Dr Goodluck Jonathan
Azu
Ishiekwene has reacted to the new book written on the former president,
Goodluck Jonathan by Nigerian writer, Bolaji Abdullahi.
Of the three presidents who ruled Nigeria between 1999 and 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan appears, so far, to have been the subject of more controversial books than his two predecessors.
Of the three presidents who ruled Nigeria between 1999 and 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan appears, so far, to have been the subject of more controversial books than his two predecessors.
Five notable books about or significantly touching on former
President Obasanjo’s tenure are his memoir, My Watch; Olusegun Obasanjo:
The Presidential Legacy (Vols. I & II) 1999-2007, by Ladipo
Akinkugbe et al; Obasanjo, Nigeria And The World, by John Illiffe; and
Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s Accidental Public Servant.
Segun Adeniyi’s Power, Politics, and Death, is perhaps the most definitive book yet on late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s tenure.
Within two and a half years of Jonathan’s exit from power, however,
five books on his tenure have, so far, been published, three of the
most notable of which are – Against the Run of Play, by Segun Adeniyi;
Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years, by Reno
Omokri; and now, On a Platter of Gold, by Bolaji Abdullahi.
Adeniyi was an insider in a different era, but even though the
other two – Omokri and Abdullahi – served in the same government at
different levels, their views are strikingly, but unsurprisingly,
different.
Abdullahi’s 397-page 12-chapter book is an X-ray of Jonathan’s
five-year rule, the forces that made him a democratic president and how
Jonathan’s apparent inability to manage some of those forces eventually
brought down his government.
When the author said from the title of the book that Jonathan was
handed the Presidency on a platter of gold, I don’t think it was to
suggest that Jonathan was unworthy of the bequest.
The trope was in the context of other political heavyweights who
had given everything for the office but still failed to get it. And
Abdullahi named them in the introductory chapter of his book.
But there was more to Jonathan’s golden chance than the list of
those who tried but failed to become president. The economy, for
example, was on a better footing with the external reserve at $43
billion (oil price at $84 pbd); the amnesty programme started under
Yar’Adua was bearing fruit and calm was returning to the Niger Delta;
the country had substantially regained its goodwill and respect abroad.
And on top of all this, by 2011, the ruling PDP had swallowed its own
vomit by setting aside zoning to back Jonathan.
With party and country rooting for him and the tailwinds behind the
economy, the President could not have wished for more auspicious
circumstances.
From Abdullahi’s account, three things defined Jonathan’s
Presidency – discontent within the relatively weakened party he
inherited; the handling of Boko Haram, which pre-dated him; and the
attitude of Jonathan’s government to corruption.
President Jonathan has, of course, added two other reasons why he
lost: he has blamed the Northern elite, especially the leadership of the
party (which has in turn blamed Jonathan for recruiting outsiders who
used vile language during the campaign); and he has also blamed foreign
powers, specifically the US, France and the UK.
Until he stops threatening to write and actually writes his own
memoir, however, we’ll have to wait and see if the man in the mirror
will ultimately take responsibility.
Outsiders were probably familiar with the episodes summarised
above, but perhaps not with the intricate, riveting details of who did
what, when and how.
The author takes the reader by hand through the corridors of power
in Aso Rock into the Glass House, the chambers of council meetings, and
other such sanctum sanctorum where decisions are taken in the name of
the country but which often bear the disgusting imprint of narrow
personal and group interests.
Who could have known that two women in the presidential godhead –
Diezani Allison-Madueke and Stella Oduah – while presenting a façade of a
public interest, still managed to corner the President behind each
other’s backs, with long knives? And that if Diezani did not whisper
into Jonathan’s ear, he might have spared Oduah even after a
presidential panel had indicted her in the N250 million bulletproof car
saga?
In hindsight, though, it is quite interesting to see that Diezani,
of all people, was Jonathan’s closet lecturer on how to tackle
corruption!
Who could have thought that Dame Patience Jonathan, apart from her
famous gift for drama, could also summon the presence of mind in her
post-election moment of distress to remind the Attorney General of the
Federation of some fine points of history after accusing him of
betrayal?
Or that Minister Adewunmi Adesina, in spite of being President
Jonathan’s poster boy, would be among the first to jump ship, openly
courting the opposition, after Jonathan’s defeat? But it’s all there in
the book, in details not previously known and in words that will make
you cry and laugh. Or think.
The author appears to suggest that on his own, Jonathan was a very
nice man, a happy-go-lucky fellow who will not offend anyone. I think
most people would agree.
But that was, also, part of the problem. A leader who does not want
to offend anyone, who does not want to break eggs, cannot expect to
make omelet. A leader who will say one thing in the morning and another
in the afternoon just to please the last listener, may not be motivated
by vicious incompetence, but incompetence is incompetence. There’s no
need for an adjective.
Yet, we also see from the book that power can be a very, very lonely place.
When it came to the decisions that unmade Jonathan’s presidency –
whether it was about what to do with the fuel subsidy scam or how to
respond to Boko Haram, which covered one quarter of the book; how to
handle the Chibok girls or how to respond to the rebellion in his party
and the momentous exit of five governors; whether to accept defeat after
the election or charge his party to appeal – the man was utterly alone.
Would the trajectory have been different if Jonathan had a
different temperament? Had he grown so used to being number two that he
could not adjust to the nation’s top job? Or was Jonathan, well, just
Jonathan?
We now know a little more from an insider. Jonathan meant well. He
promised a free and fair election and he delivered it. He said his
election was not worth the blood of a single Nigerian and conceded
defeat even before the final results were in.
As to why he failed reelection, the single most telling revelation
from the author is that all said and done, the job was beyond him, a
point on which two of the three notable post-Jonathan era books agree.
In the last chapter of his book, Abdullahi, who was Sports
Minister, narrated how Jonathan executed nine ministers in one day of
the cabinet shuffle. He said he was penciled in but was later “saved for
another day.”
Well, that day came to pass but the story is missing in his book! That’s probably a story for his next book.
***
Ishiekwene is the Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview and member of the board of the Global Editors Network
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