It’s time to get even!

Never in the history of Nigeria has an incumbent president wilfully divided the country along ethnic and religious lines in order to win votes as Jonathan has done. Between him and his wife and his fair-weather ‘militants’, they have so insulted other ethnic groups in the country that it is by supreme restraint that Nigerians […]

Never in the history of Nigeria has an incumbent president wilfully divided the country along ethnic and religious lines in order to win votes as Jonathan has done. Between him and his wife and his fair-weather ‘militants’, they have so insulted other ethnic groups in the country that it is by supreme restraint that Nigerians have tolerated their infantile rudeness.
It is time to get even. As the admonition goes, “Don’t get mad; get even!” Just six more days and we shall consign Jonathan and his band of incompetent freeloaders to history. Six weeks ago, the PDP was not ready for the elections, so they engineered a postponement. Within the period, Jonathan has been in and out of military uniforms to show that he’s the commander-in-chief. He has visited every conceivable traditional ruler and dropped fat envelopes as kola nut. His government has awarded juicy contracts to ethnic militants in the South-West and the South-East so as to have a ready ethnic army to force Jonathan down the throats of the people. He has visited fighting men in Adamawa State to show that he empathises with the same army he refused to equip for five years. He has parleyed with women; with youths; with non-indigenes in the major urban centres; with pastors, prophets, actors and musicians; with everybody who looks like he could account for more than one vote. The only ‘threat’ he is not likely to fulfil is the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia (Who said Morocco?)!
But Nigerians still say, No! Enough of kleptomania and arrant incompetence! Jonathan has presided over the most prosperous spell of Nigeria’s history. We had thought that Obasanjo was the luckiest in that regard. Between 1999 and 2007, Obasanjo’s cumulative budget was N9.21 trillion for the entire eight years he served as president. By contrast, Jonathan has spent N23.45 trillion in five years – more than doubling the amount available to Obasanjo in eight years. Yet, Jonathan has not achieved half of Obasanjo’s attainment. fact-check: the Obasanjo government grew Nigeria’s external reserves by a staggering 930% to 45bn dollars from a little more than 5bn dollars in 1999; paid up a 12bn dollar external debt; grew the economy from below 3% to over 7%; the agricultural sub-sector also grew by the same margin; that government reduced unemployment to a record low of about 6% by 2006 and domestic debt to about N2tn by 2007; the OBJ administration left 22bn dollars in the Excess Crude Account and actually improved the exchange rate from 133 to 117.
What is Jonathan’s record? The administration has depleted foreign reserves; escalated external debt; economic growth is still below 7%; the agricultural sector which is one of the success stories under Jonathan still dropped to 5% growth; unemployment ballooned to over 23%; poverty incidence to 71%; domestic debt to N7.65tn from N4.55tn in 2010 and the national currency has taken untold bashing at the foreign exchange market where one dollar exchanges for N230 and the Pound Sterling goes for N340. All this is happening in an era of unprecedented inflow of petrodollars.
Jonathan must run on his record. He is the incumbent president. Incumbents run on their record. Nigerian voters are not likely to forget that the Chibok girls are still missing and that the president has all along been playing politics with the issue. They will remember the NNPC and Pension scams; the missing $20 billion; the South African black market arms and mercenaries deals; the Immigration job scam; the oil theft which has reached industrial proportions in the Niger-Delta to the extent that we are losing 400,000 barrels of crude every day; epileptic power supply; unending strikes that almost destroyed tertiary education in Nigeria; police invasion of the National Assembly; aviation scam; petroleum minister’s N10 billion renting of a plane, et cetera.
Nigerian voters will remember the Jonathan administration as the most self-serving ever. They will remember that the administration didn’t raise N21Billion for Ebola; didn’t raise N21Billion for dilapidated hospitals; didn’t raise N21 billion for military weapons against Boko Haram; didn’t raise N21Billion for flood victims; didn’t raise N21 billion for children dying of vaccine-preventable disease; didn’t raise N21 billion for internally displaced persons (IDPs). BUT the regime and its acolytes gathered to raise N21 billion in a few hours for another four years of graft, ineptitude and bad governance.
The signs of the coming times are clear to anyone with half a mind. Jonathan’s supporters are armed with cash for the home run. But, as we have been reading in the newspapers, the cash couriers have been editing various tranches of loot meant to buy voters. There is no honour among this particular band of thieves. Thank God for democracy, these people would have enslaved us forever.
Even credible analysts outside Nigeria know what is coming. While the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is awarding contracts for fake pollsters to churn out fraudulent statistics, a New York firm with expertise in analytical approach and appropriate use of quantitative modelling and data-mining technology published its forecast of the results of the March 28 elections. The forecast shows that Muhammadu Buhari will win the elections even as there are fears that those who have benefitted from fraudulent deals under the PDP government may want to encourage the government to hold on to power.
The PDP still hopes to use the security agencies and the military to rig the election as was done in Ekiti State. They can’t succeed if we insist on seeing the process to the end. In 2011 we stayed behind to hear the result from our polling booths. There is no reason why we can’t do so now.
The Inspector-General of Police has no constitutional right to rewrite the law. We have every right under the electoral law (as legitimate voters), to wait behind and ensure that our votes are counted, as long as we conduct ourselves in an orderly manner. It is time to get even!