Truth is defining President Jonathan's defeat at the just concluded Presidential election is as complicated as defining the Nigerian project with respect to restructuring, true federalism, or conducting credible head counts. What is not complicated though is that President Jonathan is seemingly more apt and brazenly more enthusiastic at conceding defeat and celebrating his conquered status than articulating his accomplishments and motivations in power before and during the presidential election. How could GEJ justify the retention of Okupe and the recruitment of FFK - two toxic characters - as the face of his campaign and reelection? President Jonathan didn't need to energize his base during the campaign - something the two guys are good at. It was all about the youths, the unemployed and the independent voters wanting real change. The President and his team couldn't develop or structure a compelling narrative for a continuation of his brand of change. You don't start a Presidential campaign two months to the election and expect to win. In other words, President Jonathan was not forthright with his core supporters about the genuineness of his quest for a new mandate. The argument that former President Obasanjo joined forces with some influential interest or regional groups to scheme his defeat is not sustainable. Because that's what every election is about - intrigues and scheming. President Jonathan had enough time and great deal of human and material resources to overwhelm his adversaries in the game. But for some unfathomable explanations he failed to play the game, and got burnt in the process. However, from an objective perspective, he appeared either unwilling to offend anyone in his reelection bid, or completely naive in managing the turbulent and dirty maneuvering characteristics of Nigerian Presidential election. That perspective informed the tone of this essay.
Five years at the helm of affairs, and with unlimited budget and unrestricted access to some of the world most astute and politically sophisticated minds, he was still, strategically speaking, a neophyte - still practicing how to act Presidential and talk presidential. And it was quite obvious that he was not aware of the existence of a void - a vacuum in his Presidency of an idea lab, of sharp minds and non-partisan Nigerians to help repackage his personality and sharpen his intellectual wherewithal for a bold new start.
He didn't come across as a father figure or as a buddy, using any definition or benchmark possible. The 'I am in charge attitude' was completely absent. And that was a major deal breaker. The known scheming against him notwithstanding, there was no sign that he was in charge, learning to be in charge, or will eventually be in charge.
He retained the same guy as Media Adviser for about five years. He must have forgotten the law of diminishing returns in elementary Economics. Often times, I wonder loud: is he reading our newspapers? This is it: Boko Haram or no Boko Haram, Nigerians are happy people and overtly boisterous. During GEJ's term in office, there was no life or fun or action at Aso Rock. There was no leader to lead and there was no statesman to inspire and restore hope in a dispirited populace. Boko Haram was always the headline news. And the miracle at Lagos/Ore/Benin road - a monumental accomplishment that President Obasanjo could not execute in eight years, which he, President Jonathan, executed - was a no event during his campaign.
I want to reiterate, the absence of an intellectual warrior at Aso Rock as Nigerians expected of a Jonathan Presidency was most devastating. A President Jonathan with a PhD was expected to retire all the unretiring Obasanjos from our political system in line with what President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore did to the enfant-terrible Ross Perot in 1993 in their first year in office. Thanks, of course, to CNN Larry King Live that organized the most watched TV debate in the history of broadcasting.
Given President Jonathan's age and educational background, Nigerians expected a much more refined personality - one with genuine poise, gravitas, and passion for real leadership - a modern day President who subscribes to pragmatic flavors and contemporary schools with respect to policy formulations and implementations. And disappointingly he was too far removed from the Nigeria of the moment.
Worse still, his Vice President Sambo who was naturally and constitutionally expected to be a stand-in figure or one to do the dirty jobs, was always a 'no show.' And timidity enveloped the citadel of power in a most disturbing character ever.
In addition, President Jonathan was in every respect a complete foreigner in his own country. He was obviously not conversant with the rudiments of Nigerian political machine - the players, the spoilers and the real patriots. And he didn't see reason to align and work with the bold and the emerging technocrats, with a view to sustaining and spreading to other departments, the groundbreaking revolution he engineered in agriculture sector.
His Almajiri Educational initiative was a landmark success story. That he couldn't bask at its success to push his change narrative; thus, silencing all the antagonistic Obasanjos and all the retired generals and political leaders scheming for his failure, was a fatal error of judgement.
That he couldn't use, during his campaign, the unsightly pictures of the Police College, Ikeja, which he discovered during his impromptu visit to the campus about two years ago was an unpardonable mistake. Those pictures, the monstrosity of our ghost workers exemplify the true state of our infrastructural facilities and the decaying pictures of Nigerian institutions that he inherited from previous administrations.
He never stopped praising EFCC and its Boss - the same EFCC and Chairman Lamorde who, for all these years, didn’t know how to legally subdue and conquer political leaders and children of powerful political leaders who scam NNPC and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) of Subsidy Funds with brazen chicanery. Though Aig-Imoukhuede Committee concluded beyond every reasonable doubt in its report that the culprits knowing defrauded the agencies using bogus documents, EFCC and Chairman Lamorde are still groping in the dark on what legal strategy to adopt, with a view to recouping the stolen funds from the criminals.
He let go a Chief of Army Staff who gave Boko Haram a bloody nose.
And at the global scene, he took pettiness to an all-time high in the history of our creation. On May 25, 2013, at the 50th Anniversary of the African Union, in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, our President was nowhere to be found to stand for Nigeria and deliver for Nigerians his mandatory speech. The reason, according to media report, was that he couldn't subdue the revulsion elicited within him by the news of his "Home Boy", the self-confessed number one nemesis of the First Family, Governor Amaechi of Rivers State, emerging as the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors' Forum. I am very prideful of my Nigerian heritage. When that news came up, the respect I have for him as a President, evaporated.
Most often, some of us in the social media find pleasure in condemning his Special Advisers, blaming them for all the gaffes and shortcomings of the President, but allowing his wife, the number one serving citizen lady in the country for that matter, to accept the post of a Permanent Secretary in Bayelsa State, was beyond pale - an affront to the Office of the First Lady and a blatant show of greed. And with all due respect, the First Lady was a distraction. That she remains unrestrained for the duration of the regime, reflects weakness on the part of all The President Men.
Also, he went to Bornu State to campaign at this just concluded election, but couldn't go to the same Bornu, when the Chibok Girls disappeared. Granted, it was rumored that the Presidency doubted the veracity of the disappearing incident, but as the President, visiting and grieving with the family members of the victims when the news came up would have been the most appropriate decision to take at the time. For months the President vacillated over the news and what to make of it. At the end, he brought shame and ridicule into the number one office in the land. Inviting the grieving parents to Aso Rock as he did later was just too infantile and gravely ludicrous - unpresidential in every respect. Again, where are the Special Advisers?
Arriving at the scene of the Yanyan Bus Stop terrorist attack, he thanked his Security Adviser for doing a good job. Good job? Yes, for arriving at the scene of the attack on time to ferry the cadavers to the hospital. Not for saving lives or preventing the attack. In spite the enormity of the bloodbaths that Boko Haram visited on North-Eastern Nigerian, President Jonathan did not see any reason to make drastic changes within his security apparatus. His Security team failed him, and his top Military Officers failed him. And in the process, he failed the nation in his quest for peace and security in the land.
The argument that America and the West were not willing to sell us arms is no excuse. Also, that the northern political leaders succeeded in using alleged abuse of human rights by Nigerian military forces in the insurgent held territories to taint the credibility of the members of our armed forces, and consequently, succeeded in frustrating our demands for arms is no excuse. Again, the President has unlimited budget and resources to hire credible and politically savvy guys to help him sell the war against Boko Haram to the outside world as a legitimate war. The West did not trust him and they did not trust his Military leadership fighting the war.
