Jonathan’s Legacy and the Jonathan Hangover -By Adeolu Ademoyo

President Goodluck Jonathan

Historically speaking, that the Jonathan presidency represents one of the worst and disappointing moments in Nigerian democracy is beyond debate. A younger president with presumably higher formal education, candidate Goodluck Jonathan was marketed as fresh air in Nigerian electoral politics.

But the Jonathan presidency ended as a long whiff of bad air because he carried corruption, false and crude statistics on the economy, basic lies, the crudity of divisive ethnic and religious politics, insecurity and deliberate underdevelopment of Nigerian infrastructure to their extreme such that today the Nigerian economy which is presumably the “largest” in Africa generates 1327 MW of power!

The largest African economy, which generates 1,327 MW of power, is surely a bad product. Taunting this kind of economy as the “largest” in Africa without telling us what “large” means and implies qualitatively and for the lived conditions of the people is a result of a ruthlessly efficient but deceptive public relations machine! But this is where the story ought to end just so that we begin to face and tackle the challenging times ahead of us.

On the contrary, it seems some of us are still in election mood long after the Nigerian people, voted, took their decision and both outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan and in-coming President Mohammadu Buhari accepted the choice of Nigerians. This is reflected in the way the last days of the Jonathan presidency are being reported. Understandably, the evil the Jonathan presidency represented makes it a bad product in the Nigerian media and electoral market.

But as long as there is a country called Nigeria, enlightened interest demands that we separate the office of the Nigerian presidency from the person that occupies it at a particular time. It seems some are failing in this regard. And Nigerian state and we Nigerian people are the losers when this happens.

Take the example of how Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke-the current petroleum minister is being reported and portrayed. No doubt Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Jelili Adesiyan, Musiliu Obanikoro, Muhammed Adoke like many of the so-called “powerful” ministers in Jonathan presidency -over reached themselves during the hey days of the Jonathan presidency. They literally turned themselves to gods and goddesses.

For example, learning from her experiences in the western world (US and Europe)-where a ruthlessly efficient public relations machine (Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala has one) can make a devil look like an innocent God-sent saint and “scholar”, one of the Jonathan ministers Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala outgoing coordinating minister for the economy has a ruthlessly alert but deceptive public relations machine that constantly burnished the highly controversial, false, subjective and bad statistics she churned out on the economy which deceived Nigeria and the world. In the west (US and Europe), it is all about formal, quantitative resume (of I did this, I did that !), no matter how such so-called resume is useless, deceptive, self-serving , and without any impact on the people who the citations in the resume are supposed to have served!

This ruthlessly efficient image coloring and padding of personalities and corporations is a common practice in the western world where for example many deadly and deceptive individuals and not for profit organizations appear like saviors of Africa and the so-called third world-just through deceptive public relations and image making.

But while talking about the immediate past in Nigeria is good it is useless if it is done either for its sake or not done to serve as a critical warning for the in-coming administration-the Buhari presidency-that we will not tolerate another failure, playing and toying with the future of Nigerians especially our youths.

A good example of this distraction from focusing on the future is the recent report on Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke during her trip to UK. The story is that Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke changed her flight to UK to coincide with that of the President Mr. Buhari. It was reported that she not only changed her flight in order to be on the same flight as Buhari, she actually influenced or chose to sit behind Buhari during the flight.

Part of the story is that on the day of the flight, Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke-petroleum minister of the federal republic of Nigeria ran after Buhari (while abandoning her aides) right in a panic and desperate mode inside the Abuja airport immediately she suddenly noticed that Buhari had checked in and passed the security check.

All these reports target Diezani Alison Madueke’s character rather than her bad and failed performance as a minister of the federal republic of Nigeria and to me it is unacceptable. Talking figuratively, it is better to leave out her private bags, purses, luggage and focus on the public issues that bind all of us together-and that is her poor and failed delivery of service while in office.

There is no doubt that the poor performance in office, failed delivery of public service and bad leadership of so-called “powerful” Goodluck Jonathan ministers such as Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Diezani Alison Madueke, ex-minister Stella Oduah, Attorney General Muhammed Adoke, Musiliu Obanikoro, Jelili Adesiyan etc brought Nigeria to her knees.

But while it is the right thing to point this out, it is the wrong thing to use the wrong method. A criticism targeted at someone’s character rather than their poor service in office, their shocking ethnicization of their offices and service to Nigeria, which they successfully managed to hide from the public, and a wreckage of our economy and society is bad criticism. This is the case with the report that Diezani Alison Madueke ran frantically after Buhari at the airport and deliberately sat behind him during their trip to UK.

Suppose it is true that Diezani Madueke ran frantically after Buhari as it was reported, the issue is: how is that important to our lives when the task of the moment is to focus on what Buhari has to deliver?

A more serious engagement of our future requires that we begin to focus in a systematic and critical manner on what the Buhari presidency has for Nigeria. A robust and deep critique of the failed Jonathan presidency and that of his so-called powerful ministers who left the Nigerian economy in shambles is a legitimate enterprise, but a Jonathan hangover prevents us from beginning to see critically what the Buhari presidency represents or does not represent for us.

Our critical talking points moving forward should be about the Buhari presidency and how we will get out of the economic, political and moral wreckage and bottomless pit the Jonathan presidency and his ministers left behind.

Adeolu Ademoyo aaa54@cornell.edu Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY.