Adieu Jonathan,
How time flies. Really, really flies. Five years ago – on May 6, 2010, specifically– Dr. Goodluck Jonathan became the president of Nigeria. That was three months after assuming the office in an acting position. A year later, he won the presidential election, defeating Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. And four years later, Buhari came back to defeat him. On Friday, he will bow out of office in peace and in one piece. Again, I’m glad that I’m alive to witness this historic change of baton between a sitting president and his rival. Again, I’m glad that I’ve witnessed 16 years of uninterrupted democracy in Nigeria. Better experienced than read in history books.
Five years on, how would Jonathan feel after leaving office? I guess there would be mixed emotions – just like typical human experiences. He would look at some things and be glad. He would remember some things and feel sad. He would review certain things and get mad. He would be thinking: I wish I had done that thing another way. Many of us deceive ourselves by saying we have “no regrets”. But we all have. That is why we are human. We wish we had done something better or said something better. We wish we had chosen a different path or stayed the course. But above all, we wish to be remembered for good.
Can Jonathan look back at his tenure and tell himself he put in a good shift? Going by what he said in the build-up to the 2015 elections, he was certainly convinced he had done enough to earn a return. He pointed to the expansion of rail, air, water and road infrastructure. He presented his scorecards in agriculture, education for the vulnerable ( Almajiri and girl-child) and local content in the oil sector. He highlighted the improvements at several teaching hospitals and how kidney transplants and open-heart surgeries are now being performed there. He also pointed to the modernisation and re-tooling of the armed forces.
In an article I wrote last year, “My Grouse with Goodluck Jonathan”, I indeed listed these achievements but pointed out two critical issues which I said he did not address convincingly: corruption and insecurity. I somehow expected them to be the biggest issues that would shape the 2015 electioneering – not the Almajiri schools, not the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, not the second Niger bridge, not the privatisation of power utilities, not the GDP. The unending Boko Haram attacks and sustained allegations of corruption would damage any government any day, especially as Jonathan’s responses were rather too tenuous or too late.
Jonathan, in my opinion, dilly-dallied over several damaging allegations of corruption. He held tight to the minister of petroleum resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, for too long, despite all the NNPC sleaze. On top of that, the Chibok tragedy drew a harmful global attention to his government. The harassment of the Bring Back Our Girls movement by the security agencies only succeeded in wiping off Jonathan from the social media – his previous forte. He got millions of new enemies as reward. Chibok was tragically turned into comedy by the first lady. I’m sure Jonathan would look back at these issues with regrets, even if he won’t admit it publicly.
Jonathan was either misled on the enormity of the Chibok tragedy and other Boko Haraminduced tragedies – or he himself utterly underestimated it. Boko Haram was heavily politicised. It became a cheap campaign tool. APC and PDP sought to take maximum political advantage of the calamity. They were busy pointing accusing figures at each other. While this went on, Boko Haram continued to grow in weight and height. But, as I always argued, it was the responsibility of Jonathan to crush Boko Haram – no matter who was behind it. Helpless Nigerians could not be lamenting about Boko Haram and Jonathan