By Rotimi Fasan
TWO weeks from now, President Goodluck Jonathan’s six years in office would be over. But even before his departure, the judgment of history on his administration already seems clear. This is evident even in the long queues of vehicles at fuel stations across the country, testimony to the level of corruption and incompetence that has marked governance in the last six years.

It may seem rather unfair to judge the president in terms of the failure in the energy sector given the fact that he made his own impact, however little, in other sectors of the economy. But whatever success might be recorded for Goodluck Jonathan has been blighted by the mountain of failures that he chalked-up during his term in office. Nigeria cannot but be angry at the fact that, as producers of oil, they have had to suffer trying to get the commodity in the last three weeks or thereabout.

They would justifiably be angrier at the comments of insiders of this administration like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister of Finance who claimed several of her colleagues had become victims of high blood pressure as a result of the stress they’ve been under, working to improve the Nigerian economy. Evidence of these high blood pressure-induced hard work is no where to be seen in the lives of Nigerians, many of whom have to live from hand to mouth.

Perhaps, Mrs. Iweala who has definitely outstayed her welcome in government and others such as Mrs.Diezeani Allison-Madueke have indeed worked hard, but they must have expended their energy on the wrong things, in the wrong direction or simply for their personal benefits. Which is where those who hold brief for them as if they were that vulnerable get it wrong. Diezeani Allison-Madueke’s assumed vulnerability follows the ascent of a Pharaoh (read Buhari) who did not know ‘Joseph’. It is at best a put-on to deflect attention from her recent past as one of the untouchables of the Jonathan administration whose excesses brought the government to deserved grief.

The government failed royally or Nigerians wouldn’t be spending long hours or even days trying to get a so-called subsidised commodity that is produced right in their back yard. The energy sector in Nigeria can be characterised as the ware house of sleaze and corruption, a mad house where people spend what they don’t have or deep their hands into the commonwealth as if it was their private inheritance. After all, the people there seem to be operating as with a ‘blank cheque’, as the Pricewater House Coopers report has it. Whatever profit there is in the energy sector, or more specifically, that the NNPC makes ultimately ends up in the financial black hole that the Corporation has dug for its own good, in the sustenance of the fabulous lifestyles of officials of the petroleum ministry and the lavish billions allegedly spent on chartered flights.

When one sees the suffering that Nigerians have endured as they struggle to purchase fuel from the black market and unauthorised sources, one cannot but conclude that they must be glad President Jonathan didn’t have the benefit of another term in office. His ouster in the March 28, 2015 election looks like a boon from above. It is not hard to imagine what four more years under his rule would have been like.

Nigerians would have had to endure yet another four years of misery under the do-nothing government of an irresponsible leadership. Surely, those four years would not have ended without the country facing some violent rupture of some sorts. Another four year term for Goodluck Jonathan on the same leadership style and frequency would have been an open invitation to chaos and disorder. In such circumstance, Nigeria would have been clearly divided into two classes of the extremely rich and the abjectly poor, leaving room for the first uprising of the poor against the rich.

It is never a good thing that a government, worse yet an individual, should be remembered in terms of their negative attributes. It however looks like the Jonathan administration would be remembered more in terms of what the president didn’t get right than the things he did for the benefit of Nigeria. This is the price the president must pay for giving free reign to his subordinates to the extent that several of them practically forgot that there was a president elected by Nigerians and to whom they were accountable. Goodluck Jonathan has been praised for his so-called statesmanship by conceding victory in the 2015 election without choosing the path of electoral tribunals and their interminable sessions. But the truth really is that he did not have a better option in the matter. It was, perhaps, in recognition of this and the hostage situation in which he finds himself with his subordinates that he decided to give up on any attempt to contest the outcome of the election. As he himself said in a particularly poignant moment after the election and the release of its result, he had been a prisoner in the powerhouse called government in the last 16 years.

The time is ripe for Goodluck Jonathan to go home and he couldn’t have had a better opportunity after the 2015 election.

Now he can go home to a good rest, whether well deserved or not. If the likes of Ed Milliband, leader of the Labour Party, could take full responsibility for the defeat of his party even when he won his own seat, Nigerians might be making too much of Goodluck Jonathan’s concession of defeat in the last election. It was the logical and responsible thing to do after the wasted billions of Naira and millions of dollars he had spent in the last few weeks before the election in the hope of turning certain defeat into victory. Nigerians wanted him out more than they probably wanted Buhari in. He could have been defeated by any candidate, provided such had the backing of a credible opposition party as the All Progressives Congress was to the Peoples Democratic Party.

But Buhari had the advantage of a worthy reputation as an incorruptible leader, the very point on which the Jonathan government is in deficit.

The long and short of this all is that Jonathan has had his chance. He might not have used it to the best advantage of Nigerians. He surely fell short of the high expectations of the people who stood up for him when a few who imagined themselves powerful stood in his way and tried to stop him from taking his rightful position as president. Nigerians spoke for him then. But the same Nigerians now cannot wait to see his back. Let him go in peace.