Okonjo-Iweala Usurps Jonathan’s Powers —Tolu Igbehinadun

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance also doubles as Nigeria’s 1st Co-ordinating Minister in her 52nd year as an independent nation. This double portfolio has injected the Brettonwood Lady with an overdose of ambition and she is stealthily and gradually taking on her third portfolio, which is the Presidency. This take over of power will complete Lord Acton’s now clichéd phrase of “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

President Goodluck Jonathan must realise that no matter how intelligent and wily Okonjo-Iweala is, he is still the President of this country and it will not profit this nation if the President sells this country to the minister and her friends. This is so because no matter what happens President Goodluck Jonathan is still answerable for the credit or discredit for his actions and inactions.

Recently President Goodluck Jonathan openly instructed the co-ordinating Minister to advertise positions to fill existing vacancies in Federal Government Boards and parastatals. The Establishment Act of 2007 clearly charges the President to appoint the Chairman and board of all (not some) Federal Government Boards and parastatals as the Executive President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. The Establishment Act of 2007 is an act of the National Assembly and under no circumstances must the peoples’ fundamental human right which is the mandate entrusted to the President by the general WILL of the people be given out to any individual no matter how many degrees that person has garnered from Harvard University. Nigerians voted for President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan because for the first time in the history of Nigeria an opportunity emerged for the goose that lays the golden egg to participate in governance.

The president must remember that the exalted position he is occupying today was made possible by the sacrifices and deprivations suffered by the Niger Delta Youths especially in Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, Edo and Ondo States. Apart from the amnesty programme which nose-dived after president Yar’Adua’s death, President Jonathan has done nothing for the Niger Delta people.

He should not be intimidated by Okonjo-Iweala’s Brettonwood and international status. Even though the president hates helping his Niger Delta people, he should not compound matters by relinquishing all his powers to his all-powerful co-ordinating minister who has used the Jonathan power surrender to build a cult-figure around herself and to rehabilitate all her friends in government. For instance, it is on very good authority, that Oby Ezekwesili, Okonjo-Iweala’s close and trusted confident will very shortly retire from the World Bank. Even before her retirement from the World Bank, our coordinating minister has already penciled down her name as the chairman of one of Nigeria’s most sensitive revenue generating institutions.

President Goodluck Jonathan’s hatred of his coastal people is now well known. Is it that the core Niger Delta does not have qualified Nigerians to benefit from their Presidency? Chief Olusegun Obasanjo will be remembered for good for a long time in this country because he reversed many of the things our Northern Presidents made permanently Northern. For instance, throughout Obadanjo’s 8 years tenure all our Inspectors-General of Police came from the Southwest. This eased the Northern domination at least at the IGP level in the Nigeria Police Force.

President Goodluck Jonathan should know that he can’t be President for more than 8 years. He should empower his own people just as all Nigerian leaders have done.

For instance the Vice President’s support staff list as submitted to the president for approval in 2011 contained 8 names. Out of these 8 names for Vice president Namadi Sambo 1 was from the Southwest while the other 7 are from the North.

And on the President’s Staff it was difficult to find a core Niger Deltan. The President’s Chief of Staff is from Edo State, his Aide-De-Camp (ADC) is from Kogi State and his Chief Spokesman is from Ogun State. And the President smiles and boasts that he is a highly detribalised Nigerian. He has forgotten the decades of oppression by Multinational Corporations (MNCs) who falsely claimed that Bayelsans/Rivers people are not qualified for management and middle level employments.

And so what happens now is that when a Bayelsan or Rivers man wants to see the President, he has to travel to Edo, Kogi or Ogun States to seek for relations of his chief of staff, ADC or media spokesman to beg to see the President.

Surely the president has seen power but he has not tasted it. If he has tasted power he would have known that power is sweet. It is not strategically convenient to give out power so easily.

This observation is not an advice to the President because I am reliably informed that this President does not listen to calls for the improvement of the lives of his Bayelsa kinsmen or the Ijaws except only on things that concern Otuoke Community.

And all the ministers are doing their “thing” because there is no Presidential Control or Caution. That is why Okonjo-Iweala can reserve the chairmanship of a Federal Financial Institution for her Igbo kith and kin who is still working in the World Bank.

It is not yet too late for the president to show some mercy and love to his Izon people. All our past leaders did it and the National Assembly, the Judiciary and even the masses would not impeach the President for empowering his people who, for generations, bore the brunt of political, social and ecological degradation to position Nigeria in its present glorious status with beautiful cities built from the sweat and toils of the hapless Nigeria Delta people.

•Igbehinadun writes in from Lagos.