PRESIDENT JONATHAN GOODLUCK GET OBASANJO CLOSER, CONGRATULATIONS!

The comedy called life throws up all manners of things to keep humanity guessing and quisling; and has now visited Nigeria with a President Umaru Musa YarAdua dead and buried, and Acting President Jonathan Ebele Goodluck sworn in and upgraded to a full fledged president and life goes on! Icheoku says, congratulations President Jonathan Ebele Goodluck.

Now, entrusted to steer the nation-ship of Nigeria to a safe anchoring through 2011, when hopefully, the baton of governance will pass to another president, the new president must endeavor not to unseasonably roil the heated polity any further, either by action or speech? He must try and glorify God's name by understanding that he did not run nor win any election to become president of Nigeria and that the destiny that put him on that coveted seat demands his complete humility in carrying every Nigeria along while discharging his duties of president. He must endeavor to maintain the fragile unity in Nigeria and ensure that the north especially Katsina State will not feel too victimized by the demise of their kinsman, the late president. From what many have so far seen of the actions of the president, especially his fair and balanced appointments, Icheoku believes that all he needs to do is just maintain his current trajectory including his cucumber-cool demeanor and it will be all 'Uhuru'. If time permits, power, security and roads as well as a transparent transition in 2011 will be more than enough achievements for his very short term of office, completing President Yar'Adua's term?

Icheoku advises the new president, as a cardinal rule number one, never to denigrate the deity of Otta, the man who made him? As has been shown with Yar'Adua's eventual fate, Olusegun Obasanjo is capable of also unmaking his made; and President Jonathan must be very mindful of this fact and that all those his newly constituted 'disciples' were no where around when Obasanjo adopted him as a political son and made him then a deputy governor of little known Bayelsa State? This is a very good example of a 'who made who' story of how Olusegun Obasanjo made President Goodluck Jonathan, whom he groomed from a deputy governor to governor to vice president and now to the president of Federal Republic of Nigeria? This fact must not be lost on the new president and this will be his only saving grace and enduring backbone while his government lasts. It is a fact of life that you cannot accept a gift from the devil and at the same time disparaging him or refusing his terms and conditions for the gift. It is also a trite rule that any devil's gift comes with a hefty price and recipients do not usually have the choice of accepting the gift while refusing or rejecting the some or any of the conditions? To worship God, it must be totally intoto; and likewise the devil who used to be God's second in command but was driven out of heaven upon an unsuccessful coup and now rules this world?

President Jonathan therefore, since he has accepted the gift of the presidency of Nigeria from the Otta deity, must as of necessity and in order to survive and thrive, OBEY him without any reservation! There should be no gainsaying or second-guessing or wish-washy feelings about it; like the proverbial 'okoro' aphorism goes, "the okoro plant does not ever grow taller than the planter" since the planter reserves the right to bend it anyway it wants in order to pluck it; including breaking it if it proves stubborn. So President Jonathan must not allow his new position to get the better half of him but must be aware that he does not really have a choice under the circumstance, irrespective of the time-worn out "town-crier's" advise he may be currently receiving from his newly found Jonathan's friends and advisers? President Jonathan must not make the same mistake as late President Yar'Adua, who fell captive to the cabals who then estranged him and took him away from the protective shield of his master and godfather Obasanjo; and they over-exposed his underbelly, killing him in the process?

Godfathers anywhere in the world are never messed with; they are respected, obeyed and not questioned. Their stake for such unquestioned loyalty is to make sure that no harm comes the way of their godson/daughter and they can go to the ends of the earth and do whatever it takes to ensure they suffer no loss of face or humiliation in their assumed role. Yar'Adua made that mistake of going up against his godfather and it cost him dearly - his office and life! If only Yar'Adua had listened to his mother, a wise woman who had journeyed to Otta to thank Obasanjo for making her son president and entreated him to protect him, Icheoku says, may be President Umaru Yar'Adua may still be alive today? But then, there would have been no President Jonathan now until possibly 2015, which again shows how humanity is being toyed with by cosmic powers? Icheoku hopes Jonathan learnt a big lesson in the tragedy of Yar'Adua and will not repeat the mistake of Yar'Adua by turning his back against the man who made him; and the only man who can truly protect him, politically, in the sharks-infested waters of Nigerian politics. Obasanjo made a pact with the devil - the Lucifer, and he has been blessed with enormous powers and abundant political manoeuvring abilities; which saw him bring a little known quantum university lecturer from a little state of Bayelsa and pushed him through the Nigerian political labyrinth to become the president of Nigeria within such a short time of political pupillage? A feat of great proportion which only an Obasanjo can pull off?

To survive and thrive, Icheoku implores the new president to ignore any contrary advise and bring Olusegun Obasanjo nearer and closer to his presidency. Peradventure, make Obasanjo the unofficial, omnibus adviser-plenipotentiary and have him be the gate-keeper of a Jonathan's presidency; as the man anyone seeking a beef with Jonathan must first beat before waging a war on the president. President Jonathan will have nothing to loss and all Obasanjo's protection, fear of and intimidation by, especially among those retired trouble-making army men from northern Nigeria, to gain. Admitted that Obasanjo is not the most likable of persons in Nigeria, but love him or hate him, Obasanjo is still the only true southern albatross which the north has, and the only man the north really respect or are afraid of, throughout southern Nigeria; which still holds true till today. To any recalcitrant northerner, Obasanjo is the word that quietens them; and the only one who they are really concerned with, regarding his thoughts on any given Nigerian question. So why not?

Icheoku also calls on the new president to be magnanimous in his new office and not descend to the lowly position of trying to get back at Hadjiya Turai Yar'Adua for all her insulting tendencies and dispositions while the late president's health drama played out. Since God has himself resolved the Yar'Adua question, Icheoku says, President Jonathan should not glorify his traducers by going after Turai and her accomplices; admitted she ordinarily permanently burnt her bridges with Jonathan, but let Nigeria move on. Also any electoral reform or new elections plans without first disqualifying Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida and denying him permission to run will be incomplete. Therefore IBB must be stopped and President Jonathan can help Nigerians do this by instigating a legislation that disqualifies all former presidents/heads of states from contesting any future elections in Nigeria. There are multiple ways to achieve this; and provided there is a will to stop Babangida, there will always be a way and means of achieving it.

Concluding, Icheoku says, imagine the political disaster it would have been had then Acting President Jonathan Goodluck acquiesced to the numerous protestations to force ailing President Yar'Adua out of Aso Rock or move the FEC to pass resolution 144 to impeach and remove him from office? The whole Northern Nigeria would have held Jonathan responsible for the demise of President Yar'Adua; but peradventure the better of his reasoning prevailed and nature took care of business for and on behalf of the Mr. Goodluck as usual. Now that President Yar'Adua has passed on peacefully without President Jonathan being roped into his demise, the later will have an easier smooth-sailing through Nigeria's troubled political waters. The "destiny child" of Nigeria, the man who became president without necessarily 'killing' anyone to get there, has shown that it all lies in the stars and those who have been destined to get somewhere in life will always rendezvous with such pre-ordained destination - Unoka and Okonkwo of 'Things Fall Apart' fame considered. Conversely, going up against the tide of one's destiny, irrespective of the invested resources, effort, time and energy will always come to naught; and man can only try to fathom the ways of cosmic energies that move the universe in certain ways and directions! Once again, congratulations Mr. President Jonathan Goodluck; and let your unfettered governance begin towards giving Nigerians, a Ghana-like election in 2011 or is that too much to ask of a president who has less than one year of term completion and cannot be expected to do so much in other fields?