The debat over whether the Nigerian President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, should or should not run for a second term in office, methinks, has given way to the issue of when he will declare his intention to seek a second term. It is interesting to note that many Nigerians have accepted the fact the President has a constitutionally guaranteed right to seek a second term in office. Those who had hitherto clung on the argument of a nebulous legal impediment in the way of the President seeking a second term in office are beginning to back down. Instead, Jonathan’s antagonists are now resorting to “moral” arguments to dissuade him from seeking a second term in office. And yet these moral arguments even recommend the President very strongly for another term.As a Nigerian citizen and one of the millions of voters who put Jonathan in office in 2011, I think that legalism alone should not be the criterion with which to justify the second term bid for the President. Yes, it is important that the law allows the president to seek the renewal of the mandate freely given to him by the Nigerian people. But more important than the issue of legality is a performance based justification. In other words, it is very pertinent to ask if the president has significantly delivered on the electoral promises he made to Nigerians in 2011 and on the basis of which the mandate he seeks to renew was given in the first place.
In answering this question, perhaps the fairest method of assessing a political leader is by recourse to the leader’s own yardsticks – not with any external tape rule capable of whimsical stretching to any direction. It would be unfair to judge President Jonathan, for instance, by comparing him with President Obama, or even assessing his performance based on the subjective evaluation of the opposition alone. The best thing to do, therefore, is to take the President to task with regards to the contract he entered into with Nigerians on the basis of which he was given the mandate to govern. In other words, what are those problems that the President promised to tackle if elected in 2011? While on the road in 2011 covering every inch in the vast country of Nigeria asking for votes, Jonathan made promises to transform the country politically, economically and socially. Breaking the promises down, the President promised to create jobs, build infrastructure and tackle the perennial problem of power supply.
Although the President has come good in many other aspects, but by far his greatest achievement readily is in the area of political transformation. In 2011, the President promised Nigerians a new era of freedom for every citizen to attain the highest levels which nature, hard-work and qualification incline that citizen within the Nigerian state. This was encapsulated in the ‘grass to grace’ story of Goodluck Jonathan who was born in the creek of the Niger Delta where he trekked kilometres daily to attend school without shoes and who has risen to the highest office in the land as President. Having shattered the glass ceilings, the President, the first minority man to be so elected in a multi-ethnic country dominated by three major ethnic groups, has vowed to remove any inhibitions on the attainment of the dreams of his countrymen and women.
It is true that citizens are more likely to connect emotionally to their government through such mundane issues as the provision of good roads, potable water and reliable means of transport, etc., but the environment of freedom to enjoy these amenities, is sine qua non. This is the reason some of us are not swayed by this superficial definition of democracy dividends in our system in terms of bridges built and roads tarred. As it is well known, there is really nothing spectacular in doing these things because even the worst kinds of dictatorial regimes have good records in this area of governance. Pinochet perhaps built more roads and bridges in Chile than any other regime. Similarly, General Sani Abacha has the record of building in Gwarimpa, Abuja, what is regarded as the largest residential estate in Africa. Yet when the history of democracy is chronicled in Africa and the Latin America, these two leaders are pitched as enemies of their people. And this is because these leaders chose to trample on the rights of their peoples for their own arbitrary pleasures.
President Jonathan set out on the right path when he elected to open up the political space by tackling headlong the problem of credible elections in the country. Before now, our experience with elections is such that the last election is seen as worse than the one preceding it. And the less than credible elections which were imposed on us by the past regimes robbed Nigerians of their rights of choice in the matter of who governs them; and, on equal barometer, robbed our leaders of the legitimacy so desired for effectiveness in office. It was a kind of double jeopardy. But by doing the straightforward thing of going for a credible chairman of the election management body INEC in the person of Professor Attahiru Jega, Jonathan, even at the risk of losing his election, showed his hand as a strong democrat, an advocate of free choice, promoter of freedom and personal liberties. By his courageous cleaning up of the electoral process, Jonathan has restored dignity to our elections and conferred legitimacy on the leaders as representatives of their people.
Even in the exercise of his powers, Jonathan has remained level-headed, patient and tolerant of opposing ideas in a manner that has never been known in the country so much so that he is being ridiculed in certain quarters as “weak”.
We saw how former members of his ruling party, PDP, worked out on the President at a recent Convention of the party at Eagle Square, Abuja, to form what is now short-lived “new PDP” which later collapsed into the rival APC; we have seen how Rotimi Amaechi, the governor of Rivers State, is daily enjoying himself by denigrating both the person and the office of the President of Nigeria in the manner nobody could have done without feeling the full weight of the presidency under say President Obasanjo; we also heard of how Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the suspended governor of the Central Bank, goaded on by the opposition, continues to defy the President; and every day we read of the APC’s disparaging comments on the presidency. In all these anomalies, Jonathan has never lost his cool, believing that his traducers are only exercising their rights to free expression even if disrespectfully.
Uche Ugboajah
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