President Goodluck Jonathan comes under fire – some say prematurely and unjustly – from people across the country who see him as the symbol of ineffective, corrupt federal government and therefore insist that a restructuring of the polity is imperative for better governance and the much-desired speedy development
There is some pressure that he is finding, perhaps, increasingly difficult to ignore. In the last two weeks, President Goodluck Jonathan has found it necessary to join issues with the growing advocates of restructuring of the country to ensure better delivery of democratic dividends to the people. It would also appear that he is now quick to see the handwriting on the wall: that the increasing level of anger, frustration and cynicism pervading the land is becoming intolerable.
At the 52nd Independence Anniversary lecture in Abuja last week, the President described political conflicts as the greatest challenge facing the country and pleaded with Nigerians and critics alike to allow government concentrate on its job in order to deliver the promises made to the people. Also in Lagos last week at the launch of a book, Jurisprudence of the Living Oracle, written by fiery lawyer and elder statesman Tunji Braithwaite, the President also promised to tackle the twin scourge of insecurity and corruption in the land. More importantly, he assured that the calls for a national dialogue on issues affecting the country were not being ignored.
Many Nigerians are angry not only with themselves but with the entity called Nigeria. The level of political anger in particular is on the increase because of what some believe is the unworkable nature of the country’s political structure. Brickbats and darts are being thrown from virtually all geo-political zones as people lament why, after 52 years of independence, the country has not made much progress politically, economically and socially.
Those who witnessed the days of the nation’s past leaders like Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello and Dennis Osadebey are recalling with much nostalgia how the country truly worked at regional levels as western, eastern, northern and mid-western governments. Now, after enduring many years of military rule and 13 years of post 1999 civilian rule, and having transformed from four regional governments to 36 states and a federal capital territory in Abuja, there are those who fear that the country may be moving in the direction of a failed nation.
Like it happened shortly after the first coup d'état in 1966, the nationalities that form the Nigerian federation are at each other’s throat with the usual cries of marginalisation and lack of expression of their abilities and potential.
Like in the 60s also, the North is bleeding, although this time around the killings are not directed at the Igbos of the South-east alone. The killings, arising from arbitrary attacks by the Boko Haram insurgents who want Nigeria ruled by the Muslim Sharia law, continue to claim the lives of a good number of Nigerians who are Christians, Muslims and foreigners alike.
The North is also bleeding from ethno-religious and political disagreements in places like Plateau State in the minority dominated North-central geo-political zone. Similarly, in all parts of the country, the level of general insecurity is high as armed robberies, kidnappings, political killings and other violent crimes make peaceful coexistence extremely difficult.
Worse still, the level of unemployment, particularly of youths, is on the increase while businesses continue to collapse due to inadequate infrastructure, especially regular supply of electricity. It is also widely known that many of the nation’s ills are compounded by unbridled corruption. Many look especially towards the federal government for solution to these challenges, as they believe the government at that level has the political strength, financial might, the coercive powers as well as the necessary institutions to tackle them. Thus the general feeling, rightly or wrongly, is that the federal government now under Jonathan is not doing enough to address the salient issues of general insecurity, poverty, lack of social and economic prosperity and corruption that pervade the land.
This situation has attracted harsh criticisms of the President, and especially his political party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, perhaps understandably because it has ruled the central government in the last 13 years. His style of government and his perceived failure to appreciate the enormity of his powers under the Constitution also came under critical appraisal. At this time that he has found himself in the saddle, there is virtually no hiding place for Jonathan. The criticisms cut across all the six geopolitical zones of the country, including that of the President. People like Balarabe Musa, former governor of the old Kaduna State; Farouk Adamu, former minority leader in the House of Representatives; and Bulama Gubio, prominent politician in Borno State believe Jonathan is behaving like a sectional leader. “Our problem is that President Jonathan is not behaving like the president of Nigeria; he is behaving as if he is the president of only the Niger Delta. That is why his people are insulting other sections of the country,” says Gubio. Ironically, back home in the Niger Delta, Jonathan is seen to be so clannish that he has surrounded himself only with people from his Ijaw nationality.
From the South-west, the anger is about a federal government that relegates the zone in the area of political appointments and infrastructure development, a government that cannot fight corruption and indiscipline and one that is unable to tackle violence and unemployment in spite of the huge resources available to it. At the Yoruba Assembly held last month in Ibadan, Oyo State, the zone lamented “the general insecurity in the land, the growing decay of infrastructure and the increasing tension in the polity exacerbated by mounting unemployment all over the country.”
Dejo Raimi, former secretary to the Oyo State government and member of the ruling PDP, lamented how the South-west was denied its rightful positions in the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly. Niyi Akintola, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, also said that the Yoruba that produced the country’s first lawyer have also been marginalised in the judicial arm of the federal government. Some complained of the abandonment of many federal roads, including the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway. They said the neglect was a betrayal of the huge support the President received from the area during the last general election. They condemned his attempt to stifle the right of the people to protest unpopular government actions and policies as he did in January this year when his government increased the pump price of petroleum products. Jonathan brought out soldiers in the middle of the night to put an end to what were termed peaceful protests.
