President Goodluck Jonathan has missed being the sun of the nation’s life and that of the pit of degradation, called the Niger Delta. Everlasting night has settled upon Nigeria, spurred by moral
bankruptcy and the clueless chaos of his governance. There is nothing his administration has done that inspires hope in the people within the last six years.
Nigerians have grown accustomed to the deafening cacophonies of missing billions in the oil sector and the NNPC accounts, pension fund looting, oil bunkering, abandoned projects, devaluation of the
nation’s currency, spilling of innocent blood by the nihilist Boko Haram militias etc. Most of all, mega-corruption and the government’s inability to tame the bloodcurdling insurgents Boko Haram has been President Jonathan’s undoing.
He could not use his “Omnipotent Government” to suppress the vices because he is a beneficiary of the self-inflicted crises. President Jonathan’s government has been a major source of mischief and disaster ever witnessed in Nigeria. Granted that the worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by governments in human history, but there come a time the people strive for change, and the time is now.
The above statement was echoed – not exactly the same – by no less a personage than the fierce and fire-spitting Catholic Priest Rev. Ejike Mbaka. The iron cast priest obviously ventilated Ludwig Von Mises, the Austrian School economist, sociologist, and classical liberal who became prominent for his work in praxeology, a deductive study of human choice and action. “There is no more dangerous menace to civilisation than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men”, Von said.
Rev. Mbaka hits the bull’s eye when he told President Jonathan the stark truth he hates to hear: “What is the fate of our children? Tears fill my eyes when I see our young graduates hoping and walking our streets. What is the meaning of kidnapping? Kidnapping is the grandson of unemployment. Boko Haram is a great grand child of the same unemployment, mass looting, and poor governance”.
“President Jonathan cannot lead Nigeria. As things stand right now, from the oracle of the Holy Spirit, Jonathan should honourably resign quietly and let Nigeria be. The destiny of Nigeria is greater than
Goodluck Jonathan. The Goodluck in Jonathan has become a bad luck to Nigerians. Whatever brought him in should send him back and let Nigeria be. By this time in few months to come, many are going to lose their jobs and there is no alternative”
“During election, Jonathan will answer Azikiwe, Ebele and become an Igbo man and after election, the Ebele, the Azikiwe and Goodluck will vanish from his identity. Who is fooling who actually? Look at our federal roads, we are not even asking for new ones, roads built by Buhari and Babangidas — the so called Hausa people— cannot be maintained. Follow Enugu here to Onitsha, children born some years ago do not know that there was a lane along the other side of Isiagwu and we are all saying continue. The continuity of Jonathan means disaster to Nigeria”.
“When there is no road, no power, all this fake promises… where is the power? That Onitsha Bridge, has it now been built? No. After six years, and Goodluck has what it takes to do whatever. He surrounded himself with hooligans. By the time he comes down, he won’t have anybody to
work with. He played himself into the hands of hooligans. My interest is about the wellness of this country. Nigeria must survive. What we are passing through is by the help of God. The same
God who saved us from Ebola will save us from this bad luck season”.
“Look at it, there was a time there was an argument about pension fund – such billions. Who is talking about it now? Billions and we were hearing it… from excess crude oil money, where is the impact of the excess crude oil money? Now from oil boom, it has met a bad luck; it’s now oil doom. If my father will be my leader and my siblings will all die, let a stranger be my leader and let my family be”, Rev. Mbaka said.
I quoted the Catholic Priest at great length because of his religious standing, his following, his geopolitical firmament and the ethno-religious sentiments that have dampened Nigeria political
growth. Political leaders who failed to fulfil electoral promises to the electorate deliberately appeal or exploit ethnocentric and religious sentiments of their selfish gains in sections of the country. No Nigerian leader has gained popularity through divisive politicking, ethno-religious grandstanding than President Goodluck Jonathan. Then what is government if it is not to promote human happiness and welfare?
All the blemishes plaguing this administration came as a result of the parasitic sycophants who give the president a halo of false glory and are hell-bent on feasting dangerously on the nation’s easy oil wealth.
The reason, lamentably, is that Jonathan didn’t attain ideological maturation before he found himself in the corridors of power. He is being goaded on by dint of virtual providence and veritable luck.
Minds more developed and ideologically balanced have proved that one of the greatest bequests to modern civilisation and governance is not entirely humility, but a great deal of granite hardness, as the need arises to trample on closest friends who stand in the way of the masses.
With one stroke of abhorrence for corruption, President Jonathan could have transformed Nigeria. In President Jonathan’s administration, Nigerians have lost one of the nation’s supposed great educationist whose products we have not yet found in our time their fullest use, to corruption! He missed the chance to wear the cap described in Mein Kampf, The Struggle Of My Life:
“From millions of men, one man must step forward who with apodictic force will form granite principles from the wavering idea-world of the broad masses and take up the struggle for their sole correctness, until the shifting waves of a free thought-world there will arise a brazen cliff of solid unity in faith and will”. World-historical men – the Heroes of an epoch – must therefore be recognised as its clear-sighted ones, their deeds, their worlds are the best of their time”.
You can now gauge why President Goodluck Jonathan government is beset by treachery, overwhelmed by violence visited on it by the Boko Haram, drown in blood and will go up in flames in an orgy of self-willed annihilation which will answer some terrible longing question in the minds of Nigeria. The President who ought to be a man of staggering political genius, an incredible reformer by the reason of his education and experience has yielded to crass opportunism and mega-corruption.
Which ever way, President Jonathan’s sun has set at midnight in the Eastern part of Nigeria, at the Adoration Ground, where he holds a portion of the nation to a grand illusion of oneness and slavish
- Ikhide wrote in from Lagos.
