FORMER president, Olusegun Obasanjo, is not letting up on his derision of the South-South region of Nigeria. When he had cause, in 2013, to write the then president, Goodluck Jonathan, he remarked that Jonathan was behaving as if he was elected into office by his Ijaw ethnic group. He went further to say that Jonathan might be the only Nigerian president of Ijaw extraction given what he saw as his (Jonathan’s) ethnic disposition.
Since he released that tumultuous open letter to Jonathan, Obasanjo has stopped at nothing in his scathing criticism of Jonathan. As far as Obasanjo is concerned, Jonathan’s performance in office as president of Nigeria was mediocre. It was below average. Many do not agree with Obasanjo on this score. But he
has continued to insist on it.
But Obasanjo has gone a step further. He is saying that his low rating of Jonathan is not for him alone. It is for the entire South-south region that produced him. When, a few days ago, Obasanjo spoke as guest lecturer at Benson Idahosa University in Edo State, he remarked that “the performance of Jonathan while in office will haunt the people of the South-south region for a long time to come.” In other words, Jonathan is the face of the South-south. He is the yardstick with which the region can be measured.
Obasanjo’s insistence on Jonathan’s performance as well as his linkage of it to the South South is rooted in history. It is a product of familiar prejudices and shibboleths. We know that the South-South region does not exist, in fact. It is an artificial contraption hobbled together for purposes of administrative convenience. The people that make it up are strange bedfellows. They have no historical or cultural ties with one another. What affects one may not, necessarily, affect the other. They constitute the people that are classified as indigenous peoples of southern Nigeria.
Since the military got consigned to the barracks in line with their constitutional mandate, Nigerians have been taking stock of the damaging effects of military incursion into politics. They have also been working out the arithmetic of which region of Nigeria has ruled for how long. By the time, Obasanjo was leaving office as president in 2007, the South-South was the only region of Nigeria that appeared the most disadvantaged in terms of who had attained the most commanding political height in Nigeria. For this and some other unspoken considerations that best served the interest of Obasanjo, he opted for a South-southerner from the Ijaw ethnic stock to occupy the country’s number two position. The lot fell on Goodluck Jonathan who was then governor of Bayelsa State. Obasanjo and his cohorts did that to compensate the minorities of southern Nigeria.
However, chance was to play a role in the political equation. Umaru Yar’Adua, whom Jonathan was serving under as vice president, died. An opportunity had presented itself to Jonathan. He became the president. The scenario suggested that those who gave the southern minorities the chance to get to that level should go the whole hog by electing Jonathan as president. The idea was to compensate them for their life-long association and support for the northern power brokers who had always held sway in Nigeria.
By this token, Jonathan’s presidency was not borne out of the struggle or sweat of the South- South region. It was a compensation; a mere concession. To a large extent, therefore, Jonathan was in office at the pleasure of those who made it possible in the first place for him to become the vice president and, eventually, the president. In this regard, those who threw up Jonathan believe, rightly or wrongly, that his failure or success must, inextricably, be tied to his people and his region. His emergence was also a way of saying to the people of the South-South: We have given you the chance to occupy the office of president. So, you will have no justification to complain again about being shut out from the commanding heights of Nigerian politics.
Going by this overview, it becomes easy to see why Jonathan faced a tough challenge of reelection. Those who made him felt that the southern minorities had taken their turn. One term in office was considered enough for them. After all, their benefactors reasoned, they did not struggle to get to the presidency. It was a mere award. They should, therefore, be content with what they got.
Jonathan has since left office without a whimper. He has retired into a private, peaceful life. His South-South region is not complaining. The people raised no voice of protest against the gang-up that saw Jonathan out of the presidency. Their disposition is worse than that of a defeated people. A conquered people can, at least, show signs of fatigue after a tortuous struggle. They can, at least, display anger and disappointment. They are entitled to depression. But you cannot see any of these in the disposition of the people of the South-south. They seem not to care a hoot about Jonathan’s ouster. This, to a large extent, confirms our earlier suggestion that the people of the region have this disposition because there is nothing binding them together.
But Obasanjo seems to be interested in drawing their attention to what they never thought about. They never imagined that Jonathan’s performance, whether good or bad, would be linked to them. They also never realised that they should have rallied round Jonathan when it mattered most. They left him as a political orphan. He had nobody to intercede or intervene for him. That may partly explain why Jonathan threw in the towel. A General does not go to battle without troops. Jonathan had no troops. So, he had to back out of the imminent crisis that loomed large in the horizon.
Since Obasanjo believes that Jonathan failed, he would have the people of the South-South believe that they failed. But there is something sinister about Obasanjo’s insistence on forcing this point of view down the throat of the people of the South-South. Obasanjo wants to associate them with the stigma of failure and non-performance. He also wants to associate them with complacency and low acumen. The whole idea is to stigmatise them in this way so that they will not, in future, seriously lay claim to the office of the president.
But before Obasanjo diverts our attention from the facts of the matter, somebody needs to remind him that he is not in a good position to assess Jonathan. As the president of Nigeria, Obasanjo’s performance was not sterling. Nobody has ever associated Obasanjo tenure with any glorious achievement. When, for instance, people accuse the PDP of wasting Nigeria’s 16 precious years, they are invariably pointing fingers at Obasanjo who alone spent eight of the 16 years. The problem here is that Obasanjo is talking without listening. He should come off that grandstanding especially in the light of the fact that Jonathan is not even responding to his diatribe.
ref: http://sunnewsonline.com/new/obasanjo-on-the-south-south/#prettyPhoto
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