Opinion: The fallacy of ethnic gang up against Pres. Jonathan

by Bemdoo Hulugh

 

Muhammadu Buhari  (1)In 2011 Presidential election,General Buhari didn’t even come second in the southwest with a yoruba man as his running mate, so why will the yoruba people suddenly decide to vote Buhari because of Pastor Osinbajo?

First it was Asari Dokubo who said President Jonathan’s defeat was a ‘gang up’. In his words “the voting pattern has clearly shown that the Gambari North and the Yoruba  are united in the conquest of the Niger Deltans and the Igbo of defunct Biafra with the Middle Belt now used as pawns”. Then Daniel Elombah in his very bias piece titled “Goodluck Jonathan,the coward that led the Igbos to the slaughter” said there was no elections on May 28 and the whole elections was just a decision that President Jonathan be replaced by a Northern Muslim. For all they care the southwest voted for APC because of Osinbajo,a yoruba man and the North voted APC because of Buhari, a fulani man. Doyin Okupe gave the ‘gang up’ theory another dimension when he wrote on his facebook wall that President Jonathan lost because of “national and international conspiracy”. To them President Jonathan’s failed re-election bid has nothing to do with his poor scorecard as an incumbent. When do they intend telling Mr President the truth? Chinua Achebe said in his last book that “…part of the way to respond to confusion in Nigeria is to blame those from other ethnic groups or the other side of the country”.

Let’s not mislead people or try to misrepresent this historic moment because we find ourselves on the wrong side of history. President Jonathan failed everybody including the Niger Deltans and Igbo people. Can anybody in these places sincerely say they are better off as a people since Goodluck became President? The Niger deltans and the Igbo people could easily forgive him to continue because he is “their brother” [sincerely I don’t understand how he is the brother of the Igbos] but the rest of Nigeria couldn’t and that is the summary of the Presidential Elections. Let us quickly look at the voting pattern in the 2011 and 2015 Presidential elections in some geo-political zones to put to bed all the noise about ethnic gang up.

In 2011 Presidential election, General Buhari didn’t even come second in the southwest with a Yoruba man as his running mate, so why will the Yoruba people suddenly decide to vote Buhari because of Pastor Osinbajo? President Jonathan lost in the north-central states of Kogi, Benue and Kwara, these are places he won last term with a landslide. It’s hard to believe he lost all these states because of a gang up. While in 2011, President Jonathan won in Taraba and Adamawa, he lost one of the two states this time around and then went ahead to win with a landslide in south-south and South-east geo-political zone. If he won with a landslide as expected in his stronghold then he shouldn’t complain if General Buhari won with a landslide in his stronghold of North-east and Northwest.

If the President lost in many states he won last time, the first thing to ask is if he fulfilled his campaign promises to them and if he did, that’s where a ‘gang up’ conspiracy can sell. President Jonathan failed to fulfil his campaign promises. He didn’t show sympathy or empathy when boko haram kidnapped,butchered and burnt school children in the North-east but expected to get their votes and the votes of other Nigerians? In a country with 112 million poor people,our President was spending N1billion on food alone and he expected people to vote for him. Under his watch,young people were exploited and killed in the name of NIS recruitment exercise. Did Mr President think we have forgiven him for increasing the price of petrol in the name of subsidy removal? How can we forgive a President that went partying in less than 24hrs after the Nyanya terrorist attack? While Mr President was telling us about almajiri schools,the number of illiterates increased to 35million. Mr President told us we are now the largest economy in Africa but states are finding it difficult to pay salaries and unemployment is still very high. He sacked a government official who said huge amount of money was missing and gave presidential pardon to a treasury looter but expected us to believe he is fighting corruption. Mr President lost because he failed to discharge his responsibilities as a President. The many sins of President Jonathan are too numerous to mention.

In 2011,he came to Nigerians as a very humble man,telling whoever cared to listen that his ambition is not worth the blood of anybody but in 2015 he came back to us for re-election with the burden of broken promises, squandered goodwill and gross incompetence. Maybe he thought it was possible for him to manipulate his way by using ethnicity,religion and dollars. The ethnic card was always going to work against him because he was from a minority ethnic group. He couldn’t use religion again as APC were a step ahead of him by choosing Prof Osinbajo (a pastor of the Redeem Christian Church of God) as the running mate of General Buhari. By the time he started dollarizing the political landscape,it was too late. If tomorrow President Jonathan wants to know why he failed in his re-election bid,he should look within and not outside. His government was too business as usual and as the looting of our common wealth increased to an unimaginable level,so also did poverty,hunger and frustration increased on the side of the masses. The people couldn’t take it any more and APC capitalised on this. Those 15,424,921 votes that sent President Jonathan packing were not votes against ijaw or the south-south,there were votes against an incompetent President.

I find it difficult to believe that anybody supported President Jonathan because of his performance. They supported him out of selfishness or ethnic sentiments or both. He was no Lee Kuan Yew,he was neither Nelson Mandela nor a Martin Luther King,he is the perfect example of a failed President. No matter how you try to twist this historic moment,it will not change the truth. Under President Jonathan Nigeria was heading for destruction and the only way to restore hope was to vote him out and we did exactly that. This is the beginning of a new dawn. Let’s stop preaching unnecessary hate and division,its time to join hands and build a great nation.

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Bemdoo Hulugh writes from Makurdi. He tweets from @bumy04

 

 

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

One comment

  1. Nice piece Bemdoo! I hope ridiculous writers like Femi Aribasala & Amanze Obi will read this pragmatic piece so that they will learn. Bravo!

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