By Ken Ugbechie

In life, some things astound you. Some others confound you, yet a lot more confuse you. I have been a victim of all of this these past five years that President Goodluck Jonathan has been in power. I have been astounded by his rare streak of good fortune. How can one man be so well endowed with favour, riding the crest of fortune or what some call luck at every twist of his life? How can a man have so much good luck with a dose of patience to carry him through?

I have even been confounded by the ‘unlikely hero’ badge that Mr. President wears, at least that is the perception out there. Even his classmates tell us Jonathan is the most unlikely politician they have ever known. They wonder how a man who just wanted to be a teacher or at the very best a research fellow transform in a twinkle into a political champion in a country blessed (cursed?) with political masquerades and colossuses. They are still confounded that the quiet little lad from Otuoke and product of the University of Port Harcourt who struggled through school on account of inadequate funding is the same Fedora-hat wearing man whose face graces every TV screen in Nigeria today. But, you see, that is life. My pastor often says it, that we don’t look like what we’ll become. Jonathan never looked presidential growing up. A boy who had no shoes does not think of the palace as his destination. Even if a prophet had foretold this, humanity would have laughed such seer to scorn.

Yet, here we are under the leadership of a man who had no shoes. Did not the Holy Writ, the Bible, admonish that ‘the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong…?’ Jonathan epitomizes such divine paradox. On that score, his life trajectory confounds the mind and humbles the proud.

It was this veneer of humility and backwater disposition that stirred the well of emotion in Nigerians prompting them to vote for Jonathan at the polls in 2011. Forget the tardy tantrums from Muhammadu Buhari, the bigoted despot and acute hater of democracy who does not know when to stop insulting the sensibilities of sane men, Nigerians overwhelmingly voted for Jonathan in the last election. I campaigned for him. I voted for him and will yet do it again. But the worry is that these same Nigerians are getting more and more confused. I am one of them. I am confused at what President Jonathan has turned out to be. I am confused that the man who talked tough yesterday has today buckled, if not surrendered, to the centrifugal forces he promised to contain. I fear he might get worse. I fear he has totally lost his lustre, guts and plucky zest. The average Ijaw man is noted for his derring-do. Jonathan seems to have moulted his Ijaw skin.

And here is my worry. The President is sickeningly jittery. He seems unsure of himself and of what to do. He speaks in an ungainly manner. He does not inspire hope when he talks. Even at moments when he attempts to raise his voice against the drowning cacophony from the opposition, he does so with unconvincing allure. What has befallen our president? Is he overwhelmed by the stage? Or is it a matter of strategy, tact or style of leadership? If it is tact, then it is not working, change it. If he is overwhelmed by the pressure of office then the nation is doomed.

Of late, Jonathan has become too jittery that listening to him or watching him gesticulate with his hands strike a chord of fear in you. He is jittery over Boko Haram. He tells us he knows those behind Boko Haram, that they have infiltrated his cabinet yet he cannot arrest and prosecute them. Some persons, namely Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, told him to his face that they would make the country ungovernable for him. Now, their very words are being acted out like an Assyrian script. The country has remained largely ungovernable to the extent that terrorists and their merchants now determine where the president would go and who he would receive in Aso Rock. In any sane clime, those who boasted to make the country ungovernable should by now be hiding their faces in shame and at the very least be undergoing trial for reasons linked to the spate of violence in the land but the reverse is the case. Our president is the one hiding his face while the chief suspects have seized the stage, prescribing therapy for the ailment of which they are the causative virus.

Over 200 Chibok school girls were abducted and all our president could do was set up a committee. I am even confused. And when Nigeria was hosting the World Economic Forum on Africa (WEFA), our jittery president shut down schools, shut down offices and shut down investments. Yet, hosting the Forum was part of a campaign to open the Nigerian economy to investors, local and foreign. By shutting down Abuja, the president has succeeded in telling the global community that Nigeria is not a good place to do business; that government can cripple their investments at will and without any care in this world. Why the panic? Jonathan is jittery and he has no reason to be.  As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, he should don his war vest and protect the lives and property of Nigerians.  You don’t save life by pressing the panic button, you save life by contending and subduing those who take life. That is the reasonable thing to do. To act otherwise is to tread the path of unreason…I fear this is where we are: on the highway to nowhere.