those who are upbeat about the chances
of the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan
winning re-election if he decides to run, I
have bad news for them. The President may
not only lose in 2015, he could lose by a
landslide even with the incumbency factor
perceived to be in his favour. Let’s even
consider a massive defeat of an incumbent
impossibility; he could still be edged out by a
narrow margin. Indeed all evidence point to
the first shocking defeat of an incumbent in a
presidential election in the country. For the
first time ever, it seems the incumbency
effect may not matter. While I acknowledge
the usual arguments about the incumbent
advantage; 2015 may yet prove to be an
exception.

Why do I think so?
If the supporters of
the President can
just sit back and
remove the scale of
sycophancy from
their eyes and
honestly assess the
situation in the
country, they will
see that in a free
and fair election,
the President does
not stand a chance.
I think they may be
in for a rude shock.
Those who fancy an easy
win for Jonathan may have failed to
appreciate the enormity of the challenges
stacked against his re-election. But supporters
of the administration seem to have been
living in denial all this while. For them the
President’s victory is a foregone conclusion.
Not quite. Their optimism seems buoyed by
the gale of endorsements by some phony
groups and intimidated Peoples Democratic
Party governors who seem not to have any
choice anyway. Supporters of the
administration have also trumpeted what they
considered to be some achievements of the
President. But it appears the so-called
achievements are known only to them alone.
As for Nigerians, it has been a case of the
more you look, the less you see when it comes
to assessing this administration. In the
ultimate decider will be Nigerian voters.
Despite the huge arsenal of funds and state
machinery at the disposal of the Jonathan
presidency, politics and life often have other
plans. This is what recent elections have
taught us. The reality is, incumbents can be
defeated. It may happen in 2015 – in a few
months from now, President Jonathan will
find out whether he will be keeping his job.
For most voters, their choice will ultimately
come down to how they expect either a new
president or Jonathan to run the affairs of our
country in the next four years. Unfortunately
for Jonathan, he does not seem to have much
of a presidential record, and a review of it
leaves little doubt that Nigerians may want to
fire him.

Let me make it clear for people reading this,
especially supporters of this administration,
the laziest thing will be to dismiss my
thoughts as the ranting of a hater of the
President or an opposition hatchet job. Far
from it, I am completely apolitical. One does
not need a crystal ball to see the realities of
why President Jonathan should be preparing
his handover note. Or shouldn’t he? Here are
my reasons. The first is in the changing
demographics. Increasingly as we progress in
our democratic experience, it is becoming
clear that it is the voters that will ultimately
determine the fate of candidates.
In the past, defeating incumbents was
unthinkable. Incumbents held what
proverbialy could be called the yam and the
knife – but not anymore. We have the
situation where sitting Presidents deploy state
machinery to induce and coerce all electoral
institutions. In recent governorship elections
incumbents have been beaten while some
held on to their post by a thin margin. It is no
longer easy to steal the people’s mandate.
Now if elections are not won by ballot, one
can be sure the courts will overturn any
stolen mandate. The trend will surely
continue in 2015. If the situation persists,
President Jonathan may be Nigeria’s first one-
term President. Not even the rallies being
held across the country in support of the
President may help the re-election. In 2015,
the President will be assessed by his
performance in the last five years. A look at
history has shown that if President Jonathan
loses, he will not be the first incumbent to do
so. There have been nearly a dozen one term
Presidents who ran for second terms but were
denied by voters, in the United States, for
example, there have been three one-term
presidents since World War II. The most
recent one-term president who lost his re-
election bid was George H.W. Bush, a
Republican who lost to Democrat Bill Clinton
in 1992. Republican George H.W. Bush was
the 41st President of the United States, serving
from 1989 to 1993.

He lost a campaign for re-election in 1992 to
Democrat, Bill Clinton. Bush’s official White
House biography describes his re-election loss
this way: “Despite unprecedented popularity
from this military and diplomatic triumph,
Bush was unable to withstand discontent at
home from a faltering economy and continued
high deficit spending.’’ Though some of the
one-term US presidents lost due to the
prevailing economic, political and social
factors of their time; those factors will pale
into insignificance when juxtaposed with the
failures of the Jonathan presidency. If any of
the US presidents had been Jonathan, they
would not have even made the mid-term
election as they would have been impeached.
Unfortunately, we have legislative arms that
are largely part of the rot.

But in spite of ongoing propaganda, Nigerians
seem to have become wiser—more discerning.
They may express their displeasure with this
administration in 2015. I have written in this
column that the next election may yet be a
protest vote by a people tired of this
administration’s arrogance, contempt and
disdain for their welfare as a people. What
will be the greatest obstacle in the path of
Jonathan’s re-election is his attitude to
corruption. Needless to say that Nigerians
have become embarrassed by how corruption
scandals at home and abroad have taken a toll
on their country’s reputation.
What is worse is Jonathan’s denial of
corruption as the cause of our
underdevelopment. In several public
statements, the President had declared, much
to the bewilderment of Nigerians, that
corruption is not Nigeria’s problem. The
President must know that Nigerians are
seriously angry about his ‘body language’ to
corruption when allegations of corruption
continue to taint his government. This
President has too much baggage going into an
election year. They will certainly hurt his re-
election chances.

For example, Nigerians are scandalised by the
President’s refusal to probe the ongoing cash-
for-arm scandals rocking his administration.
That he has continued to maintain silence
even as these allegations continue to taint the
integrity of his administration is unnerving to
Nigerians. Meanwhile, under this
administration, all the agencies meant to fight
corruption have also gone comatose. Perhaps
it is not a coincidence that this is happening
under his Presidency. The lack of leadership
and the damage inflicted on Nigerians living
in the North-East by the administration’s
delay to confront growing insecurity has had
its attendant consequences. The President is
going into the election as a largely unpopular
candidate. Can Nigerians afford four more
years of Jonathan? Something tells me that we
may have seen the last of the Jonathan’s
presidency. I will be surprised if he is re-
elected.
Source: THEPUNCH

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