The Nation Newspaper

Tag: matter

  • When will Nigerian lives begin to matter?

    It is becoming clearer that no one would take the dignity of the Nigerian seriously until such a time when we collectively stop rating ourselves from the prisms of tribe, religion and social class. We are too bigoted to these things to the point that our revulsion or otherwise to the decimation of our citizens is propelled by those factors. Is it not sad that you rarely get that feeling of general angst or spirit of communality in our reaction to issues that touch on the wellbeing of the collective? Take, for example, the xenophobic attacks unleashed on Nigerians and other settlers in South Africa by black indigenes. At a time when you expect a united front and one voice raised against a dangerous trend that could spell the doom for the African Union, it is a national shame that certain persons still feel unconcerned on the pretext that those that were affected come from a certain part of the country. Some even question why this set of Nigerians always travel to other lands to presumably, take over the local business ventures from the original indigenes. That is how frivolously tactless we have become as a people. It is this kind of attitude that oils the mutual feeling of suspicions and hatred in our land.

    We miss the point when we reduce the madness going on in South Africa to the banal mentality that defines our interpersonal relationship over here. We need to bond if we must conquer.  But we rarely do, Those suffering xenophobic attacks in South Africa and mind blowing discrimination in Libya and other places are not just Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa; they are Nigerians! It is when we stop this social and ethnic stereotyping of our humanity – an odious thing that our black tormentors in South Africa have taken a step further – that we can positively tackle the enemy within and without. We rarely pay serious attention to the vilest monstrosities visited on our fellow citizens if they had the misfortune of coming from a different socio-political zone. Worse still, we easily perceive that subjective enemy gene in those born outside our ethnic cum religious backgrounds such that it defines our adversarial temperament. And, if we must say the truth, the xenophobic attacks in faraway South Africa are merely a rehash of the local violence that has permeated our quotidian living as a people from time immemorial. That explains the revulsion we nurse against that Hausa Fulani, that Igbo man, that noisy Yoruba man or that Ijaw minority who is always asking for self-determination.

     

    The point is that the Nigerian nation has wasted too much time wringing its hands in submission and watching helplessly as its citizens get whacked with the wrong end of the stick even from countries with population that is not up to that of a local government in any of our states. Before we blame the leadership of those countries, we should first tell the truth to the powers that be in our own backyard. Perhaps, if we put the nation first in all that we do, our citizens wouldn’t be traveling from Sao Tome and Principe to the Gambia, from Kenya to Zambia, from Mozambique to the Congo in search of greener pastures. If we had provided the pastures in abundance here, there is that possibility that less Nigerians would have fallen victims to the misfortunes confronting them across the globe. Of course, we cannot rule out the greed and criminality that push many to the edge of idiocy. We cannot rule that out. But that does not in any way justify the condescending attitude the governments of most of these countries have shown in addressing the matter. Maybe they know we would do nothing other than lamely condemn the act, And then, life continues while relatives of the dead mourn their loss!

    Ordinarily, it should not take the affirmative action of the National Assembly to reawaken the consciousness of a sleeping executive to be decisive about the nonsense going on South Africa. By the way, what message was the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mrs. Khadijah Abba Ibrahim, attempting to pass when she told the lawmakers that no Nigerian was killed in the latest attacks by those hate vendors in South Africa? It is this kind of laid back foreign affairs policy and cocky patronizing messages that give venom to the kind of madness unveiling in that country. This is not helped by the statement credited to Jacob Zuma who offhandedly dismissed the allegations of xenophobia against his cudgel-wielding citizens unleashing terror on other nationals. Sometimes, you wonder if the Nigerian government is waiting for the mass killings of its citizens living in these countries before it would have believable evidence to roar back from its usual position of weakness.

