooting within them and see how far it can go; but this INEC chairman has been playing games.

    They only talk when they assume the interest of their pay masters at Aso Rock is at risk. I also noticed that INEC has nothing but contempt to public opinion. Anytime, they have programme and the public is against it, they resist, and then, they will come back and tell you this is the law and this is our own interpretation, when they found they cannot cope, they simply abandon the thing and look for something else. That was exactly what happened with the voters register and the increase which is logical-that when the population increases, you have to increase the number of polling booths but they so badly mishandled the issue and the thing turned out to be a farce. If Prof Atahiru Jega has any conscience, he should have resigned and I think it will be better for this country if he resigns now.

    From what you have said, you agree with the APC that PDP has perfected plans to rig the election?

    Yes. That is my opinion and it is a fact. The APC comment is correct and absolutely timely. This is why I insist that people should be organized, defend their votes, people should defend their votes, people should be vigilant. People should stand up for their rights and make sure their votes count-this is the only way out.

     

  • Jonathan greets Buhari at 72

    Jonathan greets Buhari at 72

    President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has congratulated General Muhammadu Buhari on his 72nd birthday anniversary.

    In a congratulatory letter addressed to the All Progressives Congress’ (APC’s) candidate in next year’s presidential election, Jonathan prayed that God Almighty should grant him many more years of good health and personal fulfillment.

    “As you mark your 72nd birthday anniversary, I write, on behalf of my family, the government and people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to extend warm felicitations to you.

    “I join your family, friends, and well-wishers to thank God for your life and to pray that He continues to guide, guard and prosper you even as He blesses you with many more years of abounding health and personal fulfillment,” Jonathan wrote.

    He wished General Buhari a very happy birthday.

  • Journey abuse

    Journey abuse

    •President and other top government officials must distinguish private and public trips

    We cannot but wonder why public officials in Nigeria have failed to realise the demarcation between public and private endeavours. As if the nation is one big jungle without rules and regulations on rights and privileges of office, top government officials have deliberately snubbed the need to distinguish between the two. One recent incident reignited our concerns in this regard. And that was President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s recent officially designated ‘private visit’ abroad.

    The news went viral that the president was seriously ill and flown abroad, precisely to Germany for medical treatment. In what has become an embarrassing routine of official denials of the state of health of government officials, and especially that of the president and governors usually shrewd in secrecy, Reuben Abati, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity expectedly denied the widely reported purpose of the trip. Abati’s reported elucidation: ‘Before leaving Nigeria, I issued a statement that the President will be embarking on a private visit to Germany with a few of his aides. The President is hale and hearty. In fact, he is treating files in his hotel room. Are these not enough proofs that Mr. President is not sick as they want Nigerians to believe?’

    We are happy to know that the President is hale and hearty. And even if he is ill, no human is above the toll of nature, no matter his status. Nobody can cheat nature; so, to once in a while attend to nature’s needs is understandable. But the curious dimension is Abati’s intervention which shows that the President went on ‘a private visit’. The government owes it a duty to tell Nigerians who paid the bills of that trip. Such an expense can only be borne by Nigerians when the President is on leave or when he is on official trip abroad.

    Despite the avalanche of challenges facing the nation, it is surprising that the President still had time to embark on such personal trips with all paraphernalia of office. We even consider as diplomatically unsafe for the President to find solace in treating the country’s confidential files in a vulnerable foreign hotel.

    But this detrimental trend of public officials embarking on private visits abroad at the slightest opportunity is not peculiar to the president. Others, including governors, ministers, local government chairmen and other highly-placed public functionaries routinely travel abroad for personal causes at public expense. This is not too good for transparency and accountability. This condemnable act is nothing but an abuse of privilege and an undue show of ostentation in the face of rampant poverty that is currently ravaging the country. This wasteful spending of public funds is unjustifiable in a country where pensioners are owed arrears of pension; where power is epileptic; where public stealing has become routine and where the education and health sectors are in a shambles.

    In the case of the President, what is the haste in his rushing to Germany after reportedly receiving the report of the recently-concluded National Conference? Vividly too, we recollect that President Jonathan paid his last private visit to Germany when Patience, his wife, was hospitalised there for an undisclosed ailment. Even if the President wanted to relax after perceived hectic schedule, does it mean that there are no interesting places in the country that can compare with similar status anywhere in the world? Obudu Cattle Ranch in Calabar, Cross River State readily comes to mind, among several other illuminating places of relaxation scattered across the country.

    We call on President Jonathan to lead by example. He should not be seen to be leading others in frivolous spending of government funds on personal causes without recourse to laid down regulations and bureaucratic decency. It is illegal for the public to bear the cost of not only the President’s private junketing but that of other public officials engaging in such act.

     

  • Rights group to Fed Govt: deploy military troops for poll

    Rights group to Fed Govt: deploy military troops for poll

    AN Osun State-based human rights group, the Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice (CHRSJ) has urged President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and the National Assembly to deploy military troops to provide security for the people’s lives and property” before, during and after the August 9 governorship  election.”

