WHY MANY NIGERIANS ARE MAD AT PRESIDENT JONATHAN

The reason many Nigerians are mad at President Jonathan and might vote him out in the coming elections is that so much was expected from him and he has delivered so little. Prior to his emergence as president, most Nigerians believed that what the country needed was a younger, well-educated leader. With his PhD, rags to riches story and age, he ticked all the boxes and people saw him as someone who could relate with majority of Nigerians who live in poverty. Jonathan campaigned as the poor boy who never had shoes, giving us his best Oliver Twist impression, we hope that after years in politics he has finally been able to buy a few shoes. The question is how many poor Nigerians has his administration been able to buy shoes for? And No! Militants don’t count.

Another reason people are mad at him is that he is actually the first President since the return of democracy in 1999 that Nigerians overwhelmingly voted for and emerged as winner. It cannot be overemphasised that Nigerians had high hopes for the country under his stewardship however things have not quite worked out as expected.

Economy

Jonathan’s apologists are quick to point to the emergence of Nigeria as the biggest economy in Africa. However, the economic upshot released to the general public before the oil price slump was largely due to the decision to rebase the economy and inclusion of previously ignored aspects of Nigeria’s economic set-up. Despite these variations, economic hardship still affects most Nigerians.

The other reason is that with democracy in any country comes foreign investments, foreign companies have reservations about doing business in economies without democracy because their investments can be nationalised as it has happened in Cuba and Zimbabwe. As long as a country is democratic and has long term prospects of remaining so, foreign investors would invest because they believe investments are secure and protected by international laws. To say President Jonathan has not done anything would be harsh, he has tried but he’s not done enough with the mandate given to him, he was supposed to be the saviour.

Challenges

Two things the president has been unable to deal with or present a coherent strategy for are corruption and insecurity and these are Nigeria’s main challenges. The present administration stands accused of some of the worst cases of corruption ever seen in Nigeria. A minister stands accused of spending 10billion naira renting private jets, there is the case of the of the missing $20b/$12b/$15b oil revenue funds depending on who you ask and there is the fuel subsidy saga for which no one has yet been prosecuted. While corruption is not new in Nigeria, the argument is if Jonathan cannot deal with this, what hope is there for the country? The sad case of Boko-haram, the missing girls (Bring-our-girls-back) and rampant killing of innocent civilians in Nigeria’s North-east is perhaps President Jonathan’s biggest failing. Nigeria’s military used to be the most powerful and admired in Africa with its successful involvement in peace-keeping missions all over Africa, how come it cannot then address the matter of a bunch of ragtag religious extremists in its own backyard? Everything boils down to motivation and if the army is not well motivated by adequate financial and material support, the buck stops with the President who is the C-IN-C of Nigeria’s armed forces.

Global oil and Nigeria

Nigeria chiefly depends on the oil industry, however oil prices are falling! While this happens periodically and prices usually goes back up, this has immediate implications on budgets.

While other countries have diversified sources of revenue and/or taxes, Nigeria’s other sources of income are negligible and taxes are not viable because the government invests little in the life of citizens. The present oil prices are caused by increased shale oil production by the USA.  Saudi Arabia which can influence prices by reducing production hence reducing supply has vowed not to reduce production meaning there is no end in sight for falling oil prices. While oil prices might go back up eventually, oil is a finite resource that would run out someday and it could potentially be rendered obsolete even before Nigerian reserves run out, as most western countries are developing alternative sources of energy either to combat pollution caused by fossil fuels or to be self-sufficient so as not to rely on potentially hostile suppliers that can decide to increase prices or even turn off supply for political reasons as is the case presently with Russia and the EU.  Other oil producing states like UAE and Qatar are already preparing for life after oil with extensive investments in alternative sources of revenue like tourism. Forbes estimates KSA has over $900b savings from oil revenue and in 2013 BBC estimated that by 2020, Norway’s sovereign funds would be worth $1trillion. Nigeria by contrast has $34.5Billion in foreign reserves according to Reuters.

Contender

The main opposition has fielded General Muhamadu Buhari, a Northern, Muslim, former military head of state as her presidential candidate. One thing is instantly clear about him, he is the only former head of state that is not stupendously rich despite being around government for a long time. Most people in power in Nigeria have a habit of enriching themselves at the nation’s expense. As a former military head, he should be able to bring the security issues in the north under control as his government partly did with the Maitatsine in the 1980s. His anti-corruption drives while in power are still referenced today, though some including Nobel Laureate, Soyinka have accused him of being heavy handed back then. It is assumed those measures were practical at the time and one would hope a democratic setting and the passage of time has tempered him, though hopefully not his ability to tackle corruption and promote fairness and holistic development. Others have accused him of being a religious fanatic, pandering to the Northern agenda, not promoting equality of women or associating with defectors from PDP and corrupt individuals. The simple answers to these are that as military HOS, he had more southerners and people of other religions serving as governors than Northerners. With regards to his present associates, it is a classic case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, in any scheme of adult life, you don’t always have to have the same ideology or agree with people you deal with and this is more prevalent in politics. With regards to women, he is a Northerner of the older generation and I would hope he has evolved enough to understand the place of women in the world in the 21^st century and he has associates who will keep him right otherwise.

The elections

While I am of the opinion that leadership of Nigeria should be with the youths, who are the future of the country and we should not keep recycling past leaders, sadly we have not been presented with any viable alternatives and the incumbent has not justified why he should be given the mandate of the next four years. Sometimes to move forward we need to take a step back. If in four years Buhari has not met the expectations of the electorate, he should be voted out. One thing is fairly certain, he should be an upgrade on the present president and should be able to deal decisively with corruption, insecurity and some of our economic challenges.

The other reason why Nigerians must vote out the PDP is that it would send a clear message to politicians that they are judged on their performances and not on ethnicity, religion or party and also to prevent the situation in South Africa where African National Congress (ANC) is expected to win elections because of Mandela/Apartheid sentiments regardless of performance.

The World and Nigeria

Most western powers might not warm-up to the idea of having a Muslim president in Africa’s most populous nation because of some of the atrocities going on all over the world as a result of religious extremism, however Nigerians need to understand that no one has their best interest at heart like themselves. Whichever leader is right is who is right and whatever system of government works is what works and these decisions need to be made by Nigerians. How well is democracy working out in the US? The US President has governed more by executive action than legislation and leaders in Europe are more concerned about keeping their jobs than doing the jobs they were elected for. One thing is clear, with Buhari, Nigerians have a chance to put a decisive leader in place and they should take that chance. 

Is Buhari the answer? I do not know, that is a question that would be answered by most Nigerians in the coming weeks, one this is clear, most Nigerians are unhappy with the present set-up.

This article/opinion piece was written by Oladipo Osuntobo.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from O.O.U, Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Edinburgh Napier University and is currently a Doctoral student at Queen Margaret University researching “improving the effectiveness of the Nigerian public sector through adoption of merit pay and employee recognition schemes”.