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Tag: Jonathan

  • Jonathan partially right

    SIR: President Goodluck Jonathan was reported to have told the Labour leaders to caution the workers about stealing, when the latter told him to fight corruption seriously. Jonathan was partially right, because at times, those in government cannot steal without the cooperation of some civil servants, such as permanent secretaries and accountants. Some or many workers also steal and frustrate the positive efforts of some leaders.

    Nevertheless, if a leader, director, or head of department is honest and diligent, those under him or her can hardly getaway with stealing. Thus, it is crucial to have good leaders in government offices to minimize stealing and misappropriation of public funds. Good leadership was what the labour leaders were asking Jonathan to provide in himself and his ministers. That could put the legislature and the judiciary as well on their toes.

    Corruption shrunk drastically during the regime of General Murtala Mohammed, because he truly had zero tolerance for it. Ditto Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Babatunde Idiagbon declared War Against Indiscipline (WAI). Hardly any public official felt safe to indulge in corrupt practices during those two regimes. Hence I appeal to Nigerians to insist on having Buhari in 2015.

    The record of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu is also there for anybody to see. I would recommend him for the position of Vice-President, or Finance Minister, considering how he successfully managed the economy of Lagos State, despite his being denied allocation from the federation account by President Olusegun Obasanjo. What is more, he has been cleared by all the PDP-controlled anti-graft agencies.

    Any Igbo person who would like to contest for presidency in 2019 may not push to be Vice-President in 2015, because Nigerians may not tolerate anybody who will spend more than eight years in the presidency, either as President or Vice-President. Although Bill Clinton did well, his two-term Vice-President lost the bid to succeed him as America’s President. It is mother of selfishness and abuse of good luck to intend to stay more than eight years in Aso Rock, even as Secretary to the President.

    President Jonathan is incapable of fighting corruption or engendering peace and order, because his presidency is a product of destabilization and corruption. Reasonable Nigerians should not expect peace and progress in the absence of order and justice. Where corruption thrives from head to toe, any boast about positive transformation is empty and a sheer propaganda. We are told that everything will be okay in 2015. That means some deceptive measures have been designed to pull the wool over the eyes of Nigerians for another round of four wasteful years.

    All the negative campaigns against General Buhari must be dismissed for what they are: resistance to positive change. The opposition leaders that are decamping into the PDP should be regarded for what they are: opportunists who are not concerned about the good of Nigeria, but chop-I-chop.

    • Pius Oyeniran Abioje, Ph. D,

    University of Ilorin.

  • Jonathan’s single-term proposal

    Jonathan’s single-term proposal

    At this point, I think it appropriate to ask: What exactly does President Good luck Jonathan want? His cheerleaders and godfathers have been campaigning for s return ticket for more than one year now. They did not wait to see their man perform and sell himself to Nigerians before seeking to seize the public domain to canvass a second term. For them, it does not matter that only one good term should deserve another. Or, could it be that they took a cue from Igbinedion’s Edo where the father said his son deserved a second term precisely because he had failed to perform at the first opportunity?

    It could also be that proponents of the Return Jonathan Project felt he had demonstrated sufficient capacity during the preview of his first tenure offered by the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010. Jonathan had nearly two years to show that he understood the problem with Nigeria and had the capacity to fix it. His men could have taken the verdict returned at the poll in 2011 as a validation of the theory that Nigerians were satisfied with his performance. He, too, in turn, could have been served the vodka of power, believing, like Louis the XIV, that he has all it takes to force his decision on the people, not minding the difference in epochs, systems and personalities.

    Thus far, it would appear that President Jonathan has been misled into believing the superiority and invincibility of his opinion. He has now come up with the campaign for a single term of six years. It is not an altogether new proposition. In the Abacha Constitutional Conference, it came up alongside such strange suggestions as collegiate presidency and multiple vice presidency. It is not the first time President Jonathan would be backing such a proposal. He had earlier surreptitiously passed the corrosive view to the federal lawmakers and sought, in a nation-wide televised debate, to justify the plan. He said it would save cost of electioneering, win more time for a government to work, perform and win the hearts of the people. He also feigned concern for the health of the polity, arguing that, with elections in the third world taking the form of battles, it would be unfair to subject the country to such consistent tension that grips it at election periods.

    What our dear president failed to tell us is what he, as a loving leader, has done to douse tension and concentrate on governance. By the end of this tenure, he would have been in office for about six years, why is he finding it difficult to shut up his paid agents hopping about spreading the gospel that he has a right to another term and would exercise the right? Isn’t it obvious to our president that it is not every right that you exercise? If Jonathan so loves this country, he would make a categorical pronouncement immediately that he has no interest in 2015 and much of the needless fog on the scene would clear.

    No one would be taken in by the suggestion that he might not offer himself for another tenure that would push his rule (or reign) to an unprecedented ten unbroken years. I am of the view, as most Nigerians, I suppose, that the Jonathan years have been an unmitigated disaster. The administration is a study in cluelessness and ineptitude that only the Shagari years could rival. How would anyone justify the expenditure of public fund in celebrating 100 years of a colonial contraption? And, that, over a period of one year! How would anyone explain the actions taken in recent times by a government that claims to be fighting corruption but is, at the same time, rewarding sleaze? In the Jonathan government are people who were being investigated for corrupt practices at the point of appointment.

    Under his administration, corruption has been given a boost. The pardon of former Bayelsa State governor, Dr. DSP Alamieyeseigha is the latest in the series of activities marking the leadership as one that worships in the temple of corruption. There is the job scam, the pension fund scam, the fuel subsidy fraud and the rot in the judiciary, among others. The most charitable analyst can only describe the federal government as confused.

