By Promise Adiele PhD
In the title of this essay, I have dutifully borrowed a leaf from President Bola Tinubu, who, on November 6, 2014, through his official Twitter handle, urged Goodluck Jonathan to resign as the president. According to the tweet, “Why would any part of this country be under occupation? In any civilized country, Jonathan should resign”. Before then, he had, on April 14 2014, tweeted “The festering Boko Haram attacks on the North East and massacre of innocent citizens (sic) is concrete proof that Nigeria has no government”. He also tweeted, “My heart bleeds for our people and the country over the deaths in Yanyan. A government unable to protect its citizens deserves to be queried”.
Jonathan’s administration was a democracy, therefore, freedom of speech was allowed by the constitution. Tinubu’s administration is also a democracy, and therefore, freedom of speech is guaranteed by the constitution. If we rely on the armament of Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction to critically analyse Tinubu’s past tweets and relate them to prevailing circumstances in Nigeria today, “Tinubu should resign immediately” would be a mantra on every lip. He has failed woefully in his primary responsibility to protect Nigerians and prognosticate a positive direction for the country’s ailing economic fortunes.
By suggesting that President Bola Tinubu should resign immediately as the President and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria, I admit my sensate, but illusory state of mind because resignation is an alien culture in this part of the world. People don’t resign here. But I am convinced Tinubu’s resignation is a constant decimal in the arithmetic mental byways of over 200 million people in Nigeria. Never in the history of this country have any past leaders, whether military or civilian, demonstrated the current level of ineptitude when faced with an imminent national disaster. Yet, Nigeria is hanging precariously around the proverbial precipice.
We may play politics all we want. We may indulge in mindless sophistry to excuse the situation, but we cannot all wish away the reality – that the country is currently faced with impending calamities while the Commander-in-Chief and his acolytes are interested in re-election. Currently, Nigeria’s continued collective existence is hugely threatened from all fronts. The country bleeds from every pore, yet the man who should act, make the decision, lead from the front, and demonstrate leadership has his head buried in 2027.
Nigeria’s current security situation is frightening. Before now, we heard the tales of insecurity, kidnapping, beheading, and sundry forms of terrorist activities as blood-chilling narratives that happened in far-flung places. Now, the scoundrels are getting closer, and the geography of victims will soon extend to otherwise safe places. Our country’s security architecture is overwhelmed. Nigerians are daily picked up and slaughtered like cockroaches. Little children are the latest targets of the marauders. They make phone calls and negotiate ransom with phone numbers registered under Nigeria’s telephony databases. They cannot be trapped, tracked or apprehended, but those who speak truth to power can easily be tracked and arrested for speaking the truth. It is the disconcerting contradiction that confronts the country.
During Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the security situation in Nigeria was not as hopeless. Yet, Bola Tinubu called for his resignation. Now that the security situation is spiralling out of control, it is only rational to ask Bola Tinubu to resign immediately. A Commander-in-Chief whose troops are daily decimated as Shakespeare’s wanton flies does not deserve his designation. He must show good faith and resign immediately. Mr. President lacks the necessary political will to safeguard Nigeria and ensure that the citizens are safe. The country’s security situation transcends mere, sterile, rehearsed rhetoric – condemn the incident and move on.
Some people have insinuated that the current government is in cahoots with sinister forces to trammel the country. While such arguments flounder on the face of reason, they initiate a genuine conversation for those who question the inability of Nigeria’s well-trained army to annihilate a ragtag terrorist group. The statistics and numbers of the country’s insecure situation are staggering, yet the country is not at war. Some war-torn countries are safer than Nigeria, and the world is aware of these realities. Instead of taking bold, proactive steps to counter the rising incidents of banditry and terrorism in the country, Bola Tinubu chose to play politics with the safety of the people.
