Mr President, read your inaugural speech again!
May 28, 2012 by 'Dimeji Daniels

I doubt if President Goodluck Jonathan has ever bothered to read his inaugural speech after May 29, 2011. Jonathan, like most before him and the governors too, probably consider the inaugural speech an academic exercise that should soon be discarded with as soon as it is over. It is doubtful if some of them even keep a file copy of their inaugural speeches afterwards.

I have read several inaugural speeches by Nigerian governors and presidents (forgive the sickening way some of the speeches were crafted) that overtime I have come to believe strongly that is either they didn’t bother to read it once in a while afterwards or that the pressure and responsibilities of the job became too complicated for their brains. If not, how did we find ourselves in this situation? Why would Jonathan endlessly bungle the presidency? We all know, as he said, that the problems of Nigeria did not all start in his time, but we also know that Osama bin Laden was already a menace to the United States before the Barack Obama presidency, yet Obama saw to his crushing. Why should I compare America with Nigeria? So what is the basis for such a comparison?

Despite their no-longer-news incapability, should the Nigerian leaders flip through their inaugural speeches once in a while, maybe, just maybe things would have been different? If President Jonathan does it, he would have by now known that he has expressly failed Nigerians and that at the rate he is going, he doesn’t seem to have any clue as to how to proceed. The so-called progress his government daily celebrates and shouts about through the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, is at best described as moving round in circles, which is worse than retrogression (backward movement). I doubt if we are not already in that state. Was the Boko Haram menace foreseen by our leaders? Clearly, their responses to the sect and their inability to stop it bear all the markings of being caught off-guard, like a child who gets too engrossed in spinning, forgetting that at the end of it (if he is not caught by strong arms) a fall awaits him.

Today, one can boldly challenge President Jonathan to tell us if he has any workable blue-print to turn Nigeria around! I know he will begin to sell his Transformational Agenda; we know about that one and it doesn’t seem to be working. Instead, he should come out boldly, without the prodding of others to explain if he has any clue about how to steer Nigeria towards progress or if he has the balls to see it through. We know for a fact that he is not a general as he once said, but he cuts the figure of a man overwhelmed by events around him. Also, his tendency to vacillate makes him appear unsure of his steps.

Towards the end of last year, Maku, Mrs. Diezani Alsion-Madueke, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sanusi Lamido (just to mention a few) inundated us with reasons the fuel subsidy had to give way. They told us it was for our own good. Well, as it turned out, it was for their own good. Almost N3tn, according to the House of Representatives probe, was expended right under Jonathan’s nose as fuel subsidy. Why then the lie that it was only N1.3tn? While a waste management company and other money-sucking companies were tasked with the importation of fuel and were smiling to the banks, Nigerians like me were groaning under this subsidy removal policy. Yet, in paragraph 30 of his inaugural speech, the President said: “Fellow citizens, in every decision, I shall always place the common good before all else.” Was the removal of fuel subsidy, as we now see, for our common good? How does punishing the poor for the greed of the rich amount to a common good?

He went on: “The bane of corruption shall be met by the overwhelming force of our collective determination, to rid our nation of this scourge. The fight against corruption is a war in which we must all enlist, so that the limited resources of this nation will be used for the growth of our commonwealth.” Well, Mr President, most of the masses have already enlisted in the war, but have you? Have members of your cabinet enlisted in the war? With Mohammed Adoke’s initial dilly-dallying about the subsidy probe and with your handing it over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, it would seem you also believe, like your Attorney-General, that it was all a fact-finding mission.

Besides my aged maternal grand-father who voted for you, there was a 103 year old man who participated in the election and a certain Emmanuel Bamidele Orevba (mentioned in your speech) who, though not a politician, campaigned vigorously for you and later died from celebrating your victory, a victory he probably thought would bring succour to his children and children’s children. But how would he feel in his grave now? Happy? Disappointed? What about the corps members who worked tirelessly during the election only for some of them to lose their lives thereafter? We know the surviving ones have been repaid with delayed payment of their allowances. What about the dead ones? Shouldn’t President Jonathan honour them with a sterling performance so that they wouldn’t die in vain? Was the death of the Nigerians who lost their lives during the fuel subsidy protests for a common good? Were those prevented from protesting at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park treated so for the Jonathan-implied common good?

Going through Jonathan’s inaugural speech again, I could not but conclude that he has nothing to celebrate in his one year in office. Ignore all those on-the-paper achievements being reeled out by his ministers; Nigerians are not fooled! Except if those achievements happened somewhere else or all Nigerians took a vacation and did not know Jonathan has done so much for them. Electricity is still bad! Potable water remains a dream! Insecurity is sky-high! What is it that the Jonathan administration would be celebrating? The scores killed by Boko Haram? The disoriented, hungry and willing but unemployed Nigerian youths? The pension scam or its twin, the subsidy probe roguery? The un-motorable roads?

Oh! We know he didn’t cause all the problems, but he did promise to fix them! It’s his job to fix them! “The time for lamentation is over. This is the era of transformation. This is the time for action… Let us all believe in a new Nigeria. Let us work together to build a great country that we will all be proud of. This is our hour. Fellow compatriots, lift your gaze towards the horizon. Look ahead and you will see a great future that we can secure with unity, hard work and collective sacrifice. Join me now as we begin the journey of transforming Nigeria. I will continue to fight, for your future, because I am one of you. I will continue to fight, for improved medical care for all our citizens. I will continue to fight for all citizens to have access to first class education. I will continue to fight for electricity to be available to all our citizens. I will continue to fight for an efficient and affordable public transport system for all our people. I will continue to fight for jobs to be created through productive partnerships. You have trusted me with your mandate, and I will never, never let you down. I know your pains, because I have been there. Look beyond the hardship you have endured. See a new beginning; a new direction; a new spirit. Nigerians, I want you to start to dream again. What you see in your dreams, we can achieve together,” so he declared in his inaugural speech, only that we have not seen fighting or walk his talk this past one year.
Oh yes! We believe in a new Nigeria, but Mr. President has not given us much to believe in. Just fickle promises! Those are wearing us off! And Nigerians have risen from their dreams. Never again will they be sent to the dreamland of lies and clueless leadership. We believe in dreams, but not here, not now. And we believe in God also, but Mr. President should stop pushing everything to God. If he fails, only him, and him alone, (not God) would be blamed. God has brought him from his riverine Otuoke village to Aso Rock in Abuja; it’s time for him to impress God!

Wake up, Jonathan! Wake up, Mr. President! Time waits not for you. Soon your administration will become history. What will history and Nigerians remember you for?