FRIDAY DISCOURSE BY DR. ALIYU U.
TILDE
Discourse 288
The Days of Jonathan
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
This week, the Senate approved for the
Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, his list of cabinet ministers. It
was a milestone in his effort to consolidate his power. What he did
was quite in order, for no leader would succeed with a council largely
made of disloyal members. Now that the ball is in his court, the next
hurdle would be what he intends to do with his tenure. And the options
before him in this regard are pretty many.
The single factor that would dictate his
choice would be the indomitable influence of power. Throughout
history, power has played crucial role in directing the minds of
princes. It has moderated a few for the good; equated the good and the
bad intentions of many; and adulterated the superior intentions of
most so strongly that very little good could be remembered of their
reign. In the end, the performance of a prince is dictated more by
power than by his naïve intentions.
But power itself is a product of the
prince’s circumstances and his actions. Some circumstances harness
his power while others impede it, regardless of his intentions. On the
other hand, some actions, even under good circumstances, reduce the
influence of a prince over his subjects while others, even when few,
empower him even under precarious circumstances.
Yar’adua, for example, may have had very
good intentions: he articulated his seven point agenda and pursued
them to the best of his ability. If we will be fair to him – and
Nigerians are hardly fair in the assessment of their leaders – we will
acknowledge his sincere efforts in containing the agitation in the
Niger Delta to an extent never attained by his predecessors; we will
commend his pragmatic effort at improving electricity supply in the
country and though we are still far away from solving it, there has
been tremendous achievement during his tenure, far better than
whatever was achieved during the eight year tenure of his predecessor;
and finally, we will appreciate his impact on roads whose recently
awarded repairs are in earnest, going by what I saw as I tour the
country. He indeed needed time, say eight years, to realise some of
his dreams in these and many other sectors. But the circumstance of
his health would not permit him. In the end, he had to submit to its
dictates, leaving behind his office and his ambitious dream, which
some of us would describe unrealistic, for a better Nigeria., his
vision 20-2020.
Jonathan, the new prince at the villa,
will not be an exception to the rule. As is usual with any new leader,
there will be a mountain of expectations by Nigerians sitting before
him not realising that given his circumstance he what he can achieve
is limited. The political environment under which his tenure is
conceived, delivered and fostered, may tamper with his resolve. It is
destined to be short-lived. It is an irony that we Nigerians have not
gotten it right still: while Yar’adua had the time but limited by
health, Jonathan has the health but limited by time. And the result
will be the same: a moderate impact. So in order to ease his task, let
us not overburden him with so much expectation that will make him feel
helpless. Let us, on the other hand, empower him with the courage to
do what a leader in his circumstance would best do. If he could
achieve that, then he will have the opportunity to write his name in
‘diamond’, to borrow from the innovative lexicon of late Chief Bola
Ige, where others wrote theirs in charcoal.
I have never given this topic a thought
until yesterday when the BBC put it before me. I was on a trip, so I
quickly murmured some words in a style less articulate than I would
aspire. Later I later exerted my mind to a more detailed assessment.
The greatest impact on his tenure would a decision taken by the PDP a
month ago, when it declared that it would not accord him the ticket to
run for the presidency in 2011. Though the party might have done so to
enable stability of the polity and avoid the difficulties of arriving
at the same decision after his powers as Acting President have become
more dominant than that of the party, the decision has in effect
reduced him to a lame duck since the country is just two month or so
from the nomination of candidates for the next elections.
Circumstance may force the party to
change its decision and, finally, allow him the ticket. However, I
would not want to squander my optimism. I will rather consider it less
probable than to be likely. Here lies the unsuitability of PDP’s
rotational presidency. In my opinion, the party should graduate from
the concept as quick as possible because, in addition, it is will
become irrelevant as soon as the country can conduct free and fair
elections. Under such circumstances, once other parties can field in
more credible candidates, the dictum of the PDP would become
irrelevant.
As soon as another person is given the
presidential ticket of the party, say any time between June and July,
people and companies will start to accord less relevance to Jonathan,
knowing that his time would soon be up. Jonathan himself will then
lose steam and the quickly approaching end of his tenancy in the villa
would moderate every decision he takes. At best, I would advise, that
though he is not expected to do any damage to the long term plans of
Yar’adua except those which his cabinet finds ill-conceived, the focus
of his impact should be on consolidating the gains of the President
and devising short term but revolutionary policies that would leave a
lasting effect on the future administration of this country.
We expect him to consolidate peace with
the Niger Delta, continue to work on improving electricity and roads
that I mentioned earlier, for example. However, the greatest things he
could leave behind as a legacy are two: putting his weight behind a
competent presidential candidate in the PDP and conducting free and
fair elections. He should purge the Independent Electoral Commission,
INEC, of dubious characters and substitute them with those that are
inclined to fairness. I know this is difficult for him to do because
the party is likely to object to any such patriotic decision that will
dispossess it of its major weapon – rigging. However, men are
celebrated in history by the making the sacrifice which those who fail
find incapable of making. Jonathan must not repeat the mistake of
Obasanjo who chose a terminally sick person in place of more competent
candidates and conducted the worse elections in the history of the
country.
To achieve that, INEC requires an entire
overhaul; not only Iwu should go, but its entire executive staff,
including state electoral commissioners. The Acting President can
avail himself of the services of the plenty young and competent
Nigerians from various works of life. This country is rich but for the
lack of will of its leadership its success still remains mediocre. The
electoral reforms should reflect the content and spirit of the Justice
Uwais commission. Nigerians withdrew their trust from Yar’adua on
electoral reforms the moment he started to tamper with its
recommendations. It is still with the National Assembly and it is our
fervent hope that the Acting President will put his weight behind it.
Jonathan in his days should avoid the
mistakes of his President. Despite the flawed means by which Yar’adua
came to power, Nigerians gave him the benefit of the doubt based on
his promise to lead a transparent government and conduct free and fair
elections. However, he did not keep either promise. His family was
widely believed to be neck deep in corruption to the extent that many
Nigerians soon despised his wife. Her alleged involvement in important
decisions regarding contracts and oil blocks has prevented Nigerians
from shedding tears for the President at the moment of sympathy when
his health deteriorated. Yar’adua behaved in very nepotistic manner
especially in his preference for Katsina and Kano indigenes. Eighteen
most senior custom officers were retired simply to give way to a
Katsina indigene who is allegedly holding fake certificates. The
decision is widely believed to enable the custom department become
another portfolio for the First Lady and Dahiru Mangal, a business
partner to the President. The comptroller remained there despite
appeals for his sack by Nigerians. There are calls already by
Nigerians for Jonathan to revisit that appointment and those premature
retirements.
Jonathan should therefore watch his
family and restrain it accordingly should he observe any tendency on
its part to go the ‘Turai’ way. He must be transparent in all his
decisions. He should not be persuaded by political affinity or
economic gain to favour some or become provoked by a difference to
victimise others. The pursuit of Ribadu, el-Rufai and others by
Yar’adua fell short of the standards of a refined leadership. The
merit of his cause in their case was invalidated by the crudity of his
method.
Finally, Jonathan should not lend his
ears to courtiers among his ministers and advisers that would venture
him into self-succession at all cost. If he is able to persuade his
party to accord him the ticket and win his tenure through free and
fair elections, then he would have before him the time that would
enable him achieve many things beyond what his brief tenure of Acting
President would allow him. He might not have invented the briefness
of his present tenure, but he still reserves the right to make his
days colourful by painting them with the colours of selflessness,
equity and justice. Once he can do just that, I believe there will be
many Nigerians who would long for his successful days as Acting
President and canvass for his return to the villa in 2015. Eight years
would be waiting for him then. I hope that in anticipation of the
latter scenario, he will not play the Putin and Dimitriv game in 2011.
He should allow providence to run its course as it did in bringing him
to his present position because the interference of our hands
sometimes spoil the work of destiny.
Tilde,
As I concluded this piece, I heard over
the BBC that some clerics have met with Yar’adua in the villa. It is
possible, but not surprising, that for the sake of stability the new
cabinet may choose to determine the condition of his health pursuant
to section 145 of the constitution. With the backing of the senate,
Yar’adua may finally be relieved of the burden of leadership and
concentrate on his health, as I advised right from my first article.
The ongoing ‘guerrilla war’ between his supporters and the Acting
President should not be encouraged since developments have come so
far.
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