Many would rather not be in President Goodluck Jonathan’s shoes right now, no thanks to the many troubles staring him in the face. EDEGBE ODEMWINGIE chronicles the possible causes of the president’s sleepless nights.
The manifesto was simple: “A breath of fresh air”. Banners bearing his campaign promises adorned commercial transport vehicles. His desire for a “better Nigeria” resonated nationwide, via pricey prime-time television commercials and of course, the infectious radio campaign jingle from the multi-award winning artiste, D’banj. It was an expensive media trip, albeit hugely successful.
These days, the air does not smell so good, especially when inhaled through the noses of the opposition and when seen through the lens of, amongst others, fatalities recorded from the routine and sustained terror campaigns by the spooky Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for most. But for Monday’s “Thank you visit” by Nigerian international and Chelsea Football Club? of England star, John Obi Mikel, to Jonathan, following the release of his father from kidnappers, the man has not been smiling for some time now. How can he?
From the time he emerged as de facto president (from the South-south, a minority) after the demise of late president Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua, the line was drawn with his opponents. From the obvious to the secret, opposition to Jonathan’s emergence as president in 2011 was and is still rife.
Clearly, the opposition is limited to a few, ‘powerful’ individuals, whose stance hardly reflect the views of the country. Jonathan significantly enjoys widespread appeal and, indeed, support from all nooks and cranny of the Nigerian polity.
One country, two ends
In the aftermath of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s victory at the April presidential ballot, the bad blood spread across ethnic, religious and political lines, and is still being felt till this day.
It was a wide-margin victory by the records of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC), as he handed his closest challenger, General (rtd.) Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) a crushing defeat. Significantly, voting patterns showed a country sharply divided between the mainly Christian South (pro- Jonathan) and the pre-dominantly Muslim North (pro-Buhari). To win, Jonathan however leveraged pocket northern votes to post an enviable showing in the official results released by the INEC (exactly 10, 280, 334 votes). Candidate Buhari denounced the elections, he claimed the exercise was rigged and called for its annulment. Deadly riots spread across most parts of the North in protest.
Before the elections, the myopic, ill-fated adventure by the Adamu Ciroma-led Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF) to produce a Northern ‘consensus’ candidate against a Jonathan candidature when the PDP primaries came calling further polarised the country in two halves by virtue of the divisive tirades and horse-trading between both camps during the exercise. ?
Baptism of terror and the fifth columnists
Compared to combative ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo who, typically, would not hesitate to unleash the full strength of the country’s armed forces on troubling elements in parts of the country? (the Zaki Biam example in Benue State is evergreen), Jonathan had often been criticised for ‘pondering’ too long on his plans. ?
One of the scathing criticisms is; “You are a weak president? incapable of providing security for Nigerians and, indeed, its visitors”. That is the perception of Jonathan by pockets of the public, as a result of sustained terror campaigns that have been recorded for a greater part of his less-than-one-year in office. One can almost hear him say to his accusers, “You are either ignorant or clearly mischievous. How do you stop an impending terror plot?”
Terror indeed, has become a global problem, one that even world superpower, the United States of America (USA) is grappling to contain. The September 11, 2001, plane crash into the World Trade Centre (WTC) twin towers; the Pentagon and the failed bombing of US airliner, Northwest Airlines Flight 253, bound for Detroit via Amsterdam, on Christmas eve, December 25, 2009, by Nigerian bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab now known as the “Underwear Bomber”, are popular examples. Elsewhere, sustained terror campaigns by the Basque separatists in Spain, the IRA in Northern Ireland and the recent terror attacks tagged
“The Greatest Peacetime attack” in Norway by a gunman in that country lays bare stark reminders as to the difficulty, if not impossibility, in containing terrorism.
Incidences of terrorist bombings, which were previously alien to Nigeria, have become as common as other crimes. This puts Nigeria in the league of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan – critical flashpoints of terrorism. In the aforementioned countries, perpetrators mainly hinge their motives on religious grounds.
If one could be reading the president’s mind aright, he is probably not buying that motive, as a political motive, in this case, is more like it. The thought that the terror campaign is being sponsored by elements hell bent on making him “look bad and incapable of governing the country” also hold water.
As the country celebrated her 50th year of Independence on October 1, 2010, two car bombs exploded near the venue of the celebration, maiming and killing dozens in the capita, Abuja.
Almost two months later, on Christmas eve, 2010, three bombs went off in the north-central city of Jos, killing scores. One of the explosives was thrown into a crowded bar where some individuals celebrated the season.
On New Year’s eve, 2010, a powerful bomb tore through the ever busy Mogadishu barracks’ market – popular for its numerous bars, and roasted fish served with French fries- in Abuja.
On April 8, 2011, at the INEC office in Suleja, Niger State, a bomb blast killed at least six people, hours before the parliamentary polls were due to be conducted.
