Benevolent spirits may have cracked his palm kernels but President Jonathan must have nudged them, by being effortlessly self effacing and disarmingly unambitious. The mien and disposition of a lamb amongst wolves alone may leave one with the inconsequentiality, the inconspicuousness, needed to progress untracked by envy but in Nigeria where the humble and hesitant are choked out by the unclothedness of ambition and its riotousness, Jonathan was particularly fortunate.
Some say he is a Shagari with a Phd, without the arrogance southerners say they sniff in northern public officers. His village boy humility is made legendary by the ubiquity of insufferable political peacocks, those whose pomposity cannot be gathered together, cannot be explained, who had more wretched beginnings. It is a miracle he remained largely himself. Fate’s catapult and the dizzying trajectory it subjected him to could have left many a head swollen or bust.
Too laid back for controversies, too diffident to restrain aides from picking fights for him, gentle Jonathan lacked spine, lacked the firmness to herd even a flock of sheep. Easy going but often lacking in social ease, tolerant Jonathan always left a bit of awkwardness on everything, including speeches and gesticulations. He will gather the poor to tell them how he created many “nyoung , nyoung” billionaires. Gaucheness. Many who think his regime was corrupt do not consider him, personally corrupt.
Or that corrupt. He is not given to avarice and not to an inflated sense of self importance that have left many with the delusion that they are gods. A delusion which necessitates great accumulations to service omnipotence, without which gods are nothing . Many think not being exceptionally corrupt is a good score here. If he has any confessions to make it must include that he allowed certain ugly things happen because of the complexity of the situation he found himself.
A complexity too arduous for his simplicity. A tradition of indiscretions, if you like euphemisms, that services vested interests and ‘national unity’ to the detriment of the poor majority. But while Jonathan may have been a genial president many considered him manifestly incompetent, too incompetent to be effectively caring. A sheep called upon to rule the wild , to restore order to chaos. That leadership deficit in an honest , unpretentious man was read by the public as cluelessness.

What he lacked in political stature and insight he made up for with his notion of collective leadership. A certain lack of confidence that invites too many hands to help with the broth. Too many people had to be trusted and loyalties , in the absence of any real political clout, had to be hired or bought. Excesses proliferated , too many hands come with too many crooked minds, poor man. Poor country ! He may have hated corruption but he lacked the moral muscle to uproot anything entrenched let alone that Iroko.

When the speculations became rife that the elections would not hold because the incumbency couldn’t sniff victory, many doubted that Jonathan’s ambition had the requisite inordinateness and vulgarity to trample on the people and the constitution. In any case none believed Jonathan had the stomach for the trouble that would precipitate.

When he conceded and reclaimed some moral high ground , he showed that in the end , despite all , he remained essentially peace craving. A retirement into quiet statesmanship must be the priority of the one who still thinks nothing of either himself or the heights he attained. So when it mattered most , Jonathan listened to himself. Jonathan lacked the rebelliousness to be very useful or to do significant evil.
But Jonathan ought to be a troubled man now. He knows the pedigree of his successor and warned about selectivity of probes. Jonathan’s notion of objectivity is the extension of probes , if probes are considered imperative, to activities and administrations he had closed his eyes to . That hint is technically a guilty plea.

Jonathan sought to suggest that financial atrocities are too commonplace in our political culture.
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Handpicking a few skeletons from the nearest cupboards would cast the wrong picture , would make the mundane scandalous. The system we run , he meant without saying, is too dirty for such open probes. “All past governments, are all guilty” must be the right reading of Jonathan. The investigations have started and the steady stream of filth has become an unending spectacle . Jonathan’s response has been anything but comprehensible.


Jonathan may not have committed gross human rights atrocities but the weight of egregious financial evils being levied against his close aides, if proven, would squash Jonathan’s reputation irredeemably . Armed robbers must feel some righteousness when they read allegations of suitcases of dollars being carted from the vaults of central bank to the private homes of individuals by the authority of a few words on a single piece of paper.


And someone in the middle of that abomination found the moral scruple to leave a reminder about the need for accountability. God have mercy. The sort of hypocrisy our technocrats, with names too big for their characters wear as cloaks, to pretend to cleanliness after a mud bath in public treasury is breath-taking. Why these saints never resign in moral disgust is baffling.

Everyone whose name is mentioned becomes sick. And Jonathan on whose table the buck stopped and whom some of the officials have fingered as the final approving authority has remained in health and with a seemingly unperturbed conscience. Jonathan is innocent . The idea that he was ignorant of the atrocities these allegations point to would make him such an irresponsible leader.
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We know that when he found his voice against corruption he mewed, didn’t bark. He couldn’t roar. But the sort of irresponsibility in question here is ‘criminal’ because of the scale and severity of its consequences, because it destroyed so many lives. Jonathan is yet innocent but he must discard “It wasn’t me” and embrace “I take responsibility” . There is a reason why men like to die with some dignity, why strong leaders die for their men.


The investigators are digging deeper and the ramifications are widening . Soon anyone and everyone who had deep contact with that government will have a niche in the hall of shame. Jonathan should step up and step into the mess .


But it is easy to see that if the probes continue all that will be remembered of him will be widespread filth and deep seated rot . Since at some point that veil of apparent immunity through which he peeps at the travails of his aides may be torn in anger or frustration by the government or lifted by some of his aides moved by vengeance or contrition, Jonathan must make that move now. This informal immunity, which he appears to possess, may be short-lived


There is , however, a sense in which most of the allegations levied against his men despite their gravity are unexceptional. And because they are essentially cultural, personal moral burdens are unlikely to be as heavy as they should be. The procedures that have been disregarded , the quality and quantity of embezzlement that have been reported, may have happened with all past governments to varying degrees. Now , that is neither an excuse nor a justification for looting of the national treasury.

No one can insist on our apprehending all thieves before prosecuting nabbed ones. It’s a bad legal and moral argument. But when those being prosecuted feel no shame but blame their luck; attribute their ordeal to malice or misfortune, because they were singled out and others left, then justice is not well served. The fact that corruption has been banal and impunity entrenched takes away some exceptionality from these cases and generalizes the evil in a way that doesn’t mark the alleged offenders as demons. So Jonathan has some room.


Many say Jonathan’s concession was messianic. Buhari has repeated that Jonathan could have dug in and thrown the country into chaos. I don’t believe that if you refrain from being stupid then you are automatically a hero. But since Jonathan resisted that which has eclipsed millions of African lives we can let his supporters exaggerate his heroism. This messiah then has some political credit to expend. He should take general responsibility.


The PDP has suggested a truth commission. That is an implied admission of guilt because it is another “all have sinned” confession. However, since most of the identified suspects belong to that party, the party has no moral ground to suggest a deviation from standard criminal justice protocol without appearing self serving. But Jonathan can. If Jonathan steps forward and accepts responsibility for the sins of his aides the legal equations may remain unchanged but moral burdens will shift significantly.

And since the atrocities are so widespread and since perhaps thousands of people are involved and since the criminal justice system cannot cope with such a weight, a truth commission will be a good option. If Jonathan sets the ball rolling , his beleaguered aides will find the respite needed for sober reflection, contrition and restitution

This GEJ's saga and outright humiliation will never end as long as APC liveth. Pls free the gentleman man joor. He left government peacefully for APC to begin its reign without war. He should be celebrated at least. Abi not to so my fellow comrades?

Try and be clean so that ur name will not b every where

The dude is shameless and should go to jail if found culpable, so that future generations will know that their fore bearers fought evil in both the real and the symbolic sense.

Sai Buhari!

President Jonathan should be allowed that informal immunity. But those aides convicted in a court of law must face the full wrath. President Buhari has every moral right to limit his probe to Jonathan's administration. Afterall Jonathan and the PDP government failed to probe their predecessors, and Buhari might only be genuinely concerned with the regime which handed over power to him. In order to fulfil his contract with Nigerians at the end of his tenure he must let us know what and what he received and what and what he will leave behind! And as for the allegation of excluding APC stalwarts from the probe, it's better than doing nothing at all. Most non partisan Nigerians would prefer having only PDP looters in jail than having no one in jail at all. I would only say that the PDP should do the same when next they come into power. That way Nigeria would be a better place.