Granted, most northern political leaders did not conceal their resentment of you as a person and as a President. In other words, it is a known fact that the demand for your ouster by any means necessary was an open book. The retired IGP Commaise, boasted or threatened that, if a northerner does not emerge as the next President, Nigeria will divide. So, it is no news that some powerful retired political leaders of northern extraction plotted your demise. They've already made it clear to you in no uncertain terms that vanquishing you from Aso Rock is a task that must be done. And once again, you had the resources to surmount the challenges through action and performance. That's what leadership is about. President Obama confronted successfully similar challenges from all fronts from his very first day in office. Simply put, President Jonathan was not ready to fight.
That brings to mind the war of words that took place between Air Commodore Emeka Omeruah, the Information Minister under the IBB Government, and Chief Duro Onabule, the Editor of the National Concord newspaper, over “bringing down the government” accusations and shenanigans.
Commodore Omeruah labelled the press unpatriotic, accusing them of waging misinformation war to bring down the Government of Babaginda. Chief Onabule, in his Thursday weekly column, stated unequivocally that no press or no journalist is capable of bringing down a Government that reaches out to the needs of the people and meeting their expectations.
Applying Onabule’s philosophy, no volume of retired Generals or volume of sectional intrigues would have been able to bring down a Jonathan’s Presidency that was up to the demands of the office and enjoying full support of the people. It was all about the expectations of the people, not whether President Jonathan outperformed President Obasanjo.
(By the way, the encounter painted here happened before the smart IBB eventually picked the fearless Chief Onabule as his Press Secretary).
And as one from the Niger-Delta of Nigeria, it was expected that the President must have reasons to collaborate with his nemesis, Governor Amaechi of Rivers State, with a view to passing the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law. I wrote a piece, embedded with talking points, published on this very Blog and by the Nigerian Village Square, detailing the political angle hindering the passage of the Bill, and the steps to take to ensure its passage. They didn't have a clue on how to proceed. Till date, only one Senator from Akwa Ibom State is on record to have made any substantive pronouncements about the PIB.
Without equivocation, the President and his energy team as well as Governors and members of the National Assembly from the oil producing States were downright too timid to engage Governor Babangida of Niger State and the other adversaries of the Bill with cogent, verifiable facts, and persuasive argument.
It is disheartening to learn that neither the President, the Governors, nor members of the NASS as well as their plethora legal advisers from the oil producing States can thoroughly digress on what the troubling issues are regarding the passage of thth Bill. That was what informed our decision to write the essay referenced above and why we thought it fit to send it to the Nigerian Village Square for publication.
The President on his part was more interested in perfecting ways to confiscating Governor Amaechi's private jet, rather than packaging a conference with the Governor, with a view to using him to securing the support of his northern friends.
On the issue of his reelection, we reminded him after the shameful outing of Democrats who ran for re-election for Congress in the last Mid-Term election in the US, to start a nation-wide tour, marketing himself to avoid similar result, but the suggestion went unheard. He didn't step out of Aso Rock until two months to the election. That is not the attitude of a leader with genuine passion for the office of the President. Simply put, President Jonathan was betrayed by his handlers, because he placed himself in a position to be betrayed. He failed to grow up to the demands of the office. See "Where are the President’s Men? The Challenges President Jonathan of Nigeria Cannot Ignore" - May 14, 2012
Why the vexing piece, when the man is already down and out?
Yes, I steadfastly abstained from criticizing the President while he was serving for obvious reasons. Truth is I didn't want history to record me as one of a minority tribe who deploy his blog to bring down an accidental President from another minority tribe.
Another reason was that I have always wanted him to succeed as a President, given the novel circumstances of his emergence as President. But, much as we wanted him out of trouble water, he was nowhere to be found or rescued. He couldn't take advantage of the numerous essays on this Blog and elsewhere in the social media detailing noble goals and objectives for him to pursue. Over and over again, he was shown the parts to greatness traversed by great men of now and the past.
He locked himself out of civilization and out of the limelight and out of the reach of reasonableness. We couldn't distance him from his own political party, much as we tried. He was flesh and blood, a quintessential PDP.
