Tag: President Jonathan

One word comes to the mind as my eyes danced through the pages of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s book, My Transition Hours, which was recently unveiled amid pomp and panache on his 61st birthday—heroic. That much was said by the cream of the Nigerian political, business and academic class who graced the occasion. It was, indeed, humbling to see some of those who bonded together to plot Jonathan’s historical exit from power dabbing him with plaudits of heroism and rare statesmanship. Not one person spoke on that day without an emotive reference to the intrinsic values that define the Birthday Boy and author of a book that seeks to correct certain misplaced perceptions regarding his stewardship in power. It is that ‘goodness’ in him that must have compelled his erstwhile foes and friends to honour him with their presence. And that, to me, was a good omen. No doubt, Jonathan is a rare breed and his place in Nigerian history is assured. I have always said it, Nigeria is blessed to have someone like him who never allowed the allure of power to turn them into demi gods. His simplicity and candour both in and out of power are rare attributes considering the enormous power the Nigerian President wields.

That said, I doubt if his book truly meets the expectations of those who have waited with bated breath to read his accounts of what transpired in his last days in office. Sometime last year when he promised Nigerians a tell-it-all book that would put a lie to the tales being rendered by third and fourth party scribblers, Jonathan said his explosive record of event would straighten a buffet of “many distorted claims on the 2015 presidential elections” in which the main characters in the elections would “come out with a true account of what transpired” either in interviews or in books. And so, the public unveiling of one of such books had come but not without the expected attendant controversies. Let me confess that rather than being a gripping, episodic rendering of events, Jonathan’s attempt is cautious and measured. There are loads of complaints and a cautious effort at sanctimoniousness. In my opinion, the book falls abysmally short of the tell-it-all tale that the writer promised.

Yet, it is not without some key revelations and assumptions. When Jonathan speaks of manipulations, intrigues, intimidations and betrayals, one had expected him to unmask the masquerades behind the treachery. In penning a first-hand tale about how some of his party members sold him off, Jonathan would rather leave certain things to conjectures especially if that the characters involved belong to his Peoples Democratic Party while he spared no punches in listing the names of key members of the then opposition All Progressives Congress that he felt played major roles in his loss. Instinctively, the book makes a vague reference to “a particular first term governor in the North” as one of those who opposed his re-election bid even when they were in the same party. Whilst he leaves the identity of the governor to the reader’s imagination, he didn’t exercise that restraint in disclosing how the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, whom he referred to as ‘the then opposition mouthpiece” pointedly accused his administration of being behind the abduction. Several of such examples abound in the book, including various allegations against the Professor Attahiru Jega-led Independent National Electoral Commission without concrete evidence.

Perhaps, it is this deliberate attempt at moderating the facts to suit the heroic narrative that prods the Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, to describe it as an “elementary book of tales that fell short of courage” in reference to Jonathan’s understanding of the Boko Haram insurgence in the North East and the abduction of the Chibok girls which, in the main, reaffirms the belief that the Federal Government sat too long on its hands with the mindset that the whole thing was a charade planned by the opposition to ridicule it. That is why we still have dozens of the Chibok girls still missing. By the time it dawned on everyone that the girls were actually abducted, rescue operation had become pointless and politicking had taken the better part of the conversation from both sides of the divide. Even now, the banters still continue with the blame game that has erupted to counter all that Jonathan said he knew about Boko Haram and the Chibok abduction saga.

Let me, for the umpteenth time; copy a quotation from earlier writings on why it was important for Jonathan to write a book on his stewardship. In my column last week, I asked: “Did Jonathan, for example, make any conscious effort to dissuade the five governors that defected from his party to join the then opposition All Progressives Congress? What role did he play in the crisis that engulfed the Nigerian Governors Forum, which eventually led to its split? What particular steps did he take in ensuring that the rift between his beloved wife, Patience, and former Governor Rotimi Amaechi did not become full blown war of attrition which eventually affected his political fortunes? Did he truly visit former President Obasanjo in company with two powerful religious leaders in the South-West to sway a renewed support for his second term ambition? What proof does he have to show that Prof. Attahiru Jega worked with the opposition to truncate what he had thought was an assured victory? Could it be true that billions of naira grew wings from the national treasury and deployed to influence the outcome of the election? If so, how many of those hefty withdrawals got his approval?”

I had also noted that: ”With his position, he must have accessed some hidden truths about what happened and that must have informed his unequivocal declaration of distortions of historical facts by those who ought to come clean on the role they played in the defeat of Nigeria’s first President from a minority oil-producing South- South. Why did the magic of 2011 become impossible in 2015 even when the candidates were the same with one having a firm grip on power and an almost endless capacity to distribute political freebies at the whim? In short, what were the discontents that swayed the pendulum to favour a man that was described as a misfit in a democratic setting? Those are the questions that await answers in Jonathan’s yet-o- be-unveiled book(s) and that of many others. We just hope we would not have to wait too long before these many shades of fact begin to unfold. Or would we?”

On the questions above, I would rather allow my readers to find out if answers were proffered to these questions when they eventually lay their hands on the book. However, I find it somewhat disingenuous that, in accusing former President Barrack Obama of partisanship in the 2015 elections, Jonathan makes allusion to a ‘subliminal interpretation’ of the US President’s admonition to the Nigerian electorate to open the “next chapter” by their votes. It couldn’t be that simple. In any case, how many Nigerian voters at the time give a hoot to an Obama’s speech in a society where the educated and enlightened hardly find the time and space to queue at the polling stations to exercise their franchise? It is difficult to agree with him that Obama was ‘prodding the electorate to vote for the opposition to form a new government” or that the message was “condescending, it was as if Nigerians did not know what to do and needed an Obama to direct them.” Next chapter, to my mind, could have meant anything. It could even mean that Nigerians should move on to the next chapter of development with the ruling party. But since the book seems to have a thematic fixation to a conspiracy theory, (which is true in a sense) that narrative fits in perfectly.

The point needs to be made that the book, in spite of its shortcomings, has thrown a challenge to persons involved in the 2015 elections to write their stories. Such would deepen the discourse for a better understanding of our democratic choices. There are too many hazy and vague issues to be unknotted. Perhaps, as mentioned by some of the persons that spoke last Tuesday, it is just one out of the many books that would be written by the former President as other aggrieved parties who felt they received below-the-belt blows in the former president’s book have vowed to tell their own stories. Such ‘sundry alternatives’ to Jonathan’s heroic rendition would be a welcome development. So, after Olusegun Adeniyi’s ‘Against the run of play’ which one of Jonathan’s henchmen, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode labeled “a collection of jaundiced opinions and subjective submissions made by a collection of self-seeking clown”; Bolaji Abdullahi’s ‘On a platter of gold’ which Jonathan uncharitably dubbed “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” and Jonathan’s ‘My transition hours’ which Shettima tagged “an elementary book of fiction”, who is the next writer that would give us a different insight into how and why the PDP surrendered power in 2015 without saucing the tale with needless embellishments? Who?