    If corruption were limited to the financial, it probably would not be as dangerous as the situation has assumed now. All institutions and processes have been compromised and most public officials believe that they can literally get away with murder. The worst is process leading to recruitment of political leaders (or dealers). Party officials are turned at such points to auctioneers at bazaars. Consequently, nothing is working.

    The president is not alone in this promotion of corruption; the tin gods and mini-despots at the state level -governors- are as guilty. Officials have turned Nigeria into a private estate in which elected officials and their cohorts are the only beneficiaries. God save our country and the people.

     

  • Jonathan Vs Amaechi

    Jonathan Vs Amaechi

    Between President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, it is not a case of saint versus sinner. Both presidential and gubernatorial gladiators have done enough tumbles in the mire to earn a critical questioning of their motives, by the latest political cross-slinging in town. It is no pretty sight.

    On the president’s part, the grounding of the Rivers State’s airplane at the Akure Airport in Ondo State, started with tales of some query over the plane’s customs papers, then went on to allegations that the pilot did not file his manifest and flight plan, and climaxed in the final April 27 grounding, on the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA’s claim that the aircraft’s approved clearance certificate had expired since April 2.

    Without prejudice to strands of truths in these official claims, it would appear a progressive shopping for excuses to arrive at a pre-determined outcome. For example, if indeed the plane’s approved clearance certificate had expired since April 2, why did NCAA wait till April 27 before doing its statutory duty?

    And would it have done it at all, if not prompted by an all-mighty higher quarters that had clear motives to put an uppity governor in his place? So, for close to a month, the governor’s plane had been flying illegally, and NCAA was so star-struck by its gubernatorial splendour that it would take the ugly drama at Akure Airport for the body to scramble awake and enforce what it ought to have enforced since, at best, April 5?

    NCAA top officials should be thoroughly ashamed for allowing their agency to be mixed up in petty political bickering. But the Presidency itself is more shame-worthy for abusing a government agency in a bitter partisan dispute. Doyin Okupe, the presidential public affairs spokesperson, must tell to the marines his tale that the presidency had no hand in the grounding of the governor’s plane. From widely reported Jonathan-Amaechi standoff, there is enough motive to justify such supposition, which unfortunately adds no dignity to the presidential office.

    On the part of the Rivers State governor, there has not been an appropriate response to the charge that the aircraft’s papers are out of date. If that is true, and since April 2, why was the governor’s crew still flying the plane? Like other Nigerian Big Men, could they be above the law, in the hateful spirit of general official impunity? Shouldn’t the governor, a symbol of the law and ordered society in a democracy, have done the right thing by law and free NCAA the chore of enforcing the law and the humiliation that comes with that to the office of the Governor? These are sickening tell-tales of lack of basic standards.

    Besides, the governor has loads of answers to provide on the aircraft and its registration. Though these questions have nothing to do with the plane’s approved clearance certificate, they have everything to do with probity, accountability and transparency in governance. Can an aircraft bought with money appropriated by the Rivers State legislature, and purportedly owned by the Rivers State Government, be registered in the name of a foreign trust? Governor Amaechi and his team must provide satisfactory answers to these probing questions.

    But be that as it may, let no one forget that the grounding of the Rivers State plane was only the climax of a running Jonathan-Amaechi battle, which started with Amaechi’s rumoured vice-presidential ambition (hardly a democratic crime), and the presidential desperation to, at all cost, stop the governor from seeking re-election as Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) chairman – all fired by President Jonathan’s all too obvious paranoia over anyone getting in his way for a second term in 2015.

    In this raging battle, the victims are not only the two combatants and their respective offices. The bigger victims are subverted institutions. That poses a potent threat to the deepening of democracy and the rule of law.

    It is clear how the feuding has undermined NCAA and created grave doubt in the mind of any right thinking person as to its capacity and capability to discharge its statutory duties without external pressure. That is no good news, given that aviation safely is not the greatest forte of the local aviation industry. To avert needless future disasters, aviation agencies must be rid of external influences.

    The feuding has also revealed a twin-assault on the office of the President and Governor. By being perceived to project naked power, and attempting to turn the revered office of the President of the Federal Republic into a cheap, all-muscle-no-brain bully in partisan matters, the Jonathan Presidency has denuded that high position of its reverence, splendour and honour. The president and his handlers ought to know that what endear the Presidency are authority, legitimacy and influence, in that progressive order; and never naked power. A presidency that bristles with naked power only diminishes itself and earns itself citizens’ contempt.

    But even more alarming, in a federal, democratic setting, is a bullying president that does not particularly care that his powers, no matter how awesome, are limited by law. The spectre of a president grounding the aircraft of a state government, in a federation where the president is to the central government what the governor is to the state government, is absolutely unnerving and condemnable. Both the president and governor are a creation of law; and one cannot assume the complex of a seething headmaster lording it over gubernatorial school boys – except of course, if the Rivers State’s aircraft’s papers are really outdated and proven so. Even then, that would have been the NCAA’s business.

    Other victims of institutional subversion in the matter are the Judiciary (which both sides in the state Peoples Democratic Party executive committee dispute seem to have manipulated to suit their purposes) and the Legislature (there is already lunatic talks of six legislators set to impeach a governor in a 36-member Rivers Assembly), not to talk of the possible destruction of the NGF.

    The NGF might not be a creation of statutes. But it is a pressure group grounded in the best tradition of democracy to look after the interest of its members. When a president attempts to smash such a group, simply because he finds its real-politik foxtrot too nimble, then that attack is not on that body but on the tenet of free association in a democracy. In a supposed federation that really is a glorified unitary state like Nigeria, such a presidential misadventure becomes all the more sinister. That is why the NGF must stand its ground and withstand any presidential assault. Such assaults are illegitimate, so long as the body conducts its business lawfully and with utmost decency.

