By Gboyega Akinsanmi
Three recently published books, which x-rayed Nigeria’s socio-political development under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, have blamed the president for diverse issues undermining the country’s unity.
The books, edited by three retired scholars namely Emeritus Professor John Ayoade, Prof. Adeoye Akinsanya and Prof. Olatunde Ojo, are “The Jonathan Presidency: The First Year, The Jonathan Presidency: The Sophomore Year, and Nigeria: Descent into Anarchy and Collapse?”
The books were publicly presented at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, under the chairmanship of the institute’s Director-General, Prof. Bola Akinterinwa, was reviewed by Dr. Ademola Omo Orangun. Read more..
The ensuing discussions re-ignited Nigeria’s leadership woes with a reservation that if President Jonathan lived up to the groundswell revolution that brought him to power, the story would have been different today.
Orangun observed that a lot of Nigerians welcomed him to the presidency with high hope over issues that were inherited by him, but noted that the people’s hopes were dashed, blaming it on Jonathan’s lacklustre leadership.
He said some of the issues include the restructuring of the Nigerian federation with a view “to strengthening the states to generate economic prosperity in the country, the horrendous monster of corruption, the very disruptive inadequacy of electric power supply, the culture of disrespect for the rule of law, the growing intensity of inter-ethnic hostilities and conflicts, the troubling challenge of terrorism, and the growing depth of poverty.
“Often, he would stoke the popular hope upon an issue, and thereby attract a lot of popular support – only to slow down on the issue or even give it up altogether. By the end of the first year of his presidency, it had become almost impossible for most Nigerians to tell what the president really stood for on any national issue.
“The first year of President Jonathan failed to even set out the roadmap towards solving problems. All the problems he inherited at inauguration seem to have become aggravated largely as a result of preoccupation with politics of survival.”
While reviewing the third book, Omo Oragun, said Nigeria can become the first federal state where perceived imbalance would lead to the disintegration of the country because “the interests of the ordinary citizens seem to be incongruent with the interests of the elite. Undoubtedly, where a federal arrangement harbours discontentment of a large number, the country may suffer a sudden death.”
Renowned Nigerian academics have described President Jonathan’s failure to lay a proper foundation for his administration as the cause of his dismal performance and Nigeria’s worsening instability.
The discussants at the public presentation of the books said the president’s vacillation over issues in the public court set the tone for his neither here nor there administration.
At the book presentation, a constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay, lamented diverse challenges, which he said, had undermined Nigeria’s growth and development since her amalgamation in 1914.
He said since the Second Republic, Nigeria “has been having a set of political leaders, who are not better than locust. From generation to generation, we have been producing degenerating set of political actors.”
Sagay said Nigeria’s problem “is not only bad governance, but also defective structure,” which he said, the president had not been able to effectively address since his assumption of office in May 2010.
He observed that Nigerians should not be carried away that if Nigeria “is well-governed, there will not be any problem. This is not true. Both governance and structure are interrelated. A good system should encourage diversity and unity. The 1999 constitution does not have this quality.”
One of the authors, Prof. Akinsanya observed that the governments were anti-intellectual in the 1980s, noting that under the Jonathan administration, the government “is intolerant of academics,” which he described as the antithesis of development.
But Akinsanya said the anti-intellectual posture of the Nigerian governments at different levels “will not deter the academics from speaking against bad governance and anti-people policies in the country. A lot of things are wrong with this country. We need to look inward and solve our problems.
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