Ango Abdullahi, former Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University and a spokesperson for the Northern elders, said: “It is very sad to see that the president has easily changed direction from dialogue and reconciliation to war in his bid to end the cycle of violence in the North. The volte-face by Jonathan amounts to undermining our agreement with him on peace and reconciliation and we are disturbed that he has opted for force rather than peace to end the violence.”

Abdullahi continued: “What the president has done has now justified the fear of those who rejected membership of the Boko Haram amnesty committee on the suspicion that he was not sincere in setting up the panel and that it was programmed to fail so as to justify military action against the North.”

This is weird commentary by a man, who should know better. It was the same Ango Abdullahi, who said in terse language exactly one year ago (Tuesday, 1 May 2012) at a public event to mark the 50th birthday anniversary of Nda Isaiah, Leadership Newspaper publisher: “The question of a likely disintegration is not a too distant future.” That was his reaction to public concerns about the impact of Boko Haram’s violence on the continued existence of Nigeria. Other Northern personalities, who spoke at the same forum expressed serious worries about the threat posed to Nigeria by Boko Haram. In his lecture, Former Defence Minister and Chief of Army Staff, Theophilus Danjuma, talked about Nigeria’s imminent plunge into chaos. He told the audience: “Nigeria is on fire. This house is on fire. The North is on fire. Nigeria is becoming like Somalia. The Somalianisation of Nigeria is taking place right now.”

In an unprejudiced analysis of the situation in the North, Danjuma said: “Those of us, who call ourselves Northerners, our house is on fire; our house is on fire, let us not deceive ourselves. Let’s look at ourselves, face ourselves and tell ourselves the truth and find solution to our problem… Where are our Northern governors? Where are they? Right now, Borno is a failed state, Jigawa is almost a failed state. Kano is threatening to be a failed state. Kano of all places, where are we going, where on earth are we going? You hear talks of multi-million naira fences around government houses, what about the citizens. We have to search our minds and find solution to this problem.”

Ango Abdullahi and his Northern elders like to project themselves as people, who are equipped with the best knowledge of how to govern the Northern states in which Boko Haram members have made life difficult for everyone. Let us keep this in mind: The Northern elders pressed Jonathan to grant amnesty to Boko Haram. But they made the fundamental error of presuming that Boko Haram would be attracted to amnesty. As soon as the Federal Government began to consider official pardon for Boko Haram, the philosophical and militant head of the organisation announced that his group would never accept amnesty because they had done nothing wrong to the Nigerian state. In fact, the Boko Haram leader said it was the government that should ask for amnesty rather than his group because the government had murdered members of his organisation. A twisted argument, you would say.

This was the brief background to how the Northern elders pushed Jonathan into an embarrassing situation in which Boko Haram declined official pardon, even before Jonathan had made the offer. The Northern elders did not establish first that Boko Haram would accept amnesty before they pressed Jonathan to make the move. Additionally, ever since the government set up the amnesty committee, Boko Haram has increased the tempo and severity of their murderous attacks on the Nigerian people, including law enforcement agencies, such as the police. No president would fold his or her arms and watch insurgents overrun the country or hold the nation hostage to their bizarre demands.

The Northern elders are not honest peace brokers. They are not a credible pipeline through which the government can reach Boko Haram. The Northern elders have no moral right to accuse the government of reneging on its agreement to consider amnesty for Boko Haram. While the government has set up the amnesty committee, Boko Haram has not reciprocated positively. Instead, the group has used extreme violence against the people and government of Nigeria.

Here is the absurdity of the Northern elders. The Northern elders appealed to Jonathan to save their region. After due consideration, Jonathan responded to their appeals by ordering soldiers into three Northern states that have served for so long as the command and control centre of Boko Haram terrorists. What do these undependable Northern leaders want from Jonathan? If Jonathan ignored them, they would have criticised him. Now that Jonathan has responded to Boko Haram aggression by imposing emergency rule, the Northern elders still criticised him.

Northern elders are looking for any excuse, any excuse at all to demonise Jonathan. These leaders have not yet got over the pain they suffered when they watched Jonathan complete the term of office of former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who could not complete his first term, owing to ill health and death. To rub in further insult, Jonathan snatched from their finger tips the presidential position in 2011. They said Jonathan should not have contested because the presidential throne belonged to the North. Jonathan told them to go jump into the Kaduna River.

Any Nigerian who is qualified to be elected into office has the constitutional right to contest the post of president. This is the context in which we must understand Northern leaders’ uneasiness over the Jonathan administration. Northern elders have what we refer to in pidgin English as bad belle. They can’t stand Jonathan, a Southerner. How far must the government go to demonstrate that it has listened endlessly to Northern elders?

The Northern elders watched in silence as Boko Haram set up camps in their territory. Jonathan waited for a long time before he decided last week to use military force to chase Boko Haram militants out of their hiding places. No one, including the erratic Northern elders, can accuse the government of failing to offer Boko Haram leaders several opportunities to disarm and renounce violence. Each time the government called for dialogue, Boko Haram responded with defiant bomb explosions in private and public places, including marketplaces, churches, motor parks, police stations, schools and universities, government offices and newspaper houses. For many months, Boko Haram leaders showed they were unrepentant and recalcitrant.

Many people have asked the question: What are Boko Haram leaders fighting for? Why are they waging a war of slow destruction against the Nigerian state? Are they fighting to take over Nigeria so they can impose their own brand of religious ideology on the nation? Are they fighting so they can impose their own model of Sharia Law on the nation?

Nigeria is a multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. No one religious group should feel it has the divine right to force-feed the rest of the country with its own version of religious practices. Multiculturalism is all about tolerance and respect for other viewpoints and cultural practices. It is also about honouring the principles of democracy. Boko Haram is a serious threat to the continued existence of Nigeria. It is also a menace to regional peace. An unstable Nigeria will have political, military, social and economic consequences not only to citizens of Nigeria but also to other countries in the West African region and indeed in Africa.

Even in declaring emergency rule in the three Northern states, Jonathan left the democratic institutions in place. The state parliaments were not disbanded. The elected governors were left to continue to administer the states. Jonathan showed by these measures that he was interested in peace, not in destroying democracy. Jonathan granted the military and other arms of the security forces the power to attack, apprehend or eliminate Boko Haram and their agents of violence. Why can’t Northern elders see value in Jonathan’s actions?

Northern elders shouted about instability in their part of the country. They said the Federal Government should intervene to end the violence. Jonathan waited for the region’s leaders to act. After an interminable period during which Boko Haram made the Northern states ungovernable, Jonathan moved in last week to check the violence. But these obstinate elders are not impressed. The state of emergency, they argue, is designed to weaken their states and to bring their region under military dictatorship. How self-serving!

How do you pacify this group of old, wily, shifty and disgruntled regional political champions? With Northern elders like these, Jonathan can never win. Jonathan will be damned if he ignores them. Jonathan will also be damned if he listens to them.

In his recent statements designed to advance the political interests of President Goodluck Jonathan, Asari-Dokubo used tough, uncompromising, provocative, offensive, and insensitive language. He said Nigeria would be on fire in 2015 if we failed to re-elect Jonathan as president. His words: “There will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere, if Goodluck Jonathan is not president by 2015.” This is an audacious ultimatum to a nation but a challenge that everyone must ignore.

In every election, Nigerians are entitled to elect a president based on their perceptions and assessment of a candidate’s demonstrated record of achievement in office. When the election campaign kicks off in 2015, everyone will be at liberty to ask questions about Jonathan’s performance, his achievements and failures, whether he was a good president or a disaster of a president, and whether he is the best of the candidates contesting the position. Everyone has the basic right to ask these questions or to raise them as an agenda for wider public discussion.

Asari-Dokubo’s pointless comments have generated so much anger across the country. Is he a lone wolf in the political wilderness? Is he a jester, a unifier or a radical separatist working for the dismemberment of Nigeria? Is he acting as a surrogate president or as a willing tool used by the Presidency to test the public mood ahead of Jonathan’s declaration of his ambition to seek re-election in 2015? Is Jonathan unaware of the incendiary comments that Asari-Dokubo has been making on his behalf?

The fact that Jonathan has maintained silence in the face of the appalling threats issued by Asari-Dokubo to other ethnic groups suggests quite strongly that the Presidency is well and truly served by the activities and utterances of Asari-Dokubo. It is in Jonathan’s long term political interests that Asari-Dokubo should continue to fracture the nation. But it is absurd that a president who swore to defend national interests should keep mum over disruptive statements made by a narrow-minded ethnic champion.

