Uzokwe's Searchlight

I realize that many northerners do not like all these developments. To them, anything short of Jonathan declaring that he will not run in 2011 and that the position is the north for the asking, is unacceptable. Jonathan should not cower! By the way, while the north continues to agitate for an 8-year term for a northerner, does it occur to them that the north has occupied power in Nigeria for almost 32 years in the last 42 years? There was Gowon, Shagari, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, Adulsalam and then Yar'Adua. Haba! Is Nigeria for the north alone?

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Monday, May 17, 2010



Alfred Obiora Uzokwe

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JONATHAN SHOULD RUN, BUT…

ast week, President Jonathan Goodluck's aid announced that his boss was poised to seek PDP nomination for the 2011 presidential election. Not long after that statement, he made a volte face, saying that it was his personal opinion. Inspite of that about face, the declaration attracted mixed reactions from Nigerians across all spectrums of the social and economic strata. Some, mainly people of northern extraction, feel that Jonathan should not run because the PDP constitution provides for rotational presidency between the North and South. To them, the north was yet to serve out the 8-years that started with Yar'Adua's ascension. Other Nigerians believe that Jonathan has the right to seek the presidency regardless of PDP constitution. Even before then, the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had said that the so called rotational presidency was not written or entrenched anywhere in PDP constitution.


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Inspite of the denials from the Presidency that Jonathan did not ask his aid to announce his ambition, political watchers believe that the message actually came from the presidency. They see it as a trial balloon to see how the nation would react. Now the president knows, based on public reaction, that Nigerians are not averse to a Jonathan 2011 quest for the presidency.

It is this writer's considered opinion, that Dr Goodluck Jonathan has the right to throw in his hat into the presidential contest for 2011. However, it was too premature and tactless for his aid to have made the statement. He just became the president under unusual and unfortunate circumstances. He has started taking certain steps to help put back a drifting nation into the right course. The last thing he wants Nigerians to think is that he is an opportunist rather than a pragmatist. He should have been patient and let his efforts and achievements, in the next couple of months, speak for him. Nigerians are not stupid. They are carefully and dutifully watching Dr Jonathan's every move and policy change. If after a few months he proves to the nation that he knows what he is doing, he will not even need to formally declare for the presidency because Nigerians will start calling on him to. Civil society organizations will start calling on him to run.

So far, President Jonathan has started doing those things that Yar'Adua failed to do. Take the issue of power generation. Goodluck has been harping on this issue from the time he started acting. He says he wants to privatize that sector. Clearly, the private sector is more efficient than the government. Nigerians should remember the inefficiency of NITEL, the telecom agency. At that time, owning a phone in Nigeria was a luxury only a few could afford, yet communications was unreliable. As soon as General Obasanjo privatized the telecom world, giving local entrepreneurs the opportunity to take initiatives, people like Mike Adenuga of Globacom, MTN and their ilk, revolutionized telecommunications. Now, even in the most remote parts of the country, where market women sell groundnuts, cell phones or handsets, as they call them, abound with ubiquity. This is the type of revolution that is needed in the power sector. There are Nigerians with unbelievable entrepreneurial and technical skills that once the power sector is privatized, will make the problem of electricity a thing of the past in the nation. The benefits that the nation will derive from constant power supply cannot be overemphasized. More industries will spring up and cost of goods made in Nigeria will go down. There will be more employment opportunities. The problem of death of families because of carbon monoxide inhalation, from generators, will diminish. Of course, noise pollution will abate.

Nigerians are watching closely to see if Jonathan will make his rhetoric, about improving power supply, match his actions. North and South rotation or not, what Nigerians are looking for is a president that will change our current trajectory and move the nation into a path of progress. I will be repeating myself if I start cataloging Nigeria's problems but suffice it to say that any potential leader that shows that he understands the problems and that he has a clear roadmap and frame work to offer solutions, Nigerians will flock after.