Yes, I wrote and demanded for the formation of a Progressive Movement, a political party with a bold agenda to outsmart and remove PDP and its ruling team from our helm of affairs. But, I never stopped wishing President Jonathan to succeed; praying for him to succeed, goading him on this Blog on how to follow the part of righteousness.
On May 17, 2013, we published a short piece, titled "Nigeria is at War: We Must Stand Up and Support Our President" on our Blog, calling on Nigerians to rally round the President. On June 6, 213, when the proscription of the Boko Haram sect by the President became a polarizing issue, signing in as Non-Aligned Progressive, I copied and paste the same piece, but with minor modifications, on the discussion section of a short news story that appeared in Punch newspaper, titled "North kicks against ban on B’Haram, Ansaru."
About an hour after its publications, there was something in the mode of a stampede within the Nigerian social media scene. It was the most read piece of work on the web for more than twenty four hours by Nigerians all over the world. Towards the end of the essay I cited the well celebrated words of Professor Wole Soyinka, to wit, “the man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.” And I concluded by asking, “If the occupation of Bornu by the sect is not a tyranny, I wonder what it is.
The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Here is the link to the piece: http://www.punchng.com/news/north-kicks-against-ban-on-bharam-ansaru/. It was the overwhelming endorsement of the contents of that piece by Nigerians via their comments that brought an abrupt end to the debate on whether or not the President acted illegally in the proscription of the Boko Haram sect as well as the declaration of a State of Emergency in three States in the northeast. So, we were at his service uninvited, uncompensated genuinely engaged writing and blogging to drum up support for some of his initiatives we consider progressive and well intentioned.
It was very obvious that President Jonathan was unable to absorb and manage effectively the enormity of the power and influence associated with the Nigerian Presidency.
When the Chiboks Girls allegedly disappeared, the President should have traveled straight to Maiduguri to commiserate with the grieving parents and the nation at large. And use the opportunity to declare war on Boko Haram, their affiliates and sponsors. He never did. He was more like a prisoner in his own country, imbued overwhelmingly with persecution complex. 'Stay indoor and stay guarded, because they are there and out to get you,' was the philosophy that held President Jonathan hostage.
President Jonathan was expected to be a real academia, and was expected to act as one - to be contemporary, audacious and pragmatic. He did not come close as one from the ivory tower.
He had the time, the means, the resources to educate himself, reinvent himself in line with the style and attitude of great men of history. He never did. There is the gregarious President Obama, leading the greatest democracy on earth at the same time with President Jonathan is reigning over the number one democracy in Africa. Sadly, judging from available facts, GEJ didn’t see any style or strategy to copy from Mr. Obama.
May be, may be, if his ascension in the first case was through more rigorous and challenging means, he would have been more appreciative and passionate about the Presidency that great men fought and died to secure, but were never so lucky.
Now we are eulogizing him for accepting defeat ahead of INEC final call. Simply put, he flunks a golden opportunity to take Nigeria out of the stranglehold of the civil war era Generals and their political stooges. If the world is weeping at Nigeria – weeping for its failure to rise up to the challenges and expectations of its natural endowed status as well as its brain power, the Obasanjos are the cause. And they are the ones celebrating Jonathan’s defeat the most today.
Nigerians like me were supremely confident that President Jonathan will retire them permanently and politically with his performance in office. And I do not believe that such was an undue expectation.
He failed to be a great President, because he did not seek help. Simply put, he didn’t know how, when, and where to seek help. Above all, his subordinates and Minister where law unto themselves. And that is the main reason I did not endorse him, much as I wanted to. Again, given his age and educational background, President Jonathan was expected to know who and who to hire to wage a decisive battle against oppression and decadence.
