The whole premise of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration is that he will surprise us all. The more people lose hope in his stewardship, the stronger he believes in the divine nature of that impending wonder.
The whole premise of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration is that he will surprise us all. The more people lose hope in his stewardship, the stronger he believes in the divine nature of that impending wonder.
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That is why you hear him often say that, though he is the most vilified president in the history of mankind, he will soon become the most adored. That’s why he keeps promising that, very soon, just very soon, you all will see the long awaited dividend of democracy. (I’m happy to report that, 14 years later, we have stopped calling it nascent democracy.)
President Jonathan knows, just like everyone else, that nothing in his past is inspiring. There is no role he had played in his life that excites even his most ardent supporter to believe that he has it in him to transform the lives of Nigerians. Even his biography, the story of a shoeless folk like you, has fallen hollow. Nigerians have suddenly realized that they were sold a dummy. Babangida and Abacha did not have shoes at one point. None of that made them care about ordinary folks once they got into power. Instead, they did what most poor folks do when they gain access to wealth- they used both hands to accumulate them.
For a man so underestimated, President Jonathan hangs his whole faith in his ability to surprise us all. Recently he interpreted it this way: that his name has brought good luck to Nigeria. I bet he meant to say that his name will bring good luck - unless we are still too blind to see how lucky we are. The only place that good luck brings surprises is at the pool kiosk or the lottery stand. You don’t run a country of 170 million people with the conviction of a lottery player.
Such belief in one’s ability to surprise does not develop overnight. The humiliation that Jonathan endured under the government of President Musa Yar’Adua was enough to instill such celestial mission in him. Also for reasons best known to him, the president has the confidence that those he has surrounded himself with have the ability to deliver the goods that will erase the unflattering opinion of him in the public space. That is where the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan rests- in the pie charts, graphs and Powerpoint presentations of a transformation in progress.
The most generous observer will look at the optimism of the president and conclude that the little nza bird dancing in the middle of the street must have some spirits beating the drum for him right inside the bushes.
It has been two official years since the president was sworn in for a full four year term. How has he been doing?
I bet it is not too early now to judge. I remember attempts in the past to assess his presidency have been rebuffed by people around him as too early. We were told that he needed two solid years to make an impact.
Today marks the end of his second year in power. Let us look at his enduring achievements as presented by his supporters. Here they are in a nutshell:
The president has set up a power sector road map that has improved electricity. If not in your neighborhood, well, you live in the wrong neighborhood and should just be patient. The president has revitalized the rail sector that once again it is possible to travel from Lagos to Kano by train. If you haven’t tried it, do not claim that it takes days and that the trains are old dirty bolekaja. The president has renovated and repainted the airports across the country. Even the air conditioners and the escalators are working, unless it is their days off. Yes, fertilizer and oil subsidy scams are over so food and petrol should be cheaper, unless you live in the wrong part of town. The media is now free to be lost in the freedom of information maze, so they should stop complaining of not having the president’s asset declaration forms. And the greatest one – elections are now free and fair, no intervention from the president- unless the stakes are really high, like the governor’s forum election.
As for corruption and other promises and checklists of things to do, the president wants you to know that the decay started over four decades ago and it won’t be wiped out in just two years. Wink, wink: he needs more time.
Expectations are so low in Nigeria that what should be a routine role of local governments is often assigned presidential height of achievement to be documented in books. Meanwhile the all important mission of establishing an enduring change remains unreachable.
Nigeria is like a poorly designed and constructed road constantly washed away by runoff water. Periodically scrapping the top soil, coating the surface with bitumen and gravels without building a reinforced culvert wide and deep enough to withstand once every fifty years kind of rain, is mere waste of time and resources. That is essentially what we have been doing in the last 14 years. And that we will continue to do, irrespective of who wins in 2015. Until we go back and fundamentally restructure the road itself, we have built nothing that will endure one rainy season or two.
Two years after, it’s charitable to say that President Jonathan is searching for a legacy. He knows that he has just two years to find it. By all indications, the glorious transformations he has been made to understand will happen soon will not happen. His excuse that enemies, who from the very first day wanted him to fail, distracted him will not fly. President Jonathan’s hands are tied by history. And from history, he can find an escape to immortality.
On March 31, 1968, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson went on TV and made a speech from the White House that shocked Americans. Johnson was a president who took over from J. F. Kennedy when Kennedy was killed. Many in Kennedy’s administration felt that Johnson was not good enough to replace Kennedy and run the United States. During the speech Johnson said, “What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.”
Making a similar speech and reminding us that he has been, at some level, the Lyndon Johnson of Nigeria, will be President Jonathan’s coup.
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