If Jonathan is not happy with the way Asari-Dokubo has dragged his name into disrepute, he could have reprimanded the man promptly, and distanced his office from Asari-Dokubo. To be clear, Jonathan is president of Nigeria, not the leader of a section of the Ijaw nation. Nigerians take many things for granted. One of them is the tenure of an elected president or governor. Politicians assume that once they are elected into office as president or governor, they have an automatic mandate to serve a second term. This is wrong.

A first term president or governor should never assume that a second term is a natural outcome of being in office for the first time. It is a misleading assumption. A second term for the president or governor is not automatic. It is not guaranteed either in the constitution or in the court of public opinion. An incumbent president or governor seeking re-election must contest their office with other political candidates.

The assumption of a routine second term in office has consumed the mindset of the people that the president and governors devote the better part of their first term campaigning for re-election long before election campaigns are due. They do this openly and secretly through the agency of their supporters. This is why Asari-Dokubo has been speaking senselessly as if his ethnic group has the divine right to claim the presidency in 2015.

The position of president is not a property to be appropriated by Jonathan and his kinsmen. While freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed in a democracy, and while Asari-Dokubo might assert his right to speak as he wishes, he should be reminded that there is no absolute freedom anywhere in the world. His freedom to express his undiluted support for Jonathan should not disparage other people’s right to freely express their preference for another presidential candidate.

Asari-Dokubo speaks on the simplistic assumption that his ethnic group deserves to own the presidency for eight years. It is an empty-headed claim. In a democracy, the best and most acceptable way to contest the highest political office is through the ballot box. You cannot attain victory in a presidential election by bullying everyone to vote for your kinsman or by creating anarchy so as to intimidate the electorate. As Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu said: “You don’t win election by frightening people and even if you win, the victory will be pyrrhic.”

Asari-Dokubo and his platoon of agitators who are threatening chaos and civil disobedience if Jonathan, their preferred president, was not re-elected in 2015, should note that no ethnic group or ragtag underground movement holds a monopoly over violence. Irresponsible statements can sow the seeds of inter-ethnic bigotry or generate inter-ethnic hostility. Already, dishonourable regional champions have risen to challenge Asari-Dokubo with their own senseless warnings and counter-threats. Narrow-minded exchanges about the ethnic group that should produce the president in 2015 represent our inability to engage in informed debate ahead of the forthcoming election.

There would be no need for a presidential election if a particular region or ethnic group feels the position has been pre-assigned to it. Thoughtless claims about the region of origin of the president should not be contested on a platform colonized by machete-wielding thugs who have no regard for alternative viewpoints or respect for other ethnic groups. A vibrant democracy is one in which ideas are vigorously contested on a level playing field. In a society that adheres to the principles of democracy, every political candidate who is qualified to contest the presidency should be free to display their wares in the open marketplace of ideas.

Ultimately the electorate will decide the candidate whose political programmes or manifestoes are adjudged to be sound, most appealing and therefore most convincing. Asari-Dokubo needs to understand the difference between responsible representation of the interests of Jonathan, his pin-up president, and incautious activism that could drive away all those who are currently supporting Jonathan. If Jonathan cannot win the presidential election by his achievement record between 2011 and 2014, I do not see how he could triumph through violence in 2015, no matter how his supporters overdramatize his performance.

There is something contradictory and laughable about Asari-Dokubo’s episodic appearance on the political soap opera. Today he is campaigning vigorously for Jonathan’s re-election in 2015. But just six months ago, he was in the vanguard of those who publicly criticised Jonathan for turning his back on his people in the south-south and south-east. In his address to journalists in Abuja on Friday, December 14, 2012, Asari-Dokubo said categorically that it would be difficult for Jonathan to be re-elected in 2015 because he had lost his political base.

A more interesting aspect of the press conference in December last year was Asari-Dokubo’s admission that he had benefited enormously from Jonathan. He said: “I have benefited immensely from Goodluck Jonathan with my stake, but benefit alone is not enough to make me to keep quiet when the period is very challenging for our people… We have continued as Ijaw people and the entire Niger Delta and south-south to support the presidency of President Goodluck Jonathan, but a time has come when silent cannot be golden. We must speak out on issues that are very critical on the survival of our people, the survival of the people of the south-south and the south-east which is the political base of Goodluck Jonathan.”

What has changed between December 2012 when Asari-Dokubo derided Jonathan’s performance and now when he is singing Jonathan’s praises? Asari-Dokubo must count himself as one of the luckiest and smartest beneficiaries of the government’s amnesty deal with militant organisations in the Niger Delta. When former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua offered amnesty to militant groups in the Niger Delta, it was Asari-Dokubo who said, in his capacity as the leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, that his organisation was not attracted to Yar’Adua’s amnesty proposal because his group has committed no crime against the nation.

Many people, particularly victims of Asari-Dokubo’s activism, would contest his claim. Jonathan’s fondness for a man like Asari-Dokubo has sent the unmistakable message that organisations that use violence, abductions, threats and counter-threats will receive the attention of the government much more rapidly than any other group. It is this philosophy that informs Jonathan’s sudden decision to back down from his earlier refusal to consider amnesty for Boko Haram.

Some eminent Nigerians have called for the arrest and interrogation of Asari-Dokubo for his comments that suggested that Nigeria would be turned into rubble if Jonathan was not re-elected in the 2015 presidential election. How do you reward and protect a man who has preached violence openly in the name of the president? Asari-Dokubo’s careless statements and his use of intimidation as a campaign tool have confirmed the way the public perceives him as a disorderly, anti-democratic and gullible militant who understands the language of force and violent behaviour.

A rabble-rouser who has nothing to contribute to national political discourse should keep quiet rather than expose his intellectual shortcomings.

In 2010, Nigeria spent N991 billion on the importation of rice and wheat, a staggering amount by anyone’s assessment. Our preference for foreign food is beyond doubt. The huge amount of money expended on food imports in one year alone underscores our voracious appetite for imported food. More fundamentally, it shows our inability to produce enough food to sustain our teeming population. More embarrassing and distressing, it seems, is that the food we import from overseas consist of products we can cultivate here.

In an address in Ibadan in mid-August 2011, Agriculture Minister Akinwunmi Adesina identified the basic food products that are imported into the country. By doing that, he depicted Nigeria accurately as a nation that cannot feed its population. Adesina said: “In 2010 alone, Nigeria spent N635 billion on import of wheat, N356 billion on import of rice, N217 billion on sugar importation and despite the huge marine resources spent N97 billion importing fish. This is not fiscally, economically or politically sustainable. Nigeria is eating beyond its means. While we all smile as we eat rice every day, Nigerian rice farmers cry as the imports undermine domestic production. Our farmers sow in hope but reap in tears, as cheap food imports dash their hopes of better prices or incomes.”

Why should we import food items such as rice, sugar and fish? We have rice farms in various parts of the country. We have sugar cane plantations in parts of the country. A nation that is blessed with rivers and seas and indeed the Atlantic Ocean should not be importing fish. Fish is fish. There is no research-based evidence that suggests that imported fish is more nutritious, healthier and more rewarding than locally produced fish. There are medium and small-scale businesses that engage in fish farming. We can boost the local fish industry by patronising these private businesses.

Why can’t we see value in locally produced food? Why can’t we harness the natural resources we have in the country? Our mindless fascination for everything foreign has blinded us so much that we can no longer distinguish between what is good for us and our economy and what is harmful to our welfare and country.

We must turn around the national culture of dependence on imported food. We have the capacity to produce food locally. And government must lead the way to sustainable food production in Nigeria by providing the environment that will encourage us to see value in agricultural production.

The importance of agriculture to our national economy disappeared from everyone’s consciousness the moment we realised we could do with ready-made foreign foodstuff. A nation of lousy people unhesitatingly opts to import food rather than produce theirs by tilling the soil, labouring in the farms, and smudging their palms. In our culture, people who undertake farming are perceived as members of the proletarian class. The problem of food production in Nigeria has persisted because we look down on agriculture as an occupation that people embrace only when they have nowhere else to look or no other job to occupy their time. It is in this context that Nigeria has served for many years as a ready consumer market for imported foodstuff.

There must be an end to our desire for foreign food. We cannot continue to live beyond our means. In the words of Agriculture Minister Akinwunmi Adesina: “We must turn Nigeria into a bread basket — a power house for food production. To do so, we must make a fundamental paradigm shift: Agriculture is a business, not a development programme. It must be structured, developed, resourced and financed as a business… We will revamp our cocoa and oil palm sectors and regain the lost glory in the commodities. We will revamp cotton production, as well as onions and tomatoes. We have also targeted major improvements in production and markets for livestock, fisheries and aquaculture.”

