When I saw Reuben Abati, former Special Adviser to former President
Goodluck Jonathan’s article on demons and ghosts that took over Aso
Rock when he was there, I honestly took it as the lighter side of Nigerian
discourse. I knew Abati, right from his days as a Columnist with The
Guardian newspapers, maintained a weekly satirical column where he
entertains his readers with satirical sides of our daily national life.
But on reading the hair-raising stories Abati recounted in the piece, I
knew he was dead serious. Don’t ask me if I believe his story. Am I mad?
At this age? I equally find it hard that people will believe the gory
narrative of Abati that certain deadly ghouls reside in the nation’s seat
of power, wrecking havoc both on the lives of men that pass through there
as well as the affairs of the country, which have suffered irretrievable
damage by successive occupants of Aso Rock.
On better reading of Abati’s I ended up with the inescapable understanding
that Abati was trying to introduce a spiritual angle to the gregarious
failure of the government he served. Abati was only trying to awe us with
ghost stories for us to resign to the bunkum that the failure of the
government he served, which led to its deserved electoral defeat last year
was not natural. It was spiritual. The Jonathanian failure was caused by
spirits. It was beyond his human capacity. Who can wrestle with ghosts?
Who can wrestle with unseen powers, which, according to Abati wrought such
damages as castrating the male occupants of Aso Rock and forcing their
spouses and other sundry female occupants to resort to using dildos, visit
illnesses and death on the men and women in power and force those who
were charged with governing the country into making huge wreckage of that
charge, among the many havocs Abati painted?
If we remember very well, one of the most glaring areas of Jonathan’s
dereliction as president was on security and the ravage caused by Boko
Haram insurgents was the hallmark of that failure. It was so serious that
Boko Haram seized close to a third of the country’s landmass, killed
thousands of Nigerians in its bloody trail, maimed thousands and damaged
properties worth billions of dollars, carted hundreds of innocent school
children to captivity and constituted real danger to the nation’s seat of
power in Abuja where it picked easy targets for ceaseless bombing. What
was Jonathan’s response to this audacious challenge? Boko Haram members
were ghosts according to Jonathan so who can fight ghosts since ghost
fighting is not one of the requisites for aspirants to the country’s
leadership? So Abati’s was just a mere rehearsal to what was a standard
belief in the regime he served; weave a supernatural narrative around the
problems facing the country and exculpate yourself from possible
inaction. He intended his ghost story as an excuse for the failure of the
regime he worked for.
But how does one explain Abati’s principal, Goidluck Jonathan’s display
this week when he addressed a gathering at Oxford? Jonathan came spruced
up for an outing- one of the syndicated outings he has been desperately
soliciting for since he was thrown out of power. He painted such a rosy
picture of Nigeria under him that you would have been forgiven if you
believe he was talking of the Garden of Eden.
To Mr. Jonathan, he transformed Nigeria to an Eldorado which was flowing
with milk and honey. He said he worked for the next generation of
Nigerians and not the next election, that CNN told him that Nigeria was
the third fastest growing economy in 2015 (and you wonder why not the
fastest growing in the world?). Mr Jonathan further said he fought
corruption without making noise and that Sambo Dasuki his National
Security Adviser did nit steal the $2.1 billion for which he is facing
trial at moment. It was a fine polish to himself and his regime. How
Jonathan hopes to mend his tardy image from this outing remains to be seen
but one should admit, he made good dabbing so much talcum on his
not-so-pleasant image. I don’t know whether he meant his to have much more
value than a fireside story.
But let us interrogate Jonathan’s claims a little. We must work with the
hard evidences surrounding his claim of performing an economic miracle
here for the six years he was in power. A recent Vanguard (a Nigerian
newspaper beholden to Jonathan and his interests) report revealed that
under Jonathan, Nigeria made a revenue in excess of N51 trillion. This
figure surpasses the revenue for the period all other regimes were in
power. It was at a period Nigeria sold crude at the highest ever price of
$140 a barrel and exported more barrels per day than at any other period
in our history, as there were no avengers seeking to avenge their
electoral defeat. What did Nigeria get from that monumental accrual? Apart
from Jonathan’s hollow stories, what tangible gain did Nigeria get from
this providential windfall? Our infrastructures were completely degraded
as roads collapsed, health and educational sectors witnessed untold
atrophy, power sector collapsed, poverty ravaged the land, internecine
corruption reigned supreme-despite Jonathan’s hollow claim of fighting
corruption. What thrived under Jonathan which was exactly what his growth
story was all about was an untamed fight by Jonathan’s cronies to
corruptly steal these huge accruals as Jonathan practically liberalized
corruption, claiming that stealing is not corruption.
