THE PROMISES OF GOODLUCK JONATHAN

THE PROMISES OF GOODLUCK JONATHAN

resident Goodluck Jonathan recently promised to put national interest above everything else. He also vowed to give transparent leadership to Nigerians throughout his tenure. The two promises are unbelievably wonderful; they are the kind of shared values you expect of very committed and dedicated leaders, which often times are unknown in our shores. Leadership and its co-traveler, transparency, are central to good leadership and always allow gains to accrue to the people and the citizenry. Leadership has been a major reason why Nigeria has teetered on the edge of degeneration and hovered between failure and abyss, and the people pushed to poverty by greedy men who saw the national purse as their piggy banks. For a leader to succeed and make positive impacts on the larger society, the masses of the people and the nation as a whole, he has to be selfless and always put the people first. Nigeria has never been lucky to have a selfless leader at the national level. Nigeria had had gluttons, epicureans, grabbers, killers, looters, religious bigots and ethicists who have done very little for the majority of the people and plenty for themselves. A good leader feels the pains and hardships of his people and makes their situation his to improve. Shehu Shagari never felt the pains of our people while president. One of his ministers told the world that no Nigerian was eating from the dustbin at a time when millions were going without and the NPN government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari and his ministers were junketing around the world and sipping the best wines. Muhammudu Buhari was actively committed various human rights abuses against Nigerians and running a police state where freedom of speech became a crime and was decreed as such. Olusegun Obasanjo who presided over the nation in and out of military uniform spent most of his years as head of state and president settling himself and his family. Despite his promises in 1999 when he grabbed his first term as president Obasanjo never felt the pains and anguish of the people he led. He told off some citizens who wondered why he did not visit the site of a bomb blast in Lagos early enough. The citizens challenged him and demanded action, but Obansanjo's response was that he did not have any business visiting the bomb site and the bomb victims! Remember this was the same Obasanjo who saw hell in Abacha's gulag and promised to do everything in his powers to make the lives of Nigerians better having learnt a terrible lesson and gone through a tough time, which God delivered him from. Eight years after and with a failed attempt to snatch a third term by pressuring the National Assembly to change the law of the land Obasanjo left power very reluctantly. He had failed to make good on any of his promises to the people. The contract he voluntarily signed with the Nigerian people was in tatters and while his fortunes and wealth had taken an unusual jump with the establishment of Bells University and many other businesses the misfortunes of Nigerians had gotten worse and hunger had overtaken most citizens. There was even an Obasanjo presidential library and its launching that garnered billions of naira in donations from several unwilling multinationals, reluctant banks, arm-twisted manufacturing concerns and fearful companies. Obasanjo and his then deputy Atiku Abubakar were not transparent and were surely unfair to our people in their management of the nation for those greed-driven eight years. I will not waste time to discuss Ibrahim Babangida and Sanni Abacha. These two dictators and soldiers of fortune deserve no more than a mention in the footnotes of Nigerian history. Their catalogs of crimes against the Nigerian people are well documented by Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and many other human rights organizations. Neither of the two is seen beyond the opportunism and greed they stood for. A friend used to say that even if Babangida could afford to build the Minna Hilltop Estate from his legitimate income he could not afford to maintain it on his allowances as a retired general. The loot in the hands of Mariam Abacha and her insolent children clearly indicated that rogues are not far from sight in our land. The political plans of these two rogue families in the recently concluded elections and party politics ended in shame and defeats. They deserved no better. Let us return to Goodluck Jonathan, a man whose fortunes have seen an amazing turnaround and whose life is probably way beyond what he could ever imagine. He is a man of opportunity and a man of the moment. He knew it and probably considers himself in dream land at the moment. But he has no time to dream now; he has to come to terms with the challenges before him and the work of nation building. Jonathan is seen by many as lacking the guts to take decisions that will hurt the powers that be but make live a lot better for the masses of our people. Some said he will not be as forceful and willing to step on toes to ensure things are done fairly and to the full advantage of the citizenry. At the moment President Jonathan is being followed around the nation by Mr. Femi Otedola. It is either Mr. Otedola is after something or something is after him. What is Otedola up to or looking for? His follow-follow looks no more than a desperate measure and a hover-around. Jonathan must distance himself from Mr. Otedola and not allow anyone to promise to front for him or offer him interests or stakes in some joint business. Some people have even compared Jonathan with Buhari and wondered if Jonathan is "his own man," a man who can put his foot down, take decisions without bothering about the interests of some powerful few, but actually design people-oriented policies and initiate programs that will make live a lot better for the masses while denying the rich and powerful the opportunity to reap the poor off and to cash in where they have not put anything in. I do not know Jonathan well enough to assess him along those lines. Some have said he did very little to nothing after the death of his erstwhile boss, the late Umaru Yar'Ardua, the rest of whose term he spent to fight his way up to the exulted seat and to settle in, which was considered an indication of his lack of plans and ideas. I am of the view that that was a short period to use in assessing Jonathan and more time is needed to see what he can do and how far he is willing to go on behalf of our people. Jonathan began his post-election presidency with a retreat at the Obudu Cattle Ranch. Going to the ranch was a wonderful advert for that resort and a good example for other leaders. He must go a step further by making sure that his medical examination is done annually and at any of Nigeria's University Teaching Hospitals. If every Nigerian is stuck with the local hospitals and the various state-owned General Hospitals so should the president, his family, ministers and lieutenants. No one go around with two heads, not even the president, and true honesty and transparency just demand that everyone of us rely, use, and accept what we have, rather than wasting foreign exchange on medical treatments and check-ups in foreign lands. If the president feel our Teaching Hospitals are not good enough then he should take appropriate action to bring them up to international standard and make them meet the health needs of the nation. I do not expect President Jonathan to behave as badly as Umaru Yar'Ardua who spent the nation's money and resources to seek medical miracles overseas and procured