It Is Yet Dawn But Jonathan Is Not Our Joshua

Ademola Olukayode Daramola

One of the most important elections of our time was concluded on Monday, April 18, 2011 culminating in the release of the final vote count in the federating units of Nigeria. Prior to the event, there were ominous signs of voter frustration borne out of past experience. Fears and feelings of resignation as a result of hope suspended or outrightly betrayed, pessimism stemming from previous brutal silencing of people’s voice as expressed through the ballot box in 1965, 1979, 1983, 1999, and 2007, and understandable apathy which is the result of a strong distrust of the political class. In spite of the odds and the possibility for a night of long knives, on April 16^th, 2011, Nigerians returned to the polls to exercise their civic duties; to vote and to protect. Reports indicated that the polls were peaceful and largely free in the large cosmopolitan areas partly due to voters’ vigilance and a heavy presence of security personnel. Separate reports further showed that the election was neither free nor fair in the remote locations where there were reports of multiple voting, underage voting, ballot box snatching, ballot stuffing and voter intimidation. While this is a marked improvement over our previous experiences, and an affirmation of the strong leadership skills of the INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, it should however not receive undue applause. I say this in the context of our capabilities and the global movement towards excellence, in this day and age, Nigeria cannot continue to be an exception to the high expectations for free and fair polls. It is expected that 51 years after independence and with the colossal amount of human and financial resources at our disposal, we should be able to manage our affairs more tidily. This is not too much to ask.

INEC results indicate that incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan carried the day with 22 million votes against 12 million votes recorded for his closest opponent, General Muhammadu Buhari. A more cursory look at the vote spread reveals an ominous trend however: an indication of a really fractured polity; the only silver lining being that the Southwest voters, either due to a feeling of disappointment with the progressives’ inability to forge a common front or out of admiration for the president’s person (there were no exit polls to shed light on the reason(s)), refused to toe the path of the Northern and Southeastern voters by casting their votes for a non native. For those internet bloggers who attribute the president’s success in Lagos to the sheer strength of the non-indigenous population, I will quickly refer them to Ogun, Ondo, and Ekiti States where the president recorded similar success.

In the estimation of an integrationist, there is very little to cheer in the above result. After half a century of being, we are forever more divided than being united. Having said this, the question becomes “What now?” The voting trend in Nigeria has not ceased to amaze me. To me, elections and re-elections are meant to underscore an affirmation of performance, the confirmation of a mandate borne out of satisfaction with the people’s life situation as a direct consequence of the actions and inactions of the candidate. In other words, the electorate is saying that the candidates understand their issues, he/she gets it, and they are better off now than they were etc. It would seem natural that voters cast their votes in their best self interest. Nigeria is a study in contrast, at least going by Jonathan’s report sheet in critical areas of governance, following the months since the congress proclaimed legitimacy on his administration. Even the most liberal analysts will strain to award Mr. Jonathan a D+ in those areas of Leadership, Administration, Competence, and nation building that are most critical to improving the lots of Nigerians. But then, 22 million of us went to the polls on Saturday to reward Mr. Jonathan with a fresh 4-year mandate, essentially saying that they like the direction to which he is leading the country. That is the power of democracy; liberating and at the same time, confusing. It is liberating to hold the power of our destiny in our own hands, but the confusion stems from the unpredictability of people’s thought process and the tendency to sometimes work against their own self-interest. This past election clearly underscores the above dictum.

Why is the President such a polarizing figure? Four elements deserve study in this direction. First is the manner of his political ascendancy. The President’s story is well chronicled, but the poignant point that needs to be reiterated is that his political successes have both confounded and discombobulated long held and time tested beliefs of divine entitlement in many quarters. His emergence put paid to the ambition of many powerful interests, effectively shifting the locus of power. Gone down the drain with those ambitions are countless years of nurturing, neddling, political capital, strategizing and calculating, financial commitments and the fate of millions of hangers-on. This is a template for a war of attrition, and fight they did. The fallout of such a fight ensured that GEJ came out battered and boxed to a corner. Second was his close association with discredited elements of the ruling party; namely Olusegun Obasanjo, Anthony Anenih, Olabode George, and James Ibori. He was not only seen to be closely tethered to the straws of these political god parents, but he was believed to be in cahoots with them in acting out a written script from the books of Obasanjo Political School of thought. The problem with such an association is that it has been widely discredited and has become a pawn in the hands of the country’s vociferous political class still smarting from the embarrassment that they endured during the Obasanjo years. Third on the list is the seeming disdain with which the president and his handlers treated the rule of rotation enshrined in the constitution of his party, PDP. It would seem that despite being a physical presence at the meetings that were held to install the rotation clause in the party books, and unwittingly being a willing participant in the deliberations along with some of his handlers, when it came time to uphold this clause, in acts solely designed to ensure self survival, Mr. Jonathan not only lampooned it, he held those who clamored for justice to be done in this regard in derision. His handlers did not help matters by resorting to tribal sentiments and the use of fear tactics to score a dubious victory. The problem with such a victory is its pyrrhic nature, for it was achieved on the altar of dishonesty and egomania thus casting the President as either unreliable or untrustworthy to uphold a common decision.

