In 2015, Goodluck Jonathan was clearly unwilling to leave Aso Rock, Nigeria’s seat of political power, but he had to leave because that was his only available option since he needed to be alive to enjoy power. The odds were against him, if not, Goodluck Jonathan, like most other political leaders, would never walk away. It is in the nature of power that those who wield it are often unwilling to let go of it except at gunpoint or in death.
But because Goodluck wants power as much as he wants to stay alive, it was needful, in the words of former Nigeria’s military President Ibrahim Babangida, to ‘step aside’, then lurk for such a perfect time to reemerge. Now is the time for Goodluck’s comeback and he, other things being equal, may likely comeback except he does not have the backing of the current powerbrokers. While the Buhari’s government did everything to demonize Jonathan and his party, Jonathan did everything to remain in their good books.
This apparently, is part of his grand plan to return because; power rewards those that revere it. Seeing the sudden smooth relationship between Jonathan and Buhari which led to several private long meeting hours, one thing strikes the mind; since Buhari’s government ascended to power riding on humongous allegations of outrageous corruption against the government of Jonathan, insecurity, among other major governmental failures, what could Jonathan and Buhari be possibly meeting for? Jonathan evidently did not let go.
It was Edmund Burke, English statesman and political philosopher who said that “those who have been once intoxicated with power and have derived any kind of emolument from it even though but for one year, can never willingly abandon it”. The thinking among many Nigerians that Jonathan willingly walked away from power is a big error, much as the assumption that he is gutless. Developing event suggests that Jonathan had planned his possible come back from his day of exit. Goodluck Jonathan loved power. His wife loved power. Obasanjo loved it and wanted more. Atiku love it, the reason he is still running to be President for decades. Tinubu love it. Yar’Adua loved it. Therefore, there is just no way Jonathan would not have loved to come back and complete his second term which snatched by APC in 2015.
Nothing can be compared to the reserves his return to Aso Rock will bestow on him and his allies, even for just one more year. Jonathan forgot his second term in Aso Rock and because he is still in good shape, it was rather incredible to think or assume that he has moved on. No man moves on from power when he could have more. To move on will be shocking, and unnatural to man’s political instincts. This is Jonathan’s case.
But what do all these hold for Nigeria and Nigerians? If Jonathan eventually returns, he would remain Jonathan. The basic truth is that neither APC nor PDP is particularly desperate to fix Nigeria as much as their members are desperate to seize state power and enjoy its emoluments. If Buhari has no issue meeting with Jonathan after all APC said about Jonathan and PDP, then, what can now make Jonathan go against Buhari in the event that he returns?
The tragedy is that some Nigerians still believe or at least believed that Buhari saved Nigeria from collapse when he rescued it from Jonathan. If Jonathan returns, they will also believe that Jonathan came back to rescue Nigeria from Buhari. It’s an endless cycle in which the people are subjected to confusion of sorts when they assume that the primary interest of power brokers is the public good. Hence, “it is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare”, said Edmund Burk. That sums up the Nigerian political life in which the opposition knows what to do to fix Nigeria till they get power; meanwhile, those that once had it were working hard and on top of every situation till they lost it. The people have again been left baffled, just as they now are struggling to reconcile Buhari/APC and Jonathan/PDP in the same fold.
He is a Technical Assistant to Governor Willie Obiano’s Special Adviser on Legislative Matters, whoonce was a Special Adviser to a former Deputy Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly. Ebuka is a second class upper division graduate of Political Science from University of Calabar, Calabar Nigeria and holds a Masters Degree in Political Science with specialization in Government and Development Studies, from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Nigeria
