By Dele Sobowale
“The difference between a politician and a statesman is: a politician thinks of the next election and a statesman thinks of the next generation”.
James Freeman Clarke.

Because of our very brief experience with participatory democracy, however imperfect, we have developed a queer sense of what can only be described as “incumbent mentality”. Let a damn fool become a state governor and all of a sudden, he will be called God’s anointed.

Within weeks, we would be reading about “giant footprints” etc. Yet, to some extent what happened to Jonathan has happened before in far away United States of America during the Nixon administration. President Nixon had as vice president one Spiro Agnew.

Shortly after they were both elected to their second term, Mr Agnew was charged with fraud when he was governor of Maryland. So, he resigned as v-p.

Meanwhile, Nixon was under investigation for the Watergate break-in during the elections, a minor offence anywhere but still unacceptable in the US. Congressman (i.e member of the House of Representatives) Gerald Ford became v-p to Nixon. Within weeks, Nixon was forced to resign as President, the first in US history to do so.

So Gerald Ford became President of the USA without contesting election as v-p or president and he decided to run for President as a Republican candidate. Not only did about a dozen fellow Republicans challenge him, more than a score Democrats also joined the fray. In the end Ford, a sitting President, was defeated by Jimmy Carter. The question is why?

The simple answer is: American don’t worship incumbents. To gain respect and expect re-election, you must convince the electorate that you are worthy of leadership.

Last week, I mentioned two vital matters on which Jonathan is not demonstrating the requisite leadership – the 2010 budget and the planned N10 billion expenditure for the 50th Anniversary of our Independence. One of the president’s admirers sent me a message asking if the president is responsible for the budget.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But, you can judge the quality of a person from the stuff his supporters utter in his defence. The new proposal for October 1, 2010 jamboree is now N6.5 billion which to sensible people is still on the high side for celebration of failure –including three years of the current administration of which he is now the leader.

As if to demonstrate how bereft of ideas he is, he dabbles into Super Eagles wahala; disbands the team, government sends out a defiant message to FIFA and then eats the humble pie of rescinding his hastily made decision.

As Professor Levitt has warned managers, “Nothing is more wasteful than doing with great efficiency that which should not be done”. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, p. 270).

That ill-advised decision divided the nation unnecessarily; elated his supporters at first; then humbled them later. Hereafter, who will march boldly behind a leader who takes flight at the first counter-offensive by the “enemy”?

Predictably, he has acquired an insatiable appetite for “commissioning” projects in states. This is not only a hold-over from the military, it is an unnecessary diversion if not a kick at true federalism. Projects funded by states with their people’s money belong to the people not the Federal government.

The President should be going about, if that is his priority, “commissioning” federal projects. But, because there is no federal project to speak of, the President has turned himself into a “senior prefect” supervising state governors.

In all my years in the US, I never read of a president “commissioning” a state project. Jonathan seems set to break the “Mugu record” laid by Obasanjo.  Is this leadership, given that no Ministry or parastatal this year has an approved capital vote mid-July?

Meanwhile, we wait for his own personal vision as a leader. Oddly enough, President Ford, who was dismissed by President Johnson as someone who “cannot chew gum and walk straight at the same time”, meaning Ford was totally incompetent, soon on being sworn in as President to complete Nixon’s term, addressed the people of the US and in that address laid out his own vision of leadership.

Granted, he impressed few people; but, at least they knew in what direction the new “captain” was going to steer the ship of state. Can Jonathan or any of his supporters tell us where we are headed?….

TO MY BROTHER JEGA –3
“The Commission was compelled to print a new set of ballot papers for the presidential election, which arrived in Nigeria only hours to the commencement of the polls and had to be distributed to the more than 120,000 polling units located in 8,800 wards of the country, some of them located in extremely difficult terrains…..

“At a very short notice, the President approved additional money to print fresh set of ballot papers for the Presidential election when the Supreme Court gave its ruling a few days to Election Day”.

THE OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE 2007 GENERAL ELECTIONS BY INEC.
Last week, I ended by pointing out at least two major pitfalls confronting Professor Jega, and indeed anyone accepting the post of INEC Chairman. The two can now be reduced to one – what W.J. Davison has described as “the tragic brevity of time”.

The PDP and the presidency, under Obasanjo, hell bent on its “do-or-die” approach to the elections had manipulated the release of funds to INEC to box the Commission into a corner by  not releasing funds on time for voter registration and printing of ballot papers. Even the most honourable Chairman would have fallen prey to OBJ and his “Garrison commanders”.

The presidential ballot papers had to be printed in South Africa because no Nigerian printer, not even the Mint, could print 70 million ballot papers in three days. As it turned out, the first plane sent to bring the ballot papers, through a valid contract given a party faithful, went to South Africa and refused to bring the ballot papers.

Yet without the ballot papers the Presidential Election for 2007 could not hold on due date. Then, Obasanjo, who had driven INEC to this corner, came to the “rescue”. What happened? According to the INEC report, signed by Iwu, we discover the following.

“He (Obasanjo) ..put at the disposal of the Commission institutional support, including security agencies especially the Nigerian Airforce and the Navy to ensure the distribution of the ballot papers on the eve of the elections”. Iwu was either being diplomatic or dissembling.

In plain words the INEC chairman had told us that Obasanjo, an interested party, hijacked the ballot papers for the 2007 elections.