Jonathan: The Return of the Shoe Lenders

By Olusegun Adeniyi

Twelve days ago, a faction of the remaining Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) met at a private residence in Abuja to confirm former President Goodluck Jonathan as its candidate for the 2027 presidential election. Although Jonathan was not present, his name was subsequently forwarded to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and announced as their presidential candidate. Without publicly accepting or rejecting the nomination, Jonathan has effectively left others to perform the role on his behalf.

Readers familiar with my previous work will recognize the pattern. I first discussed it on 9 February 2011 in a piece titled “The Borrowed Shoes,” where I used Tunde Kelani’s film *Agogo Eewo* (The Gong of Taboo) to illustrate the plight of a leader who relies on benefactors. The film tells of a gifted dancer who enters a competition in borrowed shoes. As he performs, the lenders distract and harass him, forcing him to remove the shoes and dance barefoot. The crowd, moved by his defiance, offers him their own shoes. The lesson, I wrote, is that a leader must choose between self‑serving lenders and the people, for the strings on borrowed shoes will inevitably pull the dancer down.

I revisited this allegory in 2022 in a column titled “Jonathan and the 2023 Shoe Lenders.” The circumstances were almost identical to the present. Placard‑bearing “supporters” surrounded the former president’s office, demanding that he declare his candidacy for 2023. Rumours circulated that he would run on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC)—the very party that had spent much of the previous decade vilifying him. I quoted Franklin Roosevelt, saying, “In politics, nothing happens by accident; if it does, you can bet it was planned that way.” The placard‑bearers were not acting independently. Jonathan ultimately did not run, the APC ticket went to Bola Tinubu, and the supporters dispersed, allowing the republic to move on.

Today, as in 2022, Jonathan has not formally entered the race for 2027. The speculation remains, built around a ceremony he chose not to attend. If he does decide to run, his position will be weaker than it was in 2022, because the prize is no longer the ticket of the ruling party but that of a faction of the PDP—one bloc in a party that has fractured into warring camps.

What are the realistic scenarios if Jonathan accepts the “nomination”? I see three, none of which ends well. First, he could run on the faction’s ticket and lose. A divided party splitting its vote would almost certainly be defeated by an incumbent backed by the state apparatus, turning a revered former president into a defeated also‑ran. Some online commentators allege that he is being encouraged to run merely to “divide the votes.” Second, the courts could rule that he is constitutionally ineligible to contest again. Section 137(3) of the 1999 Constitution, amended on 11 June 2018, states that a person who was sworn in to complete another person’s term and then won a term of their own may not be elected to a third term. Jonathan was sworn in to complete the term of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and then won a term in 2011. The Federal High Court dismissed the argument of ineligibility, and the case is now before the Appeal Court, with no clear outcome. The PDP faction offering him the ticket also stands on shaky legal ground. Third, the scenario that his supporters quietly hope for is that Jonathan runs and wins. This paradoxically exposes the whole enterprise. A one‑term candidate is attractive to his backers because they promise a period of “healing, restoration, patience and nation building.” They claim Jonathan’s candidacy is “not his ambition but a call from the people,” implying he will be a caretaker rather than a full‑time president. They are offering him a lease on a contested property they intend to repossess, a seat that can be warmed but never owned.

What matters most in this sordid affair is what the persuaders are willing to sacrifice: Jonathan’s legacy. His standing today rests not on the record of his administration—an amalgam of affection and frustration shared by most Nigerians—but on a single moment. On the afternoon of 31 March 2015, with the votes turning against him, then‑incumbent President Jonathan congratulated his opponent before the final declaration and declared that his ambition was not worth the blood of any Nigerian. That concession, more than five years in office, made him a global statesman. It is why he is invited to observe elections abroad and mediate crises elsewhere. Jonathan is today the patron saint of the graceful exit.

That reputation is what the 2027 shoe lenders are asking him to wager, not on a noble cause but on a doomed candidacy advanced by a fragment of a collapsing party. The man celebrated worldwide for knowing when to leave is being tempted to claw his way back through the backdoor, with a flag carried by a proxy because, one suspects, some part of him already knows these are not his shoes. I hope, for his sake and ours, that Jonathan resists. Some legacies are best left as they were written, and that one was written well.

Now, let me address the persuaders directly, as I have done before. If the call were truly from Nigerians, and not from a small circle of desperate politicians who see in this former president a convenient tool rather than a leader, it would not be staged in a borrowed living room with the principal absent. Finally, I address the former president, a man for whom I have tremendous respect from our days together at the Villa—he as vice president; me as presidential spokesman—when he fondly addressed me by two pet names: “Media Guru” and “Focus Nigeria.”

