TEAM JONATHAN 2015, HEDGE YOUR BETS WITH CAUTION?

Icheoku asks what would Nigerians do if they wake up on February 15, 2015 to find the reality of a defeated President Goodluck Jonathan? Like it happened in Ghana few years ago when sitting President John Agyekum Kufuor lost his reelection bid to the opposition, how would Nigerians react, faced with such similar situation? Would it be a pall of mourning and grief cast over the nation or would it be an exultant and jubilant citizens, thanking the almighty for a good riddance? What type of exhilaration and excitement would it be that would herald an elected new president named Muhammadu Buhari; or would Nigerians, like King David, throw ashes on themselves and in loin sack clothes, mourn the cruel fate which suddenly became their portion? Icheoku says the only one way anyone would know is to live till that fateful day and find out for themselves. 

However, Icheoku dreads the Buhari-outcome so much the thought alone is akin to having a drowning-nightmare; admitted not necessarily because we are that invested in Jonathan, no, but simply because Icheoku is convinced that Jonathan is a lesser evil that Muhammadu Buhari. But unfortunately Icheoku has his fears and the tell-tale signs everywhere  are not helping Icheoku to overcome these fears. They seem to suggest otherwise differently, including an apparent  handwriting on the wall of Aso Rock reading "Mene Mene Tekel, Upharsin" and foretelling a possible post Valentine's day 2015 occupant therein, whose name is not even found in the Bible? Icheoku does not want nor wish or desire this outcome because of the resident-evil who might benefit from such an eviction; but fast developing circumstances has forced Icheoku to prepare for whatever outcome that flows from the election of February 14 and hopefully, you will do the same. Like a popular aphorism goes, the expectation of the worse is usually the beginning of a life of liberty and one free of agonizing misery. 

Just few days ago, the PDP deputy governor of Niger State Cletus Ibeto defected to the APC with his supporters? Although many die hard Jonathanists might dismiss the development as just an ordinary disgruntled deputy governor leaving the party, but it is still part of the bleeding which the PDP is lately suffering which no member of Team Jonathan have yet found a bandage to stop. Icheoku maintains that President Jonathan, if he loses this election, will have himself to blame as he is doing so many things wrong and has not decisively stepped up his game like someone with some fire in his belly and desiring something so badly it hurts. Imagine a president from the Niger Delta South-south going into a major election against a Fulani North-westerner and left his party's chairmanship still in the hand of a Fulani man? So also is the NSA also in a Fulani hand; the Defense Ministry in a Fulani hand; the IGP in a Fulani hand; the INEC in a Fulani hand; even his own campaign chair he equally left in a Fulani hand? Not even the bombast and bomb-throwing Ojo Maduekwe was deployed into battle by Team Jonathan and you wonder what is the hidden secret they are planning to use in order not to lose the keys to Aso Rock? So Icheoku queries what manner of a political operative would so naively trust his reelection in the hands of the kindred of his opponent and expect them to work assiduously to help him defeat one of their own brother? Icheoku does not know about you but this Jonathan is exhibiting every trait of a puerile politician, too trusting and in the wrong people. What motivation would make these team of Fulanis, whose people desperately want a power shift, to work against or to prevent such stated agenda with such a Jonathan-given golden opportunity at midwifing a power shift through a Buhari presidency? Icheoku says any investor in Team Jonathan 2015, who like an ostrich has dug his/her head in the sand and pretending that all is well with the Jonathan campaign, would have some teeth gnashing to do on the morning of February 15, 2015 if the momentum on the other side continues as it is. 

Icheoku laments that for a sitting president to be lacking a  real traction with his campaign, at this stage of his reelection bid, with barely just three weeks left, does not bode well. Icheoku wonders why the president did not take his campaign directly to the Nigerian people and like President Obama did, make them the decider in chief instead of his botched planned reliance on Olusegun Obasanjo which now left the President somewhat stranded with no Plan B to surge on. The erosion his campaign is suffering is such that even in PDP previously controlled firm states, it is no longer at ease with Jonathan. Just a few short days ago, while Team Jonathan was campaigning in Anambra State, Dame Patience had to claim the citizenship of Anambra State when she pleaded, "Ndi Anambra, please if not for any other thing, please vote for your inlaw"? Her statement left Icheoku wondering if Dame "dar is god ooooo" is no longer from Rivers State but now an Anambra woman, just to curry votes? Icheoku berates, if indeed her husband Jonathan did something great for "Ndi Anambra" or at least delivered on his 2011 promises, would she have a need to claim citizenship of the state or descend to such emotive sentimental evocation just to get their votes? Unfortunately, the report card is practically the same everywhere, throughout Nigeria; that even his Niger Delta terrorist compatriots MEND, whom he had cause to defend in the past, even threw their support to the other guy. 

