Guts? Gumption? An awakened sense of national duty? A new personal conviction that Boko Haram is not and has never been the hand work of the power hungry northerners intent on wresting power from him?
No. It’s politics. High-octane political spin.
President Goodluck Jonathan appears immensely pleased with himself these days. The armed appear to have the upper hand in the war with the Boko Haram insurgents. And so, Jonathan has fully assumed his role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He has been out rallying the troops. Decked out in his commander-in-chief uniform, he has surprised even himself by finding the courage to visit the troops in the two major towns – Mubi and Baga – from which the Boko Haram insurgents have been sent packing by our armed forces.
It is only fair to commend him. And I do, most sincerely. It is good to see that he is no longer cowering in the corner while the insurgents dictated the pace and the deadliness of the war. Whatever has given him the courage, we welcome it. But there is a sticky problem here, not borne out of cynicism but borne out of a miscalculation on the part of Jonathan himself. It is easy to see through his objective. This spin is calculated to give him a leg up on his political rival in the forthcoming general elections and thus guarantee him a return ticket to Aso Rock. Thus, like almost everything this administration does, this new spin is calculated to give Jonathan a measure of political mileage. It is not for the country. It is for Jonathan and his political ambition. It is not difficult to see that it is too little, too late.
This country has been at war with Boko Haram for some six years now, most of it under Jonathan’s watch. Yet, this is the first time Jonathan is showing some faint signs that he understands that he bears the burden of ending the insurgency and making the theatres of the war safe for all Nigerians, including those of them, I am sure, who are dying to cast their votes for him for the wonderful work he has been doing for the past five years, as in, for instance, uninterrupted power supply throughout the country.
Jonathan’s record on Boko Haram has been patchy at best. He has so far set up four committees or study groups on the insurgency to advise him on the best options he has for ending it. Each of these study groups duly submitted their reports to him. But all of these reports are gathering dust on government shelves. In no instance did Jonathan bother to study, let alone act on the reports and the recommendations of these study groups. Perhaps if he had done, we might have seen the end of the insurgency long before now. After all, Jonathan did promise it would end in June 2011.
As the president took no serious steps to end the insurgency, it became progressively worse and more deadly. By Jonathan’s admission, by 2013, we had lost more than 12,000 people to the insurgency. Perhaps an equal number of people or even more have been killed since Jonathan released that figure in far away Paris to a stunned world. That is not even rocket science. Improvised explosive devises are still going off with deadly and chilling effect in several towns within and outside the main theatres of the war.
Whatever anyone might say, the abduction of the Chibok girls remains a major blot on the president’s sense of duty to his country and his people. He, his handlers and his wife did not even believe the girls were abducted. It was, they verily believed, part of the grand plan by the north to rubbish his presidency in the eyes of the world and make him an unfit candidate for re-election. It took the visit of the Pakistani teenager, Malala, to convince the president that humaneness is not anathema to political ambition. He was forced to grudgingly meet with some of the parents of the unfortunate girls and, consistent with his approach to issues, he threw some cash at the parents.
Since then, he felt that he had done his duty and was not required to do more. And he has not done anything more. But I am sure, given his current calculated political spin, if he knew where some of the girls are held, he would happily put on his commander-in-chief uniform and visit them now.
I find it interesting that Boko Haram is no longer Jonathan’s political nemesis. It has become his means to the realization of his consuming ambition. Because of Boko Haram, the elections had to be shifted by six weeks, ostensibly to enable the armed forces engage the insurgents fully. What is happening is Jonathan’s cynical exploitation of the six-week window to engage in a spin and turn Boko Haram into an important political advantage.
We must admit it is clever, ingenious even. Those who might find this repulsive are kindly reminded here and now that politics not being about morality, it has never frowned at the exploitation of economic and social opportunities by individuals to their own advantages. Here is a game on the word perhaps. Perhaps, if Jonathan had risen to the challenges sooner, the girls would not have been abducted. Perhaps, if Jonathan had risen to the challenges sooner, some 14 local government areas would not have been over run by the insurgents who even had the audacity to fly their own flags there as conquered territories. Perhaps, if Jonathan had risen to the challenges sooner, many lives would have been saved. Perhaps, if Jonathan had risen to the challenges sooner we would not now face the critical challenges of resettling thousands of internally displaced persons.
But, if all that had happened, the president would have lost the mileage accruing from the current political spin. See? Fate delights in its twisted sense of humour.