In a presentation made by the South-west delegation at a tripartite meeting with the South-south and South-east geopolitical zones in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, last July, a section of the Yoruba leadership led by Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi observed that corruption has worsened since Jonathan became president. The group observed that cases of many former governors and some prominent politicians on trial before Jonathan became president have remained stalled till date while “known culprits have been left to roam the streets and enjoy their illicit gains... this is of greater concern to the people. Of even greater concern, however, is that since President Jonathan came to power, the level of corruption with impunity has increased and keeps increasing by the day.” It drew attention also to the N1.7 trillion fuel subsidy scandal, the $1.1 billion Malabu oil scandal in which funds were allegedly paid by the government and round-tripped through an ex-convict and lamented that “each day, a new revelation of one scam or the other comes out, dwarfing in magnitude and incredulity the previous day’s.”
The North-west and North-east geopolitical zones see the President as a usurper of the office that they should be holding at least for now. Many politicians from the zones believe the presidency had been zoned to the North, a zone that was represented by late Umaru Yar’Adua who was expected to have spent two terms as president but died without completing the first term. They see the emergence of the President from the South-south in 2011 as a betrayal of trust by the PDP leaders, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Jonathan, the beneficiary of that purported betrayal. This is why they voted massively for Muhammadu Buhari, former head of state and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC. Many believe that the April 2011 bloody riots that claimed the lives of many corps members in the North, and the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging the North, North-east particularly, are a fallout of their refusal to accept Jonathan.
In any case, certain politicians in the two zones had promised last year to make the country ungovernable if the North failed to get the mandate. But other political observers argue that the position of the North in this regard also amounts to betrayal of the South-south going by history. The argument is that the South-south has, from the first republic, been a political ally of the North to which they have religiously delivered millions of votes during general elections in the country. They cited in particular the elections of President Shehu Shagari in the Second Republic and Yar’Adua, presidential candidates respectively in 1979 and 2007. Except that what is more, the North is seen as being impatient with Jonathan, the first president from the South-south geo-political zone whose natural resources have over the years been managed and mismanaged by leaders from the North.
The support Jonathan received from the North-central during the April 2011 elections was said to have a religious tinge, as minorities in the zone are mostly Christians. But the zone’s support for Jonathan appears to be waning as the President is perceived as weak in fighting Boko Haram and other ethno-religious combatants ravaging the zone. Recently, the northern Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, in Kaduna in a statement by its spokesman, Sunday Oibe, called for the resignation of Jonathan for the latter’s inability to tackle terrorism in the area.
Those are not the only challenges that Jonathan has to contend with. Some leaders in the North believe that he is playing a sectional card against them. Gubio is one of them. He said, “The South-south and the South-east, if they are not encouraged by the national leadership, I don’t think they will go to the extent they are going now and be creating all these problems.”
Ironically, Jonathan is similarly feeling the heat of political distrust even from the South-east. Until recently when Jonathan visited the zone to assure the people in the area of his readiness to fulfil the promises he made last year, Jonathan was believed to have forgotten the South-east zone. A public analyst from the area had told the magazine that the people were expecting the President to fulfil his campaign promise of constructing a second Niger Bridge in Onitsha, Anambra State, to ease traffic congestion at the present Onitsha Bridge. The people were and are still concerned about the bad state of federal roads in the area, the environmental challenges caused by gully erosion and floods in addition to the fact that as an oil-producing geo-political, the federal government is yet to build any major oil installation in the area.
Although the President was in the area recently where he promised to deliver on his promise, people of the area are sceptical because past presidents, including Yar’Adua and Obasanjo, failed to deliver on their promises in this respect. Joseph Achuzia, a retired colonel, who fought the civil war on the side of Biafra, said this much: “Jonathan does not seem to have the political will to take a decision to build the bridge and then make sure that it is reflected in the incoming budget, so that he can have access to funds to execute it. From my understanding, all the promises by successive leaders had always been made in good faith. But executing such a project depends on the availability of funds through the budgeting system.”
Even then, it is believed that no Igbo of substance really enjoys Jonathan’s confidence. They claim that they have no representation in his kitchen cabinet, and that none of their sons has won any big contract from his government. The conclusion among the critics from the South-east is that he is really taking the Igbo for a ride rather than as allies. The most radical view is that under the shadow of one east, Jonathan is actually structurally working to foist an Ijaw supremacy over the Igbo. The critics point to the strategic personnel movements and new employment in the ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs. Those championing the supremacy theory point out that Jonathan and his South-south may betray the Igbos as they claimed it happened during the civil war when some soldiers from the creeks in the South-south assisted federal troops to enter the region through Buguma and Okrika to defeat Biafran soldiers. The conspiracy theory however conveniently overlooks the law of self-preservation and natural instinct by the minorities in the then seceding republic to free their people from alleged Igbo marginalisation.
