by Debo Adejugbe

There are so many inexplicable anomalies and absurdities that we witness around the world on a daily basis; some are so crazy that they question all the rational thinking we might harbor. I saw a web video recently where a wife decided to leave her husband for treating her too well. He was too good to her, pampering and tending to her every need which spooked her. It was unheard of and unreal, hence the decision to leave him.

Why the story above? Of all the absurdities I have seen recently, nothing tops the consistent stream of own goals (in football terms) that the president’s handlers are churning out time after time. It makes you wonder if they even care about the man’s image at all or they enjoy endlessly annoying the public. You further question the president’s rationalization of events. Does he take everything they tell him hook, line and sinker or is he ordinarily elated by the dust these decisions generate hence his acceptance without protests or contrary opinions.

Of all the stupidity that could be churned out of our present dire security failures and the swinging / reckless accusations between the two leading political parties on who exactly is responsible for the present hopelessness we are embroiled in as a nation, surfaced the #BringBackGoodluck2015 slogan. This is the height of insensitivity and an absolute lack of common sense when over 200 Chibok girls are still missing after 150+ days. Out of a security failure that has the presidency’s failure written all over it, an unintelligent group decided to make “light of the very serious national and global concern over the abducted girls” as the president rightly noted. They reminded us that he has failed to #BringBackOurGirls; a definite own goal!

That it took a reprimand from the Washington post before the president decided to take action (feigning ignorance despite Doyin Okupe’s embrace of the slogan) is a further insult on the sensibility of every living Nigerian – his supporters included. If the president had been truly offended by that hashtag and the subsequent bad press it generated, he should have done away with a man like Doyin Okupe and his ilk who championed such silliness; then his manufactured outrage would sit well with the public. Doyin Okupe is more or less a harmful parasite to the president’s 2015 ambition and one stone could have killed two birds in such a situation.

Of all the stupidity that could be churned out of our present dire security failures and the swinging / reckless accusations between the two leading political parties on who exactly is responsible for the present hopelessness we are embroiled in as a nation, surfaced the #BringBackGoodluck2015 slogan. This is the height of insensitivity and an absolute lack of common sense when over 200 Chibok girls are still missing after 150+ days.

Another own goal that was clearly avoidable was the TAN PortHarcourt rally that went ahead in the midst of an Ebola outbreak in that city. The Federal Government was at the forefront of the Ebola fight and people genuinely commended the way they handled the issue with timely dissemination of information on steps taken and the status of reported cases but when it was time for the president to take control of the narrative and score a massive point in Nigeria’s political history, he failed woefully, risking the breakout of an epidemic to satisfy a political want. The president cannot claim ignorance in this case as several close aides attended the rally with the SGF, Pius Anyim Pius, conspicuously representing the president. You have to add that faux pas to the fact that INEC still has a tight screw on political campaigns. If you are meant to be the custodian of the law and you are the first to break it, what point are you making?

The Ali Modu Sheriff’s case tops it all. This is a unique own goal and I will tell you why. Prior to joining PDP from rival APC, several people had asserted that he was a major Boko Haram sponsor. He was linked with the group’s rise at a time when the North was relatively peaceful and at such, many encouraged the government to investigate his involvement. At that time, the APC were mute but remembered a 2011 report indicting him after Sheriff ditched them. The Ali Modu Sheriff allegations are not new. It is an open secret that he was a suspect right from when he was in the APC.

This is what really baffles me about his presence with president Jonathan in that meeting with Idris Deby in Chad (forget the denials, pictures don’t lie): He has been perpetually linked with Boko Haram, the case assumed a new dimension when an Australian negotiator, Steven Davis, made new claims as to his culpability and should ordinarily be under obligatory investigation to determine the authenticity of the claims and that should have been ground for the president to keep a safe distance not to sway the result of such investigations or run afoul of the public mood at a time when insecurity is a seam in our national fabric; how come the president and his handlers missed that unique point?

He is not indicted on terrorism charges as it is, but political expediency, sensitivity to the cries of Nigerians at a delicate time and the moral obligations of the president to his people should have come to the fore in deciding whether to visit the Chadian president with Sherriff or not. Let’s agree that he did not travel with him but his association to that trip should have ended at the airport when he welcomed the president to Chad. There wouldn’t have been a need for the reactive press releases, accusations and counter accusations on how he ended up in a photo that clearly depicted a meeting with the Chadian president and Jonathan.

All these cases points us to the fact that all is clearly not well at the presidency. It is either the president’s aides are clueless, irrational and inept or that the president doesn’t give a hoot about the feelings of the people he governs – it could be both and that will explain a whole lot of things. President Jonathan is not the first obviously under performing president we’ve had (every single former president of Nigeria falls into that group) but he has the advantage of controlling the narrative by wielding the powers he has to considerably change the nation but every time an advantage presents itself, he seem to choose the wrong option and with aides like his, the issues are exacerbated every single time

The only reason these own goals are not presidency-defining is that we have an opposition who clearly don’t understand the depth and complexity of governance but keep striving for it, whose own goals seem to rival the presidency’s on every benchmark that you can imagine. That is why it is going to be more of the same come May 29, 2015 with our lamentations continuing irrespective of who wins.

—————–

Debo Adejugbe is a trained Telecommunications/Electronics Engineer, certified IT professional and FHI PEER educator living in Lagos. Tophi’s husband, Dad to Hailey and Ryan; he is an advocate against sexual and domestic abuses. Debo has political sympathy for the Labour Party.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Op-Ed Editor