Has President Goodluck Jonathan heard about the tale of
“The Emperor’s New Clothes?” If he has not, I will tell him.
The story goes like this: A long time ago, a vainglorious
emperor, who did not give a damn about his people except
wearing beautiful clothes and robes, was approached by
two liars (like some of the people around the Nigerian
president today) who promised to weave the finest clothes
ever made for the emperor. The emperor was excited. The
swindlers told him that the new clothes would be so
magnificent and so esoteric that only the very smart and
worthy among the people would be able to see them. The
robes would be invincible to idiots, stupid and obtuse
people. The clothes would also be invincible to ministers
unfit for their offices. The emperor then paid the
swindlers large sums of money to start weaving the
magnificent clothes at once. “If I wore them,” the emperor
thought, “I would be able to know which men in my empire
are unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise from the
fool.”
The swindlers set up two looms and pretended to weave,
though there was nothing on the looms. They requested the
finest silk and purest old thread which all went into their
traveling bags, while they worked the empty looms far into
the night. It was a classical 419 case.
After the “clothes” had been woven, the swindlers went
along to “dress” the emperor in the imaginary clothes. The
emperor himself did not see anything. He was confused. Is
it that he himself was not worthy of being an emperor? But
he said nothing. The ministers who also did not see anything
pretended they saw the esoteric clothes for fear of being
labeled unfit for their offices and incompetent. The
swindlers then led the emperor in a procession before his
subjects to show them these new wonderful clothes. The
people played along, not wanting to appear foolish and
stupid. This lie continued until a little child in the crowd,
too young to understand the scam that was going on,
screamed that the emperor was stark naked. At this point,
a few others also started crying out. The emperor shivered,
suspecting that they were right but he proudly continued
nonetheless.
Watching President Jonathan and his band of praise
singers present their so-called mid-term report last week
eerily reminded me of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” or “The
Emperor Without Clothes” as some writers prefer to call it.
Minister after minister, PDP bigwigs of all sorts, liars and
scammers one after the other praised what Jonathan has
so marvelously achieved within such a short time since he
became president. All of them concluded that it has never
been so good for Nigerians. I have never seen such level of
shamelessness. You would think you were watching some
horror movie. The act of shamelessness was unbelievable. If
you did’t live in Nigeria and you were listening to those
clowns, you would think that Nigeria really had never had it
so good since the amalgamation of 1914.
But the reality on ground is clear, Mr President. Nigeria
has never had it so bad. Security of life and property,
which is the first responsibility of every government, is at
its lowest ebb. The north, south-south, south-west, south-
east are under the siege of kidnappers, Boko Haram, armed
robbers, ritualists, Ombatse, MEND and all sorts of
militancy. Last week, in a damning report on the Iraqi
government’s inability to get a handle on the militancy in
the country, a US news organisation declared that, since
January, more than 2,400 people had been killed in Iraq.
For that reason, Iraq qualified to be termed a failed state,
it said. In Nigeria, we have lost more than 6,200 innocent
people to Boko Haram, armed robbery and all sorts of
criminality since January. We must then be more than
qualified to be called a failed state, by that news
organisation’s assessment.
Stealing in government has never been this brazen, with a
few pension thieves protected by the presidency itself.
Government officials are now so audacious in their corrupt
practices that they do not give a damn about who is
watching and they do not in the least fear the president
one bit. Presidential directives are routinely flouted by the
three most powerful ministers, who incidentally all happen
to be women — they are now famously referred to as the
“Bermuda Triangle”. The nomenclature of Bermuda Triangle
for these women should be ominous for the president if he
knows the first thing about the Bermuda Triangle. Things
are indeed very, very bad and the president appears
absent, or at the very least impotent. The absence of the
president is far worse today under Jonathan than the
period when President Yar’Adua was physically absent and
nobody knew where he was.
President Jonathan needs to look around himself. He has no
clothes on and yet some palace courtiers are telling him
that he has the most gorgeous clothes on. The mid-term
report is now the subject of very angry conversations
among Nigerians. But no minister will tell him the truth and
he has tragically lost touch with reality. In other words,
this naked president does not have the advantage of that
little child who screamed that the emperor was actually
naked. It is so ironic that a president who claimed to have
grown up without shoes can be so out of touch with the
common man.
First, this corruption has to stop. The level of stealing in
government has become maddening. It is simple common
sense that there is no way to achieve anything meaningful
with the kind of stealing going on in government. There are
some in this government that import their food items,
including beef, from Harrods in London virtually on a
weekly basis. Yes, the insensitivity is that bad. About 150
private jets have been purchased since Jonathan became
president without a corresponding economic activity to
explain this. And while all these are happening, our oil
production has plummeted from 2.6 million barrels per day
to 1.7 million due to stealing of the crude clearly with cover
from some people in the government. Those who steal this
crude oil are now telling us that they will kill all of us if we
do not vote Jonathan for another term in 2015. But we will
leave that until we get there.
I have been a critic of President Jonathan’s government
for what I see as incompetence and a lack of focus and
seriousness on the part of the president. I have done this
with the fervent hope that President Jonathan would sit up
and lead the country in a way that would benefit the
greatest majority of Nigerians. I have all along been living
in delusion that the president could and would change even
if for the sake of his 2015 ambition. But after watching
the mid-term report of the characters who make up his
government and his associates, and the self-congratulatory
way the president was smiling to himself, I have come to
the conclusion that this president cannot change. He is too
far gone!

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