    Nigeria’s is a tentative democracy that needs all tact to survive its teething years. That is why the Presidency must show more leadership and tact before jumping into a battle just because it thinks it has the power to crush the enemy – real or imagined. That could prove a costly illusion.

     

  • Jonathan and his many critics

    Jonathan and his many critics

    Dr. Goodluck Jonathan once described himself as the world’s most criticised president . In this report, Associate Editor, Sam Egburonu, takes a look at why he attracts so much criticism and the issues raised by the critics.

     

    Since his dramatic emergence in 2011 as the elected President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has been a subject of seemingly unending scathing remarks and virulent public criticism.

    At the beginning, when he first served as Acting President, later President and then elected President, it was mainly his known political opponents that raised alarm over his style of governance, describing him as “slow” and “weak.” Their criticism was understandably dismissed, by his associates and supporters, as a fruit of political intolerance, but when former national leaders, including the president’s political mentor, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, and other known associates within and outside his political party, (the People’s Democratic Party) joined others to publicly condemn most of his actions and policies, it has been a source of public concern.

    Even Jonathan, in a bid to correct public perception of his person and that of his style of governance, has occasionally come out to explain the reasons behind his criticised actions and pace.

    But so far, this has not succeeded in stopping such harsh criticisms as the number of Jonathan’s critics seem to increase by the day. The critics have also become more blunt and daring.

    For example, during the grand finale of the 2013 Police Week celebrations at the Eagle Square, Abuja, Jonathan had tried to exploit the opportunity to explain the peculiar circumstances that have hindered the efforts of his government in its fight against insecurity in the country. He had said rather poetically, “This is quite a trying moment for this country in terms of security. A number of our police officers have lost their lives while serving their fatherland. We have challenges from the South to the North and from the East to the West.”

    Reacting to that explanation however, former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, cautioned the president to stop lamenting over the deteriorating security situation in the country and take appropriate steps to tackle the menace.

    This, in a way, represents the current relationship between the president and his many critics. As he and his aides try desperately to explain what the critics consider his failures, they, in the opinion of his political opponents and some other Nigerians, fertilize more grounds for condemnation.

    As a result, the question in the mouths of many Nigerians today is whether the President is completely unaware of how to get anything right or his critics are mainly being unduly harsh and intolerant?

    To answer this question, it seems necessary to take a cursory look at the personality of the major critics and some of the issues they have raised.

     

    Olusegun Obasanjo

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is today considered as one of the major critics of President Jonathan, was once his major political mentor. At the twilight of his eight-year tenure in 2007, Obasanjo had single handedly picked the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Jonathan to succeed him. At the demise of Yar’Adua, it was reported that Obasanjo remained a major pillar behind Jonathan as he volunteered his wide political connections to ensure the emergence of Jonathan as President.

    Things have since changed as Obasanjo has been at the forefront of critics who have expressed disappointment over Jonathan’s score card in the anti-corruption crusade. Some of his latest verbal attacks on the Presidency include his views on the government’s plan to set up an agency to guard pipelines and fight against corruption.

    Just last month, at a book presentation in Lagos, Obasanjo said of federal government’s fight against corruption, “The poor enforcement of anticorruption laws in turn makes the citizenry less enthusiastic to act positively on any call by the government to (make) sacrifice(s).”

    He contended that corruption remains the most serious factor undermining economic growth, regretting that African leaders know what to do, but that they have self-made constraints perpetuated by an elitist few in the political and bureaucratic class. “This class,” he said, “which forms less than 10 per cent of the population, consumes a whopping 90 per cent of the available resources. Their decadent orientation of personal opulence and conspicuous consumption is poisonous to growth.”

    A few weeks later, at the 50th birthday ceremony of former World Bank Vice President, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, Obasanjo, also faulted the move by the Federal Government to set up an agency for pipeline protection, saying it was another way of stealing from the government coffers.

    “When I was coming from Abeokuta, I was listening to the radio and they said they are going to set up an agency for pipeline protection. Now, what are the police there for? All the security agencies that we have, what are they for? This is another chop-chop,” he said pointedly.

     

    Mallam Nasir El Rufai,

    Asides his recent advise on the need for the president to stop lamenting and concentrate on finding solutions to the security challenges of the nation, former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has for some time remained a major critic of the Jonathan administration.

    For example, shortly after the Baga tragedy, El Rufai accused the Federal Government of being insensitive to the plight of the people of Baga, in Borno State.

    He described as “saddening” the fact that the government disputed the number of people killed in a clash between members of Boko Haram and a military task force. According to him, the government should have instead found ways of alleviating the sufferings of the people.”

    It would be recalled that in that incident, government said only 25 people died but some reports put the number of the dead at 185 or thereabout.

    El Rufai had said, “It is unfortunate that we place so little values on human lives that we will be arguing whether six Nigerians have died or 185 or 200. When three people were killed in Boston, Obama left the White House to go and commiserate with the people of Boston. Perhaps more than 200 have been killed here and our own President is still sitting in Abuja. It then shows the kind of government that we have. It is pathetic, it is disappointing and God will make them to account.”

    Also, when he featured as a guest on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, recently, El Rufai challenged Jonathan over the identity of Boko Haram leaders, alleging that the Federal Government knows much more about the sect than what it is letting out to the public.

    “I think President Jonathan knows the leaders of Boko Haram because at one point he said that Boko Haram members are in his government. Who are those members that have infiltrated his government?”

    He was reacting to Jonathan’s comments at a town hall meeting during his visit to Damaturu, Yobe State. The president had reportedly said “You cannot declare amnesty for ghosts. Boko Haram still operates like ghosts. So, you can’t talk about amnesty for Boko Haram now until you see the people you are discussing with. When you call the Niger Delta militants, they will come; but nobody has agreed that he is Boko Haram; no one has come forward. If amnesty can solve the situation, then no problem, but nobody has come forward to make himself visible.”

