Now that the controversy over whether President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is serving his first or second term has been clinically resolved, I need to adduce cogent reasons why I strongly think that Nigerians should, again, vote him—the person we know full well and can trust— instead of experimenting with presidential candidacies at this critical juncture in our national life.
After this time round, we would then systematically evolve and nurture novel candidatures. It is noteworthy and significant to observe that this is the first time I will devote any of my multimedia columns in the past four years or thereabouts to my namesake. It shows how serious I take next year’s presidential election.
Let us start with the abduction of Chibok schoolgirls which took place on April 14, 2014. There are misconceptions with regard to President Jonathan’s management of the incident. Some Nigerians erroneously believe that his response was tepid and timid. On the heels of this emotive perception of the crisis was its understandable politicization by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and some northerners who accused President Jonathan of aloofness amid other nondescript allusions to extraneous matters. None of these critics in their tragic oppositional misadventure ever remembered, first and foremost, that the president is a father and should equally feel the pains of these girls’ parents. The point that must also be underscored is that our president should be most embarrassed by this scandalous incident more than any other Nigerian. So, issuing from this address, nobody should make a campaign gain or electoral profit of the unprecedented kidnap tragedy. I do not need anyone to tell me that the president is more bothered over this unfortunate matter more than any other Nigerian, excluding, perhaps, the girls’ traumatized parents. It must be stressed that the situation does not call for equivocation, parochialism, disbelief or rabid opportunism.
I have also read in the hypercritical section of the media that President Jonathan ‘outsourced’ the country by allowing international intervention in the rescue efforts for the freedom of these girls. I again do not understand the hoopla over this. Is Nigeria the first country to seek supranational assistance in combating its domestic crisis as thrown up by Boko Haram? Has Nigeria not been participating in peacekeeping and enforcement in other countries? Commentators should put issues in proper perspectives so as not to muddle up contingencies. In the circumstance we are, we cannot pretend to have the capacity when the contrary is the case. If over the years we have not been able to handle the menace, there is no losing face if we do a volte face now, as it were. Ultimately, what matters and of paramount importance is the liberation of these girls. Any other thing, for now, is secondary.
Arising from the Chibok deviancy, some people have suggested that the federal government should negotiate with the Boko Haram terrorists and possibly enter into a swap bargain with the insurgency leadership. I do not support this descent to anarchy. There should be other strategic approaches to the resolution of this affront. Why should we exchange our girls with terrorists? Why should we surrender to insurgents, bandits and criminals? Are we in a banana republic? We cannot embolden existing and potential bands of anarchists by cringing to the men from hell.
The disruptions and dislocations interjected by terrorism notwithstanding, the transformation agenda of President Jonathan still remains on course with unprecedented dynamics in various sectors of the economy. The unfolding results and potentiality of benefits may not be manifest immediately, but I have the conviction that in the years to come Nigerians and even the international community will acknowledge present commitments of this administration. There is no doubt that there are still developmental gullies to be filled. The consolation should be that these challenges did not emanate today and so cannot be sorted out in one fell swoop. Once more, the process may appear sluggish or bereft of evidential trajectories of possibilities for the betterment of the society, but with citizenship endurance and patience, we shall overcome and reap today’s commitments and investments tomorrow. I have the belief that the President Jonathan’s ongoing transformation programme will impact on the country immeasurably shortly, long before he leaves office, predictably, in 2019.
In specific terms—why I believe that President Jonathan deserves another term in office—he used former delectable and ravishing Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Oduah, to revolutionize most of our airports such that they can fairly compete with some of the best airports in the world by virtue of structural and infrastructural renewal. Of course, everyone knows that before now our airports were like roadside mechanic workshops! If you are a regular traveller over the past couple of years you will appreciate the superlative changes. Beyond the commendable physicality of the airports, safety has drastically improved in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organisation’s prescriptions, which Nigeria hitherto routinely infracted amid avoidable plane-crash ghastliness and fatalities.
Unemployment had been almost an insurmountable problem decades before the Jonathan presidency. Right now, we may not be there yet, but there is a pooling of resources to mitigate the drawback. The resolution so far may not be commensurate with the stark statistical realities, but the currency of laudatory efforts towards attaining an acceptable profile is quite gratifying. Unemployment is not peculiar to Nigeria. It is indeed a global social problem that nations strive to reduce as much as possible—no economy has ever recorded 100 per cent employment record.
There is also the motor-park consensus that our countrymen are poor while Nigeria is rich especially since the revaluation of our GDP that catapulted us to the uppermost echelon of African economic leadership. Most Nigerians cannot reconcile the disparity between our rise on the global economic ladder and the poverty afflicting a majority of our people. Again, with ongoing concerted efforts, it is just a question of time before the harvest begins to cascade. A little more perseverance and we would be in an el dorado of paradisal satiety. If no other government officials make me confident about this era, the Presidency, Ministers of Agriculture, Finance, Health, and Information give me hope and reassurance of unlimited opportunities and possibilities. Despondency has been replaced with verifiable optimism. It is apposite to mention that no matter what is achieved, there would always be pessimists who belong to the utopian world of make-believe!
As we begin to count down to 2015, some critics declare vehemently that President Jonathan does not have the competencies and capacities to drive this nation! I ask such disbelievers if it was by a stroke of luck that the man occupied all the offices he has imprinted and still does. I do not subscribe to the wild assumption that some of the rulers/presidents who have had the privilege of presiding over this nation of continental leadership may not be qualified by all stretches of imagination! That cannot be true! My position on this unapologetically applies to President Jonathan, too, who is silently making credible differences on almost all fronts without being effusive, militaristic or propagandist which are governance standards, especially in most states of South-west, South-south and South-east!
If gentlemanliness—not cowardice— due diligence, accountability, honesty, humility, electoral integrity, discipline, articulation, leadership respect for social contract with the people and other constitutional obligations, transparency and subscription to democratic ethos—all of which President Jonathan calmly symbolizes—are unacceptable virtues in today’s Nigeria with all its erosion of values, let history be the judge of President Jonathan.

2015: Let’s vote Jonathan again