Beyond the Prophet’s Hometown
One allegation holds that some of the chieftains of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta [MEND] are planning to assassinate former Nigerian President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. Another allegation has it that former President Goodluck Jonathan is being politically motivated to sponsor the Niger Delta Avengers [NDA] to blow up oil installations and generally create mayhem in the Niger Delta region in order to make governance difficult for President Buhari.
The allegation goes on to point out that when Dr. Jonathan eventually became President, he tracked down “perceived MEND leaders” and promptly got them imprisoned on a trumped-up charge of attempting to assassinate him. Up until today, the allegation contends, Dr. Jonathan is still suffering from an assassination paranoia complex.
Honestly, I would not have wanted to get involved in this issue. But as our people say: an old man does not have to sit around and watch while the goat strangulates itself on its tethers.
Nigeria is passing through some of its most difficult periods as a nation in the making, wobbling on shaky legs towards democracy. Militant groups have sprung up in practically every nook and cranny of the country. In the East, in the West and in the North, each group claims to be the mouthpiece of an impoverished, neglected, marginalized section of the Nigerian society, threatening to break up from the nation-body if it did not have its way.
Only a few weeks ago, for instance, the NDA threatened to carve out a Republic of the Niger Delta if the Nigerian government refused to comply with its demands. It took the elders and prominent sons and daughters of the area to calm the Niger Delta youths down. Was Dr. Jonathan behind that NDA threat to secede or was he among the men who pleaded with the Avengers to calm down? Perhaps, if we knew Jonathan’s position, we might have a glimpse into the authenticity or otherwise of the claim that he had always been behind the activities of the Niger Delta Avengers.
If indeed Jonathan had a plan to destabilize Buhari’s administration, why would he be the first person to congratulate the President-elect as a political opponent and even before the result of the Presidential election was announced? As soon as Dr Jonathan realized that his Peoples’ Democratic Party [PDP] was losing to the opposition All Progressives Congress [APC] he picked up his phone and called Buhari to congratulate him. Any man in Nigerian politics who could do a thing like that is, by any stretch of the imagination, a good and God-fearing man. By simply doing what he did and affirming to the world that the shedding of the blood of innocent Nigerians was not worth his ambition to continue his tenure as President, the entire world recognized Dr Jonathan as a true democrat. What he did has never been done before in any part of Africa. And it earned him the respect of the whole world.
For such a man to turn around and undo all he so assiduously worked for and which earned him the respect of the whole world, just “to make governance difficult for Buhari” is, to the minds of many Nigerians unthinkable and preposterous. Certainly Jonathan is not that stupid. The fact I think is that many of these young people who see him as their own don’t really understand how the politics of Nigeria is interwoven with international politics or what it all demands.
Jonathan may be a son of their soil. Even Jesus Christ said it that a prophet is not usually known in his home town or by his own people. Yet, one would have to ask those who accuse Jonathan of being politically motivated to destabilize Buhari’s administration who they think Jonathan could be working for. In order words, is it just the child-like joy of seeing Buhari and Nigeria fail that could be driving Dr Jonathan on, or could it be so that when the two administrations are assessed side-by-side, Jonathan would be seen as the better administrator? That doesn’t make sense because there have been about 15 heads of states in Nigeria since 1960 when the country had independence. How did the other 13 heads of state perform in comparison?
When Obasanjo schemed his way to have a Delta son installed as President, it was because he believed that Nigerians needed to live in peace, each section of the society appreciating its neighbours. He believed that if a Delta son became the President, he could possibly use his executive power to settle his people who were largely known to be deprived, despite the fact that the bulk of the national income came from their area. But that never happened. It never happened because the politics of Nigeria is too complex to give room to such nepotistic manoeuvres.
It is like believing that because President Buhari is from the North he has a magic wand that can automatically stop Boko Haram atrocities in the North. We are all witnesses to the daily unfolding of events between the Nigerian Army and Boko Haram which includes recent recruitment from the camps of Internally Displaced Persons by the dreaded sect. Why has Buhari not done what he should to settle them and stop further carnage and suffering of his Northern brothers and sisters? That is also because of the complexity of the Nigerian political arena.
Those of us from the South have not forgotten so easily how Chief Festus Odumegwu was suddenly and unceremoniously removed as Chairman of the National Population Commission. And what was his offence? He opened up to the press his desire to give Nigeria credible census figures for the first time since the amalgamation of 1914. That was it. A Northern governor [from a state we are told even cattle and trees count as people during census] confronted Mr. President and threatened to withdraw the votes of his people if Chief Odumegwu was not sacked. Rather than face the shame of being sacked after all he had done to enhance credibility in the National Population Commission, the nationalist decided to resign. He could not stand being sacked by the President because he wanted to stand up for truth.
What about the voting credibility in this present APC government? Did Jonathan also influence that so that his successor’s government would be seen as a failure? Why is the country going back to its dark days of electoral malpractices and violence after the foundation for credible elections in the most populous nation of Africa had been established by the Jonathan administration? The reason is not far-fetched. And that is one more thing I would like the youths of Delta State to appreciate while all these accusations and counter-accusations are making their rounds.
By its nature, military establishments as institutions deal with order and unquestioning obedience to hierarchy. They deal with strict command control. These demands are diametrically opposed to the demands of democracy. Democracy in a pluralistic society such as Nigeria, with about 250 ethnic groups and about 250 local languages, demands dialogue, collaboration, consensus and shared values. These are the ingredients that create the favourable conditions for national integration and common vision and mission, which in this case, is nation building. As a military officer, Buhari’s training did not prepare him so much as to play this role effectively. This is why many Nigerians came down heavily on the head of state when he dared suggest that the unity and oneness of Nigeria was not negotiable. In a democratic setting, it should be negotiable.
They should also appreciate that the consistent failure of the military to effectively get the country on a proper footing in the democratic process and the arduous journey towards nation building is not necessarily because the military has no such intentions. Not that the policies they adopt are skewed. Not that there are no competent men and women in the country to implement those policies. The fact, and that is the truth that even the military should accept if their intention in Nigeria is genuine, is that by its very nature, the military and its institutions are not designed to manage a pluralistic society such as Nigeria is, with over 250 ethnic groups and about 250 local languages. Only those civilian citizens who have passed through the democratic process as it is practised in many universities across the globe can appreciate that every lecturer has a level of autonomy that even the university senate must respect. It is a teaching policy that can be applied effectively as Jonathan did to democratic governance.
It may be true that a prophet is not usually known in his own hometown or by his own people. That should not be the problem. The prophet can be recognized far away from his hometown if he so deserves. What is important as of now is that at least we know from where ‘water entered the fluted pumpkin’. Now we know that military institutions in Nigeria, due to the nature of their set-up and not because of the covert or overt influence of any past administrations are more likely to compound than effectively deal with the challenges of cohesion and nation building that Nigeria has continued to face.
So, can MEND and Dr Jonathan’s aids please put a stop to this embarrassing trend of trading accusations and counter-accusations for no reason? We should be thinking of what to do, to ensure that the country continues to move forward smoothly in its journey towards democracy and nation building. That should be the challenge of all true nationalists in Nigeria today. And that challenge should particularly appeal to all Nigerians who live in far away cities, beyond the prophet’s hometown.