On May 29, 2011, there was an explosion at the Shandawaka Barracks’ market in Bauchi. 13 people died and 40 were injured.
On June 16, 2011, a bomb blast, triggered by a suspected suicide bomber who drove his vehicle into the premises, hit the nation’s Police Headquarters in Abuja.
The terror campaigns attained international dimensions when, on August 26, 2011, an unidentified man drove a Honda Accord laden with explosives into the United Nations (UN) House in Abuja, killing 23 persons and injuring scores.
In the aftermath of the October 1, 2011 bombings, Jonathan’s statement exonerating the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) from the twin bombings on the day Nigerians celebrated their country’s 50th independence in Abuja irked not a few Nigerians. Northern political leaders, specifically, the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF), and presidential aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had a field day, as they took verbal swipes at the president.
“Let me also use this opportunity to reassure Nigerians that what happened yesterday (October 1, 2010) had nothing, I have to repeat, had nothing to do with the Niger Delta. People just used the name of the MEND to camouflage criminality and terrorism,” was the sentence that generated the ripples.
In a bid to clear the air over his meaning, Jonathan told the Northern Political Summit (G-20) when its members paid him a solidarity visit at the Aso Rock Villa, that it was regrettable that politicians hijacked his comments about an issue as sensitive as a terrorist attack to score a cheap political goal. That is history now.
“Salamigate”
The three-way face-off between the National Judicial Council (NJC); embattled President of the Court of Appeal (PCA), Justice Ayo Salami; and the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, is another sleep-deriving problem for the president.
The battle (led by Nigeria’s leading opposition party, the Action congress of Nigeria, ACN, who have been fingered as major beneficiaries of court decisions at several tribunals while Salami held sway) reached its climax when Jonathan appointed Justice Dalhatu Adamu as acting President of the Court of Appeal,to replace the suspended Justice Salami, pending the resolution of all issues relating to the crisis.
Salami’s suspension followed his refusal to obey the NJC’s directive to tender apologies to the CJN and the NJC over the accusations he made against the CJN in respect of the Sokoto State Elections Petitions Tribunal.
So, while interested parties work themselves into frenzy as to the circumstances and ‘appropriateness’ of Salami’s suspension, a poser frequently put across is, is Salami’s suspension and replacement a perfectly implemented hatchet job by the PDP with Jonathan as enforcer-in-chief? Jonathan’s posture is, “Do not use me as ‘scapegoat’, I simply acted in consonance with recommendations of the NJC in announcing an acting president of the appellate court”.
A single term in the works
Jonathan said his intentions were pure. Opponents called it a “tenure elongation trick”. Conservative critics said the timing was wrong. Even when he said the plan to peg the tenure of his office and that of governors to a single term was not his, a more curious part of the disclosure was the one that delt with whether Jonathan benefits from the move or not. “I will not, in any way, be a beneficiary,” he replied.
This development, when laid side by side with previous situations (remember the ill-fated PDP presidency zoning?) provided an opening for those who think they had reasons to doubt Jonathan’s ‘gentleman’ promise, no thanks to past experiences. While the PDP zoning debate (as to whether the party would stick to its ‘gentleman agreement’ that the presidency return to the North in 2011) played out, Jonathan (from the south-south) refused to be a ‘gentleman’ and acted otherwise. He broke rank with powerful sections of the party to clinch its presidential ticket in a party primary that saw him decimate a last ditch and desperate move to ensure that a northern consensus choice in former vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Former Edo state governor, Professor Oserheimen Osunbor said in a recent interview that the single term move was not diversionary, but was in line with efforts to effectively rotate the presidency among Nigeria’s six geo-political zones.
“I must admit that I was surprised by the amount of controversy generated on account of this suggestion by Mr President. I am surprised, because this is not a new idea. It is not something that has come out of the blues. It is an idea that has been with Nigerians for a very long time. I was privileged to be a member of the Constitutional Conference in 1994/95 and this (the issue of single-term) was one of several views which were canvassed at the conference. Ever since, it has been in the minds of Nigerians. Therefore, I want to think that some people have some ulterior motives in trying to twist this whole idea out of context. I think that there is merit if a serving president serving for a term, given the peculiar circumstances of our country and the desire for power rotation by Nigerians, instead of being located in one area, I have not heard any argument that is able to defeat this aspiration.”
For one, the likelihood of the Bill’s successful passage into law throws up the fact that nothing constitutionally stops Jonathan from exploring the lawful leeway for a second term in 2015 (in this case, an additional six-year tenure).
Growing dissent
Some labeled it “the January 14th revolution”, others identified it as “the peoples revolution”, yet not a few would agree that the recent socio-political tsunami that swept through Tunisia ought to be named after the brave martyr watered the ground on which the tree of the revolution presently sweeping through the middle east eventually blossomed.