Finally, and most important, I would say, is the issue of competence, leadership skills, and political savvy; critical skills which the president do not possess in sufficient quantity, or has not demonstrated sufficiently to positively impact on the fortunes of Nigerians, visibly and swiftly. For a president who is relatively young and one who parades unassailable educational credentials, he should be the darling of the young, educated and upwardly mobile population of the country. Unfortunately, he is largely disliked by a majority of this demography, the bulk of who form the Diaspora community. In years past, our maxim was that Nigeria has a reputation for throwing up candidates for office who have a limited worldview, shortsighted understanding or appreciation for the knotty issues of global economics and a dearth of development initiative/manifesto as a result of their poor educational pedigree. It stands to reason that most educated young Nigerians should embrace Mr. Jonathan based partly on his education and life story, but a core ingredient of acceptance would seem to be missing from this Cinderella story; a background of previous achievements to match his many years of tenancy in the master bedroom of the country’s leadership; for a man who at various times was a deputy governor, a governor of an oil-rich state (in Nigerian parlance), a vice-president, and president; his resume was painfully light on substance and achievements but disproportionately heavy on rhetoric, inanities, and intangibles.

Two issues serve to illustrate the reason for the disillusionment with and suspicion of the president’s managerial skills; the recurring carnage in the Plateau and the epileptic power supply in the country. When the first Jos carnage occurred, it didn’t take the president long to come up with a pronouncement that “this is unacceptable, we will fish out the perpetrators of this dastardly act and they will be brought to justice. We will make sure this never happens again”. For a freshman president, this sounded like music to our ears, so we waited expectantly for the blueprint to making the wanton and senseless killing of innocent villagers “unacceptable”, the plan of action to “fish out the bigwigs and small wigs behind the madness”, and the leadership with which to “make sure it never happens again”. On the three counts, the president and his advisers went zero for three, if we expected him to act decisively, we were sorely mistaken. When confronted on this issue, the president and his spokesmen continuously drew a blank. I found it incredibly shocking that a man who assumes the airs of such lofty intellectual upbringing would find it impossible to articulate a workable blueprint necessary to bring together important stakeholders to the pogrom in Jos, to tackle the first real test of his skills on such a national scale. If we were shocked by this, we had other things coming. Mr. President, immediately on assumption of office addressed the power problem in the country and surmised by saying something to the effect that his team was already working very hard to stabilize our power generation and curtail waste in the energy sector, with a six month timeline. Now, what separates a doctorate degree holder from many others is the ability for clarity of thought, formulation of action through thorough background research, and the communication of findings borne out of scholarly conviction of the unimpeachable nature of his thesis. It would seem that this was not the case with the president’s promise to us on the power issue and as they say; the rest is now history.

Being an avid user of facebook myself, I did follow the president’s posts to his friends on that social media prior to the election, essentially what I was able to take away from his postings was the thinly disguised desperation with which he sought to clobber an informed, exasperated audience into believing that they should temporarily suspend their mature aversions to his seeming incompetence, but to see in him a redeeming value for all that ails the country, this with the intent of setting up a comfortable rostrum upon which to dramatize in tortuous detail his messianic qualities in the name of an election campaign.

Now that Mr. Jonathan is our president, I’d like to make certain recommendations. Dear President, most people never get a second chance to make a good first impression, but in your case, it appears that you have once again put a lie to this maxim. History has once again thrust you to the right, left, and center of our collective psyche, and we will be seeing a lot of you for the next four years. Please endeavor to seize the moment! In paraphrasing the words which Professor Williams used to describe one of our late foremost nationalists to describe Nigeria: It's an embarrassment of human riches; a genetic scandal that a single country could be so stupendously endowed. I will also add that our people have been subjected to the most of deprivations by base characters parading the corridors of power for too long. What this portends for you is that you do not have to try too hard to make a good impression on the people whose affairs you are privileged to preside over at this time.

One of my favorite books on Management is “Good to great…by Jim Collins”. I earnestly recommend this book to all of your ministers, aides, and every one who will be working with you to steer the ship of state in this dispensation. I will also be paraphrasing Jim in the remainder of this write-up.

