Ten years after he was rejected at the poll, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, like the wife of Lot, is trying to look back.
He left, more or less in a blaze of glory, despite the general perception of his government as inept and clueless by many political actors, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who vigorously campaigned against his stay in power beyond 2015.
Generally perceived as a gentleman who could not frontally ruffle feathers, GEJ, as he is fondly called by some admirers, behaved responsibly and adjusted to life outside power. He became more popular outside Nigeria, particularly in the West African sub-region and the continent as an envoy and important observer during presidential elections.
But since 2019, certain people who pose as his admirers have not allowed him to be himself. They have been urging him to terminate his blissful retirement. He now seems to pander to deceit, with the insatiable nature of man dominating his thought process.
Jonathan has the right to contest for president, like other past leaders with unquenchable appetite for political control. Politicians are incurable optimists, even if they are contending with a fading influence. In the game of politics, retirement is never contemplated.
Power is so alluring and highly captivating that former leaders always prefer to come back. What has saved Nigeria from the sit-tight syndrome is the primacy and potency of the constitution that sets the limit. It is not the desire for credible service that is the motivation. Their intention may be to return to power for personal gains, for ego, for a show-off, and for private accumulation.
Kleptocracy is the political ideology of many African leaders. Those who eventually succeeded in regaining power have often left their countries worse than they found them in their second coming.
None of them is insulated from the temptation, despite the realisation that power obsession could also lead to personal and national doom, as the power baron tends, with the passage of time, to equate himself with the nation he mischievously governs.
The addiction to power is an all-consuming passion fueled by poor judgment and neglect of reality. Warning signals are ignored, and self-assessment becomes defective. Liars and manipulators mill around the kleptomaniac who ultimately falls into deception, only to be deserted after the collapse of the inordinate ambition. This is peculiar to Generals who had set themselves upon the country, brandishing the barrels of guns.
Some examples offer instructive lessons. As politicians competed for available spaces in the ill-fated Third Republic, some elements, for reasons best known to them, suddenly remembered that former Military Head of State Gen. Yakubu Gowon was around. They, therefore, resolved to draft ‘Gentleman Jack’ to the presidential race. The former leader, a political scientist, was excited. The Ebora Owu, General Olusegun Obasanjo, frowned at the antics of those trying to draft his former boss to the murky waters of politics. He retorted: ‘What did Jack forget in the State House?’
Mercifully, the plot crumbled at the initial stage of the laborious Option A4 experimentation.
Obasanjo himself was lucky. But at the end of eight years, many Nigerians thought that it was better if he had not returned to power. Up to now, he has been haunted by the ghost of his infamous third-term agenda. OBJ handed power voluntarily, as often said, to democratically elected leaders in 1979. He elicited a round of applause. But by the time he left power again in 2007, the praises had evaporated. The then Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu apologised to the bewildered nation over Obasanjo’s tenure elongation plot. Although Nigeria is also entitled to an apology over the flawed election that took Umaru Yar’Adua to power, none has been forthcoming from the man at the centre of the controversies.
It could not be ascertained if the Evil Genius, former military President Ibrahim Babangida, had a pact with OBJ that he would succeed him. However, IBB, as fondly called by admirers and foes, threw his hat into the ring. A wealthy man who had stepped aside ingloriously after eight years of tossing around Nigerians and annulling the most credible election, Babangida embarked on a nationwide consultation until he was stopped by northern leaders who opted for Atiku Abubakar, who, in the end, failed at the poll.
Although General Muhammadu Buhari returned, like OBJ, the soldierly steam he was famous for in his military heydays had deserted him. Active, energetic, and vibrant between 1984 and ’85, the latter-day Buhari contrasted sharply with the Buhari the nation had known and the corrupt ones had feared, accompanied by a no-nonsense Ilorin-born Fulani soldier, Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon. While Buhari was hailed in 2015 as the symbol of change, he forfeited the adulation in 2023, with his ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), battling with internal contradictions. Under his watch, the nation was grounded by self-imposed fuel scarcity, forex burden and punishment, and a curious currency change that made life unsavoury for the citizens for weeks.
