The man, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, is desperately in the throes of life trajectory. He must either choose between statesmanship or infamy. His 22million votes are more than enough to erase his old, dithery ambiguities for utilitarian reformism of which Nigerians impatiently yearn for. The paranoid, diseased anxiety of winning the presidential election is now over. That, in a way, was the reason why he had to roam the serene world of Obudu ranch for divine inspiration to get Nigeria moving at the right direction.
The President has been universally commended for the sublime, rarefied success of giving Nigerians a free, fair and credible election. It is a heroic feat befitting a true hero of our democratic dispensation. Since the President is gracious enough to offer Nigerians a democratic straw of comfort to be grasped at, I will expect him to be a radicalising agent against the rotten parchment of our hobbled destiny. The election of 2011 sent out a ringing rebuff to the primitive cabal of neo-conservative election riggers, who, out of egotism, believe that election is winnable not through honest and transparent transition but through the distribution of money, antediluvian intimidation and the use of state power.
By a cruel twist of fate, the commanding image of President Jonathan in the eyes of Nigerians is one of an avatar or a messiah with a kind of Midas touch to heal our wounds and dry our tears. Jonathan himself worked hard to sustain this image during his campaign by promising at every stop his readiness to bring Utopia to our doorsteps. Thankfully, the recent electoral heroism has been able to lay to rest our discredited, muscular, do-or-die brand of vulgarised politics that supplanted the will of the majority for the capricious desire of the privileged few. Now, Nigeria has to move on and consolidate on the re-birth of pan-Nigerian mandate that came with the suddenness of a tsunami. Of course, we are still in the mood of self-celebration which, in itself is a deceitful delusion of the monumental tasks ahead for President Jonathan. He has been forcibly foreordained as a messiah, change maker, radical conscience and medium-level revolutionary. He has to unhinge this nation from the shattered remains of our battered destiny. He has to heal the tableau of our hurts, the death of our children, the loss of our hope, the continuum of North-South political injustice and lastly, our searing poverty in the midst of opulence.
The story of David and Goliath is apt here. When David saw Goliath he did not stop to consider the odds stacked against him or listen to the trite opinions of others. Instead, he ran quickly toward the battle to meet him. President Jonathan must understand that rapid response is now required of him. The presidential election was his first ever political battle but the bigger battle is the burden of Utopia he promised this nation. I believe that President Jonathan’s promise to build the foundation of this nation’s Utopia is not fake or mere electioneering rhetoric. There should be no excuse for inventing fakery when Nigerians desire to be delivered from a country that had been imprisoned under fiscal, social, economic, political and cultural assault for half a century. Utopian Jonathan must develop the thinking of a social reformer. He should be able to think outside the box of conventional governance. He should regard the last leg of his quadrennial presidency as the best years of his life. He should avoid the noxious politics of jobs for the boys in his appointments.
For instance, the news that Alao-Akala, the outgoing Governor of Oyo State is being considered for a ministerial post must remain a rumour. None of the ex-Governors, Senators and Legislators should ever be considered for ministerial positions. Nigeria, this time, does not need politics of expediency where deadwoods party buddies are rewarded for failure. This nation is a universe of talents and geniuses. We should be careful not to dramatise our stupidity by again reposing our bruised faith in the hands of crypto-Machiavellians and treasury robbers who serve as perennial stewards of Nigerian public affairs. There is booby-trapping evidence that President Jonathan will recycle some jaded public figures that have exhausted their brilliance, if at all brilliance was displayed in their first outing. To do this is to fail the test of mutant governance which he promised.
I have read serious, semi-serious, clever, irritating, mature and juvenile exhortations from patriotic Nigerians to President Jonathan. As co-owners of our democratic capital, they all calibrated genuine desire for the rebirth of a great Nigeria. Out of their love for the humanity of President Jonathan, many hid their subliminal self-doubt to underwrite an audacity of hope for a Jonathanian triumph. Even beyond the deceitful flaccidity of President Jonathan’s look, progressive Nigerians demand that he should set Nigeria on a renaissance of greatness. The following social indicia will set President Jonathan apart as either a statesman or a wannabe cipher from Itueke.
Education, the most important load- bearing pillar of our society’s future has been under assault for decades…..sir, fix it. Visible corruption is like the Hydra, the lethal, many headed mythological snake whose head regenerated as fast as they were severed…sir, recondition this perennial orthodoxy. Mr. President, as a converted social reformer, presiding over mutant governance, let there be an end to the manifest suffering of Nigerians through power outage. Mr. President, recent public discourse was over-heated with the question of our continuation as co-owners of Nigeria with our Northern cousins because of their bestiality on Southern corpers. In terms of human cost to our unity, now is the time to be brave and convey the dreaded Sovereign National Conference of all nationalities that made up Nigeria.
Lastly, let me confess that I watched with conflicted reflex the many promises of President Jonathan during his electioneering days. Now is the moment of truth to actualise the promised Utopia and bring to an end our galloping social decline.
