Jonathan will defeat Buhari again—Ask me how! Although I am a Christian, I do not possess the gift of prophesy. I am no Nostradamus, the man that saw tomorrow, either. I can barely predict that my wife added salt to my bowl of egwusi soup. I know because having lived with her for well over fifteen years, the tasteful flavor of her soup could only be the product of salt melded with other spices. That much I know. Furthermore, I am not a member of the Aladura or Celestial Church, neither do I identify with the Cherubim and Seraphim sect. While I am challenged in the art of seeing beyond the immediate, I can predict one event with confidence, that President Jonathan will defeat Mohammadu Buhari in the upcoming presidential elections. Buhari “should” win given that the odds are stacked against Jonathan, but that will not happen. Now, ask me how! President Jonathan’s incompetence is common knowledge. That he presides over a corrupt government is apparent. In all this, however, he will still defeat Buhari. It is interesting how the question of corruption has taken center stage in the upcoming elections. But, it is nothing new. Corruption thrives in Nigeria because it is systemic. Corruption is symptomatic of a structural failure in our polity; from the executive through the legislature to the judiciary. Each level of our government, from the president through the state governors to the local government chairmen, is locked in a struggle to out-corrupt its predecessor. Without corruption, the Nigerian state as presently constituted will collapse. Corruption is the oil that lubricates the effective running of our government machinery. That informs my argument about the candidacy of Buhari, whom a section of the polity believes will solve the problem of corruption in Nigeria. Until the structure that encourages corruption is dismantled, even a President Buhari will fail in this endeavor. Still talking about corruption. The courts supposedly are the custodians of the sacred ideal of justice. The presupposition is that corruption should not be heard in its corridors, not to mention the dispensers of justice being accused of corrupt practices. Let me take us through history for a moment. When the courts of the common law of England became too rigid or rigorous, the Court of Chancery stepped in with a human heart by applying the principles of equity to provide remedies where the common law courts shut their eyes. The Court of Chancery threw the doors to the Temple of Justice wide open to make it easier for litigants to redress their rights. However, a litigant had to satisfy certain requirements. For instance, as long as you were not complicit in the subject matter, you were sure to draw the attention of the Court of Chancery. Put differently, so long as you were clean of any improper conduct in the matter under review, the court will hear your complaint. Equity provides, “Ubi jus, IBI remedium”, “where there is a right, there is a remedy.” If you feel that you have been wronged, all you need to do is to approach the court for the ventilation of your right. However, you must be timely with your demands because “Equity aids the vigilant and not the indolent.” Our biggest challenge, perhaps is that those charged with the responsibility of defending our laws and political institutions have human heads in their cupboards and do not possess the legitimacy to fight corruption while living corrupt lives. The most unfortunate feature of our narrative is the pervasiveness of corruption in our Temple of Justice. Nevertheless, our attention is only fixated on the activities of the politicians and the judiciary is given a free ride. A judge paid to sit and dispense justice arrives court at 10:00 am and within an hour adjourns cases assigned to his or court and leaves to pursue private interests. In most cases, judges do not appear at all. Some cases take over a decade to obtain a court ruling and we are supposed to hail the judiciary for having performed exceptionally well. Nigerian lawyers will readily provide you with a compendium of judges that have compromised the integrity of their offices. But you know, the hallowed temple must not be vilified, though the stench that emits from its chambers offends our nostrils. Nigerian judges have become millionaires and own choice real estate in various parts of the world. Equally, senior lawyers have been complicit in this putrefaction. Recently, Mr Femi Falana accused them of “frustrating” corruption cases in the courts of the country. The political entrepreneurs have so manipulated and emasculated Lady Justice that the concept of justice has taken Nigerian definition. The law is for the poor and the unconnected. The rich live above the law and justice goes to the highest bidder. Somebody who steals retirement savings of senior citizens that worked all their lives is given a pat on the back. A woman who liquidates a bank spends months in hospital and from there heads to her palatial estate and justice is supposed to have been served? A woman whose husband has a case to answer for misappropriation of public funds is elevated to the highest court of the land? The government that elevated her did not figure out that her husband’s matter could reach her desk? Talk about a blatant conflict of interest! How do you rid the judiciary of corruption? Placing emphasis on Buhari’s presumed fight against corruption as forming the “steel frame” on which to anchor his campaign will ruin his chances because the beneficiaries of corruption will work against him. Let us address real issues and allow the question of corruption to be an “add on” item. After all, corruption in Nigeria is not the invention of President Jonathan. If truly we are ready to fight corruption, it will take more than political rhetoric or lip service. For instance, public officials, both serving or retired, who stole public funds and turned philanthropic by building private universities