Mr. President seems not to be interested in any discourse that does not enable his re-election undertakings. Such an insensate disposition amplifies the unsuitability of any character to stand on the rostrum of leadership. It may seem like a joke, but Nigeria is facing dire situations, like a country without a leader. Shockingly and quite disturbingly, the populace decidedly maintains mute paralysis as though struck by Aergia, the Greek god of inactivity, sloth, and laziness. No protests. No agitations. No demonstrations. Silence. All hail Aergia.
During Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, there were vocal voices that challenged the government to bestir from apparent lethargy. Those voices were elderly, distinguished citizens, and we all applauded them for their patriotism. Among them were politicians, clergy, technocrats and leaders of thought. The suggestion for Jonathan’s resignation from office was a signature for media fame. Everyone latched onto the mantra. But today, those voices have become double victims of Aergia, and where they are not victims, they become servile flatterers who connive at evil while the country burns.
I imagine for a split second that Tinubu was in the opposition while the country is daily submerged in the depths of insecurity and economic uncertainties. Woe betide that president because Tinubu’s documented radical opposition politics would summarily pull the rug from the feet of any leader. I have studied his radical politics and excellently too. That is why I insist he should resign as the C-in-C because he would do more if the tables were turned. The country’s daily slide must be halted by all means. However, the prospect of the Vice-President Kashim Shettima taking over in the event of Tinubu’s resignation is nightmarish. It testifies to the country’s political challenges – a country suffocating under the vicious grip of leadership frailties.
Let me return to a deconstructive analysis of Tinubu’s tweets on three occasions: that Jonathan should resign, that Nigeria has no government, and that a government that cannot protect its citizens deserves to be queried. If a leader’s resignation is based on poor performance indices in selected critical areas of the country, then no leader in Africa deserves to resign more than the Nigerian president. It is a conviction that draws its stimuli from the radical disposition of the one and only Jagaban Borgu of Nigeria. Jonathan was called clueless and incompetent and, therefore, was asked by Tinubu to resign. It is only natural for us to queue behind Jagaban’s politics and advise him to resign at a time when incompetence and cluelessness strut the country’s apex corridors of power.
That Nigeria had no government under Jonathan was an idea consistently pushed into public space by the one and only Jagaban Borgu of Nigeria. Currently, there is absolutely nothing to indicate that there is any form of government at the centre in Nigeria. A responsible national government protects and cares for the economic needs of its citizens. Currently, Nigerians protect themselves because the government has failed to do so. They provide their electricity, struggle daily for survival, and navigate all the snares of existence in their primal determination to live. Under such unpropitious conditions, is there a semblance of national government in Nigeria? The answer is a comprehensive NO. We can only find a semblance of government in Nigeria in some states where the governors have the political will to govern – Abia, Oyo, Enugu, Lagos, and Borno States.
Goodluck Jonathan’s government was constantly queried for failing to protect Nigerians. The current government deserves a double portion of that query because it has abysmally failed to protect Nigerians. The query can come in different ways, but it must happen. The current government must be objectively queried for failing to protect Nigerians and plunging the country into economic stasis. Tinubu taught us how to query poor, underperforming governments. We must collectively query this government and the wielders of power for ensconcing themselves in the opulence of Aso Rock while kidnapped school children languish in the hands of bandits inside Nigerian bushes. The government must be queried for failing to rescue those children.
We must query this government for the many tears that wet Nigerian pillows due to the death of loved ones who died in the hands of terrorists. For the soldiers who lost their lives to terrorists, we must query this government. For our economic woes, we must query this government. For owing N153.29 trillion, we must query this government. Querying an under-performing government is a template designed by Jagaban’s political dexterity, and we must maintain that tradition. The prospect of Kashim Shettima or Godswill Akpabio occupying Aso Rock jolts me to immediate reality. It is grim. Therefore, let Bola Tinubu continue in office till 2027 but not beyond it. However, he must sit up, act like a true leader.
Promise Adiele PhD is of Mountain Top University and can be reached at promee01@yahoo.com, X: @drpee4