The Sacrificial Lamb …Jonathan: Suffering Sins Of Others

Government by its nature is a continuum; which means that an
administration of the day must not only be willing to inherent both assets and
liabilities, it must be ready and able to suffer the sins of omission and
commission of others. This, in brief is the plight of the once indigent child
of Otueke in today’s Bayelsa State, on whose desk stops the buck of governance
in Nigeria, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

It is therefore, no accident that serving President,
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s emergence at the corridors of political power is
today subject to varied interpretations, depending on the political divide a
given critic professes. Either one believes that the President is a deserving
beneficiary of the political leadership of Nigeria, hence, be trusted to
deliver or be prejudged unfit, for being the product of a minority tribe,
without the slightest chance of ascending such high office, in a country,
where, power is generally believed to be an exclusive treasure of a section of
the 1914 forced amalgamation, that became Nigeria.

From the beginning, based on population, geographical spread
and indeed appetite of those blessed with membership of the three unequal
divides – the North, West and East, there indeed was never contemplated a time
in our history, when, leadership of the nation shall be ceded out of Wa-Zo-Bia,
a contraption depicting the three major tribes of Yoruba in whose language ‘Wa’
means come, Hausa/Fulani, ‘Zo’, and in Igbo ‘Bia’.

This tripod, accepts as a given that the right of political
leadership to the more populated North, academic and fiscal management, the
West, while, the Igbos, must remain content with the rewards of their trade,
commerce, industry and unusual resilience.. In such a democracy, to dare
displace the status quo is to attempt a political suicide and be made to suffer
an unthinkable political instability never ever imagined.

Thus out of the equation, none from the now known Niger
Delta, a collection of oil and gas endowed tiny little ethnic groups with
countless tongues, persuasions, creeds, cultures and climes, was ever prejudged
fit and proper to superintend the affairs of a nation, thoroughly divided in
favour of numbers. Ordinarily therefore, to even contemplate a Niger delta
Presidency was, to the self-styled beneficiaries of numbers, not just a taboo
but a mortal sin that must be punished with the most vicious of instability,
criticism, artificial insecurity, betrayal and indeed political vindictiveness
as reward.

But the ways of men are not the ways of God or the gods,
depending on the persuasion of the analyst. That was how, the son of very poor
parents of Otueke, who could not afford even school sandals for their child
one, reluctantly chosen to serve as spare-tyre, as they say of deputies in
Nigeria, to Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua emerged as acting President of
Nigeria in 2010 and later, thanks to the constitution and indeed destiny, the
President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, in spite of countless threats to make his service period ungovernable.

This means, Jonathan inherited not just assets and
liabilities but indeed hatred of fore-thought, for taking what ‘did not belong
to his people’.

The first major signs of what to expect from a Jonathan
Presidency emerged in the days of the incapacitation of then ailing President
Yar’Adua, when, against all known constitutional dictates, a group of
interested Nigerians from Northern extraction, attempted to manipulate the
process to frustrate the emergence of then Vice President Jonathan as acting
President.

Unfortunately, Nigeria, is a part of a larger global village
tilting towards law, order and democracy, and naturally rejected a dislocation
of existing laws to prevent denial of a vice president’s ascension to the
presidency, upon physical incapacitation and eventual death of the principal.
Secondly, years of neglect, marginalisation and indeed economic slavery, had
toughened the youth of the oil producing Niger Delta who had accordingly,
resolved to move away from years of fruitless intellectual advocacy for
national integration and economic survival, to armed insurgency intended to
unravel content of the pipelines, repeatedly promised their beggarly fathers.

With national economic survival, dependent mainly on the
resources of the Niger Delta, thoroughly threatened, the caution to allow
destiny take its normal course became a reluctant option, but never to be
considered as a right.

Little wonder, the outcome of the 2010 presidential
elections became a violent awakening from a choking dream of bloody nightmare,
which expectedly translated into an orgy of bloodletting, destruction of
property and the entrenchment, thereafter, of artificial, inhibiting huddles to
economic success, national cohesion and indeed political stability. The period
also emboldened the little known Islamist extremist group, Boko Haram, which
has, for the most part of the Jonathan presidency, waged a war against the
Nigerian state, thus raising questions on the future propriety of an indivisible,
united and indeed stable Nigeria.

Since then, the conspiracy of the vocal few among the
disenchanted political class has remained unabated, with not a single moment of
respite for the Jonathan presidency to do the work Nigerians overwhelmingly
elected him to do. From the election of leaders in the House of
Representatives, to the debates on oil subsidy removal; from organised labour’s
strike over National minimum wage to the crippling demands of the Academic
Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU), for reforms and special
remunerations; from the destruction and killings, with Christians and churches
as targets, in parts of the North, by terror-based Islamists extremist
insurgents, to the fresh demand for review of the derivation principle and from
the protests against Currency Restructuring to the now exhumed, Northern States
Governors’ demand for review of the long settled onshore/offshore dichotomy,
one single theme runs through, ‘pull-Jonathan-down,’ at all cost.

Otherwise, how can a People Democratic Party, PDP-controlled
Lower Chamber, the House of Representatives, as much as contemplate refusing
the request of a serving Nigerian President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed
Forces of Nigeria, to present the 2013 annual budget proposal to a joint sitting
of the National Assembly, with the lame excuse of inspecting on-going projects
within the same period? How can a National Assembly become a quasi-opposition
party to an elected President, with hardly a common ground for issues of
national stability and cohesion? How can a serving President be blamed for
virtually every problem, including products of years of maladministration by
successive governments and planlessness, infrastructure decay, virtual death of
the manufacturing sector, a monolithic economy depended pre-dominantly on oil
and gas, death traps called federal roads, epileptic power supply and above
all, decay of the health and education sectors among others. And have all
solved, at a go.

Such has been the fate of Jonathan, who in spite of obvious
distractions, has kept his head above water and ventured policies and projects
hitherto adjudged no-go-areas. And the list is long and impressive but
swallowed by the loud voices of political selfishness, ethno-religious
insurgency and indeed protests, based on pre-mordial loyalties and hollow in
content and reason.

Even so, mention must be made of a few bold efforts which
though very well-known, are never counted as worthy achievements, simply
because of the pre-determined agenda of making this government ungovernable.
For instance, that Nigerian refineries were deliberately left comatose in
preference for refined products’ importation, under a subsidy regime
manipulated by a powerful cartel with influential backers, preceded the
Jonathan presidency. But it took the serving government to initiate subsidy
removal intended to raise the needed funds to fix the ailing refineries. What
was the response? A gang-up of sorts that eventually labeled the president as
anti-people, and for which a nation-wide strike was called to pull Jonathan
down. Today, probe of the sub-sector has not only exposed the huge national
resources that yearly go down the drain, Nigerians now know that it requires
the uncommon patriotism, strength of character and discipline of a man like
Jonathan to confront such national maladies.

What of the education sector known for its rot and
concomitant brain-drain? It was the same Jonathan presidency that ended the
protracted agitations of ASUU to initiate proactive reforms which led to improved
wages for university teachers, better fiscal vote for the sector, development
of infrastructure for citadels of knowledge and indeed improved academic
standards.

The state of electricity power generation and supply was
well known, in spite of our near frequent appeal to temporary, even permanent
amnesia. From a power generation of 2,200 mw, in most part of nearly 52 years,
the brief period of the Jonathan presidency has raised the ante to an
impressive 4,4000 mw with the target of 4,800 by the end of the year. This is
in spite of familiar frustrations by the influential generator-import cartel
which had consistently frustrated previous attempts at addressing problems of
the sector.

Only last week, in line with the resolve to privatise the
power sector for improved service delivery, financial bids for five public
power-generation concerns, were opened, with the promise of a stable
electricity power regime.

Another is the provision of a conducive democratic clime in
which free speech is more than ever before, lavishly guaranteed. We can go on
and on, but President Jonathan has pleaded with Nigerians to exercise, a little
more Patience, incidentally, the name of his wife and First Lady, and prepare
to see the fruits of his silent revolution by 2013. A period of about two years
in office.

Is it too hard to ask? Is there any government that can
solve all problems at just one go? Were it that easy with successive
administrations, would Nigeria be where, she is today? How long shall Jonathan
remain a sacrificial lamb, pre-convicted to suffer for the sins of the past?

At 52 years of nationhood, My Agony is that many Nigerians
cannot still see the bold signs of political conspiracy, ethno-religious
gang-ups and indeed the ‘pull-him-down’ at-all-cost agenda, vigorously being
pursued by a political clique that believes that political power is their
birth-right, with the ready connivance of their ill-advised apologists.

But I see a future, when like the American creed,
encapsulated by William Tyler Page, (1868-1942) the Nigerian will proudly say,
“I believe in the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a government of the people, by
the people, for the people, where just powers are derived from the consent of
the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign nation of many sovereign
states, a perfect union, one and inseparable, established upon those principles
of freedom, equality, justice and humanity for which Nigerian patriots
sacrificed their lives and fortune.

‘I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it,
to support its constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to
defend it against all enemies.

Such is the future I see. Happy independence, Nigeria.

Soye Wilson Jamabo