    I may not support the rash decision by some persons calling for a mass boycott of investments linked to South African-owned firms in Nigeria. That is another sore point in our development as a nation. Those investors exploited our inadequacies as a nation to set up companies that have become monopolies. However, I really don’t understand why this government cannot, for once, take a firm position on the matter. As usual, the national assembly has resorted to the silly idea of sending a high-powered delegation to South Africa on a fact-finding mission. We always relish this kind of opportunity to make extra cash in the name official assignment. Do these guys thinks any member of the South African parliament would freely give out information that would damage the image of the country where xenophobia thrives? What other facts would they get when the country’s leader has made a veiled reference to the impossibility of such a tag on the mean faces of the attackers, who happen to be his people?

    In fact, the Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila-led fact-finding delegation to South Africa is nothing but another drainpipe to our economy. That also includes the ‘powerful’ delegation set up by the Senate to be led by Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu. To the best of my knowledge, Nigeria has a functional embassy in South Africa with professional staff that should furnish the home office with adequate information on the true state of things as they affect our citizens in that country. With this information, a serious-minded government should make public its next line of action instead of blowing cold water on a burning furnace. Well, that is if we take the lives of every citizen seriously rather than reducing it to just a number as we often do with that of thousands that had been lost here. If the lawmakers are interested in tourism, they could as well do that outside the context of this excuse that they were going on a fact-finding mission. I just don’t get it.

    Having expressed their dissatisfaction with how the Federal Government has handled the attacks on Nigerians, it would have been more ennobling if the lawmakers take the backseat and focus on the things that ‘kill’ us as a nation. By this, I mean those ignoble things they do at the top that push some of these hapless citizens to seek better life in far flung places. Has it ever occurred to them that they kill us by installment when we read about how they allocate millions of naira to themselves as salaries and emoluments when all they do is fight over constituency projects and use a large part of the legislative calendar year on endless recess, Do they know how we die silently when they connive with the executive to pad the budget and share the loot through the backdoors? Do they even know how we feel when all their huffing and puffing against the executive end up as another inconsequential fretting of legislative paper tigers?

    Back to the matter, we cannot forever play the ostrich while minnow countries take advantage of our seeming reluctance to defend our citizens with the clarity of purpose that is needed. We cannot pretend that we don’t know when and how to grab South Africa by the balls. No one is saying that the laws of that land should not be applied if some criminal elements who happen to be Nigerians are found wanting. For now, the footages we have seen on credible Nigerian news channels point to the herd mentality of painting every Nigerian living in that country as drug barons, fraudsters and evil-minded stealers of jobs meant for South African citizens. That picture is totally unacceptable and the mob mentality on display is abhorrent. The time for long speeches and cautious diplomatese ought to be over long before now. What ought to be today are strong, explicit messages coming from Nigeria to those South African officials offering silly excuses for a clear case of bloody xenophobia that has unjustifiably turned many of our citizens in Mandela’s country into walking corpses and rotten cadavers. Former President Olsegun Obasanjo has set the right tone by blaming the South African leadership for its crying incompetence in stemming the tide while calling on the government here to create an Eldorado at home so that the rush for Greener Pastures elsewhere will drastically reduce. Now, don’t ask me what Obasanjo did in his time, Is there someone out there in the corridors of power ready to truly change the narrative that Nigerian lives matter, no matter where they live?

     

     

  • Why our choices matter

    SIR: Any system that offers a choice platform like the Western representative democracy is worth appreciating for saving people from a monotonous and dictatorship-like government. Popular elections make a choice possible in a democracy just as popular elections and representative democracy are inseparable for the former could be taken as a tool through which the latter materialises and functions.

    Alas, representative democracy is not synonymous with sound leadership even when the elections that produce such leadership are adjudged to be sound. This is one of the unresolved contradictions of the Western democracy imported into Africa. It is not an overstatement that the country has been bereft of sound leadership capable of ensuring better living for the citizens.

