The voracity with which Nigerians
supported the incumbent president in 2011 was nothing short of
phenomenal. Everyone on every street was shouting Goodluck, people were
naming their newborn babies Goodluck. His story was spread around, it
was stuff of miracles:
From grass to grace; from the most unlikely
deputy governor to governor then to president; from this to that. If
there was no such thing as a Nigerian dream prior to the advent of
Jonathan Goodluck, there was when he ascended into presidency. Indeed,
only one whose name was Goodluck could achieve so much in so little a
time. Indeed, it was he who God had selected, packaged and sent to save
Nigeria from the mediocrity that was sucking air out and suffocating our
dear country.
Perhaps, what many people failed to
realize at the time was that a person needed more than just luck and
more than just miracles to lead a country especially the largest
population of black people in the world. It did not take too long for
things to degenerate and for luck to run out on Goodluck. The security
situation became a disaster – people were being killed on almost a daily
basis, bombs were going off at car packs, at shopping malls, at
churches, at mosques. At a point boys were shot in their dorm rooms as
they slept. At another point school girls preparing for their final
exams were kidnapped from their schools. At yet another point, the
government thought it wise to spread lies that the location of these
kidnapped girls had been figured out and that they would soon be
recovered. The most saddening of all of these was the muteness of Mr.
President. For long stretches of time, he remained silent about things
which, as president, he had no business remaining silent about.
As it stands at the moment, the economy
seems not to be in great shape even though it is being drummed
ceaselessly into our consciousness that it is and it has become the
largest in Africa. The state of security is getting worse as the days go
by: large numbers of Local governments in the North East are under Boko
Haram’s control. Unemployment is as bad as it has ever been. Though the
government will argue, but as it is, it proves easier for the biblical
Camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a young school
leaver to get gainful employment. If he tries, he may be stampeded upon
like it happened during the immigration recruitment saga where a sum of
1000 naira was collected from the thousands of applicants yet seventeen
of them died and worse still, absolutely nothing was done about it.
Nobody lost their jobs for causing the death of seventeen young
Nigerians- apparently the lives of these young people were not important
enough.
These are some reasons why many people
are fed up with the Jonathan administration and why they are itching to
perform their civic responsibility and vote out the president in
February.
However, his main opponent, General
Muhammadu Buhari, whose outlook to things seems more ferocious than the
current president’s tepidness, has always been a widely unpopular man
especially within the intellectual sphere of Nigerians. General Buhari
has contested to be president in each of the last three presidential
elections always coming short. The difference, this time around, is the
party on which he stands as flag bearer, the All Progressive Congress.
In the last three elections, Buhari has
run without support from many of the political ‘strong men’. This time
around, with the merger of the top opposition parties in the country
into one large mass of opposition, Buhari, very importantly, has new
support from these powers that be. This does not necessarily translate
into an improvement on the perceived negative personage of the man whom
many describe as not just a religious fundamentalist but also a
militarized ex army General who cannot possibly understand the workings
of modern democracy. In 2007, in fact, Professor Wole Soyinka, Africa’s
first and Nigeria’s only Nobel laureate, wrote an article where he
lambasted the ambitions of the general at that time: “The grounds on which General Buhari is being promoted as the alternative choice” professor Soyinka wrote, “are not only shaky, but pitifully naïve.”
Buhari, during his days as military head
of state, was known for his brutish approach to power. Liberty as a
concept was squeezed and thrown into the backyard dustbin. People were
jailed indiscriminately for reasons bordering the ridiculous. Anybody
who made critical comments on the military leadership was thrown into
jail: civil right activists were jailed, freedom fighters and musicians
were jailed, strikes and demonstrations were banned and the secret
police service was entrusted with so much power. General Buhari’s
tenure, quite simply, was most intimidating.
Things have changed, however. The
present administration has degenerated to the point where Nigerians are
exceedingly ready to flush the sins of General Buhari’s past down the
drain, to forget, totally and completely, about it and why not?
Truthfully, the concept of human rights was sketchy at best, even in the
most developed of governments when General Buhari was military Head of
State and with his shown readiness to change and adapt to new democratic
systems, the past may remain in the past and never again rear its head.
Also, it has always been said that General Buhari’s tenure as Head of
State was the only one during which there was absolute zero tolerance
for corruption, and analysts have argued that Nigeria’s most
intrinsically important problem at the moment, is corruption and so it
would make sense for the General to come in, become president and again,
try to reduce corruption to the barest possible.
It is truthfully unfortunate that Nigeria and Nigerians have been
stretched to this point where their only options are a docile, corrupt
incumbent President Jonathan and an old, militarily strict General
Buhari, who may or may not be a fundamentalist; it mirrors the lore of a
man who was stuck in a position where he had to select between the
Devil and a Sea. The solution to our problems, in my opinion, is still
quite far off away that it even seems sketchy and unclear. So for now,
what option do we take? Walk towards the devil and wish for the best? Or
do we dive into the Sea and test our ability to swim?
Bomi Ehimony is a writer from North Central Nigeria. He blogs at www.diaryofbomiehimony.blogspot.com and tweets @BomiEhimony
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