     

    Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili

    Former Vice President of the World Bank, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, an influential former minister, who presided over the Due Process Office during the civilian government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, is another top flight leaders who has openly criticised the current federal government.

    Her latest arsenal was when she alleged that Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan’s government wasted $67 billion (about N10.72 Trillion) left in the Federation Account by the Obasanjo’s administration.

    Assessing the democratic government in Nigeria, she lamented: “Neither our thirty four years of cumulative military governance nor the nineteen cumulative years thus far of our democratic governance provided us “inclusive and accountable governance.”

    “Instructively, a person, or as in our own case; a nation, is counselled to “stop digging when in a hole”. Lamentably, in our case, we have consistently rebuffed the wisdom behind that counsel. We have instead dug deeper and the more we have dug, the deeper into the hole we have sunk and all because of political misadventures.”

    On corruption in Nigeria, Madam Due Process had this to say recently, “My general overview is that we are going through the throes of challenges that require a very strong sense of sacrificial leadership. The whole problem of a corrupted environment, the corruption in the society right now is so endemic, it has been democratised. And that is going to sink us. We need to tackle corruption and tackle it as you will tackle cancer. It can kill.

    “ There is no need pretending that this country is burdened by the weight of a cancerous phenomenon. Every Nigerian knows that we have a problem. This is a broken society and it has permeated every aspect of our national life. So, we must have to do something about it.”

    Urged to comment on recent controversial statements attributed to her, Ezekwesili said during her golden birthday, “Am I controversial? I don’t think. I am not one bit controversial. I am hard on the government. Is it probably because of the excess crude? No. you should say that the government did not handle its citizen who have served this nation with all her heart and my speech to the young people at the graduation ceremony was not picking on the government. It was picking on the act of the governance system in the petroleum sector on that fact that the oil sector has not delivered any benefit to the poor and that it was needed to be tackled. That was what it was about. I am not controversial.”

    Apart from these critics, other outspoken leaders that have openly expressed disappointment over the policies and performance of Jonathan- led Federal Government or are openly opposed to it include the leaders of the major opposition political parties like the Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu- led Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and General Muhammadu Buhari-led Congress for Progressive Change [CPC] who have repeatedly declared that the government has failed.

    Other major opponents include some Peoples Democratic Party state governors like Governor Aliyu Babangida of Niger State and Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, among others, whose opposition are traced to either 2015 succession bid or the leadership of Nigeria Governors’ Forum.

    As the opposition increases, observers are urging the Jonathan-led government to seek ways of building more understanding and confidence as a way of easing political tension ahead of 2015. Dr Boniface Awah, who gave the advise in a chat with The Nation, said, “no meaningful development could be made under the current situation.”

  • Jonathan, PDP and 2015

    Jonathan, PDP and 2015

    Since the coming of President Goodluck Jonathan to power, most of his programmes and policies have engendered the anger of most Nigerians. This would not augur well for his party come next election in 2015.

    Starting with controversial fuel price increase in early part of 2011 and subsequent polices, his policies have been received with mixed feelings amongst the populace, most notably the recent state pardon granted his former boss, the former Governor of Bayelsa State, D.S.P.Alamieyesegha.

    Also, the ‘civil war’ going on within the party has polarised it along different interest groups which could send it to the oblivion. Nigerians who have to tolerate the party for this long have not seen any good from the party which considers itself the largest party in Africa.

    The President has not been given Nigerians the kind of leadership required. The citizens are very sceptical about government programmes and policies.

    We hope that as Nigerians look up to meeting the reality of good governance in 2015, they will not be denied this rare opportunity.

     

    Bala Nayashi

    Lokoja, Kogi State.

  • Rambling through the rumpus

    Rambling through the rumpus

    A peep into King Jonathan’s Mines

    There is no situation so utterly bleak and despondent that it doesn’t leave room for a ray of hope, and a window of opportunity. In other words, there is some hope in hopelessness. It could be the hope of the hopeless, or the optimism of the totally defeated. This is usually the last defence of the defenceless. Allah de, they collectively sigh. Or as the Yoruba will put it, there is nothing that has a beginning that does not have an ending.

    This too will pass, they chorus in unison. There is no condition so hard that it doesn’t in the end lend itself to certain ameliorative possibilities. Ko so oun tole ti ki ro, they caution. Radical philosophers believe that this corrupt optimism is a potent formula for a comprehensive paralysis of the revolutionary will.

    It is a shabby complicity with an unjust and decadent status quo. The meek have never, and will never, inherit the earth, they thunder. In his classic, Literature and Revolution, Leon Trotsky raves: “At any rate, we shall no longer accept tragedy in which God gives orders and man meekly submits.” How about that as a sizzling sampler from one of the greatest revolutionists ever?

    The iconic Marxist intellectual warrior was as clear-eyed as he was clear in his mind about what needed to be done. But some nuggets of hope are there, all the same in the most appalling of circumstances. Imagine how life would be in contemporary Nigeria without some measure of hope! This would amount to what Kafka—may the good Lord bless his tortured soul— called a life of unadulterated unhappiness.

    It was such a life of undiluted and unmitigated joylessness that the great German-Jewish writer promised his future wife. The wise woman promptly broke off the engagement, and Franz Kafka lived and died a bachelor and a model celibate. Like Gregor Samsa, his hero and fictional alter ego, Kafka would make do with posters of buxom and voluptuous ladies in his bedroom.

    And still talking about Franz Kafka, it will be recalled that he was a master of automatic writing in all its dream-like quality. It was a kind of writing that flows with the majestic assurance of a sleep walker. It is so certain about the uncertainty of life that it challenges you to think otherwise. It is called the naturalisation of the unnatural. Life itself is one grand dream. As Kafka himself famously puts it, actual reality is unrealistic.