    But in my humble but candid opinion, the nation’s stakeholders should note that the country lacks followership that could be adjudged sound enough to make right leadership choices. Our choices have never been guided by rationality. Instead, we invoke all manners of sentiment to shape our choices including such sensitive means as leadership needed to attain development which is the end anyway; hence the emergence of leaders who cannot save themselves not to talk of the governed. The concept of leadership in the country now connotes ruling with no end in view. There are rulers who never see their exalted position as a means to an end. Save the nation’s First Republic that witnessed a set of ruling class who probably could have neared sound leadership had there been no military intervention, we cannot boast of any sound leader since the return to civil rule in 1999. No doubt, the people’s choices have always played ignoble role in the emergence of the opposites of sound leadership we have ever had in the country. Search the personalities of the successive presidents, governors, and legislators since the return to civil rule more than 17 years ago carefully. Hardly would there be one who had not wounded the collective conscience of the Nigerian society at one point or the other, and yet they were chosen by Nigerians to lead them in the execution and enactment of law. That some of them had been strongly accused of carting away oil money in the past, sponsoring cultists and other men of the dark world to foment trouble in some sections of the country, making crisis-inducing statements, aiding electoral malpractices including being a partial umpire in a general election or disrupting a democratic system is not strange to the politically conscious minds in the country.

    How come these personalities were elected to occupy such apex political offices as presidency, governorship and national-state assemblies at different points in our political history even when there had been many candidates without any notable flaws competing with them in a general election? Could this be explained by the old saying that a known devil is better an unseen angel? Of course, if this thought had guided the electorate in choosing their successive presidents, governors and legislators since 1999, complaining about misrule at any point in time is not necessary. Rather, we should re-examine those factors dictating our preferences as followers and electorate so as to make productive leadership choices that can steer the nation’s affairs to our collective delight. It is high time we stopped complaining about bad leadership in the country since we have always got what we chose in either a free and fair or a highly manipulated election because it is the same electorate who volunteer to make the manipulation possible. It is only through this approach we can collectively avoid the dangers associated with irrational choices which have been haunting and hurting us since the return to civil rule.

     

    • George Oludare Ibikunle,

    Ibadan.

  • The matter of Buhari’s appointments

    It would amount to an abdication of responsibility on a serious matter of public interest to allow obviously sectional distribution of appointments to stand unchallenged for fear of being called names or some other mundane promptings. The feeling is not new since President Buhari began his appointments that he accords scant regard to national spread and most of his appointments are skewed disproportionately in favour of the north. The response of some of his aides at those initial stages was to call for patience as the needed balance will come subsequently even as they also canvassed the issue of merit. But more of such appointments have since come with the naming of the Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF) and Chief of Staff to the president among others only to widen the gulf in earlier observations.

    Not unexpectedly, some prominent Nigerians and groups have deprecated what has been seen as the sectional tinge in those appointments. Apparently sensing danger in the growing trend, no less a person than the National Chairman of the ruling party, Chief John Oyegun, rose in defense. He told a delegation that visited him to be patient as the president will balance federal appointments across geo-political zones. For him, “we have two sets of appointments that have been taking place. One set is the personal privilege of Mr. President as far as his personal staff is concerned. The other set has to do with a few and strategic persons that are going to help him either in the fight against corruption or against insurgency in the north-east, but this is not where to play the political balancing game” He said the president has the right to appoint those he has confidence in because these are the areas he has made promises to Nigerians. Oyegun was also quick to add that there are thousands of other political appointments that are going to be made. And the balancing will come with them.

    Oyegun is entitled to his opinion. But it is doubtful whether many will reason along with him on what he purports as justification for the way those appointments have come. It is correct that much of these appointments are the personal privilege of the president. It is also no less a truism that the choice of those to appoint are essentially his.

