GONE FAR ON A WRONG ROAD? TURN BACK!

Dr Goodluck Jonathan

Dr Tunde Bakare

One wise man has famously said: “no matter how long you’ve gone on a wrong road, turn back.” As the clock ticks and the months thins down to easily the most destiny-altering elections this country has ever had, I get more and more convinced that Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan has no business in the presidential race for 2011.

In one of my earlier write-ups on the subject, I argued as follows: “I have said, and I know that most Nigerians agree, that one of Nigeria’s most critical challenges is the conduct free, fair and credible elections. This, we situate in the total lack of neutrality of those who have the constitutional duty of supervising this all-important pillar of democracy. Not even the military had succeeded in exorcising the lie of the demon that’s been sold to us over time – that every government must be interested in its successor, euphemism for imposition of its successors. It is a position rooted in the tendency of office holder to do things that they would need a friendly successor to cover up. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that to solve this critical problem , Nigeria needs an interim leader, disinterested in succeeding himself , who not do anything that he would need covered up after his tenure; and who is courageous enough to resist pressures from family, friends, ethnic group, political party and sundry other interest groups to lend his official weight to their cause.

“Now, let’s face it; such a person would be hard to find. But that is precisely the kind of person that Dr Jonathan has to be in the very short time it has pleased God to put him in office. I have no doubt in my mind that unless he yields to God, to be that man, he’s likely to be outside the will of God….

“Today, Jonathan is President of the Federal Republic by virtue of an arrangement that zones the top post to the north of Nigeria for two terms totalling eight years. The North should therefore have another term. I do not subscribe to the arrangement and so, were I in government, it won’t be binding on me. And indeed, if I have my way, it should never have been put in place at all. But it is in place in spite of ex-President Obasanjo’s latter day less-than-honest assertion to the contrary. And Jonathan subscribed to it. He came to office by it, and he is not on record, to my knowledge, as having ever disagreed with the arrangement. So, he is bound by it. He is a Christian and the Bible says that true Christians swear to their own hurt and do not renege! (See Psalm 15:4).”

That unpopular view, unpopular because many are convinced that the Northern Nigeria cannot claim any moral high ground in these matters, having “ruled and ruined” the nation for about 40 of the 50 years since flag independence, was on Wednesday reinforced by the Federal High Court in Abuja.

In a ruling reminiscent of Pontius Pilate, Justice Lawal Gumi was unambiguous that zoning and rotation are still firmly in place in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; though he went on to wash his hands off its application. He said:  “If a party’s constitution makes a provision as to how its affairs should be run, it must be run in that manner and the court is duty bound to ensure that the party complies with its constitution’s requirement’’. In refusing to “ensure that the party complies with its constitution’s requirements” in order not be seen to be “delving into the internal affairs of the party”; there can, however, be no doubt that the jurist does hope that honour can find some play among, even among politicians. It is the view of this column that anyone who flies the Christian flag must hold this as a sacred duty.

In another part of the article, I wrote: “Flowing from this, and most important of all, is this truth: there are simply no righteous ways by which Dr Jonathan can pick up his party’s ticket to run in 2011! To run, he has to play “realpolitik”, which is politics devoid of moral and ethical considerations; politics without conscience. He has to pull down the party structure, hound his opponents, tear the rule books and generally be ruthless. Recent events are already pointing in this direction… The sudden unearthing of a 2002 crime against ruling party chairman Vincent Ogbulafor reads uncannily like a page off OBJ’s book. All of these should be anathema to a man whose trajectory to the top has simply been nothing, if not divinely orchestrated.”

Now, if this statement by Sahara Reporters alongside an audio post on its website is to be believed, “realpolitik” is no doubt alive and well with the use of money coming gradually into play:

“Last Friday, Saharareporters broke the story of an attempt by President Goodluck Jonathan to bribe a visiting delegation of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) with $50,000. That story has been controversial since then, following a whimpering denial of the attempt by Tony Uranta, a muscle in Mr. Jonathan's inner circle, and a story in an online journal which gave the impression the convener of the SNG, Pastor Tunde Bakare, did not consider the money to have been a bribe…

“Bakare, known as much for his religious work as for his political activism, had confirmed on Sunday evening that the Minister of the Niger Delta, Godsday Orubebe offered the SNG delegation the sum of $50,000 on behalf of President Jonathan.   The funds were returned through Uranta shortly after it was presented to the SNG delegation.

“Referring to Orubebe, Bakare (said) “…I wish him well because he neither said he didn’t give us money or we didn’t return money, he just said he did not offer bribe; and he began to give me definition of bribe, unfortunately he did not go to law school but he is trying to lecture a lawyer.”

“Jonathan’s attempt to bribe the SNG is a reminder of last October’s allegation by Global Information System, a private think tank of retired U.S. military strategists, of Jonathan’s ongoing “corruption of the Nigerian political process.”  The think tank reported that Jonathan was buying up delegates to the forthcoming PDP primaries for $13,000 (two million Naira) per vote...” 

Will Dr Jonathan have the most important of his credentials, honour, intact when all of this is over?