₦airaland Forum

It was Socrates who said that fame is the perfume of heroic deeds. For Shirley, only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust. For Johnson, to get a name can hap­pen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be bought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed. Yet, for Shakespeare, men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water. Despite the propaganda, lies, black­mail and conspiracy against him in an illiberal electoral contest; despite his “defeat” by his opponent in the March 28, 2015 presidential election, former President Goodluck Jonathan remains the toast of the free world. Since he handed over power to his assailants on May 29, 2015, his fame has been rising like a wild fire in the harmattan. He broke world record when on his birth­day last November, it was reported that over 50million people across the world sent him birthday greetings on Facebook. It is incredible but true.
Come Thursday January 21, 2016, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan will be hon­oured by the Diplomatic Circle in Geneva, Switzerland. He will be hon­oured for his sparkling democratic credentials and for “upholding human rights in Africa “, the first African Pres­ident to be so honoured. The Diplo­matic Circle, an enlightened group of diplomats globally, has also requested Dr. Jonathan to address the respected body during the event where he will be beamed by the international me­dia. Earlier in the year, a public policy organization on African affairs, the Af­rica Political and Economic Strategic Centre (AFRIPOL) had nominated Jonathan for the Nobel Peace Prize. If this is actualised next year, Jonathan would join avatars such as Bishop Des­mond Tutu and Dr.Nelson Mandela, to mention just a few, in the pantheon of the gods. If Emerson’s assertion that self-trust is the essence of heroism is anything to go by, is Jonathan far from being an international hero?
All over the world, people choose their heroes for different reasons. Some designate legendary creatures from every historical epoch and every field, such as Christopher Colum­bus, Florence Nightingale, Joan of Arc, Louis Pasteur, Alfred Nobel or even Napoleon Bonaparte. Yet, there are also those who believe that some heroes are unknown to the general public, their heroic deeds unrecog­nized but far from insignificant. These heroes include school aides, foster par­ents, security and medical personnel-all kinds of people who struggle, often against daunting odds, to make life better for others. As Victor Hugo said: “Life misfortunes, isolation, abandon­ment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than illustrious heroes”. In choosing former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as the reign­ing King of African Democracy, a suc­cessor to the famous Nelson Mandela of South Africa, this writer believes that, like every other hero, he is a hu­man being, with everything that it im­plies. I also believe that recognizing a hero-warts and all-makes it possible to become a hero and to encourage oth­ers to do the same.
In 1944, as Franklin Roosevelt was running for his fourth term as Presi­dent of the United States with World War 2 still raging, Harry Truman was nominated for the position of Vice President. Just eighty-two days into the new term, Roosevelt died. Shocked to his foundation, Truman said, “I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me”. No one ever thought he was equal to the task of replacing a beloved Commander-in -Chief. But Truman weathered the storm. So it was Truman who helped establish the United Nations, he negotiated the Ger­man surrender, attended the Potsdam Conference with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. It was also Harry Truman who made the contested de­cision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thereby ending the war. He it was who fought the first battles in the Cold War; established the Truman Doctrine, which opposed the Com­munist aggression; and backed the Marshal Plan. When asked who his hero was, this great American leader posited that his hero was no less a per­sonality than the Confederate General Robert. E. Lee, who was admired by a generation of Americans for being gra­cious in defeat.
Like Truman, Jonathan became President against all odds following the untimely death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on May 5, 2010. He thus became the first Nigerian from the minority to assume such a position in a democratic dispensation on May 6, 2010 when he was sworn in. He ran and won the 2011 presidential election widely accepted locally and interna­tionally to be free and fair, the first mi­nority to be so elected in the history of Nigeria. He is from the minority Ijaw in the oil rich Niger Delta of Nigeria. Yet he has had a cult following by the Igbo who occupy the South Eastern fringe of the River Niger, second only to their Civil War leader, Dim Chuk­wuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu who died in 2011, and to whom a state burial was given by Jonathan. And like General Robert E. Lee, Truman’s ultimate hero, Jonathan conceded vic­tory and graciously accepted defeat through a heroic call to his opponent even before the announcement of the final result of the March 28, 2015 Presidential election in Nigeria. That singular act of statesmanship saved so many lives who would have been killed by ethnic and religious jingoists who see politics as a do-or-die affair and rulership of Nigeria as their birth right. These people never gave Jona­than a chance from the very first day he stepped in as Acting President be­cause they saw him as a stranger. Some of them even openly vowed that they would make the country ungoverna­ble for him; and they did. Yet, Jonathan succeeded in recording more ground-breaking achievements than most of his predecessors.
Indeed, when the time comes for historians to offer a kind of formal re­view of the Jonathan years in Nigeria, the task is likely to be morally compli­cated. Given the role the immediate past President played in the effort to extricate the country from the jaws of establishment political pythons most of whom had employed the services of a section of the media to annihilate his political career for daring to challenge them, an unbiased verdict might be difficult to come by. Yet, we fancy that beyond the diabolical antics of political opponents, there is a latent eagerness in the public mind to be done with an absolutely sadistic political witch-hunting to allow for a free reign of liberty, which may have more of it for the fulfillment of hope and restoration of dignity to our nation. For, the last six years of Jonathan in the saddle, if not greater than any other era which preceded it, certainly did secure for Ni­gerians some elements of freedom and liberty. Not only did Jonathan rebase the Nigerian economy to becoming the biggest in Africa, he rebased poli­tics in Nigeria to the fundament of a virile and an unfettered opposition, freedom of speech, of association and above all, the freedom for Nigerians to choose their leaders. What is more, no Nigerian, including his opponents who mistook his magnanimity and democratic temperament for clueless­ness can finger Jonathan in any case of political assassination which was the norm during Chief Olusegun Oba­sanjo’s misbegotten civilian dictator­ship.
In every democratic society the idi­osyncrasies and failures of presidents are as diverse as their accomplish­ments. Even in the United States of America from where we copied our Executive Presidential system of gov­ernment, where the President is as­sumed to be the most powerful man in the world, where almost all of their modern presidents have acted in what they believed to be the country’s best interests, most of them fell short of the challenges of an impossible job. There­fore, to treat the modern presidency to be a complete success story anywhere in the world, is to falsify the historical record. Even though Jonathan was blissfully unaware of the ultimate de­cline of the party system and the in­creasing importance or inevitability of the media in modern democracy, resulting in the rise of the role of the President as celebrity, he nonethe­less made remarkable strides in the annals of our political development. Consider: our mission since 1999 had been a fruitless one, for it had led to no positive growth in the political culture, to no unifying ideal for the Nigerian nation, and had generated no spark to kindle the fire of genuine progress and liberation. But Jonathan has brought all these self-inflicted negatives be­hind us by changing the course of our political engineering.
No president or head of state since our nationhood, could be more fun than Jonathan. No one more appeal­ing with impulses of irony, bravado, gentleness and vulnerability so curi­ously intermingled in his vivid but unassuming personality. As president of Nigeria, Jonathan held a promise as a symbol of the national emblem even in his disarming simplicity. Without necessarily being a strong man, Jonathan’s personal frailties or weaknesses, as the case may be, were an essential part of his strength. At crucial moments, he acted in the light of what he conceived to be the high­est interest of the nation as a whole: against party, against section, even against the will of his constituents. It is this intrinsic quality which has established his common nature and essential humanism. The unpopular traits common to rulers with mes­sianic impudence- egomaniac, un­trustworthiness, coarseness, mean of spirit, unforgiving, and I-know-it-all bravura- are very far from Jonathan. Yes, he was a neophyte or green horn in the gallery of power, but as a thor­ough bred ivory tower intellectual on the exalted throne, who had been a deputy governor, governor, Vice President, Acting President, and Presi­dent, he was not a mediocre. Rather, he learned fast on the job. His place is firmly secured in the pantheon of global political history. Such is the stuff heroism is made of.

