Mr. President, Pick Up Your Inaugural Speech!

I doubt if President Jonathan ever
bothered to read his inaugural
speech after May 29, 2011.
Jonathan, like most before him and
Governors too, probably considers
the inaugural speech an academic
exercise that should soon be
discarded with as soon as it is over.
I doubt, and I am willing to bet my
salary on this, whether some of
them even keep a copy(ies) of their
inaugural speech afterwards.
I have read several inaugural
speeches by Nigerian governors and
presidents (forgive the sickening
way some of the speeches were
crafted) that overtime I have come
to believe strongly that is either
they don’t bother to read it once in
a while afterwards or that the
pressure and responsibilities of the
job become too complicated for
their brains. If not, how did we find
ourselves in this situation? Why
would GEJ endlessly bungle the
presidency? We all know, as he said,
that the problems of Nigeria did not
all start in his time, but we also
know that Osama Bin Laden was
already a menace to the US before
the Obama presidency and yet
Obama saw to his crushing. But who
am I kidding? Why should I compare
America with Nigeria? One’s leaders
apparently lack sense of duty, the
leaders of the other do not. So what
is the basis for comparison? NONE!!!
Despite their no-longer-news
incapabilities, should the Nigerian
leaders flip through their inaugural
speeches once in a while, maybe,
just maybe things would have been
different? If President Jonathan does
it, he would have by now known
that he has expressly failed
Nigerians and that at the rate he is
going, he doesn’t seem to have any
clue as to how to proceed. The so-
called progress his government
daily celebrates and vociferates
about through Labaran Maku is at
best described as moving round in
circles, which is worse that
retrogression (backward movement)
, for in retrogression there seems to
be a destination, but sustained
movement in circles will certainly,
someday, along the line, result in
spinning which could set us off-
balance and make us collide with
unforeseen objects. I doubt if even
we are not already in that state.
Was Boko Haram’s menace foreseen
by our leaders? Clearly, their
responses to the sect and their
inability to stop it bear all the
markings of being caught off-guard,
like a child who gets too engrossed
in spinning, forgetting that at the
end of it (if he is not caught by
strong arms) a fall awaits him.
Today, I can boldly challenge
President Jonathan to tell me if he
has any workable blue-print to turn
Nigeria around! I know he will begin
to sell his transformational agenda;
we know about that one and it
doesn’t seem to be working. GEJ
should come out boldly, without the
prodding of Ngozi Iweala or Abati’s
no-longer-credible words, to explain
if he has any clue about how to
steer Nigeria towards progress or if
he has the balls to see it through.
We know for a fact that he is not a
general as he says, but he cuts the
figure of a man overwhelmed by
events around him. Also, his
tendency to vacillate makes him
appear like a poor and incompetent
leader. I challenge him to prove to
me that the decision of my aged
grand-father to vote for the once-
shoeless Otuoke boy would not be a
historical mistake! As a Nigerian
who is well aware of his rights and
the provisions of the Freedom of
Information Act, I challenge
Jonathan to explain to me if he
really understands the complexities
of the various policies he is being
spoon-fed with by people like
Okonjo Iweala!
Towards the end of last year,
Labaran Maku, Diezani Madueke,
Okonjo Iweala, Sanusi Lamido (just
to mention a few) flooded our public
life with reasons the fuel subsidy
has to give way. They told us it was
for our own good. Well, as it turned
out, it was for their own good.
Almost N3 trillion, according to the
House of Representatives probe,
was expended right under
Jonathan’s nose as fuel subsidy.
Why then the lie that it was only
N1.3 trillion? While a waste
management company and other
money-sucking companies were
tasked with the importation of PMS
and were smiling to the banks,
Nigerians like me were groaning
under this Jonathan policy (or is it
Iweala’s policy?) Yet, in paragraph
30 of his inaugural speech, GEJ said:
“Fellow citizens, in every decision, I
shall always place the common
good before all else.” Was removal
of fuel subsidy, as we now see, for
common good? How does punishing
the poor for the greed of the rich
amount to a common good?
He went on: “The bane of corruption
shall be met by the overwhelming
force of our collective determination,
to rid our nation of this scourge. The
fight against corruption is a war in
which we must all enlist, so that the
limited resources of this nation will
be used for the growth of our
commonwealth.” Well, Mr President,
most of the masses have already
enlisted in the war, but have you?