    But that is the extent to which his arguments can be pursued. Beyond these and by way of further extrapolation, those arguments are contradicted by the same reasons for which they are intended to persuade the public. There is a contradiction in the assumption that in the making of even personal appointments, only a preponderance of people from particular areas can be found qualified and well-trusted for those positions. It is difficult to sustain such a latent impression especially when we are talking of national assignments. There is nothing personal about those national appointments as we are erroneously being made to believe except they will not be subjected to any other body for approval. That is the more reason the president should have been guided by the overall national interest in arriving at them. Well-qualified and trusted people abound all over the country and the formidable coalition that saw Buhari to power was all that should have been called into action when sourcing for such people.

    If this logical flaw is not sufficient to draw the point nearer, the picture painted by Oyegun of a few strategic persons that will help the president in the fight against corruption and insurgency in the north-east as further justification, further mocks the entire issue. It not only reduces such national engagements to personal but sectional issues. Neither the fight against corruption nor that against insurgency should lend themselves to such trivialization and reductionism. And those who will aid the president in their prosecution are not and should not be limited to any particular section of the country. That is the problem we run into in an attempt to enter defence for actions that have obviously not gone done well with the people.

    Even then, this is not the first time we are passing through such situations. Obasanjo was there for eight years. We did not have cause to raise similar infractions. Neither was such personal and strategic appointments dominated by particular sections of the country as we are now being made to believe. Obasanjo had his problems but he had very trusted and dependable personal aides from other geo-political zones and they served him very dutifully. Though short-lived, the Yar’ Adua regime did not have such a baggage. And the immediate past regime of Jonathan just like Obasanjo appointed people outside his ethnic group as SGF and Chief of Staff.

    So there are good grounds to take Buhari to task as his appointments are not borne out of precedent. Those who seek to defend him on such grounds as we have seen are making no point.  So it was also when governors Rochas Okorocha and Adams Oshiomhole of Imo and Edo states respectively sought to justify the appointments. For Okorocha, the president’s appointments are in the nation’s best interest as he can appoint anyone from any part of the country. He said he is more interested in projects coming down the south-east than the appointments.

    It is hoped he has the minds of his constituents in this. But even as we wait for such projects including the Second Niger Bridge, those on whose behalf he has spoken equally need the appointments. And it cannot be claimed that sections which benefitted disproportionately from these appointments will be left out when the touted projects are being shared. So on what basis would he want his people to be left out of the sharing process even when it is generally known that he had sought for the position of the SGF for the zone without success?

    Oshiomhole trivialized the matter when he urged Nigerians to “praise Buhari for having the uncommon courage to take plausible decisions in the appointments”, whatever that means. For him, the appointments were based on merit and not political sentiments or ethnic considerations. Again, he is entitled to his opinion even when such may run at cross purposes with those of his immediate constituency. It is also instructive that the two governors that found it expedient to speak come from the south-east and south-south zones that were reputed not to have voted for Buhari during the last elections.

    It is possible they were motivated by the groundswell of public discontent against those appointments in the two zones. The extent to which their interventions can reverse these perceptions will be borne out with time.

    But more seriously, infractions as this are the greatest obstacles to the peace and unity of this country. The bitter competition for the control of the centre as witnessed in the last elections is propelled and reinforced by lack of confidence by sections about  adequate protection by leaders other than those from their ethnic stock. That is the malady that is being reinforced when we give the impression that the president’s personal appointments should have nothing to do with balance.

    So why should the struggle for power in this clime not continue to be rancorous if a president cannot take into confidence people of other zones or if he cannot find people from other zones on a high scale of merit for such appointments. At any rate, since when has merit fled the shores of more enterprising sections of this country that it has now become an issue? We need to watch the monsters we create today.

  • The matter of Osun Poly registrar

    SIR: It has become very necessary for me to lend my voice to the current unwarranted controversy trailing the appointment of the Registrar of Osun State Polytechnic, Iree.

    As an alumnus, I watched, with keen interest, the process of the appointment of the registrar and I have taken time off to weigh the contending issues.

    I realised that the Governing Council of the Polytechnic stands on the side of the truth and integrity on the matter. The Council acted in the best interest of maintaining the positive image of the Polytechnic by appointing a man of integrity, knowledge and experience to the post.

