Days to the country’s potentially reforming presidential election rescheduled for March 28, the language and logic of compulsion coming from the camp of President Goodluck Jonathan deserve contemplation and rejection. In particular, the implication of coercion expressed by First Lady Patience Jonathan betrays the innermost recesses of her mind, and by possible and understandable extension, the likely evil within the presidential circle.
Mrs. Jonathan said at a women’s rally in Benin, Edo State: “Everybody is staying there eight years. Now, it’s our turn. We must complete our eight years.” She continued: “It is in the constitution of this country. Two, two terms. We will complete our two terms and hand over.” Such dangerously simplistic thinking is even more terrorising because of its source. If the unenlightened belief in automaticity is the operating inspiration for Jonathan’s reelection ambition and campaign, it further exposes the appalling lack of democratic awareness and understanding in his sphere of influence.
It is disturbing that Mrs. Jonathan, who must have spoken the minds of others of her ilk, reduced the concept of two possible terms in power to a mechanical construction. In other words, in the wife’s view, her husband’s first-term performance in office shouldn’t be a factor for consideration by the electorate in the expected election. What should matter to voters, the thinking goes, is Jonathan’s constitutional eligibility for a second term in office, separate from any measurement of his first-term accomplishments, if any.
What kind of democracy gives power to the people, and yet expects them to be powerless to remove a first-term failure and stop him from advancing to a second-term catastrophe? Interestingly, perhaps because love is said to be blind, Mrs. Jonathan seems blind to her husband’s political minuses, for which a conscious electorate should punish him by voting him out.
In this context, it is relevant to consider the dubious slogan of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP): Power to the People. Against the background of Mrs. Jonathan’s demonstrated not-so-subtle sense of entitlement regarding a second presidential term for her husband, the power of the people appears to be unrecognised, meaning that a powerless people is central to the achievement of her dream. Fundamentally, the expected presidential election represents a priceless opportunity for the electorate to demonstrate not only discerning political consciousness but also confident mastery of its ultimate sovereignty. In other words, the election is better appreciated as a People Power Project. It is about the supremacy of the vote or the primacy of the voters. Power to the people is a catch-phrase that must be actualised by the people themselves for meaningful change.
Probably the main the challenge facing the progressive camp in the countdown to the defining election is people mobilisation, which will likely come with the difficulty of spreading political awareness and enlightenment as well as delivering the crucial message of the need for game-changing political action within a population that is usually fatalistically absorbent. Indeed, how far the people are ready to go to protect the sacredness of their votes will be decisive.
Importantly, the people need to respond in the clearest of terms to Mrs. Jonathan’s misconception of her husband’s misrule by expressing through their votes the popular perception concerning his unpopularity. It is thought-provoking that at another PDP women’s presidential rally in Ilorin, Kwara State, Mrs. Jonathan said: “Nigerian women, if they (APC) come, tell them that your mother said you should not listen to them. They have nothing to offer. They have nothing to give you, Nigerian women; because the battle has already been conquered, God has opened the way for us. God has brought down the messiah for us. And PDP is the messiah. Goodluck is the messiah.”
It is unsurprising that the closer the election, the more corrupted the political talk, especially by a party of corrupt and corrupting features. On crooked thinking, it may be impossible to beat the thought that links the purity of the divine with the observable impurity and impunity of the PDP and its governmental hierarchs, particularly President Jonathan. It should be interesting to have an idea of Mrs. Jonathan’s idea of God as well as her definition of a messiah. Still on clarifications, Mrs. Jonathan may need to be more clarifying about her concept of peace. She also said in Ilorin: “PDP is not shaken; as far as we are there, there is no need for trouble. You know that Mama Peace, your mother, is peace-loving, so the children must also be peace-loving. Women are peacemakers and no woman that makes trouble is worth to be called a woman.”
Interestingly, the questions that must follow such innocent self-disqualification are: Does Mrs. Jonathan stand for womanhood? Can she be called a woman? When in December 2013 she re-introduced herself as Mama Peace, Nigerians were anxious to find out whether the publicised change of name would make any difference not only to her public conduct but also to public perception of her personality. The so-called name-change sounded like a publicity stunt prompted by pressure from “social anxiety,” which was graspable in the light of her markedly unflattering public image.
According to her at the time, “My name is no more Patience but now Mama Peace because I believe that without peace, there will be no more women, no more children and no more health sector. Without peace, the international community will be afraid to come and invest in our country.” She also said: “Peace is from the heart and not from the tongue or lips; not what you say but what is in you.” From the look of things, whatever might have been responsible for Mrs. Jonathan’s new-found song on “peace evangelism,” it appears that she would benefit from further education on the basics of the concept. She still needs to learn from her own words, if they were not uttered hypocritically, but that seems more and more to be the case.
Apart from the reality that her record of imperiousness has not changed, Mrs. Jonathan’s campaign utterances show that a name-change cannot be the same thing as conscious self-redefinition. This is still the old, familiar lady of battle, and it is difficult to recognise any change.
What if the people go against Mrs. Jonathan’s ridiculous argument that her husband “must” be reelected irrespective of his track record that makes him unelectable? What if the people rubbish her nonsensical view that her husband and his party have a messianic value?
NATION
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