Nigeria must popularise food production through private-public sector partnership and investment in agriculture. For example, government and private sector enterprises can provide incentives to encourage popular participation in agriculture. The gospel of mass involvement in agriculture will not be heard when impoverished farmers and unemployed university and polytechnic graduates cannot afford the basic resources, finances and tools to make a start in that sector. Investment in agriculture will help to reduce graduate unemployment. There are thousands of graduates who are attracted to agriculture but who cannot access the land to cultivate or the resources to commit to farming.

There has to be an agricultural revolution in Nigeria, the kind of “paradigm shift” the minister talked about. That reform will reposition agriculture as a venerable profession that offers rewards that many people will see as worthwhile. The transformation will see a major shift in emphasis from white collar jobs to agriculture. For the much desired reform to take off, we have to grapple with some awkward problems such as wobbly supply of electricity, and death traps that serve as roads. We should never forget that before oil became the nation’s main foreign exchange earner, agriculture was the foundation of our economy. All that is now history! Where are the cocoa plantations in the southwest and the legendary groundnut pyramids of Kano? What about the oil palm industry that also yielded palm nuts and kernels?

In my secondary school years, we participated in farming on a small scale through active involvement in the “Young Farmers’ Club”. It was a popular club to which every student aspired to belong. We were allocated a piece of land for farming. We were provided with seeds and stems for cultivation. We produced our own compost that we used as fertiliser in our farms. We cultivated, nurtured, and watched our plants grow to maturity. We harvested our crops. And we looked forward to the day we would display our products to the entire school staff and students. Appreciation of the importance of agriculture must start at an early age.

Nigeria is blessed with three key ingredients to support mass participation in agriculture – arable land, good weather and a hungry population. But the public lacks the will to engage in agriculture. We do not appreciate the usefulness of agriculture to the development of the economy. We have an apathetic government that talks about plans to check massive food importation but offers little or no significant support to develop agriculture. On 23 May 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan talked about his government’s plan to end the importation of rice, sugar and fertilisers by 2015. He said: “By the end of four years, I believe that Nigeria has no business importing rice. Nobody will come to me with a brief case and say to me he wants to import fertiliser. We have vast land, and yet, we import all these essential goods.”

Two years on since Jonathan made that vacuous statement, nothing has changed. There has been no significant reduction in the amount of money the nation spends on importation of food. There has been no marked improvement in food production. There are various ways the nation can approach the dual challenges of food importation and lack of public interest in agriculture. The first is to provide low interest loans to small and medium-scale farmers and anyone wishing to invest in agriculture. The loans could be in the form of micro credit facilities. Government should also provide agricultural equipment, fertilisers and storage facilities at low cost. Land for agricultural production must be provided. Without land, other incentives designed to encourage mass participation in food production would be meaningless. You cannot cultivate in open air.

The World Bank promised last week to invest one billion United States dollars in Nigeria’s agriculture sector for the next five years. World Bank’s country director in Nigeria, Ms Marie-Francoise Marie-Nelly, said at a workshop in Abuja that “The World Bank is strongly engaged in agriculture, we are planning to commit almost one billion dollars in the next three to five years in agriculture… Agriculture plays a big role in Nigeria’s economy; it employs 70 per cent of the labour force and 40 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product… it is widely recognised both in Africa and in the world that improving agriculture translates to reduction of poverty.”

Part of the World Bank’s strategy is to encourage and empower women in Nigeria. Perhaps the World Bank is right. The Minister of Agriculture said women represented about 75 per cent of farmers in Nigeria. His words: “Without women, there will be no food;… If we invest in women farmers, we invest in the nation and we invest in our children; women will secure our food supply, they will secure our nation.”

Unfortunately, Nigeria is not short of bogus government initiatives designed to improve food production. Most recently the Federal Government announced the release of a massive N450 billion lifeline to farmers to help them to improve food production. But there was no clear explanation of how that money would be used to enhance agricultural production. With phony projects like this, it is no wonder the nation has continued to rely on food imports to feed its population.

I write in reaction to your article of 27 March 2013 titled as above and published in The Sun. Not only am I in total agreement with the views you expressed therein, I must also say that my heart bled profusely as I read through that article.

Anybody who is conversant with contemporary Nigeria cannot but weep for this country. This is because Nigeria has had the misfortune of electing leaders or presidents on whom the citizenry invested very high hopes only for them to disappoint everybody. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is one of such leaders. When he was elected in 1999, Nigerians expressed high expectations that he was going to make a difference and that he would transform the lives of ordinary people. He never did. Instead, he left Nigeria and Nigerians worse than he met them.

President Goodluck Jonathan equally made people to believe that things would improve greatly under his government. Midway into his presidency, however, a majority of Nigerians are already disappointed with the man because his performance so far has been evidently dismal. This is especially so in the areas of security and the fight against corruption.

I have no scintilla of doubt in my mind that President Jonathan is paying lip service to the fight against corruption. But unlike you who do not understand why he is doing this, I know that Jonathan cannot wage any serious war against corrupt public officials in Nigeria because many of them supported him with their ill-acquired wealth before and during the 2011 presidential election. Since it is now apparent that he plans to seek re-election, he will definitely rely on the same people if he must succeed. How then can he fight them?

It has been revealed that the real reason Jonathan gave for granting state pardon to convicted corrupt former governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, was to enlist his support for his (Jonathan’s) candidature in the 2015 presidential election. That election is barely two years away. So it will not take long for us to see the truth in this theory. If the proposition turns out to be true, then Jonathan would have allowed his personal interests to override his constitutional obligations to the nation, not to forget his sense of national responsibility. This will be most unfortunate indeed.

Pervasive corruption and insecurity are the two main factors that have undermined foreign investment in Nigeria. Foreigners who have genuine interest in investing in our economy are scared away because of the twin problems of endemic corruption and growing insecurity. The state pardon recently granted to corrupt officials only worked to confirm the fears of foreign investors that the Nigerian government is not serious in the fight against corruption.

Those who are sympathetic to Jonathan have argued that, in granting state pardon to discredited men, he only acted within his constitutional powers. One of them is elder statesman and former Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Richard Akinjide. Another one is editor of Saturday Sun newspaper, Onuoha Ukeh, who put up a similar argument in his article published in The Sun of 22 March 2013. In the argument advanced by Onuoha Ukeh, he made a comparison between Alamieyeseigha’s pardon and the pardon granted earlier to people such as Obafemi Awolowo, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Olusegun Obasanjo, and so on.

In the first place, nobody has ever questioned the constitutional right of the President to grant state pardon. What we are saying (and this is a truism that his sympathizers deliberately chose to overlook) is that in all cases the President is expected to exercise his constitutional powers in the overriding interest of the public. This is the implication of the oath he took during his inauguration.

In light of the unmitigated damage that corruption has done to the image and economy of Nigeria, it is important for the President to do everything humanly possible to ensure that corruption is reduced to the barest minimum. One sure way of doing this is to ensure that culprits are dealt with seriously and used as examples to deter anyone planning to engage in corrupt practices in future. With the way things are going, public officials are only being encouraged to indulge in more corrupt practices because they know that even when they are caught, nothing serious would happen to them. Even if something happens, it will only be a question of time before they are pardoned and restored to the status quo ante. In this circumstance, we can see that there is no deterrence and the absence of deterrence is enough to motivate people to be more corrupt and audacious.

I’m sure that if President Jonathan had taken the above factor into consideration, overriding national interest would have compelled him to refrain from doing what he did, that is, granting state pardon to such disgraced former politicians such as Alamieyeseigha.

As noted earlier, Onuoha Ukeh had compared the pardon granted to Awolowo, Ojukwu, Obasanjo, and others with the controversial pardon granted to Alamieyeseigha. He concluded on a rather weak note that he did not see any difference between the pardon granted to people such as Awolowo, Obasanjo and Ojukwu to the one that Jonathan granted to Alamieyeseigha. In my judgment, there is no basis for this comparison because, the pardon granted to Awolowo and Ojukwu was designed or calculated to heal the wounds inflicted on the polity by the ugly events of the First Republic and the Civil War respectively. Similarly, the pardon granted to Obasanjo was designed to heal the wounds inflicted on the polity by the ugly events of the Abacha era. To that extent, therefore, the pardon which the aforementioned people were granted was in the overriding interest of the country.

