BREAKING NEWS
Breaking

728x90

468x60

Goodluck Jonathan Was An Exceptional President, By Femi Aribisala


I walked into the east wing of The Palms shopping mall in Lekki, Lagos (popularly referred to as Shoprite) only to be buttoned-holed by a man trying to sell me a Honda Civic parked inside the hall. His sales pitch was that it was the first totally assembled Honda in Nigeria; built completely to Nigerian specifications. For example, unlike the classic Honda, the Nigeria model has a high clearance, being mindful of the potholes in Nigerian roads.

I had no intention of buying a new car, least of all a Honda Accord. Nevertheless, I could not fail to recognise that what he was touting is one of the many achievements of the Jonathan administration. In spite of the Buhari administration’s daily vilification of Jonathan, the achievements of his government continue to speak for themselves.


Jonathan put in place a policy that provided zero import-duty for completely knocked down vehicles, while discouraging the importation of already assembled cars-old or brand new-by the imposition of heavy import-duties. This propelled car manufacturers to set up assembly-plants in Nigeria that provide jobs for craftsmen, technicians, technologists, engineers, and other professionals across the value chain. The government also made it a policy to patronise locally-made and assembled cars.

The outcome is that local car-assembly is back in Nigeria; literally rising from the dead. Big auto giants, including Peugeot, Nissan Volkswagen, Kia, Hyundai and apparently Honda, now either assemble or entirely manufacture their cars, SUVs, trucks and buses at various locations in Nigeria. In addition, Nigeria now has an indigenous car-manufacturing company, Innoson, which is not only selling locally but already dabbling in exports.

Limits of denigration


These days, the most discernible policy of the new APC government is to attack everything Jonathan. However, propaganda can only mask the truth in the short-term. It cannot destroy the truth on the medium to long-term. No matter what APC traducers say, the fact remains that Goodluck Jonathan was an exceptional president by Nigerian standards.

Now is the time to re-affirm this and invite a more dispassionate reappraisal of the facts, away from the lies and fabrications of the election campaign. It can no longer be argued today that anyone defending Jonathan is a PDP contractor, a favourite line of defence of Buharimaniacs. Neither can Jonathan defenders be accused any longer of wanting to replace Reuben Abati as the president’s spokesman.

“You can do nothing against the truth but for the truth.” No matter what the APC continues to broadcast about the Jonathan administration, the truth cannot be silenced.

Fashola’s gaffe

After six months of stasis, Buhari finally unfurled his ministers in the most anti-climatic fashion. These long-awaited saints and angels turned out to be mostly Santa Claus.

Babatunde Fashola, former governor of Lagos State, is now the minister of Power, Works and Housing. At his maiden news conference, tagged grandiloquently: “Setting the Agenda for Delivering Change,” the same Fashola who spent the election campaign running down the Jonathan administration shocked his audience by revealing that, rather than embark on new road construction projects in 2016, he would only endeavour to build on Jonathan’s achievements.

When I heard this, I felt Fashola should have been given a query by APC Central for undermining the party’s official propaganda. It would appear that Fashola had yet to receive the memo that everything Jonathan is to be rubbished. On the contrary, he betrayed APC by praising Jonathan. He even acknowledged (wonders will never cease) that Jonathan constructed more roads than any other president in the history of Nigeria.

Surely, Fashola deserves to be summarily dismissed from his new post for this impolitic admission.

Wittingly or unwittingly, Fashola gave the lie to APC propaganda that Jonathan’s years were wasted years. If Jonathan was as incompetent as the APC would have us believe, why could the party not launch its own superior nationwide road-building plan, as Buhari had promised in the heady days of the 2015 election campaign? Why rely on allegedly sub-standard PDP foundations?

Similarly, rather than jettison Jonathan’s power-sector reforms that APC derided volubly during the campaign, Fashola revealed that the government will be continuing with them. Jonathan completed 10 power-plants in Nigeria within three years – the first and highest of such record by any Nigerian president living or dead.

The APC had accused Jonathan of awarding the power projects to PDP cronies and financiers who are incompetent and ddeficient. But rather than revoke those contracts, Fashola preached continuity. He also admitted that Jonathan‘s transformation in the power sector was above 50 percent, and that his job would be to build on this achievement.

Jonathan’s transformation agenda

Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, also had the same assessment of Jonathan’s achievements with regard to rail transportation. He pledged to complete all ongoing rail-restoration projects around the country started by Jonathan, as well as extend them to all parts of the country.

Jonathan inaugurated the Lagos-Kano rail line and the Port Harcourt-Enugu mass transit train. He also embarked on the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri rail line. Furthermore, Jonathan’s projects include the Abuja-Kaduna fast train line; the 322km Lagos-Benin City line; 500km Benin-Abakiliki line; 673km Benin-Obudu Cattle Ranch line; 615km Lagos-Abuja high speed line; 520km Zaria-Birnin-Koni line; 533km Ega nyi-Otukpo and the Ega nyi-Abuja line.

