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Tag: President Goodluck Jonathan

  • Verdict 2015: The week after

    Verdict 2015: The week after

    One of the most improbable transformations wrought by President Goodluck Jonathan’s Transformative Agenda centered on Dr Jonathan himself and occurred in the twilight of   his tenure.

    I have in mind Dr Jonathan’s brief telephone call to the APC candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, at a tension-soaked moment in the final stages of the collation of the election returns to concede defeat and to invite him to a meeting to kick-start the transition.

    Nothing had prepared the public for it.

    A PDP stalwart, Jonathan confidant, proxy, and former cabinet minister, Godsday Orubebe,   had barely an hour earlier held up proceedings at the collation centre, in a show of petulant contumacy seen around the world,  just when all the indications were that Dr Jonathan was going down to certain defeat.

    Rather ominously, Orubebe was assisted in this desperate enterprise by retired Colonel Tunde Bello-Fadile, a director in the office of the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.  Whether Bello-Fadile was there representing national security interests or as an attorney for the PDP, his presence was dramatic illustration of how thin the line separating the security of the state from the electoral fortunes of the PDP had become under Dr Jonathan’s administration.

    Ebullient as ever, Femi Fani-Kayode, the Jonathan campaign’s publicity chief, was declaring boldly how his private set of facts indicated that his principal had won outright in 23 states and out-polled Buhari by no fewer than 3 million votes.

    Not in the least daunted by the disaster unfolding before them—or more likely alarmed by it– other      operatives of the Jonathan Campaign, citing unspecified violations, demanded not a review but outright cancellation of the poll’s results in seven states.

    Through all this, the word was that Dr Jonathan was confident he would win, if he had not already done so.  Among the PDP faithful, the belief that they had carried the day was bolstered by an announcement that Musiliu Obanikoro had congratulated Dr Jonathan on his emphatic election victory.

    Obanikoro, who had lost his bid for the PDP gubernatorial ticket in Lagos, had recently been named junior minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by way of compensation.  His motive was dubious and self-serving.

    But if his example caught on and just a few dollarised traditional rulers were further dollarised to embark on a pilgrimage of solidarity to Aso Rock to pledge their unflinching loyalty to the Jonathan administration and its laudable, unprecedented, and far-sighted Transformative Agenda, the trickle might soon turn into a cascade, and it would be “June 12” all over again.

    A cascade was in fact rendered all the more probable by reports of raging discord in many a traditional ruler’s domain.  The paramount ruler, who had been given a sack stuffed with U.S. dollars in the presence of the royal court, carried on for days as if nothing had happened, until the lesser royals were constrained to ask ever so delicately:  Kábíyésì, tíbí nkó?

    Loose translation:  Your majesty, what became of that package?

    Whereupon Kábíyésì, feigning innocent forgetfulness, retreated into his boudoir and emerged some ten minutes later with seven bulging, sealed envelopes, one for each lesser royal.. The sheer heft of the envelopes sent not a few of them into rapturous reverie:  Just imagine how many young brides they could add to the royal harem, and how many new cars they could buy in the Naira economy.

    And they were about to render grateful obeisance to Kábíyésì when a yelp shattered the solemnity of the moment.  It had issued from one of the lesser royals as he crashed to the floor from his chair.  A heart attack, perhaps, occasioned by the sudden wealth he had just come into?

    He had opened the package and found that it was stuffed N200 bills.

    His experience could well set off a pilgrimage to Aso Rock by traditional rulers in search of dollar compensation.

    But I digress.

    Nothing, as I was saying, nothing had indicated that Dr Jonathan would concede.  Everything that had gone before suggested powerfully that he would hang in there and hang tough, doing or condoning anything that could secure political advantage.

    Had he not waged or condoned the vilest and most divisive electioneering campaign in Nigeria’s history, setting Christians against Muslims, soldiers and the police against civilians, and some nationalities against others?   Had his wife not supported him all the way, winning for him and his cause at every campaign stop a growing throng of implacable opponents by her habitual resort to coarse abuse, incitement and conduct most unbecoming?

