What Jonathan didn’t tell UNGA

However, the size of Jonathan’s delegation itself was a subject of claims and counter-claims and although his spokesman rejected the figure of 100 put out by the media, as with everything Jonathan, we were not told the exact number. The fact that Jonathan was the fourth person to speak was also described by his courtiers […]

However, the size of Jonathan’s delegation itself was a subject of claims and counter-claims and although his spokesman rejected the figure of 100 put out by the media, as with everything Jonathan, we were not told the exact number. The fact that Jonathan was the fourth person to speak was also described by his courtiers as a reflection of his “place and status”; but even more so was his choice to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. President Jonathan was also able to get one of those things he craves for: an audience with President Barack Obama of the United States of America on the sidelines of UN meeting.
But unlike other presidents who shared with the General Assembly the efforts they are making to truly transform their countries, President Jonathan was busy asking for democratisation of the United Nations Organisation, as if there is truly democracy in Nigeria. Is the closure of the new Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secretariat in Maitama, Abuja, democratic?  Is the deployment and retention of Police Commissioner Mbu Joseph Mbu in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, intended to serve democracy? Is the alleged $25,000 bribe for some members of the House of Representatives to destabilise the House a democratic act?
Whereas President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil told the Assembly that her country has lifted 22 million Brazilians out of poverty, President Jonathan was silent on his own record on that scourge and had no such equivalence. Could he have told his audience that 119 million out of 172 million Nigerians have been degraded by poverty? Or that over 40 million citizens of his country, most of them young men and women, are unemployed?
As for opening her UN speech with a stinging rebuke of the espionage activities on the government of Brazil and her office in particular, President Rousseff must have sounded strange; Nigeria is oblivious of the impact of the intelligence activity. We are unaware of whether the United States has spied on us or the office of our president just as we are unaware of the implication. In any case, some of our top officials may well have disclosed vital information to the enemy without realising it. A couple of months ago, the Nigerian government granted access to the Israeli Mossad to interrogate some alleged Arab terrorists who had amassed arms in their homes and shops which they intended to use against Israeli embassy and other targets. We don’t care whether allowing Mossad to lead the interrogation of suspected terrorists on our own soil, in place of our own local security agents, could escalate the Arab-Israeli tension because for us the Jews are more valuable at this point in time.
Neither did Jonathan tell his listeners that Nigeria’s crude oil is being stolen on a scale never seen before and that the proceeds from the illicit trade in the commodity are used to buy arms as disclosed by no other than Mr Henry Seriake Dickson, the Governor of Bayelsa State or build a war chest in readiness for the 2015 elections as posited by Reuters. Yet, the almighty Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has gone about town saying that Nigeria will seek the cooperation of the world in curbing the theft of Nigerian crude oil. It wasn’t always like this. So, why didn’t Jonathan drum up support for that effort during his UN address? It is not enough to blame the world for buying stolen oil, what have you done to stop this massive stealing from your own end? The way this oil is being stolen, you get the impression that Nigeria has no navy or security agents capable of curbing the destructive business at its maritime borders. As it is, the heavy losses to oil thieves are already threatening the projected national revenues for 2013.
Nor did Jonathan tell the UN that about one third of his cabinet has been axed and will remain so for a long time simply because he has to take time to select those who will be loyal to him, not necessarily to the country, and able to fight some governors opposed to him hard enough as to assure him victory in the next elections; and that unless he gets those kind of candidates then he is in no hurry to fill those vacancies. He couldn’t have told his audience as well that his country is mercilessly wracked by religious and ethnic animosities and bloodletting and the victims are increasingly found to be innocent students; or that in the national capital, Abuja, itself, some soldiers recently claimed to have killed seven defenceless squatters in their sleep on the basis of some phantom “intelligence” which erroneously indicated that the victims were Boko Haram operatives who had buried invi-sible arms underground.
Moreover, the Nigerian president didn’t inform the UN General Assembly that there is an ongoing debilitating strike embarked upon by lecturers of Nigerian universities under the umbrella of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). He ought to have informed the Assembly that this mother of all strikes has lasted more than three months and still counting. If he had put in a case, the World Bank would have probably borrowed him some lecturers or a soft loan to settle the matter.
President Jonathan wouldn’t have told the Assembly either, that he is fighting the political battle of his life as some influential members of the largest political party in Africa, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)  have revolted and are threatening his second term ambition beginning from 2015. Several rounds of peace talks have failed to resolve these damaging problems that endanger the possibility of the party winning the next elections. The president’s adversaries say his unannounced intention to contest the 2015 election will violate an agreement he reached with them back in 2010. None of the combatants is blinking for now but this fight will shape the battle for Aso Rock Villa in 2015.
(Editor’s note: A word was inadvertently omitted in the title of Jibrin Ibrahim’s column yesterday, which should have read “Conversation with my ASUU comrades: Let’s get real”.)