Jonathan and the PDP

President Goodluck Jonathan assumed Nigeria’s presidency without winning any election on his own account or merit. He was selected by Diepriye Alamieyesegha as his running mate for Bayelsa governorship in 1999; became substantive governor after his boss was impeached on ex-President Obasanjo’s orders; was selected as running mate to late Umaru Yar’adua in 2007 for the presidency, also by Obasanjo; and became President upon Yar’adua’s death in 2010. These do not mean Jonathan’s political skills had never been tested. He must have conducted himself such as to earn nomination as Deputy Governor and Presidential running mate. There must be a reason for his not going down with Alamieyesegha during the money laundering and impeachment saga. The major test of his political maturity on the national stage was his calm navigation of the multiple minefields in his way during the dangerous days of the Yar’adua vacuum, when things could easily have gone awry, for him and nation! On the other hand, it could all have been “time and chance”!!! Jonathan went on to two remarkable victories of a substantive nature-winning PDP presidential primaries in spite of strong regional opposition crystallized in the so-called “Northern Political Leaders Forum” under Alhaji Adamu Ciroma, which selected a consensus Northern opponent to Jonathan (Alhaji Abubakar Atiku) among three other leading aspirants (General Ibrahim Babangida, General Aliyu Gusau and Dr Bukola Saraki). Jonathan then built an unprecedented South-East, South-South, North-Central and South-West alliance and scored sufficient incursion into the unfriendly North-East and North-West to score the required 25 per cent votes in many states therein. No other Nigerian leader had been brought into power with a similar voting pattern-the Igbos voting the same platform with the Southern minorities; the Yorubas and Igbos voting for the same presidential candidate; the Northern middle-belt being excised from mainstream Hausa-Fulani voting direction; and a sufficient split within Northern states to win a few, while several others gave him 25% or more of their votes. It illustrates the naivety of Jonathan’s political strategy, and the limitations and lack of strategic foresight of his kitchen cabinet, that this coalition was virtually dismantled by Jonathan’s team themselves as they sought to monopolise the spoils of office! The South-West was excluded from the victory, probably even before Jonathan was sworn in, while the Middle Belt has consistently wondered what benefits they have attained by voting for the president. For a long time in fact, Jonathan sought, in vain it now seems, to appease precisely those segments of the electorate whose votes he had failed to secure or more accurately the political elite therefrom. Since then Jonathan has recorded a string of political losses-the defeat of his candidate for House of Representatives Speaker by a coalition of internal and external opponents foisting a hostile lower chamber on his administration; he endured a “Boko Haram” insurgency which embarrassed him locally and internationally while he appeared weak and indecisive as he pondered how to respond until the belated emergency declaration; he somehow managed to alienate both Obasanjo, who by-and-large made him Governor and President, and Bola Tinubu (who he actually put in the dock, right after the presidential victory) whose complicity eased his victory in the presidential election through a massive South-West voter endorsement. The consequence is that Jonathan’s 2015 aspiration has limited though not irreparable roots in the South-West. Soon the broad quadrangular coalition that elected Jonathan had been shrunk into a narrow South-South/South-East alliance pre-occupied with spoils of office forgetting that another election was imminent, sooner than later! Indeed I have heard non-Ijaw, South-South elements dispute their presence in the ruling coalition, rather describing it as an Ijaw/Igbo coalition!!! The presidency has since suffered additional embarrassment from the loss of the NGF elections by its preferred candidate to his regional nemesis, Rotimi Amaechi, and the humiliating walk-out of the so-called “new” PDP at the mini-convention on August 31, 2013. The new PDP phenomenon illustrates certain trends and realities of our polity-the domination of politics by regional, ethnic and religious considerations, and increasing desperation by some Northern groups to retrieve political power; the subsistence of hegemonic desires by contending factions of the Nigerian power elite, in this case North and South-South/South-East; the faulty design of our political party system, especially the PDP, which are merely vehicles for attaining wealth and power rather than political parties in the classical sense; the perception of Jonathan as naïve and inexperienced and the exploitation of his “simplicity” by others who believe they are more deserving of the presidency, oftentimes simply by virtue of their higher capacity for intrigue and mischief(!); and the failure of the PDP as Nigeria’s ruling party since 1999, to elevate the quality of our democracy and governance. The new PDP walk-out however masks another reality favourable to Jonathan-that mini-convention marked the effective take-over of the party by Jonathan! Yet the president’s failing has not been mostly one of policy-which may in fact be on the right path in some respects illustrated by power privatization, agricultural reform, improvements in transport and aviation infrastructure, fiscal consolidation and monetary stability, the Sovereign Wealth Fund, foreign policy successes in Mali, Guinea Bissau, China and elsewhere even though significant failings remain in the oil sector, and with corruption, poverty and unemployment. Jonathan’s undoing has been politics and strategy! He has been wrong-footed in every major political battle since he became president, and one must now wonder at the quality and commitment of his strategic advisers. Today most of the “principalities and powers” of Nigerian politics-Obasanjo, IBB, Buhari, Abubakar Atiku, Bola Tinubu, Aliyu Gusau and many influential governors appear ranged against him while his corner is dominated by Edwin Clark, Ahmed Gulak, Mike Oghiadomhe, Asari Dokubo and others who cannot offer broad assistance! To be fair, Northern opposition to Jonathan has often appeared unreasonable and implacable, and it may be noted that even Obasanjo was faced with a similar phenomenon. As the opposition to Jonathan is finally unveiled, he will face his greatest test in the run-up to 2015. Can he construct or re-construct a winning coalition? Can he re-unite the PDP or at least retain sufficient arsenal therein to prevail? Can he attract many of the “territorial powers” back into his camp or alternatively secure a pact with the voters above the heads of the “chieftains”? Will federal power and resources prove decisive? Will he avoid an unedifying exit from power, in 2015 or if his enemies have their way, even earlier? Will the country itself be embroiled in the aftermath and could we suffer a national meltdown or conflagration?