    The record does not show that Dr Jonathan remonstrated with her or his aides to temper their incendiary language and provocative utterances.

    It was therefore most unlikely that he would concede under any circumstance.  Even if he was minded to, the cabal of which he was a prisoner would have none of it.  The PDP, as one of its leading lights Iyiola Omisore was reported to have said at one of the sessions where the strategy for rigging the last gubernatorial election in Ekiti was perfected, “The PDP is nothing without the Presidency.”

    But to everyone’s surprise, and to the discomfiture of the cabal aforementioned, he conceded.

    It has been said that the concession was literally wrung from him by retired General Abdulsalami Abubakar, acting at the behest of a consortium of African leaders and the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States.

    Whether Dr Jonathan made it voluntarily or it was wrung from him, history will record that the concession pulled Nigeria back from a looming abyss.  And in the popular consciousness, that singular act transformed him to a statesman of the first rank, nonpareil patriot, and one of the finest and noblest persons of this age.

    Considering the desperation, the divisiveness and the pusillanimity with which he conducted his campaign, and indeed how he has governed Nigeria in the past six years, the praise is in my opinion overwrought.  But it would be churlish to deny that, at the crucial moment, he bowed graciously to the popular will.

    He could have refused to concede, believing with his aides that a formula could still be found that would enable him hold on to power.  He could have decided that, if he must go down, he would   take with him the boat and the crew and the passengers. Between these two options he could have pursued any number of alternatives.

    But none of them would have given Nigeria the new sense of purpose, the return of optimism and the possibility of renewal that now perfuse the land. If he ends his tenure on this note, it will be said of him, paraphrasing the Bard, that nothing became him in office like the manner of his leaving it.

    Meanwhile, I gather that Omisore’s perceptive remark that the “the PDP is nothing without the Presidency” is set to become the ideology of its most desperate faction, with Omisore himself set to lead by personal example.

  • UN envoy lauds Jonathan’s sportsmanship

    THE United Nations Ambassador on Millennium Development Goals, Ambassador Karo Ekewenu, has lauded the sportsmanship displayed by President Goodluck Jonathan on the presidential election, saying that he is the number one agent of change in Nigeria.

    Ekewenu said President Jonathan’s name would go down in history as the most democratic president Nigeria has ever had.

    “I’m still amazed at the level of independence the INEC has had in conducting and collating the election and its results. Certainly, I am proud of President Jonathan. I am proud of him as a true diplomat,” he said.

    He added: “I am happy also that Mr. President conceded. It’s a sign of unity and greater things to come ahead for this nation. I love my country and want the best just as others do. So, we all won as long as our ideologies are never at loggerheads with the path of peace, equity and justice for our dear nation.”

    Ekewenu prayed God to grant General Muhammadu Buhari the wisdom and courage to pilot the affairs of Nigeria, adding that the president-elect must continue with the good legacy laid down by  President Jonathan.

  • Jonathan greets Nigerians

    Jonathan greets Nigerians

    •Assures of peaceful gov polls

    President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday felicitated with Nigerians on the celebration of Easter in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

    In his Easter message to the nation, he urged Nigerians to seize the opportunity of the season to reflect on what more they needed to do to ensure  the success of the current political process.

    He assured that the governorship elections will be peaceful just as the presidential exercise.

    He said: “I greet you all, especially our Christian brothers and sisters as we celebrate Easter in commemoration of the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

    “For Christians all over the world, the major lessons of Easter, which we celebrate this year in the midst of general elections in our nation, are to be found in the Messiah’s Divine love and glorious self-sacrifice for the redemption of mankind.

    “This year’s celebration of Easter is taking place at a period of very critical national choices and decisions, during which we must all be prepared and willing to make sacrifices for greater unity, peace, political stability and progress in our beloved country.

    “We must therefore seize the opportunity of the Easter holiday to reflect deeply on what more we need to do to ensure the political process in which we are currently engaged is successfully concluded and that our beloved country, Nigeria, continues to move towards a better future for all of its citizens.

