ASO ROCK PARADISE LOST, JONATHAN'S MAN IN THE MIRROR MOMENT OF TRUTH?

Icheoku says today is the last day of the year 2015, a momentous year in Nigeria's checkered history which saw former President Goodluck Ebelesiemie Jonathan lose his second term bid and with it, lost power and keys to Aso Rock. What a better way to commemorate this than to revisit the last five years of his presidency and take stock of what actually went wrong that drove him out of Aso Rock and out of power. As far as Icheoku's school of political thinking is concerned, President Muhammadu Buhari did not win the last election; rather, former President Goodluck Ebelesiemie Jonathan lost it and a very long time ago; he totally blew it and to smithereens. 

Hopefully the erstwhile president has had time to reflect on what took him out of Aso Rock. It might also do the former president one heck of a good, during his reflection, to take a look in a mirror and see the image starring right back at him. That image, the man in the mirror, often in a fedora hat and drab native attire, is actually what went wrong with his presidency and what indeed did him in. Icheoku is emphatic that Jonathan Goodluck shot himself on the foot and then limped out of Aso Rock and out of power. No other person was responsible for the fate that befell him, his losing the keys to Aso Rock. His injury was self inflicted and in a literary sense, he committed political harakiri and self-immolated out of power. The good in his luck ran out early and turned into bad, from which he never recovered his mojo and became known sarcastically as President 'Badluck' Jonathan.

Some people would ask why is Icheoku re-opening this old wound and why not let matters lie? In response, Icheoku says it is to provide and preserve materials for historians  future researchers and students of political science, who might be interested in studying the Jonathan presidency and what eventually torpedoed it. A presidency which started with all the fanfare and great expectations that chaperoned its coming into being, only to summarily flounder out, crashed and burnt. So without prejudice, Icheoku says no other person or thing, including aggregated global conspiracies, played any more vital role in the toppling of the former president from power than the former president himself. He was his own worst nightmare, his own worst nemesis, his own worst enemy, the self-villain who personally drove the dagger of defeat into his presidential vein and carotid artery and he bled out of Aso Rock and out of power. 

The 2015 presidential election was not lost by Jonathan on March 29th, 2015; admitted that was when the dirge of his presidency was formally sang by the greater Nigerian populace. The election was lost a very long time ago, upon his being sworn into office for the very first time, when he lost complete grip of his presidency and was merely hanging in, coasting on a life support until March 29, 2015. His inability to correctly assess the situation and understand that the politics of running for a second term in office begins on the day a president is sworn in for his first term, undid his presidency. He took some early wobbly steps and faltered; and never fully recovered nor regained his balance until he stumbled out of Aso Rock and out of power. The former president made so many early mistakes in his presidency from which he never fully recovered until March 28, 2015 when majority of Nigerian voters, dejected and disappointed with his promised breath of fresh air which turned putrid, kicked him out of Aso Rock and out of power. 

President Jonathan Goodluck failed to cleverly tailor his policies and their implementations towards securing his second term. The president forgot that it is usually only after a second term's election is won, that a smart president goes into overdrive; and actually starts pursuing those things dearest to his heart, as well as rubbishing those who made him mad as well as burning those bridges he walked on to the presidency, if need be. But a novitiate first termer President Jonathan, did not know any better, so he prematurely went frontal and he paid dearly for this mistake, hounded and bundled out of Aso Rock and out of power by the same people who put him there in the first place. A president who was bequeathed with so much goodwill and who was heralded into office as the the best thing to ever happen to Nigeria's leadership firmament, because of his supposed youth, education and energy, but disappointingly failed to provide the leadership expected of him by a very  restive nation. His political naiveté and lack of understanding of how to wield the instrument of power saw him surrender his presidency to forces that eventually hogtied him and threw him out of the presidency. 

Icheoku is emphatic that the former president should not look anywhere for any other responsible party but the mirror in his bathroom, where he shall see the culprit of his failed presidency starring back at him. The late King of Pop Michael Jackson, in his song aptly titled "Man in the mirror", reminded the world that usually the guilty party for our misfortunes, which we are always busy looking for elsewhere, are usually found in the image that stare back at us in the mirror. Icheoku asks how could the former president so easily throw away such a powerful and all-important position as the presidency of a country? Only that he did not suffer nor toiled hard enough to secure it, hence the lackadaisical attitude and aloofness which he brought to bear to it. The proverbial come easy, go easy effect, that is? Thus being of a minimized value to him, he could care less if it was lost or taken away from him by the same token with which he got it - easy and cheap. A presidency which was handed to him on a platter of gold through the contrivance of Olusegun Obasanjo, hence he did not value nor appreciate what it actually takes to secure a presidency of a country. It is also apparent that he did not desire it that passionately enough as to want to seriously fight to keep it or even die, trying. 

