Remember that mammal that came from eggs, grew to fill a chunk of space and too big to continue on earth, then went extinct, nnhu! They call it DINASAUR. It was huge but went extinct. Some plans are like that.
‘We will make this country ungovernable.’ Such declarations usually come from an illusion of size and might. A fire-setter gets the heat first. Thinking about size in geographical terms alone is imperfect. Other variations of size and might take the wise to the rostrum. That’s where Jonathan should pivot.
The drums of 2015 have begun beating. Buhari’s posters are out. You read inscriptions like: Here comes the only saviour for Nigeria, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (APC consensus candidate for 2015 presidential election); Support Buhari, the only man for the job.
Great stuff. There’s something good about Buhari. He’s dogged. He believes in his convictions and, maybe, knows where he’s going. To this extent, he’s a leader of repute. I say maybe because his professions contradict his actions. He professes democracy and if elected, he’ll be the democratic president of Africa’s largest democracy. But Buhari overthrew democracy in 1983. Shagari the victim is one man Nigeria was denied the opportunity to sip his goodness to maximum. Since driven out of office, he has disturbed nobody or taken advantage of anything. Yet, he was accused of corruption only for corruption to grow a version with HORNS. Nigeria became worse. Buhari has been pointed at as one of those who said Nigeria would become ungovernable if Jonathan won. Now we have Boko-fire. So where do you place him? In uniform, he gunned out democracy; out of uniform, he quickened guns by utterance; so in or out of uniform, something guns will come around. Do we need that? DINASAUR.
Asari-Dokubo said he’d match the north bullet-for-bullet. The good thing is somebody must flap for somebody. If Asari doesn’t pulp eyes for his kinsman, who would? Next, he changes camp and still next, he’s back. Bullet-for-bullet, do we need that? DINASAUR.
Anenih said it’s automatic ticket for the president and all PDP-governors. Note two issues: what they have done and what the political landscape is like. There are things eye-balling the president: the Second Niger Bridge, the East-West Road, the strategic roads in the west and the north. These are the automatics. Such Anenih-fixes thrived when the opposition was wobbly. Now, such announcements give them ready meat, make half-democrats bore one with tutorials on democracy. If a PDP-governor is low on scale but receives automatic ticket, voters vote for even a goat on the other side if only to show ‘NO’. Besides, why early with such announcement? DINASAUR.
But there’s something Jonathan can do. The signals are up, but I don’t know if he and his advisers took note. Seasoned political strategists know and they have finished their work. It makes no sense to beg anybody or group if you know what to do. The more he runs to the north to beg, the more he’s spurned and snubbed, the harder the conditions he’s given to meet, the more he neglects his faithful side and in the end he offends everybody and returns an orphan. What’s the cause? Wrong perspective. Right perspective can only come from clear thinking and a grasp of the on-thing. You don’t do that within a party-fold rocked by power-play, eye-service and ruthless acquisition trappings.
It’s done with the conviction that it’s the right thing to do. Wealth from south-south has kept Nigeria standing with no significant thing to pad the people. Now that theirs is on the saddle, if that’s what Nigeria can do for them, let her do it and do it to completeness. There are no wonders the predecessors did to shove this one to the corner? These are the injustices that incubate and birth conflicts and the antidote is justice. It’s his people that should hold him if they feel he failed them when given the chance. But Nigeria’s record should be, ‘We‘ve been fair to all.’ There’s also no reason why the south-east should not produce the president thereafter for mother Nigeria to say, ‘I’ve been fair to all my children.’ This is the tonic for true unity: FAIRNESS.
We’re not America, we’re not England, we are Nigeria with deep-seating sensitivities and not recognising them will be our undoing. We’re in the generation in which ‘where do you come from’ weighs more than ‘what did you do’. To survive, the ‘come-from’ must go round and complete the circuit of fairness, then ‘what-did-you-do’ comes to actualise it. It’s not a cushion for mediocrity or non-performance but a sacrifice for survival.
Knowing who you are and what stage of development you are is wisdom. To elope is to crash.
For the good of fairness, good-thinking people will support him with good thoughts.
Onyegbule, PhD, is the Consultant-in-Chief of Conflict Out- Peace In Consult.)
Send reactions to:
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
