Gentleman Jonathan and Governor Shettima of Borno

LAST week, Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima attempted a revision of Chapter Four of the book My Transition Hours, written by former President Goodluck Jonathan and presented to the public on the 61st birthday of the Otuoke-born former teacher.

The governor’s main concern was the narrative on the kidnap of 276 students from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state on April 14, 2014.

Jonathan in his book had claimed that the government of Borno state failed/refused to accord the Federal Government necessary support needed aimed at getting the girls back. The former president raised questions bothering on the location of the school principal, the teachers and the security, especially in view of the heavy military presence in the North-East at the time.

Jonathan specifically wrote: “The Chibok Girls incident happened under my watch. As President, the buck stopped at my table and I must take responsibility. However, for the Federal Government to succeed the cooperation from the state is paramount. But we did not get that from Borno state. How could the state have rejected the request from the Federal Government to relocate the students?

He took further dig at the governor saying: “In the meantime, the disappearance of these teenagers raised more questions as time went on, but we were focused on how best to rescue them. The governor of the state( a member of the opposition party), rather than join the Federal Government in the efforts to rescue the girls, opted to stage a cross-continent road show in Europe and America, addressing foreign media when the issue that was burning was in his home state and the attention of the world was locked on Nigeria.”

Shettima took offence at those words and opted to slam the former President for alleged dereliction of duty.

In a rejoinder to counter claims in Jonathan’s book, the governor stated that the former President “concealed facts” which he said were contained in the report of a Presidential Fact-Finding Committee he set up under Brigadier General Ibrahim Sabo.

He said that despite admitting the setting up of the Panel, Jonathan did not refer to any part of the Committee’s findings in the book released on November 20.

He said:  “What has become very clear is that the former President decided to sit on facts in his custody while he published, in an elementary standard, a book of fiction designed to pass guilty verdicts to anyone but himself, with respect to the open failures of his administration to rescue our daughters and in tackling the Boko Haram challenges.

He advised Jonathan to write another book, which he said should contain part of the Sabo panel’s findings on the Chibok abduction, adding that without doing so the current effort would amount to “nothing short of a presidential tale by midday.”

Having read the Jonathan’s book and looking back at the incident of April 14, 2014, I would want to submit that rather than put pen to paper to castigate Jonathan, Shettima should remain sobered by that incident. He should actually be praising Jonathan for sparing his governorship, enabling him to enjoy a second term in office.

• Jonathan, an inspiration to young people ― Buhari

A lot many political actors have described Jonathan as a weak president. I‘ve also watched the man very closely but I do not regard him as weak. I believe he has an overbearing forgiving spirit which took the better of him as President. I think the failings we observe in Jonathan are the inability to relegate the self to the dictates of the office. The office demanded anger at certain times, Jonathan managed to subdue such anger within his personality traits.

In one of his famous quotes, he said he had no enemies to fight. In another one, he said his ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian. He meant those lines and he acted them. If not, he would have realised that in politics, you may not set out to create enemies, but the enemies would look for you. He would also have known that as the king, you are imbued with the powers of life and death. In the Holy Bible which I read, Prophet Elijah put some 400 prophets of Baal to the sword, for daring the Almighty. Kings lead wars and the mission is to crush the opposition.

The King may be a gentleman, but occasions would demand his anger and rage. He must act it when such occasion arises.

I think the failings of Jonathan, which has given Shettima a second life is not to have allowed the anger of his office overcome his person in 2014. If that had happened, the entire political structure in Borno would have given way for emergency rule. The Principal, security men and all those connected with the Chibok School would have been matched to some dingy cells in the Federal Capital and subjected to unending interrogations. The Governor too might have been daily guests of interrogators, after the possible suspension of his Excellency status.

Perhaps, if the anger of the office of the President had aroused Jonathan, he would have made all the Chibok stakeholders to, within hours of the incident, tell their stories to investigators, definitely not within the confines of their homes and offices, but in some court martial circumstances, maybe then, the narrative of Chibok would have been different.

Rather than take a dig at Jonathan, in an ‘I better pass my neighbour’ narrative, Governor Shettima should know he is guilty as much as the former President, until a final closure is brought to the Chibok saga.