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Anyone who desires to know how disdainful of the larger society the political class in Nigeria can be should pay attention to an ongoing subdued subplot within the All Progressives Congress (APC), featuring the name of Goodluck Jonathan. The subplot may yet break into the main act, depending.
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. As at the time he left office in 2015 as Nigeria’s fourth elected President, and, indeed, till date, the jury has been out on the performance of the Jonathan presidency. That, interestingly, has not been the case with his person. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is predominantly accepted as a decent man. His performance in office, truth be told, was also decent. The opposition holds otherwise on the latter, in spite of the evidence of man and statistics.
As record goes, the Jonathan presidency can claim to its credit that, while it lasted, Nigeria’s economy was substantially hale and expansive. The living condition of citizens may not have been a walk along the corridors of paradise but, at least, it was bearable. The official exchange rate was less than N200 to one United States dollar as of 2015 and the country’s debt profile was not scary. Life in Nigeria had more meaning at that point in time.
Jonathan’s problem was not so much with what he did as with what he could not do. His ability to rein in a number of elements within and out of his government was manifestly weak. He could not even square up decisively with opposition elements who, having taken note of his listlessness in the face of a fight, went all out to put him to the sword. No other President in Nigeria’s history stomached with such unnatural equanimity and even smiles the barrage of insults hurled at Dr. Jonathan. It is not known here how religious Jonathan is in his private life. As President, he seemed, either by choice or by nature, to be out to imitate Jesus Christ, who bore pains and insults with no ill will.
The opposition took advantage of the mild manners of Jonathan and gave him hell. The assault was not only unrelenting, it was implacable and brutal. Everything that could be thrown at a public officer was thrown at Jonathan as President by opposition elements. Lies, distortion of facts, caricature of his private and public life, outright insults and denigration of the office he occupied, name it. Anything that could be thrown up to undermine the Jonathan presidency was fair game for the opposition.
It seemed even acceptable then for the opposition to align with foreign forces to disable Jonathan’s government. United States of America’s first African President, Barack Obama, obviously smarting from the blunt refusal by Jonathan to buy into his pro-gay pitches, enlisted in the anti-Jonathan brigade. Obama, in an action never seen in US-Nigeria relations, went as far as making a pre-general election video broadcast to Nigerians, all but asking them to vote out Jonathan. The delirium was unimaginable.
At the end, Jonathan lost the presidential election in 2015 and the APC ascended the presidency. And Nigeria has lived happily ever after.
Seven years down the line, President Muhammadu Buhari is rounding off his presidency. The ruling APC is caught in a web of contradictions as it struggles to find a candidate suitable to succeed President Buhari. And who is being mentioned? Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. The one the party derided and de-marketed as clueless. It does not matter that he is not even a member of the APC, at least not yet. The rumoured report of APC gearing up to offer Jonathan its presidential ticket should ordinarily be taken as a joke and an unimaginable proposition. This, however, is Nigeria.
Even as a drama script, it will be a most baffling twist of fate and story signifying the worst in man and a total lack of decency and principle to have APC return to Jonathan with an offer for him to come back to power on their platform, to that same presidency from which they hounded him. APC told the world that nothing good could come from this very man.
Whatever the cold calculation behind this rumoured move may be, it is in the main an unconscionable slap on the society, a brazen expression of contempt for Nigerians. Not that the political class cares, though. How do you deploy all arsenal at your disposition to destroy a man and impress it on the people that he is clueless, only to turn round in less than a decade to tell the same people, majority of whom are still alive, that the same man is the best you can find to lead them? Is there no limit to dishonourable conduct by individuals in Nigeria in the name of politics?
Jonathan’s performance as President, as has earlier been stated, was decent enough. Maybe APC, as a ruling party, has realized that talk is cheap. Even at that, it would be so sad if the ruling party cannot find a suitable candidate from its fold.
The APC or any clique within it cannot seek to make atonement for any sins they committed against Jonathan by committing new sins of fresh assault on the values of the society. Any decision by the APC to anoint Jonathan as its messiah, best suited to foster peace and prosperity in Nigeria in 2023, will amount to admission of crimes of treachery not far removed from treason. What any such development will imply is that the charges by the APC against Jonathan and the Nigerian government that he led, which charges and actions resulted in the ruination of that government, were false and fraudulent. This, surely, cannot be explained away as politics. Is this an attempt at expiation or a plot with a sinister motive?
There is no right angle to look at this purported plot. The prospect of a man elected President of a country yesterday on the platform of one party, coming out tomorrow to run for President again on the platform of another party, the major opposition party to him yesterday, will smack of rascality unbecoming of that office. Indeed, such a situation will be a self-declaration of huge character deficit. Those hatching this plot have to drop it.
Even if it is a fact that adherence to principles or self-respect is not a prerequisite to being called honourable in Nigerian politics and that infidelity to principles is more of the rule than an exception among the political elite, yet there is still a hallo on the presidency that should be preserved. APC should help the society preserve some values of principle and decency.
It is possible that Jonathan has not heard of these rumoured plots and that he has no part in it. That would be wonderful. Somehow, however, the rumour of his preparing ground or being prepared to join the APC has refused to go away.
There are several questions that Jonathan himself need to raise for those who may approach him to move over to APC to run for President. For one, what has changed about him that will make him so attractive to the very people who hounded him out of office yesterday? Has he now acquired the clues he was said to have lacked as a clueless President? Since they said he was weak, is it possible that those who are baiting him now are searching for a weak President? And by the way, will they be ready to return Diezani’s diamond brassieres to her?
For Jonathan and for his erstwhile traducers now reportedly turned his suitors, there may not be any better admonition than is captured in that legendary reminder, there is God o!