    Therefore, there is need to put an end to this needless controversy. From my independent findings, I realised that the process of the appointment followed the due process and that there is no dispute over the certificate of the officer who is a product of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

    The new registrar possesses a Second Class Upper Degree in English Language in 1989 from OAU, Ile-Ife. He is also a member of many professional bodies such as Nigerian Institute of Management and

    Chartered Institute of Arbitrators of Nigeria.

    It is embarrassing to read in the newspapers the man was not qualified to hold the position.

    It is pertinent to note that Osun State is lucky to have a meticulous governor, Rauf Aregbesola who is always painstaking in handling issues. The governor, who is a catalyst of change and an apostle of integrity would not open his eyes and allow corruption under his watch. I congratulate the Council, once again, for the courage to toe the path of honour despite intimidations by some cabals.

    I appeal to those faceless individuals sponsoring unjustified write-ups in the newspapers against the registrar to desist and allow peace to reign at OSPOLY so that those of us carrying the certificates of the polytechnic would not be subjected to further ridicule in our places of work.

     

    • Hameed Oyegbade

    Osogbo, Osun State

     

  • Not a shouting matter

    Not a shouting matter

    The recent news that Adams Oshiomhole, the Edo State governor, and Mohammed Bello Adoke, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, verbally assaulted each other at the council chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, may have come as a big surprise. A hot argument had ensued between both public officials when they met at the State House for the Council of State meeting on the recent Presidential pardon granted to some VIP ex-convicts. The bone of contention was the shoddy handling of the investigation of the murder of Olaitan Oyerinde, Oshiomhole’s Private Secretary. It almost got out of hand but for the quick intervention of those who witnessed the ugly scene.

    Trouble reportedly started when the AGF told the governor that Oyerinde’s matter should not have been referred to his office as it was a state matter. Oshiomhole said he was enraged because the AGF seemed not to have respect for his office. According to him, Adoke should have directed his anger at the Deputy Inspector General of Police that referred the case to the federal level.

    Oshiomhole said: “And I asked him who should know better? If the Deputy Inspector General of Police refers a matter that he ought to have referred to the state to the federal Attorney General, who is the one dragging him into the matter? Who is the one politicising the matter? And I said if he has any complaint he should complain to the DIG who referred the case to him.”

    Oshiomhole was not done yet: “The point is that you know some of these guys. I am a governor. I am elected. A minister is appointed. He has to respect my office even if he doesn’t respect my person…We also complained that this matter ought to have been referred to Edo State DPP not federal because it is a state offence, committed in Edo State. I am doing my best to raise the issue because that is the least I owe someone who gave his life. And someone else who doesn’t think life is important is attacking me. For him, it is a matter to trivialize and to joke about.”

    When he was cornered by journalists on his way out of the Villa after the meeting, all Adoke could say was that he had no reason not to accord due respect to a sitting governor like Oshiomhole. He said, “I will not disregard his office. He is my personal friend. I have the highest respect for him. He is a governor of this country but I will not join issues with him. I did not trivialize his office and I have no reason to trivialize his office.”

    Ever since the news broke out, I have watched the video clips of the altercation several times. It is very shameful to say the least. When one considers that such a thing could happen right inside the executive chamber of the Presidential Villa where important decisions that could make or break this great country are taken, then it becomes an abomination altogether. During those fleeting moments the altercation lasted, it was as if the sanctity of the chamber was desecrated.

    In the first place, there was no reason for such an altercation to have occurred. If, as the governor rightly said, the AGF walked up to him where he was seated and said that the Edo State AG should have known what to do when the Police referred the murder file to the AGF for advice, Adoke could have done this on a lighter mood, not jokingly as the governor claimed. By this, the AGF’s action could be interpreted to mean that he only wanted to open a window of opportunity to explain certain things to the governor.