The period when we received the highest accrual from oil was paradoxically
the period when our infrastructure collapsed totally. The period when
Jonathan claimed he grew Nigerian economy was the period when several
millions of hapless unemployed Nigerians flooded every available stadia
and open spaces to seek for 3,000 uniform jobs and many were trampled to
death in the struggle for space that ensued. The period when Jonathan
claimed he turned Nigeria to an Eldorado was the same period the country’s
power sector ground to a halt throwing Nigeria to prolonged darkness for
most parts of his six years sojourn. It was the period the petroleum
sector waltzed in unending sleaze and graft as it became a conduit fir
stealing the nation’s resources without remorse. The period Jonathan
claimed he was growing the economy through yet undisclosed means, was the
period when the country’s treasury was bankrupted even in the face of
growing oil revenue. It was a period when the $62 billion foreign reserve
built by Jonathan’s predecessors when oil was not as princely priced as it
was under Jonathan, was depleted to a paltry $28 billion even with oil
prices maintaining an all-time high price regime.
The period Jonathan claimed he was doing magic here was the period price
of oil was going so high in the international commodity market yet his
finance Minister claimed she borrowed half a trillion Naira to pay federal
civil servants’ salaries and 23 States were bankrupt and were owing salary
arrears running into years. That these states were bailed by the President
Buhari regime at a time oil price nosedived to as low as $27 per barrel
tells of the type of economy CNN told Jonathan he was building to the
third fastest growing in the world in 2015 when he exited power.
On Jonathan’s claim that he worked for future generation of Nigerians,
well the future is already here and Nigerians are already reaping the
fruits of Jonathan’s efforts in the vandalised country he handed over to
President Buhari. We are reaping the fruits of his reckless plundering of
the excess crude account, his purloining of the fireign reserves, the
ghastly looting and irresponsible wreckage he and his mandarins visited on
the country’s economy. He needn’t solicit for hand clappers on this as
Nigerians, already in the dubious future Jonathan worked for them by
allowing a holistic plunder of the nation’s treasury, are already clapping
fir him.
As for not working for the next election, we need to ask Jonathan why
what remains of the nation’s treasury was emptied when Jonathan was
seeking reelection. We need to ask him why the nation’s landscape was
littered with dollars and pound sterling as his desire to continue in
office overwhelmed his rationality.We need to ask him why he completely
purchased the nation’s media and turned it into a brazen hatchet for his
re-election bid. We need to ask him why he stoked a deadly ethnic rivalry
and very deep religious division as he dreamt of more years in power. We
need to ask him why he sponsored various ethnic militia groups, unleashed
them on innocent Nigerian citizens while seeking reelection. We need to
ask him why he impudently postponed the election when it was certain that
he would lose and relocated to Lagos where he was personally sharing
dollars to induce electorates. Did the idea of not working for the next
election occur to him after Nigerians adamantly rejected him on March 28,
2015? He needs to come clear on these.
Jonathan claimed Sambo Dasuki did not steal the $2.1 billion security
money he placed under him. Serious? It is fortuitous to ask if Jonathan
believed himself in this assertion, as in his other assertions. For the
period the inquest into the monumental corruption that occurred during
Jonathan’s watch lasted, there has been this attempt to weave a thin cloak
to shield Jonathan from questions he should be answering over these
corrupt acts. But it seems that Goodluck Jonathan is misrepresenting this
to mean he was deaf and dumb to happenings that occurred under his feet
while he was president. As the buck stops at the president’s table, it is
untenable that Jonathan should pretend he didn’t know the huge corrupt
acts that happened under his watch. I think he is pushing his luck too far
and needs to be taken in to answer questions. Since he knows to much as
to know that Sambi Dasuki didn’t steal this huge amount, even in the face
of monumental evidences and earth shaking confessions that run contrary to
his mischievous claim, the security agencies must see the need to take up
Jonathan to tell us all he knows of not just the amount Dasuki and co
stole but the huge corruption cases that happened under him. That seems
the way to go as Jonathan goes about hauling diets in an attempt to
sustain a deceptive clean persona that lives in the mud.
