By Josef Omorotionmwan

NOBODY will blame us for sometimes behaving like the military. After all, we were under the military for too long. It was around 4.00 p.m. on that fateful day in 1985. We were all glued to our radio sets, awaiting the decision in the case of General Maman Vatsa, et al.

That was perhaps one case where we asked for rain and got a rainbow. The announcement that came was clear and most unambiguous: “They were sentenced to death by firing squad. As a matter of fact, they were executed about an hour ago.”

Funny enough, quite unlike many good leaders of this world, President Goodluck Jonathan has declared war on many fronts at the same time. As it were, he is biting more than he can chew and he is bound to make many more mistakes.

On the 31st of December, 2011, he made a shaky proclamation of emergency in some 15 Local Government Areas of the nation. The proclamation was perhaps not meant to stand the test of time. As a matter of fact, speaking the military way, it expired about eight hours ago.

Under Section 305(6)(b) of our 1999 Constitution, it is required that the proclamation must be supported by Resolutions of both Houses of the National Assembly with two-thirds majority of each House “within two days when the National Assembly is in session and within ten days when the National Assembly is not in session.”

The President now has an opportunity to reissue a new proclamation that will be devoid of political colouration and other defects that characterised the expired one. Quite honestly, I had no answer for my little son, when he wanted to know how the fragmented Local Government declaration was going to be enforced.

According to him, if you had a state of emergency in Ikpoba Okha and Oredo Local Government Areas but none at Egor Local Government Area, what on earth would prevent any Boko Haramist in the two encumbered Local Government Areas from moving into the latter and throwing his missiles from there when the three Local Government Areas are contiguous and within the Benin metropolis?

The Boko Haram problem is real. If Jonathan does not face it frontally, he would not even need to worry about the response to his fuel subsidy removal because too soon, there may be no nation to impose it upon. Boko Haram has outgrown selective enforcement. Any attempt in its direction must be holistic, comprehensive and drastic.

Surely, a leader must be interested in the happenings in his home front but he must not be seen to be overbearing. Jonathan was totally immersed in the Bayelsa gubernatorial contest and his fingerprints were too bold in the support of a particular aspirant. It is not in the leader’s interest, to be rubbished by any arbiter, right from the courts of inferior records to the highest level as we have started seeing in the Bayelsa imbroglio.

For how long are we going to carry on this way? Under President Goodluck Jonathan, this big country called Nigeria has gone into amnesia. When it is not asleep, it is on strike; and when not on strike, it is on holiday. We wonder how many Nigerians still remember that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is on strike.

This body in whose hands we have the fate of our future generation merely reminded the Federal Government of an agreement between them since 2009 and the Federal asked them to go to blazes. Suddenly, we wake up and begin to talk of 20-2020 (attaining the enviable height of one of the 20 top countries of the world by the year 2020), when we should really be talking of 150-2080.

Apparently, the Jonathan administration is at crossroads. It is already mixed up with those who are supposedly on its side. These are people who outwardly play the team game by acting friendly and agreeable while they sabotage you behind the scene, using the group to promote their own agenda.

See how soon we have arrived at the mother of all strikes. We saw this war on the withdrawal of petroleum subsidy coming. And now, the bubble has burst. It is interesting the type of panic measures the administration is adopting so soon. Let’s examine a few instances.

The administration claims that there is a cabal that is reaping the benefits from oil subsidy. The masses are asking you to go after the cabal instead of putting the burden on them. How else do you convince the masses that you are not running a “Cabaology” – government of the cabal, by the cabal and for the cabal (courtesy, Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon)?
You are moving from the absurd to the ludicrous.

Did we hear you say that the refineries must work? Fine, let them work. Suddenly, the basic salary of your political appointees shall come down by 25 percent. Good. Shall we not also believe the President of the NLC, Abdul Waheeb  Omar, that the maximum saving from that direction is just N65 million, a tiny drop in the ocean, particularly against the backdrop that the current appropriation has a provision of N1 billion for what looks like your lunch allowance and another N10 billion for your overseas travels? Worse  still, 1,200 buses are being put out to cushion the effect of subsidy withdrawal. This is benign tokenism. It averages out to about one and a half buses for each local government area.

The President must quickly beat a retreat. This country shall not die in your hands. To yield to the demands of the protesters shall not be construed as weakness or cowardice. Rather, it is wisdom at its best. That is the only route to travel now.