LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARD BY TATALO ALAMU

President Jonathan

This week as the unhinged Jonathan administration finally slipped its rational mooring with the armed invasion of the National Assembly, Nigerians must now brace themselves for the worst imaginable political catastrophe. There is a chilling feeling of Déjà vu abroad. The pictures are all too reminiscent of the 1962 bedlam in the Western Region House of Assembly. But while one event may resemble another distant event, you cannot step into the same river twice.
It beggars belief that there are some of our compatriots who are justifying and defending this wanton desecration of a very critical state institution. Patriotism is truly the refuge of scoundrels. This columnist is often amused when our ersatz patriots and emergency nationalists mount the rooftop to proclaim their love for the nation and its presiding eminence. Given the battles some of us have fought for this country, both against military and civilian despots, their delusional nuisance ought to be a source of wry bemusement. But sometimes, the joke is carried too far.
When many of us were battling to revalidate Jonathan’s legitimate claims to the presidency in the face of a desperate conspiracy by a feudal cabal, he had no ambassadors then. They were still in the diplomatic crèche for hustlers. Or more likely, they were studying the game as usual to see which way the gravy train was heading. But now that they have captured Goodluck, turning him into an ethnic and sub-regional president, it is good luck to all of them.
As part of a constant reality check, this column often takes a retrospective glance at the immediate past. The result can be sobering and profoundly therapeutic. It is an elixir for the soul in depressing and degrading times. You are aware that when everything has ended in an absolute disaster, little is worth salvaging in the eternal cycle of political stupidity. You can then be reconciled to reality under duress, apologies to Fredric Jameson, the great American literary theorist.
If Jonathan fails, it will not be from want of initial support from vital segments of the Nigerian civil and political society. It will be due entirely to his fundamental flaws of character. In the end, character is fate, as no one can escape the implacable consequences of their foibles. As the Greeks will say, call no man lucky until that day that he carries his luck to the grave.
As it is at the moment, nothing can be expected from Jonathan in terms of the fundamental political re-engineering of this structurally disfigured country; nothing in terms of a visionary developmental blueprint and nothing in terms of moving the nation away from endemic political paralysis. Once again, the nation walks the path of thunder.
In their tokenist trifling with harsh and bitter reality, Jonathan’s supporters may continue to point at kilometres of road constructed, stadia built, old rail wagons refurbished and new universities opened, forgetting that these are all ad hoc projects without any holistic integrative structure. In any case, even a third rate local government chairman with the same funding will not be jubilant about this.
With the benefit of hindsight, the Jonathan presidency represents the greatest frittering away of historic opportunities and possibilities for this nation. No other civilian ruler in the history of the country could be said to have acceded to power with such massive goodwill and a pan-Nigerian groundswell of hope and optimism. But in the end, no man can give what he doesn’t have. To have invested such hopes in the first instance in an untried and untested fellow is a prime example of the collective delusion and daydreaming to which Nigerians are particularly prone.
The Jonathan presidency has become a historic albatross for the nation. But like a misbegotten child mounted on its mother’s back and with the feet grating on the floor at the same time, it will require considerable tact and adroitness to set down if it is not to bring mother and child crashing to the ground.
This latest executive tragedy will not stop Nigerians from dreaming. It will not stop us from imagining a greater tomorrow in which this formidably gifted nation will take its rightful place in the comity of great nations. That greater tomorrow may appear like a forlorn dream in the distressing circumstances of the moment. But all great human achievements are products of imaginary projections. Nothing worthwhile can be achieved without visionary dreaming.
This morning, we republish a piece published three and a half years ago in 2011 when Goodluck Jonathan first acceded to the Nigerian presidency on his own steam. Our expectations have not been met and certain things have since happened to the fabled Nigerian military.