The Reuben Abati They Did Not Know By Sonala Olumhense

In an article last week,
President Goodluck
Jonathan’s Special Adviser on
Media & Publicity, Dr. Reuben
Abati, went after his boss’
critics.
By his definition, they
included “all the cynics, the
pestle-wielding critics, the
unrelenting, self-appointed
activists, the idle and idling,
twittering, collective children
of anger, the distracted
crowd of Facebook addicts,
the BBM-pinging soap opera
gossips of Nigeria,” formerly
known as Dr. Jonathan’s
friends on the Internet.
He called them a diverse
“army of sponsored and self-
appointed anarchists,” who
are “in competition among
themselves to pull down” the
President.
As a man who evidently
considers himself an
authority on public affairs, he
said: “The clear danger to
public affairs commentary is
that we have a lot of
unintelligent people
repeating stupid clichés and
too many intelligent persons
wasting their talents lending
relevance to thoughtless
conclusions.”
The simple truth is that Mr.
Abati has reduced to shame
many people that used to
respect him. Every Nigerian
staring at the bumbling,
stumbling and fumbling at
Aso Rock knows that, having
been pushed to the thing
edge of irrelevance by Mrs.
Patience Jonathan, the
former columnist is only
fighting to remain
presidential spokesman.
Otherwise, it might have
occurred to him that labeling
critics “liars” and trying to
plunge a knife deep into the
the very heart of Mr.
Jonathan’s political support in
the past two years is an
amateurish gamble.
But desperation makes a
mockery of clear vision, and
in the end, Abati’s “The
Jonathan They Don’t Know”
emerged as “The Abati They
Did Not Know.”
Is Mr. Jonathan a nice, simple
man, as his spokesman
labored to establish of a man
who has spent five years in
the presidency?
Surprisingly, Mr. Abati does
now know how irrelevant this
point is. The issue is not
about being a nice man; it is
about being the leader to
uplift Nigeria; about being
the “transformational” figure
he claimed he would be.
As a “pestle-wielding”
dissenter myself, let me now
restate some of the grounds
on which I have criticized Mr.
Jonathan as President,
beginning from March 2010
when he became Acting
President, and invite Mr.
Abati to say how these
constitute “lies” against a
simple man.
One: corruption.
I have criticized Mr. Jonathan
as being the latest in a line of
rulers who deploy only words
against the monster. If he
takes himself and his country
seriously, he must not only
declare his assets publicly, he
must fire such top officials as
Ministers as the Secretary to
the Government of the
Federation, Mr. Anyim Pius
Anyim, and Ministers Diezani
Alison-Madueke and
Mohamed Bello Adoke, all of
whom have been stained by
allegations of corruption.
Regrettably, along with
refusing to sack them, Mr.
Jonathan has ignored a
mountain of top-level
corruption reports that sit on
his desk, including
Halliburton, Okiro, Siemens,
Wilbros, the Petroleum
Ministry, and the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
But there have been words.
Among them in July last year,
at an event at which he
identified corruption as “the
monster that we need to
confront and defeat,” and
pledged that the “war” will
start at the centre, he asked
two “anti-corruption agencies
to probe all federal
ministries, departments and
agencies, starting from
2007.” As usual, it was the
last time anyone heard about
that initiative.
Second: Mr. Jonathan’s 2011
political promises, upon
which he has completely
turned his back, as though
they never were made.
Third, the insecurity in
Nigeria. Since Mr. Jonathan
took office, billions of dollars
have been thrown at the
problem, alongside denial
and amateurish
mismanagement.
Four: Jobs. I have
documented Mr. Jonathan’s
vows on jobs. What I have
not been able to document,
is a serious, structured
approach to redeeming those
vows, or a full-frontal assault
upon those issues that are
keeping jobs away from us.
Five: the “pretend
governance” culture in which
the President sets up
committee after committee to
look into serious problems,
only to throw their reports
aside. His haul includes the
Justice Uwais Panel on
electoral reform; the Okigbo
Committee on Halliburton;
the Theophilus Danjuma
Presidential Advisory
Committee, and the
Presidential Projects
Assessment Committee.
Six: Jonathan’s
Transformation Agenda:
During his election campaign,
the President successfully
sold a transformation
concept, but with almost one
and a half years gone, he has
not published the
transformation plan, if any.
On July 2, 2011, one month
after Mr. Jonathan was sworn
in, Mr. Anyim told the
American ambassador that
when Jonathan unveiled the
“transformation agenda,”
there would be major
institutional changes aimed
at plugging loopholes and
opportunities for corruption.
The point was confirmed in
October 2011 when the
Minister of National Planning,
Mr. Shamsudeen Usman,
said the transformation
agenda, when published,
would emphasize the rule of
law, judicial system and the
policing system.
Seven: electoral reform. The
intervention Mr. Jonathan
promised was reform on the
basis of the Justice Uwais
report rather than the
cosmetic changes that we
have seen. Without the
wholesome philosophical and
functional changes promised
by the Uwais plan, true
electoral reform cannot be
institutionalized.
Eight: arbitrary promises: In
Minna in July 2010, Mr.
Jonathan warned that Unless
Nigeria retraced its steps
from corruption, illegal
acquisition of wealth,
absence of productivity,
dependence on oil, and
evasion of taxes, “very soon
the system will collapse.”
Similarly, in his New Year
message in January 2012, he
lamented that Nigeria
needed to move much faster,
but “that is where the devil
comes in and puts road
blocks.”
But it is not the devil that has
failed to provide proper
example by declaring his
assets. It is not the devil that
does not “give a damn.” It is
not the devil that flip-flops
over dialogue with Boko
Haram, or who promised
earlier in the year he would
defeat the militants by June.
These are some of the
substantive issues, and they
relate to Mr. Jonathan’s
sincerity as a man, and his
abilities as a leader. What
Nigerians are criticizing is the
relationship between what
Mr. Jonathan says and what
he does; and between what
he promises and what he
delivers, as the quality of life
plummets for the ordinary
man and woman.
They are about whether Mr.
Jonathan means well or not,
which is what Abati
misunderstands when he
writes, “I have even heard
that the President spends
billions on feeding.”
Actually, yes, the presidency
did budget nearly N1 billion
for food. And no, it does not
matter whether it was for
pepper-soup or roast turkey;
or whether the president
actually eats the food or uses
it in food fights.
What Nigerians are saying is
that the same President who
had no shoes ordered three
new executive jets as soon as
was officially possible; offers
bribes in hard currency to
State House visitors, and
made his first advocacy in
office the subject of a six-
year presidential term.
In other words, what Abati
ought to be defending is why
the Jonathan presidency is
deeply resented as a
government that has failed its
people. Instead, he says,
with embarrassing
shortsightedness, that the
President’s critics “just cannot
accept that someone with his
simplicity can be their
President.”
And then, elevating
sycophancy into philosophy,
he tried to smuggle Mr.
Jonathan into the same
farmyard as Abraham
Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi,
Martin Luther King, and
Kwame Nkrumah, “men who
have shaped the world that
we live in by simplifying what
others have complicated.”
At a time that Jonathan is
pronouncing himself the
most criticized President on
earth, and asserting his
government will now clap for
itself if the press will not do
it, Mr. Abati ought to have
realized that, sometimes, you
are at your most eloquent
when you are silent.
If Mr. Jonathan wants to
enter the same city with
those four men, to him falls
the challenge of not trying to
complicate what they
simplified through service
and sacrifice.
•
sonala.olumhense@gmail.com

#CONSENSUS 2015