As We Await Jonathan’s 2013 Shocker By Peter Claver Oparah

Our president, Goodluck
Jonathan is ill at ease with his
perception amongst the
people he rules. Some days
ago, he laid the blame for his
woeful performance on the
press and followed it up by
asserting that he has lost
faith on the Nigerian press to
give a fair assessment of his
regime.
In its stead, he said his
government is devising ways
of assessing itself by which
he meant that he wants to
mark his own scripts and his
report card. To give teeth to
this, he launched what he
calls his Ministerial
Performance Contract where
he and his government
decides whether they have
performed or not irrespective
of how Nigerians feel. He was
to quickly follow up some
days later when he came out
to assert that he is the most
criticized president on planet
earth.
One does not know the
statistics from which he
arrived at this self-damning
confession. It is certain that
he was tapping into Nigerian
laboratory of self-fangled
certainties where we
generalize events and
happenings in out small
world and lend a planetary
halo to it for effect. There is
no disputing that our
president is well mauled in
the public space for his
perceived shoddy approach
to governance since he came,
which has worsened our fate
than before he came, waving
the bandana of fresh air. So
we must grant our president
his self confessed fate. But
then, is the president not
indicting himself by that
assertion? Two things come
out from that statement; the
president has more foes than
friends, if he believes that his
critics are his foes, and again,
his friends feel disappointed
in how he is doing his task.
Either way, there are more
damning value in the
statement than whatever
benefits in terms of public
sympathy the president
wanted to curry by that
statement. We remember
very well that his
predecessors like Babangida
and Obasanjo made similar
statements in the height of
their reign so it is not original
to him to express his
discomfiture with the weighty
criticisms against his handling
of the ship of state.
Going further, our president
couldn’t understand why his
critics wanted him to solve
the problems he rightly
stated he did not originate.
He wondered whether he
brought about poverty,
whether he started insecurity,
whether he invented
unemployment and the
cocktail of problems his
fierce critics are demanding
him to resolve. He wondered
if he was the person that
started the decay of our
roads, the complete
defenestration of our energy
and power sector, the
worthlessness of our
economy, the ravaging
inflationary spiral, the
cringing poverty in the land
and many other problems
that stare his regime in the
face. I read through to see if
he would mention
kidnapping, which the fiends
he is now patronizing with
millions of dollars created
and which has mutated into
an intractable leviathan of
sorts but he chose to gloss
over that.
Jonathan may be right on the
origin of this and so is any
other regime that has ruled
this country. We may even
lapse into the period before
Nigerian cosmetic federation
came to be or even to the
origin of mankind to trace
the origin of the many
problems he mentioned. I
don’t know who, in actual
fact, levy him with the charge
of creating these problems. I
don’t know who had come
out to state that Nigerian
multifarious problems started
with the entry of Goodluck
Jonathan into our political
space. Equally, I don’t know
who has levied him with the
expectation to wipe out these
problems from planet earth.
But like the few defenders he
has, he made the grievous
mistake of substituting the
disappointment of Nigerians
in his handling of statecraft
and their demand that things
should be rightly done with
the demand that he should
wipe out age old problems
that are as old as mankind.
He makes the mistake of
obfuscating the demand for
good and accountable
governance with his effort to
create a caveat for his
inaction. I don’t know if this
was deliberate but he creates
the impression that he is
elected in office to just
preside over the steady
degradation of Nigeria and
not arrest the noxious wheel,
which governance entails.
Nigerians walk away from
Jonathan’s posture with the
impression that he was
elected into office to continue
the ruinous path his
predecessors charted and in
this feeling they place the
deterioration of the Nigerian
state since Jonathan came to
power.
All over the world, similar
problems like the ones
whacking Nigeria at present
exist and the necessity of
government obtains from the
profound need to deal with
these problems for the
greater good of all. Few of
these problems are meant to
be finally resolved while most
are meant to be reduced to
the level they don’t threaten
the well being of the citizens
of a state. The degree to
which a given government
deals with these problems is
a measurable rod that
determines how it had
succeeded within a given
period of time. No one, in
any part of the world, lays an
expectation of a deux-ex-
machina on any government
to solve every available
problem on ground. Not even
in the most advanced
countries is this impossible
expectation laid on any
government. This is a well
understood creed that binds
humanity-to the effect that
governments ameliorate
rather than eliminate every
problem and this is not lost
to Nigerians. Closely related
to this is the belief that no
one government creates or
solves all the problems at a
given space and time so
government is conceived as a
continuum, which adds value
to the state at each given
period. It would be difficult,
if not impossible to see or
hear any knowledgeable
president in any
knowledgeable society whelp
the way Jonathan did about
not being the inventor of
problems because that, in
itself, is an aberration.
But is it right to say that
Nigerians who are peeved by
Jonathan’s performance thus
far, are demanding that he
solves all our problems? Is it
fair to equate Nigerians’
expectations from
governance to a utopian
concept of exterminating all
human problems? Is it fair to
insinuate that Nigerians are
webbing a rocket science for
their leaders? Are Nigerians
too demanding of those in
governance contrary to the
wide feeling that Nigerians
are so easy to govern? So do
we sit by and continue to be
mauled by Boko Haram,
kidnappers, armed robbers,
ritual killers because
Jonathan did not create
insecurity in Nigeria? Do we
continue to endure a near
total youth unemployment
because Jonathan did not
create unemployment? Do we
stare on as operatives of
government and their cronies
steal and loot us blind
because Jonathan did not
create corruption? Do we
continue to labour and pine
under internecine poverty
and want because Jonathan
did not create poverty? Do
we sweat and suffer on
horrible roads because
Jonathan did not start the
degradation of our roads? Do
we continue to witness the
mass mortality in our
glorified mortuaries called
hospitals because it was not
Jonathan that levied such
decay on our health
institutions? The question can
go on and on and could be
liberalized to every sector in
Nigeria but from this you can
understand why we must
tolerate the complete aridity
that has met us in all
sporting competitions
because Jonathan did not
create the conditions for such
barren sporting outcomes.
Nigerians don’t demand
much from Jonathan more
than to sustain us at the
tempo he met us if he
cannot improve on it. They
do not feel that their fate
should worsen under
Jonathan as it is doing, if he
cannot improve it. They are
not demanding extraordinary
things from Jonathan and
company because they know
these bunch are not made of
extraordinary qualities. They
are just demanding simple
things from Jonathan and his
group. It is as simple as that.
So it may be from such
awkward definition of his role
that Jonathan promised us a
shocker by 2013-four light
months from now! No one
knows the nature this
promised shocker will come
but if we take his earlier
promises into consideration,
then we may be hoping on
nothing if we bank on his
present promise. It may be
that he drew from his
perception that he is not
there to solve problems he
did not create that he is
presiding over the worsening
of the same problems. It is
however germane to remind
Jonathan that when he came,
promising breaths of fresh
air, Nigerians were simply
expecting him to improve on
the sordid picture he met.
They were not expecting
anything extra-ordinary as to
imbue shock on them. That
they are not getting these
simple expectations does not
justify the shocker he is now
promising. Yes, he may give
us the shocker but let him
meet the simple expectations
first. The shocker may follow
later.
Peter Claver Oparah.
Ikeja Lagos.
Email:
peterclaver2000@yahoo.com

#CONSENSUS 2015