Between Jonathan and Buhari: The Lines Are Clear

 By Zayyad Abdullahi

It will please some of you to know that I almost titled this article “My President is a Bitch!” It will please the rest of you to know me and my mum unanimously agreed I wouldn’t survive a day in Kirikiri prisons hence begrudgingly decided against it. With elections a mere five days away, both camps are fully into desperation mode. The mudslinging and cat fighting from both parties would leave even the cast of Jersey Shore in awe. For the most part, the attacks have been targeted at the opposition candidate, retired General Muhammadu Buhari. He has been called every word synonymous with dictator. He has been called a bigot, old, tired, uncompromising and more. Some have even questioned his sincerity of purpose and return to active politics after having had multiple opportunities to “chop” in the past.

It is glaring where both candidates’ priorities lie. While Buhari has spent most of his campaign underlining ways to tackle the issues crippling the giant that is Nigeria, Jonathan has spent his attacking the person of his main rival. A government that after 5 years in office needs billboards and radio jingles to prove its achievements is a failure. Imagine you lived in London and had two brothers named Musa and Obi in Nigeria. For 6 years, you’ve been sending Musa money to build you an estate in your village. Your choice of picking Musa over Obi who already had experience as a project manager was simply because Musa is 15 years younger than the 70 year old Obi therefore should be vibrant and up to the task. However, upon arrival 6 years later, you find out all Musa has to show are pictures of houses and construction sites with no tangible estate. My question is if you had to build another estate, would you send your money to Musa or the older, more reliable Obi? If you answered Obi, you’re no Einstein as that is the obvious choice. Lest we forget, the real Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If you agree with Einstein’s logic then you’ll probably agree that supporting a government which The Economist described as “an utter failure” to succeed after 5 years of consistent failure is insanity. If you still agree with this argument then you should also agree that the only logical choice is to seek to change such a government.

Let’s be clear on one thing; the change we strive for is not a change in acronyms. We do not seek to change a GEJ to a GMB or a PDP to an APC. What we seek to change is the “I don’t give a damn” style of governance. If APC comes in and continues with that callous style of governance then we shall change it to XYZ and so on until we get real change. The PDP will tell you how Buhari is only a puppet doing the bidding of certain fifth columnists. They back this claim up by pointing to how he is only allowed to speak for three minutes at rallies. My question is how long does it take to mention corruption, power and insecurity?

Corruption is the single greatest malaise threatening to snuff out this nation. It is both the nucleus and the lifeblood of all other disorder jeopardizing us as a people, and making us the laughing stock of the civilized world. If you can’t guess what happens when that is tackled then this conversation is over as you probably subscribe to the “stealing is not corruption” school of thought. While Buhari is infamous for jailing people for stealing diminutive amounts that cannot even secure them a Peugeot, President Jonathan has made his position on corruption clear to us. According to GEJ, during a presidential media chat a year ago, most of the cases being tagged as corruption are just cases of mere stealing or a case of a goat’s natural craving for “nyam” as he most recently clarified.

Never mind how the goat and yam illustration is an unfortunate analogy to come from a person with a PhD in zoology; that is a story for another day. Nevertheless, I must ask, was the Pension Fund that went missing under Abdulrasheed Maina’s watch stealing or corruption? Was the subsidy fund allegedly siphoned by Femi Otedola and friends stealing or corruption? Did Senate President David Mark’s wife steal from Immigration job seekers or was that corruption? Was the $270m Princess Stella Oduah misappropriated as Aviation minister stealing or corruption? Was the N10b Mrs. Diezani Madueke unconstitutionally allocated for private air trips stealing or corruption? Was it stealing when $20b magically disappeared from the federation account or was that also corruption? Fact is if GEJ didn’t actively engage in corruption then he passively supported it.

As celebrated Greek philosopher Plato would have you know, in times of immorality “your silence gives consent”. This reminds me of when Buhari told APC delegates “you cannot trust a corrupt man to stop corruption”. The weight of this quote alone is enough to convince a person not to vote Jonathan. Nigeria needs a president that understands it is the crime that is a vice not its extent.

Buhari has promised to be at the forefront of the fight against insurgency, a promise which prompted our very brave vice president to say he (Buhari) must have a death wish. You see, these are the kind of people we have at the helm of affairs. The kinds that think leading a war to defend the honor and integrity our nation is a death wish. What Nigeria needs is a president with the compassion, dignity and common decency required of a leader of people, not one credited with the unprecedented acts of throwing lavish parties to follow tragic events. The president partied a day after 59 schoolboys in Buni Yadi were killed and partied again a year after their death at Shagari’s 90th birthday celebration. If the fact that this government waited 5 years, after about 15,000 citizens have been killed, 2.1m displaced and several LGAs lost to insurgents before deciding to finally fight back doesn’t make you cuddle your PVC in anticipation of March 28, then I don’t know what will.

In May, 2010, when President Goodluck Jonathan assumed office, he promised that his priority would be to confront Nigeria’s age long electricity conundrum. On August 26 of the same year, the President came out with his elaborate power sector roadmap and assured Nigerians that noticeable improvements would be achieved in power supply across the nation. They gave a date in October 2014 as when Nigerians should expect stable power supply. Although I had my doubts, I was praying they would prove me wrong. On October 20 2014, the Minister for Power, Mr Chinedu Nebo speaking in Abuja said the poor electricity supply across the country was because power generation had dropped by 1,000 megawatts from the 3, 500 megawatts it was the previous month. In other words, this administration has spent billions on power (including the recently approved two hundred and thirteen billion naira facility as bailout for the power sector) only to reduce us from 4,350MW to about 2,628.4MW.

As bad as Jonathan’s failure to fulfill his electoral promises to Nigerians is, the barefaced lies told by his henchmen to cover such atrocity is worse. Jonathanians will try to mislead you with empty statistics but I must warn you to desist from using theoretical analysis to draw logical conclusions. They will tell how average life expectancy is up by about 4 years but ask yourself, do you feel safer now than you did 6 years ago? They will sing like canaries about all the inroads they have made in the power sector, but I ask you if electricity supply has increased in your homes. The president’s apologists will tell you how Jonathan is really a good man deep inside and I always tell them how I’m only interested in him being a good president on the outside. All I want is a president that gives a damn, surely that isn’t too much to ask for. A loss for Jonathan will be a victory for common sense, your move Nigerians.

Zayyad Abdullahi is on Twitter as @zvyyvd