A mess like no other

To be fair to Jonathan, he rode the clouds to get to power. Some of the people who criticize him today would have lost a tooth while fighting to make him president. Jonathan’s track record of non-performance notwithstanding and in spite of the fact that as the governor of Bayelsa state he turned out not […]

To be fair to Jonathan, he rode the clouds to get to power. Some of the people who criticize him today would have lost a tooth while fighting to make him president. Jonathan’s track record of non-performance notwithstanding and in spite of the fact that as the governor of Bayelsa state he turned out not just to be colourless but also rudderless, then President Olusegun Obasanjo helped him to ascend the office of the Vice president on the Umaru Musa Yaradua-Jonathan ticket.
When Yaradua’s protracted illness eventually took his life, many people who are today opposed to his style of leadership welcomed the doctrine of necessity which catapulted him into the president’s office. A year and a half later during the 2011 PDP presidential primaries in Abuja, Jigawa State governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido physically assaulted one of the Jigawa state delegates who voiced out his intention to vote according to his conscience – perceived by the governor as meaning to vote against Jonathan. The bottom line is that if Jonathan’s style of leadership is an administrative ship-wreck, the people who cut their sweat to put him there are in a quagmire.
It is in a similar vein that those who have read Obasanjo’s epistle to Jonathan are hardly convinced that the former president is not pursuing a selfish agenda. Some even believe that the letter was a kite designed to bring GEJ to OBJ’s negotiation table ahead of the 2015 election. Instead of desiring change, some analysts say that Obj is feeling threatened by the prospect of an opposition government seizing power and bringing everyone with the slightest stain on his coat to book.
Again, talking about silly deeds, Sule Lamido’s predicament is even more precarious. With his two sons currently under interrogation over money laundering issues, the governor’s credibility has become anything but good. It is impossible to battle a pig and not end up in mud. While Lamido insists he is fighting for internal democracy in his party the PDP, many argue that he is simply power hungry. Indeed, the president is using Lamido and his family travails as a poster boy for filial aggrandizement. And in spite of his braggadocio that he wouldn’t be intimidated, Lamido has prevaricated over taking the plunge of parting ways with the ruling party, PDP, to pitch his tent with the All Progressives Congress, APC, even as the cat feasts in his kernel.
With these two holding the tiger by its tail, no one else is to be trusted. Mr Jonathan’s highly personalised style of governance is much more pronounced this time than in his previous two years of completing Umaru’s term. It has hugely affected institutional functioning and resulted in the current disarray and paralysis in government.
Governance, owing to these and many other factors, has stagnated. It has taken months for example for the president to replace his ministers. Perhaps the most glaring example of the prevailing dysfunction is the defence ministry, where the acting minister of this critical ministry Mr Labaran Maku sat and watched the top military brass promoting themselves few days after Boko Haram insurgents stormed their installations at the Maiduguri airport and killed several people.
This humiliating and demoralizing attack from the insurgents should have driven the security forces to do a serious soul-searching. Instead, they came out in flamboyant colours adding plumes to their caps. It is instructive that such faulty decisions are all over the place representing the foremost legacy of this administration. On the whole, prolonged indecision and uncertainty over key appointments have paralyzed this administration. It is almost scandalous the way key functionaries of this administration do things especially the females, whose ministries have become their personal fiefdoms.
Such confusion and chaos are also prevalent in the corridors of other sectors. The malaise, as far as this government is concerned, is actually a symptom rather than the cause of the disarray in our national focus.
Looking at Nigeria’s position in the comity of nations, one sees that the concept of foreign policy is limited to Goodluck Jonathan’s foreign tours and personal diplomacy. There is no coherent policy on any important issue. Effectively there is no one in charge and policies are based on the whims of the president. In fact, Nigeria’s foreign policy has become family domain with Dame Patience Jonathan and Kingsley Kuku dabbling in external affairs as well. The militancy apologist has been participating in almost all the meetings of the minister with foreign dignitaries. He also accompanies President Jonathan on most foreign visits. In the absence of a clear policy direction, it is a free for all. On several instances, cabinet ministers have publicly contradicted each other. This confusion does not end at the Federal Executive Council alone; it goes on at public places including the airports where three of the female ministers now have their entry and exit gates at the international wing of the airport. The aviation minister uses the international passenger terminal; the finance minister uses the Customs points while the Petroleum Resources minister taxis to a few metres from the departure gate and drives her convoy out of the airport.
As all these personal battles rage on, the issue of lost crude oil revenue, bulletproof cars and state and local government allocations, are flung into the back burners of our national discourse. It is a mess like no other.