At the peak of the campaigns, just before the elections, on one bright day, the OPC laid siege on Ikorodu road. They brandished their guns, their characteristic lawlessness, and their new fatness. They tried to force the people into knowing that president Jonathan enjoyed their support and therefore had the southwest. Many mouths were not left agape by the nakedness of that which was utterly sordid. Because ethnic militias now fight for their pockets while fighting for freedom. Pipeline contracts that had been awarded them were pragmatic for more than security reasons. After all billions were shared yet the pipelines received no respite.

Our soldiers are stretched. And when stretched minds snap rebukes are measured, condemnations muffled . They are giving it their all, fighting demons with gloves. The depravity of the other side makes any rule following seem a handicap. We knew something was amiss but we didn’t know that the billions of dollars meant for the war were this footloose. Against the asymmetry and barbarism of boko haram for whom killing and maiming is a compulsive obsession , the waywardness of the ‘boko haram dollars’ was egregious evil.

He has to abide by judicial pronouncements while he seeks judicial redress, if available. He is not permitted to hold the decision of a competent court in contempt. The president can hold a negative personal opinion about the decision of a court but he is charged by the constitution to uphold the law and promote justice. The law is what the judiciary says it is. Promotion of justice entails not just submission to court decisions but the mobilization of the citizenry to obey the courts and respect judicial pronouncements as a matter of high civic duty.

Benevolent spirits may have cracked his palm kernels but President Jonathan must have nudged them, by being effortlessly self effacing and disarmingly unambitious. The mien and disposition of a lamb amongst wolves alone may leave one with the inconsequentiality, the inconspicuousness, needed to progress untracked by envy but in Nigeria where the humble and hesitant are choked out by the nakedness of ambition and its riotousness , Jonathan was particularly fortunate .

When late Houphet Boigny made the state treasury his own , his madness allowed him transform his village of Yamoussoukro into a tourist attraction. He saw St Peters Basillica in Rome and greed couldn’t stand in his way as ego propelled him to replicate it in his home town in Cote d’ivoire. That project may be dumb but our politicians make Boigny a visionary.