29th April, 2017
By: Amir Abdulazeez
D
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espite
his periodic and latest efforts, there are two things on which former President,
Olusegun Obasanjo may never convince the majority of Nigerians from now to only
God knows when. One is his claim that, he was actually ignorant of Late
President Ummaru ‘Yaradua’s state of health before anointing him for the
presidency in 2007. Two is that he never knew how unpresidential Jonathan was
before making him the Vice president in 2007 and supporting him to re-emerge
president in 2011. The best Chief Obasanjo could have done over these years was
not denial, but rather focus on rationalizing why he imposed a sick man on the
nation and paired him with an inexperienced one.
Listen
to Obasanjo’s most recent comments on Jonathan as quoted from Olusegun
Adeniyi’s new book on the 2015 Elections. “From his first days as President, he
showed that he was too small for the office…….There were certain decisions
taken by Jonathan early in his administration that pointed to the fact that the
office was bigger than him.” The first question we must ask is that, when
Obasanjo made Jonathan Vice President of an ailing President, which of the
latter’s experience, expertise or track record did he relied upon to make him think
he was fit for the office?
Obasanjo
is trying very hard to absolve himself from blame of what Nigeria went through
after his rule, the worst part of which is Jonathan’s time as President, which
is one of Nigeria’s worst eras of mismanagement and incompetence in leadership.
The truth however is, most if not all of the blame is on him as Nigeria
wouldn’t have known anything close to a Jonathan-like Presidency without his help.
The hypothesis of many Nigerians is that, the careful engineering of Jonathan’s
emergence was a deliberate way to punish Nigerians for denying Obasanjo a third
term in office; though he might not have intended the punishment to be this
severe. Whether this and other related hypotheses are true is subject to
another debate entirely.
Now,
despite all these assumptions, we cannot blame all of the Jonathan disaster on
Obasanjo. One, it may be possible that Obasanjo brought him with good
intentions as he said himself “I saw the emergence of Jonathan as an
opportunity to solve the problem of minority agitation. The three majority
ethnic groups in Nigeria can always sort themselves out but not so for the
minority………….So it was in the context of that, I had to plead with prominent people
in the north to allow Jonathan run for a term.” Two, Obasanjo only facilitated
the emergence of Jonathan, but he was not the one who ruled for him. Goodluck
had the time and opportunity to learn enough on the job to avert the reign of
impunity, mismanagement, incompetence and cluelessness that characterized his
government. Why did he fail to do so?
The
Peoples’ Democratic Party establishment saw in Jonathan a very good opportunity
to feather their nest. While the PDP elites should have guided and helped
Jonathan to success, they simply cashed on his inexperience, weakness and
ambition to lead him and his government astray to their own benefit. While
Obasanjo was uncontrollable by these PDP elites and the ‘Yaradua cabal were
difficult to break; they penetrated Jonathan and made rubbish out of his presidency.
The few one among them that actually foresaw the danger were relegated to the
minority and were never carried along.
Did
Jonathan’s cabinet worked to avert the disaster of his misrule? No! They aided
and abetted it. If Jonathan’s cabinet had loved him the way he loved and
protected them, perhaps the government would have performed better or its
misdeeds be more reasonable to accommodate. Jonathan appeared to be generous to
his cabinet members and gave them opportunity to perform but only a negligible
number of them did averagely to above average. In fact, many of them are
currently standing trials in different courts for high level corruption and
every indictment of one of them is an indictment on the principal. It may be
possible that the former president himself didn’t have the true picture of the
level of corruption under him until after he left.
Jonathan’s
kinsmen and supporters were virtually never after the success of his
government. It is unfortunate that his people from the South South region who
were opportune to be close to him only used him just like the PDP elites. The
worst part of it is that, they couldn’t even make him to develop the Niger Delta
and solve its problems. Rather, they kept projecting him as their ethnic hero,
causing unnecessary trouble for him with other Nigerians and making him
dangerously more and more ambitious, until he fell into a deep pit.
Where
was the National Assembly, throughout Jonathan’s 5 year reign of misadventure?
How much did the Senate and the House of Representatives do to checkmate his
excesses? The mystery of how the ex-President effortlessly secured the tacit
cooperation of the National Assembly to do what he did without much eyebrows
raised is yet to be unravelled. The 7th National Assembly can never
absolve itself from the blame of allowing Jonathan run a government accused of
squandering our commonwealth under the guise of security.
Now,
one thing we should ask is, what has Jonathan learnt from his defeat in 2015?
Recent revelations point to the fact that he hasn’t learned much. Recent
comments attributed to him have revealed how he keeps blaming everyone
including INEC for betraying him. One thing he fails to understand is that, if
the 2015 General Elections were actually free and fair as they should be, he
would’ve lost with a much wider margin. How his agents nearly disrupted the
election process when it appears he was losing cannot be forgotten easily.
Here
is an excerpt from the Punch’s editorial written recently. “Former President
Goodluck Jonathan, reflecting on his electoral defeat two years ago shunned
deep introspection and remorse for his five-year reign of impunity. What comes
out from him from excerpts of a new book is a potpourri of falsehoods,
hypocrisy, lame excuses and blame for everyone but himself. But before
Nigerians fall once more for his favourite tactic of playing the victim, they
would do well to remember the devastating impact of his bad government.”
Depending
on which yardstick to be used, Jonathan may well emerge as Nigeria’s worst
leader ever particularly in handling security issues and matters of corruption.
What baffles many is how he summons the courage to continue insulting Nigerians’
intelligence and sensibilities by out rightly denying many things that are pretty
obvious and glaring for everybody to feel, see and even touch.
Should
we blame Jonathan? No! Why? It is the system that gives him courage. The
unwritten rule or convention in Nigeria is that past presidents are above the
law irrespective of what they did in office. While former leaders that commit
punishable offences are being tried and prosecuted all over the world, Nigeria
is celebrating hers. This is what is giving past presidents the courage to
insult the public.
What
makes Jonathan even more courageous? His successor’s government is making some
of the same political mistakes he made, particularly protecting close erring
cabinet members who are doing more harm than good to the administration.
Besides, many of the personalities that helped Jonathan did what he did have
now been fully embraced by the new Ruling Party and transformed into saints.
Furthermore, Buhari’s anti-corruption war is not diligently prosecuted with
many corrupt people likely to walk free at the end of their trials. There are
also genuine concerns of selectiveness in the fight which affects the credibility
of the war itself.
The
lacklustre attitude of many Nigerians towards corruption is a factor that is
helping Jonathan. His army of supporters nationwide who continue to support him
despite startling revelations of monumental corruption by his administration as
well as the diversion of funds meant to fight a dreadful insurgency that have
killed over 25,000 people, is a proof that Nigerians still hold corruption
lightly. In other climes, Jonathan would have since become a political outcast
whom everyone would not want to associate himself with. But, with the
irrational ethno-religious and sectional divisions in Nigeria that always promote
sentiment over reason; Jonathan is considered a political hero by the people
who in one way or the other were also victims of his misrule.
Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez
