I HAVE
tried delaying the writing of this piece in the honest expectation that someone
probably misquoted Chief E.K. Clark, when he reportedly publicly disowned
former President Goodluck Jonathan. I had hoped that our dear father, E.K.
Clark, would issue a counter statement and say the usual things politicians
say: “they quoted me out of context!” “Jonathan is my son”. That has not
happened; rather, some other Ijaw voices, including one Joseph Evah, have come
to the defence of the old man, to join hands in rubbishing a man they once
defended to the hilt and used as a bargaining chip for the Ijaw interest in the
larger Nigerian geo-politics.
*Jonathan and Clark
If President Jonathan had returned to power on
May 29, 2015, these same persons would have remained in the corridors of power,
displaying all forms of ethnic triumphalism. It is the reason in case they do
not realize it, why the existent power blocs that consider themselves most fit
to rule, continue to believe that those whose ancestors never ran empires can
never be trusted with power, hence they can only be admitted as other people’s
agents or as merchants of their own interests which may even be defined for
them as is deemed convenient. Mercantilism may bring profit, but in power
politics, it destroys integrity and compromises otherwise sacred values.
President
Jonathan being publicly condemned by his own Ijaw brothers, particularly those who
were once staunch supporters of his government further serves the purpose of
exposing the limits of the politics of proximity. Politics in Africa
is driven by this particular factor; it is at the root of all the other evils:
prebendalism, clientelism and what Matthew Kukah has famously described as the
“myownisation of power”. It is
both positive and negative, but obviously, more of the latter than the former.
It is considered positive only when it is beneficial to all parties concerned,
and when the template changes, the ground also shifts. As in that song, the
solid rock of proximity is soon replaced by shifting sands. Old worship becomes
new opportunism. And the observant public is left confounded.
*Abati
Chief
E.K. Clark? Who would ever think, Chief E.K. Clark would publicly disown
President Jonathan? He says Jonathan was a weak President. At what point
did he come to that realization? Yet, throughout the five years (not six,
please) of the Jonathan Presidency, he spoke loudly against anyone who opposed
the President. He was so combative he was once quoted as suggesting that Nigeria
