The periodic Presidential Media Chat is a worthy idea that precedes President Goodluck Jonathan. It is a live television interview show in which senior journalists take on the President on diverse and usually current issues affecting the nation. It provides a great opportunity for the number one citizen to face the people, talk to them and with them. It is a perfect platform to show the people other vistas of the administration and insights only the President can provide. It is such snippets that often lift the people and imbue them with fresh belief that indeed, someone is truly looking after their collective affairs.

Unfortunately, this elevated public relations tradition may have become President Jonathan’s albatross. On the few occasions it has been held in the last one year, it has always ended on a sour note, with the President making a meal of it each time. When it is not his elocution and body language, it is his lack of a good grasp of the core issues. When he is not making a rankling statement that jars the sensibilities of the populace, it is simply that he lacks presidential gravitas.

The last chat held last Sunday however takes the cake. Apparently arranged hurriedly upon the President’s return from his ill-advised trip to Brazil, and designed to assuage the frayed nerves of the critical populace who berated the President for jetting off to Brazil when Nigeria burned and death and destruction were pervasive. But the remedy seemed to bring more trouble as the chat came just short of being a debacle. The President came a cropper on nearly all the questions thrown at him, to the point of incoherence on a particular question about assets declaration.

The President fielded nearly a dozen questions on issues ranging from the trip to Brazil, the sacking of his security adviser, dialogue with Boko Haram, sacking of former anti-corruption chief, Mrs Farida Waziri, the renaming of the University of Lagos, the Femi Otedola\Farouk Lawan saga, 2015 election and his assets declaration issue, among others. While President Jonathan’s outing showed miniscule improvements in his elocution and carriage in this chat, he was stumped by what may be described as his credibility quotient which has declined drastically since last January petrol subsidy protests. Thus, hardly any answer the President proffered on these issues seemed to cut the ice with the people.

For instance, shuttling off to Brazil when churches were being bombed in the North, bodies of innocent Nigerians still littered the place and a wave of reprisals that could bring a tragic deluge upon the nation seemed to loom, can never be justified. While the President reasoned that shelving the trip would signify victory for the terrorists, Nigerians say that it would portray the President as compassionate, responsible and responsive. In fact, it would show him as being appreciative of the magnitude of the problem.

It is the same refrain that runs through all the other issues raised. However, it is in the matter of public declaration of assets that we witnessed what may be described as the ultimate presidential faux pas. The President had been asked why he would not make his assets declaration public. An innocuous question; a harmless and legitimate question that could have been nicely and quietly dismissed were the President a man with a gift of the gab and were he not already unduly irritated and belligerent. The President simply unravelled over this question and lapsed into a detailed rambling that left him exhaustively diminished and vulnerable. The sum of his answer being that since he is not under any constitutional obligation to make a public show of his assets, if the people talked about it from “morning till night” or from here to “heaven”, he would not be moved an inch to let them into his world. He even suggested that it is against his principle to show such level of transparency and in fact, his former boss, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, compelled him to do so when he was vice-president.

This episode has brought us to one chilling realisation that we have a President whose much vaunted fight against corruption is only skin deep, who would not lead by example and who is not capable of deploying the awesome force of moral rectitude to lead his people. Plain dealing, unimpeachable moral high ground and crystal clear transparency are the qualities high leadership is anchored upon. We wish to caution that no army, no quantum of resources can make a leader succeed whose people cannot trust.

While we urge that the Presidential Chat be sustained, we advise the President and his handlers to make a duty of it by preparing hard and well for the show. On a final note, if the people earnestly want President Jonathan to make his assets public, he should go beyond that by making all his aides follow suit. This is especially so, because the gesture is unlikely to bring him any harm. On the other hand, it will do him and his administration a world of good.


http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/editorial/52233-presidential-faux-pas.html