Why The West Could Not Support Jonathan

Former president Goodluck Jonathan’s claims that the U.S, U.K. and France were partly responsible for his failure in the 2015 elections could be on point, reasons been that for starters, he was a president of the most populous black nation on earth, which put him in a position to acquire reliable information and intelligence to substantiate his claims. 

Secondly, the suspected countries might have reasons to and Jonathan himself gave them the best reasons not to support his re-election. 

America’s Likely Reasons.

“In Africa… there is a deep hunger for governments that are legitimate, honest and effective."                   John Kerry, Fmr US Secretary of State

For America, the above statement wasn’t just a mere say, it is an agenda! Analysts believe the major areas the United States have interest on in Jonathan’s government were; 

1. The economy- is the country’s wealth adequately used to develop the nation as it should? 

2. Insurgency- were the methods adopted to contain it yielding results? How committed was the government to fight it? And 

3. Corruption- because it's prevalence very much affects the first two. 

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Former president Obama had hopes on Jonathan’s government when he took over power. He particularly admired Jonathan being a young president and on their first meeting, Obama reiterated his country’s commitment to work with him in all the above mentioned areas. But after six years of watching Nigeria very closely, the U.S believed Jonathan’s scorecard for the first two areas was low specifically due to alarming prevalence of the third.

The United States observed Nigeria’s situation got complicated: the economy got crippled by a lot of forces such as epileptic nature of power supply, depletion of external reserves, ethn-religious restiveness, unaccountability of public funds embezzled by public office holders; the prevailing insurgency had taken another dimension when over 200 school girls got abducted, an unfortunate event that got the whole world talking, especially the U.S..

‘Nigeria had made bad choices, not hard choices’ said Hillary Clinton, a U.S senator and former Secretary of State on the abducted girls. She said further that, ‘Nigerian government has failed to confront the threat or address the underlying challenges and most of all, the government of Nigeria needs to get serious about protecting all of its citizens… and ensuring that every child has the right and opportunity to go to school. 

In 2009, she called for a reform in Nigeria, urging ‘ Nigeria to take a firmer line on corruption’ because it's the major threat to Nigeria’s progress. 

The Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2014 on Nigeria issued by the U.S. Department of State says ‘massive, widespread, and pervasive corruption affected all levels of government and the security services.’  The Report was submitted to the then Obama's Secretary of State, John Kerry who in many occasions had spoken with dismay about the state of corruption in Nigeria. 

For the U.K., it's mainly corruption.

When David Cameron told the queen that Nigeria is ‘fantastically’ corrupt, he cared less that Muhammadu Buhari is the president; he said it with the highest degree of certainty especially that his country battled many cases of corruption involving Nigerians, some of which were public office holders.

📷David Cameron welcoming Jonathan at 10 Downing Street. (Google)

Jonathan's former boss, late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha for example, was charged by both U.K. and U.S governments for money laundering. Yet, Jonathan went ahead and gave him (and many other influential government officials with corruption cases) a presidential pardon. That gesture had placed him, his government and the country in a bad light especially in the eyes of the world. It tells the U.S and U.K. that he was not committed to fight the plague of corruption in his country.

Mr. James Ibori even had served jail term in the U.K for money laundering and corruption. Diezani Alison-Madueke, Jonathan’s minister for Petroleum has several cases of corruption and even got arrested in the U.K. 

Although the U.K. Government denies Dr. Jonathan's claim and gave credit of opposition victory to the Nigerian people, it still a fact that they, regrettably though, had to draw a line against corruption with one of her valuable colonies on earth.

For France, it was all about it’s colonies, and business. 

For the French government, some analyst noted that their interest in Nigeria was more of strategic than political.

📷Hollande and Johnathan at the Paris Security Summit, 2014. (Google)

Nigeria is surrounded by former French colonies: Chad, Niger, Cameroon, and Benin republic. The first three are involved in many Economic activities that are of great interest to France: oil!

Oil drilling in those countries are carried out by French oil companies and they would do anything to ensure work continues. But Chad, Cameroon and Niger, harbour Boko Haram terrorists birthed by Nigeria. Niger already has several rebel groups with potentials of joining forces with Boko Haram, which means proliferation of insurgency will affect business. 

France will never let that happen (especially now that Uranium is found and been explored in Niger) and that's why they are very interested and concerned on how Nigeria is going about the fight against Boko Haram. So they got involved.

The French president Francois Hollande had in 2014, called Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin to a security summit tagged Paris Security Summit in 2014 to discuss the issue of Boko Haram, with U.S and U.K. allies in attendance. He also called two more of such summits in Cameroon and Nigeria in 2015 and 2016 respectively. 

With no progress made even after these summits and threats to his investments continued, it was only natural for Mr Hollande to seek ways to protect these investments especially that jonathan isn't very committed to fight looming insurgency and therefore could join forces with his U.S and U.K. allies not to support Jonathan’s re-election in 2015.

On a final note, the blame of State failure, anywhere in the world is mostly put labeled on the head of that country’s government whether or not he happens to be the finest gentlemen with the best intentions and efforts in earth. 

It is unfortunate, but even with the best intention, Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s inability to prevail in the above mentioned areas could be reasons enough to make America, U.K. and France pull back their political support.

Personally, I would settle more with the U.K.’s view: the Nigerian people have decided.