Patience is a good virtue and as one of the hallmarks of an ideal man, we all know its importance. But just like too much of everything comes with disadvantages, extreme patience can be misconstrued to mean weakness or even stupidity. That former president Goodluck Jonathan is patient is not in doubt going by his gentle mien and peaceful disposition during and after his tenure.
As the vice president to the late Umaru Yar’Adua, Jonathan could be seen always walking behind his boss with his hands behind his back most of the times when they walked together. To most people, this attitude depicted loyalty,which is key in politics. But too much loyalty could also be a sign of weakness.
Ex-president Jonathan was obviously weak as a leader and this was evident in his lethargic approach to critical national issues. He is also a weak husband to his wife and it may not be out of place to say he has no modicum of control over his wife, Patience, who was good at throwing caution to the wind.
Her idiosyncrasies must have utterly disappointed her husband while in office and the $15million imbroglio may just be an addition to the long list of embarrassment that Patience has brought to her husband who is as gentle as a dove.
Nigerians cannot forget in a hurry some of the uninspiring utterances of the former First Lady that were obviously poor in content and character. The video of the meeting between the former First Lady and some stakeholders concerning the Chibok schoolgirls where she gleefully talked about “the blood we are sharing in Borno,” “na only you waka come?”, “There’s Godu o,” remains one of the most embarrassing moments that she brought to herself and perhaps her husband.
Only an extremely patient person can cope with a garrulous woman who does not know how and when to seal her unbridled lips. Chief Edwin Clark, foremost Ijaw leader and staunch ally of Jonathan, once spoke about the former president’s weakness and lack of political will to fight corruption.
He reportedly said : “Jonathan didn’t have the political will to fight corruption. He’s too much of a gentleman. Drivers of yesterday are living in palatial buildings now under this government. In advance countries, when you are living above your means, people query you. That’s not so in Nigeria.
Jonathan meant well for Nigeria, but the willpower to fight corruption was not there.” The gloomy state of our economy now was prognosticated under the Jonathan’s administration despite the persistent denials. The Peoples Democratic Party in a recent statement acknowledged that the fact there would be a recession was known as far back as 2011, an indication that our economy was based on assumption rather than reality.
While I agree that government is a continuum and any serious administration should concern itself with how to solve problems, the immediate past administration’s profligacy brought us into this peculiar mess. Nigeria was like a buffet and Patience must have also come to the party to have her own share.
This explains why she has $15million in her account. There is nothing wrong in having such amount of money provided she earned it legitimately. I want to believe she has genuine explanation to offer that is why she came out to claim ownership of the money otherwise it will be too bad for her and it will be a dent on her husband’s image.
Apart from being a permanent secretary in Bayelsa State, Nigerians are not aware that she has another source of revenue that could make her save such amount of money, and we have every right to know because she was at a time a politically exposed person. Patience’s explanation that she was using the money to settle medical bills while out of the country is a mere narrative that signifies nothing.
The source of the money is the only thing that can interest us. There is moral obligation on the former First Lady to explain the source of her stupendous wealth otherwise she is liable to prosecution. Chief Clark seems to be right that under Jonathan, domestic servants lived sybaritic lifestyles since investigations have so far shown that a houseboy, a driver and other domestic staff of a former special adviser on domestic affairs to Jonathan, Waripamowei Dufafa, were named as directors in the companies whose names were used to lodge the money.
If the account neither carry her name nor her Bank Verification Number as being claimed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, how come she is the sole signatory to the account? Did she threaten officials of the Skye Bank to do her bidding?
Did she use her position as the First Lady, an influential position, that can be used to make or break anybody, to force the officials to engage in unethical banking procedures? How about the $5million found in another account and the N10 billion Aridolf Resort Wellness and Spa in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, allegedly traced to Patience? Perhaps, we should not even talk about them since some Nigerians are already insinuating that the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is interested in embarrassing former president Jonathan and his family.
I wonder what could be more embarrassing than the former First Lady coming out to claim ownership of the money when she was not known to have any legitimate earnings that could have made her save such amount of money.
Now that the four companies linked to Patience: Pluto Property and Investment Company Limited, Seagate Property Development and Investment Company Limited, Trans Ocean Property and Investment Company Limited and Globus Integrated Service Limited, have pleaded guilty to laundering $15million for the former First Lady and her insistence that those who pleaded guilty were hired mercenaries of the EFCC, it becomes imperative for us to get to the bottom of how she got the money. Now that the country is in recession, we need to know how we found ourselves in this cul-de-sac as a way of avoiding a recurrence.
Like I have argued in the past, the present administration should find a way out of this logjam but we cannot pretend as if the problems just started overnight. That former president Jonathan did not rock the boat by conceding defeat to President Buhari has been acknowledged even beyond Nigeria but this should not prevent us from asking questions whenever the need arises.
This idea of “let’s move forward” has encouraged and entrenched corruption and it is high time we stopped this sentiment. Probity and accountability should not be compromised under the pretext that “we need to move forward and need not ask questions.” There cannot be a future without a reference to the past.
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