"The dogmas of quiet past are insufficient to the stormy present- Abraham Lincoln"
President Goodluck Jonathan appears to have a natural propensity for
courting controversies; this trait became noticeable from his first
major political assignment as the Deputy Governor of Bayelsa, to his
choice as late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s vice, and his controversial
appointment via the Senate’s Doctrine of the Necessity as Acting
President in the wake of his boss’ terminal illness.
At the
behest of well meaning Nigerians across the political spectrum, he
virtually stormed into power at the demise of President Yar’Adua to the
consternation of an ambitious northern cabal. And when it was time to
elect a new President, his controversial decision to run against the
grain of PDP’ zoning arrangement overheated the polity to a boiling
point. Somehow, he managed to weather this storm, not necessarily
because of his political savvy, but purely out of the peoples’ desire to
let sleeping dogs lie.
Many still believe that his
controversial victory at the highly contested polls actually set the
stage for other issues that have now polarized the polity. Not long
after he gained a substantive Presidential mandate in 2011, Jonathan,
instead of making moves to heal the wounds of his stormy election, flew a
kite about tenure elongation of the tenures for President and
Governors to a six-year non-renewable term.
This was at a time
when the northern elites were still nursing the wounds of their loss of
the zoning slot which yielded the nomination and subsequent election of
Mr. Jonathan on the PDP platform.
Ever since, his unguarded
utterances, poor timing response to crisis, needless grandstanding over
public declaration of his assets, remember his “I don’t Give a Damn”
retort to this harmless request; the frequent blabs of his wife; First
Lady Dame Patience; corruption scandals, not to forget the ill-timed
subsidy removal on January 1’ 2012; all these combined, in case he
doesn’t know, to make Jonathan ‘the most criticized President”, to use
his words.
His latest public relations fiasco is his
meddlesomeness in the Nigerian Governor’s Forum, NGF election. The big
perception problem he has created for himself and, unfortunately, the
country ahead of 2015 is more severe than it seems at the moment. Not
known to be a skilled crisis manager like President Olusegun Obasanjo,
and with Boko Haram and other governance challenges, his Transformation
Agenda which is running on low current like the ebbing power generation,
Mr. Jonathan has his hands full.
Meanwhile, minister of
Information, Labaran Maku has embarked on a controversial National Good
Governance Tour at a time when low governance impact is clearly in
evidence, everywhere you go, apologies to MTN. You cannot go on a road
show to sell a bad product. Nobody needs a Brand marketer to tell us
that. With his growing list of failed election promises, the most
obvious of which is failure to provide stable power supply; the Good
Governance Tour is no more than a social jamboree and a huge waste of
public funds.
The tour, even if conceived with the best of
intentions, is poorly executed. Since no man can be a judge in his own
case, it is ridiculous for the PDP Administration to expect anyone to
take it seriously. A project assessment tour of this magnitude ought to
involve all stakeholders, including civil society, the opposition
parties, project management expects, and Labour. The Assessment should
have formed the basis of the mid-term report of President Jonathan and
other Governors elected in 2011.That would have been a more credible
report than the anthology of inflated platitudes that the President put
together as mid-term Report.
This is another missed opportunity
for the President to show us how he could run an all – inclusive system
that may inspire the governors. Jonathan should be the one giving us
the template for transparency, open system of administration and self-
accounting, representative democracy. Instead, he has literarily set his
new agenda on 2015 presidential election, pitching himself against the
NGF and the northern power brokers once again. We deserve some respite
from Mr. Jonathan’s dangerous politics which breeds hatred, division and
permanent heating of the polity.
It is to the President’s
discredit that two years after his re-election, the campaigns have not
ceased, largely because of his ambition and poor relational skills. Just
recently, he missed a rare opportunity to speak at the African Union,
AU’s Golden Jubilee, for some curious, unconvincing alibi. That was a
platform he could have used to try to brush up the battered image of the
nation after a string of policy blunders, especially his controversial
pardon of his convicted former boss, ex-Governor D.S.P. Alameiseigha of
Bayelsa state who is still wanted for corruption charges abroad.
A President who is consistently having brushes with associates as
regularly as he commits gaffes in public inadvertently creates a very
serious perception problem, not just for himself and his party; but for
the nation he governs. Jonathan gives his bellicose opponents more than
enough material in their relentless media skirmishes with his aides. And
each time, the No.1 citizen often worse for it.
What all these
suggest is that all is not well with the President’s inner circle. It
is either he is not getting quality advice or he does not listen when
given the right one. Whatever the case, Mr. Jonathan enough of this
charade; do what you were elected to do: Govern.
source:facebook Author: Rev. Chris Okotie, a Pastor- Politician, wrote from Lagos.
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