Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, Serves As Country's "Morgue Attendant"!

Nigerian president is 'squeezing the life out of our country'

Goodluck Jonathan is more interested in retaining power and accumulating wealth than truly tackling terror and corruption

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan.

There is a joke about a morgue attendant who was so used to
 seeing dead bodies that one day, when a supposedly dead
body started twitching, his response was, "this is the morgue,
not the emergency room". He promptly smothered the
twitching body until it was well and truly dead. "That's more
like it",he said, as he sat down to guard the cabinet
full of dead bodies and to wait for new arrivals.

In many ways, the way Goodluck Jonathan has handled
the affairs of Nigeria since becoming president can be
likened to that of the morgue attendant. And worse still,
Nigeria under his administrationhas grown to become
a vast, sprawling mortuary where deaths and dead
bodies do not seem to matter at all. In the aftermath
of Jonathan's visit to Maiduguri, the trouble northern
city under attack by Boko Haram,in security operatives
reportedly dumped about 70 bodies at the morgue,
up from the daily average of 10 or 20.

Like the morgue attendant in the story, when about two
years ago, the Borno state Elders Forum met the
president and asked him to order the withdrawal
of troops from Maiduguri to enable them take a different
approach against the jihadist group, Jonathan flatly refused.
In the two years since, how many more lives have been
needlessly lost in the fighting? His attitude seems to be,
"I'd rather preside over dead bodies than save lives".

Accepted, Jonathan took over a country that was severely
distressed. But what is the job of the president?
For someone who has spent the last 14 years in power
at the state and federal levels, the excuse that he is still
studying the situation is one of the lamest apologies in
political history. Either deliberately or inadvertently,
like the morgue attendant, Jonathan's actions and inactions
all seem geared towards killing Nigeria off once and for all.

Why was it that when he was eventually shamed into visiting
northern Borno and Yobe states by opposition governors,
his response to calls for an amnesty for Boko Haram was,
"We can't grant amnesty to ghosts". Within a week of
his mindless retort, another 25 Nigerians had been blown
to smithereens in Kano. Since he can't grant amnesty to
ghosts, perhaps, he can grant amnesty to dead bodies?

Incidentally, more and more Nigerians are beginning
to suspect that the deteriorating security situation may
be more than the handiwork of Boko Haram. More than ever,
there are growing fears that some, if not many of the attacks
attributed to Boko Haram may be the work of other "ghosts"
beyond the militants,whose ultimate objective may be to divide
Nigerians further along ethnic and religious lines for political
advantage. The very nature and timing of some of the attacks
on churches and some ethnic groups lend credence to that
supposition.

Is this the same Jonathan who told us on his inauguration
that, "Today, our unity is firm, and our purpose is strong,
our determination unshakable. Together, we will unite
our nation and improve the living standards of all our peoples
whether in the north or in the south; in the east or in the west.
Our decade of development has begun. The march is on. The
day of transformation begins today. We will not allow anyone
 exploit differences in creed or tongue, to set us one against
another?"

Perhaps, Nigerians should not be surprised at what Jonathan
has become. From the supposedly timid state governor and
vice president, we now have one of the most calculating and
thick-skinned leaders, totally deaf to criticism. The only
thing on his mind seems to be to retain power beyond
2015 while allegedly helping friends and cronies accumulate
wealth. After all, when he was asked about politicians
declaring their assets in public, he said: "The issue of public
asset declaration is a matter of personal principle. That is
 the way I see it, and I don't give a damn about it, even
if you criticise me from heaven."

Which is why the condemnations of the pardon he granted
to Diepreye Alamiesegha, a former state governor who stole
millions of dollars and jumped bail in the UK after disguising
 himself in as a woman, are likely to fall on deaf ears. It is why,
even with a daily income of $224 million, Nigerians are among
the poorest people on earth. It's why we have 68 million people
unemployed; why Nigeria is the most corrupt nation in the world
and why studies show that a child would be off being born
in Somalia, Mali, Chad, South Sudan and other war-ravaged
countries than in Nigeria.

Jonathan's well-paid and ill-mannered army of internet and media
warriors may sing his praises to high heavens and work hard to
distort any discourse about the woeful failures of their paymaster,
but they cannot hide the fact that, under Jonathan, Nigeria has
become a vast mortuary where death and tragedy are routine.

And like the morgue attendant, the president seems intent on
smothering all remaining signs of life.