GOODLUCK JONATHAN AND NIGERIA

Nigerians remember Mr. Goodluck Jonathan as a fawn of fate and fortune. Many remember him as the former university lecturer who was plucked out of obscurity to become the Bayelsa State Deputy Governor from where he became the Bayelsa State Governor from where he came to national limelight as the Vice President of Nigeria.

Many remember him as the man of destiny whom fate fashioned as President and foisted on an anxious country as his mild-mannered boss lay dying under the watch of a paranoid cabal. Many remember him as the lily-livered Nigerian President under whose watch the venue of vultures descended on the national vaults and fed voraciously without being vanquished.

Many remember him as the gracious loser who quickly conceded to a historic defeat and kept the country off the parlous path of disintegration even if many others felt that the veiled threat that violence would have trailed his rejection of the election results would have quickly vanished under the mechanics of Nigeria`s democracy.

 Many remember him as the wasp Nigerians sold in 2015 only to buy a scorpion. He has now been gone seven years from the corridors of power. That many Nigerians look back at his time in government with unaccountable feelings of nostalgia tell the story not necessarily of affection but of alarm at how things have unraveled since then.

 Since he left office, he has taken on the role of an elder statesman not just in Nigeria but in Africa as a continent which continues to scandalously allow itself be convulsed by conflicts when it should be concentrating efforts on lifting many of its people out of poverty. The time was yesterday for a continent of prodigious promise to rethink its priorities.

Between Mr. Goodluck Jonathan and many Nigerians, the saying “be careful what you wish for” certainly rings true as having been able to compare and contrast the situation of the country when he was in power and today that power has changed hands, many are no longer in any doubt as to which snake was the less venomous one.

 It would take beyond May 2023 and a bit of hindsight to truly distill whether the current government reached divine highs while in power or was stuck in devastating lows. However, Nigerians feel the prick. Wherever they turn, the prick is as piercing as it is painful. The path to the general elections of 2023 have has never known more urgency.

 With the battle for Aso Rock set to go down to the wire, political gladiators are already throwing their hats into the ring and whipping their supporters into frenzy; and expectedly, in Nigeria`s market of mendacity, many of those gladiators have already been told by the sly skulk of foxes they mistake for supporters that the cap fits them and no one else; and that they alone wield the magic wand that can wave away the wasps stinging Nigeria. Some have sought to sing the same songs. Rumours have swelled and swirled that Jonathan is considering the All Progressives Congress, same party which defeated him in 2015, so he can have another shot at the Presidency.

 In a country where the dark is a swamp packed full of menacing crocodiles, a leap in the dark such as the one Mr. Jonathan is reportedly mulling would amount to fatal folly. He must stay put where he is and continue his peace-saving- and- serving missions in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. Politics in Nigeria is full of smears and scandals; of guile and gullibility. If Mr. Jonathan showed a lot of gullibility while he was in office to leave many feeling he was too weak to be the man in charge, now, out of power, it is well time for him to show another hand – one grounded in some guile, a steel hand in silk glove – for it is ancient wisdom that those who are once beaten are twice shy.

Mr. Jonathan must reject the calls of political gold diggers and grave diggers.

Kene Obiezu, keneobiezu@gmail.com