When Silence Serves Jonathan’s Interests: by Levi Obijiofor

A Worried President. In Conflict with Himself

President Goodluck Jonathan is a worried man. He is in conflict with himself and everybody. At a personal level, he doesn’t know what to do with his party’s zoning arrangement, which has become an albatross on his neck and a threat to his presidential ambition. His mood has been affected lately. Forget about the artificial grin which Jonathan wears like moustache on his face all the time. His body language shows he wants to contest the presidential election in 2011 but he continues to pretend that he is not interested.

At the party level, Jonathan is worried about how deep his decision to contest the presidential election would offend the defenders of the north or the tag team of Atiku Abubakar and Ibrahim Babangida. This is why Jonathan’s opponents refer to him as a confused man. He should make up his mind and be man enough to convey his decision to the nation.

Beneath Jonathan’s self-effacing appearance lies a deeper ambition to retain his residency at Aso Rock. The only way he could achieve that dream goal is to contest next year’s presidential election. Jonathan is applying an old but familiar political trick which was adopted successfully by his predecessors. Here is how the technique worked in the past.

The longer an incumbent president remains silent about his verdict to participate in, or withdraw from, a presidential election, the more likely it is that he would be surrounded by a platoon of supporters urging him to contest. Silence therefore serves as a powerful weapon with which to con a nation. It was a strategy that military tyrant Sani Abacha used effectively to deceive the nation.

During the time that Abacha fiddled with his so-called political transition programme in the late 1990s, all the political parties pleaded with Abacha to be their presidential candidate. It was an odd situation because Abacha, who was not particularly endowed with good looks, became an instant beauty queen in Nigeria’s political sphere. Abacha enjoyed the atmosphere but remained mute about his intentions because everything went according to his self-serving script. While Abacha maintained his silence waiting for the right moment to unfurl the contents of his bag of tricks, fate outsmarted him. The rest is history.

When political party leaders idolise an incompetent but ambitious military head of state or an elected president, stupidity is always going to be the product of their errant ways. Olusegun Obasanjo watched Abacha’s schemes from his prison yard and nodded quietly. As soon as he was sworn in as president in May 1999, Obasanjo knew that one term would never be enough for his ego. Closer to the end of his first term, Obasanjo delayed his decision about whether he would seek re-election in the 2003 election. Every time journalists confronted him with the question, Obasanjo’s signature-style response was that he was waiting for his guardian angels to advise him which direction to take.

As the 2003 election date drew nearer and Obasanjo continued to play games, Abuja witnessed a deluge of delegations of traditional rulers, building contractors, religious leaders, and all manner of influence peddlers who trooped to Aso Rock to persuade Obasanjo to contest the 2003 presidential election because, they told him, the nation couldn’t do without him. Obasanjo repeated the same trick ahead of the 2007 election which would have seen him change the constitution in order to qualify to contest the election for a third term in office.

In 2010, Jonathan has adopted the wily ways of his political mentors. Every day that Jonathan withholds his decision about his political intentions, the tempo of activities in Abuja picks up a notch higher as visitors continue to visit the tacit president. The man whom many politicians in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have been wooing to contest the 2011 presidential election has kept quiet on the question of his interest in the 2011 presidential election. Jonathan’s silence is intentional and strategic. He is a tested student of his political godfather – Obasanjo.

Unfortunately, the longer that Jonathan keeps mum over his presidential ambition, the more valid ground he yields to the media to speculate about his future. Some of the recent speculations have been unkind and Jonathan has taken offence. A president is entitled, like every other person, to correct inaccurate media reports that seek to smear his integrity. However, the manner of such presidential response and the frequency of Jonathan’s irritation over media reports mark him out as an irritable president. Four days ago, Jonathan’s special adviser on media and publicity (Ima Niboro) issued a statement in which he expressed the president’s anger over consistent newspaper speculations about his presidential ambition.

Each time Jonathan whimpers over hypothetical press statements about his presidential ambition, in particular the numerous nocturnal meetings between Jonathan and old breed clueless former leaders such as Babangida and company, you get the impression that Jonathan lacks the capacity to endure press criticisms and conjectures. Jonathan should focus on the challenges that confront his government, not devote valuable time picking out every word or sentence in every media report that he considers to be inaccurate or offensive.

When Jonathan dives on every speculation in the press, he conveys the impression that he is idle. The man must take full responsibility for providing the framework for media speculations about his political future. While he sees no contradiction in the way his assistants have been invading the political arena with subdued campaign slogans designed to pave the way for his nomination as presidential candidate of the PDP, he is quick to notice mischief in the inferences that media make about his political ambition.

If Jonathan wants to end media presumptions about his future, he should clarify his position in regard to the 2011 presidential election. The more he delays his decision, the more political uncertainty he bequeaths on the nation. Rumour thrives when official sources of information are impeded, especially when people in authority withhold vital information that should help ordinary citizens to make informed decisions about their political leaders.

Nigerians are entitled to speculate on Jonathan’s political future, whether he would contest or refuse to run in next year’s presidential election. The press and the citizens are at liberty to ask questions about Jonathan, his character, his achievements and failures, whether he is a good or bad role model for other politicians, and whether he is an unpredictable or reliable president. Journalists in particular have every right to raise these issues as an agenda for public discussion.

It is useless for the president’s special adviser on media and publicity to go about combing daily and weekly newspapers in search of real and imagined enemies. There are valid reasons why the press must not only report the news but also interpret the news about the president. In his capacity as president, Jonathan is a public figure. As a public figure, Jonathan is a good material for press and public scrutiny. Everything the president does or refuses to do, including his public speeches, constitute fodder for sustained analysis in the press.

Why are Nigerian presidents and former military dictators so sensitive to press criticisms? For sure, Jonathan is not the first president to express his antagonism against the press. When Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was subjected to regular rounds of biting media commentary on his poor health, the Presidency stepped in to attack media organisations. The Presidency went a step further by administering secrecy oaths on public servants who worked at the presidency, including Yar’Adua’s personal assistants and advisers. As if that was not enough, Yar’Adua threatened and actually instituted legal action against the Leadership newspaper. Leadership newspaper admitted some of its editorial blunders owing to a failure to verify the accuracy of its report. The paper later offered an apology which Yar’Adua promptly rejected on the basis that the newspaper report had cast aspersions on his ability to govern.

While I acknowledge that the right to publish does not include the right to defame or injure the character of anybody, I would also argue that a president who enjoys legal protection under our constitution should not attempt to harass the press unnecessarily. As for the president’s special adviser, I have a word of advice. Media inaccuracies should be refuted, not denied. You refute media reports with facts and figures, not with spurious statements. Denial is not the same thing as refutation.