I have often wondered what Nigeria might have been if it hadn’t an ethnic minority person as its leader the same way I have speculated about a United States of America without a black president in the 21st century. My enquiries led to the discovery that it was important and critical for the US to have a Barack Obama.
America hoists itself as the defender and voice of the voiceless such that a colossal image, the Statue of Liberty, watches over New York City, as it were, issuing this legendary call to the world: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Now, members of Obama’s black constituency number among the “huddled masses, yearning to breathe free” who heeded the Statue’s plea. The managers of the system have worked hard over the generations to honour the promise on the inscription on the Statue, which is also upheld by the constitution, which forms the backbone of US existence. The “minority majority” African-Americans have been offered equal rights and opportunities the majority whites enjoy. If Obama and other totems of the fulfilment of the New York Statue’s dream were to be off the scene, the fabric of US claims as a haven and fortress of democracy would be hollow declarations. It would amount to criminal hypocrisy and assault on humanity to admit the “tired”, “poor” and “wretched refuse” and then subject them to more fatigue, misery and greater despair by shutting the “golden door” of social, economic and political opportunities against them. Two dreams awaiting manifestation are a female US president as well as a Hispanic one. We have the same narrative in Nigeria. Not to have had a “minority” president would have amounted to unpardonable disrespect of the grundnorm of our existence, which does not vest any exclusive right of leadership in a so-called majority ethnic grouping.
Unfortunately, unlike in the US where Obama has been hailed for his good performance, President Goodluck Jonathan here is being ignored and sacrificed at the altar of politics and expediency. Having made history as the first from a minority group to be elected the president of Nigeria, Jonathan is not accorded objective hearing in the outstanding and unprecedented feats by his administration.
For instance, isn’t it odd that despite our passionate campaign against corruption we are not celebrating the pleasant outcome of a probe Jonathan conducted into his own administration over the alleged missing billions of dollars in the NNPC. The matter, only laid to rest recently, has convinced the world of the innocence of the Jonathan administration. But it is being treated as if nothing momentous has taken place.
The president had to go the proverbial extra mile. He asked global financial audit policeman PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to undertake a probe of NNPC on Sanusi’s claims. The PwC reported vindicated the NNPC that no oil money was missing!
For the first time in the history of Nigeria we have a President submitting himself to a local and international investigation following allegations of financial malfeasance in his government and emerging unstained. Others before him swept such deeds under the carpet..Methinks this is what we should applaud and push as an election issue rather than turn our attention to the jaded views of politicians who have vindictive tendencies at cross purposes to the national interest. A high pedestal of incorruptibility is when you refuse to allow your position to influence the course or outcome of a probe involving your government. It is obvious now that there is an unwholesome media and elite conspiracy to keep the President’s achievements buried. Otherwise why are we not lauding him on this score at a time we are saying there must be all-out war on corruption? Why are a noisy few talking of a nebulous change promised by the opposition when right before us we see changes in numerous sectors of the economy and society initiated by the Jonathan presidency? Why would an Olusegun Obasanjo opt to ignore the great strides of Jonathan and choose instead to draw up a fantasy non-performance profile? How come we are not celebrating the successful staging of the 2014 National Conference by Jonathan. Obasanjo’s version failed miserably ten years ago.
What is at play is that Jonathan is facing a cabal of unpatriotic citizens who cannot come to terms with the reality of a ‘minority’ President who is making more history through remarkable strides and surpassing the record of the critics when they were in power . The conclusion then is that the Jonathan Presidency, as with Obama’s in the US, is a historical necessity that must be supported if our Constitution must make sense and earn respect at home and abroad .
THISDAY
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