    Fellow Nigerians—to use the language of ancient coupists, (By the way when are we going to put those chaps on trial for treason?)——, this column is reporting itself to you this morning. There is no intellectual weapon this column has not employed to untangle the Nigerian condition. We have tried logical writing. We have tried the formal and forbidding format of the scholarly treatise. We have employed the arcane lingo and terse rigour of the political scientist. We have philosophised. We have fictionalised. We have blended fantasy with fact, which is the hallmark of what is known as New Journalism in America. Even our houseboy has become an iconic Domestic Secretary.

    There is no further point in confronting illogic with logic. Illogicality has its own strange and compelling logic. It is not amenable to sound reasoning. You cannot erase an ugly reality with beautiful writing. The negation of a negation can only proceed through negation. This morning, this column employs the virtues of automatic writing. It is a chaotic survey of a chaotic mess. It is a peep into King Jonathan’s mines from forty thousand feet above the sea level. It is quite a dizzying view.

    Does anybody remember Sir Henry Rider Haggard? He was a writer of magical yarns predominantly set in ancient Africa. It was as colourful as it was enthralling in all its savage splendour. There was a hint of upper class snobbism and racism about these engaging fables. But the portraits are haunting and unforgettable, and they are crafted with considerable sympathy for the noble savage. Snooper’s favourite is King Solomon’s Mines. Snooper’s favourite character was a fellow called Umslopogaas, a gigantic and heroic Zulu warrior who could fell an elephant with a single blow.

    It is strange and weird that at this particular point, Nigeria should come to resemble a King Solomon’s Mines where all kinds of chancers and prospectors collide in a bid for a piece of the action. There are unimaginable riches in the mines, but it is only for the strong and valiant. The weak and the poor have no chance. Diamonds are not for everybody. It is therefore entirely conceivable if the poor and the weak should go hungry in the midst of stupendous and unimaginable wealth.

    This is precisely where King Jonathan’s mines become a land mine of sorts. The poor will not go hungry for long. They are already eyeing the rich with intent. Given the intensive rate of exploration and dwindling global prospects, the mine itself cannot be lucrative for much longer. Having failed to make hay while the mines lasted, the Nigerian political elite must brace themselves to bear the brunt of the masses who will eventually fall upon them with relish and gusto.

    Let’s face our condition squarely. There is no point in quibbling or equivocating at this point. It is either a political elite is deserving or undeserving. Human history is littered with undeserving political elites of the past. They have been consigned to the trashcan of history where they rightly belong. When this fate eventually becomes the lot of the contemporary Nigerian elite, they must not bemoan their lot.

    It is a bleak and deeply unoptimistic situation, but this is ironically where utter hopelessness begins to emit rays of hope. The Jonathan presidency is a historic watershed for Nigeria. It is inconceivable that the nation can fall deeper into the morass of incompetence and sheer cluelessness. The structural disfigurement of Nigeria and whoever is in control of human destiny have used Jonathan to complete the chastisement of the Nigerian ruling class.

    It is either the pan-Nigerian critical mass arrives at this point in time or Nigeria will slip into ungovernable anarchy before terminal fracturing. But let us explain why there is some hope in hopelessness. At the last count, each component of Nigeria’s major ethnic nationalities have taken their turn at the colonial torture wrack that is Nigeria.

    Twice, the Yoruba have been whipped into line, during the “we tie” uprising and the June 12, 1993 annulment imbroglio. The Igbo have had their own brutal comeuppance during the civil war and what they perceive to be subsequent political and economic marginalisation. The Niger Delta populace has been savaged by a cruel and uncaring military/feudal complex.

    Hitherto, it used to be thought that the machinery of oppression and internal colonisation in modern Nigeria was solely and firmly in the hands of the Northern feudal oligarchy and their military enforcers. But that illusion of power is now firmly rested. It has taken two civilian administrations to dispel that arrogance of power.

    First, Obasanjo humbled the Northern power masters by beating them at their own game of political manipulation and electoral chicanery. Now Jonathan has humiliated them by calling their military and religious bluff even while pretending to fumble. The lesson to be learnt from all this is that no ethnic elite has a monopoly of the game of sinister subjugation and domination of other groups. The modern Nigerian presidency is an imperial Roman tyranny and an equal opportunity terror machine which does not recognise original ownership.

    So it is then that at this important political conjuncture, there are crucial lessons to be learnt. A wise political elite must learn how to cut its losses. At this point, there are two options before the Nigerian political class. They can continue with the old ethnic game. In which case, a fresh round of appearance before the torture machine is mandatory. In this particular case, it will start with the Ijaw political elite since they are the current ruling hegemony. Political ascendancy has its steep prices.

    Jonathan and the Ijaw political elite are in a far more delicate political situation than they can imagine. It is either they allow Nigerians to determine their electoral destiny or they face a possible showdown from other ethnic groups. The Russian roulette and Round Robin of ethnic victimisation will commence all over again. If Jonathan continues to alienate critical stakeholders in the Nigerian project, there is every possibility that his tenure will end in tragedy.

    Either way, the Jonathan presidency is an important watershed for Nigeria. The fourth Republic began on a note of placating and mollifying the Yoruba. After that, Obasanjo decided to throw a poisoned sop at his feudal friends and tormentors. The Jonathan presidency is largely seen as an attempt to placate the angry Niger Delta populace. At this point in time, even a political fool ought to know that it is the angry Nigerian masses that will have to be placated at the next poll.

    As this was being concluded, the weary eyes lighted on Michela Wrong’s appraisal of the recently concluded elections in Kenya in the current edition of The Spectator magazine. Her conclusions are as shattering as they are sobering and they bear quoting at length.