Conversely the pardon which President Jonathan granted to Alamieyeseigha and Alhaji Shetima Bulama is the deadliest blow ever dealt on the anti-corruption crusade of the government. It made a total mockery of the so-called anti-corruption war. For this reason, I believe and strongly too that when next President Jonathan comes out to condemn corruption many people will not take him seriously. They will readily point to his actions that tended to reward convicted corrupt politicians. What a tragedy!

Not too long ago, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili (otherwise known as “Madam Due Process”) accused the Yar’Adua/Jonathan administration of squandering about $67 billion which the Obasanjo government left in the treasury. What I personally expected the Jonathan government to do was to tell the nation that the money was judiciously spent. He should then have gone ahead to provide a detailed breakdown of how the money was spent. Instead of doing this, the response which the government gave raised serious doubts about Jonathan’s commitment to transparency and probity. This is because all the government did was to equally accuse Ezekwesili of mismanaging funds allocated to the Federal Ministry of Education when she was the Minister.

It is not too late for the Jonathan government to turn to a new page. If it does this by showing more commitment in the fight against corruption we will know. For now, the government is only wallowing in self-deceit.

•Iheanyi Maraizu (Esq.) is Principal Counsel, Iheanyi Maraizu & Co. Legal Practitioners, Abuja.

The bill proposed by Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State to ban rumour and speculation in the public sphere is at odds with the elements of a democratic society. Freedom of speech and expression is the hallmark of democracy. In fact, Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression – and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any medium and regardless of frontiers”. Governor Dickson should be reminded that Nigeria is a signatory to Article 19.

The proposed law against rumour is lousy because it seeks to duplicate existing laws of defamation and libel. Even if the bill is passed in the state parliament, it will constitute the basis for further rumours. No one can successfully outlaw rumour.

During military rule in Nigeria, our basic rights and freedoms were abused and disregarded by military dictators. The bill proposed by the Bayelsa State Governor should not be tolerated in democratic Nigeria. Even during military dictatorship, Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon tried but failed to outlaw media speculation during the short tenure of their despotic rule. Buhari, you would remember, was the man, who invented the infamous Decree 4 of 1984, which he and his alter ego, Idiagbon, used to shield their government and public officials from embarrassing media reports.

Buhari used Decree 4 to harass the press and the public and to silence the truth. That decree was designed to allow Buhari to rule without being transparent or accountable to the people. But, bad things don’t last long.

After the exit of Buhari’s government, the director of public prosecutions during the time of Decree 4, Moshood Olayiwola Adio, stepped up to renounce Decree 4 as an iniquitous law. He said Decree 4 was not “a good legislation for a civilised society.” He said the law “was censorship when even if you published the truth you have committed an offence.”

Here was a senior public servant admitting publicly that there were flaws and prejudices embedded in the very law he defended 17 years after the decree was enacted.

It is not only in Nigeria that governments have tried to destroy the culture of a free press. In Queensland, Australia, a former premier of the state, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who was infuriated by negative media coverage of his government, proposed in the 1980s an outlandish way to check the power of the media. He said: “The greatest thing that could happen in the state and the nation is when we get rid of the media. Then we would live in peace and tranquillity and no one would know anything.” Sir Joh, as he was fondly called at the time, lived in a world of fantasies.

The bill intended by Governor Dickson to be used to clamp down on the freedom of the people to express their views publicly must be seen as evil in intent and execution and will go against the spirit of democracy. That bill bears close similarity to Buhari’s Decree 4. The Bayelsa State government has no business chasing its own shadows in a futile attempt to shut down the rumour factories in the state or to smoke out people who deal in rumour. Governor Dickson must demonstrate a greater appreciation of the challenges that confront his government in terms of provision of good roads, setting up well-equipped and properly staffed hospitals that will provide for the health care needs of the people, providing potable water, stable electricity, and other much needed infrastructure.

A government that runs after rumour peddlers is an idle government. An indolent government worries about rumours. An industrious government that is focused and forthright has no reason to fret about rumour and backyard gossip. A government that has a set of objectives to achieve and clear timelines for achieving its goals should not be distracted or overly concerned about the impact that rumour might have on its image.

The public must resist the attempt by Dickson and his government to restrict their freedoms. The battle for free expression was fought and won more than three centuries ago. It was won on the platform of superior argument rather than on the plane of political deception. During the high point of the struggle for freedom of expression, 18th century utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill argued passionately and vigorously for an “open marketplace of ideas” where the “weak and the strong”, men and women, “minorities and majorities” should freely express themselves and seek the truth. Mill was an advocate of unhindered freedom of expression. His widely respected opinion was that a society that silenced an opinion also silenced the truth because a wrong opinion may contain some components of truth necessary to establish the entire truth.

Regardless of how anyone might view it, rumour serves as a pipeline for dissemination of official and unofficial information about the lifestyles of the rich, the privileged and notorious members of society. Rumour provides a veritable forum for entertainment in the public domain. Secrecy, particularly official secret, is the fuel that generates rumour. Here is one example.

When Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Chime, left office for 140 days, the state was deluged with rumours of the governor’s death. His assistants failed to ward off the rumours because they tried to conceal the truth about the man’s ill health from a sceptical public. Soon after he returned from his overseas trip, Chime held a press conference in which he defended his staff who tried vainly to block all official sources of information about his fragile health. Chime said: “Coming to my staff, all attacks on them that they were hoarding information and all that was an unfair attack. First and foremost, they didn’t have all the information, all they knew was that I was going on vacation and I didn’t know it was the business of people to know what my activities will be when I am going on vacation… I don’t see how it should concern anybody; I don’t see why we should owe anybody any apologies.”

Regardless of Chime’s weak argument, it was clearly the culture of secrecy about the governor’s whereabouts that generated grave rumours about his demise during the period he was absent from office. As I have argued many times in the past, rumour flourishes when official sources of information are shut, polluted or when the public is fed a diet of half-truths.

In a country in which accountability is abhorred, a country in which many politicians and public officers regularly feed the public with deliberate lies and adulterated accounts of government business, you can expect rumour to spread more frequently. The anti-rumour bill suggested by Governor Dickson is annoying and meaningless. It is a distraction. It will not enhance the welfare of the citizens or improve the relationship between the government and the people. As long as state officials continue to conceal the truth from the public, there will always be rumour. No government can successfully outlaw rumour in the public sphere.

It is weird that an elected state government should seek to suppress the public’s right to know, or the public’s right to debate government affairs. Governor Dickson should be reminded that hoarding of official information nourishes gossip. Rumour is the only way the public can ease concerns about the performance of the government, in the absence of authentic information from reliable sources.

Cameroonian author Francis Nyamnjoh explains in his book – Africa’s Media, Democracy and the Politics of Belonging (Zed Books, 2005) — why rumours blossom in his country, as they do in every other society. He argues that “rumour flourishes as a legitimate source of information for the marginalised majority.” In his words, “rumour…, is like the voice of the voiceless seeking to challenge passivity and the oppressive discourse of officialdom”. He contends that “rumour targets those in the limelight. A person must be perceived as having a certain standing to be earmarked for comments, rumours and calumny”. Instructively, Nyamnjoh states, excessive censorship of official sources of information in Cameroon has led to the emergence of rumour as a vibrant alternative source of news.

Governor Dickson of Bayelsa State cannot ban rumour successfully because rumour is a part of human life. Rumours about public servants and government officials suggest that people are seeking reliable answers to questions about their government. People invent scandals about government officials mostly to satisfy their appetite for credible information. The only way you can deal with rumour is to saturate the pipelines of public conversation with accurate and impeccable information.

In response to allusions by northern leaders to the amnesty granted to the Niger Delta militants, Jonathan also tendered an unassailable argument to dismiss allegations by the north that the government has been unfair to the region by refusing to grant amnesty to Boko Haram. Jonathan responded to those spurious claims emphatically: “When you call the Niger Delta militants, they will come; but nobody has agreed that he is a Boko Haram member, no one has come forward… nobody has come forward to make himself visible.”

Jonathan was hailed across the country for presenting sound and robust arguments about why the government will not grant amnesty to a terrorist group that has murdered many innocent and harmless Nigerians and foreigners. That national celebration must be considered premature. In a move that surprised the nation, Jonathan signalled last week his intention to grant amnesty to Boko Haram when he set up a committee to consider the framework for granting official pardon to the violent religious group.

