Goodluck Jonathan, hardluck Nigeria


20/02/2011 00:00:00

The icing on the cake of rejection, for me, of candidate Goodluck Jonathan as the next President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to be sworn-in after the April 2011 general elections came at his recent Ibadan, Oyo State, campaign, when he demonstrated that he is not prepared to talk about issues responsible for our reprehensible underdevelopment. Rather it suited his fancy to be petty and display un-presidential rascality by using intellectually demeaning language.

How he is going to address the myriad problems the country is bedeviled with is not on his card. Why play politics of patronage, instead of politics of human development? If existing federal universities and refineries are incapacitated and moribund, can’t they be made to function properly? Why must new ones be created and built, knowing the lack of maintenance and sustenance of infrastructures occasioned by the lackadaisical attitudes of our supposed leaders – who are in the real sense our rulers and ruiners? Will citing universities in each geo-political area improve the quality of education being given to our students?

Can he explain meaningfully the rationale for his purported plan to build refineries in every geo-political zone, or is he saying it’s impossible to get the existing ones working optimally? Are we sure these two projects will not go the way of their predecessors because of government’s penchant for shoddy jobs while awarding contracts to themselves through cronies and proxies?

Jonathan’s eventual return (God forbid!) to Aso Rock will be goodluck to him, but badluck to Nigeria. Does he look like one ‘leader’ that is ready to fight corruption, when he can’t even send the minister of state for health on ‘recess’ on account of an allegation of corruption against the minister when he was a resident electoral commissioner in one of the states? It was this same President Jonathan that said Nigeria’s problem of corruption arises from the greed of its rulers; is the minister’s case not a classic one of greed?

For the umpteenth time, I am emphatic that any ‘leader’ or ruler that cannot solve the age-long problem of gross darkness encompassing the land as exampled by the inability of ECN, NEPA or PHCN, or whatever name it may be called in future, to give Nigerian homes, industries and businesses uninterrupted electricity is not prepared to move Nigeria to a developed state from its current stagnancy, or shall we say retrogression?

Issues, issues and issues; but can a Jonathan presidency cast aside his seeming genteel look (which he has rubbished with his undignified and indecorous statement at Mapo, Ibadan), and put on the reins needed to tackle issues rather than call opponents or perceived ‘rivals’ names? I don’t see him having that willingness or energy!

Because of his power to currently control state machineries (till, media and all), he has been inundating our ears and sights with who he is and not what his plans are in charging Nigeria forward developmentally. Gullible and naïve Nigerians, with their defeatist belief that an incumbent president can never lose election, have already ceded the election to him.

Perhaps Nigerians have not suffered enough, and are therefore not desirous of change that will send insensitive and uncaring rulers packing from their comfort zone of milking the nation without feeding it in return. Ordinarily, years of promises unkept and further deepening of the miseries of the masses, methinks should be enough reason to reject rulers like candidate Jonathan and his party at the next polls.

I am, however, befuddled by the crass and sheer non-showing of hostility towards the status quo that has been compounding our problems through ruthless greed. Twelve years of thunder and no rain, isn’t it time we changed the few whose seeming plan is to continue to subjugate a majority, while perpetuating themselves in office through rotation and proxy?

I am very angry and afraid that Nigerians seemingly don’t have the savvy to rout out rulers that are incorrigible and graspingly inept (thanks to Palladium).


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