PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: MY FINAL WORDS

One of the golden adages that I cherished so much in life is "Every onlooker is either a traitor or a coward," to which I may add that to remain silent in the face of serious national political discourse with the prospect of instability and crisis is not golden. Since I've made my intention known about whom I support which is GOODLUCK EBELE JONATHAN, then I've decided to write this article to give summary that will end my campaign as the election holds in few days. As a Nigerian living in diaspora, I must confess that I refused to be swayed by the propaganda against GEJ having seen and confirm some of the accomplishments of the president having known that all the hue and cry about his inability to destroy Boko Haram or stem the tide of corruption were two intractable issues that were there before he became president; then I concluded that the man has actually been a transformative leader.

    Being aware of the corruption busting, lock them up credentials of the ex General which were then criticized as regional assault, I have also become deeply disappointed by a number of things, namely, the presence of the likes of Asiwaju Tinubu, Atiku and host of other discredited and aggrieved former PDP stalwarts around him, the issue of his West African School certificate, which the army denied they had in their possession, his continued refusal to participate in a presidential debate, the lack of any detailed articulation of his plans for the country, the lies surrounding his state of health, the inciting statements he has made, predicting violence and bloodshed should he lose etc. the list goes on and on.

   Again as I examined his performance in office when he was military ruler for 18 months I could not point to any defining achievement except that he locked up without due process over a 100 Nigerian politicians, a majority of whom were from the south east and south west, while Shagari was left to luxuriate in the comfort of a villa in Ikoyi. A selective prosecutorial discretion that was not lost on the late Fela when in bemoaning the treatment of Ekwueme wrote the following lyric in one of his songs, 'driver commit accident Buhari lock conductor". As much as I do not want to question his motives, I believe he should have been more even handed in his corruption crusade.

   As he campaigns for the presidency once again with his corruption busting bonafides as his trump card , one begins to wonder if once again he will be selective in not prosecuting all the crooks around him, who are now financing his campaign. Which brings us to the issue of his methods and if they actually worked. As we can see every successive administration after Buhari have struggled with the issue of corruption and failed , including Obasanjo who despite all the public fanfare and publicity driven arrests and prosecutions left office himself richer than when he came in from prison as a bankrupt Otta farmer. As GEJ said in a recent interview , our practice of shooting armed robbers by firing squad has not in any way stopped people from committing armed robbery, hence a better and more effective method will be to deny people of the opportunities to steal, just as he did by eliminating the fertilizer middlemen, handing over NPA verifications to a third party, the utilization of a single treasury account which saved the federal Government over 500 billion naira and the reorganization of our payroll system, thereby removing over 46,000 ghost workers, with a promise to tackle corruption in the oil sector after his re-election.

   As one of the main issues of concern in this election other than Boko Haram, corruption in Nigeria is an endemic problem. Truth be told, the average Nigerian has a very creative mind when it comes to thinking of ways to make money. Even here in diaspora where most Nigerians are hardworking and law abiding, those who commit crimes are usually so creative that the law enforcement officials are amazed at the sophistry of their methods. I guess most Nigerians subscribe to Oscar Wilde's mantra that, "anyone who lives within his means suffers from a lack of imagination". Maybe that explains why everyone seems to be on the take , from the customs officer at the airport or border crossing, to the Immigration officer at the passport office, to the policeman at a road checkpoint, the clerk at the ministry who demands a bribe before your file can be located and even the bathroom attendant at the airport whose palm need to be greased before she hands you some tissue paper. The list goes on and on. The question is , how many of these people will Buhari lock up?. Our methods of fighting corruption has to change, which is why I think GEJ's method deserves a try.

    Contrary to all the talk of this presidential election being about corruption and the eradication of Boko Haram, in my opinion it is about power acquisition and the protection of ill gotten wealth by some powerful Politicians. Having read a lot of the Nigerian newspaper reports, it has become apparent to me that with all its fertility of conjecture , not one media outlet has conceived the real reason behind the mass movement of some politicians from the PDP to APC. Truth be told, most of them as the economic minister Ngozi Okonji Iweala rightly pointed out are people who being aware that GEJ will vacate their oil block licenses are scrambling to the APC hoping to protect their source of wealth. Others like Tinubu are hoping to benefit from the next oil block sweep stakes. Sometimes when people talk about corruption in the oil sector they fail to mention that most of those oil block licenses were awarded by Abacha , Babaginda and Obasanjo. Again if you look at the top 20 most lucrative oil blocks , you will discover that they were awarded to people from the north, including retired army generals, most of whom recently declared their support for Buhari.

    Despite all I've said about Buhari, I still commend him for being one the few ex heads of state who left office without enriching himself, unless he was more careful in hiding his loot. But that alone does not qualify him to be president, hence he has some personal flaws in temperament, vindictiveness and religious fanaticism. It is pertinent to point out that Nasir El Rufai who now follows Buhari around like an idol worshipper once said this about his new boss, "Buhari remains perpetually unelectable as a result of his insensitivity to Nigeria's diversity".

    His many vulnerabilities are very obvious. His profound and elevated sense of ambition, which is full with bitterness, malice and prediction of bloodshed should he lose are not admirable qualities Contrary to the inevitability narrative of many APC stalwarts, my support for Jonathan is not based only on hindsight but the facts on the ground. Once again I do not believe this supposed new political alliance between the south west and the north will yield the dividends envisaged.. It has never worked from the time it was first tried in the post Independence elections ,again by Obasanjo and now with Tinubu. We tend to forget that the Yoruba's are not good at playing second fiddle to any other group.

     With the extension of the voting date, people are beginning to learn and appreciate the accomplishments of Jonathan which are impressive in the sense that he has tackled some long standing issues which previous administrations had shield away from. They include just to name a few, the revitalization of our railway system, which I am told has offended a lot of people in the haulage business. He has built or established 14 new federal universities, began construction of a new Niger bridge, modernized 22 others, constructed of a few power generating plants , kept the inflation rate at single digits and the budget deficit at one percent, one of the lowest in the world,making Nigeria the largest economy in Africa etc.

    In terms of personal qualities, Jonathan is said to be an embodiment of good temper and highly affable quality. Those who have met him have emerged from his presence favorably impressed with his general disposition. Does that make him a very forceful leader ? No, but he is the kind of leader as the Americans will say , "you will want to sit down and have a beer with". In a continent that is full of dictators we, in Nigeria are lucky to have a leader who respects freedom of speech and of the press. We are lucky to be blessed with a leader any citizen can verbally abuse and still be able to go home and sleep peacefully without being arrested.

    I honestly believe the result of the March 28 elections involves consequences, vast and momentous that we the electorate must bestow on it mature reflection before making our choices. This is going to be an election fraught with consequences, immediate and remote, such as human foresight could not penetrate. Like Wole Soyinka recently opined, it may be a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. Its just that with the devil you can dine with it, using the proverbial long spoon, whereas even the best swimmer can drown in the deep blue sea. If I have to choose I guess I will choose the devil which to me will be Jonathan, hence the saying "the Devil I Know".