On what justifiable platform would Jonathan decide to grant amnesty to Boko Haram? Is Jonathan’s decision to back down from his earlier position driven by pressure from the Sultan of Sokoto and other religious and political leaders in the north? Long before now, Jonathan had been unequivocal in his criticism of violence perpetrated by Boko Haram, including the mindless killings by the dogmatic and intolerant group. Just six months ago (6 November 2012), Jonathan described Boko Haram and its hideous sponsors as “uncivilised”. He said this during a two-day visit to Jigawa State. Angered by the growing list of casualties of Boko Haram’s terror, Jonathan said: “Terminating innocent lives through terrorist acts is primitive, so perpetrators and sponsors of terrorism through Boko Haram cannot be anything but uncivilised.”

If Jonathan is keen to appease politicians and religious leaders in the north who have been piling pressure on him to grant amnesty to Boko Haram, he must first ensure that the leaders and members of the vicious organisation have publicly renounced violence and pledged to end the widespread murder of citizens and foreigners. There are obligations that Boko Haram must uphold. If they cannot pledge to end violence, they do not deserve amnesty of any kind.

Between early March this year when Jonathan made his forceful response to angry cries by northern religious and political leaders who demanded official pardon for Boko Haram and last week when Jonathan changed his position on amnesty for the organisation, something extraordinarily weird must have happened to Jonathan. Whatever that might be, Jonathan has shown by backing down on his previous position that he is a weak leader, indeed an irresolute president who lacks courage and is easily persuaded by the political returns he might gain from northern leaders by granting amnesty to Boko Haram.

Jonathan’s decision to reverse his position on Boko Haram has confirmed public opinion about one of Jonathan’s character flaws. We have in Jonathan a president who speaks before he thinks, a president who jumps before he looks, a president who does not reflect carefully on issues of national significance before he rolls out his policy statements.

Granting amnesty to Boko Haram without getting the group to renounce violence will have serious national consequences. It will send the wrong signal to criminal groups across the country that it is alright for them to murder Nigerians indiscriminately because they will later be granted state pardon. Jonathan’s amnesty to Boko Haram will be perceived as the government extending a warm handshake to a violent group for the terror it has unleashed on the nation, the widespread bomb explosions across the north, the arbitrary assassinations of people who disagree with Boko Haram’s odd religious philosophy, as well as the incineration of public buildings, churches, police stations, schools, market places, motor parks and places of entertainment.

It seems to me that Jonathan and his lily-livered advisers and policy makers did not consider what would happen if Boko Haram continued its unrestrained explosion of bombs and senseless killings even after the government had granted them amnesty. That recalcitrant behaviour would put an end to the chant by northern leaders that an amnesty will automatically restore peace in their region. With or without amnesty, Boko Haram is likely to continue its bombing run across the north because it is an unstructured hostile organisation without a clear modus operandi.

Following Jonathan’s strong affirmation that the government will not grant amnesty to Boko Haram, I wrote somewhat glowingly and hastily on Wednesday, 13 March 2013: “It looks like Jonathan is about to emerge from a position of weakness to present a new image of a strong president who wants to be seen for his robust approach to security challenges facing the nation. Time will tell whether Jonathan’s uncompromising statements in Borno and Yobe states signal a transformation in leadership style or whether his utterances were just a one-off public relations gimmick.”

Jonathan’s indication that he would reverse his views about granting amnesty to Boko Haram shows quite clearly that there has been no change in the president’s sluggish and uninspiring leadership style. He has authenticated public perception of the president as a pathetic leader, a man who has never looked certain about the clear direction of his government or the right way to achieve national economic and political objectives.

The press and the public are obviously upset by Jonathan’s intention to grant amnesty to Boko Haram, coming so soon after Jonathan had granted state pardon to convicted corrupt former governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha. Soon after the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Abubakar III, led a chorus of northern leaders to demand amnesty for Boko Haram, The Sun newspaper published one of the most incisive, incontestable, logical and fact-based editorials on the subject in recent times.

In an editorial entitled “Abuse of amnesty” (Wednesday, 13 March 2013), The Sun wrote: “Based on the absurdity of these demands, and in view of the fact that those behind the sect are not known, we do not see how anybody would expect government to accede to the demands. We were therefore taken aback when the Sultan was reported to have canvassed for amnesty for Boko Haram. Such a call does not only trivialize what amnesty stands for, it seems to suggest that the activities of the sect are legitimate and tolerable… Suggestions bordering on amnesty give the impression that the insurgents have a cause they are fighting for. We should therefore stop debasing what amnesty stands for by not applying it to terror groups that seek to destroy the fabric of Nigeria.”

Why would Jonathan make a dramatic shift in his previous position about granting amnesty to Boko Haram? What has changed in the past four weeks to make Jonathan believe that it is in the strategic interest of the nation for the government to grant amnesty to a faceless group, an organisation whose leaders and members are unknown to the government? A far more serious concern about granting amnesty to Boko Haram is how to compensate families whose relatives were killed by members of the organisation. When you consider amnesty for a terrorist organisation, you should also consider seriously how to rehabilitate the families of victims of that group’s terrorist activities. To ignore families of victims of terrorism is to endorse Boko Haram and their sadistic style of terminating human lives.

I have heard people point to the Christian spirit of forgiveness as the paramount reason why Boko Haram deserves to be granted amnesty. That argument is flawed. Forgiveness has its limits. Countries that have the death penalty in their laws understand the concept of forgiveness. But they also understand that certain crimes cannot be forgiven. Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has already warned about the ramifications of Jonathan’s plans to grant amnesty to Boko Haram. He said: “I don’t know his (Jonathan’s) ambition for second term because I am not a politician; I am a pastor. But that (amnesty) would be wicked. I don’t see why he would have to do that and I don’t see why he would have to consider that because we are facing a very serious situation in Nigeria.”

This is not the first time that Jonathan has taken the nation on an amusement park tour of his policy tumbles. Since his election, he has recorded no fewer than three extraordinary twists and turns in public announcements. For example, soon after he was elected president, Jonathan proposed the ludicrous single-term seven-year tenure for the president and state governors. His proposal was promptly battered by the public. Embarrassed by the outrage his scheme generated in the public domain, he backed down by quickly withdrawing his proposition..

The University of Calabar (UNICAL) last month showed its aversion for this fraudulent practice when the governing council of the institution came down hard on 15 academic staff members who were found guilty of various acts of academic deception.

Four of the staff members were dismissed for engaging in plagiarism while one academic staff member was sacked for involvement in financial fraud. According to a report in The Guardian of Saturday, 16 March 2013, the remaining 10 staff members were demoted because they “chose to publish their works in fake or cloned journals and proceeded to submit same and obtained promotion in the process”. This constitutes academic dishonesty of the most disgusting kind.

The University of Calabar has done what most Nigerian universities are unwilling to do – that is, punish severely staff members who committed academic dishonesty. Academic fraud deserves to be exposed and punished. And UNICAL should be commended for leading the way in the defence of academic integrity and for protecting the intellectual property rights of everyone.

Plagiarism or the act of copying another person’s work, idea or words without acknowledgement is a cardinal sin. When university staff intentionally plagiarise the works of other people and present them as if they are their original work, they demonstrate poor research scholarship, inferior intelligence and lack of analytic finesse. Plagiarism is a potent poison that has destroyed the career of many academic staff in Nigerian and overseas universities.

It is unthinkable that UNICAL academic staff should claim to have published their works in non-existing journals and used the bogus publication as evidence of active involvement in research. That claim deluded the university’s promotions committee to endorse the fraudulent staff. No university should tolerate dishonest behaviour of this kind.

Some university academic staff use any means — legal and illegal, ethical and unethical — to seek career advancement in their institutions. This is a caricature of the notion of excellence in university education. It makes a mockery of universities as institutions established for the advancement of knowledge. The exposure and punishment of academic staff engaged in academic dishonesty at the University of Calabar should not be seen as a problem restricted only to that university. You will find that cases of academic dishonesty exist in other universities but they have either not been found out or they have been shielded by crooked senior university administrators.

Federal universities in Nigeria have a history of breaching academic rules and administrative procedures. In mid-February 2012, the Federal Government released its “white paper” on (i.e. its official response to) the reports of the visitation panels that examined the situation in 26 federal universities. The visitation panels found general abuse of the university system. The universities were found to administer courses or programmes in which they have no credible expertise. Another abusive practice was the arbitrary appointment of less qualified staff into non-existing positions. These absurd practices have blighted the image of federal universities and undermined transparency.

The reports of the visitation panels were troubling. They showed unmistakably that federal universities have cautiously mapped out unlawful schemes that served as channels through which senior management, in particular the vice-chancellors, abused the system. The indiscriminate establishment of dishonest positions by senior university officials, including the random award of honorary doctorate degrees have discredited federal universities and exposed the high level of corruption that has resulted in the promotion of poor quality staff into positions of authority. How can universities that claim to be centres of excellence undermine their own benchmarks for hiring quality staff? Our universities are overdue for a major review of their academic programmes, their promotion and hiring procedures, and their administration systems.

