BY Mayowa Tijani
After five years in power as Nigeria’s first citizen, Goodluck Jonathan, has joined the league of “yesterday’s men”, following Friday’s inauguration of Muhammadu Buhari.
That was four days ago; and in politics, four days is a very long time. Although Jonathan is now finally out of the limelight and his face is no longer the sexy choice to accompany newspaper headlines, our hearts will wander to him from time to time, and here are five positive reasons why:
On May 30, 2015, Muhammadu Buhari, the nation’s president and his vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, declared their assets to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) – shielding the content of their declarations from Nigerians for the time being. As Nigerians began to complain, experts advised that anyone who was truly interested in the content of the declaration should make a request according to the dictates of the freedom of information (FOI) act – which, well, was signed by Jonathan.
The FOI bill had been on the floor for passage since the return of democracy in 1999, but never saw the light of the day, as Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration supervised its suffocation when it came close to passage in 2007. On May 28, 2011, Jonathan signed the bill as promised, creating room for transparency in Nigeria’s public space.
Another controversial but bold step taken was the January 13, 2014 accent to the anti-gay bill despite pressure from the western world, particularly the United States (US).
Although towards the end of his administration, Jonathan signed into law the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act, prohibiting genital mutilation and all other forms of violence, what is truly worthy of note is that this bill had been in the national assembly since 2001 – a whopping 14 years.
On June 8, 2010, Jonathan nominated Attahiru Jega, vice-chancellor of Bayero University Kano (BUK), as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and this turned out the first of his many steps towards free and fair elections in Nigeria.
After Jega was confirmed as the helmsman at INEC, Jonathan gave the necessary support and funding to supervise a proper electoral process. In August 2010, he reinforced his commitment to the promise he made to the Nigerian people by signing the 2010 Electoral Act.
In 2011, that law favoured Jonathan and his party, as they rode gallantly to power. Subsequently, six gubernatorial elections were conducted within 2011 and 2014, using the same procedures, which did not go the PDP way, as it lost four states – Edo, Ondo, Kogi and Osun – to the opposition.
Jonathan did not renege on his promise when it came to his own election; he allowed the same process take its due course, giving INEC the autonomy needed for the kind of elections he promised on assuming office in 2010. In an exclusive interview with TheCable, he even said he would take the outcome of the elections in good faith.
“I have always congratulated governorship candidates when they win, even when they defeat candidates of my own party. I will congratulate whoever wins,” he said.
“I am not known for violence; I will never incite people to start spilling blood because of an election. It is not worth it. My ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian.”
Jonathan was true to his words. He would not be quickly forgotten for what Buhari described as the “standard of political conduct in the country”. Jonathan left office with the satisfaction that his successor – or any other president for that matter – would not be telling Nigerians that the electoral process that culminated in his assumption of office was “flawed”.
One of the least celebrated achievements of the Jonathan administration is the eradication of polio in Nigeria. Prior to Jonathan’s entry, thousands of children, particularly those of northern descent, succumbed to polio paralysis and some death.
Jonathan, interested in the eradication of avoidable paralysis in the country, set up the presidential task force on polio eradication (PTFoPE) in 2012, to oversee the implementation of the 2014 national polio eradication emergency plan with the national emergency operations centre (EOC).
Nigeria recorded tremendous success in 2013 with at least 58% reduction in the number of wild polio virus type 1 (WPV1) cases compared to 2012. By 2014, only six cases of polio were recorded in Nigeria, with the last in July 2014, a month short of PTFoPE’s target for June 2014.
Bill Gates, Microsoft boss and an advocate against polio, tagged the Nigerian polio victory one of his favourite stories of 2014.
“One of my favourite stories of 2014: In just one year, Nigeria went from 50 polio cases to six. Good news you may have missed in 2014, Nigeria had a pretty good year,” he wrote on Twitter.
Though Nigeria has not been officially declared polio-free, the country has not reported a single new case since in 11 months. Cheery, isn’t it?
The re-basing of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not really appreciated by Nigerians, as they do not see the immediate effect of a bigger GDP. Nigerians believe that with more than a hundred million citizens living in gruesome poverty, re-basing the GDP does nothing to help the hungry.
But in reality, the re-basing of GDP was an economic leap for the Nigeria. According to a Price water Cooper (PwC) publication, GDP is “an internationally recognised measure of economy size and strength”.
For years, Nigeria thought the size and strength of its economy was in the range of N42.4 trillion ($269.5b) while it was actually in the range of N80.2 trillion ($509.9b). That’s like a lion thinking and telling the world that it’s a cat.
It is important to have up-to-date information on the size and capacity of a nation’s economy. These are the factors that influence foreign investors, and give direction in planning and making robust investment decisions.
Rebasing of the economy re-emphasized Nigeria’s place as the economic giant of Africa. Jonathan would be remembered as the president who “made” Nigeria the biggest economy in Africa – a factor that favoured Akinwunmi Adesina’s emergence as the eight president of African Development Bank (AfDB). Jonathan’s administration told Nigeria: You are not a cat; you are an economic lion.
Prior to Jonathan’s reform of the agricultural sector, Nigeria lost billions of Naira in fertilizer subsidies and corruption in the sector. Akinwunmi Adesina, the minister of agriculture and rural development, said the country spent N873 billion between 1980 and 2010 on fertilizer subsidies for local farmers, losing 89% of that amount (N776 billion) to corruption and fertilizer racketeering.
Under Jonathan, all of that became history, as he supervised the dismissal of the middlemen who perpetrated these corrupt practices. Fertilizer and choice seeds now got to farmers directly via the e-wallet programme. The African Union (AU) applauded Jonathan’s administration for this achievement, and went on to adopt the e-wallet programme in curbing fertilizer corruption on the continent.
This government also supervised the reduction of rice importation and the establishment of long-term rice farms in Nigeria.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations said that under Jonathan, Nigeria became the largest producer of cassava in the world with an annual output of over 34 million tonnes of tuberous roots. With that endorsement, Jonathan was surely a successful agricultural president.
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