PRESIDENT JONATHAN, A DOCTOR WITHOUT PHILOSOPHY? - an article by Salisu Suleiman

I am a strong believer in the virtues of education and its unparalleled capacity to broaden minds, create opportunities and leverage social and economic barriers. I am also of the firm conviction that anyone who genuinely passed through the four walls of a university has an enhanced capacity for a logical and analytic approach to problem solving, better social skills and ability to communicate ideas.

It has been reasoned that part of the intractable leadership deficit in Nigeria may be because we have been consistently saddled with leaders with undistinguished academic credentials. So it was with great expectations that we watched the inauguration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as the first university educated executive president of the country.

It is hardly worth repeating that those expectations were crushed by what turned out to be the most lethargic, provincial and uninspiring government in Nigeria. When Yar’Adua was inaugurated in 2007, there was hope that his academic credentials, exposure and broadmindedness imbibed in university would transmit into better decision making, policy implementation and good governance.

Of course that never happened. It may be argued that without the debilitating and ultimately terminal illness Yar’Adua, might have been a different president. That, unfortunately, is something we will never find out. But as fate would have it, Yar’Adua’s successor, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is one notch ahead on the academic scale - he is a doctorate degree holder. Jonathan had another chance to prove that Yar’Adua was a fluke and that academic qualifications do have a bearing on constructive governance.

After spending about the same time as Gen. Murtala Mohammed spent in office,

President Jonathan is yet to make any meaningful landmark. The president is relatively young and has no known illnesses. I definitely expected him to bring some semblance of exposure, self-confidence, charisma and creativity in the conduct of governance. That has not happened. And with his preoccupation with remaining in office beyond 2011, it never may.

Even if the president has no constructive ideas, he should at least communicate with us intelligently. As a former university lecturer, public speaking should not be a challenge. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, PhD, must have defended his graduate and doctoral theses before internal and external examiners and would have presented seminar papers, participated in symposia and other activities associated with teaching and learning.

So how come public speaking is such a difficult task for him?

Apart from the absence of a clear vision since assuming office, why has it proved so difficult for the president to speak with any conviction, even when reading from prepared texts? Assuming for any reason that he failed to communicate effectively with his students as a teacher, what about his days as a civil servant? Granted, this species are trained to be inconspicuous and granted, the work of bureaucrats in these climes require little or no intellectual input beyond the metronomic repetition of chores, he must have carried out public functions to have risen to the directorate cadre.

But notwithstanding how he got his doctorate degree and the kind of academic or bureaucrat he was, the moment he joined politics and emerged as a deputy governor, it is inconceivable that no effort was made to burnish Jonathan’s dour demeanour, diction and delivery. It may be that that behind the facade is an astute and sharp mind. I used to believe that until Jonathan began to eye the presidency.

I have no quarrel with Jonathan’s ambition, just the way he has gone about it and the charlatans he has assembled to actualise it. Gen. Murtala only spent six months in office, but at the time he was assassinated, his approval ratings (had anyone cared to measure) would have been over 90 percent. If Jonathan had the depth expected of a PhD, he should have borrowed a leaf from history and embarked on a highly populist agenda to sell his ambition.

A good starting point would have been demystifying Nigeria’s recurrent nightmare, Olusegun Obasanjo; probing the missing trillions from our coffers; cutting the bloated pay of the peacocks at the National Assembly, or taking the corruption bull by the horns. Instead, he is consorting with the likes of Tony Anenih, Ibrahim Mantu, Jerry Gana, Jonathan Zwingina and other politicians with extremely dubious moral credentials. Bode George will probably join them as soon as he is released.

With his laboured, ponderous and pusillanimous approach to governance and the tortured route he has chosen to pursue his ambition, Jonathan may be a doctor, but he certainly has no philosophy.