    {The deployment of modern electronic gadgets} “…cannot replace a society’s generalised buy into the democratic process. The reason political parties rig elections so enthusiastically in many African countries is because winner-takes-all systems of government and imperial presidencies make the rewards so enormous and punish failure so severely. Now fixing that is a lot harder.”

    Never has a Ms Wrong been more right. Appropriately too, it was at this point that the plane began its final descent into King Jonathan’s mines.

  • Jonathan, Amaechi and wanton pettiness

    Jonathan, Amaechi and wanton pettiness

    Some four months into his first (or is it second?) tenure as elected President of Nigeria, Otuoke-born Goodluck Ebele Jonathan gave the nation what could easily pass as the most quoted ironical statement by any Nigerian leader, dead or alive. Compelled by the rash of criticisms against what was perceived then to be a kick-and-follow leadership style with its crying imprimatur of rudderlessness, a howling Jonathan had fired a riposte: “Some Nigerians still want the President of this country to be a lion or a tiger, somebody that has that kind of strength and force and agility to make things happen the way they think. Some others will want the President to operate like an army general, like my Chief of Army Staff commanding his troops. Incidentally, I am not a lion; I am not also a general. Somebody will want the President to operate like the kings of Syria, Babylon, Egypt, the Pharaoh, all – powerful people that you read about in the Bible. They want the president to operate that way, the characters of the Goliath. Unfortunately, I am not one of those. But God knows why I am here, even though I don’t have any of those attributes, or these kinds of characters I have used as an example.”

    I recollect vividly that one of my Ogas at the top here, Sam Omatseye, had warned of the dire implication of having at the helm of our tottering democracy, a leader who is still trying to define his place in power. A leader that is neither ruthless nor meek. Here is the one that flounders as the nation’s woes pounds harder; the one that is called clueless but continues to bumble through the tidal waves with ruthless confidence. In the long run, Omatseye noted, such leaders’ ferociousness and cold-bloodedness are better imagined than experienced. All we asked for was a principle directive by which he plans to govern us for four years. What we got was a long-winding response from a man who was clearly on a self-discovery mission—the powerlessness of power. The biblical David is well known to us. But who is this Jonathan that is neither a lion king nor a Goliath? He is not a Pharaoh of old neither is he a modern-day Commander-in-Chief! Should we believe him when he says all he needs to transform Nigeria are our prayers and God’s soothing balm?

    Surely, we couldn’t have voted for a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Or did we? On that saddle of leadership is a man who lives according to the dictates of his party’s manifesto and rules of engagement. That explains his principled stance on rotational Presidency when he feigned ignorance of any gentleman’s agreement reached with the North that power must reside within the geo- political divide when President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died on the throne. As a sitting President and leader of the party, he could have invoked the powers of his office to circumvent the unwritten agreement. That is what anyone desperate for power would have done. But, Jonathan never did that. He was too refined, too gentlemanly to give a thought to the sheer wiles of despots. In fact, it was on the basis of his democratic commitments that he was dashed the presidential ticket. He never struggled for it because the party apparatchiks appreciated his meekness, his candour and his simplicity. After all, he was once like the rest of us before God blessed him with shoes to slap the village roads!

    As a matter of fact, those who craved a ruthless, decisive and all-commanding leader simply because of the general anarchy in the land miss the point. If Jonathan had been that which some persons wanted him to be, he would not have looked the other way when a certain Timipre Sylva held sway in Bayelsa State. But being meek and quiet as a dove, he completely turned a blind eye to the drama as the ‘people’ voted Sylva out of office and installed Seriake Dickson. Even when Sylva hollered that he was the crooked hand behind the dirty political game that pushed off the Governor’s seat, Jonathan was as cold as cucumber. He said he was too busy at the national level to get involved in local politics. Any wonder Dickson has proved to be his own man in the few months he has spent in Bayelsa State Government House?

    If Jonathan had heeded our call to be a Pharaoh-King, Goliath-like or a roaring lion, Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State would not have had the latitude to exercise his democratic right of free speech against the system the way he has been doing in the last few months. It takes a meek and understanding President to ignore Amaechi’s sacrilegious affront to the Office of the First Lady on the pretext that he wanted to bring development closer to the people. Or is it too much too much if a state chief executive keeps his mouth shut when the wife of the President sneezes? Yet, Jonathan ignored the indiscretion. Today, as Amaechi confronts the greatest political battle of his life from within and without, it is to the President’s credit that he has refused to be dragged into the fight. He has turned deaf ears to the usual beer parlour rumour that he is sworn to ensure that the Rivers Governor never gets re-elected as Chairman of the Governors’ Forum; that he set up the PDP Governors’ Forum to whittle Amaechi’s growing influence; that there was more to the grounding of the Governor’s official jet than the issue of licence and ownership; or that the sudden removal of the state’s party executives and the swearing in of a faction loyal to a minister in his cabinet has the full backing of a roaring President! How dare ascribe such pettiness to a man who has so much on his hands to the extent that he has found it extremely difficult to talk about his political ambition in 2015? Why should he waste his time on a lightweight governor from his backyard when he needs all the energy he can muster to tackle the activities of insurgents and the danger to our socio-economic well -being?

    My take on this is simple: this President will not succumb to any blackmail or intimidation that will transform him into what he is not. It is too late in the day for the snail to change its form or for Mr. President to turn into a ruthless, enemy-hounding, fire-spitting leader. He is not petty and he will, therefore, not be dragged into a simple matter of a state chief executive who is going through normal patchy times. And for those who insist he is simply hiding behind the mirror to unleash deadly punches on perceived enemies, here is the simple answer of a meek President: “You know, these days, for you to be an intellectual and for people to listen to you, you have to abuse government.” Interpretation? They are at liberty to run their watery mouths anyhow! Is there really any need for a Tiger to proclaim its tigritude? Shouldn’t action speak louder than words? Stop the presidential abuse now! Or else…ask Amaechi or Sylva!

