The epitaph that will be left for the Presidential
years of Goodluck Jonathan is this: HERE IS A
PRESIDENT WHO DESTROYED PDP AND ALMOST
DESTROYED NIGERIA.
by Festus Keyamo Jan 18, 2015
7.7K 595 1.8K
GMB Vs. GEJMuhammadu Buhari and President
Goodluck Jonathan This is a season of hire-wired
deceits, misinformation, campaign of calumny
and spewing of outright falsehood and lies – all to
hoodwink and deceive ordinary and gullible
Nigerians for their votes.
Unfortunately, many of our elites do not want to
speak up now because they do not want to be
caught on the wrong side of any government in the
next four years; they prefer to play safe, not wanting
to be tarred with the brush of partisanship. But, I
ask: what is wrong with partisanship in a country
where you and your children have a huge stake?
What is wrong in speaking up and standing up for
what your conscience tells you is the right thing to
do? What is wrong in being caught on the wrong
side of the government in the next four years, if only
you would be caught on the right side of posterity?
Except for a few class of persons like INEC officials,
security agencies and those on the Bench, every
other Nigerian has a duty - yes, a duty - to speak
up now for our country, and to come down from that
fence on which they are sitting regarding the 2015
general elections. Those elites who do not speak up
now for fear of being branded partisan and losing
face upon defeat are enemies of the people who are
looking up to them for guidance.
Do not forget that I am from the Niger-Delta region
and all my close friends and associates are the
main supporters and aides of Mr. President. Two or
three Governors who are either my former
classmates or colleagues are the main backers of
Mr. President. It is so easy, so convenient and so
seemingly logical for me to get into that political mix
and forget about the good of my country for
personal gains. The disgusting message we hear all
over the streets of that region every day at this time
- promoted by the hirelings of the President – is
that Goodluck Jonathan is “our son”, so we have
no choice but to support him. In fact, I see some of
my “brothers” from the Niger Delta region these
days strutting all over the place, denigrating people
from other regions. It is typical of what the Yorubas
call “omo oju ori ola ri” (a person whose eyes have
not seen wealth before).
But the question I ask those who tell me such
nonsense and behave in such a manner is that,
after the next four years, what is next for us? Is our
entire future and that of our children dependent on a
South-South President for the next four years?
Kindly note that in getting down from the fence and
speaking up at this critical time, I do not mind if you
speak up for Goodluck Jonathan. Yes, you have a
right to do so as a Nigerian. But, as an elite, your
stand must be known so that when the massacres
continue because of cluelessness, when the
unrestrained stealing of our public resources
continue, when darkness continues to befall the
nation because of lack of power, it is important we
all remember those who betrayed their conscience
and the people because of ethnicity and self-
aggrandisement and for posterity to record it as
such.
We have a President who has no single appetite to
fight corruption – yes, none. Imagine a campaign
that is dominated by the theme of corruption, yet the
President has decided to appoint a person facing
trial for money-laundering as his Director of
Media and Publicity. If nobody would say it, I will
say it because I am the one prosecuting the fellow
in court and the case has been adjourned to
February 23 and 24 for trial. Part of the lies told is
that the fellow has been freed whereas some of the
counts in the Charge were just struck out and the
court held that he has a case to answer on some
other counts. Yet nobody is asking the President
these hard questions.
The President only mouths anti-corruption. The
other day (December 23rd, 2014, I think) the
President said he would like to erect a Hall of
Shame for Nigerians who engage in corrupt and
unwholesome activities that bring the country to
disrepute. But he was the same person who
brought a convicted criminal, Diepreye
Alamieyeseigha, out of the Hall of Shame to the
Hall of Fame by misusing his power of Prerogative
of Mercy when he granted pardon to this self-
confessed ex-convict. Imagine the pain, the efforts
and resources that go into securing a single
conviction for corruption in this our clime. Yet, the
President decided to spoil the party for anti-
corruption campaigners. On top of that, he
displayed corruption within corruption by selective
pardon when the likes of Tarfa Balogun, Lucky
Igbinedion and others who were convicted about the
same period did not enjoy his Presidential pardon.
