By Michael Egbejumi-David<\/b><\/p>\n
Interestingly, in the history of Nigeria, not one person who had ever formally declared his or her intention to run for the Premiership or its Presidency, spelt out a cogent political agenda or programme ever made it.\u00a0 So far, those who have occupied those positions have been \u201csmaller\u201d men who were drafted-in by \u201cbigger\u201d fishes.\u00a0\u00a0 In actuality, all of our democratic leaders have been recruited and put into office by tribal and political warlords.<\/p>\n
Jonathan is the latest stooge occupying our national centre stage.<\/p>\n
We all know the story:\u00a0 Obasanjo drafted-in an uninterested, unhealthy and unprepared Umaru Yar\u2019Adua largely so OBJ could stick his middle finger to the rest of the country for torpedoing his attempt to perpetuate himself in office.\u00a0 Also, OBJ needed someone whose performance in office would be so bad, so sad, it would make his (OBJ) time seem like the Great Renaissance.\u00a0 Then, he paired up the colourless Yar\u2019Adua with an even less colourful Jonathan.<\/p>\n
We all bear witness to the unsatisfactory result of that dastardly experiment today.<\/p>\n
Before anybody heard of brother Jonathan, the man was a lecturer in a school, minding his own business.\u00a0 He left the management of his day-to-day life in the large hands of his wife.\u00a0 He taught some young people who were sufficiently interested the exciting life of fauna.\u00a0 He was utterly uninterested in the administrative end of things.\u00a0 Even just reading passages to a roomful of students was a painfully tedious task for him.\u00a0 He kept largely to himself and kept his head well down.\u00a0 Life was easier for him that way.<\/p>\n
Then entered DSP Alamieyeseigha, freshly booted out of the Nigerian Air Force.\u00a0 However in Bayelsa, Alamieyeseigha was the Alpha Centauri.\u00a0 He shone the brightest there post 1998 and ruled the roost unchallenged.\u00a0 To keep matters that way, Alamieyeseigha plucked a docile Jonathan from the obscurity of school life and made him his Deputy.\u00a0 A star-struck Jonathan however continued to entrust the management of his daily life to his faithful wife.<\/p>\n
Jonathan and everyone else in Bayelsa stood by and watched while Alams went about his grim thieving business.<\/p>\n
But Alamieyeseigha outdid himself, and a combination of Obasanjo, Nuhu Ribadu and the British kicked Alams out on his ear and into undignified, feminised, internal exile.\u00a0 A petrified Jonathan was thus thrust into the limelight.\u00a0 Even then, for 18 months, Jonathan kept his head well down and continued to live as uninspired and as anonymously as he could as Governor.<\/p>\n
As Vice President, the strains began to show.\u00a0 Abuja and national politicking was a different matter.\u00a0 But Jonathan was still keeping his head well down.\u00a0 He still left the management of his life largely in the steady hands of his wife, although Mrs Jonathan was beginning to rampage all over the place \u2013 as much as she was able to get away with under the unsmiling gaze of Turai Yar\u2019Adua.<\/p>\n
But Jonathan was a truly absent VP.\u00a0 He was not in the mould of, say, Atiku or Dr Ekwueme.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t entrusted with any genuine State or Administrative duties, responsibilities or functions and he never asked for one.\u00a0 He never demonstrated any discernible managerial desire, skill, or capacity.\u00a0 While whiling away, Jonathan tried once to play Godfather and dabble in local Bayelsa politics from Abuja.\u00a0 But he got his fingers badly burnt and quickly retreated into his shell.\u00a0 He never attempted that pastime again.<\/p>\n
It was an unhappy and a horrified Jonathan that watched Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s health plummet not even halfway into their first term.\u00a0 Yar\u2019Adua didn\u2019t help matters by smoking like a chimney all the time.\u00a0 Eventually, his \u201ccatarrh\u201d caught up with him in a Saudi Arabian hospital and Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s shell was smuggled back into Nigeria.\u00a0 So Jonathan inherited the big seat but not before our Northern brothers gave him a taste of hell or two.<\/p>\n
To give credit to the man, Jonathan only wanted to see out the remainder of Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s term and return home to the relative comfort of the Niger Delta but others won\u2019t let him.\u00a0 OBJ wouldn\u2019t let him throw in the towel even after being mentally pummelled by some junior Northern officers\/officials.\u00a0 The Americans would not let Jonathan give up either.\u00a0 In particular, the US was going through a dreadful recession and saw in Nigeria and in Jonathan an opportunity to keep in check the skyrocketing oil and fuel prices in their country.\u00a0 Jonathan was summoned to the White House.\u00a0 There, he again expressed his desire to return home but the Americans told him to man-up.\u00a0 They assured him that they are behind him like eczema.\u00a0 To help him out administratively, the Americans persuaded a reluctant Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to return to Nigeria and become Jonathan\u2019s de facto Prime Minister.<\/p>\n
Now, nearly everyone seems surprised that Jonathan has dropped the ball.\u00a0 We all seem shocked that even with a PhD, the fellow cannot pass muster.\u00a0 But are we right to demand from someone something they never had?\u00a0 How can we ask a person to provide us what he demonstrably lacks?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t the joke on us?<\/p>\n
And that has been the story of Nigeria, I\u2019m afraid.<\/p>\n
When you have OBJ, Mrs Patience, Leadership Newspaper, Tinubu, Alamieyeseigha,\u00a0 Boko Haram, Social Media and Obama breathing down your neck all of the time, what would you do?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t you drink too – even if the kai-kai is packaged in a fetching Nestle Nesquick plastic container?<\/p>\n