by Ralph Egbu

Some things that make life worthwhile could be in the form of intangibles; this is what some of us don’t know. But even in terms of verifiable achievements, I don’t think the Jonathan government has done badly at all.

I am writing this article for rea­sons I think would further the cru­sade I have embarked on severally on this page. And that is: national development would receive added momentum and our political culture enhanced if journalists, broadcast anchormen, public affairs com­mentators and citizens promote the procedure of separating governance period from stewardship and verdict times.

For nations that desire pro­gress, once elections are over, the space of partisanship is narrowed and the beacons of nationalism el­evated, that way competing parties though of different persuasions see reason to have all hands on deck to promote the greatest good which in this case is peoples’ welfare and proper development of the nation. I found something reading through the history of developed nations even at the infancy of their devel­opment processes.

One of such dis­coveries is, no matter which party or political faction wins the presi­dency or any other office, everyone recognises those who are brilliant and who have made very intelligent prepositions long before and during election, efforts are made to accom­modate them, so that their potentials can be tapped.

In our case, we do differently; belonging to different political par­ties is seen as declaration of war. Once one party muscles its way into power, those who lost become villains, who must be decapitated and vanquished so that perceived obstacles to re-election are cleared if possible many years before the election year. This partially explains why our system despises the clean, forthright and very brilliant men and women in our midst and also why people, including the clergy and civil rights campaigners, loathe op­position politics; I can confirm that my pastor friends and highly placed personalities have advised me never to join opposition party for reasons everybody knows.

One consequence of this is that those who are down begin a day af­ter each poll to cast heavy stones at those in power and the result is the muddy political atmosphere which beclouds rational assessments and judgements. This has impacted neg­atively in the important exercise of scientifically setting standards and then assessing those who lead us. Because there is so much mudsling­ing and bad blood, we have gotten to the point where citizens find it very difficult, if not unable to distin­guish the truth from falsehood.

This lacuna has afforded opportunity to visionless leaders who clawed their way into power to just sit through their tenure and get away with it; and when they are charitable enough, give useless excuses for colossal failure. The situation is not beyond remedy if the few who understand how things should be done insist on lighting their own candle sticks even in the middle of thick darkness; after all, little light in the midst of gross darkness shines far brighter and can help to locate the pathway.

If we earnestly want to properly assess Jonathan’s first tenure, excellent job would not be done of it if note is not taken of the prevailing atmosphere preceding his assumption of office. The military hijacked power in what I term the second stage of their mis­adventure in 1983, when Muham­madu Buhari, dismissed the elected government of Shehu Shagari in a coup.

Between that date and 1999 when they were forced to quit un­ceremoniously, they did so many good things no doubt but unfortu­nately the big vision was messed up by small but critical mistakes they made for whatever reasons. They violated merit, distorted the political architecture in such a manner that unhealthy competition and conflicts became inevitable. The worst was leaving a political legacy that was in all ramifications anti-democratic; the height was contriving Obasanjo, a retired General, with no trace of democratic blood into power as president in 1999.

From this point our democracy lost meaning and democratic activities were nauseating that many of us heard citizens vow never to allow any other candidate with military background to become the president, at least for some while. This may be an over-reach but no­body who was a witness to what happened would deny that democratically, things were not so bad.

The Obasanjo era was anything but democratic, so bad that even civil right campaigners said what we had was a civilian government not a civil rule. Many of us scampered for safety and those who dared were taken away in controversial circum­stances. We all know that it is true that if it were then, APC would not have survived at all.

Today the democratic space is open and free and I like it and am sure many Nige­rians do and it is a very big achievement for all of us who know what it means to operate in a closed politi­cal environment.

Some things that make life worthwhile could be in the form of intangibles; this is what some of us don’t know. But even in terms of verifiable achievements, I don’t think the Jonathan government has done badly at all. We hurt the na­tion when we analyse our problems and make it look as if they became worst just two years ago, the truth is that it is a cumulative of bad leader­ship since independence. Jonathan is only unlucky to come at the time the cumulative effect of our mis­deeds was bearing fruits.

We talk of unemployment, corruption, rental economy, diminished sovereignty and general disorder and we make it look as if only the Federal Govern­ment must have the answer, and the question would be what have state governments and local governments been doing? I was amazed when governors whose states were burn­ing threw their arms up in surrender but even while the Boko Haram is­sue raged on, it would not be true to say that the Federal Government was doing nothing and this is in spite of my belief that Boko Haram is an instigated distraction.

We accused Jonathan of failure on that account; if we mean well, now he seems to be doing well, the credit should also go to him. I am grateful we have had so many labour strikes and that was simply because work­ers suddenly found an ideal atmos­phere to ventilate pent up worries and am delighted with the manner the administration responded to all of them. Those agitations were about issues and reaching a truce means that some solutions were in­jected into those sectors.

Not many of us still remember that the mini­mum wage increase meant good life for so many including a young lad who formerly lived with me, who now earns enough to be on his own. My sister Chidinma Chibueze tickled me few days ago when she showed me the picture of a train ride by a friend, who recently graduated, from Lagos to Umuahia. It was like what we see in Europe and together we expressed surprise. The surprise element tells of the problem with the Jonathan Presidency: lack of mar­keting. This young graduate told me she didn’t know if such thing was happening and if the nation has a rail system with passenger stations.

Even when government officials want to talk, they dwell on the nega­tives. Power supply has consider­ably improved and Nigerians that I ask attest to it but listen to the Min­ister speak, you hear stories of no gas and vandalism. Iweala on her own would be talking about GDP and rebased economy instead of specific efforts that have put food on the table of some Nigerians.

If you look at education, agriculture, sports, unemployment (SURE-P/ YouWIN) and road infrastructure, you agree that Jonathan has done very well. What is bad is when we see these things and refuse to ac­knowledge that the government has done well. The Lagos-Ibadan road is one example of what I mean. Jonathan should stop the use of the theme transformation, I will rather advise he uses the word, recovery or turnaround.

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