On May 28, 2015, the man who has been held up as a poster child of good luck ran out of good luck. President Goodluck Jonathan sought re-election to remain in office for another four years. He did everything he needed to do to oil the machine of political survival. But in politics as in much of life, good luck can be an unreliable ally and a deserter. This should help to explain to you why all of us run out of good luck sometime in our lives. To run out of luck is to be tossed from fortune to misfortune. Every man (and heck, every woman too) dreads it for reasons that should be pretty obvious.
If a poor man runs out of luck (if he did not, he would not be poor, of course, but life does get more complicated even at that level), as in he loses his low-paying job, his misfortune is visited on his immediate family only.
On the other hand, when a big man tumbles from fortune to misfortune, he pulls hundreds, if not thousands of people, down with him. Many of us do not seem to realize that thousands, even millions of us, including an entire country, hang on the coattails of one fortunate man. He is the one man who makes big men and women out of nobodies and gives them the privileges of social relevance and importance.
Take the case of Jonathan. His good luck progressively pushed him up the totem pole of our national politics from 1999 to 2015. Each step of the way up the ladder as deputy governor of Bayelsa State, governor of Bayelsa State, vice-president, acting president and president of the Federal Republic, empowered him to make his good luck the supreme fortune of those it pleased him to pluck from the backwoods of the society. As the most powerful president in the world, his say-so changes misfortunes into fortunes; the have-nots are turned into the have-it-alls. Sudden billionaires offer you no proof of hard work; they offer you evidence that a presidential patronage is the shortest route to crazy wealth.
On Jonathan’s watch, to borrow from the title of Obasanjo’s three-volume autobiography, Nigerian billionaires put our country in the number two position among countries whose citizens boast of ownership of private jets. The United States of America still manages to hold the number one position but not for long. The experts estimated that by this year, there would be 500 private jets in our country. A Nigerian president is the greatest fortune dispenser in the world.
Snag is, the president does not stand on a rock. He stands on shifting sand. Blame this peculiar form of government, the government of the people by the people and, all things being equal, for the people. It is a fair system because it enshrines the principle of you-chop-I-chop. You chop for four or eight years and then move over for others. Under this time honoured democratic principle, the Nigerian electorate refused to extend Jonathan’s tenancy in Aso Rock beyond May 29 this year. On May 29, 2015, about two months from now, Jonathan packs out of Aso Rock and takes on a new title as former or ex- president.
He had promised that if he lost the election he would go back to Otuoke, his village in Bayelsa State. When he leaves, he would be leaving behind hordes of unemployed and unemployable former big men and women, the privileged denizens in the corridors of power. Jonathan’s bad luck is their misfortune. Powerful ministers become simply powerless ex-ministers. Ex-presidential assistants and a long line of aides are turned into rich nobodies. Powerful criminals who have been living under the protective wings of some elements in the administration will find themselves exposed. It should give you a fair idea of how much one man’s misfortune affects the fortunes of others.
Big men also cry. They dread the loss of their prestigious jobs and their societal privileges. The police orderlies and those at their gates would be gone. Their right to speak and our duty to listen to their piffle would be taken away from them. The sirens would be gone and the former big men would be left to sweat in go-slow like the rest of us. Life is cruel.
Once these big men and women have been properly labeled as ex-this, ex-that, they will flood the labour market, ready to market their skills to the new administration. Buhari cannot ignore some of them, given their antecedents and the fine job they did for Jonathan. I refer to just a few of them here for lack of space.
There is the ageless Chief Edwin Clark, our own political Peter Pan. He has the provocative gift of the garb. We have the permanent fixture in our national politics, Chief Tony Anenih. He has consistently proved his usefulness as the master fixer. Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, in the heady days before the presidential election, made the magisterial pronouncement that there would be no elections until the INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, resigned. He has the gift of magisterial pronouncements that could move mountains. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the nation’s foremost economic management wizard. Her economic management skill lifted our country to its rightful height as the largest economy in Africa. And just in case, she has added a new skill: she is the official layer of foundation stones of secondary schools in search of missing students, as in Chibok. Deziani Madueke, said to be president number two after Dame Patience, is the most experienced crude oil marketer; the fallen oil price does not change that fact. Her Teflon shakes off her scandal-riddled tenure. Proof of her power. Dr. Doyin Okupe and Femi Fani-Kayode are the most fearless pair of truth benders. Try lying with a straight face and you would appreciate their special place in the creative politics of tendentiousness.
Fear not, Buhari has told everyone. Many of the soon-to-be ex-this, ex-that are not taking chances. Chief Bode George is going on exile. Those who cannot go on exile might hide in the caves in and around FCT. It is a good option. No, I am not laughing.