    CHRSJ Executive Chairman, Comrade Adeniyi Alimi Sulaiman, spoke in a statement in reaction to the suit filed before the Federal High Court, Lagos Division by the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) to restrain the Federal Government from deploying military personnel during the poll.

    Sulaiman maintained that the failure of the appropriate authority to provide adequate security during the governorship poll may spell doom for Osun.

    He described the action as misuse of judicial process that lacks moral justification, insisting that Nigerians were not ripe for non-deployment of military personnel during the elections because of the violence-related attitude of politicians during any poll.

    The group also made its position known against the alleged gun-stockpiling by the political players ahead of the poll slated for August 9, saying that the security agents must not take the allegation with levity.

    Sulaiman called on the Inspector-General of Police and Department of State Security Service (SSS) to probe the circumstances surrounding the alleged arrest of some thugs recently in Ilesha.

    It urged the security agents not to take the issue of security with lightness.

     

  • Photo: New ministers take oath

    Photo: New ministers take oath

  • Photo: Education sector transformation

    Photo: Education sector transformation

  • Chibok: the Fixer roars

    On Chibok, and its handling and mishandling, the Fixer has roared:  no Nigerian, unborn, born or dead, could have done better than the wobbling Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. But of course! Who would droning flies back except the one with septic, smelly wound?

    “Jonathan can’t resign over Chibok girls, says Anenih” goes the headline.  Tony Anenih, the chair, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BOT), has spoken.  Any other sentiment outside that is unpatriotic. That is patriotic Anenih-logic for you. But didn’t another school declare patriotism as the last bastion of the scoundrel?

    Chief Anenih’s Kenya-Nigeria contrast is even more instructive. He contrasted the terrorists’ attack on a shopping mall in Kenya and how Kenyans stood solidly behind their president, Uhuru Kenyatta, to how the Nigerian opposition allegedly plays politics with how President Jonathan is handling the current Chibok crisis.

    To be sure, it is unfortunate to play politics with national angst, particularly the Chibok girls and their hurting parents. If true, that would be unfortunate and well and truly condemnable.

    But is it?  Nigerians are discerning enough to provide their own answers, beyond cheap sentimentality.

    But another question, the Fixer himself might want to answer: did Jonathan handle the Chibok girls’ kidnap crisis as sure-footedly, as intelligent and as compassionate as Kenyatta handled the Kenya mall blast? Did Jonathan inspire any confidence, with his scandalous dither and executive doubt until two weeks after the kidnap?

    If he did, who started politicising the crisis: is it an un-presidential president who in his paranoia abandoned his sacred duty to citizens, blaming some phantom opposition for his crass incompetence?

    Or the so-called opposition whose outrage eventually forced him to do the job he is being paid at a premium?  O, on this score, the “opposition” may well be concerned and outraged  Nigerians and the global community who stood as one to compel Jonathan to do his job.

    Of course, Chief Anenih, since as defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) national chairman, helped to swap his party’s presidential mandate for a sterile interim national government, has hardly stood for anything worth crowing about in Nigerian politics.

    As he declared fumbling Jonathan excellent, he fully backed Lucky Igbinedion, whose tenure as Edo State governor is best forgotten, for doing an excellent job, even if that tenure was a clear disaster.  Incidentally, Anenih was one of two persons — the other being Lucky’s father, the Esama of Benin — who the former governor claimed he was borrowing money from to run the state. Strangely enough, Lucky’s pronounced bankruptcy of Edo vanished the moment his successor — not the professorial stop-gap but the real successor, Adams Oshiomhole — won back his stolen mandate.

    Of course, Sam Nda-Isaiah, former chairman of Leadership newspaper, once in an open and widely read letter to Anenih, declared the PDP BOT  chair would endorse any character in government. It was an Anenih rebuke gone sour.  Still, even Sam’s heroics falls spat in Anenih’s classification: he is “unpatriotic opposition”, being an APC partisan!

    Jonathan’s incompetence is clear and proven — whether Anenih likes it or not. No false patriotism change the situation.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Amazing Dr Jonathan…

    The Amazing Dr Jonathan…

    Like a trapeze artist of extraordinary facility, but more often like a motorised robot with a programmed destination, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has finally arrived at the pinnacle of power in Nigeria without fuss and with less fanfare. It is the stuff of tantalising fables. It is absolutely stunning. Even by the standards of political magic in post-colonial Africa, there seems to be an ultimate sorcerer’s apprentice at work here.

    Less than twelve years ago, Nigeria’s new leader was a pliant and self-effacing lecturer in Fisheries in the provincial state of Bayelsa. But less than eleven years after he became deputy governor, a series of astonishing gravity-defying stunts has catapulted him to the highest office in the land. It is a dizzying rise, to say the least. With the possible exception of General Obasanjo, no other Nigerian political figure could be said to be more adept at being at the right place at the right time.

    There have been persistent rumours that Goodluck’s name is also a talisman to that effect. Goodluck has been very lucky indeed. But it would be sheer folly and political imbecility to reduce this man’s spectacular ascendancy to sheer luck. In politics, opportunities are one thing, being able to profit maximally from them is another matter. Jonathan combines great guile with boyish coyness; grim survivalist instincts with a feigned cluelessness; calculating conviviality with wary alertness; and a meek and inoffensive demeanour with a ferocious focus on the bigger picture.

    While the struggle for succession was on, Jonathan did not put a foot wrong or utter an inappropriate word. It was a chilling act of self-possession. It was probably not by happenstance that the former number two, like a lost kid, should wander back to his old seat on his first day in office as Acting President. It was a drama of fetching humility. The Acting President could have been acting. But it works. It cloaks Jonathan with an aura of child-like innocence even when the proverbial dagger is ready.

    When a man is this lucky, it will be petulant and churlish to begrudge him his luck. But we hope that Goodluck is lucky for Nigeria and not for himself alone.  The benevolent gods seem to have bestowed special favours on the fellow. They have cracked the palm kernel of good fortunes for him. The joke out there is that to be cursed with Goodluck as a deputy is not a laughing matter. It is not funny, and we hope that Goodluck does not turn out to be another curse on Nigeria.

    Despite his valiant beginning, the omens are not very reassuring. The proclamation that brought Dr Goodluck Jonathan to office can be faulted on the grounds of constitutionality. It is a fudge. But it is a typically Nigerian fudge brimming with creative deviousness and anarchic brio. There are whispers of a constitutional coup, if ever there could be such a daring oxymoron.

    Rather than being summarily impeached for violating his constitutional oath, President Yar’Adua has been left off without as much as a slap on the wrist. Baring a biological coup d’etat, the Katsina nobleman may yet return to office in triumph. Rather than being put in trial for serial disinformation and treasonable forgery his core supporters are being left off the hook. No member of the disgraced and discredited federal executive council has deemed it fit to resign for collectively insulting our intelligence. And where a clear case of presidential abduction seems to have been established, the perpetrators are being asked to take a bow and depart.

    The negative equilibrium which holds Nigeria together and which prevents a particular faction from gaining permanent ascendancy over the other factions is still very much in force. There is as yet no critical linkage between potent forces of civil society and equally progressive fractions of the state which could tip the balance in favour of a radical resolution of the Nigerian Question. Alas, as it was in the beginning, so has it been at the end of the beginning.

    Just as it was the case during the June 12 crisis, the Abacha Inquisition and General Obasanjo’s Third Term fiasco, valiant and patriotic protesters have protested and gone home while the power masters have once again pronounced. Everybody has done their duty to God and country. The protesting class has protested while the ruling class has ruled. If one were to put this in a cruel formula, there is a neat division of labour out there and professional underdogs must not aspire to become top dogs. This feudalisation of modern Nigeria is still very much a work in progress.

    Given this inauspicious background and his own insertion in the crucible of contending forces, it will be foolish to expect political miracles from Goodluck Jonathan. No man can be greater than the sum total of the contradictions that threw him up. Like the Shonekan interim contraption which strategically prevented back to back military rule while allowing the army to purge itself of contrary elements, the Jonathan interregnum is another holding device which allows the dominant faction of the ruling class to reorganise and to strategically reposition itself in time for elections next year, or this year as exigency and opportunism may dictate.

    In the light of this, anybody expecting Jonathan to touch such incendiary materials as genuine electoral reforms, fiscal federalism, political restructuring etc is living in a fool’s paradise. If absent-mindedness overwhelms him and he turns in the wrong direction, he will be met by a disobliging frown by those who have put him in the saddle. If a kind nudge is not enough, a rap in the knuckle will do. Or some non-elixir tea as a final solution.

    But contrary opportunities do abound. The main problem is the very platform that has thrown up Jonathan. As a party, the PDP has so badly mismanaged the country, so serially bungled the sanctity and integrity of the electoral process that it cannot hope to win any free and fair election in this country for the foreseeable future. If it were to rely on its customary miscreant tactics, then we will be looking at another doctrine of necessity in the coming months. To appropriate the Greek gods, let no man count himself lucky until he has carried his luck to the grave.  Good luck to Goodluck.

     

    First published in April, 2010.

     

  • Close our borders with Cameroun, Niger, Chad

    Close our borders with Cameroun, Niger, Chad

    AS I write this, I am in pain because of the evil activities of the criminals calling themselves Boko Haram members.

    They killed many innocent Nigerians and they are still killing them. They kill human beings as if they kill rats. This is a bad time for all of us.

    To stop these heartless elements, I will want our Minister of Foreign Afffairs and President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to close our borders with Cameroun, Niger and Chad because Boko Haram members are operating from these countries.

    It is true that closing the borders will bring about suffering for some people, but if this will stop their evil deeds, there is nothing bad with it.

    I am expecting an urgent action from these two leaders.

    Tunde Akinpelu,

    Sango-Ota,

    Ogun State.