If academic dishonesty is widespread in Nigerian universities, it must be because of a faulty process through which universities hire and promote academic staff. Just as cheating is rampant among students, academic staff also seem to find value in cheating in order to achieve career promotion and advancement. As I argued in a previous essay, a rotten higher education system will always produce rotten outcomes.

Excellence in teaching and research, integrity in academic programmes, and fairness in staff appraisal cannot be sustained in universities in which some academic staff feel they have to cheat or cut corners in order to be promoted.

Cases of academic fraud that are not punished will set a dangerous precedent. They will convey the wrong message that universities are constructed on the assumption that the best way for academic staff to be recognised and elevated on the job is not through hard work or exceptional achievements in teaching, research and service to the community but through the backdoor.

Academic dishonesty is spreading through our universities because we live in a society that adores titles, a society in which many people want to be decorated with unmerited university titles, a society in which many people want to be addressed as “Professor”, “Reader”, “Dean”, “Dr”, etc. Ours is a society in which many people want to reap where they did not sow, a society in which people are in a hurry to achieve their career objectives. Academic staff members who embark on dishonest and unethical practices with the sole purpose of being elevated in their jobs sully their names and the names of their institutions.  But do they care?

When university staff commit academic fraud and universities that employ them look the other way, the public will interpret that to imply official acceptance of criminality. The public is entitled to ridicule existing university policies and procedures, the benchmarks for academic promotions, and a system in which intellectual property theft is encouraged rather than sanctioned.

What is the value of a university professor or senior lecturer with a bogus title awarded to him or her on the basis that they plagiarised the works of other people? Surely, there is something crooked about the promotion of academic staff based on illusory achievements in teaching and learning, research and publications, as well as service to the community.

Elevation of academic staff should always be based on merit. I am an advocate of merit-based promotion. Promotion should not be based on a staff member’s ability to manufacture non-existing research papers and other academic achievements designed to delude university promotion committees. If universities set minimum benchmarks for the promotion of academic staff, they must stick strictly to the criteria. Standards for promotion should not be lowered to allow staff with spurious record of achievements to be recognised and promoted.

Universities must adopt rigorous and transparent procedures for the promotion of their staff. Merit must be the key word. It must be sustained and upheld as the beacon of excellence. Not only should universities outline clear criteria for promotion of academic staff, the process should also involve the scrutiny of all claims made by academic staff about their innovative teaching practices, their research track record, the quality of their publications, the class of journals in which they publish (using criteria such as impact factors, rejection rates, etc.), and their record of successful supervision of research higher degree students such as PhD, MPhil and Honours students.

Every claim submitted by every academic staff for purposes of promotion must be vetted carefully in a clinical manner. Universities must ensure they do not promote academic staff on the basis of dodgy and unproven record of achievements in teaching, research and service.

To make the system of promotion fair, transparent and accountable, Nigerian universities must establish and sustain clear benchmarks. Absence of verifiable and assessable performance standards will make it difficult for academic staff members who are victimised to launch successful appeals against their universities. How, for example, would a high achieving academic staff member successfully appeal against a system that is set up to reward mediocrity rather than excellence in performance? When there are no clear guidelines for performance evaluation of staff, university promotion committees can only rely on hunches and on fuzzy arguments that cannot withstand rigorous examination.

One can now understand the widespread criticism that followed the suggestion in 2005 by the rector of the Delta State Polytechnic, Ozoro, that his institution would trial a new system of evaluating academic staff performance. When the rector made that bold suggestion, he was shot down by ill informed newspaper editorial writers and commentators who advanced unsophisticated and flawed arguments that showed our aversion for transparency in tertiary education institutions in Nigeria.

The rector’s “crime” was that he suggested that students should participate in the assessment of academic staff performance (through evaluation of their teaching practices) while heads of departments should be assessed by staff members. In many overseas universities, this is a convention that has subsisted for many years because it has ensured the independence and transparency of the process of evaluation of staff performance. However, our universities abhor these meticulous and transparent procedures because they have thrived for many years on a closed system founded on clumsy, secretive and irresponsible processes that are neither accountable nor transparent.

Intentionally or unintentionally, Jonathan talks more about his anti-corruption strategies but those strategies have so far failed to net the big and small fish in our corruption fishpond. At the heart of this dishonest practice is the pretence to forget what the president said his government would do to wipe the nation clean from the complex and unpleasant problem known as corruption. For the past two years since he assumed duty as substantive president, Jonathan has spoken more about the need to eradicate corruption from our society than he has addressed any other national predicament.

The problem is that Jonathan, as the anti-corruption cleric, does not want to live by his words and does not want his audience to hold him by his words or actions. Paradoxically, too many people tend to believe this president, even when he continuously disappoints.

It is important for Jonathan to understand that Nigerians are not afflicted with amnesia. Elected presidents are judged and held accountable for what they said they would do relative to what they failed to do when they had the power to make a difference in the lives of the people.

As Jonathan struggles with a declining public rating of his performance, his greatest problem is the absence of evidence on the ground to show that his government is attending to the basic needs of the people. His sluggish approach to government business has not helped either. The president has absolutely little to show as his core achievements in office in the past two years that he has been directing the affairs of state and presiding over an ineffective Federal Executive Council that rubberstamps the president’s wishes. Quite simply, this government has not made any noteworthy impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.

For a president who likes to position himself as a common man who suffered economic deprivations and yet rose to fame from a poor background, you would expect that Jonathan would hit the ground running soon after the inauguration of his government. Sadly, Jonathan represents the anti-thesis of his early years. He has an irritatingly slow style of government.

I recall vividly Jonathan’s election campaign speech in 2010. At the time, he said, among other whimsical promises: “We will fight for justice, we will fight for all Nigerians to have access to power, we will fight for qualitative and competitive education, we will fight for healthcare reforms… We will fight to create jobs, for all Nigerians, we will fight corruption, we will fight to protect all citizens. We will fight for your rights.” These words failed to impress at the time and remain unremarkable even now that people have tasted Jonathan’s uninspiring leadership. It all goes to confirm public perceptions of Jonathan as a man with a track record of unfulfilled promises.

Perhaps the most astonishing proclamation that Jonathan made to his audience during his opening election campaign address occurred when he said in a mocking tone: “Let all the kidnappers, criminal elements, and miscreants that give us a bad name be ready for the fight that I shall give them. Let the ordinary Nigerian be assured that President Jonathan will have zero tolerance for corruption.” Judging by the pardon that Jonathan granted to Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and other men, no one can now doubt that Jonathan lacks the strength of mind or willpower to fight corruption.

Jonathan is facing growing criticisms of his government from so many fronts, not least of which is his leadership style. Many people have since lost faith in his government. In the public domain, his profile has been shredded essentially because he has paid lip service to the fight against corruption, because he has adopted empty rhetoric as his solution to serious national problems, particularly insecurity and the much maligned and stubborn power sector.

It is farcical that Jonathan, the man who takes care to protect his associates who are morally depraved, should talk about how corruption has soiled the nation’s image while he has made light of the sins of corrupt political leaders. The warning that Jonathan issued to kidnappers and other criminal groups across the country must be seen as vacuous. The Boko Haram insurgency has been going on in some northern parts of the country for nearly two years and Jonathan is yet to find a way to checkmate the agents of violent crime. Only last week, Boko Haram bombs exploded at a major motor park in Kano and so many people were incinerated. In light of his hilarious promises two years ago, how does Jonathan plan to fight Boko Haram field agents and masterminds?

For the period that Jonathan has been in office, I have tracked his public statements about his determination to eliminate corruption from our system. At the graduation ceremony of the Senior Executive Course (No 34, 2012) of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, near Jos on Saturday, 24 November 2012, Jonathan said emphatically that no corrupt person, no matter his or her status, would escape the fury of his government in the fight against corruption. Jonathan said: “We are vigorously fighting the endemic corruption at all levels and in all sectors of our country. I can assure you that there will be no sacred cows. Whoever is found to have transgressed will be made to face the full wrath of the law.

Jonathan said there would be no “sacred cows” in his undistinguished campaign against corruption. However, two weeks ago, the president, in concert with members of the National Council of State, confirmed that there are indeed politicians and public officers who should be regarded as sacrosanct in the war against corruption. Not only did Jonathan deify Alamieyeseigha and his associates as truly “sacred cows” who should remain unassailable, he also cleared the way for decadent politicians to return to national politics.

