Jonathan’s 80 Pages Of Nothingness By Chinedu Ekeke

He misses the presence of
the past; when the world
smiled at him and men
bought his deceit. Huddled
up over a heap of dusty files
and abandoned sleaze
reports, Goodluck Jonathan,
Nigeria’s president, grieves
over the metamorphosis of
goodwill; the sharpest and
shortest in any recent
political history. His friends,
most of who, last year,
helped cook up the lies to
spite his electoral
opponents, had swiftly
become his critics, and even
enemies. In his office,
furnished to taste with a rich
touch of royalty, he pores
through the invectives
poured on him daily by
millions of angry citizens. In
pains he let out a line of
grief, of a heart broken, like
a baby grieving lack of love
from his parents; “I’m the
most cursed president in the
world.”
Cocooned by a retinue of
aides trapped in the box of
years of yore, when secrecy
thrived in the seats of power
and ignorance weakened the
citizens of nations, he
misreads the situation. Aides
with mindsets more
pedestrian than those of
commoners, intent only on
power, privilege and money,
have sold him the
commodity of perception.
They said perception is the
culprit. He bought it hook,
line and sinker. He thinks
very highly of them, as
possessing more experience
in the politics of public
relations than himself – the
taciturn shy man who never
was ambitious, and never
aspired to play at this tough
stage where the rule
entailed slicing up people to
remain sailing.
So their opinions are
weighty. He fancies being
dressed in the garb of a
“listening president” by
these aides. It’s one of their
ways of warming up to his
heart, his royal heart. He
would have been a great
president if they were right.
But they aren’t. He listens,
as the only choice he has,
because no alternative
thoughts ever emanate from
him, with which to balance
their views and schemes.
These views become policies
and programmes, unleashed
on the public domain, and
are pushed to become laws.
You remember the six year
single term?
The perception challenge is
their view, and he bought
and paid. The work has been
done, they told him, but the
people have yet to know. Let
us change their perception,
they agreed. As though the
whole world suddenly went
blind in one fell swoop, they
proposed that the work
they’ve done, which no other
living soul has seen, be
scribbled down in fancy
letters and glossy images.
The images are more of the
workers –the president, his
Vice, his over-bloated
cabinet, and his aides – and
less of the works.
In the computing cloud
hangs the book, an 80-page
book of accomplishments.
We are dared to read, to
find present the projects
that are absent on the
streets and in our homes.
We are persuaded to share,
to forward to contacts, to
carry family and friends
along. As we read, they hope
for open-mindedness in
assessments and fairness in
comments. Here, there was
a slight departure from their
19th century mindsets. They
acknowledge the change in
ways information is shared.
The internet, that’s the new
village square. They came to
the square, to ring the bell.
But that’s selective
appreciation of the powers
of the modern world. We
can read and forward, just
like we can upload and share
damning evidence of lies
said by public servants. It
works in both ways, and
works more against one
when one chooses to reside
on the side of injustice. On
this same cloud we compare
notes on how our friends
and brothers and neighbours
remain unemployed after
graduation, and how those
who oversaw the biggest
scams in our history, as well
as the scammers
themselves, remain
unpunished.
Before I began typing these
lines, my friend in Abuja
sent me a message. She was
giving up on Nigeria. She
couldn’t fathom why she
couldn’t find fuel in filling
stations in Abuja, but saw
boys hawking them in
gallons near the same
stations, and with policemen
looking on. Her friend, a
close one with whom she
had been at the forefront of
the battle for the rescue of
Nigeria from the gang of fuel
subsidy thieves and their
backers in government, just
took a job with a wrong
organization. She thinks she
has lost the battle. She wept,
and told me so.
A day or two ago, another
friend on Twitter sent me a
message. He got done with
his Masters in the UK and
returned home last year. Till
date, he’s been unemployed.
No jobs anywhere. But
there’s a book, the book of
accomplishments. The book
says all is working, just that
we’ve been blind to it.
Aha! Back to the book. I’d
have loved to relish in the
freshness of its smell were it
physical with pages I could
flip through. New books
always smell fresh and
predictably arouse the
curiosity of the lover of
reading. Sometimes, at the
end of the book, you may
discover that the only thing
about it was actually the
smell. In such a case, the
book was a waste of one’s
reading time. In Jonathan’s
newly uploaded ebook, Sure
And Steady Transformation,
nothing was visible.