Yet nobody is asking these hard questions on the
campaign trail. The funny thing is that, nearly six
years into his tenure as President, Goodluck
Jonathan said the other day that he is just coming
up with a plan to tackle corruption!! Haba, Jona !
To add insult to injury, President Goodluck Jonathan
decided to tackle the corruption of stealing of our
resources in the high seas by empowering small-
time crooks and criminals to police our waterways.
This is because he has no idea as to how to revamp,
re-organise and re-invigorate the Nigeria Navy to
perform its constitutional duty. These days, it is an
eyesore to see our military chiefs and officers
kowtow to these empowered small-time crooks and
criminals for appointment and promotions and other
privileges. The disaster about this initiative of
empowerment of crooks and criminals is that crude
oil theft has never been so high, so rampant in the
annals of this country than it is now. Why? Because
the President has put a rat as a watchman over a
morsel of fish. It is sad to say, but the President, by
his actions, has shown no spine, no appetite, no
nerve to fight corruption. He just continues to sink
into an abyss of moral debauchery.
The other tragedy of this President is that, even as
he is on the campaign trail, in the last one month,
the omnipresent insurgents have attacked towns
like Baga, Damaturu, Biu, Askira-Uba, Konduga,
Marte and Gombe. Even as we speak, the Boko
Haram insurgents are in total control of the whole of
Borno State except Maiduguri, Monguno, Dikwa,
Konduga and Biu. The insurgents are in total control
of towns like Baga, Bama, Gwoza and Banki.
Before Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, Boko
Haram was nothing but a rag-tag group of
extremists living in enclaves like Sambisa, while
our proud military boys patrolled the towns. Now,
under Jonathan, the reverse is the case. Our
military boys are now in enclaves while Boko
Haram patrol our towns. Is it not shocking that
insurgents have a free reign to enter cities, abduct
young girls like in Chibok, burn houses like in Baga,
slaughter people for hours like in Konduga, Gwoza
etc, yet our military men are nowhere to be found
and they do not even give hot pursuit to the
retreating insurgents? What is really going on?
One obvious flaw is that our President has lost
control of the military and the top hierarchy of the
military is merely feeding fat on this unfortunate
situation and the President seems to be totally
helpless in the face of this.
The only response the President and his handlers
can proffer is to hide this glaring and crass
incompetence under political gymnastics; they
blame the opposition on the one hand and in the
same breath, they say it is a world-wide trend and
Nigeria is just having its fair share of a global
malaise. Is this true? As President, you are the
Commander-In-Chief. If you have evidence
against the opposition, just come out with it and
arrest the ring-leaders. Do not cry like a baby as
Commander-in-Chief. Deal with the situation.
That is why you occupy that seat. Till date, no single
evidence has been produced against any of the
opposition leaders linking them with the insurgency.
Rather, what we see is a President who is
supposedly bent on fighting insurgency but who is
wining and dining with someone who has been
directly linked with sponsoring the insurgents and
even traveling with such a person to Chad at a time
when the State Security Services officially invited
that person to answer questions relating to the
insurgency.
Another calamity and embarrassment is that our
President, his Service Chiefs and security advisers
were all led into wasting public funds by entering
into a phantom cease-fire deal with fake Boko
Haram leaders that left them with bloodied noses.
Not to also mention the short-lived public
celebration of the supposed killing of the Boko
Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, by the President
and his security team, only for the outlaw to appear
in subsequent videos posted online, taunting the
Nigerian government. Any four more years of a
Jonathan Presidency can only lead to more carnage
by the insurgents. He just does not have the
requisite capacity to tackle this problem of
insecurity. The truth must be told.
Yet you hear the President say that the nation will
appreciate him better after he has left office. I am
sorry, but we have seen enough bloodshed and
incompetence in the last six years to know there is
nothing more to expect the next four years and we
have seen enough to do an assessment right now
and not in the future.
In all his campaign tours, the President is already
sounding like a broken record. He says he has
made the rails to function again. He mentioned this
so much that you imagine that he was primarily
elected to revive a few train lines. It sounds very
funny when you hear such things, whereas the
primary duty of government is the protection of lives
and properties. If that primary duty fails, then the
government has failed. It is like an undergraduate
hoping to be promoted to the next level by barely
scraping through the ‘electives’ and failing the core
courses. It will never happen. So, is the President
providing train coaches to be transporting the dead
bodies from the North to the South? Are the trains to
be occupied by living human beings or dead human
beings?
Make no mistake about it, like the President always
says, it is true that we have a rise of terrorism
around the world. But, we have all seen how
governments around the world respond quickly and
decisively to any attempt for terror to rear its ugly
head within their society and how they quickly
crush it. We saw it happen in the United States after
9/11; we saw it happen in Britain after the July 7,
2005 bus bombing; in the last few days, we have
seen it happen in France and in Belgium. In all
these cases, all attempts were nipped in the bud.
Even, here in Nigeria, previous governments have
nipped insurgency in the bud. The ONLY
government that has allowed it to fester, germinate
and grow into a full-blown war leading to a
successful secession of some parts of the country
is that of President Goodluck Jonathan. It is so bad
that hardly a day passes by without reports of one
insurgent activity or the other leading to loss of
lives and limbs.
The President is also quick to mention that his
administration has made the Nigerian economy the
number one in Africa. He forgot to mention two
things, though; one, that some of the major sectors
of the Nigerian economy, that is, the telecom sector,
financial services and the Nollywood industry that
were taken into account to re-base the economy
were sectors not created or grown by his
government. Secondly, he forgot to mention that the
so-called re-basing has no impact at all on the
ordinary Nigerian as the 2014 World Bank Survey
still shows that Nigeria is ranked third among world
top five poorest countries with sixty-one percent
(61%) of its citizens living below $1.25 dollar per
day. No government can boast of any economic
growth or theory that does not have a direct impact
on the lives of its ordinary citizens. It is like a father
coming home to announce and jubilate about a pay
rise and promotion at workplace, yet the wife and
children cannot eat or live better many months
later.
The Nigerian people have tolerated too much and
taken too much battering from the PDP-led Federal
Government since 1999. Under the Jonathan
Government, the situation in the country has sunk
to an all-time low, except for the few benefitting
directly from the government. They are blind to
criticism and blind to healthy opposition. They hurl
abuses at anyone who dares to point out these acts
of maladministration. In saner societies, the
President will not be allowed to campaign in many
parts of the country. The people will rise against
him and chase his convoy away.
The clear alternative to this monumental mess is
the person of General Muhammadu Buhari. Let us
be clear that Buhari does not present the total
package Nigerians want at this time. He is human,
he is not perfect. But at this point in our history, at
this time, at this moment, he presents the only
viable option and avenue for the people to vent their
frustrations and anger against an inept and clueless
Federal Government. He represents the rallying
point for the frustrated and teeming masses of our
people. He reminds me of MKO Abiola (with some of
his imperfections) who became the rallying point in
the struggle against military rule.
That is the change we are talking about. It is not a
change from imperfection to perfection. It is a
change from hopelessness and cluelessness to
some hope and to some expectations.
All the personal attacks on the person of Buhari in
the last few weeks have only convinced me that he
is the best available option at this time. Anyone on
the weaker side in any argument always resorts to
personal abuses and attacks. Have you noticed
that on corruption, the only accusation against
Buhari is that, he was too high-handed in fighting
corruption in the past? In other words, nobody can/
has accused him of lacking the courage, zeal and
will to fight corruption. On the other hand, the
President eats, sleeps and wakes up with
corruption. In one of his famous interviews, he did
not even see stealing as corruption. That is why he
does not see the point why he should not appoint a
person standing trial for corruption as his Director
of Media and Publicity. He just does not care.
