By Bisi Lawrence
There are times when I start saying something about Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and stop mid-sentence. It would suddenly occur to me that, no matter what, he is still the President of the country in which resides the most populous conglomeration of black people on this planet.

At such times, I remind myself that he therefore occupies a position of respect, even if I disagree with the way he occupies it some of the time. He still occupies it.

The truth is that I had always taken a dim view of his occupation of it, in the first place. That was not because I thought he was unfit to be president. In fact, on the face of it, he had all the requisite qualifications as specified in the Constitution and more. Rather, I thought the time was unsuitable, and that his success depended on too many factors over which he might not have enough control. I even stated these misgivings on this page. Chief of these was the effect it would have on the fabric of the nation’s unity, since it was clear that election into office would be resented fiercely by those who adhered to the zoning principle of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party. I was certain the PDP would have to struggle to ever be the same again if he ran for the office and won. Well, he ran and he won. Someone who has a big say in the security development of the nation has publicly characterized some of the violent unrest in the country as an aftermath of that election.

When Andrew Owoeye Azazi, the National Security Adviser, made that chilling pronouncement about the rise of violence as almost a sequence to the stance of some PDP, and other elements of a Northern stripe, on the election of Goodluck, some people thought he had gone too far and should be relieved of his post; others felt he would anyway be removed by some entrenched powers. He is still there. What many people did not seem to immediately grasp was that he hardly would have made that well-prepared presentation without the knowledge and consent of his principle. But that is really not the point here. The import of his statement was that it confirmed what was so predictable, but was being apparently denied and glossed over. The upshot is that this country has seldom been as divided as it now stands, even during the Civil War. Make that one of the pains of the first Jonathan year.

There are other pains, some of them gratuitously self-inflicted. They hinge mostly on statements that are laden with controversy. The elongation of the presidential tenure was one. Some people are still at a loss about what provoked the speculation, or recommendation, of a one-term elongated term for the president – and that from a president who had hardly been in office enough to even warm his seat at that time. We asked then about what necessitated the hurry to push such an agenda on to the front burner ahead, and in spite, of so many important questions crying for answers in the country. That subject is yet a source of anguish within the body politic.

The removal of the so-called petrol subsidy was a source of palpable distress to a host of individuals, but it has been slammed down on the nation in the face of a country-wide resentment expressed by demonstrations of an almost unprecedented magnitude. Before the tension subsided, it almost became a confrontation of the people with armed policemen and elements of the militia. Many of us were praying that it would not attain the scale at which weapons would be used against civilians, the way we saw them used in places like Egypt and Libya.

The embers of the resentment are still smouldering, but Jonathan would not let them expire peacefully. The President is said to be considering the total removal of a subsidy, the existence of which has been dipped neck-deep in disbelief by the subsequent enquiry which highlighted the mismanagement and misappropriation of the assets that would have filled the gap it might have created. Many of us are going to resume praying.

And what about the Sovereign Fund? State Governors are at daggers drawn with the President, all the way to the law courts. This has degenerated to the scenario of a farce, right before our eyes. And now in the final analysis, we have to appreciate that it is no longer a case of who is right, but what is right. A disagreement between administrations of government at different levels should never, ever be allowed to deteriorate to the point at which the Federal Attorney-General and State Attorney-Generals could wag their wigs at one another over such an issue. It is a slap on the face of decent administration; it demeans the dignity of governance; and it erodes the regard which the people should have for authority. In plain terms, it is simply disgraceful. The citizens of this country have had to bear a lot of agony this past year.

Let us shelve the myriads of problems besetting the nation today. The President, of course, would go defensive these days when they are mentioned, and attempt to disown any responsibility for them on the grounds that they existed before he came into office. Precisely. However, that was why he was voted into office. He accepted them as his own when he made those alluring promises about how he would tackle them, and we believed him.

The people are beginning to hesitate, or are downright unwilling, to believe him any more. Some would even believe Henry Okah in preference to the stylized accounts of Aso Rock. And many of them are from his own Niger Delta area. Many Nigerians were led, for instance, to expect a change in the composition of the cabinet by a series of undisputed reports, all the way to the wire. And then a bland denial surfaced as to how there was never any idea to reshuffle the cabinet. But the people are not impressed. That is why there are slings of disillusionment, disapproval and displeasure aimed at Aso Rock from so many directions now at the end of his first—or second?—term of office. (The President, by himself through his penchant for rousing unnecessary controversy, has created a debate even over his tenure already, three years before any election is due.)

Someone opined that President Goodluck Jonathan has achieved nothing in his first full year in office. If the pains on the psyche of the populace count for nothing, he may be right.

Time out

Echoes: The incandescent luminosity of Nigeria has been brought to an irreducible minimum in terms of development, because the laodicean disposition of President Jonathan has led to a groundswell of exploitative oligarchs, horrendous corruption, total insecurity, eerie fiscal policies, no roads, no houses, no light, no food, no Medicare, no peace, etc. It’s one year of stupendous skulduggery and unthinkable schmaltzy. He has no moral authority to contest the 2015 election. The vast majority of our Governors should also follow suit. We admonish Nigerians to be politically sagacious in 2015 … (Chief Bobson Gbinije. Mandate Against Poverty (MAP) WARRI – 080582316690) …

Chief Bobson always says these things the way they are, doesn’t he? And you can understand what he’s saying with a little help from a mighty dictionary! Well, it would appear that the problems that people are facing are indeed so many that they won’t be “shelved” anyway.

Echoes: Re-”Monkeys and baboons, the spoken statement form Buhari is not in anyway inciting, nor does it connote violence. “Kare Jini, Biri Jini” in Hausa is nothing more than a “Clash of Titans” (In other words), when a dog and a monkey are fighting, it is not easy to predict the winner. (Aminu, Benin City – 08125275741).