OVERWHELMING THE UNDERWHELMING

One has to have a wee amount of, shall I say pity, for Jonathan. He constantly displays the confused look of a rabbit caught in a headlight. He undoubtedly has too many egos to massage and a great number of issues to contend with, the most serious of which is security. In fairness, he has inherited a large part of what now confronts him and the country. However, the enormity of the problems he and the country face ought to have dawned on him before he ever contemplated aspiring to the highest office in the land. My gripe with him emanates from the single fact that he never had a credible master plan to address these issues that are now overwhelming him, resulting in his, generally speaking, underwhelming performance in office so far.

It is totally debatable if he was ever the best individual to be elected president in the first instance, but as I indicated in an earlier post, Nigerians were sold short. He was simply the best of a sorry bunch and we never had the luxury of an intellectually wide enough field from which to take our pick. Was this his fault? Personally, I’d say ‘No’. He saw an opportunity, and like the next man, he took it. What was hidden from the electorate was the price he had to pay for taking it. It is precisely that price he is obliged to pay now, hence, his pandering to far too many interest groups and individuals, resulting in compounding the suffering of Nigerians.
No one denies that, in politics, trade-offs and concessions abound. The trouble with Jonathan is those trade-offs and concessions are negatively impacting upon the lives of our people, whose crime was to vote for a person they sincerely believed had their best interests at heart. It is royally bothersome to keep highlighting the areas in which Nigerians need urgent and visible improvements. If these areas cannot focus the mind of the President, rather than banging on about single-term tenures for some elected officials, and other mundane pursuits, then Nigerians are in for a torrid time indeed.
Heaven forbid that we carry on like this for the next three and a half years. Nigerians cannot afford the status quo, and for that precise reason, Jonathan MUST transmutate in a big way and expeditiously. Timid Jonathan must become Brave Jonathan; Rambling Jonathan must become Decisive Jonathan, Shaky Jonathan must become Resolute Jonathan and Confused Jonathan must become Focussed Jonathan. Jonathan needs to start listening to the groans of Nigerians and begin to implement policies that will begin to reduce the decibels of those groans. Jonathan, shed the garb of hopelessness and don the cap of hope.