Jonathan’s northern Igbo vote

The central crux of the visit was of course not the main item on the agenda of this piece but as a matter of introduction, it is important to restate the necessities of the cut throat competition for access and resources in a federal setting like Nigeria. As such the visit by the Igbo leaders […]

The central crux of the visit was of course not the main item on the agenda of this piece but as a matter of introduction, it is important to restate the necessities of the cut throat competition for access and resources in a federal setting like Nigeria. As such the visit by the Igbo leaders in my view was essential and critical.

I am worried about the issue of leadership and its quality in Nigeria. More than anything else, the leadership in the country is culpable and mainly responsible for the endemic national disasters afflicting the nation. It was the late MKO Abiola who was fond of saying that the society is like a fish. Once the head is rotten, the rest of the body cannot be eaten.

There can be no further truth from this. Agreeably also, it is the weakness in leadership that has led to the worrisome state of indiscipline amongst the citizens in Nigeria. If you are in doubt, pass by any accident scene across the country and see how people scramble over the belongings of those victims of accidents. See how people would congregate and watch helpless victims die without any attention while those who should assist turn onlookers and ‘sympathizers’.

Have you been around Abuja of recent and see how traffic hold ups in the mornings into the city and evenings out of the city cause so much pain and anguish due to selfishness, inconsideration, stupidity and crass indiscipline? You will agree with me that the Nigerian problem is gigantic and catastrophic, but as I said earlier, all these are the products of poor and failed leadership.

When the 2011 campaigns began, my issue was not on any other thing apart from capacity. I saw President Goodluck Jonathan as lacking in fundamental basics of governance in a multi ethnic state like Nigeria. Not because the gentleman was lacking in basic education. In fact as a Doctor of Philosophy, he has attained the apex of western intellectualism but as a politician and leader, he wasn’t properly schooled in the dynamics of government and administration and I thought electing him was capable of derailing the nation into further abyss.

Those who mattered in the country thought otherwise and went ahead and elected Jonathan  for a four-year mandate. One of the issues that tested the will and capacity of the president was, apart from the double-speak on numerous issues arising from the contention over his party’s zoning policy, the October 1st, 2010 bombing which was followed by the staunch disassociation of MEND, a Niger Delta terrorist group which earlier claimed responsibility for the attack, by the president.

That was tactless and a sign of many things to come. After that episode, many other things happened that exposed the weakness of the president, and like his mentor Olusegun Obasanjo, one thing that has remained clear is that the president has become a matter of liability every time he speaks on sensitive national issues. At times, at irrelevant locations, the president throws one form of bombshell or the other.

The latest was the claim by the president when the Ndi Igbo paid him a visit this week where he made public his appreciation of the support that he got from the Igbo race during the 2011 fiasco which saw him through to the Villa on May 29th 2011. The president told the world shamelessly and unintelligently that it was the Igbos that voted for him in the North and not the Northerners. Literally, the president said that all the votes he got from the North were Igbo votes.

Again, another clear expression of incapacity on the part of our president. How many Igbos are in the North? Agreeably in large number but the presidential statement will mean that there are more Igbos in the North than the Northerners themselves. How many Igbos are in the North West, a zone with almost 20 million votes, in the North East, a zone with over 11 million votes or North Central , a zone with over 10 million votes?

Again that presidential statement will mean that the low votes in the 5 South East states which were a little over 7 million was the result of the large number of Igbos in the Northern part of the country. This statement is not just disappointing but a clear testimony to the fact that the president is presiding over a country that he is violently ignorant of.

The president lacks the knowledge of the geography of Nigeria and does not know anything about the majority of his supposed constituency. Assuming that the president was talking from a position of fact, was it politically expedient for him to have mentioned such an issue before the Igbo delegation?

Now! Where is Sule Lamido, the firebrand governor of poverty-striken Jigawa State, the governor who lost tremendous goodwill amongst his people and those of us outside of his state as a result of his Jonathan fanaticism and unwarranted utterances? So all those rigged votes from Jigawa were from Igbos living there? Irony.

The South South Assembly that is prepared to accuse other sections of the country for the travails of the Jonathan administration should look homeward because the bulk of the problems the government is facing are engineered by the president himself. A leader who desires political peace in his domain would not say such an unrefined untruth against the majority of the people in the alliance even if he was truly and faithfully elected, talk less of this government that was born out of contrived hi-tech electoral fraud.

How can anybody justify the Jonathan votes from the 5 South East States, a zone that has the lowest number of registered voters amongst the 6 in the country- the South East had a little over 7, 036,000 votes all together, yet collectively they gave Jonathan over 5 million votes. Almost a 90% turn out. This is a political lie even if it cannot be legally disproved.

Let’s take the example of Imo State. During the presidential election, over a million votes were returned for Jonathan but in subsequent elections, and even in the most contentious gubernatorial one, less than 900, 000 votes were recorded, putting together all the votes for Rochas Okorocha and Ikedi Ohakim. What happened simply was structural rigging and it is a reality that we must own up to if we are to make progress. The courts may not see it as such, but the responsibility of ensuring credible elections is not that of the courts but the citizens.

The untruth by President Jonathan that it was the Igbo votes that got him the votes in the North in my view serve those zealots in the region. The purpose of this piece is to tell the president and those who tell him this type of lies that they are a laughing stock and to yet again celebrate another gigantic failure and incapacity of our Chief Executive Officer. The pain is in the fact that we are not yet on course. What is the future of Nigeria in the hands of leaders like President Jonathan?

I wish to conclude by stating in very clear terms that the president got it wrong, totally wrong, because in reality, there is no population of Igbo in the North that is considerable enough as to do the magic that the president is claiming. This outburst which in every sense of the word is un-presidential in my view justifies the view of those who see President Jonathan not as a Christian or Southerner but as incapable of piloting the nation out of its numerous woes.

God bless Nigeria.