Mustapha Abdulrahman

Words they say are cheap and nothing is as sweet as beating up the weeping boy as all, including weaklings suddenly gain strength and bury their own weaknesses in the collective attack. Unfortunately, it bellies current failures and provide a ready platform for discuss even when we know the lie in it.

No situation affords the above assertion better expression than what has become the order of the day in casting former President Goodluck Jonathan in bad light; selling him as a total failure even in the face of realities. We know that the heart does not lie but the tongue is deceitful; so one wonders why even respected men choose to live the lie because that is the vogue.

Examples to prove the point are legion and glaring for which one would have been tempted to gloss over them except for the fact that Nigerians have started acting too early as if we are suffering from collective amnesia on the issue of Jonathan’s performance given the circumstances.

Most painful is the fact that we have soon forgotten the accolades that attended the reformation of our international gateways and the advertorials that graced newspapers showering praises on how things had changed. The question that rushes to ones lips is “Are we being fair to Jonathan by painting him with the tar of general lack of performance? Can we stand the pricking of our conscience over the issue of realities of crediting one man with the success of another just to scurry favour?

There were certain things that had left our memories which the Jonathan administration restored to our collective psyche and never in the annals of the country’s history was freedom of expression given such a handle as under his regime. He paid dearly for it with the abuses which it appears people have been fixated on long after he gracefully left the stage.

It is incontrovertible that in every sense of it, his transformation agenda really transformed the country in all sectors though the rot in the system which had endured over the years seemed to taint his efforts; but if truth be told, he left giant marks which his traducers have been working assiduously to rubbish without success and in the process; celebrate their own ignorance and lack of direction.

Rather than fall into the common mistake of attacking ideas and people, it is more honourable and respectable to take some issues and address them to prove that Nigerians will be lucky to have President Muhammadu Buhari leave marks on the political and developmental space like Jonathan did. Without even starting, cries are all Nigerians are getting from the present regime which unknown to them, is preparing grounds for the explanation of its would be failures.

Jonathan approached governance with a developmental mind with the best intentions for the country. He placed national interest above self, a reason he chose a different path by conceding victory no matter how it was won just for the country to be at peace. A retrospective look will reveal how his opponents in no distant past took their losses at the polls and the hundreds of Nigerian lives, property and animosities that went into it. That alone places him head above all Nigerian politicians and bellied his considerations for the country. Simply put, he transformed the Nigerian psyche, giving us an opportunity to think straight once more.

[b][size=14pt]Another funnyreally annoying thing that has become the order of the day for example is the praises being showered on President Buhari over the improvement of power supply across the country. Yes, power generation and distribution have generally improved but it was not a feat that was achieved overnight because it is not like putting on your generator at home and getting light immediately. Power involves intricate processes that include building of infrastructure, the turbines, gas supply, the generation, wheeling, transmission and distribution before Nigerians get the power in their homes. The question is what has the present administration done from May till now to have put those things in place? It is simply the result of what Jonathan did that Buhari is getting the praises for. It is like a hunter who shot a game that in the thrashing of death goes somewhere else to die and picked by a nursing mother and everyone starts to sing her praise for killing a big game. Jonathan updated the transmission backbone of the country which was unable to carry above 3000 megawatts; built substations, massively brought in transformers and completed generating stations across the country that radically increased the generation capacity of the country[/size][/b].

At a point, notwithstanding that gas is not like crude oil that thieves could puncture the pipelines to steal, yet each time power peaked within his tenure, saboteurs would cut the gas supply and power will drop. What has the present regime done to stop that other than those who were doing it have simply stopped because power has changed hands? Anything that is seen in improvement of power in the coming years remains a credit to Jonathan; even Buhari knows that.

Another funny assertion is that refineries in the country coming back on stream three months after the new regime took over were the handiwork of Buhari. The simple question to ask is how long does Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of a refinery take? What for example is the average time and process of replacing the Catalytic Cracking Unit (CCU) of a refinery like happened with the Port Harcourt refinery? Answers to these questions would show that it takes an average of 18 months for TAM and even longer to procure and install CCU since it is not an on-the-shelf part; yet gullible Nigerians are plied with sweet stories of what is not. The fact again is that Jonathan’s regime turned around the refineries and any result coming in that sector goes to only one person, Jonathan.

