Nothing reveals the essential President Goodluck Jonathan as when he extemporises. The speeches may turn out not to be inspiring or even informative, nor sometimes offer his audience any philosophical guide or lessons. However, they always reveal his mind, which is often inscrutably disengaged; his ideas, if they can be so described; his scope, using the most conservative measurements; and his limitations and worldview. Last Sunday, at the Aso Villa Chapel, Dr Jonathan once again gave the country stellar performance from his rich repository of innocent, youthful outbursts. The occasion was hardly appropriate, seeing that it was a memorial service in honour of Nelson Mandela, but his conclusion was unmistakeable, even as it was highly controversial and deeply wounding. The speech was largely extempore, but it came from jottings. Had it been a prepared speech, it would probably have been weeded of its many blatant flaws, baits and unreflective provocations.
His simple thesis was that given the nature of Nigerian politicians, a nature he gratuitously bestowed upon other African leaders somewhere along his speech, Nigeria could never produce someone as great as Mandela. It is not clear why he thought and spoke so negatively, and especially on that sombre occasion when it was more useful to draw upon the nuanced lessons of Mr Mandela’s life and to gently prod his wary audience into emulating the life of the departed icon. The relief, however, though this is not an excuse, must be that at least it was not a prepared speech that benefited from the introspection and research expected of the leader of 170 million people.
It was clear that the Jonathan speech reflected something much more insidious than the topic of Mandela’s example which it pretended to address. Dr Jonathan’s Aso Villa speech betrayed the anger and frustrations he has endured in the past few years. Indeed, there are few occasions since he assumed the presidency when he has not ventilated his bitter reservations about his critics, most of whom he believes are unfair and wicked. Not too long ago, he even concluded that he was probably the most vilified president in the whole world. That of course was an exaggeration, but this has not deterred him from responding furiously to every criticism with characteristic lack of presidential dignity.
Nothing will mollify the rage and disgust Dr Jonathan feels for his critics. And though he cleverly used pronouns such as ‘we’ and ‘us’ as the subject of his discourse, it is clear he did not and could not have meant himself. He was referring strictly to others – his enemies, opponents and critics. If proof is required, all you need do is read his speech closely, and you will discover that he referred to himself only in those places where he talked of leaders who were criticised in the early years of their reign, but canonised as their reforms began to yield fruits. Dr Jonathan’s literary sleight must, therefore, be de-emphasised in order to have a proper understanding of the bitterness that caused his speech to misfire badly last Sunday.
During the memorial service in honour of Mr Mandela, the president established the foundation for his drastic conclusion in the following words: “In fact, if you listen to those of us who are politicians, from all political parties, the way we talk; some of us speak as if Nigeria is their personal bedrooms that they have control over. Read the papers, listen to the radio and television and the social media and see how politicians talk; we intimidate, we threaten, show force in our communication. This definitely is not the virtue of great men. They are certainly the vices of tiny men.” Apart from the brutal inappropriateness of that kind of talk at a memorial service, the president seems undisguisedly and a little shamelessly flustered. He is bothered that his critics are relentless and aggressive. His was, therefore, a plaintive, hopeless cry for relief.
Yet, his arguments showed more pointedly that the label he sought to slam on his traducers in fact depicts his style and that of his aides such as the effusive Doyin Okupe, the cynical and hyperbolic Ahmed Gulak who thinks the ruling party owned Nigerians, and the scaremongering Nyesom Wike who personifies the immoderation that assails presidential corridors. Much more than any of his critics, Dr Jonathan has spoken with much thunder and meanness like someone who sees Nigeria as his bedroom, and has trampled on the freedoms and liberties of his countrymen with such ferocity that few would dispute a description of him as a monarch.
Finally, to cap a bad speech, the president then deadpans: “Sometimes when I listen to politicians, the ones older than me, my contemporaries and some even the younger ones, I come to the painful conclusion that it would be probably easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a politician to be truly great.” It is hard to explain his pains. Clearly, the president does not have an understanding of what great leadership is all about, whether as it relates to its metaphysical properties, or the discipline, sacrifices, charisma, intuition, and the often unfathomable intellect that constitute its rubric. Unable to understand these properties, Dr Jonathan simply chose the wrong moment and wrong place to trivialise the topic and to make sweeping and pejorative judgement about his country’s fallibilities.
Even discounting the many howlers in his speech, such as when he used ‘pressurised’ for pressured, and his appalling misunderstanding and misconception of China’s developmental trajectory, the speech was still a very bad attempt at justifying his cynicism of fellow politicians and pessimism of Nigeria’s self-belief. All his Sunday speech showed was not why Nigeria could not produce its own Mandela, but how unable he is in adequately grasping the concept of leadership. The closest he came to understanding the idea was when he spoke glowingly about Mr Mandela’s fine attributes, the icon’s great skill in uniting peoples, forgiven his enemies and exhibiting humility. He then added the contradistinctive observation of bad leaders who sought vengeance and practised repression. It was almost as if the president forgot what he has been doing in Rivers State.
If Nigeria has not produced its own Mandelas, it is not because Dr Jonathan’s critics and fellow politicians talk as if Nigeria is their bedroom, an obvious barb directed at the top politicians of the All Progressives Congress (APC), but because only South Africa could have produced a Mandela, just as only the US could have produced a Lincoln, China a Mao Zedong, Soviet Union its Lenin and Stalin, etc. If Nigeria has a surfeit of what Dr Jonathan describes with cruel mockery as ‘tiny men’ it is because he himself, not to talk of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and others before him, had failed to seize the moment. And they failed to seize the moment because they lacked the philosophical depth to judge the moment. It is noteworthy that by his analysis Dr Jonathan writes himself off. No one will dispute his self-reproof. But Dr Jonathan’s pessimism must not fool us into thinking Nigeria does not have the objective conditions for producing great leaders.
Great leaders can be produced in Nigeria, and will be produced when the contradictions and circumstances are ripe. Imagine, for instance, if the departing military rulers had not foisted the misfit Chief Obasanjo on Nigeria in 1999, and if he in turn had not foisted the lethargic Umaru Yar’Adua on the country in 2007? It is indeed a deep and disturbing irony that Chief Obasanjo missed the self-reproof in his televised tribute to Mr Mandela, whom he praised for turning down his (Obasanjo’s) suggestion to go for a second term, an indication both of the nobility and self-abnegation of Mr Mandela and the ignobility and self-aggrandisement of Chief Obasanjo.
By all means let Dr Jonathan continue to give us his extemporaneous speeches, perhaps armed only with highlights of his discourse. For then, in spite of his often disapproving style and content, it would open a window into his ingenuous mind, assuring us that a few more years of Dr Jonathan would be both a costly misadventure for the country and a destiny deferred or altogether destroyed.