Thanks to Jonathan, five million Nigerians are now carried by rail, relative to the one million before he came. An estimated 700,000 passengers are projected to ride the Abuja Light Rail (ALR) on a daily basis. Only recently, KPMG listed Nigeria’s high speed rail project proposed by the Jonathan administration as one of the global top 100 world-class infrastructure. The rail is expected to connect Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Warri, Bauchi, Abuja and Port Harcourt, at a cost of $13 billion.

For his part, Audu Ogbeh, the new Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, did not even pretend to have an alternative to Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda. Speaking at the launching of the Anchor Borrowers Programme in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State, Ogbeh commended Jonathan’s achievements in agriculture, while also praising his ministerial predecessor for the innovations he introduced.

Thanks to Jonathan, agriculture now accounts for 22 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, more than oil and gas, which only account for 15.9 percent. Under Jonathan, Nigeria recorded a more than 50 percent reduction in food imports, from an import bill of N1.4 trillion to less than N700 billion. With the innovation of dry season rice-farming, Nigeria reached 60 percent self-sufficiency in rice production and became, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the largest producer of cassava in the world.

Anti-corruption hypocrisy

Rather than hit the ground running, the in-coming Buhari administration has spent the last six months on a campaign against Jonathan and his men, as if it is still shopping for Nigerian votes. This campaign has become a substitute for policy, leading to the conclusion that the APC never really expected to win the election and therefore does not know what to do now it has been declared the winner. What the party did during the election campaign was to present pie-in-the-sky policies that were never intended to be implemented but were primarily designed to harvest votes.

This accounts for the government’s current embarrassment with its own party manifesto and the denial of its campaign promises. It has even led to APC legislators being constrained to vote against their own policy – the payment of N5000 monthly to the 25 million poorest Nigerians. In six months, the much-touted change of the APC has turned out to be counterfeit. What we have instead is a constant barrage of media trials pertaining to the alleged corruption of the Jonathan administration.

This anti-corruption crusade is clearly not addressed at curtailing corruption. Its primary objective is to kill and bury the PDP. Not even the most ardent supporters of Jonathan would insist that there was not rampant corruption under the PDP. What is unacceptable is the present government’s pretence that corruption in Nigeria is restricted to the PDP when, as a matter of fact, the APC is just as corrupt, if not even more because of its blatant hypocrisy.

The government’s anti-corruption crusade is already without legitimacy because it is unashamedly partial and selective. Allegations made against APC office-holders are procedurally ignored by the government’s anti-corruption watchdogs. Some of the APC chieftains accused of corruption have even been rewarded with major ministerial portfolios. Others have been nominated as APC candidates in governorship elections.

PDP members are labelled corrupt until they declare for the APC; then they automatically become saints. We are meant to believe that while the PDP used government funds to buy favours and votes during the election campaign, APC managed to spend massively to dislodge the PDP from power without doing the same. The truth of the matter is that corruption is not the exclusive preserve of any party or persons. Corruption is endemic to the Nigerian political system.

Selective maligning of members of the former government will not rid Nigeria of corruption. Neither will allegations of corruption hurriedly put together for the sake of public consumption, which are then thrown out by the courts. Corruption has to be addressed systemically and structurally. But to date, there is little evidence that the government’s anti-corruption intentions go beyond the witch-hunting of the Jonathan administration.

Jonathan’s legacies

To the extent that the present administration can be said to have any policies after six months in office, they are all legacies of the Jonathan administration. The TSA is from Jonathan. The turn-around maintenance of our refineries is from Jonathan. The re-equipping of our military is from Jonathan. The improvement in electricity is a Jonathan legacy. On the other hand, the major policies enunciated in the APC election manifesto remain essentially pipe-dreams.

In spite of APC propaganda, Jonathan’s men keep matching on. Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, Jonathan’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development is now President of the Africa Development Bank (AfDB). Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Jonathan’s Minister of Finance, and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, is now a Senior Adviser at Lazzard, a prestigious 167 year-old global investment firm. Arunma Otteh, Jonathan’s Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is now a Vice-President at the World Bank.

To paraphrase Marc Antony of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interrèd with their bones. So let it be with Jonathan. The noble APC hath told you Jonathan was clueless. If it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Jonathan answered it.”
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday


Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
« PREV
NEXT »

19 comments

  1. Good write up old man...They just told us today that fuel will be increased to 97 naira by 2016 instead of 40 naira per liter they promised Nigerians during their campaign. We are really in trouble by this APC lies and Propaganda Govt

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You reason through your ass. Have you enquired to know the reason for the increase in pump price? Well, let me help your prejudicial lazy mind.APC government intend to stop the scam called Fuel subsidy which has been an avenue for short changing citizens. When this is off marketer can import product at their own will but #97 will be the benchmark pump price. Unlike Jonathan who stop subsidy in 2011 January and pump price increased to #125.

      Delete
    2. Why would APC go against removal of subsidy in 2012 and cf one back to tell you that they will have to remove it?

