Former President Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR, your departure from the exalted office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, on May 29, 2015, was a landmark in many respects – few of which can be regarded as credits to your five years in office. In fact, if future historians, who must base some of their conclusions on today’s media records, are to judge you, as you proclaimed a few weeks before your departure, they will judge you a failure.

Arnold did not put a question mark in the statement above. I introduced it because it seems appropriate for our current situation in Nigeria.

If you want a short answer to the question: why is Nigeria not developing as fast as it should? Then take a look below, at the excerpts from an article published in 2007. The full text will appear in the book to be published later this year. Two characters featured in that piece – Obasanjo and Fani-Kayode. In no other progressive country do you find people who left their nation in the dark, literally, still being called upon to influence decisions. The two guys represent a nation spinning its wheels. So, why in 2015 were the PDP members still begging Obasanjo to support them? And why was Fani-Kayode running the PDP Presidential campaign in 2015? Please read on.

Professor Tam David-West, nearing 80 but still going strong, and as irrepressible as ever, had made the case for those involved in electoral malpractices to be treated as armed robbers. Some have even likened it to treason – an attempt to distort the will of the people illegally. While their anger is understandable, they will not solve the immediate problem. In fact those suggestions will merely delay justice. Nigeria’s electoral laws as they stand, have never been fully tested until now. Violators have gone unpunished and we don’t know how strong a deterrent they will serve against future occurrence. At any rate we don’t have to waste time passing new laws. We should test the ones we have to the limit.

The real game has not even got underway and already some of the elected officials want to change the rules. The “solidarity” visit of the governors-elect of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to President-elect Buhari, on Tuesday, May 5, 2015 which resulted in the declaration above by Rochas Okorocha, newly appointed Chairman Progressives Governor’s Forum, PGF, portends grave consequences for all of us in many ways. The most glaring is the immediate cleavage created within the party by the governors elected on the ticket of the APC – at a time when many political analysts believe that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, lost the last election mostly on account of the over-bearing activities of its Governors Forum. APC Governors Forum is taking off where the PGF left off. The most obvious question arising from this is: do Africans, especially Nigerians, ever learn from theirs or other peoples’ mistakes? It is doubtful.