Dr Jonathan's removal of Maurice Iwu, the embattled former Chairman of INEC that stunk up the electoral process, was very well received. That act was a first indication that Jonathan meant what he said about conducting credible elections in Nigeria. He also seems to be in favor of electoral reforms to change some of the shortcomings of the current process. That is also commendable but he needs to do more. Removing Maurice Iwu and merely replacing him with people that think and act like him or people he groomed at INEC, will not bring the electoral change that Nigerians are yearning for. We hear that Olisa Agbakoba may have been selected for the job. If that is true, then that will be another feather on Jonathan's cap that will prove to Nigerians that he is not into the politics of "do or die" but that of "get it right"

There is another thing going for Jonathan. This is the first time, in many decades, that Nigeria is getting a very well educated person at the helm. I realize that degrees do not a wise man make, but it does help. When we compare him with the khaki boys that took power by force and muzzled their ways into leadership, without the faintest idea about governance, international diplomacy and true democracy, it is like light and day. He can stand toe to toe with any foreign leader and acquit himself creditably and they will respect him. I vividly remember that when Sani Abacha was head of state, when he spoke, I could hardly understand what he was saying even though English is supposed to be the nation's lingua franca. Jonathan has already given Nigerians a glimpse of how he conducts himself in international circles when he faced the international community during his visit to the USA. He garnered a lot of goodwill, something Nigeria needs in these days of Abdul Mutallab. Some may say it does not matter whether he is liked in international circles but I posit that if the leader of a nation is liked and respected by other nations, that nation will be getting certain privileges it would normally not have when the leader is not liked. If Jonathan were in power when Abdul Mutallab disgraced Nigeria by his Christmas day activities, and had called the White house or flew out to Washington to distance Nigeria from the young man, the white house would have thought long and hard about putting Nigeria on the terror watch list. Furthermore and frankly speaking, with Jonathan at the helm at this perilous moment in world, those that have already started thinking of Nigeria as a Muslim nation and hence treating all of her citizens as such, will now start backtracking. I realize that this is not a politically correct thing to say but someone needs to say it.

My opinion is that Jonathan should run, but it should not be his preoccupation now. He should aggressively start pursuing a progressive agenda and get some tangible achievements under his belt. With tangible achievements, his entrance into the race will stymie the ambitions of IBB to the delight of many.

As I write, we hear that Dr Jonathan has chosen a Vice President, a little known governor of Kaduna, Namadi Sambo. Again, that choice has been trailed with mixed reactions. Some hailed it but many northerners, for various reasons, do not like that. For one, they do not see the man as ambitious enough to fight to be nominated as PDP presidential candidate come 2011. This writer has a different take. The man is well-read, an architect by profession. He is not a product of Nigeria's affirmative action or federal character as it is called. He has been in government before, especially in the Ministry of Works. He will be an asset to Jonathan if well utilized. Jonathan can tap into the man's experience by putting the ministry of works under his oversight. With his practical experience as an architect, he may help reorient Nigeria's infrastructural asset management and development.

I realize that many northerners do not like all these developments. To them, anything short of Jonathan declaring that he will not run in 2011 and that the position is the north for the asking, is unacceptable. Jonathan should not cower! By the way, while the north continues to agitate for an 8-year term for a northerner, does it occur to them that the north has occupied power in Nigeria for almost 32 years in the last 42 years? There was General Gowon, Shehu Shagari, Muhamadu Buhari, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Sani Abacha, Adulsalam and then Yar'Adua. Haba! Is Nigeria for the north alone? If that country should practice rotational presidency, then the north will have to wait for at least 30 years before seeking that office again. Infact, if one must be brutally honest, all these heads of state and presidents that one enumerated above, set Nigeria backwards rather than move her forward. It was only Buhari who tried to do the right thing. As much as I hate lumping people together and stereotyping, from what the north has given Nigeria thus far, in the past 42 years, there is not much to write home about. This clamor, by the north, should therefore stop and let others try their hands at setting things straight. One is not saying that Jonathan should be a shoe in. If after a few months Nigerians start seeing that he is all talk and no real action or substance, then we should look elsewhere. But before then, Jonathan must not allow himself to be bullied into forgoing 2011. All we ask is that for now, he must strive to get the nation out of the rut that Yar'Adua put her. Once he steers the nation back to the right course, everything else, including his 2011 candidacy, will fall in place.

One concern one has about Jonathan's presidency is the Obasanjo factor. Clearly, he will defer many things to Obasanjo because he is essentially the one that got him where he is today. However, Nigerians have had Obasanjo for 8 years and when he wanted tenure elongation, the nation spoke unequivocally and stopped his machinations. We do not want Obasanjo back in power through Jonathan. If Jonathan wants Nigerians to accept him fully, he must begin to undo the vestiges of any former or current ties to Obasanjo. He must be seen as the architect of needed reforms and not Obasanjo's lackey.

Here I Stand