Beyond pardon

“It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.” Dalai Lama

Something is seriously wrong at the highest decision-making levels of President Jonathan’s government. A number of elementary but expensive errors of judgment are being made which, cumulatively, will cost the nation very dearly. As for the President, as a politician, he should know that even with a faulty electoral process and a party sitting rather uncomfortably in his pocket, he will have to assure Nigerians that his best meets at least the lowest levels of their expectations and approvals. As things stand, the most friendly advise that could be given to the President is to look critically at the processes which inform the decisions he takes, and overhaul them. If he is at the heart of the weaknesses in the process, he needs to be hard with himself, and ask whether he really should give it another go in 2015.

Take the Borno-Yobe visit. Given the background of a damaging perception of a President who was indifferent to the plight of citizens (and voters) in the region, or, what is worse, afraid to visit, and having been badly upstaged by APC governors, the visit should have been preceded by the most elaborate preparations. These should have included analyses of security and political situation reports, very detailed discussions with the two state governors, scrutiny of all speeches and statements that will be made, and excellent intelligence on moods and dispositions of virtually everyone the President was to meet. All these would have prepared the President to realize that the request for amnesty for insurgents and dialogue will be singularly the most important issue he would confront during the visit.

A good intelligence brief would have hinted at a community that is a major victim of an insurgency and the JTF, but is unsure whether being left at the mercy of either is a good option. The clamour for clemency and dialogue with those elements of the insurgency that was willing to dialogue represent a plea from a desperate people to the only source they see as capable to stopping the destructive war. An informed background briefing should have raised the possibility that elders and politicians in Borno and Yobe feel helpless (and given their history, frankly embarrassed) over the insurgency, and this was not the first time they were making the case for dialogue and amnesty. A good security report would have included projected scenario of this conflict, and may have advised the president that preserving the status quo was the worst option for the state and the community. On the whole, the president would have been prepped to go to Borno and Yobe with a sympathetic mien, a range of options which he should table, and some reassuring words on curtailing some of the excesses of the JTF. He would have held closed – door meetings with elders, politicians and opinion leaders during which he would place all options on the table, and encourage them to be part of the search for peace. Some semblance of engagement with ordinary folks could have been engineered, to avoid the embarrassing image flashed across television screens of cities completely locked down, with citizens as far away from their president as was possible.

Perhaps some or all these were done, and perhaps not. But the president went to Borno and Yobe and left everyone with the worst option possible. He left behind a angry community that felt that he told them as victims to hunt for the criminals; a JTF abandoned to the insurgency; an insurgency emboldened by the seeming distance between the federal government and the community it is holding hostage, and a nation dangerously divided between those who thought he did well to let large parts of the country burn; and another which thinks that there is more to his attitude towards this insurgency than just an intolerance for people who throw bombs at the communities in which they live.

But the Borno – Yobe disaster was made worse by the decision to pardon A.S.P Alamieyeseigha and others. A decision such as this could have been better timed, if it had to be taken, that is. The unforgivable sloppiness in the process which produced it is an embarrassment with rare parallel. The summersaults to justify it showed that it was poorly conceived and executed. The impact of the decision has left the President fighting a whole nation and an international community that has thrown diplomatic niceties overboard in its indignation.

Of all the most damaging rationalizations which followed the pardon of Alamieyeseigha, none would alarm Nigerians and the world more than the excuse that it was informed by the pivotal role which the former felon plays in maintaining peace and security in the Niger Delta. People will ask what exactly the former governor does that is so vital that the president would risk all this odium. Is the region safe and secure, if it has to stabilized by Alams? What happens if, say, he becomes disgruntled with Jonathan’s administration, or any other administration for that matter? What does this pardon say about President Jonathan’s control over Niger Delta affairs if Alams has to be pardoned and released into mainstream politics to stabilize the region? Just what does stabilization mean in this context, and what does it cost?

Naturally, a few voices from the Niger Delta have been heard in support of the pardon. Hopefully, it will not escape the attention of the President and his circle that he is running an increasingly restrictive administration with the Niger Delta as focus and facilitator. In the midst of all the rumpus created by the pardon of Alamieyeseigha, the President went to his village and raised N6b for a church, the bulk of it coming from private sources and PDP-run states. All these will make sense if there is in place a strategy to isolate the President from the rest of the nation, and bond him more intimately with his “community.” But you have to ask, for what purpose?

This is a President who, for all intents and parposes is already in the race for 2015. His party is in serious disarray, facing massive hostility in the North, drying up in the south-west and standing precariously on one foot in the south-east. Even in the south-south, the aggressive nature of his supporters and his kith and kin is alienating many people. His record so far as President does not stand up to critical scrutiny. Between Boko Haram, kidnapping, oil theft, increasing communal conflicts all over the nation, and rampaging criminals, the capacity of the Nigerian state to provide security for life and property under his watch has been virtually eroded. A single civil servant has reportedly evaded arrest by the entire security paraphernalia of the nation, and the President is involved in a spat with western nations over Alamieyeseigha, a development he ought to avoid since he so desperately needs their support in the risky Malian adventure and other issues. His political future is by no means as secure as his party and small circle let him know. He is going to have fight every inch of the way with strong and ambitious members of his party from the north digging in. The opposition has smelt blood, and will attempt to evade all the tricks and subterfuge thrown at it to merge and take on the PDP. Above all, he risks going to the 2015 with a very poor record.

President Jonathan is being poorly served by the manner his decision-making processes operate. There is an obvious and damaging disconnect between him and the public service which should work to improve the quality of his administration and shield him from avoidable political gaffes. His political circle appears to be shrinking, and assuming a patently parochial coloration and outlook. This is not good for a President who tells the nation he is on a mission to transform it. If President Jonathan does not radically improve the manner he leads, Nigerians may tell him sooner than he thinks, that his flaws are beyond pardon.