In spite of everything, President Jonathan was better than President Obasanjo as well as those before Obasanjo. But he is not Obasanjo or those before Obasanjo. His era was a different era. And the expectations were different He is learned. And he is from the Niger Delta, the region that harbors the mainstay of Nigerian economy. He had all the reasons to harbor and exude a sense of entitlement to the presidency and leadership of this great nation. From all indications, I am not so sure the President was knowledgeable about that. Anyway, I want to thank him for the great job he did on Ore-Benin Road as well as the Almajiri Educational initiative - two landmark projects that were beyond the reach of the President Obasanjo and all the retired Generals who schemed his ouster. And much more applause to the President for reinventing our armed forces, especially the naval fleets and combat Aircrafts that were systematically decimated over the years by our retired Generals who didn’t see reason to modernize them. That they are the ones who are the present celebrating Jonathan’s defeat the most is, in my humble submission, the unkindest cut.
Five years at the helm of affairs, and with unlimited budget and unrestricted access to some of the world most astute and politically sophisticated minds, he was still, strategically speaking, a neophyte - still practicing how to act Presidential and talk presidential. And it was quite obvious that he was not aware of the existence of a void - a vacuum in his Presidency of an idea lab, of sharp minds and non-partisan Nigerians to help repackage his personality and sharpen his intellectual wherewithal for a bold new start.
He didn't come across as a father figure or as a buddy, using any definition or benchmark possible. The 'I am in charge attitude' was completely absent. And that was a major deal breaker. The known scheming against him notwithstanding, there was no sign that he was in charge, learning to be in charge, or will eventually be in charge.
He retained the same guy as Media Adviser for about five years. He must have forgotten the law of diminishing returns in elementary Economics. Often times, I wonder loud: is he reading our newspapers? This is it: Boko Haram or no Boko Haram, Nigerians are happy people and overtly boisterous. During GEJ's term in office, there was no life or fun or action at Aso Rock. There was no leader to lead and there was no statesman to inspire and restore hope in a dispirited populace. Boko Haram was always the headline news. And the miracle at Lagos/Ore/Benin road - a monumental accomplishment that President Obasanjo could not execute in eight years, which he, President Jonathan, executed - was a no event during his campaign.
I want to reiterate, the absence of an intellectual warrior at Aso Rock as Nigerians expected of a Jonathan Presidency was most devastating. A President Jonathan with a PhD was expected to retire all the unretiring Obasanjos from our political system in line with what President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore did to the enfant-terrible Ross Perot in 1993 in their first year in office. Thanks, of course, to CNN Larry King Live that organized the most watched TV debate in the history of broadcasting.
Given President Jonathan's age and educational background, Nigerians expected a much more refined personality - one with genuine poise, gravitas, and passion for real leadership - a modern day President who subscribes to pragmatic flavors and contemporary schools with respect to policy formulations and implementations. And disappointingly he was too far removed from the Nigeria of the moment.
Worse still, his Vice President Sambo who was naturally and constitutionally expected to be a stand-in figure or one to do the dirty jobs, was always a 'no show.' And timidity enveloped the citadel of power in a most disturbing character ever.
In addition, President Jonathan was in every respect a complete foreigner in his own country. He was obviously not conversant with the rudiments of Nigerian political machine - the players, the spoilers and the real patriots. And he didn't see reason to align and work with the bold and the emerging technocrats, with a view to sustaining and spreading to other departments, the groundbreaking revolution he engineered in agriculture sector.
His Almajiri Educational initiative was a landmark success story. That he couldn't bask at its success to push his change narrative; thus, silencing all the antagonistic Obasanjos and all the retired generals and political leaders scheming for his failure, was a fatal error of judgement.
That he couldn't use, during his campaign, the unsightly pictures of the Police College, Ikeja, which he discovered during his impromptu visit to the campus about two years ago was an unpardonable mistake. Those pictures, the monstrosity of our ghost workers exemplify the true state of our infrastructural facilities and the decaying pictures of Nigerian institutions that he inherited from previous administrations.
