MY TRANSITION HOUR BY GOODLUCK JONATHAN - A REVIEW

The book contained twelve chapters in which the author took us down the Nigerian political history to enable us to understand the political dynamics he was about to discuss. The political stalemate which has to do with amalgamation of Northern, Southern protectorates and the Lagos colony that encompasses multiplicity of ethnic groups and cultures merging as one nation. President Goodluck Jonathan lamented on this juncture by saying; “If there was ever a single recipe for discord, none could rival the ingenuity of the Nigeria’s chef”. Decision points in two chapters discussed when and how he made tough decisions for the betterment of the state even when it had to do with him sacrificing his throne. He further narrated how the entire world responded with accolades towards such peaceful gesture. He further talked about the fight against corruption and the blame game associated with it. The women behind the president, his mother and of course his wife, Mama Peace and how she got the title was also discussed. Presidential inauguration dinner was equally described with all the emotions involved. Youth bulge, a chapter narrating the scenario of a young man and two young women who trekked from different parts of the country to his hometown Otouke to appreciate his decision towards peace. The final chapter dwelt on building strong democracy not just in Nigeria but throughout West African sub-region through Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, which is hoped to collectively serve in reforming Africa through private sector. The text also contained speeches made by Goodluck Jonathan after the 2015 election, his address at the 47th Ordinary Summit of ECOWAS, letters by President Shehu Shagari and others, couple more of other dignitaries’ speeches during some international events and his excerpts from media encounters.

Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was Nigerian president for five years under People Democratic Party (PDP) from 2010 to 2015 and he was known as the first sitting president to concede defeat in an election, a gesture that has not just strengthened democratic atmosphere in Nigeria, but in the entire West African sub-region. GEJ was born on 20th November 1957 in Otouke, a town in Bayelsa, south sourthern state in Nigeria. He is a man of humble origin who strove to become a PhD holder in Zoology and turned out to be involved in politics as far back as 1998. For the record, GEJ never intended to be in Nigerian politics as he was believed to either not built for its temperament or his nature was not generally tailored for it. He became a Deputy Governor of Bayelsa in 1999 and as the faith had it, he subsequently became the Governor when his principal, the then Governor, Mr Alamieyeseigha was involved in corruption charges. He was then picked by his party to serve as Late Umaru Musa Yar’Adu’a’s running mate in 2007 and they won the election. He served as Vice President until 2010, when Yar’Adua passed away and that was when GEJ was sworn in as the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria. He contested for 2011 general election and won, served for four years, contested in another election in 2015 but defeated by General Muhammadu Buhari of All Progressive Congress (APC). Though GEJ made it clear that this book was not his autobiography as that one is still in the pipeline, but more of clearing the political air that was polluted by opposition as a result of power politics and to reiterate his mission of injecting political fidelity into the union of Nigeria, he had also a personal conviction that his last days in office ought to be documented as that will shed more light on his present role as an agent of peace in our troubled continent of Africa.

The case of Chibok girls’ abduction was one of the most disturbing and sensitive events that GEJ claimed to have over used against his administration. Even though he did not say it was entirely false but raised more questions worth reviewing. Among which were the claim that the state Governor of Borno insisted on the girls taking the exams (WAEC) in the school premises despite the option of having it somewhere safer.  And why there was no any teacher or principal when the incident occurred except the kids left alone unguarded? How could the girls just disappear into thin air and no one knew their whereabouts? 600 girls were recovered in different operations but surprisingly none was from the Chibok girls which also confirmed the doubt on the whole saga been conspired. He further expressed his disgust over the state Governor talking about the incident outside Nigeria to foreign bodies, something that was being dealt with internally, if not it wasn’t to further opposition agenda. And it will interest you to know that the school principal was subsequently rewarded with appointment of Commissioner of Education in Borno state and a lot of those in the campaign of ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ were rewarded with juicy appointments. GEJ claimed that all these constituted a shadow of doubt that it was a conspiracy in an attempt to score a political goal against his administration.

During the 2015 presidential campaigns, GEJ claimed that youths were radically recruited in the North to stone the presidential convoy. He further asserted that the Northern elites used young men as their explosives to further their agenda while leaving them in mental and material poverty. Such recklessness was all perpetuated for power thirst and he made another claim that; ‘The North had never relinquished power in history without being absolutely unable to hold it any further.” GEJ must have forgotten that it was not a Northerner that attempted to constitutionally create a room for third term in presidential office but a Southerner, and he was fought vigorously by the Northerners to keep the democratic atmosphere intact. GEJ narrated hoe the opposition campaign led to many things among which was a ‘Jonathan Must Go’ mantra, pseudo activists bankrolled and unverifiable corruption allegations to the extent that he was described as a sponsor of Boko Haram terrorist organization, a claim he described as laughable. GEJ lamented that the opposition were busy making promises which he knew, with the then economic book of Nigeria, were far from achievable, such as creating millions of jobs, N5,000 to all unemployed youths yet, people were fooled by such unattainable fallacies which he was sure, later, the Nigerians will come into realization that they were deceived. I think it’s fair to say that Nigerians have today had this realization already. More disturbing was tainting the image of Nigeria in the name of fighting corruption, this alone could scare away international investors which they will later have difficulty inviting. The president job, GEJ said, is to market his country outside and put more effort in cleaning the corruption in the system and this is what is expected of every patriotic citizen but the opposition campaign undermined such duty and civic responsibility. GEJ also claimed that the opposition campaign sponsors certainly were not known to get their wealth from inheritance and therefore, fighting for corruption should have been from within the camp before pointing fingers. 

