Is Jonathan Nigeria’s problem? The Nation, January 19, 2015 Written by Simon Abah The buck, we are told, stops at the table of the leader. That said, a country turns out to be great only when the people in it elect to make it so. I have observed with keen interest the condemnation President Jonathan gets from Nigerians these days – and he has had a measure from me as well, but I am baffled at some criticisms which I figure are not envisioned to campaign for social justice especially since some of these decriers fail to take zealotry (religion) out of their schisms. His lacklustre performance so far notwithstanding, I refuse to believe that he alone is responsible for the state of affairs of our country as it is at the moment. We are all as guilty as this president. Compare his advisers to that of developed climes and you will wonder if they truly have the interest of Nigeria at heart. Most political analysts see them as people only interested in feeding fat from the national cake, particularly with the combative way in which they engage the opposition. In contrast, during the Richard Nixon Watergate scandal, two of his principal presidential aid and defence lawyers Fred Buzhardt and Leonard Garment did what no persons had done before that moment: they asked President Nixon to resign due to the overwhelming evidence against him over the Watergate scandal. Can any of President Jonathan’s advisers show the same courage to tell him to his face that he has underachieved? Why is it that we hear that the resignation of top individuals from a party leaves the party ruined without a structure, needing the persona of other individuals to help bring it to life? Isn’t it outrageous and pathetic that our parties are centered on individuals and may not last beyond these individuals? How is President Jonathan responsible for the politics of anointment by states’ chief executives that have seen many of these endorsing wives and kinfolks to seek elective offices without grooming and recruiting capable candidates with widely-held support? I watched a CNN feature interview directed by Nick Robertson recently where soldiers recounted the distressing experiences they face in the fight against insurgency. They even have to buy their kits as revealed, but that is not news. Most Nigerians know that the armed forces are underfunded. What is stupefying is why no high-ranking senior officer has had the guts to spill the beans and step down, on moral and ethical principles. I recall with nostalgia the spat between General Victor Malu and President Olusegun Obasanjo over the latter’s directive that a US intelligence unit should have unrestricted access to our intelligence facility but that General refused, leading to his ousting from the army as reported at the time. Do we still have officers with guts and have they chosen to be political or apolitical? Whatever happened to our civil society groups after the end of military rule? Do they still passionately charge leaders to deliver electoral undertakings to the people and also stir up the youths from their state of disinterest for national growth? Isn’t it true that Nigeria is quickly becoming a place where people hide under the cloak of religion to promote hatred and the condemnation of people of other faiths? Instead of religious leaders to campaign for concerns that will be beneficial to their members, they now either prophecy that candidates will win or lose. How such predictions help our body politic remains an open question. The world woke up recently to the shocking news that 17 lives were lost in France to terrorist acts. It was really sad news for people who truly value life and humanity. What I found interesting was the bi-partisan meeting that was held immediately by President Francois Hollande and former President Nicolas Sarkozy who is now a leading opposition figure. There was no trading of blame, brickbats and bedlam like we have here with our political class that have all failed to rise above partisanship for the growth of Nigeria. You could see two great statesmen who care for their nation rousing citizens to stay united and not be cowed by terrorism and to fight against it in their homeland and also to stay alert. But in Nigeria, it took our president forever and a day to visit Maiduguri, leading many to assume that people who die in the northeast regrettably are lowlifes who do not matter. Little wonder Odumegwu Ojukwu said, Nigerians “suffer from selective amnesia,” and when they chose to remember, suffer from “selective myopia”. If not, how come the members representing these constituencies in the Senate and House of Representatives have not resigned their offices to protest the government’s grotesque abandonment of their people who fall prey to the killing machine of the ‘Haramists.’? Have we ever heard of resignations in those houses to protest the maladministration of this regime? Didn’t we read in the press that the ACF has chosen to endorse General Buhari because it is the policy of the outfit to endorse northerners for election even when concessions and merger made this development possible? And given our country’s need for a reawakening, should we still be encouraging regional prejudices to fester? The debates in the House of Commons entices youths in the United Kingdom to be politicians and to play an active role in that country’s national life but ours has been unexciting and mind-numbing at the national level, while some state assemblies remain closed, others have their members hounded out of the state and our office-bearers are yet to groom young people to be good citizens by their own good conduct. Did the elders from the Niger Delta not play politics with the carrying off of the Chibok girls by misleading this president that there was never an abduction which made him to act 21 days after when it was too late? And even after videotapes revealed that they were abducted, some of them still hold this deceptive viewpoint. Many years into democratic rule, most states do not have active developmental plans, technocrats are not employed but acquaintances, and the government remains the highest employer of labour instead of the private sector and machineries of state have been used to stifle opposition that is relevant in a democracy. How is the President responsible for all of these contradictions? It would require a long epistle to describe the tumble-down federal civil service where the practice of engaging people to boards of government organizations without recourse to national experience and age is widespread which till now is responsible for the lack of the development and implementation of rolling plans in the country. Why are the DSS and the Police not able to prevent ill-feelings before they aggravate? Why haven’t they been able to prevent gun-running so unparalleled in our history that youths now dare to kill as often as reported in the press these days? We are as guilty as this president for the decay Nigeria finds herself in and it is binding on all of us to rebuild her. Abah writes from Port Harcourt, Rivers State
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 04:57:15 +0000
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