Nzeaka: IBB’s historic declarations on Jonathan

FINALLY, former military president, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, popularly addressed as IBB by his teeming admirers, has endorsed the Jonathan/Sambo ticket  for the 2015 presidential election. Breaking a long silence in 27 historic words, IBB in declaring support for Jonathan in Minna two days after the Christmas and four days before the momentous New Year, said “the President means well for Nigeria and he is working well. Anybody who means well for this country should support the President to make sure Nigeria survives.” 
  By that historic step, IBB is telling the North in particular that although like the Chinese, all politicians look alike, there is something in a name; President Goodluck Jonathan is to Nigeria what his name depicts: he has distinguished himself as a gem of a leader – a doer, a patriot par excellence, a great achiever and performer. 

Babangida, by that endorsement, is indirectly telling all those nursing misplaced grievances, especially in the North, to sheathe their daggers for as they say, a patient waiter is no loser. It is better to lose the saddle for a while than the horse. Put in another way, IBB is saying that it is better for a region to send a candidate to the Villa by peaceful methods rather than the Buhari style of getting “the monkey and the baboon soaked in blood”, because anything obtained by force naturally requires more force to retain. Obviously learning a number of useful lessons from the Jonathan Presidency, IBB has realised that the North does not need a northern president to develop. If northern presidency were to be a solution to the problems of the region, whatever they may be, the many years of military rule in this country which saw the North presiding over the affairs of the country for so many years would have turned the North into the envy of all. But it did not. Therefore, what matters is purposeful leadership, irrespective of the geographical divide the leader comes from. Jonathan, from all indications, is providing Nigeria with that much needed purposeful leadership. Babangida acknowledged this much.

Babangida’s is a courageous step by a courageous elder statesman and a leader who loves an idea – the idea of Nigeria for all Nigerians – more than his personal comfort, religion or tribe. It symbolises a fitting tribute to the ideal President for Nigeria – a “well-meaning” and “well performing” President who sees the entire country as his constituency. Babangida’s endorsement therefore, caps the nationwide endorsement of the Jonathan/Sambo ticket not just by the PDP family alone, but also by various political stakeholders: Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Afenifere, the Yoruba Council of Elders, youth organisations, Fulani Cattle Dealers Association, who took the bill for his ticket, the Yakassai-led Northern Elders Council, the Northern Emancipation Network, Middle Belt leaders, women organisations, the omnibus National Unity Council which emerged from the National Conference, labour groups, etc. Even the MASSOB, OPC and such militant groups defer to the Jonathan leadership. All this may have, one way or another, influenced IBB’s decision in favour of a presidential candidate that “means well for this country”. Does it mean that Jonathan’s opponent doesn’t mean well for the country? Well, not necessarily. But coming so soon on the heels of Buhari’s Christmas message in which, sadly, in an attempt to deride Jonathan’s measured but enlightened steps towards getting rid of the Boko Haram insurgency, committed a faux pas by identifying Gombe and Bauchi, the two latest targets of Boko Haram, as “North Central States” – an unpardonable faux pas unbecoming of someone who aspires to the leadership of Nigeria. 
  And how does Buhari eventually intend to tackle Boko Haram? “I intend to initiate consultations with serving generals and those who have served our country and distinguished themselves on the battlefield across the world to work out an alternative strategy to crush the insurgency in the shortest possible time”, said Buhari in the same Xmas message where, ostensibly sympathizing with Nigerians who encounter transport problems during Christmas and other festivals, he said “we promise that by Christmas 2015, our administration would have brought out efficiency in the management and allocation of resources to make the interstate roads smoother and easier to ride.” Really? If an APC government can achieve such a feat nationwide by next Christmas, as a pilot scheme, why hasn’t Fashola achieved as much in eight years in Lagos? Nigerians certainly must shine their eyes in order not to be sold a dummy. If a Buhari government only plans to consult serving and retired, distinguished Generals in order to crush Boko Haram, what does he think President Jonathan has been doing all this while with all the American, British and Israeli military experts and the serving and retired Nigerian Generals working in his team? 
  
 The APC candidate is proposing an old remedy to a new and stubborn problem. Lampooning the PDP in what we see as the kettle calling the pot black, Buhari scolded the ruling party for raising N21 billion to fund the presidential campaign, but completely overlooked press report that a Governor had flown into Lagos on the day of the APC primaries with a huge war chest, about N30 billion, according to Chief Nyesom Wike, with which thousands of delegates were bought over in favour of the Buhari candidacy. This and many other contradictions have combined to do havoc to the strict-disciplinarian reputation of Buhari, turning him into a real politician – someone who believes you don’t have to fool all the people all the time, except during elections. A politician, according to Nikita Khrushchev, is someone who promises to build a bridge even where there is no river. We know for a fact that today’s most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution. By the way, isn’t it a serious food for thought that IBB, an army general, should opt for Jonathan instead of Gen. Buhari, who happens to come from his military constituency? Well, while we chew upon that puzzle, we should, perhaps, also chew upon possible reasons why the IBB intervention took so long in coming and the evident danger the delay had done to the polity which may have swallowed hook-line-and-sinker the bait that a utopian Nigeria is on the horizon.
 Late or not, Jonathan’s wide support and acceptance across the country, which IBB has now capped speaks volumes about the trickledown effect of his programmes and policies in the past three years and six months. 

Name it, is it in terms of education, aviation, power, industry, agriculture, railway, poverty alleviation, and road transportation where, for example, on the Ore-Benin road today the problem is no longer motorability or pot holes, but how to control speed! Taking education as another typical example, Jonathan, as good intentioned as he is, has found an answer to a lingering northern problem – the Almajiri system –which had metamorphosed into a national security threat. By building more than 150 model primary schools for the members, Jonathan has transformed the system into a modern institution for primary education. Consequently, even among the opposition class, Jonathan has a lot of admirers. Let me, therefore, end this piece by citing the example of Senator Ibrahim Abu (Katsina South) who said (Leadership Weekend, (5/5/2012) “There is nothing like the North being against Jonathan. 

It is PDP running Nigeria. Jonathan and PDP have northern ministers; they have northern governors who are working hard to protect and defend the President, like any other Nigerian.” The message here is that those propagating a northern agenda against Jonathan do not know what they do. Jonathan is a pan- Nigerian leader who needs a pan-Nigerian support base. This much Babangida has said. Let us be wise not to be led astray by unpatriotic power mongers.