Prior to the coming of the Jonathan administration, road travel had but died across the country. How many kilometers of motorable roads did we have before then? Travelers between Lagos and Benin, Edo State slept more on the road than the days they made the journey in a day. The Ore axis if it had mouth, would have testified to how many travelers it swallowed through accidents, not to talk of those it hosted in traffic snarls while armed robbers had field days. Yet those who ply the route now can attest to the difference. Soon too, maybe, those would be credited to the vaunted “change”. Roads across the northern parts of the country are even better now as more works were done there. Some bridges conceived in the 70s and left in the drawing board breathed the air of realisation under Jonathan while the South East which has the worst roads also got some relief. There is no part of the country that did not feel the road rehabilitation and construction. We await Buhari to surpass those records.

Airports across the country could be said to have had the best of it as modernisation spread evenly for the first time since our independence under Stella Oduah as Minister. Even today, no one can without covering his face in shame; say Jonathan did not reform our airports from Lagos to Kano, Sokoto to Kaduna, Calabar to Owerri, Benin to Abuja and Enugu airport which started enjoying international flights. Jonathan had a fair mind so much that developments other heads of State had vowed would be executed over their dead bodies are now functional when they are still alive.

Rail transportation which is supposed to take pressure off our roads died long time ago. Also, the political and military class used it as the worst conduit pipe to drain resources for years without anything to show for it. Infact, rather than shop for tar list to nail Jonathan with, one thought that the present regime would probe the rail contracts prior to the time Jonathan revived it. Today, Lagos to Kaduna, Kano route is back on stream, Port Harcourt-Maiduguri is also back on stream among many long hauls. The speed rail between Kaduna and Abuja is nearing completion while modern coaches and heads have been brought into the country, yet people are behaving as if they are not seeing.

Can one remember the amount the country lost to food importation even with the land mass that it is blessed with? Have we forgotten that fertilizer importation, allocation and distribution created emergency billionaires while the real farmers that needed them never had access to that necessary farm input? Can we remember how rice farmers craved for patronage and milling machines without getting positive response from the required quarters? Do we not know now that we are inching towards self-sufficiency in rice productions? How many people know that Nigeria is the highest cassava producer in the world? So many milestones the mind could not fathom in the past were achieved in agriculture under Jonathan. We thank God that Buhari is a farmer; we shall see how far he would consolidate on what Jonathan did.

One thing that needs be said is that even though the achievements are like work in progress, the effect of those projects are going to be positively felt decades from now and therefore beyond Buhari’s tenure, so posterity should be kind enough to credit Jonathan with his good works.

Coming to the issue of statesmanship, he still stands head above everyone which has lionised Jonathan in the African continent and beyond. How many sitting heads of state ever conceded defeat at a poll they superintended? What would have happened if he decided to contest the results with all the proof of underage voting and the lopsided distribution of permanent voters cards? Have we forgotten the assertion of the “baboon and the monkey to be soaked in blood” should a particular candidate lose the elections? He is not in the category of desperate politician who wants to be in power by all means. We can remember not in the distant past, the sharing of the treasury to elongate constitutional given days in power by some who today are masquerading as political saints, yet Jonathan sacrificed the office for peace.

He had the army, police and other security apparatchik at his control to have foisted himself in power or even put up credible challenge to the election results but refrained from doing so because of the thousands that would have died from the aftermath. Putting the nation first, he saved lives.

From the foregoing, should we attack a man because he refused to pull punches? Should his peaceful disposition be taken for weakness and therefore pummeled with the notion that he lacks power to go into an offensive or defend himself? Caution should be exercised when aiming a sledge hammer on the skulls of the innocent.

Every Nigerian has been a victim of the fraud in government; while some looted the treasury within very short periods of time and are answering statesmen today, others try to hide theirs in bantes and aso oke, casting the impression of piety and modesty but we know that their worth when they assumed power is not what it is today after selling our common patrimony to themselves and cronies in the name of privatization and yet they bask in the euphoria of being protected from probes.

Probe is good but why not being fair to all and probe every regime, at least within the era of democratic rule? It appears the probe is just another name for going after Jonathan who pre-scientifically had warned his ministers to brace up for persecution. Apply the golden rule and probe all instead of picking and choosing

In the event the suspicions of reasonable minds that Jonathan is the target hold true, know that the seed of discord has been sown unless the plot is to tar a certain section of the country in order to exclude them from power in the future. Humiliating Jonathan is humiliating the office of the President and the consequences can be dire after all, there had been probes without consequences in the past.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/how-unfair-can-we-be-to-jonathan-/218105

Its on record that Nigeria's electricity generation capability(not necessarily generating) as at May 29th 2015 was somewhere around 9000+ Megawatts PROJECTED TO HIT 10000 at the end of this year going from work ALREADY IN PROGRESS the interview below dated :[b]April 16, 2015 [/b]states this.
If one is honest you would recall that shortly before that period(January to March) was when an ALL OUT ATTACK ON GAS PIPELINES FEEDING THE POWER STATIONS took place.

There are currently 23 grid connected generating plants in operation in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry with a total installed capacity of 10,396.0MW and available capacity of 6,056MW........
Source : KPMG- Guide to the Nigerian Power Sector
http://www.kpmg.com/Africa/en/IssuesAndInsights/Articles-Publications/Documents/Guide%20to%20the%20Nigerian%20Power%20Sector.pdf


The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ikeja Electric, Mr. Abiodun Ajifowobaje, in this interview with ‘FEMI ASU, says a chunk of the nation’s installed generation capacity of not less than 10,000 megawatts remains stranded largely due to gas shortfall.Source:
http://www.punchng.com/business/energy/nigerias-power-generation-capacity-almost-10000mw-ajifowobaje/


Now 15 months after the power sector was privatised, has it been ‘so far, so good’?
Before I say anything on privatisation, I think we have to say something about what led to the privatisation in the first instance. As we are aware, 10 years before that privatisation, there had been little or no government funding in the power sector. Therefore there had been serious challenges in transmission, generation and distribution networks. For us to at least give minimum power supply to the Nigerian populace, conservatively we need nothing less than 10,000MW. At the time the privatisation was done, the highest we had reached was about 4,500MW, and that was briefly, not on a continuous basis……..……..As things developed, it became very apparent that government could not, with other competing areas like health and education, give adequate funding to the power sector, but to allow investors to come in and bring in technology, ready management and of course funding that were not coming from the government. So, about 15 months ago, November 1, 2013, the companies were handed over to the private sector after following a very rigorous bidding process, which was termed as one of the most transparent in privatisation history in Africa, and since that time, all the investors have been doing everything within their power to see that at least they do more to see that power gets to the people.

What are the challenges facing the private investors who bought the privatised firms?
The first challenge that the investors faced was that it was when we took over that we started analysing the problems in the sector. You will recall that during the privatisation scheme, there were a lot of union activities and they refused any investors from coming in to do physical inspection of the networks. For you to be able to plan, you have to know what is on the ground.…………..At Ikeja Electric, we had to start doing technical audit, customer enumeration for us to actually know what is on the ground, and this took time. …..
……But what I want to say is that the power sector is not like any other sector. It takes a lot of time for anything you put on the ground to materialise. I know that Nigerians want to see things improve almost overnight. That is not the case with the power sector – after doing all the due diligence on the networks, we have to look for funds to do all the necessary corrections, we have to look for the money to do all the metering…………..

The country achieved the peak generation of 4,517.6MW of electricity on December 23, 2012. But more than two years after then, we are still struggling to reach 4,000MW. For how long must things get worse before getting better?

The capacities that were there at the time we attained the highest peak are still there. Not only that, the NIPP project has added between 3,000 and 5,000MW. So, when we are talking about installed capacity today in Nigeria, it cannot be less than 10,000MW. In fact, Transcorp in Sapele and Egbin in Lagos have added additional capacity since they took over. For Egbin, Unit 6 was already moribund but has added 200MW to that. So, as I am talking to you now, we have almost 10,000MW on standby. But why are we not getting it? Simply gas issues. Number one, we are not getting enough gas to power the power stations. Not only that, even the little gas that we get, every day, we see pipeline vandalism……..……. .Early last month, we were giving our customers almost 12 to 15-hour power supply, but in the last one or two weeks, it has reduced to eight hours because they said the gas pipelines had been vandalized. Not only that, this is the time we have low water for the hydro power stations. So with the gas not getting to the thermal power plants, and the water at the dams at the lowest level, this is the worst period for power to come from the grid. ………

What investments or projects should customers expect from your firm, apart from the embedded generation and smart metering?

As I said earlier, If I want to give my customers constant power, I need 1,250MW. But the question is can the network carry that? From what we have on the ground now, I will say ‘no’. But before the takeover, I think the highest we have ever attained here was about 650MW. But today, all the little problems that used to disturb operations have been addressed; so that if power comes now, I can assure you that we can take 1,000MW. Based on the study that we are carrying out on our lines immediately we finished that, we will come out with a programme on how to expand the system......