      Delete
  2. sir,I don't see anything bad in a minister promising to complete a project started by a predecessor.Such should be encouraged.However I never noticed any improved power distribution despite completion of power projects.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sir,
    This piece by you is commendable. But you are doing exactly what you are condemning.

    You may wish to provide number of units of locally assembled cars sold as of now and which class of the society.
    APC via Fashola,Amaechi and Ogbe has demonstrated sincerity of purpose by opting to complete all abandoned or part done project. Unprecedented in the history of Nigeria. Even PDP under Yar'Adua didn't continue with what Obasanjo started( Refineries sale, etc) Same with GEJ to Yar'Adua. Same for PDP governors amongst themselves. Cuz that's how money can be looted.
    You will be first to condemn any new project.
    Or are you afraid of something?
    You know GEJ would have won the election the developments he tried to achieve within 6months have been done earlier. Imaging would could have been achieved with Santa Claus spending is NSA funds.

    Long Live APC
    Long Live Nigeria.
    Sir,may you live long to witness the 'Change' dividends in due time.

    Note : if APC mess up. Labour Party is another option.
    But PDP, never again ever

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for this comment, please tell them.....first time continuity is taking place in Nigeria.

      Delete
  4. Good write up, with what happened in Kogi State gov. election recently, where order came from Aso Rock instead of the choice of the electorates , no body needs to wait and be told that there is shadow in the polity

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well worded and cogently scripted article. I'm reading your article for the first time and I loved it. I used to think you were one of those praise singers, but now I think differently.
    Buhari and APC are the clueless ones... Time reveals all things.

    ReplyDelete
  6. A jobless man, very soon you shall take over Methus' job now that he is on the way to Kirikiri for collecting money to handle a special job for GEJ

    ReplyDelete
  7. A renowned writer per excellence. I always take my time to read, with relish, your enviable write-ups. So, we can still credit the "allegedly" condemned Jonathan administration with some achievements? So, even these much expected Messiahs cannot even ignore it. So, there are lot of basis of comparison coming 2019, which is around the corner ? Insha Allahu, I will be alive to witness the show with my korokoro eyes. Because, as events are unfolding, day-by- day, I keep on watching it, even with naira now stands at #250 to $1, first time in the history of this great Nation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I say you are blind or you are deaf, anyone reading this will say I am abusive, but in actual fact you are a fool. Is it not the damage done by the last regime that we are still struggling with. Anyway silence is the best answer for a fool like you.

      Delete
  8. Nigeria is such a good country, In China, a former minister who committed fraud was sentenced to death but thank God for international community who begged on his behalf and they commuted it to life imprisonment...Arbisala write-up is good but even this administration has said laudable projects started by Jonathan government would be completed by them after all government is continuum and it was the federal government funds that were used, my stands is condemn were they is a need for and commend were necessary I have not seen any reason to doubt a government that has done 6 months plus in office and are still left with 3 years plus, we gave PDP 16 years b4 they showed that they have nothing to offer, this time APC would not be that lucky, but let us give them a chance; presently what is wrong in anyone beginning the fight against corruption and people refunding monies to the treasury, it is only a thief or an accomplice who would cry wolf in this regard....please give BUHARI a chance so that when we want to criticize him latter we would be justified

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nigerians should ignore this man for now, very soon his name might come up among the beneficiaries of treasury looting spree of Dr Jonathan.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Aribisal may jehova kill u n ur family....u r a dubious elder...u have nt seen ills of jonathan regime, yet u criticize those who see ills..Go n die if APC is nt ok for you..d reason of BuHARi will mk u have High BP soon...foolish old man....yes jonathan is exceptional in the sense that since I grew up I av neva seen a corrupt govt like his

    ReplyDelete
  11. Jonathan must be exceptional,how else can you describe a president distributing the nation's resources like distributing "Suya" at Obalende?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Let's give this governmenta chance to perform, its just only six month, the economy has been basterdized by the last regime.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Jonathan is definitely exceptional what with all the revelations coming out!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Car assembly is an index of development to Aribisala. Importing a product in whole or importing that same product in parts does not connote any novelty. If you can boast of casting the components and assembling them here in Nigeria,then you will be making a point -a feat that could be achieved had Ajaokuta Iron and Steel Project not killed through the cancer of corruption.
    Appointment of ministers or the time it is made is irrelevant,it is the beneficial impact such appointment has to the general public that matters. Moreover,it is unreasonable to counter balance a six-month-old administration with that of over six-year-old. Biased critics accuse Buhari of witch hunting in his crusade against corruption,whether this is true or not is matter of personal judgement. At the same time I believe that if Jonathan had attacked corruption the same way Buhari is doing now,witch hunting (using the language of his foes) Nigeria would have been cleaner than what it is.
    Above all I would advise critics to examine themselves before accusing others. You cannot accuse your elected representative of corruption if you receive from him to vote for him. And when your have to criticize it must be constructive, rather than destructive and biased. Personal animosity must be put aside. Taking this as a first step we can think of moving forward. -Eddie.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Nigerians will beg Jonathan to come back.

    ReplyDelete

Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)

Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com