As Otuoke beckons to President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan and his cathedral of foot soldiers, the season to begun rendering the rhymes of Mount Ephraim, a sonorous requiem hymn by Benjamin Milgrove is here. No one will envy their cross of doing the lines with a lot of bile or a stomach laced with butterflies. But thanks, none is spoiling for another ‘Orubebe’ drama as a new master who may not know Joseph prepares to assume the tenancy at Aso Rock Villa.
Also for incoming president, General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB), 72 and his supporters still enmeshed in the epiphany of his close shave victory on our postponed Valentine Day kiss, realism of the daunting task of re-engineering the world’s largest Black Country from its near rudderless path is here.
Buhari may not be a saint but courtesy of the Nigerian electorate, he now bears the can to deliver one of Africa’s biggest countries from the precipice of Jonathan’s inglorious rule, spinelessness, debauchery and the grips of grinding corruption, poverty, massive unemployment and the affront of Boko Haram that has virtually reduced the north-eastern part of the country to shreds.
No doubt the Jonathan administration may have scored some high points in Agriculture, rebuilding of our ailing airports, the new automotive policy, the building and reconstruction of some trunk A roads and the rejigging of Nollywood among others, these have been huddled by its prostrate approach to corruption, unemployment, rule of the jungle and the crippling insurgency.
In offering to congratulate his challenger, Buhari even before the final result of the presidential election was turned in, Jonathan who created the conditions for his own ouster by the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) may have retrieved his image from the abyss. But he may have delivered more if he ran a disciplined and transparent government, hinged on prudent management of the country’s resources where over 400,000 barrels of oil is stolen daily by oil bunkerers and some shadowy cartel, despite the intimidating patrol of the Navy.
His greatest undoing was making fiddlesticks of public opinion and unleashing his philistine militant gangs based in the Niger Delta and elsewhere, to issue ceaseless threats and even a declaration of war on other parts of the country, if they failed to say “yes” to Goodluck.
They probably had short memory that the Jonathan presidency was cobbled by the concurrence of a coalition of forces involving other segments of the Nigerian society. Rather than angle for Jonathan’s jugular for not fully delivering on vital projects that should have greatly transformed the rustic Niger Delta region like the East-West Road and construction of the Coastal Highway with envisaged rail tracks running from Lagos to Calabar, they opted to stoke the people’s raging anger.
Although the rise of Boko Haram insurgency predated the Jonathan presidency, it tackled it with kid gloves, allowing it to fester. Also, Jonathan became hostage to security reports that kept him holed in Aso Rock while a great slice of the country’s territory, were taken for mincemeat by the Islamic militia. He had little balls as a worthy commander in chief to visit Chibok or Maiduguri to commiserate with the families of over 200 girls taken hostage by Boko Haram but found the place hospitable for a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) campaign rally.
The Economist delivered a more damning verdict to Jonathan’s prevarication for confronting the raging insurgency. “He has shown little enthusiasm for tackling it, and even less competence. Quick to offer condolences to France after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Mr Jonathan waited almost two weeks before speaking up about a Boko Haram attack that killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his compatriots”, the magazine says. While casting lot for Buhari in its opinion of February 6, 2015 titled Nigeria’s Election: The Least Awful, The Economist says Buhari was a better choice than allowing the country go to the dust under Jonathan’s abysmal failure.
His feet were dug in clay, as he looked away while ministers and other aides were feasting and shamelessly making merry on our common till. He held court and regularly clinked wine glasses with corrupt ministers.
Even when Abba Moro, minister of Interior presided over the murder of applicants during the 2014 immigration recruitment exercise, Jonathan merely gave him a tap on the wrist. GEJ wielded the big stick rather reluctantly on Stella Oduah, former Aviation minister whose hands were deeply soiled in corruption. He was simply not in charge. He could hardly meaningfully engage the people. Sometimes you needed a mug of coffee to decipher his uninspiring and drab lines to the nation. No one says Jonathan must be gifted to flowery speeches like Winston Churchill or Tony Blair, but his message is always full of bile, hardly soothing for a nation in near grief.
His ministers painted rosy pictures about a sliding poverty and growth rate statistics which flew in the face of the prevailing hunger on the streets and a gloomy economy that held little for its teeming populace. We virtually danced ourselves lame on a rebasing abracadabra of our GDP to $522 billion, which glorified the country as Africa’s largest economy in place of South Africa, while basic infrastructure like power, transportation, roads and water were not only in short supply but in decrepit state.
After spending a whopping $35 billion on a Power Road Map and mortgaging our electricity plants to companies that are dancing discos, our power generation has now plummeted to 1,500 megawatts, rendering prostrate what Gordini Darah long characterised as an “agbero economy” and thrusting the citizens of the 8th largest oil producing country rummaging for fuel in tragic circumstances, bearing the traits of the early man.
History was kind to Jonathan, who not only had a meteoric rise but climbed to power on the crest of popular agitation, to genuinely transform the fortune of the world’s sole surviving federation of the British model but he chose to play the Russian roulette. Hardly has any leader been offered multiple corridors to Damascus but he flunked it.
