President Jonathan’s Many Problems —Kanayo Esinulo

The neighbour-to-neighbour strategy of the Peoples Democratic Party, an amazing grassroots campaign style, upon which President Goodluck Jonathan anchored his messages, was such a huge political machine and a success story for the man and his party. For those of us who felt that the old school needed to give way for new ideas, new dream, new message that contained quality proposals to emerge, Jonathan was our hope for regaining lost ground. A new generation of leaders needed to be given the chance and the space to prove that it is possible to get Nigeria moving again. This hunger for new men with new ideas made the defeat of Jonathan’s political rivals easier. Their own campaign messages couldn’t fly and the majority of Nigerians went out on April 16 and voted for someone they felt could unchain and rescue Nigeria from ‘militicians’. So, many went for Jonathan, not necessarily because of any enviable legacies he left behind as deputy governor, vice-president, acting president or president. Nigerians just wanted a new political page in the life of this country and get rid of the old school whose previous participation in government never added value to our lives nor brought progress and development to our country.

Some months into Jonathan’s full-blown Presidency, and he really has been in-charge of Nigeria since his former boss, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, surreptitiously left for Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, and despite the dirty antics and adolescent envy of Umaru’s die-hard supporters in the federal cabinet to frustrate Jonathan, characters like the former Attorney-General of the Federation, Jonathan knew that majority of Nigerians were favourably disposed to his ascending the throne. In effect, Jonathan has been running the affairs of this country since March 2010. Now, the many promises he made to Nigerians through his neighbour-to-neighbour campaign outfit seem to have gone sour, perhaps forgotten. Even elements within the neighbour-to-neighbour organisation, some of them we knew fairly well in our localities as men and women of honour, are now feeling uncomfortable with what they are seeing. And this is perhaps the proper moment to engage them in talks, look straight into their faces and ask quite simply: “Old boy, what is happening? We no see nothing again!”

For the record, it is important to remind ourselves that ‘Jonathan has not been in power for just three months’, as some often insist. The man has been in-charge ever since he became the ‘Acting President’. Even before President Yar’Adua died, Jonathan had become our number one citizen. By now, our President should have been used to the nuances and intrigues of Abuja power game for him to assert himself and begin his transformation agenda which many Nigerians have been anxiously waiting for. What is this pussy-footing for and why all this display of cowardice and insensitivity to our expectations? It was this same gentlemanly attitude and desire to placate a section of the country by late Major-General J.T.U.Aguiyi-Ironsi that cost him the throne and his life. It is dangerous to squander goodwill. There is always a costly price to pay for failing to act at the right time. All this Boko-Haram nonsense is primarily designed to test Jonathan’s will to act, and he is obliging these same elements who believe, so strongly, that Nigeria is theirs to conquer, dominate and rule. When Ironsi failed to act decisively after the events of 29 May 1966, those who believed that they must always govern Nigeria began to take him for granted and on 29 July of the same year, while a guest of Francis Adekunle Fajuiyi (a Great Man!) in Ibadan, he and his host were arrested like common criminals and brutally murdered.

Jonathan needs to be firm, decisive, focused and sometimes tough. For now, the elements that did not want him there in the first place will travel any length to frustrate his transformation agenda, force failure on his administration, create the impression that he is incapable of running a good and modern government, continue to encourage those behind the security problems and sustain the fallacy that the man cannot take on the tedious task of development. The power-crazy section of the republic is yet to recover from the fact that power has, once again, slipped off its hands, in spite of all their pretensions. Jonathan’s initial goodwill, symbolised by a pan-Nigeria mandate, is gradually being squandered because the man is not performing, perhaps because of so many distractions – Boko Haram, litigations from elections, trade disputes, mounting ethnic violence in Plateau, etc. Painfully, Jonathan has allowed religious extremists to distract him from even beginning the process of adding value to our lives, creating jobs, improving power supply and getting Nigeria working again.

Our roads have remained in bad shape. For goodness sake, how long is it going to take a whole federal government of Nigeria to fix Ore-Benin road? A century? The recent news that the government has listed ten roads for concession simply does not impress anyone. uch news no longer impresses anyone here.

And the story that power supply has generally improved across the country is not particularly true. What is really happening is that power is supplied to an area for two consecutive days, which is then kept in utter darkness for the next three days. What sort of improvement is that? I take a familiar location as my point of reference: the PHCN in Ikeja area of Lagos under the leadership of Engr. Johnson Akalonu supplies electricity for just few hours in a day, and in the following days darkness descends and residents are told that there has been a major breakdown – the type of nauseating excuses that NITEL used to give in those difficult days when telephones were only for the rich. Hours later, the story would be mischievously circulated that equipment has become faulty and would need to be replaced, and this can only be procured and installed ‘as soon as the necessary approval is received from Abuja’. Is this part of the transformation package that we were promised in the power sector? And there are no signs that problems in some critical sectors of the economy are seriously being addressed under a government led by a new man with supposedly new ideas and new vision.

Elements of the neighbour-to-neighbour campaign outfit of Jonathan and the PDP assured us that their candidate would improve on existing federal roads and possibly construct new ones, provide better electricity, construct a second bridge on River Niger so that those of us heading to Calabar, Port Harcourt, Nsukka, Gboko, Makurdi, Aba and Owerri may no longer sleep on the roads and complete our trips the next day. Jonathan’s foot soldiers also made a fairly good case about their principal’s ability to stimulate the economy so that new jobs can be created and closed industries revived for more opportunities. Nothing seems to be happening, and news about the list of roads to be concessioned, road map on the power sector, etc no longer excite our curiosity. There are no signs that campaign promises are being re-visited since Jonathan’s victory was announced and after a well-publicised pre-inauguration retreat at Obudu, Cross River State. Was that a working retreat or a picnic? Yes, the transformation agenda of Mr. President is certainly not on course. I want to be able to point at certain legacies of President Jonathan after May 2015.

•Kanayo wrote this article for TheNEWS. May be reached on [email protected]