By Ray Ekpu
The crowd that is chanting Run, Jonathan, Run is a composite contingent made up of greedy and hungry fellows, rented fellows, political flunkeys of the basest type and those who think that Nigeria may be ready for any kind of political tomfoolery at this time.
*Jonathan
Ordinarily, a man who had risen from the position of a Deputy
Governor, Governor, Vice President to the apex of his country’s administration,
the presidency, ought to be happy that he had done, without being harmed, a
marathon that most Nigerians only dream about.
In that case, he would be expected to play only the role of a statesman who would seek to contribute his ideas to the resolution of his country’s and continent’s existential problems, some of which had haunted his country since the days that he grew up in his village without the adornment of even the cheapest pair of shoes. Now he is in a position to acquire the most expensive pair of designer shoes ever made.
He hasn’t forgotten, has he, that when President Umaru Yar’Adua
was sick it was a tug of war for him to be made the Acting President even
though he was the Vice President and the next higher office was just a spit
away. It took the concerted efforts of reasonable Nigerians including his party
from the north to get the National Assembly to shoe-horn him into the office by
the novel idea of the doctrine of necessity. After Yar’Adua’s death and the end
of that term his party, the PDP, gave him the nod for a new term of four years.
And when in 2014 he wanted another term his party stood by him
even though his performance in the previous five years did not truly warrant an
elongation of his tenure. Now that some strange do-gooders are telling him to
abandon his party and seek the APC’s presidential ticket how will that make him
feel? What will doing so make him look like, a loyal party man, or a cross
opportunist? Cross opportunism is a common and standard fare in Nigerian
politics but people who think highly of him think he should behave differently.
Afterall
it was he who called Mr Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 and congratulated him for
winning that year’s presidential election. That was a first, a noble first, in
the history of our country. That is why most Nigerians have hoisted him on top
of a pole and celebrated him as an outstanding man of honour. That is why the
international community shows enormous respect for him and invites him as a
leading observer in elections. Now he wants to throw all of that honour away in
a gamble that is likely to be more futile than fruitful. Dr Goodluck Jonathan,
don’t. Where I come from there is a proverb that says there are several vices
that are as disreputable as stealing. This would be one of them despite the
fact that Nigerian politics is a zero-sum game.
I ask Jonathan to remember that some of the APC people including
some of their governors who are now seeing him as the New Messiah always told
us that he was “clueless,” cluelessly clueless and incompetently incompetent.
There are very few derogatory words in the dictionary that the APC’s Goebbels
did not use for Jonathan. Now they and Jonathan pretend to have forgotten all
that since Nigerian politics thrives on amnesia but the records are there and
if Jonathan and the gang want him to dare they will be confronted with their
own vomit. Now opposing parties will have ready dirty material to use for
Jonathan. The other aspect of it is that the APC will have to struggle to prove
to Nigerians that the man that they said was a clueless fool in 2015 has
suddenly become a wise problem solver in 2022. They will have to explain the
trajectory of that transformation to thinking Nigerians.
Northerners
have run Nigeria longer than Southerners if you crunch the numbers from 1960
till date. So if Jonathan accepts to run for one term of four years and power
returns to the north for another eight years, the gap in years of rulership
between the north and south will widen the more. Why should Jonathan allow
himself to be the vicious instrument for that act of short-changing the south,
which ought to position someone who can govern for eight years? And from the
list of southerners who have thrown their hats into the ring from the two major
parties, there is hope that if Nigeria chooses wisely Nigeria will be on the
way to being redeemed and renewed. If Jonathan chooses to allow himself to be
drawn into cheating the south because of greed he will carry that burden for
life because the south supported him massively for the five years or so that he
was in power. That will be the equivalent of repaying gratitude with
ingratitude, removing fish from the mouth of the south and replacing it with a
piece of stone.
