The Madam Patience Factor and Reasons President Jonathan Lost Re-election, By Tope Oriola

Several
interesting “theories” abound. The loss
was a wonder waiting to happen. One
reason why once-upon-a-time coup
plotters would make elaborate
preparations to capture major media
organisations as cornerstone of their
strategies was to control the flow of
information. The democratisation of the
public sphere, therefore, played a huge
role. Social media ensured that
information spread rapidly. The Nigerian
Television Authority’s (NTA’s) monopoly
had long gone and in addition to
private TV and radio stations, social
media platforms had become widely
popular. This development
fundamentally shaped the spread of
information. People could watch videos
of all kinds of social issues from
relatively innocuous daily activities to
epic malfeasance in government. They
could also make comments in a multi-
dimensional mediascape. Election results
of some states, for instance, were widely
shared on the Internet sometimes
before INEC announced them. It is a
sign of the times that Sahara Reporters
was the first media organisation to
project that General Buhari would win
the elections. The social media and
online newspaper factor played a major
role in the electoral victory, as it made
it impossible to alter what everyone
already knew.
The Jega factor was critical. Professor
Attahiru Jega stood firm and resisted
pressure from the ruling party and the
president’s handlers. Somehow, Jega led
an organisation that had earned a
reputation for spectacular electoral
rigging, and midwifed an obviously
imperfect but commendable election. I
hope Professor Jega finds time to write
and publish his memoirs. Nigerians need
to hear from him beyond the occasional
press conference. Future generations
need to be able to read about his
experiences, temptations, the
tempestuous political terrain, activities
of key actors, and the drama of the
electoral process.
There was also the Madam Patience
factor. She hurt her spouse’s chances in
an immeasurable way. Mrs. Jonathan
came off as unnecessarily feisty and
controlling. The president often
appeared weak beside the first lady.
That was a monumental sacrilege in a
highly patriarchal society such as ours.
The problem was partly her now world-
famous quotable quotes such as “na only
you waka come?”, “dia is God o!”, “my
fellow widows” among other statements,
which questioned the home environment
of the president. Those blunders could
not have helped the president’s cause.
Nigerians felt deeply embarrassed by the
utterances and actions of the first lady.
I have often wondered if anyone
genuinely believed that the president
did not make any efforts to hire a
private tutor for Madam Patience. The
first lady’s main problem was that she
seemed genuinely unteachable.
President Jonathan lost partly because
of the inept political machinery set up
for his re-election. His campaigners
inadvertently damaged his candidacy.
Many of the public faces of the
president’s re-election campaign were
discredited individuals. Their words were
often perceived as lies until proven true.
That can be costly in politics. Jonathan’s
decision not to sack some of them,
perhaps out of loyalty, was also fatal.
The team’s focus on wholesale negativity
— ethnic sentiments, religious bigotry
and fear-mongering — backfired.
In fairness to the re-election team, the
president was not a great product to sell
to the Nigerian people: The team was
saddled with an impossible mission. Their
only hope was to have the elections
fraught with massive irregularities in
their favour. The socio-economic
indicators such as unemployment
figures, free fall of the Naira in the
build up to the elections, electricity
issues, poverty level and many others
sealed the loss.
Sleaze in the oil sector, particularly the
missing money at the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that was
brought to the attention of the
president by the former Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi Lamido,
created a legitimacy crisis for the
president. Such brazen allegation ought
to have been investigated and the
culprits brought to justice. The
president’s decision to take no action
and frustrate whistleblower Lamido from
office only worsened matters. It also
solidified public perceptions about
large-scale corruption in his
government.
The president had also lost the support
of key custodians of the Nigerian system.
The loss of the support of his godfather,
General Obasanjo, clearly hurt
President Jonathan. The publication of
Obasanjo’s memoirs was not exactly a
knockout punch but it was damaging to
the president. Obasanjo’s symbolic
gesture — public destruction of his PDP
membership card — clearly boosted
morale at APC and depressed the
president’s re-election team. It was
clear that the PDP was toast.
The president was also guilty of
rudimentary rhetorical blunders. His
comment about the number of private
air planes owned by Nigerians as
measure of Nigeria’s economic
accomplishments and the totally
unlettered insinuation that Nigerian
economists were not as sound as those of
CNN and the World Bank succeeded in
confirming his status as a person out of
depths. Those comments were troubling
to many people.
Beyond those comments, the inertia at
the presidency regarding the kidnapping
of the Chibok girls was confounding. The
president did not stay on top of the
situation; he hesitated for several weeks
before acknowledging that children of
our fellow citizens were missing. People
feared that he was not in charge and
was incapable of taking charge of
governance. The public knew that the
Nigerian military did not lack the
requisite skill and personnel to fight
Boko Haram. There was pervasive
perception of political interference.
Perception is reality, especially in
politics. The successes recorded in the
war against Boko Haram as March 28
approached only confirmed people’s
perception about the use of the
kidnapping episode as political football.
To be clear, there was nothing wrong
with the approach of the PDP vis-à-vis
the history of Nigerian elections. They
had reaped where they did not sow for
many years. PDP’s ability to pull off
major electoral victories despite poor
governance was a hallmark of the party.
The X-factor was that the Nigerian
people decided that this time would be
different.
The overarching narrative of the 2015
presidential election is the mood of the
times. We may never fully know what
happened behind the scene: rancour in
the PDP and presidency; the role of the
international community, prominent
Nigerian opinion leaders such as former
Heads of State and President
Jonathan’s personal convictions, among
other factors. What we do know is that
the Nigerian people keenly followed the
process; they were determined and well-
mobilised. Such outcome would be
considered a rare moment in the life of
any society. It is a story of human
tragedy and triumph. The outcome of
the election indicates the transience of
power and the futility of politics of the
belly (aka stomach infrastructure).

‘Tope Oriola is assistant professor of
criminology at the University of Alberta,
Canada. He is author of Criminal
Resistance? The Politics of Kidnapping
Oil Workers.

views expressed are not necessarily the opinion of blog author.