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Heartbreaking leadership!

And when one decides to try his hands on writing about personalities, well, Nigerians will say you have collected money from someone.  I thank God…

And when one decides to try his hands on writing about personalities, well, Nigerians will say you have collected money from someone.  I thank God that I occupy a unique position today.  I am a mere columnist.  I ask myself often whether I really need to do this, but I am more than convinced that my reason for being is more than the acquisition of material resources.  I don’t know where God is taking me on this columnist business but I am ready to tag along.

So my article titled ‘The Wages of Dishonesty,’ was very strongly-worded. Some of those who texted me and whom I replied or spoke with, were convinced as to my logic, even if half-way.  Others couldn’t be consoled.  But those who were for me, gave me 110%.  They saw the points I tried to make and didn’t need convincing.

But I have realised that whatever the case is, there are a few points that I must resoundingly make to Mr President.  Let’s strip everything of the garb of politics.  And I no longer care if he perpetuates himself there till kingdom come.  The President’s supporters are aggressive and vehement.  They have succeeded in turning the table effectively, making the victims become the assailants, and they who are the assailants on the very soul of Nigeria, have now become effectively, SAINTS.  I don’t care about zoning, even though I think the PDP, in one of its rare lucid intervals, when for a few minutes the party stops being rabid plunderers, put that nationalistic policy in place.  It is not a big deal.  India has presently ‘zoned’ ALL parliamentary seats in Kerala (South-West India), to women.  Only women can even contest.  What do the rabid female supporters of Goodluck have to say about that?

But I care more, that people should keep their words.  For those who fail to keep their words, will surely steal and kill.  Lack of integrity is an escalating vice, it breeds more and more evil.  It is like lying.  You need to invent millions of lies to cover up your initial lie.  That is the point where Nigeria under Jonathan has found itself.

Two points readily come to mind.  Mr President should learn what is called POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.  And also, he should become a student of history.  Really he has a Phd, but that does not translate into a sense of history.  Maybe because his Phd is in zoology, he is probably more used to dealing with wild animals.

Political correctness is a fairly new phenomenon.  But the world has been living in that realm for quite a while now.  We now live in a world where you cannot, even as mere citizens, express your deepest prejudices in the open.  There are what Americans call ‘kitchen table discussions’.  These are the kind of discussions you can have with your wife or close friends but never outside.  That is why I was appalled when the president referred to ‘commercial kidnapping’ in the South East.  Coming from a president, it is the equivalent of labelling the whole South East of Nigeria as a den of thieves, or people who will do anything for money.  It is okay for Goodluck to discuss that with Patience, but NEVER to voice such opinion out in the public.  One Igbo guy texted me that they (the Igbos) don’t care if he calls them thieves, but they do not want to be ruled by Muslims.  I want that guy to remember that there is life after Jonathan.  No need to denigrate oneself for primordial political sentiments.  But this tribal and religious divide is the very forte of the Jonathan presidency.  It’s unfortunate!

The other lesson is closely related, and stems from his REPEATED defence of MEND.  By now, no one needs convincing again that Jonathan BELIEVES in MEND.  In fact he may as well be a card-carrying chieftain of those revolutionaries.  Nothing is wrong with that. It’s just that one doesn’t express one’s support for such groups openly, especially when you are a president.  Barack Obama could believe in the roles played by the Black Panthers in achieving some levels of freedom for black people in the USA.  He could even have been a member of the CRIPS or the BLOOD, street gangs in the alleys of Chicago, growing up.  But he can NEVER, EVER express support for even the past activities of any of these groups.  His ass will be grass if he does!  And he will have to resign!

In the same vein, President Zapatero of Spain, could never express any sentiments whatsoever for ETA.  President Manuel Santos of Columbia could never support the freedom fighters who have terrorised his country for decades.  IT IS JUST NOT DONE!  And that is where Jonathan Goodluck breaks my heart.  Nigeria being a fairly complicated society needs him, or wheoever becomes president going forward, to be a lot more refined.  Many people have compared his style to that mentor, Obj, who in my view is stark, raving insane and is leading this country to destruction just to prove a personal point.  Other leaders have not been as brash as Jonathan and Obasanjo.  Things got to a head recently when Jonathan dismissed the idea of a Sovereign National Conference, saying it was ‘unnecessary and irrelevant’.

Even Afrenifere leader, Yinka Odumakin, in an online blog, said, ‘may the soul of Sani Abacha rest in perfect peace’. Chief Bisi Akande also stated that ‘the country cannot make progress under Goodluck Jonathan’.  Abacha even allowed people to speak, and it was at one of those conferences under him that the South-South got the current 13% derivation it enjoys.  But Jonathan, shooting from the hip as usual, said such discussions were ‘96 YEARS LATE’!  That statement effectively turned a vast section of South Westerners against him.  Could he not have said he will allow people to discuss?  Or that it is always a good thing to keep talking?  Why did he allow his prejudices to overcome him once again?  Where is the finesse?  The political correctness?

Regarding sense of history, the president should know that those who start revolutions are usually not the ones who finish them. The MEND people he is ready to lay down his integrity for, may have started MEND, but long after they are gone, such insurgencies usually continue.  Mr President, the IRA still detonated car bombs in Northern Ireland as recently as August 2010, just a few weeks ago.  Sorry it was ‘The Real IRA’.  But there is also ‘Continuity IRA’, ‘Provisional IRA’, ‘Anti-Treaty IRA’, ‘Official IRA’, and many more.  Why would the case of MEND be different in its metamorphosis?  I know the president may not have enough time to read these days, but he must go back and explore.  The challenges ahead, for Nigeria, is enormous.  Sound-bites won’t do.

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