Tag: Goodluck Jonathan

Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan became acting president in February 2010 following the incapacitation of his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua. Elected in his own right in April 2011, Jonathan now stands near the midpoint of his first full term in office. His People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which has won every election since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, dominates the executive and legislative branches of the federal government and governs 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states.

The advantages of incumbency and party dominance will likely assure Jonathan another term when Nigeria votes again in 2015. Yet insecurity, corruption and stalled policy implementation have provoked broad criticism of his performance, and the remainder of his term is likely to be characterized by high levels of political tension.

Jonathan’s difficulty in reducing violence was on display last month in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, Borno State, which Jonathan visited for the first time as president on March 8. Maiduguri is the nerve center of the Muslim militant group Boko Haram, whose name is a Hausa phrase that connotes opposition to Western education and culture. Boko Haram previously launched uprisings in 2003-2004 and 2009, before Jonathan became president. Since September 2010 the group has attacked numerous government, Christian and infrastructural targets and has become a central challenge for Jonathan’s administration. Along with its splinter group Ansar al-Muslimin (Arabic for “The Defenders of Muslims”), Boko Haram has kidnapped foreigners, including a French family seized last month in Cameroon. The Nigerian military’s Joint Task Force has occupied Maiduguri since June 2011, and has repeatedly claimed success in the fight against terrorism. But its repressive tactics themselves have partly fueled Boko Haram’s grievances.

Within hours of Jonathan’s departure from Maiduguri, seven bombs exploded. Days later, two PDP officials were killed in Borno. As a result, Jonathan’s trip, rather than inspiring confidence in his ability to manage the crisis, drew criticism from local residents and media commentators. Jonathan remains unpopular in the north, where he received less than 20 percent of the vote in many states, including Borno, in 2011. The trip heightened the contrast between Jonathan and an emerging coalition of opposition politicians, the All Progressive Congress, who held their own meeting — without violence — in Maiduguri on Feb. 28. Boko Haram thus threatens not only Nigeria’s security but also the president’s political fortunes.

Persistent corruption, both at the highest levels of government and in ordinary people’s daily lives, has also sapped confidence in Jonathan, though it is a problem that predates his presidency. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index showed Nigeria occupying roughly the same rank in 2009 – 130th out of 180 countries – as in 2012 — 139th out of 176 countries. Yet many Nigerians and outside observers believe that corruption is the core problem underlying the country’s other challenges, from poverty to security, and many have seen Jonathan’s failure to reduce corruption as a broader political failure.

Jonathan’s recent pardon of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor and Jonathan’s political mentor who was convicted of corruption charges in 2007, sparked outrage and further undermined his anti-corruption credentials. Alamieyeseigha governed Bayelsa state from 1999 to 2005, with Jonathan as his deputy. In 2005, when Alamieyeseigha was arrested in London on money laundering charges and subsequently impeached, Jonathan became governor — a turning point in the current president’s political ascent. Some observers read in Jonathan’s pardon of Alamieyeseigha a willingness to prioritize political relationships over accountability.

Bayelsa’s location in the Niger Delta, the heart of Nigeria’s oil production, highlights the gap between rich and poor in Nigeria. While politicians like Alamieyeseigha accumulate fortunes, many delta residents confront environmental degradation and grinding poverty. Militants there, demanding a greater share of oil profits for local communities, rebelled against the federal government from 2006 to 2009, when Yar’Adua extended amnesty to the rebels. Jonathan has continued the program, but it is scheduled to end in 2015, and oil theft by disaffected residents and former militants who complain that amnesty has failed to provide jobs is rising.

Meanwhile, despite international praise for his economic team – especially Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former World Bank official – Jonathan has also struggled, and at times failed, to implement his economic agenda, which has been dogged by controversy. The administration advocates budgetary reform, even if it means economic pain for ordinary Nigerians.

Critics charge that privatization initiatives and austerity measures will shrink the meager benefits citizens receive from the state while expanding opportunities for politicians to steal public money. In January 2012, Jonathan abolished subsidies on fuel, leading Lagos, Kano and other cities to erupt in protest. The administration partly reinstated the subsidies, but the debate remains unsettled.

Similarly, a bill meant to reform the oil industry has met countless delays. Many observers still expect it to pass. But as one Nigerian journalist wrote, recent debate in the Senate over the bill “further exposed our delicate [regional] fault lines” – the same fault lines that Jonathan has encountered in other domains, from his own election to the security crisis in the north.

The more Jonathan flounders, the more opposition he will face from within his party. Some northern PDP members resent him for disrupting an internal party agreement to rotate the presidency between the north and the south. Some southwestern members feel that Jonathan has excluded them as well, and that he favors members of his ethnic Ijaw group. The opposition’s attempts at coalition-building give the PDP an incentive to preserve party unity, but regional rivalries and a multiplicity of big personalities within the PDP may produce a bruising nomination fight in 2015.

With two years left before Nigerians return to the polls, Jonathan faces an array of challenges, a host of critics and a list of unkept promises. In 2010 and 2011, Jonathan defied predictions of his political demise during his tumultuous journey from vice president to acting president to president. The PDP’s structural dominance may ensure his victory in 2015. Yet security threats, corruption issues and a stalled legislative agenda will continue to consume much of his energy and limit his effectiveness.

· Courtesy: World Politics Review