Femi Aribisala: Why Jonathan must run for a second-term
by Femi Aribisala
President
Jonathan is at the height of his powers. He is not a lame-duck. He
can run for a second term. That gives him enough time to deal with his
opponents. It also tells them that they better make peace with him now,
or they will be in the wilderness possibly for the next six years.
That is a very long time in politics. By that time, at least six of the
rebel PDP governors will be politically dead.
There is a lot of irritating noise coming especially from the
North-West concerning the need for the presidency to return to the North
in 2015. This should be discarded as sound and fury signifying
nothing.
To talk of the presidency returning to the North is to presume the
presidency belongs to the North. It does not! There should be no
Northern president of Nigeria for the next 14 years at the very least.
After that, the presidency should not go to the North-West. It should
go to the Middle-Belt.
The new PDP: In the last few weeks, we have witnessed a comedy of
errors whereby some PDP Governors, mostly Northern, have rebelled from
the PDP, formed what they call a new PDP with one central demand: that
Goodluck Jonathan should not contest for the presidency in 2015. This
makes for good newspaper headlines and little else.
It is preposterous to insist that a sitting president should not go
for a second-term when he is entitled to do so. Those who are opposed to
him should challenge him at the polls if they can. In my opinion, they
don’t stand a chance against him and they know it.
This is a Nigerian thing. If you start a business and are
successful, your competition does not strive to match or exceed your
services. The favoured option is to try to drive you out of business.
They will pay the police to close you down.
They will go to the babalawo and ask him to terminate you with
extreme prejudice. You will come to your office and find a dead
chicken on the doormat. What all this says eloquently is that your
competition cannot compete with you. The same goes for the shenanigans
of the so-called new PDP. There is nothing new about these jokers.
All they have to offer is the same bad news. The reality they don’t
want to face is that Jonathan is unstoppable as the PDP presidential
candidate in 2015. A new PDP candidate does not even have a look-in.
Neither does a PDM candidate, which Atiku is apparently reserving as his
fall-back position when his shenanigans in the PDP come to nothing.
It sometimes takes Nigerians a long time to face reality and admit
defeat. This is the case with Atiku Abubakar. The bitter truth is
that, try as he might, Atiku can never be president of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria.
The 2015 election will be between President Jonathan and the APC
presidential candidate. The only opportunity that the North has to
produce the next president lies in the APC putting forward a Northerner
as its presidential candidate. Even then, President Jonathan must be
the odds-on favourite to win. As a rule, sitting African presidents
don’t lose elections.
Lame-duck Governors: Politics is a power-game. However, the
high jinks of the nPDP are all smoke and mirrors. All but one of these
rebel governors is a lame-duck; meaning this is their last term in
office. With the sole exception of Abdulfattah Ahmed of Kwara, they
have all served two terms as governors and that is the statutory limit.
Lame-duck governors have greatly diminished power. Their opponents
know they will not have to tolerate them much longer. Lame-duck
governors run against the clock. They are soon to be dumped into the
dustbin of history. That is the predicament of these loud rebels.
What is pathetic about their situation is actually their central
demand. President Jonathan is at the height of his powers. He is not a
lame-duck. He can run for a second term. That gives him enough time
to deal with his opponents. It also tells them that they better make
peace with him now, or they will be in the wilderness possibly for the
next six years. That is a very long time in politics. By that time, at
least six of the rebel PDP governors will be politically dead.
These politicians facing a bleak future are now demanding that the
President relinquish his advantage by making himself a lame-duck like
them: declaring that he will not contest for the presidency in 2015.
President Jonathan is certainly not a fool; so that is not going to
happen.
This is my prediction. The rebel lame-duck governors have had their
15 minutes of fame; thanks to the Nigerian news media that hankers after
sensational stories. They have made the noise and grabbed the
headlines. That is the end of the road for them.
They have to come back to Jonathan cap in hand. I repeat, politics
is a game of power and, at the moment, Jonathan is sitting pretty. If
these lame-duck governors don’t play ball, they will all be handed over
to the EFCC if and when Jonathan is returned as president. I actually
believe that is
what all this brouhaha is about.
These governors want assurances that they will be left in peace to
enjoy their booty after their retirement. I don’t believe that
assurance should be given either. They have gone about it the wrong
way. They should have gone to the President to plea-bargain rather than
all this bluster. As it is, the PDP machinery in their states will be
taken away from them and that will be it.
Who are the people going to follow? Would they join a man who is
going to be out of a job as governor within two years, or will they
follow a sitting president who is likely to remain president for another
six years? It is a no-brainer: Jonathan has all the cards hands down.
Of all the rebel governors, the most pathetic is Rotimi Amaechi. He
is from the South-South. Nevertheless, he is demanding that a
South-South president should not seek a second-term. Within the
framework of Nigeria, that position is not only idiotic, it is
politically suicidal. You don’t scuttle a South-South presidency in
favour of the North and expect thank you from the people of the
South-South. All Amaechi has achieved is to consign himself into future
political irrelevance.
Northern political disintegration: There are still more smoke
and mirrors. One of these is that the North can determine who will be
president of Nigeria. That is all poppycock. If it were true, Buhari
would have been elected Nigeria’s president in 2011. He won all the far
northern states of Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina,
Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara. Nevertheless, he still lost
woefully by 10 million votes.
Time was when a Northern candidate was certain of victory by sheer
weight of numbers. All that is history now. The North is the only
region in Nigeria that no longer exists politically. Thanks to Boko
Haram, it is now divided between Moslems and Christians. The Middle
Belt now considers itself Middle Belt and not as the North. What is the
point of including yourself in the North if all it gets you is to play
second-fiddle perpetually to Sokoto, Kano and Katsina? The North is now
also divided between the elite and the masses. What is the point of
insisting on a Northern president when all it produces are Northern
billionaires without appreciable development of the North?
In their insistence on being president of Nigeria yet again, the far
North is burning its bridges. The most faithful supporters of the North
politically have been the South-South and the South-East. The
possibility for such continued support in the future is now being
scuttled by the seeming Northern determination to truncate the
legitimate second-term bid of a South-South president and to deny the
Igbos their rightful claim to the presidency. If the politicians of the
far North are not careful, they will not get a president from their area
for another 50 years.
Federal character: Nigeria is an agglomeration of peoples of
different regions and ethnicity. This must be reflected in the polity.
Accordingly, the North should take an extended sabbatical from the
presidency. Other regions have tolerated a Northern presidency for 37
out of 53 years, to no great effect. There is nothing to recommend
another Northern president in the short-term. The last thing Nigeria
needs right now is another President Musa Yar’Adua with his highfalutin
seven-point programme.
Northerners are rightfully the apostles of federal character. By the
same token, the presidency should reflect the federal character of
Nigeria. Jonathan is important as the first South-South president.
The South-South deserves a second-term according to the principles of
federal character.
After eight years of a South-South presidency, it cannot be said to
be the turn of the North again, when the Igbos, a major ethnic group,
have only had a head of state for six months. Before we can talk of
another Northern presidency, we should have had at least eight years of
an Igbo presidency. If after that, the presidency then moves to the
North, it should not go to the traditional Northern odd-jobbers. It
should go to the Middle Belt for another eight years.
Political wilderness
As
battle begins for the 2015 general elections, electoral powerhouse, the
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has warned politicians
against overheating the polity.