    Perhaps, the AGF thought that he could put the governor on the same page with him and shed light on the Oyerinde’s issue as a way of breaking the logjam in which the case is now enmeshed. It thus appears as if, rather than be calm and allow the AGF to unfold his real intention to him, the governor suddenly grew impatient and blew up the whole thing. I am sure that Adoke could not have been joking with such a sad, sensitive and controversial issue.

    When Oshiomhole took the Police to task in Abuja recently over the shoddy manner the investigation into Oyerinde’s murder has been carried out, this column celebrated the governor for his doggedness in the pursuit of justice for his slain personal secretary. However, this latest show by the governor looks more like the product of uncontrolled temperament, which cannot be excused. Therefore, my take on this avoidable altercation is that, in as much as the AGF publicly said he had “no reason not to accord due respect to a sitting governor like Oshiomhole” and that “he will not join issues with him”, the governor should have reciprocated his gesture in a more cordial manner. As they say,”respect begets respect”. If a governor can ‘vibrate’ on or holler at a sitting AGF like Oshiomhole did, how will he treat those who are genuflecting before him in Benin City?

    The governor said while he was elected, the AG was appointed and so what? Who cares? The governor has a duty to perform just like the AG also has a duty, nay, a daunting task to perform as well. The issue of trying to accord one more importance than the other does not arise. Both are very sensitive and important positions. Perhaps, if you engage lawyers on this issue, they might want to say that the position of a federal attorney-general carries more responsibility than that of a governor, but that is not the intention of this piece. What this piece is all about is to point out the fact that the governor may have over-dramatised his pent-up anger against the AGF. That was why he may have scuttled the AG’s good intention.

    I think the governor should have been patient enough to allow the AGF conclude his speech when he approached him. I do not believe that the AGF was out to trivialise the case of Oyerinde. He was probably trying to look at the issue from a lighter mood which the governor resented and it blew up in his face.

    After the entire scenario had died down, Adoke refused to be ‘tricked’ by anxious journalists who had expected him to fume like the governor did. He simply maintained that the governor was a “personal friend” and that he had the highest respect for him. I doff my hat for him for that. But if it is true that Oshiomhole is, indeed, Adoke’s friend, then it means, perhaps, that the governor could have possibly woken up from the wrong side of the bed on that fateful day and that accounted for his sudden burst of anger.

    A lot of things are happening in the polity these days such that can work up many a chief executive of a state. Administering a state as tempestuous and volatile as Edo State might not be a tea party after all. So many issues are in contention for attention. The civil servants are at war over the appointment of someone out of the civil service as a permanent secretary. The governor had recently turned down the request of the Minister of Information to open the State’s vault for the purpose of hosting the jamboree called “good governance tour”. Many other issues like that could be a positive source of migraine for a governor.

    It is quite shameful that even at the position of a governor, justice is still elusive in this case. That goes to show the level of rot in our Justice system in this country. And Adoke alone cannot be held responsible for that. It is just as important that all Nigerians, and not only Oshiomhole, should strive to get to the root of Oyerinde’s murder without making real and imaginary enemies at every turn and bus stop.

  • A matter of honour

    A matter of honour

    It was a political bombshell by any scale and for good measure, it is bound to keep reverberating in the polity until the next presidential election begins mid next year. And the bearer of the high-octane message is not one to shy from a political bout; in fact, it is almost his nature to get in the fray of such rows. Babangida Aliyu, governor of Niger state, has told the world that President Goodluck Jonathan signed a pact with some governors of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to serve only one term in office. Aliyu who is a governor from the PDP platform and chairman of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) made this claim during an interview with a Kaduna-based radio station, Liberty FM, penultimate Saturday. Aliyu has raised a pithy point. This singular remark has the power to change the course of Nigeria’s history. That is how serious it is.

