Democracy is a game of numbers, and politics; politics has become a game of populism, and hypocrisy; populism is the opium of Nigerians: he who wants to catch a monkey must act like one; and hypocrisy has become the norm!
Otherwise, Fashola would not say Agbaje is too old to be Governor and go on to support an even older Buhari for President. Otherwise, Agbaje would not be threatened with loss of votes for saying Jonathan has performed. Otherwise, Change! will not threaten a parallel government, baboons soaked in blood, or perpetual unrest during Jonathan’s reign.
But you already knew that. What you probably did not know was the extent of the sabotage Jonathan’s government has endured, and resisted, to do the lot it has done. Perhaps if you did, you would understand, appreciate, and emulate one’s support for the man.
For the love of Country!
On Jonathan.
“In 2007, President Jonathan declared his assets worth a total of ₦295 304 420.” According to Nuhu Ribadu, that EFCC titan, Jonathan is “the only president in recent years who did not allocate a single oil bloc [or marginal field] to anybody, not to talk of himself; does not have a single property anywhere abroad or any huge business in Nigeria; does not own a university and none of his children are schooling abroad.”
For the love of Country!
On Jonathan’s Legacy.
I only recently learnt that Ob* has some one hundred and seventy-five oceangoing vessels, and his Vice of yesteryears has quite as much! The Marine Police had recently intended to raid one of them when Ob* was phoned, who then phoned Abuja to radio Lagos to call off the raid! Yet, this same man will come on television, play concerned citizen and father of the nation, and point accusing fingers at Jonathan, despite his culpability in Nigeria’s mess! And you believe him!
And these are the powerbrokers of Change! How then can we truly have Change! when they are only in Change! to protect their interests and secure their income? For example, “Majority of the Oil Blocks license in Nigeria will be expiring in few months and many of these people are scared that Jonathan might not renew their licence. The goats want him out by all means to retain the Oil blocks license” and are promoting Change! for that reason!
“Jonathan removed 57 000 ghost workers and 43 756 ghost pensioners from the civil service payroll”; thereby removing a significant piece of yam from the mouths, and reach, of these goats! Yet, goats are stubborn, and these ones have run to Change! for yams!
“Jonathan handed NPA verification to a third party and eliminated port frauds. The goats do not benefit anymore by dubiously seizing people’s goods and turning round to buy them at auctions. It is now 24-hour operation and surveillance, giving no room for their agents to steal or frustrate Importers.”
Jonathan has allowed free and fair elections: APGA won twice, Imo and Anambra; APC won twice, Edo and Osun; LP won Ondo; but PDP won just once, Ekiti! In spite of grave warnings from Ex-President, Jonathan has allowed Opposition to thrive– in the spirit of true democracy.
For the love of Country!
On Boko Haram.
The politics of BH goes beyond rumours and Change! cocktails. BH started as a mild irritation, and fooled Northern Elders into thinking they were the Arewa version of the Niger Delta militants. Yes, there was plenty of time to nip them in the bud, if these fathers had not insisted that they would keep them in check, if Buhari had not said that “an attack on BH is an attack on the North”, if the suggested amnesty deal had not fallen through. Until they became malignant.
We may blame Jonathan for dragging his feet, but any President that has the unity of the country at heart will not overrule the untested concerns of regional elders simply to save face and boost acceptance ratings. No, not in a democracy! We must also bear in mind that Christian girls have always been kidnapped in the North, and for a very long time before now!
“Jonathan at one stage signaled his government would do a prisoner release in exchange for the kidnapped girls. Discussions then took place in Paris with foreign ministers from France, Britain, the United States and Israel, where he agreed no deals should be struck with terrorists. He then called off the exchange” since any government that knows its onions never negotiates with terrorists, lest precedent be set for future attacks.
Eventually, the die was cast and military response became unavoidable. So the military recruited, and arms were expected from South Africa, until that arrangement was scuttled, allegedly, by the powerbrokers of Change! Of course, the main grouse of the Nigerian populace with Jonathan is BH: the longer the matter drags, the better for the Change!
So that new deals had to be made elsewhere. Neighbours and allies were approached and convinced to assist from without as the legendary Nigeria military pushed from within. And we are now winning the war.
And many more Nigerians can now vote, not only because they can return home, but because the six-week extension has allowed the possession of millions of PVCs, despite Jega’s overrated claim of readiness: readiness to disenfranchise a significant proportion of Nigerians, readiness that Jonathan has corrected.
For the love of Country!
On the Naira.
It is not news that we buy the Dollar more than we sell, and that government has been responsible for cushioning the Naira for so long. Only, like the petroleum product subsidy, this too must go if money must be available to pay salaries, build roads, fund projects; if we truly want to discourage importation; if we want our Naira-driven local market to thrive. And we do.
We cannot, as a nation of both poor and rich, continue to subsidise the lust for the dollar; lust that is not peculiar to the poor. And unlike Change!, Jonathan believes, and rightly too, that “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” And that we do.
For the love of Country!
On Corruption.
There are two obvious ways to tackle corruption, one more popular than the other. Most people would rather we imprisoned everyone, since even the Fathers of the Nation are not more than whitewashed sepulchres! But do we have enough prisons, even as we call for prison decongestion? Can we feed them in prison? And that’s on the bright side. Who dares arrest Obasanjo, Atiku, Buhari or Tinubu without risking disintegration, or military interventions? I am aware Obasanjo is ready for Buhari’s prison; but even he knows that won’t happen!
Jonathan’s approach to corruption is as simple as they come, and just as brilliant! Separate the goat from the yam: put in measures to dissuade and incapacitate the thief and your valuables will be safe! Tall walls, burglary proofs, ààlè (charms); these are measures everyone is familiar with. Put in checks, verification exercises, cashless economy, traceable transactions; and the thieves will be weeded out based on proof and not politically motivated allegations, as we had in yesteryears. Remove the “*1” from the “*556*1*recharge PIN#” and Nigerians will be liberated.
For the love of Country!
On Saturday.
But these take time, and continuity, and freedom; the triad of Jonathan. The way Nigeria is, things must get worse before they get better. Nigeria must be built from the bottom up and surreptitiously, painstakingly, and not from the penthouse and ostensibly, lest the skyscraper we all desire collapse in the haste that Change! will employ. We must be patient; and we Nigerians are not a patient folk. (READ, The RESET Button).
But it is high time we stood our ground. We must see this government’s reforms to fruition. We must not allow them to be aborted, truncated, sacrificed on the altar of Change! Especially since those we hope to silence, and be liberated from, are now very much part and parcel of the Change! crew, so much that a globally renowned professor would deride the Constitutional freedom to prefer one’s choice of candidate above others, and others’.
So that we must vote Jonathan. We must vote Freedom.
For the love of Country!
