Like Truman, Like Jonathan.
Now that Vice President Goodluck Jonathan has assumed the presidency albeit in an acting capacity, it is now his responsibility to set the machinery of government moving again because we all are aware that government business almost ground to a halt since President Yar’adua departed the shores of Nigeria in November, 2009. This is not a piece in which I want to use too many words because there is a lot of work to be done. I would like to encourage the Acting President to without further ado implement the recommended reforms of the Justice Uwais Electoral reform Committee. If this is the only thing Jonathan can do, he would have written his name in stone because Nigerians are and have for a long time being alienated from their government because those in power have not been those they voted into office. And as I have said previously on this blog, so long as people in power do not owe their loyalties to those over whom they rule, they will never rule with them in mind. Rather they would be in government to serve the purposes of the godfathers and cabals that put them in office.
And Jonathan has stated what that cabal can do. He can not pretend to be unaware that the power cabal that has stagnated Nigeria’s progress was actually against his ascension and fought tooth and nail to prevent it. While this was going on, Jonathan knows how they treated him-with disdain and contempt. If he should bother to ask himself why they treated him thus, he would realize that the reason is because they do not owe their rise to power to the electorate or to constitutionality, but to conspiracies and imposition and therefore a constitutional ascension to power (as was demanded by the Nigerian masses) was a threat to them.
Now having been a victim, Acting President Jonathan now stands in a unique position to make sure that he is the last victim by initiating the process of full and complete electoral reform based on the doctrine of one man one vote and that every vote must count. Understandably, Goodluck is part of a team that came about via ‘do or die elections’ but he must have seen what the principal beneficiary of the ‘do or die’ election-president Umaru Yar’adua- did to the one who executed the ‘do or die elections’ in his favour-ex president Obasanjo-. This should show Jonathan that even the one who shepherds a do or die election is eventually consumed by it. It is simply not worth it to trample on the people’s will. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has been blessed by God, through very little effort of his own he has risen from an assistant director in OMPADEC in 1998 to Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President and now President. Perhaps God is trying to tell him something!
Goodluck should take a cue from the late President Harry S. Truman who saw his miraculous ascension to office in April, 1945 as an opportunity to right the wrongs of the world. It would be recalled that Harry S Truman presided over the end of World War 2, halted the spread of Communism via the ‘Truman Doctrine of Containment’ and rebuilt a devastated Europe via the unprecedented ‘Marshall Plan’. Acting President Goodluck may very well want to take a cue from such a man who rose to power under circumstances similar to his to halt the trend of impunity associated with theft of elections and institute the ‘Uwais Electoral Reforms”. He may also want to take a cue from Truman and implement a Marshall Plan for the Niger Delta to compensate them for the years of injustice and thus once and for all halt the militancy that has been in that region ever since Isaac Adaka Boro left Unilag to take up arms in the swamps of the Niger Delta. If Acting President Goodluck Jonathan can do these two things, he would have written his name in gold and would have justified the favour that God has given him by miraculously promoting him even without any effort of his own.
Furthermore, Jonathan can like Truman preside over the end of conflicts and wars in Nigeria by reducing tension in the country. He should work with the National Assembly’s constitution Amendment Committee to fast track the work of amending our constitution to completely eradicate the citizen/settler dichotomy. Every Nigerian born and resident in any place in Nigeria should be able to lay claim to that place as his place of origin. It is ridiculous to expect an Hausa man born and raised in Lagos to go back to the North to contest elective office. He should be able to do so where he resides and vice versa for an Igbo man born in Kano. Nigeria has retrogressed in being our brother’s keeper since the unfortunate civil war of 1967-1970. People forget that in pre independence Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe won election in Ibadan or that Malam Umaru Altine was the first elected Mayor of Enugu or that Felix Okonkwo was a member of the Northern House of chiefs. Jonathan is in a privilege position to push the National Assembly to end this dichotomy so that we NEVER see the type of bloodshed we experienced in Jos last month.
Finally, it will bring down tension in the country and foster national reconciliation if Acting President Goodluck Jonathan can discontinue all politically motivated trials. People like Nasir El Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu should not be facing the obviously trumped up charges against them while someone like James Ibori parades Nigeria as a godfather. It simply is not right. Their trials and any trials initiated for political purposes should be discontinued and they should be allowed to return to Nigeria to participate in Nation Building. If Jonathan can find the political will to do this, he will find that Nigerians will also find a place in their hearts for him as they did for heroes like Murtala Mohammed.
Once again, God Bless Nigeria.
PU.
Like Truman, Like Jonathan: A Rejoinder
I do like when Pat Utomi writes - especially when he engages in issues that beleaguer Nigeria, which has earned him accolades in the contest for finding alternative paradigm in salvaging Nigeria as well as earned him medals in the court of the people! As an avid reader of his pieces, I came across this piece, and decided to offer some illuminations.
By sheer serendipity, I think Goodluck Jonathan will do well. I say this in view of the fact that he has the intellectual capital to ferry Nigeria out of its political cul-de-sac; it also looks like he is a good student of history. But I am afraid if my prognosis will be de-materialised by the hand of fate or rather diminished by political permutation of the godfathers, who have besmirched Nigeria’s political culture as well as sullied her moral values with thier despicable political ideology. These godfathers are in all strata of Nigeria’s political institutions in diverse forms. Let me offer Mr. Jonathan some food for thought (if he wants his administration to exemplify paradigm shift), it is excerpted from President Bill Clinton’s preface to his well-titled book, BETWEEN HOPE AND HISTORY: ”History has a way of testing us…”. History is knocking on Mr. Jonathan’s door; he should let it enter! The situation in Nigeria’s political history at the moment is unusual, and should naturally make a case for grand introspection and retrospection. As a child of circumstance (which he has been in all his political career to date), Mr. Jonathan should re-order events in our national life! As Utomi intoned, the Acting President of Nigeria, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan should seize the moment and make history. If he listens to the voice of wisdom, he would be writing his name in stone. A few public officials do write their names in gold or in stone as Pat Utomi indicated. I say this because a lot of Nigerian public office holders have rather written their names in wood!
As one of the most educated Nigerian leaders - with a PhD in zoology and having been a child of politico-social marginalisation, Mr. Jonathan should be a poster child of redistributive economy, a political and economic doctrine steeped in making sure all and sundry has a fair share of the national cake. For the Acting President to achieve this, let me make some recommendations (though these are not exhaustive):
1. The Acting President should refuse to be a godson.
2. The political compass that he and Yar’Adua instituted to take Nigeria out of her political wilderness should not be abandoned; I mean the seven point agenda should be followed to the letter.
3. He should not be swayed by the pressures coming from political godfathers
4. The Niger Delta conundrum should be resolved if he wants peace in Nigeria, hence, that space has taken the toga of a faultline.
5. There should be continuity of political, economic, social and governmental programmes.
6. He should know that there is no time to waste
7. The legislative bodies in Nigeria should be empowered to be responsible to the people.
8. The judiciary should be bark and bite
9. The law should be no respecter of persons
10.Corruption should be checked and stamped out of our body politic.
Having said that, I know that there are myriad of problems buffeting Nigeria, but the aforesaid will in the meantime pass as a wedge to her impending tornado, should caution not tempered with her politics.
In concluding this piece, let me remind Mr. Jonathan that only a madman could do the same thing and expects a different result: ”A country without memory is a country of madmen”, so said the Spanish-American aphorist and philosopher, George Santayana. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is not flaky; if anything, he is a man of sound mind - his resume attests to that. So, he will be of unsound mind to allow Santayana’s ”law of repetitive consequences” to be part of his legacies!
Many thanks Professor Utomi for broaching this matter. If the Acting President listens to the voice of reason, he will not only be compared to Truman, he will certainly follow in the footsteps of LBJ, Andrew Johnson and other colossuses of history who finished off the journeys started by their masters in good stead. Goodluck to you Mr. Goodluck Jonathan.