Fellow Nigerians, barely one month and some days to
the start of our 2015 general elections, things are
already falling apart. There was never a doubt in my
mind that politicians would naturally heat up the polity
to a boiling point before God rescues us as always from
some wondrously amazing people. The two leading
parties of PDP and APC would do our country a great
favour if they can eschew violence and stick to the
basic tenets of Democracy. Their foot-soldiers in
particular must be warned specifically about the inherent
danger associated with deliberately causing mayhem
aimlessly in one’s own country. Most times, it is the
poor who would be used as political canon-fodder while
the children of the rich would be far away from the
theatre of war.
The one man I expected to rise above the petty
squabbles of electioneering campaigns is the President
and Commander-in-Chief. Indeed, at the inauguration of
his Presidential Campaign Team on Tuesday President
Jonathan urged his campaign team and Party faithful to
be decorous in their language, focusing on issue and
not personalities. However, barely two days later he
was doing the exact opposite of what he had preached.
It is unfortunate that the President chose to go back on
his words as he joined the fray two days later as he
practically exploded in public during the flagging off of
his re-election bid as President. The tone and tempo of
his speech was stylishly vituperative. It could easily
have been described as spitting fire and shooting from
the hips. He appeared to me like a man who was under
intensive pressure and didn’t really know how to off-
load the heavy burden on his chest.
I should have suspected that something unpleasant was
about to happen after I read the news that the
Presidency had responded in kind to the myriad of
attacks and salvos fired at Dr Goodluck Jonathan by
former President, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who has
since become a loose cannon in the PDP. The former
President has arguably become a one man riot squad
against the second coming of President, was savagely
and mercilessly described as a "motor park tout."
For me, this was the climax of a long-drawn battle
between father and his godson. We've witnessed such
bitter altercations and mutual insults in the past but
this recent one took the cake. It is sad that this are the
canapés we are being served before the main dishes of
sloganeering begin. The global community must be
wondering what manner of country ours is where elders
throw decorum to the wind in the presence of infants
and toddlers. What examples are we setting for the
youths we all claim to love so much when we can't
tolerate ourselves in the political arena?
All eyes are on Nigeria and in particular the President
who is at present the father of the nation. This position
is the highest in the land and it was apparently freely
handed to him by the good people of Nigeria in 2011.
Even before then, the same people had shown him
immense love at a time he was being harassed by the
proverbial cabal. At that time, no one complained that
we hated the North just because we rallied round a man
from the Niger Delta. Most of those claiming ownership
of Mr President today were nowhere to be seen then. It
is strange how success instantly catapults a man into a
different level and planet. All manner of claimants would
suddenly surface from nowhere and chase everyone
away. It is the tragedy of power in our clime where the
man on the throne has to go through this terrible, and
self-immolating, process of deification. This is why most
leaders often fail in office because they are usually far
removed from reality.
This trait became very obvious as I watched the
President deliver his speech in Lagos days ago at the
start of his 2015 Presidential campaign. His party leaders
were not in short supply. Everyone came to pay homage
to the man with the power to turn water into wine over
2,000 years after such a miracle was performed in
Galilee. One speaker after the other eulogised the
President in superlatives. They raved about his
transformation agenda which in their dream or reality
must have transfigured Nigeria into a Paradise on earth.
Listening to those incredible guys one would have
thought they were describing some far-flung places and
a true reincarnation of Lee Kuan Yew or a Chairman Mao
leading the industrial revolution in Nigeria.
The President himself did not waste this moment, he
was visibly pleased with the adulations which in reality
were not meant by many of the speakers who had
mastered the art and science of lying to anyone in
government. I had waited patiently for the President's
speech. I was certain he was going to take a very subtle
and conciliatory approach but I was very wrong. The
moment he took the microphone till he finished, the
President was on the offensive. It was certainly not a
charm offensive but one laced with pent up frustration
and anger. He came on like a Heavyweight boxer
chasing the World Heavyweight title. The President did
not pretend about his intention which was to jab at his
challenger using mostly unlawful blows and pummel him
to a corner for a possible knockout.
President Jonathan sounded angry and agitated. He
made generous use of the literary style of rhetorical
questions. He threw many of such posers to his jubilant
crowd who must have wondered at the physical
transformation of their candidate. If the President was
known to be gentle and somehow taciturn in the past,
he was the exact opposite on Thursday, January 8, 2015.
He was clearly in an upbeat mood and it reflected in his
grandstanding.
Let's now go to the meat of his speech and try to
examine the merits of the self-glorification, whether vain
or otherwise. The summary can be put simply thus: Mr
President blames his predecessors for all the woes that
have bedeviled Nigeria. I wonder if he forgot that as at
the last count, his political party has been in power for
16 years and he has been the only Nigerian permanently
in power since our return to democratic rule in 1999 as
Deputy Governor, Acting Governor, Governor, Vice
President, Acting President and President. 16 years is a
very long time in the life of a nation. Nigeria must have
spent more money in those 16 years than all the different
Republics and regimes put together but sadly without
commensurate results. Moreover, he also appears to
have selectively forgotten that most of the predecessors
that he is lambasting like Obasanjo and General Ibrahim
Badamasi Babangida, are card carrying members of his
Party, the PDP, and thus their failings are the failings of
his Party and by extension himself.
The President spoke repeatedly about the youths and
referred to himself and others as being too old and half-
dead. If so why is he contesting when there are many
brilliant young people in his party? But it was a
subliminal message to discredit General Muhammadu
Buhari as being too old to rule this generation. "I do not
want to address old people like me because we are
spent already."
Unfortunately, it seems the President is not in tune with
the current mood of the nation and his supporters are
not likely to give him the true picture. Many of us don't
care if the man coming is going to rule from a
wheelchair. We all run to the elders of the house in the
days of tribulations. I wish to assure Mr President that
unlike in the past when the PDP propaganda was able to
truncate Buhari's mission of rescuing Nigeria from the
doldrums the story has changed miraculously today. The
youths have chosen to follow his crusade even if his
enemies decide to change his age to over 80. They
believe the younger leaders have not done any better
than the gerontocrats we all love to deride as causing
our failure. Therefore playing the kite of old age won't
fly this time around.
The President boasted that he has been able to conduct
credible elections. I daresay that is not his doing but the
action of the People of Nigeria who have resolved to
protect their votes. Besides, he forgot to add that after
wasting billions of naira on data capture machines they
were abandoned. The Nigeria Governor’s Forum held an
election of 35 people which saw a winner emerge with 19
to 16 votes yet our President recognised a loser
choosing 16 above 19. He said he believes in the rule of
law yet the law is being desecrated and there are too
many sacred cows in PDP. I dare our security agencies
to storm any PDP Secretariat and carry away their
computers and staff the way they have been doing to
APC. It is pitiable that a supposedly impartial State
security and intelligence outfit will give one reason for
carrying out such a dastardly unconstitutional act but
then recant and give another wholly diametrically
opposed justification for such a raid.
The President is proud that Nigeria has the biggest
economy in Africa but people are asking how that has
affected the lives of the people. The Agricultural
revolution being trumpeted is good no doubt, but it is
not yet Uhuru. The question is where is the food? What
are the Prices? Where is the income that should flow
from such agricultural miracle.
The President claims that he has done a lot for the
security situation in the country. However, it seems
that the President is fantasising about another country.
At no time in Nigeria’s history has insecurity reached
the level that it is now. There are regular killings,
bombings, kidnappings, abductions, raping not to
mention the unresolved saga of the Chibok Girls. A
country whose military has received endless praise on
many peace-keeping missions overseas cannot deploy
the same military to effective use in finding almost 200
girls who remain missing. That is an indictment on the
President which no whitewash can hide. The simple
truth is that our people feel unsafe, even those few who
have turned our much maligned police force and soldiers
into personal ‘maiguards’!
The President claims that one of his achievements in
the petroleum sector is that Nigerians no longer queue
for petrol. Although that is incorrect because there are
still regular intervals when there is petrol scarcity the
truth is that Nigeria as an oil producing nation has
never had it so bad. The price of petrol and petroleum
products are the highest they have ever been. Even
when the world crude oil prices have fallen by more than
100% and the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy,
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealla admits that there is no longer
any subsidy on petrol, the price has remained the same.
Her justification, which I referred to previously, is too
puerile to repeat because it is an insult on the
intelligence of Nigerians.
As Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola said in his own
reaction to the President’s speech:
“I spent about an hour this afternoon listening to the
President in my State and, for almost the same period, I
saw a very angry President. I saw a President who was
recriminating about people recriminating about people
criticising his job performance and was blaming all
those who ruled before him forgetting that he had been
on this job for six years.
And he kept saying that, ‘They say we don’t have a
plan.’ But for 25 minutes, he did not reveal a plan on
power; he did not reveal a plan on security; he did not
reveal a plan on corruption.
Now after six years, without being able to articulate
what he is doing and what he will do, and he keeps
blaming everybody, forgetting that he is the
Commander-in-Chief, if the kitchen is too hot, as it is
becoming of late, you must get out of the kitchen.”
I’m almost certain the President will receive more
knocks from other stakeholders for this newly acquired
belligerent disposition. My advice as usual is very
simple. A man should never change what has worked
wonders for him all his life. The President’s gentle mien
had always been his secret weapon. A man who did not
lift a finger to become President need not wage a war to
retain it. Elections are never won by abusing potential
voters but usually through the use of persuasion. Those
who are misleading the President are not helping him.
All they’ve succeeded in doing is to alienate the
electorate and paint him as someone who is very
desperate for power.
I advise the President to maintain his calm dignity
instead of fighting real and imaginary enemies on all
fronts. There is nothing more he wants from God. He has
been very lucky but there is no need to overstretch that
luck. If perchance he is defeated on FEBUHARI 14 (as
some people have described the election date), the
President should accept his fate graciously and return
home triumphantly. Anything else may wipe out all that
he has effortlessly achieved.
Mr President, there is life outside government


http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/who-provoked-our-president-/198768/

Ogogoro.

Hmm

That last statement is always a nightmare for them, they believe it never exist and so wish to die in govt

OrlandoOwoh:
Ogogoro.

lolz

AdeniyiA:
That last statement is always a nightmare for them, they believe it never exist and so wish to die in govt

that's true dearie

Someone needs to ask nairaland's incredibly lazy mods why this is not on the front page.