    “Happily, we have already successfully scaled the hurdle of the Presidential and National Assembly Elections.  I am quite hopeful that the gubernatorial and state assembly elections will also be conducted peacefully.” he said

    He noted that the collective actions of Nigerians since March 28 have assured the world that the democratic spirit is alive and well in the nation.

  • Buhari victory: Dame Patience will be sorely missed

    Buhari victory: Dame Patience will be sorely missed

    Absence, it is said, makes the heart grow fonder. Already, even before they pack their bags and head for Otuoke, President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Dame Patience, have altered the chemistry of our turbulent and irrepressible relationship with the First Couple. President Jonathan has just lost the presidential election to Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general and former military head of state, by a margin that put the election beyond dispute, notwithstanding the antics of Godsday Orubebe, a former minister of the republic.

    Of the two colourful personalities, the president and his wife, Dame Patience is the more irreverent, excitable, insouciant and domineering. Her qualities, if diplomatic scruples will not allow us call them vices, are so remarkable and unmistakable that she has achieved domestic and international renown. She is the queen of malapropism, and the poster child of verbal indiscretion, not to say executive interference. But her reputation was sealed not by any of her constant malapropian eruptions, as memorable as many of them are and have remained, but by her catastrophic meddling in the now famous case of the 219 Chibok secondary schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram militants about a year ago.

    In that famous case, and about 10 days after the girls were abducted, she took on the responsibilities of the president and began summoning school and state officials to shed light on a crime she felt was either overstated or contrived to undermine her husband. Whatever she had a hand in, she boasted before doting officials and pressmen, she did fulsomely and efficiently. She would get to the bottom of the case, and she would do it briskly, she grimaced. Amidst great histrionics and tears cascading down her luxuriant face, she thundered one eruption after another of inimitable malapropisms. Unsure whether to stick to pidgin, with which she was perfectly at home, or something more First Lady-like, she would wander into proper English now and again, until the inconveniences of good grammar got in her way, and she would relapse into the more comfortable but inelegant style of her childhood.

    In the end, she of course failed, for the outcry that greeted her blunders, not to talk of the multiple fallacies she committed that made her seem insensitive, were enough to roast the best of statesmen. And she was not even a statesman. Her abrasive style, of which there are thousands of examples, would also be missed. Who could forget the sundering of relationships between her and the equally brusque Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi? He had been conducting her on a tour of development projects in the state, and had got to somewhere near her hometown of Okrika. There he gloated about the demolition he was about to carry out to make way for more fitting and noble edifices. Not only did she perform the huge and open indiscretion of snatching the microphone from him, she proceeded to denigrate his efforts, caution his exuberance, and ticked him off so peremptorily that the tour ended abruptly. For a governor who himself did not take prisoners, it was humiliating that protocol did not allow him to respond.

    If Dame Patience’s reputation was sealed with the Chibok abductions, she entered into Valhalla and into immortality with her resonating performances in the closing weeks of her husband’s presidential campaign. It is not clear why President Jonathan permitted her error-prone wife to mount the soapbox, for as it was, even his own gaffes were unmanageable and destructive of his political goals. But there she was, prancing, dancing, coaxing and cajoling from one state to another, selling her husband’s puny talents, and exhibiting great impertinence and mouthing insufferable mendacities. To her, everything was permissible and expedient.

    Her husband’s opponent in the March 28 election, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Gen Buhari, was dead in the brain, not brain dead, as many thought she said, for the two obviously do not mean the same. It was not enough that she denigrated age, she also lampooned and scorned cultures. The North, she hissed, was irresponsible in family planning and training of children. It is not known why she had little or nothing against the Yoruba or the Igbo; but for the brethren across the Niger River, she was acerbic and unsparing. In return, the northern brethren promised to respond to her tirade on election date and doom her husband’s reelection chances.

    With the departure of the Jonathans, and the assumption of office of a new pair so stately but taciturn, the pleasures, excitement and verbal and policy flourish that we took for granted for so many years, unpaid for and unsolicited, would be lost, perhaps for all time. Sic transit gloria mundi, say the Latin. Thus passes the glory of the world.