It's funny how human beings tend to forget under a short period of time the turn around of decades of rot in most sectors of the NIgerian economy under GEJ. It's either that the masses have forgotten or they choose to turn a blind eye to the truth. Despite the remarkable feets attained by the GEJ led administration, the apc through their propaganda machines have flooded the media and polluted the minds of the people with hate, slander and despicable falsehood in an attempt to undermine his transformation agendas. The truth is the apc cannot stand nor out shine the break throughs achieved through out the last administration and basically have nothing to offer in this despensation of negative change. In the revelation of hopelessness for the Nigerian people, What the apc have resorted to do as a result of their incompetency is to "paint" GEJ as bad and an un-achiever through empty screams of probes and deliberate blackmail aimed to spin his image in the mud.

I must confess that in a long time on NL, I haven't read a masterpiece such as what has been presented by the author of this write up. Just like the thread that suggested that people come up with phony topics for the apc, the contents of that thread is what is recently obtained daily on NL! Thumbs up to the author! Long live the transformer of Nigeria and the sustainer of democracy in Africa! Sir Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

The hausa's and yoruba's are the one this article is meant for. Those of them that are stuck in the umbra region of buahri's darkness. A man that sacrificed all for nIgeria is now who they ridicule calling names. I sometimes blame jonathan for accepting to be defeated in the past elections when we all know he would have won it if he wanted to. Some yoruba's have been deceived by tinubu,obasanjo and the evil northmen to a future untold

Jonathan approached governance with the theory of stealing of public fund not being corruption. He later propounded the yam and goat theory to back up that believe. He should carry the cross.

APC the LYING LIARS will detest this irrefragable piece of information but since they live in abnegation they will put in all their energy to supress the truth and yet still it stands cos is an illumination that travels through the hearts of those who seek it.

ayokellany:
Jonathan approached governance with the theory of stealing of public fund not being corruption. He later propounded the yam and goat theory to back up that believe. He should carry the cross.

This is stale and only foools buy it after the explanation.

The context for which President Jonathan and the chief Justice discussed the intricacies involved and the social perception are keys to understanding what they meant.

Their conclusion

"Steallers" (people who steal government monies) should be punished and ostracized as is done in our traditional societies thereby discouraging the perpetrators.

APC thinks they can build Nigeria by first destroying it but they will eventually see themselves setting the country backward of which they will blame Jonathan for their failures even after appropriating all Jonathan's achievements to "Buhariphobia"

It is on record that Nigeria got recognition in poverty reduction, improved healthcare, infrastructural development among others including being the best country in the world for international direct investment.

It is a pity hearing APC telling us how backward Johnathan's regime set Nigeria as if Nigerians are foools and gullible.

We all know Jona was a good man with the best intentions. Truth being that he tried to bend Nigeria towards the arc of new directions and development which looked strange from the way things has always being done in Nigeria. People resisted his change a lot, but if ever Nigeria progresses tomorrow his name must always be recognized whether we agree or decide to be blind about it.

He was a good man with a lot of Achilles heels/weakness that his enemies who resisted his good used against him and prevail.
I weep for a Nigeria that fails to recognize that man.

Jonathan really tried in the power sector. He mostly embarked on long term projects. It is unfair not to accord some praises to him when it comes to the improved power supply.

This writer is my friend.

This. This .

This is a prime example of why Africa is retrogressive.

Noted. You think nigerians are fools? Supposedly educated people telling us buhari integrity improved power supply. How dumb can that be? This is worse than hitler 's propaganda. Actually it is evil. What APC failed to realise is that by pointing our attention to improvement in power and other sectors when the only thing ever done by buhari is to appoint himself sole administrator with 99percent arewa appointment so far and to tell us...I WILL PROBE this, I WILL PROBE THAT, they are indirectly helping us to identify how much jonathan has worked silently. Truth will eventually come to the surface. It will always stay afloat

NIGERIANS WILL LIVE TO REGRET BEING PART OF THE COUP BY A CABAL WITH THE SUPPORT OF GULLIBLE NIGERIANS TO OUST GOODLUCK JONATHAN.

In his 5(five) solids year as president and oil price at well above $100 .. @de op must be high on Jonathan weed.

Propaganda cannot run a Government. Nigerians will be waiting to see the achievements of President Buhari's first 100 days in office.

Lalasticlala Seun Afam4eva OAM4J Kindly note thread and do the needful if it meets front-page criteria.

God bless the OP.You will surely live long.

Sall:
In his 5(five) solids year as president and oil price at well above $100 .. @de op must be high on Jonathan weed.

Don't mind the OP
The guy is sipping coke Zero

How can Jonathan ruled for five solid years without anything to point?

Well I'm not a politician but I hate PDP.

Is it not possible to probe the activities of power sector players who deliberately subjected Nigerians to darkness just to make GEJ look bad? Can't this probe be carried out?