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GOODLUCK JONATHAN: I AM LOYAL SIR!
Edgar
Daniel
edgarbiu@yahoo.com
Goodluck Jonathan is man of humble
demeanour; I must confess that it is hard for one not to be infected with it
when around him, but I had like to believe that beneath this comportment is a
man of integrity and astute disposition, not one of insensibility and docility,
a man that has been chiselled by his academic laurels and sensitised by the
depraving poverty among his people that provide the bread basket of Nigeria but
have nothing to show for it. A man that is being positioned by fate to ease the
long-suffering Ijaw and Niger Delta people. I do not know of political
establishments where the extolling virtues for a call to higher service have to
be submissiveness and loyalty only, except in Nigeria. It makes me feel
uncomfortable, that something sinister is in the offing. Many believe the VP
elect is living up to his last name, Goodluck! And nothing
more.
However, the cruel counter-balancing act
that fate has ushered to Jonathan Goodluck -- he is now the metaphor for
questionable submissiveness and loyalty. A political albatross that he has every
reason to shake off his shoulders -- he has a great balancing act to do, be
loyal to those who will squeeze the Ijaw further to make their milk and honey,
those whose killing machinery would not restrain to disgorge any attempt from
the Delta that threatens their “Perfect Federation” as it stands and to his
constituency of the Ijaw and larger Niger Delta that yearns for a sincere,
constructive and credible solution to the fundamental questions and issues that
threatens that very “Perfect Federation”. He must prove with concrete actions
and results, that the perception at certain quarters that he is a pawn being
used in the intricate political chess of the Ijaw and Niger Delta question is
not only wrong but also immoral.
There is no doubt that Jonathan needs the
best of minds Ijaw can offer him, he should borrow from Diete Spiff and Tam
David West who went recruiting both at home and abroad technocrats and
intellects with a strategic and critical analysis gift who can do the job with
him, he should look beyond clannishness and provincialism. He needs more
resourcefulness than submissiveness and loyalty in the nitty-gritty of Nigerian
politics to survive and deliver to Ijaw and Nigerians. There is also the need to
re-invent or package him, he is not helping by his often declaration of loyalty,
he comes across badly as a wimp in the public opinion of Ijaw and Nigerians. By
his endless reaffirmation of his loyalty, he his defining the limits of his
functions and responsibility even before he has been boxed to that corner, as if
his call to serve has been made possible only by that most slavish of traits.
Loyalty is a political ideology of personal survival, an expediency devoid of
ideological construct.
This Vice President Elect is already
operating from a position of weakness, read the last two public addresses from
him to the Ijaw Elders that paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja and the reported
news in the Vanguard Newspapers. Jonathan does not sound like a man on a mission
to effect changes in the Niger Delta or for the generality of Nigerians; he is
already compounding the situation. To address Ijaw leaders paying him a visit
after his and the President elect "victory" in such a manner lacking of
integrity and conviction is an ominous sign of the shape of things to come. His
latest salvo to Newsmen at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, criminalizing the
struggle for resource control and the militants that have earned the Ijaw and
the Niger Delta region the somewhat political relevance that has made his
selection as the VP possible is a self-destructive tendency, he is building a
ring around himself and this political ring is bound to fail. If the Ijaw and
Nigerians had balloted him into that position in a true democratic election, he
would not make such statements that can be translated as insensible and
offensive. It is like telling the Ijaw and the rest of the Niger Delta not to
expect much. It is like Jonathan as entered an article of faith to be loyal and
only to be loyal even with the possibility of an indeterminate solution to the
Niger Delta quagmire or worse, with it deteriorating further.
The present situation in the Niger
Delta and Nigeria is highly sensitive, it needs a constructive approach, the
issues of the Ijaws and rest of the Niger Deltans should be addressed with some
political tact, its meaning cannot be reduced by self-serving politicians or
sacrificed on the alter of adventurism .
We have been there before, rushing to
romanticize politicians without the dialectic conclusions, politicians that
often turn out to be aloof to our problems and mismanage our polity and
resources -- before we know it we would have ended up installing a bozo with
insatiable appetite, with our collective destiny begging for mercy or agitating
for correctness.
At times, I have admired the guts of
Chief. E. K Clark in his one man advocacy for the rights of the Ijaw and Niger
Deltans, sometimes his actions torments his admirers, not just compromising him
but I believe go a long way in casting aspersions on him. Remember the Uduaghan
saga? It is reported that Clark having received the PDP Governorship candidate
then in his Kiagbodo country home gave his blessings and all sorts of encomium,
only to withdraw his support as the strategic implication on the Ijaw of
Uduaghan emerging Governor of Delta State dawned on him.
The problem with Ijaw Elders and their
politics of jamboree as Chief E.K Clark himself once alluded to -- is the
inability to think critically and strategically for the benefits of all, paying
courtesy visits to leaders in Abuja and other State Houses without a thought
through process is a fruitless trip that only balms the ego of politicians --
intra tribal solidarity devoid of purpose or regard for the popular mandate is
treacherous, it is even more dangerous than the repressiveness of the invading
powers, because it suffocates the overwhelming will of change, it can only
highlights the weakness, confusion and lack of direction to stay the course of
action, meaningful gains cannot be made.
Our utterances and semantics when it comes
to Ijaw issues cannot be reduced to a state of frenzy by highly regarded Ijaw
Elders as in this case, or shaped by myopic and cabal perceptions and our
concepts should not be limited by primitive mechanisms of want, each man for
himself and all that he can acquire -- the noble and moral
struggle of survival by the Ijaw cannot be substituted by the appointment of GEJ
as VP, we want structural changes that will put us on the march to greatness,
not a political window dressing. When we need to jubilate, we must exercise
caution in the place of temerity, and our response should be well measured, for
fear of being misconstrued as an Oration Laudation for politicians that might
turn out to woefully disappoint us and we end up looking like grand
appeasers.
On the other hand, in difference to
the wide repulsion concerning the last primaries and elections, we are being
told that the Yar Adua/Jonathan Goodluck ticket can be compared to a marriage
made in heaven by God, what I call a political gaffe by Chief. E.K Clark. As the
energetic Chief E.K Clark would like the rest of us to believe, perhaps Chief
Clark could go a bit further in telling us who the weaker sex in this his
“blessed marriage of God” is? Because in every marriage there is weak sex, I
hope Goodluck Jonathan would not be the weaker and if so he should use the power
of beauty to resist the rapacious lustfulness of the monster. It is evident that
he is the beauty by all ramifications, his people have the oil and he sure looks
meek and serene by nature. In this marriage of “Beauty and the Beast”, would
Beauty charm her Monster of a husband to her whims and caprices? This “beauty”
has the strategic power of oil and fourteen million Ijaws behind him.
When the dusts of the elections
settles down and when eventually Yar Adua and Goodluck Jonathan are sworn in, as
the full political machinery of the Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba/Igbo swings into
motion, I hope we don't end up seeing a lame duck VP whose watch word would be
loyalty! Loyalty! And Loyalty!
I wish the Ijaw Nation and the
Niger Delta luck; VP Goodluck Jonathan and President “elect” Yar Adua, a very
loyal working atmosphere and success in the Herculean task ahead.
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