would have to turn those schools to the public. Pastors that diverted tithe money to private accounts would have to return them. I regret the digression. This essay is not about corruption in Nigeria, it is about the fact that Jonatan will defeat Buhari in the presidential elections. The APC is mostly composed of disgruntled former members of the PDP who left for one reason or the other. The chief financier of the party, Tinubu, has a credibility challenge since he left office as governor of Lagos state. And, he has done nothing to repair his image. For some reason the leadership of his party believes that it can manipulate Nigerians into believing its lies, just to obtain our votes. The APC is another party in name only. APC and PDP are, as we say it, “ten and ten pence.” A new party with a younger candidate will easily beat the PDP in the elections. However, the credible human beings in this group lack the wherewithal to fund a presidential campaign. Furthermore, how many of us will be willing to donate money to a candidate and for a cause we believe in without ethnic or religious coloration? The civil society has been comatose in our democratic process and community dregs, ex-convicts, miscreants, commercial Ph.D holders, graduates of universities housed in an apartment building or suites, former cultists and those who cannot locate their academic certificates have taken over the reins of governance. We cast our votes and relax. Between the voting booth and the collation centers, the candidate who lost election emerges the winner. Our lackadaisical approach to politics and governance is our worst enemy. The PDP is set to dominate our government for a long time unless there is a mass mobilization behind an inventive party and a candidate that will tear down cultural boundaries and bring Nigerians together for the cause of nation building. The present alternative does not offer us a clear choice. Nigerians would rather have Jonathan continue than to associate with people in the mold of Atiku Abubakir or Tinubu and the devious defectors to the APC. Conversely, a new face as a presidential candidate on the platform of APC would have made the PDP defecate in its pants, not a reconditioned or refurbished “same ol’ same ol’.” Look, if it is not Panadol, it is not Panadol, nothing in-between. The prudence of the APC was obfuscated by personal interest. The party probably figured out late in the game that it made a political blunder by their choice of Buhari as a presidential candidate. My guess is that it tried to ameliorate the damage by the choice of Osinbajo as Buhari’s running mate. In my judgment, the damage is already done. Elections are a function of simple arithmetic and common sense. They do not demand the deployment of complicated algebraic expressions. It is difficult to upstage an incumbent. An opposing party acts smart by targeting the ruling party’s support base to break its grips. For instance, Jonathan’s support-base is the Christian population in the southeast, south-south and the northeast. If APC was serious about winning the elections, a Christian presidential candidate from any of those areas will give Jonathan a run for his billions. Such a candidate will break Jonathan’s hold in the areas mentioned. A block vote in the north and some areas in the west would have been a sure win for their candidate. Unfortunately, their calculations were skewed. In the present circumstance, Buhari is a lightweight. Buhari is a good presidential candidate, and I agree. But the question is whether he can beat Jonathan. In my judgment, he cannot. His era is gone. He had a chance to beat Jonathan in 2012, but Nigerians rejected him. It will be a Herculean attempt to overcome his palpable disability in the Boko Haram’s dispensation. The reality is that it will be difficult for a Buhari or any Muslim candidate to win in a national election. Buhari’s aficionados can make all the argument differentiating Boko Haram from the true Islam. The argument will not fly when the TVs show us a picture of a thirteen year old angel strapped with explosive vests to murder her parents, uncles, cousins, nephews, aunts, nieces, brothers and sisters. Not everyone will buy that. Buhari is a damaged good and I am being realistic. Most Christians still view him as an Islamic fundamentalist, although they will not admit that in the open. He is painted with the same brush as every other radical Muslim. Religious sentiment muddles our ability to evaluate issues rationally. At the end of the day the fact that Buhari is a Muslim will determine his electability. Jonathan’s presidency is not altogether bad. For one thing, Nigerians are becoming conscious that their plight is tied to the performance of their elected representatives. In the coming years, a candidate for an office will probably be judged by his or her ability to deliver and not because of the candidate’s state of origin, religion or ethic group. The increasing popularity of Buhari in this election gives me confidence to believe that the days of the use of instrument of religion or ethnicity will come to an end someday in my fatherland. In addition, whenever a man or a woman declares interest in an office, the status of his or her spouse will also be a factor. In conclusion, for those who typify our president as dumb and an epitome of bad luck, and for the others who cannot stand the sight of his wife Patience, brace yourself for another four years of clueless governance, unbridled corruption, darkness, poverty, unemployment, unnecessary mortality due to poor health care services, antiquated educational policy, insecurity to lives and property, bad roads and the like, and more occasions for “Na only you waka come?” Nwike (S) Ojukwu is a candidate for doctor of laws degree, The University of Arizona PM News.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 22:33:14 +0000
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