Jonathan: 100 days of transformation?

Although nothing much has changed since he came in after the death of Umaru Musa Yar’adua, the impression he gave Nigerians, after he was sworn-in on May 29, despite the packs of promises, was a President with no clue as to how to address Nigeria’s problems, never mind his ‘adequate study of situation’ before coming […]

Although nothing much has changed since he came in after the death of Umaru Musa Yar’adua, the impression he gave Nigerians, after he was sworn-in on May 29, despite the packs of promises, was a President with no clue as to how to address Nigeria’s problems, never mind his ‘adequate study of situation’ before coming in. It took the President over one month to come up with a cabinet, which in itself, is an enough indication to show us that he found himself as a President by chance. Nigeria’s problem remained the same; few Nigerians, if any, can say they have lived or are living in Nigeria where things worked or are working.

From the inaugural speech to the media chat he gave on his 100 days in office, Jonathan outrightly displayed a total lack of understanding of Nigeria’s past or current problems. This is not the kind of response we expected from a leader whose country is in crisis. Recent reports in the media have suggested that the country is living in an emergency with the military taking over responsibility for the peace and stability of almost ¾ of the whole country.

Apart from security challenges facing the nation, GEJ and his team have not shown any real commitment to address the intractable power situation. When he was asked during the recent Presidential media chat, on what they are doing to address the power situation, he again failed to show the nation his clear cut mission as to how to solve the problem.

In fact, few Nigeria can say what the policy direction of the government is as far as we can see now. The Jonathan government has not put in place any programme that can address the issues of poverty, unemployment and the deterioration in the human development sectors – education, health and the national economy, except of course the appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, with her IMF/World Bank ideologies that do more harm to third world countries than good.

Then we have seen quite clearly, a clear manifestation of total lack of clue as to how the President intends to address the security challenge currently facing the nation: Boko Haram issue, the never ending ethno-religious crisis in Jos and of recent the spate of bombings in the country with the recent bombing of the UN house in Abuja.

Jonathan needs to show some level of seriousness in the way he runs the country. He should come out with programmes that can really show that he is a President that wants to be different from the bad governance, corruption and mismanagement that his party drove Nigeria into in the past 13 years.

Kabiru Danladi Lawanti, Department of Mass Communication, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria