A Pastor once told his congregation: “Next week, I plan to preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon, I want you all to read Mark 17.” The following Sunday, as he prepared to deliver his sermon, the Pastor asked for a show of hands to know how many people had read Mark 17. Every hand went up. He smiled and said: “Mark has only 16 chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lying.” This is one of those jokes which say a lot about Nigerian leaders and their high proclivity to commit the sin of lying. They are wont to see white and say it is black; and to deny the truth when it suits them. It is a sin that has repeatedly been committed by the Presidency as the crisis in Rivers State, worsens by the day and now stretches the fragile peace in the country.
Despite the public outrage at the political crisis in Rivers, pitting the state governor, Rotimi Amaechi against known loyalists of President Goodluck Jonathan; and just when Nigerians thought that the Jonathan administration has hit the lowest ebb in governance capacity, the president himself manages to find a way into further depths of ignominy. In very disappointing remarks on the prevailing crisis in Rivers, the president, for the first time, publicly admitted the existence of tension in the polity; which he rightly attributed to the race for the 2015 general elections. “The political tension in the country is mainly built around the 2015 elections which should not be the case. It is quite disturbing. The year 2015 is still far off. I expect politicians to focus on the business of governance now. We must do what we were elected to do first. We will do our best to curb the overheating of the polity.” Look who is talking!
Jonathan was responding to a call by the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Okey Wali (SAN), to directly intervene in the Rivers’ crisis, which Wali said, had become an albatross to the political development of the country. The president told the NBA delegation that visited him, Thursday that he had asked for a detailed briefing on the security situation in Rivers State and assured that all necessary action would be taken to ensure adherence to the rule of law in the state. Jonathan’s statements were an exercise in cant and humbug, but his response highlighted the unwholesome intent that might have motivated it in the first place. There is cataclysm and wailings in Rivers to which there has been no solution or respite, yet the president is waiting for a security briefing on the situation to act? Does Jonathan want the country to believe that he is unaware that members of his family have been opening new terrains of chaos in Rivers State? On whose instruction is Police Commissioner Joseph Mbu acting?
This kind of ostrich evasion speaks directly to the evident lack of appetite by Jonathan to intervene and resolve the Rivers’ crisis. The president’s unhelpful comments gave him away either as playing politics to the gallery by not addressing the crisis in Rivers as an issue of serious national import; or Mr. President was just being out rightly dishonest, for the obvious reason that he is the one who has ordered federal government-backed forces to pummel Amaechi into submission for daring to aspire to contest the 2015 presidential election as a running mate to another governor; something Jonathan considers an affront to his second term ambitions. This much is public knowledge and the president’s action or inaction over the crisis has, more or less, justified this public narrative.
The violent clash between factions of the Rivers State House of Assembly was an unmistakable act of barbarism for which the Presidency should take responsibility. Jonathan himself stands out in ignominy by feigning ignorance about a crisis in which even his wife has shamelessly and needlessly enmeshed herself with unsavory consequences for his image and office. Above all, that Mr. President is still waiting for a security briefing on the situation; even after both houses of the national assembly invoked Section 11 of the constitution and effectively took over the responsibilities of the Rivers state legislature is, to say the least, incomprehensible. Where has the president been all this while when Rivers has been on fire? Does Jonathan really live in Nigeria? What are his sycophantic handlers telling him? Does he read the papers or watch the news? Certainly, this dereliction of duty, disgraceful as it is; is devoid of any perfunctory exaggeration. It is a shame; a national and international embarrassment.
The current political crisis and reign of impunity in Rivers is another perfect illustration of Nigerian politicians’ warped sense of duty and their disrespect for democracy. Instead of concentrating on service to the people, the primary concern of this administration remains who is up against the incumbent that must be brought down or who is down that must be buried. In their obsession with 2015, the only use to which the president and his handlers put power is intrigues and vanities, sparing no thought for the people in whose trust the power is held. The labored explanations proffered by the presidency over the crisis in Rivers; including Jonathan’s own evasive indifference remain largely unconvincing. How can Jonathan expect the country to believe that the president of the republic is not aware that the majority leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Chidi Lloyd, was blindfolded by the police on arrival at the Port Harcourt International Airport Friday, before being taken to the Police Command for torture?
Refusing to admit responsibility or politicizing public criticism diminishes the presidency and gives vent to continuous executive lawlessness and high level official rascality and dubious unconstitutional devices to settle political scores with real or perceived enemies of the administration. If the presidency believes that the bona fide efforts by some northern governors to intervene in the crisis amounts to a satanic probe, lying over the Rivers’ crisis by the presidency is even more satanic. The president did himself no favors when he apparently attempted to downplay a crisis that has heated up the polity as a non-issue. He has virtually lost credibility in the eyes of Nigerians.
But it is our sincere hope now that Mr. President has at least recognize there is a crisis in Rivers State, he would accede to popular demand and urgently intervene to halt the descent into anarchy, so his government is not identified with impunity. We have another hope: that in his private moments, when his Christian heart holds conversation with his conscience, Jonathan; who was once sober enough to describe the process that led to his election as VP as “this kind of arrangement that is done by the PDP” will acknowledge just how barren are the grounds of legalism on which he has chosen to pitch his tent in the unfolding drama of 2015 politics. Aspiration to any office is a constitutional right of every Nigerian. No one should be victimized for that. Finally, it is supremely perplexing that Jonathan seems unaware of the crisis rocking Rivers State. Nigerians will not take the word of the president for it because they know Mr. President is lying through his teeth. Nobody is fooled about the crisis in Rivers, so why does the president and his men continue to hide in plain sight? This indeed is disgraceful. Now that the Senate has directed its President, David Mark, to mediate in the crisis with a view to restoring peace to Rivers State, the need to thoroughly probe what happen remains imperative. Preserving order, peace and harmony is the highest objective of statecraft.
