What was that all about — President Goodluck Jonathan’s unthinking rally in Kano; and Governor Rabiu Kwakwanso’s alacrity to sweep away the president’s supposed ill-fated footprints from his territory?
Even as no less than 75 innocent Nigerians perished in a terror attack in Nyanya, Abuja, and same terrorists abducted at least 100 secondary school girls in Borno State, the president must go on a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) “unity rally” in Kano — and less than 24 hours after this twin-tragedy?
No less blameable: Jonathan must stand on his presidential dignity to thumb his nose at the Electoral Law, which spirit, if not letters, the president and his party serially and cynically breach by the so-called “unity rallies”? Is the president then above the law that created his office?
And Governor Kwakwanso — what, beyond partisan grandstanding, did he mean that the people of Kano would not welcome the president? Could “the people”, de jure or de facto, have stopped him, given the Federal Government’s monopoly of the security agencies?
And the high drama of sweeping away the president’s footprints! That was hilarious politics to be sure! But that hilarity brought both the offices of president and governor to high lows, given the bitter partisan exchanges between the two.
Unfortunately, the president did himself and his office no credit by unabashedly romping in the sewers at the Kano rally. He childishly suggested he induced voting delegates (euphemism for bribery?) at his 2011 presidential nomination; and went ahead, with child-like naivety, to bomb the governor for alleged non-delivery on the gratification!
Doesn’t this president know that both who gives and takes bribes are culpable?
To keep what he has, President Jonathan must rally in Kano — unthinking at best, callous at worst. Meanwhile, the country mourns the victims of the Abuja bombing; and parents of the abducted girls are a nervous wreck on the fate of their loved ones, again kidnapped from a government-owned school!
Perhaps the most damning to the Jonathan Presidency, on this latest terror attack, is a two-picture montage now making the rounds in the social media. Picture 1 shows the British High Commissioner in Nigeria donating blood in aid of the Abuja blast victims. But picture 2 shows President Jonathan making merry at the Olubadan centenary. The contrast is devastating!
Now, the president visiting the Olubadan on such an auspicious occasion was no crime. Indeed, it was duty. But the timing was awfully wrong. The president’s friends could argue he postponed it by a day, to visit the scene of the blast and see some of the victims in their hospital beds.
But the merry smirk on the president’s face at the Olubadan’s, combined with his gaiety on the hustings in Kano, were so out of tune with the country’s dolorous mood that one begins to wonder, with all due respect, at the quality of his sense of judgement. It was a most reprehensible escapism, that was anything but presidential!
Why does the president give the sorry impression that Nigeria and Nigerians are nothing but winning in 2015 is everything? And over what — the poisoned chalice that he now drinks from?
Yet, warts and all, President Jonathan would rather keep what he has!
And Governor Kwakwanso, and the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), would fight tooth and nail to have what the president has — that same poisoned chalice!
No doubt, Kano Governor Kwakwanso was spot on in his high moral criticism about the president gallivanting about on “illegal” rallies instead facing his job of tending hurting Nigerians. But the partisan base of the manoeuvre was all too clear — no crime, there!
Still, with all due respect to the APC democratic right to contest for power, what is the worth of this poisoned presidency to anyone now? All the bitterness by innocent victims and galloping evil by the Boko Haram anarchists, will they just vanish because power has changed hands?
Nigeria appears frightfully on the way to Kigali. A heightened recklessness may shoot it straight on the road to Magadishu! All too soon, the dire prediction that Nigeria would break up by 2015 does not look so fantastic after all.
Can a power change of guard halt the creeping disaster? Maybe. Maybe not. But the omens are not so convincing — without a conscious and deliberate attempt at healing and reconciliation.
That puts the ball right in the court of the ongoing National Conference. But that is if it rises above the suspicious circumstances of its birth; and seizes the moment to make history.
Everyone is teary right now, but it is high time we started asking the hard questions. All this mayhem has its roots in the summary junking of PDP’s zoning, that gifted Jonathan the presidency, but clearly embittered a section of the North.
So, where is former President Olusegun Obasanjo? He wanted to build a dynasty of puppets, so he could call the shots from behind. Though that scheme spectacularly collapsed and the puppet can no longer hear his puppeteer, the old general is cool and comfy at home. But not so the innocent victims of mass murder, who continue to pay with lives and limbs, in a plot they had no part!
And Citizen Goodluck Jonathan? He is right there, in the virtual valley of the shadows of death! Even as president, he cuts the picture of abject power opportunism gone awry, a stiff price for a breach of agreement.
What is his presidency worth, when everyday he is greeted with the slain being shovelled into trucks after each mass massacre, and the gnashing of teeth of the dying and the wounded, being rushed to hospital?
The agonised public — where were they when the power dealers were cooking their anti-zoning brew? Didn’t they, back then, lose their sense of outrage, simply because the power plotters were their friends and kin; and the hurt victims, their foes and just “other people”? Did they not, Nigerian-style, pounce on the victim, while hailing the aggressor to ride on?
And the embittered segments of the North — if really by their threat to make the country ungovernable, for a Jonathan that allegedly stole their power patrimony, they are behind this anomie — what do they intend to gain?
Wipe out the whole country and later gain power over ghosts? Some northern rascals, after all, annulled June 12 and a Sani Abacha came to kill and maim the victims for their audacity to complain! A case of galloping injustice consuming its own children?
As in the June 12 issue, the present crisis results from rogue politicians plotting dangerous power games and the people playing dumb when they should have shouted down the blatant injustice. Now, everybody is paying so dear!
Nigeria needs healing. Today’s victims were yesterday’s aggressors. Today’s aggressors are tomorrow’s victims. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of glory. So, this madness must stop.
The National Conference must seize the times and work on healing old wounds, aside from genuine federal restructuring.
Should all this madness continue, sooner than later, it might just be “To your house, O Israel …”
