By Ochereome Nnanna

THE news of President Goodluck Jonathan’s retreat with a few aides in the Obudu Ranch pointed to the imminence of a new beginning. Even in the Scriptures, whenever religious leaders went into the mountains, they always came back with new deals from Above. Here is hoping that the President’s withdrawal from the hubbub of open society to the seclusion of the nation’s foremost hermitage is a pointer to something really new in the offing.

Having come out in such large numbers to vote during the presidential election (which saw the highest voter turnout in the elections) Nigerians are now full of expectations. Irrespective of the observed lapses, these elections were credible and represented the will of Nigerians. Unlike the elections in the Olusegun Obasanjo years when popular wishes of the Nigerian people were thwarted in favour of impositions, Nigerians have spoken in clear terms in support of “transformation”, the primal fulcrum of the GEJ campaign.

Even though the President did not define what his “transformation” package entails, the electorate are not going to be satisfied with business as usual. It is true that Nigerians voted for GEJ but not the People’s Democratic Party, PDP. The PDP is a failed ruling party.

Its 12 years in power was one of the worst decades of stagnation this country has ever witnessed. This ruling party has failed to let Nigerians know what its policies are and the direction it is taking the country. The party has no clue as to what being a PDP member is all about.

There is nothing that identifies PDP states and distinguishes them from non-PDP entities. And there was nothing to show a harmonious flow of policies from the Obasanjo era through the short-lived Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua’s 33 months, to the 15 months of Jonathan’s assumption of power. Unlike in Lagos where Governor Tunde Fashola continued from where his predecessor and mentor, former Governor Ahmed Tinubu, stopped, each new PDP president started his own fresh show. The only thing PDP is good at is winning elections.

There are many ways of knowing if GEJ is proceeding on a genuine path to “transformation”. One of the ways is to check how he relates with the dug-in political interests in his party: the godfathers (especially his own godfathers like Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief Edwin Clark), the PDP governors’ conclave, the PDP “system men” such as Chief Tony Anenih, the cult of billionaires created by Obasanjo who later hijacked the privatisation programme and other vested interests.

Nigerians will be watching to see how he goes about putting his government together. After the 2003 elections, Obasanjo adopted what could be termed as “conservative radicalism”, a system of achieving results with fresh hands without changing the establishment itself. He brought in technocrats to help him in tackling the economy in a decisive fashion. In constituting his economic team he eschewed tribalism. The Economic Team was made up primarily of ideas people from the South East and Northern Nigeria.

The president went out of his way, ignoring critical rants from several quarters, and hired Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala from the World Bank. She helped in exiting Nigeria from the Paris Club debt burden, introduced transparent disclosure of the monthly allocation of federal revenue, and together with the rest of the Economic Team, drew up the agenda for the banking sector reforms.

Nigerians need more than the Obasanjo approach of achieving results without changing the ways that Nigeria does its business because as soon as Obasanjo left office his efforts crumbled. The President will be transforming Nigeria if he is able to propose far-reaching constitutional changes that will occasion greater reduction of the powers of the centre. Too much power in the hands of the Federal Government was a post-colonial and military agenda.

The states should have more economic and political power in order to effectively tackle the challenges of security, job creation, infrastructural development and the expansion of economic opportunities. Despite its overweening powers, the Federal Government has not been effective in service delivery outside Abuja. Since we are practising the presidential system of government, there is no reason why we cannot also copy the American model of empowering the states to use what they have to get what they need under a regime of greater autonomy.

Another pointer towards a new deal will be evident in the factors the President puts into consideration while constituting his government. If he follows the age-old pattern of favouring his tribe and the Muslim North then there is nothing new.

Every section of the country must be given a sense of belonging irrespective of how they voted. We must abandon the discredited “conventional wisdom” of reserving special privileges for some sections of Nigeria. We want to see top posts in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC and the federal agencies under the Federal Ministry of Education (for example) evenly distributed rather than the current pattern of making them special fiefdoms of our Muslim North. Nigerians voted for One Nigeria, not for the retention of sectional privileges.

President Jonathan is expected to use the period of his retreat to evolve strategies for meeting up with the numerous promises he made during his campaign. He has shown good signs of being a promise-keeper. He promised a free, fair and credible general election. He delivered. He gave the INEC everything it needed, and refrained from interfering with the electoral body or manipulating the elections to ensure the success or failure of any candidate. He indeed showed he had not enemy to fight or friend to fight for.

If this path is followed in tackling the many promises he made then we may well be on the right path to a transformed Nigeria. If Jonathan fails to move this nation forward, then I don’t see Nigerians sitting around to wait for the next four years to pass.