  • Dressing Jonathan in borrowed ‘statesman’ robes

    Dressing Jonathan in borrowed ‘statesman’ robes

    For conceding defeat to the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, in the March 28 poll, President Goodluck Jonathan has been lavishly described as a statesman. The word is debauched. Nigeria was doubtless on edge shortly before and after the poll, with many people stockpiling food and provisions and relocating from towns and cities they feared could erupt in violence if the poll results did not favour one of the contestants. But by placing a call to Gen Buhari and conceding defeat, the unbearable tension was instantly relieved. A grateful nation, it seems, could not have enough of the new Jonathan, whom they immediately dressed in the borrowed robes of a statesman.

    A stupefied Abdulsalami Abubakar, former military head of state, ran breathless, together with his new National Peace Committee, to the president to thank him for his kind consideration and understanding. World leaders, awash in emotions, also sent word appreciating the new Dr Jonathan for placing country above self and ensuring post-poll peace. Even the APC itself, the main beneficiary of the electoral revolution that took place seemingly against the run of play, gushed to the president in coded language that all was forgiven. The president’s friends, hangers-on, and the media he dedicated to himself for the reelection race, have all painted him in glowing statesmanlike colours.

    It is apparently so soon forgotten that Dr Jonathan, more than any other person, politician or unprincipled security agent, was responsible for the tension that convulsed the country weeks before the fateful race. He destroyed the security services, disemboweled them, and turned them into his party’s enforcement arm, to the extent that the world scorned what had become of Nigeria, and neighbouring countries ridiculed its armed services. It is also forgotten that the president was directly and solely responsible for creating and fostering religious and ethnic divisions in the country, and aggravated his irresponsible behaviour by condoning the threats and sabre rattling from Niger Delta militants and larcenous political elders sworn to his protection.

    Moreover, though he was unable to deploy troops for counterinsurgency duties in the Northeast and had had to rely on Chadian soldiers and other heavily paid mercenaries, Dr Jonathan found the temerity to deploy soldiers for election duties in Ekiti and Osun States, and then finally on March 28, all over the country. Together with the police, the troops undermined balloting in Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Delta States. Such mindless intimidation never occurred in these parts before, let alone on that sickening and humiliating scale.

    And finally, who could fail to notice that after securing postponement of the polls for six crazy and indefensible weeks, Dr Jonathan then sidelined his campaign organisation, opened the vaults and proceeded to seduce and induce those he identified as opinion moulders and grassroots mobilisers in the Southwest and a few other parts of the county. In any other country, the insane spending that closed the last week or so of electioneering, which the president unconscionably masterminded, should be enough to get him locked up for life.

    Yet, after Dr Jonathan spent more than four years nurturing these horrifying malfeasances, he is today dressed as a statesman by public commentators, many of whom are satisfied with low public morals and standards. Everyone is lining up in the shrine to pour libation to the new statesman. Palladium will not, even though he recognises that Dr Jonathan redeemed a little of the damage he had done to the polity by calling Gen Buhari and conceding defeat. If Dr Jonathan’s expiatory afterthought is what it takes to be a statesman in Nigeria, the country must begin to mourn the loss of its future, and in particular the loss of the great values that undergird every sane and stable society. A nauseous culture is seemingly being bred — indeed as the cult of former heads of state already indicates — whereby a leader propitiates his misrule by the simple act of vacating power.

  • No, Mr. President

    No, Mr. President

    •Nigeria cannot wait for four years before a serious war against corruption is waged and won

    President Goodluck Jonathan was reported last week to have pledged to put an end to the endemic corruption in the nation’s oil sector. As he made to round off his campaign for a second term in office, the President said he would do everything to ensure that the sector that has earned the country the needed foreign exchange is sanitised.

    We find it puzzling that it took the President five years to acknowledge what every Nigerian had known – that the porous processes and systems of monitoring and accounting for crude oil proceeds were a threat to the national income and, by extension, the stability and cohesion of the country.

    This is another step in the wrong direction by a President who had once tried to distinguish between stealing and corruption in a way suggesting that what many call corruption is ‘mere stealing’ and that the cry about corruption in the country is exaggerated.