President Jonathan is weakness personified. His overbearing wife Dame Patience showed Nigerians this much and his benefactor/s also based their decision to make him president on this assumed deficiency of his. They figured they could easily control and tele-guide his presidency because he is a weak personality that could be shoved around very easily.  Unfortunately, he did not disappoint his critics nor did he disprove this perception of him as he fiddled, dithered and differed to everybody and anyone who shouted at his presidency. Ironically, the same tragic weakness of his saw him shoved him out of Aso Rock and out of power without even much of a pushback or a fight. APC threatened thunder and brimstone, Jonathan  quivered. Then candidate Muhammadu Buhari rattled his saber, Jonathan hid in the closet, whimpering. Americans made series of threats and Jonathan scampered away and into oblivion, too afraid for his own personal safety, to venture out, respond or react. Olusegun Obasanjo fired so many salvos across his bow and Jonathan trembled and fidgeted. Then followed by Bola Tinubu, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Oby Ezekwesili, Nasir el-Rufai, Nyako, Kwankwaso and even Rotimi Amaechi? Almost everyone in the country turned him into their favorite pastime punching bag and he merely stood there, took it severally on the chin; leading to the final conspiracy that swept him away and out of power and sent his presidency into the archives. 

Icheoku says any other courageous leader would have put up a fierce resistance to the effort to topple his presidency and audaciously fight off his attackers in order to defend his staked second term bid. But not the weakling Jonathan, who turned tail and so easily surrendered his presidency, which according to his sorry narrative was in order for there to be peace in the land. Icheoku asks what kind of bullcrap peace was he talking about and why must this supposed peace be ONLY at the back of his presidency or the emasculation of the South? Icheoku asks did President Jonathan not understand that anything worth having, including power, is equally worth fighting for and even dying for if it need be? That if one cannot die for a cause, that there is no need of professing that cause in the first place? Power which so many people have died for, trying to secure, throughout the world, including MKO Abiola in Nigeria; and which the late Obafemi Awolowo once literally begged to be allowed to hold for just twenty four hours? But with Jonathan, it was a come easy, go easy affair; otherwise whoever so easily unseats an incumbent president, especially in Africa? Or may be it was as some analysts opined, that the former president has had enough and wanted out; the reason he summarily accepted defeat, conceded the election and scurried away out of Aso Rock?

Although known Buharists and all those invested interests in the ouster of the former president would want everyone to believe that their candidate indeed truly won the election. But Icheoku as well as other impartial observers are emphatic that the former president merely conceded the election in the interest of peace. Otherwise, so many recorded blatant irregularities in the election could have provided enough grounds to cancel the election. A blatancy which saw over 700,000 underage almajiris vote in the election; then add the 100% voting record in Kano State and the over 500,000 already recorded votes in favor of the PDP which magically switched parties to APC in Bauchi State. Then add the unprecedented direct foreign intervention in a purely internal affairs matter of Nigeria. All or any of these would have seen a courageous president either cancel the election result or defiantly refuse to yield his grounds, followed by a total clamp-down of the opposition. But not the former president who rather opted to concede the election than fight the fallout war. Were Icheoku the former president, Nigeria would still be up in flames today rather than accept the travesty that took place in that election; admitted Icheoku would not have traveled the same uninspiring road to political perdition which Jonathan traversed to get to March 29, 2015. 

From day one of his presidency, the former president was  knee-jerk, very squirmish, skittish, indecisive, fidgety, wish-washy and seemingly too reluctant or rather afraid to use the powers vested in his office. Nigerians, sensing his vulnerability, obliged him and took away his authority. He lost his grip on power and with it, lost the respect of Nigerians as well as the international community and this made it so easy to plot his downfall. Jonathan became an over-exposed president, whose underbelly was an easy target for those men and women in long knives and they drove their steely weapon right through him and twisted same without mercy. 

