Jonathan Joins Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Among The Greats

Jonathan

 

 

Nigeria’s President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan who was defeated in the most closely contested presidential election in Nigeria’s history has in keeping with the transformation agenda of his administration, transformed the electoral process in the country to become very transparent that the transparency consumed his second term ambition.

The very divisive election it was feared would have led to orgy of killings if Jonathan had been declared the winner as those who were opposed to his continuation in office were said to be ready to unleash violence on the country. And Jonathan has always said that no politician’s ambition including his own, is worth the blood of any Nigerian. He demonstrated it yesterday when he quickly congratulated General Muhammadu Buhari the winner of the hotly contested presidential election in Nigeria. That helped in dousing the tension already heightened by Elder Godsday Orubebe’s protestations at the collation centre in Abuja over the electoral body’s alleged bias in favour of the opposition party, APC. A protestation by Orubebe that Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo said could have ignited another civil war.

Perhaps it was lost to some Nigerians. As the results of the presidential election was trickling in and it became obvious that Jonathan was winning overwhelmingly in his strong base of South-South and South-East, a frustrated anarchist was on twitter calling on other Nigerians to kill any member of a certain major ethnic group in Southern Nigeria within their reach alleging that they are standing against the “progress” of Nigeria by their unflinching support for Jonathan. Twitter rightly blocked him. Therefore Jonathan has to bury his ambition to avoid another orgy of killings planned by some Nigerians aimed at drumming it to his ears that he is no longer needed whether other Nigerians voted for him or not as power must return to base.

By the singular action of Jonathan millions of lives in some parts of the country were saved. Jonathan’s decision to be the first to congratulate Buhari is hugely significant. It is un-African as African politicians are notorious for manipulating electoral results and are the last to accept election results in which they did not win, as even the victor this time, Buhari never accepted the results of the three presidential elections he contested and lost before now. That is why the world has been hailing Jonathan for accepting defeat despite allegations of rigging his party, PDP levelled against the electoral body. Jonathan’s place in history as a Nigerian and world’s statesman is assured.

Jonathan’s rescuing of Nigeria from the precipice is similar to what Dr Martin Luther King Jr did by using non-violence means to get equal rights for blacks in United States and Nelson Mandela who unified post-apartheid South Africa. Naturally these men are not abrasive in their approach to the yearnings of their people and may even be viewed as ‘weak leaders’. To those who prefer abrasive approach to America’s human rights challenge in respect of the people of colour, Malcolm X has better approach to address the people. Malcolm X was for confrontation against Whites, while King preferred dialogue and non-violence approach as espoused by Mahatma Gandhi. Black America achieved more with King’s approach than that of Malcolm X and it was that King’s incremental civil rights approach that paved the way for a black man, Barack Obama to become the president of the United States of America today.

Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for over three decades for his struggle for equal rights for blacks and other people of colour in South Africa, yet after he was released from prison did his best to unify blacks and Whites and cemented the rainbow nation. The fact that the industrial bases of South Africa are still in the hands of Whites was because of Mandela’s rejection of the temptation to nationalise these industrial bases as some had expected.

To those that think that Jonathan’s acceptance of the result is a sign of weakness, they should bury such thought. What they think is weakness is strength and statesmanship which is in short supply in Nigeria and Africa. The man, Buhari that defeated Jonathan had contested three presidential elections between 2003 and 2011 which he lost but he has never congratulated the winners of these presidential elections. Even the 2011 election in which he was defeated by Jonathan he failed to congratulate Jonathan in an election that was adjudged the most transparent in Nigeria’s history by the international community. It was perhaps the fact that the election was free and fair that Buhari decided not to go to court to challenge Jonathan’s victory in 2011, yet he did not congratulate him. And given the acrimonious nature of this year’s presidential campaign it was apparent that if Jonathan had won Buhari would not have congratulated him. Nigerians who supported Jonathan in this election and indeed all Nigerians should commend him for raising the bar and shaming those who want to truncate our democracy using violence if their preferred candidate was not declared the winner. How long other Nigerians would continue to kow-tow to this intolerant harbingers of violence and deaths is unknown but Nigeria cannot continue to be one country under such a cloud of uncertainty every four years. Something has to give.