Jonathan’s letter draws blood

The only difference is that ours drew blood from the leadership of our country, which is hardly a surprise. There were letters everywhere. And there were prayers. In the aftermath of the exchange between former president Obasanjo and incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, the Senate President David Mark returned home to Otukpo and begged his people […]

The only difference is that ours drew blood from the leadership of our country, which is hardly a surprise. There were letters everywhere. And there were prayers. In the aftermath of the exchange between former president Obasanjo and incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, the Senate President David Mark returned home to Otukpo and begged his people to ‘seek the face of God to help make things right’ before blood begins to flow.
Yes, God has all the answers. But if the same God that Nigerian leaders pay lip-service to in the daytime, only to return home at night to consult their shrines, which instruct them to imprison their wives, bath with blood, sodomize children, chop off people’s heads, poison neighbouring communities, decapitate their in-laws and sleep with mad women, is the God he is talking about, he would be pushing Nigeria’s luck too far. But of course, because God’s anger is only a fraction of his compassion, which is why he looks the other way whenever Nigerian leaders transgress, everyone would justify this call on God at times of travail.
However, there is a limit to everything. When President Jonathan indicated that he would personally reply Obasanjo’s letter of December 3, we waited. The letter came last weekend but only a fool would ascribe its authorship to Jonathan himself, because the letter turned out to be anticlimactic. Instead of engaging Obasanjo and exposing the favours that Obasanjo sought but did not get, as many people insinuated to be the cause of the abusive epistle, Jonathan’s response validated Obasanjo’s innuendos and made excu-ses for why the country is so badly run and why as president, Jonathan appears helpless.
In all honesty, apart from its dastardly content, Jonathan’s reply is so full of half-truths, misrepresentations of reality and bias; it’s absolutely ridiculous. The excuses just don’t add up. The counterclaims are vindictive, just as the attempts to lie are naked. For example, Jonathan has kept the northeast ‘safe’ with emergency rule in the region which has emboldened Boko Haram to take over airports and kill dozens of innocent bystanders. Economic recovery has been reduced to a ridiculous manipulation of facts. Typically the idea is simple neo-liberal garbage intended to marginalize and demonize anyone who dares to disagree with the ‘Messiah’ Minister with the magic wand of fraud. The economy has picked up only in Jonathan’s head. In fact, there is no real economic recovery but fuzzy math tricks.
Under Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the coordinating Minister of the Economy, imports have grown a million-fold as waivers are given to friends and family to ship in shitty products and fancy automobiles. If it is not Minister of Aviation Stella Oduah bringing in a pair of over-invoiced BMWs, it is Dame Patience Jonathan involved in something else. Ngozi herself signs off billions in waivers, benefitting mostly her people. Corruption is rewarded, as we have seen in the case of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), where its top official has the poster child of the practice.
There are more than 40 million able-bodied adults, a huge number, percentage-wise, without jobs. A sizeable chunk of them graduates. Comparatively, the situation is worse than the SAP era of the mid 1980s. There are more Nigerians living in penury than ever before, well, at least, since we started keeping records. The term responsibility used to mean something. It used to mean more, and it used to be accompanied by its twin, accountability. Not anymore. Not since Okonjo-Iweala began to ruin our lives. And by encouraging her to continue this deceit, Jonathan has shown utter desperation, as a tyrant-in-waiting and one who plays fast and loose with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Now get to the letter and its vicarious liability. The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, says the president said nothing. What the counter-allegations in it tell us is that Jonathan has done more harm to this country than Obasanjo. OBJ was in charge, Jonathan a pawn. Many people can hardly wait until his presidency is history. Then maybe they can start undoing the damage he’s done – before it’s too late. Jonathans reply only attempted to fool Nigerians. There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. How could Jonathan not know that his era has completely stripped the media of its role as the watchdog of society? The case of Oduah is a classic one. There was evidence beyond all reasonable doubt. There were receipts, official minutes and the bulletproof cars. What more does President Jonathan want? But he did nothing. In other words, Jonathan seems to be in love with the word ‘speculation’. Just observe his ‘body language’.
The problem with Jonathan’s body language is that leaders know that if they are engulfed in catastrophic failure, a forgiving public will likely accept a claim of responsibility, provided there is little accountability. It is inside accountability that real consequences and the learning curve are found. But Jonathan holds nobody accountable for anything. Any claim of responsibility without accountability can be hollow, particularly if the claim isn’t contrite. Here Jonathan’s responses prove that he is out to lunch.
In this lacklustre Jonathan climate, where accountability has returned to zero, the president’s letter refuses to accept responsibility for anything, even though it claims to have known what was wrong with all the previous governments in the run-up to the roll-outs before he came to power. Jonathan’s letter showed that he was badly bruised by Obasanjo’s position but instead of fighting back, he leaves Nigerians, including children angrier.