The double face of the Jonathan presidency
Few people, if any, in the South-South, President Goodluck Jonathan's region, doubt his chances of winning the April polls and eventually becoming Nigeria's next elected president. But up the Niger River, if feelers are anything to go by, Jonathan would find it very difficult to scale the hurdles and win an outright majority in the region in a free and fair election. Jonathan himself, since his assumption of power, sometimes last year, did little to convince the region that he is a truly national leader. That apart, in the few months he stays in power, unfortunately, Jonathan has displayed outright incompetence, lack of clear focus and dismal failure in the way he handles the affairs of the nation. Nothing can be said to have change in the past few months to convince Nigerians that he is capable of steering the nation to greatness in the next four years as he repeatedly promised. Simply, Jonathan and his team have nothing to offer Nigeria.
The assumption of most Nigerians was that Jonathan, in the few months he ruled the country, could provide what will endear him to all Nigerians, in terms of good governance, accountability, transparency and addressing the major problems facing the nation. They also expected him to conduct a free and fair election and hand over power to a truly elected leader. In fact, most people are not expecting anything less. Unfortunately, was wrongly advised and he opted for path of dishonour. He decided to do away with his party's arrangement of zoning the presidency to the North and contested the position. The rest they say was history.
One expected, in the last few months he has been President, Jonathan would have learnt a lot about the country and also that his campaigns would be base on addressing the fundamental flaws in the structure and institution of the country. However, his campaigns failed, (obviously from what we saw and heard recently) to address even simple issues facing the country. From his campaign messages, Nigerians will be able to deduce that Jonathan and his team lack the correct perception of Nigeria's present and probable future challenges. The team should have known that it is not enough for them to talk to Nigerians the way they are doing and to say Nigeria will be among the 20 most industrious countries of the world, but show little to convince the nation on the structures they put on ground to help attain that. Being one of the leading economies of the world cannot be achieved by just rhetoric or self-seeking ventures, but by commitment and duty to the nation above one's personal interest. To me, Jonathan and his team lack the political sagacity and acumen to effectively steer the nation to greatness.
If Jonathan and his team are sincere they should have buried their faces in shame because he is contesting under a party, which most Nigerians believe has failed Nigeria and the Nigerian people in the last 12 years. To even base their campaign on what the ruling PDP did for Nigeria in the past 12 years is enough reason for Nigerians to vote them out of power. PDP's main legacy in the last decade was failure - no electricity for industrial growth, unemployment is at its highest and corruption becomes synonymous with the party. The party in the last decade has made our country a crisis ridden - a failed state with negative indices in virtually all sectors of human development. The attendant consequence was what we see of violent conflicts in Plateau, Borno and the Niger Delta, poverty, unemployment, ethnic and religious intolerance. In fact, in a serious nation youth unemployment should have been made a major campaign policy of Jonathan. Each year over three million young people enter the labour market in search of jobs that do not exist or for which they are not qualified.
The Jonathan administration, since its assumption of office, has not shown any commitment to improving good governance or fight against corruption. We have not seen any improvement in the issues of maternal and child mortality, poverty and hunger, job creation or improvement in education. The pervasiveness of corruption and the lack of transparency and political will to fight it manifest itself when Jonathan's Ministers became part of those who received a convicted criminal after being released from kiri-kiri prison recently.
The reality of our nation today is that, Nigeria is going to be governed by an incompetent leadership and a party which for the past 12 years succeeded in diverting our attention from real issues. Religion and ethnicity became major tools used by the PDP since 1999 to take us away from its failures and Jonathan is capitalising on that. If in 12 years all sectors of human development moved from bad to worse, it is unfortunate that somebody can have the audacity to even come out and talk to us seeking for our votes based on his poor performance.