So, Nigerians, we must decide what we want. When
Buhari fought corruption and was supposedly high-
handed, he was ruling with Decrees. Now, he has
the Constitution, the National Assembly, and the
Judiciary without ouster clauses to guide him. It is
therefore only an that will believe the propaganda
that he would throw everyone suspected of
corruption into jail. I feel so sorry at times for the
gullible masses of this country who fall for such
cheap propaganda. But it is his type of appetite and
revulsion against corruption that we so dearly need
at this time.
You may say whatever you like about Buhari, but in
terms of the character, the steel, the competence to
lead the nation out of this period of insurgency,
nobody can compare a Goodluck Jonathan to a
General Buhari. Just imagine the Service Chiefs
(who were probably in secondary school when
Buhari and others fought the Civil War) sitting in
front of Buhari to brief him about the situation in the
North East, and attempting to mislead him about
movements of artillery, brigades or troops and, the
strategy against the enemy!
The attack on Buhari’s certificate is most
unfortunate. Only fools can be deceived that a
sworn affidavit in place of a certificate that you
cannot readily produce is not sufficient for certain
purposes. What is important is that the school(s)
and dates are mentioned in such affidavits which
can be subject to verification. But unfortunately the
President’s team has carried on as if leadership is
a function of academic degrees and qualifications.
 This is so sad. Leadership is a divine quality,
almost always bestowed at infancy so much so that
even in primary schools, we see traits of leadership
amongst pupils. If it were not so, then there would
be no need for elections. We should just look for the
most qualified professor in our Ivory Towers and
make him President because that would be the best
material for President.
Besides, what moral right has Jonathan got to
discuss Buhari’s certificate when I have since
informed him that his Comptroller-General of
Customs, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko forged all his
certificates, yet the President has not even ordered
a simple investigation into the matter. He has
turned a willful blind eye to the issue.
The orchestration of the age of Buhari is just
another mischief, symptomatic of the weaker side
the President’s team find themselves in the
argument. Agility and strength and good health is
not exactly a function of age. Yar’Adua did not die
in power because he was an old man. Abacha did
not die in power because he was an old man.
Obasanjo ruled until he was seventy (70) years and
it is the same set of PDP big wigs that are now
criticizing the age of Buhari that were promoting and
supporting the third-term bid of Obasanjo that would
have taken him to, perhaps, seventy-eight (78)
years as President. Today, Obasanjo still jumps
about at nearly eighty (80) years or perhaps more.
Professor Wole Soyinka, at over eighty (80) years,
still travels everywhere, delivering lectures.
The relevant question here is that, is the age more
important than the character or the character more
important than the age? For those who are
Christians, remember that the Bible says in
Proverbs 16:31 that grey-headedness is a crown
of beauty if found in the ways of righteousness. It is
idiotic to deride an elderly person who is still agile
and upright in character, instead of us praying that
we live up to that age and we are blessed with such
strength at such an age. During the Second
Republic, the South-West and South-East massively
voted for Awolowo and Azikiwe respectively who
were both over seventy (70) years old, yet nobody
raised an eyebrow.
Finally, this is not the time to adopt the herd
mentality by joining the so-called “winning train”
because the ruling party is always expected to rig
elections in its favour. What we are witnessing with
the large followership of Buhari is a revolution, a
mass movement, a display of anger by the people
against Jonathan and his government. This is a
time for well-meaning Nigerians, the elites to rise up
and speak truth to power, regardless of whose ox is
gored. We can halt the slide to Afghanistan, Iraq,
Syria, etc by our simple votes. We must vote out
incompetence, cluelessness and corruption.
The epitaph that will be left for the Presidential
years of Goodluck Jonathan is this: HERE IS A
PRESIDENT WHO DESTROYED PDP AND ALMOST
DESTROYED NIGERIA.
I have purged my conscience. Now, I can sleep.
FESTUS KEYAMO, ESQ.

Too long jare