That “moment of madness” which later gained momentum originated in the sleepy town of Sidi Bouzid. There, a young man named Mohammed El-Bouazizi paid the supreme price in a courageous attempt to say “enough is enough.”
An Abuja-based labour activist, Asuzu Echezona, captured the event in his opinion piece made available to LEADERSHIP SUNDAY.
Protests inspired by the revolt in Tunisia have been replicated in Egypt, Yemen and Algeria, Bahrain and Libya. Also, there is a striking semblance between the popular Middle-eastern and North African uprising to colour revolutions seen in post-Soviet countries. The Rose Revolution of Georgia and Orange Revolution in Ukraine between 2003 and 2004 are very good examples. The protest, at least in terms of unseating two prominent sit-tight leaders (Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak), has paid off .
Like Tunisia, like Nigeria
To illustrate with an incident in Nigeria, similar to that which sparked-off the revolution in Tunisia on January 31, an angry mob attacked and torched a commercial bank in Mpape, a suburb of Abuja, protesting the killing of a woman (some said she had just got married and was pregnant) by one of the police guards at the bank.
The gist is that the taxi driver insisted that a passenger alight in front of the bank, a supposedly “restricted area”, despite being warned by a mobile policeman attached to the bank, not to do so. Reportedly angered by the driver’s effrontery in ignoring his order, the policeman shot at the taxi, and instantly killed? the female passenger and injured three others. A mob action followed. Strikingly, that was the first of its kind in the country’s capital.
The mob swarmed the bank.? They torched the nine cars parked within the bank’s premises, and the bank’s Automated Teller Machine, ATM, as well as the bank’s building. But before the mob could completely over-run the bank and probably lynch some of its staff, the Brigade of Guards led by its commander, Brig. Gen. Emmanuel Atewe, anti-riot policemen Armoured Personnel Carrier, and men of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Fire Service, swarmed the scene to quell the unrest.
For all it was worth, Bloomberg reported that the bank fell 4.4 per cent to N15.30 by 2:30 p.m. samr day, when trading closed in Lagos, its lowest since December 31.
“Don’t forget that the trend of countries falling into coups is no more fashionable in Africa, and because that is going off, that is why you see revolutions coming up. We now have to fight revolutions. How can you fight revolution? Good governance. Good governance goes along with peace. Where there is no good governance, there cannot be peace. And where there is no good governance, there cannot be democracy. Democracy brings good governance, good governance brings peace. And this is the new trend that is going to better the lot of African nations,” president-general, African Peace Foundation, Professor Ola Makinwa, told LEADERSHIP SUNDAY.
The underlying factor remains the rife apathy, hopelessness, oppression (to name a few), suffered by Nigerians, following years of government’s neglect, under-representation, bad governance and misrepresentation that had left them disillusioned.
It is pertinent to point out that the ingredients that resulted in? the fermentation of the Tunisian tsunami are part of the recipe of the menu called “the Nigerian nightmare”, the daily frustrations of regular Nigerians.
2015 lurking
Several local and international observers have severally warned that if the intractable knots that define what has come to be known as “the Nigerian factor” are not speedily untwined, the sustainability of the Nigerian Project might be in jeopardy. The American government had made this point known but were hurriedly dismissed as “meddlesome interlopers”. Ambassador John Campbell also gave his own assessment of what would become of the nation if the refusal to change persists (He predicted that the country will split in 2015). A section of the country dismissed his report as “the ranting of a senile, biased and mischievous spy agent of the American government”.
“Millions of Nigerians, especially the youths, are being pushed dangerously beyond the limits by an unjust system that services less than 20 per cent of the populace with the labour, blood and sweat of the majority. While a few Nigerians can afford to have their breakfast in Lagos, lunch in London and dinner in France, millions of poverty-stricken Nigerians, at the moment, are not sure of their next meal,”? Asuzu said.
According to a recent World Bank Report, more than 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population live below $1 a day, yet the country’s legislators are the highest paid in the world. 99 per cent of the rest only live marginally above $1, as our middle class has been wiped out by a combination of inflation and low wages.
The bottom line is that the majority of Nigerians have been systemically turned into on-lookers in their motherland. Governments at all levels prepare annual budgets but Nigerians hardly feel a pinch of it. They are daily inundated with fantastic reports of Nigeria’s economic growth, yet our unemployment rate is soaring to high heavens.
This horrendous state of affairs has forced upon Nigerians a different kind of apartheid where the few rich get richer and the rest get miserably poorer. Ruling elites like Ben Ali have used widespread poverty, joblessness, illiteracy, jaundiced reward and punishment system, general insecurity and a culture of fraudulent elections to alienate the masses of Nigeria from a shared citizenship.
With Nigeria waiting in the corridors to be included in the failed state category, these are indeed perilous times for her citizens. How it emerges from its political, social and economic abyss, is hard to tell.