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Babatunde Adenodi
Pharmacist
East Orange,
New Jersey
 USA

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On the political front, it is clear that the muslim northern power elite is only interested in naked power. They are not interested in improving the lot of the populace especially the mass northern poor. Jonathan must rule them out of power in 2011. Let him shift his focus to the the northern minority. Gowon-like individuals from Jos, Kafanchan, Gongola. And who could be more Gowon-like than Gowon himself. He is battle tested and has the scars to show for it. Let Gowon be the next president of Nigeria! The fierce urgency of now dictates no less than Gowon as president and a southern muslim as his vice!

 

President Goodluck Jonathan: "The fierce urgency of now"
 by Tunde Adenodi.

 

 

In 1963, Dr Martin Luther King made his famous “I have a dream speech” on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. He talked about the ‘fierce urgency of now” in the context of segregation, discrimination and economic emancipation of the black race. I do not expect Jonathan to be a Martin Luther King. His antecedents do not support such a conjecture. But he cannot afford to be a … uhm… a Shehu Shagari or Tafawa Balewa or indeed, Umar Musa Yar‘Adua. He can at least try to be a (with tongue cheek)… a Murtala Muhammed, for want of a better correlation. He definitely cannot be an Ernest Sonekan and so far, it does seem like he is: Sonekan is told that Abacha is up to something. He calls Abacha and asks, “General, are you planning a coup“? Abacha answers crisply with a salute, “No Sir!” To the commander in chief, that’s the end of the story. One week later, Abacha announces the ouster of Interim President Ernest Sonekan and replaces him as commander in chief. This must be a lesson for Jonathan.

The circumstances of Jonathan’s emergence are not too much unlike the emergence of Olusegun Obasanjo, but I hope his tenure will be like Murtala Muhammed’s: short, crispy and action-packed. Obasanjo emerged after his boss was cut down at prime time, suddenly and unexpectedly. Jonathan emerged after Yar’Adua left suddenly and unexpectedly as if he had died in a gruesome manner where no trace of the accident is ever found. The everlasting legacy of his administration is his contemptuous manner of abandoning his post and the even more contemptuous manner of his purported return from “medical vacation”. If a tree in the thick jungle fell and no one saw it fall, or standing or even falling, did the tree fall? If Yar’adua is said to have returned, and no one has seen him, not the Acting President, nor the Senate President nor the Speaker, has Yar’Adua returned? And if he is to write a letter to the Assembly to intimate them of his return from the so-called medical vacation and so far has not done so, is he really back? The jury is still sitting. History will be the judge. If anyone nurses the idea that Yar’Adua is coming back, that person lives in fantasy island. The manner of his purported return has confirmed that he is certainly too sick to be conscious of his environment or maybe even dead? His wife wants to kill him for the sake of what, … power? I cannot figure it out. It is time for Jonathan to ATIKULIZE Yar’Adua! Let Jonathan act as if there is no Yar’Adua.

Murtala Muhammed acted as if he had no time, and indeed, he did not. Jonathan must act as if he has no time because indeed, he does not. Murtala lasted only six months in office and achieved a lot, Jonathan will be in office for only 12-13 months and can achieve a whole lot. The 2011 elections are just round the corner. The ACF will insist that this is still their tenure forgetting that 2015 is just 4 years from 2011 and it will be their turn to surrender power. They have never been known to be fair game players. They would not allow Jonathan to play any part of the political game of the 2011 elections regardless of the power of incumbency factor. But fate has bestowed on Jonathan tremendous power beyond which the ACF could have imagined. He will be the impartial(?) umpire of the presidential elections of 2011. He has their balls in his hands and can certainly play hard-ball with it. He has been on the national scene long enough to know what to do. He has all the major players at his beck and call. He will need the wisdom of Solomon to know how to separate the men from the boys. He must be as detached from the major players as Obasanjo was in 1979, yet as interested in who succeeds him as Babangida.

Firstly, he has to rule himself out of contention for the presidency in 2011. His PDP will never nominate him anyway and he knows. They will nominate only a core northern muslim who in his selfishness will insist in contesting in 2015 after his initial 4 years, regardless of the PDP zoning arrangement.

Those who did not want him there as president even for one day are very much in place. It is obvious that President Yar’Adua is the number one man who does not want him there. And if the president does not want him there, his personal staff would not either. Ditto his kitchen cabinet: national security adviser, secretary to the government, some of his inner circle of ministers, and yes, the army, navy and air force men in command positions. Their loyalty should be to the flag not the individual that occupies the office of president. But that is in healthy environments, not in Nigeria. He must do a complete overhaul of the presidency and the Federal Executive Council.

He must move swiftly to secure himself and his family. Those who killed Abiola are still there. Those who killed Abacha are within striking shot of him. He needs a third eye to know these people. If he is perceptive enough, he would have used the period of Yar’Adua’s AWOL to identify them wherever they are. And he must put them in their place.

If Martin Luther King talked about the fierce urgency of now in 1963, there is even a fiercer urgency in todays’s contemporary politics of Nigeria. While he is the Acting President, he must do the following:

He must remove all the commanding officers of all the major commands in the Army, Navy and Airforce and particularly the Chief of Army Staff who organized a military exercise without President Jonathan’s knowledge and approval. He must get a new Inspector General of Police and a new Comptroller of Customs. He must get himself a new National Security Adviser. He must make his own personal security a matter of utmost priority.

Lastly, Jonathan must endeavor to tackle the NEPA problem once and for all.

On the political front, it is clear that the muslim northern power elite is only interested in naked power. They are not interested in improving the lot of the populace especially the mass northern poor. Jonathan must rule them out of power in 2011. Let him shift his focus to the the northern minority. Gowon-like individuals from Jos, Kafanchan, Gongola. And who could be more Gowon-like than Gowon himself. He is battle tested and has the scars to show for it. Let Gowon be the next president of Nigeria! The fierce urgency of now dictates no less than Gowon as president and a southern muslim as his vice!

 

 

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