Intensifying debate on Jonathan and 2015-Ayo Olukotun

           

“The power of an incumbent Nigerian President is enormous.  He has access to “carrots and sticks” second to none.  These include control of the security services and access to almost unlimited amounts of money from oil”

–John Campbell, former US Ambassador to Nigeria.

Two recent interventions on the subject of President Goodluck Jonathan and the 2015 elections, the first by Dr. John Campbell, the United States former ambassador to Nigeria and the second by Prof. Alade Fawole, a columnist of the Nigerian Tribune, typify national and international concerns about Jonathan’s not fully declared second term presidential ambition as well as his chances of winning.

Campbell, author of the incisive, though controversial, book, “Dancing on the Brink”, in his capacities as Director of the Office of the Historian within the State Department as well as public intellectual, writes frequently on Nigeria.  Let me briefly digress to ask the question: How many Nigerian experts in International Relations including our former ambassadors are commissioned to maintain an intellectual watch on other countries?  I have several academic colleagues who are experts on various aspects of foreign policy and international relations but who have never been invited by the Nigerian government to counsel on policymaking. Even the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs like other research institutes is pitifully underfunded, and remains so despite several rounds of strikes by government-created research outfits around the country.  But that is a matter for another day.

Back to Campbell on Jonathan and 2015.

Although  his article entitled, “Hard for Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan not to run in 2015 – But Can He win?”, introduces necessary qualifiers, the ambassador’s view is that Jonathan, if the elections hold, stands an admittedly narrow chance of defeating the emergent and increasingly ascendant opposition namely: The All Progressives Congress. Campbell derives his conclusion from certain factors, the first of which is captured in the opening quote , the awesome power of the Nigerian Presidency that is.  Upon reading this portion of Campbell’s essay, the first thing that came to my mind is the abortive third term project of Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, which collapsed despite the full deployment of the economic and security capacities of the president’s office.  In other words, while incumbency and the tendency of our Presidents to skew the playing field in their favour confer advantages, it certainly is not as formidable as Campbell postulates.

Controversial too is Campbell’s second supporting argument that the Niger Delta warlords “are closely associated with Jonathan” and therefore can exercise an implied veto through terror by “setting the Delta on fire”.  Although this is a possibility that can thrust itself into the power equation, it is not clear whether Nigerian voters will be influenced by it more so as the power to upset the apple cart is not a monopoly of those in the Niger Delta region alone.  Indeed, whipping up such factors may alienate voters who may otherwise have sympathised with Jonathan if for no other reason than that it subverts voter sovereignty. Furthermore, there is a limit to which the political elite can count on terror tactics as bargaining instruments without risking generalised anarchy, provoking counter terror or inviting democratic breakdown and authoritarian solutions.

Campbell’s third argument raises the spectre of a rigged or scandalously manipulated election from which Jonathan may benefit.  In his words: “That raises the potential that the 2015 elections – if they are held – will not go well with many possibilities for rigging, and where incumbents will likely be the beneficiaries”. This is a most perfidious and slippery argument reminding one of the long held view in some circles that Africans are not ripe for democracy. In fact, it can be read as an invitation to Jonathan to conjure up a fake election that will give him victory at any cost.  It is unlikely, however, that Jonathan who prides himself on breaking the jinx of pseudo elections will allow himself to consider such a tragic option; even if he did, the civil society and an increasingly vigilant opposition are likely to give him a hard time of it.  Moreover, it does no credit to an incumbent if all he has to offer is capacity to manipulate himself back to power through a fictional election.

In other words, none of Campbell’s buttressing arguments is as solid as it appears at first blush; two of them are extremely problematic and even dangerous.  Interestingly, Campbell who served the conservative President George Bush as an ambassador to Nigeria is silent in this write-up about Jonathan’s performance in his four years in office.  Campbell’s mysterious silence on this point betrays a preference for stability rather than thoroughness or democratic consolidation. He appears to operate from a framework that privileges continuity, which translates the preservation of the United States commercial interest in Nigeria as opposed to change and the right of the Nigerian people to determine their destiny.

Fawole, on his own part, disposes of the controversy surrounding Jonathan’s constitutional right to run for another term.  In his words: “It must be emphasised that good performance or performance for that matter is not a requirement of the constitution or the electoral law as qualification to seek re-election.  It is only a moral prescription”.

If, then, we take for granted his constitutional right to run for a second term, what are Jonathan’s chances of winning? Is Campbell right that on the balance, the cards are stacked in his favour? Much will depend on how the opposition responds to the challenges of creating a viable alternative platform that can give Jonathan a good run for his money.  Let us bear in mind that having absorbed many heavyweights from the ruling party, the APC faces the danger of reproducing all the cracks, religious, ethnic and what have you that tormented the PDP.  The choice of presidential and vice-presidential candidates constitutes for the APC, a make or mar event, as does the filling of crucial national offices.  Fielding a Maj.-Gen. Muhammed Buhari (retd.) with his perceived emphatic postures on religion; playing with the religious tinderbox by instituting a Muslim-Muslim ticket, alienating an influential portion of the electorate might redound to the benefit of Jonathan who is struggling to live down a weak performance scorecard.

Some critics of Jonathan have argued that even if we conceived that the Niger Delta should provide the Presidency in 2015, they would wish that the region offers Nigeria a more vigorous and purposeful politician than Jonathan. That option is of course already foreclosed and the choice is now between Jonathan and whoever the APC throws up as a presidential candidate. It is still too early to say categorically which of the two dominant parties will provide the Presidency as alliances are still being formed and broken. What is clear for now is that Campbell’s prediction of Jonathan’s re-election is both premature and based on unsustainable premises.

One final warning though. Campbell says, and here I agree with him, that the road to 2015 will be “messy and fraught with danger. And there are many wild cards.” True, and one hopes the politicians will carry on in the knowledge that they are journeying in a rickety vehicle and on a slippery terrain.

SOURCE:www.punchng.com