A self -anointed select pack of northern political hounds has found a favourite seasonal mascot for each election cycle. Former president Goodluck Jonathan has managed to find repetitive mention in each election cycle.
Hardly any presidential election cycle passes without a loud speculation of Jonathan as a possible candidate. In each election season since after 1919, his name has popped up as a likely contestant. The presidential election of 2027 is no exception.
An active political task force is currently busy around the country recruiting converts and foot soldiers for a possible “draft Jonathsn” project. It is a northern project. It is also an anti-Tinubu factional ploy. The thinking is that Mr. Tinubu’s presidency has not quite yielded the outcome that some political interests in the north anticipated.
The anticipation is that a Jonathan run in 2027 could shake Tinubu’s hold on power or at best whittle down the size of his support base. Advocates of this move are even optimistic that Jonathan could topple Tinubu at the next election.
Since the north-south rotation principle remains in force as a quasi constitutional convention, it is better to search for a southernerner who is statute barred from exceeding a single term.
Jonathan fits into this mould, having used his first term in completing the leftover of the Yardua first term. In this calculation, Jonathan also meets other northern qualifications. He surrendered power to Buhari without much pressure.
As president, he was a “friend” of the north, appointing quite a number of them to strategic national security posts. He is not a regional ideologue nor does he seriously advocate a restructuring of the federation as it is in any serious way.
Since he lost and conceded to Buhari in 2014, Jonathan has found himself in the role of ready fixture for presidential candidate. It is either he half- heartedly longs to return to Aso Rock or enjoys the seasonal runs for the big job.
In the now familiar seasonal Jonathan should run tradition, people find work in political caucus meetings, printing of posters, producing of jingles about an imminent Jonathan run and, soon afterwards, the frenzy fizzles out as the man himself in his non comital indifference says nothing or does nothing. He just retreats into his shell since he did not mount any formal campaign.
The trend is not new. In the run up to the 2023 election, Jonathan actually paid the N100 million entry fee demanded by the APC for potential candidates. He artfully credited the payment to some phantom northern farmers and herdsmen who so loved him as to want him back in Abuja. Why is it always northern groups that keep prodding Jonathan to realize that he still has political value?
No one can blame Jonathan for aspiring to run again for the presidency. Every one of us has a right to aspire to any office in the political firmament. Barring constitutional constraints, Jonathan has a right to show up as a candidate at every electoral season to vie for whatever he and his handlers want. But the matter of his electability is quite a different matter. That is strictly a matter for the public to determine based on his personal appeal and other qualities.
Somehow, Jonathan has managed to keep himself quite busy. When he is not being speculated as a presidential candidate, Jonathan has been quite busy attending a series of democracy related engagements around the world in recognition of his earlier free return of power to Buhari. He is recognized as a friend of democracy and orderly transition of democratic power. That has earned him some considerable diplomatic gravitas, recognition and handsome estacodes.
On the domestic political scene however, Jonathan remains a problem child. He has been a product of historical accidents. He became a governor by accident, a vice president by accident and a President by supreme accident. His presidency ended out of political naivete and a certain tenuous hold on power.
Taken together, therefore, the factors that propelled Mr. Jonathan to national power and prominence do not quite add up to qualify him as a political asset that can be deployed to intervene in any serious national political quagmire.
In the drama of politics, individual politicians become assets in two ways. They could possess personal political qualities such as charisma, wisdom, sagacity and unquestionable national acceptability which makes them automatic assets. In such cases, in times of national leadership vcuum, their names pop up. Obasanjo had this attribute in 1999.
The second asset base that could heighten the demand for a political leader is a previous record of outstanding record of service and performance in office. There is bound to be little controversy as to whether Mr. Jonathan was a spectacular president.
Even on the signal project of restoring peace and order in the Niger Delta, Jonathan had to depend on the radical innovations of the mix of Amnesty and force introduced by the later Yar’dua. He was helpless on corruption, watched helplessly as Boko Haram took hold and carved out territory while periodically trucking away groups of girls into enslaved captivity.
Tepid and often clueless on policy matters, Jonathan was in office but not in power, had authority but could not wield it. An inheritor of one of Africa’s biggest and then most powerful political parties, he watched helplessly while renegades chipped away at his power and splintered the party under his watch. A hostile coalition was born while he watched and Buhari hatched the political amalgam that eventually ousted him from power.
Let us be fair. Jonathan is a good man. His rule provoked money scandals but none touched him directly. He has avoided nasty controversies. He has not snatched anyone’s wife or grabbed anyone’s land. He has so far avoided the usual nasty controversies that our past leaders get enmeshed in. He goes out and returns quietly.
A quintessential gentleman and model past leader. No strong enemies. A few friends here and there. Not much to quote from his words in office. He once said he was afraid to promise anything for fear that he might fail his promises. He did not want to be held responsible for anything. That this man could be a successor of the illustrious Adaka Boro is one of history’s most tragic illogicalities. No ardent devotees. No good or bad causes. Just an ordinary Ijaw man better left in his morning loin cloth and other morning rituals.
Is this the Jonathan that is being mobilized or rehabilitated to oust or reinforce Tinubu? In either role, he has limited value. The prospect of a Jonathan run sponsored by the north cannot frighten Tinubu. Nor can the possible support of a Jonathan add any significant value to the Tinubu return for a second term. It is a project of zero political value. It is at best a transactional venture with little mercantile ingenuity.
And in any event, Jonathan does not possess the kind of financial muscle that could make him a worthwhile financial threat or cost Tinubu any loss of sleep. The net loss would be Jonathan’s. His little political capital would be eroded. His residual public relations value as ambassador of democracy may diminish.
Those championing Jonathan’s return to active politics are however lost in the wildernesses of our old politics. It used to be that once nominated by a regional cabal, a candidate was sure to win irrespective of what happens at the polling booths.
Votes are tallied and recorded with ready made made results announced. Not so easy anymore with the interjection of electronic devices in the voting process no matter how crooked and imperfect they may be.
More importantly, it is now easy to segment Nigeria’s voter demographics in order to determine where a politician’s voting bloc will come from. Jonathan does not appeal to any particular voter demographics.
He sends out no particular appeal to no one bloc. In the Niger Delts, he may appeal to people who feel nationalistic about resource control but they do not represent the majority. The South East does not know what exactly to feel about Jonathan except that when he became accidental president he smuggled “Azikiwe” into his name cluster and dropped it soon afterwards.
In terms of youth appeal, Jonathan has none that I am aware of. He has no significant social media footprint. His name invokes nothing that the youth would like to identify with. He has advocated nothing that touches the youth. Nothing on unemployment, youth freedom, artistic freedom national pride etc.
Even common issues of mass murder, Internally Displaced Persons, natural disasters or youth empowerment have not managed to attract Jonathan’s sympathetic identification. I am sure he is aware of the misalignments and injustice in our country.
But he has not empathized sufficiently with the victims to attract a followership in the social media. Nigerian youth know Jonathan but I doubt that he knows them let alone feel their pain or wish to carry their burdens. For anyone to advocate a Jonathan run in 2027 is one of the most daft political ventures in the current firmament.
Perhaps Jonathan’s best advice on this matter of a possible run in 2027, has come from his closest quarter. In a joint appearance recently with Mrs. Tinubu, the irrepressible Patience Jonathan was asked if she is nostalgic about her days in Aso Rock.
Her reply was cryptic and definitive: “I do not wish to return to the Villa. Those days are over.” For Jonathan, this is perhaps the wisest counsel in today’s circumstances. Incidentally, Mrs. Jonathan is on record as having uttered the most memorable and quotable lines of the Jonathan presidency.