The Presidency Belongs to All Nigerians, By Babafemi Ojudu

Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent remarks in Lagos on the dangers of allowing ethnicity and religion to determine our political choices deserve serious consideration. The principle is sound: Nigeria cannot fulfil its promise while ancestry, language or religious affiliation takes precedence over competence, character and fairness.

But that principle must also invite honest reflection from those who have exercised presidential power. Our national conversation becomes more useful when former leaders examine their own records alongside the shortcomings they identify in others.

I write as a Nigerian who believes that citizenship must carry greater weight than ethnic allegiance. I cherish my Yoruba heritage, as every Nigerian is entitled to cherish theirs. But that heritage imposes no obligation on me to defend a Yoruba president when he is wrong, just as it gives me no licence to judge a president from another ethnic group by a harsher standard.

I served in the Senate during President Jonathan’s administration. From that vantage point, I saw decisions and patterns of access to power that, in my judgment, raised serious questions about fairness and inclusion. There were concerns then, as there are today, about whose voices carried weight, who enjoyed access and how public appointments were distributed.

Those concerns were not abstract to me. At one point, I became sufficiently troubled by what I regarded as the unfair treatment of Yoruba public officeholders in federal ministries, departments and agencies that I wrote to the late Chief Ayo Adebanjo, asking him to use his influence with President Jonathan to seek redress.

I recall that intervention because the demand for fairness did not begin with the present administration. It was legitimate then, and it remains legitimate now, whoever raises it and whichever community feels excluded.

An honest assessment must also extend beyond Jonathan’s presidency. In my judgment, the four successive administrations of Presidents Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Ahmed Tinubu have, in different ways and to varying degrees, exhibited the sectional tendencies that Jonathan’s warning rightly challenges.

I served in Buhari’s administration. That places a particular responsibility on me to be candid. I cannot reasonably demand scrutiny of other governments while exempting the one to which I belonged. Public service must never become a lifelong obligation to defend everything done by an administration in which one served. Our credibility depends on applying the same standard to everyone.

Among the administrations since the return to civilian rule in 1999, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s stands out, in my assessment, for its national character. Whatever disagreements one may have with his policies, methods or individual decisions, his government drew talent and entrusted substantial responsibility to Nigerians from across the country.

Indeed, he sometimes appeared so determined to avoid any suggestion of favouring his Yoruba community that some Yoruba interests, in my view, received less consideration than they deserved. His example nevertheless demonstrated that a president could look beyond his immediate community in assembling a government and exercising authority.

There is a lesson here as well: national leadership requires fairness to every community, including the president’s own. Neither favouritism nor an excessive effort to demonstrate detachment serves the republic. No Nigerian should gain an unfair advantage—or suffer an unfair disadvantage—because of a shared ethnic identity with the president.

Let me therefore be clear: any unfairness under Jonathan cannot justify unfairness under Tinubu. Nor can the shortcomings of Yar’Adua’s or Buhari’s administration excuse the failures of any successor. An earlier wrong creates an obligation to correct the system. It does not confer permission to repeat the offence with a different set of beneficiaries.

We must also resist turning the conduct of a president or his associates into an indictment of an entire people. Ordinary Ijaw citizens cannot be held responsible for every decision taken under Jonathan, any more than ordinary Yoruba citizens should answer for every decision taken under Tinubu. The same principle applies to the communities from which Yar’Adua and Buhari came. Millions of Nigerians from a president’s own ethnic community remain far removed from the privileges of power.

Our scrutiny must therefore focus on those who govern: their appointments, their allocation of public resources, their respect for institutions and their treatment of citizens. Ethnic generalisations obscure that responsibility and turn legitimate demands for accountability into quarrels among communities.

President Jonathan has every right to criticise the direction of the country. His own record does not invalidate a sound argument. But his intervention would carry greater moral force if accompanied by a candid examination of the extent to which his administration met the standards he now advocates. Such reflection would be an act of statesmanship.

The same responsibility rests on President Tinubu. He should confront concerns about exclusion while he possesses the authority to address them. Nigeria gains little when leaders discover the virtues of inclusive government only after leaving office.

My position is straightforward: whoever governs Nigeria must govern fairly for all Nigerians—rich or poor, politically connected or without influence, from the largest ethnic communities or the smallest.

Competence and inclusion must guide public appointments. Public resources must serve public needs. No citizen should require an ethnic intermediary to obtain what citizenship already guarantees.

The presidential oath is a solemn obligation to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and all its people. Every president should be judged by how faithfully he honours that obligation.

Nigeria belongs equally to us all. Its presidency must reflect that truth.