Jonathan claimed he fought corruption silently, without making noise about
it. Though he did not elucidate on this, that statement in itself reveals
Jonathan as the chameleonic simpleton he has been largely seen as. It is
still beyond contemplation to fight such a rugged monster like corruption
quietly and for Jonathan, corruption remains a beloved pet project, which
he fed and nurtured for the six years he was in power. Jonathan was to
give what neared a legal seal to corruption when he uttered, in one of his
several moments of embarrassing simple-mindedness that stealing is not
corruption. How them could he have fought corruption; either loudly or
quietly? As gory tales of mind boggling corruption that happened under
Jonathan continues to shell out, it is a wry joke fir even Jonathan
himself to entertain the belief that he has any repulsion to corruption.
But then, as has been his norm since he was sent out of power, Jonathan
roams the globe looking for cheap laurels to claim and seeking audiences
to talk to with his flawed rehabilitation story. Is he under the
impression that it is not the same international community he readily
patronises that treated him with such unprecedented ignominy while he was
in power? Is it not the same international community that broke every norm
in diplomacy to dismiss Jonathan as a corrupt, clueless buffoon who has no
capacity to govern any forward-looking nation on earth?
During the capture of the Chibok girls and the international outrage that
followed the Jonathan government’s inaction of that vile action, Hilary
Clinton, then US Secretary of States and now Democratic presidential
candidate in next month’s American polls, lambasted Mr Jonathan as running
an utterly corrupt regime which has squandered Nigeria’s oil wealth. At
the same period, former Republican Presidential Candidate, Senator John Mc
Cain has described Jonathan’s government as a ‘non-existent’ government.
Earlier before then, world renowned economist and Founder of Washington
based Free Africa, Prof. George Ayitteh has dismissed Jonathan as a
meretricious mediocrity and a joke. As recent as last year, The Economist,
in reviewing the Buhari regime after eight months in power, had summed as
follows; “In the eight months since Mr Buhari arrived at Aso Rock, the
presidential digs, the homicidal jihadists of Boko Haram have been pushed
back into the bush along Nigeria’s borders. The government has cracked
down on corruption, which had flourished under the previous president,
Goodluck Jonathan, an ineffectual buffoon who let politicians and their
cronies fill their pockets with impunity”.
Truth us that Jonathan wasted a golden opportunity to make Nigeria great
through a combination of compulsive corruption, ineptitude, weakness and
lack of clue. The unputdownable truth is that Jonathan and his government
tossed Nigeria’s providential chance to achieve progress and the wonder is
if Nigeria will ever get such providential opportunity again in its
tortured history. What we are doing today is living with the debris of the
Jonathan wreckage. We are left with the aftermaths of the comprehensive
vandalization Jonathan visited on the country and the Buhari government is
doing its utmost best to contain the many after effects of the Jonathan
brigandage.
You wonder what Jonathan wants to achieve my scavenging the international
space to reel out his spruced-up, rehabilitative stories. Little wonder
that his audiences are always Africans, mostly Nigerians who are always
mobilised to venues for such empty displays to cheer him on. So does
Jonathan, even in his legendary simple-mindedness, think the
international community did not know the parody he ran in Nigeria for six
years? Is he thinking they don’t know the elephantine corruption he
visited here as his reign lasted? Is he under the feeling that the
international community have forgotten just how he practically collapsed
the country with the combined blitzkrieg of corruption, cluelessness and
impunity?
Back to Abati’s ghost stories, it is obvious that his attempt to weave a
spiritual alibi for the failure of the government of his principal runs
contrary to Jonathan’s self-marketed claims of superlative achievement. If
we believe Jonathan, would we still believe Abati when he claims that a
conclave of ghosts resided in Aso Rock to negatively influence performance
of those in power? If we believe the rosy picture of Nigeria which
Jonathan hawks about, would we still believe Abati when he claims that
witches and wizards were responsible for the embarrassing shortfalls of
the regime he worked for? How could we believe Jonathan’s story of
superlative performance and still believe his Media Adviser regal the
nation with stories of demons that prevented the government he worked for
from making impacts on the lives of the people through its policies? If we
believe Jonathan’s self-rendered story of turning Nigeria into the tenth
wonder of the modern world, how would we still believe as Abati weaves
fairy tales to explain the obvious under-achievements of the same Jonathan
regime he served? Either way you see it; either from the Jonathan
self-adulatory gaffes or from Abati’s curious ghost stories, the fact
remains that Nigerians were served the shortest end of the stick during
the time Jonathan reveled here.
Peter Claver Oparah
Ikeja, Lagos.
E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com