Icheoku says leadership is not just about distributing political largess and conferring patronages and benefits on favored persons and causes. No, it entails leading the people, pointing the direction forward for them to follow; motivating them into doing big things; inspiring them to go for all that are possible; urging and cajoling the best out of them; instilling hope in them of a better and brighter future ahead; encouraging and assuring them that all is not lost. But when a president chickens out of or shirks away from this primary responsibility to provide leadership to the people or gingerly holds power or shows crass weakness, fear and timidity, the people become confused and like sheep without a Shepard, things barrel down hill from there. This attitude was what unraveled Jonathan's presidency and he never recovered nor broke the free fall until he freely-fell out of Aso Rock and out of power. 

The former president practically broke every canon rules of leadership known to man. A president or a leader must not exhibit weakness especially faced with adversities, but the former president did. A president or leader in order to effectively lead must either be respected or feared by those being led, but the former president was neither respected nor feared. A president or leader in order to succeed must be able to make the people to follow him or forcefully corral them if need be, but the former president did not succeed with either. A president or leader must establish without equivocation who is in charge of the political estate he presides over and must leave no one in doubt about his authority; but the former president also failed in this department as he did not decisively let Nigerians know that before him there was no other person who stood with a comparable or superior authority. The former president allowed so many people to run wild in the land, some competing with him and putting up appearances as if they were co-presidents or even superior to his  presidency, including Olusegun Obasanjo.

Icheoku says President Jonathan lost his second term reelection bid the day he lost grip over the Nigerian polity. The very day he lamented that he is neither an army general nor a despot and could therefore not tell Nigerians how to behave? What manner of a leader would so hopeless confess his shortcomings and to a restless polity that is always looking for a way to cut corners, run rings around their leaders and undermine any given authority. They latched on this confessed weakness and they sat on the former president until they turned him inside out and out of Aso Rock. 

Icheoku says the former president lost his second term reelection bid the day he declared that he gets so many conflicting advises that he is confused about which one to take as the best for the country? It appeared the president forgot that his number one job as president is to figure out the road map out of the wood and how to navigate through the many advises he gets in order to get to the desired destination. He forgot that his advisers are there to merely give him "so many advises", from which he will and is expected to then choose which advise is best for the country. He forgot that his advisers were not elected by Nigerians but are merely advisers, his aides; who are there to help him travel through the maze of governance, but not to do the traveling themselves. Icheoku says such a big gaffe showed that he lacked the wisdom of governance and this got him heavily reduced in the eyes of Nigerians. 

The former president once told Nigerians that they are members of his cabinet who belong to Boko Haram. Nigerians waited in vain to see these Boko Haram members in his cabinet publicly named and flushed out of his government. But it never happened; leaving many Nigerians wondering who is actually in charge of his presidency - the members of Boko Haram in his government or those fighting the scourge of Boko Haram including the president himself. It created a heavy mistrust and suspicion among his cabinet members. It further diminished the president in the eyes of Nigerians as a president who is not in charge of his own presidency and who is also incapable of firing Boko Haram members in his own cabinet. 

The former president also once declared that he 'does not give a damn' about not declaring his assets. Icheoku wonders which astute political leader will so carelessly mouth-off his feeling of not being responsible and accountable to the people who put him in office? This abject display of lack of understanding of how to maintain and sustain the Nigerian public's loyalty did the former president in. A much smarter president, well seasoned in the art of speaking, would have couched the response in much better way as not to create the willful indifference his response created - not to give a damn about what his electorates are thinking concerning his assets declaration. What a snub of an expected president he became thereafter and it came to haunt the former president and he paid dearly for it. 

Icheoku says the former president lost his second term bid the day he declared state of emergencies in some Northeastern states and still left their governors in place. These were governors whose inability to provide and maintain security in their states led to the state of insecurity that triggered the declaration of state of emergencies, yet they were left in place. The former president had precedents of state of emergencies in Ekiti and Plateau states by former President Olusegun Obasanjo which he could have easily followed, but he choose not and did not. The worst of it, these governors later ganged up against him, accused him of incompetence and inability to rout the scourge of Boko Haram. Needless to add that one of them, Taraba State former Governor Muritala Nyako went as far as accusing the former president of committing genocide against his Hausa/Fulani people in the guise of fighting Boko Haram.

Icheoku says by not allowing former PDP chairman Vincent Ogbulafor to be jailed and also not timely firing former Aviation Minister Stella Oduah for corruption, the former president telegraphed to Nigerians and the world that he condones corruption and/or that he was too afraid to take decisive action against certain people. He became mortally damaged as Mister Corruption incarnate or its condoner in chief, who looks the other way while his lieutenants ran amok with corruption and it hounded him out of office. Icheoku says this catapulted the allegation of corruption against him especially by Olusegun Obasanjo to a totally new heights from which the president fell and crashed out of Aso Rock and out of power. Recall that APC's war cry during the last election was corruption, corruption and more corruption, in their campaign against the former president.

The former president lost his second term bid the day he fired former Power Minister Barth Nnaji, the only minister then who had a road map towards solving Nigeria's intractable power problem. The minister had a blueprint to getting Nigerians the much needed power and was meticulously following it to detail and Nigerians were beginning to see the result. Suddenly, the former president caved under unparalleled pressure by generators mafia of Nigeria, whose business thrives in keeping power supply in the country very epileptic so that they can continue to manufacture and sell more generators in the Nigerian market. Jonathan let go this performing minister, based on a very flimsy incident that could ordinarily have been ameliorated by rejecting his alleged bid for a DISCO without the need for sacking him. 

Icheoku maintains that the president lost his second term bid the day he allowed the existence of a de-facto president in Nigeria. A pseudo president, named Olusegun Obasanjo, freely pranced around the country, caused so much headache for the president without any repercussion or consequence whatsoever; to the point of outright sabotage of the president's agenda and government, yet the former president was awestruck with inaction. Obasanjo, in addition, wrote a very derogatory, damaging and defamatory letter against the former president, accusing him of everything including intent to commit "murder", yet President Jonathan did not react.  Icheoku says a courageous president would have had Obasanjo invited by security agents to establish his allegation, failing which, he will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for defamation and attempting to raise insurrection in the land. But when Nigerians waited and awaited to see the former president react and react decisively to the accusation of raising a killer sniper squad to hunt down Nigerians, but nothing came from his Aso Rock stables, they concluded that Obasanjo's allegation was probably true and they started viewing their president suspiciously. This is when his second term bid was lost.

Obasanjo continued his disparaging of the president while the president looked the other way, tremblingly and showing unparalleled weakness and cowardice to go after him. Obasanjo continued his insult and confrontations, while the president shivered in one corner of Aso Rock, acting like he does not have the necessary authority nor possess the full weight of the presidency of the country to decisively curtail such excessive affronts. Obasanjo was literally sabotaging the former president's government, holding press conferences, interviews, press releases, holding nocturnal meetings, conspiring and encouraging open rebellion against the president and his government, including encouraging the renegade seven PDP governors to rebel against the president, yet the former president lifted no finger? Obasanjo had so much free range in the country that Nigerians were wondering who actually was in charge of affairs in Nigeria; and which of the rocks really mattered - Aso Rock or Abeokuta Hilltop Rock? A situation which subliminally telegraphed to Nigerians and the world at large that there were two presidents, simultaneously presiding over affairs in Nigeria, an indicator of a very weak presidency and he lost his second term bid as a result? Icheoku says this was when former President Goodluck Jonathan's second term presidency's dream turned into a nightmare,  a very long time ago before March 29, 2015. 

Icheoku says if only the former president had read with great understanding the two vital books of power - the Bible and The Prince by Machiavelli, may be he would have easily coasted to a second term victory, rather than the resounding defeat which he suffered in the last election. A defeat which saw him lose by a net votes of 9 million and you ask yourself how could this ever be possible? A president who previously defeated the same presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari just 48 months earlier in 2011 with over 7 million votes, only to now lose to the same guy with about 2 million votes; which amounts to a total net loss of 9 million aggregate loss. Really, where does such ever happen; a war-chest of over 23 billion Naira budgeted and cash in hand with which to prosecute the election coupled with the power of the incumbency and the former president still lost the election?  Icheoku lambastes that only an incompetent political nymph would so easily trail off into the night and into political perdition.

Icheoku says President Jonathan lost his second term bid by severally tipping over to threats and demands of so many Nigerians. The day he cowered and bowed to Muhammadu Buhari's threatening demand for the immediate release of a detained Mallam el-Rufai, who was returning from one of his usual covert overseas trip to London on July 3, 2011 and released him, was the day the timid former president lost his reelection. The former president lost his second term election bid the day he released Major Mustapha from prison without getting any mileage from it; especially from then Kano State Governor Kwankwaso as a quid pro quod for releasing the Sani Abacha's killer CSO. Icheoku says President Jonathan lost his second term bid the day he fired IGP Ogbonna Onovo just six months into office and without any cause and did not allow him time to implement his planned reform of the Nigerian Police Force just because former Senate President David Mark did not like the IGP. The IGP was fired for allegedly not tackling insecurity in the country fast enough and just within only six months of his appointment. Nigerians now know better as insecurity increased triple-fold since Onovo's departure yet subsequent IGPs stayed put, regardless? 

