May 22, 2015 : Ayo Olukotun
“Previous Nigerian presidents were too cynical to expose themselves to the risk of a fair election”
– Max Siollon, April 2015.
A week from now, President Goodluck
Jonathan who for six years ruled Nigeria, first as acting president and
subsequently as elected president will hand over the baton of power to
the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari. As has been widely noted, the
watershed event will be one of the few occasions on a continent ravaged
by power dementia, and certainly the first time in Nigeria that an
opposition party will defeat an incumbent president.
Coup d’etats and pre-dawn announcements
were the familiar ways in which power changed hands for much of Nigerian
history. When democratic rule, brought about by a rump of the military
class returned in 1999, sham elections in which the incumbent invariably
emerged overwhelmingly victorious became the order of the day. One
influential strand in Jonathan’s legacy is the inspiring one of
elections that by and large reflected actual voting trends. Author and
historian, Max Siollon, whose Guardian (London) essay is quoted
above constructs Jonathan as a victim of his own electoral reforms as
previous presidents would have found a way of returning a verdict which
permitted them to stay in power. That is only one side, the cheerful
side of Jonathan’s rule. I digress, before considering other facets of
Jonathan’s tenure, however, to offer a short take.
A remarkable celebration of nature and
our cultural heritage took place last week at the Obafemi Awolowo
University. Hosted by the university’s Natural History Museum under its
energetic director, Dr. Adisa Ogunfolakan, the ceremonies included a
distinguished anniversary lecture, named after Chief Agboola Odeyemi, a
renowned culture promoter and a former president of the Lagos Chamber of
Commerce; presentation of awards to culture advocates, Dr. Wasiu
Odufisan and Mr. Sammy Olagbaju as well as impressive cultural
performances. The lecture itself was delivered by Toyin Falola, the
Jacob and Frances Sanger Mosiker Chair in the Humanities of the
University of Texas. Falola does not do short takes and his
agenda-setting intervention entitled, “Nature and Cultural Heritage for
Sustainable Development”, ran into 64 pages, spanning the terrains of
social anthropology, orature, Yoruba religion and development studies.
What place do natural history museums
viewed by many as elite preoccupations have in a recessive economy like
ours struggling for a lease of life? Falola answers the question lucidly
by demonstrating how culture can generate and sustain a number of
developmental spin-offs ranging from revitalisation of the tourist
industry as has occurred in India and Brazil, to upsurge of a service
economy linked to the location of museums, job creation centred on craft
and skills oriented industries such as soap making. Others include,
culture-based commercial activities built around occupational medicine,
music, drumming, food, dance, decorations as well as entertainment and
the hotel industry. Seeing through Falola’s eyes, the development of our
natural history museums is lifted from a merely exotic diversion to an
economic and social activity, responding to global markets, driving
innovation and technological inventiveness as well as informing the
search for innovative development paradigms which part company with the
tyranny of imported models. Hence, the development of culture and an
emergent culture of development are one and the same thing as the ascent
to modernity is anchored on firm indigenous roots.
It was altogether appropriate that the
University at Ife with its lavish flora and fauna, picturesque suburbia,
colony of bats and other forms of wildlife should have hosted such an
influential conference with its combination of culture and learning.
Hopefully, the important policy ideas canvassed will find their way to
the corridors of power and policymaking.
Let me get back now to Jonathan by
stepping back in time to recall that his electoral reform demonstrated
by the gentlemanliness and civility of his concession of defeat had been
anticipated by opposition victories in earlier elections in Ondo, Edo,
Osun, Anambra as well as legal victories enjoyed by the opposition in
Osun and Ekiti states. In this respect, and his weaknesses
notwithstanding, it can be said that the President possesses the
temperament, the give-and-take and openness to debate of a true
democrat. It remains to be seen whether and to what extent the incoming
administration will carry forward or backslide on the democratic
template featuring largely credible elections which has earned Nigeria
acclaim on the global scene. As mentioned before however, this
represents the beautiful side of Jonathan.
Even allowing for the fact that he
suffered persecution as a President from a minority ethnic group
governing with his hands tied to his back because of a raging
insurgency, Jonathan’s own indecision, vaccinations and complicities are
seminal. For example, as atrocity killings piled upon atrocity
bombings, he maintained a strange equanimity bordering on indifference
captured in the tiresome refrain, “Government is in control”. Writing in
the New York Times, Nigerian novelist, Ukamaka Olisakwe,
captured this dimension of Jonathan: “And in the face of such danger,
the misty-eyed man I voted for looked cold and ineffectual. He began
speaking not with us but at us and as if he was in a hurry to leave. His
eyes were vacant on television; his touching humility seemed mere
timidity. When Boko Haram kidnapped dozens of high school girls a year
ago, I wished I could reach into my television; shake him and ask where
he was hiding the president I voted for.”
True, Jonathan would later rise up to
the occasion and act the part of a Commander-in-Chief able to police the
entire realm, but that happened after the country had been exposed to
international embarrassment and the military reduced by the lack of
weaponry to an incompetent militia humbled by repeated defeats. At those
points of national disgrace, even if some of them were orchestrated,
Jonathan had lost the main act.
There was also the issue of corruption
about which Jonathan maintained an attitude ranging from mild toleration
through indifference, to calculated fuzziness. On one occasion, he
confusingly stated that Nigeria’s problem is not corruption and one of
his aides, in what will later become the butt of popular derision
lectured the nation on the differences between stealing and corruption.
To be sure, corruption did not begin under Jonathan. As a political
apprentice under his predecessors, he would have witnessed the
hypocritical and cosmetic approach adopted by them to “fighting
corruption”. Even at that, Jonathan maintained strange reticence while
corruption galloped into the nation’s major extractive industry. In
retrospect, the perception that he condones corruption or does not see
it as a problem is one of the major failings of his government and of
course a principal reason why he lost the election and his Presidency to
boot.
Let me touch on the issue of
fractiousness and fist-fights if only to warn off Buhari and the All
Progressives Congress from repeating Jonathan’s costly mistake of
big-time feuding to the point of critically weakening the party. As
Siollon wittily remarked, “Getting on the wrong side of Obasanjo is the
political equivalent of crossing a mafia don. You will pay.”
Jonathan paid and heavily too but
history will be kind to him by placing his weaknesses and tragic
mistakes side by side his redemptive virtues.
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