Since after former President Goodluck Jonathan, lost the presidency in 2015, his name has always come up as being interested in contesting the presidential elections during each electoral process since then.
The reason for this is not far-fetched. As a people with nostalgic tendencies, especially when it comes to evaluating our leaders, we always tend to feel that our yesterday was always better than our today.
This is the same country where many took to the streets to celebrate the unfortunate death of General Sani Abacha. Today, a lot of Nigerians gleefully tell you that Abacha was by far better than our current crop of leaders.
The same very people who celebrated and swore; never again to military rule, are the same people saying the best we have had as a nation was during military dictatorship.
I agree completely that poor leadership has remained our bane but I do not subscribe to the belief that we must always return to the past as a solution to poor leadership.
This essentially is because as a people, we have very short memories and so are quick to forget. The very same people that we would shout crucify today would be the same people we are hailing tomorrow.
This proclivity to forget easily was largely responsible for the coming again of the late President Muhammadu Buhari. Many who voted him as the messiah the nation desperately needed to fix our leadership jigsaw were either too young to recall his antecedents as a military head of state or had short memories or were just hoping against hope that the leopard can, indeed, change its spots.
And so they attributed all kinds of magic wands with which they believed he could just wave and our problems as a nation would be over. Some even said being a retired general, insecurity in the land would be wiped out immediately after being sworn in. At last, we now know better.
Again, another electoral circle would soon begin and the polity is already heating up. From the look of things there are more attention being paid to 2027 now than in delivering the promises made to the people in 2023. Governors and other elected office holders are defecting to the ruling party, APC, as a guarantee to winning re-election or are openly endorsing the president for 2027. As the party at the centre, the APC is attracting opposition members to its fold like bees being attracted to honey.
With the sheer number of defections going on now, 2027 might as well be a fait accompli for the APC. Not only are the opposition weak and losing steam every day they are also bugged by internal conflagration with no end in sight.
The PDP that should have offered the required competition are at crossroads and unable to deal with the moles within; those who refuse to openly declare their defection to the ruling party, because it remains to their eternal joy and personal benefit that the PDP remains comatose.
In the same vein, the Labour Party that sprang some surprises in the last election is also suffering the same fate as the PDP. For both parties since 2023, it has been one day one trouble, and except the unexpected happens there is no way the PDP and LP can offer any serious challenge against the APC, as things stand now.
Added to this, is the fact that all our elections to date have been fraught with irregularities and bitterly contested. If previous experiences are anything to go by, no sitting President has lost an election he is a contestant and willingly ceded power, except that of 2015 by Jonathan. Obasanjo did not do it, Buhari did not and if what we are seeing now is anything to go by, Tinubu will not do that too.
It’s against this backdrop that it becomes very worrisome to hear claims in some quarters that former President Jonathan is making a comeback bid for that office. This has been the case since 2019. Now, the call on Jonathan to run for the office has become too loud that it has even got the Tinubu government talking. His rumoured return has made his every move, speech or action suspicious. Whatever he says now is given different flavours, interpretations and meanings.
However, to be fair, the man at the centre of it all has not openly declared his intention, neither has he denied it. He is perhaps enjoying the frenzy that his rumoured intention has not only generated but also the ripples going on within the polity, especially within the ruling APC.
So far, the most seemingly credible report of Jonathan’s return might as well be that of a former Minister of Information and Orientation, Prof Jerry Gana. Prof. Gana, famous for his avalanche of letters to his fellow countrymen as minister, was quoted to have said rather emphatically that Jonathan will be returning to Aso Rock villa under the PDP ticket.
Gana made this remark while speaking to journalists in Minna, the Niger State capital.
According to him, Jonathan will contest in the next presidential election, as the flag bearer of the PDP.
He said Nigerians had experienced life under two presidents after Jonathan and were now yearning for his return.
“In 2015, former President Goodluck Jonathan said his ambition was not worth the blood of Nigerians,” Gana said.
“After him, another President ruled for eight years, and now another has ruled for two years.
“Nigerians have seen the difference, and the difference is very clear. Nigerians are now asking us to bring back our friend, former President Goodluck Jonathan.
“I can confirm that Goodluck Ebele Jonathan will contest the presidential election in 2027 as PDP candidate, and we should be prepared to vote for him to return as President again,” he was quoted as saying.
It’s difficult to tell where Gana got his information from but, suffice it to add that his party has distanced themselves from that statement.
Again, whether Prof. Gana was just flying a kite or not is not my call, but what Jonathan must realise is that he should just remain in his house and continue to enjoy his well-deserved role as a statesman, kingmaker and global democracy ambassador. He should not pay heed to those touting him to return. We do not need diviners or soothsayers to know that it would only be a misadventure in the end. His current status which has seen him enjoy good global reckoning should not be traded for a four-year term that will not make any serious impact, even if he wins.
Jonathan should take a cue from Donald Trump, who came back for another four-year tenure but is already contemplating what would have been considered inconceivable in American democracy before Trump’s second coming.
If Buhari had remained a retired general and stayed out of politics, he probably would have been better appreciated today.
Jonathan should not allow himself to be deceived by the same people, even within his PDP, that ganged up against him on ethnic biases and religious sentiments in 2015 to rubbish whatever is left of his reputation as a politician with decency and respect for the rule of law.
The errors he made by making appointments into offices as president, Buhari did not make and Tinubu has not either.
His proclamation that his ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian, has no place in our polity after he left office.
Those who know him and have his ears should advise him to stay in his house and continue to enjoy his global status and recognition as a true democrat, statesman and gentleman. A word is enough for the wise.
