The President And His Thoughts By Gerald Anene

By Gerald Anene

During the burial of the former
National Security Adviser, Owoye
Andrew Azazi, the Nigerian
President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe
Jonathan was quoted to have said
that, contrary to what most
Nigerians think, corruption is not
the only challenge to good
governance and, implying that it is
indeed not the major Nigerian
problem. For him, the major
problem is the wrong attitude
amongst Nigerians. To support this
line of thought, he claimed to have
met with officials of the Federal
Road Safety Corps (FRSC) who told
him that the majority of road
accidents are recorded on good
roads to which he added and I
quote, “you see it not a matter of
corruption, it is an issue of people’s
attitude.”
Even if we choose to ignore the
reductionist logic and the over
simplistic explanation of the causes
of road accidents given by the
President who does not even
recognise the possibility that road
accidents on the supposedly good
roads can as well be caused by
other things like technical and
mechanical faults which has nothing
to do with wrong attitude, the
President still needs to be made
aware that a greater majority of
Nigerians did not believe him. The
fact that he is not always believed,
for me, should even be more of a
problem to him than what he
suggested unless he also wants to
claim that Nigerians not believing
him is also something that has to do
with wrong attitude. Regardless of
the advice that Mr President claims
to have got, the fact is that majority
of Nigerians still see their roads as
death traps and Mr President may
have only increased their fears by
sending out the signal that he is not
really in a hurry to fix them so as
not to cause accident or, probably
waiting until the supposedly wrong
attitudes are changed.
We can be sure that Mr President’s
comment on corruption is not
indeed the first time he is taking a
position that can be perceived as
contrary to public knowledge and
belief. In fact, ever since he
assumed office as the Head of State,
his posturing, his policies and his
public comments have always
portrayed him as a man who
believes that he understands the
country’s problems more than
Nigerians do, and therefore believes
he is on a journey to fix the
country. Take for instance the case
of subsidy removal on petroleum
products. It is only the President
and his alleged advisers that
seemed to have believed that the so
called subsidy is only beneficial to
the few rich Nigerians and that its
removal is the only way to put an
end to the corruption in the oil and
gas sector.
Until today, Nigerians whose
interests Mr President claims to be
passionate about are still unable to
wrap their heads around the logic
that to got them to have to pay
more to fuel their “face me I face
you” generators, their power bikes,
their boats, and their ‘Molue’, as
well as the hike in transport fares
that followed the removal (or partial
removal) of subsidy. Also, with the
revelations of mind boggling bribery
and corruption allegations now
emanating from the oil and gas
sector, Nigerians are only seeing a
President that is so ‘boxed in’ to his
thinking on removing subsidy and
loosing the very rare opportunity to
sanitise the sector for the final time.
They only see a President that sets
up committees to investigate
corruption and then, jets off on
official trips abroad with even the
very people that are suspects, some
of whom are even heads or
members of the said committees.
Still on taking a position that is
contrary to public knowledge, and
regardless of his view that
corruption is not the major
challenge to good governance, the
President recently claimed in his
official broadcast to the nation to
mark the 1st October anniversary of
the Country’s independence, that
Transparency International (TI)
ranked Nigeria as next after United
States in the fight against
corruption. Although the
Transparency International has
since debunked the claim, it is still
baffling how the President could
have made such claim and believed
it. Even if we assume that ‘TI’ did
not debunk the claim and even if
the President is so desperate to
claim any credit to the fight against
corruption, at least not next to the
United States or anywhere near it,
( although without trying to imply
that United States runs a
corruption-free government). Even if
Nigerians would have believed that
there is a President that has fought
corruption in the way and manner
they would want to see, I still do not
think that, so far, President
Jonathan would make the list, and,
even if he did make the list, at least
not the first on that list as he wants
everybody to believe.
There are still numerous cases of
the President’s comments and
policies that put him at loggerhead
with the public opinion but, if there
is still any doubt to this claim, this
would have been made clearer with
the recent announcement from the
ministry of Agriculture proposing to
spend 60 billion naira for the
purchase of 10 million mobile
phones for the farmers. This was an
announcement that jolted
Nigerians, who expressed outrage
via the social networking sites and
later resorted to mockery of Mr
President’s policies. Some even
believed that the fifth-columnists
masquerading as his advisers are
out to destroy him, while some even
went further to recommend a
psychiatrist test for the President.
Even the comedians are not left out
in expressing their distaste for the
policy as some of them suggested
that even ‘Akpos’ (a name that I
honestly do not know its origin but
only understand it to convey a
meaning of someone whose actions
are always predictably stupid) would
make a better President than
Goodluck Jonathan.
At the bottom of these outrage and
mockery is the failure by Nigerians
to understand how a mobile phone
is indeed the major priority of any
Nigerian farmer and how the
President thinks that this is a policy
that is implementable. Nigerians
have clear knowledge that the
endemic corruption in the system
would not even allow the phones to
get to their intended recipients’.
This does not even address where
the President thinks that the
supposedly poor farmers that could
not afford a 6,000 naira mobile
phone would get the money for the
airtime and electricity to even
charge the battery amongst, other
issues that clearly portrays the
policy as unsound at this present
time.
Whatever our doubts are and
whatever those seemingly
irreconcilable views that the
President and Nigerians have, it is
still possible that President Jonathan
sees what most Nigerians do not
see, but, regardless of what he sees
and thinks, we can be sure that as
the 2015 election approaches, most
Nigerians are still waiting for him to
prove them wrong by convincing
them that his ‘lone thinking’ is
indeed the right one needed to
move the country forward
otherwise, they will surely look
beyond him for a President that
thinks like them and understands
their problems and needs.

Gerald Anene is an International
Relations Consultant and a Public
Affairs Commentator. He can be
reached via email: anenegerald@
gmail.com