Have members of your cabinet
enlisted in the war? With Adoke’s
initial dilly-dallying about the
subsidy probe and with your
handing it over to the EFCC, it would
seem you also believe, like your
Attorney-General, that it was all a
fact-finding mission.
Besides my aged maternal grand-
father who voted for you, there was
a 103 year old man who
participated in the election and a
certain Emmanuel Bamidele Orevba
(mentioned in your speech) who,
though not a politician, campaigned
vigorously for you and later died
from celebrating your victory, a
victory he probably thought would
bring succour to his children and
children’s children. But how would
he feel in his grave now? Happy?
Disappointed? What about the corps
members who worked tirelessly
during the election only for some of
them to lose their lives in the
aftermath? We know the surviving
ones have been repaid with delayed
payment of their allowances. What
about the dead ones? Shouldn’t
President Jonathan honour them
with a sterling performance so that
they wouldn’t die in vain? Was the
death of the Nigerians who lost their
lives during the fuel subsidy
protests for a common good? Were
those prevented from protesting at
the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park
treated so for the Jonathan-implied
common good?
Going through Jonathan’s inaugural
speech again, I could not but
conclude that he has nothing to
celebrate in his one year in office.
Ignore all those on-the-paper
achievements being reeled out by
his ministers; Nigerians are not
fooled! Except if those
achievements happened
somewhere else or all Nigerians took
a vacation and did not know
Jonathan has done so much for
them. Electricity is still bad! Potable
water remains a dream! Insecurity is
sky-high! What is it that the
Jonathan administration would be
celebrating? The scores killed by
Boko Haram? The disoriented,
hungry and willing but unemployed
Nigerian youths? The pension scam
or its twin, the subsidy probe
roguery? The un-motorable roads?
Oh! We know he didn’t cause all the
problems, but he did promise to fix
them! It’s his job to fix them! “The
time for lamentation is over. This is
the era of transformation. This is
the time for action… Let us all
believe in a new Nigeria. Let us work
together to build a great country
that we will all be proud of. This is
our hour. Fellow Compatriots, lift
your gaze towards the horizon. Look
ahead and you will see a great
future that we can secure with
unity, hard work and collective
sacrifice. Join me now as we begin
the journey of transforming Nigeria.
I will continue to fight, for your
future, because I am one of you. I
will continue to fight, for improved
medical care for all our citizens. I
will continue to fight for all citizens
to have access to first class
education. I will continue to fight for
electricity to be available to all our
citizens. I will continue to fight for
an efficient and affordable public
transport system for all our people. I
will continue to fight for jobs to be
created through productive
partnerships. You have trusted me
with your mandate,and I will never,
never let you down. I know your
pain, because I have been there.
Look beyond the hardship you have
endured. See a new beginning;a
new direction;a new spirit.
Nigerians, I want you to start to
dream again. What you see in your
dreams, we can achieve together,”
so he declared in his inaugural
speech, only that we don’t see him
fighting. Oh yes! We believe in a
new Nigeria, but Mr President has
not given us much to believe in.
Just fickle promises! Those are
wearing us off!!! And Nigerians have
risen from their dreams. Never
again will they be sent to the
dreamland of lies and clueless
leadership! We believe in dreams,
but not here, not now. And we
believe in God also, but Mr
President should stop pushing
everything to God. If he fails, only
him and him alone (not God) would
be blamed. God has brought him
from Otuoke village to Aso Rock in
Abuja; it’s time for him to impress
God!
Rather than work to make Nigeria
better, his supporters keep
disturbing us in a mosquito sound-
like way with his eligibility to contest
in 2015 and this is already tearing
the country apart contrary to
another of his promises in his
inaugural speech. He declared: “We
will not allow anyone exploit
differences in creed or tongue, to
set us one against another.” Well,
Mr President, your campaigners and
defenders (whether self-appointed
or not) are already tearing us apart
and unnecessarily hitting up the
polity, all for an irrelevant ambition
that may never see the light of day.
Wake up, GEJ! Wake up, Mr
President!!! Time waits not for you.
Soon your administration will
become history. What will history
and Nigerians remember you for?
Pick up a copy of your inaugural
speech and read it again! You would
discover that your government is
not even crawling; it is dragging its
buttocks on the ground like a
crippled. Pick up your inaugural
speech and get on the right track!!!

Dimeji Daniels writes from Ado in
Ekiti State.