One news story video that was embarrassing to watch last week was that of former president of Nigeria, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, speaking to an obviously rented crowd that “stormed” his Abuja office to “compel” him to run for president a third time. He laboured to explain to them that he had not decided whether to run again for the office he left in 2015 on a positive and exemplary note.
There have been rumours that the ruling All Progressives Congress is hatching a plan to use Jonathan as a pun to ensure that from 2023, when power is expected to return to the South, that it stays in the South for only a term of four years. The reason is that Jonathan, having completed the tenure of Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua between 2010 and 2011, ran for office in 2011 and spent one term in office. Their calculation is that if Jonathan is helped into office in 2023, he will only have to spend one tenure and leave, thereby making power return to the North in four years instead of eight years.
The plan of those behind this plot is that Jonathan will be helped to run on the platform of the APC, even though all his political life has been spent in the Peoples Democratic Party, which has been in power in his Bayelsa home state since 1999 and was in power at the federal level from 1999 to 2005. Ironically, it was Jonathan that made PDP lose power at the federal level for the first time.
When Jonathan, as an incumbent president, conceded defeat in 2015, refused to contest the result in court, called on his supporters not to react violently, ensured there was a smooth handover, he was praised for displaying an attitude to power that was not common in Africa. That made him an international hero.
Before that election, the opposition APC had led a vicious media campaign onslaught against him. He was demonised and called unprintable names. Jonathan did not also help matters with his numerous gaffes in speech and action. His overbearing wife, Dame Patience Jonathan, worsened his situation with her actions and utterances. Many of those who were in his cabinet secretly worked against him.
Seven years after, there are rumours that the same people who called him names and worked against his presidency are planning to get him into power so that he will help them return quickly to power, but rather than Jonathan coming out clearly and unambiguously to deny it and dissociate himself from such rumours, he preferred to give “political statements.” Jonathan had said to the “protesters,” who demanded that he declare for president, “Yes, you are calling me to come and declare for the next election. I cannot tell you I’m declaring. The political process is ongoing. Just watch out.”
In Nigeria, once politicians say they are consulting or that they are praying over a political office, it is an indirect way of saying that they have made up their mind to contest or are leaning towards it but are just waiting for a few things to be finalised before making their position known. It, therefore, casts Jonathan as a schemer. That the crowd came when he was in the office showed that it was a staged-managed event.
While in office, one thing Jonathan did that endeared him to many was that he did not prevaricate on critical issues. He repeatedly asked people never to rig the election in his favour or engage in violence for his sake. He said repeatedly, “My ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian.” He said repeatedly that if he lost the election, he would concede and relinquish power. And he kept his words, surprising even some of his fiercest critics. Many of the Niger Delta militants, who were waiting for him to just utter a whimper of dissatisfaction about the results to commence bombing of Nigerian oil facilities, were disappointed that Jonathan continued to ask for no violence from the date it was obvious that he would lose the election till the day he left office. It was to his credit that despite the fears many Nigerians had about the 2015 election being bloody, it went without any major incident unlike the 2011 election.
While the language of Jonathan was unambiguous and conciliatory, the language of his opponent in the 2011 and 2015 election was not. Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) never said that he would concede if he lost. His language, and that of most of his passionate supporters, was that the only way he would lose was through rigging. He warned that if the election was rigged, “the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood.” It was not surprising that when it was obvious that Buhari was losing the 2011 election, violence broke out in many parts of the North, leading to murder, arson and vandalism. In 2015, there were fears that if Buhari lost, there would even be worse violence than what was seen in 2011.
Jonathan has been a great beneficiary of good fortune. He became the governor of Bayelsa in 2005 through luck because his principal, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, was impeached and jailed for corruption. From being a governor, he was chosen by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who was then the president of Nigeria, as the running mate of the PDP in the presidential election of 2007. While he was the vice president to Yar’Adua, Yar’Adua took ill and died in office, and Jonathan became the president in 2010 by luck. Subsequently, he ran for president in 2011 and won.
After being in office as Nigeria’s president for five years, what else does Jonathan want from the presidency? It is even worse than he is being rumoured to want to run on the platform of the APC, which demonised him and edged him out of office.
In 2015, Jonathan showed that he was not desperate for power. It will be shocking if in 2022/23 he decides to jettison that trait by succumbing to this bait which will set him up for ridicule. Those who are scheming to have Jonathan contest the 2023 election don’t mean well for him. The first point is that there is no guarantee that they will ensure that he wins the APC’s primaries. The second point is that there is no guarantee that they will ensure that he wins the presidential election. Finally, Buhari has done so much harm to Nigerian economy and unity that Jonathan will not be able to heal Nigeria in four years.
Jonathan should not allow himself to be lured into the trap of contesting the 2023 election. He would be portraying himself as a greedy man
Many people were killed for his sake in 2011. What he should be concerned with now is how to ensure that there is justice, equity and transparency in the 2023 election, so as to increase the prospects of peace in Nigeria. Getting himself involved in partisan elections again will destroy whatever image he has.
•Written By Azuka Onwuka