One month earlier, on Tuesday, 30 October 2012, Jonathan said, at the official presentation of a book written by Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that his government would firmly apprehend corrupt governors and oil subsidy criminals who committed economic and financial crimes against the nation. Jonathan was represented at the book launch by Vice-President Namadi Sambo. Jonathan said: “On the governors’ front, we are going after those who commit various economic crimes and corrupt practices with impunity. As you may be aware, government is taking every legal measure to ensure that those who defraud the government in the petroleum subsidy scheme are made to pay back the stolen fund and also are severely punished.”

This is long-winded rhetoric, indeed another misleading comment designed to impress. Ever since news emerged about the oil subsidy fraud, the government has not successfully prosecuted any of the alleged offenders. Although some people may have been charged to court, not one person has been convicted. In January 2012, the nation was promised the benefits of oil subsidy but more than one year on, no one has experienced any form of financial assistance. This is more like the so-called democracy dividends which many people hear about but no one can point to any practical benefits.

Spectacular allegations and counter-allegations of bribery between oil marketer Femi Otedola and Farouk Lawan, the chair of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee that investigated how the oil subsidy revenue was used and abused by various companies have shown how easily a nation can be deceived. The allegations were even given entertainment appeal by the emergence of dubious audio and video recording of what allegedly transpired between Otedola and Lawan.

Since the scandal broke, the case has lacked direction and the moral force with which the nation attended to it at the initial stage. It is quite astonishing that a case that shocked the nation months ago has not progressed beyond preliminary mention in the law court. The oil subsidy fraud has exposed Jonathan’s knee-jerk response to cases of corruption. It has also diluted his government’s talk about ending the widespread corruption in the society. Jonathan and a weak National Assembly failed to act on this particular scandal with the seriousness and swiftness it deserved. As things stand now, Jonathan is well on target to take out the prize for the most cowardly president who watched helplessly as his nation was ripped apart by corrupt and fraudulent politicians and business people.

The oil subsidy scam has done inestimable damage to our image, our pride as a nation, and what is left of Nigeria’s international standing. Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka said the scandal has provided a basis for Nigerians to protest publicly against corruption, particularly as the government is unwilling to take action.

To restore credibility to his stumbling government, Jonathan must profess publicly his abhorrence of corruption. He must certify that public officers, who are accused, prosecuted and convicted of corruption will be dealt with resolutely and unemotionally. Above all, Jonathan must move public debate about corruption to a higher platform of concrete action.

Consider this as hypothetical. Imagine that President Goodluck Jonathan is a traditional (or native) doctor intent on producing a cure-all herbal medicament to cleanse corrupt politicians of their criminal record. Jonathan disappears into a rainforest, gathers a mix of local herbs, throws them into a disused plastic coca-cola bottle, pours some concoction into the bottle, shakes the contents vigorously and announces a groundbreaking discovery.

Excited by his quaint research finding, Jonathan decides to take his breakthrough to the meeting of the National Council of State. At the meeting, he announces with great delight that he has discovered a medical solution to reduce the number of convicted criminals in the country. He tells the curious listeners at the meeting that with their approval he would like to administer the medicine to some highly controversial men of ill repute.

All those at the meeting echo: “May your wish be upheld, Mr President. You have our consent to market your medicine, your Excellency.” Jonathan smiles, lifts a piece of paper from his pocket, and announces the names of convicted high profile criminals on whom he would like to administer his medicine appropriately named “state pardon”. Number one on the list was Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, a man who was once Bayelsa State Governor when Jonathan served as his deputy.

Quite spectacularly, Jonathan’s state pardon did not produce the expected outcome. Instead, it has generated outrage across the country and condemnation in overseas countries. No matter how you consider the odd argument produced by the Presidency to justify the state pardon granted to Alamieyeseigha and others, it cannot stand the test of morality and fair play. That dishonourable presidential action has implications for public understanding of the meaning of morality, decency, propriety, and integrity. It has repercussions on the global war on corruption and the way Nigeria relates with countries across the world.

The decision to pardon Alamieyeseigha suggests Jonathan is so committed to returning a favour to the man under whom he served as Deputy Governor that he is determined to overlook the immediate consequences for the nation. A president should weigh at all times public sentiments in regard to sensitive national issues. An elected president who acts arbitrarily and disregards public opinion is a tyrant dressed in civilian apparel. Across the world, elected presidents are regarded as a symbol of moral authority.

However, when President Jonathan condones corrupt practices committed by his friends and associates, when he pardons a man who was convicted of corruption, and when Jonathan defends the indefensible, it must be concluded that Jonathan is experiencing a bout of moral malady. It is of little use to engage the Presidency in a pointless debate over the virtue of the decision to grant pardon to people who do not deserve it. The Presidency has somersaulted so many times in its defence and justification of the state pardon granted to Alamieyeseigha and others.

You cannot debate in an informed manner with people who defend the president blindly. Jonathan and his servants in the Presidency believe in the rightness of their argument. Alternative viewpoints are deemed unnecessary and useless because the Presidency is full of men of superior intellect. This is the first sign of a sinking government — a government that believes it is always right while the rest of the nation is always wrong. We have in Jonathan a president who does not listen to public opinion or take suggestions from ordinary people. The president is so obsessed with power he does not understand that political authority is transient.

Whether he likes it or not, one day, Jonathan will relinquish the power he currently wields. At the moment, he doesn’t care how the nation is reacting to the pardon he granted to his kinsman Alamieyeseigha. In Jonathan’s view, the entire nation can rupture if everyone does not like his decision. It is difficult to see how anyone in the Presidency could justify the pardon granted by Jonathan to convicted criminals. We have heard that it was the National Council of State that granted the pardon.

That’s a presidential baloney. Jonathan is the president and he must take responsibility for the decisions of the National Council of State. If Jonathan did not approve the inclusion of the topic in the agenda of the meeting, no one else could have forced that topic into the agenda. Sometimes you get the impression that Jonathan has abandoned governance to people who serve as his proxies. Could it be that some faceless men in government have wrestled from Jonathan the daily protocol of governance? Ever since Jonathan assumed office, he has struggled to carve out a good name for himself and his government. Nearly everything he touches reeks of scandal.

This extraordinary decision to grant state pardon to a convicted criminal and other villainous men has further dragged Jonathan’s name to the mud. When all this is over, when he must have left his throne in Aso Rock, Jonathan will be remembered as a man who was given a popular mandate to govern but chose to make a mess of a rare opportunity. As the Nigerian Internet discussion forum — the Nigerian Village Square ( HYPERLINK “http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/standpoint/jonathan-pardons-corruption.html” http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/standpoint/jonathan-pardons-corruption.html) — noted forcefully in an impressive and logical editorial headlined “Jonathan pardons corruption”:

“This presidential pardon has grave implications for the Nigerian government’s reputation at home and in the international community; it takes Nigeria back several steps in its fight against corruption and in cleaning up its image abroad. Most importantly, it further undermines the country’s already weak and battered criminal justice system and sends worrying signals to the country’s teeming youthful population that crime in high places pays. Jonathan cuts the image of a drowning man who is determined to ignore all attempts by rescuers to free him from choppy seas. Rather than clutch on the lifeguard thrown by rescuers to drag him to safety, Jonathan seems intent on being consumed by the rough seas.

Can anyone save our drowning president? With no valid excuses to justify the state pardon granted to Alamieyeseigha and others, the Presidency has been clutching at straws, trying to place blinkers on everyone’s eyes. Arguments advanced by loquacious presidential spokesperson Doyin Okupe and other defenders of the blunders committed by Jonathan show why the Federal Government will continue to pay lip service to the campaign against corruption. Let us welcome home James Onanefe Ibori, former Governor of Delta State, now languishing in a British jail. Ibori, your sins are forgiven. You are a distinguished son of Nigeria. Delta State adores you.

The people of Oghara, your hometown, hold you in the highest esteem. You have worked hard to entrench peace in Delta State, in the Niger Delta region and in Boko Haram territory. You should be rewarded with a state pardon. For contributing to the development of your community – Oghara — and for championing the cause of the poor, Ibori has met Jonathan’s obtuse criteria to be granted automatic pardon. Both Alamieyeseigha and Ibori exemplify the ironies of our society.

A state governor will raid his state’s treasury. Many of us do not consider that as evidence of corruption, especially if the governor argues that he used a fraction of the illegal money to develop a community. From now on, all convicted and imprisoned criminals who work for peace in Nigeria will be rewarded with an official state pardon. That pardon will unshackle them from jail. Their criminal record will be deleted from public record. When a president contrives a ridiculous reason to grant pardon to a convicted corrupt former governor, you can expect the floodgate of requests for state pardon to be thrown wide open.