The people have yet asked that you lead us out of our mire into the mainstream of global development. To do this, sir, first you need to honestly confront the brutal facts of the current realities of our dear country; plain and simple, things are quite bad. Yes, leadership is about vision, but leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts are confronted. Instead of starting by setting a new vision and strategy, you should first get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats- and then figure out where to drive the bus. The key point is that “who” questions come before “what” decisions –the ability to get and keep enough of the right people is the ultimate throttle on growth.

You must also embrace active listening skills. Remember: seek to understand first than to be understood. Knowing and employing active listening skills is primus inter pares for your office. Finally, become a level 5 leader: This is the type of leadership required to turn around our ailing industries, re-construct our dilapidated highways, seaways, and byways. Such leaders are self effacing, shy, quiet, and reserved. Like all mortals, they have ego and self-interest but they channel them away from themselves and into the larger goals of building a great country. They build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless. Also, level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly. To grasp this concept, think of US President Abraham Lincoln, who never let his ego get in the way of his primary ambition for the larger cause of an enduring nation. Yet those who mistook his personal modesty, shy nature, and awkward manner as signs of weakness found themselves terribly mistaken. Remember, leadership is not forged in tranquility, it is forged in adversity. A successful life doesn't require that we've done the best, but that we've done our best. Mr. Goodluck, I wish you all the luck in the world. (No pun intended).

I will like to address my compatriots in Nigeria: those for whom honest living has become a daily grind of sweat and tears, those who live under constant deprivation as a consequence of the multifaceted problems that plague our polity. This is to my compatriots who although, are deserving of a part at the table but who are being daily denied due to the wicked tendencies, corrupt ways, and greedy antecedents of people who have either rigged themselves to leadership positions, or who found power thrusted on their laps and have thus misused it to the detriment of our fatherland. Today, history has beckoned on you to act decisively and wisely to put your power of choice to bear, this you have done. GEJ is largely untested but those qualities that attracted you to him in the first place must be harnessed to propel our country to greater heights. We have four years of impending captainship of Jonathan, we must maintain our vigilance. Let us not be afraid to hold our elected leaders accountable while simultaneously performing our civic responsibilities to the country. The love of country must be paramount. Shun vices capable of bringing us back light years and embrace collective responsibility. Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings; we must not be indifferent to governance, misrule, or corruption in our land.

Finally, this is to my compatriots in the Diaspora; those to whom the fight for Nigeria’s ascendancy to its rightful place in the comity of developed nations has become a cause, them to whom lack of constant power and pipe borne water in the country is not only unacceptable, but is seen as uncivilized and shameful, and so must be corrected with the application of the death penalty on whomever is implicated in its sabotage. Having traveled far and wide and acquired world class education, our eyes have been opened to the paradox of Nigeria. Home beckons but the prevailing conditions are unsuitable. We live in the comfort of both willing and unwilling hosts yet we are daily reminded in not so subtle terms of the realities of our temporary tenancy in far lands. In not-so-fancy words, we are caught between the deep blue sea and the hard rock. The internet has become an avenue to vent our frustrations, yet things don’t necessarily seem to be looking up. We wonder why on earth Nigerians shunned the frugality, integrity, and uprightness of Major General Buhari, and the uncompromising honesty, and the zeal for service of cerebral Nuhu Ribadu for a largely colorless and unsure Jonathan. We may well never get the answers to these mysteries. Our frustrations are thus clearly justified, but I say: let’s take a deep breath, reassess the situation, and slow down a tad bit.

However hurt we may feel about the direction of our country, there is no justification for a call to violence. The pen, they say, is mightier than the sword…. It is not cool to, on one hand, incite Nigerians to violent insurrection with our facebook entries and internet blogging, and then to turn around and condemn General Buhari for his seeming silence in the face of violent acts by his supporters in Bauchi, Zaria, and Kaduna. Let us realize and accept the fact that it is a mark of patriotism that makes a man to applaud and even celebrate the reversal of a faulty electoral result to the rightful winner in the states of Osun and Ekiti, whilst simultaneously, gleefully announcing his membership of the PDP. There is nothing wishy washy about a member of the PDP holding the feet of President Jonathan to fire, it is rather courageous and should be applauded instead of being seen as grandstanding. For those of us whom the premise of collaboration with the opposition is untenable, for those who would rather take the literal meaning of the biblical injunction “don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers” to heart, I say this country is bigger than all of us, and nation building requires a united front for success.

Ademola Daramola, a card carrying member of the PDP wrote from Rancho Cucamonga, California