Honestly, Goodluck Jonathan, president of the Federal Republic, never intended to be a Pharaoh, or Nebuchadnezzar, or an army general, or a dictator. He openly said so.
But then, move over, Pharaoh; move over, Nebuchadnezzar; move over, army general, move over, dictator! In vicious projection of presidential power, Dr. Jonathan is putting you all to shame!
This is one Pharaoh that knows no Joseph when an enemy, real or perceived, must be crushed! Beware, Pharaoh is on the prowl!
It is not unlike the biting philosophy of the anonymous philosopher, off one of the balconies of Teddar Hall, across the road from the Kunle Adepeju Students Union Complex, at the University of Ibadan campus of the early to mid-1980s. This man of wit always put his thoughts across by chalk on board.
During the Second Republic (1979-1983), when corruption tore the roof under President Shehu Shagari, the philosopher quipped, with devastating pun: Shall we then all go and Sha(re)gari at State House Ribadu(n) Road?
“Riba” is slang for bribe. “Dun” is Yoruba for sweet. Ribadu Road, Ikoyi, was the Dodan Barracks seat of the president, rechristened to reflect the democratic interregnum. “Gari” is a Nigerian staple — fantastic pun!
But the Jonathan metamorphosis, despite an earlier public declamation, has more to do with another from the campus philosopher’s rich repertoire: He was mercy-ful. But then Mercy left him. So, he became merciless!
No pussyfooting, this president has become merciless! So enemies, beware, quake and fear! With the impeachment gale sweeping through opposition camps, that warning is rather trite.
Fine, the Adamawa case is rascality versus counter-rascality. The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) poached the Adamawa governorship from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at the height of the PDP meltdown. What APC gained by defection power therefore, PDP has regained by executive clobber! Rascality cancels out rascality, chikena!
But there is no moral high ground here. Before PDP got a dose of its bitter pill, poaching by illicit defection had been its virulent patent, to illegally decimate the opposition. Indeed, what goes around comes around!
Still, if rascality begot rascality in Adamawa, the ongoing case of Nasarawa is one-way rascality — rude, bounding and brazen.
The 2011 elections gifted Nasarawa political schizophrenia: a Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) governor in Umaru Al-Makura; and a PDP-dominated legislature. So, no one can accuse Governor Al-Makura of taking a PDP mandate to the opposition, after his party and others formed the APC.
So, the ongoing impeachment process to unseat Governor Al-Makura is nothing but in-your-face outlawry to steal a governorship, ironically by supposed lawmakers across the partisan divide. Yes, the legalistic-minded would argue: Alhaji Al-Makura’s deputy would still be an APC governor, so there is no question of a PDP steal. Besides, if the governor isn’t guilty of “misconduct”, he need not fear removal — pure, undiluted cant!
And if anyone still doubts where the darts are coming from, the Nasarawa legislators’ “private visit” to Aso Rock, offers a clue — as if there is need for one!
Of course, all these presidential rascality would crash. It always does.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, during his own time as democratic maximum ruler, aided and abetted many of such manufactured impeachments, the most hideous of which was Oyo Governor, Rashidi Ladoja, who must be removed because he would not share his security vote with Lamidi Adedibu, the late amala-and-gbegiri politician, Ladoja’s estranged godfather and Obasanjo’s beloved “garrison commander”, before whom an elected governor must bow and tremble!
It all blew in Obasanjo’s face, with Ladoja’s judicial recall to office, even if, by his peculiar politicking, Ladoja has proved rather undeserving of that democratic grace.
But the eventual crash would come, not necessarily by a court voiding the impeachment process, but by the wilful destruction of democratic institutions by power brigands. Indeed, yesterday’s power recklessness is today’s Boko Haram!
By the way, the only way brazen criminality against governors, by hostile federal forces, is succeeding is because the central government has a monopoly of security forces. The moment that becomes history, the federal bully would know it has a helluva battle in its hands. That, would be the day!
This reckless projection of federal illicit power is bad enough. But it pales into nothing, compared with the future it dooms.
Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s military government was so corrupt it was believed that government raised sleaze to the pedestal of the fundamental principle of state policy. Bad as it was when it was happening, it was its blighting of the future — now — that has been so devastating. Now, there is a merry and complete loss of values.
By the same token, the Jonathan Presidency has begun to impose a new set of democratic travesty: after Ekiti, a new culture of an irrational electorate is afoot: punish hard work but reward sloth; punish brilliance but reward dullness; punish solid performance but reward clear demagoguery!
Where will this crass irrationality lead a democratic republic, or even the Nigerian state itself?
The president, head of an ultra-dull presidency that could hardly boast any groundbreaking policy or innovation, appears to have developed zero-tolerance for gubernatorial brilliance; just to divert attention from his own parlous record; and also shift attention from serious electoral issues to emotive power play that would impress the gullible.
That would explain why Oyo’s Adebayo Alao-Akala, an ideas vacuum in his first tour of duty as Oyo governor, whose grandest philosophy appeared the neck-chain to wear, the face powder to dub or the perfume to wear, has re-found his voice, merrily declaring himself the next Oyo governor — despite the stark difference between his parlous record and the glittering performance of Abiola Ajimobi, the incumbent.
Of course, Mr. Alao-Akala is pitching the Jonathan dream electorate: elders without wisdom, youths without gumption and the middle-aged happily blundering between these two extremes of the brain-dead!
But the most tragic, in the run-up to the August 9 Osun gubernatorial poll, is the Iyiola Omisore boast. The PDP candidate brags he would win in all local governments. Yet, he frantically flees from debates, the latest of which was “Manifesto Hour”, the July 26 programme, organised by the International Republican Institute (IRI), to be broadcast live by the Osun State Broadcasting Corporation (OSBC). Other than demonising Rauf Aregbesola’s visible accomplishments, he has not articulated programmes of his own. And, of course, the eternal bad-tempered threats!
So, on what basis would he win the election? On the basis of the present federal paralysis under Jonathan; or the past Osun paralysis when PDP ruled the roost; and Omisore himself was senator at the centre? O, perhaps on a third: that federal might would fix it!
Why, a Premium Times online report even suggests the Jonathan federal armada might be pressing the panic button by reportedly directing operatives of DSS to “invade” TNS-RMS, a Lagos research and marketing firm, contracted to do an opinion poll on the Osun election.
The “invaders’” fear? That the poll’s results might favour Aregbesola! These are unusual times indeed!
The Jonathan presidency may have resigned itself to flexing muscles to scare; rather than thinking hard to deliver on its presidential chores.
But patriotic Nigerians must tell this Pharaoh: his choice is expressway to self-ruin.