That’s why some people in Ila-Orangun (Osun State), the hometown of Tafa Balogun, convicted former Inspector-General of Police, have argued that their son is also entitled to official pardon. Part of the reason the public has openly expressed disappointment with the performance of Jonathan is that the president has kept silent over so many embarrassing cases involving his government and his family.

When Jonathan’s wife – Patience — was appointed a permanent secretary by the Bayelsa State government, an appointment that was at odds with public morality and practical reality, Jonathan failed to denounce or reject the appointment of his wife by a state government located far from the woman’s place of residence. There is no way Patience Jonathan could operate efficiently and effectively as a permanent secretary in Bayelsa State while she is domiciled in far away Abuja.

Again, when Patience Jonathan was seriously sick in a German hospital, the Presidency orchestrated the biggest lie ever relayed to the Nigerian people by an elected government. Mrs Jonathan was not ill, the nation was informed, but was taking a well deserved break in an overseas country, following a hectic schedule in August of last year. Months later, after the official lie had circulated, the Presidency organised a special church service in which Mrs Jonathan admitted openly that she was indeed severely ill and that she spent time in an overseas medical facility.

Jonathan’s behaviour often suggests that he is a subscriber to the philosophy of the three monkeys — see nothing, say nothing and hear nothing. Today, this view rings true of Jonathan’s character flaw and his style of government. It is a tragedy.

He said: “You cannot declare amnesty for ghosts. Boko Haram still operates like ghosts. So, you can’t talk about amnesty for Boko Haram now until you see the people you are discussing with.” Jonathan was absolutely correct on the primary reason why the government will not grant amnesty to Boko Haram. You cannot grant amnesty to a faceless group. You cannot grant amnesty to an indistinct or unstructured organisation. You cannot grant amnesty to an empty space. You cannot grant amnesty to a group whose leaders and members are unknown to you.

This is a solid argument. No one can fault Jonathan’s argument on this issue. If Boko Haram wants some attention from the government, either in terms of amnesty or dialogue, it must shed the mystery of its existence and identify its leaders. It is a simple task. In response to allegations of injustice levelled against the government by northern leaders who referred to the amnesty granted by the government to the Niger Delta militants, Jonathan presented another unassailable reason to distinguish the visible Niger Delta militants from the nebulous and enigmatic Boko Haram group. Jonathan said: “When you call the Niger Delta militants, they will come; but nobody has agreed that he is a Boko Haram member, no one has come forward… nobody has come forward to make himself visible.” Jonathan must be commended when he has done the right thing but he must also be condemned vigorously when he fails to do the right thing.

In the past two years, we have not seen Jonathan act like a firm president who has the people’s mandate to govern. Last week during his visit to the breeding ground of Boko Haram insurgents, Jonathan stood tall above regional politics when he spoke candidly about why he is not keen to grant amnesty to Boko Haram. Sometimes a president needs to be forceful in the way he handles sensitive national issues.

Prior to his visit to Borno and Yobe states last week, Jonathan was widely perceived as a weak president, a man who often looked unsure of the direction of his government or the path he should take to achieve key national economic objectives. Nigeria needs an unwavering, competent, sympathetic, and understanding president with a high degree of people-to-people skills. That president must be politically attuned to events across the country, including regional politics that often threatens to fracture national unity.

It looks like Jonathan is about to emerge from a position of weakness to present a new image of a strong president who wants to be seen for his robust approach to security challenges facing the nation. Time will tell whether Jonathan’s uncompromising statements in Borno and Yobe states signal a transformation in leadership style or whether his utterances were just a one-off public relations gimmick. Jonathan’s authoritative statements about his government’s unwillingness to grant amnesty to Boko Haram highlighted the point that Boko Haram is an amorphous organisation that has no clear cut leadership structure.

Amnesty is not a loose carrot that you offer to a sadistic group such as Boko Haram to test their commitment to end the brutal killings in various parts of the north. Making an offer of amnesty will project the government as the weakest link in the fight against Boko Haram’s insurrection. Government should not act in a way that will expose its officials to public ridicule or create the impression that the government is showing signs of weakness.

Previously, Boko Haram or factions within the organisation had made peace offers several times but on each occasion the group violated its own terms for peace. There is undisputed evidence that Boko Haram’s earlier calls for dialogue lacked authenticity, sincerity, enthusiasm, commitment and an authoritative voice. Each time the group issues a call for dialogue, it will mar such a call with a set of difficult pre-conditions. For example, in early August 2012, Boko Haram outlined two major conditions that must be met before it would start dialogue with the government.

First, the group demanded that President Jonathan must resign. Second, the organisation requested Jonathan to dump his Christian religious beliefs and to adopt Islam as his new religion. These were provocative demands which no serious president would ever consider. When Boko Haram calls for peace or dialogue but places pre-conditions that are difficult to achieve, you must question the soundness of that call. Jonathan has valid reasons not to consider amnesty for Boko Haram. In early November 2012, Boko Haram manufactured another list of demands it said must be fulfilled before it could enter into a peace deal with the government.

Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulaziz, the man who claimed to be a representative of Boko Haram, issued conditions the government must meet before dialogue could commence. One of them was the payment of compensation to families of its members who were killed during combat with security forces. No mention was made about compensation for families of innocent citizens who were killed by bombs and explosive devices planted by Boko Haram, including citizens who were killed through Boko Haram’s indiscriminate shooting in public places such as churches, markets, schools, police headquarters, police stations, public buildings, motor parks, and entertainment arenas.

Boko Haram also demanded that the government must rebuild mosques damaged by security agents during clashes with its members. Again, no mention was made about Boko Haram rebuilding churches and houses of worship deliberately incinerated by Boko Haram in its campaign of terror against the nation. All these represent harebrained demands that the government was right to ignore. Jonathan is the president of Nigeria. He is not the president of a particular region or the overseer of a particular religious faith.

It would be improper for Jonathan to grant amnesty to Boko Haram members on the basis that the requests emanated from leading northern politicians and religious icons. Anyone who wants to plead amnesty for Boko Haram must convince the group’s leaders to identify themselves, to show their faces so the government would know the people it is dealing with. It is futile to talk about granting amnesty to phantom sectarian leaders or religious apparitions. This is the point that Jonathan reinforced while dismissing requests for amnesty for Boko Haram.

References to the amnesty granted by the government to Niger Delta militants cannot be used as a basis for canvassing amnesty for Boko Haram. The two groups are different. Niger Delta militants have identifiable faces. Boko Haram lacks a public face. Niger Delta leaders were never afraid to express their anger in public and private places. So, there is no relationship between the modus operandi of the Niger Delta militants and the secretive, nocturnal ways of the Boko Haram group. To grant amnesty to Boko Haram, the government would have to wrestle with the fact that there is no logical and justifiable platform on which it would grant that amnesty.

You cannot grant amnesty to an empty space or to a group without a recognisable face or leaders. This is a challenge the Boko Haram leaders must confront. If they want their wishes to be considered by the government, they must be bold enough to stand up and be recognised. Jonathan has been unequivocal in his criticisms of Boko Haram’s uprising in the north. During his recent trip to Borno State, he told elders in the state in uncomplimentary language that they must speak out against atrocities committed by Boko Haram. He said: “The Boko Haram insurgency is reducing gradually in states like Bauchi, Yobe, Adamawa, Gombe and Niger among others, but in Borno State the situation is increasing. It is unfortunate, and this is because you the elders refused to come out and condemn the activities of the sect who are your children.

This is not a time to be playing to the gallery… So, please talk to your children who are members of the sect to lay down their arms for peace to reign.” This was Jonathan’s no-nonsense response to the maddening requests by elder statesmen in Borno State and other parts of the north that the federal government should dismantle all checkpoints and close all trenches used by soldiers as a bulwark against Boko Haram insurgents. On Tuesday, 6 November 2012, six days after Boko Haram outlined its pre-conditions for a ceasefire, Jonathan described the organisation and its sponsors as “uncivilised”.

He said during a two-day visit to Jigawa State that “Terminating innocent lives through terrorist acts is primitive, so perpetrators and sponsors of terrorism through Boko Haram cannot be anything but uncivilised.” Before the government can consider amnesty for Boko Haram, the organisation must first renounce violence and halt the indiscriminate killing of innocent citizens and foreigners residing in the country. The government must sight practical evidence that Boko Haram is willing to hug peace rather than continue on the path of violence.