President Jonathan Deserves A Second Term

By Ben Nanaghan

Many state governors in Nigeria have now abandoned their primary constitutional assignments and responsibilities and have veered into areas of political opportunism and ego aggrandisement.

If not why have so many governors especially from the north arrogated the duties of the INEC Chairman to themselves? They now decide or determine who should or should not contest an election. The power of franchise is now theirs for executive dispensation. These restive and rebellious governors have now abandoned their various states gallivanting from state to state seeking relevance in the corridors of power in Abuja to concretise their individual presidential ambitions.

What effrontery has emboldened these rebellious 7 governors (AKAR 7) to think that they have the absolute and inalienable right to force a president on Nigerians? Or what gives them the impudence to think that they can speak for 167 million Nigerians?

Nigerians have already seen through the smokescreen. We now know that behind this facade are four former military presidents and a notorious former vice president.

The infamous master plan is to mobilise  former ministers, former presidents, the nation’s political ‘movers and shakers, the Senate, House of Representatives, and the entire nation against President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s constitutionally guaranteed second term  ambition.

But in all this, the Senate leadership has remained inured and non-partisan in the present crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party and the nation.

The Nigerian Senate under  David Mark has shown so much political maturity, dexterity and enormous restraint amidst seeming insoluble and life-threatening situations.

While the 7th session of the Nigerian Senate has shown unrivalled party discipline and decorum on both sides of the aisle, the House of Representatives has highlighted shameless display of party indiscipline, wheeling and dining with political opponents for the sake of lucre.

While the House of Representatives is enveloped in corruption, the Senate has been very transparent in all its dealings and I salute the triumvirate Senators David Mark, Ike Ekweremadu and Victor Ndoma-Egba. Nigerians are proud of you.

There are so many reasons for the war against Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

The greatest obstacle to Jonathans 2015 2nd term bid is his minority status.

The founding fathers of an independent Nigeria never imagined the emergence of a minority Nigeria President especially from an obscure and unknown town like Otuoke, which unfortunately again is in the smallest state of the federation, Bayelsa.

The founding fathers of Nigeria in their  “untested wisdom” formed a political caucus and introduced an extra-constitutional fiat which entrusted the governance of this great and prodigiously endowed nation to the Hausas, Igbos and Yorubas. This tripartite entente also known as WAZOBIAN philosophy  has seen the Hausas govern Nigeria for 41 years, Yoruba’s 11½years and Igbo’s  six months.

The Igbos who form the third leg of the wazobian tripod were broken off after the Nigerian Civil war which lasted from January 1967 to 1970. The Hausas especially could no longer trust an Igbo President who they reasoned could unilaterally declare a state of Biafra.

The post-independence romance between the North and the Eastern Region then gave way to a Hausa-Yoruba Union which has so far been very fruitful as shown by the number of years the southwest has governed Nigeria.

The Hausas have never given up on their hegemonic domination of Nigeria. After ruling for 39 years from 1957-1999 less OBJ’S military years, the North became very remorseful for the great injustice of their unrelenting grip on power. The North now sent emmisaries to OBJ who coined the 12 2/3rd State theory to ensure victory for President Shehu Shagari. The North will never forget this good turn as the Hausas would never support another tribe against their own candidate.

The Hausas therefore have a pre-natal born-to-rule mentality which for them is inalienable and non-negotiable even in the context of a Nigerian Federation of 36 states plus a federal Capital territory. This has empowered and emboldened the Rebellious 7 to push Goodluck Ebele Jonathan out of his constitutionally guaranteed ambition.

Another very powerful group fighting against Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s 2nd term ambition is the Cabal of very powerful former military presidents and their converts and beneficiaries.

Cabals are a universal phenomenon, a deep rooted and entrenched clique of Mephistophelian manipulators who use their tremendous power and wealth to control governments and para-governmental agencies. They hold sway and force governments to make policies and decisions that would favour them.

These selfish sociopaths and scoundrels who are very influential top shots in society, form these cabals with the sole aim of protecting their wealth and interest with a jealous and forceful determination to maintain the status quo.

In Nigeria the cabals work invidiously through former military rulers, former ministers, state governors, members of the national assembly and very top government officials.

In January 2009, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua shocked the nation when he revealed through his spokesman that “the Federal Government has uncovered a strong cabal sabotaging electricity in Nigeria, and that it benefits this strong cabal for the power sector to malfunction.”

The late President was overpowered by the same cabal that is making governance a nightmare for President Goodluck Jonathan.

President Jonathan has dared the cabal in the oil and power sectors and the fruits are there for all to see.

In the oil sector, there is remarkable sanity and peace in production. Our refineries are all operating at near maximum capacities. The fraudulent and selfish diesel importing monopoly of 1999-2007 is now a thing of the past. This nation has been bled to anaemic stupor and all these are a great concern to President Goodluck Jonathan.