    It is even the more incomprehensible why and how the President expected that Nigerians would wait patiently for another four years before decisive action could be taken to halt the progressive slide in revenue. It is an acknowledgement that the President has little or no plans for the country’s development.

    Following the protests that rocked Nigeria’s major cities in 2012, The Federal Government was quick to respond by setting up, among others, the Nuhu Ribadu committee to assess the system of accounting for the oil revenue, identify where things had gone wrong and make recommendations on how to plug the loopholes. In the past three years, the government has done nothing to give effect to the suggestions or adopt any fresh strategies to improve on the existing system.

    It sounds to us that the pledge by President Jonathan was merely to buy time and votes. It is incredible that a President of Nigeria could believe that Nigerians would be willing to wait a whole of four more years of suffering amidst plenty. The foreign reserves have been depleted, the naira keeps losing value against major foreign currencies, import is getting more expensive and poverty, squalor and starvation is staring the people in the face.

    The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) remains a citadel of corruption and officials of the agency, led by the minister, keep flaunting unexplained wealth at the people- flying chartered planes all over the world.

    Yet, the President does not think it necessary to take immediate decisive action. He thinks merely promising to do so after four years would satisfy Nigerians, especially the youth who have been paying dearly for the inaction of government.

    We are surprised that the only move made recently to check corruption is by awarding multi-billion Naira contracts to militants who are obviously lacking in the needed experience to secure the pipelines. Corruption is a killer. It is the source of almost all the ills plaguing the country. It is therefore inconceivable for any President at this point in time to volunteer the information that he has no intention to combat the evil for about 48 months.

    We call on all Nigerian leaders at all levels to declare war against corrupt practices in all facets of life.  They must realise that the future of the country depends on how well and fast they could win the war. Corruption is not only financial, all forms of perversion of the established order must stop if Nigeria is to rise and take its rightful place as the hope of Africa South of the Sahara.

  • Sermon after election

    On Palm Sunday, a day after the presidential election of March 28, it looked like time for soul-searching at the church service at Aso Villa, Abuja, where President Goodluck Jonathan was among the congregation.

    According to a report, “Before this time, the Chapel was always filled beyond capacity anytime President Jonathan was worshipping there. But those in attendance yesterday, besides the choir, did not exceed the first three rows on both sides. Workers and few security aides and reporters occupied the last seats.”

    It seemed like the picture of a fall and the loneliness that comes with it. From all indications, Jonathan was on his way out. Interestingly, in his sermon, Rev. William Okoye, the guest minister and a former Aso Villa Chaplain, possibly speaking under divine influence, suggested the probability of Jonathan’s electoral failure. Okoye said: “If God gives us another opportunity there are things we must do: One, we must acknowledge God as our source of victory and helper. Two, review all you have done in the past, learn from past mistakes because you have done well but you must admit you have made mistakes. Thirdly, repackage the mistakes you have made so that you can launch out in full force. Every leader in public office is in a position of trust, we must account for the position we have been given and do things right.”

    Thank God, Okoye said: “If God gives us another opportunity.” However, for his information and instruction, the poll was about what and who the people want. Perhaps Okoye should be reminded of the saying, “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”  Okoye sounded like a priest prescribing medicine after death. His words to Jonathan, “repackage the mistakes you have made so that you can launch out in full force,” may be coming too late; and in this case, it isn’t better late than never.

    It was apt that Okoye’s priestly voice ultimately provided useful enlightenment for those who have ears to hear by defining public office as “a position of trust.” Maybe unintentionally, he succeeded in delivering an important message that seemed specifically targeted at Jonathan when he said, “we must account for the position we have been given and do things right.”

    The presidential poll represented a formal public assessment of the Jonathan presidency and whether the man at the top had done things right during his four-year term which he sought to extend by seeking reelection. To employ Okoye’s language, it was time for Jonathan to account for the presidential position he was given.

    Curiously, it appeared Okoye was speaking for Jonathan when he said:  ”Thank God we have a president that says I want to serve but I’m not desperate. So it is not a question of do or die thing.” Okoye continued: “This election is not a do or die. If we lose, we will go and use the experience to serve humanity. So, there is nothing to worry about. I know with what this government has done, if given another opportunity, Nigeria will be better.”

