By Rotimi Fasan
AS is the custom in parts of Nigeria where the book on a deceased person is not considered closed until what is called the ‘final’ or ‘second’ burial is done, victory at an election is not complete until it has been declared at the relevant election petition tribunal.
Elections in Nigeria are quite fraught processes that carry their own terminal germs right from the moment of conception; they are programmed with internal devices to ensure that somebody or a group is duped or, at least, feels so at the end of the day.
To this end, election petition tribunals which, as the name suggest, are appellate bodies that politicians turn to to lodge their electoral complaints are the last port of call for an electoral victor. Until a politician has been issued a certificate of victory by one a contested seat is still up for grabs. This was the case between the Peoples Democratic Party and its arch rival in the last 2011 presidential election, the Congress for Progressive Change. The CPC had challenged the victory of the PDP at the April presidential polls.
Its presidential candidate, Mohammadu Buhari, a veteran loser and petitioner at the tribunal had in his customary way, since 2003, headed for the tribunal after Goodluck Jonathan was declared winner of the election. Buhari and his party believed, as they still do, that the entire poll was flawed from the beginning and riddled with electoral malpractices. They wanted the PDP victory annulled.
The PDP felt it won fairly and squarely and tried to stop the CPC challenge of its victory. Suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Ayo Salami, would not oblige the PDP that had sought to throw out the CPC complaint via a technicality, namely, that the CPC had filed its case on a Sunday. In a move that probably made the PDP uncomfortable and no doubt set the stage for the controversy that has followed his ouster from the judiciary, Justice Salami said the CPC had a right to challenge the PDP. The Supreme Court would support the CPC. But in the end, Jonathan’s victory was upheld by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
Perhaps not unexpectedly, President Jonathan won. Many would say, without prejudice to the intrinsic merit or otherwise of the PDP defence, that the consequence of a contrary decision is better imagined. Buhari has been at this point twice in the past, and twice he had lost. His latest loss makes it the third time he would be losing in similar circumstance. This probably makes him the Chief Mourner in the entire saga.
But in the PDP house, it has been unending celebration. President Jonathan who tried to be generous in victory by praising Buhari has not been left out of the celebration. In the past, Buhari had spurned such hand of fellowship by refusing to recognise the authority of the victor. He demonstrated this by staying away from events presided over by the victor. It remains to be seen how he would respond to the latest setback. But that wouldn’t appear to be anything of concern to the PDP that has been very unabashed in its victory dance across the country.
Certainly many of those celebrating with the PDP and, particularly, Jonathan had good grounds for their behaviour. Any disruption in the movement of the PDP gravy train would have been quite visceral for them; it would have been more than a personal loss as both Jonathan and the PDP have become the meal tickets of many. If for nothing else, at least they’ve been assured of over three more uninterrupted years of ‘chop and clean mouth’. Any sudden death decision would have been most unwelcome at this point. Yet, we may need to ask ourselves if there is any justification for the celebration in the PDP camp.
Are there genuine reasons for Nigerians who are not members of the PDP to join in this celebration that Jonathan’s victory has been validated at the very last point where such validation is important? To put it starkly, has Jonathan done enough to justify three more years in office?
The truth is that the room for improvement is still very much wide and it is best to hope that the President can yet redeem himself and justify the confidence many had in him as, maybe, a breath of fresh air from past leaders. His credentials as a ‘new breed’ politician which worked in his favour now seem a liability that projects him as lacking in the right kind of confidence expected of a Nigerian president at this point in our history.
Jonathan’s achievement, if they can be so called now, has been at best very modest. Surely, seven months may not be such terribly long enough time to assess the time of a four-year term president in office, but those seven months could serve as reasonable pointer to what Nigerians could expect from the time the President has left to spend in office. What is more, Nigerians cannot forget so soon that President Jonathan had completed the term of President Umaru Yar’Adua.
When that is thrown into the equation, Nigerians have a right to expect more from Jonathan who many thought had been impeded in those early months by the fact that the time under Yar’Adua had not been his and he had had to function under the malevolent gaze of people who never wanted him to step into the shoes of the then ailing leader. But that argument wouldn’t wash now and Jonathan now appears to have more job to do convincing Nigerians that he is indeed the right man for the job.
While not much could be put against his name in terms of achievement, personal or corporate, he seems to be opening up his side with his attempt to propose a new term of six years for elected leaders. For someone yet to convince many that the years at his disposal wouldn’t turn out to be time wasted, additional six years could only amount to biting off more than he could chew.
But in what may yet look like the final routing of the President by his critics, he is bent on removing what successive governments continue to call subsidy on oil products in Nigeria. In the many years since previous administrations have been removing it, one would have expected that we would have got to a point when Nigerian oil could be said to have achieved the right pricing.
But that is never the case as we are constantly badgered with arguments of how money spent on subsidising oil can be better put on providing necessary amenities for longsuffering Nigerians. Yet, it has to be said that a travel down such road, even for Goodluck, may amount to stretching luck too far.
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