2015 Elections: That the time may not be ‘out of joint’ (lI)

On the flip side of the national coin are the pro-Jonathan and pro-PDD crowd. They are as passionate as they go. They believe, with catholic conviction, that if this nation must go forward, it has to be under the strong, competent and capable clutch of the present government. The key yardsticks of measurements are as […]

On the flip side of the national coin are the pro-Jonathan and pro-PDD crowd. They are as passionate as they go. They believe, with catholic conviction, that if this nation must go forward, it has to be under the strong, competent and capable clutch of the present government. The key yardsticks of measurements are as follows. Goodluck Jonathan has performed well, even if his handlers have not laundered his image as well as they should. On every front, he has recorded tremendous success. He has performed in the Agricultural sector. Fertilizer is in abundance and farmers are receiving fertilizers from their telephone and doing so in their millions across the country. Roads are being fixed from Abuja to Lokoja, from Ore to Benin-a death- trap about which sordid and pathetic state Minister once wept openly without being able to tar a metre. The railways have started working and twenty years decades after we abandoned them and the rail lines have become bush paths, now after Jonathan’s intervention, youth under thirty years have now ridden in trains for the first time in their lives. Airports are springing up Iike tadpoles in every part of the country, especially through the agency of the PDP-run states and Governors. Education, under the President with a doctorate, for the first time in our history, with an Architect vice is all time high, with twelve new Federal Universities, giving every state a University. The economy has hardly ever performed as well, with Nigeria, for the first time ranking better than South Africa and being the largest in Africa and foreign investors flooding our nation’s market like locusts. Even with the colossal fall with a heavy thud of the crude oil in international market, Nigeria is still afloat and the pump price of oil has been reduced, clearly for the first time in a long time, if not ever. Never mind if cynics are unfairly complaining that it ought to have been more heavily slashed.
And the security issue, the Jonathan government, being a humane and democratic government, did not want to spill Nigerian blood wantonly until it became absolutely inexorable, and in any case, those who are screaming for the termination of Boko Haram have been alleged to have played very suspicious roles in its implantation and lifted no finger from their vantage positions in the zone of their operation when they should, if they had realized that securing a nation is a national and collective business. In any case, countering terrorism is not merely a stick or gun issue. It is a human and an economic issue which requires a strong structural approach, which the transformation agenda is articulately addressing. As for corruption, the devotees believe that government is taking very structured and systematic steps; not the anticipated fire-brigade approach to change that is being canvassed. To begin with, if the state is out of joint due to insecurity and corruption, it did not lose coherence under Jonathan. These who came before and who are also vying with him did not do as much as Jonathan is doing to dislodge corruption and insecurity on the land. So Jonathan, carry go.
My dear compatriots. These are testy times and it is my fervent belief that the two sides are entitled to their campaign programmes, manifestoes and strategies. What is of utmost importance is that the two key contesting sides must learn to put the nation first in whatever they do. There must be a nation to govern, to contest for and to win election in. If we sacrifice the nation for partisan interests, and the raft of the state perennially drifting in a horrifying whirlpool through successive elections, with all the threats of violence, secession, disruption and dismemberment of the nation, the chances are that there will be no nation left after the elections. I was there at the Abuja Accord when the Presidential candidates promised and signed agreement that neither they nor their followers will opt for violent electioneering, and that peace will be given a chance.
Many respectable and insightful Africans and Nigerians have drummed the crucial importance of a peaceful and credible election in February such that Nigeria, the largest black population in the world and in Africa, will survive to lead Africa as the continent of the twenty-first century. The onus lays with the incumbent President to silent the drums of war being beaten, openly, by his self-acclaimed followers. He must dissociate himself, publicly, from the threats of violence after election, if Jonathan loses. Ditto, the APC and their Presidential candidate. They should work hard for victory but they must not so much take victory for granted that if a credible election swings victory the other way, they must let the nation be. In all, the electorate must strive for the survival of the nation where peace and justice shall reign. May the better (I mean in fairness and freeness) win and may Nigeria, a fledgling democratic nation-state, flourish and soar beyond 2015.
Concluded