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By Ikechukwu Eze
Dr. Chidi Amuta’s article titled “Jonathan, Don’t Just Run… Please Flee!”, published in his Engagements column of August 24, 2025, is yet another example of the troubling genre of political revisionism masquerading as critique. While Dr. Amuta is entitled to his opinion, he is not entitled to distortions and selective amnesia dressed up as political analysis.
Even a cursory reader will easily see that his piece is laced with bias, inaccuracies, and glaring omissions, all of which betray a deeply prejudiced posture toward former President Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. It deserves a measured but firm response.
It is not the criticism of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan that offends. The former President is, like all public figures, not above scrutiny. It is the distortion, the attempted erasure of legacy, and the feigned amnesia about widely documented achievements that necessitate this rejoinder.
For instance, Dr. Amuta’s dismissal of Jonathan’s youth appeal is as inaccurate as it is unfair. Hear him: “In terms of youth appeal, Jonathan has none that I am aware of… He (Jonathan) has advocated nothing that touches the youth. Nothing on unemployment, youth freedom, artistic freedom national pride etc.”
Contrary to Amuta’s assertion, history tells a different story. To begin with, Dr. Jonathan was the first Nigerian presidential candidate to launch his campaign on social media, a bold step in engaging Nigeria’s youthful digital population. That very act, via Facebook, in 2011 was not symbolic; it marked the beginning of a new model of political communication in Nigeria.
More importantly, his administration implemented a suite of youth-centric initiatives. These include, YouWIN!, a business plan competition that empowered thousands of young entrepreneurs with funding and mentoring, the Presidential Special Scholarship Scheme for Innovation and Development (PRESSID) offering first-class graduates opportunities to study at top global universities to enhance the nation’s tech edge, massive support for Nollywood and the creative industry including a $200 million intervention fund, as well as the establishment of Almajiri schools, aimed at integrating marginalized northern children into formal education.
Still on Jonathan’s youth appeal: In 2013 the Jonathan administration launched the agricultural initiative for young people, known as the Nagropreneur programme, by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development under Dr. Akinwumi Adesina (now President of the African Development Bank).
It was designed to engage and support youth in agriculture as a viable path to employment, entrepreneurship, and food security. In the course of writing this rejoinder, I sought AI’s view on the programme and this is the verdict turned out by the neural network: “The Nagropreneur Programme was one of the most innovative agricultural and youth empowerment policies under Jonathan’s administration. While not without flaws, it demonstrated strategic foresight in linking youth unemployment with the untapped potential of agriculture. Its relative underappreciation today says more about Nigeria’s policy discontinuity than the programme’s merit.”
Let me just state here for record purposes that one of the beneficiaries of the Nagropreneur programme, Ms. Affiong Williams, a young Nigerian entrepreneur, recently emerged as the winner of the 2024 Women Agripreneurs Award at the Africa Food Systems Forum, in Kigali, Rwanda.
As soon as the programme was launched, Ms. Williams took the decision to return to the country from her base in South Africa at a very young age to set up Reelfruit, an agro-based firm which is today one of the largest fruit processing, packaging and marketing firms in Nigeria.
These are not the actions of a leader aloof from youth issues. They are not mere gestures; they are substantive interventions that touched lives and redefined engagement with the Nigerian youth. To put it mildly, they are the legacy of someone who saw youth not as campaign props, but as stakeholders in national development.
On economic and governance record, Amuta’s claim that Jonathan has “no record of outstanding service or performance” is not only patently false but intellectually dishonest.
Under President Jonathan’s leadership, Nigeria became Africa’s largest economy, with a rebased GDP of over $500 billion in 2014.
During his tenure, the country attracted the highest levels of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the continent for several consecutive years. And if Amuta had not submitted himself to selective amnesia, he would have at least acknowledged, in the spirit of fairness, that inflation was kept in single digits, a feat that many administrations have struggled to achieve.
A pointer to Jonathan’s visibility even on the global scale was that Nigeria served two consecutive terms on the United Nations Security Council under his tenure, a testament to the former President’s international stature and diplomatic clout.
Furthermore, major infrastructure projects, including the resuscitation of the rail system, road dualizations, and power reforms, began in earnest under his watch. The Power Sector Reform Act and privatization of PHCN laid the groundwork for eventual sectoral improvements.
I found it laughable that Amuta claimed that there is “not much to quote from Jonathan”. This is as absurd as it is dismissive. Since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, Goodluck Jonathan has been one of the most quoted Nigerian leaders, with many of his speeches in office producing memorable and widely cited statements. Dr. Jonathan’s most quoted line, “My political ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian”, has become a global symbol of democratic maturity and peaceful transition of power in Africa. It stands in stark contrast to many leaders who cling to power even at great human cost.
In another prescient reflection, Jonathan declared: “The day I leave office, you will remember me for the good things I did.” That statement has aged remarkably well, as many Nigerians, in hindsight, view his administration as one marked by relative stability, freedom, and economic hope. Those who are now calling on him to come back and rescue the ship of state from capsizing may simply be echoing that prophetic reflection.
Dr. Amuta further stoops to misrepresentation by reviving the long-debunked claim that Jonathan paid the N100 million All Progressives Congress (APC) nomination form fee in 2023, a party with which he shares no affiliation. This is also a deliberate falsehood. Yours truly, as Jonathan’s spokesperson, publicly disavowed the move, clarifying that neither he nor any authorized representative purchased the form. That should have settled the matter, unless the goal is to persist in falsehood. To resurrect a lie already buried is not commentary, it is deliberate misinformation and anti-intellectualism.
This is not Amuta’s first exercise in intellectual revisionism. In 2010, he used the same column to endorse the political aspiration of some generals, men who left office under controversial circumstances, over Jonathan, a seasoned democrat whose political journey, though unconventional, has been defined by civility, electoral legitimacy, and historic restraint.
To the older generation, Amuta ordinarily ticks the box as a well-appointed intellectual and critic. Unfortunately, he allowed cobwebs to gather on his scholarship through his ignoble association with some vague political legacies including that of the military. It is ironic that a closet regime agent who later took to hagiography to openly defend dictatorship, thereby dancing naked on the conscience of true intellectualism, now attempts to belittle Jonathan’s far more democratic and accomplished record.
His dismissiveness of Jonathan’s rise from humble beginnings as if being “accidental” in politics is a flaw, also betrays an elitist mindset that is out of touch with the democratic values of inclusiveness and merit.
Since leaving office, Dr. Jonathan has become one of Africa’s most respected elder statesmen. He has led multiple peaceful electoral missions across Africa, been recognized internationally for his role in advancing democratic norms, won the prestigious Sunhak 2025 Peace Prize and remains a credible voice on governance across the continent.
That is not the profile of a “problem child,” as Amuta insensitively put it, but that of a model leader who chose country over power, peace over pride.
Dr. Chidi Amuta’s article is not a critique; it is a careless misrepresentation of a leader whose record continues to speak for itself. Nigerians, and history, are more discerning than Amuta gives them credit for.
In the end, it is not Jonathan who needs to “flee” from public relevance, but the habit of intellectual dishonesty paraded as commentary that must flee our national discourse.
Let us strive for balance. And in doing so, let us not allow personal biases to obscure historical facts.
• Mr. Eze is Special Aviser (Media) to His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan