Written by Azubuike Ishiekwene
It gets to this moment, the moment when lies run their full course and ugly twisted tales are laid bare. It’s the moment of truth. Four years and 10 months after Goodluck Jonathan assumed office as president, it’s time for reckoning.
In Jonathan’s early days in office, I remember a conversation I had with someone very close to him, someone who had known him since his days as deputy governor in Bayelsa and who became very close to him when, as vice president, he had oversight of the Bureau for Public Enterprises which oversaw the privatisation process, including the independent power projects.
After one of his numerous meetings with Jonathan in those early days in 2010 following the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua, I teased my acquaintance that he had become part of an inner circle preparing Jonathan to stand election in 2011. He said he was sure Jonathan would run, but added that “the man vowed that even if he did – and he’ll do so very reluctantly – he will not stand again for election if the power situation in the country did not improve.”
On that, he said, the man was categorical.
On September 28, 2010, when Jonathan formally declared his intention to stand election, his second promise from a long list was: “We will fight for all Nigerians to have access to power.
It’s been five years since. You must ask yourself today if Jonathan has kept his word. I’m not talking about a privatisation framework that completely ignored the gas master plan and shared public assets largely among cronies, with little regard for due diligence.
I’m not talking about the fraudulent commissioning and re-commissioning of power plants that had been commissioned by former President Olusegun Obasanjo years ago. I’m not talking about lies in newspaper adverts that power generation has reached 5,500MW when, in fact, it is less than 3,700MW as you read this piece. I’m not talking about TAN adverts, which some estimate to have cost over N5billion in dodgy funds.
Nor am I talking about a recent memo by Vice President Namadi Sambo to Jonathan asking for at least N42billion to buy meters for consumers, only for the money to be diverted and shared for PDP campaign.
I’m just saying you should ask yourself a straightforward question: after five years and billions of naira, do you have more electricity in your home today than you had in 2010?
In that same speech by Jonathan, which is available online at http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/09/100003/), he said, “We will fight corruption.”
In words and in deed, no government has embraced and fed on corruption as generously as has Jonathan’s government. Sometimes, I think he does it without meaning harm. He just does not know how to run a government differently.
That’s why even though the Nuhu Ribadu committee found that N2trillion had been stolen in the subsidy scam, Jonathan ended up using the report to prop his armchair. That’s why, twice in public interviews, he has made a distinction between stealing and corruption. That’s why even though serving ministers in his government collected N120billion in backdoor payments for Malabu Oil, he has not lifted a finger. And that’s why his government cannot account for N150billion stolen by thieving pension officials who still enjoy presidential protection.
The theft list is formidable and pervasive, but I promise you that not a single one in this column is false or mentioned maliciously. I have, in fact, left out the famous $20billion flagged by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. That figure will get worse if you tear yourself off Diezani Alison-Madueke’s skirt for a moment and ask what the government has done with $81.3billion received from the sale of 445,000bpd of crude oil allocated to NNPC for almost five years when the price was not less than $100 per barrel.
Part of the waste trail has been out there for everyone to see in the last six weeks – in the vile political campaigns and bribes in place of honest effort that should have been invested to govern in the past five years.
In 2011, under this same Jonathan who promised to “fight corruption,” 450MHz, a premium spectrum valued at $50million, was sold to an incompetent licensee for $6million and a waiver of N1billion granted by ministers Omobola Johnson and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in a transaction in which the NCC boss had a vested interest. The first leg of the 800MHz was sold for 13million euros in Nigeria – an asset which Germany sold for 1.53billion euros around the same time.
If Jonathan was really interested in fighting corruption, he would have had the back of Bashir Gwandu, who not only opposed the NCC bazaar, but blew the whistle on the fraud. But Gwandu was shafted and removed, only for a competent court to overturn his illegal and unjustified removal.
And Jonathan wants to come back? This is the moment of truth. In his own words, he promised to “fight to create jobs for all Nigerians.” In his recent campaign promises, he has even promised to create two million jobs every year!
Since we can only judge him by his record, figures from the NBS show that his best has been 2.2million jobs in three years. If you believe that a man who could not create more than roughly 730,000 jobs a year will create two million yearly at a time when civil servants are going without salaries because the government is broke, that’s fine. But you cannot claim tomorrow that his promise was counterfeit.
I’ve read about the dubious promises of thousands of kilometres of roads and the claims of better education, healthcare and fast trains. These promises were made five years ago and they are being repeated for our enjoyment in colourful newspaper adverts.
How can you forget that the longest teachers’ strike in years – five months and three weeks by university teachers – has been under Jonathan? As for healthcare, his own man and secretary of the Centenary committee charity ball, Kingsley Esegbue, said in October 2013 that Nigerians spend N250billion on medical tourism. So where did they spend the money on healthcare? And the fast trains? It’s a lie that has no second part.
Security has been a nightmare, with extraordinary incompetence that led to the kidnap of the 279 Chibok girls and the killing of over 12,000 persons including the brutal murder of young school children, before this government outsourced security, its basic function, to mercenaries and neighbouring countries.
If Nigeria were a company, the shareholders would have fired Jonathan long ago. But if after nearly five years of incredible incompetence and failed promises you sincerely believe that you must vote him as reward for his poor performance, that’s fine.
The die is cast. They are out there as you read this piece, sharing bribes amassed from NNPC and deploying force where their bribes cannot reach. I know we have an incredible capacity to quibble and move on, but let this be clear: we cannot escape the consequences of the choice we make tomorrow for another four years.
One thousand one hundred words are enough….
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