In the 2015 election, Jonathan and PDP propagandists painted the
APC as a den of terrorist sponsors and religious bigots. If he and his team
truly believed this to be true can he swear that
the reverse is the case now? Has President Muhammadu Buhari taken back his
words that Boko Haram terrorists should be treated the way the Niger Delta
militants were treated with a package of amnesty concessions? Now has the APC
led Federal Government proven in the last seven years to be religiously
neutral? I doubt it. So what makes the APC such an attraction for Jonathan
except for the lust for power?
Many
issues in this Jonathan gamble do not make sense to right-thinking people.
During the 2015 campaign, the APC identified three issues that it considered to
be the Achilles heel of the Jonathan administration: corruption, insecurity and
a dying economy. These three issues still remain, to this day, the chink in the
Federal Government’s armour. What makes Jonathan the magic man to solve these
problems that have frustrated Buhari for seven years? Choosing Jonathan would
mean an admission of failure by APC and a commendation of PDP for producing a
man that is adjudged as the New Messiah that the APC is dying to hand over its
presidential ticket to.
If Jonathan thinks he can jump into APC today and get its
nomination by consensus tomorrow what does he think of those who have been
spending their time, energy and resources to build the party? Does he think
they are zombies who will stand and stare? Jonathan and the do-gooders who are
egging him on must understand that there will be no consensus candidate in any
of the two major parties. Those in the ring are ready to fight to the bitter
end because the stakes are sky-high and the rewards exceedingly tempting. Mark
my words, no one, not even Buhari can guarantee him or anybody the position of
a consensus candidate.
The presidential contest is different from the party chairmanship
where the potential contestants decided to surrender the chairmanship position
to Senator Abdullahi Adamu. That will not happen in the presidential race.
Those who have been building the party since 2013 are now ready to reap the
fruits of their investment in the party. They will fight for the presidential
ticket with all that they have in their armoury. It is doubtful if Buhari will
choose to destroy the party with a forceful push for a consensus ticket for a
stranger, an interloper, a man who was never and as of now, is not a member of
his party. That risk is too big to take. And Buhari is not such a frivolous
gambler.
In
any case, no one is certain if by law Jonathan is fit to run. A 2017
constitutional amendment precludes anyone from being sworn in more than twice
as President. He has reached that milestone though there is the argument by
some lawyers that there is no room for retroactive laws in Nigeria today. This
depends on the interpretation by our courts. So does Jonathan still want to gamble
in the midst of this uncertain legal position? What exactly is the desperation
about? Is there something he forgot in the Aso Villa that he must seek to
recover? He can ask Buhari to send it to him at Otueke, in Bayelsa.
It is interesting to note that before the 2011 presidential
elections the full name of Jonathan was said to be Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe
Jonathan; someone had to trace his roots to Igboland and dig up Ebele Azikiwe,
probably never used by him or his ancestors until then. It probably worked
wonders to have a link, even a remote one, with the name of the erudite
statesman Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. Now that the Igbo want the presidency badly a
tenuous link with Azikiwe may not be a massive vote catcher for Jonathan in
Igboland.
When Jonathan said to the campaigners who asked him to declare
that he couldn’t declare “yet” because the “process was ongoing” I was shocked.
He also told them to “watch out.” Watch out for what I wasn’t sure. I thought
that he ought to be satisfied that he had bought for himself a place of honour
in Nigeria’s history as the sitting President who accepted defeat and handed it
over peacefully to an opposition candidate. Now some people are telling him
that he is a beautiful bride. They just want to take him to bed and dump him.
What they are offering him is a poisoned chalice, a Greek gift, a Trojan horse
with hostile warriors buried within.
Jonathan,
don’t take the bait. Be a statesman.
*Ekpu is a writer and veteran journalist.
The north want to use Jonathan Jonathan should know that Nigerians will surely vote for if to return to Asorock is his problem but if he returns to Asorock through APC they will surely kill him because all these hungry virmpres in APC has been their for long they can't just watch him fly out and fly in but the best thing for him is to go and rest he has acquired alot of honor and glory he should not allow the wicked northerners to destroy him
ReplyDeleteYou have spoken well. I don't think Jonathan is that power drunk or that myopic not to discover that this is a Greek gift 📦. My own opinion is that if it's not Peter Obi let Fulani continue with it
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