Will the real ‘Nigerian’ president please stand up?

I am only surprised that little has changed since two years ago when I wrote under the title: “Neither Ijaw nor Northern President”. So much movement but no motion! I have therefore decided to republish an updated version of that article to remind us that what we need in 2015 is a Nigerian president, not […]

I am only surprised that little has changed since two years ago when I wrote under the title: “Neither Ijaw nor Northern President”. So much movement but no motion! I have therefore decided to republish an updated version of that article to remind us that what we need in 2015 is a Nigerian president, not a sectional president as some of the political rabble-rousers have been canvassing.
Boko Haram or no Boko Haram, Ebola or no Ebola, this is still a beautiful country destined for the stars. In spite of countless centrifugal forces making mincemeat of national cohesion, we still have a country we can call our own.
When we highlight the many warts defacing our motherland, we do so, not because we love her less than the band of ‘patriotic’ politicians holding all of us to ransom but because we have no other country we can call our own. So warped is the thinking of these tenants of fleeting power that they equate their persons to the state. But we insist that they are not in General Charles De Gaulle’s France. We, the people, must continuously winnow the political grain so that the “labours of our heroes past” would not be in vain.
We have, of recent, been inundated with perhaps the most sterile arguments ever marshalled for political power. Broadly, two camps are discernible. There is the Ijaw group literally baying for blood in the event that their ‘brother’, our incumbent president, does not win a second term. Their argument is not predicated on any noble ideals – just that their Ijaw brother must be allowed to serve a second term whether he deserves it or not.
I ask myself, are these people talking about the same Jonathan who received massive endorsements from the four directions of the compass in 2011? How come they have suddenly villagised the man’s victory and presidency? Does this indicate that there are no political long distance runners around the president to warn these characters that they are injuring the marketability of their political product next time around?
On the other side of the noise is the group which wants power to return to the ‘North’. This group itself cannot be accused of harbouring visionary ideals nor has it enunciated a pan-Nigerian development agenda. All it wants is power with a Northerner at the helm. But experience has shown us that the fact that a Nigerian of Northern extraction is president and commander-in-chief will not translate to life more abundant for the people of the geographical north. All the textile industries in the North which employed hundreds of thousands of people died under the watch of northern heads of state.
One would have thought that the real issue is leadership. Is Jonathan giving Nigeria the kind of leadership the nation deserves? Is he a competent president? Can he take Nigeria out of the depths of pandemic corruption? Is he the right man for these times? Would an additional four years of Jonathan presidency benefit Nigeria?
If the honest answer to these questions is in the affirmative, then let Jonathan carry on! The current attempt to persuade him otherwise is irritatingly otiose. Has any householder ever succeeded in perpetually keeping the goat away from a fateful salt lick? If the constitution does not bar Jonathan from contesting the 2015 elections, no one should waste time dissuading him from running again.
What those who don’t want Jonathan in office beyond 2015 ought to do is organise, not agonise. It makes no sense to try demonising the president or attacking his every policy. I suspect that what Nigerians in all parts of the country desire is a truly Nigerian president, not one beholden to a section thereof. Majority of our people can’t be bothered by the ethnic origin of their president as long as he is adjudged to be doing a good job.
Yes, they will support a president of northern extraction or Ijaw tribe, or Ibibio – but he has to demonstrably be a competent Nigerian president, not an ethnic champion. Our people are tired of rotational incompetence!
Some of the novel tricks being played out don’t faze the ordinary people for one moment. We have seen in this country how presidents or other political personages have been made to inherit the political barrage of some of their noisy backers who are long on hate speeches and short on morality. These tribal/sectional campaigns could actually be interpreted as a ruse to keep the common people divided while the elite carry on their nocturnal negotiations on how to make loot-sharing more inclusive. Our leaders lie through their teeth as if bending the truth is congenitally Nigerian.
The national conference has come and gone, providing an opportunity to reshape our country in a peaceful atmosphere instead of the current dialogue of incendiary devices – gbam! Gbooom!!
There is still a country after all the hoopla that attended some of the reactions to the conference. It appears to me that the conference achieved a consensus that what Nigeria requires in 2015 and beyond is a doer, a pan-Nigerian national leader with proven integrity. We have had more than our fair share of hypocrites, kleptomaniacs and tribal demagogues.
In 2015 it will be time for the real Nigerian president to stand up and be counted. We need to outgrow our self-destructive resort to name-calling and religious divide in our argument for power. Although politicians are known for saying one thing and practicing another, I always remember President Jonathan’s open declaration in several interviews that “My political ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian”. Amen?
In the run-up to 2015, we must continuously invoke Chinua Achebe: “Let the hawk perch, let the eagle perch, and if one tells the other not to perch, may his wing break.”