In spite of being several times lucky, he opted for the high horse. He presided with disparagement with his ‘today’s men’ and had little regard for popular consent. No sooner than the people cast lot for his overwhelming victory at the 2011 presidential election, than he inflicted on the people a geometric rise in the cost of fuel, evoking the famous Ojota revolt. He naively sought solace from his numerous soothsayers, band of billionaire pastors, prayer warriors, oil subsidy buccaneers, motley of front organisations, cheer leaders and spin doctors.
Jonathan’s predatory blunder is Buhari’s gain. In spite of having a slimmer war chest in terms of funds, owing to the general’s strong aversion to donations by billionaires and big money bags that would cuddle his future administration, the people filled the void and provided succour. Many worked as volunteers for the campaign with little reward. Some were engrossed in regular posts to private and group boxes with political messages for GMB.
The stakes were high for Buhari, gleaning from the robust discourses of the 2015 election everywhere and the creative messages, videos, graffiti, cartoons and chats that the campaign engendered on the social media-Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagam, Viber etc, eventually thrusting the ownership of the campaign to the Nigeria people, who were the real winners in the election.
The movement for his election which inflamed many parts of the country developed a life of its own with the people funding and driving it in their own little way. This means that the APC must reflect deeply on how to graciously manage the popular victory to sustain the people’s confidence.
This is obviously Buhari’s finest hour. And he has no excuses. Not many leaders in the world will have a second opportunity of rewriting their own history. In spite of his sins and not too edifying debut as a military leader, his supporters and sympathisers enamoured by his integrity and honesty, were ready to canonise him. They’ve all been mobilised on the banner of ‘change’ which though foggy now, must be given flesh and character. While it would be inconceivable to expect Buhari to fix all the nation’s problems even in two terms, a seemingly restive populace must at least glean some footprints to eureka.
He must not only genuinely apologise for his previous travesty but provide some immediate carrots or low hanging fruits to douse the feverish expectation of the people who perceive their country as a sleeping giant and keep their hope alive beyond the victory party.
It is definitely clear from the Soludo vs Okonjo Iweala debate that the APC may not only need to drive further up the promise of providing 720, 000 jobs in the first year and create some socio-welfare safety net for the vulnerable population but rid it of an ethno-regional approach. I concur with Soludo that promising to create 20,000 jobs per state gravitates more to federal character than responding to a proper needs assessment of specific states and regions.
The APC which campaign message smirks more of a pot pouri of the party’s internal competing strands, must understand that it largely feasted on the anger of a populace angling for any other choice, but Jonathan. The different strands within the party merely offered its own panacea as the prevailing view. At some point a strand dangled the issue of restructuring of Nigeria’s stunted federal structure and state police, which even their strange bed fellows may have merely miffed at its remote possibility.
Now that elections are over, the party really must get to really take on the gauntlet. Beyond a rather eclectic and instinctive approach to dealing with issues like corruption or the offer of a daily meal at schools, details and cost of a clear cut national programme and vision that will offer real change to the people should be worked out.
For instance, a more systemic approach is required to deal with corruption, a cankerworm that many of the governors now shouting on the house tops and some of APC chieftains may indeed be asked to cast the first stone. I doubt if the party itself can claim to have all the answers. It must provoke a dialogue on this matter.
How can we really tackle the fundamental basis of corruption? How for instance can we evolve a comprehensive socio-welfare programme to adequately guarantee social security for the people? How can we stave off the large scale seepages of government funds that have made it possible for civil servants to own many choice estates in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and other prominent cities? How can we make our schools attractive to prevent our elite from plundering resources to send their kids to high fee paying schools abroad? How can we adequately equip our hospitals to prevent people from seeking to treat mere Malaria attack beyond our shores? How can we massively provide cheap and affordable housing for our people? How can we guarantee a better life after service without encouraging people to resort to self help? With a highly dollarized election campaign which The Guardian puts publicity alone conservatively at more than N4 billion, what hope does that hold for the unblemished Nigerian to engage in electoral process? How can we deal with the shrinking of the democratic space in the different states where the dictum of the governors is now commonplace?
Buhari must not be in too much haste to discard the Jonathan legacy. He should resist the urge to allow his judgement to be beclouded by the flurry of the moment. He must deeply reflect on the power reform agenda and decide whether it holds any hope for the needs of the country. Some of the Jonathan administration achievements particularly in the areas of agriculture and the new auto policy must be vigorously sustained. The construction of new and reconstruction of some existing dual carriage highways in different parts of the country must be completed. Ditto for the reconstruction of the airports.
A holistic and endurable national programme should benefit from genuine peer review of work in respective states. The Osun free meal policy lends itself to being replicated in other states. Tackling education may borrow from the experiment of the Governor Rotimi Amaechi administration of Rivers State and the work of the committee led by former Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Prof Tekena Tamuno to totally rebuild schools from primary level with sporting and other facilities. The synergy between the Edo State government and the LGAs particularly in the building of schools and health centres may be burrowed. The achievements of Lagos State in the area of internal revenue generation, is also a ready example.
Buhari must deal decisively with the Boko Haram challenge, consolidate on the present military gains and send a clear message to any other adventuristic group that no inch of Nigeria’s territory is up for grabs. Against the backdrop of the ISIS assault in Syria, Iraq and Turkey and the assault of the Islamic militia in Mali and Libya, he must protect this largely multi-ethnic cum religious country from being turned into a Boko Haram killing fields.
Iyare, a Communications and Development Consultant, lives in Lagos.