He never stopped praising EFCC and its Boss - the same EFCC and Chairman Lamorde who, for all these years, didn’t know how to legally subdue and conquer political leaders and children of powerful political leaders who scam NNPC and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) of Subsidy Funds with brazen chicanery. Though Aig-Imoukhuede Committee concluded beyond every reasonable doubt in its report that the culprits knowing defrauded the agencies using bogus documents, EFCC and Chairman Lamorde are still groping in the dark on what legal strategy to adopt, with a view to recouping the stolen funds from the criminals.
He let go a Chief of Army Staff who gave Boko Haram a bloody nose.
And at the global scene, he took pettiness to an all-time high in the history of our creation. On May 25, 2013, at the 50th Anniversary of the African Union, in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, our President was nowhere to be found to stand for Nigeria and deliver for Nigerians his mandatory speech. The reason, according to media report, was that he couldn't subdue the revulsion elicited within him by the news of his "Home Boy", the self-confessed number one nemesis of the First Family, Governor Amaechi of Rivers State, emerging as the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors' Forum. I am very prideful of my Nigerian heritage. When that news came up, the respect I have for him as a President, evaporated.
Most often, some of us in the social media find pleasure in condemning his Special Advisers, blaming them for all the gaffes and shortcomings of the President, but allowing his wife, the number one serving citizen lady in the country for that matter, to accept the post of a Permanent Secretary in Bayelsa State, was beyond pale - an affront to the Office of the First Lady and a blatant show of greed. And with all due respect, the First Lady was a distraction. That she remains unrestrained for the duration of the regime, reflects weakness on the part of all The President Men.
Also, he went to Bornu State to campaign at this just concluded election, but couldn't go to the same Bornu, when the Chibok Girls disappeared. Granted, it was rumored that the Presidency doubted the veracity of the disappearing incident, but as the President, visiting and grieving with the family members of the victims when the news came up would have been the most appropriate decision to take at the time. For months the President vacillated over the news and what to make of it. At the end, he brought shame and ridicule into the number one office in the land. Inviting the grieving parents to Aso Rock as he did later was just too infantile and gravely ludicrous - unpresidential in every respect. Again, where are the Special Advisers?
Arriving at the scene of the Yanyan Bus Stop terrorist attack, he thanked his Security Adviser for doing a good job. Good job? Yes, for arriving at the scene of the attack on time to ferry the cadavers to the hospital. Not for saving lives or preventing the attack. In spite the enormity of the bloodbaths that Boko Haram visited on North-Eastern Nigerian, President Jonathan did not see any reason to make drastic changes within his security apparatus. His Security team failed him, and his top Military Officers failed him. And in the process, he failed the nation in his quest for peace and security in the land.
The argument that America and the West were not willing to sell us arms is no excuse. Also, that the northern political leaders succeeded in using alleged abuse of human rights by Nigerian military forces in the insurgent held territories to taint the credibility of the members of our armed forces, and consequently, succeeded in frustrating our demands for arms is no excuse. Again, the President has unlimited budget and resources to hire credible and politically savvy guys to help him sell the war against Boko Haram to the outside world as a legitimate war. The West did not trust him and they did not trust his Military leadership fighting the war.
Granted, most northern political leaders did not conceal their resentment of you as a person and as a President. In other words, it is a known fact that the demand for your ouster by any means necessary was an open book. The retired IGP Commaise, boasted or threatened that, if a northerner does not emerge as the next President, Nigeria will divide. So, it is no news that some powerful retired political leaders of northern extraction plotted your demise. They've already made it clear to you in no uncertain terms that vanquishing you from Aso Rock is a task that must be done. And once again, you had the resources to surmount the challenges through action and performance. That's what leadership is about. President Obama confronted successfully similar challenges from all fronts from his very first day in office. Simply put, President Jonathan was not ready to fight.
That brings to mind the war of words that took place between Air Commodore Emeka Omeruah, the Information Minister under the IBB Government, and Chief Duro Onabule, the Editor of the National Concord newspaper, over “bringing down the government” accusations and shenanigans.