The anger against Jonathan equally exists within his immediate constituency. Apart from the Itsekiris who are accusing the Ijaws and the President of attempting to grab part of their land to create a state for the Ijaws, the Jonathan presidency is being perceived as an Ijaw affair. They allege that the Ijaws have cornered more political slots than other South-south areas apart from their enrichment through mouth-watering contracts and other presidential favours.
This, to some people in neighbouring Cross River State, amounts to abuse of presidential powers and privileges. Okpo Ojah, a public affairs analyst and lecturer, Institute of Public Policy and Administration, University of Calabar, said Jonathan has failed to fulfil all the campaign promises he made to the region and Cross River State in particular. “He promised an effective transport system from Lagos to Calabar by sea; a railway line linking the zone to the North and Lagos in the West (while) the Calabar seaport and Export Processing Zone, EPZ, in the state are not functional because of neglect by the federal government,” Ojah said.
President Jonathan is also believed to have a not too cordial relationship any longer with some of those who helped his political ascendancy to the highest office. Today, he is believed to be trying to woo some of them back using his home state governor, Seriake Dickson, and some top security aides.
However, one thing critics concede to the President is that he cannot be considered as the architect of all challenges the country is facing today. Many believe that he inherited most of them although he may have, unwittingly, in their estimation, contributed to the festering of such. According to Alani Akinrinade, a retired general of the Nigerian Army, “When you are the leader, the buck stops on your table and you have to take everything, the good, the bad and the ugly – you cannot just pick what you want. If he is not doing well and people are telling him, I think he should be happy….”
But the poser is: How many Nigerian leaders have really done well at the national level? After the collapse of the First Republic no Nigerian leader, whether military or civilian, has been adjudged to perform well. If there was any performance at all, it was at the regions in the first republic and a few states in the failed republics and the current dispensation. Adamu paints the picture more clearly. Says he: “When Obasanjo came, he promised to give us electricity, and so many millions of dollars (went) down the drain. Yar’Adua came with the same lies and nothing happened. This one (Jonathan) too came and has not been able to deliver. So all these promises without action, without delivering on the promises, are enough reasons for citizens to say ‘go you have failed us’. But in Nigeria nothing happens. There will be election again and there will be rigging and they will continue to be there, telling their lies.”
From Adamu’s analysis, failure of successive governments at the centre has brought about much scepticism that is now driving the prevailing agitation to discuss and work out how best to restructure the country for more effectiveness. To the agitators, the federal government is too powerful, too unwieldy for a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country like Nigeria, too far from the people, too wasteful in terms of resources and too incompetent to make any meaningful change and protect the country from the menace of internal insurgents like the Boko Haram. This explains why there is clamour for “true” fiscal federalism, state/regional police, regional autonomy under a parliamentary system of government, new revenue allocation formula and the rest. Some of these views were espoused last week by former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, at the Leadership Newspapers’ annual conference and award ceremony in Abuja.
But as things are, the demand for restructuring is pitching the North against the southern part of the country because while the three geopolitical zones in the South – South-west, South-east and South-south – are willing and appear ready to talk and get the country restructured, the three geopolitical zones in the North – the North-west, North-central and North-east – prefer cosmetic amendments to the nation’s constitution to: increase the states’ share of consolidated revenue accruing to the federation, return the presidency to the North in 2015, and reopen the issue of the off-shore/on-shore dichotomy in the sharing of oil revenue. The North does not want state police or a restructured federation as being proposed by the South, arguing that it is afraid the country may break up eventually. However, their southern counterparts insist that the North prefers the status quo because it benefits them immensely.
But political observers wonder why the North, which was the first region to demand secession or Araba in July 1966, appears afraid today to have a regional government system. According to Anthony Sani, Publicity Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum, although the current 68 items on the exclusive list, against 30 on the concurrent list, suggest the centre is over-loaded, “in devolving such powers, the aim should not be to tilt the country towards a weak centre reminiscent of confederal arrangement that can lead to dismemberment of the country. Devolution of power should, therefore, go with increased resources to support the responsibilities.”
Bearing it all, at times with equanimity and at other times with veiled anger, the President who sees himself as the most criticised president in the world assures that he would bequeath to Nigerians some measure of development and a people’s constitution. His aides have been rising in his defence. Rueben Abati, presidential spokesman, sees him as “a grossly misunderstood President. Too many people are unfair to him. They criticise him out of ignorance. They abuse him out of mischief. And the opposition doesn’t make things easy at all.”
At a September 6 presidential retreat with civil society groups in Abuja, the President noted that, “In a democracy, sovereignty lies with the people and it is the people that can create the constitution that governs their daily existence.” He has also promised to fulfil his promises to the electorate such that by 2014, he will be the President most praised by the people. Can he do it? Only time will tell.
Additional reports by HELEN ENI, ANAYOCHUKWU AGBO, TONY MANUAKA, TAJUDEEN SULEIMAN and NICK UWERU
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