The Goodluck option with divine touch

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The Goodluck option with divine touch

Written by Sam Adesua Tuesday, 06 July 2010

ON May 29, 2010, Nigerians, especially the politicians, marked 11 years of unbroken democratic dispensation, after long years of military dictatorship in the country. Since independence, the issue of transition from one government to another through free, fair and acceptable election has been a seemingly impossible task. The problem, until 1999, had provided the major excuse for military dictators to intervene in the nation’s politics. Therefore, the politicians felt that they could pat themselves on the back for a rare feat of being able to transit from one civilian government to another through competitive election, no matter the degree of imperfection.

But it is not yet uhuru. Most Nigerians, not only the politicians, are today apprehensive, albeit justifiably, about the general election coming up in the country next year. Since independence, Nigeria is yet to conduct any free, fair, violence-free and generally acceptable election in the country, save the June 1993 election which was annulled by the ruling military junta at the time. Most elections in the country had been characterised by various forms and levels of brazen electoral frauds and, hence, had been trailed by violence and unwarranted wanton destruction of lives and properties of many innocent Nigerians. This explains the root of the pervading apprehension everywhere in the country.

Although the assurance of President Goodluck Jonathan not to leave any stone unturned to conduct a free, fair and acceptable election in the country in 2011 should go a long way to allay the fears of Nigerians and politicians, the unique nature of Nigerian politics presents a formidable threat.

Sectionalism, a derivative of the nation’s ethno-politics, appears to be introducing some kind of complexity into the discordant tunes emanating from the nation’s political field.

Rather than seeing the emergence of Goodluck Jonathan as a hand of God or divine arrangement in the nation’s political terrain for the positive development of the country politically, socially and economically, some Nigerians, especially politicians, mostly from a faction of the Northern Elders, prefer to stick to the hitherto destructive politics based on sectionalism.

The premise for their position, though not based on the nation’s constitution, was the internal arrangement of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the transition programme of the retreating military junta from the nation’s political terrain, which the military politicians had held by the jugular for years. The PDP politicians call it the zoning principle that would allow the presidency to rotate among the various geo-political zones of the country.

In fairness to the politicians then, the decision was meant to sustain the fragile thread holding together the diverse ethnic nationalities in the country, which the attendant crisis provoked by the senseless annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election was trying to destroy. It was a common sense arrangement brought about by socio-political exigency then in a conglomerate of often discordant multi-ethnic groups.

However, the truth of the matter now is that the socio-political exigency that prompted the so-called zoning arrangement, which some politicians, especially from the North, are now regarding as sacrosanct, is no more. Therefore, it should not be treated as a constitutional issue, which it is not. Past experience had proved that such arrangement presents a fertile ground for mediocrity to thrive to the detriment of the polity in all ramifications.

The emergence of Goodluck Jonathan, if he is interested in the 2011 presidential race, should, therefore, be seen as a divine touch on the nation’s tortuous political history for some obvious reasons. It is pertinent to emphasise that the so-called zoning arrangement is a self-serving political abracadabra, especially for the “three majors” in the polity.

For instance, it was divine arrangement and socio-political exigency of the time that made it possible for Yakubu Gowon, a lieutenant-colonel from the Northern minority area at the height of the political conflagration that engulfed the nation between January and July 1966, to assume the leadership of the country. But for the political crisis, it would not have been possible for someone outside the “majors” to occupy that post. Yet, the common chorus is that the nation belongs to all of us.

Divine arrangement is again making it possible for someone from a minority area, the restive Niger/Delta of South-South, to steer the ship of the nation. This is an area that had felt cheated, short-changed, marginalised and even deprived for years. That was part of the reason for the Willink Commission of the pre-independent Nigeria and even the armed struggle led by Isaac Adaka Boro in January 1966 and the follow up led by Ken Saro Wiwa who was murdered under the iron fist of the expired maximum dictator, General Sani Abacha.

Any opposition to Jonathan should be seen as tantamount to fighting against God and the socio-political development of the country. This is a man who has never been associated with any form of inordinate ambition. What is happening is just God’s own arrangement for the country. May be that is why God, in His omniscience, made it possible for the parents to give him the name “Goodluck,” in anticipation of what is happening in the country today. Therefore, if anyone is rejecting Goodluck, no doubt, such a person is inviting bad luck.

Apart from this, it is on record that the minority ethnic groups had, in the past, served as the stabilising factor in the nation’s tortuous political history. In fact, I make bold to say that if not for the minority factor, Nigeria will not be a single political entity as it is today. For this, it may be dangerous for the polity to try to circumvent the ongoing divine arrangement under the guise of zoning arrangement or any other measure.

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