But the reality is that Jonathan will ‘win’ the April elections and be sworn in and life continues as usual, after few months of grumbling and shouting in the media there might quietness. Then a unity government shall be formed and soon the attention will shift to 2015. Then business as usual continues and Nigerians will continue grumbling and complaining of lack of security, electricity, growing corruption, the likes we saw - Halliburton Scam; Siemens Scandals; Oils Windfall; Power; Ajaokuta; PHCN and many more. Then the nation will count itself among the 20 most underdeveloped countries of the world. The nation's major problem then lingers on. There is little or no hope and yours sincerely believe nothing tangible will change in terms of corruption. With Jonathan in power the corrupt carnivals will have a favourable habitat to dwell in, which makes no difference at all as we saw last week.
The assumption of most Nigerians was that Jonathan, in the few months he ruled the country, could provide what will endear him to all Nigerians, in terms of good governance, accountability, transparency and addressing the major problems facing the nation. They also expected him to conduct a free and fair election and hand over power to a truly elected leader. In fact, most people are not expecting anything less. Unfortunately, was wrongly advised and he opted for path of dishonour. He decided to do away with his party's arrangement of zoning the presidency to the North and contested the position. The rest they say was history.
One expected, in the last few months he has been President, Jonathan would have learnt a lot about the country and also that his campaigns would be base on addressing the fundamental flaws in the structure and institution of the country. However, his campaigns failed, (obviously from what we saw and heard recently) to address even simple issues facing the country. From his campaign messages, Nigerians will be able to deduce that Jonathan and his team lack the correct perception of Nigeria's present and probable future challenges. The team should have known that it is not enough for them to talk to Nigerians the way they are doing and to say Nigeria will be among the 20 most industrious countries of the world, but show little to convince the nation on the structures they put on ground to help attain that. Being one of the leading economies of the world cannot be achieved by just rhetoric or self-seeking ventures, but by commitment and duty to the nation above one's personal interest. To me, Jonathan and his team lack the political sagacity and acumen to effectively steer the nation to greatness.
If Jonathan and his team are sincere they should have buried their faces in shame because he is contesting under a party, which most Nigerians believe has failed Nigeria and the Nigerian people in the last 12 years. To even base their campaign on what the ruling PDP did for Nigeria in the past 12 years is enough reason for Nigerians to vote them out of power. PDP's main legacy in the last decade was failure - no electricity for industrial growth, unemployment is at its highest and corruption becomes synonymous with the party. The party in the last decade has made our country a crisis ridden - a failed state with negative indices in virtually all sectors of human development. The attendant consequence was what we see of violent conflicts in Plateau, Borno and the Niger Delta, poverty, unemployment, ethnic and religious intolerance. In fact, in a serious nation youth unemployment should have been made a major campaign policy of Jonathan. Each year over three million young people enter the labour market in search of jobs that do not exist or for which they are not qualified.
The Jonathan administration, since its assumption of office, has not shown any commitment to improving good governance or fight against corruption. We have not seen any improvement in the issues of maternal and child mortality, poverty and hunger, job creation or improvement in education. The pervasiveness of corruption and the lack of transparency and political will to fight it manifest itself when Jonathan's Ministers became part of those who received a convicted criminal after being released from kiri-kiri prison recently.
The reality of our nation today is that, Nigeria is going to be governed by an incompetent leadership and a party which for the past 12 years succeeded in diverting our attention from real issues. Religion and ethnicity became major tools used by the PDP since 1999 to take us away from its failures and Jonathan is capitalising on that. If in 12 years all sectors of human development moved from bad to worse, it is unfortunate that somebody can have the audacity to even come out and talk to us seeking for our votes based on his poor performance.
But the reality is that Jonathan will ‘win’ the April elections and be sworn in and life continues as usual, after few months of grumbling and shouting in the media there might quietness. Then a unity government shall be formed and soon the attention will shift to 2015. Then business as usual continues and Nigerians will continue grumbling and complaining of lack of security, electricity, growing corruption, the likes we saw - Halliburton Scam; Siemens Scandals; Oils Windfall; Power; Ajaokuta; PHCN and many more. Then the nation will count itself among the 20 most underdeveloped countries of the world. The nation's major problem then lingers on. There is little or no hope and yours sincerely believe nothing tangible will change in terms of corruption. With Jonathan in power the corrupt carnivals will have a favourable habitat to dwell in, which makes no difference at all as we saw last week.
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