Those who benefited from the horrendous scandal of a single diesel importer syndrome, declaring 200,000 litres of diesel when only 200 litres were imported will never forgive Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for stopping the illegal Venetian trade.

What about the known cabal sabotaging electricity? If electricity works, how can they import their diesel?

Presently, China even with the global economic down turn is boosting its economy with a massive generator trade boom with Nigeria’s faceless generator billionaires. These faceless saboteurs will even kill to perpetuate darkness in Nigeria. That is why Chief  Bola Ige a former federal minister of power was killed even without any clue.

And because of Jonathan’s strides in the energy sector, the same people are chanting war songs to scuttle Nigeria’s nascent democracy. They have openly called for a Nigerian Arab Spring, a massive rebellion against Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, impeachment, outright war and disintegration.

And of course the same cabals would have secretly planned various covert means of taking over power violently.

The same political heavyweights who advised and engineered the PDP splinter have now used the opportunity of reconciliation to access the president to table their personal lists and deals for presidential assent.

We are aware the R7 Northern governors with presidential ambition went to these former leaders to seek better strategies to frustrate Goodluck Ebele Jonathan out of his 2nd term plans come 2015.

The R7 governors have now abandoned their state functions and relocated to Abuja and various state capitals galvanizing support for their individual presidential ambitions under the illegal faction of the PDP. However, Senator David Mark has unequivocally told all Senators that the PDP, as far as the Nigerian Senate is concerned, is one indivisible whole without any faction.

And so the North is in a great haste to take over the reins of power from the southsouth. The North has ruled this country for 41 years from 1957 when Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa became Prime Minster. Forty one years of private self aggrandisement, 41 years of blind and visionless leadership. 41 years of unabashed rape of our common till.

Look at the devastating and awful figures coming from the education  sector in the North. In July, 2013, the Director-General of the Nigerian Teachers Institute (NTI) Kaduna, shocked the world when he said “less than 20% of teachers in the North are qualified to teach”. That means, more than 8o% of teachers in the North are themselves illiterates with mainly certificates in Islamic studies.

The Borno State Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima on 26 September, 2013 promised to return to school to become a real intellectual.

How many Borno State indigenes have this governor made intellectuals? This selfish and egotistic trend of leadership has been the bane of leadership in the north and Nigeria in general. A state or nation that does not educate its population is only fanning the embers of chaos and revolution.

For instance Algeria had an unfortunately low 78% illiteracy record at independence in 1962. But today after going through the late 1980 massacre by the Islamic Group, the GIA and a general amnesty in 1992, Algeria today has 69.8% literacy compared to Nigeria’s 66.8% according to a UNDP (United Nations Development Project) report.

Governor Shettima of Borno State should have acquired this intellectualism before his gubernatorial ambition.

This is because leadership without intellectual depth and acuity is vain, unproductive and ineffectual. The North has relied on the conviction of an unshakable political dominance and hegemony without building enduring infrastructure pillars of education and knowledge. The cares and worries of Northern politicians are not the improvement of education and other infrastructure but for the sustenance of northern political hegemony and a further impoverishment of the “wretched of the earth” while maintaining the status quo.

Do northern politicians expect President Goodluck Jonathan to solve all the problems they created these 41 years with the speed of a lightning?

The north should realise that the Nigeria Delta youths will make Nigeria ungovernable whenever a northern president emerges. This fact is not negotiable as no region or ethnic group has monopoly of violence and mayhem.

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is by section 137 subsection 1B of the 1999 Nigerian entitled to contest the 2015 presidential election as long as he has not been ELECTED TO THAT POSITION ON TWO PREVIOUS ELECTIONS.

At the PDP special national convention held in Abuja on Saturday, 31 August 2013, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan admitted as follows, “critics never want to acknowledge” his achievements which are there for all to see.

Since Jonathan’s arrival, petroleum products deregulation has ceased to be quarterly affair. The government sponsored long fuel queues to justify deregulation are no more part of our culture. Electricity has moved from the hitherto jinxed 3000 MWS to 4500 MWS in 2012 and the Federal Government  concluded arrangements for privatization of the energy sector on Monday, 30 September 2013.

Enugu Airport was opened under President Jonathan’s watch and Port Harcourt seaport has also been enhanced to boost the cargo and human flow of traffic in the eastern part of the country.

And after almost 30 years of wobbling and fumbling, the comatose Nigerian Railways has put its trains back on track.

Let us not also forget President Goodluck Jonathan’s efforts to encourage grassroots education by establishing over 120 Almajiri schools for the neglected, down trodden and abandoned “talakwas” of Northern Nigeria.

Let us not frustrate these wonderful promises and dreams.

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan deserves a second term in 2015.

Let all Nigerians support him en-mass.

•Nanaghan wrote from Lagos. E-mail: [email protected]