When 2015 election approaches, GEJ said that he was moving towards success by all indices, yet he lamented about the ethnic and religious card being played against him. He claimed that there was tremendous measure of religious pressure on members of PDP from the North which he said if such practice continues, it’s no longer democracy but adulterated theocracy. Politicians cross-carpeting to parties perceived to be winning, a phenomenon GEJ described as embarrassing which he called for finding suitable legislation against it as that will deepen democratic practice. He also got to know that there was supposedly a power rotation agreement that he was to sign in his party earlier which he previously had no idea and when he denied its existence, it upset some governors which made them left the party. He also treated the election postponement saga which raised a lot of dust and made clear that it was not his decision but a decision reached in the presence of all the parties’ representatives before INEC, National Security Adviser and all the living head of states. It was as a result of poor voter’s card collection couple with security challenges in some parts of the country which NSA addressed and scheduled that in 6 weeks, a relative peace could be restored to enable the conduct of the election with little or no disruption and GEJ confirmed that military did well within that period. Yet, opposition made it a matter of concern, exaggerated it and even foreign bodies kept expressing unnecessary apprehension including US that sent down John Kerry down, acting as a friend despite invoking Leahy Act upon Nigeria at the time of our needs.

Ethnicity and religion have been among the greatest tools that politicians used in their manipulative agenda in Nigeria, and GEJ was indeed a victim of such maneuver especially from the Northern politicians which made him made many awful claims about the North. Expressions with serious intimidation contents, threats of not making heaven if you did not vote in certain ways were uttered against him. He further criticized Arewa Consultative Forum for fanning the flame of hatred in the course of 2015 politicking, citing content with violence tendencies. Yet, GEJ should also understand that it’s not only the North that has this monopoly of this kind of politicking as we also witnessed similar endorsements of his candidature and its proliferation by Churches especially in the Southern parts of the country. Not balancing this narration of diabolic politics in Nigeria could be an honest mistake by GEJ or intentional to mislead reader into stereotyping Northern Nigeria as the sole segment of using religion to campaign for political candidates. This has become evidently clear during this 2023 presidential election when not just Southerners but Igbos all over the country and most of the Christians in both North and South rallied behind one of their own, Peter Obi and campaigned vigorously for him on their altars.

American Intelligence Community predicted disintegration of Nigeria if things go side ways during the 2015 election. This was due to the heightened political tension. GEJ vowed that it will not happen on his watch for he was a President of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) from 2010 to 2012, making peace among other things in the subregion of Africa had been part of his assignments. He was also part of African Union Peace committee in different countries settling disputes and re-establishing peace. These were evident in his role at restoration of Democracy in Mali after the military coup in 2012, peace negotiation in Guinea Bissau, brokered peace in Burkina Faso among others. These had enabled him to witness and observe, across the continent, how post-election violence gulped down thousands of souls, in Cote d’Ivoire alone, hundred thousand of human beings were slaughtered. GEJ further recalled the mayhem of 2011 post-election violence in Nigeria and therefore, promised that African Union will not set another peace mission for any unrest that is preventable in his country. He stood true by his mantra thus; “My ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian.”

GEJ was amidst some of his ministers and aids when the 2015 collation of presidential election result was on the verge of conclusion when he stood up, proceeded to his study room, and having had all the aforementioned thoughts of promoting peace and preventing post-election violence with hope of injecting peace into the palpable unity of Nigeria, he made the famous phone call to General Muhammadu Buhari, conceding defeat, and congratulating him on the election victory. Though GEJ claimed that the election was full of irregularities couple with problems with card reader among others. This singular action has prevented everything bad that could have happened, and acknowledgements began to gush in from all over. GEJ received more congratulatory messages than when he won the election in 2011. This encouraged him to keep the mission of spreading peace and promoting democracy all over Africa through his Goodluck Jonathan Foundation. He gained recognition even beyond the African continent for this generous gesture and GEJ has not relented in that regards as we can recently see him with ECOWAS team visiting Nigerian presidential candidates in an attempt to promote peace while the result was being collated for the 2023 presidential race.

It's clear that GEJ did not condone violent politicking as his mantra stated. He's truly a gentleman who abstained from joining issues with opposition despite having all the available evidence to drag them having continuously tainted his image, he rather chose to refrain in the spirit of bridge building rather than burning bridges. A kind-hearted personality, I must say. He also mentioned a lot of milestones achieved by his administration which opposition made them so shadowy especially in the fight against terrorism. It’s GEJ’s conventional belief that in fighting insurgency, military approach is not the most sustainable but addressing the causative agents from their roots. In the case of Boko Haram, his administration invested heavily in education, as all the statistics pointed correlation between little or no education with proliferation of terrorism. They, therefore, for the first time in federal governance in Nigeria, set out to build 400 schools for Almajiri with specialized curriculum that captures both Islamic and Western education.  GEJ managed to complete 160 before leaving office hoping that General Muhammadu Buhari will see the project to the end. Moreover, 9 federal universities were established in the North making sure that no state in Nigeria, when GEJ left office, doesn’t have at least one federal university. In fight against corruption, and majorly curbing revenue leakages, it was to his administration’s credit, development of Single Treasury Account (TSA), Integrated Personnel and Payroll Management Systems and Bank Verification Number (BVN), couple with biometric registration of civil servants and pensioners which saved the country billions of Naira. These and many more were masked by cruel opposition campaign that put more effort towards extinguishing any light in the administration.

I will be glad to conclude this review with a powerful quote from GEJ which is also my belief that we should all hearken to looking forward to making use of it. Here it is: “I have come to realize that the first conviction of the average Nigerian is that the system was rigged against them. This might not be far-fetched. We allowed ourselves to be constantly programmed by a section of media establishment with vested interest and negative politics. Perhaps it is time to bypass the filter of the media which does not stand on any obvious moral pedestal.”

March 10, 2023