    Questions: If Jonathan failed to serve Nigeria in power, of what use can he possibly be to humanity after leaving office? If Jonathan failed to make Nigeria better during his first term, why should he be given another opportunity to make things worse?

     

  • Sight and sound of 2015 electioneering

    Sight and sound of 2015 electioneering

    President Goodluck Jonathan is one of the candidates in this year’s presidential election. The problem, it must be emphasised again, is not that an Ijaw man rose to become president of Nigeria, as if there was any institutional bias against minority politicians, or a glass ceiling to limit anyone’s ambition. What the past five years or so have shown is that too many people, including perhaps the president himself, have entertained inaccurate notions of the qualities a president must possess to function optimally. The emphasis of most presidents, as this column warily noted a while ago, was always on building roads, hospitals and schools, among other structures. While these responsibilities are important, a president must, however, display qualities much deeper, more expansive, more inspiring, and more envisioning than just building structures. It is not clear what yesterday’s presidential poll would tell us, whether voters were able to make a sound judgement on how well Dr Jonathan had met the demands of his office in every ramification, far beyond what he had built or not built in his first term, and up to the sublime and probably the most important attributes a president must show. Whatever they say, it must be hoped it truly reflected their views, not the manipulations of powerful individuals.

    By far the most important sight and sound in this year’s electioneering was the role of the media. Ideally, and especially because the major media are privately owned, they are at liberty to endorse their preferred candidates within the ambit of their professional ethics. But, in general, they seemed to have redefined their ethics, blurring the line between partisanship and indefensible behaviour. Apart from opinions that ran the gamut of partisan bias, even political advertisements oscillated wildly between the reasonable and the unreasonable. In many instances, purely defamatory advertisements were, in the case of some electronic media, combatively presented as investigations rather than advertisements, without any indemnification whatsoever.

    Interestingly, despite spending humongous sums on publicity and advertisements, the PDP and the Jonathan campaign organisation repeatedly accused the APC of deploying heavy propaganda on everything, including politics. It is believed that the Jonathan campaign’s complaint indicates the impact of the APC campaign, notwithstanding deriving support from only one television station and barely three or four print media. The PDP, on the other hand, had the support of more than four or five television stations, about seven major national newspapers and scores of columnists.

    If the electoral process culminates in the election of new and visionary leaders, the laborious 2015 polls will have been worth the time and money. It will indicate that the abusive propaganda, some of the most vicious of which were directed against supporters and builders of the opposition rather than aspirants and candidates, were rendered ineffective and inoperable. It will reflect the frustrations of the people exhausted by years of economic woes, social crisis and ruinous security problems.

  • Dame Patience’s fixation with Buhari

    Dame Patience’s fixation with Buhari

    FOR about two weeks or so before yesterday’s poll, Dame Patience Jonathan crisscrossed nearly the entire southern part of Nigeria wooing voters to her husband’s side. During the period, her animated spirit, unfettered by grammar and logic, presented a stark contrast to her husband’s dour and unremarkable performance on the stump. Her élan, especially when she began to wax joyous and lyrical in the vernacular and pidgin, was infectious, sometimes provocative, but undoubtedly unforgettable. In a quaint and uncomfortable way, she was the charismatic, entertaining opposite of her husband’s sullen, quivering unease.

    Other than the 35 percent women representation in President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet, which she touted as a great achievement, she did not speak to any government programme of any kind; not the economy, for that was obviously beyond her ken, nor anything related to the reengineering of the society, which is doubtless an arcanum to her. Instead she specialised in speaking about her husband’s opponent in the election, Muhammadu Buhari. Indeed she was fixated with the general, who was for about 20 months a former starry-eyed military head of state between 1983 and 1985.