Icheoku says the former president lost his bid for a second term the day he fired INEC's Maurice Iwu and replaced him with his now proven nemesis Attahiru Jega. The president lost his reelection bid the day he allowed then CBN governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to function as a parallel chief executive officer of Nigeria, with unbridled power to disburse Nigeria's commonwealth as he saw fit; without being dismissed, arrested, indicted and imprisoned for fraud. It is on record that Sanusi as CBN governor, disbursed over 500 billion Naira of Nigeria's money to mainly his Islamic causes, including doling out 500 million Naira to his Kano State government as disaster relief without first seeking and obtaining approval from Aso Rock. A payout which many observed was a bribery down payment for his later being made the Emir of Kano? Icheoku says the former president slept on his watch as Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi freely walked all over him, disparaging the president and eventually purchased the Emirship of Kano. He was later crowned Emir of Kano, without the former president going to the ends of the earth to stop him or force him into exile or even out of this planet if need be. Icheoku laments that was when the former president's reelection bid was lost and not necessarily on March 29, 2015, a mere formality date. 

Icheoku says the president lost his second term bid the day he fired Festus Odimegwu from the National Population Commission just because Governor Kwankwaso made him do it, without first securing a quid pro quod concession from the rambunctious governor. It is on record that the former governor immediately thereafter branded the former president as being very weak, incompetent and not fit for the office of the president. Icheoku says the president lost his second term bid the day he fired Ihejirika as the army chief just because Governor Murtiala Nyako pushed for that. Recall that Ihejirika was on the verge of crushing Boko Haram insurgents when he was fired by former president Goodluck Jonathan and the rest is now history. The president lost his second term bid the day he begged Aliyu Gusau to please accept a defense minister's appointment. Icheoku asks how can any right thinking president beg anyone to accept a ministerial appointment in a country of over 170 million people; and even visited his house to further beg him, as if his life or the life of his presidency depended on Gusau saying yes and agreeing to  serve as a minister of defense? 

The former president lost his second term bid the day he allowed two brothers inlaws - Gusau and Dasuki, to hold two key security positions of defense and National Security Adviser in a multi diversified country like Nigeria.  The day the former president allowed all security chiefs positions in Nigeria to be concentrated in just one region - the police IG, the NSA, the defense minister, internal affairs boss, the customs chief as well as the INEC chairman, all occupied by Northerners was the day he lost his reelection bid. The former president was fighting for his second term presidency life with Muhammadu Buhari, a Hausa/Fulani from the Northwest and all his security chiefs are Hausa/Fulani from the same Northwest? This makes Icheoku wonder whether the former president's advisers were all Hausa/Fulani from the Northwest or who was rather advising the former president, not to advert his mind on where these peoples, especially the election chief umpire's loyalty will be pitched? 

Then to further nail his coffin completely shut, the former president who fell out of favor with his political godfather Olusegun Obasanjo, went ahead to appoint Obasanjo's closest confidant, Ahmadu Ali, another Hausa/Fulani Northerner, as his own reelection campaign organization director general. Why not instead put someone with a real axe to grind with either Buhari or Obasanjo or Tinubu in charge of his  reelection effort? Why not put someone who will put his all in his reelection bid instead of a man who had nothing to lose, either way? Why not even put Dalhatu Sarki Tafida, who got him first elected in 2011 in charge of his  reelection bid? If the former president refused and did not replace his vice president Sambo Namadi as demanded by Obasanjo as a condition for his support, because of loyalty according to the former president, why did he then replace Tafida as his campaign director general? It is unimaginable and an unmitigated politicking disaster that the former president was going into an election battle with a Hausa/Fulani Northerner, yet all his supposed confidants and lieutenants were all from the same Hausa/Fulani Northern stock? Did the former president not consider where their hearts and loyalty will be primarily - to one of their own kindred, of course. Yet the unthinking political novitiate former president, hopelessly believed in their allegiance to PDP and to him, forgetting that blood is thicker than water. That to the Hausa/Fulani North, a Northerner is a Northerner and comes first irrespective of political party affiliation or who appointed them to office and on whose pleasure they served. 