Conceptualized to serve a
predetermined end, the
book comes out vague and
dry, unfortunately projecting
us as a country that faces a
million problems. It tries to
cover everything and ends
up covering nothing. It
crawls from the shameful to
the ridiculous, and then
mocks us by its existence.
That book shouldn’t have
been published ab initio. It
is another waste of our
scarce resources.
Trust our brand of
leadership. Perpetually
mouthing a president’s
campaign mantra is an
unwritten law. That is why
you will find
“transformation” in almost
every page of the book. It
seems the president derives
the power to become from
the sound of that word; and
the energy to live and act
from its steady repetition.
“In support of Mr.
President’s Transformation
Agenda, the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural
Development developed and
is aggressively implementing
an Agricultural
Transformation
Agenda.”
Transformation.
Transformation agenda.
In search of what to point at,
we read meetings that were
attended. In almost all the
ministries, meetings that
were attended by Ministry
personnel were included as
achievements.
In the Ministry of Health, we
read; “Conducted 55th
National Council on Health
Meeting in Abuja 16th-20th
July, 2012”
Another one, still on the
Health Ministry; “Submission
of report of Presidential
Committee on a harmonious
working relationship in the
Health Sector.”
For the Ministry of
Information, we read:
“Refocusing of the Vision and
Mission of the Ministry.”
The wonder is that
somebody in the presidency
proofread these things and
approved their inclusion in
the final draft. Another
wonder is that they do not
hope to persuade people to
consider if the
“achievements” are worth
being so named, the
surprise is the aggression
with which it is being forced
down our throat; “I have
delivered!”
Part of the delivery is the
type you will read on Page
43 of the report.
• Purchase of 3 (No) Staff
Buses.
• Procurement of 2 (No) of
Hiace Buses.
• Purchase of various office
furnishes and fittings.
When the Federal
Government boasts of 2
Hiace buses, then a Local
Government Councilor has
no business providing
anything for his constituents.
And it is rather troubling
that nobody in the
presidency cringed when 3
Staff Buses were being
included amongst the list of
achievements made by the
president of Nigeria.
But we must find the
courage to ask the necessary
questions: how many jobs
have been created – either
directly by the government
or by the private-sector as a
result of employment-
inducing policies of the
government – in the last two
years? If jobs were created,
how did they affect the gross
unemployment rate?
Are we aware that the use of
okada as a means of
transportation is a sign of a
state that is failing?
Movement of humans and
goods is one of the essential
indicators of a functional
society. Why are our roads
still in bad shape? Olumide,
my friend, recently spent 3
hours on a spot at the
Lagos-Benin Expressway and
witnessed 3 different auto
accidents on the spot. That
doesn’t sound like
transformation. That is
destruction. But we have a
glossy picture of that same
road looking well paved.
How many houses did the
government build in the last
two years? How many
Nigerians now have access to
decent and affordable
housing? Where are these
houses?
Have we upgraded the
quality of our schools? We
did expect that Almajiri
school will litter the pages
under the education
ministry. We only wonder
what state and local
governments will showcase.
I heard last night from the
young Nigerian who has
been moving our kids from
the slums to schools that
Nigeria has over ten million
children of school age
outside the school. What
future does that leave for
us?
If the image of improved
healthcare published in the
book is true, where is our
First Lady? Why can’t she be
treated here at the intensive
healthcare units?
If someone says there’s no
money, how many of the
thieves who stole our
billions have we prosecuted
in the last two years? How
many high profile corruption
cases have we successfully
pursued and brought to
conclusion?
If there are achievements
anywhere, Mr Jonathan will
not need a book to show
them to us. Our streets are
where these achievements
will resonate. All eyes will
see them and lips will
confess them. There was a
relatively significant
improvement in power
generation for about two
months, and everybody
commented on that. Nobody
needed a book to confirm
that electricity supply in
their houses had improved.
The bulbs that were lit up
for more hours were the
books we needed. Our
problems aren’t as vast as
an ocean. Our challenges as
a people are few, but
fundamental. Once these
few key ones are attended
to, the rest naturally fade
away.
Nobody enjoys a song
without melody. Nobody
enjoys a dance without
motion. A book in which
nothing was written isn’t
different. Nobody enjoys an
80-page book that says
nothing.

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#CONSENSUS 2015