Jonathan’s record so far

“There is nothing so dangerous as a leader making a demand that he knows cannot be achieved. It creates false hopes among the people”. Nelson Mandela.“ 0803-089-8792

Presido, Jonathan has never been a CEO of any establishment before becoming president; so how can he know how to manage time and self-management?…”

It still has not dawned on President Jonathan that he is the nation’s number one Chief Executive Officer, CEO; the boss of all bosses. Otherwise, he would not be running around like a kid given a new toy and wanting to show it to the whole neighborhood.

The man’s sense of Time Management is simply atrocious. By the time you read this, we would have only 11 months before the new president comes in. It also means that, if Jonathan is a candidate, he has less than ten months to provide the sort of leadership that should earn him another term. That is not a lot of time for a man who has never been the CEO of anything in his life. That calls for total concentration on vital matters.

Instead of that purposeful leadership what do we have? A president who, every two weeks, goes off somewhere to “commission” or “inaugurate” (can someone tell me the difference especially when the projects are invariably not finished or refurbished projects previously “commissioned” by OBJ a project. When he is not doing that, he leads two plane loads of elected officials to South Africa to watch the Super Eagles lose (would they not have lost in his absence?). Meanwhile, he has left several important matters untouched.

Back in February, when he, as Vice President and the Executive Council of the Federation, ECF, were pretending that they were “in touch” with Yar’Adua every day, (which turned out to be a colossal lie), Nigerians were warned on this page that “some time in April, it will dawn on everybody that the country does not have a budget for 2010”.

Providentially, Yar’Adua passed on, and sure enough there was no budget. Then President Jonathan signed what he claimed was the budget in late April. But, by early May, that was before he started on his needless sight-seeing tours, it was clear to everyone that he had been conned by his economic advisers into signing a document fit only for the waste paper basket.

The Budget 2010 signed by Jonathan cannot be implemented.  Last report claims the House (don’t laugh) will debate it on June 29.  Now, were our Jonathan in the mould of an Obama or Margaret Thatcher, or Clinton, he would have done two things. First, dismiss the yam heads who prepared the bogus budget; then seat down at home and work with more serious people to write a new one.

That is their kind of leadership. In June, without a budget for the year, our President was in South Africa waving flag in a stadium. That is our kind of leadership. From South Africa he went to Delta and will soon run off to the G-8 Summit and who knows it will be Akwa Ibom next. Still, there is no 2010 budget. And this is the nation the dreamers, including Jonathan, expect will be top 20 in 2020!!! He got a No1 shirt in Toronto fit for jesters.

One major reason the budget will be further delayed is in connection with the state of the National Assembly, the majority of whose members can only be described as political delinquents. They are supposed to work on the amendments to the budget. But, instead Dimeji Bankole-led House of Ill Repute has become an arena looking like the

Wild World Wrestling Federation, WWWF, where members are now recognized for their prowess in kung-fu fighting than their ability to pass sensible laws to help a nation develop. Certainly, those gladiators at the Three Arms Zone will not soon return to consideration of the 2010 budget. They have also put on hold the Electoral Act for 2010 on account of allegations that a doctored version was sent to the states. End of that for 2010.

Again, given a sharply focused president, as the party leader, one would have expected action on his part to put an end to all these shows of shame by his party members to enable the nation move on. But, if Jonathan ever considers these matters as important, it must be the most closely guarded secret of an administration whose helmsman is still learning the ropes of leadership. One of the likely consequences of delay in passing the Electoral Act is the possibility that INEC under Professor Jega might not be able to conduct election as and when specified by the constitution.

Jega is being set up as a sacrificial lamb by elected PDP officials. But, perhaps the most pathetic is Jonathan’s stubborn adherence to the VISION 20:2020 joke fostered on him by Yar’Adua who in turn was deluded by the Minister for National Planning. Jonathan will continue to be a jester as long as he believes that nonsense……
TO MY BROTHER PROFESSOR JEGA –1

“Martyrs do not build churches [or mosques], they are the alibi or the mortar”.
Albert Camus, 1903-1960.(VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p.156).

Why didn’t you run away when they came for you to be INEC Chairman? That is the first question I will ask you if we ever meet; and for good reason. There are two assignments in this country which any person called upon to handle should dash to exile abroad while refusing to serve.

The first is the Chairman of the National Population Commission, NPC, and the Chairman of INEC. Virtually, nobody has taken a clean reputation into one of those two offices and returned unstained for ever for so doing. It will be a miracle if you prove to be an exception as I earnestly pray you will be. But, Prof, the odds are longer than winning the one billion dollar jackpot at Las Vegas. And let me again quickly explain what I mean starting with the words of one of the wisest philosophers the world has produced, William Shakespeare, 1564-1616. “Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny”.

You have already experienced some of that even before the confirmation by the Senate. Your relationship with Iwu was deliberately twisted, blown out of proportion and widely disseminated as “truth” by the rumour mill of the media. You can expect more once you start to make decisions which some people feel are not in their own interest whether it is the right decision or not.

The truth is, the typical Nigerian politician, who is your primary constituency now, does not care about right or wrong. He simply wants every decision to go in his favour –even if it is legally or morally wrong; preferably both. So how can you possibly obtain unanimous applause irrespective of how much you try.

HYPOCRISY INTERNATIONAL

“We cannot continue to appoint ministers from among members of parliament and claim we are separating the powers of the executive from the legislature”.

Obasanjo during a courtesy call on Kenya’s Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka.
Trust Baba Iyabo to preach one thing and practice another. Just in case the man is affected by amnesia, will somebody please show him the list of his own Ministers and Advisers from 1999 to 2007 and point to the number of legislators he appointed?

By Dele Sobowale, Nigeria

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