JONATHAN'S SIN
by Fashina George
All indications regarding the outcome of the coming presidential elections in Nigeria on Saturday, 28th March 2015, point to the fact that Nigeria is facing the first time that an incumbent president might be loosing an election in the country. This is a good thing in itself because it shows that Nigeria's democracy is growing and democratic ethos is beginning to take firm root on our shores. By the time the results of the elections are read out, many might want to ask why Goodluck Jonathan lost the election. They may want to conjecture what was the leading factor that led to his defeat by Gen Muhammadu Buhari at the 2015 presidential elections. Some will suggest his weak stance on corruption; others will explain that his wife's unbridled and uncouth utterances was his waterloo; and yet others will say that the Nigerian people truly bought into the "CHANGE" mantra of the All Progressive Congress (APC). I wish to state in this article that the leading factor in Jonathan's defeat at this year's polls was his inability to curb the violence raging in the northern part of Nigeria. Jonathan's singular sin is insecurity.
President Goodluck Jonathan inherited a precarious security situation when he came to power in May 29th, 2011. Boko Haram (BH) had been attacking parts of northern Nigeria and it was the job of the newly installed chief security officer of the country to curb the violence. It didn't stop. Rather, under Jonathan, the violence perpetrated by BH only worsened - these evil people even had the effrontery of encroaching on Abuja, the nation's seat of power with bombs at the United Nation building, the Police Headquarters and the bombing of various motor parks at Yanyan. Rather than action, all that the Nigerian people got from their president was condemnation, regrets and promises to deal with the perpetrators. Promises that never found fulfillment. Then came the ignominious kidnap of more than 200 secondary school girls at their dormitory in a government secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, as they sat to write their final examination. At first, the government of Goodluck Jonathan denied that the girls were kidnapped but after weeks of inactions and more denials, they finally accepted. Those who tell the story of how these girls were kidnapped say the terrorists that took them seem to have had all the time in the world to carry out their dastardly act. They conveyed the girls in trucks into the Sambisa forest, a journey that took hours to complete. It is believed that if the Nigerian government had not been in denial, and had taken active measures to recover those girls, they would never have made it into the dungeon of the terrorist. Today, it is close to a year since the Chibok girls have been taken. The Chibok girls' kidnap has since become a worldwide phenomenon, with prominent world figures calling for Jonathan to "Bring Back our Girls". The Nigerian public was yet to recover from the shock of the Chibok girls kidnap when we began to learn of BH taking over town after town in Borno State, turning them into Islamic Caliphates. All of these along with hundreds of Nigerians killed who did not renounce their Christian faith. Then BH entered Adamawa State and ransacked Mubi, the second largest town in the state. Up till this moment, no one knows how the exact number of people that have been lost to the works of these evil animals. In both Maiduguri and Yola, refugee camps have been set up to take care of thousands of people displaced from their homes. The list is simply endless.
When the Jonathan government was requested to explain why these things were happening right under its watch, the government threw out the poser that some people were trying to make the nation ungovernable for Mr. President. Rueben Abati even took the matter further by blaming Gen. Buhari for this when he wrote in an article stating that Buhari had made the comments in the light of his loss to Jonathan in the 2011 elections. When Buhari took Abati to court on the matter, he and the Jonathan government had to settle out of court by writing an apology statement published by the Guardian Newspapers. While the government of Jonathan traded blames rather than take responsibility and carry out measures to stay the rapid intrusion of BH on the nation, BH reign of terror continued as they shifted base from Borno to Yobe, Kano, Bauchi and Adamawa States. The Nigerian armed forces too was beginning to feel the weight of the ineptitude of the government, as many soldiers refused to fight the insurgents, claiming they were ill equipped. The result was the court marshalling of a number of soldiers and officers and their being sentenced to death. As these matters went on, many soldiers were reporting through private social media accounts the gory matters going on at the war fronts. We heard stories of how funds that were meant to be used to equip the soldiers were being diverted into private pockets. Soldiers were sent to face their deaths in the hundreds as many could not refuse the orders of their superiors, despite being ill equipped. When the National Assembly instituted actions to investigate how the trillions of naira budgeted for the military to fight these insurgents seem to be going down the drain, the matter was frustrated and the investigations never took place.
Some people have suggested that a state like Borno State which has a large voters' population was not a priority for the government of Goodluck Jonathan since they had always voted en masse for Buhari, and were likely to vote for his again in 2015. They argue that allowing such a state to be plunged into a state of war might add to Jonathan's fortune at the coming poles. Some others felt that the Jonathan government just did not take the insecurity situation in North East Nigeria serious enough. They said that it did not occupy a priority for them. In all of these, nothing lends more credence to these positions than what had happened some five weeks ago since the elections were suddenly postponed. The excuse given then was that there was a need to improve on the security situation in the country before elections could proceed. Suddenly, what the Goodluck Jonathan government could not do in six years, it began to do in six weeks. We began to hear of the efforts of the Nigerian military as they recovered town after town from the BH insurgents. Many people could not but conclude that it took the fear of Jonathan loosing the coming elections for him to do what he was supposed to have done all this while. Unfortunately, the gains that the military have made in this short period of time have not improved Jonathan's rating at the poles. The President's negligence has cost the nation too much in terms of amount of lives lost; it is simply too late.
The stern truth is that Goodluck Jonathan has failed to secure this country. Too many lives have been lost for him to yet be entrusted with another four years in office. Some could even say that the blood of the dead is dripping from his hands. Whatever people say, one cannot but conclude that Jonathan singular sin was the insecurity his government failed at curtailing. The over 15,000 lives lost to the violence of BH under his watch cannot be blamed on anyone else but him. We must at this point thank him for the little he has done and show him the way home through the ballot boxes.
Fashina is a Media Consultant. He resides in Lagos. He can be reached through electronic_mails_4me@yahoo.com
