2015: Why Jonathan is favoured to win

Those following this column would have
noticed that I have in the past few weeks
written extensively on the 2015 general
elections, particularly the presidential
polls, the two dominant political parties
that will slug it out for the soul of Aso
Rock and the emergence of the two
foremost presidential candidates,
President Goodluck Jonathan of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) of All
Progressives Congress (APC). Today, I
will zero in on why I think that President
Goodluck Jonathan is highly favoured to
win the February 14 presidential polls
over Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.
For a start, President Jonathan has made
modest achievements in the past four
years under the peculiar circumstance he
found himself. I shall return to the
achievements later in the article.
Although, the Boko Haram menace
predates Jonathan’s regime, no Nigerian
is in doubt that it has intensified since
Jonathan overwhelmingly won the 2011
presidential poll, which also was greeted
with violence and killings in some parts of
the North. Before Jonathan made public
his intention to contest the 2015
presidential poll and after that the sect’s
murderous attacks have continued
unabated.
Besides the bombings and killings of
innocent Nigerians for no just cause,
some self-appointed Northern elders have
derided Jonathan’s presidency and his
right to contest the 2015 polls based on
the erroneous impression that after the
death of former President Umaru
Yar’Adua, a northerner would have
succeeded him according to their myopic
interpretation of PDP zoning formula.
Despite the fact that most Northerners
understood the imperative of Jonathan’s
presidency and his right to run for a
second term as provided in the 1999
Constitution, these elements still think
otherwise.
Now that Jonathan has emerged the PDP
presidential candidate for the 2015 poll,
such campaign of diatribe might have
considerably eased. If what happened at
the weekend’s fund raising of the PDP is
anything to go by, there is no doubt that
President Goodluck Jonathan, apart from
being the PDP presidential flag bearer, is
also a pan-Nigerian presidential
candidate. In Jonathan, all Nigerians are
united and speak with one voice.
All Nigerians from all tribes and the six
geo-political zones gathered in Abuja and
donated hugely to his campaign fund that
totaled billions of naira. The various
endorsements by civil society groups
from all parts of the country prior to
Jonathan’s declaration to contest the
2015 polls show that Nigerians want
another four years of Jonathan
transformation contrary to what the
opposition has been orchestrating.
There are so many reasons why I think
that Jonathan is highly favoured to coast
home to victory on February 14 and here
are some of them that space could permit.
Jonathan did not inter with the freedom of
individuals and that of the press. He
allowed Nigerians to hold contrary views
opposed to his. He did not interfere with
the freedom of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) in their
conduct of elections. Opposition parties
won elections in PDP states and
Jonathan congratulated the winners.
Jonathan did not interfere with the rulings
of the courts. He did not use the security
agents against anybody including
antagonistic governors. Despite abuses
by some Nigerians, Jonathan did not
invoke his powers on them in retaliation.
Under Jonathan’s watch, no Nigerian
went on exile and there was no political
assassination; there was no state-
sponsored impeachment. Jonathan is
calm in spite of all provocations. He
listens to Nigerians. Under his
administration, the pump price of petrol
has remained the same.
He handled workers’ strike with maturity
and reason. He restored peace in the
nation’s universities and pumped huge
sums of money (N200 billion) to revamp
them. He built 12 new federal universities,
9 in the North and 3 in the South to
ensure that all states in the country has a
federal university and open more access
to university education to our teeming
youths. The polytechnics and colleges of
education were not left out the funding
largesse. The president also boosted
access to education through the Almajiri
Education Programme.
The pragmatic education programme is
one of Jonathan’s administration
initiatives to improve access to education
and reduce the number of out-of-school
children in Nigeria. Its major aim is to
integrate the traditional Tsangaya and
Quranic School into the formal education
system. Jonathan has done much in road
infrastructure. Some of his completed 32
roads include section 1 of the dualization
of the Ibadan-Ilorin road (Oyo), Vorn-
Manchok road (Plateau), dualization of
Section 1 of Onitsha-Owerri road and
Onitsha eastern Bypass, rehabilitation of
Funtua-Gusau-Sokoto road, Shagamu-
Ore-Benin road and the Aiyegunle-Akoko-
Edo road (Ondo/Edo states).
Nigerian airports under Jonathan have
been remodeled. They now look like
others in other parts of the world. This is
evident at Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Enugu and
Port Harcourt airports. The railways have
received some revamping under
Jonathan’s administration. Nigerians now
commute daily in trains across the
country with modern coaches. Nigeria
has made modest achievements in
industrial revolution under Jonathan.
Besides the rebasing of the nation’s
economy that place us first in Africa with
South Africa taking a second position,
Unilever Plc invested $200 million in
Nigeria, while Procter & Gamble opened $
300 million new plant this year in
Agbara , Ogun State. In the area of
cement manufacturing, our local
production grew from two million metric
tones in 2002 to 28.5 metric tones in
2013. It is also expected that it will reach
39 million metric tones by the end of this
year. The cement industry has attracted $
8 billion in local and foreign investments
and supports about 1.6 million jobs. After
a successful power privatization, the
country now generates over 4000
megawatts (MW) of electricity from less
2000 mw in 2010.
This is why there has been tremendous
improvement in power supply. The only
problem here lack of prepaid metres,
excessive estimate billings or ‘crazy bills.’
The power sector needs to be put more on
track. The agricultural sector has
witnessed great transformation under
Jonathan. We have witnessed new
agricultural policies targeted at increasing
domestic food production and growing
private sector participation in the sector.
Nigeria is now the highest producer of
cassava. Something is being done to
increase our production of rice. There is
the need to still tap our agricultural
potentials. Nigeria’s future will depend
more on agriculture than oil.
If Jonathan could achieve these much
under the prevailing insurgency, he would
have done more if there was no terrorism
in the country. All the money expended to
fight the terrorists would have been
channeled to national development. With
these and other achievements of
Jonathan not mentioned, he will definitely
be voted into power by Nigerians in the
presidential poll.