By Rotimi Fasan
AFTER more than a year since the issue became a major talking point around the country, President Goodluck Jonathan, last week, finally declared his intention to re-contest as president. The President especially, and his aides and supporters had hedged and skirted like practiced lawyers on the question of whether he would seek re-election or not. Most of the talk around Jonathan’s re-election plans was at best academic.

It must have been obvious to even Nigerians born blind that Mr. Jonathan had no intention to give up his Aso Villa tenancy before 2015. If anything, his body language and hedging utterances spoke volumes about his unspoken presidential plans. Even then Nigerians, mostly Northerners in and outside the PDP, wanted a categorical declaration from the president. This, perhaps, in the hope that they could nail him down to a so-called gentlemanly agreement between the President and his party that precluded him from seeking re-election after a full four year term in office.

President Goodluck Jonathan

The President never thought it expedient to oblige those who wanted him to declare with a clear statement of intent. It was as if such statement would jinx the President’s ambition. Jonathan was, may be, also not eager to set the opposition mill grinding before it was absolutely necessary for him to do so.

That way he would have a lot less to worry and fight about. An early declaration might have given his opponents more than enough time and room to plan how to checkmate his moves back to Abuja. This would seem a smart move, but only on the surface. By failing to declare when it was obvious that would eventually be a call he cannot balk, Jonathan appeared too afraid of his own shadow and, thereby, created unnecessary ceremony and controversy around what should ordinarily have been routine matter.

He gave too much unnecessary grist to the rumour mill and much hot air was expended over nothing. One must also not discount the many criticisms that came about the president’s leadership style and on whether his years in office justify his continued stay there.

For these and many unknown reasons more, President Jonathan continued to hedge and skirt around the issue of his ambition to remain as president even as more ministers left his cabinet in order to go and set in motion their own electoral agenda. It was as if by not talking about his political future, the matter would go away.

The matter never went away and in the last few weeks it re-emerged with more vigour. Until last Thursday, 23rd October, 2014 when the waiting game came to an end and President Jonathan finally declared he would seek re-election. It was something of an anti-climax as the president had to make this declaration in anticipation of his party’s deadline to all office seekers on its platform to procure their declaration of intent form. The president and everyone else yet to declare their intention to seek political office on the platform of the PDP were given one week within which to make such declaration of intent. And so it was that Jonathan was forced to declare.

What this suggests is that President Jonathan would have been content to go on with the waiting game had his party not compelled him to speak. This does not look good enough. A man should be seen to be his own man and making his own calls. It should not be said that Goodluck Jonathan was so undecided on his political future, or was too afraid to speak about it until it became a fait accompli.

That is not at all presidential. It is not and should not be the style of a man who is sure of his onions. Nigerians ought to have the full assurances that President Jonathan was not suborned into the presidential race as this very forced declaration would suggest.

The president would appear to have prevaricated until it was no longer possible for him to continue to do that. Which raises questions about why he would prevaricate. Could this be because he had to reflect deep and for long about the necessity of his continued stay in office? Could it be that the president would rather have returned to Otuoke to enjoy his retirement but for the pressure of those who see him as their meal ticket? Is President Goodluck Jonathan’s ambition to continue in office a consciously made decision or one he was compelled to make in order to cater to certain entrenched interests?

So many questions but there does not appear to be enough answers. The president himself does not make it easy for Nigerians to gloss over these questions. For having waited for so long to make this declaration, Jonathan appears bent on more ceremony before the actual declaration.

He has set up a committee to oversee this planned formal declaration. Was the waiting period not enough for him to have prepared? Yes, he would, as a politician, want to make a lot of song and dance about the declaration. He needs to sell himself to Nigerians once more.

In fact a politician would want to make such occasion of declaration an opportunity to kick-start his campaign. But Jonathan, both directly and indirectly, had started his re-election campaign long before now. Not only had he given life to the Abacha transformation script, raised it from deserved oblivion with the carefully choreographed campaign of his transformational ambassadors, his party, the PDP, had all but declared him their sole candidate weeks in advance of his belated declaration. As the incumbent, one should not expect a president who is the leader of his party to face opposition from that party.

The kind of opposition to Jonathan’s candidacy from the North does appear to carry such weight as to justify him corralling the machinery of that party to make him their sole candidate. Jonathan however appeared determined to follow the discredited script of Sani Abacha.

One only hopes that, having tasted the sweet taste of power for the better part of 11 years, Jonathan would not after this second full term want to be declared Nigeria’s maximum leader in the fashion Abacha planned before Providence intervened. O yes, you might wonder if I have already conceded victory to Jonathan in the February election?

Only a blind person would not see Jonathan winning again even without the elaborate charade that has preceded his return.

The opposition does not appear markedly different from the PDP nor does it appear ready to provide a credible alternative to Jonathan. There is too much confusion within it, so much more confusion than can ensure a credible challenge. And what is more? The Fayemi example is a freak occurrence. No sitting Nigerian politician loses their office.