Anyway, any critical observer would agree that President Jonathan has some serious challenges going into this election and that in no state does he have a commanding lead including in his own Bayelsa State; and you wonder if not in Bayelsa, is it Katsina State that he would then win convincingly? Icheoku has observed repeatedly and is once again here observing that President Jonathan did not perform creditably well enough otherwise his record would have been his best campaign tool. Ordinarily he would have been campaigning at every state by pointing to this and that as the things he has already done with further promises to do more if reelected. He would have compelled that village woman to say the person that put this borehole for me is  the person that I know and who I will vote for. But where there is nothing to campaign on, his team can only claw on needless distractions such as his opponent's lack of producing a qualifying certificate, advanced old age and/or nearing his grave? Furthermore, if Jonathan's apologists and town criers are to be believed that their man is a wonder-worker, who has wrought so many miracles of developments in Nigeria thus far, why does their man still need anybody's validation before Nigerians? In a democracy, a candidate takes his campaign straight to the electorates and does not need to beg Olusegun Obasanjo to validate him before Nigerians. 

Instead as a sitting president for this past one, two, three, four, five or six years, depending on how anyone chose to count Jonathan's number of years in office, has Jonathan not got enough name recognition to go forth and campaign for a second term based on provable accomplishments? Has Jonathan never heard of the legal maxim "res ipsa loquitur" and that his achievements should have been his best advertiser and not the 'Alusi (deity) Ota. That good wine needs no bush is not just a mere aphorism or statement but a truism of practical applicability. No one disputes a fact standing before one's eyes and there is the fork in the road of a president seeking a reelection but one who has not adequately accounted for the years he was granted a lease on the seat of power to deserve its extension or renewal. As a solution-based guy and one not easily given to plenty of emotional sentiments, Icheoku desires to see the evidence, that the same four years which it takes to graduate from college or university, is not enough time for a president to have left some indelible marks on the landscape of Nigeria; otherwise Obafemi Awolowo would not have declared that he just wanted to be president for just 24 hours.

Ordinarily a well performed president, who met and surpassed the peoples expectations, would just stand by, hands akimbo, and let his records speak and campaign for him. But now, like a deer stuck in front of a high beam, President Jonathan is running around and looking for somebody to bail him out and lie to Nigerians that their president performed brilliantly so well that he earned a second term. But every dispassionate and truthful Nigerian knows the reason for the current hysteria and panic in Aso Rock with February 14 fast approaching. It is because there is no substantial record to run on, all things considered; and having alienated all his primary constituencies including his erstwhile Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who has since abandoned ship and pitched his tent elsewhere, the president is now crawling for every and any life-support for his 2015 project which he can find. Also the Nigerian coup plotting army generals are now ganging up against Jonathan; except that no one should be truly surprised that these democracy deniers are once again standing against an elected president seeking a reelection; after all, they overthrew a former elected President Shehu Shagari. 

Just for the records, Icheoku is only airing what filtered through our information gathering network as Icheoku has no greater desire than to see Jonathan secure a second term because of reasons already previously canvassed. But as a precaution, Icheoku urges all those people who are so vested and have sworn in the outcome of a reelected President Jonathan, to please tread softly in their anticipation, just in case. There is nothing more convulsing in life than to be unprepared when a jolt of a rude shock comes anyone's way. So fellas, ask yourselves, in the event February 15 comes without the expected outcome, are you cushioned enough to absorb the shock? Like sports, politics should be a game playfully played without so much heart-wrenching and heart-wrecking investment therein; it comes around ever four years, so if you don't win this time, may be next time. 

Finally, Icheoku says anything short of an outright victory by the PDP over the APC and which gives the APC any basis to also simultaneously declare victory, might give the Western countries including America and Britain reason to quickly recognize the APC-led government as the legitimate government of Nigeria. These white people are not interested in helping Nigeria fight Boko Haram but the speed with which they would intervene in the event of an inconclusive election, will shock many Nigerians. Similarly if APC wins and Asari Dokubo and co want to start another trouble in the Niger Delta, they would have the US Marines as well as the British special forces to contend with. Please Nigerians, let everyone, regardless of party affiliation, include the February 14 election in their supplications to whatever they believe in and ask that what the enemies of Nigeria have planned and mapped out and are ready to implement towards destroying the country will not be our portion IJN. Icheoku, speaking matter of factily, is indeed more troubled with the post election consequences than who eventually wins the election. But hey, simply just my thoughts. Salute!