The Jonathan Year

In Nigeria, 2011 was often about President Goodluck Jonathan-his nomination as PDP presidential candidate; his conduct of the 2011 elections; his victory and swearing-in as elected President; his acts of commission and omission since his election; his power sector road map, economic reforms and “transformation agenda”; the weak response to “Boko Haram” terrorism; the nature of his cabinet and other appointments; his surprising decision to start his presidency with advocacy for an extended single-term presidency; the impassioned debate sparked off by his downstream deregulation policy (popularly referred to as “subsidy removal”); the mannerisms and grammatical activities of his wife, First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan; his 2012 budget proposals; his “cluelessness” (the word most regularly used on internet and social media to describe Jonathan in 2011 was “clueless”) and naïveté in handling power; etc. There were other actors who stamped or attempted to stamp their authority on 2011. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu led the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to an overwhelming victory over the rival Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South West, recovering gubernatorial seats in Ogun and Oyo States; retaining the prized Lagos governorship through a thumping victory; and sweeping state and federal legislative seats in all states in the region (except Ondo) including Ekiti and Osun, where the party had earlier re-taken governorships through judicial verdicts. The ACN also built credible coalitions across the country and mounted strong challenges in Benue, Akwa-Ibom, Kwara, Jigawa and Anambra States. Tinubu essentially reversed AD/AC/ACN losses to the PDP in 2003. Professor Attahiru Jega, who Jonathan appointed as Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman to popular acclaim also contributed to shaping the year. The 2011 elections were by-and-large the first credible general elections after our 1999 return to civil rule, and though the elections kicked off on a shaky rule, all was well that ended well! Most dispassionate observers, local and international agreed that though not perfect, the elections generally reflected the will of the Nigerian people. Two of President Jonathan’s appointees made a quick impact-agriculture minister, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina and returning Minister of Finance AND Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Adesina hit the ground running, revitalising agricultural policy for the first time in decades. Until his coming, the sector was about fertiliser corruption, phony silos and other strategems for corruption and deliberate misallocation of resources. Now Nigeria is addressing the issues central to agricultural development-financing, value chains, properly targeted subsidies (zero duty on imported agricultural machinery; interest subsidies on agricultural loans etc). Okonjo-Iweala proved her mettle as finance minister between 2003 and 2006. This time she has returned transparency to federal, state and LG fiscal allocations; set up a system to improve turnaround time at the ports; championed the downstream deregulation policy; and started the process of fiscal consolidation and structural reforms. At the state level, Governors Fashola and Amaechi of Lagos and Rivers States remain torch-bearers for that tier of government. Fashola’s achievements in security, infrastructure and social sector investments (health, education, women and youth empowerment and poverty alleviation) and his calm and humane leadership are a testimony to the possibilities if Africa can find the right leadership. Amaechi’s investments in education, health, agriculture, power and roads will transform Rivers State when they are completed and made fully operational. Dame Jonathan enjoyed space in social media and national folklore often due to her alleged grammatical interventions. It is difficult to say if she actually made the statements attributed to her, as an industry appears to have developed around creating statements purportedly made by the first lady. However Dame Jonathan played an important role in mobilising women across the country to vote for her husband and while her opponents and their agents focussed on her grammar, she proved that ordinary voters and not linguistics skills decide the outcome of elections! Her husband’s major contenders for the presidency were Ibrahim Shekarau of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Nuhu Ribadu of ACN and Muhammadu Buhari the perennial candidate, this time on the platform of his new Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). In the end, it was a straight battle between Buhari and Jonathan, and given the regional and political realities, Jonathan’s victory was inevitable. Shekarau’s and Ribadu’s ambitions were probably premature-they stood a better chance in future, and as for Buhari, signs are that 2015 may yet be another try! In the end, Jonathan defined 2011! His defeat of Atiku Abubakar in the PDP primaries and victory in the general elections were unprecedented in Nigerian political calculations! But after taking power, Jonathan became (or rather remained) tentative and seemingly unsure of himself. His response to terrorism was downright confounding and he often appeared unwilling or unable to project the power of his office. His style emboldened his adversaries-disgruntled regional politicians, “Boko Haram” and its sponsors, political opponents and even civil society activists who often made him an object of derision on facebook and other social media. Even Jonathan’s supporters were often exasperated by his style! Interestingly he appeared to end 2011 finally attempting to project strength-declaring a state of emergency in fifteen local governments across four states (Borno, Yobe, Plateau and Niger) affected by fundamentalist terror, and deregulating the downstream petroleum sector in spite of popular opposition.