Distilling Jonathan’s Wikileaks

The Wiki leaks report on Nigeria quoted Jonathan as claiming he was his ‘own man.’ And, he was! Courageously confessing to political ‘inexperience’ and never disowning the benefaction of zoning to his ‘unmerited’ political station in life.
In fairness, the report proved Jonathan was neither incapable of selfless espousal of issues bordering on political morality nor – having spent all his life in politics and administration- of admitting to personal administrative ‘incapacity.’ The credential may not be democratically virtuous; yet the confession is politically-saintly.
But, only if he told those who would be at the receiving end of his administration. Confessing to -as someone rightly described her- ‘the spy who loved us’, Sanders, breaches the diplomatic need-to-know doctrine even as it insults the commonsensical need-to-tell; -especially to those who’ll know only to their advantage.
But it appears Jonathan is still way far off overdraft from the reservoir of his media good will –or is it good luck? The Americans have just come off ‘don’t-ask, don’t-tell’ on gays in the American Army; and we, especially the media, are just getting started with the ‘don’t-ask, don’t-tell’ about Jonathan’s intractable political misdemeanors.
Yet, in truth rather than a blood hounding, covenant repudiating, power-mongering Jonathan; the Wiki leaks revealed a man harmless and un-gluttonous of the gourmet of power; a respecter of the sanctity of political zoning; an essential political novice not dishonest in the claim of political savvy but plain in the admittance of ‘incapacity’; a man of adequate moral compunction and one so full of the fiber of political morality he humbly confirmed his essential political patrimony –consensus; being, as he said himself, a product not of his personal ability but of the political ability of politicians to agree.
The Wiki leaks Jonathan spoke about the moral duty incumbent on an incumbent president –especially one borne of unique controversial circumstance like him- not to use incumbency power to stir political mischief but to be states manly enough to maintain the calm of already settled political waters.
He revealed a democratically non-illusionary incumbent of necessity and an electorally visionary president-in-passing; and both of whom placed the dream of ‘free and fair election’ and the search for credible, competent leadership above personal ambition.
You then wonder: when did we lose this Jonathan? ‘Where was this morally-minded Good luck who would’ve been by now about to make Nigeria proud. Because as the first non-contesting incumbent to give Nigeria –whether in recognition or repudiation of zoning-, you do not care a hoot as long as he gives Nigeria free and fair election; nor would you have cared that he now desperately attempts to manipulate the electoral system –knowing that he will be bending the law only so that in the long run, it gets strengthened.
To refuse to make this crucial date with history even after the Wiki leaks confirmed to us he clearly saw the need to, reveals the true Jonathan character which in the sick days of Yar’Adua struck the pose of a harmless Russian babushka doll but with a concealed Tsarina mind on the throne as Acting President. If you ask: ‘where was that honest Wiki leaks Jonathan’, especially when the demand of political compassion to a terminally-sick boss was grossly at a premium? –He simply wasn’t there.
Else the Akunyilis and other muckraking rights activists, who are now ironically in conniving silence in the face of Jonathan’s many political misdemeanors, would not have sent his poor boss eternally packing. Jonathan’s confession to Sanders was either a belated prick of conscience after the less than brotherly role he played in the Yar’Adua health debacle, or a grip of the hemorrhage of political timidity that administrative mediocrity is known to suffer before it assumes a toga of infallibility.
Yet, although Jonathan’s loss of political innocence predated his condescending revelations to Sanders, it was nonetheless gladdening that the Wiki leaks cables confirmed he gained back innocence; -and even sounded forthrightly and irreproachably states manly.
When then did he lose all again? When did this sudden transition take place from such Lincolnian patriotic height that placed ‘Country First’ to the ‘state of nature’ where the first rule is the love of self?; So that now whether you are pro or anti-Jonathan candidacy, the President’s political ways are sure to have one of three unsavory effects on you: disgust, amazement or stupefaction.  Amazement’ because his many goofs and gaffes, his impulsive political pledges without the vaguest idea how to keep them and his threat to sink his party with him, make you wonder ‘did he just say that?’
Then ‘stupefaction’ because his usual un-presidential  condescension, like virtually genuflecting before corrupt NASS members, getting tearful before PDP governors or daily defending the indefensible, now make you confess: ‘I’ve had it!’
But the huge irony is not just ‘Jonathan losing his Wiki leaks innocence’. It is rather his Camp denying Jonathan’s Wiki leaks. As if any Nigerian needs Wiki leaks to know what Wiki leaks said about Jonathan’s Wiki leaks.