Have We Thanked Goodluck Jonathan Yet?

Why do we think the way we think? In civilized environments, a politician seeking office seeks that office knowing that in seeking political office, he has a 50-50 chance of winning and losing. He goes there to make a name not money; he goes there to try to influence his environment and make the air better to breathe for his and his neighbors’ children.

By Bob Majiri Oghene Etemiku

That the congratulatory call by President Goodluck Jonathan to General Buhari after the March 28, Presidential election turned doomsday predictions for Nigeria on their heads is no longer trending.

As a matter of fact, I was one of those who had predicted that there was no way we were not going to experience some sort of violence, particularly with a political environment that was as charged up as it was.

I say this because nearly all of my APC friends, who were as vociferous and as cantankerous in their insistence that there must be change, never brooked any criticism of their own.

I had my fun teasing them that they were ‘worshippers of a tyrant’.

I thank heavens that I had the walls created by the distance of chatting on Facebook to save me from the avalanche of intolerance that would have snowballed into the predicted cataclysm.

That was why, even though we have moved on, I still enjoy this niggling and nagging thought still harassing me that if the PDP had won the elections, we would certainly not be sitting very comfortably in our couches the way we are sitting now.

I am certain that months after the elections, we would never have recovered from the violent repercussions, and maybe this was the projection of those who had predicted that Nigeria’s death year was 2015.

But I try to ignore these thoughts and replace them with something akin to ebullient optimism, well, let me call it a hope that Africa would take something away from the example that Nigeria has shown.

And almost at once, I am confronted by those who hold fast to their theories that a congratulatory call to an opponent is the supreme example of weakness and cluelessness.

Immediately I want to lose hope in Africa, and begin an examination of the underdevelopment of our human capital.

Why do we think the way we think? In civilized environments, a politician seeking office seeks that office knowing that in seeking political office, he has a 50-50 chance of winning and losing.

He goes there to make a name not money; he goes there to try to influence his environment and make the air better to breathe for his and his neighbour’s children.

He goes there knowing that win or lose is not life or death.

Therefore he prepares two speeches – one in his right pocket and the other on the left – which he reads depending on the outcome of the contest, and irrespective of the size of this ego.

But that is the direct opposite of the average African politician – post elections are often a disaster for the African economies and for our imagery.

Therefore because elections are precursor and harbingers of war and bloodshed in Africa, a lot of the monies that the economy needs as its life blood are piled up somewhere to buy arms and armaments, and to hire lawyers.

And while we are at it tearing ourselves apart, and consumed with the thirst for blood and power because we think that a congratulatory call is an example of cluelessness and weakness, Westerners and Easterners are in a quiet race to the moon seeking choice plots of land to buy.

Africans are still saddled with very intelligent leaders like a Robert Mugabe who would rather beat the Western world to it to the sun – and get there at night.

What is wrong with us? What happened to Africa? What happened to Egypt, to Ethiopia, to Libya and to Morocco?

I have been looking at the Mo Ibrahim Index of African governance 2014.

Against such indexes as safety and the Rule of Law, Participation and Human Rights, sustainable Economic opportunity and Human Development, we find out that in countries like Algeria, Angola, Benin Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Burundi, Senegal, Mozambique and Zimbabwe where the leaders have been in power for as long as ten years or more, citizens live below the African average of 51.5 percent over 100.

At that rating, we have a Nigeria occupying 37th position among the 52 countries of Africa whose people live in terrible conditions of unemployment, and struggling with an 8.5 inflation figures since 2013.

In spite of being a high-income earner from crude sales, it is nowhere near Ghana, a non-oil income earner – even though Ghana is nearly just the size of Lagos, it ranks 7th out of 52 countries in Africa and scores higher than the African average in terms of overall governance, human development and national security.

It occupies the same position with Nigeria on public management capacity but it has been able to manage its unemployment figures.

A lot of people think that our problems of underdevelopment come from the West.

My friends who have read Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa still hold on to that old story that we are still the way we are because all the bright brains that should have helped to develop us were shipped to the Americas and Europe.

I don’t believe that old wives tale.

If indeed our ancestors that were sold into slavery were indeed very bright, I have not seen any invention or theory ascribable to their forebears that has impacted on humanity.

Instead, all we are confronted with in Africa is corruption, disease, sit-tight presidents and kings who have already outlived their times.

I believe as always that our people are the problem.

Here we have one man who decided to eat the humble pie and do the very un-African thing and conceded defeat.

Even though the perception of the world to Nigeria has drastically changed towards us – and positively too – some of our people are still unshakeable in their belief that the call made by the outgoing president was a product of cluelessness and weakness.

It may be so but I am able to sit here in front of my desk and pen these lines because my state of mind is not under any form of duress – we were fortunate that the one lost the election and refused to concede.

If he had refused to concede, I can imagine that I wouldn’t be sitting here in front of my desk.

Like me, you’d probably be thinking of running away to your village to hide until the mayhem that would be unleashed by the other side has subsided.

We have not experienced any of that, and if we have any element of humility and humanity in us, we would be expressing a deep level of gratitude to President Goodluck Jonathan instead of gloating on a tomorrow that he has helped to secure.

Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku is communications manager with Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ. majirioghene@aneej.com