http://authorityngr.com/2015/12/Goodluck-Jonathan-s-rising-profile/

I'm just here 2 hear from our "Ajala The Traveller's Ass Lickers...

BeeBeeOoh:
I'm just hear 2 hear our "Ajala The Traveller's Ass Lickers...

lolzzz they will soon arrive

I read only the caption and not the entire story. Biko, is his profile rising from NSA disbursement or Dr. Dokpesi confession?

UN Secretary General in the making

melvinjames:
UN Secretary General in the making

you can say that again

Wow... GEJ.. We are solidly behind u sir...

[s]

kITATITA:
I read only the caption and not the entire story. Biko, is his profile rising from NSA disbursement or Dr. Dokpesi confession?

[/s]

Its normal to shut up when you have nothing interesting to say.

erunz:
lolzzz they will soon arrive

*Grabs pop-corn* I can't wait

MrScript:
Wow... GEJ.. We are solidly behind u sir...

he is my hero

Abeg I no fit read all na seminar report u de write? Anyway anytime any day Jonathan is the hero Nigeria should celebrate and I thank God he is going higher. Ndi obi akpo go de die

achuba onye aka ya di ocha achuba na ebe uwa oma. Authority nwanne bring it on maka paper ndi ofe have so dealt with us. What a towering recognition across d world and he is still being unsung daily here. If he wins d Noble Peace prize then o ga-eme ha vuum n'anya

drshrewd:
Rising profile or disastrous end of a bloody looter
A president that betrayed the trust of his people, diverted billions of dollars that was meant for weapons to fight the insurgency on his campaign ______ to say the least this is crime against humanity and he aught to be tried in the ICC for soiling his hands with blood money nonsense


www.nairaland.com/attachments/2922896_gejcountinghislootstashedinsteelboxes_jpeg5232f314df6e13482adafce5eafb93fb

ABEG WHO GET INSECTICIDE, A PEST HAVE JUST BEING SPOTTED

One thing I have come to terms with in experience is that you can only try but you can never bring down whom God has uplifted

you guys are jes losers. what is your problem sef?

this guy being election observer, giving notes and international speeches is now something u never heard before?

ask OBJ...he couldn't count the numbers of time he has done this shiit and still counting!

mtchewwwww

SLIDEwaxie:
you guys are jes losers. what is your problem sef?

this guy being election observer, giving notes and international speeches is now something u never heard before?

ask OBJ...he couldn't count the numbers of time he has done this shiit and still counting!

mtchewwwww

BAD BELLE IS ALLOWED, ABEG IS YOUR god BACK FROM THE OWAMBE WE TRAVELED TO

erunz:
ABEG WHO GET INSECTICIDE, A PEST HAVE JUST BEING SPOTTED

eruns stop being a zombie for common criminals naaaaaaaaaaaaaa! stop.
well for me I really feel sorry for GEJ as a brother i wish him a soft landing
And as for you I release the holy ghost on your brainwashed encephalon so that you can be delivered of your acute imbecilic sycophancy

erunz:
BAD BELLE IS ALLOWED, ABEG IS YOUR god BACK FROM THE OWAMBE WE TRAVELED TO

no, he hasn't- but will be soon

There's more to one's life than being a mere president!...

GEJ on ascendancy while Buhari the chief wailer everywhere he goes! Baba buhari old age wisdom should tell u wialing won't deliver u governance buckle up to the herculean task ahead. U dey wail while citizens wail who will save us?