At the rate he is going, former president Goodluck Jonathan may soon be asking to be crowned the best leader Nigeria ever had. The thought alone is unfortunate. On April 8, in this space, in an article entitled ‘Jonathan finds his voice too early’, I expressed my dismay at Dr Jonathan’s penchant for self-praise and sweeping condemnation of his successor. While conceding to him his right to free speech, I thought it was impertinent for him to be applauding himself and his administration so frequently, and carrying on as though Nigerians made a huge mistake by voting him out in 2015. I also felt that given the weight of accusations hanging over some of his principal officers, a good number being prosecuted, that Dr Jonathan should have refrained from much public speech-making until the investigations and court processes were exhausted and the accused cleared.
But that was not to be. The former president has been speaking, and very loudly, to just about anyone, casting himself as the great leader that was rudely turfed out. Now this week he grabbed the headlines again, lashing out at President Muhammadu Buhari, whom he portrays as his family’s chief tormentor.
Let’s quote him: “I feel sad about the way my family is being hounded,” he says in a book ‘Against The Run of Play’ written by top flight journalist and presidential chronicler Segun Adeniyi, chairman of ThisDay editorial board. The timing of the release of the book, on Friday, is arguably a clear bid to fortify Dr Jonathan’s quest to lend himself to the Nigerian public by not only exonerating himself of blame but also dismissing President Buhari as perhaps little more than a non-starter?
From its fairly lengthy excerpts, the book also offers the former president a platform to spin a bizarre conspiracy theory of international proportions, with the United States, Britain and France cast as co-conspirators in what should now be regarded as a coup that robbed him of reelection. Dr Jonathan also accuses a former chairman of his party, and the police chief at the time of working against him, and the INEC chairman of superintending over what he regards as a fraudulent election. And the media and civil society of joining the siege against him.
This is bizarre because Dr Jonathan fails to flesh up the allegations, leaving them laughably sketchy and incredible. He does say America, Britain and France perceived from his body language that he was supporting corruption, and mounted a campaign to scuttle his reelection bid but this proves nothing. Nor does he suggest why even his own appointees would betray him, too.
Dr Jonathan who has been criticised for saying what was termed corruption was no more than mere stealing, also finds the book a good medium to teach President Buhari how to better fight graft.
“Society,” he says, “is like a building. You build it one block at a time. If every president decides to go in to dismantle what his predecessor did, society will never make progress. I expected President Buhari to correct whatever mistakes I may have made and then carry on from there. But a situation in which people go into exile for political reasons is not good for us.”
Dr Jonathan’s argument is hard to place, even harder how he fought corruption. He does not explain why people would go into exile if they have nothing to hide, but rather hints at highhandedness in President Buhari’s style, portraying himself as a true democrat.
He would have had a point there, but for that little incident on a weekend in the middle of 2014 when the military under his watch raided leading media distribution centres, seizing or destroying the day’s copies, threatening distributors and charging journalists with “publishing and selling falsehood.”
Now who in his family is being harassed? If the EFCC thinks his wife Patience should explain the origins of over N1b allegedly found in her bank account, how does that amount to harassment? If the quintessential democrat thinks anyone is breaking the law by harassing his family, he knows where and how to get justice, doesn’t he?
Source: The Nation
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