Your Excellency, the most presidential thing you can do in 2027 is what you ultimately did in 2023. And it is the same thing the barefoot dancer did in the parable earlier referenced: refuse the borrowed shoes. Decline the adventure, not by silence or the studied ambiguity of “I will consult,” but clearly, so that no one can use your name as a banner while you are looking the other way. Yes, Nigeria could use a healer and unifying figure right now as many people suggest when your name comes up. But a contested faction of a dying party is not the instrument of healing, and a campaign that ends in defeat or in court is not the vehicle of legacy. The dancer’s dignity lies precisely in his bare feet. So, please take this from someone who means well for you: Some shoes are not worth the wearing, however grand the names of those pressing them upon you. Your power, such as it remains, is moral, not electoral. It is the authority of the man who left well. Spend it on the country if you wish but please, do not let it be spent on you.

Abdulsalami Abubakar and the Abacha Loot Question

Former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, will be 84 on Saturday. He has decided to use the occasion for the public presentation of his autobiography, *Call of Duty*. Last Friday, I received his invitation along with an advance copy of the book, which he autographed for me with kind words. Published by CableBooks, the book is quite insightful, as one would expect. It also shows that the General did not want to offend anyone, hence even those to whom he imputed unsavoury roles and actions—like members of the “kitchen cabinet” around the late General Sani Abacha—are not named.

The book contains rich insights. The author addresses such issues as the military coups in Nigeria, including the ones that toppled both the First and Second Republics, and shares his civil war experience as a battalion commander. He also provides insights on the June 12 election fiasco and the aftermath, how he was tricked to Aso Rock on the morning of 8 June 1998 on the pretext that he had been summoned by Abacha who, unknown to him, was already dead; the drama of being locked inside the Number One office from outside and how he later emerged as Head of State. Abubakar also narrates his own side regarding the death of Abiola, as well as the transition to civil rule that brought about the current dispensation.

In documenting his experience and observations of Nigerian politics, Abubakar concludes that it is the people who allow themselves to be used as pawns in the hands of politicians who may disagree in public but dine and wine together in private. He related stories from the First, Second and (aborted) Third Republics to back his position that “Nigerian politicians, irrespective of their parties or political camps, are a tribe on their own. They know where they meet,” he explained. A most bizarre chapter 15 in the book, “My ‘Mad Friend’ in Enugu,” chronicles how he struck an enduring friendship with a mentally challenged man on the streets of Enugu who became almost like a guardian angel.

Altogether, Abubakar has given readers an enjoyable story that is also well told. But one aspect of the book that may generate considerable interest is regarding what is now glibly called “Abacha loot,” which the London Economist once described as “a case of direct stealing.” It is also an issue on which I have written several columns. In a 2014 piece, on 13 July 1998, just about five weeks after he became Head of State, Abubakar had instituted the Special Investigation Panel (SIP) to establish “cases of swindled public funds and recover the same back to the federal government coffers.” Within a matter of days, the panel had secured records from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which revealed that between November 1994 and July 1998, Abacha had taken directly from the apex bank a staggering $2,263,520,497 in cash withdrawals, travellers’ cheques and telegraphic transfers, in the name of “security vote.”

For the first time, Abubakar has provided another angle to this heist because, as he said, the notion of Abacha as a thief was strange to him. He shared stories of how Abacha had demonstrated frugality in the management of funds belonging to the army. “When I was Chief of Defence Staff, Abacha would sometimes call me to his office for us to sit down and do proper costing before releasing money for the military. He hated waste. Sometimes he would bring out his calculator before releasing money for the purchase of equipment for the military. That was the Abacha I knew,” Abubakar wrote.

Explaining what he learned about “Abacha loot” after leaving office, Abubakar said he was told that his deceased predecessor took those monies out of the country in the event of sanctions on Nigeria by Western countries. “He was said to have been so advised by Colonel Muammar Ghadafi, the Libyan leader who faced heavy sanctions from the West. He reportedly advised Abacha that if Western powers froze Nigeria’s assets, his government would be stranded if he did not have funds abroad,” Abubakar wrote while also adding a caveat: “I honestly cannot confirm or deny these explanations. But I would be lying to say I thought of Abacha as a thief. Unfortunately, he didn’t put some of us into confidence on what he was doing. Perhaps it would have been a different story….”

Given the demographics of Nigeria, it is likely that more than 70 percent of our current population were not witnesses to the events recorded by General Abdulsalami Abubakar. That is why his memoir, and that of other military leaders of his generation, are significant historical assets. Whatever readers may make of their claims, what is not in doubt is that these memoirs provide context into some of the critical epochs and decisions that brought our country to its current trajectory.

Platform Nigeria

With the theme, “Governance, Democracy and National Security,” Pastor Poju Oyemade—who inspired “platform Nigeria”—holds tomorrow in Lagos. Speakers include former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, erstwhile Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, Defence Minister, General Christopher Musa, lawyer and Human Rights activist, Mrs Ayo Obe, and security consultant and legal practitioner, Dr Charles Omole. I will also be speaking on a disturbing political trend in the country that I have titled, “The Silence at the Polls.” The programme will be live on Channels Television and many social media platforms.

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