Commodore Omeruah labelled the press unpatriotic, accusing them of waging misinformation war to bring down the Government of Babaginda. Chief Onabule, in his Thursday weekly column, stated unequivocally that no press or no journalist is capable of bringing down a Government that reaches out to the needs of the people and meeting their expectations.
Applying Onabule’s philosophy, no volume of retired Generals or volume of sectional intrigues would have been able to bring down a Jonathan’s Presidency that was up to the demands of the office and enjoying full support of the people. It was all about the expectations of the people, not whether President Jonathan outperformed President Obasanjo.
(By the way, the encounter painted here happened before the smart IBB eventually picked the fearless Chief Onabule as his Press Secretary).
And as one from the Niger-Delta of Nigeria, it was expected that the President must have reasons to collaborate with his nemesis, Governor Amaechi of Rivers State, with a view to passing the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law. I wrote a piece, embedded with talking points, published on this very Blog and by the Nigerian Village Square, detailing the political angle hindering the passage of the Bill, and the steps to take to ensure its passage. They didn't have a clue on how to proceed. Till date, only one Senator from Akwa Ibom State is on record to have made any substantive pronouncements about the PIB.
Without equivocation, the President and his energy team as well as Governors and members of the National Assembly from the oil producing States were downright too timid to engage Governor Babangida of Niger State and the other adversaries of the Bill with cogent, verifiable facts, and persuasive argument.
It is disheartening to learn that neither the President, the Governors, nor members of the NASS as well as their plethora legal advisers from the oil producing States can thoroughly digress on what the troubling issues are regarding the passage of thth Bill. That was what informed our decision to write the essay referenced above and why we thought it fit to send it to the Nigerian Village Square for publication.
The President on his part was more interested in perfecting ways to confiscating Governor Amaechi's private jet, rather than packaging a conference with the Governor, with a view to using him to securing the support of his northern friends.
On the issue of his reelection, we reminded him after the shameful outing of Democrats who ran for re-election for Congress in the last Mid-Term election in the US, to start a nation-wide tour, marketing himself to avoid similar result, but the suggestion went unheard. He didn't step out of Aso Rock until two months to the election. That is not the attitude of a leader with genuine passion for the office of the President. Simply put, President Jonathan was betrayed by his handlers, because he placed himself in a position to be betrayed. He failed to grow up to the demands of the office. See "Where are the President’s Men? The Challenges President Jonathan of Nigeria Cannot Ignore" - May 14, 2012
Why the vexing piece, when the man is already down and out?
Yes, I steadfastly abstained from criticizing the President while he was serving for obvious reasons. Truth is I didn't want history to record me as one of a minority tribe who deploy his blog to bring down an accidental President from another minority tribe.
Another reason was that I have always wanted him to succeed as a President, given the novel circumstances of his emergence as President. But, much as we wanted him out of trouble water, he was nowhere to be found or rescued. He couldn't take advantage of the numerous essays on this Blog and elsewhere in the social media detailing noble goals and objectives for him to pursue. Over and over again, he was shown the parts to greatness traversed by great men of now and the past.
He locked himself out of civilization and out of the limelight and out of the reach of reasonableness. We couldn't distance him from his own political party, much as we tried. He was flesh and blood, a quintessential PDP.
Yes, I wrote and demanded for the formation of a Progressive Movement, a political party with a bold agenda to outsmart and remove PDP and its ruling team from our helm of affairs. But, I never stopped wishing President Jonathan to succeed; praying for him to succeed, goading him on this Blog on how to follow the part of righteousness.
On May 17, 2013, we published a short piece, titled "Nigeria is at War: We Must Stand Up and Support Our President" on our Blog, calling on Nigerians to rally round the President. On June 6, 213, when the proscription of the Boko Haram sect by the President became a polarizing issue, signing in as Non-Aligned Progressive, I copied and paste the same piece, but with minor modifications, on the discussion section of a short news story that appeared in Punch newspaper, titled "North kicks against ban on B’Haram, Ansaru."
