Renowned poet, Odia Ofeimun, has expressed his opinion about why the North wanted former President Goodluck Jonathan out of power during the 2015 general election.
He said the North moved against Jonathan not just because there was an agreement within the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that only a northerner could take over from late President Umaru Yar’adua.
“Even if there was a private arrangement in a political party, it should never have been considered fit to over power a national constitution,” he said after a recent 48-page lecture he titled: ”Restructuring the Nigerian Federation Without Tears.”
“To concede office to the Vice President after the death of President Yar’adua, should have been automatic for true patriots.
“The more plausible rationale for not doing so was that all former Presidents of Nigeria, and shadowy cabals around them, wanted to have their leg in the door for the next round of bidding for oil blocks.
“They could not trust a leader of minority extraction, whose siblings were sitting with explosives, on top of the oil reserves, to do it in their own interest.
“His trying to be his own man, as the whole country obviously expected, was at the heart of the crisis. No one knew this better than former President Obasanjo whose inability to put strings on either Yar’ Adua or Yar’ Adua’s successor, was his core reason for wanting to build a national constituency to oust a President regarded by many as his protégé.”
The Edo-born author of many essays on cultural politics said Jonathan was quickly, slapped with being clueless in a way that was meant to de-legitimate him before he could do any damage to his putative minders after the Doctrine of Necessity that brought him to power.
“This was compounded by those who knew that this President of minority extraction, who was already putting his foot down to hold a National Conference even before he was sworn in, was not averse to restructuring the Federation”, he noted.
On the formation of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Ofeimun said it was a strategic failure being made to appear like a success story.
“It is a highly dispiriting failure that cannot be properly understood by looking at its presumed success in ousting President Goodluck Jonathan from office.
“In itself, that ouster was the failure; especially, given the replacement that was rooted for with so much vigour by people who said they wanted restructuring”, he added.
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