Jonathan vs the Generals

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Jonathan vs the Generals

In the now brazen, even indecent, effort to bully President Goodluck Jonathan out of office, strange, unseemly things have been happening.

Reputations are being blown up, principles are being twist­ed, people are being told to act on faith and ignore the facts, and those peddling change are hiding the con­tents of the vessel.

For the reputations, the first casualty, to me, is that of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Pro. Attahiru Jega, a man I could have trusted with my choice belongings.

But when he repeatedly stated that the INEC was ready to conduct the presidential elec­tions on 14th February 2015 when every fact contradicted him, he lost me, perhaps, forever.

Second is Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo. It is not that he had much of a repu­tation to begin with. I was an under­graduate in 1978 during the “Ali Must Go” students’ protests.

He lost me then, and I would never have voted for him as a civilian president because I know he has not changed and will never change. What he was in 1978 is what he is today.

I have had occa­sions to admire his courage. But he was Nigeria’s President, with all the prestige t he title confers. He cannot be ignored; he must be respected in spite of himself.

Early in the week, Gen. Obasanjo made a little spectacle of tearing his membership card of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the ruling party in Nigeria, which provided him the ladder to be Nigeria’s President, not once but twice.

After the ritual, he de­clared to the audience that he has now become a statesman; confirming my point that he has not changed and cannot change.

Given all the education he received and the exposure he has had he was still ‘clueless’ about the word “statesman.”

He seems unaware t hat it is not a nickname. It is not a title you can stick to yourself at your choos­ing.

‘A statesman’ is a title others give you in appreciation of extraordinary service in the service of your country, for your statesmanship.

On the con­trary, Burke must have had Obasanjo in mind when he wrote that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

In January 2009 the whole world watched President George W. Bush leave office, handing over to Mr. Barack Obama who had embarrassed the Republicans by defeating their Vietnam War hero John McCain in a landslide.

At the inauguration cer­emonies, everyone could see Obama in his humane, humble naturalness (Jonathan has a similar disposition, by the way) treat the Bushes with ut­most respect, walking them the whole distance to the helicopter and bidding them farewell on their departure from the White House.

The Obamas returned for the swearing-in, watched by an enraptured world and a disbelieving, almost shell-shocked Republicans, some say, racist, America.

The next day, the Re­publican hailstorm on the Obama presidency began. It got worse by the day. It was unrelenting. Then in April, the Tea Party, which was the modern ver­sion of the Ku Klux Klan without the burning cross, was born.

President Obama could not get a single Republican vote for anything from the Economic Recovery Act to the Affordable Healthcare Act.

But as Republicans piled on Obama, for over two years, not one uncomplimentary word came from George W. Bush.

They had blamed him for their de­feat, now he was further alienated by the Republican Party for not joining in attacking the Obama administra­tion. Not Bush Jr. He refused to at­tack Obama, no matter what his party thought or said.

I’m not so sure of the event where President Bush had to speak with the Press and he had to answer ques­tions. Soon, t he i nevitable q uestion was posed: Why has he never uttered a word against President Obama.

Bush is a good natured man. He chuckled, shook his head and said, “Being Presi­dent of the United States is difficult enough, without the added pressure of criticisms from a former President.” He didn’t add to it.

In contrast, Gen. Obasanjo has since 2013 kept President Jonathan under withering criticism, none of it supported by facts or any shred of evidence.

His grouse: he wanted to anoint another candidate for president, and Jonathan seeking a second term was complicating his game plan.

One of the most sensational of his allegations against President Jonathan was contained in the 18-page open letter of 2nd December 2013: “Allega­tions of keeping 1,000 people on polit­ical watch list rather than criminal or security watch list and training snip­ers and other armed personnel secretly and clandestinely acquiring weap­ons to match for political purposes like Abacha and training them where Abacha trained his own killers, if it is true, cannot augur well for the initia­tor, the government and the people of Nigeria.”

Obasanjo was accusing a sitting Nigerian president of conspiracy to murder.“Corruption has reached the level of impunity. A nd if you are not ready to name, shame, prosecute and stoutly fight against corruption, what­ever you do will be hollow. It will be a laughing matter,” Obasanjo wrote.

The above were in addition to scores of other deadly accusations each of which is capable of sinking any regime if it were factual or provable.

Indeed, in Jonathan’s brief response in which he denied all the accusations, he chal­lenged Obasanjo to prove even a single allegation of corruption: “I urge you to furnish me with the name, facts and figures of a single verifiable case of high corruption which you say stinks all around my administration and see whether the corrective action you advocate does not follow promptly.” Obasanjo never picked up the chal­lenge.

Obasanjo’s malice does not bother about facts or proof. Knowing that Nigerians want to believe the worst, it was enough for his purpose to invent the accusations and let it circulate among Nigerians who are most likely to believe them as gospel truths.

As every Nigerian could see, Obasanjo could not be converted into a democrat even after he was practically bribed with the presidency.

As presi­dent, he was the same dictator he was during the military era. Governors who crossed him, were impeached; those he disliked, were jailed.

Obasanjo and Gen. Buhari are two sides of the same coin. Like Obasanjo, Buhari cannot change.

It was the same mistake Nigerians made in permitting the generals to appropriate their de­mocracy in 1999 by drafting Obasanjo whose primary mission was to cover up for the generals – the only mis­sion he truly accomplished.

In other countries of the world, these gener­als would be in prison for corruption and gross human rights abuses as happened in South Korea, Chile and Argentina.

A hundred cases of gross abuse of human rights can be proved in court against General Buhari by a pupil lawyer.

The manifest conspiracy of the generals against Jonathan, who is a natural democrat, ought to raise an alarm inside any Nigerian who values democracy.

The generals d o n ot u n­derstand democracy even when they are bribed to lead it. It cannot now be inserted in their DNA. It is too late.

In Buhari’s particular case, he is even less disposed toward democracy than Obasanjo whose raw survival instinct could force to accommodate the legis­lature. Buhari never accepted that he lost in any of his last three elections.

He always felt he had been defraud­ed. When he loses in court, it is the judges’ fault, not the law. He has no patience f or d ue p rocess. The Igbos say you can’t learn to be left-handed (leftie) at old age.

All the efforts to manipulate Nigeri­ans into thinking of a different Buhari without any sign or proof is simply what it is – an effort to win an election by exploiting the credulity of Nigerians as happened i n 1999. History is about to repeat itself.