The rumour in circulation in Nigeria is that there is a conspiracy against Mr. Goodluck Jonathan. The suggestion is that this "conspiracy" exists to make him fail in his role as the President.
The rumour in circulation in Nigeria is that there is a conspiracy against Mr. Goodluck Jonathan. The suggestion is that this "conspiracy" exists to make him fail in his role as the President.
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Perhaps there is a conspiracy; I do not know. If there is one, I think Mr. Jonathan ought to be happy, not nervous, because nobody on earth can make Mr. Jonathan fail. Except Mr. Jonathan.
In Mr. Jonathan's own account of our recent history, he testifies that the 2011 elections are the best this country has ever had. Six months ago, goes the story, vast acres of voters ignored all kinds of voting histories, patterns and demographics to ensure he became President.
Some of those voters even expressed disdain for their own party, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), although they voted Mr. Jonathan. They wanted the world to know they were voting for Jonathan for himself and not as the PDP representative.
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In any event, when it was all done, Jonathan walked away with the prize.
Unless you challenge the work of the electoral commission—and evidently Jonathan and his team would be the last to do such a thing—the meaning of this is that the voters accepted the dream Jonathan sold them.
That dream was of a safer, better governed, more prosperous Nigeria in which the ordinary man has a place. I think that is what Jonathan means when he speaks of his "transformation agenda."
As part of that agenda, Jonathan doused the country with promises of performance. Those promises have now fallen due. Those promises were not pronounced by his opponents or by prospective saboteurs; he did. Those promises will not be implemented by them; only he can.
At this moment, nobody who may be described as a Jonathan opponent is in a position to do anything to challenge the president if he demonstrates the determination to achieve.
This means that unless Jonathan ignores or botches his own mission, he cannot fail. His fate is not within the control of his political opponents or of saboteurs. They will not give his "transformation" substance; only he can. They will not implement his agenda; only he can.
This is why he ought to be happy. People can only make you unhappy only if your fate is in their hands. Obviously, it is the people of Nigeria whose fate is in someone else's hands: Jonathan's.
One would like to believe, therefore, that Jonathan's "transformation agenda" and all of his political promises actually mean something to him, and to those he has invited to help him achieve them.
If they are more than empty speech-making, all of those who are waiting for him to fulfill them and those who call upon him to do so are in effect his friends and cheerleaders, not saboteurs or conspirators. They are people who are drawing attention to what they believe to be his sense of honour, his character and his ability.
This means we are at the intersection of the power and the glory: if Jonathan wants the glory, the power is in his hands with which to earn it.
I use the term, earn, advisedly. Nigerian rulers are not in the habit of trying to earn respect or credibility by applying themselves to fulfilling their promises or the expectations of the people. On the contrary, they often cast themselves in the role of kings, their concern being more about their royal robes and their harems than with the welfare of their subjects. They wield authority for the purpose of feeding their egos and their greed.
Mercifully, Jonathan knows that is exactly how we got into the cesspit. He knows that that is how we became an under-developing nation characterized by economic, political, ethnic and religious fault lines. It is on account of these weaknesses that some people say that Nigeria as we know it will be history in just a few years.
That is not the fault of Jonathan's critics, or of Jonathan himself. Many of today's problems were being critically spoken about well before Jonathan set his eyes on Abuja for the first time. Still, he chose the political battlefront.
Of greater importance, Jonathan knew of all of the problems before he decided he would offer himself as a "transformation" figure. I do not know if he has defined what he means by transformation, but he must understand that by nature, transformation is a gritty business.
Transformation is fundamental and qualitative. It admits of no faintheartedness and no fickleness; no hesitancy and no insincerity. There is no halfway house, and no hiding place.
This is why one worries about Jonathan. He claims to have committed to transforming the country, but he has failed the first test of commitment by his failure to declare his assets. Insincerity has always been an outstanding feature of Nigeria's rulers, and Mr. Jonathan's refusal to declare his worth speaks louder than anything any critic can say about him.
If his objective is to build a nation that is politically stable and economically virile, rather than simply making speeches that sound good, personal example is the door. It is a contradiction to preach transformation on the back of clichés and tokenisms. Nigerians have seen and heard them all before.
But this is where Mr. Jonathan must be particularly careful. Nigerians have seen and heard glowing speeches and promises before, followed by resounding deception and spectacular failure. It is the predictable precinct of bad governance, and Okafor’s Law—interpreted to mean that a conquered and docile people would remain so in the face of their conqueror—is unhinged for Mr. Jonathan.
In my view, Mr. Okafor’s delicate philosophy has become twice as problematic for Mr. Jonathan: once when he decided he must run for the presidency, and once more in the past week.
When he insisted he must run, he opened the PDP Pandora’s Box. But his victory has also meant he must deliver what he promised, without excuses, or light a fuse in the dynamite within.
There is no conspiracy preventing Mr. Jonathan from fulfilling his electoral pledges; no enemies in dark underground tunnels trying to prevent him from making a success of an assignment for which he said he had completed every research so as to ensure he cannot fail.
The point is that for too long, Nigerians did not pay attention when they were being played for a fool. Those days are what have changed. Trust and respect must now be earned: a country where one million people have BlackBerry phones but where there are only 45 watts per capita as opposed to 466 per Chinese and 1,468 per German just will no longer do. This is particularly true when we know that most of the problems are caused by people who want to continue to sell generators.
A situation where foreign investment is being frustrated because we cannot reorganize the way we do business, and where insecurity is forcing the United Nations away and investors aside, will no longer do. A situation where three-quarters of the budget is disappearing into recurrent expenditure is irreconcilable with the interest of the people, and will no longer do.
The second reason why Mr. Jonathan must avoid excuses concerns one Muammar Ghaddafi. The once-untouchable Libyan leader was butchered on the streets of his hometown last week, leaving behind a lot of lessons for arrogant and indolent African rulers everywhere.
In Nigeria, I hope for many occasions to praise those who serve the people. When that is not the case, it is a national duty not to shy away from holding to account all those who owe the people of Nigeria.
No conspiracy there.
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