Are the Jonathan years served well ‘On a Platter of Gold’?

Title: On a Platter of Gold Author: Bolaji Abdullahi Publisher: Prestige Year: 2017 Pages: 397 Reviewer: Nathaniel Bivan Reading Bolaji Abdullahi’s ‘On a Platter of Gold: How Jonathan Won and Lost Nigeria’ is nothing short of timely with the 2019 general elections just around the corner. More so because President Muhammadu Buhari’s fate is envisaged […]

Title:On a Platter of Gold

Author:Bolaji Abdullahi

Publisher:Prestige

Year:2017

Pages:397

Reviewer:Nathaniel Bivan

Reading Bolaji Abdullahi’s ‘On a Platter of Gold: How Jonathan Won and Lost Nigeria’ is nothing short of timely with the 2019 general elections just around the corner. More so because President Muhammadu Buhari’s fate is envisaged by some Nigerians to most likely be a replica of his predecessor’s.

This book, an account of ‘How Jonathan Won and Lost Nigeria’, is not one to be quickly ignored. When the former president lost in 2015, the mood could best be described as a state of shock followed by an uproar. Never in the nation’s history has an incumbent president lost an election, not to talk of coming out to concede defeat. Streets in many parts of the country, including the capital city, Abuja and particularly in the north, were taken over by supporters of Buhari.  

The narration begins with the moment Jonathan realized he had lost the 2015 presidential election. Here, Abdullahi shows the mood in Aso Rock, as People’s Democratic Party (PDP) bigwigs mourned even before the result’s announcement. There was soon the scheming to ensure Buhari did not become president, and finally the spectacle by Peter Godsday Orubebe, a former minister of Niger Delta Affairs. In this book, it becomes clearer why Orubebe’s protest at the INEC collation centre became a one-man show.  

If you are the kind of reader that craves for corroboration of sources, you will find it here. The author goes further down history lane and unearths how former president Olusegun Obasanjo became president in 1999, and his successor, late Umaru Musa Yar’adua. He does this using different sources to substantiate these historical events.

Also, if you are in search of detailed analyses on how the Jonathan administration fell out of favour with the Nigerian people, you are in good company. In this book, there’s detailed information about the attempt at subsidy removal by the previous government, a more that surprisingly still took place under President Buhari, with little or no resistance.

In this work, a prospective political leader will learn one important lesson if he or she is willing-that Nigerians have a boiling point, and this was what ended Jonathan’s era to usher in a new one. After all, the Buhari administration, which is said to have enjoyed the people’s goodwill, finally succeeded in removing the same fuel subsidy that almost caused a revolution under the former government, well, perhaps for a little while.   

Sometimes, you may get the feeling this author is totally bias in his analyses of certain events. But then, in the same breath, he makes you have a rethink. His ability to paint a graphic picture of the gloomy atmosphere in the presidential villa after Jonathan realized he had lost the election is commendable. At this time also, you begin to wonder about the source of his information. If the former president had enemies around him, what information would they choose to give out in the aftermath? This is one of the concerns any reader is likely to have. But then, even without his revelation, isn’t it simply logical for the defeated in any situation to mourn?

Accounts like what we have in ‘On a Platter of Gold’ is likely to be discarded as subjective for one major reason. The fact that the writer is presently the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC). This may make it very difficult for him to remain unbiased, even though, in his favour, he was a minister in the former administration and so makes him liable to have inside information. 

But the author seems to realise this, which shows clearly in his work. A typical example is when he gave an account of how the Boko Haram insurgency began and analysed how the Jonathan government struggled to contain it. In page 179, after narrating how the former president seemed to have waved aside the request for amnesty for Boko Haram by some Borno elders, he wrote:

In fairness, President Jonathan had never ruled out the option of dialogue or amnesty for Boko Haram. Although he had come across as somewhat irritated by attempts to draw a parallel between Boko Haram and the Niger Delta insurgents, he had always favoured a conciliatory approach to solving the problem.  

Another instance is in page 183:

When President Jonathan described Boko Haram as ghosts, many thought he was merely making excuses not to act. But the search for the authentic Boko Haram leadership to negotiate with was actually proving that the president was right after all.

From the moment when the 2015 elections appeared to be against Jonathan’s favour, to the plotting which brought his former boss, late president Musa Yar’adua into power, followed by his death which ushered Jonathan to the seat of the presidency, this book leaves almost nothing out. It narrates and analyses in detail what played out, based on sources interviewed, what may have, and what did.