Nigeria’s former president, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, was under pressure to contest the 2023 presidential election. Some power brokers and APC apparatchiks from northern Nigeria wanted to draft him into the race. Their cold calculation was to use him to return power to the South momentarily and given that he is constitutionally barred from taking two terms, his emergence would be a faster route to return power to the North. However, odds did not favour the projection.
Now, as the 2027 general elections draw closer, the political chess game of power, intrigue, and entitlement are fully at play by pronounced and behind-the-scenes vested interests. Political pundits from the North are evidently not happy with President Tinubu’s administration and they are spoiling for a showdown. They want to oust him from Aso Villa at all costs. Hence, part of the fresh permutations is to persuade Jonathan again to put his hat into the ring to dislodge the incumbent who apparently would want a second term in 2027. The strategic thinking is that Jonathan would be the most credible alternative from the South with sure bet of a single tenure. Some northern oligarchs are the linchpin of Tinubu-must-go campaign.
And to give vent to the growing pressure mounted on Jonathan to run, his wife, Patience, at a public function in June 2024, dispelled any thought of considering the idea. She said: “If you call me to go back to Aso Villa, I won’t go there. The stress in Nigeria is too much. Don’t you see how young I am? If God manages to bring you out. You should glorify God…He has taken you there once; why do you want to go there again? Me, I won’t go..oo.”
The foregoing brings us back to Olusegun Adeniyi’s book, Against the Run of Play: How an Incumbent President was Defeated in Nigeria. The book is a chronicle of the immediate and remote causes of Goodluck Jonathan’s loss in the 2015 presidential election. By a turn of fate, it is a welcome development that those who called him clueless, anti-North, and who wanted any other person but him in 2015, are still on an endless search for a president made of sterner stuff.
But Jonathan should not fall for the bait. Not every good thing on the table in your presence is for you. Otherwise, his untainted democracy credential would be dented and everything he achieved with that historic call of congratulation on March 31, 2015, to the yet-to-be-declared winner of 2015 presidential election, Muhammad Buhari, would be destroyed. A lot of dirty things would be dusted up to smear his reputation. He should take note that Nigeria of today parades a strikingly different turf vis-a-vis that of 2015. The electoral reforms that he put in place, which he became a victim of, have been destroyed by Janus-faced dramatis personae at INEC, which is arguably one of Nigeria’s most untrusted institutions in the eyes of the objective public.
Those who want to draft him into another presidential race are on a self-serving revenge mission and do not mean well for the country’s multi-ethnic contraption. Why Goodluck? Why not Southeast that had neither tested the president nor the vice since 1999? Instructively, Igbos suffered a major setback in Nigeria’s political economy during Buhari’s administration because of the massive support they gave to Jonathan, and that support base has decimated considerably given APC’s significant inroad in the Southeast and a diffusion of interests.
Jonathan’s philosophy of “My ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian” unfortunately does not fit into the jungle-like politics of Nigeria. If he decides to contest again as being prodded, he should be ready to develop thick skin against internecine bloodletting. It has been noted that the land is soaked and haunted by the blood of innocents. Fredrick Nwabufo notes that “Death hovers everywhere. If you are not killed by those, who are supposed to protect you, you may be felled by the bullets of armed robbers, kidnappers, bandits, or terrorists.” And during elections, these evil actors have must choices to make or interests to protect.
Although those issues that were used against Jonathan are worse off today, the shrinking of the civic space would further undermine any attempt to remind Nigerians of ‘good’ old days. Therefore, upstaging the incumbent through him would be an uphill task. President Tinubu is a veteran of the game. The critical institutions of security, economy, election management, justice delivery and law enforcement have not developed overnight to ensure a level playing field. State capture is real in Nigeria and denying that fact is self-delusion.
The plot of the aggrieved section of the North is to use Jonathan to destabilize southern Nigeria. Be that as it may, Jonathan is too big and harmless to act as a pawn in the hegemonic obsession. The North is no longer monolithic. The failures and selfishness of their successive leaders are their greatest undoing. Most of the vociferous voices are looking for recognition and relevance. When the chips are down, they may likely negotiate their interests and abandon him.
I have lifted Jonathan’s quote from Adeniyi’s book, after the 2015 elections, to remind him that such characters are in greater numbers today. “Go and check the results from Kano. The presidential election and that of National Assembly happened on the same day and same time. The National Assembly result reflected that about 800, 000 people voted but that of the presidential reflected a vote of about 1.8 million. I had reports of what happened, but I decided that for such to be accepted, it meant that those who called themselves my supporters must have colluded. I was betrayed by the very people I relied on to win the election.”
Jonathan should focus on his global assignments of promoting peace and democracy. His status as an international statesman is priceless. As the first Nigerian president with a doctorate, we expect him to mentor others, and enrich our political discourse with his memoirs. I support Mama Peace!