Since Jonathan was voted out of power, his intention to bounce back has been a subject of speculation. Naive and poor at self-assessment, the former president has often listened to Ahithophelean advisers who have continued to urge him on.
Jonathan is not a strong politician, neither is he a giant of history. He was nevertheless catapulted to stardom by sheer luck. In every political position he held, he was about garnering experience when he was suddenly promoted to a higher pedestal.
As a young lecturer, he was tipped for running mate to a boisterous boss with larger than life attitude, the self-style Governor-General of Ijaw Nation, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha. When the pompous governor of eight-local-government State of Bayelsa was run out of power, Jonathan, a spare tyre deputy governor, filled the void and finished his boss’ second term.
No sooner had he secured the governorship nomination for 2007 than fate smiled on him again. At the presidential convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he was surprisingly paired with Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua as the running mate. His first boss was consumed by corruption. His second boss was down with a protracted illness. In the two instances, he became the chief beneficiary of unplanned power shift.
The latter was not without hassles. As vice president, his ebullient and more strategic wife, Dr. Dame Patience, complained about the position’s obscurity, alleging that having been sidelined in the high official quarters, he was reduced to a powerless deputy who consoled himself with reading newspapers.
But the voice of reason made a solid case for him in the absence of President Yar’Adua. The doctrine of necessity was invoked and he moved up as Acting President. After Yar’Adua’s death, Jonathan became the number one citizen.
It is important to note that Jonathan never struggled to get power at any level. Others struggled on his behalf or paved the way for him. Power always landed on his palm on a platter of gold. He, therefore, lacks the critical experience required for political competition, consultation, negotiation, mobilisation, strategic thinking, and evaluation.
While in power, his poor experience often led to poor decisions. Jonathan received commendation for setting up a constitutional conference. Eminent Nigerians converged on Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to chart a new course for Nigeria. It later paled into a jamboree, as Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had earlier warned. The confab produced a good report. But the former president developed cold feet overnight. He said the approaching general election deserved more priority than the implementation of the far-reaching recommendations. The non-implementation of the report amounted to a waste of time, resources and opportunity.
The steps he had taken in his elusive search for power confirmed his gullibility. Ahead of 2015, when it was obvious that he could not penetrate the Southwest, unlike in 2011, he sealed a pact with some elements in the region who lacked grassroots appeal. His major Southwest allies then were an aggrieved Afenifere factional leader, a capitalist lawyer who masqueraded as a revolutionary and leader of a fierce self-determination group. At the close of the poll, reality dawned on him that he struck a deal with fake allies without political clout.
Gazing at 2027, Jonathan’s approach is laughable, although it casts him in the mould of innocence and meekness. He is banking on hope, the elixir of life, without a formidable structure and networks.
Since 2015, Jonathan has been more or less ‘partyless’. After his defeat, he could not offer leadership for the party he used as a vehicle to ride to power. The former president has never played any leadership and stabilising role in the PDP but was aloof as the crisis-ridden platform decayed. The party’s governors who are battling to save its soul at the intensive care unit do not draw inspiration from GEJ who abandoned the platform a decade ago.
He also deluded himself into thinking that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) of Atiku Abubakar, his long-standing political foe, could offer him a temporary refuge. So ingenious was the Otuoke politician that he even applied for the ADC flag on the condition that no other aspirant, not even Atiku, should slug it out with him at the primary. Of course, he got the answer he deserved on the spot: ‘ADC is Atiku’s property and fortress.’
Should Jonathan join the 2027 presidential race, he will most likely erase whatever is left of his political significance and sink into the abyss of irrelevance if he loses the poll. Nothing about the current state of the nation suggests otherwise.