Icheoku says the ominous signs were all over the place that the former president was possibly not even going to make it through his first term, talkless of securing a second term. The day he stopped listening to then NSA Patrick Aziza and allowed his detractors to kill him alongside then Kaduna State's Governor Patrick Yakowa in a rigged plane crash, was the day he lost his second term bid? Like Aguiyi Ironsi, President Jonathan surrounded himself with people who are not his own kind and who did not care much about securing his interest and they left him high to dry when it mattered most. His presidency was a sordid lesson on how not to be on the seat of power, day-dreaming and drifting away in la-la land of political obscurity. Icheoku asks who did former President Jonathan hope would get his back when he so skewed up all security apparatus in the country and left them only in the hands of the same people who want their power back at all cost and by any and all means necessary? 

The former president showed weakness, he showed cowardice and he was neither respected nor feared, hence the sudden eruption of the society against him. He made himself a mouse and the Nigerians cats ate him for dinner, devoured by hungry and opportunists political wolves perambulating all over the country. This perceived weakness led to Aminu Tambuwal hijacking the speakership of the House without approval of the presidency and contrary to PDP's allocations of political offices.  A matter made worse when the former speaker left the PDP and decamped to APC, still holding unto his speakership. Then there was the Chibok Girls concocted abduction and the 'Bring Back their Girls' motley crew which took the president unawares. Icheoku says the former president lost his second term bid the day he made a deal with the devil in order to win his first term presidency in 2011, by conceding the entire Southwest states to Bola Tinubu's AC; the eventual springboard used for his ouster. A smarter political tactician would have either conceded Lagos with one other state or all other states excluding Lagos to Tinubu in order to still have a solid anchor in the Southwest. But not the novitiate politician who did not know any better or who was rather too arrogant or so foolish  not to articulate and anticipate then, a clear path to his reelection victory in 2015. 

That the former president has an overbearing wife, Dame Patience, who made more enemies for him than friends, also did not help matters either. The president found himself marooned and not in a decisive control of the country; not any of the six geographical regions or the governors forum nor even his own party machinery. A disruptive governors forum with his South-south region's Governor Rotimi Amaechi's became very disrespectful and confrontational and the president was powerless to depose him, when a precedent was there to follow in former Governor Ngige of Anambra State as well as the banana peels of the Senate. 

The president did not also make any friend internationally to help protect his presidency  and periodically chip a word or two on his behalf amongst the nations that do really matter. A more savvy president and astute political operator would have wooed a country like Russia and entice Putin into adopting him as his person and ask him to help him succeed and in turn pay whatever the cost. This lack of an international godfather made the former president an easy target for those Western conspirators, who wanted him out and for some reasons bordering on his anti-gay position to his re-assessing Nigeria's economy as the largest in Africa and then of course to the last straw that broke the camels back of his presidency, which made the West really so mad that they wanted him out at all cost and by all means, his purchasing of weapons from Russia. 

The president not being a poker player, lost the narrative that in poker games, you do not show your hands while still dealing. He naively informed the enemies of Nigeria, the retired army generals and oil well owners, that he is going to review their oil well contracts downwards when it becomes due for renewal early 2016 and they rallied round to abort his power to so do. The former president was also partial in some of his actions leading to Olusegun Obasanjo openly accusing him of nepotism and cronyism. He fired Immigration Controller General Rosemary Uzoma, simply because she promoted those who passed a promotional exam, who coincidentally happen to be mainly from her Southeast geographical area. But when the Custom boss Abdullah Dikko Inde from Katsina Northwest carried out a skewed promotion in the customs favoring only Northerners, the president looked the other way. 

A leader should either be loved, respected or feared; but never derided, ridiculed, looked down on or simply ignored as ineffective. His former minister of Information Ibrahim Maku walked away on him without any consequence. Five of his former ministers lost election bids to become governors under his watch, signs of the things to come. The president lost his second term bid the day he allowed then Governor Fashola to deport fellow Nigerians from Lagos without sending in Federal troops to enforce their constitutional right to call any part of Nigeria home and reside there unmolested. But the former president lacked fire in his belly and could not summon the courage to fight and win his reelection bid and with it, his second term dream went up in smoke. Then came the over 100 security agents who were slaughtered by Ombatse cult in Eggon Nassarawa State without any reprisal from his Federal government. According to his then director of SSS Ita Ekpenyong, the government has decided to leave everything in the hands of God and you ask yourself when did Nigeria become a theocracy?  These were husbands, brothers, fathers, sons, uncles and relatives of Nigerians who were on official duty for and on behold of the government and their brutal murders will not and was not avenged by the government? It was not as if the former president did not have precedents to follow in Odi, Zaki Ibiam and Gbaramatu; but Jonathn showed his weakness and Nigerians said not to forget and they did not forget on March 28, 2015. 