    Dame Patience spoke ill of her husband’s opponents, whom she considered enemies, and she was versatile in the art of insults, which she passionately believed her victims richly deserved. She also had foul words for the North’s population dynamics, and fouler descriptions for their idiosyncratic culture. In addition, she had contempt for the All Progressives Congress (APC), which she mocked as an expired drug designed to kill. In fact, no person, idea or institution was too sacrosanct to elicit abuse. But her exclusive preserve, her forte, was her tendentious ascription of base, prejudiced and malevolent motives to Gen Buhari. The general, she said, was planning to jail everybody, because in his first time as head of state, he jailed everybody.

    More crucially, as a result of her fixation, and having told herself a lie and believed it, Dame Patience announced during a campaign stop in Oyo State that Gen Buhari planned to jail her after he might have won the poll. She should be careful what she wished for. First, she warned voters not to help Gen Buhari to the throne, for he would jail them hundreds of years. Then, later, she began to personalise the warning, telling her campaign audience that the general planned to send her to prison, an exercise she concluded gleefully in her false religiosity the Holy Ghost would make impossible. Hear her: “I want to warn you not to listen to the All Progressives Congress. The APC does not have materials to match what the PDP has on ground. Their candidate was there in governance initially. What did he do? They only sent your fathers to prison. They are planning to even send me to prison. Holy Ghost fire! Holy Ghost fire! Holy Ghost fire! They have nothing to offer.”

    The highly expressive Dame Patience has managed in one dramatic statement to exhibit religious superficiality, political immaturity and a distinctly rosy worldview often associated with childhood. Her fears, her suspicions, not to say her longings, were unlikely to cut any ice with the rented crowds she entertained in two giddy weeks of campaigning. But what did she care! Her husband, the less excitable, more timorous but infinitely more impetuous President Jonathan also told many tall stories during his campaign, and felt he made huge impressions on his audience. Dame Patience is tarred with the same brush, believing her excitability touched many souls, and her logic sound enough to convert the disbelieving and the wary.

    After all, when Chibok made its grand entry into national consciousness with the tragic tales of abductions and sexual slavery of over 200 schoolchildren, Dame Patience waltz into our lives and minds with what perhaps qualifies as the most famous dramatisation of First Lady meddlesomeness and, pardon this, mediocrity ever. After imperiously sending the Holy Ghost on errand against her unnumbered foes, particularly Gen Buhari, let us tread cautiously and, with broken hearts, pray to heaven lest we be punished with another of Dame Patience’s tragicomic reign.

  • Misconceived peace agreements

    Misconceived peace agreements

    WITH Thursday’s signing of another peace pact between President Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari of the APC, Nigeria has witnessed the signing of two unprecedented poll peace accords in three short months, the kind never seen here before. When the first peace pact was signed in January in the presence of former United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Emeka Anyaoku, the candidates pledged to rein in their followers from violent electioneering and focus on issues rather than persons. But spectacularly, President Jonathan, his wife, and campaign aides simply ignored issues and focused on smearing the person of Gen Buhari, the APC candidate.

    Dissatisfied that the mudslinging was not yielding fruit, the Jonathan campaign organisation also began to smear those close to Gen Buhari and those perceived to be his financiers — in short his backbone. Worse, President Jonathan began to seek unfair advantage by unleashing compromised state agencies already co-opted unconstitutionally into the PDP/Jonathan project against his APC opponents. The security agencies viciously attacked the president’s opponents, and were determined to make him look good even as they also eagerly sought for, and manipulated, issues and policies to augment his reelection chances.

    Yet the president signed the January peace accord, and swore to uphold it. This column had warned that the president never honoured agreements nor his word, but few listened. It was, therefore, surprising that the Abdulsalami Abubakar Peace Committee simply glossed over the failings of the January pact and proceeded to sign a new one, as if the signing of pacts makes peace possible outside of justice. Gen Abubakar, a former military head of state, and many others, including at least four serving or former world leaders, had sensed that violence was likely to accompany the polls and had intervened at different times to admonish Nigerian leaders on the imperative of peace. This new pact is, therefore, a follow-up.

    The peace pact will not work except the polls are free, fair, and credible. President Jonathan and his men had in the past months done everything to undermine the vote, and may perhaps still be concocting other schemes to subvert the polls, yet he has signed another pact. Clearly, those who know how to pray must now go on their knees to save the situation.