Why Jonathan Shouldn’t be Blamed

29^th April, 2017

By: Amir Abdulazeez

D

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 7^th 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