  • Jonathan’s new task for workers

    Jonathan’s new task for workers

    The lyrics of one of Fela’s popular songs resonated in my head as I read the reports of the allegations traded by President Goodluck Jonathan and Nigerian labour leaders over the scourge of corruption in Nigeria. In the song titled Authority Stealing, two parties label each other as thieves, rogues and armed robbers, and also took turns to refute the labels. I had thought the dramatic arrangement would never find expression in real life until President Jonathan and Nigerian labour leaders traded similar accusations at the Eagle Square, Abuja venue of the Centenary May Day 2013 celebration on Wednesday.

    In the address he delivered on the occasion, the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, had accused the President of encouraging corruption by granting presidential pardon to a former governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, after the latter was convicted by the courts for stealing billions of naira belonging to the Bayelsa State Government while he held sway as governor, with Jonathan as his deputy.

    Omar said: “Corruption remains the most serious factor undermining the realisation of our economic potential. Government must not only make commitments to fighting it, government must demonstrate this commitment by its actions, by its style and by its body language. In this regard, we find the pardon granted to a former governor who was convicted of corruptly enriching himself as unfortunate and a major dent on the government’s commitments to fighting corruption. To reclaim lost ground, government needs to reassure Nigerians that it is still committed to fighting corruption by conclusively dealing with pending cases of corruption.”

    His position was corroborated by the President General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Peter Esele, who condemned the light sentence given John Yusufu, a pension thief convicted and fined a paltry N750,000 for conniving with others to defraud the Police Pension Office of N27.2 billion. Esele called on the National Assembly to immediately review the laws under which Yusuf was tried. He said: “We are particularly miffed at the ridiculously ‘friendly’ sentence that was awarded by an Abuja High Court against John Yusuf, the self-confessed pension thief, some weeks ago. We reiterate our earlier stand that the said sentence should be appealed against by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). We also prescribe that the provisions of the laws under which he was charged and sentenced be reviewed by the National Assembly with a view to stipulating sufficiently commensurate punishment for the offences therein. John Yusufu and his likes should not be allowed to loot our collective commonwealth and go scot free.”

    But before the labour leaders could settle into their seats, President Jonathan was on his feet, throwing verbal jibes at them and accusing Nigerian workers of shielding their corrupt colleagues instead of blowing the whistle. “Labour has been in the forefront of the demand for good governance and increased action against corruption, and these issues are being vigorously tackled on various fronts. Prosecution is being pursued in matters arising from the fuel subsidy fraud. Embezzlement of pension funds and other serious long standing malpractices are being demystified by this administration. Even at the core of this perpetration are the senior and junior members of labour unions. Greater attention to peer review action on the part of labour will be much appreciated,” President Jonathan said.

    As would be expected, the verbal exchange between the President and the labour leaders has been generating reactions. A querulous friend told me that the task of fishing out corrupt public officials, which the President has saddled civil servants with is simply unrealistic. Citing the Alamieyeseigha case as an example, he reasoned that it would have amounted to a combined act of blasphemy and foolhardiness for a poor civil servant in Bayelsa State to sound the alarm bell when Alamieyeseigha buried his head in the state’s treasury and sucked out its content until it became virtually empty. Such a temerarious civil servant, my friend argued, would be lucky if his woes were limited to being relieved of his job. Otherwise, the poor whistle blower would not only be fired for embarrassing the state’s chief executive and his army of executive aides, he would also be hunted and hounded until it would become impossible for him to remain in Bayelsa or even Nigeria.

    He further queried: “Even if civil servants are culpable in acts of corruption, would the appropriate response from the Presidency be to pardon those that are convicted? What then becomes of the saying that two wrongs cannot make a right? And since when did it become the responsibility of civil servants to arrest criminals? And if they do, what fate awaits them when the thieves so arrested are set free by the powers that be? Their effort would not only be an exercise in futility, it will also expose them to the risk of being attacked by the questionable characters they seek to expose.”

    But I think differently. Nigerians who before now had accused the President of falling short of the imagination needed to lead a country as complex as Nigeria must be burying their heads in shame after his brilliant antidote to corruption in public office. By some condemnable acts of omission, it did not occur to the army of Jonathan’s critics at home and abroad that a civil servant can do much more than carry files from one office to another. To justify their huge pay and also prove that they are loyal and patriotic, our civil servants must combine their primary jobs with those of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, the State Security Service (SSS), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and other agencies of government hitherto saddled with the task of fishing out thieving workers. The civil servant must now not only learn to arrest his thieving colleagues, he must also prosecute them where necessary.

    That, I insist, does not amount to usurping the duties of the security agencies. It is in keeping with the saying that if a man sights a snake and a woman kills it, the important thing is that the snake dies. And those who think the new assignment Jonathan has given Nigerian workers would render the anti-corruption agencies redundant should be told that it is a perfect arrangement because the agencies may have no time for anti-corruption war in the weeks ahead. As the President’s second-term campaign gathers momentum, they will be too busy prosecuting the war for his return in 2015.

  • Jonathan, workers clash over anti-corruption fight

    Jonathan, workers clash over anti-corruption fight

    LABOUR made a demand yesterday: the President should fight corruption harder.

    But Dr. Goodluck Jonathan told workers to advise their colleagues to stop stealing.

    Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Comrade Abdulwahed Omar said: “Corruption remains the most serious factor undermining the realisation of our economic potential. Government must not only make commitments to fighting it, government must demonstrate this commitment by its actions, by its style and by its body language.

    “In this regard, we find the pardon granted to a former governor who was convicted of corruptly enriching himself as unfortunate and a major dent on the government’s commitments to fighting corruption. To reclaim lost ground, government needs to reassure Nigerians that it is still committed to fighting corruption by conclusively dealing with pending cases of corruption.”

    According to Omar, the Federal Government has not successfully prosecuted those that were accused of embezzling public fund since 10 years ago.

    Responding, Jonathan condemned junior and senior civil servants, whom he described as the perpetrators of corrupt practices.

    He recommended civil servants for peer review.

    President Jonathan and Omar spoke at the Centenary May Day 2013 celebration, which the President chaired.

    The President General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Peter Esele, condemned the light sentence given John Yusuf, who pleaded guilty to stealing about N2.3bn pension fund, even as he called on the National Assembly to immediately review the laws under which he was tried.

    He said: “We are particularly miffed at the ridiculously ‘friendly’ sentence that was awarded by an Abuja High Court against John Yusuf, the confessed pension thief, some weeks ago. We reiterate our earlier stand that the said sentence be appealed against by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). We also prescribe that the provisions of the laws under which he was charged and sentenced be reviewed by the National Assembly with a view to stipulating sufficiently commensurate punishment for the offences therein. John Yusufu and his likes should not be allowed to loot our collective commonwealth and go scot free.”

    In a somehow tacit reference to the Yusufu case, Jonathan admonished the labour unions to snatch their members in the collective fight against corruption.

    He said: “Labour has been in the forefront of the demand for good governance and the increase action against corruption and these issues are been vigorously tackled on various fronts. Prosecution is being pursed in matters arising from the fuel subsidy fraud, embezzlement of pension funds and other serious long standing malpractices being demystified by this administration. Even at the core of this perpetration are the senior and junior members of labour unions. Greater attention to peer review action on the part of labour will be much appreciated.”

    He described the 2013 May Day celebration as unique in that it coincided with the country’s centenary celebration. He, however, vowed that the Federal Government would leave no stone unturned toward the practical enhancement of the welfare of all workers both in the private and public sectors and the facilitation of better understanding with employers and the government.

    On the government’s efforts to ensure a good life for the citizenry, Jonathan added: “Since the advent of this administration, our actions and policies have been geared towards putting the country on the path of sustainable progress where everyone can better achieve his or her dream. That is the thrust of our transformation agenda.

    “The transformation agenda is about setting and implementing measures today in order to give our people a brighter tomorrow. It is about creating jobs, creating wealth and ensuring a better deal for Nigerians. This is an onerous task that requires the support of all citizens of this country. Central to this transformation is the creation of politically stable environment in which economic development activities will flourish. To this end, we are strengthening our institutions and confronting the challenges facing our country with great determination and faith.”

  • Jonathan/Amaechi: If this is not war…

    Jonathan/Amaechi: If this is not war…

    After the latest outbreak of cold war rhetoric between President Goodluck Jonathan’s government and the Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, the Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Mr Ahmed Gulak, declared that the governor was not above the law. But he added that in spite of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) grounding the Rivers State Bombadier private jet in which the governor flew into Akure last week, the presidency was not waging war against Amaechi. Really? Hardball may not be interested in who is to blame for provoking the pitched battles between the president and the governor, but to say that no war is being fought between the two combatants is to stretch credulity to breaking point. The grounding of the aircraft, which first took place at the Akure Airport, is now fully implemented, with the NCAA insisting the plane’s clearance had expired since April 2. It is all politics, say aides of the governor.

    If the grounded aircraft showed beyond doubt that the presidency has trained its guns on Amaechi, the sacking of the Rivers State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman, Godspower Ake, by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja about two weeks ago gave a concrete feel to a war that had up till then been fought clandestinely since 2010. Since Amaechi will not give the presidency any quarter, and because the 2015 elections are not too far away, the state machinery of the PDP had to be taken away from his camp and given to Chief Felix Obuah, even if it involved some juridical sleight of hand. The state PDP war may manifest in the shape of Godspower Ake fighting Chief Nyesom Wike, the Minister of State for Education, for the soul of the PDP, but in reality the combatants are Jonathan and Amaechi. Proceeding from taking control of the Rivers PDP from the Amaechi camp, the Jonathan group has gone ahead to announce the suspension of the Speaker of the House, Otelemaba Dan Amachree, and the other 26 pro-Amaechi PDP members in the House of Assembly.

    The Jonathan/Amaechi war, it will be recalled, began inauspiciously in August 2010 when the First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan, paid a two-day visit to Rivers State and had a public spat with Amaechi at her hometown, Okrika, while inspecting a project. The war, however, went up a notch when a major disagreement broke out between the president’s home state, Bayelsa, and Amaechi’s Rivers over boundary adjustment alleged to have been surreptitiously influenced by the president. The adjusted boundary, claimed Rivers, unlawfully transferred the rich Soku oil fields in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State to Oluasiri in Nembe Local Government of Bayelsa State, thereby opening a battle between the Kalabari and Nembe.

    While the ugly oil war was yet to abate, the presidency opened another front by throwing a wild cat among the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) pigeons. The target was, of course, Amaechi. Previously united, the NGF has become an emblem of disunity, with the Governor of Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio, proudly leading a coterie of PDP governors to form a breakaway faction of the governors’ forum. This guerilla war is set to become an open, conventional war soon, as the governors prepare to elect a chairman. It is indeed amazing how in a little over two years, the presidency has locked horns four times with Amaechi, while the latter has himself not shirked a fight. The presidency appears to have vowed it will not rest until the latter is humiliated, for the presidency in Nigeria is so powerful that few monarchies in history could project power as viciously as it does, or brook opposition without diminishing the splendour in which it basks. Luckily for patient and bemused spectators, it won’t be long before we know the winner.