Jonathan: A mandate and its challenges
However, the road to a full tenure for him was not laid with roses. The campaigns that preceeded the presidential election on April 16, was perhaps the country’s most bitter. His entry into the contest on September 18, 2010 had elicited strong resistance from certain Northern politicians who believed that it was a negation of […]
However, the road to a full tenure for him was not laid with roses. The campaigns that preceeded the presidential election on April 16, was perhaps the country’s most bitter. His entry into the contest on September 18, 2010 had elicited strong resistance from certain Northern politicians who believed that it was a negation of the zoning arrangement in the Peoples Democratic Party. Coming four months after he assumed presidential powers following the death of President Umaru Yar’adua, a Northerner, their argument was that another Northerner should have been allowed to pick the PDP ticket.
If the issue of zoning of the PDP presidential ticket was rancorous, the extent to which his credential for the position was questioned, was downright ridiculous. To his critics, Jonathan’s candidacy was driven more by sentiments than reason; the president had done nothing on record to support his aspiration. Of course, their opinions were far from objective. The period spent by the President after taking over the mantle, was too short for any meaningful achievement. Even at that, any rational analysis should reveal that he had taken some decisive steps in the critical areas of power, electoral reform, education, anti-corruption and the Niger Delta. He also went ahead to run an issue-based campaign across the length and breadth of the country based on well articulated programmes.
On April 16, his programs and his Pan Nigerian disposition were convincing enough for the electorate. In a country well known for divisive national politics, Jonathan’s triumph in the presidential poll, made a profound statement about the new Nigeria that is evolving: one in which the spirit of national reawakening has become pervasive. Never before had a presidential election broken all regional, ethnic, traditional and religious boundaries in the search for a common goal. Perhaps for the first time in recent history, Nigerians were bequeathing in one man, a mandate that was not only truly national, it came close to fulfilling the long-cherished dream of national oneness and purpose.
Beyond history making, however, the Jonathan mandate comes with unique challenges. The economy, in spite of government disputations to the contrary, is anything but healthy. The real sector on which a great majority of the citizens survive, is comatose while unemployment is on a record high. Power supply which drives every modern economy may have improved marginally in the past year, but it is still nowhere near the people’s expectations. The power production level is neither commensurate to the huge funding of the past three years, nor what he promised while unveiling the road map for the sector in the last quarter of 2010.
The political sector is not too different, even if it is an area the administration has made the most noticeable impact. Jonathan’s appointment of Dr Attahiru Jega as head of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the unprecedented independence and adequate funding granted the electoral body have all paid off well and vindicated him, going by the rating of Elections 2011, but the promise of electoral reform is still far from delivered. The president’s decision to set up nine new universities is a bold move to address the deficit in that sector, but this is just salutary. Like roads and other public infrastructure, the decay in Nigeria’s educational system goes down to the elementary. The rot in our tertiary education system is deep indeed, so much that almost all the indices that qualify them as institutions of higher learning are preponderantly negative.
Of course the huge budgetary provisions for tackling these problems hardly translate in to any meaningful impact due to endemic corruption in our public life. Any government that must succeed, must do more than pay lip service to tackling corruption. So far, President Jonathan has ensured that the nation’s anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission enjoys a free hand in fighting crime, but that may not count for much if Nigerians are not convinced that corrupt public officers are effectively brought to book.
Ozoene ([email protected]) is a political commentator wrote in from Lagos