2015: What A Second Term For Jonathan Would Mean To Nigerians

There is no doubt that the 2015 Presidential Election would afford the various political parties in the country the opportunity of presenting their first eleven presidential candidates before the Nigerian electorates! These are candidates we hope would take us to the Promised Land. Though some of them are yet to officially declare their interest for the race, but from their body language, keen observers of political events in the country would know that a captain had already emerged among them!

Like we all know in any game, especially the game of soccer, a captain is the leader of the field! He also acts as the role model to his fellow team mates. Therefore, without fear of contradiction from any quarter, President Good Luck Ebele Jonathan is the captain of all the presidential candidates lining and warming up for next year's presidential contest in the country!

Before I continue, there is a point I want to make here! I want to say that it is wrong for people to expect something from nothing! Like Reno Omokri once said, if you are looking for a lost item, you don't look for it where you did not keep it; rather, you go and look for it in the last place you left it. This is how to look for a missing item! Nigerians have been patiently waiting for the day they would live out the dreams our fathers had about this great country! But, previous administrations never bothered to translate that dream in to realities for all Nigerians.

Accordingly, there were no tangibles things on ground to suggest that we will one day live with the realities our fathers once declared. But, here comes a president who has laid a solid foundation for the country and at the same time is building on the foundation, yet, we keep calling him unnecessary and unprintable names! While I don't want mention some of the acerbic names here, I want to us to start respecting our president and stop treating him with disdain.

However, the recent hosting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) by Nigeria in Abuja and the quick response that greeted the request by Nigeria to blacklist the dreaded Boko Haram sect by the United Nations Security Council shows that Jonathan has succeeded in the removing Nigeria from the list of pariah states of the world!

The country now commands respect in the global community. Just imagine that Nigeria asked the United Nations Security Council to sanction the Boko Haram sect on Monday, May 19, 2014 and on Thursday May 22, 2014, the Security Council unanimously approved the arms embargo and assets freeze on Boko Haram as well as linking it to Al-Qaida related terrorist groups.

Also, as one of the positive results emanating from the Paris Submit, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroun, Niger and Benin Republic have all agreed to share intelligence on terrorist's related activities across our boundaries. For example, President Paul Biya of Cameroun and President Idris Debey of Chad have now declared Boko Haram as a public enemy that must be eliminated.

Hence, as a way of adding flesh to their bone agreements, Cameroun has deployed over 1,700 Rapid Intervention Brigade Force to the border between Nigeria and Cameroun! This is not to talk of the unprecedented global outrage that heralded the abduction of our innocent school girls in Chibok, Borno State!

What all this means is that, an end to the menace of Boko Haram and the insecurity in the country is now in view! Even though President Jonathan never caused the insecurity problem in the country, but as a responsible President, he decided to use his goodwill in mobilizing national and international supports to end the ravaging scourge of insurgency in the country. Because of this, his rising and intimidating profile is beginning to cause unnecessary ripples in some quarters in the country, and that is why some of people have started fidgeting even before the polls.

The height of the shivering was witnessed recently when Nigeria rebased her Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to include vital sectors of the national economy like the telecommunication/IT sector, Entertainment sector among others that where hitherto no part of our GDP calculation.

Even though it is an acceptable norm for countries to rebase their GDP every five years, and Nigeria decides to rebase our own after 24 years since 1990 when it was last rebased, some persons are still not happy with the development! Some of them were only focusing on the political capital they would make out of it and not the general benefit to the nation.

Some even went farther by ignorantly comparing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a year or over a long period of time with the Social Progress Index (SPI) which is used in determining the level of poverty in a

country!
Those points on (SPI) were clearly captured last year in the article I entitled: 'Does High GDP Translate to Better Living Standards?' Some of them were castigating Jonathan's Government as if it is the regime that introduced the (GDP)!

Nonetheless, a second term for President Jonathan would mean consolidation on the benefits of Transformation Agenda as well as continuity in governance; whereby the government programmes and policies which the world has acknowledged as excellent and as a way to putting the country back on her missed track to greatness would be realized. This, I hold to be true from the evidence I have see

Comrade Edwin E. Uhara is a staunch supporter of President Good Luck Jonathan's Government and his reelection bid! He is also an activist and commentator on National and International Affairs.

Reach him on 07065862479 or email him on [email protected]

He is writing from Abuja.

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Articles by Edwin Uhara