AGAINST THE SELECTIVE PROBE OF JONATHAN. By FELIX N.JARIKRE

In a democracy struggling to develop, with weak institutions  such as we have in Nigeria, there is no doubt that being in ruling government must give the occupiers of power the special ability to think they possess magical powers to conjure an attack of selective amnesia upon the populace whereby the citizens can be manipulated to applaud, without critical thinking, whatever action the government takes, however brutish or untenable it may be.

Concluding his recent trip to America, President Buhari had pledged without equivocation in a speech to probe ‘past regimes to recover stolen monies.’ Upon his return, one was surprised to hear Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, saying that to avoid distraction, it was necessary to only probe Goodluck Jonathan’s regime. As to what led to this hasty flip-flop, one can only speculate. But one thing is clear, that the fight against official corruption is a national emergency which cannot, and should not be left alone for Buhari to fight, even if he has the moral and constitutional capacity to do so. In 1984, Buhari, as a military head of state, used battling corruption as a political weapon to throw politicians into jails without fair trials, while avoiding public scrutiny and accountability for his own years as minister for oil and chairman of the Nigerian National Oil Company. A Nigerian Senate investigations had concluded in 1980 that $2:8 billion was missing under his watch, and the Ayo Irikefe Judicial Inquiry set up to look into this was swept away when President Shagari was overthrown in a military coup, and Buhari clamped down on press freedom by enacting Decree Four which forbade journalists from publishing any truth that would embarrass public officials. His tenure as chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund under General Abacha left many unsavoury questions to be answered. If anyone is looking for a portrayal of a vaunted integrity without accountability and transparency, a story of cloaks and shadows, look no further than Buhari’s.

Contrary to what Femi Adesina thinks, to extend the probe on official corruption to reach Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime stretching from 1999 is not a distraction, but a national necessity. Anything less is not only a witch-hunt, but unacceptable. The devious attempt to scapegoat  Goodluck Jonathan for the ills plaguing the nation, and make him a sacrificial lamb at the same time for cleansing and atonement is a reckless escapade that would leave the nation gasping for breath – to put it charitably! Gleefully, with unrestrained audacity, APC’s foot-soldiers and paymasters of various hues have gone to town to demonize and humiliate Jonathan, making him look abandoned, friendless, hapless and powerless, a former president who desperately sought for audience with Buhari to plead for mercy, and begged on trembling knees to be spared from being probed. (At least, if we should believe fiction-peddlers like Sahara Reporters, another propaganda outpost of APC masquerading for investigative journalism.) The objective of this set-up is to ensure that not a whimper of protest or whisper of sympathy would be heard across the land when Buhari’s henchmen come calling for Jonathan’s head. Therefore, the news – unproven as yet but which cannot be dismissed outright – filtered through the social media that Olusegun Obasanjo, the ogre of lawlessness and effigy of corruption, has gifted Buhari with a raft of documents to jail Jonathan would have been laughable, if not for the diabolical mischief involved. Since it is not out of character for the purveyors of this malicious narrative, considering that Olusegun Obasanjo had recently admonished that the South-South should be prepared for whatever they saw coming to them, as they would be haunted for years to come by the perceived failure of Jonathan’s presidency, one had to pause and ask: What are these people – anti-Jonathan elements – drunk on? Crack-cocaine, power or ethnic pride?

If some Nigerians, for whatever reason, could swallow the spectacle of Jonathan being singled out for selective probe and prosecution, out of the legion of thieving despots who stole Nigeria blind, many Nigerians, driven by equal justice and fair-play, especially South-South peoples, cannot stomach it. To advocates of transparent governance, any move to investigate and probe ex-President Jonathan is a welcome development, but if it is going to be taken seriously, and not resisted, this judicial probe, must, as a matter of national necessity and emergency, extend its tentacles to bring Olusegun Obasanjo to book. That he tore his PDP membership card should not absolve him of the fabled sixteen-year travesty of PDP which he perpetuated. Despite our proclivity to impunity, the impression must not be given that Obasanjo is being spared from probe because he helped to prepare the ground for Buhari to dethrone Jonathan through a controversial, bitter  election in which the incumbent graciously conceded defeat for the sake of national unity.

Obi Nwakanma, writing in the newspaper, The Urhobo Voice of August 12, 2015, said: ‘ If this president ( Buhari) is serious about probing Jonathan, he must seek serious legislative teeth that will give bite to judicial sanction, fairness, as well as transparency to the process. It must not be seen as a witch-hunt. At the moment that is how a vast section of Nigerians is likely to see any selective probing of the administration of Dr. Jonathan. To establish the credibility of the process, the president must back a probe of the last fifteen years of the PDP government in Nigeria, including the period under the watch of President Olusegun Obasanjo. For eight years, President Obasanjo was sole operator of Nigerian’s Ministry of Petroleum and the NNPC.’

Make no mistake, Femi Adesina: Nigerians are not deluded; and they are not mesmerized by your spin. They refuse to forget what you want them to forget! Take this message to your boss. Nobody is going to stand and watch you turn Dr. Goodluck Jonathan into another Tam David-West, another minority, who was humiliated and jailed like a rat for drinking a cup of tea and accepting the gift of a gold wrist-watch during his tenure as Petroleum Minister under IBB!