[PLEASE READ] Jonathan Almighty

If there is anyone who knows all about power — its uses and abuses — in Nigeria’s democracy (and perhaps, for most part of Africa), that man is Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa State and ex-boss of President Goodluck Jonathan whose impeachment proved a magic bullet that paved the latter’s way to Aso Rock.

Alamieyeseigha has been to hell and back because, among other factors, he miscalculated the extent of tyrannical power Aso Rock wields in a lopsided democracy. His reprieve has turned him into a self-hagiologist like a former governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili, whose autobiography tries too hard to lump his political misfortunes as a series of malicious framing by his enemies; that as far as corruption goes, he is as clean as a whistle. Alamayeiseigha is another compulsive self-documentarist who ceaselessly narrates his self-justifying homily: He was never corrupt. He was simply a victim of a political calculation that needed a sin-eater for all those who stood against ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Third Term agenda.

By the way, the sins of Alams (his alias) have long been pardoned by the sitting President. If he cut a bad deal with one President, he found favour with another. In order to garner respectability before being unleashed as a national statesman, he was appointed a delegate to the recently concluded confab. And of all places, he ended up in the confab finance committee; an ironic twist of events that makes Nigeria a unique literary imagination all by itself.

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Impaled to the amorality of Nigeria’s rent-seeking elite and striving very hard to prove to Aso Rock that he remains its man, Alamieyeseigba has no choice than to enunciate the gospel of presidential almightiness. And he does this wearing the garb of an Elder who has seen enough of life to pull the ears of a head-strong child.

Alamieyeseigha, in an interview with the New Telegraph, reflects the fawning, kowtowing and the I-remain-loyal rhetoric of a man who cannot afford to be cut off from the fellowship of power that distributes the national cake. With dollops of magnanimity, he tells the Governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Amaechi, the “black sheep” of the Niger Delta to go “beg” Jonathan.

Amaechi, by the way, plays opposition politics in an atmosphere where everyone sleeps and faces the same direction. He has expectedly suffered various acts of high handedness for his recalcitrance. That he remains in office and is still relevant means he must be politically savvy, lucky and bull-headed, all at once. There are not many governors — even in the opposition — who can take this path and survive the gale of impeachments and investigations of corruption that would have come their way.

Alamieyeseigha says to Amaechi, stoop to conquer or you will be conquered. He noted, “The President of Nigeria is very powerful….the first entity you cannot fight is Almighty God, and the second entity is the government.” The way Alams tactically lines up the powers of the President with that of God is illuminating of how he views democratic power as unapologetically vertical and transmundane. The imagery of an omnipotent president is not only particularly striking, for a (pseudo) religious society like Nigeria, it resonates.

But Alamieyeseigha is not alone in echoing this view of the totality of power accruable to an executive in political office. In May 2012, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State said something similar when he alluded to how much despotism he is capable of as governor.

Uduaghan was quoted by The PUNCH saying, “The governor has many powers; he can do whichever thing he likes. The governor has powers to demolish any house and he has power to even kill, whatever you can think of…. I have not used up to 10 per cent of my powers. If I have to use my powers, many people talking now will not talk, even the journalists won’t be writing what they write now.” Both Uduaghan and Alamieyeseigha’s views on the functionalisation of power in a democracy have not only been repeated to tedium by various politicians, it is consistently played out in Nigeria’s political theatre.

While Alamieyeseigha might be saying these things to keep his head, he has also reflected a truth -albeit a painful one- about the brutal absolutism of African democratic presidents who cannot properly extricate themselves from the totalitarianism of monarchical systems of government practiced sometime in the past. Here, I must note that the seemingly boundlessness of the President is not about Jonathan as a person, it is about the institution he embodies, along with all its shortcomings and asymmetrical distribution of power.

President Olusegun Obasanjo was no different while in office.

If there is any democratic president, aside from Richard Nixon, who misused power and unabashedly subverted democratic processes, it must be Obasanjo.

If, however, Obasanjo’s fault was his viciousness, Jonathan’s the exact extreme. He is the patron saint of lethargic energy who exudes an urgency to do nothing other than just mark time. Under his watch, some of the most atrocious acts of corruption are being carried out but Jonathan’s idea of using power is to look away — until it clashes with his ambitions.

His indifference on serious issues is almost legendary and he knows that there is more than enough room in the Nigerian political sphere to not “give a damn”. When tomorrow comes and somebody else other than Jonathan occupies the office, the story would still be the same; as long as we have weak institutions, unenforced laws and instruments of power that are easily manipulated by public officers who lack virtues and moral character.

If there is any indication of our societal failings, it is partly due to this inversion of relationship between the leader and the led; the ruler and the ruled. Even with the shortcomings of our leaders, we maintain a “bow down and worship’ attitude towards them because they are, essentially, powerful beings. Yes, Alamieyeseigha might not have been a credible source for this insight but there are not a few Nigerians who disagree with him, either consciously or through their attitudinal relationship to their leaders. From the sycophants who throng the corridors of power to the citizen-subject on the streets who will vote for continuation of the present administration in 2015 for no other reason(s) than failure to see any other way than to yield to the almighty power of the President, the attitude corresponds: beg God first and then the President!

- Abimbola Adelakun/Punch

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