It is now clear to all that Goodluck Jonathan will run for the presidency next year.
It is now clear to all that Goodluck Jonathan will run for the presidency next year.
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That means that for the first time in his curious political career, he will be asking people to vote for him in his name and on his own merit. It will be interesting to hear him describe himself.
He will also be amending the playbook. Remember that as a man favoured by circumstance, he rose to the top only to complete someone else’s term of office. As things stand, he will be using that opportunity to prospect for himself.
That is not such a bad thing, except for the fact that Jonathan seems to be playing a familiar game: a man looking out for himself rather than his country. He has spent several critical months in office, but it has been Jonathan’s time, not Nigeria’s. They have been months spent prospecting for his own farm, not nurturing ours. I am not sure it is possible to pinpoint a single, decisive blow for Nigeria that Jonathan has struck since Turai Yar’Adua left for Katsina.
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The reason for this is simple: You always—ALWAYS—know who a Nigerian leader really is from his response to the subject of corruption. It is this one question that defines our hopes and our prospects; whether we live or die.
It is the question our so-called leaders hate to confront. Their general approach is to take to the rooftop and criticize corruption, as if the challenge is to be eloquent in characterizing the menace.
That pedestal is where Jonathan was last week. In a major speech read on his behalf in Minna, he confirmed what we all ought to know: we are a lost people.
He was waxing strong and wise as he tongue-lashed our nation’s championship corruption levels, illegal acquisition of wealth, absence of productivity, dependence on oil, and evasion of taxes. “Unless Nigeria retraced its steps,” he said—indeed, unless we took the right steps— “very soon the system will collapse.”
Collapse is a strong word, a total condition. It evokes dark images of ruin and bankruptcy and desperation and failure and chaos. Jonathan, I believe, was trying to find safe imagery to express the anarchy of a failed state. He ought to know: each day, he has all the political, economic and intelligence reports on his desk.
None of the news reports I read told me if any member of the audience chuckled at Jonathan’s remarks. I always find it funny when Nigerian leaders bring up the rear when it comes to understanding what is going on. Nigerians have been expressing the fear about our country’s imminent collapse for many years. It was being expressed when Jonathan was a university teacher, with no access to the powers that be.
It was being expressed when he became a “mere” Deputy Governor, with little influence on the winds of change. But here we are, half a year after he took presidential power and what we are hearing from Jonathan is music from Olusegun Obasanjo’s gramophone.
There should be no mistake about it: Nigerians need to change. We need to be better citizens. We need to cultivate the habit of “doing things correctly,” as Mr. Jonathan called it. We need to pay our taxes and utilities. We need to obey our laws. In short, we need to be better citizens.
The problem is that good citizenship is no solution to the problem of irresponsible leadership. Good leadership—through commitment, example and good governance—will yield good citizenship; but even exemplary, tenacious citizenship, in the face of the kind of atrocious leadership it has been Nigeria’s burden to bear, can only result in a citizenry that is held in contempt and slaughtered for sport.
Regrettably, that is the Nigeria of our time. It is characterized by the greedy, voracious and evil political elite which considers Mr. Jonathan its leader. To be fair, Jonathan did not create the problem, and I do not insinuate that he even numbers among the greediest. But a part of the definition of this political animal is that it feeds on anyone that is reluctant—or unable—to confront it in the killing fields.
That would be where the government comes in, and clearly, that was on the mind of Mr. Jonathan when he said in Minna, “A society that does not care for its needy and less privileged will not make progress…”
Jonathan describes his Nigeria well. On account of the greed, irresponsibility and corruption that he describes, Nigeria has no time for the poor, alias the needy and less privileged. Led by Jonathan’s party, the so-called People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria celebrates the rich and powerful, no matter the means by which they were acquired.
Anybody who wants proof should take a look at Jonathan’s own 2010 National “Honours” list, which is littered with serial underachievers, certificate forgers, 419-ers, money-launderers and looters. It is impossible to reconcile Jonathan’s professed search for a better Nigeria with his celebration of the very people pushing it to the edge of the precipice.
The answer is for Jonathan to stop speaking in tongues, unless they are all his. But if he actually intends to be remembered favourably by Nigerians, he must prove he is better than those he criticizes from the safety of the presidential pulpit. That strategy will no longer work.
Corruption in Nigeria no longer needs anyone to provide identification or warning. What is required is someone who speaks one language: the language of combat. It needs a man who can be true to this country. It needs a man who can think Nigeria first, and self, last. It needs a man capable of bringing the war to corruption.
Hopefully, Jonathan understands how tenuous his position is. His is one of the most corrupt legacies known to this nation, and the election that brought him power and prominence was rigged all the way from the voter’s register to the Supreme Court.
Hopefully too, it is clear to Jonathan that most of those who supported his ascendancy to the presidency did so only on account of principle, not his person. Jonathan ought to reciprocate this gesture honestly and strongly.
The only way out is for him to do the right thing and, for once in his political life, stand up. There is no other chance, and he has no excuses. Nigeria fought long and hard for him because it was the right thing to do. Is he man enough to fight for his country, or is he going to move from microphone to microphone while his friends and associates escort Nigeria to the collapse he has identified?
Let me rephrase that: can Jonathan run for the presidency next year on the basis of a body-count of big-name corrupt Nigerians and tax-evaders? Is he capable of identifying all those powerful Nigerians who are acquiring wealth illegally and irresponsibly, and is he strong enough to ensure their prosecution?
In effect, Jonathan is saying that Nigeria is a lost country unless somebody does something about it. He is right, but if he is neither motivated enough nor strong enough, he should get out of the way.
Merely speaking about problems is not leadership. It is the part of the problem.
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