Just when it seems the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has hit the lowest ebb in governance capacity, it somehow manages to find a further depth in ignominy. Acting a script prepared by Aso Rock, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), without any official notification, grounded the plane of Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, on the frivolous excuse that its operating license has expired. This decision was a new low by anybody’s standards and one more example of that inherent predilection by Jonathan to dig his own grave beyond half a dozen feet. If anything, this brigandage by the NCAA is shameless political vendetta and is most embarrassing to the image of the President. That Mr. President has not come out to publicly dissociate himself and his office from this act of executive recklessness by the NCAA is indeed worrisome.
The details of the grouse between Jonathan and Amaechi are in the public domain and need no re-telling, not the least for the reason that the public spat has been so unedifying. All along, it has been an intermittent disagreement considered to have been magnified by the media. But the face-off has been festering like an open sore; until the President decided it was time to let the public know that he has had enough of Amaechi’s provocative grandstanding. There was no love lost between the two men after rumors that Amaechi is interested in the Presidency caught fire and developed a life of its own.
Amaechi’s crime is his perceived ambition to be a running mate to Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State in 2015. Amaechi has denied nursing such an ambition although his body language indicates otherwise, and his seeming uncompromising stance on some of Jonathan’s policies, lends credence to perceptions within Aso Rock that he holds the person and office of the President in contempt. But Jonathan’s decision to go after Amaechi is pure political vendetta which reinforces his image as someone with very strong anti-democratic credentials and an authoritarian bent, typical of reactionary, power-drunken political upstarts.
The die was cast when posters appeared around the country featuring Amaechi and Governor Lamido as a potential ticket for 2015. The cold war between Amaechi and the President gradually snowballed into what is called roforofo fight in local parlance, culminating in the Presidency attempting to oust Amaechi as chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), and then grounding of Amaechi’s plane. While it is debatable if the reasons advanced by the NCAA are legitimate; and therefore their decision to ground the plane, is open to interrogation, the decision itself is clearly egregious! It is hardly surprising that the action has been mired in controversy and anger. Indeed, with the exception of the ill-advised removal of fuel subsidy in January last year, and the controversial and morally reprehensible pardon accorded former Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, nothing, in Jonathan’s presidency, seems to have attracted as much public anger and opprobrium as this grounding of Amaechi’s plane.
Undoubtedly, the NCAA is constitutionally empowered to regulate the aviation sector. From the public debate the decision has generated, Nigerians and the international community are not challenging the constitutional right of the NCAA to regulate the sector. Far from it! Their concern, instead, seems to be that the reasons advanced for grounding Amaechi’s plane; that its operating license has expired (not that the plane itself is in any advanced state of disrepair) are frivolous and politically-motivated. For an agency that has presided over several plane accidents involving aircrafts that should not even be flying, including the recent Dana airline crash; the decision defies logic and commonsense. The main grouse, and validly so, therefore, remains that in the case at hand, the NCAA action is punitive and wrong. Indeed, it is clearly an abuse of office especially as the action has no redeeming value to the agency or the Presidency that ordered it.
Outraged at the alleged persistent rift between Jonathan and Amaechi, House Reps from the ruling PDP came out strongly against Jonathan, saying there were political undertones in Amaechi’s plight and insinuating that the Presidency had made impunity, lawlessness and political vendetta the order of the day. A PDP lawmaker went the extra mile to say the grounding of Amaechi’s plane raised “serious issues as to the abuse of power by the Executive and the use of state machinery to witch-hunt perceived political opponents which is extremely dangerous and detrimental to any democracy and tends towards dictatorship and draconian tendencies typical of the military era.”
Jonathan should have shown more political dexterity and pragmatism by resisting the temptation of abusing his high office to engage in acts that expose him and the office of the President of the republic to ridicule. After the failed attempt by the Presidency to oust Amaechi as NGF chairman, we pointed out that presidential meddlesomeness in NGF affairs was, at best, the product of bad advice and a profound political misjudgment on the part of the Presidency. This miscalculation suggested a lack of political sophistication by Jonathan and it is disappointing, the self-styled transformational president still doesn’t understand how to act presidential.
This latest embarrassment shows Jonathan has now become obsessed with the Amaechi factor. It is telling that the Presidency learnt very little from their past experience, evidence from the bungled attempt at damage control by Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah that turned out to be a public relations disaster for the government. By attempting to defend the indefensible, in a shameless manner with ridiculous allegations of forgery against the Rivers State government, rather than remonstrate and retrace its steps, Stella Oduah lied and contradicted herself, and unwittingly admitted, openly, that the grounding of Amaechi’s plane was deliberate, with ulterior motives. To make an already bad situation worse, her explanations not only exposed her ignorance of the aviation sector, it underscored her leadership ineptitude and lack of moral character. By also ignoring the public outcry against widespread public perception of a political witch-hunt, the presidency has confirmed, for the umpteenth time, that Nigerians are mere clients, instead of primary stakeholders of governance. No government that derives its power from the popular will treats its people with such ignominious contempt.
The grounding of Amaechi’s plane was shameful politics. From all indications, the only path of dignity left for the NCAA and the government is to rescind the controversial decision and apologize to Amaechi and the Nigerian people. This should be done in the overall interest of President Jonathan’s national and international image, which has now suffered a more excruciating damage than ever before.
