CredoWriters: Wakdok, Samuel Stephen.
Where is the luck in taking over as acting President of a Nigeria at a time when the country is known more for the plethora of complications than stability? I can not imagine why Nigerians are celebrating Dr. Jonathan’s luck. Aside from the fact that Nigerians deserve to have the vacancy in Aso Rock filled for effective governance, any form of Jubilation is suspicious and dubious. Are we celebrating the fact that Good luck Jonathan now has unfettered access to our national treasury or are we celebrating the ouster of a Turai Yar’adua?
Goodluck Jonathan I must confess played down all attempts to showcase a power grab on his part which helped in diffusing the tension in the polity, but the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians must remain paramount. Celebrating the luck of a Goodluck is only personalizing and trivializing the matter, what we ought to celebrate is the stability of our nation which is what we need for growth and development to take place. Goodluck Jonathan is definitely a lucky man, to have risen to the position of a number one citizen in his state, and now his country without printing poster or campaigning. But that also makes it dangerous because it goes to show that like the occupants of that office before him, he also does not have any manifesto. Meaning he has no direction and purpose, unless he is quickly able to put his house in order and take charge of the nation’s destiny. The question I would love to ask is not how lucky Goodluck is to act as President but how lucky Nigerians are to have Goodluck as their acting President?
Will the luck end with him as an individual who has suddenly risen to be the number one citizen or will the luck be distributed across Nigeria through provision of visionary and transformational leadership at a time when many things seem to have gone terribly wrong? Can Jonathan be the man who will give the ordinary man food or will he be another man who through anti-people policies force more hardship down the throats of already hyper-hungry Nigerians. Can Goodluck tackle the various cabals holding the nation’s power and petroleum sectors to ransom an effect an era of positive change that will eliminate the problems of these sectors or will he too be held captive by these cabals? Will Jonathan be a National President or will he decide to be a Niger-Delta President as some of his kinsmen are already thanking God for seeing a Niger Delta President in their life time even if in acting capacity for now?
The focus must shift from the individual of the acting President which is only parochial to the transformational leadership he can and will offer. He has the listing of Nigeria as a terrorist nation on his hands, the most recent Jos crisis, and the impeding strikes by civil servants. Let it be said that the Doctors’ have not received their reviewed packages which prevented them from going on their last strike. The power situation has also nosedived after the government failed to deliver on the 6,000 megawatts by December 31st 2009; and the perennial fuel queues are back. The post-amnesty programme has not achieved much progress since Yar’adua left the country and it will be more delicate for Goodluck to independently address the issue without been accused of bias since he comes from that region.
The luck must not lie and end with the man Goodluck Jonathan but it must be an opportunity for him to see the hands of God in preparing him to perform a divine role of salvaging this nation. Public servants and politicians must not be allowed to become sycophants and use our public wealth to place congratulatory messages in the media. If any group deserves an accolade for this triumph it is the ever vibrant civil society groups who from day one have insisted that due process must be followed. Unfortunately political dark horses who have argued that Yar’adua can preside from any where will be the people who may now switch allegiance for their selfish and mundane motives.
Nigeria must not remain a sliding state not to talk of a failing state and Goodluck must be bold in flushing out all anti-democratic elements within the ranks of the ruling clique. He must wither the storm and steer the ship of the Nigerian nation safely to dock at the port of rule of law, constitutionality and people oriented development programmes. He has a choice to write his name in Gold and be remembered like the Jerry Rawlings of this world or seek to go the selfish way which is typical of African leaders and become a present day Mobuto Sese Seko. He can decide to be like the Thabo Mbeki of this world whose intellectual capacity gave him a launching board to become a charismatic leader or choose to go the way of the highly educated Robert Mugabe who has decided to live and will die a Power drunk autocrat at the peril of his nation.
Only when we see a vibrant Goodluck acting as the People’s President can we now talk of a good luck which is national in colour; and not the luck of one man to have at his beck and call the wealth of our suffering citizens for his personal aggrandizement and that of the few but ever greedy ruling elites.
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