medical equipment for himself and himself alone - conveniently forgetting that the diseases he suffered are not peculiar to him alone; many Nigerians are going through worse medical problems. As a leader, your conscience should prick you and strong enough to make you realize that if you order a plate of salad at the NICON Hilton Hotel in Abuja you should wonder if the average Nigerian can do the same particularly when spending state funds, or that if you procure a dialysis equipment with state funds for your personal use at the presidential villa or Aso Rock Presidential Clinic you should be interested in knowing if that equipment is available at the Teaching Hospitals across the nation. If the equipment is not available then you must make them available in those hospitals as well. That is what is expected of good leaders. I want to take President Jonathan up on his promise to put national interest above everything else. It is in national interest to see to it that very seasoned Nigerians, honest men and women, openly transparent people of integrity are appointed as ministers and given responsibilities that will ensure the success of this government and translate its actions into meaningful development for the nation and its people. Very few of the current ministers are worthy of their offices and some have shown that they are unsuitable and incompetent to hold office. The petroleum minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke is one of such ministers. It has been said that Mrs. Alison-Madueke and the president are very close and are actually family friends. I must acknowledged that there is nothing wrong in having family friends or being close to these family friends, but my concern is that the petroleum ministry deserve to be run very well in a nation with heavy dependence on a monolithic product like crude oil. You will also not be seen to be transparent if this lady remain the nation's petroleum minister or even hold any other ministerial position at that. We need to divorce family friendships and relationships from state matters from now on if we want to be seen to be transparent and putting the interest of the nation first. A far more pertinent reason is the fact that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) needs a huge reorganization. The state-owned oil corporation is poorly managed and is being run down for personal benefits by executives and general managers who are very corrupt and very averse to transparency. Transparency International (TI) considered NNPC the most corrupt national oil company in the world. NNPC ranked lowest and failed in every area of assessment used by TI to assess state-owned oil corporations around the world. The financial situation of NNPC is worse than ever before and its books have not been audited in years. A full audit of the accounts of NNPC is very important to the Nigerian economy. The nation will be able to see the true position of the corporation's assets and liabilities, and a strategic review can then be done to reposition the failing company for better and sustained performance, and transparency. The audit report of NNPC should be available for everyone to see since every Nigerian is a stakeholder in NNPC. I feel strongly that this is the department to start from; show to Nigerians that you truly want to be transparent by accepting the report of Transparency International (TI) on NNPC and implementing their recommendations. The report is found at the link provided below: http://www.transparency.org/news_room/latest_news/press_releases/2011/2011_03_01_prt_report_2011_en To truly put national interest above personal and all other interests, President Jonathan must appoint men and women of integrity and competence to run the various government ministries and agencies. If the president is transparent and his ministers are not they will set him back. While he goes in one direction they will go in the other, and while he is doing everything possible to make sure funds are properly and well utilized for the good of our people his ministers will be helping themselves to state funds. The Petroleum Technology Trust Fund became a piggy bank for former vice president Abubakar and many in government some years ago. A few years ago the minister of health and her top directors at the Federal Ministry of Health also shared millions of naira that was left in the ministry's account at the end of the fiscal year. This case has not been fully resolved as several cases relating to this scandal are still in court. There should be no room for defeated former governors in the national executive council. Not a single former governor is worthy of ministerial appointment going by their poor performance record in the various states they ran to the ground and left with huge debt. Debts can be considered good if there are projects to show for them, but that cannot be said of failed governors like Mr. Alao-Akala or Mr. Gbenga Daniel. The two men and nearly all the other former governors have cases to answer before the EFCC. Since President Jonathan's political party is not know for transparency and for putting the nation's interest first it is glaring that the president will have to look at the larger society for decent and capable men, not ex-convicts and their ilk. None of the former governors have been transparent, people-orientated and committed to the development of their states and the plight of the down-trodden. They were very much Owambe governors and epicureans. We need men and women who will be servants of the Nigerian people; men and women who are ready to sacrifice and give of themselves and will be fully accountable to the Nigerian people; willing and ready to protect the resources of our nation and maximize these resources for the benefit of all. Dr. Jonathan must also ignore all the defeated governorship, senatorial and representative candidates who were rejected at the polls and who were, all along, in the game for the final benefit they expect to get from federal appointments. Who wants to reward losers? I do not think President Jonathan is a kind of leader who will promote losers. What can Jonathan do about the jumbo wages and allowances at the National Assembly? Is it going to be business as usual at the National Assembly? Is it proper that the Assembly members set their own salaries? Should our senators and legislators be earning salaries or stipends/sitting allowances? How President Jonathan handles this issue of wages and allowances at the National Assembly will openly show his true determination to put the nation first. The National Assembly has been a roguish institution in the last twelve years and the governor of the Central Bank has been diligent and upright enough to point this out despite the Assembly's attempt to muzzle him. The Senate and House constitute major huddles in the wheel of national progress. There is an urgent need to cut their excessive and prohibitive expenses. The nation cannot afford the huge wages, expenses, purchases and other costs the National Assembly is putting the nation through. I will be wonderful if Dr. Jonathan can focus on initiating policies that will stand the test of time and put the nation on the right path to sustainability and growth, and NNPC and the National Assembly are central to ensuring the success of any transparent and open government in Nigeria, one the major source of the nation's earnings and the other the major looter of the nation's earnings. Nigeria will be a better place with a transparent and open regime which should be able to deliver the fruits of democracy so much talked about but never seen.