Oke: Goodluck Jonathan: Leader for this dispensation

SUDDENLY the 2015 presidential election is virtually here. Many woke up to this realisation too late, essentially because the opposition, particularly the All Progressives Congress (APC), wasted time maligning President Goodluck Jonathan instead of crafting and showing better policies and programmes that prove they can govern better.

   In this circumstance, beyond the earnestness of the dire realization that we are ill prepared, consideration must be given to an inquiry into determining if we are currently in an emergency situation at this crucial state of our democratic development. I mean that peculiar circumstances that urgently require drastic changes without which things will go awfully bad. 

   Because attention was not given to this question, it created opportunities for many contenders to weave webs of ominous sophistry around events in the country to justify their actions. Appended to the general hardships, the habitual corrupt tendency, which is well nigh universal, and for which we are well acquainted is the security problem of Boko Haram, which, though victory is yet to be achieved, the government has been able to contain. Apart from that, there is no unusually urgent issue that calls for desperate change, except refining our manners.

   But even if there is an emergency that demanded such drastic change, then it is still more important to elect a leader that has the wherewithal to direct the course of affairs. Prominent among those scrambling to replace Goodluck Jonathan is General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). He espoused the cause of oppression on his own people under the guise of creating change. Decades after, he is not altogether different, and without grounds for his pretensions. 

   Does he possess the requirements needed to symbolize and direct this change? This is in great doubt. As regards experience, he encountered great travails while being burdened with the reality of his failures as a leader.

    Sadly, he took no pains in acquiring more knowledge, nor laboured in the pursuit of such basic abilities that can keep him abreast of recent developments and the functioning of society. Thus, because many years were spent brooding over his removal from power, through the years he received scanty honours and such that were necessary to prepare him for the tasks ahead. Now, he is nothing more than one who has repeatedly failed in his bids to become civilian president of Nigeria.

    Whilst immersed in his pretensions, he continues to claim, even assumes, that he is the best for the country. But soon, the incontrovertible reality that the change we need, whatever it entails, cannot come from him, will be discerned, especially when the scale of delusions will be removed by his high handedness as president.

   All those who are for democracy, liberty, freedom of expression, et’ al, symbolized by Goodluck Jonathan, will speak in unison against tyranny that is being offered. In this dispensation, Buhari is no match for Jonathan. Something more than claims of honesty and sundry pretensions is necessary to govern the nation. It is the combination of intellectual force, mental superiority united with personal magnetism, and physique enough to give weight to will and opinion.

    President Goodluck Jonathan is assuredly a great man, by virtue of patience, understanding and the courage to resist the corrupting influence of power. He is a sincere man. He is not a hypocrite; knave in the ordinary sense of the term, he is not.

    Although many had called him names, and though he is not perfect, he is still a great leader; and his faults, which are normal human infirmities, were with honest purpose.  He is possessed of administrative ability and is a good manager of men, with a keen insight into human nature, and a thorough knowledge of the qualities of men. 

    At this time in our democratic development, the work of building our nation is a singular one, and among the candidates only Goodluck Jonathan is singularly adapted.  The work yet to be done is no less remarkable and daunting. Affairs in the country assumed now more practical and material terms, with the foundation of liberty in place. A realistic and material nature is required, dealing less with assumptions, speculations, and self-delusions. 

     Under President Goodluck Jonathan, we appreciate our collective circumstances and boldly face our challenges, freely expressing our views, and discussing our future without the fear of intimidation, molestation and other forms of oppression; the current dispensation of freedom must be used to lay the foundation for our growth. Should Nigerians elect as President a man less patient, less resolute and less devoted to his cause, they will be their own worst enemies.

    Goodluck Jonathan deployed rare patience and understanding to bear on the situation, and this created opportunity for civic participation and thereby making our democracy more interesting. Usually calm, slow to anger and in no haste to act under the passion of vindictiveness, but when the time for action comes, he worked with an energy that was satisfied only with success. 

    Unfortunately, his only strong opponent is someone who set out to form a political party, but lacked the resilience and commitment to build it into a political organization that can espouse his vision for the country and the interests of Nigerians; but instead preferred to merge with those whose visions, objectives and motives were at variance with his avowed principles and in direct contradiction with all he promised Nigerians.

    The compiling genius of the All Progressives Congress is Ahmed Tinubu. Changing Nigeria is not the goal and objective of the All Progressives Congress, but the misguided passion arising from figment of imagination

   Ahmed Tinubu gives direction, and apparent consistency to All Progressives Congress brand  of politics and its vision for Nigeria. The merger is his idea, he invented its forms, set its terms and many of its political arguments. Furthermore, Chibuike Amaechi and Lai Mohammed are the party’s leading orators and polemics. Without the accession of these three men, the party will not partake in the elections, and by now the presidential ambition would have been abandoned and his political schemes frustrated. Just as Tunde Idiagbon was the main man of the 1983 misadventure, while General Buhari was the  head of that government only in name,  sadly his ambition has come full circle again and this time Ahmed Tinubu created the platform and ensured the actualization of his presidential bid, and like before, the General will be the puppet. This scenario does not portray the aspirations of the different circles that make up this dispensation. What the General believes in can never be attained through this particular merger.  

• Oke wrote from House to House Campaign and Support, Abuja.