Although the 2015 election is nearly two-and-a-half years away, the campaign for President Goodluck Jonathan to seek another mandate is vicious if subtle; worse even, the President is yet to deliver on his 2011 election promises.
In his May 29, 2011 inaugural speech President Goodluck Jonathan pledged to Nigerians – and the whole world – a leadership that is “decidedly transformative,” adding that “the transformation will be achieved in all the critical sectors…the time for lamentation is over. This is the era of transformation”, he declared in a note of finality.
We have often noted at Huhuonline.com that the task to revive Nigeria is urgent. To transform it, as Jonathan pledged to do, is even more so. But the process of transformation; be it of an organization, or a nation, requires transformational leadership – that unique set of change agents united in vision, purposeful of mission and, sustained by such shared values as motivation and morality, to progressively elevate the population to higher levels. It is doubtful if Jonathan can sustain a transformation agenda. This begs the question: does Jonathan really deserve another term? The answer to this question is obvious to anyone not blinded by prejudice.
What began as an irritating distraction, appears to have now assumed a life of its own, dominating political discourse in the country, with mischief-makers and political jobbers latching on to it, to heat up the polity unnecessarily. The pointless, diversionary and very distractive hue and cry about Jonathan’s alleged ambition to seek a second term is becoming increasingly disturbing by the day in the wake of posters demanding another term for the underachieving president which have been littering the streets of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
The president, who is believed to have engaged in covert machinations ahead of the 2015 polls, has come out strongly to disclaim the posters and distanced himself from the campaign. The Presidential adviser on media and publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, has been crying out loud to anyone who cares to listen that the president’s only attention for the moment is delivering on his mandate for Nigerians; adding that Jonathan would not allow himself to be distracted by the politics of 2015.
The President has definitely not directed or authorized any individual or group to launch any campaign on his behalf. As he has repeatedly warned on many occasions, including the last national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party, the inordinate ambition of a few self-centered Nigerians and their obsession with the politics of political succession in 2015 must not be allowed to distract the nation and its current leadership from the task of dealing with the much more urgent issues of development and the safety of Nigerians in all parts of the country, Abati has said repeatedly until it has become his personal motto.
But Nigerians are not deceived. The depth of public anger against a second term for Jonathan has been extraordinary and exceedingly personal, with Nigerians across the board venting their frustration over the poor start to Jonathan’s transformation agenda. With serious economic, infrastructural and security challenges to contend with, it is unconscionable that the President’s attention should be consumed by vaulting ambition, pursued with intricate permutations, manipulations and maneuvering.
The Boko Haram insurgency stands out as the single most deadly and most intractable security challenge facing the country and Jonathan seems clueless on how to tackle the menace. On the whole, ever since Jonathan took office, Nigeria has developed into a nation in conflict with itself; where brutal kidnappings, armed robberies, and hired assassinations have become a national pastime; a nation living in outright contradiction to its declared development objectives. Despite repeated promises of better times ahead, Nigerians have ended up with dashed hopes, broken promises and unfulfilled aspirations. Jonathan himself has had his own harvest of scandals, with faltering investigations and half-hearted, inconclusive pursuit of the high profile culprits of audacious corruption. Whichever way Nigerians turn, they are confronted with the overarching presence of pervasive corruption and societal decay.
More than 30 days after his inauguration, Jonathan could not even submit the list of his cabinet to the Senate for consideration. It was disappointing that it took the president so long to pick his cabinet, while, the all-important business of government functioned at less than optimum level. Having run the affairs of this country for more than a year, the President must be presumed to have had enough time to mobilize a reasonable array of people, as to make his cabinet-formation less onerous than it was made to be. The delay might be tolerable if the outcome justified it. But the list of proposed ministers was as unimpressive as the delay in compiling it. There were simply too many nominees whose records were far from inspiring. And, if as they say, morning shows the day, there is cause for worry about the quality of governance in the next four years. However, we would be pleased to be proven wrong.
The president sought to put together a cabinet that will satisfy as broad a range of interests as possible. That was ill advised, as such a cabinet will satisfy no one, and will more likely disappoint every one including the president. Ultimately, it is the average Nigerians that will pay the huge price of poor quality decisions by incompetent ministers. This is the risk on the card. Jonathan failed to cast his net wider and, give Nigerians a First Eleven team of provably good men and women as ministers and special advisers. A transformational government must have, as a sine qua non, a transformational leadership. Nigeria lags behind by all the major indices of development and urgently needs a confident, competent, efficient and responsive leadership. For, if there are lapses in the quality of governance, the buck will stop on the president’s desk; Jonathan must take the blame.
Jonathan must stop and think just where the country is headed. Does the experience of the last few years aggregate to development or what is the President really thinking? Pathological lust for power and greed for money have rendered purposeful leadership prostrate. It has become more and more apparent that the fortune of this country is torn between those concerned with maintaining and expanding their private economic and political estates, and those consumed by ingrained prejudices, intolerance and bigotry, whether religious or ethnic.
The vision 20-2020 slogan remains a huge joke, a wild and idle prediction of the place of Nigeria’s economy by year 2020 on the global scale. 2020 is eight short years away therefore, the country’s path to greatness will be defined by the choices Jonathan makes as the person with the primary responsibility to lead this country to greatness. Nigeria is nowhere near its potential and it is portrayed and shaped as a jungle land to be plundered and violated with impunity. It is not transformation when the President’s wife goes abroad for painkillers and surgery, whereas Jonathan has failed to build functional health facilities here at home.
As Nigerians enter a New Year, they expect of Jonathan a change of heart; what Nigerians no longer expect is the scandalous and profligate posturing that has dominated his leadership. Jonathan must renew his pledge to diligently assume a leadership anchored on integrity, principles and exemplary self-sacrifice.
Going by the prevalence of the theme to “transform” in the president’s inaugural address, he needs to keep faith with the pledge to the people of this country. He must know that he needs to give governance his all to make transformation happen. After all, he is the President, and so history will record it.
This president must seize the moment.To borrow from his inaugural speech, the time for lamentation is over, let the era of transformation begin – and be seen to be so.Until this happens, Jonathan in our view does not merit the growing furore in political circles and the media over his alleged plans to seek re-election in 2015.
Huhuonline.com Editorial.
