Nigeria is beginning to look like a joke each passing day. Politics in the land has become degenerate. Now, we only look back in time with painful regrets. Most often, we wonder how we came to descend so low. In this land, nothing is sacrosanct anymore. Anything can be twisted to become whatever the holders and wielders of power want it to be.
Former president Goodluck Jonathan’s reflections last week on his loss of the 2015 presidential election bring this state affairs into bold relief. Jonathan gave up power in a manner that our present crop of leaders cannot contemplate, let alone make possible. Jonathan spoke at a public forum in memory of Raymond Dokpesi. The event reminded him of his last days as president. He said he felt shattered when he saw the results of the elections before they were officially declared. The emotion that took over the better part of him at that point in time left him with the impression that everybody was against him. But it took the likes of Dokpesi for Jonathan to put himself together. He said it was not easy for a sitting president to lose an election. But it happened to him and he took it in his stride.
Looking at the turn of events more than nine years after that unusual experience, Jonathan appears to be laughing at our folly as a country. Those who thought that his removal was what Nigeria needed to move forward got it all wrong. If anything, his ouster deepened our woes. Today, he appears happier and more fulfilled than those who wanted to drive him into suicidal rage. However, while I salute Jonathan for his large-heartedness, I still feel there is a missing link in his tale. Not even his book, “ My Transition Hours”, which was a record of his last days in office, was able to fill that yawning gap. For some reason, Jonathan has chosen to sidestep the real issue that led to his loss of election as incumbent president. I am constrained to believe that he is being selective in his narrative because confronting the real monster at the time it reared its ugly head would have been cataclysmic. Jonathan, I think, merely played the fool in order to avert bloodshed.
But shouldn’t the true story be told? Why has Jonathan allowed Attahiru Jega to escape with the chicanery he inflicted on the electoral process in 2015? Perhaps, saying it as it is will amount to self-indictment on the part of the former president. But for how long will Jonathan paper over the fact that the chairman of the electoral commission appointed by him sabotaged him in that election?
Jonathan chose to accept defeat. This is despite the fact that, he did not, strictly speaking, lose the election. The former president does not want to tell Nigerians that the humongous figures generated in that election for states like Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Jigawa and some other northern states were not real. They were cooked up by Jega to boost the figures he allocated to Jonathan’s main rival in that election. Jega boosted Muhammadu Buhari’s votes at Jonathan’s expense. Jega ensured that votes were suppressed in Jonathan’s strongholds. In 2015, for instance, Imo State, according to Jega’s manipulated figures, recorded just a little over half a million votes. The same Imo recorded over 1.4 million votes in 2011. Both elections were conducted by Jega. How does one explain the sharp drop in Imo election figures by about 900,000? The Imo experience was largely replicated in all of Jonathan’s strongholds. Even in Jonathan’s home state of Bayelsa, he only managed to go home with just about 300,000 votes allocated to him by Jega.
All this contrasted sharply with the votes recorded for Buhari in the north. Kano alone gave Buhari over two million votes, while the other aforementioned northern states gave the same Buhari close to two million votes each. It is important to point out that since the stacking of those fairy-tale figures by Jega in 2015, none of those states has come close to recording similar figures in subsequent presidential elections. As I noted earlier, Jonathan will not go into these ugly details. Doing so will expose him to the charge of self-immolation.
In reflecting on the 2015 presidential elections, we are not even suggesting that Jonathan should have used the power of his incumbency to retain power. We are scandalized instead that he sat in office and allowed himself to be rigged out. When therefore I hear Jonathan talk about losing the 2015 presidential elections, I receive it with mixed feelings. Jonathan did not lose the election, in fact and in truth. He only lost to the extent that he allowed Jega to twist election figures to suit the design of those who were insistent on CHANGE, that much tossed about slogan that has led Nigeria to its present comatose state.
Jonathan operated with a certain handicap then. He alluded to it at the Dokpesi memorial. According to him, he felt that everybody was against him, including Barack Obama’s America. Jonathan’s traducers made him look ineffective. They stage-managed the kidnapping of schoolgirls in northeast Nigeria. They launched psychological warfare on him without let. Jonathan was weakened by it all. He did not have the bite and gravitas to ward off the emotional bullying.
Part of the problem then was that Jonathan did not understand Nigeria well enough. He was just a fringe player at the time he attained the Presidency. Anybody who understands Nigeria well enough would have called the bluff of the anti-Jonathan gang. What would have mattered would have been for Jonathan to consolidate his hold on power. With time, the naysayers will become his chorus men.
After all said and done, Jonathan gave up power out of panic. But it must be noted that the much touted ‘change’ turned out to be an affliction. Buhari, the man for whose reason Jonathan was hounded out of office, did not do any better. Jonathan’s era turned out to be a golden one compared to what Buhari gave Nigeria.
Now, the ultimate affliction is here. Bola Tinubu and his goons are in power. They see their occupation of Aso Villa as an entitlement. They said they helped Buhari to get to power and that he promised to hand over to the southwest. That has happened. With that arrangement in place, the present occupants of the Villa are operating with a swagger stick mentality. They believe that they are impregnable. They must have laughed broadly and sardonically when they listened to Jonathan on how he lost election as an incumbent. They must be jibing at his naivety. They must be telling Jonathan and Nigerians, inwardly though, to watch and see how to use and deploy power. They are wondering who the hell will think of dislodging Tinubu as an incumbent even if he fails spectacularly as he is doing to deliver good governance to Nigeria.
QUOTE:
“For some reason, Jonathan has chosen to sidestep the real issue that led to his loss of election as incumbent president… He is being selective in his narrative because confronting the real monster at the time it reared its ugly head would have been cataclysmic.”