Icheoku maintains that the former president was too afraid for his life to effectively function as president and commander in chief. He treaded rather too cautiously, tremblingly swallowing every manner of disrespectful behavior and insults from virtually everybody. He literally never really had a firm hold on Nigeria and Nigerians. His timid aloofness helped with the gathering of the conspiracy storm which finally swept him out of office. The conspiracy assessed him and concluded that he is one easily smotherable fly that could be so easily swathed and squashed without any fight back or repercussion and they struck. Jonathan was the snake which did not act like a snake and the kids used it to tie their firewood, mistaking it for a rope or twine. This was Jonathan, a linguine-spined weakling, who sheepishly played into the hands of his traducers and could not bark nor bite and they came charging at him like African water buffaloes and stampeded him out of his second term bid, out of Aso Rock and out of power.  

Icheoku asks why must the North always have their way with their threats of violence, making the South look cowardly and without the spine to stand up to the ever feisty North? What happened to William Shakespeare's admonition that when two fires meet they extinguish the thing that fuels the fire; but that little wind encourages  fire. Why did Jonathan not draw a line in the sands this time so that Nigerians can once and for all determine how Nigeria moves forward thence. Who needs Nigeria more and why must it always be one section threatening the other and the other being the one always capitulating? Anyway what is done is done and while it is commendable of Jonathan to have taken this route out, Icheoku disagrees that the threat of the North should always be the decider of disputes in and about Nigeria.  

Should the former president have dropped vice president Sambo Namadi as demanded by Olusegun Obasanjo as a condition for supporting his second term bid? Should the president have fallen out with his godfather, the man who made him, Olusegun Obasanjo? If only he had advised himself properly that the "okra shrub never gets taller than its planter. Should Jonathan have listened and not even ran at all for second term, as many of the rebellious party governors and members demanded before they eventually decamped to APC? If the president knew that he does not have the stamina and determination to go all it out with Muhammadu Buhari, why did he not yield the presidential candidacy for a more fiery and formidable candidate to step in and run the necessary winning gamut? 

But regrettably all these are now mere Monday night quarterbacking, as nobody knew back then that the election will go the way it went. Why did the former president not forcefully react instead of the tepid response he gave to the Olusegun Obasanjo accusatory letter from hell, which accused him of all manner of things including raising an assassination killer squad? Why did the president not make an example out of those eminently corrupt Nigerians especially those of them in APC including Abubakar Atiku, Bola Tinubu, Bukola Saraki etc when the same people were taunting him and accusing him of being a corruption incarnate and his looking the other way while the thieves of state had a field day? Simply put, there are so many "WHYs" and unanswered questions about how the cookie of Jonathan's presidency crumbled and only Jonathan of Otuoke can indeed provide their answers. 

Concluding, Icheoku lays all the blame for the failed second term presidency squarely on the feet of former President Goodluck Jonathan; who is also equally solely responsible for the loss of power by the PDP. If he knew he was not brave and courageous enough to defend the PDP's hold unto power, why did he covert the PDP presidential ticket and refused to hold presidential primaries? Why did he commandeer the PDP presidential candidacy only to forfeit it and turn it over to the APC? Why did he not fight the fight of his life to retain a presidency which belonged to the PDP when it mattered most? Hopefully, following his extended long vacation out of Aso Rock, the former president will find time to sit down and put his thoughts on paper, a memoir of some sort, to help Nigerians and historians get a peep into his presidency and possibly a grasp at what went wrong with it. Until then, it is safe to conclude that former President Goodluck Jonathan is not a good role model on how to fight for a cause one truly believes in; leading to some Nigerian women now referring to their weakly husbands as Jonathan and also calling any sissy-girlie man, a Jonathan. It is an unforgivable case of where weakness was not a virtue otherwise which Mandigo-man wants to be so referred to as a Jonathan? Definitely not Icheoku and also not all those brave and courageous souls and worthy associates. So long President Jonathan and please hurry up with writing your memoirs.