The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment
It would be difficult to imagine any weightier evidence to show the confusion in the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, than the romanticizing they are doing with former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The 2023 fixation is driving the party to extreme in all ways and the apparent division in the house is not helping matters.
Cognizant observers of political activities in the country since 2015 when the APC took over the reign of governance in the country will find it hard to understand that the man they took the entire four years of their first term to malign is now the irresistible and alluring brand they flock to now. Strange politics.
First what looked like a kite was flown that some Buhari men in the North are disposed to power coming to the South if only it would go to former President Jonathan. The kite fliers did not say under which party they would want him in because officially Jonathan is a card carrying member of the PDP and those heralding the news are from the ruling APC.
The whole comedy started last year when some APC stalwarts led by the Minister of state for Petroleum, Timipre Sylvia led some APC governors to Jonathan’s Otuoke country home after the Bayelsa state Governorship election in which the APC won before the Supreme Court threw them away due to the multiplicity of irreconcilable names of the deputy Governorship candidate. It was then believed that APC won because Jonathan was unhappy for being snubbed by the PDP under the then state Governor Sierake Dickson. The APC leadership then was trying to take advantage of the friction to reap where they did not sow. Thank God supreme sorted it out.
The latest of the Jonathan romance was the last week’s visit of some APC Governors in the camouflage of going to celebrate with him on his 63rd birthday. Notable leaders in this country including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former Heads of state, Generals Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubukar all celebrated their birthdays but APC did not visit them. What is then in Jonathan?
What is very clear and indisputable is that since 2015 when he voluntarily surrendered power to the opposition, former President Jonathan remains the shining light of democracy in the country and indeed Africa and an embattled ruling party struggles to tap the anointing and display a picture of a party in love with a true democrat.
Nothing going on in the nation’s political jigsaw is by happenstance and Nigerians know this fact and are at alert no matter how unrealistic or stupid it appears.
But in all, what is clear is that a faction of APC house of commotion is recruiting to swell their rank so that when the push comes to shove eventually they will not be overwhelmed by the trick of bitter and angry opposition within.
Since 25 June, 2020 when the Comrade Adams Oshiohmole leadership of the party was dismantled and Governor Mai Mala Buni interim leadership set up, the heft of the division in the party has become manifest.
Realizing that the cog on the wheel of the party grips it tightly to the extent that it cannot move, they had to abandon their reconciliation agenda and embark on recruitment so that their faction of the whole can be strong and formidable before the coming together of the various families for the critical decisions.
This perhaps informed the pressure put on the Governor of Ebonyi state Dave Umahi to join them before the National Convention of the party. Whatever promise made to the Governor and other fresh recruits in the party including the curious one being proposed for Jonathan is not yet a bird in hand as the other members of the house are still lying in wait in ambush ostensibly with their own agenda.
Its perhaps in that line, that the attempt by a faction of the party to embark on membership registration across the country which would have enabled them to doctor the party’s membership register for final torpedo and control of the party, was halted by the other group within through the law court.
Former President Jonathan who refused to use his power negatively even when he had the opportunity because of his believe in democracy and power of the people has said severally that he is not available yet but they keep running to him for political anointing.
The question is, if Jonathan is not available why are they going fantasizing with him. The answer is simple, they want to tap in the high rising and enviable profile of Jonathan, use him as a face for the targeted Southern division being hatched at the highest quarters by the North.
The South West having been adequately used and compensated are now ripe to be dumped and attention is shifting to the East for another eight years in the hope that they will help them cage rebelling South West. The same clueless Jonathan they used South West to dethrone is now the bride for retaliation on the South West. Masters of intrigue on duty. Yoruba and Igbo since independence in 1960 have made themselves a willing tool in the hands of the Fulanis for high class politicking.
To get Jonathan and his supporters attracted, something juicy had to be brought to the table, the Presidency.
Truth remains that the romance with Jonathan is indeed a well-crafted Northern agenda to help keep the South divided and retain Presidential power in 2023.
Even though provocative, the proposal remains achievable because ambition continues to make players interpret Justice and equity from their own selfish point of view whether from the North or the South.
The only way to make it impossible for the North to keep power after eight years is for the South South, South East and South West to rise in one voice and demand it by saying they have zoned it to a particular region. But this will not happen because a lot of South East and South West and South South gladiators are already negotiating for the Vice Presidency position to Northerners. Some of them are even ready to bankroll the President and Vice Presidential expenses. Money miss road you may say.
Those in PDP and Southern Nigeria who sit and watch the APC and Northern leaders hobnob with Jonathan thinking it’s a freak and an aberration, should wait for its outcome. The real agenda is not Jonathan Presidency but retention of Northern hegemony by keeping the South permanently divided ahead of 2023.
If for instance Bola Tinubu and his South West group say today that for justice, equity and stability of this country, the 2023 Presidency should return to the South and to the South East, all the arrogance and gerrymandering of the North will stop. Didn’t African proverb quiz “If relatives help each other, what evil can hurt them?”
But rather than reason and think this way, a Tinubu may prefer to go for a Vice President to a Northern than support an Igbo Presidency even when such Vice President is to be as nominal as the current one. We have all watched how the current Vice President, Prof Yemi Osibanjo, indubitably the star of this regime was flagrantly disrobed and made a marginal figure in the system.
The group and entity known as political South may get a shocker if they sit and watch and possibly write off these on-going strange political window dressing by the North thinking it has no impact. When a ‘clueless’ Jonathan suddenly becomes the bride for political Photo shopping as we can all see, know it that Northern Nigeria can go to any length including romancing with their yesterday’s demon just to gain some political mileage and push through an agenda.
Any love making that has fruit bearing in mind expects something after nine months, this unusual romance with Jonathan has 2023 as its delivery date. The South should therefore watch it, and note this counsel, ‘the buyer needs a hundred eyes; the seller but one.
For our brother Jonathan who has luckily and graciously lived to see those who abused and out rightly wrote him off as a leader now flocking on him, it’s time to be circumspect to avoid the circumstance of a Greek gift that always comes with treacherous purpose. This indeed is the time to imbibe the Ethiopian proverb that encourages us to ‘dine with a stranger but save your love for your family’ God bless Nigeria.