If former President Goodluck
Jonathan had succeeded in solving the ever-worsening electricity crisis in Nigeria , he would have left office last May as
one of Nigeria ’s greatest leaders. And that is, assuming that
singular feat would not have been able to reelect him by deflating the strong,
vicious and clearly unedifying campaign bolstered by unrealistic promises
massively deployed against him by the opposition.
*Jonathan and Buhari
Granted, the Olusegun Obasanjo
regime, allegedly, squandered some $16 billion to plunge the country deeper
into darkness, but Jonathan is no Obasanjo, and I doubt if his ambition was to
come into office to reenact the Obasanjo disaster. Jonathan’s failure,
therefore, to realize the strategic role of electricity in the life of modern
man and demonstrate that five years was enough for him to write his name in
gold by lighting up the country is the key reason, I think, he left office with
his head bowed, despite his very noble act of conceding defeat to President
Muhammadu Buhari, thus aborting the desperation of those waiting in the wings
to exploit the situation to unleash terrible mayhem in the country and waste
drums of innocent blood.
The
problem, I think is that, President Jonathan really stretched political naivety
far beyond its malleable limit when he failed to realise that the regime of
darkness and unspeakable extortion unleashed on Nigerians by the private
operators currently generating and distributing electricity in Nigeria was
gradually exerting some influence on the way Nigerians perceived his
government. Those companies appeared to have conspired to work extremely hard
to further compound his already growing image problems and deepen grave
disaffection against him among the populace. And no one should have realized it
better than the former president that such a situation was too harmful to be
allowed to endure, especially, on the eve of a very bitterly contested
election. But Jonathan and his party were insufferably complacent and took
several things for granted until a devastating defeat was served him like an
unexpected, unappetizing breakfast.
It would seem
that he realized only too late in the day (assuming he ever did) that he was facing a peculiar kind
of opposition: one which, though, pitiably lacking in brighter ideas or better
preparation for governance (as Nigerians are already witnessing), appeared more
adept in chronicling and magnifying the failings of his government. And so, it
was easy for them to promise largely unrealistic alternatives and got sizable
number of people to buy into their grand illusion that the only solution to Nigeria ’s
many problems was just the exit of Jonathan.