Chris Okotie wrote: There’s a brief historical parallel between the 36th President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson (1963 – 69), who succeeded President John F. Kennedy when the latter was assassinated, and President Goodluck E. Jonathan, who took office after the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Both Johnson and Jonathan were vice presidents who succeeded their late bosses when they died in office, and went on to get elected in their own rights. Both presided over their nations in times of great political turbulence; in Johnson’s case, during the Vietnam War, in Jonathan’s, the Boko Haram insurgency and sundry woes. That’s where their similarities end. President Johnson shocked the world in the heat of the nomination process leading to the 1968 Presidential elections when he suddenly withdrew from the race because of the turmoil generated by his poor handling of the Vietnam War and widespread race riots at home. He was, nevertheless applauded because of the nobility of his action which effectively sealed his place in the pantheon of American statesmen. He chose his country’s peace over self aggrandizement and the allure of office. President Jonathan faces a similar situation; he is presiding over a deeply divided country, torn apart by religious bigotry, unprecedented official corruption and a badly managed insurgency. While this poor record ought, naturally to deflate his presidential ambition like Johnson’s, Dr. Jonathan unabashedly schemed his nomination, unopposed, for the 2015 presidential elections. He and his PDP cohorts fail to realize that, if you cannot solve a problem, you invariably become part of it. That was why President Johnson didn’t seek re-election. The U.S leader knew the bounds between honour and dishonor, and he chose the honourable path. Nobody says President Jonathan does not have the constitutional right to seek re-election. However, legal right, when it loses strength against moral ethos, becomes burdensome to the beneficiary of that right. When a Commander- in- Chief is presiding over an army that is so war-weary that, its soldiers are deserting the war front in droves because of superior fire-power of a rag-tag, buccaneering force like Boko Haram, he loses the respect of not just his own armed forces, but that of the people he leads.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 12:36:11 +0000
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