A sense of relief at the appointment of Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan will help shape a new kind of politics in West Africa's sleeping giant, portends Gamal Nkrumah The near-euphoric atmosphere that prevailed in Nigeria when Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was pronounced by the National Assembly as acting president has subsided somewhat. Ebele means "God's Wish" in the new acting president's native Ijaw tongue. Words, surely, must mean something. This is not a simple question of semantics, but about a more meaningful matter of Providence, of Divine intervention. What is "God's Wish"? On 22 January 2010, the Supreme Court of Nigeria declared the ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua "incapable of discharging the functions of his office." Nigerians were nonplused. The meteoric rise of "God's Wish" and the political wrangling that ensued with his assuming the top post set the cat among the pigeons. The Save Nigeria Group (SNG) headed by Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka demanded in no uncertain terms that the acting president assume "full presidential powers". Soyinka and his supporters within the SNG represent an influential segment of the Nigerian populace. Their voice counts. "It has become imperative that a logical and constitutional process of installing Jonathan as president with a vice-president must commence immediately, declaring Yar'Adua incapacitated in compliance with Section 144 of the constitution," a recently released SNG statement read. "We insist that the session where the resolution would be taken must be beamed on national television," it concluded. A sense of unease overshadows the sense of relief that accompanied the National Assembly's decision to install Jonathan as acting president. Jonathan is a youthful and dynamic administrator who has already made his mark on Nigerian politics. He is a millionaire who was handpicked by Nigeria's former president and most influential politician and king-maker Olusegun Obasanjo. "God's Wish" set the tone late last year with his pledge to clampdown on corruption. His words have been accompanied by action. Even before he assumed his new office, Jonathan ordered ministers with oil-related portfolios not to proceed on Christmas holidays until the country's crippling fuel scarcity was resolved. This courageous decision must be seen against the backdrop of ethnic, regional and sectarian strife gripping the country, with violent sectarian clashes that claimed the lives of thousands last month. Among the ministers concerned was the powerful Petroleum Minister Rilwan Lukman, a Muslim magnate from a highly esteemed Muslim family in northern Nigeria. Jonathan, of course, is a southern Christian. Nigeria's new man is an old hand, a seasoned politician who hails from the most economically vital part of the country. For once in the nation's history, a man from Nigeria's economic powerhouse will be the real power. Or will he? There may be pressures that Nigeria's ruling clique may find hard to ignore. The first is that Jonathan's own wife, Patience, was implicated in a money-laundering scandal in September 2006 and is currently under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigeria's top anti-crime agency. Jonathan himself, in spite of his wife's predicament and his association with his mentor Obasanjo, is regarded as "clean". Jonathan survived an assassination attempt when he was governor of his native Bayelsa State (2005-2007), a state with one of Nigeria's largest crude oil and natural gas deposits. Those out to get him have failed but have tried to defame the acting president by tarnishing the image of his better half. Worse, the inner circle of Obasanjo's hangers- on are striving to find ways to retain their influence. Nigerians, however, appear not to be content with the Obasanjo clique's schemes, even though for now, many Nigerians seem content to give "Goodluck" or "God's Wish" a go. "Now that we are out of the woods, or so it seems, we reason that what Nigerians do not need at this point in time is the leprous fingers of Obasanjo to pollute the subsisting fragile peace of the graveyard," warned spokesman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) Osita Okechukwu in a much convoluted and controversial statement. "The CNPP is worried that Obasanjo, if allowed to meddle in the Jonathan presidency, might halt genuine electoral reform, and the Niger Delta post-amnesty programme," Okechukwu stressed. The oil and gas-producing region of the Niger Delta, home of the new Nigerian president, is among the most combustible trouble spots in the country. The Niger Delta states, including Jonathan's Beyelsa State, are Nigeria's goose that lays the golden eggs and their people are rightly proud that for the first time in the country's history one of their kinsmen is to become leader of the entire nation. He is a trailblazer who has changed Nigerians' perspectives on what the peoples of the oil-rich Niger Delta could do. Be that as it may, there are many sceptics who believe that the rising star of the ruling People's Democratic Party with a degree in zoology cannot handle the heavyweight political animals of his own nation. If the Nigerian political establishments doesn't fight against such attempts and nip them in the bud, they have a tendency to spread. The country is in the grip of confessional strife and many Nigerians hope that with "God's Wish" at the helm, the nation has at last reached a historic compromise on a shared way into the future. They are however agreed that this will not be easy. If Nigeria is to have a democratic future, it has more ground to make up than before. There are those who suspect that Nigeria's new beacon is not so bright. This negative mindset now really has to change. He is developing a reputation for matching words with deeds. Acting President Jonathan promptly removed Justice Minister and Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa. First the acting president should distance himself from the very powers that put him in his place. This may represent the biggest risk in a Goodluck presidency. But that diagnosis is fiercely contested by certain sections of the Nigerian political establishment who are not going to relinquish power without a fight. Arguments over the causes and cures of the Nigerian political crises provide an example of the pitfalls of nascent African democracies when they attempt to emulate Western style multiparty pluralism. Then there are those who fear the current crisis might be a prelude to intensified rivalry between Christians and Muslims, northerners and southerners in Nigeria. The country has weathered many storms including one of the world's most devastating civil wars, the Biafra tragedy in the late 1960s, followed by a succession of notoriously corrupt and ruthless military regimes. Nigeria is one of those nations prone to experience genuine political upheaval. Let us hope that it will survive Yar'Adua's political demise. An atmosphere of something close to panic hung over the country when it became clear that the Muslim president was losing his grip on power, and there is very little chance of a return to a Muslim from the ruling party as president for the time being with credentials as good as "God's Wish".