    While the nation has been squirming under the seeming revelation, the Presidency has immediately denied the claim and of course denounced the bearer to boot. The Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak, responding, said, “President Jonathan did not sign any agreement with anybody to the best of my knowledge.” Gulak, living up to the status of the presidential hawk he is, would not let Aliyu go so easily. He introduced a diversionary twist to the story thus: “The alleged agreement only exists in the figment of the imagination of somebody with presidential ambition.” He also put a spin to it by reminding the governor that President Jonathan did not win in his Niger state in the last election.

    As has already emerged going by the presidential adviser’s tone and manner of response, this serious issue that affects the number one office in the land and borders on the honour and integrity of the number one citizen would soon veer into the realm of political gamesmanship, chicanery and even attention- diverting buffoonery. But nothing, absolutely nothing, will obliterate the germane question of honour that is inherent in this.

    For the purpose of clarity and posterity, some questions should be answered. Did a meeting of 20 out of 27 governors hold December 16, 2010 to discuss the issue under reference? Was it true that Jonathan’s assent to a one-term pact was required before the convening of the NEC meeting of the PDP? According to reports, President Jonathan described the governors as field commanders who should not be toyed with. Did the president say so?

    It must be stated upfront that President Goodluck Jonathan has not made any official declaration to run for a second term in 2015. It is significant that no PDP governor has denied or affirmed the Aliyu allegation. The issues are that first, he emerged under a peculiar circumstance. Second, the all-important question of presidential honour and integrity cannot be vitiated.

    President Jonathan is a child of circumstance having emerged as Acting President upon the demise of his boss, President Umaru Yar’Adua, in 2010. In a moment of national angst, the Senate had to concoct a special dispensation termed ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ to unction Jonathan onto the vacant seat and calm frayed nerves across sections of the polity. No sooner did Jonathan seize the reins of power than election time came. Would he run or would he not? Under the law and the constitution of the land, he was entitled to run but there were equally important ethical and political considerations that could not be ignored. His party, the PDP, has documented quota arrangement which he was privy to and which rendered him ineligible for the 2011 election. The nation was torn into two down the middle: he was the incumbent and his part of the country had been disadvantaged since independence but the North needed to complete its term in the prime office. The PDP bent its quota rules in favour of the incumbent, Jonathan. It was a bitter and hard-fought presidential primary in which everything allegedly was deployed including a bit of horse-trading, arm-twisting and even cash. It is under this circumstance that Jonathan wrung out a win.

    It is not unlikely that in the heat of all this and the desperation to win his prize, he may have penned some pact. For sure, there were a series of nocturnal meetings especially with the governors of the North who were under an especial pressure from their people not to bargain away what seemed like their inalienable right. If there was such a pact, it would have been yet again, another special dispensation in favour of Jonathan. It indeed required an element of particular forbearance for the political bigwigs of the North to have allowed Jonathan jump the queue and assume the high office.

    It is on this score that if perchance there was a pact – written or verbal – President Jonathan would do well to honour it regardless of how hurtful the proposition may seem. We state with vehemence that it is in the best interest of his person, the presidency, the polity, the values of a refined society and even the populace that he does not renege on such a pact. He should ignore the multitude of carpet-baggers, hawks and vultures egging on the president and dredging up reasons why he must run. The president must shun them and allow his better sense to prevail.

    We want him to consider how the world will probably stand still that remarkable day, that historic moment when he would make that unforgettable speech telling us that, on his honour, he would not run a second term because he promised not to do so. May we also remind him that it is never how long you sit on the throne but the impact you bring to bear on it. Examples abound: Nelson Mandela served only one term yet he remains the greatest man alive today and there are Nigerian leaders alive today who were president for two terms and more yet they do not have much regard in Nigeria and are actually scorned among the community of great leaders.

    Finally, greatness comes in different hues. Though a leader may not come in the mode of a great transformer and radical change agent, being honourable in dealing with his people, showing character in his actions and donning always the garb of the meek and humble would also earn such a leader his place in history. For Jonathan, history beckons.