About an hour after its publications, there was something in the mode of a stampede within the Nigerian social media scene. It was the most read piece of work on the web for more than twenty four hours by Nigerians all over the world. Towards the end of the essay I cited the well celebrated words of Professor Wole Soyinka, to wit, “the man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.” And I concluded by asking, “If the occupation of Bornu by the sect is not a tyranny, I wonder what it is.
The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Here is the link to the piece: http://www.punchng.com/news/north-kicks-against-ban-on-bharam-ansaru/. It was the overwhelming endorsement of the contents of that piece by Nigerians via their comments that brought an abrupt end to the debate on whether or not the President acted illegally in the proscription of the Boko Haram sect as well as the declaration of a State of Emergency in three States in the northeast. So, we were at his service uninvited, uncompensated genuinely engaged writing and blogging to drum up support for some of his initiatives we consider progressive and well intentioned.
It was very obvious that President Jonathan was unable to absorb and manage effectively the enormity of the power and influence associated with the Nigerian Presidency.
When the Chiboks Girls allegedly disappeared, the President should have traveled straight to Maiduguri to commiserate with the grieving parents and the nation at large. And use the opportunity to declare war on Boko Haram, their affiliates and sponsors. He never did. He was more like a prisoner in his own country, imbued overwhelmingly with persecution complex. 'Stay indoor and stay guarded, because they are there and out to get you,' was the philosophy that held President Jonathan hostage.
President Jonathan was expected to be a real academia, and was expected to act as one - to be contemporary, audacious and pragmatic. He did not come close as one from the ivory tower.
He had the time, the means, the resources to educate himself, reinvent himself in line with the style and attitude of great men of history. He never did. There is the gregarious President Obama, leading the greatest democracy on earth at the same time with President Jonathan is reigning over the number one democracy in Africa. Sadly, judging from available facts, GEJ didn’t see any style or strategy to copy from Mr. Obama.
May be, may be, if his ascension in the first case was through more rigorous and challenging means, he would have been more appreciative and passionate about the Presidency that great men fought and died to secure, but were never so lucky.
Now we are eulogizing him for accepting defeat ahead of INEC final call. Simply put, he flunks a golden opportunity to take Nigeria out of the stranglehold of the civil war era Generals and their political stooges. If the world is weeping at Nigeria – weeping for its failure to rise up to the challenges and expectations of its natural endowed status as well as its brain power, the Obasanjos are the cause. And they are the ones celebrating Jonathan’s defeat the most today.
Nigerians like me were supremely confident that President Jonathan will retire them permanently and politically with his performance in office. And I do not believe that such was an undue expectation.
He failed to be a great President, because he did not seek help. Simply put, he didn’t know how, when, and where to seek help. Above all, his subordinates and Minister where law unto themselves. And that is the main reason I did not endorse him, much as I wanted to. Again, given his age and educational background, President Jonathan was expected to know who and who to hire to wage a decisive battle against oppression and decadence.
In spite of everything, President Jonathan was better than President Obasanjo as well as those before Obasanjo. But he is not Obasanjo or those before Obasanjo. His era was a different era. And the expectations were different He is learned. And he is from the Niger Delta, the region that harbors the mainstay of Nigerian economy. He had all the reasons to harbor and exude a sense of entitlement to the presidency and leadership of this great nation. From all indications, I am not so sure the President was knowledgeable about that. Anyway, I want to thank him for the great job he did on Ore-Benin Road as well as the Almajiri Educational initiative - two landmark projects that were beyond the reach of the President Obasanjo and all the retired Generals who schemed his ouster. And much more applause to the President for reinventing our armed forces, especially the naval fleets and combat Aircrafts that were systematically decimated over the years by our retired Generals who didn’t see reason to modernize them. That they are the ones who are the present celebrating Jonathan’s defeat the most is, in my humble submission, the unkindest cut.
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